D&D 5E (2014) Monster Manual 2 or Player's Handbook 2?

[Serendipity]

Neither. Give me a second DMG with new rules variants and other optional stuff.

 

[seebs]

MM2. Only option.

PC options are perfectly doable through various supplements and/or campaign and/or race specific books.

Anything that wasn't important enough to make the PHB[1], quite obviously, does not need/is not important enough to be in a PHB.

The whole concept of serial PHBs brought on by...from what I can tell, the edition immediately prior to 5e...can die in the fire from whence it was surely created.

Gosh, 4e sure did introduce that concept, what with the first "PHB2" being the 3.5 one in 2006.

Luckily, before the PHB2, everything you needed was all in one place. That's why there were never splatbooks in 2.x, certainly not a Complete Priest's Handbook and Complete Thief's Handbook, not to mention the various Player's Option books.

And 1e? Perfect simplicity. All I needed to do character creation was the Player's Handbook, Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness survival guides (which provided the mostly-usable version of the non-weapon proficiency rules), and of course that one Greyhawk hardcover that provided the rules for building characters from scratch to first level. Those six hardcovers covered basically everything.

This is the real reason edition warring is frowned upon: It's completely pointless.

 

[Cadriel]

My vote is for Fiend Folio, followed by Creature Catalogue. And then more alliterative named monster books! Beast Bible, Dragon Dictionary, Horror Handbook, Ogre Opus, Villain Volume...

I wouldn't want a PHB2, ever. I don't want more classes at the depth that the PHB offers them. Maybe all the Psionics stuff in one book so it can be off to the side for people who want it, but other than that I really would prefer WotC to release books that tinker with the classes as we have them. Each class has a lot of areas where more options can be added without losing the thread entirely, and most concepts should fit as subclasses of existing classes. Some of those should be setting-specific; I would like a book like Arabian Adventures for Al-Qadim that adjusted the existing classes rather than inventing a bunch of new ones. 5e gives great ways to do that, like new magic schools, fighting styles, backgrounds, and all kinds of crunchy bits that can integrate nicely with setting elements.

Maybe at some point I would be okay with a book that took the attitude more of Unearthed Arcana, expanding the PHB rather than trying to add more core classes into it. Except less bad than Unearthed Arcana for 1e was.

 

[seebs]

I am not inalterably opposed to more classes, although I'm not sure how much room there is for a lot more archetypes without overlap. That said, I mean, in the local 5e game, we've got two new classes for setting-specific reasons, but they're really pretty setting-specific.

 

[delericho]

MM2, no contest. I'm not sure I want to see a PHB2, ever.

But if they are going to do an MM2, I would like to see them do a second volume of the same size and scope as the first - the 3e approach of cutting the second and subsequent MM volumes to half the size of the original was... less than ideal.

 

[Blackwarder]

MM2.

The current PHB is enough to last a life time, I'd rather see players options tied to a specific setting or adventure.

Warder

 

[wedgeski]

MM2, no question. This would've made a good poll.

 

[manuzed78]

I need both of them, but first a MM2
One MM is only good for a year of games, a DM need to have choices...
And after players need options to create different and various characters.

But, in time, i need both of them whatever the form(book pdf, free supplement ...)

 

[ColinChapman]

MM2. There are a lot of classic critters not covered in MM1, and they're always useful (whether for creating new scenarios or converting classic modules).

Don't get me wrong, I think an extra path or two for each class would be cool (new domains for the cleric especially) and possibly some other races (such as goblin, kobold, hobgoblin, etc.) but I'm not sure it'd be enough to justify a truly meaty volume. Of course, I'd definitely fork out for a Psionics book, but before any more Player stuff I'd rather see some settings, and to be honest, a good range of decent material for players should be in those anyway.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Another monster book. I need more monsters. I like stupid monsters too.