What next to buy???

[The Allamistako]

Okay, well here's the story. I have at the moment enough cash, and the desire, to buy ONE of the folllowing WotC Hardcovers:

Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Damigods, and Manual of the Planes.

The question is: Which one should I get, and why?

Care to help me out?

-Alla

 

[Welverin]

I'll say Manuel of Las Planes, of course I haven't read the other two so take that with a grain of salt.

I will however predict that MotP will get the most votes.

 

[Fenes 2]

Frankly, it depends on your interests. I own all of them, but rarely use any.

If you don't want to play a campaign over level 20, don't bother with the ELH. Even if you want to play such a campaign, check out the reviews on the main site.

Deities & Demigods are good if you use the Greyhawk & Demihuman or the Nordic, Ancient Greek or Egyptan Pantheon in your campaign. If you don't, don't bother with it. If you don't use your gods much, or don't use their stats much, don't bother with it either.

The manual of the Planes is good if you - surprise - plan to have some plane-hopping in your campaign. IMHO, it is the most useful of the three in any campaign, since you can use the material presented there to flesh out any plane - even the odd "plane" the portal in that wizard's tower leads to - without running a planescape campaign. It sees the most use in my campaign of the three - which does not mean much.

 

[Wraith Form]

Or you could just buy the Midnight campaign setting and be REALLY happy and not just that temporary "I-got-a-D&D-fix-but-was-forced-to-support-WotC-to-achieve-it" feeling you usually get.

 

[Crothian]

Unless you need one of those three books, I'd look elsewhere for what you need.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Okay, well here's the story. I have at the moment enough cash, and the desire, to buy ONE of the folllowing WotC Hardcovers:

Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Damigods, and Manual of the Planes.

The question is: Which one should I get, and why?

Care to help me out?

-Alla

What do you want from your game(s)? Why only WoTC books?

I ask because as Crothian & Wraith Form said. There are a lot of book out and you can get a lot for your money by checking out other products.

 

[Scupper]

Manual of the Planes. (Period.)

Of the other two, Deities & Demigods has proven itself utterly useless to me in any capacity other than reading material. The Epic Level Handbook is fine if you're planning to go into storyteller system mode, because played as is it is nothing more than a "which characters will need to get resurrected today?" game, interspersed with instant kills going the other way. D&D doesn't scale up terribly well, and that book does little to rectify the situation.

MotP has tons of interesting campaign ideas and many useful templates (including "shadow creature," my personal favorite). Unless you're planning on hopping around the Greyhawk cosmology, the descriptions of the actual planes are somewhat useless, but I've found that changing some names and rubbing off the serial numbers has produced just fine results for planes in my own game.

 

[EarthsShadow]

If your just buying WotC only material, then get MotP, it's the one you'll get the most mileage out of...unless deities are going to play a huge factor in your games.

If you are just looking to spend 30 to 35 books on a really cool book, I'll also pitch Midnight as one of the bets campaign settings around that's a huge amount of fun to play.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Of those three: Manual of the Planes. It's got the most generally useful information.

Dieties & Demigods is virtually useless; ELH may be necessary for epic games but it's got it's own balance problems, and really doesn't do anything for normal games of below 20th level (I wouldn't have bought it except that I got in on the Buy.com price mistake and got it for $12).

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Epic Level Handbook - Good book. The adventure provided in it is rather poor (don't play it), but the rest of the book is pretty good. A word of caution though: the core rules already provides for CR 23 encounters, just slap a Fiendish template on a 20th level cleric or whatever and you're done. There isn't much "need" for this book until you the party gets to level 22 or so.

Deities and Demigods - I flipped through a friend's copy and decided I didn't want it. I mean, my character can't beat up Thor. What else is new?

Manual of the Planes - Great book. The axiomatic and anarchic templates immediately found themselves a place within my game (finally! something for neutral characters to summon!). The description of the planes makes for a fun read and it's a good bet the party is going to wander off into the astral sooner or later.