Open Grave - a quick look

I've skimmed through Open Grave, the latest release by WotC for D&D 4e. As the name implies, it focuses on undead. It's a mix of fluff and crunch geared almost exclusively at DMs. I was actually surprised by the lack of actual player-centric material, it seems like WotC has really limited the potential audience (and sales) of this book.


For DMs, the book is moderately useful, more so if your campaign focuses on an area with a lot of undead *cough*Morimar*cough*. In addition to an assortment of monsters and options for more modifying monsters (great for when your players have memorized the Monster Manual), there is a spread of encounters running the gambit from low level to epic. I glanced at a couple of low level artifacts that I wouldn't actually tremble at letting my players get their paws on.

As I said, there was a surprising lack of material useful for non-DMs. There were a couple of rituals and that seemed to be about it. I figured there would at least be some paragon paths and magic items around the undead/fighting undead theme.

For DMs, I'd give this 3 necromantic undead flying monkeys. It's only worthwhile if you want to use a lot of undead. For players, don't bother.