3.X books you wish WotC had published

[Thurbane]

Here's my wish-list (I've seen this thread done before, but none that don't fall within thread necromancy that I can find):

Races of Savagery ("Races of" book for Orcs, Goblinoids and the other "forgotten", eeevil humanoids.)
Tome of Magic II (more vestiges, mysteries, and an official rules fix to make the Truenamer playable.)
Feat Compendium (like the Spell Compendium or MIC, but for feats. At least for those feats that weren't inexorably linked to a specific book, like Incarnum feats etc.)
Complete Combatant (CS = CAd II, CM = CArc II, CC = CD II...arguably, ToB was this, but not in the same style...)
Book of Axiomatic Virtue/Book of Anarchic Revelry (BoED & BoVD for Law and Chaos).
Celestial Libram (FC I & II, but for the Good outsiders)

[Eldan]

Agreed on the Law and Chaos books.

Fiendish Codex III: Mercenaries of the Wastes

Needs some better title, as Mercenaries is not all the 'loth are about, but that's a book I'd have loved, probably. Especially if it had introduced yet another origin story.

[Starscream]

I would like to have seen some more ToB type books. It was such a good attempt to make the martial characters a good as the casters. And it could have worked, too, but there are about 50 supplements with new spells and casting PrCs, and only one book of maneuvers and stances.

I would also have liked to see equivalents to BoED and BoVD for Law and Chaos.

[Eldan]

On the rules side: it would have been awesome if they had taken, say, Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic and the Complete Series and then made an entire book with only hybrids.

I love hybrids. Who needs power if you can have options?

[The Shadowmind]

Of Pacts, Hexes, and War. (More spells, invocations, vestiges, feats, and spells for the Binder[and the binding feat], Warlock, Dragonfire adept, Hexblade, and the Warmage(and some other nearly forgotten classes).

[hamishspence]

Farscape: Environmental Guide to the Far Realm.

A guide to the fey in the same vein as Lords of Madness.

[Rasman]

Complete Champion II so we could get some more of those Domain Feats

Complete Far East (for lack of a better book name) a Guide to making the Monk Amazing.

[Amphetryon]

Complete Incarnum: This subsystem needed more rules support to gain better traction during its actual run.

Races of Rokugan: Ditto additional support for the Oriental-themed classes without going off into its own sub-game like what happened.

[Emmerask]

tob 2 with some psionic prcs would have been nice :smallsmile:

[Eldan]

Farscape: Environmental Guide to the Far Realm.


A non-euclidean book filled only with only gibberish? Because, you know, you can't really adventure in the Far Realms.

DM: "Roll a d6"
Player: "4"
DM: "Your character never existed. Instead, you are now an interesting piece of furniture twenty years in the future."

[peacenlove]

Alternative monster manual: A monster manual filled with creatures that use only Truenaming, Shadowcasting, Maneuevers and everything else outside core.

Guide to Level 30: Make a level cap in DnD and produce rules that work at these levels. Apperdix with guidelines and the danger of the system if streched above 30 level.

+1 on the feat compendium but it needs expanding. The Bok of Options: A guide to feats, alternate skill uses, skill tricks, Variants etc etc for classes all in one book.

Races of war: Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins and other bloodthirsty races
Books about:
Far realms
Yugoloths
Good Outsiders (Ala tome of magic for the 3 different alignments)
Lawful Neutral Outsiders
Chaotic neutral outsiders (the last 2 can be combined together with the neutral outsiders ala Tome of magic)

Planescape campaign setting for 3,5 edition

An off topic question: What books / homebrew do you believe covers most successfully the lack of WotC 3,5 edition books?

[Thurbane]

Alternative monster manual: A monster manual filled with creatures that use only Truenaming, Shadowcasting, Maneuevers and everything else outside core.
Now that is a very cool idea.

[Asheram]

I would like to have seen some more ToB type books. It was such a good attempt to make the martial characters a good as the casters. And it could have worked, too, but there are about 50 supplements with new spells and casting PrCs, and only one book of maneuvers and stances.

I would also have liked to see equivalents to BoED and BoVD for Law and Chaos.

I'd be very happy to see Tome of Battle 2... or even if that's just too much to ask, then the Tome of Batte errata. -_-

[Eldan]

Well, we have a quite exquisite attempt at that here on the boards, the Age of Warriors, a collection of homebrew including at least 20-30 new schools of maneuvers, and dozens of prestige classes. Some of them are psionic.

[Satyr]

I would have liked to see a full campaign sourcebook / player's guide for Dark Sun. I just like the setting a lot.

From a rule perspective, I would have wished for a second Unearthed Arcana with more alternative class features, nice alternative rules and ideas for the adjustment of campaigns.

[AslanCross]

1. Races of Savagery. Goblinoids need more love.
2. The Tome of Battle Errata. :smallfurious:
3. I agree that a book containing monsters using the alternative systems would be really awesome. There is a grand total of ONE monster outside TOB that supports it: the Arcadian Avenger from MM5---and it doesn't even have maneuvers! It just says "Favored class: Crusader. If you don't have ToB, Favored Class: Paladin."

[Killer Angel]

Fiendish Codex III: Mercenaries of the Wastes


FC III: Lords of Gehenna?

yes, a third FC would be my first choice. Yugoloths are fascinating. :smallcool:

[Thurbane]

I would have liked to see a full campaign sourcebook / player's guide for Dark Sun. I just like the setting a lot.
...oh hell yeah, that's reminds me of number 1 on my wish-list (can't believe I forgot it):

Greyhawk Campaign Setting (ala ECS and FRCS)

...I mean, the 3.0 Gazetteer and the 3.5 EttRoG adventure were great, but I weep bitter tears of venom that WotC shelved my favorite ever campaign setting, despite raking over it's carcass for the "default" Gods and personages (Bibgy, Tenser, Modernkainen etc.).

I mean, at least Ravenloft and Dragonlance got some licensed 3rd party love, but nothing for poor old Greyhawk apart from the user made and run Living Greyhawk RPGA setting - and even that got axed in favor of Living Realms in 4.0.

1. Races of Savagery. Goblinoids need more love.
...it's little astonishing to think that even Gnolls (:smalleek:) got more "Races of ..." action than the Goblinoids.

[Eldan]

I agree that a book containing monsters using the alternative systems would be really awesome. There is a grand total of ONE monster outside TOB that supports it: the Arcadian Avenger from MM5---and it doesn't even have maneuvers! It just says "Favored class: Crusader. If you don't have ToB, Favored Class: Paladin."

The problem with that, and my Gish book above, is that, I think, the Policy at wizards was that every book should only require itself and the core books to work, if necessary.

And I understand why: I read a lot of 3.5 material, but the group I had back in school? They struggled with the core rules. I can't remember anyone ever taking a prestige class: for our longest campaign, the group consisted of a human monk 10, human sorcerer 10 and elf wizard 10. And the monk was probably the most combat-powerful character, somehow, bashing down enemies left and right while the other two optimized themselves for overcoming out-of-combat obstacles. And that badly.

All of them were smart people, they are all working on their master degrees in various science subjects now and are perfectly capable of understanding a system. The monk player is the guy I never won a single game of warhammer, 40k or any other strategy game against. But they just didn't care much about the rules of 3.5. If any material had ever required that they read another book first, I doubt they'd have given it a second look.

[Amphetryon]

I would have liked to see a full campaign sourcebook / player's guide for Dark Sun. I just like the setting a lot.


+1. Can't believe I forgot that one. Athas.org is useful and all, and I enjoyed the Dragon magazine issue, but Dark Sun is probably my favorite of TSR's settings.

[Eldariel]

Hm, few things:
- Spell Compendium II: A truly comprehensive Spell Compendium. The first one lacks much of the newer material
- Rules Compendium II: A sane, clear (these two are fails with regards to the first one) compendium of all the 3.5 rules, skill uses, et cetera.
- Tome of Bows: A ToB expansion for ranged combat and archery.
- The Other Powers: An expansion on ToB, Psionics and other similar power sources providing cross-over PrCs, additional material and so on.

And yeah, more Monster-books. Books on Orcs, Goblinoids and company would be awesome, as would treatises on the other outsiders (Slaadi, Yugoloths, Inevitables/Modrons, Eladrin, Guardinals & Angels). Also, a book of Giants. I can't believe how many classic monstrous races are getting neglected in favor of the more "special" creatures like Dragons and Aberrations.

[Eldan]

Hmm. I never thought about giants. In my head, they still have the dumb brute image, even though only about half the D&D giants, at best, actually are dumb brutes. Could be very interesting.

[hamishspence]

...it's little astonishing to think that even Gnolls (:smalleek:) got more "Races of ..." action than the Goblinoids.

Races of Faerun went into a bit more depth on goblinoids and orcs.

MMIV and MMV also gave quite a few of the monstrous races (orcs, gnolls, ogres, kua-toa, hobgoblins) a bit more detail.

[Thurbane]

Hmm. I never thought about giants. In my head, they still have the dumb brute image, even though only about half the D&D giants, at best, actually are dumb brutes. Could be very interesting.
There was the Giantcraft supplement in 2.0, so a 3.X version might have been nice. Could have fleshed out 1/2 Ogres in a bit more detail.

Races of Faerun went into a bit more depth on goblinoids and orcs.
Good to know - I don't normally go in for FR specific stuff, but I have found Serpent Kingdoms and Underdark to be quite useful in a generic sense, so maybe I should give RoF a try. Thanks. :smallsmile:

[Mongoose87]

How about a real Complete Psionic?

[AslanCross]

The problem with that, and my Gish book above, is that, I think, the Policy at wizards was that every book should only require itself and the core books to work, if necessary.

And I understand why: I read a lot of 3.5 material, but the group I had back in school? They struggled with the core rules. I can't remember anyone ever taking a prestige class: for our longest campaign, the group consisted of a human monk 10, human sorcerer 10 and elf wizard 10. And the monk was probably the most combat-powerful character, somehow, bashing down enemies left and right while the other two optimized themselves for overcoming out-of-combat obstacles. And that badly.

All of them were smart people, they are all working on their master degrees in various science subjects now and are perfectly capable of understanding a system. The monk player is the guy I never won a single game of warhammer, 40k or any other strategy game against. But they just didn't care much about the rules of 3.5. If any material had ever required that they read another book first, I doubt they'd have given it a second look.

Good points. At least I get the reasoning behind such a policy. What I really can't wrap my head around is the "3.5 never existed. We tried to write an errata for ToB, realized 4E was around the corner, so we just farted on the errata and forgot about it. We posted it just in case someone wanted to see how little we cared, and DON'T YOU DARE TELL US TO EDIT IT BECAUSE IT'S NOT WORTH OUR TIME AND WILL NO LONGER PROFIT US!!!oneoneone."

That errata still infuriates me. :smallfurious:

[Eloi]

I would have loved to see WotC to actually do something with The Giant's campaign setting instead of just sit on it until 4e came out. I mean he can't distribute it online due to contract, but WotC isn't publishing it, I wish they had, the setting probably would have been awesome.

[Eldan]

They still deviated at least a little from that policy in the end: there was at least support for the complete series and psionics in a lot of places. I just like the Tomes better than the Completes.

[Greenish]

How about a real Complete Psionic?It should be called Expanded Expanded Psionics Handbook. Much better connotations.

[Nidogg]

Complete cheese: understanding when your players are screwing you over....

[Set]

In addition to the 3.5 setting book proposed upthread, a setting book for Al-Qadim, and a setting book for Kara-Tur (the decision to use Rokugan for Oriental Adventures was disappointing to me).

Using the new stuff available, a new Unearthed Arcana, with crazy class variants for some of the newer options, such as Warlocks based on Pacts with fey or celestials or far realms critters or genies / elementals / dragons or totally replacing the Cleric class with Pantheist Clerics that use modified Binder / Factotum rules (I channel Pelor to heal your wounds! May the wild wisdom of Ehlonna lead us through this marsh! With the shining blade of Heironeous, I smite thee!), instead of a collection of spells and arbitrary undead turning powers.

A book presenting a magic system like Elements of Magic (Revised), Monte Cook's World of Darkness, Ars Magica or the Trinity Player's Guide 'freeform psionics system,' with only a dozen or so basic 'forms,' and ever-increasing levels of effect as those forms are developed. Note that I didn't use Mage: the Ascension as an example deliberately, since, no matter how much I loved the setting, the rules left something to be desired...

Savage Species 3.5, coming up with a solution to the 'racial HD / LA' mess to make playable and balanced 'lesser' versions of powerful races that 'grow' their way up to function as part of a party without being ridiculously unbalanced (or stuck adventuring with a 15th level party, despite having 6d8 HD because of some terrible LA rating).

[Eldariel]

Hmm. I never thought about giants. In my head, they still have the dumb brute image, even though only about half the D&D giants, at best, actually are dumb brutes. Could be very interesting.

I always have the sort of lofty Norse-like Jötun in mind when I think of giants and their portrayal in the game is one of the things I'm least satisfied with. I always found giants to be much more interesting as majestic, mighty movers than dumb brutes (I find Ogres and their kin filling that role just fine), but I guess D&D decided we need yet another brute race... "Races of Giants" could've really given a lot.

[Munchkin-Masher]

Bastards & Bloodlines: a Guidebook to Halfbreeds.

I know it's terrible but i just have a thing for templates.

[Mongoose87]

Bastards & Bloodlines: a Guidebook to Halfbreeds.

I know it's terrible but i just have a thing for templates.

I love that feat in there that lets me use Str as my CoDZilla's casting stat.

[J.Gellert]

Something similar to the 2nd edition AD&D "Player's Options" books, where you could break down each class into features, each worth points, then mix and match.

Also, "Point-based magic" that's not the UA version :smalltongue:

[Thurbane]

Also, "Point-based magic" that's not the UA version :smalltongue:
You just know someone's gonna say Psionics! :smalltongue:

[Gamerlord]

Encylopediac Monstrosty: The spell compendium for monsters. Also would include hundreds of new monsters.

[Optimystik]

How about a real Complete Psionic?

They could have just slapped their logo on Untapped Potential and Hyperconscious.
Yes, I'm bitter.

Also - A "Races of..." book for Goblinoids. Races of Filth?

[Person_Man]

I would have loved to have seen a 3.51 series of books. Basically take all the greatest hits - Core, Psionics, ToB, PHBII, Incarnum, Tome of Magic - and reprint them with all of the editing and balance mistakes (Soulborn, Truenaming, dead levels, Overrun rules, etc) fixed. Basically what Pathfinder tried to do, but for everything.

[J.Gellert]

You just know someone's gonna say Psionics! :smalltongue:

I did know it, so I prepared this particularly sharp axe... :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

*sigh*

More support for my theory that I'm the only person in the world who generally likes slot-based vancian magic :smallsigh:

[Optimystik]

*sigh*

More support for my theory that I'm the only person in the world who generally likes slot-based vancian magic :smallsigh:

So if we kill you...

[Eldan]

...I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Sorry. I don't even like Star Wars, but that was just fitting.

Anyway, I like Vancian casting.

[AstralFire]

I like the ideas behind Vancian Casting.

They get kind of bleh when you know dozens of spells that have no relation to one another which you can all memorize in an hour. And you can learn duplicates. Every day.

I've long said to myself that one of these days, I will make an /actual/ Vancian Caster. Likely for 4E. Someone who uses melee or ranged attacks for at-wills and encounters, but spells for dailies.

[Boci]

...I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Sorry. I don't even like Star Wars, but that was just fitting.

Anyway, I like Vancian casting.

What do you like about it? To me, spell points makes more sense: you have a certain amount of energy/manner to cast spells, and can choose whether to cast a lot of weaker spells or fewer more powerful ones.

Vancian "casting" always seemed to suit ToB better in my eyes: through drills the warrior learns certain combos/maneuvers which he then looks for an opertunity to use in battle.

[Pink]

This thread makes me weep for all the wasted 3.5 potential material we could have had. Things were looking up. We had tomb of battle. Then new edition came out and 3.5 was dropped like a radioactive baby. Poor baby.

[Keld Denar]

Complete Commoner

Complete Riding Dog

[Eldan]

Heh. Someone on another forum photoshopped a cover for Complete Cat.

[Optimystik]

What do you like about it? To me, spell points makes more sense: you have a certain amount of energy/manner to cast spells, and can choose whether to cast a lot of weaker spells or fewer more powerful ones.

Vancian "casting" always seemed to suit ToB better in my eyes: through drills the warrior learns certain combos/maneuvers which he then looks for an opertunity to use in battle.

Let's not derail this thread, though I too am curious. When I have more time later today I might post a discussion about slots vs. points.

[hamishspence]

More Environment books- one on swamps/marshes, providing stats for hazards like quicksand, swamp diseases, appropriate monsters, feats, PRCs and so on.

Maybe one on forests.

Plane-centric books (would have liked to know more about the Ethereal and Deep Ethereal- filling out the races that make the Ethereal Plane home, like the Ethergaunts).

[Morty]

*sigh*

More support for my theory that I'm the only person in the world who generally likes slot-based vancian magic :smallsigh:

No. There's two of us.


Races of Faerun went into a bit more depth on goblinoids and orcs.


It's more of a rephrasing of the stuff found in Monster Manual about how evil, ugly and worthy of extermination they are.
And yeah, a Races of... book for orcs and goblinoids would've been great.

[Optimystik]

Plane-centric books (would have liked to know more about the Ethereal and Deep Ethereal- filling out the races that make the Ethereal Plane home, like the Ethergaunts).

Astral too. Don't Buommans live there? And there could be an entire section on psionics.


It's more of a rephrasing of the stuff found in Monster Manual about how evil, ugly and worthy of extermination they are.
And yeah, a Races of... book for orcs and goblinoids would've been great.

Agreed, Faerun is not known for its tolerance. (Though it's not as bad as Dragonlance at least.)

[Faleldir]

Complete Monster (options for Monster Manual races)
Tome Of Battle 2 (replaces the Barbarian, Ranger and Rogue)
Errata Compendium (like the 4e updates)

[Morty]

Agreed, Faerun is not known for its tolerance. (Though it's not as bad as Dragonlance at least.)

It's more or less the same as generic D&D in that regard. The only D&D setting that treats "monster races" as something more than XP fodder is Eberron. If only it weren't one of the two things I like about it.
Of course, orcs and goblinoids aren't the worst off - just looks at ogres, troglodytes, lizardfolk or skum - unless I'm forgetting something, they don't even get what orcs and goblins get.

[Eldan]

Plane-centric books (would have liked to know more about the Ethereal and Deep Ethereal- filling out the races that make the Ethereal Plane home, like the Ethergaunts).

Every book containing more material for Nathri and Ethergaunts is one I'll probably like. I had to make up all that fluff myself.

[Greenish]

Races of Darguun. A twofer of the goblinoid races and the youngest kingdom in Eberron.

[Edit]: Complete with +0 LA hobgoblins, improved goblins and bugbears not saddled with three monstrous humanoid HD.

[hamishspence]

It's more or less the same as generic D&D in that regard. The only D&D setting that treats "monster races" as something more than XP fodder is Eberron. If only it weren't one of the two things I like about it.
Of course, orcs and goblinoids aren't the worst off - just looks at ogres, troglodytes, lizardfolk or skum - unless I'm forgetting something, they don't even get what orcs and goblins get.

Lizardfolk are in Races of Faerun (Lizard Kings, the half-fiend leaders of some lizardfolk tribes, are in Serpent Kingdoms). Troglodytes are in Serpent Kingdoms. Ogres are given a little more detail in one of the last two Monster Manuals (MM IV?)

Skum don't get anything, sadly. Maybe because they're overshadowed by their aboleth bosses?

Races of Faerun does mention that sometimes goblinoids or orcs flee their society and become adventurers.


Every book containing more material for Nathri and Ethergaunts is one I'll probably like. I had to make up all that fluff myself.

Haven't heard of the Nathri- what are they?

[AslanCross]

They could have just slapped their logo on Untapped Potential and Hyperconscious.
Yes, I'm bitter.

Also - A "Races of..." book for Goblinoids. Races of Filth?

Hey, hey, hey. Hobgoblins are tidy and spartan. It's only the bugbears who are commonly slovenly.




Races of Darguun. A twofer of the goblinoid races and the youngest kingdom in Eberron.

[Edit]: Complete with +0 LA hobgoblins, improved goblins and bugbears not saddled with three monstrous humanoid HD.

Agreed. Not to mention that I really like the goblinoid lore in Eberron, since they actually have culture and history that is more than killing people, taking their stuff, and getting killed and having your stuff taken.

For now, I think the richest Eberron goblinoid lore available is in the novel Doom of Kings by Don Bassingthwaite. It paints a really interesting picture of Darguun and the problems of its people.

[DragoonWraith]

For the several people looking for a 3.5 Dark Sun, there's Athas.org (http://www.athas.org/), of which "This site is recognized by Wizards of the Coast as the official Dark Sun site on the internet. Content created on the official website is considered to be derivative work (as it is based on the intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast). This means that fan-created add-ons (such as new net books, adventures, etc.) are jointly owned by both Wizards of the Coast and the creator; neither can do anything outside the official website without the permission of the other."

Of course, I somehow doubt that claim in light of 4e, but whatever. Point is, for 3.x edition, Athas.org has the most stuff, and it is (from what I've read) pretty well done.

[Morty]

Lizardfolk are in Races of Faerun (Lizard Kings, the half-fiend leaders of some lizardfolk tribes, are in Serpent Kingdoms). Troglodytes are in Serpent Kingdoms. Ogres are given a little more detail in one of the last two Monster Manuals (MM IV?)

Skum don't get anything, sadly. Maybe because they're overshadowed by their aboleth bosses?

I stand corrected, then. I was mostly going by MM. I haven't seen any of it, but I'd be surprised if it was more than an elaboration on "they're evil so you can fight them".

[hamishspence]

I stand corrected, then. I was mostly going by MM. I haven't seen any of it, but I'd be surprised if it was more than an elaboration on "they're evil so you can fight them".

There's usually something about the culture, whether its matriarchal (gnolls) patriarchal (orcs) or neither- the upbringing of young members, and so on.

And sometimes something about alignment tendencies. For example orcs are Often Chaotic Evil- and the later Monster Manual says that the most common alignment after Chaotic Evil, is Chaotic Neutral.

[the humanity]

Races of the Planes: A Players Guide to Outsiders
Aasimars, Tieflings, ???

Sword Magic:
all about Gishes, maybe a few duskblade type classes

Celestial Codex I & II: Eladrins & Angels

[hamishspence]

Races of Faerun again (it does that a lot :smallbiggrin:) goes into more depth on aasimar, tieflings, and genasi (native outsiders descended from creatures of the elemental planes).

If it wasn't for the Faerun tag, I suspect it would be one of the more popular books for playing exotic races.

[Greenish]

Sword Magic:
all about Gishes, maybe a few duskblade type classesSublime way is often referred to as sword magic.

[the humanity]

Sublime way is often referred to as sword magic.

the name wouldn't need to stay, a book like that would have been great even if it was called Complete Care Bear: A Players Guide to Being a Cutie Pie.

[LibraryOgre]

Here's my wish-list (I've seen this thread done before, but none that don't fall within thread necromancy that I can find):
[LIST]
Races of Savagery ("Races of" book for Orcs, Goblinoids and the other "forgotten", eeevil humanoids.)

Definitely this one, since I proposed it.

[Gametime]

Book of Axiomatic Virtue/Book of Anarchic Revelry (BoED & BoVD for Law and Chaos).
[/LIST]

Given all the wretched things printed in BoED and BoVD, I shudder to think of what nonsense Wizards might have spewed onto books dedicated to Law and Chaos.

Seconding the call for updated Compendiums. Having to look through so many bloody books for feats is just annoying.

[Eldan]

Haven't heard of the Nathri- what are they?

A race that popped up rarely in Planescape and then was made into one of the races in the Planewalker campaign book.

A tribal race native to the deep ethereal. Their shamans now the secret of cracking open ethereal demiplanes, and they make a living out of raiding those, since the Deep Ethereal is extremely poor in any resources. I like them a lot, the entire concept of "that immortal wizard spent 2000 years making the perfect library and garden, we're plundering it to eat his books" is just nice.
They are described as slightly taller than halflings, but much stronger and tougher, green-skinned, with sharp teeth and a small poison stinger on the back of their hands. They are able to eat pretty much any organic material, and some inorganics.
Sadly, they didn't get much culture beyond being savages, so when I started writing a setting once which happened mostly in the ethereal after the prime had to be evacuated, I made them the native threat number one to the "civilized" world of the city-demiplanes.

[9mm]

Offical rules for the following settings
Dark Sun
Planescape
Spelljammer

The complete class: book of Alternate Class features
Feat Compendium
The weaponsmith: MOAR WEAPONS
The complete Alchimest: MOAR Mundane cool stuff

and becuase I'm me:

The Complete Boom: book of things that cause Michele Bay Explosions.

[Mongoose87]

Planescape


The complete class: book of Alternate Class features


These two things.

[Optimystik]

Races of Faerun again (it does that a lot :smallbiggrin:) goes into more depth on aasimar, tieflings, and genasi (native outsiders descended from creatures of the elemental planes).

If it wasn't for the Faerun tag, I suspect it would be one of the more popular books for playing exotic races.

Planar Handbook also has a fair bit on playable outsiders.

Oh, and following in the vein of:

- Draconomicon (Dragons)
- Lords of Madness (Aberrations)
- Libris Mortis (Undead)
- Fiendish Codex (Fiends)

A book on Constructs would be nice.

[Eldan]

Can't we just have one on every creature type? Denizens of the Inner Planes is nice, as are the Planescape books, but elemental and genie culture was always woefully under-represented.

Fey, Giants and Celestials have been mentioned.

[Greenish]

The weaponsmith: MOAR WEAPONSYes, we need the Guisarme-Guisarme, Pig-Sticker-Glaive, Bill-Guisarme-Guisarme, Voulge-Pig-Sticker-Guisarme-Glaive and Guisarme-Guisarme-Bill-Glaive-Voulge- Guisarme.

[Yora]

Good to know - I don't normally go in for FR specific stuff, but I have found Serpent Kingdoms and Underdark to be quite useful in a generic sense, so maybe I should give RoF a try. Thanks. :smallsmile:
It's a really, really good book. Even if you don't take the race concepts 1:1 for your game, the descriptions are so deeply detailed that there's always a lot of good stuff to find. It has 18 pages for dwarves and 2-3 pages for each variant of genasi. 145 pages of all text without any tables, prestige classes, and spells (but there's some of that in the appendix), with pictures used only sparingly without wasting space (but still being very high quality).

[Masaioh]

Complete cheese: understanding when your players are screwing you over....

This. Also, I second Axiomatic Virtue, Anarchic Revelry, and FCIII.

But the book I would've wanted most would be something with epic progression for Incarnum classes.


No ToB, though. The flame wars are brutal enough with one book.

[Greenish]

RoF excerpt (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030301a) and art gallery (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20030309a).

[Edit]: Grey orcs would be a pretty good orc race, if not for the +1 LA.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

tob 2 with some psionic prcs would have been nice :smallsmile:

Second </scruffy>

This intrigues me... what about re-flavoring / re-building the Ruby Night Vindicator or Jade Phoenix Adept as Psionic PrC's? That would be awesome. Psionics don't suffer as much as standard spellcasters from loss of casting/manifesting levels.

[Eldariel]

Second </scruffy>

This intrigues me... what about re-flavoring / re-building the Ruby Night Vindicator or Jade Phoenix Adept as Psionic PrC's? That would be awesome. Psionics don't suffer as much as standard spellcasters from loss of casting/manifesting levels.

It helps, but loses lots of potential as RKV is Turning-based and JPM is...somewhat uninspiring (though interesting). This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5883542) was my attempt at a ToB/Psionics PrC and I think it uses the potential both systems offer to a far greater extent than direct conversions of RKV or JPM.

Incarnum/ToB and various other cross-system PrCs also need printing and as I already said, ToB needed archery/throwing expansion with new schools to cover what the book itself left out.

[Curmudgeon]

An indexed class compendium (base and prestige), with all the entry requirements and all the listed class benefits. You'd be able to look in the index and find all the classes that grant evasion, or fast movement, or "+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class". Or find all the classes that require evil alignment to enter. Just scads and scads of tables.

[Eloi]

The Complete Succubus, a detailed book about Succubus spell lists, prestige classes, history, stat modification for a Succubus-bloodline Tiefling (probably higher CHA), daily life of a Succubus, and maybe a section on mating rituals to fill the book out and get more buyers.

[Boci]

The Complete Succubus, a detailed book about Succubus spell lists, prestige classes, history, stat modification for a Succubus-bloodline Tiefling (probably higher CHA), daily life of a Succubus, and maybe a section on mating rituals to fill the book out and get more buyers.

Actually, a book on seduction/diplomacy and maybe even intimidate would be a good idea. It was covered to some exstend in CS and CA, but there is room for much more. Seduction and Persuasion: A guide to using words? The adventurer who doesn't automatically resort to violence could use some support.

[Zeta Kai]

Complete Cthulhu. :smallwink:

[Eloi]

Actually, a book on seduction/diplomacy and maybe even intimidate would be a good idea. It was covered to some exstend in CS and CA, but there is room for much more. Seduction and Persuasion: A guide to using words? The adventurer who doesn't automatically resort to violence could use some support.

The Complete Diplomat, complete with in-depth on Bards, Succubus, and persuasive magic, feats, and skills. That would have been awesome for me to use, because I love charisma-oriented characters.

[Boci]

Complete Cthulhu. :smallwink:

Its called Heroes of Horror and Lords of Madness, although I am sure there are some who recond they are too light.

[Kaiyanwang]

Many, indeed. I second most of the things above posters said.

- FC III. Where are my Yugoloths? Were is the Oinoloth? And the General?
- Law Book.. Modrons, Inevitables..
- Chaos Book. Slaad lords, anyone?
- Feat Handbook, maybe with a re-made system for bonus feats and synergies like Martial Arts in Oriental Adventures, but better done.
- I miss AD&D settings. 3.5 didn't bringed in many (Dark Sun in Dragon magazine, DM itself resurrected this or that thing, but nothing that can be compared to Eberron and Faerun).

But, more than this, a splat on Fey and Giants. I doubt a book themed only on fey could have success, but I love them I find them as inspiring as outiders for stories and RPG. So, at least a Fey/Giant one.

You can have cool fey, both for RPG mainly stories (Glaistig, Fossergrim, Yuki-no-onna..) and for combat. MMV Wild Hunt is scary!


Yes, we need the Guisarme-Guisarme, Pig-Sticker-Glaive, Bill-Guisarme-Guisarme, Voulge-Pig-Sticker-Guisarme-Glaive and Guisarme-Guisarme-Bill-Glaive-Voulge- Guisarme.

Needs some Bec-de-Corbin. And moar Guisarme.

[Pink]

The Complete Succubus, a detailed book about Succubus spell lists, prestige classes, history, stat modification for a Succubus-bloodline Tiefling (probably higher CHA), daily life of a Succubus, and maybe a section on mating rituals to fill the book out and get more buyers.

Aren't succubi covered in the BoEF?

[hamishspence]

Maybe carry on the theme of naming books after in-game items?

Tome of Leadership & Influence- for charisma specialists. Probably including all the Leadership-related stuff in Power of Faerun.

Book of Perfect Balance- with details on the rilmani and other Neutral outsiders, 3.5 stats for the Regalia of Neutrality from Arms & Equipment Guide, and so on.

Given that Underdark has the Talisman of Neutrality and the BoPB, there is better precedent for a Neutrality sourcebook than a Law or Chaos one.

If you think there should be a Law sourcebook anyway- maybe something on the Wind Dukes of Aaqa would go with it?

Alternatively, an Elemental-centric sourcebook- Book of the Inner Planes- with rules for the para and quasi elemental planes, the Princes of Elemental Evil (and good) the history of the elemental and energy planes, and so on, might be nice.

[Drakevarg]

A book for constructs.
A book for elementals.
Sequels to things like Libris Mortis and Draconomicon.
A compendium of classes.

[Eloi]

Aren't succubi covered in the BoEF?

*flips to page* Yep, they are covered in detail, shame they didn't have anything on Celestials, that would have been intere-

What's BoEF? I've never heard of that before, hm.

[Boci]

*flips to page* Yep, they are covered in detail, shame they didn't have anything on Celestials, that would have been intere-

What's BoEF? I've never heard of that before, hm.

Book of Erotic Fantasy. 3rd party book.

[Vizzerdrix]

I... I just wish that they would have made one PrC that showed some love to familiars instead of crapping on them with all these cheesy variants.
A book about familiars is asking too much, I know, but... :smallsigh:

[Eloi]

Book of Erotic Fantasy. 3rd party book.

Yeah I know, its d20 but seems to apply to D&D in general. Its kind of disappointing that all the pictures are photographs as opposed to the tradition pen and muted color approach in normal source books, it would have contributed to the feel of it being a source book about sexual topics instead of a sexual book with some stats.

[Eloel]

I'd love a set called Tomes, that replace the whole of 3.5 with balanced classes.

Tome of Body:
Tome of Battle on a new name. Add on a few archery disciplines, get an errata in, and it's golden.

Tome of Soul:
Complete Incarnum gets a new name, balances the Soulborn, irons out the very few problems it has.

Tome of Heart:
Binder, Factotum and Warlock. Reflavor Factotum around a bit, keep the class same, add in some extra stuff (luck feats and similar), make them gain Invocations instead of spells on some mechanic.

Tome of Rules:
Rules Compendium with ToB, ToS and ToH rules in. Since there's no magic in the set, all references to 'spell's are killed. It's also the 'PHB' for the new set.

Tome of Monsters:
Self-explaining.

[Boci]

I... I just wish that they would have made one PrC that showed some love to familiars instead of crapping on them with all these cheesy variants.
A book about familiars is asking too much, I know, but... :smallsigh:

But a book dedicated to special mounts, familiars and animal companions should be doable.

[Eloel]

But a book dedicated to special mounts, familiars and animal companions should be doable.

You can even put in some PrCs. Halfling Outrider, Animal Lord, PrC Paladin.

Sounds cool :smallsmile:

[The Tygre]

Aren't succubi covered in the BoEF?

Surprisingly (and disappointingly) no. They cover Outsiders and Demons in general, and give a new species of Succubus in the monsters section, but little else is made of them.

[Satyr]

Seriously, the LARP photos might be a bad idea, but seriously the Book of Erotic Fantasy is not a bad book. It is well written, it covers a topic which is the second of the core equation of every great tale (you know, sex and violence) which was left out of the standard books (the violence part, however, is well covered).
And is it just me or ist just funny how much people can get so agitated about some very harmless (especially in the current age of internet access) description of passion while on the other hand 101 ways to kill, maim and lobotomize are a-okay!
And for this nigh endless source source of entertainment the BoEF is one of my favorite books. And I haven't even read it.

[The Dark Fiddler]

... Complete Care Bear: A Players Guide to Being a Cutie Pie.

Can I say "Hell Yes!" loud enough? :smallbiggrin:

Also, a book on Oozes. I dunno why I like them so much but really, Oozes are pretty much all of the "Devouring Cube" variety, from what I've seen.

[Rixx]

Complete Playtester

Tome of Quality Control

[Eloi]

Seriously, the LARP photos might be a bad idea, but seriously the Book of Erotic Fantasy is not a bad book. It is well written, it covers a topic which is the second of the core equation of every great tale (you know, sex and violence) which was left out of the standard books (the violence part, however, is well covered).
And is it just me or ist just funny how much people can get so agitated about some very harmless (especially in the current age of internet access) description of passion while on the other hand 101 ways to kill, maim and lobotomize are a-okay!
And for this nigh endless source source of entertainment the BoEF is one of my favorite books. And I haven't even read it.

Indeed, the ultimate expression of hate gets you PG-13. The ultimate expression of love gets you R. Some twisted morals, I'd agree.

[The Tygre]

Seriously, the LARP photos might be a bad idea, but seriously the Book of Erotic Fantasy is not a bad book. It is well written, it covers a topic which is the second of the core equation of every great tale (you know, sex and violence) which was left out of the standard books (the violence part, however, is well covered).
And is it just me or ist just funny how much people can get so agitated about some very harmless (especially in the current age of internet access) description of passion while on the other hand 101 ways to kill, maim and lobotomize are a-okay!
And for this nigh endless source source of entertainment the BoEF is one of my favorite books. And I haven't even read it.

Hey, you're preachin' to the choir here man. Love, sex, romance, reproduction & lifestyles? I call that character, man. And maybe plot hooks if you're a smart DM.

[Telonius]

Complete Henchman: A guide for Hirelings, Peasants, Cohorts, and NPCs.

[Vortling]

Another vote for books:
Spelljammer
A fey book
A ranged martial adept book

[SilverClawShift]

Races of Rokugan: Ditto additional support for the Oriental-themed classes without going off into its own sub-game like what happened.

I disagree entirely! Though a lot of the thread has been going on in the same vein I'm about to.

More settings.

I can understand why someone might not like the idea of having a huge list of alternate settings. It would be a little overwhelming to an outsider, and it would add the extra hoop of "WHERE are you guys playing?" to finding a group, but...

I dunno.

To me, part of the joy of any fantasy world is this feeling that it's one of a thousand possibilities. You find a way to travel to a city like sigil, and you find yourself looking at all these doors and wondering just how many places you might trip and stumble out into. Does one of these doors lead to some forgotten tomb of an extinct race buried miles below the surface of Eberron? If I ask politely, will someone lead my party to a portal to Shadowrun, where my dread necromancer can wreak all kinds of havoc? What about ravenloft? In the dustiest, most long forgotten alley, on the bloodiest and most heavily avoided road in all the cage, if I know where to look and how to knock and when to pluck my dagger at the hinges, can I find a door to Ravenloft?

Sorry, I got off on a tangent.

But yeah, setting books are the best, and in my world there can't be enough of them.
Yeah, the DM should be able to make up any world he wants, which means it's already a realm of infinite possibilities and yada yada yada. That's all true, but you can even forget playing D&D for a minute and I still love setting books. Reading about the history, the races, the dyanmics of classes and specific oddities of terrain. The seven wonders of the unnatural world...

I want more. Damn it.

And on that note, I really wish my DM had started work on the Dustlands a long time ago and had somehow gotten that published for 3.5...

[Mongoose87]

There should be a Book of Chaotic Deeds. It should be a cover, three pages of scribbles and a handful of grass and various pebbles.

[Eldan]

Already been done, after a fashion...
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/9190/descriptiong.jpg

Also, why do people always equate chaotic behaviour with incoherent crayon scribblings?

Other things which show up way to often in conjunction with chaos: bananas, fish, monkeys.

[Gametime]

Seriously, the LARP photos might be a bad idea, but seriously the Book of Erotic Fantasy is not a bad book. It is well written, it covers a topic which is the second of the core equation of every great tale (you know, sex and violence) which was left out of the standard books (the violence part, however, is well covered).
And is it just me or ist just funny how much people can get so agitated about some very harmless (especially in the current age of internet access) description of passion while on the other hand 101 ways to kill, maim and lobotomize are a-okay!
And for this nigh endless source source of entertainment the BoEF is one of my favorite books. And I haven't even read it.

Wait, if you haven't even read it, how can you say it's well-written?

My problem with the book isn't the topic it covers, it's how poorly it covers the topic. It adds a seventh stat - Appearance - to the game for no particularly good reason, adds a new skill with some bizarre implications (seriously, imagine someone using Perform: Sexual Technique to earn money on the street), and that's it. Do you feel that the sex in your games is completely unsatisfying because you didn't have a special skill to govern it? Neither did I.

If you want to add sex to your games, go for it! But it's not like the sex offered in the BoEF is particularly engaging. You make one skill check to see how good you are and one constitution check to see how long you last, and that's it. You could replace the skill with a cha- or dex-based check and have just as much fun.

The book is slightly better at fluff than at crunch, but isn't particularly innovative on that front anyway. Dwarves are stodgy and traditional about sex, elves are carefree, halflings are sociable.

Then there's the bizarre adolescent jokes (like the STD called "Azure Balls," which only affects men, or the spell "Grope," which is basically Mage Hand that can only do one thing), and the poorly-written, ripped-from-a-romance-novel sex scene excerpts.

Really, the book isn't the force for evil we sometimes joke about it being, but it has to be one of the most thoroughly useless RPG books I've ever seen, even if you are going to run a campaign that heavily features sexual themes.


Already been done, after a fashion...
*image snip*

Also, why do people always equate chaotic behaviour with incoherent crayon scribblings?

Other things which show up way to often in conjunction with chaos: bananas, fish, monkeys.

That picture reminds me of Delirium. Of course, her realm is probably more akin to the Far Realms than a mere plane of chaos.

[Kaiyanwang]

(seriously, imagine someone using Perform: Sexual Technique to earn money on the street)

Well, THAT happens both in street, and in special places.. depends from the country law I guess.

[The Glyphstone]

On the other hand, it has the following passage:


Love Life of an Ooze
One ooze.
Idiot hits ooze.
Two oozes.


Comedy gold there.

[Gametime]

On the other hand, it has the following passage:


Comedy gold there.

This is true; there are at least a few instances of actually funny jokes or insightful comments about sex and sexuality. The book isn't poorly-written; it's just that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the book is both relevant to roleplaying games and well-written. Unfortunately, what is relevant is not well-written and what is well-written is not relevant.

[Fax Celestis]

Complete Incarnum: This subsystem needed more rules support to gain better traction during its actual run.

IAWTC. ++++++++++.

[Oslecamo]

Really, the book isn't the force for evil we sometimes joke about it being, but it has to be one of the most thoroughly useless RPG books I've ever seen, even if you are going to run a campaign that heavily features sexual themes.


Now now, the book also offers prestige classes and feats that reward you for celibacy/sleeping with everything you meet. There's also other theme spells like being able to produce fiendish/celestial offspring. Also some disturbing magic items.

What more did you want? Talking/business/crafting is also handled by just a few skills. D&D is focused in combat and BOEF offers ways to use naughty stuff to boost your combat performace and/or screw your oponents(pun intended). It's not perfect, but it's right on with the trend of D&D of combat first.

[The Tygre]

Already been done, after a fashion...
*snip*

Also, why do people always equate chaotic behaviour with incoherent crayon scribblings?

Other things which show up way to often in conjunction with chaos: bananas, fish, monkeys.

Why hello there, book I own.

Did I mention I own this book? Because I totally own Planes of Chaos. In print. The whole box set. Did I mention I own it?

...

Sorry. I've been holding that in all week. Or seven years. Whatever. (Oh RipVanWormer, who will guide us now without your light?)

[Eldan]

Well, screw you too.

And did anything happen to Rip? :smalleek:

[sonofzeal]

On BoEF....


As far as I'm concerned it's the #1 book for basic sociology, psychology, and life cycle of various races. Any game that includes an element of romance (and most RP-based games do, even "PG" ones) could benefit from consulting the sociology sections. They're fairly short, but give a good clear picture of the society in question.

For example, according to BoEF, elves are fairly sexually open and casual, with strong bisexual tendencies, but the sex is far less important than the friendship to them over the long term. They generally don't really "get" the idea of marriage or long-term committed monogamy; the idea of love as eternal generally amuses them. They reach sexual maturity around 100 or 120, and pregnancy lasts a full two years, but childbirth is easy and relatively painless. Among humanoids, they're only inter-fertile with humans, and some speculate a distant ancestral link.

There's similar information on all the races, and on quite a number of the common monster races (Goblins, Lizardfolk, Gnolls, Kobolds, Doppelgangers, Dryads, Tritons...), and general notes on more exotic creature types as well. If you're looking for verisimilitude in your fictional societies, BoEF is a great starting place.

Additionally, apart from the sociology, I'm a big fan of the Magic chapter. A lot of the spells it includes are things which totally have a place in a PG game. You may have to pick and choose depending on the campaign, but "Healing Sphere" (ranged healing), "Life Shell" (opposite of Antilife Shell), "Calm Weather", "Pleasant Dreams", "Come to Me", "Limited Telepathy", "Privacy", and "Magic Probe" all deserve a place in your everyday game. They may not get used, as knowledgeable players can generally find alternate routes to get those things done, but they're pretty balanced and reasonable and fill useful roles that are often otherwise empty.

In short - I've made more use of BoEF in my PG games than I've made use of Sandstorm, Cityscape, Complete Mage, or Libris Mortis. And I expect to continue making use of it in the future.

[Gametime]

What more did you want? Talking/business/crafting is also handled by just a few skills. D&D is focused in combat and BOEF offers ways to use naughty stuff to boost your combat performace and/or screw your oponents(pun intended). It's not perfect, but it's right on with the trend of D&D of combat first.

Very few of the book's offerings actually make you better at fighting. There's actually a section at the start of the book that specifically states that a combat-oriented campaign will find less use for the feats in the book; there are some combat boosters among the spells and magic items, but for the most part it's oriented towards slaying the beast with two backs and nothing else.

Some of the prestige classes are... interesting, but I don't see why you need a special class to draw power from sex, frankly. D&D spellcasters are vaguely defined already. You could just find a few wenches and claim to draw power from them. I'm sure the DM wouldn't object.

One major exception, though, is the base class that focuses on illusions. D&D needs more school-specialized base caster classes.


On BoEF....


As far as I'm concerned it's the #1 book for basic sociology, psychology, and life cycle of various races. Any game that includes an element of romance (and most RP-based games do, even "PG" ones) could benefit from consulting the sociology sections. They're fairly short, but give a good clear picture of the society in question.

For example, according to BoEF, elves are fairly sexually open and casual, with strong bisexual tendencies, but the sex is far less important than the friendship to them over the long term. They generally don't really "get" the idea of marriage or long-term committed monogamy; the idea of love as eternal generally amuses them. They reach sexual maturity around 100 or 120, and pregnancy lasts a full two years, but childbirth is easy and relatively painless. Among humanoids, they're only inter-fertile with humans, and some speculate a distant ancestral link.

There's similar information on all the races, and on quite a number of the common monster races (Goblins, Lizardfolk, Gnolls, Kobolds, Doppelgangers, Dryads, Tritons...), and general notes on more exotic creature types as well. If you're looking for verisimilitude in your fictional societies, BoEF is a great starting place.

Your mileage may vary. I found the sections on races and sex to be fairly obvious extrapolations of the basic culture represented in the Player's Handbook. There were some exceptions - the halfling and gnome sections were nifty, and the elves section offered a little originality - but mostly it didn't seem that exceptional.


Additionally, apart from the sociology, I'm a big fan of the Magic chapter. A lot of the spells it includes are things which totally have a place in a PG game. You may have to pick and choose depending on the campaign, but "Healing Sphere" (ranged healing), "Life Shell" (opposite of Antilife Shell), "Calm Weather", "Pleasant Dreams", "Come to Me", "Limited Telepathy", "Privacy", and "Magic Probe" all deserve a place in your everyday game. They may not get used, as knowledgeable players can generally find alternate routes to get those things done, but they're pretty balanced and reasonable and fill useful roles that are often otherwise empty.



That's certainly true. I just don't think there are enough of them to justify buying the book. (Or, for that matter, to justify the ink it took to print out the text of "Grope.") Again, your mileage may vary.

[The Glyphstone]

Very few of the book's offerings actually make you better at fighting. There's actually a section at the start of the book that specifically states that a combat-oriented campaign will find less use for the feats in the book; there are some combat boosters among the spells and magic items, but for the most part it's oriented towards slaying the beast with two backs and nothing else.

And then there's the - gulp - Metaphysical Spellshaper PrC. Has nothing to do with the rest of the book, and ranks up with Incantatrix, if not above it, for cheesiness.

[Fax Celestis]

Come on, the first thing that humans do upon inventing something is ask two questions: "Can I kill something with it? And can I use it to have sex?"

D&D thus far has answered #1 with magic. BoEF answers #2.

[sonofzeal]

Your mileage may vary. I found the sections on races and sex to be fairly obvious extrapolations of the basic culture represented in the Player's Handbook. There were some exceptions - the halfling and gnome sections were nifty, and the elves section offered a little originality - but mostly it didn't seem that exceptional.
It's only "obvious extrapolation" because it legitimately fits very well with established fluff on the subject. It should, too, given that the writers also published official books for WotC. Little of it's groundbreaking, but if it was it wouldn't be useful. What it is, instead, is a source of good solid fluff that you don't need to think through yourself. You could sit down and extrapolate it all yourself, but you could sit down and write yourself a whole new gaming system and setting, and most people don't. I like having my work done for me. That's why I spend money on these products in the first place.


That's certainly true. I just don't think there are enough of them to justify buying the book. (Or, for that matter, to justify the ink it took to print out the text of "Grope.") Again, your mileage may vary.
Even "Grope" has uses. For one, it could be used as an alternate to Message to deliver a signal to a nearby ally without any speech (Message requires whispers) and virtually no chance of detection. After all, a "light caress" could be somewhere non-PG, or could be on their hand or shoulder or somewhere else reasonably wholesome. Of course, you'd have to take Silent Spell, but the point remains that it still has certain advantages for signalling over Message.

But yeah, it's pretty worthless, even for a lvl0 spell. Most BoEF spells are a little underwhelming really. But that's better than them being overpowered, imo, and there's plenty that I listed and plenty that I didn't that are legitimately useful to have around. Heck, for a while it was the only non-setting-specific source of Mass Sanctuary that I know of. That should tell you something, imo.

[Oslecamo]

Very few of the book's offerings actually make you better at fighting. There's actually a section at the start of the book that specifically states that a combat-oriented campaign will find less use for the feats in the book; there are some combat boosters among the spells and magic items, but for the most part it's oriented towards slaying the beast with two backs and nothing else.

Some of the prestige classes are... interesting, but I don't see why you need a special class to draw power from sex, frankly. D&D spellcasters are vaguely defined already. You could just find a few wenches and claim to draw power from them. I'm sure the DM wouldn't object.


To be honest, it's a common trend in D&D to like rules that allow you to fight your enemies in new exotic ways, even if they're not the most effecient.

BoEF provides a good basis to using naughty stuff for combat, and even the noncombat stuff can be improvised for other uses.

And no, I don't believe I've ever met a DM who would make your character stronger just because you slept with wenches if you didn't have the proper feat/prc for it.:smalltongue:

[Maerok]

ToM 2, inked in the collective blood of whoever broke the shadowcaster and truenamer. Bound in leather made from whoever 'thought' up all the utterances.

Also, a PHB redone to bring things like Toughness up to speed.

[Gametime]

It's only "obvious extrapolation" because it legitimately fits very well with established fluff on the subject. It should, too, given that the writers also published official books for WotC. Little of it's groundbreaking, but if it was it wouldn't be useful. What it is, instead, is a source of good solid fluff that you don't need to think through yourself. You could sit down and extrapolate it all yourself, but you could sit down and write yourself a whole new gaming system and setting, and most people don't. I like having my work done for me. That's why I spend money on these products in the first place.


Fair enough. Rereading the book for the purposes of this post surprised me with how well some parts of it were done, to be fair. I guess I just don't see the first two chapters - the ones that deal with sex, culture, and so on, as opposed to questionably-useful items, feats, and spells - as worth the price of an entire book. (This might be partly because, the one time I have seen the physical book in a store, it was priced at $40 despite being a rarely-used variant for a no-longer-supported system. That seems a bit high, to me, but you may feel differently.)




And no, I don't believe I've ever met a DM who would make your character stronger just because you slept with wenches if you didn't have the proper feat/prc for it.:smalltongue:

I meant just taking a wizard and flavoring your spells as being powered by t3h s3xy, not actually pumping up your character based on sex. It would be a self-imposed restriction, not a boost. That would be pretty absurd. :smalltongue:

[sonofzeal]

Fair enough. Rereading the book for the purposes of this post surprised me with how well some parts of it were done, to be fair. I guess I just don't see the first two chapters - the ones that deal with sex, culture, and so on, as opposed to questionably-useful items, feats, and spells - as worth the price of an entire book. (This might be partly because, the one time I have seen the physical book in a store, it was priced at $40 despite being a rarely-used variant for a no-longer-supported system. That seems a bit high, to me, but you may feel differently.)
I dunno, I really like the first two chapters, and the rest is admittedly hit-or-miss but so is most WotC material. It's easy to focus on the immature parts and miss that there's a lot of good stuff in there too. I mean, the list of spells that have nothing to do with sex is not small (I'll add "Analyse Ancestry" and "True Form" to the list), and even many of the more sexual ones can be valuable additions to the game world (such as "Block The Seed", "Reverse Gender", "Detect Pregnancy", "Blessed Seed", "Jealousy", and "Hedonist's Delight").

And like I said, it's seen far more use in my PG games than many official supplements that I paid good money for. I'd rate it higher than any of the environmental books. And that's really the standard - if it gets used regularly even in games that aren't centered around its contents, that's a pretty high recommendation.

[Thurbane]

ToM 2, inked in the collective blood of whoever broke the shadowcaster and truenamer. Bound in leather made from whoever 'thought' up all the utterances.
Absolutely agreed.

Also, a PHB redone to bring things like Toughness up to speed.
You could fold that into my Feat Compendium: introduce an alternate "feat point" system where every feat is assigned a point value based on it's power/usefulness/ease to acquire, and assign character feat points/level to buy feats in place of the standard one/3 levels. Would allow characters to load up on low value feats, or save up for really good feats.

I... I just wish that they would have made one PrC that showed some love to familiars instead of crapping on them with all these cheesy variants.
A book about familiars is asking too much, I know, but... :smallsigh:
I've got a 3rd party book by Troll Lord games: Book of Familiars. Has some really neat ideas, and new familiars, but some (a lot?) of the rules implementation is a bit borked.

[Eloi]

On that note, a lot of books we want are covered by 3rd party sources or homebrew, so fear not, as if it isn't there, make your own.

[Mandar]

This has already been posted, but I'll put it down again. By farthest the best one I can think of is Feat Compendium. Often more then not I find myself and my player's (Depending on who's DMing) going through all of our books (which is a lot) for hours searching for the best feat possible. If the Feat Compendium was created it would cut on having to riffle through all the books.

-Manny

[Thurbane]

On that note, a lot of books we want are covered by 3rd party sources or homebrew, so fear not, as if it isn't there, make your own.
Agreed, but a lot of groups/DMs out there have an inherent distrust of 3rd party/homebrew material, and in many cases, often rightly so.

Not that WotC didn't pump out some truly broken and ill though out material for 3.X, but in general, there was more a support base for fixes to these, than there is for 3rd party and especially homebrew.

[Optimystik]

Agreed, but a lot of groups/DMs out there have an inherent distrust of 3rd party/homebrew material, and in many cases, often rightly so.

Not that WotC didn't pump out some truly broken and ill though out material for 3.X, but in general, there was more a support base for fixes to these, than there is for 3rd party and especially homebrew.

The exception to this is 3rd-Party Psionics - the utter debacle that was Complete Psionic drove all of us fans into the arms of another lover. :smallannoyed:

[Glimbur]

But the book I would've wanted most would be something with epic progression for Incarnum classes.


You're in luck. Check your copy of Magic of Incarnum, starting on page 212. Why it's stuck back there is anyone's guess, and it's not terribly good. The feats aren't terrible, but some of them shouldn't be [Epic]. It would be nice to have a lot more, for example Epic soulmelds. There's even an unused slot on the body that you could make for epic binding: the pants slot.

I'd like to see more Tome of Battle, though I haven't fully used the current book. We have plenty of wizard spells and cleric spells and monsters; what would be cool would be a feat compendium with all the feats worth taking for someone. That would be an endeavor and a half.

[Keld Denar]

Maybe so Optymystik, but Hyperconsiousness is crazy delicious!

:smallcool:

[Optimystik]

Maybe so Optymystik, but Hyperconsiousness is crazy delicious!

:smallcool:

Well, I can't argue with that... :smallsmile:
Untapped Potential is excellent too, especially the racial substitution levels. It even builds on the Hyperconscious dreamworld mechanics.

[Pluto]

Planescape! Planescape! Planescape! Planescape!

+1 to the Races of ___ for Goblins, Orcs and Giants. I've easily seen 20 Goblins and 10 Orcs to every 1 Kobold in any game I've played, but Kobolds get their own setting-neutral book. :smallmad:

And to Complete Warrior 2. Inside: section upon section of tactical feats that rival ToB maneuvers for utility, feat chains that make a high-level fighter play fundamentally differently than a low-level fighter, rituals for melee characters to expand magic weapon and armor abilities (essentially giving them unique magic effects), PrC's that both push Core melee classes toward competency in and out of combat. And - most importantly - a foreword that acknowledges the problems in the PHB Fighter class.

More than anything, I want an It's Jungle Outside. I blame Burroughs.

And more reserve feats, more poisons and more alchemical items. I've always wanted the latter two to be a viable focus for a PC, but they just suck so damned much in 3.X (potion throwers aside) that I usually just give up, outside of niche situations.


I'd also like to see a comprehensive, organized, indexed, cross-linked computer reference of the 3.5 system. Like d20srd.org, but across all the various mechanical systems (especially Incarnum, whose organization is a travesty). My main group rarely plays outside the PHB and MM, because the rest of the system is just so unwieldy.

[DragoonWraith]

And to Complete Warrior 2. Inside: section upon section of tactical feats that rival ToB maneuvers for utility, feat chains that make a high-level fighter play fundamentally differently than a low-level fighter, rituals for melee characters to expand magic weapon and armor abilities (essentially giving them unique magic effects), PrC's that both push Core melee classes toward competency in and out of combat. And - most importantly - a foreword that acknowledges the problems in the PHB Fighter class.
I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would do that after having already written Tome of Battle to do all of that. You already got the fix, why do you need another?

[dspeyer]

As many of said (and some of us have worked on): Tome of Battle II

By the Bow: a major power-boost for ranged weaponry, preferably not ToB based (though a few disciplines wouldn't be amiss)

Champions of Nature: reprint MoMF and FotF and add another dozen prestige classes, plus monsters (fey? native outsiders?), spells and rules for ecology.

Cityscape: rules for operating inside a city, city-based prestige classes (including a divine caster?), and a dozen pre-built cities of various sizes and situations

Principia Arcana: a complete and consistent explanation of how all the supernatural world fits together, targeted mostly at DMs

[Tavar]

I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would do that after having already written Tome of Battle to do all of that. You already got the fix, why do you need another?

Because if they do the same things with feats, it's not longer that overpowered new system. It's just feats that add variety to the Fighter, which is a good thing.

[DragoonWraith]

Because if they do the same things with feats, it's not longer that overpowered new system. It's just feats that add variety to the Fighter, which is a good thing.
I disagree; Tome of Battle is excellently well balanced, and there is nothing to be gained by trying to replicate it through feats.

[Tavar]

I disagree; Tome of Battle is excellently well balanced, and there is nothing to be gained by trying to replicate it through feats.

Personally, I agree, but it's this combined with some issues with the maneuver/stance system that put some people off. Hence, wanting to have a system that fundamentally changes how a fighter operates, without fundamentally changing how a fighter operates.

[Pluto]

I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would do that after having already written Tome of Battle to do all of that. You already got the fix, why do you need another?
I've played with one group ever that didn't kneejerk away from ToB's new mechanical system, early game power level and the fluff wrapped around its system. I've seen Complete Champion Okay-ed more often.

I'm sure you've noticed that most complaints about ToB are about the way it makes the core classes pale in comparison. This approach could avoid that.

@inevitable comment to break a Wizard to show the other groups that they're Wrong:
Why would I want to be an ******* just to tell them that they're not having fun the right way?

[Renegade Paladin]

3.x books that I would like to have seen and 3.x books that I wish WotC, with its editing department in the state it's in, had published are two entirely separate things. Wizards of the Coast seemed pathologically incapable of publishing a book not rife with errors and poorly designed mechanics by the last two years or so of 3.5e.

[Endarire]

-A thoroughly balanced 3.5. The system takes a bunch of fiat to maintain after about level 10. Characters are effectively demigods at L13-15.

[The Tygre]

Well, screw you too.

And did anything happen to Rip? :smalleek:

I guess I shouldn't mention the freaky lil' threesome it's got going with Planes of Conflict and Planes of Law, too. :smallamused:

And no, nothing's happened to Rip. Not that I'm aware of. I was just reminiscing about my good ol' days back on Wizards.

[Eloel]

Cityscape: rules for operating inside a city, city-based prestige classes (including a divine caster?), and a dozen pre-built cities of various sizes and situations

This actually exists. Just saying.

[Runestar]

A 3.5 savage species handbook which actually works, including accurate ECLs which actually let monsters be viable PCs. Leave the issue of fitting them into the campaign setting to the DMs and players. :smallmad:

[Altair_the_Vexed]

PHB, DMG, and MM 3.6 :smallwink:

(I know we've got Pathfinder doing that job, but I think PF falls into a bunch of the same balance traps as 3.x)

Seriously? A set of compiled splatbooks, bringing together what WotC considered to be the most balanced and legitimate non-core rules from the years of QA-bypassed trash they churned out.
There are some gems among the splatbooks - but it's too much hassle to buy them all and veto 75% of the material.

[Eldan]

I don't really want what Wizards considers to be the best and most balanced :smalltongue:

But redone core books wouldn't be bad, if they somehow managed to make it work.

[Kaiyanwang]

-A thoroughly balanced 3.5. The system takes a bunch of fiat to maintain after about level 10. Characters are effectively demigods at L13-15.

Some control over something should be increased (or, at least, some powerful spell or item should have drawbacks, this help both balance and story).

But as a general rule, myself, I consider the different power and flavour of the different levels a feature.

The game actually plays different through levels, you have to invent and re-invent, both as a player and as a DM.

Moreover, since I see 3.5 as a set of tools I build my worlds with, the change allows me to build MORE WORLDS. I can always put a limit to a broad array of things (example: E6).

In a more limited system, when every level of 30 plays the same, I have to work more to change my game experience.

[Greenish]

Come on, the first thing that humans do upon inventing something is ask two questions: "Can I kill something with it? And can I use it to have sex?"

D&D thus far has answered #1 with magic. BoEF answers #2.Well, the Enchantment subschool is core… And optimizers drop it because anything worth charming will have mindblank.

spells that have nothing to do with sex is not small (I'll add "Analyse Ancestry"Nothing to do with it? Haven't you been told how someone becomes a parent? :smallwink:

[Eldan]

Actually, I think the BoEF spells make sense in game content.

Human Sorcerers and Bards can start their career at 16. They probably developed their first powers earlier.

What would the average 15-year-old use his magical powers for?

So the Grope spell isn't exactly unlikely.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I don't really want what Wizards considers to be the best and most balanced :smalltongue:

But redone core books wouldn't be bad, if they somehow managed to make it work.
Thing is, I have it on good authority from someone who was high up in the WotC-Hasbro merger that there is a stated policy of slowly breaking games through supplements so a new version is needed. It's a marketing strategy.

If WotC had decided to reset the bar at a sort of 3.6, we'd still have had to go out and buy all their supplements over the coming years.

[Eldan]

Yeah, but if the supplements were actually good (and the taxes I have to pay by ordering them over amazon not that high), I would buy them.

[Greenish]

Thing is, I have it on good authority from someone who was high up in the WotC-Hasbro merger that there is a stated policy of slowly breaking games through supplements so a new version is needed. It's a marketing strategy.I spy with my little eye a failed strategy.

[Eloi]

Well Pathfinder seemed a good way to fix a lot of the erring rules. My only wish was the WotC had released Spelljammer source books. All the potential win, wasted! :smallsigh:

[Eldan]

Pathfinder really isn't all that much better than the core rules... they improved the little things, but didn't touch the big ones.

[Eloi]

Pathfinder really isn't all that much better than the core rules... they improved the little things, but didn't touch the big ones.

We don't need 3.75 Edition. What we need is 4A Edition, or 4th Alternate Edition. Different big changes than the ones that were made in 4th Standard. Thats a book WotC needs to make. 4A Core Rulebooks.

[Aeolius]

1. Races of Water
2. Complete Aquan
3. The Hydronomicon
4. Waterscape
5. Tome of Magic II: Hag Magic
6. a jungle-themed environmental supplement
7. a supplement detailing witches and shaman
8. a 3.5e revised Greyhawk Gazetteer

but then again I run a somewhat eclectic campaign ;)

[Kaiyanwang]

Pathfinder really isn't all that much better than the core rules... they improved the little things, but didn't touch the big ones.

The core pathfinder is far better than core 3.5 IMO. I play 3.5 with splat, but pathfinder core is far more flexible than my old core games.

Everything has more, and most differencies are hidden but significative. A lot of things I looked for in splat in 3.0 and 3.5 are in core, expecially for melee (S&B, critical feats).

IMO is a good step forward and keeps alive an edition I love. There is not longer D&D for me. D&D does not exist anymore. Once was called D&D, now is called Pathfinder.

Of course, my statement must be read taking in account that I never found so many problems with 3.x edition. I recognize flaws, and I recongize that Pathfinder didn't take in account of everything, but still..

[Eldan]

I don't know... despite my constant commenting in threads like "Fighters need class features and love" and "Here's another reason why wizards rule everything", I really like 3.5. It's not as unplayable as some people claim, even though it requires either gentleman's agreement or DM fiat to be that way.

[Kaiyanwang]

I don't know... despite my constant commenting in threads like "Fighters need class features and love" and "Here's another reason why wizards rule everything", I really like 3.5. It's not as unplayable as some people claim, even though it requires either gentleman's agreement or DM fiat to be that way.

I agree completely. I love 3.5. My point is that pathfinder does not subtract almost nothing from 3.5, at least in the way I play it.

OK some change is significative -our current Knight//Fighter/Warblade would be upset of the new power attack. But doing a lot of damage to a target instead of one-shot it every time is not so terrible. At least she would use the other 5 maneuvers of Combat brute + Shock trooper. :smalltongue: But for the most part..

As I said, IMO PF rocks as stand-alone for a player like me. Moreover, consider that my old Dm wanted to play 3.5 core only: in this way I would have far more options.

I'm going to start an extended campaign in the next future, I want to build a new setting with new cosmology (is linked to magic and its source, I stole and reworked few ideas from Dragon Age) and I want to see what happens. :smallcool:

[Mongoose87]

I agree completely. I love 3.5. My point is that pathfinder does not subtract almost nothing from 3.5, at least in the way I play it.

OK some change is significative -our current Knight//Fighter/Warblade would be upset of the new power attack. But doing a lot of damage to a target instead of one-shot it every time is not so terrible. At least she would use the other 5 maneuvers of Combat brute + Shock trooper. :smalltongue: But for the most part..

As I said, IMO PF rocks as stand-alone for a player like me. Moreover, consider that my old Dm wanted to play 3.5 core only: in this way I would have far more options.

I'm going to start an extended campaign in the next future, I want to build a new setting with new cosmology (is linked to magic and its source, I stole and reworked few ideas from Dragon Age) and I want to see what happens. :smallcool:

I don't like Power Attack rocket tag, anyways, so I'm glad they did it.

[Eldan]

The problem is that at higher levels, pretty much all D&D seems to devolve into rocket tag when the players start optimizing more than moderately: the first creature to either get hit by the fighter or lose a save against the wizard usually loses. If you fix PA without fixing SoSs, the fighter is getting hosed.

[Mongoose87]

The problem is that at higher levels, pretty much all D&D seems to devolve into rocket tag when the players start optimizing more than moderately: the first creature to either get hit by the fighter or lose a save against the wizard usually loses. If you fix PA without fixing SoSs, the fighter is getting hosed.

This is why I like E6. Or, P6. EP6? Something6

[Kaiyanwang]

The problem is that at higher levels, pretty much all D&D seems to devolve into rocket tag when the players start optimizing more than moderately: the first creature to either get hit by the fighter or lose a save against the wizard usually loses. If you fix PA without fixing SoSs, the fighter is getting hosed.


I don't like Power Attack rocket tag, anyways, so I'm glad they did it.

Actually, even if I'm glad of the changes for what I said above, the leap attack shocktrooper thing lets me remember the good old smash attack in BECMI. It was not so devastating, but was anyway a lot of damage since HP weren't so may those times. *drinks another cup of grog*

That said, even rocket tag can be played very amusingly. I remember a dungeon my players delved recently, above other things, there were a deep dragon of relatively high CR. Able to shot them all with a maximized breath.

On the other hand, a well placed attack (like leap attack but even few spells) could drop the dragon. Well, I played it without stereotypes, making him strike and flee, use his illusions, feign attacks with deliberate use of noise, and so on.

Players, on the other hand, made a good use of AMF and towershields and cover. Like a chess game, they forced and tricked the dragon to use the breath weapon then started the coordinated attack dropping AMF.

Then, the Bard//Heblade dropped the dragon with a 20, 20, hit :smallbiggrin:. But that's another story and I like swingy combat when it starts. Sometimes the most pleasant thing to see is not the combat itself, but the strategy before it. :smallwink:

[AstralFire]

This is why I like E6. Or, P6. EP6? Something6

There is a small firesquad of low-level D&D variants now.

[The Glyphstone]

More environment books would be neat. I know there's a "Swampmuck" homebrew floating around on the boards somewhere, that would be a neat official supplement. Or a mountaintop/air-themed environment supplement (Slipstream?), with rules for airships and flying monsters, maybe sensible 3-D combat, more love for goliaths and storm giants.

[Eloi]

How about rules on zero-gravity combat? That would have been awesome for more of the Sci-Fantasy campaign settings, and would have been really cool if with a Spelljammer campaign book.

[sonofzeal]

Nothing to do with it? Haven't you been told how someone becomes a parent? :smallwink:
Even movies aimed at Grade 1 kids acknowledge that people have parents and grandparents, and occasionally it'd be a useful thing to find out with magic. This is a spell that could be useful in a G-rated game, and that's more than can be said for a lot of Core material.

[Melayl]

I... I just wish that they would have made one PrC that showed some love to familiars instead of crapping on them with all these cheesy variants.
A book about familiars is asking too much, I know, but... :smallsigh:

Troll Lord games made a Book Of Familiars...

edit:...that's what I get for not reading the whole thread... someone already said as much.

I would also put in a vote for swamp, jungle, plains, and mountain environment books.

[Thurbane]

Troll Lord games made a Book Of Familiars...

edit:...that's what I get for not reading the whole thread... someone already said as much.
When I'm back at my books, I might post up a review of this book. Like I said earlier, it has some really neat ideas, and new familiars, but some of the rules implementation is either really odd or outright broken - especially the sections on "Familiars for all classes".

Off the top of my head, a couple of the new (mundane) animals introduced has some very questionable stats...the kangaroo, I think, had some outrageously high damage output.