Which D&D splatbooks are the most useful?

[Garmorn]

Path of Swords is a superior book to S&F. It's not even close. The only thing I would have liked to see in Path of the Sword was the magical side of the Ranger. It's an area few people have ever covered, let alone done that well. With luck when Path of Magic comes out (Early September I hope) I'll be saying it's better then T&B.

MotW is my favorite book. I'm very partial to Rangers, and it has great prestige classes for them. The spells are more orignal then in other products, as well as useful. It has a wide selection of feats geared toward Barbarian, Druids, and Rangers. Many are too class specific for me and too combat oriented, though.

I agree that the Path of Sword is superior to S&F, S&F is still an nice book. The rest of the WoTC books are nice to have.

As far as the Path of Magice it complements Tome and Blood more then overlaps. Lots of new stuff that is usefull along side of Tome and Blood.


The Path of Magic does not compare because it mostly covers different things. You should have both.

 

[Psion]

I know its unpopular, but my players have used Sword and Fist ALOT more than the others.

Obviously not -- it is above DotF and S&S in the polls ATM; most of the dissent you hear about S&F is a few squeaky hinges. It is actually a very useful book.

BTW, the trend of the current vote (T&B, MotW, S&F, DotF, S&S) exactly matches my perception of which are most and least useful.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Making up your own stuff (or stealing someone elses off of this site!) is always best. Those corporate dudes, they must right half this stuff on crack.

Nope- the designers aren't on crack. One day, when I was out in the outskirts of Seattle, I spyed Sean K. Reynolds walking towards a large, unmarked warehouse. I decided to trail him inside. Within, I was horrified at what I saw: (PETA should be made aware of this immediately) hundreds of monkeys, chained to typewriters. SKR walked from typewriter to typewriter with a whip, inspecting each of his monkey-writers, as they handed their completed work to him.

"Prestige Class? You call this a Prestige Class?", he shrieked, as the primate merely grinned at him. He promptly whipped the monkey. Later the day, the simian returned to SKR with another sheet.

"Hospitaler, eh? It'll have to do."

And thus the mystery was solved.

 

[Nightfall]

This is why I like Gold Knight better. You can heal AND it makes sense why do you so!

 

[Crothian]

This is why I like Gold Knight better. You can heal AND it makes sense why do you so!

Gold Knight? King Midas shake hands with the Round Table guys?

 

[fba827]

Hmm -

I gotta make an observation here --

note that so far T&B and MotW seem to be the leaders on the list. Could it be because they offered the most spells and/or variety for their respective spell casting classes?

I mean, for a combat-oriented class the variation is on fighting styles and/or weapons. For spell casting classes, spells are a large part of the core of the classes. Any supplement that offers different spells (presuming that they are usful) is going to be the better one (as opposed to, say s&f which, while good on its own merits may not add as much variability to those classes as say t&b offers to wizards and sorcerers with the additional spells to choose from).

obviously, i'm over simplifying the facts but that seems to be a fair general observation

 

[Crothian]

note that so far T&B and MotW seem to be the leaders on the list. Could it be because they offered the most spells and/or variety for their respective spell casting classes?

I doubt it's the spells. THe spells in T&B were some of the worst spells I've seen. Orb this and orb that. As creative as cardboard. MotW does have some good spells, but definatly not the highlight of the book. I like these two becasue of the prestige classes. They are creative and interesting. They have character and umph.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I know its unpopular, but my players have used Sword and Fist ALOT more than the others. My personal choice (if I ever get to play ) is Masters of the Wild.

Interesting. I don't think there is *anything* from Sword and Fist which I've allowed into my game apart from the Duellist prestige class, which was already presented in Dragon. I considered the feats, the weapons and the other prestige classes disappointing beyond measure. The buildings might be useful one day, and the new uses for skills was quite good (even if they focussed on cross-class skills for fighters and monks!)

Cheers

 

[Prince of Stories]

I voted for MotW and DotF, but then again, I'm kinda partial to Paladins and Rangers.
MotW is stuffed with ideas for my campaign, since that focuses mostly on the Wilderness, and DotF just has all that nifty stuff fer gods and such, so I can safely say that they're my favorites.

 

[Nightfall]

Gold Knight? King Midas shake hands with the Round Table guys?

Uhm no. It's a pr-class for Paladins for the Scarred Lands. (Like Mithril Knight, Silver Knight and Iron Knight.) Basically you can do a lot of great healing abilities BUT you don't lose your Knightly code or have to worry about changes in your paladin. There's one ability where you can "bless" an amulet that will allow you to heal someone wearing it from a range of 90ft. Anything pass that, the amulet can't reach. Plus you can sponatously cast healing spells, as well has healing spells "quicken" "empowered" and "maximized' WITHOUT increasing their level. You do expend Turn Undead checks doing this, but hey much cooler IMHO.