| One more thing about DR: there are lots more creatures with slashing, bludgeoning and piercing as DR, there's Good/Evil/Chaos/Law DR and Cold Iron and such are a lot more prominent. (Example: Fiends are now vulnarable to certain materials, no longer a flat + X DR.)
XPH & ToB enhance D&D for the better, but some people hate them because they undermine, however slightly, the sheer & utter domincance of Wizards in any game. Especially ToB adds some fun to melee again. I don't know Shining Force, so I can't comment on that.
You're right about the "Improved blabla" feats, though, they lead to some horrid abuse by some DM's.
I'm mostly excited about the races integration in the whole level progression. Not that that outweighs the "WHY change D&D yet again?" |