Have you been disillusioned by the latest WotC books?

[ColonelHardisson]

It's probably correct to say that I praise the books I like and stay silent about the books I don't. (The exception being Cry Havoc). I tend to react well to books I like part of. This is partly because I've never used 100% of a supplemental book.

Could I become disillusioned with Wizards? Absolutely. I spent most of 2e not buying any stuff.

You shouldn't feel the need to defend yourself on this subject. I lend more credence to the opinion of someone willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a book than to one that automatically hates something just because it was made by a certain publisher. At the very least, you actually read the books before voicing your opinion.

 

[Pants]

Nope not disillusioned by WotC at all. In fact, the last time that WotC put out a book that was truly, sincerely 'bad' (IMO) was Complete Divine, and that was more a fluke than anything else.

Lords of Madness is an excellent book (probably the best released this year) and it really started WotC's current trend of stepping away from pure crunch and more into the flavor/advice section of D&D, which is a very good thing.

But then, maybe WotC has been putting out bad books lately, fortunately those bad books are just the type of material that I'm not interested in at all (most of the races series, the folios, and Heroes of Battle...).

 

[3catcircus]

Hmm - only Weapons of Legacy seems to be a must-forget for me (heck - the 1st edition DMG's artifact/relic random additional powers results is more useful to me.)

Heroes of Battle does most of what it does very well. I like the flowchart "if/then" stuff - it actually makes a DM have some pre-planned madness without having to wing it - this is useful for *any* given situation, battlefield or otherwise. I really like the teamwork benefits. The indirect fire rules for archery and the siege engine rules work well. The PrCs - meh... The ranks and organizations information is a bit too simplistic for me (I've already put together an entire Order of Battle for Cormyr's army, based upon Jerry Davis's fine work.) The commander ratings and promotion stuff seems to be ok - but I haven't actually used it yet.

DMG II - OMG - I finally have the random tables I need to be able to "wing it" when I haven't prepared enough for a session. The biggest problem I have with latter-day D&D (i.e. 3.x) and other modern RPGs is the need to have the events driven by the players (instead of going off and exploring the haunted mine that I've so laborously detailed and populated, they bypass it completely, chosing to spend time exploring a village I *haven't* detailed, for example), forcing me to whip up different encounters on the fly. DMG II goes a long way to solving this problem. The only problem with Saltmarsh is that some of the Living Greyhawk folks are upset that it doesn't match their work... Otherwise - I think that Saltmarsh is one of the best treatments of the type and amount of information I want on a "canon" town or city in a published campaign setting. If information is published on the town, I want it as detailed as possible. Nothing precludes me from changing it to suit my campaign, but I want the flexibility to have the information available to me.

 

[3catcircus]

Its funny that you gave Lost Empires of Faerun a big goose egg for a score. I happen to love it and think the Eberron stuff and Sandstorm is a "meh."

It is a matter of what is useful to each person. Since I play in FR, the ability to have more detail and history on Faerun's ancient civilizations, ruins, and cultures is really useful. I don't play in Eberron so I don't even look at it.

As to Sandstorm, all I had to do is look at the section showing a buried temple, saying to myself "They stole that from I3-5, and it isn't even drawn as well since the detail and grid is fuzzy," and promptly put the book back - even if it had rules for dehydration and desert survival, I could still cull my 1st edition DSG and WSG and 3.5-ize those rules.

It's probably correct to say that I praise the books I like and stay silent about the books I don't. (The exception being Cry Havoc). I tend to react well to books I like part of. This is partly because I've never used 100% of a supplemental book.

Could I become disillusioned with Wizards? Absolutely. I spent most of 2e not buying any stuff.

Here's Merric's Guide to 2005 D&D products he's seen so far (scores out of 5):
Complete Adventurer - 4.5
Grasp of the Emerald Claw - 3.5
Races of the Wild - 4.0
Lost Empires of Faerun - Meh
Sandstorm - 4.0
Lords of Madness - 2.5 (Meh)
Races of Eberron - 3.5
Champions of Ruin - Meh
Heroes of Battle - 4.0

I have used CV, GEC, RotW, SS and RoE in my games this year. (Sandstorm was excellent).

Cheers!

 

[Particle_Man]

For me, those are just logical progressions on how the game was built. With the multiclassing system and the modularity that was built into the system, racial substitutions, racial feats, and so forth was where I figured the game would go. They implemented well, IMO, but aren't particuarly ground-breaking in the way that M&M is ground-breaking, IMO.

Long story short, I'm more than happy with the progression of the game. I just don't see anything that I either didn't expect or haven't seen in some form before.

Kane

Better logical progression than illogical progression, I say. After all, just because something progresses logically does not mean that everyone knows (or even can predict) that X should lead to Y. Otherwise, all my students would be getting 100% on their logic exams.

Personally, I luv my DMG II. Haven't bought the other recent stuff (but did get the Completes, and the UA, and BoED, and XPH).

 

[Kanegrundar]

I agree with you Particle Man. All I'm saying is that these new rules and additions to the system aren't anything that couldn't have been expected in one form or another. I'm not saying that's bad. Just not overly innovative as some OGL products have been. I'm happy with D&D and think that there's a possibility that Magic of INcarnum (or however it's spelled) could be something *really* new and interesting.

Kane

 

[Arnwyn]

I suppose I want to know if I'm really alone in my disappointment,

Don't know. I know I'm not 'disappointed' at all, because what I expected is what they delivered.

And I certainly did not buy.

(Waterdeep was pretty decent, though - other than way too many references to non-core, non-FR books, Boyd balanced very well between n00bs and veterans. Generic too player-oriented D&D stuff, though? Forget it.)

 

[MerricB]

Its funny that you gave Lost Empires of Faerun a big goose egg for a score. I happen to love it and think the Eberron stuff and Sandstorm is a "meh."

"Meh" actually means that I don't have it and don't really want it (because it's FR), not that it isn't a good product.

Cheers!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Can't say that I am. I try to keep up with the latest releases, but its kinda hard on a salry of $60 per month. I love my WotC books and treasure each one of them.

 

[Waldorf]

Only books I've bought in the last year have been the Complete series, Races of Stone, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness.
For me, the environment series blows (unless they pull a generic underdark book out of their collective asses), as do the other race books.