Quintessential Fighter/Arms & Armor/Sword & Fist: What books are you using?

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Thanks for the support, Tboarder.

By the way, I just changed the title of this thread so it is in keeping with the question asked by the poll. I totally goofed up by sticking that title on the thread in direct opposition to the poll question, LOL. As to the posts praising/slamming various products, that's all well and good, but don't let that influence your voting in the actual poll itself.

The only point of the poll is to see how many of you are using the three books listed.

 

[Psion]

YOU PEOPLE NEED TO READ THE BOOKS BEFORE POSTING!

I'm just wondering who you think didn't read the book.

 

[Corinth]

I've read TQF, and even as a complimentary copy I felt robbed.

 

[Psion]

If you read the review that gave the book 5 stars, the reviewer only gave it that rating to offset the negative reviews,

This is true. And if you look it the comments, you will see that I blasted him for it.

But the point that I think you are missing here is that a product with problems does not mean that the product sucks. Everything isn't so black and white. S&F has a few problems, and most of them editorial in nature. TQF's problems are much more more pervasive, and conceptual in nature.

Kaptain Kantrip gave many valid reasons why he believes S&F is so far ahead.

Uh-huh. And from me, that would be labeled apologetic.

Whether or not that is true, I what I have seen is that the majority of people who quietly happily use it, while a minority of squeaky hinges get bent out of shape about one line in a weapon table.

MoF has more utility than all 5 class books combined.

Maybe for you. I suspect that is a massive minority opinion. I have used a few spells from there; that is just about it. Unlike the classbooks, I have never had a player ask to play a PrC from there.

Don't get me wrong. I think Magic of Faerun (I assume you meant Magic, not Monsters) is a very good book. But claiming that it outweights all FIVE classbooks seems like yet another extremist assertion by any fair measure.

 

[theridion]

i was merely remarking at the people saying it probably wasn't good because another mongoose publishing book they read wasn't to their liking.

i would hate to see people disregard this book before even reading it, just because some people dont' think they'll like it.

sword and fist was ok, but it really didn't compare to masters of the wild. sword and fist was ok, but only because defenders of the faith was so bad. the quint fighter book is not only inventive, balanced, and full of useful information, i'd stake a lot on it being one of the best suppliments out there, in my opinion.

i woudl only suggest people take a look at this book. it is a great quality book, 19.99, and its just everything you want in a suppliment. you onyl hope that every suppliment comes near the quality of this book.

 

[TBoarder]

This is true. And if you look it the comments, you will see that I blasted him for it.

But the point that I think you are missing here is that a product with problems does not mean that the product sucks. Everything isn't so black and white. S&F has a few problems, and most of them editorial in nature. TQF's problems are much more more pervasive, and conceptual in nature.

I didn't notice that it was you that blasted the reviewer. Thanks.

I understand what you're saying about why you believe S&F doesn't suck. Heck, I almost agree with you. The prestige classes are generally interesting, conceptually at least. I believe the feats and items are garbage. The items are a waste of space. Everybody complains about the mercurial weapons (with good reason), but what sends me into apoplectic fits is the fullsword, a weapon created in direct contradiction to the rules set out for large sized weapons in the Monster Manual. The errata fixes this, but in turn makes it an utterly useless weapon for PCs. The feats show a terrible understanding of the way the new D&D/D20 system works and are either extremely poorly described (monkey grip for example) or pointless (dirty fighting). The rest of the book is completely worthless for my needs. Of course, when we're dealing with these non-mechanical portions of the book, our reviews of it are entirely subjective, more a matter of taste than anything else. A few decent ideas with terrible implementation results in an "It sucks" rating from me.

I can't compare this the TQF because I have no interest in reading it.

Maybe for you. I suspect that is a massive minority opinion. I have used a few spells from there; that is just about it. Unlike the classbooks, I have never had a player ask to play a PrC from there.

Don't get me wrong. I think Magic of Faerun (I assume you meant Magic, not Monsters) is a very good book. But claiming that it outweights all FIVE classbooks seems like yet another extremist assertion by any fair measure.

I probably am in the minority here. I doubt that Magic of Faerun (Yes, that is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion) sold nearly as well as the class books simply due to the fact that it's a Forgotten Realms book and not a core book.

I probably mis-spoke what I meant when I said that MoF was more useful to me than all 5 class books. It's obviously got a much smaller focus than all 5 books, and its Forgotten Realms focus limits it even more. What came off as unintentionally extremist was just my way of saying That I'd have preferred the class books to have the same polish and rules density as Magic of Faerun did.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Actually, I have gotten more use out of Magic of Faerun than all the classbooks put together as well. It was a good value for the money. I, too, would gladly have paid the extra $10 in price difference between MoF ($30) and the classbooks ($20) if it meant getting that kind of production quality, extra pages with less errata, and utility of content. MoF is easily one of the best 3e books to come out from WoTC. Just beautifully done. Sure, I can't use everything and some it was retarded (boom shroom patches, anyone?), but overall, the good far outshined/outnumbered the bad/mediocre elements. I wish all the books were that cool. Oh, well.

 

[S'mon]

S&F caused me as GM to ban all splatbooks from my game and just use the core rules. I'm much happier now...

 

[zorlag]

Zorlag

Here's my ranking for WotC's class books

1. Masters of the Wild
2. Tome & Blood
3. Sword and Fists
4. Song and Silence
5. Defenders of the Faith

I got my hands on MotW week ago and I have to say that it looks like best of the bunch. Good PrC's, feats and spells. It simply has most material that is useful for me as a DM and to my players as well. Miasma spell is worst bit in this book...

Tome and Blood is good all-arounder. There are few 'broken' things like Arcane Trickster and such, but still substantial portion of the book is useful.

Sword and Fist is a mixed bunch. In the other hand it has many typographical errors (5 pages of errata anyone?) and some bad feats (Dirty Fighting...lucking D&D FAQ had a followup-feat to make it slightly more useful). But it also has few very nice PrC's (Duelist is close to perfect, Gladiator is good (poison use is odd, though) and Cavalier/Knight/Defender are useful as well. Stronghold building info is nice when campaign goes away from dungeon-delving.

Song and Silence is extremely bland. Feats are balanced. PrC's are bad...Only three are useful (Thief-Acrobat, Spymaster and Virtuoso). Of these, virtuoso has abilities that straight bard should have and has in my games. Instrument info is too big, I mean I like the idea but several pages worth of this stuff is too much. Spells, some useful, some overpowered, some too weak.

Defenders of the Faith is bad. PrC's are not very useful (very limited), there are lots of errors in the book, some feats not useful enough (there are few to begin with). Some useful information about church hierarchies. Weird assortment of divine spells are included. This book left bad taste to my mouth.

I haven't read QF, but what I have read about it on reviews it seems that there are lots of 'I don't understand system well enough' type of errors in it. I'll read it if I can find it somewhere...

Z.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I did not understand the Mass Combat system in TQF or AEG's War book. I don't want to deal with anything that complex (basically a whole new set of rules) just to run mass battles. You'd think, being as short as they are, they'd be easy to understand, but their brevity perhaps makes them even more open to confusion for what *isn't* included. I had based part of my purchase on wanting Mass Battle rules and found neither book delivered a workable system for my group. Having said that, however, the rest of the material in TQF and War more than made up for the mass battle rules deficiency inherent in both books.

With Arms & Armor's extremely narrow focus, I got what I expected and what I wanted. It would have been awfully hard for Bastion to screw up in this case, LOL. They delivered everything they promised. A&A is money well spent if you are a nut for new weapons & armor and magic versions of same. My only complaint is that I really dislike their main artist's style as being too cartoonish and his characters/creatures are too emaciated. The weapon pics are fine (hard to screw those up, natch) but he can't draw people or monsters very well at all. The coloring is garish and poorly thought out. That and the worst picture in the book is repeated twice (with and without the background, within just a few pages of each other). DOH! But, I didn't buy the book for pretty pictures, I bought it for arms & armor text "crunchiness" and the book delivers that in spades. Ergo, I'm a happy camper.