PHB II thoughts

[Nail]

I don't use them much myself, but they aren't necessarily bad advice. I find that book is about 1/3 good stuff and 2/3 fill.

Wait....

There's more to the PH2 than better Fighter feats? You're kidding me, right?



FWIW, our group uses pages 6 - 128 quite a bit. But the "adventuring group" and "affiliations" stuff is....err...I'll just say "ignored", an' leave it at that.

 

[moritheil]

Wait....

There's more to the PH2 than better Fighter feats? You're kidding me, right?



FWIW, our group uses pages 6 - 128 quite a bit. But the "adventuring group" and "affiliations" stuff is....err...I'll just say "ignored", an' leave it at that.

Of course there is: new spells to pick and choose from!

Regarding the quality of advice, has anyone else noticed that they could vastly improve their advice to people just by consulting a couple of powergamers or looking at their own forums?

 

[Nail]

Regarding the quality of advice, has anyone else noticed that they could vastly improve their advice to people just by consulting a couple of powergamers or looking at their own forums?

True. What's up with that?

Part of it has to be that the "powergamers advice" almost always uses multiple supplements. When publishing the PH2, you can't assume the customer also has "Races of Stone", for example.

 

[squee]

True. What's up with that?

Part of it has to be that the "powergamers advice" almost always uses multiple supplements. When publishing the PH2, you can't assume the customer also has "Races of Stone", for example.

I think they're trying to tread the line of helping newbies and people who don't like character creation while not taking away the fun of people who want to do it on their own...

 

[Corsair]

Wait....

There's more to the PH2 than better Fighter feats? You're kidding me, right?



FWIW, our group uses pages 6 - 128 quite a bit. But the "adventuring group" and "affiliations" stuff is....err...I'll just say "ignored", an' leave it at that.

I'm particularly fond of pages 6-18, 31-94, and Chapter 4 if you're a beguiler. (Few players have been enamored with the spells other than the beguiler who had them forced upon him.)

 

[Nail]

I'm particularly fond of pages 6-18, 31-94, and Chapter 4 if you're a beguiler. (Few players have been enamored with the spells other than the beguiler who had them forced upon him.)

The Beguiler is a really cool NPC class. Given the mix of mind-effect immune critters out there, I'm not so sure it's a great PC class. YMMV, obviously. Check with yer DM's playing style first, kids!


(Mine has lots of constructs, undead, oozes, swarms.....you get th' idea. )

 

[Corsair]

The Beguiler is a really cool NPC class. Given the mix of mind-effect immune critters out there, I'm not so sure it's a great PC class. YMMV, obviously. Check with yer DM's playing style first, kids!


(Mine has lots of constructs, undead, oozes, swarms.....you get th' idea. )

I treat him as a rogue who happens to have some magic instead of sneak attack. From that point of view, you're in a very similar boat, with almost the exact same set of immune creatures (undead, constructs, plants, oozes, swarms) and some additional ones (elementals, higher level rogues/barbarians).

Though my favorite version is the shadowcraft mage beguiler, which somewhat mitigates this.

 

[Evilhalfling]

The Beguiler is a really cool NPC class. Given the mix of mind-effect immune critters out there, I'm not so sure it's a great PC class. YMMV, obviously. Check with yer DM's playing style first, kids!

my campaign is heavy on elementals, undead and plants.
Our beguiler did a pretty good job with invisibility, movement powers, buffs and Haste, even in situations she could not fight directly. (Although she eventually picked up a 9th lvl wand of Magic Missles) The beguiler spell list is decent, although after a few bad HP rolls all the abilities that were only good in meele were dismissed out of hand.

 

[eamon]

FWIW, our group uses pages 6 - 128 quite a bit. But the "adventuring group" and "affiliations" stuff is....err...I'll just say "ignored", an' leave it at that.

As a player, they're pretty useless indeed. I do use em as a DM once and a while for inspiration, however. And, if you're allowed to use the group-trick things, they could be useful for players too, but in general, they seem to much overhead for the limited benefit they provide, and since they provide benefit without much drawback, you might find DM's unconvinced as well. If you really want team-work benefits, then you're better off just picking your abilities wisely instead.

The retraining section is important, even if you very rarely use it, since it addresses an issue that's bound to come up in many groups and previously was simply completely ignored by the rules. Them being published means that DM's are more likely to feel safe about allowing rebuilding in a controlled fashion, even if they do deviate from the PHB2 rules for them. Allowing rebuilding is an important factor is avoid the requirement for super-pre-planned characters. I like it when my players can play what's fun, and then evolve as the character grows, without necessarily being bound by an unfortunate choice in the past.

All in all, I think the PHB2 is an extremely good book, better than the complete's by far, and in many ways better than core too (though, of course, it's not a complete game). The new rules in the PHB2, though not perfect, are more playable than many of the core rules. The new feats are generally good, and the spells are generally fine - and less broken than some spell compendium examples (wraithstrike, anyone?).