Community

I need some help!  My son loves playing 4e with me and a few friends.  he loves reading the books and looking up feats etc etc.   I want to keep this interest up in his reading,  can you recommend any novels with a d and d theme that uses powers feats  etc from the 4 e system.  Also it would be great if the book was about a barbarian or paladin. I know I have just narrowed the choices.    Thank in advance

I don't know about the newer books, but the ones I read were Novels set in a D&D world, that did not mention feats, powers, etc.

The Icewind Dale trilogy and Dark Elf trilogy by R.A. Salvatore were both good.
Elaine Cunningham books were good.
Ed Greenwood wrote some good ones, as did Nigel Finley.

Other books were very hit-or-miss. When it was miss, it was awful.
Avoid Troy Denning. And definately avoid Scott Ciencin--worst of the worst. And if you see Kevin J. Anderson's name, RUN! Run away as fast as you can. For a blowtorch.

For fun, on a completely different world, you might try the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (the only D&D in them is when he is playing D&D with his friends, making fun of it).

 None of the novels use any of the game terms, since the characters in the books have no idea that they're characters in books, and thus would never refer to themselves as a 5th level fighter.

Mad jack I get that, but maybe the character stops and uses a ritual by name or cast a spell by name or finds a magic weapon ,armour etc by name that we would see in a actual players handbook etc

No, none of the novels do that. Part of the geek-fun is to figure out what the characters actually are.
Some are obvious (Elminster and Raistlin are wizards, Dragonbait is a paladin, the Wyvernspur family seems to produce a lot of Bards, Dritzt is a Ranger, Brogar is a Barbarian). Sometimes spells are mentioned by name.
There was also the Cleric Quintet--forget the writer (Salvatore?), but you should be able to find it pretty easily.

Also, a lot of the books are written based on previous editions, so they aren't going to match up with the current game.

Whispermagellen.  What books have Brogar the barbarian in them ?

Icewind Dale trilogy. And I got the name wrong: Wolfgar, son of Brognar (something like that).
Characters include a halfling rogue (really?), Dritzt the drow ranger, a dwarven fighter king, a Human woman fighter/rogue(?), and Wulfgar.
Further stories of the group were written, but mostly focus on Dritzt.

Another series of D&D books that I remember really enjoying were Dragonlance: Chronicles and Dragonlance:  Legends.  Both written by Weiss and Hickman.  Good D&D adventure with great characters.  I think you and your son would really enjoy them.  Each story listed above is a trilogy.  Though each trilogy can be picked up in two collected volumes.  It's an easy read with a fun world and adventurers.

Also, this series was written as a chronicle of an actual D&D group.  Weiss and Hickman played D&D and the story comes from the adventures of their group.  So the books are actually game sessions written into story form.  You used to be able to buy the published version of the adventure they based their book on. I played it a few times and had a lot of fun. 

If you want a novel that throws some game terms in, try Brimstone Angels.

It has a dragon born fighter who actually mentions some fighter powers (e.g. he enters a certain stance while fighting some orcs and the stance is called by name of a actual fighter power)

If you are more interested in 4e concepts I wouldn't recommend the books mentioned earlier in this thread, as most of them predate even 3e

Nov 6, 2012 -- 3:27PM, Mirtek wrote:

If you are more interested in 4e concepts I wouldn't recommend the books mentioned earlier in this thread, as most of them predate even 3e

I believe that was addressed in posts 3 and 5.

I sort of want to recommend the Blade of the Flame trilogy by Tim Waggoner. It doesn't mention feats or powers, but is very transparent when it comes to who is what class. The main character is a Cleric (with a splash of Assassin), who is followed around by a half-orc Fighter; the two often act more like a Paladin & Barbarian, though. The downside to this trilogy is it is pretty dark. Also, for whatever reason Tim seems to think orcs & half-orcs have a keen sense of smell, a 'fact' brought up surprisingly often throughout the trilogy. I'm not going to tell you this series is anything close to fine literature, but it is a breezy read.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's The Seal of Karga Kul by Alex Irvine, a Nentir Vale novel packed with 4e stuff - particularly dragonborn & eladrin - that I believe would be pretty decent were it not for the constant stream of game terminology. I got about halfway in before tossing it in the garbage.

Thank you all for threcon over titles.  I looked at the dragon lance ones on amazon and maybe I looked at the wrong thing but the prices were CRAZY. Like 150-170 for three books !!!

There are a lot of different versions of those older books available. Normally I'd point you towards an omnibus 'one volume' version, but those seem to have been out of print just long enough to make them too expensive. There are $7.99 paperback copies for the individual books on amazon, though.

Conversely, you could always hit up your local library. If they have any D&D novels, it'll probably be the old Dragonlance Chronicles & Icewind Dale trilogy.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Dragons of Winternight
Dragons of Spring Dawning
^ if he likes those, there's a huge collection of novels from the same world.

The Dark Elf Trilogy
The Icewind Dale Trilogy
^Same here, actually

Avoid the Dresden Files.  It has mature themes.  While it does mention sex a couple times, there's also a race of vampires that pretty much feeds off of the act of sex itself.  Very not child-friendly.  Avoid the Black Company series as well.  Though it wasn't mentioned here.

The others mentioned are fine.  I would also recommend Temple of Elemental Evil.

Nov 10, 2012 -- 8:11PM, Mastercliff wrote:

Avoid the Dresden Files.  It has mature themes.  While it does mention sex a couple times, there's also a race of vampires that pretty much feeds off of the act of sex itself.  Very not child-friendly.

Yes, but it avoids the gorey details. If the kid is 10 or 12, probably knows more about it than could be learned in the books.
Most D&D/Fantasy books have people hacked to death by 3-foot long shafts of sharpened steel, or set on fire, tortured, or blasted with some magic spell. With all that, who cares about something as minor as two people sleeping together? It's like the comic-book movie in which people complained about the language used by the 11-yo girl, but were seemed to have no problem with the fact she slit some guy's throat, hamstrung and then gutted another guy, and killed a couple more people in other gruesom ways. The killing is fine, but swearing and mentioning sex aren't?

Wasn't there a Drizz't novel in the 4E Realms?

Nov 13, 2012 -- 4:33AM, Bronze_Hero wrote:

Wasn't there a Drizz't novel in the 4E Realms?

A trilogy, I think. Gauntelgrim, which I'm certainly spelling incorrectly but can't be bothered to look up, and thensomething with Neverwinter in the title; and there's presumably I third, but I've forgotten the name if I ever knew it.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 5:54AM, Arcane_Guyver wrote:

I sort of want to recommend the Blade of the Flame trilogy by Tim Waggoner.

Ugh! A_G, WHY? I'm a huge Eberron fan, and the Blade of the Flame is probably the worst (coherent) trilogy "set" in Eberron.

Aside from that, well, it might work.

As many others have said, they rarely blatently drop in-game stuff, so if your son is looking for his favorite power, he may be disappointed.

Rather, you might want to look for books with strong writing, heroic protagonists, and the like.

I'm a huge fan of the Dresden Files too, but I'm not sure if its suitable for a younger kid. You might need to be a bit older to appreciate a lot of the nuances of the books. The suggestions of Elaine Cunningham is a good one, I think, and R.A. Salvatore and Dragonlance has been the gateway that many a bookworm has taken. I just haven't re-read Salvatore anytime in the last....probably 5 years.

Nov 14, 2012 -- 4:21AM, Ogiwan wrote:

Nov 7, 2012 -- 5:54AM, Arcane_Guyver wrote:

I sort of want to recommend the Blade of the Flame trilogy by Tim Waggoner.

Ugh! A_G, WHY?

Well, he did say preferably with a barbarian or a paladin, and the main characters mostly act the part. That said...yeah, not a great set of books. I just remembered the weird lycanthropy mish-mash towards the end of it, too. Geez.

Thanks everyone. I will try one of the dragon books of autum or th ice wind dale set,  was also thinking of getting the short story set untold adventures. That way the stories are short and will give him a large variety so I am sure he will like something.   .....I hope lol

Happy to help.
Let us know how it goes.