Post/Author/DateTime	Post
alchemyprime 04-09-06, 05:02 PM	Yeah, my group wants a whole bunch of stuff from me, which involes the purchase of a whole bunch of supplements. So, can anyone help me here? 1) What version of the samurai is better, the CW or the OA? I'm leaning to OA, but I'm buying the CW anyway, so... 2) SHould I get Incarnum? My rouge wants it because he's a total munchkin who really likes new things, and our fighters want it for the new magic items. 3) What opinions does everyone have on the Tome of Magic? Could the vestiges and binders be compared to some anime characters for me? All I can come up with is Yugi and Yami Yugi and Hikaru and Sai. 4) I know my n00b is showing by asking this, but what's an SRD? 5) Is the Complete Arcane more useful than the Complete Psionic? Our cleric likes the idea of the Divine Mind, and our Favored Soul is thinking of going into the warmage. Thanks for the help everybody.
Umbra_Moses 04-09-06, 05:11 PM	1) In my opinion neither of them are really all that interesting, but I much prefer the OA Samurai over the CW one. The CW one is just...gross. I think really the best way to recreate a "Samurai" is just to go Fighter with some role playing flavor (that's basically all the OA guy is, minus the super broken ability to sacrifice magic items at full price instead of selling them for half to imbue his sword magically; and also the two free MW blades at lvl 1). 2) Never heard of Incarnum, but I'm going to say no. 3) Can't help you there either. 4) The SRD is the System Reference Document. Do a google search for either "DND SRD" or "D20 Modern SRD" and you'll find the rules for these games online, and for free, minus some of the licensed material (which basically means you get everything in the core rule books minus the xp tables...go figure) 5) In general I tend to stay away from the psionics stuff, just because I don't like it. I can tell you that the Warmage is wacky. I'm really not sure whether I like him or not...he's just...odd.
Throrin 04-09-06, 05:20 PM	Don't take this the wrong way, but.... First off, YOU are running the game, and while your players may have stated their desires of what type of source material you should use, YOU have the right to run the game with what ever resources you wish. Go with what you think is better. Second, if you start the game running around to satisfy your players, the game will either fall apart due to your bouncing in one direction or the other, or you will get tired of just reacting to your players demands. My advice is to present your players with what you have in mind and let them work with that. This will let everyone start on even, and known, footing. You can always add sources in later. Start with what you know.
goblin_gronth 04-09-06, 05:33 PM	Im with Throrin on this one too... If they want those books, tell them to buy them. Thats close to 150.00 you mentioned in that list. If your having to buy them yourself thats a lot of someone to ask of someone else. especially when you not ready to get them, or to just please someone else. I have mostely DM/GMed but the games that i have played in, i want able to tell the DM what i wanted to play. I asked. If the resources wasn't availible than we didnt play it. If i had the book myself that was a different story but even than i wasnt always able to play it because it didnt fit with the campaign that was going on. Only reading what you have written thus far, either you have th money and want those books yourself and decided to get ones that will help your players or they are using you to try and get what suits them the best. 30 some dollars is a lot easier to handle than 150 some dollars... Goodluck with that.
Rumple_Cragstan 04-09-06, 05:49 PM	1) What version of the samurai is better, the CW or the OA? I'm leaning to OA, but I'm buying the CW anyway, so... The CW samurai is total crap, even below the depths of the suckitude of the fighter. I don't know much about the OA Samurai, but from what I've heard it can get ridiculously powerful through Iaijutsu. So choose your poison - a PC that can kill everything, or a ***** that can't kill anything. 2) SHould I get Incarnum? My rouge wants it because he's a total munchkin who really likes new things, and our fighters want it for the new magic items. I don't know anything about Incarnum, but I'll give you my oppinion based on what I've read and heard. Don't buy it, its completely retarded. Last time I heard, tampering with souls for personal gain was the domain of villainous evil characters. Total cheeze, made for munchkins. 3) What opinions does everyone have on the Tome of Magic? Could the vestiges and binders be compared to some anime characters for me? All I can come up with is Yugi and Yami Yugi and Hikaru and Sai. I don't have Tome of Magic, but I've heard that its got some good stuff. The whole Vestige thing, the best 'anime' comparison I can think of is Yoh / Amidamaru (from Shaman King). Actually, the whole Shaman King anime concept fits very well with the concept of Vestiges. 4) I know my n00b is showing by asking this, but what's an SRD? Its already been answered, I won't bother. 5) Is the Complete Arcane more useful than the Complete Psionic? Our cleric likes the idea of the Divine Mind, and our Favored Soul is thinking of going into the warmage. I don't know about Complete Psionic, but Ca was an awesome book with some totally sweet PrCs. There where a few completely messed up ones (Green Star Adept... wtf?), but most of them are pure gold.
ZeronHitaro 04-09-06, 06:14 PM	I can only answer question #2. 2. Ignore the above posters that said no, if a person hasn't read the book, they have no reason what so ever to make comments about it. It's no better than people who yell Psionics is broken without reading the XPH. Incarnum is a new system that is one of the few that is mostly balanced, but of course it has flaws like any other system. The soul tampering Rumple is refering too is actually the Necrocarnum PrC, most DMs use it for villians only. I say buy it, however, first give the book a nice glance through. As with most supliment material, it's IMO. However I state again, people who don't know of what they speak shouldn't be giving opinions.
Seeker95 04-09-06, 06:46 PM	1. If you are getting CW, then go with that. No need to buy a book just to get a single class. (I feel OA is well worth the money for many other reasons, but a single class is not enough.) 2. If you have ever said to yourself "I really wish D&D had a different magic system." then Incarnum *might* be worth it to you. However, I did not find it worth it to me. Tome of Magic is a much better choice in my opinion. It offers three amgic variants, without filling 200 pages with fluffy crap trying to turn a single article into an entire sourcebook. 3. See above. I like it. Can't help you with the anime comparison, though. Today's anime is far too much fluff and flop. Oh the old days, when anime meant great Japanese stories. Today it means average commercial churn. 4. My favorite site for the SRD is the Hypertext SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/). 5. If you play a psionic campaign, then you will need (or at least very much want) Complete Psionic. Otherwise, you'll definitely get more mileage out of Complete Arcane.
Shadowslayer_Canada 04-11-06, 10:25 AM	I can't vouch for any of these books. But I will say that if my players want something from an optional sourcebook, its up to them to buy it...not me. And they have to show me the actual book. No ill-gotten PDFs.
spoogemonkey 04-11-06, 04:54 PM	The more books you allow - the crazier the campaign gets.... and the more difficult for a Noob to DM. If you really ARE a noob..... disallow them all and stick to the core only.