I'm looking into getting cheap, used 3.5 books now that 4th edition is out and I was wondering what the verdict is on the environment source books; Frostburn, Cityscape, Dungeonscape, Sandstorm, etc.
Are they only useful if you're doing a campaign based entirely in one climate/locale? Are there rules for environmental hazards, advice for overland/city/dungeon adventures? I assume new races and classes and monsters will be in there, though I think world building, setting and non-combat challenges are more to my interest. How have you liked them?
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I really wanted Stormwrack for my Savage Tide game but I did fine without it. It seems like the general consensus in my group is that they are useful but not nearly as cool to use as the 'Races OF' series, which means that the environmental books seem to be more balanced. That is just my take on it but not from any real 1st hand info or trials so take the aforementioned in that spirit.
Frostburn was excellent, my favorite of the whole lot. Lots of great cold themed monsters, hazards, PrCs, spells and the like. It was really a great book, in my opinion.
Sandstorm felt a little less . . . substantive? There was still some useful and cool hazards, but I didn't like the monsters and races nearly as much (so why is there an Inevitable that specifically patrols deserts, other than to have a mechanical scorpion?). Still, it wasn't bad, and I don't regret the purchase, I just liked Frostburn better.
I liked Stormwrack better than Sandstorm. For some reason new races and monsters related to the sea make sense to be, perhaps because its such a broad area that can have undiscovered stuff. I liked some of the new ships and the like, although I can't say that I officially used any of the ship combat rules.
So of those three, I liked them all, but probably in this order: Frostburn, Stormwrack, Sandstorm.
Cityscape really disappointed me. There was tons of stuff you could write about a city campaign but it seemed more interested in creating PrC that were hyperspecialized to the "generic" material presented in the book. There were lots of pre statted city NPCs like guards and the like, which is useful, but not a must have.
Dungeonscape is strange for me, because parts of it I just loved from a practical standpoint, and parts of it really felt too metagame for me. In other words, I liked some of the neat ideas like strange walls make of souls and stuff, and I liked things like psionic traps, I liked templates that make oozes intelligent and put swarms inside of undead, and make larger monsters smaller to fit into an underground area, but I hated the Factotum, which was way too "this guy is an adventurer that can do a little of everything," which just felt too much "in game," especially when they can, say, use cleric like abilities without having any kind of real conviction in anything, for example. Also, while some of the equipment enhancements were cool, the lot of the fluff was . . . I don't know . . . self-aware? It kind of put me off at times, as it was almost written in places assuming that PCs know the game rules that govern their existence (I love Order of the Stick, but its a funnier bit when its a bit and not a campaign assumption).
Despite that, I could really live without Cityscape, and while Dungeonscape isn't a "must have," it does have a lot of worthwhile ideas to mine from it, so its worth a look.
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thay are very useful sourcebooks to have, the information in each can be used in a multitude of settings not just one ecological niche.
The rules for extreme heat and cold can be used in urban and rural setting and the fire rules can be applied anywhere. Cityscape and Dungeonscape are the most limited in scope but specialized rules for sewers, slums and underground travel are great to have if you have an adventure there.
Each book also includes new feats, spells and monsters of course.
I agree with KnightErrant. Cityscape was the weakest, a few tibits of value but not many. Dungeonscape was a mixed bag, but worth getting. Forstburn was the best and Stormwrack is also very useful.
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I rate Dungeonscape on the top but that is because prior to kicking off the RotRL campaign I ran Dungeon adventures only. Good altnerate class options and new classes.
I hope that 3 wilderness books will get more of a use as I do more "wilderness" stuff with the paizo content. Frostburn would be my first choice as it seems to have more interesting character options in it.
Cityscape is poor. I would not get unless it was free or near free. Unless you are creating a town/city, not worth getting.
If you're converting old modules to 3.5, but can't be bothered to create new stat blocks for old monsters yourself (and can't find them elsewhere), then there are a lot of familiar faces in the five environment books. A Spelljammer race even turned up in Stormwrack.
I did like the alternate class options, particularly in Dungeonscape. Plus it had rot grubs! :)
If I were to rank them, it would probably go something like this (top to bottom): Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Stormwrack, Sandstorm, and Cityscape. If I were not contemplating running the Savage Tide adventure path, then Stormwrack might be lower on the list. If I were to really get into creating a city (or more), then Cityscape might be higher on the list.
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I have them all, and I was quite pleased with them at the time, but they are certainly not particularly necessary for a D&D campaign. Looking back on it, if I had my time over again I'd probably skip the entire series unless I had a particular desert / ice etc. campaign coming up.
Frostburn is a particularly pretty book, but I've never used much from it. There is a nice line of mythology, but it has never particularly fitted my campaign world. And some of the crunch seemed overpowered.
Sandstorm has some nice stuff - I've used the touchstones (apparently introduced in Planar Handbook, but I don't have that book), the Walkers in the Waste, the Scorpion Heritors and some of the other fluff. For me, it had the most interesting fluff of the lot (sandworm riders!), although mechanically I wasn't particular impressed - in my opinion there were plenty of sub-par feats and prestige classes, and some badly thought out spells
Stormrack I found a bit disappointing, as there wasn't as much underwater stuff as I was hoping for. I'd also have liked more rules for ships, naval combat, that kind of thing.
Cityscape is widely considered to be the weakest of the series, but I found the city design rules - splitting cities into upper class, middle class and lower class districts based on population, and then choosing the districts themselves from a fairly long list - gave me lots of ideas for populating my cities with interesting features.
As a result, I probably got more use out of Citiscape than any of the others, but only in a Worldbuilding sense - pretty much none of it appeared in my game. It also seemed to me to be the most dreary in appearance, with lots of dark artwork.
Dungeonscape is interesting, and in its encounter design guidelines it is something of a forerunner of 4th edition. I think part of my problem with it is that, after the bad reviews of Cityscape, everybody seemed to think this book was great. As a result it never lived up to my high expectations.
My vote is Frostburn.
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I enjoyed all of them, though definitely the most interesting to me was Sandstorm. The biggest continent in my homebrew campaign world was one gigantic wasteland of a desert, where I used a lot of content from sandstorm and found it extremely helpful. Of course I would only suggest buying any of these environment books if you plan to have the corresponding environments play a large role in your world and want the comprehensive rules on just what frostbite does, or how the prolonged glare from the sun would affect a person, or any other environmental hazard. Otherwise, use the DMG rules, as they are fine as is. Me, I have to know everything just in case it comes up, so I memorize as many books as I can from cover to cover in my spare time.
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I liked Frostburn and Sandstorm most, both had quite a few crunchy new possibilities for all different sorts of characters. (I *wanted* to like Stormwrack best, 'cause I'm a big time aquatic races / campaigns goob.)
Dungeonscape was a little underwhelming and Cityscape was very underwhelming, to my tastes.
Frostburn and Sandstorm have seen the most use so far, and are both really cool. (I played a character from the desert so we made more use of Sandstorm than we otherwise would have. It's useful but a wee but situational.) Stormwrack is cool and gave me all kinds of neat ideas...that I still haven't had a single chance to use because the only campaign that we've had even in the general vicinity of water was one that I was running and it didn't last long. Someday...*wistful sigh*
Cityscape was a total disappointment. Don't waste your money. We have Dungeonscape, but I still haven't read it. I was kind of splatbooked out when we got it and haven't yet got around to reading it.
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Confirmed: Frostburn and Sandstorm have seen the most use. The bests in Frostburn are awesome, but one look at the name James Jacobs on the book cover says it all, eh?
Until now, I hadn't realized but I don't think I own a copy of Stormwrack, one of only 3 or 4 books in the 3.5 collection I don't have - so honestly, if I haven't missed it until now, I can't recommend it.
But of course, I recommend anything 3.5, and also highly recommend the Tome of Horrors series by Necromancer games for creatures.
Good luck.
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Cityscape is widely considered to be the weakest of the series, but I found the city design rules - splitting cities into upper class, middle class and lower class districts based on population, and then choosing the districts themselves from a fairly long list - gave me lots of ideas for populating my cities with interesting features.
I agree here, It depends on what you plan on doing with the books. I have used Cityscape more than any of the others, but only in world building, not in actual play.. I think this was more the purpose of CityScape and DungeonScape, while the others had more at the table reference book feel for their respective terrain types.
For environment ideas and rules, i strongly recommend Legends & lairs/Wildscape, from Fantasy Flight Games.
It covers all types of environments in one single book.
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If you're converting old modules to 3.5, but can't be bothered to create new stat blocks for old monsters yourself (and can't find them elsewhere), then there are a lot of familiar faces in the five environment books. A Spelljammer race even turned up in Stormwrack.
I did like the alternate class options, particularly in Dungeonscape. Plus it had rot grubs! :)
If I were to rank them, it would probably go something like this (top to bottom): Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Stormwrack, Sandstorm, and Cityscape. If I were not contemplating running the Savage Tide adventure path, then Stormwrack might be lower on the list. If I were to really get into creating a city (or more), then Cityscape might be higher on the list.
ROT GRUBS!
That right there is reason to get it!
Dang, must get Dungeonsacpe now.
I have used Sandstorm, Fostwrack, and Stormwrack with good results. Each gave me ideas and simple rules to make these locations feel more real and very dangerous. In fact a short adventure I ran in a desert turned out to be as much about fighting the desert as much as it was fighting gnolls and monsters!
I have all five of these books and use them a lot, especially Frostburn and Stormwrack. Dungeonscape has a nice section on monster tactics which I found very useful when making an epic level adventure, and made the fights really dangerous, even for high-level characters.
Cityscape is useful because it has a lot of prerolled city characters, such as city guards, cultists, street thugs etc.
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I'm looking into getting cheap, used 3.5 books now that 4th edition is out and I was wondering what the verdict is on the environment source books; Frostburn, Cityscape, Dungeonscape, Sandstorm, etc.
I thought stormwrack, frostburn and sandstorm were pretty good. Cityscape and dungeonscape were not, pretty garabge to me.