Is D&D Insider worth it?

[SoulsFury]

Well, I don't plan on buying any of the essentials stuff. I have the core books, PHB2, couple of the power books, couple of setting books and several of the adventures. Now that I have subscribed (for one month), I have enough in the character generator to keep me satisfied for years. I also downloaded all the Dungeons they had available on there.

I think one month will be good for me. I might subscribe once a year and get the new issues of Dungeon. I don't really need the monster builder since I normally use modified printed adventures. Though the character builder is great and will get a ton of use.

 

[Blue]

I think not only is it worth it, but at this poitn I wouldn't play without it.

For the first year of 4e, I was "I buy the books, I'm not going to subscribe just to play tabletop".

But the amount of content they put out, between new content in Dragon, and changes to the printed books in errata, is enormous. I couldn't take the books and play right now, too much of them has been updates. People talk about the CB, and it's fantastic (and this from a long time supporter of PCGen from 3.5 days), but I find the compendium equally useful, especially looking up rules during a game. We had an combat with flying dragons from an airship, and needed the new flying and falling rules. Boom, right there with a search. Flying has been redone since the PHB, compendium was much better then searching for rules in book and errata trying to find the latest.

So I'm a convert, and I think DDI is worth it. And not just for an occasional subscription to update the character builder, but for a full time one for access to the compendium during play as well. Plus all the other goodies, like dragon. For example, half the essentials builds you can't find in the essentials books, they are in dragon. Crummy for bringing in new players, but good for quick release to existing gamers.

So to sum up, I think it's definitely worth it.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

It sounds like you're decided already but since I like to hear myself type, I think it's definitely worth it. I haven't been very engaged by the Dungeon and Dragon articles lately but I think the Character Builder is an incredibly useful tool. Recently my group started a Star Wars Saga campaign and as I filled out my character sheet I yearned for the ease that the Character Builder provides.

I also find the Compendium an excellent resource in creating characters. I want to build a sage character, so I type in "knowledge checks" and have lots of feats and paragon paths that would flesh out the character. It's much easier than flipping through the books and articles.