Lack of Interest in MOTW?

[ColonelHardisson]

Hey, I've liked the class books as a whole, myself. Sure, there are ones weaker than others, but none are bad. In fact, they are quite good, in general. I have yet to see a PrC in one of them that I'd label stupid - the most outlandish ones showed a lot of imagination, and the more conservative ones were generally very useful. In general, I think people have been unduly harsh on them, while being far too light on comparable non-WotC books.

 

[Zerovoid]

I think the post-errata S&F is actually pretty good, with alot of nifty feats and a handful of relatively generic prestige classes that players might actually want.

I don't really like DotF at all. Alot of the prestige classes are balance poorly, and this comes from the fact that its basically impossible to make a class that works for both Paladins and Clerics. Since Paladins are basically a fighting class, any class that was designed for clerics to give increased caster level is almost worthless, and anything that boosted paladins caster level is overpowered for clerics. I'm playing a cleric right now, a dwarf who worships Marthammor Duin from FRCS (dwarven god of travellers, exploreres, and expatriates). My character is kind of a wanderer who settled down for 5 years to become an armorsmith, and then his god came calling, and his life got messed up, and now he's adventureing again. DotF doesn't have anything for a sort of divinely inspired craftsman, or a wanderer who doesn't really have much of a church hierarchy.

Tome and Blood is probably the best of the class books, and I have seen alot of the prestige classes in it get used. Dragon Disciple is very popular in my group, and Bladesingers are pretty cool. Elemental Savant, Alienist, ect... are all quite interesting.

Song and Silence was a real disappointment. Only one PrC for bards, and if you look at the prereq's its actually much better for wizards or sorcerors. To many of the theif oriented prestige classes get little or no sneak attack progression. The extra traps are really handy, but not worth the price of the book.

I think WotC made a real mistake organizing the class books the way they did. They should have made one book for class. We know they'll do something like that eventually, when they can't think of any more products, so why not be consistent. Alternately, they should have grouped classes that are mechanically similar. One book for Fighters, Barbarians and Rangers, another for Clerics and Druids, another for Wizards and Sorcerors, and the last one for Rogues, Bards, and Monks.

 

[Wolfspider]

They should have made one book for class. We know they'll do something like that eventually, when they can't think of any more products, so why not be consistent.

Oh, I think this is quite an unfair comment to make. I think that WotC will be able to come up with more than enough projects to avoid having to rehash the classes. Look at what they have planned so far--plenty of material to last them, and us, for years to come.

If you want individual class books, look to individual D20 publishers. I think there is an "essential" series of class books being published right now.

I think that WotC will leave such things to the independent D20 publishers and focus on longer and more widely applicable types of products.

 

[Oracular Vision]

The classbooks are the same deal as the 2nd edition ones, just WotC revenue enhancers. There are some good things in them, but I notice I never look at them when making a character, just the PHB.

Most of the creative people at WotC are gone, they have just enough people left to make up more merchandise to sell. You can safely NOT buy any of the expansions and it won't negatively affect your gaming in any way.

 

[Wolfspider]

Most of the creative people at WotC are gone

Wow...another damning and completely unfair criticism.

What do you guys have against WotC? My god....

 

[kenjib]

many claim that this or that PrC can't be used, or is not generic enough, or isn't specific enough, for their respective campaigns, but I've found that many PrC's can fill many different roles once one looks simply at the PrC's powers and abilities and forgets the fluff text. Take that Drunken Master PrC in Sword and Fist. It's one of my favorite examples. I've pointed out before that if one simply renames the class something like Dwarven Tavern Brawler, and comes up with a fairly simple backstory, suddenly the class seems all new. Many PrC's are the same way.

Why do you need a prestige class for a drunken bar brawler? Fighter, barbarian, warrior (NPC class), even commoner, all work just fine. It's all there already but a few more feats could be handy to flesh the concept out I suppose.

 

[RangerWickett]

I hope you don't mind, but I would rather prefer not to have my name batted around as some sort of bargaining chip in an argument. I suppose I should say something on this topic, but please don't take me too seriously here; I don't want to cause any frustrations by an ill-chosen turn of phrase.

Henry has a good point, I usually just brainstorm ideas that I think would be cool; I have neither the time nor the playtest staff to figure out if they could work in game (though I wish I did; if WotC is looking for someone to help brainstorm ideas, I'm sure I could find the free time). I like to think that WotC should be able to come up with more inventive and interesting ideas, but I have very limited experience in actual publishing practices, and none whatsoever at the corporate level that Wizards is working at, so I don't have the qualifications to judge.

However, looking at the type of material that some designers were able to publish under WotC (namely Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell, but I know there are many others whose names I just don't recall), I don't think it's unfair to expect the company to be able to continue to coming out with ideas equally cool. There are very talented game designers out there who are able to create things that really spur the imagination of gamers, and if it's been done before, I don't see why it can't still be done.

So that's my critique of WotC. They've had great quality a lot of the time (Manual of the Planes, Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures, core rulebooks), so I'm just bewildered that they don't set equally high standards for their smaller projects. WotC doesn't 'suck' at all, but when you've gotten your expectations up so high, . . . well, you don't want to go back.

I, for one, think that Masters of the Wild looks like a pretty interesting book, and I hope that my expectations are fulfilled. Whether they are or not, though, I will continue working on my own ideas, since, as Henry suggested above, regardless of whether my ideas are any good, they aren't worth much unless they're actualized.

Toward that end, I would really appreciate it if I could get a few people to volunteer to help playtest future ideas we'll be coming out with for Asgard and Natural 20 Press. I managed to get Piratecat to playtest Wild Spellcraft, and a good deal of other names to at least take a look at it and give me their impressions, but for the stuff in Asgard, I've been having to eyeball it. I think I'll post a thread asking for help.

In the end, ladies and gentlemen, judge each book on its own merits. We really shouldn't be having this argument until after the durned thing comes out.

 

[Henry@home]

Most of the creative people at WotC are gone, they have just enough people left to make up more merchandise to sell. You can safely NOT buy any of the expansions and it won't negatively affect your gaming in any way.

I think Monte Cook might disagree (though I certainly can't speak for him).

He and Bruce Cordell and many others who are working outside of WotC now are still producing specific projects for WotC (these may have been worked on while they were still there, but many projects by them haven't been released yet).

 

[Holy Bovine]

The classbooks are the same deal as the 2nd edition ones, just WotC revenue enhancers. There are some good things in them, but I notice I never look at them when making a character, just the PHB.

Most of the creative people at WotC are gone, they have just enough people left to make up more merchandise to sell. You can safely NOT buy any of the expansions and it won't negatively affect your gaming in any way.

So its bad that WotC wants to make revenue and stay in business? Please correct me if I'm putting words in your mouth here but that's about the silliest thing I've read in this thread.

WotC has said repeatedly that the classbooks are not essential tools to play the game with. A PHB (maybe the DMG and MM) is all you need to play the game.

But some of us (looking at this thread a lot of someone's) like having classbooks as idea springs to come up with more PrCs. Additonally change a couple of names here and there and any PrC from any of the classbooks is usuable.

I won't even go into the 'no creative people left a WotC' remark....

 

[UD]

Most of the creative people at WotC are gone

I would disagree, The Forgotten Realms book(s)(lords of Darkness and magic of Faerun being my personel fave d20 books) have been wonderful I have really enjoyed them, I thought they and many creative ideas (unless of couse Im being a dunce and the people who wrote them have left...)