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Planar Handbook (Dungeon & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)
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21 new or used available from $14.98
Average customer review:
Product Description
This new guidebook is specifically designed to make travel to other planes of existence an easy part of any D&D campaign. The rules are written in a modular fashion, allowing players and Dungeon Masters alike the ability to choose only the material most suited to their current campaign. Considered a complementary product to Manual of the Planes™, this title contains a wealth of new material, including new rules subsets, player races, feats, spells, magic items, equipment, and vehicles.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #88030 in Books
- Brand: Wizards of the Coast
- Published on: 2004-07-28
- Released on: 2004-07-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 192 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Bruce R. Cordell, an Origins-award winning author, has designed over 30 game titles in his lifetime, including Return to the Tomb of Horrors™, The Sunless Citadel™, and the Expanded Psionics Handbook™. He also co-authored the Epic Level Handbook™, Underdark™, and the D&D Miniatures Handbook™.
Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel works for the R&D Department at Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Her most recent credits include contributing to the Magic of Faerûn™, and Defenders of the Faith™ and co-authoring Book of Challenges™.
Customer Reviews
It was okay..... MOTP was better, but I have to give this credit.
This was a rather good book considering that is expands the planes for about 30 pages from the DM's Guide to a whole book. The planar sites such as Sigil and The City of Brass are very well done in this book. The touchstones and some of the new items, spells, and monsters are worthwhile. There are new prestige classes and some pretty cool new races. Overall, the book had hight points and it had some bad points. Normally I would give a product like this a neutral 3 sars, but , considering the planar sites, I will be nice and give it 4 stars...
WTF? MOTP (a better book) has 224 pages, this has 192. What gives?
It's newer and 3.5 i guess. A "player's handbook to the planes". Lame. If WOTC are going to rape the collectors and completests, why not give 'em more bang, more quality and more quantity. Merge the MOTP with this book, give us 450 pages and charge the same price. The 2004 "Expanded Psionics" book gave you +64 pages (224 total) over the 2001 "Psionics Handbook". It's rape, but at least they gave you more. In April 2006 they're coming out with yet another Psionics book with only 160 pages (with the most poorly named title ever) called "Complete Psionic" -- which is meant to "complement" the Psionics Handbook. Well, if it's meant to "COMPLEMENT" the other friggin' book it's harldy "COMPLETE" now is it!!!
The Planar Handbook is Lacking Planar Information IMO
192 pages with to many pictures (didn't bother counting this time but expect at least 10% of the book from flipping throught it) and no rear index.
12 pages of reprinted 3e material on aisimar, tieflings and other planar beings from savage species and the monster manual which should have been devoted to developing new planar beings (maybe a movanic deva, a pitfiend, a balor, a planetar or solar (for an epic progression) and a marid or dao instead of the janni reprint).
34 pages of more or less worthless material IMO devoted to planar touchstones and the planar touchstone feat. Personally I thought these pages should have been devoted to fleshing out the 3E planes with a few blurbs about highlights of visiting the planes. Pages which could have been more usefully utilized to update and expand on existing 2E planar material if nothing else.
Personally liked the City of Brass particularly since it was mostly new material. Also liked a few of the classes but trading out a level of sense trap for portal sense didn't seem balanced at all.
I wouldn't recommend purchasing it for $29.95 unless you have money to burn as it just isn't that useful even in a planar campaign.
