I have Adventure Vault 2

The book has been a disappointment for me. Nothing really new and interesting. Hundreds of unplayably bad items interlaced with a few interesting things. If you are a DDi subscriber, save yourself the money.

Anyone else have the book and read it yet?

I usually get books quickly, but more anf more with 4E I find myself wiating to see what the book is like before I buy. Also Amazon Japan has not sent the last couple of books out 2-3 weeks early.....

Mine is coming tomorrow (hopefully).

Bryan Reese said:

The book has been a disappointment for me. Nothing really new and interesting. Hundreds of unplayably bad items interlaced with a few interesting things. If you are a DDi subscriber, save yourself the money.

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Sorry but this isn't really helping.

Could you be more detailed?

I understand a product like this will always contain a dozen items any specific gamer will dismiss as "completely unusable", including myself. However, the fact is that this dozen changes from gamer to gamer!

So if you instead could pick a few specific items that in your view shows off this trend of "hundreds of unplayably bad items" with "nothing really new and interesting"?

Before you do that I am afraid I will have to discount your opinion. Thank you.

Crothian said:

Anyone else have the book and read it yet?

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Yep, it arrived monday but I had to get it from the post office yesterday.

I think there are some interesting items there.
The item sets, the tatoos and the Immurements are probably the most interesting new concepts. Of course, they were previewed or play-tested in DDI already months ago, so I suppose that many people seem to overlook them as "novel" now. But so far, we had mostly the concept, now we got the implementation.

All Item Sets come with some background information (fluff), and in the other item chapters, there are some fluff information on selected items, too. It comes, as previewed, with the background and one or two plot hooks how to introduce the item or elements of its background.
I think I prefer the group item sets - where everyone in the group can get an item in the set and the group can use the set benefits.
In one sidebar, they note that some sets contain items from earlier books. Boo for repeating an item, but yay! for allowing the possibility of "old" items to be part of sets.

The immurements have a note targeted at RPGA events, but probably generally advisable: Have the terrain already prepared when you plan to use them as a player.

A few of the "regular" magic items looked interesting, some with pretty strong properties that might need more "evaluation". I remember one item that allowed you to "share" the benefits of bonuses to defenses that you granted an ally, for example. That seems pretty good. I don't remember off-hand what it was, though, and the book is at home.

There are some items that grant Artificer powers and Bard powers from Arcane Power - these items have the power written out in their descriptions. That seems pretty neat and can probably be attributed to the disctinction between "core" and "not core". The Eberron Player Guide and Arcane Power are not core supplements, so while they still find some support in other books, these books don't assume you have them and so reprint the information needed to use them. The bard and artificer powers can obviously be useful even if you don't have bards or artificers.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

Of course, they were previewed or play-tested in DDI already months ago, so I suppose that many people seem to overlook them as "novel" now.

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It seems more so then other books that I've noticed the previews for AV2 told us exactly what we were getting and did not leave surprises. Do you think this might hurt more then it helps?

I find what Wizards decides to tell us (customers) in the preview revealing. Here it was clearly fluff with the crunch. 3 previews of story items, and the two of sets (which apparently all have backstories)

So apparently those who complained about a lack of fluff in AVI were heard.

I find myself very disappointed that they did not clarify the business of implement/weapons and I hope that DMGII will do so. The superior implements and Implement/Weapon clarification is what I really wanted out of this book.

Crothian said:

It seems more so then other books that I've noticed the previews for AV2 told us exactly what we were getting and did not leave surprises. Do you think this might hurt more then it helps?

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Well, in public perception, it might. The long time between the preview of some of the novel stuff and the actual release might have been too long, at least for Immurements and Tatoos.

Whether it actually matters in sales, I don't know.

Considering that the original immurement worked notably different in some regards suggest to me that the quality of the book might have improved by the semi-open playtest (semi because it requires a DDI subscription).

I got it and just started reading it. So far I think it's pretty meh. I'm also not happy it's only 2/3 the page count of the first one. I'll definitely think twice before buying AV3.

I think it's a pity the book doesn't have artifacts or items of legacy style items in it. I just hope the set items arte interesting (I didn't get to read them yet).