Minatures Handbook

[Northman]

Have any of you purchased the Minatures Handbook? Oh my lord. I thought it was going to be just a bunch of rules on minatures, but it's much more than that. THe first 72 pages of the book (about 1/3) is usable by any campaign. And oh, what's in there warms my heart. If you like the tactical side of D&D then these feats are for you. If you like new classes that give more choices, then these classes are for you. Can you say divine sorcerer? Presitge classes, spells... oh the spells... and magic items.

It all is bent toward combat, so if you see combat as only a backdrop to your campaign, then it probably won't get your panties tied up in a bunch, but as for me... well... I'm still giddy.

Anyone else have it? What do you think?

 

[DMEntropy]

Well, you have made me interested now. I don't like to focus on combat, but I do like the combat to be VERY interesting.

 

[Emiricol]

Aieee! I wasn't going to buy it, and now I must. I blame you, Northman!!!

 

[DMEntropy]

Bad Northman! No cookie!

 

[Northman]

Hehe. I really would like to see what someone else thinks. The monsters are even super cool. And because they are made with miniatures in mind they don't have tons of abilities, they concentrate their abilities into a few powerful ones. Oh, they are soo cool...

And some of the feats, so useful... and the metamagic feats... will change how you look at them...

I'm ready for the arguments to begin.

 

[DMEntropy]

Disclaimer: I have NO time for FtF gaming and do not intend to put out $30 for this book that I will never be able to use. Accordingly, I have not read this book in depth.

OK, that is out of the way.

I don't think that what I have seen of this book while perusing it at Border's is useful in a campaign setting of roleplaying. My impression is that the classes and abilities are optimized for tabletop ROLLplaying in a miniature combat setting. I am somewhat upset to see a "core" class presented that allows arcane spell casting with the ability to bypass arcane spell failure chances while wearing armor. The other classes I examined seem to be very combat focused. This is not something that I consider compatible for roleplaying, unless you are playing a fighter of course!

By my own admission I am an "old school" D&D player not entirely happy with the direction the game has taken with all the prestige classes that freely mix the skills/abilities of the core classes without any apparent regard for balance.

 

[Northman]

It is without a doubt a combat focused book, it says as much in the introduction. That's why I mentioned that if combat is not a big part of your campaign that it wouldn't seem all that cool. My face to face game has always been full of very tactically minded players. They try to get the most out of every 5 foot step. They keep me on my toes.

At first I thought the warmage was overpowered and boring, the least attractive of the core classes in the book. But then I started making some characters and found that the warmage was pretty cool if you're a tactically minded player. Your options are very limited in spells, too vanilla for some people, as I first thought. But combine that with the number of spells per day and the light armor abilility and the warmage edge, etc. It becomes very cool. Now, saying that, I have found that having a combat mage (whether it be sorcerer or invoker who has only damage type spells) as your only type of arcane magic in a group can be very detrimental at higher levels. The warmage can not cast cool non combat magic. He can't read an unknown language, open a door, cast illusions, run faster, turn invisible, see invisible stuff, make people stronger, fly, dispell magic, or a hundred other things that become the X factor of a party. In realtiy they are a fighter who does damage with spells instead of swords.

So far I really like that class. The healer is really cool, a concept I and other people have come up with before but now is in official print in a new way.

I really dig the soul forger, a divine sorcerer. What spells do you pick when you can only know 3 first level divine spells? Wow... you could go a thousand different ways...

But the feats... ah... I want someone who has the book to discuss with me the metamagic feats. There are others I would like to introduce here soon for official acceptance into the standard rules. But I'll save that discussion for later.

Oh, and the spells. There are some pretty cool ones.

Lots of options.

Anyone get it yet?

 

[DMEntropy]

Stop it! You are really getting me tempted to buy this thing.

Looks like another trip to Borders for me....

 

[Emiricol]

Side note: The 3.5 Bard can also wear light armor without needing a spell failure check. Just discovered that in my Sword of the Dales play-by-post campaign (been a player there for over two years). The other bard in the party pointed it out. Can't wait for the announced conversion to 3.5

 

[Northman]

I didn't even think about it. Good point.

By the way, if anyone wants to start up a play by post adventure, I'd love to be a player for once...