D&D 4E The Best of 4e's Fluff

[Remathilis]

Thanks

Someone in an RPG group I know has some 4e books he's unloading for $10 bucks a book. I was curious if any were worth grabbing for the fluff (since I will probably never play 4e).

He didn't mention what he had (and didn't get back to me yet) but I'm wagering its probably pre-Essentials, which sounds like a real shame now.

(Luckily, I already have Worlds & Monsters along with Classes & Races)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Demonomicon is awesome. Honestly I don't think 4e had BAD books fluff-wise except MM1 and the three PHBs. All the power books have some interesting fluff, but they are pretty crunch heavy, so you can probably skip them as the ratio isn't that high. The other player focused books, AV1/2, etc are also not really that useful. I think ALL the 'cosmology' books have a lot of interesting ideas and fluff in them, Underdark, Open Grave, etc also. The Draconomicons are pretty good, but SO MUCH has been said about dragons before that they really don't have a lot of "wow" stuff.

All the later setting material is pretty good, Hammerfast, Neverwinter, and Gloomwrought all have some interesting material in them. Even the DMGs have a lot of good story and arc/campaign ideas, though you can probably find the same stuff in other sources.

What 4e avoided, deliberately I believe, was a lot of 'story mechanics', so you will NOT find lots of tables and charts, DM-focused world-building mechanics, and such. It was a very different approach from previous editions. There were a lot of ideas and hooks built into items/classes/races/PP/ED etc but not a lot of "consult table 3 to find out how many elves live in Mundberg" type stuff.

 

[the Jester]

Monster Vault just drips with flavor. It's excellent.

The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond is also very heavy on flavor and very cool.

Heroes of the Feywild is crammed with cool stories and lore.

Manual of the Planes, Heroes of the Elemental Chaos, the Plane Above and the Plane Below are all good as well.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Most of the fluff was great. Even Heroes of Shadow (which had horrible mechanics) was pretty good in Fluff department.
I enjoyed Vor Rukoth, Halls of Undermountain, and the various Heroes books for fluff.

 

[the Jester]

Even Heroes of Shadow (which had horrible mechanics) was pretty good in Fluff department.

I feel obligated to defend Heroes of Shadow's honor, as there is an awesome pixie vampire in my campaign. (Epic destiny: Princess of Hell. So she's a pixie vampire devil.)

 

[sabrinathecat]

I feel obligated to defend Heroes of Shadow's honor, as there is an awesome pixie vampire in my campaign. (Epic destiny: Princess of Hell. So she's a pixie vampire devil.)

Yes, but it took HotFW to redeem the mechanically horrid HoS. (not to mention the poor organization of the book, and the utter failure to provide any follow up support for the new races & classes)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, but it took HotFW to redeem the mechanically horrid HoS. (not to mention the poor organization of the book, and the utter failure to provide any follow up support for the new races & classes)

I agree they didn't support the stuff well, and I hated the organization of that book. I never thought things like the Vampire and the Blackguard were mechanically poor though. The binder is crud, and I can't see why anyone would play a shade, but otherwise the various class options are pretty usable. It wasn't the most mechanically gifted book, but I find that players really like the options it has.

It would have been REALLY NICE if WotC had pushed out at least a couple DDI support articles though. Some more feats for Vampires and Blackguards, and a couple "fill in the annoying missing bit" stuff for a few other options would have improved the utility a good bit. The articles on shadow class hybrids was nice, but it didn't really fix things. Of course none of the other post-essentials classes got any real depth of support either, so it isn't like this book is unique (HotFW just for whatever reason has generally better mechanics so you don't miss it as much).

I have to say though, HotFW and HoS were both gold standards in terms of flavor for player books. All of 4e should have had that treatment. If those books had been the first 2 after say PHB2 instead of all the Power books and had their mechanics solidified that extra bit they'd have made a real huge difference in people's attitude to 4e fluff.

 

[Mistwell]

I thought the 4E Underdark book was just crammed with great adventure ideas. The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea is great for understanding the 4E view of the planes: there's some really evocative stuff in there. For a dark city campaign, check out Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond. It's full of adventure hooks, which I think far too many setting books seem to lack

I second all of these as well. Open Grave was excellent as well, as was Plane Below.