The Best & Worst of 3rd Edition: WotC Core Rules & Bestiaries (Winners Announced)

[Arnwyn]

I'm amazed at how good the Magic Item Compendium is doing. One thing people always seem to hate on the Bo9S for is power creep, and the MIC is pretty much the embodiment of pure power creep.

Really? I guess I might have misinterpreted some things from MIC then...

I thought that with the introduction of Item Levels, that the power curve was hugely crimped, thanks to MIC. The items for xth level characters were hugely weak in comparison to some expectations from previous books.

Hmm... I might have got something wrong... I saw it as massively decreasing power.

 

[TerraDave]

Most of the supplements I really liked polled much better than the much ballyhooed and venomously defended Book of 9 Swords. I feel vaguely vindicated.

Bo9S results on these polls could be most generously described as: mediocre.

 

[Greg K]

Most of the supplements I really liked polled much better than the much ballyhooed and venomously defended Book of 9 Swords. I feel vaguely vindicated.

All of the books that I liked are doing better than B09S. Only Spell Compendium and MIC are doing better than the lowest rated of my favorites while Manual of the Planes and the Expanded Psionics Handbook are running roughly equal (give or take a percentage point or two)with the lowest rated of my favorites.

 

[Greg K]

I'm amazed at how good the Magic Item Compendium is doing. One thing people always seem to hate on the Bo9S for is power creep, and the MIC is pretty much the embodiment of pure power creep.

I found the MIC uninteresting which is an unusual reaction for me to a book on magic items.

I hate the Spell Compendium for the stealth errata, as many people have heard me complain about before, but I can understand why people love it for usefullness.

I found the Spell Compendium to be mediocore. It's convenient to have the spells and domains in one place, but two thirds of the spells would never see the light of day in any campaign that I run.

 

[TerraDave]

Unearthed Arcana is the winner

While the poll will be open, I am calling it.

Unearthed Arcana wins the core rules.

The top ten follows. First numbers is raw votes for, second is % that liked the product of those that expressed an opinion. You can see a pretty strong correlation.

Unearthed Arcana 275| 0.8899676
Spell Compendium 241| 0.8607143
Lords of Madness: ... 211| 0.8577236
Draconomicon 231| 0.8461538
Libris Mortis: ... 212| 0.8412698
Magic Item Compendium 214| 0.8136882
Fiend Folio 187| 0.7957447
Manual of the Planes 190| 0.7630522
Monster Manual III 178| 0.7385892
Expanded Psionics Handbook 186| 0.7294118

Dungeon Master’s Guide II, Oriental Adventures, and Monster Manual II also did well.

As for the worst, that would be Enemies and Allies, worst of the core rule and monster books.

The bottom ten, first number is dislikes, second % not liking of those that had an opinion. Less corelation here:

Enemies and Allies 131| 0.839744
Exemplars of Evil 74 | 0.72549
Weapons of Legacy 154 | 0.719626
Epic Level Handbook 189| 0.713208
Magic of Incarnum 132| 0.709677
Psionics Hanbook 152| 0.635983
Deities and Demigods 146| 0.621277
Miniatures Handbook 122| 0.589372
Elder Evils 55| 0.561224
Dragon Magic 92| 0.557576

Monster Manual IV, Book of Exalted Deeds, Tome of Magic, and the Arms and Equipment Guide also did poorly.

Thanks to all that voted. Round 2 to follow.