Least Favorite Book?

[Fax Celestis]

Which book do you like the least, and why?

[Exarch]

Weapons of Legacy. I like love the concept of a weapon that will grow with your character. And the tests are cool too.

I hate the fact that you have to give up Hp, Saves Attack Bonus, or whatever else for it to work. And Legacy weapons never get up to a +5/+5 weapon, and can't be further enhanced (right?).

They coud be so much cooler.

[talsine]

can i make a list? MM3, MM4, and MM5, both evil outsider books, the whole Expidition series, Complete Mage/Scoundral, in fact, most of the stuff they have released in the last 18 months or so has been pretty terrible.

[Rachel Lorelei]

The Eye of Argon. Worst book ever.

Oh, you mean D&D splatbook?

Monster Manual 4.

Not only is the content poor, but the format is lame, and if I need monsters I have quite enough already, thanks.

Aside from that... Weapons of Legacy is a good (well, bad) one, because the execution of legacy weapons is terrible.
Complete Psionic and Complete Scoundrel had remarkably disappointing crunch for the most part, but Complete Scoundrel had skill tricks and great fluff, redeeming it.

Mostly, though, I don't like various published adventures--especially old adventures updated to 3.5, like White Plume Mountain. I could bleed a better adventure. Doggerel poetry! Traps traps traps! Killing stuff! Are we having fun yet?
I guess I just hate dungeon crawls.

Which reminds me. World's Largest Dungeon? Kill it with fire.

[JellyPooga]

Of the ones I have; Races of Destiny. I really dislike the Illumians (I just think that they're a naff idea) and the other material isn't anything special. The PrC's and Racial Substitution Levels are lack-lustre, the feats are somewhat limited, there's no extra equipment, the fluff-stuff they present for Humans, Half-Orcs and Half-Elves is flat and boring...about the only good thing about it is some of the new spells and a couple of the sub-races of human (and even half of those are already presented in the MM; namely Aasimar, Tiefling and Doppelganger). I simply found the other "Races of" books so much better and more informative.

Having said that, I only have Complete Warrior/Divine/Adventurer/Arcane, Races of the Wild/Dragon/Destiny, Libris Mortis and the Core Books (PHB, DMG and MM)...so I can't comment on it in relation to anything but those.

[Drider]

MM 4 is the tool for the DM to lazy to put 3-7 class levels on an already existing monster, while helpful for pulling stats out your ass, it had;
A.bad setup.
2.no good new monsters.
III. it is the same price as other GOOD books and has way more typos than other books.

[Yechezkiel]

3.5 DMG.

I was really used to the art being on certain pages in 3.0, damn blue lady/Mialee being moved.

[Quietus]

Anything setting. The only thing that's ever interested me about FR was the Weave, and frankly, I'd come up with half that myself before I read the sourcebook.

[Reinboom]

That I own? Fiendish Codex I. I don't get much use out of it - though I still like it.

For what I went over, well, books that I don't use I don't use. That aside, I would have to probably say least liked to one of the setting books. Specifically Faiths of Eberron, Planar Shepherd specific. Other than this, various setting books in general.

[Bassetking]

MM4.

Phoned in, pre-generated encounters, lairs, and fluff. Nothing I buy a MM for, nothing I need an MM for. Crap on a shingle, and the worst book to come out of WotC

Complete Psionic.

Compared to the rest of the Completes, and the XPH, it does nothing crunchy to further the classes it concerns.

[The_Werebear]

The Epic Level Handbook.

When DnD breaks down beyond absurdity.

[Raistlin1040]

I like all the books I own, but Savage Species is the one I get the least use out of.

[Everyman]

I have to say that I really don't use my Magic of Incarnum book at all. Not that it's a bad book (far from it, really). It's just difficult using the book unless your campaign is focused on it. It isn't something you just dip in.

[ALOR]

in no paticular order
drow of the underdark, magic of incarnum, epic level handbook and races of destiny.
oh and tome of battle (hides from flames that are sure to errupt)

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Complete Psionic
Reason detailed here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22165). Total load of...

Monster Manual IV
CURSE YOU NEW FORMAT!
CURSE YOU UNIMAGINATIVE MONSTERS (half of which seemed to be spiders)!
CURSE YOU GIVING CLASS LEVELS TO EVERYTHING TO WASTE SPACE!

Book of Vile Darkness
Gratuitous gore was never my thing. The book was just made for the gamers to go 'Ewwww'.

[de-trick]

I say book of vile darkness, players worst nightmare(I fear for my character every time my DM reached for it. Thank god that he borrowed it from a friend out of town)

[SurlySeraph]

in no paticular order
drow of the underdark, magic of incarnum, epic level handbook and races of destiny.
oh and tome of battle (hides from flames that are sure to errupt)

Drow of the Underdark: I haven't read any of it, but "Horrible! Kill it with fire!" is about the friendliest thing I've heard about it.
Magic of incarnum: Never read it
Epic level handbook: I mean, were they trying to break it?
Races of destiny: Never read it.
Tome of Battle: I'm not the only one who doesn't like it! But it's definitely not the worst book ever. I'd have to agree with the general consensus that the MM4 is the worst.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Hero Builder's Guidebook

Nothing you couldn't figure out yourself after playing a few games. Though the list of names in the back was (and still is) useful. But I wouldn't have paid $10 for just that if I knew that was all I was really getting.

[Neon Knight]

The Book of Exalted Deeds did not agree with me at all.

[tarbrush]

I rather like the BoVD and Drow of the Underdark. But then I like the books about evil things. Lords of Madness is among my favourites.

What I don't like is the Book of Exalted Deeds. Which seems to be a bunch of stuff that you can only use if you're super-ultra-duper-mega good. Which you can only ever be if the plot of your adcenture is paper thin. Only it's impossible to be uper-ultra-duper-mega good if any kind of plot twist gets thrown in, or you ever get fooled, and so all those shiny abilities vanish. Except DMs can't really take all your shinies away, so instead, you have people who are pretty good wandering around being Fists of Raziel and casting Luminous armour, cos they're mechanically hard.

And so the poor DM is left in the terrible position of having to eviscerate characters because he wrote a good adventure that challenged the players morally and intellectually.

And that's without really good spells doing ability damage simply so the system stacks up against BoVD vile spells, which are so darn cool. Exalted spells cheapen themselves and vile spells. Trashy exalted spells.

As compared to BoVD. You want the lichloved feat? Have sex with a Lich. You want Thrall of Demogorgon? You're now Demogorgons thrall. You can't undo it, there's no agonising decisions for the DM to make, no hourlong arguments about how the heck the paladin was supposed to know whether the little girl was or wasn't a shapeshifter. Just stuff you can do if you're prepared to pay the price.

Feh. Stupid BoED. Yay BoVD

In other news, MM4 is terrible for the reasons cited, although if they'd named it 'Ready To Use Monsters" it might've been OK.

And Complete Psion is poorly mechanised trash. And that's without the ridiculous new Erudite abilities.

EDIT: D&D finishes at 20th. Get there and you've won. No such thing as epic. Move along, nothing to see here.

[horseboy]

3.5 DMG
In 20+ years of gaming this has to be the second worst written gaming book I've read. The writing itself is as awkward and clumsy as Phantom Menace. Around 7/8 of the book was just completely worthless. I kept flipping through it wondering when it was going to say something relevant. Finally in the glossary of all places they decide to put the rules into the book. :smallfurious:

[ALOR]

Drow of the Underdark: I haven't read any of it, but "Horrible! Kill it with fire!" is about the friendliest thing I've heard about it.
Magic of incarnum: Never read it
Epic level handbook: I mean, were they trying to break it?
Races of destiny: Never read it.
Tome of Battle: I'm not the only one who doesn't like it! But it's definitely not the worst book ever. I'd have to agree with the general consensus that the MM4 is the worst.

yeah drow of the underdark was absolutly useless. No Usefull fluff. No good Crunch, just a absolute waste

I think i had a completly diffrent picture of what magic of the incarnum was going to be. I thought some weird cool soul magic, which it kind of is, but just not what i had hoped for

No i will give you ToB is not the worst book ever, but i'd rather not go into my dislikes of the book and get off topic. ToB is a rather polarizing subject :smallwink:

Thankfully i didn't buy MM4 after looking through it and seeing it was monsters with class levels so i couldn't really include it as my least favorite book since i didn't purchase it. :smallbiggrin:

[Rachel Lorelei]

Drow of the Underdark: I haven't read any of it, but "Horrible! Kill it with fire!" is about the friendliest thing I've heard about it.

I don't really think it's all that bad--the feats in particular are interesting. I do resent the liberal application of Hot Dark Elven Scantily Clad Dominatrix Chick art.

Don't get me wrong--I like hot scantily clad dominatrix chicks.
I just thought fantasy art had moved a little beyond that, you know? "Hey look, boobies" art is just so juvenile.

[horseboy]

I don't really think it's all that bad--the feats in particular are interesting. I do resent the liberal application of Hot Dark Elven Scantily Clad Dominatrix Chick art.

Don't get me wrong--I like hot scantily clad dominatrix chicks.
I just thought fantasy art had moved a little beyond that, you know? "Hey look, boobies" art is just so juvenile.

They're still using Frank Frazetta?

[BardicDuelist]

D&Demigods was and awful book. They mythology was toned down to and extreme, and it made the gods "touchable." They became able to be fought, et cetera. I would much rather prefer the "You want to fight a god? Then you never existed" approach. The only thing I could see was doing it for the FR pantheon (since the whole Time of Troubles thing), but they didn't even do that.

[namo]

The Book of Exalted Cheese is pretty bad indeed. Amulet of Retribution ? Cloak of Starmantle ? Yuck.

I actually like Complete Psionics : the Ardent and a few items are enough for me (then again, I haven't actually bought it yet !). And the Lurk and Link Power and...

[bingo_bob]

Any of the Eberron expansion materials. Not the campaign setting, that's glorious. But all books besides that... I find it to be a horrible Fluff:Crunch ratio. Secrets of Sarlona (And Xen'Drik, for that matter) revealed FAR to much about the respective continents. Sarlona is SUPPOSED to be mysterious! Xen'Drik is SUPPOSED to be unexplored! That's the whole point of them being there! (Well, besides Sarlona being a dumping ground for Psionics, but that's not the point.) They're there to give DMs a much larger swath of land to work with. Sure they have general themes, but that's so they fit in the world nicely. I made the hideous, HIDEOUS mistake of buying the Explorer's Handbook. Half of it's not even USABLE in eberron's low-level setting, and that same half is so specifically tied to Eberron it can't be used elsewhere! GRAH!

Okay, rant over.

[skywalker]

I absolutely love BoED. Yes, it's problematic if you're being morally conflicted. But it doesn't require the DM to eviscerate characters like you say. Furthermore, the point of the book was being good(especially that good) is hard.

I'm with quietus. The only thing I've ever found worthwhile or interesting in a setting book is the Artificer.

[Ulzgoroth]

I was going to put in Races of Destiny...I haven't gotten the will to read it through yet, but whenever I open it I feel like I'm handling a Book of Vile Darkness. It's premises hurt the mind.

Then tarbrush's post reminded me of BoED. There are a few things in that book that at least look useful (Merciful weapons...), but really. Its essay on morality makes me want to bite something. Exalted feats (etc...), aside from sounding like nightmares to use in a game, somehow grant non-supernatural benefits in return for (a) maintaining a new micro-alignment they just made up and optionally (b) keeping some vow. And the vows are stupid. For instance, we now know that non-violence only means toward humanoids and monstrous humanoids. Whereas vow of peace demands you never injure, say, a nematode or mite. Good luck...they can be microscopic. Er...you can get away with hurting plants, so long as they don't count as creatures...which is more or less to say, so long as there's no chance of their hitting back :smallconfused:.

Plus ravages and afflictions. 'cause it's not just good to subject people to agonizing deaths and debilitations based on their moral condition, it's exalted good.

[Bosaxon]

Weapons of Legacy. Bought the book without browsing, regretted it. I don't like the idea that specific rituals are needed and the penalties. How does a badass weapon make you weaker, no matter how slight, unless it's a cursed item?

Then, instead of throwing in as many weapons as they can, they throw in suggested encounters. I can honestly say I'll use a pregen encounter for the sole purpose of a magic item, no matter how powerful.

I'd really like to see the whole legacy item system reworked.

[Fax Celestis]

I'd really like to see the whole legacy item system reworked.

Working on it.

[LemonSkye]

Haven't seen these mentioned yet...

Magic Item Compendium. A friend of mine bought it, read through it, and returned it so that he could get a more useful book. For those who haven't seen it, all the weapon properties that weren't in the DMG were scaled back in power. That, coupled with the fact that most of the items in the book were from books we already had made it one of the worst books I've seen.

MMV. MMIV's format + entries for specific NPCs (as opposed to new monster races) + underpowered illithid variants = not worth the money. There's a CR 15 elder brain in there. No kidding.

[EndgamerAzari]

MMV. MMIV's format + entries for specific NPCs (as opposed to new monster races) + underpowered illithid variants = not worth the money. There's a CR 15 elder brain in there. No kidding.

God help you, you did SOOOO not just knock the Thoonites. :smalltongue: I'm totally gonna use those guys.

Of all the books I have, I also must say I get the least usage/enjoyment out of Com. Psionic. Maybe it's because I never play psionics due to my innate hatred of them. I just bought the book to round out my group's collection.

Dragon Magic has to rank up there. I have no idea why I bought this, except I had a 30% off coupon at Waldenbooks and had all the other D&D books there.

[Dhavaer]

3.0 Dieties and Demigods was a fairly useless purchase for me, although the very pretty pictures are nice to have. Nothing that can't be seen at the WotChan homepage, though.

[LemonSkye]

God help you, you did SOOOO not just knock the Thoonites. :smalltongue: I'm totally gonna use those guys.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept. (For that matter, I love the concept of The Game as well). But it could definitely have been better executed. Mind Flayers are iconic, and they should've found some way to change their overall goal without sacrificing their power. Then again, my group tends to play in epic-level games, so "more power" is kind of our motto. :smallwink:

And speaking of Dragon Magic, I'll have to agree. I think we've ever only used one thing out of that book.

[Merlin the Tuna]

There's a CR 15 elder brain in there. No kidding.A lot of people have been complaining about that. I don't get it. Apparently Save My Game doesn't get it, either, though I'm not sure that necessarily helps my case.

Your game needs to be consistent with your game. It doesn't need to be consistent with every printed sourcebook around. It's perfectly fine to make a CR 14 Balor... as long as you don't have CR 18 Succubi running around in the same game. The only difference is the point of reference. For an elder brain to "fit", it has to be hard and in charge of Mind Flayers. That's about it. It doesn't matter whether the PCs are 10th level or 210th level -- it's all relative.

I may well end up picking up MM5, and if I do will likely make it a point to use the CR 15 Elder Brain, for two reasons. The first is that Elder Brains are cool, and the second is that high levels are not.

-----

Personally, the worst I've owned has got to be Races of Destiny. Illumians are almost assuredly the least interesting race I've seen, and a tremendous amount of space is devoted to them. Half-elves got barely anything, and Half-orcs even less. Heck, the half-orcs didn't even get a name table. Much lameness. That I really dislike the standard representation of humans in fantasy doesn't help much either.

[Dhavaer]

That I really dislike the standard representation of humans in fantasy doesn't help much either.

Out of curiosity, what is this 'standard depiction' and what do you dislike about it?

[Swooper]

Out of WotC published D&D 3.5 books I own: Races of the Wild. The only thing I can see myself using from it are the Gnoll and Centaur races. And I could have done those with just the MM. I've always disliked the 3E version of halflings, so the chapter about them is completely useless. As for the elves, good old Complete Elves Handbook did them much better. So did Mongoose Publishing's Quintessential Elf. The Raptorans? Birdfolk, eh? Nah, I'll pass. Most of the crunch in the book seems uninteresting too.

I got it nearly half price though.

[Kurald Galain]

DMG2. Almost the entire content struck me as totally obvious or outrageously stupid. People who need this to run a game shouldn't be DMs.

[Thurbane]

I know this will be considered sacrilege by most, but my two least fave books are Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Battle. I traded these in a while back on Cityscape and Dungeonscape.

I didn't feel either of these books fit flavor wise into my campaign, and both introduced new mechanics that would've been a pain for my players to learn.

My 2 cents, anyway.

[Dausuul]

Weapons of Legacy is my top pick. As others have said--great idea, crap execution, not least because of the assumption that having bizarre and random rituals that tie into a weapon's backstory will make players care about that backstory.

I actually like the new format in Monster Manual IV--it's much cleaner and easier to read--but that's about all I like about MMIV. I buy Monster Manuals to get a bunch of new monsters, not to get a lot of retreaded old ones. And half the new monsters are those stupid Spawn of Tiamat things. It's not that I object to there being a few Spawn of Tiamat in the book--it's not my cup of tea, but hey, it might be somebody else's--but when half the book is devoted to them, that really cuts down the usefulness for those of us who don't want to use Tiamat as a villain.

And then there are Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic, both of which just... don't do it for me. MoI is excessively weird and far, far too alignment-oriented--we need less alignment-dependent stuff in D&D, not more. ToM is just uninspired; the binder is decent, but the shadowcaster and truenamer are poorly thought out.


There's a CR 15 elder brain in there. No kidding.

Huh, I must have missed that one. Maybe I should give MMIV another chance. I always hated the fact that even the tiniest backwater mind flayer community had an epic-level monster sitting in the middle of it. CR 15 sounds a lot more reasonable to me, as long as there are rules for advancing it.

[Overlard]

Races Of Stone. It was the first WOTC book that I got bored reading. There are a couple of things in there that I occasionally use, but that's it. I haven't bought any other "Races Of..." book because of that one.

[Xuincherguixe]

Hard to pick just one. To me, it's the good ones that are the exception. So with that in mind I guess... Player's Hand Book?

[Matthew]

Well, I suppose I will have to be consistant and say Tome of Battle. Understand, it's not my least favourite because the quality is exceptionally low, but because of the way people go on about it. Now, I won't draw an unfavourable comparison with [I]Harry Potter in this Thread... oops...

[SpikeFightwicky]

It's a tie:

Magic of Incarnum: It's not that I don't like the content, it's that there has been no support for it since it was released, and requires alot of explaining if you plan on allowing other players to take it. Definately not for beginners.

Book of Exalted Deeds: I can't stand how alot of people think that this book is the ultimate power for 'good' characters... 90% of all monk players swear by the book. However, IME few of them realize the complications of playing an 'exalted' character. They just see crunchy numbers and ignore the fluff that liberally pads most of the content in the book. And it's so stringent, alot of DMs just ignore the fluff and state that it's balanced regardless. It was so bad that at one time, I mentioned wanting to try out a monk/tatooed monk, and one of the players said that I had to take VoP. I said that it didn't interest me and he said that my character was going to be garbage otherwise.

[Saph]

Dungeon Master's Guide II.

It's the only D&D book which I've read, but couldn't tell you anything about, just because it was so uninteresting. What's it about? What's the point of the book? I have no idea. I've forgotten it all already.

The 'Races Of' series are also very uneven. I find that the fluff for the existing races (like the stuff for elves in Races of the Wild) is very good, especially details on the racial pantheons, language, and lifestyle. But the new races introduced just bug me for some reason. Do we really need extra weird races like the Illuminans, defined by a single characteristic? Wasn't the point of these books to flesh out the races we had already?

- Saph

[Exil3dbyrd]

I'd like to second (third?) the DMG II. I picked it up at a garage sale the only thing i can remember from it is that the rhino hide armor in it is broken. I am not a big fan of charge builds anyway...

[Ethdred]

I do resent the liberal application of Hot Dark Elven Scantily Clad Dominatrix Chick art.

Don't get me wrong--I like hot scantily clad dominatrix chicks.

So was it just the Dark Elven bit you were not into, or the fact it was art and not reality? :)

Although I don't own it, I'd second Weapons of Legacy, mainly because I had my own rules for doing that long ago and not only were they much cooler but I hate it when big companies steal my ideas without even knowing I exist. Also, the mechanics now turn up in a lot of other books, without a proper explanation (like the Weapons in ToB). Funny, because it seems to be the most cross-overed non-SRD mechanism currently around - I mean, they don't start dropping arcanum or maneuvers into newly released books

[Iudex Fatarum]

I would say MM2 just because some of the races in it I'd love to play but I have to stat out myself especialy races designed for PCs i.e. the Chaond and Zenythri. I would buy a book for a race that is useless except on a PC or a build with class levels and I can't even create it. Why not just make it a template to begin with and be done with it, what happens when a Chaond and Zenythri have a kid together and also what happens when a gnome has a chaotic outsider in her herratige
If we allow non WotC books then I have a few words for some others but it seems that we are sticking with that for now.

[PlatinumJester]

BoED: Apparently if you are not good then you are automatically an evil person who drowns puppies and eats babies and thus you should die. At least BoVD had some stuff that non evil characters could use.

Complete Divine: Read it in a shop and got bored to tears.

DMG: It's actually so incredably boring. Only interesting thing in it is the items and prestige classes. The rest is treasure table, NPC table, monster table, terrain table etc etc.

[Golthur]

Let's see...

BOED: Hate it, hate it, hate it. Ravages? Give me a break.
Hero Builder's Guidebook: Waste of paper. Glad I never bought it.
Races of Destiny: YAWN. And not even anything really good for half-orcs and half-elves.

[bosssmiley]

The Epic Level Handbook.

When DnD breaks down beyond absurdity.

Echo that. I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with the ELH. Love it for what it has the potential to be; hate it for the badly thought-out, unplaytested kludge that it is. A total Brando of a sourcebook (could have been great, chose not to bother).

2nd worst I own: "Races of the Wild". Could you write anything half as lazy and generic as the Elf and Halfling chapters? I mean, even with a running start, could you fail that hard? That was some masterful 'copping out and phoning it in' by the design team.

[Wolfbite]

MM IV is my least favorite. Reasons cited above suffice.

DMG 2 close second. I like a small amount of the content, but uh, wasn't really into a rebuilt Saltmarsh. I'm not a fan of the books that provide suggestions on how to run games, never found it helpful personally, though I imagine there are those that do.

Weapons of Legacy, I don't mind so much. I scrapped the encounter ideas, tweaked the weapon to character drain ratio, making sure that the weapon was as useful as it's drain on a character, creating a more harmonious symbiotic relationship. My NPC Baddies aren't complaining, that's for sure. :smallwink:
I find rituals add a decent story element which I modify to fit the campaign.

MM V is not half bad. I thought they scrapped MM IV's format...I spent 20minutes at the store reading through it. I like the Taunting haunt. :smalltongue: I'd buy it on a payday.

[mudbunny]

Player's Guide to Eberron

I bought it expecting it to be a useful companion to me learning how to DM Eberron. Turned out to be, for me at least, utterly useless.

[Manave_E_Sulanul]

Alright, I'll bite.

I concur with the general opinion with concerning Weapons of Legacy, Good idea, terrible execution.

Quite honestly though the book that really has been the biggest waste of time for me to even have bothered reading in the bookstore is the DMG 2. I just couldn't find anything in the book I would ever use, even though I thought the Master-Apprentice thing had potential.

As far as pure hate goes though? The Book of Exalted Deeds. The book includes Vow of Poverty, which I'm tired of seeing people try to use on me even after the years of me constantly reminding my compatriots how much I despise the damn thing, but I've never once had anyone use anything from that book as a player other than said line of feats AND anytime I try to use any of the cooler divine stuff in it I find out that people were rather unimpressed. And I was only lukewarm to the idea of using it in the first place!

[Dausuul]

The winners so far appear to be:

Book of Exalted Deeds: 6.17
Monster Manual IV: 5.33
Weapons of Legacy: 4
Dungeon Master's Guide II: 4
Races of Destiny: 2.53
Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5E: 2.33
Epic Level Handbook: 2.2
Deities and Demigods: 2
Tome of Battle: 1.7
Complete Psionic: 1.33
Book of Vile Darkness: 1.33
Hero Builder's Guidebook: 1.33
Magic of Incarnum: 1.2 [+1 honorable]
Faiths of Eberron: 1.01
Player's Guide to Eberron: 1.01
Races of the Wild: 1
Races of Stone: 1
Player's Handbook: 1
Monster Manual II: 1
Magic Item Compendium: 0.5
Monster Manual V: 0.5
Complete Divine: 0.33
Drow of the Underdark: 0.2
Savage Species: 0 [+1 honorable]

In cases where somebody listed multiple books without making it clear which they disliked most, I split their vote evenly among the books listed; hence the fractions. A couple of people said "all setting books," which I handled by giving +0.01 to any setting-specific book.

There are also two "honorable mentions," where somebody said that a given book was the worst they owned but they still liked it. I kept those separate from the other votes.

[Max Graeves]

Tome of Blood and Magic of Incarnum...not bad books, really, and some interesting ideas and good reading; they're both just very cumbersome to use unless the DM is very familiar with the material (which in my game, the DM is not) and the adventure is specifically designed for use with them.

[Thexare Blademoon]

Well, I suppose I will have to be consistant and say Tome of Battle. Understand, it's not my least favourite because the quality is exceptionally low, but because of the way people go on about it. Now, I won't draw an unfavourable comparison with [I]Harry Potter in this Thread... oops...

So if I'm reading this right, the sole reason you dislike it is because it's excessively popular? :smallconfused:

[Dragor]

I love the art and ideas in Magic of Incarnum. It's just it's so incredibly hard to integrate into quests.

Wizard: I can cast spells.

Soulborn: I get golden glowy eyes because I'm good. Also, at later levels, really cool looking and bad-ass equipment based purely on my skill with Incarnum.

Wizard: Sonova-

Don't get me wrong, deep respect for Incarnum in basis of ideas. Fail points go to it's lack of integration. If the whole party is not Incarnum based, it makes things..... a little different annoying.

[Matthew]

So if I'm reading this right, the sole reason you dislike it is because it's excessively popular? :smallconfused:
No, it is because, like Harry Potter, it doesn't live up to the hype that surrounds it. Tome of Battle isn't even excessively popular; as far as I can tell, it just has a very vocal following.

[Thexare Blademoon]

No, it is because, like Harry Potter, it doesn't live up to the hype that surrounds it. Tome of Battle isn't even excessively popular; as far as I can tell, it just has a very vocal following.

So to draw another comparison, it's like a less-popular FF7.

Now I see what annoys you about that. :smallamused:

[puppyavenger]

BOED for the one line where it said

It is always a good act to kill evil people

[Saph]

BOED for the one line where it said: It is always a good act to kill evil people

Uh, are you sure you haven't gotten that line wrong?

I don't remember reading that in BoED, and I think I would have. What I do remember was a line that said that it is always a good act to kill a fiend, ie evil outsider. Bit of a difference.

- Saph

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

MMIV is low on my list; so is Races of Destiny; Weapons of Legacy is a good idea but bad execution; lot of FR splatbooks are iffy; BoED is extremely iffy; BoVD is pointless; Savage Species is crap, except some of the items, and those are all in the MIC anyways.

[RandomNPC]

no specific order

any monster manual after the first.
tome of battle
lords of madness (more detail on races that already exist, but they put more info on races that already exist in the next monster manual.)
expedition books.
comp. psion meh.
drow of the underdark (completely killed the concept)
cityscape (you don't know that streets are lined with homes and buildings?)
dungeonscape (if you cant build a dungeon you shouldn't DM)
race books
PHB2 and DMG2 why not put it in some scourcebook with some real name?
hero builders guidebook

i'll add more later.

[Dausuul]

Uh, are you sure you haven't gotten that line wrong?

I don't remember reading that in BoED, and I think I would have. What I do remember was a line that said that it is always a good act to kill a fiend, ie evil outsider. Bit of a difference.

- Saph

Although I would take issue with even that statement. I am willing to accept that it is not an evil act to kill a fiend out of hand, without verifying its alignment or justifying the deed in any way; but I do not think it is ever a good act, in and of itself, to kill anything. Good is about making sacrifices to help people.

Otherwise any fiend that fought in the Blood War would end up good-aligned.

[Saph]

Although I would take issue with even that statement. I am willing to accept that it is not an evil act to kill a fiend out of hand, without verifying its alignment or justifying the deed in any way; but I do not think it is ever a good act, in and of itself, to kill anything. Good is about making sacrifices to help people.

Otherwise any fiend that fought in the Blood War would end up good-aligned.

Yeah, I just went back over the BoED to check, and couldn't even find that line. The most that it said was that redeeming demons and devils wasn't practical, and that the best you could hope for was to kill/banish them, which is pretty hard to argue with.

- Saph

[Dausuul]

Yeah, I just went back over the BoED to check, and couldn't even find that line. The most that it said was that redeeming demons and devils wasn't practical, and that the best you could hope for was to kill/banish them, which is pretty hard to argue with.

- Saph

Although why they'd say that when all you have to do is repeatedly jam a helm of opposite alignment on the fiend's head... :smallbiggrin:

[Ulzgoroth]

How about the wonderful bit at the top of p6: "Obviously, a good character is not required by their alignment to help evil characters or those who are working at cross-purposes to a good character's own goals."


Although why they'd say that when all you have to do is repeatedly jam a helm of opposite alignment on the fiend's head... :smallbiggrin:
Now, you know perfectly well that the logical consequences of game mechanics have nothing whatsoever to do with fluff...:smallfurious:

[Leon]

Player's Guide to Eberron


Seconded, it had some nice concepts and then let you down by not following through and having a new topic on the next page

[CockroachTeaParty]

Well... I'd have to say my least favorite is Complete Psionic, though I still use a decent amount of stuff from it. It has terrible artwork. Blech.

The DMG 3.5 is infuriatingly poorly organized. I can't find specific tables half the time, and the chapters seem in a random order.

I see there's a lot of hate for Eberron splat books. I recently got the ECS, and I'm keen on expanding my Eberron books, so what should I get? Nothing? Sharn: City of Towers looks promising...

[Bryn]

Well, Sharn: City of Towers is commonly cited as a good Eberron splatbook, as is Five Nations, and I agree with those (although I only got Five Nations a couple of days ago). I've always had a good time reading Dragonmarked, which is very fluff-heavy. I usually consult it when playing a Dragonmarked PC.

I also enjoy reading the Explorer's Handbook, but much of the book is filled with adventure sites - quite useful for ideas, but I prefer to create my own places for the PCs to explore when I DM. In addition, the scale on most of the maps is completely mad - comparing the diagram of the airship to the ships in Stormwrack, their airship is absolutely enormous.

Races of Eberron is alright, and I ask my players to read the relevant chapters, but I don't think it is that useful really.

Secrets of Xen'drik is rubbish, filled with 'adventure paths' or something - if I wanted adventures, I'd probably go and buy an adventure instead of a sourcebook. I got it as I was working on an Eberron campaign and I regret the decision.

For other people's opinions, I posted a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31992) about Eberron books back in January.

As for my least favourite book: of those I have, it would probably have to be Secrets of Xen'drik for the reasons cited above.

[bosssmiley]

There are also two "honorable mentions," where somebody said that a given book was the worst they owned but they still liked it. I kept those separate from the other votes.

Dausuul, if you intend to keep score here please amend the current score for the ELH to a 1.7 (honorable mention). I simultaneously *hate* that book for how bad it is (about the laziest, worst thought out, mechanically ugliest D&D book I own), and like it for what it strains to be. That seems to fit your "honorable mention" category to a tee.

The ELH makes me into Schrodinger's Gamer (plays havoc with the dice that does...).

[tobian]

I gotta go with BoED and BoVD.
Both of those books I have looked through, and on the whole, nothing really interested me.

Not to drag the whole "DnD alignment system is good/sucks" into the thread, but I already have my own set of morals; I never play classes with excessive alignment requirements. I just throw down TN, CN, or CG on the character sheet at the start of the adventure, and if the DM feels the need to change it, so be it. So, the majority of those books is useless to me due to the alignment pre-reqs.

[Kurald Galain]

I was paging through the BoVD earlier this day... I was wondering - why on earth would anyone want to take (most of) those vile feats? Yes, it's cool flavor-wise to mutilate yourself and be in thrall to a demon and so forth, but crunch-wise those feats are just plain bad. I don't see why, if I'm indentured to a devil, I need to take a feat to represent that, it's supposed to be part of the storyline, no?

[Matthew]

BoVD is supposedly for DMs to stat out NPCs, rather than Players to build Characters, or such is what I recall from the introduction. So it's all mechanical representations of the story. You're probably right, though, no need for most of it.

[Starsinger]

My least favorite book? The Book of ED... I hate it with a passion (that's infact what I refer to it as). It's so ridiculous, LG, NG, and CG weren't good enough (literally) so they had to make Exalted good? Pfft...

Atleast the Book of VD has parts that aren't bad (The Kythons, that's the zerg like thingies with the bioweapons, right?). Book of ED is complete crap...

[PaladinBoy]

I'd like to defend the BoED. Some of the crunch is bad (ravages and afflictions spring to mind), but the first chapter about the nature of good, good acts, etc. seems very well done to me. I think it's an excellent definition of Good.

As for my least favorite book..... I never liked the Ghostwalk campaign setting. Read it once, tried a single adventure, and I don't think I've ever read it again or used any of its material in the last 2 years. It just seemed unfinished, and I didn't really like the ghost rules.

[NephandiMan]

Instead of a least-favorite book, I would like to nominate a least-favorite kind of proliferation: namely, that of Monster Manuals. Having three of them was questionable, four was pushing it, but five? I thought this game was supposed to be about imagination - what in the Nine Hells happened to dreaming up monsters of one's own?

[dyslexicfaser]

Stronghold Builder's Guide: Such a fun concept, but I've never been able to use it in one of my games. Adventurers that build an awesome stronghold tend to want to stay inside it - and it was just too much work for the DM to bring the adventures to the PC.

As for the BoED: I didn't mind it at all. Just because it didn't have anything for neutral or evil guys shouldn't count against it - it's for the good guys, after all. And the vows just made me want to figure out a way to work an Apostle of Peace into a standard game and be useful. It was a challenge, but rewarding to roleplay, like trying to RP a boddhisatva, or a saint.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Wow, you can really feel the hate for certain books here. :smalleek: Am I the only one who actually likes Monster Manuel 4? (I personally enjoy the new format very much.)

Book of Exalted Deeds...eh. I'm non-caring about it but I also liked Book of Vile Darkness. Evil equates to kill count with my RL group so new stuff for gore is whats useful for me. Plus I loved the irony of getting it on Easter. Granted the vile feats in it are bad but people should see the updated versions of them (Either in Dragon magazine or the Fiendish Codexes)

Weapons of Legacy. Well...I do love the book but I can also admit it has faults and could have been done better (And by that I mean the weapons worth the penalties people take by using them).

Savage Species...I feel this odd odd urge to burn things when I so much as see or hear of that book. That'd be my least favorite though...hmm...there really aren't any books besides that one that I hate. Hell, even dislike at all. I enjoy all de books...except for Savage Species.