What' your favorite class handbook?

[ColonelHardisson]

I can't be the only one to read Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" books. Masterfully written, meticulously detailed, intricately plotted. The "mercurial swords" are tools of the Torturer's Guild. They don't seem so silly in those books. Treat yourself to these books sometime.

 

[Claude Raines]

I can't be the only one to read Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" books. Masterfully written, meticulously detailed, intricately plotted. The "mercurial swords" are tools of the Torturer's Guild. They don't seem so silly in those books. Treat yourself to these books sometime.

I agree that they're great books and extremely good for ideas. I would have probably thought Mercurials swords were silly if I hadn't read the book, but Wolfe does present it in a great way. I think if introduced into a campaign the same way (as a unique item, even if non-magical), it could work quite well, especially in low magic campaigns.

 

[Urbanmech]

MotW is by far my favorite of the class books. The prestiege classes are almost all interesting and not as tied to settings as some of the prestiege classes from other class books. Also the extra feats really give druids and barbarians some feats to call their own. Another thing that makes MotW great is that it seems to be the most content filled book of the 5, with Tome and Blood following closely behind. I think the other three class books spent too much time detailing organizations and setting specific details. I think the space could have been better used providing more feats/new uses for skill/etc.

 

[Psion]

I can't be the only one to read Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" books. Masterfully written, meticulously detailed, intricately plotted.

Nope, actually, I had an adaptation in my game of them that used what I call "executioner swords". When mercurial swords came along, they were just perfect.

At any rate, I too thought that Masters of the Wild was the best. Less fluff, less greyhawk-specific crap, more good ideas, more mature, ready to roll, relatively errata-free rules in comparison to the other books.

T&B second. Lots of good ideas and good material, but held back by an all to boring spell section (Magic of Faerun is what this book should have been in the spell department) and some classes are just a touch too eccentric for general use.

S&F third. Probably the best class selection, but heavy on errata and greyhawk specific material.

DotF fourth. Ideas way too narrow and nearly as much greyhawk specific stuff as S&F.

S&S last. Not a player oriented book and did almost NOTHING for the bard. Overall rules solid, but bland. Not to mention Roach's artwork... yeesh! (As a GM oriented book, it does a little better.)

 

[~Joseph~]

I own MotW, DotF, and TB, I have also read through S&F, and i have to say MotW was the best, I will use about 80-90% of this book. The knly reason I put it over TB (wizards and socerers being my favorite classes) is because a large amount of the book is useless, the whole first chapter with the exeption of the familiar section was useless, so were most of the organizations. Other than that TB came in a close second

 

[EOL]

I would have to say that I have enjoyed reading and using material from both Tome & Blood and Masters of the Wild the most, but I gave my vote to MotW because I hadn't expected it to be good.

On reflection I guess that's why I voted for MoTW, because I really hadn't expected that much, and was pleasently surprised. All the others I expected to be great and they were at best good and occasionally only medicore.

 

[Dark Psion]

I'd say each book has been beter than the last one. This probably why they won't do a psionic book, it might be perfect.

 

[Agamon]

I don't think it's coincidental that I find the books are in this order, best to worst:

Masters of the Wild
Song & Silence
Tome & Blood
Defenders of the Faith
Sword & Fist

The further down the timeline, the better the books are. I kinda wished they'd waited until now to start putting these out. Maybe they'd all be better.

 

[Styracosaurus]

I have all the classbooks.

MotW is the best. I really like the way that the 'Toughness' feat was expanded. Very elegant. I also liked 'Power Critical'. As a whole, the book needed more ranger and less druid.

Song and Silence is the worst. In general, I hate Prestige Classes but the PC's in that book embarrass me. Song and Silence is full of fluff, even the feat section. I hate the double-skill focus feats.

Tome and Blood is a good one.

DotF is good.

Sword and Fist, well, it is better than the QF.

 

[Lady Dragon]

My favorite class book is definitely Tome and Blood. Although I admit to being somewhat bias toward wizards.The problems with the other are not nesessarily the fault of WTC.But rather the subject matter is limited for some of them I mean fighters are fighters you can only do so much with them.And song and silence had to spend half the book on the Bard,not that anything is wrong with that but Rouge are more exciting.Defenders of the faith wasn't to bad and masters of the wild is great if you like wilderness adventures,I prefer dungeons and cities myself.

So yes my choice is tome and blood.

Lady Dragon