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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 2064993" data-attributes="member: 3586">Planar Handbook - A Player's Guide to the PlanesThe Planar Handbook is something unusual for D&D. Traditionally, the handling of the planes has been in the hands of the Dungeon Master. The DM would create an adventure on the planes, and the PCs would venture there. If the DM didn't run an adventure on the planes, they were fairly much irrelevant. The Planar Handbook reverses that: it provides reasons for the players to want to go to the planes.I am all for that, myself. A good game of D&D should revolve around the desires of the entire group. Although many campaigns are largely driven by the desires of the DM, I believe that when the players are also contributing, then the campaign can become truly memorable. This is a co-operative game, after all.However, there is a specter haunting the Planar Handbook and that specter is Planescape. The Planescape setting was released during one of the times I was investigating other aspects of role-playing, so I'm not really familiar with it. There are many that are, though. The Planar Handbook is not Planescape: it has a totally different purpose. So, if you're expecting another Planescape, be prepared to be disappointed. Although some elements of the Planar Handbook are obviously inspired by Planescape, the transition to a generic D&D product is one that many Planescape fans are unhappy with.This is a Player's Guide, and so, much like the Complete Warrior and Races of Stone, the Planar Handbook provides a selection of tools to customize characters. There are new races, feats, prestige classes, spells and magic items, all of which have a planar aspect to them. If you are bored with such elements, it's likely that the Planar Handbook is not for you.I find the most interesting new element of the book to be the idea of the Planar Touchstone. In essence, it is a new application of the feat mechanic. The Planar Touchstone feat attunes a character to a place on one of the planes and grants a minor ability (such as +3 hit points or +1 on Hide checks). If you then visit the location and complete an attunement ritual, you gain a limited number of uses of a higher order power (such as the ability to cast rusting grasp four times). Once you've run out of those uses, you need to return to the location to recharge the power. It is also possible to change your attunement from one touchstone to another, making this a versatile feat.What make the Planar Touchstones really interesting are the short descriptions they have. One of my favorites is the Library of Ignorance - a place whose only inhabitant spends his time filling a book with the knowledge he has accumulated. He writes a page in the book every day. However, he's cold and he has no fuel... so every day he tears a page out of the book and burns it. If you help him by providing fuel (the ritual required), you gain four uses of a legend lore ability.The Planar Touchstones are scattered around the established planar cosmology of D&D - the Great Wheel - but I don't think it would be too hard to convert them to your own campaign. 33 pages of the Planar Handbook are taken up with descriptions of the Touchstones - this may seem like a lot, but the intention is so that the players are inspired by the descriptions and thus want to visit the planes to attune themselves to the Touchstones, creating opportunities for the DM to create adventures around them.The other new game mechanic in this book relates to the classes: Planar Substitution Levels. The basic idea behind it is this: if your character has a connection to the planes in some way, you can swap out some of the abilities your normal class gives you and instead take the more planar-derived abilities.All the core classes have planar substitution levels, which are only available at certain levels. Thus, a 3rd level Barbarian may gain the ability to sense planar portals instead of the trap sense ability. At 7th level and 11th level there are other abilities that may be gained, replacing those of the standard Barbarian. All of these substitution levels are optional - you may decide only to take one or two of the levels if you wish. One of my favorite substitution levels is that of the 6th level paladin, which makes the paladin's mount a celestial steed; this replaces one use of the remove disease ability.The rest of the book is more conventional: Races, Feats, Equipment and Magic Items, Spells, and Creatures of the Planes.Some of the races are new, some have been described before. They are all presented in the same level of detail as you'll find for the core races in the Player's Handbook, and certain more powerful races get the Savage Species treatment of monster class levels. The full list is as follows: Aasimar, Bariaur, Buomman, Mephling, Neraphim, Shadowswyft, Spiker, Tiefling and Wildren. The monster class descriptions are for the Avoral Guardinal, Chain Devil, Hound Archon, Janni and Lillend. There are 23 new feats in this book, eleven of which are General feats and twelve of which are Heritage feats. The Heritage feats represent a character's descendance from a inhabitant of one of the planes. These feats have both basic and improved versions, allowing you to choose how strongly you are connected to your heritage.The general feats include the touchstone feats, and also feats that represent special combat techniques that outer planar creatures might use. These feats may be taken by anyone with a good enough knowledge of the planes.All this rules material seems fairly solid to me, although there are parts that seem more impressive than others do. Importantly, nothing seems totally overpowered.The approach to the Prestige Classes is different than in previous books. As I understand it, in Planescape there were a number of competing factions. The Prestige Classes in this book owe a lot to those factions, although I know of some Planescape fans that are unhappy with the treatment they are given in this book. There are seven factions described in this book: their goals, organization and lore are briefly described, taking a little over half a page in each case, then a prestige class associated with each organization is presented. Again, the game mechanics are solid, and there are some interesting abilities and pre-requisites. To round off the chapter, there are two prestige classes that are not associated with factions, the Astral Dancer and the Elemental Warrior. The equipment, spells and creatures are well presented and functional. Notable are the new magical staffs and rings, and the spells that grant the caster powers inherent to a plane or outer-planar creature. Thus, balor nimbus, a 4th level cleric, sorcerer and wizard spell, gives you a fiery aura which deals 6d6 fire damage to anything you grapple. At the higher end of the scale, there are several specific summoning spells such as hellish horde - it first summons 2d4 bearded devils, then 1d4 chain devils 10 minutes later, and 1 bone devil for every ten minutes beyond that! The spell lasts 10 minutes/level, but takes 10 minutes to cast - it's a rather fun spell that could have interesting implications on a battlefield.While most of the spells seem well balanced, I do have a great problem with the light of venya spell. Castable by clerics and wizards, it channels the power of a plane of Celestia. When expended, it allows the caster to deal 3d6 damage to an undead creature or to heal 3d6 damage of a living non-evil creature. It's not a bad spell, but why can Wizards cast it? I'm not fond of spells that break that particular class limitation. Wizards should not be able to heal!The new monsters are satisfactory, and there are several that can be added to the summon monster lists. Actually, that's not quite true: they instead replace an existing monster, thus maintaining the balance of the spells. A list of all the outer-planar creatures yet published for D&D 3e, sorted by home plane and challenge rating, is also given. This is extremely welcome!The book's final chapter has descriptions of some planar sites; although the bulk of them are touchstone descriptions, there are also three more significant locations described: Sigil, the city of doors; Tu'narath, the home of the Githyanki's Lich Queen; and the City of Brass, city of the efreet. These locations each get about five or six pages of description: while this isn't a great deal, it's enough for the players and DM to build upon. So, what's good about the Planar Handbook? It has a lot of interesting material and mechanics relating to the planes for players, thus pushing them towards wanting to do some planar adventuring. It also has some useful material for the DM, including the monster information and the planar sites.Where it falls down is in its encompassing nature: it doesn't really have a strong theme. It is much more of a toolbox than a unified book. It also only nods to the achievements of the past, rather than really building on them. This may be an advantage, however, as you don't need to be an expert on Planescape to appreciate this book.I like the Planar Handbook, though, as of yet, I've not had much call for it in my game. However, I think it will be invaluable once I move towards a more plane-orientated campaign.</blockquote>

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