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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dnd3dm" data-source="post: 2008484" data-attributes="member: 4680">Only four out of five stars? Am I a vindictive naysayer out to put a chink in this book?s otherwise perfect record? Don?t misunderstand me, I like the Manual of the Planes (MotP), and think it is an essential volume, especially for those who are DMing the newest edition of D&D or want to do so. I bought two copies of it for myself, as well as a third for my DM, as I knew that his campaign would be incorporating the Inner and Outer Planes.  There are many things to like about the newest version of MotP. These include the ?toolkit? options, that allow the DM to create and design her own multiverse, and the bag of planar traits, which make it easy to differentiate these different dimensions from the Material Plane, and create your own planes and demiplanes. The spells and prestige classes are very well balanced, more so than those in the class supplements. The inclusion of the ?Far Realm?, among many other optional planes in the appendices, tickled the Lovecraft fan in me. A reasonable amount of space is devoted to each plane, and it actually gives a DM who is clueless about the lands beyond the Material Plane enough to actually convince players that they are on that plane. Further, the prose makes the reading much more interesting, even entertaining, than the previous rulebooks. I give huge kudos to Jeff Grubb for that. MotP reads as if it was written for a D&D-playing audience with some intelligence. The writing and vocabulary is not as bland and watered-down as it seemed to be in the core rulebooks, particularly the PH and DMG.  Before I go into my issues with the book, be aware that my expectations were rather high when I heard that WOTC was putting out a Manual of the Planes for the new version of D&D. The fact that Jeff Grubb, a veteran D&D rulebook and novel author, was writing it was a definite selling point. Adding to this was that he had designed the previous version of this book, and that just more icing on the proverbial cake. Being familiar with the planes of existence from first edition, I was dissatisfied with the Planescape setting from second edition in many ways. Foremost was that the initial boxed set was mostly centered on Sigil and only gave anemically brief overviews of the other planes. It seemed to be designed to induce supplement-addiction, which was typical of TSR in those days. Yes, I forked over cash for nearly all of the Planescape boxed sets and books, because there were some neat ideas buried in them. My other problem was that TSR was also ?censorship-central? until Wizards bought them out, and that most of the planes and creatures that I had been introduced to in first edition had been ?sanitized?, given new, stupid names. I would rather fight a devil from the Nine Hells than a ?baatezu? from Baator. If D&D was going to be a legendary fantasy landscape, full of larger-than-life heroes and villains, then, in my opinion, it should have a Heaven and Hell, and a Hades and an Abyss, and angels and demons and devils to populate them. What the heck is a ?tanar?ri?? Yes, I know what they were; I just hate the fact that they buried demons under that lame nonsense word. It takes a lot of the thrill of encountering them away, at least for me. At least now they are back to calling demons and devils what they are, and there are acknowledged planes of Hell and Heaven. I understand the need to ?blend? both the second and first edition names and approaches to the planes ? a number of players were introduced to D&D through the second edition, and changing the names back to the way they were in the first MotP would confuse a lot of people. One of my biggest problems with this book is that its default cosmology focuses on the planes according to the Greyhawk world (now known as the D&D campaign world). I think they should have included an expanded description of the Forgotten Realms cosmology, more than the space that was devoted to it in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. They could have provided a cosmology for an Oriental campaign, anticipating the release of Oriental Adventures. The inclusion of the Elemental Plane of Wood and the Spirit Realm in the appendix of optional planes somewhat addresses this latter complaint. Would doing including these have induced supplement-addiction? I don?t think so. If you like the D&D campaign world, ignore the rest. Short, simple appendices showing how these published alternate Material World?s cosmologies looked and ?fit? with the view from Oerth would have been nice. Another beef I have is that I would have liked to see more stat blocks for unique, non-divine beings, such as some of the demon princes or the archdevils. The only two that are included, those of Bahamut and Tiamat, are nice but have me confused. I thought these two were lesser gods. Clerical domains for them are even given for them both in an appendix of Defenders of the Faith, and further domains for Tiamat are given in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Are these two stat blocks for their avatars? Alternatively, are they going back to making deities ?bigger monsters? as was done in first edition? This question may be answered in the Deities & Demigods book, but until then, I can only scratch my head. In conclusion, this is a highly useful book, one that I think any DM should have. However, as with any product produced by humans, it is not perfect. If fractions were possible in the ratings system, I?d have given MotP a 4.75.</blockquote>

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