RangerWickett
Legend
I am curious which of the old books people liked best. I was most fond of Tome & Blood. I vote for it from the standpoint that I am a fairly experienced gamer, and so I wanted something original, not something that updated classic concepts to 3rd ed.
Sword & Fist - I feel the rules here were fairly well done, but some of the techniques used don't match what eventually became standard in D&D (like bolas automatically tripping if they hit, regardless of the target, or the full blade and mercurial weapons). They didn't fiddle enough with the basic fighter and monk classes.
Defenders of the Faith - The prestige classes in general were just caster level advancement, plus one or two abilities. Not very intriguing. It wasn't bad, but nothing inspired me.
Tome & Blood - I love this one because there are tons of weird ideas like candle casters, acolytes of the skin, and variant familiars. I personally would have done some of them differently, but still it gave me a lot of ideas.
Song & Silence - As you might have noticed, I like weird new ideas, and S&S didn't do 'weird' very well. It did classic D&D well, what with thief acrobats and dungeon delvers and such, plus lots of traps. Just not my thing. Not enough 'cool.'
Masters of the Wild - This one conflicts me. Lots of cool different ideas here, but I really feel the opening on "how to play your character" is unhealthy. It tells you how to play the D&D stereotypes of each class, and doesn't consider that you might want to make a character that breaks from the mold. In fact, with the oozemaster it seems to want you to stay in the mold. Eww.
*grin*
Sword & Fist - I feel the rules here were fairly well done, but some of the techniques used don't match what eventually became standard in D&D (like bolas automatically tripping if they hit, regardless of the target, or the full blade and mercurial weapons). They didn't fiddle enough with the basic fighter and monk classes.
Defenders of the Faith - The prestige classes in general were just caster level advancement, plus one or two abilities. Not very intriguing. It wasn't bad, but nothing inspired me.
Tome & Blood - I love this one because there are tons of weird ideas like candle casters, acolytes of the skin, and variant familiars. I personally would have done some of them differently, but still it gave me a lot of ideas.
Song & Silence - As you might have noticed, I like weird new ideas, and S&S didn't do 'weird' very well. It did classic D&D well, what with thief acrobats and dungeon delvers and such, plus lots of traps. Just not my thing. Not enough 'cool.'
Masters of the Wild - This one conflicts me. Lots of cool different ideas here, but I really feel the opening on "how to play your character" is unhealthy. It tells you how to play the D&D stereotypes of each class, and doesn't consider that you might want to make a character that breaks from the mold. In fact, with the oozemaster it seems to want you to stay in the mold. Eww.
*grin*
) and, compared to the overpowered DotF and underpowered T&B and S&S, well balanced.
