races of destiny --has D&D 3.5 jumped the shark?

[coyote6]

Jumping the shark has surely jumped the shark.

I mean, I'd rather all your base are belong to us, y'know?

As for Races of Destiny -- haven't seen it yet, so couldn't tell ya.

(Races of Stone, OTOH -- I'd almost rather they spent more pages on the goliaths, rather than using those pages for the silly stuff they have in there for dwarves. Dwarves that don't build tombs, indeed.)

 

[Turjan]

Don't forget the gelatinous cube

If this one jumps the shark, we get fish in aspic !

 

[Darkness]

It did.

Yeah. But it's still a very useful book, despite the many sucky monsters.

edit -

Don't forget the gelatinous cube

True. While I don't mind the cube as much as the other crappy monsters I and rounser mentioned, I can't deny that its concept is questionable at best.

 

[Shemeska]

So sayeth the Jackal-headed fiend

About a bajillion different evil outsiders that are basically dogs with a few special powers? They're cool and all, but did we really need quite this many of them?

"Dog?! Dog?! Arrrrrggghhhh!"

 

[Darkness]

Right, arcanaloths (while not in the MM anyway) are cool and I don't mind the hound archon either.

However, there are: hell hound, howler, shadow mastiff, yeth hound.

 

[Spatula]

Who cares how Wizards wraps the chocolate? What counts is the taste - and ironically, it's the flavour in this case which is the completely and utterly disposable wrapper, so if you don't like it, change it.

I think the proper suggestion is to just not buy the book.

If a book is going to devote a large amount of space to a new race, and I throw out all the non-mechanical portions (which will be the vast majority of it), then there's no reason to get it.

 

[Acid_crash]

I'm not gonna buy it... Spatula told me I didn't have to, so there WotC.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Wow. It's a good thing I bought my "falling sky" insurance last week. :\

And to think, I almost passed on it because the guy who sold it to me, a Mr. Little, looked a lot like a chicken.

 

[MerricB]

And I just read Andy Collins writup on the WoTC page...where he outlines a scenario for introducing the illuminans (this race with GLOWING RUNES AROUND THEIR HEAD that no one has heard of until now) that is a total railroad job.

I mean, I haven't read anything like this since 2E. He suggests introducing this new race through an NPC that is a spy who automagically knows everything about the parties tactics -- because he has charmed their friends or something to that effect. And the PCs are supposed to make a DC 23 listen check to notice him sneaking up on them (-10 if they are sleeping). And then he steals some magic item that his race cares about. I suppose it gets even funner after that but I was too annoyed to read any more.

I think you have no idea whatsoever what a Railroad is.

Andy has described something extremely rare in D&D: a well-prepared and intelligent enemy!

The illumian spy has researched the party. He sneaks in. The party HAS a chance to detect him - THREE chances, actually. If he is caught, that possibility is discussed. If he gets away, suggestions are offered for that possibility as well.

This is not a railroad. This is about as good an encounter design as you will see.

What else... oh yes.

this race with GLOWING RUNES AROUND THEIR HEAD that no one has heard of until now

In the year 1600, which is more advanced than the standard D&D game, no European had ever seen a kangaroo, or an Australian Aborigine.

In the year 1500, still more advanced than the standard D&D game, the majority of Europe's population had never seen a tomato, a potato or were even aware of the Aztecs, Mayans and suchlike.

Why is this so hard a concept to grasp?

In the World of Greyhawk, the dark race of the Drow was unheard of until about 25 years ago (by the current timeline), except for a few elvish scholars...

 

[Eremite]

It did. Lots of monsters with concepts that just plain suck (IMO) like the yrthak, destrachan and digester, way too many outsiders for the core monster tome (you'd think the designers had Planescape hangovers - the core monster book should be primarily prime material IMO) and lots of redundant undead.

I think that this is what comes from placing "the game needs a mid-level CR flying outsider with a sound attack" ahead of decent monsters that are actually cool and you'd want to use, which is self-defeating...because monsters that suck don't end up getting used, and ruin the tone of D&D in general.

Thank you Necromancer Games for Tome of Horrors for covering some of the game's extensive losses in this department.

I have to agree with you... except I would make the same comment about far too many of the creatures in MM2 and MM3. The arbitrary boosts in power level in all too many of the creatures in these books seem to have been driven by the need to bolster the CRs of certain creatures so that a combination of size + type + subtype + SA and/or SQ would fit at each CR even if that made no sense according to the standard laid down in the MM.

I think that this is also why there are maths errors in the stat blocks: the creatures seem to have been revised a couple of times and the stat block generators couldn't keep up.