What d20 Purchases to you Regret?

[Darrin Drader]

there are a lot of the oathbound/minions creatures running around from pickers, fausts, asherakes, nightlings, etc.

You will continue to see pickers, fausts, asherakes, and nightlings because they are core creatures of the Oathbound setting. We could no more move away from them than most settings could move away from elves, dwarves, andhalflings.

The impression I got was that Oathbound seems to be running strong on using outside (or at least other bastion) material. If you mean minions only monsters in the adventure I guess I could see that.

Oathbound is definitely a mixing pot by design. The trick has been to make sure that enough information is included with the adventures so that you have what you need to play them with just the core Oathbound book and the supplement you are running from. A great deal more latitude is given with regards to campaign information since the DM is free to make changes and must customize the material to fit their games. If they don't have the source where the original creature is found, there's nothing wrong with replacing it with something from their collection of books that would make sense within the framework provided.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Manual of the Planes: I'd chew off my right arm before I give up this book.

Hey, I needed a new sig anyway...

 

[Jehosephat]

D20 Products I would not have bought are

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
All My Scarred Lands Stuff
City of the Spider Queen
Deadlands d20
Slayers Guides to Amazons
" " " Hobgoblins
I wouldn't have got a subscription to Dungeon, would have just bought a random issue every know and then. Also would have bought less issues of Dragon
WOT RPG
Everquest Players Handbook
Everquest Campaign Setting
Everquest Monster Book
Demons & Devils
Queen of Lies
D&D Adventure Game
The Rise of Evil Setting
BoVD

Actually, I think I would be content with the 3.5 Core Rules, the Monster Manual II, The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, the Tome of Horrors and my minis. I am also happy with all of my Mutants and Masterminds stuff. Oriental Adventures, um the jury is still out on that one.

 

[pogre]

I honestly have not purchased a lot, except for modules - and I can almost always use something out of those or at least get an idea or two. The only book I bought and immediately regretted was Hero Builder's Guidebook.

I actually quite like the Epic Level Handbook, warty flaws and all.

 

[S'mon]

I most regret getting Star Wars d20; a steaming pile of kak IMO. I resold it for £9. I regret getting Necropolis, it turned out to be pretty well unplayable. I'm not sure about Quintessential Rogue, I haven't been able to get any use out of it yet. I have several of the Slayer's Guide series; they haven't really seen any use IMC but they'd be ok for low-level play I guess.

 

[S'mon]

Weird I've never had a duff product from them, but perhaps that's because I've only bought their Slaine and Judge Dredd lines?

That sounds plausible - IME Mongoose take a _lot_ of care over their licensed product lines. It's their generic-D&D stuff that's iffy.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Regrets:

1. eTools. Heck, I reckon the demo program with the original PHB was more useful.
2. Deities & Demigods. Deities don't have stats and, if they did, they would, at the very least, need the Epic Level Handbook to stat them out.
3. The WotC Splatbooks. I actually thought HBG was great for new players; the rest were simply full of poor and broken design (with a few redeemable bits).
4. Anything from (in alphebetical order): AEG, Atlas Games, Chaosium (Dragonlords... that was bad) and Mongoose (after I get Conan I may be saying, "Come back, Mongoose, all is forgiven).
5. And, although it is heresy to say so, Tome of Horrors. Never used, not once, even though there are a few things I thought were OK. The 1E FF was full of much crap; no need to repeat the mistake 20 years later.

FFE is not on this list because I am lucky enough to have never bought one of their products.

Besides the core rulebooks, my favourite purchases have been those related to campaign settings and their expansions. My fave settings are Midnight, Dawnforge and Forgotten Realms and I'm really pleased with all of the 3E/3.5E products released for these settings. Dragonstar is very cool as well. Anyway, long may these lines prosper!

I'm also enjoying DMing my second Oathbound campaign so I would definitely speak out in support of that setting as well.

I suppose I should mention why I regret certain purchases.

For me, the biggest turn-off is when the implied rules of 3E/3.5E are broken. Unbalanced prestige classes, Goodman Games-random save progressions, faulty stat blocks etc.... If I buy your product I want to be able to use parts of it without having to redo the maths etc....

Actually, change that: the biggest turn-off is when "real world" English names appear. I don't want a product with a blacksmith named Walter, for example, unless I'm playing d20 Modern. This breaks the verisimilitude rather quickly, IMO and IME.

 

[LadyIslay]

As I have only been playing (and collecting books) for about 18 months, I don't actually have a great many books yet. Because I haven't got a lot of money to invest in them, I find that I'm extra critical of the ones that I *do* buy and don't use.

My biggest printed-item regret at this point is Path of the Magi (Troll Lord Games), which I bought during a chat on psioinics after haggling with the publisher to get him to reduce the price and throw in free shipping. Even at the reduced price, once I got my hands on it, I just felt as though I would have set up amagic school very differently. Perhaps I'll find a use for it yet.

Overall, my biggest regret (and I slap myself on the head frequently for this one) is eTools and all the bundles I've added onto it. Without the 3.5 add on (that we're STILL waiting for), the program is useless to me.

I have City of the Spider Queen and Stronghold Builder's Guide, which I've seen on quite a few 'regret' lists posted here. I can't say that I usethem, but since I only paid about 5$ USD for each of them (new), I can't really say that I *regret* getting them at all.

Now for books I like.

I use my core books and all of my FR books (FRCS, Unapproachable East, Races of Faerun, Magic of Faerun, and Faiths & Pantheons) every day. When I see people here putting FR stuff on their 'regret' lists, I really don't mind at all. FR just isn't for everyone.

I've gotten great use out of Necromancer Games Crucible of Freya and Tomb of Abysthor. They came reccommended at my FRLG. I should listen to what those guys have to say more often!

I'm at the point now where I've sworn to myself that I just won't buy anything else without having a really, really good look at it first to see if it is going to be useful for me. If that means I have to do a few... underhanded things to do so, then so be it. Such previews have saved me from buying all kinds of books that I wouldn't have used.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Among the purchases I regret are my Malhavoc products. I don't know what it is - used to think I love the flavour, but I have never found actual use for a single spell, item or rule from any of them.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Oh yes, and I regret buying Necropolis. I hate Gygax's writing too much to ever try and muddle my way through that. I thought my DM S'mon was heroic in a way, to continue to run it for us for several sessions before we all agreed that we wanted out of it.