FFG Mythic Races - to buy or not to buy?

Hello ya all!
I have this one-time offer to buy FFG Mythic Races (one guys in Poland has and is willing to sell), but I gotta decide in 3 days from now....

So those that have the book...is it worth it? Are the races balanced? Are the PrC's balanced?

Or should I go with Races of Evernor? (I have the option to buy that too)

The book has a variety of authors, and has a very uneven level of quality. Further, from a little behind the scenes chatter, I have seen that some ideas that were fine when written up got butchered by the editors.

There are some pretty good ideas. For example, I never thought I would like the undead PC race, but they are pretty neat and I would put them in a campaign in a heartbeat.

Mechanically, many of the races and classes are fine as is or can get by with some minor tweaks. But some break from convention with no good reason, and some are mechanically very broken.

The most broken thing in the book is, perhaps, the Uthuk Qi'nok -- a class that has both figther BAB and full spellcasting advancement.

Other things you may want to change before using is things like the faeries. Instead of penalizing the character heavily in the realm of levels, faeries are limited in HD to a d4. The editor argues that this is a fair method of limiting them. I disagree. It works great for limiting fighter types, but then, considering their physical characteristics, there are few players who would play one as a fighter type anyways. But if you are a spellcaster, there is little to discourage you.

Still, there are many good ideas and some races are usable as is, and the presentation is very nice. If you want a sampling of what the book is like, I suggest you download the web enhancement/preview:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/pdf/mr_extra.pdf

Hope this helps.

I bought it when it came out. Read it twice and shelved it. I didn't get anything of value or inspiration out of it. I would suggest giving it a pass unless you just like buying game stuff.

I'd say pass. There were some good ideas, but few that leapt out at me as must haves. I think that you could find other more interesting books to buy. If anyone in the Twin Cities wants my copy, I'd be happy to sell it to them at a discount.

I don't have the book here in front of me, so I can't give specifics. I like the book though. Contrary to some of the others who have posted, I got some good things out of it. Not all of the races are original or exceedingly useful, but a lot are. I've started to let my players use the book when making replacement characters.

Nice layout, good content. Good addition to a gaming library.

--Sam

I like and use Mythic Races but prefer Races of Evermore. I thought it was illustrated better and had some more interesting takes on things.

JoeGKushner: What races out of the book do you use? Can you list hem? Do you use the Sendasti?

To all others, as DM's, would you let your players use races from the book?

I haven't used the book in any games yet. I found many of the races interesting, just not very well balanced. If you really need new more races in your game, and have the time to make sure the races are balanced foir you, then it's not that bad a buy. I have Races of Evermore, and it does seem to be easier to use with fewer changes.

I very much like the Mythic Races book. Yes, you need to tweak some stuff in there, but I felt it was very creative and it has added a great deal to my campaign.

Just to clear up the record, that's Races of EverNOR, rather than EverMORE No biggie, though. Thanks for the kind words. I'd like to help zdanboy make his decision, but I may not be the world's most unbiased source on this topic

Cheers!
Ian