Handbooks: Love It Or Hate It

[Bartmanhomer]

I actually love Handbooks in the D&D 3.5 subforum. It's actually very useful for me to help me build and optimized my character. Do you love handbooks or hate it?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Neither. They're a useful resource for helping to learn a number of solid combos and benchmarking but that's all they are; a tool. Read, learn, then do your own building.

Seriously, this is like asking "textbooks; love 'em or hate 'em?"

[Bartmanhomer]

Neither. They're a useful resource for helping to learn a number of solid combos and benchmarking but that's all they are; a tool. Read, learn, then do your own building.

Seriously, this is like asking "textbooks; love 'em or hate 'em?"

Ok I understand what you're saying.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Should've mentioned it in my previous post but I onlly just thought of it: the 3.5 char-op contests known as Iron Chef in the Playground are another -excellent- resource for learning all kinds of tricks of varying degrees of power.

100 contests and ten years in now so it's a -lot- of material but if you can pick through it to find something similar to what you're trying to do or just use it to try and garner ideas from then you'll learn a lot.

[Malphegor]

I find them handy to calibrate my expectations.

If you read the official WOTC stuff, you'd think the 3.5 Monk is really powerful, the dead levels article gives them nothing, and most books try to give it more of the things it has rather than give it anything new to use. It takes people playing the class and figuring out its kinks to realise that in practice in an actual party monks kinda suck in most instances, especially if you use magic.

Plus it gives me an idea of what people actually find WORKS. There's like a thousand wizard-suitable feats in 3.5, narrowing down which ones suit a wu jen is kind of a pain in the spirit without a player made wu jen handbook giving me an idea of where to look.

D&D is full of traps and bad decisions. Having a handbook is like an item of +2 Trapsense when reading a book.

[Willie the Duck]

I find them handy to calibrate my expectations.

If you read the official WOTC stuff, you'd think the 3.5 Monk is really powerful, the dead levels article gives them nothing, and most books try to give it more of the things it has rather than give it anything new to use. It takes people playing the class and figuring out its kinks to realise that in practice in an actual party monks kinda suck in most instances, especially if you use magic.

Leaving the 3.5 monk out of it (not because it is wrong, simply because it is a side point), your point about calibration is spot on. For someone new coming into 3e, looking at something like the sample progressions of each class in the DMG gives you a sense of what numbers you should expect to have at a given level that doesn't line up with actual play (regardless of where fighters stand in the class pecking order, if you are comparing your fighter to the one in the book that picked up weapon focus and specialization, etc., you'll get a skewed view of what 'normal' is).

Plus it gives me an idea of what people actually find WORKS. There's like a thousand wizard-suitable feats in 3.5, narrowing down which ones suit a wu jen is kind of a pain in the spirit without a player made wu jen handbook giving me an idea of where to look.

D&D is full of traps and bad decisions. Having a handbook is like an item of +2 Trapsense when reading a book.

Agreed.

And to move past 3e and into handbooks in general -- this is where they shine. Pointing out to someone new to a ruleset what people with 1-2 years into it would know. It doesn't replace actual experience, but it trims down the challenge of making something workable (and possibly gives you a warning that you absolutely aren't the first person to discover XYZ).

[Hunter Noventa]

I agree that they're great tools. I mostly use them to keep an eye out for trap options, but I rarely go all-in on a presented build, but use it to get somewhere usable and fun with an idea I already have.

[False God]

I like them, quite frankly I'd probably play a much rules-light system if it wasn't for them. There's a lot of material to wade through and it's nice to get an idea of what's hot and what's not.

[Faily]

I like to use them to provide thoughts I hadn't considered, but I've never really followed one.

[Guizonde]

before starting my pf campaign playing an inquisitor, i looked at the ressources available for the class and deemed it to be workable as a skill monkey and support character.

then i went and read the inquisitor's handbook and found that most builds turned it into a harsh dps with litterally not one build that was focused on skills and use to the group outside of combat (which was my main focus). so i took what i pleased, a bit from the support style inquisitor, a bit from the dps, plus my own little experience, and created a well-rounded but far from broken inquisitor. i think i used it as intended: as a tool.

reading the handbook it showed me a side of the inquisitor i had completely missed out on, namely its pure combat value. i found it lacking in the team game department, which is in my eyes a critical flaw. dnd is a team game, no one character is ever in a vacuum, and i regret the lack of synergy with other classes the handbook could have elaborated upon. granted, that's not the purpose of the handbook, but hey, it's my post, i can nitpick. on the plus side, it made my admittedly underpowered build able to go toe to toe in terms of power with the rest of my team thanks to feats, smart combat strategy and roleplay. it also gave my dm grey hairs, which is always a plus.

all in all, i'd read another one next time i'm unfamiliar with a class. thinking about reading a ranger's handbook just to see what i've missed about the class.

[HeraldOfExius]

They can be helpful, although they skew towards higher optimization. I have seen a player accidentally trivialize what was supposed to be a difficult fight thanks to a spell that was suggested in a handbook. This player didn't even fully understand why it was so highly recommended until it was actually cast.

[Khedrac]

I also like to raid them for ideas. Not only do we normally play at a lower optimization level, but also we don't usually allow Dragon Magazine or FR or Ebberon material which usually means that none of the builds can be used straight, but they still remain a valuable source of ideas that I can modify to suit my play.
The are also valuable for pointing out trap options that I hadn't realised are traps.

[Anonymouswizard]

I find them handy to calibrate my expectations.

If you read the official WOTC stuff, you'd think the 3.5 Monk is really powerful, the dead levels article gives them nothing, and most books try to give it more of the things it has rather than give it anything new to use. It takes people playing the class and figuring out its kinks to realise that in practice in an actual party monks kinda suck in most instances, especially if you use magic.

Ah, that article. The Barbarian and Monk are the only two well designed classes in the PhB!

The 3.5 design team were clearly struggling with balance, but they did end up coming out with good ideas. I love the idea of the Archivist, somebody delving into the lore of worshipped and forgotten gods and finding the right incantations for magic, but it's ability to access every divine spell was troublesome.

Plus it gives me an idea of what people actually find WORKS. There's like a thousand wizard-suitable feats in 3.5, narrowing down which ones suit a wu jen is kind of a pain in the spirit without a player made wu jen handbook giving me an idea of where to look.

D&D is full of traps and bad decisions. Having a handbook is like an item of +2 Trapsense when reading a book.

Yep. In general I find when reading handbooks everything above black is fine with an actual group. But it also goes the other way, where taking options that are too good causes problems.

[Psyren]

I've written several and read through many more; they're a hobby of mine. So put me in the "love" camp.

They're one of my metrics for a solid system - the crunchier it is, the more likely it will be that there are "good" and "bad" options, and thus the more textured the handbooks become. Handbooks are what ultimately convinced me to give 5th edition a try, and they made my experience with the game much richer.

[Leon]

They can be useful particularly if your dealing with a class or whatever that you have not as much experience with but given they are written almost exclusively by optimizers you do have wade through all that twaddle to find the useful information.

[Willie the Duck]

I've written several and read through many more; they're a hobby of mine. So put me in the "love" camp.

They're one of my metrics for a solid system - the crunchier it is, the more likely it will be that there are "good" and "bad" options, and thus the more textured the handbooks become. Handbooks are what ultimately convinced me to give 5th edition a try, and they made my experience with the game much richer.

Intriguingly, I've noticed that truly crunchy systems like GURPS or Hero System tend not to attract a lot of handbook production. Perhaps because there aren't classes, or perhaps because the systems are so wide-open that it's better to work off of examples than handbooks. It does posit that there's a sweet spot for handbook's being the right way to go. Even for D&D, I notice that there are lots of handbooks for fighters and druids and monks, but fewer for wizards, despite wizards often being a favorite class for many. Perhaps simply because there are so many competing ways to build a good wizard build -- and just going to a handbook and picking all the gold/sky blue (or whatever the genre convention used happens to be on the board in question) options won't actually create a mechanically good PC.

[Psyren]

Intriguingly, I've noticed that truly crunchy systems like GURPS or Hero System tend not to attract a lot of handbook production. Perhaps because there aren't classes, or perhaps because the systems are so wide-open that it's better to work off of examples than handbooks. It does posit that there's a sweet spot for handbook's being the right way to go. Even for D&D, I notice that there are lots of handbooks for fighters and druids and monks, but fewer for wizards, despite wizards often being a favorite class for many. Perhaps simply because there are so many competing ways to build a good wizard build -- and just going to a handbook and picking all the gold/sky blue (or whatever the genre convention used happens to be on the board in question) options won't actually create a mechanically good PC.

I agree, there's a level of high crunch whereby you can basically set every parameter of a game or character and thus a handbook is pointless - there do have to be boundaries, tracks and expected paths to follow, even if those tracks can have some degree of choice within them, in order for a handbook to be worthwhile.

As for weaker classes attracting more handbooks, I view that as a separate phenomenon - one of the things that attracts handbook writers is the perception of solving a problem or adding value, which benefits weaker (or at least, more challenging to build) classes far more than stronger ones. Good handbooks take a long time to write, so I'd rather spend that effort on a class that I feel is either under-served (as the PF Soulknife and 3.5 Psychic Rogue were when I wrote those) or that I feel is perceived as being weak and thus not getting the attention it should. (I imagine both factors played into Zaq's excellent Truenamer handbook.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Speaking of handbooks, anyone know where to find a good one for the Healer from the Miniatures Handbook? The one on minmaxforum.com is kinda lackluster.

[Akal Saris]

Hey Kelb, I'm the author of the Healer handbook that's posted on MinMax. I'm sorry to hear that it's lackluster To be honest, since I was a DM for about 90% of my 3.5 play experience, I've never actually played the class myself, so I wrote the guide based mainly on the resources that I knew about for clerics. It could certainly be improved, though I suspect only 1-2 people a year would really use it at this point.

To my knowledge, there isn't another handbook for the class, since it's (1) from an obscure source, and (2) lower-powered than the existing core options, and its mechanical benefits don't really make the class stand out from its competition the way that some of the other obscure-but-fun classes like factotum or dread necromancer do. Besides that, I think the only sourcebook that even mentions the Healer outside of the Minis Handbook is the Spell Compendium.

If you want to go over some ideas for building a Healer, I'm happy to chat about it via private message or in a new forum thread. Psyren (also in this thread) is another knowledgeable person who would have some good ideas on builds.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hey Kelb, I'm the author of the Healer handbook that's posted on MinMax. I'm sorry to hear that it's lackluster To be honest, since I was a DM for about 90% of my 3.5 play experience, I've never actually played the class myself, so I wrote the guide based mainly on the resources that I knew about for clerics. It could certainly be improved, though I suspect only 1-2 people a year would really use it at this point.

To my knowledge, there isn't another handbook for the class, since it's (1) from an obscure source, and (2) lower-powered than the existing core options, and its mechanical benefits don't really make the class stand out from its competition the way that some of the other obscure-but-fun classes like factotum or dread necromancer do. Besides that, I think the only sourcebook that even mentions the Healer outside of the Minis Handbook is the Spell Compendium.

If you want to go over some ideas for building a Healer, I'm happy to chat about it via private message or in a new forum thread. Psyren (also in this thread) is another knowledgeable person who would have some good ideas on builds.

Sorry, dude. I didn't mean any insult. I get why you'd have trouble with it though. It -is- kind of a polishing a turd kind of project. The advice you gave is mostly solid it just feels... incomplete? I mean, why no mention of sovereign speaker?

Anyway, PM to avoid further derailing of this thread seems like a good idea.

[Psyren]

^ Above leads to the other reason to make a handbook, you think the stuff that's out there might be missing something cool Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that. When Battleship789 reached out to me to make a new PF Soulknife handbook, I was all too happy to hand over the reins, because I had moved on from the class and DSP had published a *ton* of new material for it in the interim.

So if you feel the Healer or any other class handbook is missing something cool - make one!

[Grod_The_Giant]

I mostly use them as a reference. For me, at least, it's less about the specific ratings and more about narrowing down the choices. 3.5 has so much material, scattered through so many sources, that it's really helpful to be able to find a list of stuff that works with class X or combat style Y.

^ Above leads to the other reason to make a handbook, you think the stuff that's out there might be missing something cool Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that.

On the other hand, I think this is the big reason why people write handbooks. It's certainly where my Scout handbook came from.

[Psyren]

I mostly use them as a reference. For me, at least, it's less about the specific ratings and more about narrowing down the choices. 3.5 has so much material, scattered through so many sources, that it's really helpful to be able to find a list of stuff that works with class X or combat style Y.

Agreed, and Pathfinder has caught up in terms of sheer bloat. (To say nothing of 3.P!)

On the other hand, I think this is the big reason why people write handbooks. It's certainly where my Scout handbook came from.

You're basically saying the same thing I did, so wouldn't that be the same hand?

[jdizzlean]

i both like and dislike them in equal measure.

you really have to assume that every source is legal/available for most of them. i tend to use 1 or 2 things out of any given handbook, but more often than not the sample builds w/in them are completely irrelevant to what I'm trying to do. if its for something i'm doing for one of the competitions, it's probably ok to try and work in, if its for something i'm doing at my RL table, more often than not the DM just denies it for whatever his reasons are (source, cheese factor, questionable RAW).

overall though, they're valuable if for no other reason than it gets me thinking about some options that i might not have thought of on my own.

[Tanarii]

As a DM and a player, I can't stand them. Players that read about builds online have the bane of the rest of the table having fun more than once. Particular in official play.

[Psyren]

i both like and dislike them in equal measure.

you really have to assume that every source is legal/available for most of them. i tend to use 1 or 2 things out of any given handbook, but more often than not the sample builds w/in them are completely irrelevant to what I'm trying to do. if its for something i'm doing for one of the competitions, it's probably ok to try and work in, if its for something i'm doing at my RL table, more often than not the DM just denies it for whatever his reasons are (source, cheese factor, questionable RAW).

overall though, they're valuable if for no other reason than it gets me thinking about some options that i might not have thought of on my own.

It's true that it's impossible for a handbook author to know what sources will be allowed at every single table. For me, I try to account for the likelihood of a given source being allowed when I suggest something from it. For a 3.5 handbook for example, stuff like Core, Completes, Races of X, and the Compendiums are usually fair game at most tables, so I'm very likely to suggest stuff from those. Then you get to setting-specific stuff and it gets a lot less clear, so if I'm highlighting something from those I'll usually add a disclaimer. (I include "implied setting" material in this category too, like Sandstorm, Libris Mortis or even Heroes of Horror.) The third tier includes online sources, and dead last is third-party or Dragon Magazine, which generally I don't even mention (but some do.)

As a DM and a player, I can't stand them. Players that read about builds online have the bane of the rest of the table having fun more than once. Particular in official play.

Not much of a Deneirite then?

[Tanarii]

Not much of a Deneirite then?

Books and written works are evil and must be burned! 😂😂😂

It's more that:
- they purport to be some kind of scientific-like ranking of power of different features, when in reality they're just the opinions of some rando guy on the Internet

- many people are prone to believing the written word is sacrosanct, even when it's clearly the above.

- for many guide-readers, the entire concept of 'builds', and especially the more extreme version 'optimization', is orthogonal to 'play the game'. It's a mini-game they heavily occupy their time with outside the game. Then they act like they've got superior knowledge based on this white room theory crafting vs everyone else's play-time experiences.

- thus, like rules lawyers, guide-reading 'builders' are prone to to telling others they're Doing it Wrong ^TM

[Psyren]

I understand where you're coming from even if I don't agree. I certainly can't speak for every handbook writer, but I've never claimed anything in mine to be "scientific" (not even sure what that's supposed to mean ) It's all based on opinion and our own experiences with the game/online discussions about the game.

Besides, handbooks help the designers too! When I wrote my original Pact Magic Unbound handbook years ago, I got a lot of grateful feedback from the authors - both for finding ambiguous or unintentional rules text they were able to clarify before their compilation volume Grimoire of Lost Souls, but also for the organic signal boost my work gave to their material in the community here (and beyond). The same happened when I did my Psionics Unleashed handbook years ago for a nascent Dreamscarred Press. My efforts even got me invited to a closed playtest or two, so I had concrete evidence of the value I was adding.

Ultimately I believe handbooks do far more good than harm. Sure, it's possible that a minority of players out there take these recommendations as gospel and try to weaponize them against a less-than-assertive GM - but if you have negative players like that, they're going to be just as pushy with forum posts, reddit threads and any other source they feel supports their point of view. Handbooks aren't to blame for pushy players, and GMs have all the tools they need to easily deal with those players no matter what a handbook says anyway.

And yes, it's probably no coincidence that Deneir is one of my favorite FR deities

[NorthernPhoenix]

I find them invaluable when I need to quickly know what to ban or nerf, so thanks for that!