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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011852" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackInitiative RoundThe Planar Handbook is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement from Wizards of the Coast. A 192-page full-color hardcover by Bruce R. Cordell and Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, the cover art by Matt Cavotta depicts an individual examining a sextant of the planes, one of several new magical items described herein. Brent Chumley, Emily Fiegenschuh, David Hudnut, Dana Knutson, Doug Kovacs, David Martin, Dennis Crabapple McClain, Jim Pavelec, Steve Prescott, Vinod Rams, and David A. Roach lend their talents to the interior art. The Planar Handbook retails for $29.95.Since the early days of D&D, the planes have been a source of fascination and wonder for many player characters. In the original boxed set, these places were the homes of the gods, nearly unreachable by mortals. As the game grew, that slowly changed. With the release of the Manual of the Planes in 1987 changed all that. Suddenly, it was possible, even desirable, to pop over to Elysium for a visit, and no paladin’s career was complete without a descent into the Nine Hells. With the release of the 2nd edition of AD&D, planar exploration took on a life of its own, becoming a campaign unto itself. Planescape introduced us to all manner of new beings, strange places, and even an entirely new slang. When D&D 3E was released, planar travel again took a backseat. It wasn’t until the rewrite of Manual of the Planes (2001).Enter the Planar Handbook. This work takes what was given in the new Manual of the Planes and adds to it, opening entirely new vistas for player characters and DMs alike. New races, new feats, new spells and magic items, and details on planar sites such as the City of Brass and Sigil can all be found here. Where the Manual of the Planes concentrated on the planes themselves, this book explores the inhabitants and the myriad of possibilities.The Planar Handbook introduces ten brand-new races for use as player characters, and provides some necessary detail on two favorites; aasimar and tieflings. New racial options are the bariabur (centaur-like goat-folk), buommans (long-limbed humanoids), mephlings (cousins to the mephits, one for each of the four “classic” elements), neraphim (nomadic dwellers of Limbo), shadowswyfts (planetouched beings from the Plane of Shadow), spikers (cousins of the bladelings), and wildren (untamed dwarf-like beings from the Wildlands). If these aren’t enough for you, or if you’re running a high-level campaign, you might look into one of the more powerful races provided in the Planar Handbook; the avoral guardinal, the chain devil (kyton), the hound archon, the janni, or the lillend. These races are presented as monster classes (ala Savage Species).Overall, planar classes don’t differ that much from the norm. There exist bard and wizards and monks aplenty on the outer planes, but some are more accustomed to this environment than others. This is represented by planar substitution levels. If you have a character that is native to another plane, who has visited the planes, or who has extensively studied the planes, you may choose to substitute a planar class level for a normal class level, effectively skipping that level (i.e., a 3rd-level fighter who chooses to take a planar substitution level for 4th-level will then advance to 5th-level as a fighter if he decides to take a normal class level at his next level gain).The benefits of taking a planar substitution level vary from class to class, and it is perfectly feasible to take planar substitution levels only at the levels that benefit the character. Thus, a barbarian could advance as a normal barbarian until 3rd-level, take the barbarian planar substitution class, then switch back until 7th level, when it again benefits her to take the planar substitution level. A cleric might take a planar substitution level in order to gain the ability to dismiss summoned creatures (in the same way that he can turn undead), while a sorcerer can take a planar substitution level to replace half the damage dealt by spells he casts to force damage (making it easier to harm creatures that are immune to certain elements). The exact abilities gained occur at set levels and do not vary.The Planar Handbook offers quite a few new feats. Most are heritage feats, representing a specific extraplanar ancestry. Certain heritage feats build upon others and it is possible to acquire a heritage feat after 1st level (so take heart, those of you with established characters). Outside of the heritage feats, most of the feats are general in nature and can be used by anyone who meets the prerequisites.Planar adventuring just screams for the prestige class, it would seem to me, and the Planar Handbook delivers nine new prestige classes for your planar campaign. Seven of these classes are actually members of planar factions or societies. Not every member of a particular faction has a prestige class, of course, and a faction may have more than one prestige class (though only one from each is described here). The factions themselves are discussed briefly, including organization, beliefs, and a few snippets of lore. The factions described in the Planar Handbook are the Athar (who believe that the gods are nothing more than extraordinarily powerful mortals), the Doomguard (who believe that the multiverse is slowly coming apart at the seams), the Fated (professing survival of the fittest), the Mind’s Eye (focusing on the ultimate journey of self-discovery), the Society of Sensation (who spend their time seeking to experience as many sensations as possible), the Transcendent Order (who feel that each of us is a part of the whole, living multiverse), and the Xaositects (playing with disorder and promoting the chaos that they feel makes up the multiverse). The associated prestige classes with these factions are, respectively, the defiant, the doomlord, the fatemaker, the visionary seeker, the ardent dilettante, the cipher adept, and the chaotican. Two other prestige classes that do not necessarily align themselves with any order are the astral dancer (who specialize in operating in low-gravity environs) and the elemental warrior (devoting themselves to the mastery of a single element).If you’re going to go adventuring across the planes, it’s certain hat you’re going to run afoul of some situations that call for specialized gear. One thing that 3rd edition did was to redefine the weapons and armor so that repetition was no longer such a factor. Now, each weapon or armor has something that makes it different from all others. The Planar Handbook continues that trend with nine new weapons and three types of armor (including one that can be considered light, medium, or heavy, depending on the configuration). You’ll also find a host of equipment, such as the gravity tent (sleep comfortably in those realms that have no gravity) and the true holy symbol (created on the plane of the god it represents and carrying a modicum of the deity’s power). There are also new alchemical items, new mounts, new vehicles, and a new type of material. Of course, there are also several new magical items as well. The Planar Handbook offers a number of new spells, more than 70 in all, for all classes. There are nine new domains (one for each of the nine alignments), each of which is attuned to a given plane.As you might expect, the planes are full of strange and mysterious creatures, from the fearsome astral kraken to the negatively-charged void ooze. The Planar Handbook gives you 23 new monsters and four new templates. Anarchic creatures revel in chaos, while those with an axiomatic bent live by the letter of the law. Vivacious inhabitants populate the positive material plane, but beware their dark counterparts, the entropic creatures from the negative energy plane. A short section also adds several of these new creatures to the existing summoning spells.Planar sites, the last chapter of the book, takes the reader into the infinite worlds of the planes. The D&D cosmology is described in brief, but doesn’t differ that much from the one described in the Manual of the Planes. Instead of dwelling on things that have already been discussed, this chapter delves into locations that would be of interest to adventurers, such as the fabled City of Brass, on the Elemental Plane of Fire, Sigil, home of the Lady of Pain, and Tu’narath, the largest Githyanki city in any dimension. Of course, not everyone can easily visit the planes, but don’t worry, sometimes the planes come to you! Planar breaches may happen anywhere at any time. Finally, for those with a certain special talent and the ability to reach these isolated sites, planar touchstones can offer great power (but at great risk as well). The book finishes with an appendix that lists, by CR, the numerous creatures that may be found on the various planes. This listing includes creatures from the Monster Manual, the Monster Manual II, the Fiend Folio, the Draconomicon, the Miniature’s Handbook, the Manual of the Planes, the Book of Exalted Deeds, the Book of Vile Darkness, the Epic Level Handbook, and this volume. The idea is to make it much easier for GMs to design a custom encounter table for a particular planar region.Critical HitI’m a person that doesn’t care for repetition. If it’s already been covered elsewhere, and to the satisfaction of the gaming community, then don’t reprint it, especially if the changes are minimal. So it is with the Planar Handbook. There isn’t a lot of repetition in this volume (with one notable exception), I’m happy to say. I could find only four spells that were repeated from the Manual of the Planes and absolutely no monsters or prestige classes. These are two entirely separate volumes, each essential, but very different. I’m very pleased with that.Critical FumbleOkay, planar touchstones. They’re a cool idea, but do we really need 33½ pages of them? I think it would have been sufficient to describe one or two and then dump the rest into a web supplement, as opposed to filling out a fifth of the book with them! Don’t get me wrong, I like them, but I just don’t feel it was necessary to describe 51 different locales.Now, the exception to the repetition I mentioned above? Aasimar and tieflings are covered in detail… again! Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know these races in great detail by now? Give it a rest, guys! We get it, they have extraplanar origins. Okay, let’s move on!Coup de GraceIf you’re going to do any real amount of planar adventuring beyond the occasional passing through the ethereal on your way into some hidden room, then you need this volume. Combined with the Manual of the Planes, this is everything that is necessary to run adventures across the infinite planes of reality, opening new avenues of possibility.I want to go on record as saying that I’ve seen several comments and reviews on this book that state that Plansescape (2E) was better. I disagree. I think that Planescape was better supported, but not a better setting overall. I find the new planar cosmology much more interesting and with some improved support, it could make for great campaigning.Final Grade: A-</blockquote>

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