3.0E's Jump The Shark moment?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue May 31, 2011 1:52 am

I'm not talking about the worst book in 3E, that one is easy. But the 3.0E Psionics Player's Handbook didn't cause damage to the line anywhere near the extent of, say, Savage Species.

So in your opinion, which book heralded the greatest downturn in quality in the product line? I'm personally either going to go with Complete Divine or Magic of Faerun. Complete Divine is the first book that was equal or worse in almost every way from the hodgepodge of books it gathered material from and was laughably edited. Magic of Faerun because that was the book that would cause your game to explode if the DM didn't go over it with a fine-tooth comb (other books had overpowered elements, but they were obvious things like the Maho Tsukai); after that point no one blithely trusted splatbooks from WotC from then-on and while that's good for game mentality it's bad for sales.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue May 31, 2011 2:04 am

Savage Species because it made me decide that just because it was core WOTC didn't mean it would be at least "OK", or even intended to be OK.

After Savage Species I always skimmed WOTC materials and stopped bying peripheral splat books.

Then Complete Warrior, because it made me decide that BECAUSE it was WOTC DID mean it would be a waste of my fucking time and money.

After that I stopped bying WOTC books entirely.

Both were highly offensive. Both were books that said "Hey you! You want rules for playing character type X? Well this is the book for you! Also, it is the book for making you SUCK! SUCKERRRRRRR!"

K · Post by K » Tue May 31, 2011 2:27 am

Complete Divine was probably the first book where large sections were never going to be used by anyone (the relic rules, for example).

Savage Species was the first book where they had to be forced to accept the technical limitations of the system and try to cludge something together. It's a mess because the monster rules are a mess, and it was never going to not be a mess.

Personally, the first book that actually made me lose faith in the creative direction of the company was Book of Exalted Deeds. Almost nothing in that book can be used.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue May 31, 2011 2:30 am

complete psionic was pretty terrible, and i'm partial to the xph system. even dragon magic was better than that.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:20 am

Hands down, without question, few other books came to be as much disappointment as Savage Species. Even when I was DMing solo with no outside influences (including the internet) I realized that the book was a pile of horse shit. There were other disappointments (Magic of Incarnum being one of the worst I had ever seen in hardcover).

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:29 am

For me, it wasn't a splatbook that killed caused damage to the line. It was more of the decision to move away from the style of books like "Masters of the wild" "Sword & fist." Etc.. THose books were concise, and didn't inundate you with stuff. Also cheaper than the complete series or later books.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:42 am

K wrote:It's a mess because the monster rules are a mess, and it was never going to not be a mess.

You forget a very important point however.

Savage species was a, if not the only, official "3.25 edition" book. It was supposed to be bringing us "new" monster as PC rules from brand new (if I recall as yet unreleased) 3.5 edition.

They had an opportunity right there to FIX the mess that was causing them problems because they had an up coming rewrite of all three core rule books AND a reboot of all splatbooks, monster manuals, etc... AND on top of that the whole bloated savage species manual itself in which to come up with SOME sort of fix.

Instead the monstrous wreck we were given had SEVERAL fail boat fixes that were specifically and proudly INTENDED to be fail boat fixes. Because... fuck you monster PCs, basket weavers pretend they hate you, and so do certain stupid, nasty, fuckers that wrote for WOTC at the time.

P.S. Oh and what little changes to monstrous (or even non PH humanoid races) that occured with the 3.5 core were a combination of cosmetic and a measurable step backwards from 3.0.

Maybe we should just call 3.5 edition over all a generally bad thing. Again.

K · Post by K » Tue May 31, 2011 4:13 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
K wrote:It's a mess because the monster rules are a mess, and it was never going to not be a mess.
You forget a very important point however.

Savage species was a, if not the only, official "3.25 edition" book. It was supposed to be bringing us "new" monster as PC rules from brand new (if I recall as yet unreleased) 3.5 edition.

They had an opportunity right there to FIX the mess that was causing them problems because they had an up coming rewrite of all three core rule books AND a reboot of all splatbooks, monster manuals, etc... AND on top of that the whole bloated savage species manual itself in which to come up with SOME sort of fix.

Instead the monstrous wreck we were given had SEVERAL fail boat fixes that were specifically and proudly INTENDED to be fail boat fixes. Because... fuck you monster PCs, basket weavers pretend they hate you, and so do certain stupid, nasty, fuckers that wrote for WOTC at the time.

P.S. Oh and what little changes to monstrous (or even non PH humanoid races) that occured with the 3.5 core were a combination of cosmetic and a measurable step backwards from 3.0.

Maybe we should just call 3.5 edition over all a generally bad thing. Again.

3.5 was never going to be a true new edition, and was intended to spot fix some issues and sell a ton of books.

This means that Savage Species was never going to be a good ruleset. It couldn't ever be a good ruleset because they couldn't rewrite the entire Monster ruleset and you can't have decent monsters as PC without rewriting at least the monsters as PCs you wanted to use.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:18 am

K wrote:3.5 was never going to be a true new edition

And yet they printed all new core books, and rebooted and printed all new splat books and splat monster manuals.

And a whole book just for it's monster as PC rules before even the core book reprints were out.

Sure. Fine. They never really intended to do anything worth our money and time with the new "half edition". But they TOLD us they would and indeed rather specifically told us they were going to fix monsters as PCs and make them awesome. In the new edition. As part of those spot fixes. Honest to goodness, they had a secret plan where it was such a simple half edition style fix, trust them, here comes a whole book about it. Then afterwards they are all out in public "AHAHAHAHAHA we deliberately made monster PC rules suck AHAHAHAHAHAH! Suckers!!!"

And so it was that the birth of 3.5 edition was heralded unto the world...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:24 am

I believe Fiendish Folio was also 3.25, but not a single fuck was given the day that book was released. I mean, it's another Monster Manual from before MMIV (which heralded in the "this shit is so dumb, why am I reading this?" era), so it has some interesting monsters, some horrible "and now you all die" monsters, plenty of boring filler crap, and overall you maybe use it and don't even notice any weird rule abnormalities.

But yeah, I'd also say that the most outright bad and insulting and disappointing one was Savage Species. It was as bad to monster fans as Skip Hates Sorcerers was to fans of Sorcerers.

Other contenders would include:
[*]Expanded Psionic Handbook, for telling fans of psykers "this is a core book, the MC HAS to let you use this stuff." and encouraging a really annoying attitude from Stormwind and co. This led to the attitude of players saying "I bought (obscure book), you have to let me use it!" Which pisses MCs (and other players) off. And I'm stubborn and don't like Psionics outside 40k.
[*]Complete Scoundrel/Garbage/Whatever else: you can understand Arcane/Warrior/Divine/Adventurer, even if they're shit, but after that, even the title tells you "They're just scraping here."
[*]Exalted Furries: almost nothing could actually be used, it introduced the feat that launched a thousand flame wars, it encouraged annoying inter-party behaviour, the authors stuffed their cocksreligion down our throats...

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:30 am

Koumei wrote:[*]Exalted Furries: almost nothing could actually be used, it introduced the feat that launched a thousand flame wars, it encouraged annoying inter-party behaviour, the authors stuffed their cocksreligion down our throats...

Out of curiosity, what was that feat?

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:34 am

Vow of Peace I'd guess. At least that seems pretty problematic to me in a game about KILLING and LOOTING.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:38 am

Vow of Poverty: you give up equipment, which you need, and get scaling bonuses (which generally are smaller than you'd have by buying the stuff) and don't get things that actually let you participate (see invisibility, flight).

So as a Fighter you suck even harder. As a Monk you cry yourself to sleep... still. Though for a little while you think you got the better end of the deal. A Druid actually does well here if he likes to be in animal form all day. A Cleric can't even cast spells any more.

There are plenty of people who look at the huge list, ignore the sacrifice, and say "Well Toughness is a good feat and only gives you +3 Hit Points, this is OVERPOWERED". And the fact that it scales at all - back then, Improved Toughness wasn't core and was about the closest you get to a scaling feat, unless you include Metamagic feats. People thought a feat should just give you what it says, that's it, it doesn't change as you gain levels. Because +2 to damage with your favourite weapon is relevant at all levels!

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Tue May 31, 2011 9:23 am

Hands down, without a doubt its Savage Species.

The main author posted in public on the WotC forums that the design direction he was given was to make monstrous PCs weaker than standard ones. That is utterly unforgivable and completely thrashes any trust customers could hope to have in the product line.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue May 31, 2011 9:54 am

I'm going to take a different track from everyone else: Sword and Fist.

Not the worst or silliest book of the early 3.0 line, but a tremendous drop in the quality of the product from the core books, which at the time were drop-dead gorgeous. By comparison, Sword and Fist was little more than a pamphlet, in black and white, printed on toilet paper. It was essentially an AD&D product in a 3.0 world and it was the beginning of some of the most pointless feats, class features, and additional rules...anybody remember how complicated they managed to make "chi powers"?

Runner up is a tie between Book of Challenges and the Miniatures Handbook.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:45 pm

Half Dragon, Half Celestial template characters.
So, Tome of the Planes

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:38 pm

Weren't those both in the core Monster Manual?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:51 pm

Draconomicon.
The other books were just regular bad. Draconomicon went right off the rails. The whole book was pretty much unusable, the balance was all over the place, it was largely fluff, and unhelpful at that. Even the cover didn't mesh well with the other books. And it didn't help that "Dragons" is right there in the name of the game; the book about them should be fairly good.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:55 pm

For 3E, I'm a bit hazy on the order things came out but I'll go with the Epic Level Handbook. Motto: "Let's just take everyone's wildly different notions of what high level character do and throw it in the same book."

For 3.5E, I'll go with Races of Destiny (Book of Exalted Deeds and Miniatures Handbook were early enough that I think of them as quasi-3E books). Motto: "Well, we've run out of ideas but we can't stop churning out books now, so here's a book about half-elves and shit."

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:09 pm

+1 to Races of Destiny. Most of the book is essentially ''this race is average/lonely/brooding, but every individual is unique.'' Rinse and repeat.

Except for Illumians. They're just fucking stupid.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Tue May 31, 2011 5:59 pm

I don't get what "Illumians" were supposed to even do. The racial description was too long and uninteresting for me to give a damn.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue May 31, 2011 6:10 pm

MGuy wrote:I don't get what "Illumians" were supposed to even do. The racial description was too long and uninteresting for me to give a damn.

Apparently, allow people to cheese into PrCs faster.

That's it.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue May 31, 2011 6:21 pm

RobbyPants wrote:Weren't those both in the core Monster Manual?

They were.
The level of munchkinery involved in half dragon celestials (and other such combinations) was a great damage to the game. D&D 3.0 was fun, but the abject twinks it brought into the game made it less fun.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Tue May 31, 2011 7:27 pm

sabs wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:Weren't those both in the core Monster Manual?
They were.
The level of munchkinery involved in half dragon celestials (and other such combinations) was a great damage to the game. D&D 3.0 was fun, but the abject twinks it brought into the game made it less fun.

Are those really that powerful? I've never seen those templates used, and half-dragon overcharges on LA (because large creatures get wings, but you don't, so fuck you). I have never seen the half-dragon or half-celestial used in a serious build.

Mineral Warrior is another thing altogether.

As for my worst books, Complete Psionic was the first splatbook I really hated, so I'll throw that in. But I'll second Magic of Faelrun too.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue May 31, 2011 11:32 pm

Yeah, if people were trying taking those templates for cheese purposes, they were Doing it Wrong (TM). There's not many templates that are even strong, much less broken-strong, and those two are not among them. Off the top of my head:

Strong:
Mineral Warrior
Lloth-Touched? If I'm thinking of the right one
Ghost (with the right classes, and it's a real trade-off)

Excessive:
Feral (if you count class levels for HD purposes, otherwise it's just strong)
The Dragon magazine version of Half-Ogre and Half-Minotaur.
White Dragonspawn, especially with dragon Archetypes
Tauric (flat-out disfunctional rules).

Out of the dozens (hundreds?) out there.