Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Good material, but a lot of derivative stuff, Jun 20, 2023
First, the obvious. This book, being the second in the series of Environmental supplements, follows the same format as the first book, Frostburn. It covers the environment, new races, classes and feats, equipment, magic, monsters, and adventure sites. I find it good that WotC is formatting its books in a common structure.
The Environment section is missing a few important things though. It touches on volcanic areas, but the rest of the book mostly focuses on deserts. It seems the volcanic stuff was either added in as filler, cut out for space, or the sections were written by different people. Its not clear whether this is supposed to be the "Hot Environment" book or just the "Desert" book. Also, there are a few notable environments missing. The plane of Mithardir in Arborea is totally missing. And it would have been nice to see a mention of Athas, the desert world of Dark Sun.
The new Asherati race seems very derivative of the D'Resh characters from Magi-Nation, from the physical appearance/description to some of their peculiar talents. The Ashworm Dragoon prestige class evokes visions of riding the sandworms in Dune, though its hard not to find similarities to that epic. Most of the other prestige classes are interesting, and can play very interesting roles in a campaign.
With the equipment, we have the hydration suit, a derivation of the Dune Still-suit - perhaps a necessity, but still pretty obvious. There are also obvious versions of real-world items such as suntan lotion or crude oil. The sand vehicles - desert variants of sailing ships - are good additions. But I would have liked to see more originality here.
The monsters have a good variety of challenges. A new (deceased) race called the marru are mentioned in several monster descriptions, though not in a lot of detail. Desert varieties of many creatures (dust hag, sand dragon, dry lich, etc.) are complimented by other novel creatures. But again, there are some hidden derivations. It is difficult not to compare the saguaro sentinel to any number of other cactus creatures which have appeared in anime, gaming or so forth. But the Sand Hunter is clearly derived from Vernor Vinge's Tine race from A Fire Upon The Deep.
I have no problem with people creating derivations. Its common enough in gaming, but it would be good to see credit given. I would suggest a list of references to other material in the future. This would not only credit ideas, but it would also let gamers find good extra material and ideas for campaigns.
There is still a wealth of information here, and I can say the book is a valuable resource for GMs who want to run desert campaigns or adventures. While not quite up to the standard set with Frostburn, its still a solid supplement
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 sand gets into your eyes, May 4, 2023
This is the second in the D&D; enviroment books from wizards of the coast. It is similar in format to frostburn.
The book opens with formation of a waste and then goes on to define the different types of waste such as sand wastes, volanic wastes, various planes of existence where such wastes lie such as Gehenna. It then goes on to describe the dangers of these wastes to the characters like a couple of different types of sandstorms. The flensing sandstorm is particularly nasty which deal a d3 damage to unprotected characters per round.
The book then moves to new races,feats and skills. There are two new races introduced, the Asheratis and the Bhukas. The Asheratis are a human like race and the Bhukas are goblinoid. The discussion turns to the current races and how they have adapted to the environment. There are 24 new feats, most of which have some form of prequisite feat. There are five new presitige classes, all with a fair of amount of text devoted to them with such things like how to play this prc and their general use in a desert environment.
New weapons and equipment are next. Most ofthe equipment is devoted to protecting the character from the heat and dehydration effects. There is a small section on mounts such as camels.
There is a new type of magic called drift magic in the next section. To quote the book, "drift magic is the process of tapping the natural strata and tides of magic inherent in large collections of sand, ash. There are new cleric domains introduced like Nobilit, Rune, Sand, and thirst. There are about 70 new spells introduced, some seem rewrites of the Al-Qadim setting from 2nd edition. There is also new psionic powers and epic spells. There are new magical toys although some are just rewrites of current items like the bottle of endless sand is just like the decanter of endless water.
Monsters are next. A little over 80 monsters of the waste to torment the players and finally a chapter devoted to some basic adventures in this environment.
For me this is a enjoyable book to look at and to use sometime in the future. I was a little disappointed that there were none of the Al Qadim type kits and classes made in this book, but if you want a hot hostile place to send adventurers this should do it for you.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A good book that could be better, Apr 25, 2023
Sandstorm is a book about the waste environment, and it gives you everything you need to run or play in an arid or desert world, even on the outher planes. If you want to run an Al-Quadim style game, or a Darks Sun styled one, Sandstorm is for you.
Within the book, you will find the good old sections: races, prestige classes, feats, an in-depth description of the waste environment, great monsters and spells.
The lowpoint of the book is perhaps the races section, which is - at least in my oppinion - quite unimaginative.
The prestige classes presented in the book is quite good, but a bit more prestige classes would have been better than the new races.
The highpoint are the spells and the monsters section, which present lots of new opportunities and ideas. Within the book, one can also find lot's of descriptions of places that the DM can incorporate into his/her campaign with ease.
1 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Reasonable, Apr 15, 2023
Overall Sandstorms a reasonable purchase.
The enviorment hazard section is ok.Gives you want you need to know to DM games in wasteland.
The race, class and feat section, disapointing. Nothing intertesting .Could of been far better.
Weapons and equipment good. Some good stuff.
Monsters section, excellent. I really liked marru, sand golems and sand hunters.
And three reasonable adventures.
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Based on 4 reviews.