When you first see the Wheel of Time, you can't help but notice that it's physically impressive. It's a large hard cover book with an eye-catching color cover. Not eye-catching in the Avalanche Press sense, no lingerie model sprawled provocatively, but colorful and well detailed, and by the same guy who does Wheel of Time novels and many other fantasy books (Darrell K. Sweet), who has his own unique style. The 318 inside pages are also in fairly vivid color (better than the somewhat grey and murkey color of the D&D core books, not to mention the awful artwork in them), and on pretty decent paper, which makes this by far the heftiest d20 book I own. Unfortunately, all this impressiveness comes with a hefty price tag of $40. But, with the price of the core books moving to $30, it's a good deal in comparison.
As to the contents of the book, in many ways, it's a combination of the D&D PHB, DMG, and MM. Only modified to fit the world desribed in Jordan's books. (As a note, while I've read most of them, I'm not a hard core fan, and quite honestly, I've lost track of the series in the last year or two)
The first 8 chapters are basically the same as that of the PHB. The only exception is that Chapter 2 is backgrounds instead of races, but the spirit is largely the same. Basically, the player has two choices - human, and Ogier, which is sort of like a smart Ogre. Because humans are so common, there are a number of different background cultures, which the player picks and is used to help pick the characters starting feats, skills, languages and such. There's also a large number of background feats, which are pretty useful. Too bad they're not open content, though in practice they are more or less skill focus feats.
Chapter 3 is classes, just like the PHB, but the classes are quite different. There is the Algai'd'siswai, Armsman, Initiate, Noble, Wanderer, Wilder, and Woodsman. The Algai'd'siswai is a mouthful to both say & write (I bet Jordan has a macro for it), but is basically an Aiel fighter (the Aiel, for those not familiar with the books, are a culture of desert warriors. Very tough fighters who use spears). Quite honestly, I think this should have been a prestige class.
The other classes are more normal. Armsman is a fighter, more or less, the Initiate is a basic magic using class, the Noble is something of an upgraded Aristocrat, the Wanderer is more or less a Rogue, the Wilder is a magic using class that hasn't had proper instruction, and the Woodsman is like a magic-less Ranger.
Class are like D&D classes, but with two twists. Classes now had two more stats - "Defensive Bonus" and "Reputation". Defensive bonus gives the character a bonus to it's armor class when not using armor. Pretty much like how a Monk's armor class works. Presumably this was added because almost no one in the WOT books seems to wear armor. Reputation is pretty much just like another ability score, only representing how famous the character is. They also feature a slightly different save progression style, instead of Great or Poor, there is something of a middle ground (like in Deadlands d20).
Chapter 4, skills, is pretty much the same as in the PHB, only with 3 skills for magic using characters (or Channelers). Chapter 5, feats, is again more or less the same, only with feats for magic. Chapter 6 is again more or less like the PHB chapter 6, and so on and so on until chapter 9, magic. (Combat is also more or less the same, only a bit simpler - no Attacks of Opportunity)
Magic in the Wheel of Time is a bit hard to explain, but basically magic users channel the magical force through their bodies to do things. There are 5 different types of magic forces, and spells are called 'weaves', because they weave the various magical force into patterns to cause spells.
Just how it works is not the easiest thing to explain. It's almost like how a sorcerer cast spells in regular d20, only weaves can have varying spell levels. And the character knows them in groups (called Talents) instead of just one at a time.
Chapter 10 is like the first part of the DMG. You get tips, info on how to DM, plus some Prestige classes and NPC classes. The prestige classes are Aes Sedai, Asha'man, Blademaster, Commander, Gleeman, Thief Taker, Warder, Windfinder, Wise One, and Wolfbrother. If you have read the books, most of those classes will make sense to you. If not, well, use a dictionary then. The NPC clases are the Commoner, Expert, Warrior, and Diplomat. The first three are like the ones in the DMG. The Diplomat is a bit odd, class wise. They have a lot of hit points (d8), yet have the worst combat progression. But as you might guess, they are good at talking to people. I guess they are meant to be a stipped down noble/aristocrat, though I think it's a bit redundant.
Chapter 11 is like a combination mini-Monster Manual and Rogues Gallery. You get a number of critters (17), as well as stats and descriptions for a number of NPCs from the books
Chapter 12 is a 20 or so page overview of the land WOT is set in , at least more or less. It's a bit on the bare-bones side.
Chapter 13 describes the other worlds in WOT. It's also very sketchy, at 8 pages or so.
Chapter 14 is pretty short as well - basically it describes the magic items in the WOT world. Since there really aren't many, it's a short chapter.
The last chapter, 15, is actually a short, 15 page adventure. After there, there is an index, and a character sheet.
As to what I think of the book, well, I'm somewhat contradicted. WOTC did a very good job on it. Physically, it's very snazzy, with very nice artwork and easy to read (though proofreading could have been better). It's also very hefty, and is a complete game system in one book.
On the other hand, it's somewhat creepy to play. It's a lot like D&D, but it's not D&D. So a lot of time, you do something that is what you'd do in D&D, but is not in the rules for WoT. A lot of the terminolgy is changed from how it's used in D&D - for instance, instead of PC, the player characters are Hero. Defensive Class is just 'Defense'. Etc. No big deal, but a bit creepy.
While all that is intended to make the game feel different from just playing D&D, I have to wonder if some of it wasn't overkill, done just to be different. I'm also not sure the magic system is all that great. Still seems too D&D like, since it still uses spell slots, albeit somewhat differently.
Another thing I don't think I like are the classes. While they want to emulate the books, by giving each class a defensive bonus, no one will ever wear armor. That would make sense for some classes, like the Aiel warrior class, but not all of them. Much like it makes sense for the Monk in regular D&D, but not for all the classes.
Quite frankly, I think the Sovereign Stone campaign book for regular d20 does a better job of adapting the D&D rules to a Jordan-esque like setting. And because that uses the regular d20 rules, you can actually use stuff from that book in a D&D game. Unfortunately, because of the alterations to the d20 system that WoT uses, you'd have to do a bit of work to adapt it to regular d20, though not a huge amount.
So, this book is very good if you are going to run a game set in the WoT world. Which is what it was meant for, so this is a good thing. But it's not all that useful for those looking for d20 material to adapt to their own D&D campaign, at least those who want to plug stuff in without any additional work. And it's a very physically attractive book, and complete (though I would have liked more monsters and some more background info), so it is a fairly good value.
