Blandest d20 Product?

[renbot]

Book of Exalted Deeds gets yet another vote. It had such a 'must churn out antithesis of BoVD' feel, yet had none of the creativity.

But how about ALL of the Kalamar books? Kalamar has the worst spells (esp. the Villain Design Handbook...shudder), feats, and then the most pointless monstrous manual ever. My roommate bought them all for a campaign that went nowhere, and to this day I think of all the Kalamar books of being treatises on how NOT to write a gaming supplement.

 

[francisca]

Hero Builder's Guidebook

3rd'd.

Yep, that one was a stinker.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

3.0 DM's guide.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think Kalamar is probably the blandest world. Except the names, which I have trouble pronouncing. But reading their books make me sleepy.

On a similar note, Bastion's "Into the Blue" is incredibly dull. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of ecological sourcebooks to begin with, but this repeated a lot of obvious stuff and a lot of boring new stuff. Useful, but dull. A better name would have been "Into the Bland". (The first one in the series had the potential to be even duller, but the author used a lot of really descriptive language, which made the book very vivid)

 

[Psion]

Relic & Rituals: Excalibur

That was one of my favorite books this year.

 

[Mystery Man]

Hmmm, yeeeaahh. I'd afraid I'd have to go with the Planar Handbook on this one um kay?

 

[Psion]

Book of Exalted Deeds gets yet another vote.

Wasn't my fave either. But that's more balance than blandness (though the archangels were sort of pointless IMO).

But how about ALL of the Kalamar books? Kalamar has the worst spells (esp. the Villain Design Handbook...shudder), feats, and then the most pointless monstrous manual ever. My roommate bought them all for a campaign that went nowhere, and to this day I think of all the Kalamar books of being treatises on how NOT to write a gaming supplement.

Not sure what you thought was so awful about their monster book. Not my favorite this year, but still not a bad job.

Anyway, in general, there was a time I agreed with you. Villain Design Handbook is probably not fair to cite here, because again of balance and not blandness. But Kalamar Player's Guide was pretty mediocre to me. I had pretty much written KoK off, at least as far as rulebooks went.

But then I got stealth and style. It actually (GASP) wasn't bad. I think Kalamar books are looking up. I am hoping they have a strong year.

 

[pogre]

Stronghold builder's guidebook

I agree.

 

[MDSnowman]

Wasn't my fave either. But that's more balance than blandness (though the archangels were sort of pointless IMO).

That's why I use Anger of Angels for all my uber powerful Angel needs.

 

[haiiro]

For me, it'd have to be these that have already been mentioned:

- Hero Builder's Guidebook (the only WotC d20 book I've sold)
- Deities & Demigods
- Epic Level Handbook

IMO, HBG is pure crap, De&De is bland and nearly 100% useless, and the ELH is a boring execution of what could be very cool concept. I found nothing to redeem the HBG, but at least the creatures in the other two were interesting.

I haven't seen AEG's Evil and Dungeons (from their one-word line) mentioned yet, but I found these two be two of the blandest gaming books I've ever read. Since they were the first two one-word titles I bougt, they put me off the whole line until about a year ago, when I read good reiews about Mercenaries and decided to give them another try.

Mercenaries is excellent, and the whole line has improved a lot since the early days.