I was also disappointed in
Manual of the Planes. I like
4E, I really do, but there are still a lot of things that I don't like about it. This version of the
Manual of the Planes is one of those things.
I really like the fey wild and the shadow fell, but it did seem rather sparse. There were a few neat monsters and magic items that kept the book from being a total loss, but I can easily see skimming this book and then never actually using it. There's just not enough there to build usable adventures with.
Worst part is, I can almost hear the justification for not putting in usable material. The same reason the Forgotten Realms NPCs have no statistics as described on page 86 of the new
FR hardcover... "It'll be on D&D Insider. D&D Insider will be cool one of these days, really." Or the idea that individual DMs will have the freedom to make exactly the game they want because there isn't any usable crunch outside of published adventures (although
4E was touted as being far easier to run and design adventures for). It's awfully damned frustrating.
A lot of the monsters in the core
Monster Manual are already from the planes, so I can understand not having tons of new monsters. But there should've been
more. If the book had been longer, it would have helped alot.
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