Best 3.5e Third Party Books?

[Blueiji]

The title of the thread pretty much sums up the topic of the thread. Note that I'm not asking for an argument on which book is the best, just suggestions as to which ones are good. Basically, which third party books are comprehensive, interesting, and worth buying?

I've heard that Untapped Potential, Hyperconscious, Secrets of Pact Magic, and Bastards & Bloodlines are all good. Does anyone have opinions on those?

[eggs]

The title of the thread pretty much sums up the topic of the thread. Note that I'm not asking for an argument on which book is the best, just suggestions as to which ones are good. Basically, which third party books are comprehensive, interesting, and worth buying?

I've heard that Untapped Potential, Hyperconscious, Secrets of Pact Magic, and Bastards & Bloodlines are all good. Does anyone have opinions on those?
The first three are normally among my top recommendations, and even though I'm not a huge fan of B&B specifically, Green Ronin does good work.

If you're into monster books, Necromancer Games' Tomes of Horrors are a lot of fun - lots of traditional monsters like leprechauns and sea serpents, plus older editions' staples like nilbogs (snilbog?), flail snails and froghemoths, and other out-there monsters in the same spirit of the older games (my favorite examples are a maneating land-clam and an undead tornado with fists to punch things). Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary is also very useful on the monster front - it's essentially a full length monster manual-type book filled with templates.

The other book that really filled a useful niche was Bastion's Into the Green, which is a Sandstorm/Frostburn/Stormwrack-type environment resource about forests and jungles.

[Blueiji]

The first three are normally among my top recommendations, and even though I'm not a huge fan of B&B specifically, Green Ronin does good work.

If you're into monster books, Necromancer Games' Tomes of Horrors are a lot of fun - lots of traditional monsters like leprechauns and sea serpents, plus older editions' staples like nilbogs (snilbog?), flail snails and froghemoths, and other out-there monsters in the same spirit of the older games (my favorite examples are a maneating land-clam and an undead tornado with fists to punch things). Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary is also very useful on the monster front - it's essentially a full length monster manual-type book filled with templates.

The other book that really filled a useful niche was Bastion's Into the Green, which is a Sandstorm/Frostburn/Stormwrack-type environment resource about forests and jungles.

Thanks! Into the Green sounds especially interesting so I'll make sure to check that out.

What Green Ronin books, in particular, would you suggest?

EDIT: Flail Snails sound hilarious, I'll have to try and obtain that book.

[Acanous]

Book of Erotic Fantasy is a great read. It is exactly what it says on the cover, but done quite well.

[123456789blaaa]

Book of Erotic Fantasy is a great read. It is exactly what it says on the cover, but done quite well.

Nooooooo.....

Here's a quote that summarizes my thoughts on this book quite well:


BoEF has a lot of content that's maturely-written, balanced, or useful in an actual game. Pick two.


Though it does have one of the funniest lines in a gaming book ever:


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

[Acanous]

Well, the base classes all suck, (No pun intended) but the PrC's in there are well balanced and decently written. The Feats are about as useful as Heroes of Horror's, and the sample adventures are pretty epic.
Oh, and the spells are good.

[123456789blaaa]

Well, the base classes all suck, (No pun intended) but the PrC's in there are well balanced and decently written. The Feats are about as useful as Heroes of Horror's, and the sample adventures are pretty epic.
Oh, and the spells are good.

But how many times are you going to use those prestige classes in-game? For the same amount of money you could have gotten a book that's full of great content and is much more likely to be allowed.

Also, I reccomend anything by dreamscarred press (the guys who did untapped potential). The company was partly co-founded by 3 very famous optimizers of the old WOTC boards. This is why the content is much more balanced than is normal for 3rd party.

[Amphetryon]

I rather like Guildcraft for a more urban adventure.

[Blueiji]

I rather like Guildcraft for a more urban adventure.

Thanks, I'll check that one out too. :smallsmile:

Does anyone know of any third party books devoted to Incarnum or Martial Initiators?

Or perhaps even an entirely new subsystem? That would be cool.

[Snowbluff]

But how many times are you going to use those prestige classes in-game? For the same amount of money you could have gotten a book that's full of great content and is much more likely to be allowed.


I don't know about you, but if I didn't get the book banned with my Cleric Hammer build, I would use Metaphysical Spellshaper all the time!

[TypoNinja]

Well, the base classes all suck, (No pun intended) but the PrC's in there are well balanced and decently written. The Feats are about as useful as Heroes of Horror's, and the sample adventures are pretty epic.
Oh, and the spells are good.

Actually, my group has had some positive experiences using the BoEF. Analyze Ancestry is actually a really useful spell in a feudal society when people start trying to mess with the succession. Throw in Voice of the Prophet, and do the big reveal in open court, makes for a pretty compelling scene actually.

[Kelb_Panthera]

BoEF has some nice stuff, some interesting stuff, and some not so nice stuff.

It's definitely aimed at a niche market within the PNP RPG market though. Unless your group is reasonably mature and fairly comfortable in their sexuallity, simply bringing it to the table can cause a bit of a row. Definitely way more suited to a group of close, long-term friends than your FLGS group.

I'm not big on 3rd party stuff for the most part, but if you wanna try a more political campaign (and are fond of feudal Japan) the d20 rokugan books are kind of interesting. Monsters of Rokugan can work in any game though, and one of the water-demon thingies lets you do the "Dark Link" fights from legend of zelda in a game.

[eggs]

Thanks! Into the Green sounds especially interesting so I'll make sure to check that out.

What Green Ronin books, in particular, would you suggest?
Pretty much the ones oriented toward DMs. The Advanced Bestiary I mentioned is probably their best and most applicable. Following that, Book of Fiends is well done in the vein of the Fiendish Codices, but I should probably qualify that by saying that its writers did go for a gross-out factor. Beyond that, it's pretty much just a question of whether you're into the premise of a campaign setting; if you are, GR usually has pretty good production values and adequate coverage of a setting to provide backstory, interesting plothooks and to answer any questions that might arise.

The major weak point in GR's materials is usually their player content. The classes just tend to be dry and somewhat weaker than related WotC material (in the case of casters, that's not a bad thing; when their Paladin-like classes crop up, it can be a problem).

[silverwolfer]

Well, the base classes all suck, (No pun intended) but the PrC's in there are well balanced and decently written. The Feats are about as useful as Heroes of Horror's, and the sample adventures are pretty epic.
Oh, and the spells are good.


It is true base classes all are just a very small spin on something you already have, by I used water down Tantrist, for PG-13 games, as a blood mage. IT has worked out well so far.

Just think of it this way, when your g/f or b/f gets in the mood, bring out your BOEF and say to them with a straight face.

" How about we LARP tonight"

[Dusk Eclipse]

But how many times are you going to use those prestige classes in-game? For the same amount of money you could have gotten a book that's full of great content and is much more likely to be allowed.

Also, I reccomend anything by dreamscarred press (the guys who did untapped potential). The company was partly co-founded by 3 very famous optimizers of the old WOTC boards. This is why the content is much more balanced than is normal for 3rd party.

By any chance do you know who are they?

[Snowbluff]

It is true base classes all are just a very small spin on something you already have, by I used water down Tantrist, for PG-13 games, as a blood mage. IT has worked out well so far.

Just think of it this way, when your g/f or b/f gets in the mood, bring out your BOEF and say to them with a straight face.

" How about we LARP tonight"

Even personal experiences with doing that aside, that sounds like a terrible idea. The last thing I want to do is being thinking about DnD. Heck, with my ADD I'm more likely get distracted by a optimization idea than getting anything done. :smallannoyed:

[silverwolfer]

hahah, I can just see someone having BOEF and a Trojan Catalog, trying to get the best items and stats.

[eggs]

By any chance do you know who are they?
Tempest Stormwind, Radical Taoist, Bacris and DisposableHero were responsible for Untapped Potential. Later books tend toward less familiar CO names.

[Rejakor]

Also, I reccomend anything by dreamscarred press (the guys who did untapped potential). The company was partly co-founded by 3 very famous optimizers of the old WOTC boards. This is why the content is much more balanced than is normal for 3rd party. anything written by WotC.

Fixed that for you.

[Psyren]

If you want to give Untapped Potential a test drive, most of its content is available on the DSP wiki for free:

http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/

Some of the other books' content (like Mind Divine) is there as well.

[Eldan]

I rather like Guildcraft for a more urban adventure.

As a lover of urban adventures I have to ask: what is in Guildcraft? From the title, I'd assume rules for running guilds and businesses, which I don't really think I need, but is there anything else good in there?

[Snowbluff]

hahah, I can just see someone having BOEF and a Trojan Catalog, trying to get the best items and stats.

It's not funny! :smallmad:

... okay, it's really funny. :smalltongue:

[Kaustic]

A great Spell from BoEF is a 6th level Cleric Spell: Body to Body. Cast upon the party at the begining of the day, Get your Persistent Spells cast on you, and spread them to the party as well. Need to heal that injured party member, cast a heal spell upon yourself, and it will heal everyone.

[123456789blaaa]

Fixed that for you.


Oh I don't know. I think Tome of Battle and the binding section of Tome of Magic were both pretty good in terms of balance.

[Snowbluff]

Oh I don't know. I think Tome of Battle and the binding section of Tome of Magic were both pretty good in terms of balance.

Eh... ToM.... once brokenly bad class, one mediocre, and one T3. So like 1/3 balanced. :smalltongue:

[123456789blaaa]

Eh... ToM.... once brokenly bad class, one mediocre, and one T3. So like 1/3 balanced. :smalltongue:


Oh I don't know. I think Tome of Battle and the binding section of Tome of Magic were both pretty good in terms of balance.

:smallwink:

[Snowbluff]

:smallwink:

:smalltongue: I derp and I herp. Sorry.

[Coidzor]

Tempest Stormwind, Radical Taoist, Bacris and DisposableHero were responsible for Untapped Potential. Later books tend toward less familiar CO names.

:smalleek: Wow. I feel like I've been living under a rock for not having heard of this before now then.

[Novawurmson]

Does Secrets of Pact Magic actually have more stuff for Binders, the class?

[Blueiji]

I'm not big on 3rd party stuff for the most part, but if you wanna try a more political campaign (and are fond of feudal Japan) the d20 rokugan books are kind of interesting. Monsters of Rokugan can work in any game though, and one of the water-demon thingies lets you do the "Dark Link" fights from legend of zelda in a game.

Is the Rokugan stuff the same as the Oriental Adventures sourcebook?

So the current list of good third part books to acquire seems to amount to the following.

- Hyperconscious
- Untapped Potential
- Secrets of Pact Magic
- Tome of Horrors
- Advanced Bestiary
- Into the Green
- Guildcraft
- Book of Fiends

Did I miss anything?

[Blueiji]

Does Secrets of Pact Magic actually have more stuff for Binders, the class?

Yes, it does. I believe that it contains a bunch of new vestiges and prestige classes, as well as a couple races (I might be wrong about the races). I don't believe it has any base classes though.

Although, if you're looking for a new binding base class, here's a homebrew one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118405).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Is the Rokugan stuff the same as the Oriental Adventures sourcebook?

So the current list of good third part books to acquire seems to amount to the following.

- Hyperconscious
- Untapped Potential
- Secrets of Pact Magic
- Tome of Horrors
- Advanced Bestiary
- Into the Green
- Guildcraft
- Book of Fiends

Did I miss anything?

Yeah, rokugan is the oriental adventures setting. More properly it's the Legend of the Five Rings setting, but there is a d20 version. I have to admit though, the actual rokugan campaign manual isn't particularly well balanced for a typical game, but creatures of rokugan and magic of rokugan work pretty well.

The setting is geared more toward the intrigues of the imperial court than the old-school hack'n'slash motif. It's great if you're into that sort of thing, otherwise skip the campaign manual since there's precious little in it for a normal game and the other two books work just fine without it. OA is kinda necessary to make them work though.

[eggs]

Yes, it does. I believe that it contains a bunch of new vestiges and prestige classes, as well as a couple races (I might be wrong about the races). I don't believe it has any base classes though.
Not quite. It has its own system that's very similar to ToM's, but it has some meaningful distinctions, the most important being the way ToM and SoPM treat spirit levels: ToM attempts to scale low-level vestiges' powers to stay comparable to high level vestiges, and doesn't factor vestige level in determining what a Binder can bind; SoPM still scales powers, but to a lesser degree, and restricts binders by the total levels of spirits they can bind - compensating for lower-quality/less-scaled low-level spirits by allowing more of them to be bound simultaneously.

I don't imagine SoPM materials would be inappropriate to port directly onto the ToM Binder, but SoPM's low-level spirits would be noticeably weaker than ToM's at higher character levels, and its higher-level spirits might be a bit overwhelming.

On the actual contents of the book, SoPM comes with 8ish Base classes (give or take - a fair number of its classes come with extensive adaptations, and it also introduces some binding ACFs for non-binders, but some of the classes aren't much more than variants to existing content), 3 new races (but one's a Dragonborn-style race/template thing) and a bunch of PrCs. You can see its table of contents and some of its samples here (http://www.pactmagic.com/download.htm).

[Rejakor]

Hm? New pact magic stuff? Is it any good?

Being able to bind 3 1st level vestiges or a single 3rd seems like a good idea, but most 3rd level vestiges are only mildly better than 1st level ones, so in practice it just means your binder has a ****ton of lower level vestiges and no higher level ones.

[Dayaz]

For the Mad Scientist types: Crossbreeding (http://www.scribd.com/doc/55039441/Encyclopaedia-Arcane-Crossbreeding)

For those of us who want to play with fiends from just about the start: Demonology <-Only place i knew you could look it all up free was taken down D: but it's from Encyclopaedia Arcane too

[eggs]

Hm? New pact magic stuff? Is it any good?
It's pretty good. There are some parts that are deliberately silly or unsubtle tributes to one thing or another and the occasional proofreading error, but the mechanics are solid, the content is interesting and the presentation is good.

Being able to bind 3 1st level vestiges or a single 3rd seems like a good idea, but most 3rd level vestiges are only mildly better than 1st level ones, so in practice it just means your binder has a ****ton of lower level vestiges and no higher level ones.
That's what I meant when I said the treatment of levels is the biggest compatibility issue between the systems: SoPM's level 1 spirits don't scale quite well enough to match its level 3 spirits, but its system provides the option to pick 3 level 1s instead of 1 level 3. Otherwise, the Secrets of Pact Magic and Tome of Magic systems are very similar.

[Agent 451]

I know that the psionics books put out by Malhavoc Press are pretty well received, but does anyone have experience with Chaositech?

[eggs]

I can't speak for the rest of the book, but I used Chaositech's grafts once in a Mind Flayers of Thoon campaign. For the most part, they were pretty typical Monte Cook/Malhavoc - cool fluff, good presentation, but mechanics that are either dull or ambiguous in their details (static DCs, lots of flat numeric bonuses to track and rules whose specifics aren't always clear).

Just addressing Malhavoc in a general sense, it's Monte Cook's company, and almost all the work is Cook's. The books (besides Cordell's) primarily support the fictional/fluff elements of a game, and only do a cursory job on the rules backing them up.

As a rule of thumb, the more one of their products is aimed toward supporting the fiction of a specific story, the better the product is (Chaositech is one of the better ones in that regard; I also like the event books); the more a book is directed toward augmenting the rules themselves, the worse it is (eg. Book of Eldritch Might 2, which presented things like 3d6 damage or +1 attacks as a fair trade for level 6 Bard spells, or Book of Iron Might, which was complicated to the point where it's easier and more fair just to make up rules on the spot than it is to navigate the system's formulas).