D&D 4E Sell me on these 4e sourcebooks!

[Knightfall]

To give you a bit of background, I haven't played 4e yet; however, I've bought several of the books for 4e. At one point I owned all three PHBs, both DMGs, MM and MM2, as well as many of the other 4e books that came out prior to Essentials.

Since Essentials came out, I've gotten rid of many of the older books. I prefer Essentials and the newer formats for 4e. I have the following 4e books and boxed sets:

Core Rules
Monster Manual 3
Player's Handbook

Essentials Line
Dungeon Master's Kit
Heroes of the Fallen Lands
Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
Monster Vault
Rules Compendium

Accessories
Demonomicon
Hammerfast
Manual of the Planes
Player's Handbook Races: Dragonborn
Underdark

Adventures
Kingdom of the Ghouls [E2]

Dark Sun
Bloodsand Arena

Campaign Settings

Dark Sun
Campaign Setting
Creature Catalog

Forgotten Realms
Campaign Guide

I got rid of these books: PHB (yes, I bought it again, used), PHB2, PHB3 (I'm thinking I should have kept this for Dark Sun [but still wary]), DMG, DMG2 (the section on Sigil wasn't enough for me to keep this), MM, MM2, Plane Below, FR Player's Guide, and Eberron Campaign Guide.

I'm not interested in any of the Power books or the early adventures. (I bought Kingdom of the Ghouls because I was able to get it for 75% off the cover price.)

Despite my wariness about 4e there are several of the older 4e books that I'm still curious about. But before I consider buying any more of the older books, I want to get opinions from the 4e gurus here on EN World about which ones are worth it.

Here's the list:

Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons

Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons

Marauders of the Dune Sea [Dark Sun]
- I've heard this adventure isn't great.

Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead ("got it")
- I didn't like the 3e undead book; how does this compare?

Player's Handbook Races: Tieflings
- I like the Dragonborn PHB Race book.

The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea ("got it")
- I didn't like The Plane Below; is this a better book?

Tome of Horrors ("got it")
- I'm fairly certain I'm going to buy this book.

Vor Rukoth

AND...

D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game and its expansions
- I love Gamma World but I'm wary about random cards in an RPG.

All comments and suggestions will be appreciated.

Cheers!

KF

 

[Abstruse]

Draconomicons: Okay if you want to run a campaign with a lot of dragons or involve their culture. There's a lot more dragons of various levels, but they'll need modification since they're MM1 style rather than MV style, so your players will lock them down easily. If you've got any books from previous editions, skip it and just use the Monster Builder to level the dragons from the MV up/down or change types.

Open Grave: LOTS of fun if you like undead games, some good magic items and monsters.

Tiefling book: Only worth it if you have a Tiefling in your game.

Plane Above: I only skimmed it in the store, so I can't say in detail, but the various planes books have always bored me.

Tomb of Horrors: If you've got any old-school players in your group, it's a blast to spring it on them.

Vor Rdfm*mumblemumble*: It's a setting book. Go to your local bookstore and thumb through it. If you think there's anything you want to use, pick it up. If not, pass.

Gamma World: Random cards are cool. I'm not interested the game setting at all so I don't own it. Don't let the card play into your decision. If you don't like the random part of it, pick/assign them instead. If you like the world and want to see it adapted for 4e, give it a shot.

Adventure Books: Go read a synopsis of it and see if it's something you'd like to run. If not, don't waste the money. Anything you'd like to scavenge from it will be in either the online Compendium or the Monster Creator.

Keep in mind that this (and anything else you read) will be that person's opinions. Your best bet is to thumb through the book and see if it interests you.

 

[Robtheman]

Marauders of the Dune Sea
I've read 3 reviews on the internet, so that makes me an expert. Right?

That said, the reviews were universally bad. I'd actually find a way to read through it before you bought it.

 

[Storminator]

I've borrowed my son's Open Grave, randomly flipped it open, grabbed an excellent monster (Pale Reaver)on the first page and built an entire encounter around it that was fantastic. I've only glanced thru it since, but I've liked what I've seen.

The Plane Above is my favorite 4e book. It's actually readable (I love playing 4e, but the books are generally poor reads), and very, very good. I bought the Plane Below because I like the PA so much, and was much less interested. I'd love to do an entire campaign set in the Astral Sea, and I feel this book would be enough of a campaign guide to pull that off.

PS

 

[Nullzone]

I really like the Metallic Draconomicon, but may be biased as I think dragons are ing awesome and use them every opportunity I get.

Open Grave has some great monsters in it.

Tomb of Horrors is cool but don't go into it expecting the original. It has some homages but largely is a very different animal. Still a great book though.

 

[renau1g]

Marauders of the Dune Sea
I've read 3 reviews on the internet, so that makes me an expert. Right?

That said, the reviews were universally bad. I'd actually find a way to read through it before you bought it.

The adventure's not terrible...if it was not for Dark Sun. In [random desert location on your world] it possibly could work as there may not be the many problems that arise because it's on Athas (assuming the DM puts a ton of work in to salvage the module). I say it's not bad, if of course you don't mind a long, unbroken stream of combats with no forking at all in the adventure...oh, here's some quotes from Amazon.

"The weak hooks assume the party can read. Most Athasians are illiterate so it's silly for a merchant house to assume any would-be adventurers for hire can read the summons.

-The first combat encounter has Thri-kreen and Elves working together! These two races absolutely despise each other. This is like a dwarf marrying an orc, never happen! To make matters worse a templar from Urik is part of the ambush openly displaying his templar-ness in Tyr. He would be killed on sight there. It's like the author knows nothing about the race, culture or world flavor.

-There is a stream with a 15' deep pool of water in the "dungeon". A 15' deep pool of water on Athas would be finding a pot of gold anywhere else.

-Most the encounters give out loads of money and magic items. Again it's like the author has never read anything on Dark sun before. It's a low magic setting! There shouldn't have been any magic treasure other than the Crown they are seeking. An easy fix but still super annoying.

-The poster map (the best thing about the adventure) has horses and oxen in the market area. These creatures simply don't exist on Athas! "

 

[Knightfall]

I really like the Metallic Draconomicon, but may be biased as I think dragons are ing awesome and use them every opportunity I get.

I'm a huge dragon fan, which is why I'm considering the two Draconomicon books. I'm more interested in the metallic dragon book since Monster Vault only has stats for the chromatic dragons. (Of course, the upcoming NV Monster Vault might have the metallics in it.)

I've borrowed my son's Open Grave, randomly flipped it open, grabbed an excellent monster (Pale Reaver) on the first page and built an entire encounter around it that was fantastic. I've only glanced thru it since, but I've liked what I've seen.

Open Grave has some great monsters in it.

Okay, so Open Grave has great monsters in it. But what about the rest of the book? Is it full of fluff or crunch? Or a combination of both? What else makes it cool?

The Plane Above is my favorite 4e book. It's actually readable (I love playing 4e, but the books are generally poor reads), and very, very good. I bought the Plane Below because I like the PA so much, and was much less interested. I'd love to do an entire campaign set in the Astral Sea, and I feel this book would be enough of a campaign guide to pull that off.

This book really, really interests me. I like the fact that you say it's very readable. Plane Below was a major disappointment for me. The Astral Sea concept makes me think Spelljammer.

Tomb of Horrors is cool but don't go into it expecting the original. It has some homages but largely is a very different animal. Still a great book though.

I own the Return to the Tomb of Horrors boxed set so I have all the classic ToH content. I'm interested in this one more for what it might add to a ToH adventure. It being different makes it sound more interesting.

 

[fba827]

Vor Rukoth

In short, this provides you with a ruined city (and an outpost near it). It gives the history of the city, highlighted areas of the city, and a handful of encounters that could happen within it.

If you want a (sort of) ruined city with history related to teifling stuff and you want a campaign theme to include explorer/archeology type stuff (which could include going as guards for archeologists, etc) - sure, it makes a great product.

Conversely, if you don't plan on using the city, it could be mined for ideas. But keep in mind that the ideas within it are very specific in tone and flavor. So it's hard to mine directly out of it and would take some fiddling.

Personally, I liked it. I would just never be able to use it because I had inadvertently done something a little similar in theme very recently and so it wouldn't provide anything new for my group.

Edit: given everything else you've said as a potential, this is probably best "low" on the list since it would provide a 'niche' for a single campaign (or campaign arc) whereas the other items you mention could have more general use for more than just one campaign.

 

[Knightfall]

Edit: given everything else you've said as a potential, this is probably best "low" on the list since it would provide a 'niche' for a single campaign (or campaign arc) whereas the other items you mention could have more general use for more than just one campaign.

That's my feeling as well. Plus, I'm not to keen on what has been done for tieflings for 4e. Perhaps I should just look at the tiefling book to start and if I like it then look at Vor Rukoth.

Or I could just skip both altogether.

 

[Knightfall]

Still looking for more opinions...