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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 3708406" data-attributes="member: 13966">I gotta agree.  The PHB does have the dullest art.  Ooo!  Two adventurers in action poses in the middle of nowhere!  And the woman's wearing partially-revealing, barely-protective armor!  With a cumbersome-looking, oversized broadsword!  And the horned guy is zapping lightning off into nowhere!!!  OMG!!!111!!1!Look, a demon charging forward towards nothing, against an empty cavern or vault background!  By himself!  Oh!  And a dragon!  Coiling around a crystal ball by itself!  In another empty room!!Puh-leaze.  They could have at least bothered to try making the covers look exciting and D&D-ish, rather than generic with one or two posing figures.I don't mind WAR's artwork usually, but they really should've gone for a different artist.  Plenty of cool artists have already been mentioned in the thread.  WAR's more associated with Eberron and Paizo's upcoming Pathfinder material, I think.I don't know if the artwork should be within a frame or not, but they shouldn't have half-arsed it with the two long, dull bars.  At least move them to the upper and lower edges, and cropped on the left and right sides, if you're trying to make the artwork prominant.  I'm partial to the style of the revised 2E AD&D covers, as that's when I started playing, but if they were going for art-centric it should have at least been closer to the Draconomicon in that regard.The Player's Handbook should at least have FOUR adventurers on the cover.  I mean, it's like a friggin' no-brainer.  Even moreso with it being 4E.There should be a friggin' adventuring party on the cover, not two poor, clueless berks looking like they think they're bad-arse and can handle the dungeon by themselves, with their awkward and more-flashy-than-effective combat gear.  The warrior isn't even carrying a longbow on their back.Four adventurers, the fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, doing battle with a red dragon, with lots of action apparently going on in the scene.....in a cavern with stalactites and stalagmites being smashed and falling from the titanic clash of man and beast.....a big honkin' mound of treasure in the background, and cave-tunnels leading out in various directions.....three or four half-red-dragon lizardfolk trying to aid their draconic lord and master (and probably sire), maybe getting blasted by the party wizard or flanked by the cleric's summoned angels/archons/whatever and the party's rogue.....The Monster Manual should at least show a menagerie of critters on the cover, not one lone demon, screaming and charging forward like a shmuck ready to die, skull-tipped wand held out to the side like a useless trinket that's no good for blasting stupid adventurers to bits.Maybe instead a mage's menagerie, inside an elaborate, gothic dungeon vault......with said mage being an arcanaloth, a fey'ri, or better yet (and more iconically D&D) an illithid, pointing down towards the viewer (and the four adventurers at the bottom of the picture), magic sparking to life at its fingertips........as some of its monstrous thralls advance on the adventurers......orcs, goblins, minotaurs, fire elementals, drow assassins, griffons, dire bears, ogre magi, vrocks, ghasts, monstrous spiders, thri-kreen, a beholder, a young black dragon, a wyrmling green dragon, etc.......and other, more benign creatures locked up in cages in the background, some hanging from the ceiling.....gold dragon wyrmlings, young bronze dragons, gnomes, hound archons, pixies, grigs, etc......The Dungeon Master's Guide might show two armies clashing, perhaps through a crystal ball with the faint reflection of someone (or something) observing the big conflict.....an old blue dragon fighting a vicious battle with a silver dragon, claws and breath weapons flying back and forth, each hovering in the air over a battlefield, with other, smaller dragons clashing in the background.......and beneath them, on the ground, battle two great armies of men and beasts, artillery and spells......a monstrous, chaotic swarm of orcs, goblin worg-riders, black knights astride nightmares, hill giants launching boulders with their bare hands, trolls charging forward and goading the goblins onward, lizardfolk hurling javelins, ogres riding triceratopses, monstrous shamans and witches hurling fire and lightning at the army of the silver dragon, etc......and a host of humanoid soldiers marching up beneath their draconic allies, some mounted knights charging in, a unit of pikemen ready to stop the enemy cavalry, elven arcane archers launching a storm of ensorcelled arrows, dwarven halberdiers rushing forward behind the knights, a cadre of elven warmages firing bolts of acid and flame at the opposing trolls, cloud giants retaliating against the enemy hill giants, scattered mages and priests atop shield guardians and hurling Ice Storms and Flame Strikes, a gaggle of gnomes clambering about siege engines that launch a hail of darts, grapeshot, and pots of alchemist's fire, a pack of halfling outriders on warponies trying to execute a flanking maneuver as others bombard the enemy flank with sling bullets, while a small squadron of pegasus-riding elven lancers fly over the halfling outriders for support......</blockquote>

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