Book Discussion #1: Supplemental Rules.

[Siberys]

Hello all, I am starting a series of book discussions and debates. For this installment, this
will be a thread about Supplemental rules. This will include the three environment books,
Sandstorm, Frostburn, and the upcoming, Stormwrack, also the 4 complete books, Adventurer,
Arcane, Divine, and Warrior, as well as the Book of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness, the
Weapons of Legacy, the Upcoming Spell compendium, Unearthed Arcana, The Dungeon Master's guide and many more.

To start off, I would like to discuss Frostburn and Sandstorms.

I personally find the both of them awesome. Though, I DO have disagreement with it.
For instance, the Ashworm Dragoon is basically a paladin of the desert. I don't understand
what the problem is with a mount that is a horse. Also, the class that turns you into a dry
lich, shouldn't be limited to divine spells, but more spells in general. Also, the Sand Dragon
shouldn't be as powerful as the legendary Gold Dragon. Great wyrm for both of them are CR 27.
That's the stronges it get's for normal dragons.

Now there are some advantages of the book, don't get me wrong, such as the Sand Shaper that gives
you bonuses to spells while in deserts, using sand, or both. Also, the Sand Golem is pretty insane
when it comes to combat. I do appreciate the new golem type in the both of the books. This golem let's
him, EVERY time he attacks, have a chance to suffocate a target.

Frostburn is pretty cool too. I like the Cryokineticist, a basic pyrokineticist with cold instead of
fire. It is lawful instead of chaotic, and it is the exact same thing as the Pyro, just cold. I also
like the CR 21 Shivhad. This is a cross between a hydra, a spider, and a worm. It's fangs are 6 extra
heads, it has abilit drain, a cold aura, Spell Resist 34, AC 34 (40 in a glacier), and many other things.
As I said before, my favorite features are the golems in each of them, and there IS an Ice Golem in this
one. It has an ability called Ice shards which does 2d6 points of damage to creatures within reach with no
save (1d6 within 10 ft) and you must make a fortitude save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. All in all, the books
are pretty good, just a few peeves is all. But hey, I like the variations. I like them a LOT

Any comments and disagreements are welcome. The pargraphs above doesn't mean that that is the subject for this thread. You can cange it any time you want to. There are numoerous supplemental rules.

[Mr.Waesel]

You might want to start a different thread for each book, or this could get really cluttered.

[Rob-hin]

About the Sand Dragon, perhaps it's not so odd that it's so powerfull.
Perhaps it could be well implemented in a Netheril campain or that it has it origins in the Netheril age/empire/and such.
In that time, it wouldn't nearly be as powerfull compared to other creatures as it is now, also it could become more powerfull due to it's location.
Plus, it is in an area aimed at it's type; sand. It'll be less powerfull in other surroundings.

[Siberys]

Well, I am going to start more threads, but I did ask how many I could put in this forum for this kinda talk and was limited to five. I am going to go with 4 threads. I made this one the biggest to see if anybody wants to talk of this much. If I get like 4 more replies, then yeah, I'll make the other 3 threads.

[AarronIkarus]

I haven't read Sandstorm yet, but I see no reason why a sand dragon shouldn't be as powerful as a gold dragon. Perhaps they developed as an offshoot of gold dragon stock. That would account for a lot of the power. As for a paladin's mount, horses aren't quite as capable in the desert as some animals, camels for instance. They just weren't built for it.

I was not quite satisfied with Frostburn. It did give me some ideas for an ice age campaign, but didn't give me anything much more than I already had.

[Mr.Waesel]

I like Sandstorm better than Frostburn, but I wouldn't recommend either.