Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 15, 2010 18:21:12 GMT -5
Quickly: disappointing and not really that useful.
Summary:
This was one of the earlier supplements released for 4e. The book goes into the cosmology of the D&D world. It's worth noting that this is not the cosmology of the previous editions. The Planes are not what they were at all.
Previously you had the planes on a great wheel with the Etherial, Astral and Negative Energy planes in-between. This whole set up has been trashed and replaced by something that reminds me more of historic Earth creation myths.
You have the world. With the world are two shadow versions of it (makes me think of the DC universe). One is a more feral wild version of the world called The Feywild. The other is a darker more sinister version called The Shadowfell.
Above (for lack of a better place. Somewhere off away from the world and it's shadows) the world is The Astral Sea. Below (again somewhere off from the world, but in an opposite space is The Elemental Chaos. The new background is that the Primordials came from The Elemental Chaos and created the World. The gods who are located in the Astral Sea thought it was cool and created life on the world. The Primordials then tried to destroy the world (as that's what they do, constantly create and then destroy) and the gods fought them for that. In the end the gods won (and thus the world the characters live in exists still).
The Astral Sea contains most of the old planes from the previous editions Arvandor, Celestia and others that anyone who had or read any of the Planescape stuff would be familiar with. There's a lot of new stuff though. The new set up also follows the whole 'points of light' theme with each plane floating behind a vale of colour out in the Astral Sea. The sea itself isn't really that save to travel. Planes for all of the core gods are here (both good and evil) and each gets a page or so write up with extra time spent on larger sections like The Nine Hells. Interestingly they tossed some Spelljammer in here, as you can buy or rent one of the vessels to travel around the Astral Sea. Really it does come across as a mix of space travel with some planes being planetoids and sea travel with others being islands.
The Elemental Chaos replaces the old elemental realms and is more of a churning sea itself. Powerful creatures can sustain areas to some stability so there are areas to visit in this plane as well. Here you find some of the more evil and chaotic planes from the original wheel system like The Abyss.
The Feywild and Shadowfell are both given a chapter as well. Both of these are rather interesting and scoop up some of the old lore. For example the whole Ravenloft system exists in the Shadowfell where evil lords control their own portion which is shrouded in mists, and the Island of Apes (from classic Greyhawk) can be found in The Feywild.
Lastly the book touches on some odd planes like The Dreaming and The Far Realm. Personally I'm not much of a fan of these concepts but they are there for those who wish to explore the ideas.
Site of interest in all of these places are given brief write ups and a 'base of operation' city is detailed for each area. All of these are geared for higher level play though and probably aren't really any use until at least the Paragon Tier.
The very last chapter contains all the crunch and provides Paragon Paths, Monsters, Magic Items and Vehicles for traveling the planes.
The Good:
I actually like the new cosmology. It just seems to make more sense then the old pizza system. I especially like the Feywild and Shadowfell and they way the worlds can intersect and overlap. I find both of these fascinating while playing as well, they have been used well in Living Forgotten Realms Adventures. I thought it was pretty clever the way they worked in some of the other campaign settings like Spelljammer and Ravenloft (though I am somewhat sad that we probably won't ever see these as full campaign settings again). The new Paragon Paths are pretty cool.
The Bad:
Too little and too much at once. This book is a contradiction to me. On one hand it was rather boring to read. Page after page of descriptions of planar locations. The descriptions of which gods control what. Who hates who. Who's at war with who etc. What each plane looks like. A few citadels/towns/castles/dungeons on each plane etc. It's a ton of fluff and it was not easy to get through all of it as pretty much none of it is immediately useful for me in any of my current games. Now here's the contradiction, if I actually did want to use some of this for my current games I don't think there is enough info. Each demi-plane (aka plane withing the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos) only gets about a page or two write up. A couple locations are mentioned but no details are given. There's note of maybe one or two major players but no stats or any useful game info. So I'm not sure what to think of this. It's like a primer on the planes. There's info here on all of them, and it's enough to make for a boring read, but then when you want details there isn't quite enough.
Oddly they decided to end The Blood War that was a huge part of Planescape, they also got rid of all the factions, not a popular choice I would think. What's odd is a couple of them are mentioned, but as minor players with no where near the scope they had in the old setting.
The Ugly:
Too much fluff not enough crunch. Only the last 47 pages of the book really give you any game rules. That's 30%. 25 of these pages are monsters written up in monster manual format (aka only useful for a DM), that leaves only about 14% that most players would ever care about. I was also very disappointed in the write up of Sigil which is covered in quite a bit of detail in the Player's Handbook 2. I don't really see why the Sigil info should be split/shared over two books.
Overall:
I'm glad I got this one used for a good price. It was a long somewhat boring read. I do like the new cosmology, and I like the changes that were made just reading about demi-plane after demi-plane got to be tiresome. What's worse is that there is a ton of info here but I'm not sure that there's enough there if I really wanted to run a planar adventure. There are so many sites and places mentioned nothing is really detailed (except Sigil, which is also detailed in the PHB2). There's a minuscule amount of info a player would be interested in, about 14% of the book with new Paragon Paths and Magic Items, so really no point in picking this one up as a player. As a DM it's good to know info and I'm sure you can toss some of it into play, especially at the Paragon Tier and above, but I think you will find it lacking.
Summary:
This was one of the earlier supplements released for 4e. The book goes into the cosmology of the D&D world. It's worth noting that this is not the cosmology of the previous editions. The Planes are not what they were at all.
Previously you had the planes on a great wheel with the Etherial, Astral and Negative Energy planes in-between. This whole set up has been trashed and replaced by something that reminds me more of historic Earth creation myths.
You have the world. With the world are two shadow versions of it (makes me think of the DC universe). One is a more feral wild version of the world called The Feywild. The other is a darker more sinister version called The Shadowfell.
Above (for lack of a better place. Somewhere off away from the world and it's shadows) the world is The Astral Sea. Below (again somewhere off from the world, but in an opposite space is The Elemental Chaos. The new background is that the Primordials came from The Elemental Chaos and created the World. The gods who are located in the Astral Sea thought it was cool and created life on the world. The Primordials then tried to destroy the world (as that's what they do, constantly create and then destroy) and the gods fought them for that. In the end the gods won (and thus the world the characters live in exists still).
The Astral Sea contains most of the old planes from the previous editions Arvandor, Celestia and others that anyone who had or read any of the Planescape stuff would be familiar with. There's a lot of new stuff though. The new set up also follows the whole 'points of light' theme with each plane floating behind a vale of colour out in the Astral Sea. The sea itself isn't really that save to travel. Planes for all of the core gods are here (both good and evil) and each gets a page or so write up with extra time spent on larger sections like The Nine Hells. Interestingly they tossed some Spelljammer in here, as you can buy or rent one of the vessels to travel around the Astral Sea. Really it does come across as a mix of space travel with some planes being planetoids and sea travel with others being islands.
The Elemental Chaos replaces the old elemental realms and is more of a churning sea itself. Powerful creatures can sustain areas to some stability so there are areas to visit in this plane as well. Here you find some of the more evil and chaotic planes from the original wheel system like The Abyss.
The Feywild and Shadowfell are both given a chapter as well. Both of these are rather interesting and scoop up some of the old lore. For example the whole Ravenloft system exists in the Shadowfell where evil lords control their own portion which is shrouded in mists, and the Island of Apes (from classic Greyhawk) can be found in The Feywild.
Lastly the book touches on some odd planes like The Dreaming and The Far Realm. Personally I'm not much of a fan of these concepts but they are there for those who wish to explore the ideas.
Site of interest in all of these places are given brief write ups and a 'base of operation' city is detailed for each area. All of these are geared for higher level play though and probably aren't really any use until at least the Paragon Tier.
The very last chapter contains all the crunch and provides Paragon Paths, Monsters, Magic Items and Vehicles for traveling the planes.
The Good:
I actually like the new cosmology. It just seems to make more sense then the old pizza system. I especially like the Feywild and Shadowfell and they way the worlds can intersect and overlap. I find both of these fascinating while playing as well, they have been used well in Living Forgotten Realms Adventures. I thought it was pretty clever the way they worked in some of the other campaign settings like Spelljammer and Ravenloft (though I am somewhat sad that we probably won't ever see these as full campaign settings again). The new Paragon Paths are pretty cool.
The Bad:
Too little and too much at once. This book is a contradiction to me. On one hand it was rather boring to read. Page after page of descriptions of planar locations. The descriptions of which gods control what. Who hates who. Who's at war with who etc. What each plane looks like. A few citadels/towns/castles/dungeons on each plane etc. It's a ton of fluff and it was not easy to get through all of it as pretty much none of it is immediately useful for me in any of my current games. Now here's the contradiction, if I actually did want to use some of this for my current games I don't think there is enough info. Each demi-plane (aka plane withing the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos) only gets about a page or two write up. A couple locations are mentioned but no details are given. There's note of maybe one or two major players but no stats or any useful game info. So I'm not sure what to think of this. It's like a primer on the planes. There's info here on all of them, and it's enough to make for a boring read, but then when you want details there isn't quite enough.
Oddly they decided to end The Blood War that was a huge part of Planescape, they also got rid of all the factions, not a popular choice I would think. What's odd is a couple of them are mentioned, but as minor players with no where near the scope they had in the old setting.
The Ugly:
Too much fluff not enough crunch. Only the last 47 pages of the book really give you any game rules. That's 30%. 25 of these pages are monsters written up in monster manual format (aka only useful for a DM), that leaves only about 14% that most players would ever care about. I was also very disappointed in the write up of Sigil which is covered in quite a bit of detail in the Player's Handbook 2. I don't really see why the Sigil info should be split/shared over two books.
Overall:
I'm glad I got this one used for a good price. It was a long somewhat boring read. I do like the new cosmology, and I like the changes that were made just reading about demi-plane after demi-plane got to be tiresome. What's worse is that there is a ton of info here but I'm not sure that there's enough there if I really wanted to run a planar adventure. There are so many sites and places mentioned nothing is really detailed (except Sigil, which is also detailed in the PHB2). There's a minuscule amount of info a player would be interested in, about 14% of the book with new Paragon Paths and Magic Items, so really no point in picking this one up as a player. As a DM it's good to know info and I'm sure you can toss some of it into play, especially at the Paragon Tier and above, but I think you will find it lacking.