Best (and worst) of 2006

[Fedifensor]

Well, my favorite book this year is the one several others have bashed - Tome of Battle: The Book of 9 Swords. It really breaks new ground on how to make fighters on par with clerics and wizards, a problem that has existed for a long, long time. It's not perfect, but it's just so innovative that it has to be at the top of my list.

Dragonmarked and Player's Guide to Eberron were decent suppliments, and I feel they were worth the purchase.

As to the worst...well, since I generally don't buy things if I don't feel they're worth the purchase, it's hard for me to give a good answer. However, Monster Manual IV had little appeal to me (don't we have enough monsters by now?), the Dungeon Tiles don't hold a candle to mapmaking software like Dundjinni, and if I want a card game, I can buy a deck of cards for a buck instead of shelling out a lot more for Three Dragon Ante.

 

[Greg K]

Best:
4. PHBII: the feats were necessary and a true fighter/mage combo was a long time coming.

Well to each their own, because I still consider the Duskblade as a horrible attempt.

 

[Nifft]

Monster Manual IV had little appeal to me (don't we have enough monsters by now?)

Isn't it ironic that MM4 has the fewest new monsters, and focused instead on making monsters easy to use (including old monsters with classes), and yet it gets complaints from both camps?

(I'm not interested in MM4 because I really don't want a book that's 20% Spawn of Tiamat, but the general idea strikes me as not too terrible.)

Cheers, -- N

PS: My most terrifying monsters come out of the PHB...

 

[Evilhalfling]

Best
Players Handbook 2 - fighter feats, Associations, NPC builds - really just lovely
Powers of Faerun - I dont even play the world, but I ended up using this as a resource.
I like the idea of the powerful herald, discarding the harper parts.


Not Best
Fiendish Codex I
Complete Mage
Complete Psion
- besides the lurk these three have had very little impact on my games,
Of course I wasn't running a game when I got them, but even in designing a new campaign
they have seen little use. I hesitate to say they were the worst, as my limited income kept me from buying books I had no hope for.

Absolute Best of 2006: My new career as urban planner (December 1st).
My gaming budget just skyrocketed, although my time to play diminished in equal amount.

 

[Fedifensor]

Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords: I want to like this book. I really really do. I love the flavor and the inspiration behind it. But it really feels like the writers just decided to take the Fighter class out behind the wood shed and put a bullet in his brain with this one.

It's about time, too. I foresee a 4E where the "fighter" class is looking less like the 3.5 fighter and more like the warblade. Whose bright idea was it to make a class with no skills and only one class feature (bonus feats)? Heck, the fighter didn't even get the best hit points (the barbarian wins that contest). Sure, fighter is good for multiclassing a few levels, but a high level single-class fighter is a joke in most D&D games, especially once you factor in prestige classes.

 

[Mouseferatu]

but a high level single-class fighter is a joke in most D&D games, especially once you factor in prestige classes.

Not once you start using some of the high-level fighter-appropriate feats from PHB2. Put them in the core book, and the fighter becomes one of the deadliest damage-dealers in the game at high levels--as he should be.

 

[Endur]

Best:

Red Hand of Doom
War of the Dragon Queen
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft

 

[trancejeremy]

This has been a pretty light year for me, because generally speaking, I prefer to buy 3rd party stuff, not WOTC, and most of those are now out of d20. I've mostly bought older stuff I missed out on from past years.


Best:

Dungeon Crawl Classics #34 - Genuinely creepy


Worst

Rappan Atthuk Reloaded - For $75, you get a 200 page or so dungeon that is both incredibly stupid and incredibly repetitive. And the physical format makes it very hard to use, as the binding is incredibly tight (it's softcover and perfect bound), the only way to lay it open is to break the spine. And I have no idea how you would ever get players willingly to go there, much less visit it again and again.

Mansion of Shadows from Green Ronin. Bleeding Edge? Hrrrrmph, if by that you mean it's like a bad Hammer film from the 60s

 

[Klaus]

4. PHBII: the feats were necessary and a true fighter/mage combo was a long time coming.

I agree with you on the feats, but the Battle Sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana is a truer Fighter/Mage than the duskblade (the heavy-hitting cousin of the hexblade).


For me, best of the year were:

- Red Hand of Doom: Best. Adventure. Ever.
- PHB II.
- Dungeon Tiles.

Worst:

- The updated look of Strahd Von Zarovich in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. That shifter swashbuckler is NOT Strahd!!!

 

[Greg K]

, but the Battle Sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana is a truer Fighter/Mage than the duskblade (the heavy-hitting cousin of the hexblade).

Even the Myrmidon from AEG's Mercenaries is a truer Fighter/Mage. However, Battle Sorcerer is what gets used in my games.