What d20 Purchases to you Regret?

[DanteHayes]

Wow. Very interesting topic. The only books that I regret having entered my game group are:

The Quintessential Anything!
The Relics and Rituals books.

Books I'm surprised have been mentioned here:

The "splatbooks". Really?
The Psionic Handbook. This is a really good book.

DH

 

[ForceUser]

I wish I hadn't purchased Creature Collection I or II, Relics & Rituals, Ravenloft d20 and its associated monster book, d20 Modern, Wheel of Time d20, Star Wars d20, Nyambe, or the Monsternomicon. Waste of money, all of them - some by virtue of 3.5E incompatibility, others because of shoddy craftsmanship (*cough* Sword & Sorcery Studios *cough*).

The only books I regularly use are the D&D core rulebooks, and I am quite satisfied with those. Occasionally I use content from the Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, Manual of the Planes, Complete Warrior, and Deities & Demigods. All of these are good product.

I'm on the fence regarding Arcana Unearthed. It's very cool, but I get no use from it. I don't mind giving Monte money though.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Hmm. I have a lot of books that I don't (currently) use, but I don't regret buying them - because I hold out hope that someday I will use them.

In that category would be:

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Magic of Faerun
Underdark*

I'm not currently running or playing in a realms campaign, so these sit on my shelf.

Also:

Oriental Adventures

I really want to run/play an OA game, but so far no takers. Some day....

* Underdark will probably see some use soon as some of the ideas can be used in non-FR games.

I would also like to say that anyone who lists Manual of the Planes as a regret can send me their copies, which I will distribute to gamers with better taste.

 

[PowerWordDumb]

My listing:

Psionics Handbook: I hated psionics in every other edition, why did I think that would change? I'd hoped for new mechanics that might 'hook' me, but ugh.

Oriental Adventures: Ditto ditto ditto. Hated it.

Deities and Demigods: Stupid book. With no cross-pollenation with ELH (and I understand the rationale, but disagree with it), it's not much more than a monster book on steroids. FR's deities book did a much better job of this despite being incomplete.

Epic Level Handbook: It was so *not* what I was looking for. I liked the concept, but the execution was terrible.

Wizards' Splatbooks: These ranged from poor to just plain limp. They had the benefit of being early, because they'd sure not sell today.

My Kalamar books: I've read and re-read them, and I still don't get it. Very nice, but... bland.

My Forgotten Realms books: A very expensive collection I'll never use - I just got them to mine them for ideas.

Dragonstar: Again with the "i'll never play that, but let's have a look" impulse purchases...

And now, the heresy of all heresies,

Arcana Unearthed: Got it to read something different, decided that degree of different wasn't for me. Can't remotely identify with anything in there.

My problem seems to be I'll buy many different things in the hopes of expanding my horizons, but fundamentally - I like D&D the way it always has been. I'm not Diaglo mind you, but I am a traditionalist.

 

[Tzarevitch]

d20 purchases I regret:

Farscape: Interesting book, I don't know why I bought it though. I knew I'd never use it but I bought it anyway. Go figure.

D20 Modern: I was apparently out of my mind when I bought this one. Didn't have any use for it then. I haven't had any use for it since. I should've read it before I bought it.

Deities and Demigods: Waste of paper. Mechanical info on the gods was useful. The rest of it wasn't. The book wastes too much space on too few deities. Artwork was excellent in some areas, downright horrible in others. They could've consensed this down a lot and made it cheaper.

Draconomicon: When I bought this on tuesday for 20% off at one of the closing WotC stores, I thought I had a steal. Then I got it home and read it again and realized why I refused to pay full price for it. Guess what - it wasn't worth it at 20% off either. The book is expensive as all hell and wastes so much page space on useless dragon trivia that it is annoying. Unless you are downright horny for dragons the book has little real use. I will probably get a little use out of the planar dragons in my planescape book but otherwise I cry whenever I look at it.

Diomin (softcover): This was a very early d20 release. I bought it because it was rather cheap and it had a shaman class that I hoped would be useful. Production vales were pretty abysmal. Oh well - at least it was cheap.

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil: This was another expensive error. It is not bad, I just haven't been able to use it. The adventure is too low level. I wish it was written for higher level PCs. The advanture is so thick that it takes a lot of work to adapt too.

Arcana Unearthed: The book is simply too different to be useful to me. I like some of the ideas but they are too difficult to 'port over.

Tzarevitch

 

[Nightfall]

I've decided all posters here can never be pleased with ANYTHING. Well except maybe book of the Righteous. I notice THAT wasn't on anyone's list.

 

[El_Gringo]

I've decided all posters here can never be pleased with ANYTHING. Well except maybe book of the Righteous. I notice THAT wasn't on anyone's list.

I wouldn't say that. If anything, it shows that different people have different needs/uses for supplements. I see a whole lot of books being praised and trashed at the same time. Except for R&R. That thing is taking a beating.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The only D20 Product I've regretted purchasing is the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it.

 

[Trickstergod]

I've decided all posters here can never be pleased with ANYTHING. Well except maybe book of the Righteous. I notice THAT wasn't on anyone's list.

A person without a complaint is a person who has no standards.

Besides, while plenty of folk have their own isolated, individual complaints, I believe the more people who pipe up about the same books, the better served future buyers will be. Particularly the more details one can give as to why they don't like certain books.

 

[Kroax]

The only book i regret buying is Oriental Adventures.

It's not that don't like it, it's just that I have no use for it, and will probably never have.

Otherwise, I've don't regret buying any of my books. I've used all of them, some more than others, or am going to use them soon (this includes the only two modules I've bought).