Which hardcover book is least chockful of goodness?

[Mercurius]

I say "chockful of goodness" because I want to combine a bunch of things: overall utility, useful crunch, enjoyable fluff, inspiring ideas, etc. Which book do you find to be the least of all of the above, in toto?

Mine: Martial Power. The FR Players Guide is close, but I don't actually own it--for that very reason. Martial Power just seems...well, boring for one. But mainly it feels like it could have been filled in elsewhere--say, put magic items back where they belong in the DMG and expand the PHB to 400 pages.

 

[Kask]

The MM.

 

[Negflar2099]

In terms of general usefulness I'd have to go with the FRCG. If you're not playing in that campaign setting, and I'm not, then there's not much reason to pick that one up.

That said I disagree with you about Martial Power. You say there's nothing in there that couldn't be put in the PHB but if that's true what about Arcane Power or Divine Power? Would all that go in the PHB as well? If so then the book would be 700 pages long. Not everything can fit in one book.

I think the stuff in Martial Power is actually very useful, for my campaign anyway. I have a Battlerager in the game I DM and I play a Beastmaster Ranger in another game. For me it's been an incredibly useful book that is chockful of neat stuff.

 

[Thasmodious]

I don't think any of them have been a flop so far. But I had to vote for the Draconomicon mostly because Open Grave was a better monster book.

 

[Nightson]

I've liked them all.

 

[Ourph]

I don't own everything on the list, but of the ones I have, I've been least impressed with Draconomicon. The encounters and new monsters are useful, but the rest of the book gets a definitive "meh" from me.

 

[Crothian]

I went with Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. It is not a bad book, but of all of them it is the least.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I voted MotP. It didn't have the crunch in it I thought it should (Githyankis and Githzeri full race writeups) and I found the fluff for each plane kind of strange...listing various places in the planes instead of a long description of the entire plane itself.

To be fair, however, I did browse through it at Borders, not read it from cover to cover.

DS

 

[Shemeska]

I don't own any of them, or have any friends who do, so my experience is purely from browsing at the local B&N, and online reviews. Based on what I've seen, the FRCG gets me vote by a wide margin (admittedly, it might have been received better if no previous edition of the game existed by which to compare it to, as it greatly suffers by comparison).

 

[armorclass10]

FRCG...waste of money and paper IMO.