The Planar Handbook - Merric's views (in a rambling way)

[mhacdebhandia]

Yes, the Forgotten Realms - Where Subraces Are King!

 

[Psion]

Mephlings are cool. At least, planetouched (possibly) of gnomes or halflings descent. All planetouched are always of human, elven, or orcish descent.

That's why AFAIAC Green Ronin's Planetouched is the definitive book on the topic.

 

[Psion]

Where are the Genesai?

It seems like Mephlings are trying to steal this niche.

That was (one of) my thought(s).

 

[Nightfall]

For me, as Player there's some stuff I like. But honestly if I want to run a Planar campaign, Beyond Countless Doorways and MoTP still rank as the best overall about Planar design. (I count Edge of Infinity as separate from this as Edge is its own cosmology.)

 

[Krypter]

I agree with your sentiments, Merric. However, as a still-playing Planescape GM, I found both the MotP and the PlHB to be mainly rules, with some interesting flavour thrown in. The Planar Touchstones are good, but not nearly as interesting as some of the places described in the Planescape setting. If you liked touchstones, you'd really get a kick out of those boxed sets you hate so much. They're full of stuff like this, but without the numbers.

Overall, the Planar Handbook does a good, but not great, job of updating the Planes for 3.5E and making them playable with interesting options and locations. It just doesn't live up to the glory of Planescape, is all. With any luck the next book will revive Planescape and will be a campaign setting.

Then again, you can't be young again, and most of the new planes stuff seems to me like a 50-year-old woman trying to fit into her teenage jeans to look sexy again.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

I disliked this book so much I gave it back to the place I bought it. Didn't return it, just gave it back.

I just really disliked almost all the content and disagreed with a lot of the design decisions made. It simply wasn't what I was looking for and probably less than 1% will be used by me or the groups I'm in.

They should have had the racial feats for Planetouched like in Races of Faerun. Dunno why they added mephlings where they could have rebuilt and rebalanced gensai. The other races were Ok, though some don’t look very well balanced to me though..

I really dislike planar substitution levels as well as most of the PrCs. I think that there should have just been a bunch of 3-5 level PrCs that classes could take without having the be a specific class. That way non-core classes will have the ability to get that "planar feel" to the game without having to come up with your own planar substitution levels.

The feats were abominable in my opinion, all either way to powerful for their requirements or just not worth taking.

The spell section was Ok I guess, a few good spells and a few “why would anyone cast this spell?” ones too.

Locations was pretty good, since I don’t DM planar settings, they aren’t worth much to me.

Finally, the planar touchstone stuff was just sad. I thought 30+ pages of this stuff, that while kinda neat to read, not too valuable for gameplay in my opinion. Reducing it to 5 pages to give tables and guidelines for making your own and then 3-5 examples would have been great, especially when they added more with a web enhancement. Also think part of the problem is the feat requirement to make use of them, more specifically the feat’s requirements. I can’t see many, if any, people taking it.

I maintain they should have done a book for plane based campaigns, basically, Planescape 3.5, then a second book that is a resource for normal players who visit the planes occasionally and add content for DMs & players to have added depth when they go. I think this book tried to “shoot down the middle” between these two ideas and so didn’t appeal to me as a gamer who occasionally visits planes in game or as a fan of the old Planescape setting.

 

[Gez]

If you want to pit mephlings against genasi, I support the mephlings.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Mephlings are cool. At least, planetouched (possibly) of gnomes or halflings descent. All planetouched are always of human, elven, or orcish descent.

Actually no. There ARE planetouched dwarves, halflings and trolls at least. The durgazon for one are planetouched dwarves (duergar). There is another type of planetouched dwarf that I can't remember off the top of my head. The wisplings are planetouched halflings and the demon troll is a planetouched troll.

Tzarevitch

 

[Tzarevitch]

I disliked this book so much I gave it back to the place I bought it. Didn't return it, just gave it back.

I just really disliked almost all the content and disagreed with a lot of the design decisions made. It simply wasn't what I was looking for and probably less than 1% will be used by me or the groups I'm in.

<snip>

QUOTE]

I agree with you almost entirely. With one real exception: I thing the Planar Substitution idea was a very good one. I perfer they not clutter the universe with more PrCs if they don't have to, especially dinky 3 level ones. They also make planar play possible at levels where you can't really qualify for a PrC.

For the most part beyond that one bright ray the book is a pretty poor effort. There is too much repeat information, too little new information that is actually USEFUL and waaayyyy too much space wasted on the Touchstone concept. Whether you like the idea or not the book devoted too much space to describing each and every one. (Why didn't they just call the book "Touchstones are Us"?)

I would've tried to return the book and get my money back except the planar substitution levels provide enough utility for my planescape game that I am (barely) willing to suffer through the rest of it.

Tzarevitch

 

[Knight Otu]

The durgazon for one are planetouched dwarves (duergar).

Durzagons are half-fiends. Slight difference.

There is another type of planetouched dwarf that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Maeluth. I've mentioned it above under a different account.