Races of... books -- worth getting?

[Talonne Hauk]

There definitely does seem to be a downward progression in quality. Races of Stone was pretty good, although I had an initial dislike to the Goliaths. Races of Destiny was terrible, though. It did not a thing to help play humans, half-elves, or half-orcs with more flavor. (Nor address their poor design issues.) The Illumians are a neat concept, but nearly impossible to add into an existing campaign as a player race. I haven't seen Races of the Wild yet, but a flying 1st level character doesn't thrill me.

 

[Endur]

I bought Races of Stone, looked at the others but didn't buy.

I thought the racial substitution levels in Races of Stone was a great idea.

I liked the PRC to grant a dwarven fighter the ability to craft magic items, as well as the alternative magical anvils that allow a dwarven fighter to craft magic items. A big staple of fantasy is dwarves (not spell-casters) creating magic weapons and armor, and this book has rules for that.

Dwarven heavy armor and exotic armor were good.

New gods were interesting, but I would have preferred additional material on the existing gods.

Goliaths were cool. Although I'm not sure we really need Goliaths since we have Half-Ogres, Ogres, and Giants.

 

[MerricB]

Both Races of Stone and Races of the Wild have been good purchases for me; I don't think they're as generally applicable as the Complete series, but neither am I unpleased with the material.

Cheers!

 

[brehobit]

I own races of stone (I mainly play dwarves so...) Mostly blah. I liked the Goliaths and the racial substitutions for the dwarven sorc. (makes it playable). Some things were way too powerful (gnome illusionist, dream dwarves and some PrCs).

The other two books are pretty poor in my opinion. But I've not bought them (because my reading of them in the store and hearing about them here have make me think I'd not be interested).

 

[Ghostwind]

I haven't seen Races of the Wild yet, but the previous two books have been a mixed bag for me. Both have some really useful material but also a nearly equal amount of useless stuff. A lot of people I've talked to share the sentiment. It all depends on the style of your campaign and your needs. These really are books that you should peruse carefully before buying.

 

[beaver1024]

I returned Races of the Stone, Races of Destiny and Complete Arcane. Pure crap.

The best Races of book is Races of Faerun where they actually have useful materials.

 

[Turjan]

Well, for me the inclusion of these new races made the books completely uninteresting. When I first heard about these books, I thought they would flesh out the existing races a bit more, which might have interested me (with the exception of lots of new subraces). IMHO, new races are only suitable for kitchen sink campaigns; new classes are much easier to integrate, because they don't turn a setting upside down. Anyway, this was the major point that kept the whole series below my personal radar. I was also turned down enough by the Complete Arcane (or should I say, the Complete Wu Jen?) that I haven't considered buying the Complete Adventurer yet. As it stands, I can be happy with my 'Hammer & Helm' .

 

[Testament]

<SNIP!>I was also turned down enough by the Complete Arcane (or should I say, the Complete Wu Jen?) <SNIP!>

Surely you mean Complete Conjurer?

 

[Turjan]

Surely you mean Complete Conjurer?

Don't get me started on this! I chose the Wu Jen example to illustrate the point of things that don't interest me but make up a major part of a book that caters presumably to general usage. The conjuration aspect is more of a major annoyance specific to that particular book.

 

[Jdvn1]

Are they worth getting?

Like everyone said, they're hit and miss.

It really depends on what kind of game you want, though. If you're in a frozen wasteland the entire time, you'll want Frostburn. If you're dealing with Dwarves and mountains all the time, you'll want Races of Stone.

They're theme books.