Is Ptolus living up to the hype?

[prosfilaes]

And since there aren't huge deviations from D&D Core Rules, I don't feel lost keeping up with what "this faction" does and "that faction" represents and "those classes" are built for, etc.

It's D&D. I don't care about volume, it's just plain D&D. Forgotten Realms is Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance is Dragonlance, Grayhawk is Grayhawk. Each have their own flavor that make them their own campaign world. Overall, Ptolus is just plain D&D.

But Ptolus isn't just plain D&D. There's quite a few factions that you have to remember in Ptolus along with new races and new prestige classes. To me, Greyhawk is much more plain D&D than Ptolus is.

 

[Odhanan]

For you folks who have the book or have examined the book, do you recommend it? Would you plunk down the cash a second time, knowing what you know now?

Ptolus is the most impressive, well-done, campaign-useful RPG book I've ever seen. I still think it lives up to the hype. If you are a DM who likes D&D Third Edition, no matter the actual playstyle, I'm 99% sure you'll love Ptolus.

We're still playing our Praemal Tales - you can have a look if you want to check a sample Ptolus game.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Thanks for the thread necromancy, Canadienne! I've been out of d20 for a while, so it's interesting to hear some actual data on Ptolus. I must say that this thread (snarkiness and infighting aside) has actually sparked my interest in the book, which I hadn't thought possible. I had immediately discounted it over the price -- I wasn't willing to buy the Stargate book, which cost only half as much!

I can't afford it now, but I *might* buy it when I have money again.

 

[Psion]

It's hard to knock it as a product. It is very nicely laid out and illustrated, and possibly the best cross referenced and annotated RPG work in existence.

That said, I haven't gotten as much use as it as I had hope. The default assumption is:
[sblock]
Praemal (the Ptolus world) lies in a prison plane which the Valchutt are trying to escape, but cannot; chaos cults vie to release their masters from their prison. Unlike I had been led to believe in earlier posts on Ptolus, the "Night of Dissolution" adventure does not alter that. (The actual night of dissolution does, but that's not in this adventure.)[/sblock]

Much of Ptolus is built around this assumption, but I find it a pretty non portable campaign assumption for my purposes. Yeah, you can run Ptolus after the alluded to event, but much of the book assumes it hasn't happened yet. To get the most out of Ptolus, it seems you should logically play with this assumption.

So I really would only use Ptolus if you strictly want to play a Ptolus game, or its campaign assumptions don't clash with your own.

 

[sckeener]

Thanks for the thread necromancy, Canadienne! I've been out of d20 for a while, so it's interesting to hear some actual data on Ptolus. I must say that this thread (snarkiness and infighting aside) has actually sparked my interest in the book, which I hadn't thought possible. I had immediately discounted it over the price -- I wasn't willing to buy the Stargate book, which cost only half as much!

I can't afford it now, but I *might* buy it when I have money again.

I recommend it, over and over again. I feel it is of a quality that can last the years. I could compare it to other products that have weathered time, but this product is different. It is very detailed and a joy to read.

Get it. It is worth it.
Heck, give it as a Christmas present.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Heh. Way too late for that. I live in Denver. It's going to be an adventuring getting to stores half a mile away, much less the only decent game store that's 10 miles away. But it's on my list, which it wasn't before. I'm a huge Monte fan, but even a 100 bucks for this book is a lot!

 

[Baron Opal]

It's hard to knock it as a product. It is very nicely laid out and illustrated, and possibly the best cross referenced and annotated RPG work in existence.

That said, I haven't gotten as much use as it as I had hope. The default assumption is:
[sblock]
Praemal (the Ptolus world) lies in a prison plane which the Valchutt are trying to escape, but cannot... [/sblock]

Much of Ptolus is built around this assumption, but I find it a pretty non portable campaign assumption for my purposes.

I imported Ptolus into my homebrew, and it has gone rather well except for two things that need great reconcilliation.

1) I use the AE ruleset, which is very humanistic, the Wilderlands for maps and flavor, which is highly pantheistic, and Ptolus as the main "home base" with their monotheism / polytheism dichotomy. Plus, I decided the main theology was basically the Mitlanyal from Tekumel. It has taken a long time and much thought to finally decide exactly how I want my cosmology / deisphere. This has entailed making some significant alterations to the above four products.

2) I have had a huge headache in deciding what to do with the Necropolis. I've basically had to tear the whole thing out and rework it into two feuding factions; the Temples of Sarku and Durritlamish control it during the day and at night they fight with the dwellers in the Reliquary. This puts the Knights of the Veil in an interesting spot as they are tied to Stability and have a love/hate relationship with the Change temples of Sarku and his cohort. Both wish to contain what's in the Reliquary but have very different ideas on how to do it.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

This begets another question from me. I have a homebrew pantheon that I like fairly well. How enmeshed into the setting is Ptolus's pantheon? Would it be an easy matter to swap it for another or would it be a major pain?

It sounds like referencing material in the book is easy due to nice organization and a good index. That is, in my opinion, not enough to make me buy a very expensive book, but boy! I bet it would be nice to have a good index in an RPG book. I dislike finding stuff in the DMG--it's hard to find anything in there. The PHB is better to some extent, but probably more because I've learned to memorize where stuff is.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you look at the list of desert island D20 books currently active on the board, I think it's telling that so many people there listed Ptolus as one of their must-have books in that scenario.

And yeah, I was wrong about the Night of Dissolution module. At first I was disappointed that it doesn't really change the status quo for the world (since there's a lot of other materials that status quo potentially locks out, or requires a lot of alteration to make work, like The Savage Tide AP), but I also like the epic storyline woven through the Big Book wherein adventurers can accomplish the goal of changing the status quo much like Monte's players' characters eventually did.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This begets another question from me. I have a homebrew pantheon that I like fairly well. How enmeshed into the setting is Ptolus's pantheon? Would it be an easy matter to swap it for another or would it be a major pain?

If your pantheon has room for Lothian, or has a Lothian-like god, it wouldn't be a pain at all. I use core D&D gods in my Midwood campaign just fine. (The hero group has clerics of Lothian and Garl Glittergold, for instance.)