Surprise Products

[bento]

I'll agree with you on Complete Divine. I've used every class there - Favored Soul, Shugenja and Spirit Shaman, in games I've DMed or played.

I've also used the information about the Greyhawk pantheon, which expands on the PHB.

Yes, it's hard to balance between what people say and whether I'll like something. Take for example the recent WoTC "Barrow King" module. I've seen in two different posts, one that has all the posters saying it's better than sliced bread and the other asking how can they publish such trash. Personally from printing out the free previews, it looks good.

 

[GAAAHHH]

Cityscape -liked- Ready to use cities, city districts, NPC encounters (Throng of children, anyone?), guilds
disliked -2 of the feats (city magic doesn't make a whole lot of sense, invisible spell metamagic feat doesn't alter the spell level?), Law section and City Government section a little too short, no trade rules.

Overall, I liked this book a lot. The few things I didn't like could be remedied easily by a web enhancement or two.

Monster Manual II - Liked - Gem Dragons, Hook Horror, Ragamoffyn, Corpse Gatherer, Banshee, Chain Golem, Firbolg, Fomorian, Grell, Linnorm, Myconids, Neogi, Phoenix, Sirine, Spawn of Kyuss, Thri-Kreen, Death Knight template, Scorpionfolk (Lots of updated monsters from previous editions, and quite a few new ones.)

Disliked - CR off on some of the monsters; still 3.0 (Of course, I still use my 3.0 monster manual I. I'm not really complaining, but I hear a lot of other people do.); some of the mosters area little silly, but not more than any of the other monster manuals.

 

[Shade]

Miniatures Handbook. I don't use any of the miniatures rules, but I found the general RPG material within to be fantastic.

The healer is a great alternative to the cleric. The skullclan hunter(?) is a nice PRC for rogues. Many of the monsters are fun and interesting. The magic items break some new ground (standards, spikes) and fill out the lesser used item slots (shirts).

Plus, it added what I consider the single best spell of this edition of the game: revivify.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

There have been several for me.

Mainly Races of Destiny. I found it to be pretty good, though the number of usable feats and prestige classes was definitely below Races of Stone. It's main problem was the Illumians, which i feel are a bit overpowered, and potentially abusable than other LA+0 races.

Now Races of the Wild, i agreed was horribly bad.

 

[Zaukrie]

D&D minis. I was very reluctant, but started was talked into them. I now have some 1500, not counting the hundreds my kids have. I play competitively (well, I show up at tournies) and use them extensively in my roleplaying. great, great investment on a product I heard was badly painted and badly sculpted (the beginning times).

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm...can't be sure, but there were some that surprised me in a bad way.

Does that count?