Have you been disillusioned by the latest WotC books?

[Li Shenron]

No, not a poll here, just a simple question about the VERY latest WotC books (Q2 2005).

I just wanted to post some thoughts on this because I had the same exact feeling dynamics for the Dungeon Master's Guide II, Heroes of Battle and Weapons of Legacy.

With ALL of them three, I became more and more interested as some previews or ToC came out here and there. Finally, I though, some good books for a poor DM who was tired of player-focused material There had been good DM's books before (monsters and environmental series), however those 3 were possibly more general and therefore more interesting to me to come up with something actually new to the game.

Then reality kicked in, I read threads about each of them, and from "must-buy" they quickly became "must-forget" books

The DMG II was the least disillusionment, I think the topics are fine, but that too much space is devoted to random tables, DMing advice which I can better learn by playing than reading, and the entire Saltmarsh town.

HoB was presented as a tool to set adventures in battle (not mass-battle rules, I know), but still rules about how to adjudicate how the PC influence a battle. At the end, the rules are so simple that they don't seem to help at all. At the end, the DM still has to do all decisions himself.

WoL seemed to be a great idea to finally get rid of all the little bad syndromes with D&D magic items, at least for my taste. I though the book gave you uber-items, but for a gold price appropriate to keep everything balanced: that would have meant less magic item per character, much less magic item marketing, but more unique items with a backstory and growing together with the wielders.
Instead the author completely missed the easiest solution (i.e. just a high enough progressive gp price), and decided to give you a magic-item beyond its price value, and make you pay with character penalties (including a BAB penalty to pay for... an attack bonus, wow ). Consequences: PCs still have lots of standard flavorless items, and hold less personal power in exchange for more item-dependent bonuses than normal.

Why do I write this rant? I suppose I want to know if I'm really alone in my disappointment, but also I still hope that someone comes up and shows me that I'm wrong, that maybe WoL has a tiny paragraph with equivalent gp costs if I don't want to use the penalties, or that HoB has so much free-form advice that there is no need for rules at all...

 

[MerricB]

HoB strips away one of the chief illusions of D&D and reveals this truth: A DM who doesn't have a plan is a bad DM.

HoB is very much about showing the DM how to construct a battlefield scenario assuming the DM has a good idea for a battle in the first place. I'm very impressed by the book.

Cheers!

 

[philreed]

HoB is very much about showing the DM how to construct a battlefield scenario assuming the DM has a good idea for a battle in the first place. I'm very impressed by the book.

Wouldn't it have been more useful if it presented the DM with 100s of good ideas for battles and guidelines for crafting good ideas for battles? The way you describe it makes it sound as if the book is only useful to DMs that have already spent a lot of time thinking about how battles will affect their campaign and the players.

 

[Maggan]

Yes and no

The contents of the last few books are up to scratch for me (Heroes of Battle was a good book to me). Haven't read Waterdeep, Weapons of Legacy or Five Nations yet, but they look like they will deliver. DMGII was fabulous. I love it.

But in some ways, WotC have it tough; I'm not flabbergastedly impressed. The books for the core line are solid, useful, with competent layout and art ... but I'm missing the feeling of "gosh wow" (with some exceptions, like Draconomicon and Lords of Madness).

I still feel a tingling over the FR-books, they are gorgeous, and the Eberron line is interesting and nicely produced (looks are important to me).

I'm putting it down to the fact that it is difficult to be constantly enthusiastic about a game line that's been going since 2000, and has a lot of books out. Somehow I get more excited about the new WFRP.

/Maggan

 

[delericho]

Yes, I have been disappointed with the latest WotC books. Heroes of Battle was okay - I liked the framework for constructing an adventure centred on a battlefield, and the way it was done is very similar to what I would have done (I constructed a similar framework based on the Dungeon adventure "Foundations of Flame", which was similar but less detailed). However, it made for tough reading, and really didn't inspire me.

The DMGII has proved to be a major disappointment. I haven't finished it yet, but got bogged down somewhere in chapter 3. Basically, it was another book that I found tough to read, and didn't include much I didn't already know. And I haven't yet seen anything that will speed my preparation for the game, which is the single thing I was most looking for in the book. (As I said, I haven't finished it. I will be more than happy to admit I was wrong about the book if the remainder covers the topics I want covered.)

I haven't looked at WoL at all. I'm not planning to do so.

I was, however, very pleased with Lords of Madness. I'm also looking forward to Maelstrom (or is it Stormwrack?). So I'm not too upset with WotC.

 

[Ranes]

I think Maggan has a good point; it's difficult to to remain enthusiastic for so long. The last book I bought was Lords of Madness. I loved what I read but I couldn't help being a little disappointed in the fact that it didn't cover more aberrations, especially as the typesetting of the book was light (large point size and heavy leading). I want WotC books to have the same text density of the core books.

I still have DMG II in my sights but my expectations for it have lowered, after having read numerous threads on it here. Weapons of Legacy doesn't seem to have executed its idea the way I would have liked, so I'll give that a miss. Lords of Battle is something that simply doesn't interest me, at the moment. On the other hand, the environment series still piques my interest and when I finally get paid for March (yeah, freelance), I'll pick up all three in one swoop (Stormwrack is bound to be out by then).

I mull over my intended purchases quite a bit anyway. I'm still undecided about the XPH, Draconomicon and Planar Handbook, for heaven's sake. At least the typographically challenged Complete series is a complete no-no, I've finally decided.

Looking ahead, I doubt the Spell Compendium is going to make it onto my list. Paizo's forthcoming Best of Dragon compendium, on the other hand...

But I've strayed into the realm of the OT.

 

[Li Shenron]

So I'm not too upset with WotC.

BTW, I'm not upset with WotC as a whole either...

It's been about a year since I bought a WotC book, but the reason is that I have mostly reverted back to 3.0, therefore I have little interest for Complete X or Races of Y, and also I much more need DM material than anything.

The environment series seems great, the monster series somewhat less (pity I'm not fond of Aberrations in general). But those 3 books seemed something less obvious to publish, that's why I had too good expectations.

 

[IronWolf]

I've been pretty satisfied with the recent books save for the page count reduction in some (but that's another thread for another day). I picked up Heroes of Battle because of some of the threads around here. I thought it was great and provided a good framework for adventuring in a battlefield environment without it being all about mass combat rules. Money well spent for me.

I also picked up DMGII. I am also happy with it. I felt it had lots of good information in it. Just finished reading it a couple of days ago. Another purchase I don't regret.

I am still waiting for my copy of Waterdeep to show up, but for the most part I have heard good things about it also. Looking forward to its arrival in my mailbox.

I passed on Weapons of Legacy. Nothing really caught my eye about it.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It is a hit and miss for me, was disappointed with Races of Eberron but pleased with Five Nations and it has been that way for most of this year. So, maybe this is a personal issue.

 

[JoeGKushner]

For me, the DMG II is an awesome resource that I've went to many times for things ranging from being a mentor or apprentice, to some simple bonding rules with items.

Didn't like Heroes of Battle, but am one of the few who liked Champions of Ruin and while Waterdeep has been beaten to death, the 3.5 version looks nice and 5 Nations is coming along smoothly in the review pile.

So no.