Best (and worst) of 2006

[Thanee]

Best: PHB II (from those I know, which honestly isn't that much from last years releases)

Worst: Complete Psionics (bad enough, that they actually did write this, but then it even sucked completely )

Interested in: Complete Mage, Tome of Battle, Mysteries of the Moonsea, Powers of Faerûn, Red Hand of Doom, Monster Manual IV (mostly out of curiosity, and despite the ugly new statblocks ). Guess I have to buy a few more books from this year, eventually.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Quartz]

Best: OoTS, Enworld.

Worst: the Enworld crash.

 

[Enforcer]

Best: PHBII. Finally, the Fighter is not only worth playing past level 4, but all the way to level 20! So many cool feats! I also really liked all of the new base classes they added. Very valuable book.

Worst: Complete Psionic. Yes, its reputation suffers because it was so highly anticipated and because the Expanded Psionics Handbook is so well done, but even still. Bad core classes, redundant feats (making one feat called Extra Mind Blade Shape would have saved a lot of space), the stupid-long prestige class format (Complete Warrior has how many prestige classes in comparision?!?), and having to pay for errata is just icing on the cake. I love psionics to death, but I haven't used this book (except for the errata on the energy powers that I had already figured out anyways) at all. Boo!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

BEST:
Ptolus
PHB II
Complete Mage
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
Dragon Magic

Worst:
Tome of Magic
Monster Gift Set (Bought this thinking FF would be 3.5ed )
Enworld crash

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Best

Castles & Crusades Players Handbook (2nd Printing) - This cleared up the formatting mistakes and errata of the first printing. An excellent book for a more basic RPG system that captures the classic D&D feel quite nicely.

Fiendish Codex I (& II when I get it Friday) - I'm a sucker for all things fiendish so its a given that I have to throw these on.

Beyond that....well I didn't buy anything else that I can think of.

 

[Khairn]

Bestest ...

1. Helios Rising
2. Ptolus
3. Players Guide to Eberron
4. Tome of Magic

 

[Mouseferatu]

How much playtesting did the class get?

I couldn't say, since most playtesting is done after WotC receives the initial turnover. (I ran it through a few quick combats myself, but didn't have time for anything more extensive.) I do know, however, that they asked me to send them stats for the sample shadowcaster at every level from 1st to 20th--and boy, wasn't that fun to create --so I have to assume there was at least a decent amount.

 

[Crothian]

Best: Dragon Magic and Dragon Marked

 

[kigmatzomat]

Hmmm, my purchases have been slim but:

Good:

Tome of battle: yeah, the balance is a bit wonky but the overall mechanic is wonderful and it generally encourages people to consider tactics.

Tome of magic: pretty much the same. I like the flavor, the mechanics weren't horrible but it is strange enough to be difficult to integrate smoothly.


On the fence:
PHB II. I loved about half the alt classes and disliked more than few. There were good things but I dislike character rebuilding as a concept and it seems to be something players latched onto with both fists.

Highly disappointing:
Complete Psionic. The ardent and soulbow were the only things that had the slightest interest to me, and even then they are somewhat derivative. And really, did each PrC require a massive chunk of hard-to-integrate setting material?


What I need to buy: MMS:Silk Road. I was hoping to get it for Xmas but no luck. Hopefully I can pick it up soon. I've got MMS:WE and hopefully Silk Road will live up to that standard.

 

[Bacris]

Best-
...
Untapped Potential - Much better supplement than Complete Psionic. The powers section really shines, but you'll likely find a lot of useful things if you use psionics.

As one of the authors, this gave me goose-bumps

As for me, from WotC I definitely have to say I really enjoyed PHB2 and Book of Nine Swords. Complete Mage I enjoyed some of the concepts, but not so much the book as a whole.

Complete Psionic was definitely a major disappointment and I'd classify as one of the worst. If in 2 1/2 years, you can't come up with something worth putting out, just don't do it.

Since I stick to mostly psi-based books, there hasn't been a lot non-WotC to purchase... at least that I've seen. I remember a release that was focused on psi-NPCs (the name eludes me), but I forget when it was published. It was pretty handy for DM integration.