DDI vs. books

[Elbeghast]

Books for me.

 

[hailstop]

You get all the art though, whenever a book comes out there is a download to get all the art. Sometimes even art that wasn't included in the book.

Yes, but unless you have a color printer (I don't), you can't print them out to their best purpose.

 

[gribble]

There is some fluff that is interesting, and the AV2 surpassed my expectations on that (Item Sets are pretty cool fluff-wise).

Actually, I was surprised to find that all the Item Set fluff is in the CB. When you select one of the Item Sets in the shopping tab, you can see the fluff in the right hand pane.

 

[Jasperak]

I really hate people like this. I bet they all have more than enough money to buy the books too, right? They're just too cheap and scummy to do it and so the leach off everyone around them.

Bleh.

So what is your point? D&D players have been sharing books since the 1970s. WOTC just happened to design a system whereby a player only has to print out their character sheet and their power cards, and they can play the game without referencing the books.

Do your players have to bring credit card receipts to show that they have their own DDI account? Or do all of them have to bring their own Player's Handbooks and other associated books to play their characters?

 

[wedgeski]

You get all the art though, whenever a book comes out there is a download to get all the art. Sometimes even art that wasn't included in the book.

Really? The last time I browsed the on-line art for the MM2, I didn't find the monster I was looking for, and assumed that only a portion of the art assets for any one book were released.

Could easily have been my mistake... and I'll be very happy if it was.

 

[karlindel]

I tend to use the DDI away from the table, but like to have the books around as reference during the game. I also like having physical books to look through for character ideas and the like. Even crunch heavy books have fluff in them that can help give me ideas for adventures.

I agree with hailstop that the character builder removing feats you don't qualify for can be a problem when building a character, since you don't see the tradeoff. Sometimes it's useful to look through the books while building a character.

And, of course, the DDI cannot replace fluff heavy books such as the Campaign Settings and Campaign Player's Guides.

 

[Ktulu]

I'm with many of the above posters. I use the DDI for planning and preparation, but at the table, the books are my resource. I don't even turn on my laptop during games. It's just as easy to have certain books handy.

My group currently all subscribes to DDi, and everyone has their own PHb. Two other players have purchased more than that (one has bought all the Power books, and another has purchased PH2 and the Eberron guides, as well). All in all, we have every book released for 4e (not including modules; I only have 3 of those).

While my group's not indicative of all groups out there, I would assume many are similar. We enjoy the DDi as an extension of 4e, not as an alternative to the books.

 

[BlightCrawler]

You get all the art though, whenever a book comes out there is a download to get all the art. Sometimes even art that wasn't included in the book.

Whoa, where? I've seen occasional partial pages of sample art.

If you get all the art, and more, then I probably won't buy another MM.

 

[Ktulu]

Art & Maps Gallery

Here. It's an alphabetical list, so you have to find the book, then match the correct date (i.e., there's more than one MM2 in the list)

 

[Mercule]

I'm torn. When I started up 4e, last January, I wasn't sure we were going to stick with it and figured the DDi was the cheaper, easier route for a 3 month trial. Even after that, I expected not to buy many books because everything is in the DDi/Character Builder.

Now, I'm finding there are a few things for which one needs the books. Familiars and animal companions, for example. Airship combat, for another. There are also some cases where I don't want to accept the errata -- Rageblood Fighter, which I told my player was her option to errata the existing character or not -- but there is no way to get the original text from DDi, to my knowledge. For those things, you have to have the books.

Plus, even though I use a laptop at the table, it's much easier for me to lay out multiple books to different pages than to flip between screens on the computer.