Tell me about 2E's excessive product-necessity

[Dark Jezter]

ALso the products were not balanced against each other AT ALL. The kits in the Priest's handbook were orders of magnitude weaker than the ones in the Elves handbook.

Back in the days of 2e, I knew a few DMs who wouldn't touch the Complete Book of Elflovers with a ten-foot pole; not only did the flavor text in that book portray elves as being disgustingly perfect in every way, but it also introduced one of the most insanely overpowered class kits of all time: the Bladesinger.

A pity, since the Complete Book of Dwarves was actually quite good.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

On page 152 it says, "Westgate's dripping, partly flooded sewers are said to be the lair of a horrible water monster, including a huge quelzarn (a type of sea serpent detailed in the Wyrmskull Throne adventure (TSR #11405))

The current FR stuff often references Monsters of Faerûn, but they suggest substitutes when you don't have that book ("You don't know what Yochlol is like? Use a Fiendish gray ooze or fiendish doppleganger"). Maybe not the most accurate replacements all the time, but they don't force you to buy the book.

 

[Carnifex]

I seem to remember there were a couple of Planescape books at least - Guide to the Elemtnal Planes being one of them, IIRC, which referred to monsters in lots of other sources without giving details in the product itself.

 

[WSmith]

In all honesty, there are really only two books needed for 2nd ed. The PHB and the MM, (not the three ring binder, which was a good idea but badly implimented, the actual manual is what I am talking about). A neophyte DM could find most of the DMG helpful, but for experienced Judges, except for magic items and a few other things, it mimics the PHB and not as usful.

Besdies the three books mentioned above, the only other rulebook I ever used in 2nd ed was the Complete Fighter's Handbook. Well, that is not totally true, I used Al-Qadim's Arabian Adventures, but that is a little more campaign specific and thus I don't view it as a general splatbook.

 

[Psion]

I've long heard people complain about how back in the days of AD&D Second Edition, you were often forced to have a multitude of non-core books, since they all referenced material from each other.[/b]

My problem with 2e is almost the opposite. None of the books seems to work with/consider each other. The early splatbooks where written from a different approach/prespective/power level than the later ones, which were incomplatible without tinkering with the Player's option books.

I find the sentiment that 3e books shouldn't reference each other hazardous because it leads the same direction.

Edit: On the other hand, it seems to me that considering some content of some newer books, perhaps it is better that we be able to ignore them.

 

[Alzrius]

I seem to remember there were a couple of Planescape books at least - Guide to the Elemtnal Planes being one of them, IIRC, which referred to monsters in lots of other sources without giving details in the product itself.

I recall that myself, but I wasn't that upset over that because that was just flavor text, not describing an adventure or anything, and because its kind of hard to write about the elemental planes and just ignore every elemental creature that had been written for them. Likewise, they couldn't have listed alternates from the MM as their just weren't enough to populate those planes, and likewise even abbreviated stat blocks would have required too much room. They did the best they could there, by telling us what books those monsters came from. It may have been somewhat annoying, but in that case, unavoidable IMHO.

 

[physics_ninja]

P.S. if anyone has the stats on a quelzarn I'd love to know what they are.

The quelzarn is a giant (up to 60', but usually 30'-40') water snake. They can cast hold monster (range 60') once per turn (10 minutes). This is how they pluck sailors off of ships. Immune to electrical attacks with 40% magic resistance. Hit dice varies from 5-10. 1 bite attack for 3d4 and can swallow creatures less than 4 and a half feet.

I have one stuffed and mounted in my living room.

 

[Storminator]

Demihuman Deities: Erevan Illesere. His constant companion is Avachel.

Look up Avachel... see Draconomicon and Cult of the Dragon.

Check in Cult of the Dragon...there's a paragraph. So if you had Demihuman Ds, and thought you needed CotD, you'd be sorely disappointed.

PS

 

[Trainz]

I love 3.5 to an extreme. IMO, best version of D&D ever.

Now that said, I remember one of 3.0's main selling speech:

"We will not go the same route that TSR did, mainly overflow D&D 3rd Ed with a pletora of books." (paraphrasing)


Ha.

Ha ha.

 

[danzig138]

"We will not go the same route that TSR did, mainly overflow D&D 3rd Ed with a pletora of books." (paraphrasing)

I thought the basics of what WotC said was that they weren't going to make all of the books interdependent; not that they wouldn't make a lot of books.