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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaptain_Kantrip" data-source="post: 38143" data-attributes="member: 546">Reapersaurus was saying that people on the boards *such as* Ranger Wickett (not just Ranger Wickett) are coming up with far more creative stuff than the designers at Wizards on a daily basis. And this material is FREE. Wizards seems incapable of releasing classbooks that contain a majority of useful information. Most of the prestige classes and organizations are so lame, hard to qualify for, or too niche-oriented to be useful to a majority of gamers. Many of the feats in S&F and DoF are useless, broken or of little interest. Some of the new domains, weapons and magic items were/are broken and overpowered. I have bought all the classbooks so far and am least interested in MoTW, to tell the truth, because no one in my group likes or will play barbarians, druids or rangers, at least as written in the core rules. They are all weak, poorly and/ornarrowly conceived classes (as is the sorcerer, but that's another can of worms...)IMO, the classbooks so far rate thusly (YMMV):S&F: Almost completely useless. A few new feats, skill uses, weapons and magic items, plus a couple of niche PrCs (lasher, master of chains, devoted defender). Worth maybe $5 at most.DoF: All PrCs completely useless to me (too narrowly focused). Feats useless. Prestige domains a bad idea, should have just been made regular domains. Great new spells. A few neat magicitems, though some are ridiculously broken. $5-$10 worth of information for $20... Grrrr.T&B: The best classbook, IMO. Interesting PrCs, feats, spells, magic items. Still overpriced at $20, but the only book I don't feel too badly cheated on. Book of Eldritch Might from Monte Cook ($5 download or $12.95 softcover) is a much better value, however.S&S: Lackluster. Poison making info great, trap making info great, guild organization info useful but not detailed enough, feats quirky but most will never be taken, new spells and magic items okay. PrCs all useless (again!). Way too much bard crap. How many pages do we need to devote to the various kinds of medieval musical instruments? The bayonet affixed to the end of the lute was beyond lame. $5-10 worth of value to me, YMMV.MoTW: ???? Oozemaster is the only PrC that sounds like fun!Anyway, the WoTC classbooks (IMO) are in general unimaginative and exploitative attempts to rake in money without providing full value for the dollars spent, with T&B being the sole exception thus far. Compared to the third party and fan material (on ENB and elsewhere, which I admit does vary wildly in quality), the WoTC books are probably not the best value for your gaming dollar. I have enjoyed the sourcebooks from AEG, GR, FFG and Mongoose much more than the WoTC ones (not saying they are perfect by any stretch, but they are usually very creative). Some people will (rightfully) argue that most of us do not judge third party or fan material as harshly as we judge WoTC. That is true! The reason is WoTC is supposed to be the expert on the matter; they have the most money, best distribution, supposedly the "best" designers, and they created the game system in the first place. Their products should be much better than anyone else's. That they are not, and in some cases, clearly inferior, to third party and/or fan material is shocking and should serve as a wake-up call to WoTC to get their act together and put out the caliber of material we all know they are capable of, yet refuse to do. Perhaps the oft-mentioned corporate bureaucracy at WoTC is the main problem. If it is, they need to restructure the way they go about creating their games and supplements or be left in the "creative dust" of the competition.</blockquote>

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