Planar Handbook Review (Broad)

[Olive]

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.

Didn't read the publicity did you. This was always going to be a companion, not a replacement. The mechanics between the MotP and the DMG are the same, so why update a book that needs about 4 DR things changed?

 

[TwilightWhisper]

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

What plane is it on?

Ashardalon's Tongue is on Gehenna, the first layer called Khalas.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

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.

I have to say, the Planar Touchstone stuff really is a waste of space. I just picked my copy up tonight, and I have to say, that was 33 pages I'll never read again. That could've been spent on more magic items, more feats, more PrCs, more description on Sigil, more monsters...ANYTHING.

OTOH, I hadn't quite realized that Sigil was shaped like that. I rather thought it was a ring, but the surface was flat. Funky.

Brad

 

[Turanil]

will Monte's book be DnD 3.5 compatible?

I suppose so. At least it is d20 compatible. The best is to take a look on Monte's website to know more about this product. In any case, the cosmology it describes has nothing to do with the "great wheel"; it's another concept akin to the "million spheres" by Michael Moorcock.

 

[dave_o]

I'm into it...it'll be required material for my NeoPlanescape setting...

1,000 years after the Faction War, and the planes are changing....

To be honest and true, you're my favorite person on the boards. If I could, I'd keep you in a well-furnished side-room of my apartment and politely force you to run games perpetually.

Perhaps it is best I never find out your address.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

I flipped through my copy, especially the races and classes/prestige classes and I'm pretty dissapointed. I think that the amount of useful information in the book that will actually get played is almost negligable. I think I could photo copy 10-15 pages out of the book and have more than I'll ever use (or see used in my groups). I think the book is aimed for people who are playing games that are almost entirley on the planes.

I also think so design decisions were not so great. They could have added several monster progressions (there are plenty of ECL5-15 outsiders), maybe even progressions from outsiders from Exalted Deeds or MoP (reprinting them in the back wouldn't be all bad). I think they should have dumped the Mephlings and put in the Gensai (don't think they have been published outside of FR), maybe with a nice 3.5 overhaul and actually balance them out. Maybe a little more native outsiders would have been nice ("Ooops, sorry bob, you can't fight this bad guy 'cause he has Prot. from Good up" "Ooops, you were booted back to your home plane with no way to get back, roll up a new character." "Ooops, no Raise Dead for you, roll up a new character"). I personally disliked the alternate level thing for the base classes, I just think they are largley underwelming and set a bad design precident (isn't this why we have PrCs instead of this stuff?). The PrCs themselves were dissapointing, I only saw 2 worth while ones (no one I know plays Planescape anymore, so their value for flavor is pretty much lost). The feats section seemed pretty bad, a lot of those feats just seemed abusive, and sadly they left out cool background feats (like the racial ones in Races of Faerun) that are race specific (like Aasmiar specific ones, etc). Finally, the big granddaddy was the planar touchstone things, what a cool idea! Unfortunatley they wasted like 1/5th of the book (between the descriptions, spells and feats relating to them) on this thing very few people will use. Spending a feat to gain an ability you may one day get to a place and get, on top of that the 8 ranks of Knowledge (planes) makes it restictive. Maybe if it only required 2 ranks and character level 6 or somthing, and you could take them after you been to one.

Wow, sorry for that rant, I guess I disliked the book more than I thought. It wasn't all bad though, a few of the races were Ok (including the monster classes) and there are some Ok spells. At the end of the day I guess I was expecting more stuff that could be used in more general (non-planarcentric) games. I think they should have either made the book much more accessable to more players (suggestions above) or made it into "Planescape 3.5" and got it over with.

I'll go over it once or twice more, give it another chance, but I think it's going back or being resold.

 

[Piratecat]

To be honest and true, you're my favorite person on the boards. If I could, I'd keep you in a well-furnished side-room of my apartment and politely force you to run games perpetually.

Perhaps it is best I never find out your address.

What's it worth to you? Only thing is, you have to share.

I found the planar domains very useful, along with the new spells. There's some interesting things in there.

 

[Pielorinho]

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

What plane is it on?

I think our Pirate themed admin has it. Whaddya think about that?

...

...

...

What's the matter?

 

[Bill Muench]

Could anyone give me a rundown of the templates included in the book? Any reprints? All new? Thanks!

 

[reanjr]

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.

If it were truly the case that the planes are what everyone wants, they would publish Planescape.

But they aren't publishing Planescape.

Correlary 1: It's not what everyone wants.

Correlary 2: They suck...