Is the brand new vampiric supplement from everyone’s favourite vampire worth it?
Alongside the release of the core Forgotten Realms books (Heroes of Faerun and Adventures in Faerun), Wizards of the Coast have released 3 additional digital supplements. Kind of like DLC, one of these 3 supplements is a vampiric addition from everyone’s favourite Baldur’s Gate 3 vampire (not that there was a huge amount of competition).
You can expect vampiric character options, mini adventures, some lore and a few monster stat blocks. But is any of that worth sinking your teeth into? Well that’s what I’m going to decipher in my review below.
At a glance
- A decent revision to the Dhampir species
- Mostly mediocre feats make it feel like half could have been scrapped
- Lore is far too niche for most
- A lack of new vampiric enemies
- Adventures are uninspiring, lack detail and lack decent build up
- A price that is far too high for a supplement of this length and quality
1.5/5 – Astarion’s Book of Hungers is a decent idea executed poorly. A couple of decent feats, a decent update to the Dhampir and some luscious artwork are not enough for a very short digital supplement that costs half as much as the Player’s Handbook, but lacks both it’s quantity and quality. Adventures are sparse, lore is weirdly niche, there are too few vampiric monsters and too many mediocre feats. Making this a mostly unsatisfying addition.
What’s in Astarion’s Book of Hungers?
| Contents | Amount |
|---|---|
| Pages | 32 |
| Species | 1 |
| Backgrounds | 3 |
| Feats | 16 |
| Monsters | 5 |
| Adventures | 2 |
| Maps | 1 |
This is not a lengthy supplement. It’s just 32 pages long, costing $15 (that’s half the price of the Player’s Handbook but just 1/12 the size)! That’s not particularly great value for money on a page by page basis.
You’ll get a decent number of new character options to play with. You get a refreshed Dhampir species to use, 3 origin feats, 10 general feats, 3 epic boon feats and 3 backgrounds. That’s a decent amount of content in quantity, but if you ask me, it leans too heavily on the general feats when different character options would have been more welcome. 2-3 subclasses might have been a better addition. Perhaps rules around gaining vampirism (though admittedly, this can become complicated with things like power creep). But how about some life draining spells or magic items linked to vampirism. These would all have been welcome additions.
How good is the content?
To really understand the worth of this supplement though, we’ll need to dive into the quality of what’s there.
The Dhampir makes some subtle, but satisfying changes
When I first read the Dhampir species, I had to ask myself what had changed? Other than the removal of a trait that meant Dhampirs don’t breath or take on the skills of a former species that is. However, there are some important changes that actually really streamline the species and give it some interesting options in combat. Most significantly, vampiric bite is now an unarmed strike, allowing it to interact with other aspects of unarmed strikes like the grappler feat or a monk’s stunning strike.
I quite like the changes to the Dhampir and think it’s probably the best aspect of this supplement.
Mostly average feats, but did we really need this many?
The feats in Astarion’s Book of Hungers are mostly just OK. Not too remarkable, a little unique, and they bring the flavour of vampires and vampire hunters without actually needing to be either (but you could be those too).
Some of the feats are pretty poor though. The likes of cloying mists, treacherous allure and boon of misty escape are all just not worth considering at all from a mechanical perspective. The problem I have with so many of these feats though, is kind of just, why would I consider it when there are better alternatives out there that fulfill my needs mechanically.
There are a couple that are genuinely worthy feats like bloodlust, tireless reveler and vampire’s plaything (try announcing that feat to your group with a straight face). But largely, my overwhelming feeling with these feats is I would have been more satisfied if the number of these were halved (or more) and the space used for something more meaningful like a couple of new subclasses.
Lore is too niche
There’s some lore around the vampire infernalist Cazador Szarr. It’s interesting enough for Baldur’s Gate 3 fans with the tie ins, but it’s very specific. Astarion’s comments in the book build this up to be a book all about vampires, but really, it’s a book about Cazador Szarr and his cronies. This makes it a very niche area of vampirism.
For those without Baldur’s Gate 3 connections, this will probably feel unsatisfying. For those with those connections, they may find out little that’s new.
A nod to Astarion’s master is certainly appropriate, but to be dedicated to him feels far too focused.
And this leads into my next criticism…
5 monsters and only 2 of them are vampires!
For a book about vampires, I was looking forward to more vampiric monsters to add to my repertoire. Sadly, there are only 2 of these. They’re decent enough options in the warden and infernalist. But really, the infernalist is just a vampire lord with fire spells.
The other 3 monsters get added as they feature in the 2 mini adventures. If you’re going to have adventures with unique monsters, that’s kind of a necessity. But the question from me is, was this a worthy inclusion to begin with?
Adventures are uninspiring and not worth the page space
Sadly, they are not. The plots are incredibly basic. They are confined to just a tavern for both of them, which was clearly a pragmatic decision so that only 1 map was required. The essence of both is mini setup with multiple fights leading to a final fight.
They are perhaps best characterised as mini side quests you can whip out at a moment’s notice if you’ve really not got anything better to do with the party (but you should).
The inclusion of Cazador Szarr as a boss fight is sort of insulting too. This is a BBEG worthy foe that just rocks up, gets his butt kicked and slinks off to fight another day. There’s no build up. No intriguing plot or challenging dungeon to work your way through. He just appears. He is, in this adventure, the embodiment of the anti-Strahd. One is a vampire Lord that earns his place as one of the most notorious and sinister bosses in D&D lore and the other, in this supplement, is relegated to a footnote for players to beat up before he runs home crying.
And this certainly does not live up to the build up from Baldur’s Gate 3 for this foe.
Sadly, this is another inclusion where we must ask ourselves, why bother?
But artwork is top notch
Despite all of this, Wizards have managed to at least deliver on the artwork front. It is excellent as usual. It grasps the darker nature of the topic as well as capturing the essence of Astarion himself well.
Overview
Sadly, Astarion’s Book of Hungers feels like an unnecessary extra that would have been a high price for a quality product. The idea isn’t bad. A mini supplement for an area that deserves exploring further (vampirism), but the execution is way off!
A bloated number of average (and sometimes poor) feats, lore that is far too niche, too few vampiric additions to your monstrous repertoire and adventures that are bare bones and uninspiring. All of this adds up to package that leaves you hungering for more.
It’s not all bad. A few worthy feats, excellent artwork and a species update that does enough and will feel interesting for players are all positives. Sadly, swanky artwork isn’t enough to elevate a poor product.
My suggestion is don’t bother buying this. If you desperately want to play an updated Dhampir, take the 2014 version and make its vampiric bite an unarmed strike and that will be perfectly sufficient and you’ve saved yourself half a book in costs for a twelfth of a book in volume and a hundredth of a book in quality.
1.5/5
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