Where are my damn 4E splatbooks?!

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:52 am

Wanna hear a dark, dank, evil secret?

My favorite splatbooks in 3E were the ones that came out during the first couple of years. The softcover ones. You know the ones.

They were dumb and not balanced very well. But I liked the misshapen, overly squiggly and detailed figures in B&W ink. And while there were a lot of idiotic elements to them, at least they were ambitious. Remember the Drunken Master? Remember the Fang of Lolth? The Butt Magus? Silly as hell but still fun to look at. And I sort of liked the obsessive, droning, self-important descriptions of some of the organizations and buildings.

These books could've been golden if they were balanced better. They would've been acceptable if they were at least useable except for a few odds and ends.

Well, one of the few things I'm looking forward to in 4E is cutting loose with the ridiculous classes and schticks and powers. I would actually enjoy for a couple of games having all of my Diaper Slashes and Fartknocker Smashes replaced by Hot Pie Attacks.

But anyway, enough of that. It's been about 3 months since the game has come out and all we got was a book of trinkets and some dumb books on the Forgotten Realms. The first book of expanded warrior schticks is not going to come out UNTIL LATE NOVEMBER.

What the fuck? Where are my damn 4E splatbooks?! What's taking them so goddamn long>

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:57 am

Sword and Fist had prestige classes from Dragon magazine. Where is Dragon now?

And yeah, my favorite PrCs were the very first produced for D&D by Mone Cook in his 'making PrCs' column. The Eldritch Master and the other one kinda like it were classic. Such spell progressions were never seen (outside of Polyhedron) again.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:22 am

I remember being very fond of the hospitalier. I don't remember very much what it does right this minute but I just remember being very fond of it.

That and the silly monk's amulet business.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:10 pm

Here they are!

Slower and fewer books than 3e, however.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:57 am

I hated the early 3E splatbooks. Really I hated all the 3E splatbooks except for the spell compendium, the magic item compendium and the tome of battle.

Mostly because the random hodgepodge of stuff made it a pain to remember where you found any individual thing. There should just have been a book of PrCs, a book of spells, a book of magic items and a book of feats. And that's it.

fliprushman · Post by **fliprushman** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:34 pm

I'm surprised that WotC didn't do that. I know that some other companies had done this with some success.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:43 pm

Mostly because the random hodgepodge of stuff made it a pain to remember where you found any individual thing. There should just have been a book of PrCs, a book of spells, a book of magic items and a book of feats. And that's it.

Of course, it beats out the current bullshit of waiting a year and a half before divine spellcasters get thrown a bone.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:08 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Of course, it beats out the current bullshit of waiting a year and a half before divine spellcasters get thrown a bone.

Clerics are awesome in 4E anyway. Like I even care.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:04 pm

Personally, I loved the old 3E softcover splat books, too. Weird classes and neat ideas abound! I particularly enjoyed Song and Silence due to the *awesome* mundane gear it had: mechanical lock picks, harpsichords, garrotes, grapple crossbows, etc.

Really, 3.0 had the edge in style and substance for them, in my opinion. They had neat stuff, lots of flavour, and what was most important: LOTS OF MUNDANE ITEMS! Seriously, folks, I love weird little crap like they had in there (Portable shrine? Rock on!), which is why Arms and Equipment Guide was my fave of 3E.

...But yeah, splitting up classes peoplea ctually use through several books over the course of 1+ years is total bullshit. But then, we all know the abilities will be mostly the same, but with a diff power source and description.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 3:48 am

Meikle641 wrote: ...But yeah, splitting up classes peoplea ctually use through several books over the course of 1+ years is total bullshit. But then, we all know the abilities will be mostly the same, but with a diff power source and description.

More years than that.
What cracks me up was the release of the supposedly mage-quintessential Complete Arcane, but oho! What's this? Complete Mage, the must-have book for arcane spellcasters.

Dickwads.