Product opinions: first look versus deeper look

[Setanta]

For me, Creaure Collection. The horrible art and the poor D20 rules compliance really turned me off, and it sat on my shelf untouched for nearly a year and a half. Now that I'm reading through the SLCS, I've been looking through it a lot lately, and there are some really intriguing monsters in there.

Also, Rappan Athuk. I bought it back in the early days of D20 because I wanted a dungeon, and it seemd too old school and arbitrary to me. As I've gotten more DM experience, I now can't wait to get a chance to run some PC's through RA.

 

[Crothian]

Sword And Fist and many of the Wizards class books. When I first read them they seemed okay then I started noticing the problems of rules and bad wording in the text. However, as I got better of the rules it was easy to go around Wizards mistakes and bad writing. Now, I use many of the Prestige classes for NPCs and set up orginizations based on their ideas.

 

[Superman]

Some of the splat books with the classes and stuff, they are chalk full of boring material.
But they always look so good in the store.
the Deities and Demigods book was pretty boring too the more I read it, the more it felt like a chore doing it.
Manual of the Planes, the Core 3, FRCS, and Spycraft all alway great though.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Easy. Chainmail. I had no interest in it when it was getting hyped before release in Dragon and on the wizards site. When it came out I looked briefly and ignored it.

I needed a Howler figure, so i bought the chainmail one. One of our group of players suggested we try it out cuz he liked it. I bought the starter set but wasn't too impressed on first look. Not to mention put off by all the tiny parts that needed to be glued together.

But once I played it, and understood what was going on. i decided it was a great game and started building my armies with hopes of joining a league soon. 7 days later, the game was cancelled, and I haven't decided if I'm going to persue it anymore.

 

[Wicht]

Relics and Rituals didn't seem that great to me as I glanced over it the first few times at the store. But after obtaining the scarred lands gazateer and wanting to learn more about that particular world I obtained Relics and Rituals. I found the book to be full of good ideas.

 

[Mok]

Eldritch Might 2.

When I first saw it, I loathed the idea of shoehorning an alt.sorcerer and alt.bard into a D&D game.

Eventually, I decided that both core classes were rather boring, and maybe Monte's versions deserved a second look.

Now, I wouldn't play with anything else.

ps. Monte's class tinkering has really inspired me to get off my butt and work on a classless 3e.

 

[jollyninja]

i really hated the quintessential fighter on my first read through. the prestige classes and feats seemed really powergamery (yes i know it's a book for fighters but the living blade was way to far). the thing that saved it after a few readings was the jousting rules. while i may not agree with the entire section word for word, the rules presented are quite capable of creating a fun tournament for players and dm's alike. the weapons are unbalanced (flamberge is the worst offender) and the rest did little for me but i'm glad i got the book just for the jousting and to a lesser extent the character concepts which see much use in my game.

 

[Psion]

Some of the splat books with the classes and stuff, they are chalk full of boring material.
But they always look so good in the store.
the Deities and Demigods book was pretty boring too the more I read it, the more it felt like a chore doing it.

This is not what this thread is about. Products that seem good at first blush but turn out to be worse than they look are legion. Tell us about products that DIDN'T look good at first but turned out to be good.

 

[Nightfall]

I have to admit, I was skeptical and unsure with Touched by the Gods. After giving it a good read...well wasn't sure if this was me. Then I reread it after reading through Hollowfaust...and I found some things I enjoyed that were reflective of the FEEL of the Scarred Lands. That plus the fact I had time to let it all sink it, has some very interesting ideas that I still plan on using in a way MUCH different than I had though previously.

 

[Olive]

Hey Psion,

given that you've probably read more D20 products than everyone else here, why don't you get the ball rolling? Is there any products that you at first ahted, and then found a use for? Ever had to revise any reviews?