Survey - Quality of WotC's 3e books?

[Joël of the FoS]

We read many things these days, positive or not, about WotC's books.

So I'm asking: what do you think of WotC's 3e books ? (and why, and please provide examples of what you say*)

* What I mean is just saying they are crap / good isn't enough to take your answer seriously.

Joël

[cure]

I am (or I guess I am supposed to say) was very happy with the Spell Compendium. One could really begin to create spellcasters with a definite feel that wouldn't be undermined forthwith by entirely reasonable but utterly unthematic spell selections. The bredth of the selection was the possibility of diversity being the rule not the exception and of spellcasting being a source of surprise rather than the expected.

I should add the Liberis Mortis was quite good. And the art there was certainly more stomachable than in the manuals.

[Joël of the FoS]

For me, WotC’s output is a mixed lot if judged by interest-factor and quality, but I have to say I did like most of what I read. Not all the books are 100% to my liking, but overall, it is good.

Also, importantly, I read these books with RL lenses, and that is important. I often read quickly and didn’t criticize what wasn’t interesting for my campaign or for the RL setting as a whole.

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I liked Heroes of Horrors and Libris Mortis, two books I found well written, interesting, and able to drag new players into horror-based games. Lords of Madness was cool too.

The monster books were OK, but not all to my taste (too much on the epic side, often i.e the banshees).

The classes expansion books were OK, if a little over the top with PrCs. Same thing with controversial Book of Vile Darkness / Exalted Deeds – OK job overall. Many fun ideas in the first parts of these books. Could have been worse and much less tasteful.

The environment books (Sandstorm, Stormwrack, etc.) did a good job overall (but Cityscape was average).

The Manual of the Planes was fun to read to this old PS fan. Good job if a little short considering the large task of explaining this large multiverse, but that’s another story.

A few "options" things seemed somewhat uninspired, like Tome of Magic, DMG II, Incarnum or Ghostwalk. Could have been more focused IIRC. Some good ideas, but it was overall somewhat bland and not worthy of the tag price.

I can’t say anything of the adventures as I didn’t read any of them, IIRC. Same for Dragon, Races or Fiends books.

I didn’t read any of these books, my friends do, but it seems psionics was a mess in 3/3.5, until they eventually got it right / definitive.

My main bitter point with WotC is the whole 3.5 thing. It wasn’t THAT different from 3.0, and I think it could have been an online update thing for free or small cost. Not that happy thinking I spent 100-120$ Can over books that were not that different from 3.0.

And perhaps that focus on miniatures, not my thing after a certain point.

And last, EtCR? A mess if we only have RL lenses, far from the original in taste and butchered atmosphere. This said, and I do agree with all the RL fans comments (the vistani, Mme Eva, that focus on the weird monsters, etc.), I think it’s not so bad as an adventure in a generic fantasy setting.

Overall, I think they did a good job in the 3-3.5 era.

Joël

[Jester of the FoS]

WotC...

Good quality books. 1/10 the typos and glaring publishing errors in other books. Always well-bound with good production values, full colour, good illustrations, nice formatting and clear writing.
This may sound small but there are alot of bad publishers out there. Bindings that crack, books with obvious editing problems (XX instead of page references, etc), black-n-white, poor paper, etc.

The core books are always excellent.

Supplements vary on use. They're always hyper-specialized so unless it's something you know you'll use you can skip it. Which is nice because you're not buying a book for 1/3 of it, in theory everything has some use.

The Compendiums were amazing. Spell Compendium just has some many perfect and usefully spells and the Magic Item Compendium is invaluable.

I wasn't big on the "feel" of 3E. The motto "back to the dungeon" didn't thrill me as I've always found dungeon-crawls bland and unrealistic. But the number of magic items, the uber-fantasy, the spiked-chains... all of it didn't "wow" me.

[WolfKook]

All in all, kind of average.

I mean, the ideas behind feats and prestige classes were very good, and expanded the game a lot. However, the fact that most 3.0 and 3.5 Ed. books had "feats" and "prestige classes" as almost-mandatory sections crowded with lots of (Mostly cool, I admit) ideas on feats and PrCs, that most players wouldn't use (As most players won't go to 10 or more books to find what they want, and even those who are eager enough to do it won't have enough feat slots -or prerequisites -in their progressions to use everything they want). Something similar happened with monsters and spells.

OTOH, there were cool ideas for options (Unearthed Arcana is one of my favorite books), and the rules to support them were perfectly integrated (In WoTC books, I've seen other 'd20' books that didn't make such a good job on this). However, at some point the revision of the revision of the revision of some of these (The Taint system, from Oriental Adventures to UA to HoH, not to mention the 3.0->3.5 transition) grew tiresome.

Moreso, the game, as it is, is intended for power players. The power level of the character rises up very quickly, and the growth rate is exponential, a trend that became more evident with the latest releases (Tome of Battle, even though I think it's a great resource for Final Fantasy d20 ), and which was supported with the mood portrayed in a lot of resources.

Visually, I do like them. Especially the "generic" sourcebooks, with their covers reminicent of fantasy books, even though I somehow miss the Easley/Elmore/Caldwell/Cabral/Brom/etc. era, and thus don't find the interior art all that satisfying (I have certainly grown tired of Redgar, Mialee and Krusk, and also of Baristi and her friends...). The visual consistency through different books, though sometimes boring, is also welcome.

And I have to say that the organization improved a lot from 2nd Ed. Certainly, you could take most 3E books and know where to find what you want even without looking to the index (Which is always there, and is always complete) or the glossary (Also there, also good).

And, well, the resource books that Catman Jim exposed on another thread (Races of XXX, Classes of XXX, Deities of XXX, etc.) are bothersome, but that is something we have had since 2nd Ed., and which has a perfect marketing explanation.

All in all, they have made a good, but not great, job, IMO.

[Jester of the FoS]

Compared to what though?

Compared to how it could be? Then no, WotC is poor.

But compared to 90% of other 3rd party books? They're miles ahead.

The two big lines I collect are Ravenloft (S&S/ArtHaus) and Dragonlance (MWP/Sovereign Press) and they're often riddled with minor errors, typos and mistakes and with game rules that are blindly sub-par. Bindings on books are often weak (I'm avoiding opening my RL: PHB and RL3E too often because the map cover is starting to give). New classes are weak. PrC are always overpowered or underpowered, balance is iffy at best, etc.
Their saving grace is the amount of fluff and background (tone, feel, background, story, hooks, etc). But I wouldn't buy a WotC book with that. It'd have to be generic and written by people who don't (slash-can't) make it setting specific, even to the 'default' Greyhawk.

Yes, feats and spells and PrC are mandatory. Because people don't want books without them. RL3E got ripped apart when first released due to its lack of PrC, limited feats and tiny list of feats.
Even with out netbooks the Fraternity feels required to slip in new prestige classes and the like. Bceause DMs and Players want something crunchy from each and every book.

[NeoTiamat]

Generally satisfactory, although what now seems to be the experimental books/rules (Tome of Battle, the skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel, etc) were somewhat hit-or-miss.

Also, keep in mind that I am a newcomer to D&D, only been interested in it for maybe two years now. So my sole real exposure to the old 2nd Ed stuff was via computer games like Baldur's Gate II which used them.

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The earlier Complete Books (Divine, Arcane, Warrior, Adventurer), were to my mind generally excellent. The new base classes I saw as somewhat extraneous, but they had a lot of good PrCs and Feats that to me at least, covered just about everything necessary to play. More then enough options for the basic classes. Later Completes (Complete Mage, etc) I found somewhat unnecessary, and too bogged down in special rules and things like skill tricks. The PrCs were generally worse also.

The setting books were very good so long as they stayed in the exotic environments (Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack), where they were essentially everything you needed to know about running a more non-traditionally environment. Deserts, Arctic reaches, and pirate adventurers were very possible and effective (I like deserts, so I consider Sandstorm on of the top books of the WotC line). The monsters were very interesting, the PrCs and Feats generally appropriate if occasionally over-specific, the fluffy text good. The races were less useful, but they did have intelligent discussions of different kinds of desert-dwelling humans, for instance, so I'm tempted to forgive that. Cityscape and Dungeonscape were somewhat more unusual since those are non-traditional environments, so they didn't work so well. Still, they have some good ideas in both, even if I'm not sure about all the monsters and the PrCs were *really* wierd.

The Races of _____ books, nice idea, but sort of useless since in most cases the race is subjugated to the setting (I doubt Sithican Elves are very much like those described in Races of the Wild). The only one I sort of like is Races of Dragon, purely because of Half-Dragons and Kobolds, which actually got a fair amount of airtime. The extra races presented in each were generally well done, ranging from old (Aasimar, Gnolls), to new (Catfolk).

So basically, all fairly well done, usually quite useful stuff, although I can see where information overload might step in. That's an unavoidable thing though.

Of the options books, (Tome of Battle, etc), I considered them intriguing ideas, although I'm somewhat dubious as to how well balanced they were, or how necessary they were. The massive new rules sets could easily lead to info overload rapidly, as well as being a monster to DM.

Speaking of which, the Monster Manuals... I consider the first one to be vital, the second fairly useful, the third through fifth utterly useless. Generally if I need a monster, I'll either turn to one of the classics (MMI), or get it from an environment specific book (Sandstorm). The later monsters were also excruciatingly bizarre at times.

Fiendish Codexes... Planewalker.com is a far better resource, and free. All I need to say. Heroes of Horror is occasionally interesting, but the Ravenloft books cover everything it does better and in more detail.

Book of Vile Darkness I like a great deal, if only for the sheer quantity of ideas it has. The PrCs were high quality, particularly the Cancer Mage or Vermin Keeper, which could make for very memorable villains (and quite Ravenloft-y too). Mosters were usually decent, the feats not terribly useful, while the additional rules for torture and drugs I found somewhat interesting to read even if I can't imagine ever using them. Book of Exalted Deeds I use far less, so I can't really venture a qualified opinion on. Looks okay though.

I'm probably missing something, but that's my take. Some books were very good, particularly the first four Completes and the setting books, others were downright useless (Monster Manual V). I'd say that Wizards is good at the basic stuff, but tends to get in trouble when they start trying to create new rules, and that they started to run out of ideas towards the end. Then again, with the news of 4E, one can see a lot of the wacky new stuff they made as experiments to see how well it goes, so I'm inclined to forgive them that.

[LordGodefroi]

If you don't count the core rule books, I can count the number of WOTC books I own on both hands and still have fingers left over. This is not to say that what I didn't buy was bad. It's just that such books held very little appeal for me.

I find WOTC's reference works that compile game data of great use. The Spell Compendium was excellent. (I can't speak to the Magic Item Compendium because I tend to create my own and wouldn't use MIC much.) And despite 4e being around the corner, I will still buy the upcoming Rules Compendium. To a lesser extent, I also like compilation books like Complete Adventurer.

Weapons of Legacy: The concept of WoL was great as were the systems for developing them. But the pre-generated WoLs, which took up two-thirds of the book, were just padding to justify a hardcover book.

Heroes of Horror: Nicely balanced book ! Just enough crunchy bits and just enough DM advice.

Libris Mortis: The Book of The Undead: The undead are such great monsters and great villains that I'm not objective on this book at all. I'll just say I liked it.

Book of Vile Darkness: Most people hate this book but I like it because it offers so many horror movie style villain-types that I use quite a bit of it. ("Cancer Mage!")

Dungeon Master's Guide II & Unearthed Arcana: I love books with campaign and DM advice because they present game and campaign structures as varied as the authors who write them. Both of these books offer advice and alternate systems enough to keep the creative juices flowing.

Expedition To Castle Ravenloft: Despite the disappointment many RL campaign world fans had with this book, I liked it and thought it successful in acheiving its goals. EtCR was not meant to capture the essence of the campaign world but merely to be an update and expansion of the classic I6 adventure for the 3.5e rules set. In short, this adventure adapted RL to the 3.5 rules set (as opposed to the RL campaign world which adapted the 3.5 rules set to Ravenloft.)

At times, EtCR sacrificed the mood of gothic horror for the high(er) fantasy of core rules D&D but it wasn't anything so major that it required a complete rewrite.

[Igor the Henchman]

Aside from some very early 3.0 softcover stuff, I haven't read any book by WotC I didn't like (granted, I haven't read much of the Races of_, Complete_ or Eberron stuff).

I felt very negative about 3.0 when it was announced, and upon trying it out, discovered most of my fears were unfounded.

I think the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is about the best-designed setting book I've read.

My favorite WotC books deal with tweaking and customizing rules and setting elements to suit the needs of an individual campaign: Manual of the Planes, Deities and Demigods, Unearthed Arcana, Dungeon Master's Guide II. I loved Monster Manuals I, III, IV and V. I enjoyed Tome of Magic and Fiendish Codex I immensely.

The most "Meh" product from WotC I know of is the D&D Gazetteer, a very early 3E release.

Also, I liked EtCR.

[Dhampire]

WotC's books have been real hit or miss, so far as I am concerned.

Heroes of Horror, Excellent!
Fiendish Codex, Poor!

When they dedicate themselves to trying to improve the game or expand on a niche (say, for example, the Complete Books series) they do remarkably well on average. Then, when they try to re-invent cannon and overwrite pre-existing work (say, for example, the way Fiendish Codex tried to overwrite the old Hellbound: the Blood War boxed set) they miss utterly and fail.

This is part of the reason why I am cautious of WotC having the Ravenloft License back. While not everything Sword and Sorcery/White Wolf did was golden, the thought of WotC overwriting it just sends shivers down my spine. They could not develop it well and keep it consistent when they had it originally.

[Ivana_Boritsi]

Hm. I think I'm in the small minority that thinks that WotC's stuff is excellent. It's very well edited. The production values are always terrific. Their rules are also solid. I think that Jester's comments are spot-on.

Count me in the not-hating WotC side of things.

In terms of what WotC had to offer Ravenloft...

Understand that I think that WotC did what they wanted to do very well. They wanted to make a tactical, strategic game. And they accomplished it very well. They did not set out to create the greatest fluff and they didn't. They gave us exactlly what they said they were going to provide.

I find all of the negativity towards WotC quite interesting.

[LordGodefroi]

Hm. I think I'm in the small minority that thinks that WotC's stuff is excellent.

Not really. I loved what I bought. But, for the most part, what I didn't buy didn't satisfy the in-game tone I was looking for. . . .

I think, for the most part, WOTC acheived the majority of their goals with what they published.

[Cole Deschain]

Awright.

Crabby 2E holdout bias aside....

I'd occasionally see a book to mine for ideas... but WotC didn't make too many of them.

They were long on inane prestige class after inane prestige class, INCREDIBLY rules-heavy with new monsters and CRAP in every book.

However.

There WERE a few gems.

Only one of which LEAPS to mind in its specifics, so here it is.

I LOVED Lords of Madness.. Having missed the printings of I, Tyrant, and The Illithiad back in 2E, they gave me some fun background and cultural stuff on the Squidheads, Beholders, Aboleths... all of it. Yes, the crunchy stuff was useless to me, but I've gotten fairly good at conversions.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Weapons of Legacy is one of the best mainly because it revolutionized the way that D&D as a whole viewed magic items and inherent abilities.

The whole environment series (Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Frostburn, Cityscape) was very good in many ways as well.

The mature audiences books (Exalted Deeds, Vile Darkness) were very good too.

Heroes of Horror and Heroes of Battle are excellent in their own right, especially for niche players.

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was I think VERY GOOD. Remember: D&D is still a fantasy franchise. To have people complain that EtCR isn't "Gothic" enough have to realize that EtCR contained elements of high fantasy along with its elements of horror. EtCR was I think never meant to be Gothic in the first place.

I declare the following to be the most useless Accessory ever:

[LordGodefroi]

I declare the following to be the most useless Accessory ever:

Are you kiddin' ? This one's on my "To Buy" list. With rules published across multiple books (some of which I don't own) a well-organized well-indexed compendium is a boon. It'll save loads of time at the game table.
I can't wait for it.