Best (and worst) of 2006

[Mouseferatu]

Worst

• Tome of Magic - This book is, in a word, heartbreaking. I trust a lot of the names behind this book, and the flavor is great, but I think they got too adventurous with it without adequate testing. The shadowcaster seems too weak, and the truenamer falls into the dual trap of uncomfortable balance and "one upping" or "taking over" existing mechanics.

At the risk of hijacking, I wanted to quickly address this. Psion, I actually agree with you; the shadowcaster, as much as I enjoyed writing it, came out weaker than I intended. I offered some hypothetical fixes a while back, here: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2957649&postcount=76. I'd be happy to hear what you think of them.

 

[blargney the second]

Here are my top three:

3) War of the Dragon Queen: good stuff for both sides of the RPG table as well as the skirmish game.
2) Tome of Battle: this stuff is brilliant. My D&D games will never be the same. Yay!
1) PHB 2: fantastic material for everybody at the gaming table.

 

[Thomas Percy]

Worst:

Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords (designed by maths teacher, contains comic pics and Asian-like elements - things I don't like)

Power of Faerûn (Ed Greenwood and his Harpers' herald)

***

Best:

Red Hand of Doom (best adventure of all times: politics, war, stealth, good tactics, fluffy background)

Ptolus (mithral mine of ideas)

Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow, and Truename Magic (OK, maybe the classes were not playtested enough, but this book is corebook of two my campaigns... 3-4 years of playing)

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Stuff I liked best, from WotC and others:

Ptolus - my review: http://www.therpgsite.com/node/405
Fiendish Codex I - my review: http://www.therpgsite.com/node/399
Red Hand of Doom
PHB 2

 

[Nyaricus]

By far the PHBII was the best WotC book this year; it had beautiful artwork on top of some great feats and making the fighter class, after 6 years, truely more competative at high levels. Plus, with all the other tasty stuff in it (alternative levels, retraining et al), PHBII was a fantasic book all around.

cheers,
--N

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Best:

Complete Mage
Red Hand
PHB II

Overall, Wizards did some good hings forthe D&D game this year including alterate calss features, and some good new base classes and options. Not as much as I would have hoped, given my rant below, but not bad.



Not as good as I hoped
Fiendish Codex I and II
Cityscape
FR and Eberron stuff

Here, these books just do not fit my bill, and thus it makes me wonder what else Wizards could have made to fit my game. I never minded too much when Wizards had one alternate campaign world getting love, but with two, a seemingly 50% of he books they come out with
get an automatic pass from me. That's a lot of wasted months for my gaming dollar.



And plain bad
Tome of Magic
Book of 9 swords
Weapons of Legacy
Magic of Incarnum

Maybe they are good books flavour-wise and mechanically, but they really push the game in a way I just do not want to go, and more annoyingly have the effect of splitting the gaming community into smaller groups. (Especially the online community whre I do most of my playing) Do you allow this/that? is bad enough with the races and completes and DMs who love/like various prestige classes, races and feats, but the above four books add whole new areas to D&D, areas that can have a profound, and poorly tested effect on the game. How does Incarnum fit into an existing gmae? It doesn't. It neds a world built around it. Same for trunamers, shadow magic, Warblades and on and on and on. I do wish wizards would stop testing out 4E ideas in 3.5 books.

 

[DaveMage]

Best (well, my favorite anyway) of 2006

Ptolus
Rappan Athuk Reloaded
Fiendish Codex I
Dungeon Tiles (both sets)

Worst
Nothing (although if Castle Blackmoor is as bad on the inside as the front cover printing, then it may qualify)

 

[MerricB]

Best

• Player's Handbook II - exceptional, really adding value to the core classes and game.
• Red Hand of Doom - one of the best adventures I've seen; very nicely done.
• Complete Mage - continuing on from PH2, improving the arcane classes significantly.

Worst

• Power of Faerun - really, really, really bad. A disgrace.
• Tome of Magic - nice ideas, but without the attention to balance and detail that made Magic of Incarnum and possibly Tome of Battle such interesting works.

Cheers!

 

[Brakkart]

BEST

Red Hand of Doom
Power of Faerun
Players Handbook II
Fiendish Codex I & II (PLEASE let there be a volume 3 detailing the Yugoloths & Gehreleths. Heck I'd love a volume 4 covering the Slaadi too thinking about it!)
Icons "Miniatures"

WORST

War Drums (uninspiring collection of creatures with bad paintjobs)
Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords
Anything & Everything Eberron related (A personal distaste for the setting, rather than the books being badly written)

 

[Greg K]

And plain bad
Tome of Magic
Book of 9 swords
Weapons of Legacy
Magic of Incarnum.

Um, not that I disagree with your assessment of them, but were not Weapons of Legacy and Magic of Incarnum 2005 releases?