Favorite Complete Book

[Pants]

Seeing as how Complete Adventurer has been out for about over a week now, I thought I'd post this up to see what everyone's favorite in the series is.

If you like them all (or just a few) equally, just try to pick out a favorite please.

My favorite at the moment is Complete Arcane.

It pretty much has everything I want in a class book. Cool spells, some prestige classes that I can use for characters or villains, magic items, some nice feats, the warlock class, and (from what I can tell) fairly good editing. The only problem I with the book is that it's not really a book of arcane for all classes, it's more of a book for arcane spellcasters, but that's really not much of a problem in my eyes.

 

[Ryltar]

This is somewhat of a "no contest".

Complete Warrior is my personal #1, for sheer usefulness. It's mostly got crunch that doesn't scream "abuse me!" when you first look at it. Tactical feats, gladitorial fights, some nice PrCs ... this one just tops the list. Also, it's really a book for *every* character that wants to dabble in fighting skills.

CAdv is next. Nice new skill uses, cool prestige classes, nice fluff on the organizations - but there are some serious gamebreakers in this book (waiting for errata).

CDiv and CArc are books which I hate myself for buying. Save for a handful of spells, I haven't gotten any use out of them, and its gamebreaker : normal stuff ratio is even higher than with CAdv.

 

[Crothian]

Complete Warrior for it does the best job of bringing physical combat to all characters. Adventure does have options for all classes, but not as well as Warrior. Arcane has great options for Arcane caster but pretty worthless for other classes, and Divine has some cool things for divine caster but little for anyone else.

 

[Benben]

Since you asked for my favorite, rather than "book that reaches the goal of the line the best", I voted for Arcane.

The warlock being the greatest motivating factor since it's the first spellcasting class that works fantastically well with multiclassing. It's also the lowest maintenence caster ever, which will be great for the newbies on my table that never bother to read the books but love the idea of casters. So now I can happily remove the sorcerer from my homebrew and replace the class with the warmage and the warlock.

After Arcane, Adventurer comes next, and would be my favorite if it weren't for the warlock in arcane. Arcane's additions to the skill rules have been needed for a long time. I've always been amazed at the designers thinking that DC 20 is at all difficult and never really giving DCs higher than that for most skills. The scout also has just replaced the ranger in my homebrew too.

Warrior was a solid book that I'm happy to own, but it's did it's job too well. It suppliments any class that gets into combat, but the generalization watered it down enough that I was never inspired to immediately make a character with the rules it provides.

Divine was a disappointment. The prestige classes were generally lifeless and the supplimental rules material unbalanced in many places.

 

[demiurge1138]

I really liked Complete Warrior, but, as Benben said, the warlock is just so awesome that it boosts CArc beyond it. That and the new spells (although I wish, and will modify so that it is, some of the wu-jen stuff was more generic) are awesome. Complete Divine, I agree, was pretty disappointing in terms of spells and (especially) prestige classes. Not to mention editing. But I did like the relics concept and the detail on the rest of the Greyhawk gods. And I have yet to get Complete Adventurer.

Demiurge out.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

1) Complete Warrior - First & Best - Great D&D combat concepts

2)Complete Adventurer - Some PrC's are dumb , but enough new feats, spells and items make up fo rit

3) Complete Arcane - Would be higher, but too much Wu-Tang Clan

4) Complete Divine - I think I spent hours reading this book, but nothing has registered in my long term memory. Probably still beter than the two "race" books out so far, but not as good as Frostburn.

 

[ChampaignSupernova]

Ok, I voted for Complete Divine for a couple of reasons. 1) I didn't want it to not get any votes. 2) I really do like the Spirit Shaman class. Oh, and one more reason just hit me. 3) I like the dieties sections.

It is a hard choice though because I think I will get alot of use out of all of them.

 

[Psion]

Complete warrior is honestly one of my least favorite. I am astonished so many people seemed to like it so much. I cared less for the feats in it than most other books, and I absolutely loathed their take on the the samurai (and kensai). Some respins of old material and the hexblade are saving graces.

Adventurer is my favorite. It lacks the utter crap editing job (though it still has some gaffes) that the first two books had, and has some neat ideas and a good balance of original material, and manages to come off much stronger than Song & Silence.

 

[Pants]

CAdv is next. Nice new skill uses, cool prestige classes, nice fluff on the organizations - but there are some serious gamebreakers in this book (waiting for errata).

I'm curious - what stuff do you consider serious gamebreakers in the book?

The scout also has just replaced the ranger in my homebrew too.

Man, I really like the scout. Enough to replace the Ranger with it... that is if my players didn't love the Ranger class so much. Oh well, it still exists as an alternate.

I'm not too sure about the Spellthief though... Doesn't really wow me at all like the Warlock did.

 

[3d6]

I voted Complete Arcane. Most of the book is crap, but the warlock and a few of the spells (I love reaving dispel and greater sigil of sealing, to name a few) are good enough to make me overlook that.