Planar Handbook Review (Broad)

[reanjr]

I found it to be jolly disappointing. I deliberately avoided buying Manual of the Planes, to wait for the 3.5 equivalent to come out.

And the 3.5 book actually has nothing on the planes themselves. (OK, there's a bit in the DMG, but it's not the same).

It's got a few pages on Sigil, and the City of Brass, but really nothing else.

It's another book full of potential character races. Which means all the players will buy it as well. But it's not a heck of a lot of good for someone like me who actually wanted to learn about the planes themselves.

What needs to be updated for MoP for 3.5? There's a online conversion errata document on Wizards site, in case you didn't know. Just get Manual of the Planes. That's the book you are looking for if you want information on the Planes. Wizards has said that they don't plan on updating most of the books for 3.5 (which is good, since they arguably shouldn't have released 3.5 in the first place).

 

[Asmor]

That whole review could have easily been boiled down to one word, and it would have gotten my purchase. Actually, I stopped reading after I saw that one word. Can't wait to get this book.

And, of course, the magic word is Sigil.

 

[Knight Otu]

The damage reduction for the spiker presents itself like bludgeoning weapons are just too broad and thick to reach the spikers hide. Piercing and slashing weapons don't take up as much space when the spiker is struck. Kind of logical really, and besides, it's only 2 points of bludgeoning damage.

The problem of course is the way that Damage Reduction works. They call it DR /bludgeoning, which means that bludgeoning damage should get through, but they say exactly the opposite. The blaeling has DR 5/magic bludgeoning, so it should be DR/bludgeoning, really (and bludgeoning makes more sense for me).

Some new interesting feats as well. Planar Familiar, anything from an anarchic animal to a quasit.

I wonder why they keep inventing new Familiar feats when the Improved Familiar feat is Core now.

Ashardalon's Tongue (EL 13)

SOLD!
​

 

[Piratecat]

I found it a pretty good buy. I didn't walk away saying "This is the best book I've bought this year!", but I'm going to find it very useful for my campaign. It complements the superb MotP quite nicely.

With this, Mike Mearls' great Portals and Planes, and Monte's upcoming Beyond Countless Doorways, I'm going to be all set.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, now I have to buy it.

Darn it all.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Ummm... I think they included all of them if you remember that alot of the factions were disbanded or wiped out in "Faction War".

I wouldn't say it's very close to Planescape 3e. This is more of a player's options book: new races, new abilities, factions, etc. The Planescape stuff is covered in Manual of the Planes (though heavily truncated, I think they did an excellent job of putting alot of the rules stuff in at least; the content can be used from the old edition).

It does not give you back Planescape. If you want that, then use the Manual of the Planes for rules and the old Planescape stuff for setting. Or you can check out the official Planescape 3e site (there's a link from Wizards' site).

Actually, it covered very few of the factions. It most definately doesn't stack up to the old Planescape stuff. The info on Sigil is sparse and fairly useless and it doesn't cover enough of the remaining factions to help that way either. The only bit that I liked was the rules on swapping out abilities to make classes more planes-friendly. The book simply wastes too much space on things that are silly or of dubious use.

The Good:
class ability swapping to aid planar campaigns

The Bad:
Nearly everything else -
- Planar Locations: all are way too sparse.
Sigil: Too little information to be useful. If you plan on using it to any degree you have to find the old Planescape material ("In the Cage"). Other than showing what a city inside a torus looks like the map is useless for adventuring in Sigil.
The City of Brass: Same as above. Too little information although much better than the Sigil entry. You still need to find the old Al-Qadim "Secrets of the Lamp" for a better map and more detail.
The githyanki capital (can't remember its name): Why in the world did they detail this? It is an armed camp owned by a very evil and hostile race. What PC will willingly go there? Of all the other planar metropolises why make an entry for this one? The space would have been better used detailing a city like the City of Glass or even Dis.

- Races:
Too many reprints. How many times do we really need to see tieflings, aasimar and bariaur reprinted? This wastes page space that could be used for something else (anything else). The other races are ok though. Not great, just OK.

- Planar Touchstones:
This is just my opinion but I think this idea is stupid. If the designers want to give a free power-up in return for a feat, they should just give a spell-like ability instead of making you cross planes to touch base to get the ability. I don't see how forcing the PCs and the DM to suffer through a campaign long game of tag with a planar location just to get an ability is all that interesting or worthy of the large amount of space it wastes in the book. I would've preferred more detail on planar cities and locations that are interesting to adventure in or just visit or are somehow unique. Since the book is supposed to be a player's book, how about more planar feats, spells, magic items or even prestige classes?

All in all, I think this is the worst of the brown-cover books so far. I run a Planescape game and this book is near useless even for me. I can't imagine how anyone else will get much out of it. The class-ability swapping is useful enough that I can't honestly say that I would happily return the book and get my money back, but only just.

Tzarevitch

 

[Turanil]

I found it to be jolly disappointing. I deliberately avoided buying Manual of the Planes, to wait for the 3.5 equivalent to come out.

And the 3.5 book actually has nothing on the planes themselves. (OK, there's a bit in the DMG, but it's not the same).

It's got a few pages on Sigil, and the City of Brass, but really nothing else.

It's another book full of potential character races. Which means all the players will buy it as well. But it's not a heck of a lot of good for someone like me who actually wanted to learn about the planes themselves.

I intend to sell my own copy of Manual of the Planes, so if someone in Europe is interested, let me know. It will nonetheless find its way on ebay otherwise. I never got any real use of MoP, and now I see that Countless Doorways by Monte Cook will be what I am searching for.

 

[rich]

I intend to sell my own copy of Manual of the Planes, so if someone in Europe is interested, let me know. It will nonetheless find its way on ebay otherwise. I never got any real use of MoP, and now I see that Countless Doorways by Monte Cook will be what I am searching for.

will Monte's book be DnD 3.5 compatible?

 

[Ashardalon]

Ashardalon's Tongue (EL 13).

First, they take my heart. Now, they take my tongue! What's next?!

What plane is it on?

 

[TwilightWhisper]

The book would be far too big and far too expensive to add everything everybody wanted. Better to do it in installments. This can't be the last book they'll produce if the sales are large enough. There is enough talk about how the planes are what everyone wants. This should just be the second book released, not the final.