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Differnces between Manual of Planes and Plannar Handbook?
- Thread starter KenM
- Start date
MavrickWeirdo
First Post
KenM said:
I believe one is meant to be a DM book (envoirnmental factors, monsters, & treasure)
While the other is intended as a players book (character races, skills, feats, spells, & prestige classes)
DragonLancer
Hero
KenM said:
I've looked through the Planar Handbook and was not all that impressed. MoP was far more useful IMO.
Shemeska
Adventurer
The MotP is 10x better, but the PlHB isn't all bad. It just has big shoes to fill compared to the MotP, and massive shoes to fill compared to 2e Planescape.
MotP = one of the best 3e books. Largely watered down Planescape. Mostly for DMs, and details the planes of the Great Wheel, plus had stats for a number of critters intended for the MM but bumped for various reasons, plus gave methods of designing your own planes and your own alternate cosmologies.
Planar Handbook = a mix of DM and player material. Includes a number of LA+0 races that are watered down Slaadi, Bladelings, Mephits, and some others. Mixed reaction to them honestly. Then there's the standard feats for PCs, and a number of PrCs geared towards members of the former Sigil-based planar factions. The book firmly establishes that yes, the Faction War did happen. For the most part the faction PrCs are pretty good, though some of the lore written for the factions are up for question, you probably will find it neat if you never read 'Factols Manifesto'.
Then there's a section on the githyanki capital of Tunarath, the City of Brass, and Sigil itself. The details are a bit dry, but it was decent*. It's not bad if you don't have the original 2e material on the latter two of those cities, though I'll self servingly point out that Planewalker.com (once we're back online in a week likely) has a nearly 100 page guide to Sigil if you wanted more detail than the PlHB provides.
Then there's a section on planar monsters. And finally there's the last 30 odd pages of the book devoted to 'Planar Touchstones'. Worst implimented concept of the past year or two. Go to neat and nifty sites on the planes, fight a random encounter that is there waiting for you, and 'establish yourself' at the site, and gain a powerup granted to you by the site. Ostensibly you use planar touchstones as a reason to get PCs to visit the planes; because getting powerups is the only way to drag them into these vistas obviously. *wince from mental agony*
Planar Touchstones very quickly got nicknamed Planar 'fireflowers and yoshi eggs'. It was in my mind, 30 pages of wasted space on an ill thought out concept. A few pages to establish the idea would have been fine, if they'd still have been a bit silly, but they used a significant fraction of the book for it. Really, these places would have fortresses built over them and various planar natives would be monopolizing them if they just give out powers as they're written. But no, they're waiting for the PCs with 1d4 random monsters from the random encounter table provided for each of these sites.
*The book gave The Lady of Pain a LN alignment, which nobody was willing to pony up to and admit they wrote when asked about this in the Planar Handbook chat session that WotC held. A number of questions and the author responses were wholly deleted before the chat transcript was posted on the wizards site.
MotP = one of the best 3e books. Largely watered down Planescape. Mostly for DMs, and details the planes of the Great Wheel, plus had stats for a number of critters intended for the MM but bumped for various reasons, plus gave methods of designing your own planes and your own alternate cosmologies.
Planar Handbook = a mix of DM and player material. Includes a number of LA+0 races that are watered down Slaadi, Bladelings, Mephits, and some others. Mixed reaction to them honestly. Then there's the standard feats for PCs, and a number of PrCs geared towards members of the former Sigil-based planar factions. The book firmly establishes that yes, the Faction War did happen. For the most part the faction PrCs are pretty good, though some of the lore written for the factions are up for question, you probably will find it neat if you never read 'Factols Manifesto'.
Then there's a section on the githyanki capital of Tunarath, the City of Brass, and Sigil itself. The details are a bit dry, but it was decent*. It's not bad if you don't have the original 2e material on the latter two of those cities, though I'll self servingly point out that Planewalker.com (once we're back online in a week likely) has a nearly 100 page guide to Sigil if you wanted more detail than the PlHB provides.
Then there's a section on planar monsters. And finally there's the last 30 odd pages of the book devoted to 'Planar Touchstones'. Worst implimented concept of the past year or two. Go to neat and nifty sites on the planes, fight a random encounter that is there waiting for you, and 'establish yourself' at the site, and gain a powerup granted to you by the site. Ostensibly you use planar touchstones as a reason to get PCs to visit the planes; because getting powerups is the only way to drag them into these vistas obviously. *wince from mental agony*
Planar Touchstones very quickly got nicknamed Planar 'fireflowers and yoshi eggs'. It was in my mind, 30 pages of wasted space on an ill thought out concept. A few pages to establish the idea would have been fine, if they'd still have been a bit silly, but they used a significant fraction of the book for it. Really, these places would have fortresses built over them and various planar natives would be monopolizing them if they just give out powers as they're written. But no, they're waiting for the PCs with 1d4 random monsters from the random encounter table provided for each of these sites.
*The book gave The Lady of Pain a LN alignment, which nobody was willing to pony up to and admit they wrote when asked about this in the Planar Handbook chat session that WotC held. A number of questions and the author responses were wholly deleted before the chat transcript was posted on the wizards site.
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