Which is the Best WOTC Setting to Purchase?

[Nightfall]

*tosses shade a cookie for at least not tasking us d20 lovers for loving d20*

Tur,

Personally I didn't fall alseep just skipped over the parts I already read in AU beforehand and looked at some of the newer stuff. Course it helped to have it in PDF. The HC is good just feels like I can take down tanks with it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, and count me among the Eberron crowd. While it's not perfect, I defy anyone to read the setting book and not find at least one region that they want to play in immediately. If you're like most people, this will happen repeatedly.

 

[Pants]

Pants,

I stand by your assessment of the PUBLISHERS, not necessarily your choice of material. (Well except Book of Fiends. That does rock.)

Book of Fiends is a book I'm torn on. On one hand, it has lots of cool fiends. On the other hand, most of those fiends are kind of crappily statted out (seriously, there's a Duke of Hell with like 10 or so HD! Even in 3.0 it would've been a wuss!). On the other hand, it has lots of cool fiends. On another hand, the layout kinda sucks.

It's good enough that I'm glad I bought it, but not good enough that I think it was overhyped a bit.

Well, whatever, I think it deserves a pimp.

As for the Monsternomicon, it's the only gaming supplement I own which is fun to read. The only other ones which close are Lords of Madness and Book of Fiends. And even then, neither of them have the same evocative flair that Monsternomicon has. It's better than every other monster supplement I own and I haven't even used it in game yet.

Arcana Evolved is the most underwhelming gaming purchase I've made. I remember reading all the praise for the book and then flipping through it and being sure I'd like it, but... after reading it, the races bore me, the spell system is technically good, but I wish he'd have gone the whole nine yards and ditched ALL of the Vancian stuff. Some of the classes are cool. Really, I kind of look at it as a book to pick a few bits and pieces from, which is, IMO, NOT something worth a retail price of $50.

 

[Turjan]

Personally I didn't fall alseep just skipped over the parts I already read in AU beforehand and looked at some of the newer stuff. Course it helped to have it in PDF. The HC is good just feels like I can take down tanks with it.

Well, I said Arcana Unearthed ! As for Arcana Evolved, you may have noticed that I didn't mention Diamond Throne in the list of settings in my first post . Whatever I think of Monte's style, I really appreciate the rules in AU/AE.

 

[Nightfall]

Whizzy,

Agreed. Eberron has some good ideas just not 100% sold on ALL of it.


Pants,

Monsternonomicon put me to sleep. Sorry man but I was like "Gee this is so damn dry!" But that's just me. *shrugs*

Layout isn't what I enjoyed or felt was a problem. Artwork man, and there was some killer ones.

Which duke of Hell we talking about here?

AE, probably better off with the PDF man. I only got the book because I'm considering Gestalting Warmain with Mageblade in a D&D/Eberron game. The PDF is much easier to do and certainly much cheaper/easier on the wallet.

Tur,

Doh! Whoops and huh. I didn't sleep through AU as much as I might have AE. Diamond Throne, agreed, real snooze fest there. But adding it into AE, I felt, wasn't a bad thing. But yeah the rules for AU/AE are not only solid but VERY fun too.

 

[Turjan]

Arcana Evolved is the most underwhelming gaming purchase I've made. I remember reading all the praise for the book and then flipping through it and being sure I'd like it, but... after reading it, the races bore me, the spell system is technically good, but I wish he'd have gone the whole nine yards and ditched ALL of the Vancian stuff. Some of the classes are cool. Really, I kind of look at it as a book to pick a few bits and pieces from, which is, IMO, NOT something worth a retail price of $50.

That's why I mentioned that I fell asleep on my first read of AU . When I saw the races, I was seriously disappointed. Dog people and cat people? Give me a break. Later, I took a closer look at them, and I noticed that nearly all of the races have a cool underlying concept. Okay, the cat people stayed boring. But then we have a race that can consciously decide to grow to giant size. There's one race that has been created by one of the others, which makes for great roleplaying potential. There's one that can decide to transform into a flying creature. There is one race that humans can decide to transform into, as a great alternative to becoming a lich; that's also a great roleplaying potential. There's one with psionic traits and an ancient curse. Then again, the new dracha are boring, too. Plus there are the Runechildren, which are more of an RP tool, anyway.

This means that after some time I discovered a lot of cool ideas within those seemingly boring races. I wouldn't use most of them without changes (except Mojh), but they were a source for great inspiration .

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I predict about 60 different answers plus about 200 settings you never asked for. And you, more confused than when you came in. But good luck!

And the winner of the Nostrodamus award is...

The Auld Grump, who found neither AU (or AE for that matter) nor Monsternomicon boring... but prefers Monsternomicon.

 

[Pants]

Pants,

Monsternonomicon put me to sleep. Sorry man but I was like "Gee this is so damn dry!" But that's just me. *shrugs*

Well, it IS all personal taste.
Personally, I found the travellogue style refreshing as opposed to the 'this monster is found in hills and it likes a steady diet of blah, blah, blah.'

Layout isn't what I enjoyed or felt was a problem. Artwork man, and there was some killer ones.

In Book of Fiends?
It had some good artwork yeah, nothing mindblowing (*cough*PrivateerPress*cough*)

Which duke of Hell we talking about here?

Vuall, Duke of Pleasure, 13HD, 123 HP, page 193

Though here are two others:
Naamah, Contess of Duplicity, 12HD, 102 hp, page 180
Lel, Marquis of the Night, 13HD, 97 hp (?!), page 176

Even back in 3.0, these guys weren't much better than the average Pit Fiend. IMO, they should be noble devils for a reason. Although station and strata may be important in the rigid hierarchy of Hell, they don' mean squat if you don't have the power to hold it.

AE, probably better off with the PDF man.

my haet of pdfs knoes no limit

 

[Turjan]

Diamond Throne, agreed, real snooze fest there. But adding it into AE, I felt, wasn't a bad thing.

I'm not so sure. I liked the notion of an alternate PHB that's useful for different settings better. Binding these rules to Diamond Throne was a mistake IMO; you hardly hear anything about AE anymore, nowadays. I also liked the cover and cover design of AU much better. Only the layout was better in AE.

 

[Pants]

That's why I mentioned that I fell asleep on my first read of AU . When I saw the races, I was seriously disappointed. Dog people and cat people? Give me a break. Later, I took a closer look at them, and I noticed that nearly all of the races have a cool underlying concept. Okay, the cat people stayed boring. But then we have a race that can consciously decide to grow to giant size. There's one race that has been created by one of the others, which makes for great roleplaying potential. There's one that can decide to transform into a flying creature. There is one race that humans can decide to transform into, as a great alternative to becoming a lich; that's also a great roleplaying potential. There's one with psionic traits and an ancient curse. Then again, the new dracha are boring, too. Plus there are the Runechildren, which are more of an RP tool, anyway.

This means that after some time I discovered a lot of cool ideas within those seemingly boring races. I wouldn't use most of them without changes (except Mojh), but they were a source for great inspiration .

Well, not everything in the book is useless, but after reading through the races chapter, none of them grabbed me at all. There were some cool classes (Runethane and Totem Warrior namely) and the spell system was a small step in a cool, different direction, though I wish he'd have gone farther and ditched some of the remaining Vancian stuff. I'm working on a leveless spell system that takes the psionics system and merges it with the AU/AE system into some unholy union, so yeah, I can say it stirred my brain a bit.

The rest? Eh. Color me unimpressed.