Wizards killing products?

[Toll Carom]

DragonMech d20 (from Goodman Games) - This is a high-quality campaign setting. It's got several points on Greyhawk

Man, this is a comical assertion, and I *developed* DragonMech.

--
CAS

 

[Turjan]

I agree. Comparing BCD with MotP is just asking for trouble. Though I don't see how you couldn't compare Portals and Planes with BCD, since they are both about planar stuff. I like both but I feel BCD was the better product in many ways.

BCD is a simple book with ready-to-use locations. Many locations can even be inserted in the game without using them as separate planes. Portals & Planes is a toolbox for building your own planes and cosmology. That's something completely different. Personally, I prefer the latter over the former.

Well it's not hard to be good when you originated (at least TSR and Gygax did) a vast majority of stuff about planes.

True. It's not hard to fail in this case, either. Just look at the 'Planar Handbook' .

 

[Hussar]

Just a thought about Scarred Lands books. While I love the SL and I played them for the past couple of years, you really can't say that they "crunch in the right places". Many of the books, RR, RR2, the Vigil Watch books, have crunch that is just plain bad. Vastly overpowered or poorly written. And certainly not in keeping with even the SRD, never mind core DnD. The spells, creatures and a few other bits and pieces are just very poorly constructed. Heck, a Vengaurak is a CR 4 creature? Pardon me? Not even close. These things give giants a run for the money.

Take Blood Sea Crimson Abyss as an example. Now, here's a book with a map that shows both continents of the SL world to date. It's supposed to be a sourcebook for naval adventuring, so, you'd think that having fairly accurate maps would be a priority. Then you realize, that the scale on the map makes the distance between the two continents about 17000 miles and there's supposed to be constant trade between the continents. Umm, that would be a tad on the tricky part without modern ships. Sailing ships don't usually circumnavigate the globe just to go from Spain to Mexico. Effectively, because of this, the entire book becomes far less than useful. How can you run a campaign using this book when you have no idea how far it's supposed to be from any point in A to any point in B?

I loved the ideas of Scarred Lands, and, really, I'm seeing a lot of those ideas creep into Eberron and other settings. Fantastic concepts, but the crunch was frankly the pits.

 

[Psion]

I don't think that MotP and BCD are really very ummm... comparable. MotP provides info on the Core Cosmology, while BCD provides a few ideas that you can plug into an existing cosmology. It's kinda like comparing Portals and Planes to BCD. It just doesn't work, no matter how good either book may be.

BCD provides it's own cosmology and some conventions designed to make planar adventure more interesting by obligating more exploration. (I don't use it, but still). They also both provide places to planar adventure. That said, I agree there approaches are slightly different. When I brought BCD and P&P up earlier in the thread, it was in contrast to the somewhat shame-worthy Planar Handbook. AFAIAC, MotP is a fine book, along with BCD and P&P.

 

[Psion]

Spycraft better than D20 Modern?

Pretty much, yeah.

I do want to check out SC2 though...

So, you are basing the claims here of the quality of Spycraft on the old version?

I don't know about anyone else, but I was only speaking of Spycraft 2.0.

Not that Spycraft 1st was a bad product, but SC 2 is even better.

I have had some good fun with modern, and it has some great support, but Spycraft certainly gets its licks in.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Pretty much, yeah.

Well, in your opinion. Like I said in my post, it's all a matter of personal taste.

So, you are basing the claims here of the quality of Spycraft on the old version?

I don't know about anyone else, but I was only speaking of Spycraft 2.0.

Not that Spycraft 1st was a bad product, but SC 2 is even better.

I have had some good fun with modern, and it has some great support, but Spycraft certainly gets its licks in.

I was basing my opinion on the old version of Spycraft, since that's the one I'm familiar with. I haven't gotten the chance to check out version 2 yet. Even if it is as good as it sounds, I'll like stick with modern, but bring in the occasional rule from SC2. I have too much invested in Modern to take the time to convert over, plus, I've had a lot of fun with Modern. That could change once I get a chance to tinker with SC2, but we'll see.

Kane

 

[Psion]

I was basing my opinion on the old version of Spycraft, since that's the one I'm familiar with. I haven't gotten the chance to check out version 2 yet. Even if it is as good as it sounds, I'll like stick with modern, but bring in the occasional rule from SC2. I have too much invested in Modern to take the time to convert over, plus, I've had a lot of fun with Modern. That could change once I get a chance to tinker with SC2, but we'll see.

Perfectly understandable. I'll still use Modern when I have some modern based "app" I want to use -- like Dawning Star, Blood & Fists, or Second World. It has great support.

But SC 2 is enough of a step forward that it pretty much has progressed from being just my default espionage game to my default for any modern action game. I don't think I could see using Modern out of the core book the way I would Spycraft 2.0 now.

Edit: I would still use modern in a situation where the players are to be similar in occupation but I want to emphasize their differences, like say "The Abyss," though I could see it applying for a variety of horror scenarios. In these cases, the stat-based base classes really carry their weight.

 

[Nightfall]

Here's how I categorize them:
MotP - The Great Wheel
BCD - Sample Planes to Plug-in to your Cosmology
P&P - Building your own cosmology

Not really comparable, I think.

Eh I guess I read it differently than you Pants. But I'll just *shrug* and say "Whatever."


Turjan,

Again, I just read it differently but even so I can understand you liking Portals and Planes for the reason you mentioned. I know I did too.

*has to jump into the SL has broken stuff fray* I'm not going to bother defending some of it as there is some crunch that's pretty wonky. *points to Penumbral Lords then to Shadowdancer* But I don't see how a Vengaurak can be compared to giants unless you mean they are tougher than some ogres. It's certainly a CR 4 creature, even with its burrowing ability. It doesn't have that much in the way of DR or even resistances. Plus being an abberation, it's still affected by mind enchantments, even with better Will saves than vermin. I don't see how they couldn't be CR 4 in a game unless you have a specific example.

Regarding the distances in Blood Sea, I will agree it's a little wonky but consider this in game explanation: The Blood of Kadum warps not only creatures but reality itself. Thus it is possible to travel such distances at random lengths. Just saying it's one way to deal with that.

 

[Kanegrundar]

So, Psion, how tough would it be to port over Advanced classes from D20 Modern/Future/Past/Apocalypse to SC2? I liked the class structure of Modern a lot better then I did with SC1. It has a totally different feel that meshes with my sensibilities of modern gaming with a bit of the fantastic. How would Daredevils, Archaic Weaponsmasters, Mages, Technomages, and the like fit in with SC2?

Kane

 

[Hussar]

Well, here's another example from Blood Seas. In the back of the book there's a nice diagram of a Chardunni Warship. Very nice illo. Unfortunately, it's an illo of an 18th century galleon, complete with gunports. This ship wouldn't look out of place sailing into Charleston Harbour during the American Revolution. That's some pretty poor designwork right there. I can accept a bit of anachronism, but, when you include an illo, complete with cannon ports, of a ship to be used in a DnD game, it tends to be a bit of a sticking point. As far as the distances go, well, how useful is a supplement for sailing in the Scarred Lands when you cannot even use it to answer the question, "How long does it take to sail from Mithril to Termana?" I don't buy books so that I have to do umpteen hours of work to fix them. If I have to do umpteen hours to fix things in a published work, then that means someone screwed up.

On the Vengaurak thing, I would point to the damage capabilities of the creature. This thing is death on toast to any 4th level party that faces it. It certainly isn't a 20% usage of resources. Anyway, it was a minor quibble, meant as an example, not as a complete arguement.

The point is, and even you admit to this Nightfall, Sword and Sorcery press pumped out some amazingly good stuff. Fantastic setting, very original, good artwork, great ideas. Piss poor mechanics. Considering the topic of this thread, I'd have to say, does a book like Creature Collection 1 (or even Revised) kill the Monster Manual? Not really. Far too many mechanical points for it to be true. Does Blood Sea kill Stormwrack? Well, I haven't read Stormwrack, so I can't say. But I can say, I sure as heck hope not.