I was wondering, does anyone use the Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook? What do you use from them (My wife has a Divine Agent character, but we've not used anything from the PH). I like the Touchstones, and the Heritage feats.
Manual and the Planar Handbook
Fri, 2007-03-09 00:01
#1
Manual and the Planar Handbook
Fri, 2007-03-09 04:22
#3
Manual and the Planar Handbook
Planar Handbook:
Touchstones were really a waste of space in the Planar Handbook, I don't even know why they bothered to bring it up again in Sandstorm. At least with DMGII and subsequent books they realized that touchstones wouldn't be used by most players, started to put in magical locations that would get more use...
A bunch of the races in that book were watered down versions of certain monsters. They should have left the wildren on the cutting floor. Honestly if you wanted an animalistic character from the Beastlands, use Shifters from Eberron instead.
They got the alignments wrong involving Sigil.
However a bunch of the basic feats, equipment, spells and prestige classes were good.
Substitution classes were alright (though they realized the mechanics were clunky and abandoned it later), and most of them are easy to change into the much better mechanic of variant class abilities.
Manual of Planes:
This book is better to use, it presents a lot options and even if they stripped the Ethereal plane from connecting to other planes, they still have a sidebar on the Deep Ethereal.
I actually liked the fact that they expanded the Shadow plane, and but I would change it around so that it connects to other planes and there's something like a Deep Shadow.
It has a bunch of useful templates and monsters (except for the Ultraloth stats), but most of them have been updated in other books already.
Don't ignore the variant planes because they weren't in Planescape, many of them have interesting ideas and concepts, and the Elemental Plane of Cold is easily useable as the Paraelemental Plane of Ice they cut out.
Fri, 2007-03-09 15:14
#4
Manual and the Planar Handbook
Since I got into Planescape well after the 2e books became collectors items I've had to rely on the Manual of the Planes and Planar Handbook (as well as this site of course) for all my planar information.
As far as what material specifically, I host a Neverwinter Nights and a Neverwinter Nights 2 server. The first is set in Faerûn with a portal to one location in Sigil. The NWN2 server is set fully in Sigil with portals to other planes. For the most part I used the material from these two 3e source books to fill out the conversations of the NPCs that explain the concepts of the planes and portals to the PC.
The Great Wheel structure of the outer planes, the explanation of what planes are and how portals work, and the basic history of Sigil (with the possible exception of the fate of factions) are all still true to the original concept of Planescape from what I can tell.
-420
Odd, most people I've talked to have disliked the touchstones, although I personally haven't used them.
Regarding the Manual of the Planes:
Ignore any mentions of the dates for planar events like the fall of Nemausus/Menausus (another change they made) as they seem to have been chosen at random.
The "D&D cosmolgy" they refer to is not the same as Planescape, and is basically just a simplified version of the Great Ring with all the cross-setting and Planescape-specific stuff taken out.
They changed stuff! The set-up of the transitive planes that they use is totally different from Planescape, and they also seem to have a grudge against the Para- and Quasi-elemental planes.
Remember that Planescape canon should trump whatever is in the MotP, but if you don't have access to a given 2E sourcebook (or don't feel like flipping through it) there's nothing wrong with trusting the MotP.
I'd say that the MotP is a must-have for someone running a Third Edition game on the planes because of the updated rules and stats it contains and has great stuff for if you want to make your own planes, but it's information on the existing planes is mediocre at best. Other stuff like items, feats, and prestige classes are a mixed bag.
As for the Planar Handbook:
The monster classes don't work! This has more to do with the flawed Level Adjustment rules than anything, but the Monster Class progressions for the various races in the book are all far, far too weak to be useful for players and are only of slight value to DM's.
The races are mostly head-smackingly dumb (Wildren!), boring and unorignal (Spikers), or only kind've interesting (Shadowswyfts).
The Prestige classes are pretty good, especially the way they use the factions.
The write-up on Sigil lacks any real depth (and bizarrely says the Lady of Pain is Lawful Neutral), but the descriptions of Union and the City of Brass are both quite good.
That's about all I remember off the top of my head.