Is the Miniatures Handbook worth buying?

[Kafkonia]

I have Complete Divine (Favoured Soul) and Complete Arcane (Warmage.) I also have the Spell Compendium, and I know the Marshall class is available on the WotC site.

So, is it worth buying the MH? Would I be getting anything other than the Healer class? I don't play the minis game, so anything geared explicity towards that would be pretty much useless for me.

Alternately, is the Healer class available elsewhere?

 

[Mouseferatu]

There's still some material--the healer, the marshal (great support class), some feats, some spells, some monsters--that haven't appeared elsewhere.

I don't know if you'd want to pay full price, if you don't play the minis game, but I found it pretty cheap on EBay, and I've not regretted the purchase.

 

[Sammael]

MiniHB is nearly worthless for the miniature game as well, since the rules have changed twice since it was published.

I'd only buy it at bargain bin price, myself.

 

[Drkfathr1]

I agree, seek it at a major discount. The Healer is an interesting class, but not worth plopping down a good chunk of money for. Some of the monsters are useful too, but only in a very low CR capacity. Most have few if any special abilities so as to suit their incarnation as minis.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The spells are really good, but you've got them in the Spell Compendium.

I like the PrCs, Marshal and Healer and the monsters and feats are pretty good (although a number of the feats, but not all of them, reappeared in Complete Arcane). Some, like Mounted Spellcasting, are pretty much should-be-core feats, so there's that. The less weird monsters are also extremely good, IMO. (It's the first appearance of the stonechildren and catfolk, statted up as monsters, not as player races.) Some of the PrCs, including the Bonded Summoner, Tactical Fighter and Havoc Mage, are really top drawer, IMO.

If you can get it for ~$10, I think you'll get good value for dollar.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Our group has gotten our money's worth from the book from the magic items alone. The spells have mostly been reprinted, but the feats, classes (Marshal and Healer) and a couple of the PrC are still worthwhile.

 

[Psion]

I felt a bit ripped off by it before half the RPG-relevant material in it got farmed out in other books. The RPG section was a little small to begin with.

For the RPG material, I like the skull clan hunter, and the healer MAY play into my grand scheme of making classes line up to religious traditions. But that's about it.

The mass combat system is not really a mass combat system, more of a skirmish system. It's not really usable to scale down D&D combats. It fails to use the D&D mechanics baseline (meaning you have conversions to do if you want to use it), but at the same time doesn't give you a good payoff for doing the conversions; the scales are not that much bigger than D&D.

So no, I don't think it's worth it, unless you can get it deeply discounted.

 

[Odhanan]

Yes it's worth buying. For the elements Ari was talking about, for the advice on how to use miniatures in D&D games and convert D&D characters in DDM rules format. Search for it as a discount, on eBay or elsewhere, but if you like miniatures, you'll like this book.

 

[JustKim]

I liked a couple of the monsters, PrCs, and feats that haven't been reprinted, but don't buy it for the healer class. I'm sure someone, somewhere, will tell me I'm wrong but the healer is completely useless. Its abilities are severely hampered from those of a cleric and even at the time, the cleric could be a better healer. Now that clerics have more options it's really no contest, and there's no place for the healer except for someone who refuses to play a class that even has the option of preparing an offensive spell.

 

[Shade]

The Miniatures Handbook was, IMHO, the most daring book released prior to the Player's Handbook II. The feats, spells, classes, and magic items mostly offer abilities that are as good as those found in the core books. It also contains, IMO, the greatest "fun saver" spell introduced in 3E, revivify (later reprinted in Spell Compendium). The shirts of damage reduction are nice additions, as they fill an underrepresented item slot with nice abilities. The spikes also expand magic item versatility.