Planar Handbook and Manual of the Planes

[atomn]

Is either the Planar Handbook or the Manual of the Planes an update of the other or are they separate books?

Are the 3.0 or 3.5 books?

Would you suggest buying both or would just one suffice? (Or possibly neither?)

Thanks for the insight!

 

[pawsplay]

They are separate, not really worth buying books, that cover slightly different things you don't care about.

Manual of the Planes is 3.0 (easily converted) and has some cool planar templates and some okay prestige classes. Virtually all important spells are reprinted elsewhere, and the planar information is now contained in the DMG.

The Planar Handbook has some weird races, some weird feats, some weird spells, and "planar touchstones."

 

[atomn]

Thanks for the warning!

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

If you are just looking for fluff, I would suggest tracking down some of the 2nd edition Planescape books. If you are looking for crunch, the Planar handbook (3.5) wasn't too bad.

 

[Psion]

There are some updates and reprints of character options (mainly spells) from MotP in planar handbook. But there is a lot of new material in planar handbook.

Planar Handbook is more player oriented. For players in a planar campaign, get the Planar Handbook. Particularly for the substitution levels.

DMs of plane-hopping campaign should definitely consider the Manual of the Planes. It has some useful plane-building material and a lot of nifty material on existing planes.

 

[NilesB]

Manual of the Planes is in large part an update and adaptation of The Primal Order: Chessboards.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I strongly recommend Manual of the Planes. I found the DMG 3.5 treatment too skimpy, and the manual also has a lot of other material, like breaking down what happens if you tinker with the cosmology (useful, say, if you play in Ptolus) and has a bunch of alternate planes and monsters. The PrCs and spells are the least useful stuff in 3.5, but even then, with the WotC conversion notes, they're fine.

It's an extremely useful book. Even in the closed cosmology of a Ptolus game (which I'm playing), I've found it very useful. (I added the optional Plane of Mirrors, for instance, but just kept all the mirror paths a closed loop back to the Prime Material instead of letting them open to other planes.)

 

[DMH]

DMs of plane-hopping campaign should definitely consider the Manual of the Planes. It has some useful plane-building material and a lot of nifty material on existing planes.

How does it stack up against FFG's Planes and Portals?

 

[Psion]

How does it stack up against FFG's Planes and Portals?

I see I need to add to my planar product review project so I don't have to re-type these sorts of answers all the time.

To riff off Kanegrundar, I love Portals & Planes like a fat kid loves Little Debbies. I wrote a whole campaign around one of its concepts.

But I also wrote a campaign arc around an idea in MotP, so they both have a lot of great campaign ideas.

Manual of the Planes has more individual planes and more cosmology building advice. And it is the definitive resource on the "core cosmology" (the great wheel, etc.)

Portals and Planes has more on portals, and more ideas on building campaigns around planar ideas. And it has some great alteratives to the core cosmology.

Unlike some other third party planar products, Portals & Planes doesn't plug into the generic planar format that are now in the core rules. Instead, it has a variety of planar traits that can be combined to produce unique and interesting worlds. But it shouldn't take too much effort to use them together.

I hope that breifly explains the differences. I think, so long as you are flexible about the shape of the core cosmology, you can use them together. I do.

 

[Snotlord]

Manual of the Planes is an excellent book, but a revision is long overdue after all the later reprints.

I have flipped through that other book, but I'm not a fan of wonky new mechanics and put it back on the shelf.