Worst book WotC made for 3.0?

[Li Shenron]

I personally own only Manual of the Planes of the above, but I have borrowed & read/browsed all of them except Fiend Folio and Arms & Equipment Guide.

I voted for Epic Level Handbook, for the utterly bad implementation. I admit I had a lot of expectations before, so this might have made my opinion worse. As a minor thing, it has the worst art of D&D books together with Deities & Demigods, which I consider completely useless save for non-rules ideas, and would have been my second pick (if I noticed that I could have voted more... ). Third of the list would be Savage Species, very disappointing but still with some useful stuff.

I agree that Hero Builder's Guidebook is the worst book I have ever seen anyway. Among classbooks, Song & Silence is the only one I basically have never used... save for some equipment and a couple of feats.

I think the other ones are mostly decent, but some are admittedly minor books:
- Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is well done but I don't think it would be used more than once in a campaign (and not by players, as it presents itself!)
- Book of Vile Darkness is just a bunch of bits, and not very inspired. The art is unneededly sickening
- Monster Manual II uninspired for more than half the monsters, usable for the rest
- Book of Challenges has more use for weirdos' campaigns, but if you adapt the ideas you can actually use it all
- I am not familiar with psionics, but PsHB didn't seem bad (I looked at it very long time ago anyway)
- OA is very good indeed, and I don't know why it's on the list

But my biggest question is... what the hell is Manual of the Planes doing here? That book is simply my favourite! I want to know the explanation from the ones who voted it...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I didn't think they errata was as egregious as some people made out. At least someone with a brain fixed the halfling outrider instead of claiming it was intentional...

People invoke the "6 pages of errata" thing to show how awful S&F was, but of those 6 pages, much of that was double spaced lines adding descriptors (like su, ex, or sp) to PrC abilities, one per line. Call me crazy, but I'm just having trouble getting worked up over that sort of ommission.

The point is that the designer himself claimed the lack of BAB was intentional, which left a lot of people wondering whether WotC had gone mad or was not being truthful with its customers. That's why the errata was so egregious - not only was it there, but we were being told it was not only OK, but was part of the design. I think that's what put people off. I was one of the people vigorously defending S&F back then, and I, myself, pointed out that much of the errata was, indeed, just typographical stuff. Then we got word that some fairly major gaffes - the Halfling Outrider BAB, or lack thereof, and the mercurial sword stats - were correct, not typos; then the errata came out and we saw that that was all just a matter of CYA. That's egregious.

 

[DonAdam]

I don't even like S&F after the errata. Other than the Drunken Master, which itself suffered from design decisions (nowadays we would give it +1 level monk abilities) and possibly the Ghostwalker (though no one has been able to give me a straight answer as to what one is other than the l337 dark, mysterious, cliched bad***), none of the prestige classes in S&F were anything more than power-ups for existing concepts.

Some of the feats were good, but some were beyond awful. He brought back the "high stats for powerful feats" idea, which, though balanced in a point-buy context, simply creates more discrepancy between those who roll high and those who do not.

The weapons were... ug. Clearly no one filled him in on what makes weapons to be exotic and how much you can give to an exotic weapon.

 

[woodelf]

I was gonna vote, but there're too many choices. I'd put Deities & Demigods, Psionics Handbook, Book of Vile Darkness, Monster Manual, and Stronghold Builders Guidebook (not to mention Hero Builder's Guide--is that the right title?) all on the "worst D20 book compatible with D&D" list--not just from WotC, but compared to everyone (not to say that there wouldn't be a *lot* of books from other companies on that list, too). And Manual of the Planes, Arms & Equipment Guide, Savage Species, Epic Level Handbook, Stronghold Builders Guidebook, Book of Challenges, and Players' Handbook all go an the "really disappointed--not worth the money" list.

The only one you listed that i think is actually a good book is Oriental Adventures. But then, in general, i think that WotC's books are so-so, and wouldn't really compete in the D20 market if they didn't have the D&D brand name.

 

[buzz]

First off, I don't really see the point in threads like these, other than caveat emptor.

Second off, I'll participate anyway.

I own most everything that WotC has published for 3.x, and I have to say that the only products that ever truly disappointed me were Song & Silence and Urban Arcana. Okay, the second one isn't a D&D product, but hey.

In both cases, I thought that the flaws were significant enough that a mere second or third editing pass wouldn't be enough. Both of them needed to be plain scrapped and re-thought.

A close runnner-up would probably be the ELH, simply because, imho, everything necessary to run an epic campaign could have fit in a decent-sized splat. But, WotC seems to be of the mind that if it's less than 320 pages, it ain't worth producing*, and so the book got padded (also a problem with UrA).

*Something that I can understand, from a business perspective; it doesn't excuse the quality of the work, though.

 

[Voadam]

I went DDG not because I think it is a horrible book on its own, but it is such a step backward from the increasingly good and in depth progression of deity books going from the 1e DDG to the 2e Legends and Lore to the FR faiths and avatars, demihuman deities and pantheons and powers. The 3e DDG is the only book I've bought and returned because I was so disapointed in it.

 

[Sage]

What?!?

Why isn't hero builders guidebook on the list?
It would definetly get my vote.

Ok, maybe I would settle for enemies and allies

Sage

 

[herald]

Enemies and Allies

 

[qstor]

You left off the Hero Builders Guidebook on the poll. That sucked! It was almost a verbatim rehash of articles from Dragon.

Mike

 

[Slomoot]

Has to be Deities & Demigods. Has anyone ever really found a use for this? I suppose you could find some use in it if you were running somewhat of a historical game, but other then that? Gleesh... Why do we need the stats of all these aviatars? I can't think of any real ::Good:: reason why you would need these stats. As far as the E&A book, I didn't think it was all that bad, just not all that interesting. As a side note, looking through my 2-ED stuff, I don't think ::any:: of the 3rd wotc books would make it on the top 10 of poor books, if you were to include the 2-ed stuff....