Libertad
2015-04-09, 07:28 PM
http://i.imgur.com/zcYeYyh.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/pidBKl1.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/68VFlnR.jpg
So for no reason other than curiosity and fun I decided to browse Drive-Thru RPG's wide selection of 3rd party D&D products, arranging the search engine list by price.
Some interesting things about Pathfinder on DTRPG is that about one-third of the available works (around 6,000) are $3 or less. This earlier confirmed my suspicions about the Pathfinder fandom being inundated with mini-sourcebooks and splats as opposed to "full" products, although there are a few rarities of full books being extremely low in price.
Another thing is that a lot of products with the Pathfinder label do not always have the D20 and 3.X labels, meaning that it's harder to find how much Pathfinder dominates the online D20 market.
Discounting bundles, subscriptions, and foreign language products (all of which are official Paizo sourcebooks translated into German), I decided to make a list of the most expensive sourcebooks for both Pathfinder and 3.X D20 games. Generally speaking, there's a top tier of products above $20; below that and the list of similarly-priced goods grows exponentially with both entries. As dropping twenty bucks on a full-sized adventure path or sourcebook isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, I felt like focusing on the bigger entries which might make a prospective customer do an about-take.
Most Expensive 3PP Pathfinder Books
1. The Slumbering Tsar Saga ($89.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64632/The-Slumbering-Tsar-Saga)
2. Rise of the Drow ($41.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126800/Rise-of-the-Drow)
3. Rappan Athuk-Pathfinder Edition ($40.00) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/112601/Rappan-Athuk--Pathfinder-Edition)
4. Razor Coast-Pathfinder Edition ($40.00) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113415/Razor-Coast--Pathfinder-Edition)
5. The Sword of Air-Pathfinder ($39.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/142503/The-Sword-of-AirPathfinder)
6. The Road to Revolution: the Campaign ($34.95) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99208/The-Road-to-Revolution-The-Campaign)
7. Tome of Horrors Complete-Pathfinder Edition ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93671/Tome-of-Horrors-Complete--Pathfinder-Edition)
8. Freeport: the City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141764/Freeport-The-City-of-Adventure-for-the-Pathfinder-RPG)
9. Zeitgeist: “The Gears of Revolution”-Act One: The Investigation Begins (Pathfinder) ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/138935/ZEITGEIST-The-Gears-of-Revolution--Act-One-The-Investigation-Begins-Pathfinder)
10. Gothic Campaign Compendium ($29.98) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127885/Gothic-Campaign-Compendium)
11. Ponyfinder Campaign Setting ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125583/Ponyfinder--Campaign-Setting)
12. Neverwhen ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93931/Neverwhen)
13. Dungeonlands: Palace of the Lich Queen (Pathfinder) ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141277/Dungeonlands-Palace-of-the-Lich-Queen-Pathfinder)
14. Faces of the Tarnished Souk: An NPC Collection ($22.49) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143924/Faces-of-the-Tarnished-Souk-An-NPC-Collection-PFRPG)
15. One on One Adventures Compendium ($21.60) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64278/One-on-One-Adventures-Compendium)
About 9 of the 15 are mega-adventures or adventure paths of some sort. Even the Gothic Campaign Compendium and Freeport have sample adventures in back. Aside from Rise of the Drow, the top 5 are all massive projects by Frog God Games, a bunch of folk who own a lot of the old Necromancer Games/White Wolf Sword & Sorcery Stuff. An interesting note is that FGG are also OSR fans, and aside from Tsar all the listed products have Swords & Wizardry versions as well.
I will say that I'm the proud owner of 5 of the 15 products above: Freeport, Tome of Horrors, Ponyfinder, Zeitgeist, and 1 on 1 Adventures. Overall they're all quite good for their price.
Freeport's the combined version of the system-neutral setting guide and the Pathfinder supplement along with new adventures.
Tome of Horrors is an excellent monster book I use a lot in my campaigns.
Zeitgeist can actually be bought for $35 for a subscription (the campaign's still being written), including the Act One collection; get that instead. From what I read so far it's a really cool fantasy Victorian D&D setting where the PCs are royal agents thwarting evil plots against their nation.
Ponyfinder is more of an acquired taste and rather short for its price (120 pages), but it is very pretty.
1 on 1 Adventures is a novel idea and collection of eleven Pathfinder adventures strongly focused around the expertise and skill-set of a particular class. For example, a gambling tournament at an eccentric old noble's estate is for roguish classes. I have yet to run any of the adventures myself, though.
As for the rest, Slumbering Tsar is quite literally a gargantuan mega-dungeon (952 pages) which can take the PCs from 7th to 20th level, centering around a ruined demonic city presided over by Orcus (a favorite of Frog God/Necromancer Games).
Rise of the Drow is a Level 1 to 20 adventure path involving the PCs fighting against a drow invasion of the surface world by taking the fight down into the caverns. It's got really high production values, with writers like Ed Greenwood and a lot of artists.
Rappan Athuk was an infamous mega-dungeon (levels 1 to 20) back in the early days of 3.5 geared around being the table-top equivalent of I Wanna Be the Guy, as every level was dedicated to killing PCs.
The Razor Coast was a Polynesian-themed setting/adventure path which was stuck in development hell since 2009 before being picked up by Frog God Games to finish. The setting is unique enough that I might check it out.
Sword of Air...eh, I haven't heard much of it other than being Frog God's owner's home campaign setting since 1977, which seems weird considering how drastically different Original D&D is from Pathfinder. It's not the only super-old setting I've seen converted to PF (City-State of the Invincible Overlord being such a planned project), which kind of makes me wonder how much Gameplay and Story Segregation (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation) is going on when new concepts in PF mess with a setting's core assumptions.
Road to Revolution was apparently a collected conversion of a 3rd Edition Adventure path set in the Great City Campaign Setting. (http://paizo.com/products/btpy84xh?Urban-Adventures-The-Great-City-Campaign-Setting) I looked at the setting and adventures, and they don't really describe much in the product blurbs to make them really stand out from others.
Gothic Campaign Compendium's a collection of new rules material (class archetypes, spells, etc) for a gothic horror type of game, as well as some adventures. Could be neat, although the price tag's a deterrent unless I hear more stuff about it.
Dungeonlands: Palace of the Lich Queen is apparently part of a trilogy of high-level adventures, combining elements of modern pulp and science fiction with fantasy. It's one of the few published adventures (official or 3rd party) meant for 18th-20th level PCs, so it might be interesting to see if the designers incorporated any problems of high-level play to accommodate the dungeon crawl.
Neverwhen's apparently a meta-setting with ways on connecting various campaign worlds and genres together. Can't find out much more than that.
Faces of the Tarnished Souk is actually part of an overarching setting in the Plane of Dreams by Rite Publishing, as first seen in the Coliseum Morpheuon. From what I saw of the preview, the NPCs seem monstrous and trippy, like a scaly dinosauric warrior who is actually a contemplative ascetic, or a fallen inevitable who now enforces the law dressed as a wandering monk on busy city streets.
Most Expensive 3PP D20/3.X Books
1. Ptolus: Monte Cook’s City by the Spire ($59.99)
2. Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock ($59.99)
3. Wilderlands of High Fantasy (new) ($48.00)
4. The City of Brass ($39.99)
5. The World’s Largest Dungeon ($39.95)
6. Heroes of the Jade Oath (AE) ($29.99)
7. Dungeon Crawl Classics #35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms ($29.99)
8. City State of the Invincible Overlord ($28.50)
9. Starship Troopers: The Role-Playing Game ($26.97)
10. Big Bang Ricochet - Workhorse #1: HMMWV ($26.00)
11. OCS Tome of Terrors ($25.00)
12. "ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution" - DIGITAL BOXED SET! ($25.00)
13. Etherscope ($24.99)
14. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG ($24.99)
15. Dragonmech ($24.99)
16. Egyptian Adventures – Hamunaptra ($24.00)
17. Slaine the RPG of Celtic Heroes ($23.99)
18. Silver Age Sentinels: D20 Edition ($23.98)
19. Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game ($23.97)
20. The Eamonville Incursion ($22.99)
21. Tome of Horrors II ($22.99/$24.99)
22. The Black Bestiary ($21.95)
23. Legends of the Samurai Hardcover ($21.95)
24. Trinity D20 ($20.99)
25. Book of Erotic Fantasy ($20.99)
26. Aberrant D20 ($20.99)
27. Adventure! D20 ($20.99)
28. BESM D20 Revised Edition ($20.97)
WIP
So for no reason other than curiosity and fun I decided to browse Drive-Thru RPG's wide selection of 3rd party D&D products, arranging the search engine list by price.
Some interesting things about Pathfinder on DTRPG is that about one-third of the available works (around 6,000) are $3 or less. This earlier confirmed my suspicions about the Pathfinder fandom being inundated with mini-sourcebooks and splats as opposed to "full" products, although there are a few rarities of full books being extremely low in price.
Another thing is that a lot of products with the Pathfinder label do not always have the D20 and 3.X labels, meaning that it's harder to find how much Pathfinder dominates the online D20 market.
Discounting bundles, subscriptions, and foreign language products (all of which are official Paizo sourcebooks translated into German), I decided to make a list of the most expensive sourcebooks for both Pathfinder and 3.X D20 games. Generally speaking, there's a top tier of products above $20; below that and the list of similarly-priced goods grows exponentially with both entries. As dropping twenty bucks on a full-sized adventure path or sourcebook isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, I felt like focusing on the bigger entries which might make a prospective customer do an about-take.
Most Expensive 3PP Pathfinder Books
1. The Slumbering Tsar Saga ($89.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64632/The-Slumbering-Tsar-Saga)
2. Rise of the Drow ($41.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126800/Rise-of-the-Drow)
3. Rappan Athuk-Pathfinder Edition ($40.00) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/112601/Rappan-Athuk--Pathfinder-Edition)
4. Razor Coast-Pathfinder Edition ($40.00) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113415/Razor-Coast--Pathfinder-Edition)
5. The Sword of Air-Pathfinder ($39.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/142503/The-Sword-of-AirPathfinder)
6. The Road to Revolution: the Campaign ($34.95) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99208/The-Road-to-Revolution-The-Campaign)
7. Tome of Horrors Complete-Pathfinder Edition ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93671/Tome-of-Horrors-Complete--Pathfinder-Edition)
8. Freeport: the City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141764/Freeport-The-City-of-Adventure-for-the-Pathfinder-RPG)
9. Zeitgeist: “The Gears of Revolution”-Act One: The Investigation Begins (Pathfinder) ($29.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/138935/ZEITGEIST-The-Gears-of-Revolution--Act-One-The-Investigation-Begins-Pathfinder)
10. Gothic Campaign Compendium ($29.98) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127885/Gothic-Campaign-Compendium)
11. Ponyfinder Campaign Setting ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/125583/Ponyfinder--Campaign-Setting)
12. Neverwhen ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93931/Neverwhen)
13. Dungeonlands: Palace of the Lich Queen (Pathfinder) ($24.99) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141277/Dungeonlands-Palace-of-the-Lich-Queen-Pathfinder)
14. Faces of the Tarnished Souk: An NPC Collection ($22.49) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143924/Faces-of-the-Tarnished-Souk-An-NPC-Collection-PFRPG)
15. One on One Adventures Compendium ($21.60) (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/64278/One-on-One-Adventures-Compendium)
About 9 of the 15 are mega-adventures or adventure paths of some sort. Even the Gothic Campaign Compendium and Freeport have sample adventures in back. Aside from Rise of the Drow, the top 5 are all massive projects by Frog God Games, a bunch of folk who own a lot of the old Necromancer Games/White Wolf Sword & Sorcery Stuff. An interesting note is that FGG are also OSR fans, and aside from Tsar all the listed products have Swords & Wizardry versions as well.
I will say that I'm the proud owner of 5 of the 15 products above: Freeport, Tome of Horrors, Ponyfinder, Zeitgeist, and 1 on 1 Adventures. Overall they're all quite good for their price.
Freeport's the combined version of the system-neutral setting guide and the Pathfinder supplement along with new adventures.
Tome of Horrors is an excellent monster book I use a lot in my campaigns.
Zeitgeist can actually be bought for $35 for a subscription (the campaign's still being written), including the Act One collection; get that instead. From what I read so far it's a really cool fantasy Victorian D&D setting where the PCs are royal agents thwarting evil plots against their nation.
Ponyfinder is more of an acquired taste and rather short for its price (120 pages), but it is very pretty.
1 on 1 Adventures is a novel idea and collection of eleven Pathfinder adventures strongly focused around the expertise and skill-set of a particular class. For example, a gambling tournament at an eccentric old noble's estate is for roguish classes. I have yet to run any of the adventures myself, though.
As for the rest, Slumbering Tsar is quite literally a gargantuan mega-dungeon (952 pages) which can take the PCs from 7th to 20th level, centering around a ruined demonic city presided over by Orcus (a favorite of Frog God/Necromancer Games).
Rise of the Drow is a Level 1 to 20 adventure path involving the PCs fighting against a drow invasion of the surface world by taking the fight down into the caverns. It's got really high production values, with writers like Ed Greenwood and a lot of artists.
Rappan Athuk was an infamous mega-dungeon (levels 1 to 20) back in the early days of 3.5 geared around being the table-top equivalent of I Wanna Be the Guy, as every level was dedicated to killing PCs.
The Razor Coast was a Polynesian-themed setting/adventure path which was stuck in development hell since 2009 before being picked up by Frog God Games to finish. The setting is unique enough that I might check it out.
Sword of Air...eh, I haven't heard much of it other than being Frog God's owner's home campaign setting since 1977, which seems weird considering how drastically different Original D&D is from Pathfinder. It's not the only super-old setting I've seen converted to PF (City-State of the Invincible Overlord being such a planned project), which kind of makes me wonder how much Gameplay and Story Segregation (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation) is going on when new concepts in PF mess with a setting's core assumptions.
Road to Revolution was apparently a collected conversion of a 3rd Edition Adventure path set in the Great City Campaign Setting. (http://paizo.com/products/btpy84xh?Urban-Adventures-The-Great-City-Campaign-Setting) I looked at the setting and adventures, and they don't really describe much in the product blurbs to make them really stand out from others.
Gothic Campaign Compendium's a collection of new rules material (class archetypes, spells, etc) for a gothic horror type of game, as well as some adventures. Could be neat, although the price tag's a deterrent unless I hear more stuff about it.
Dungeonlands: Palace of the Lich Queen is apparently part of a trilogy of high-level adventures, combining elements of modern pulp and science fiction with fantasy. It's one of the few published adventures (official or 3rd party) meant for 18th-20th level PCs, so it might be interesting to see if the designers incorporated any problems of high-level play to accommodate the dungeon crawl.
Neverwhen's apparently a meta-setting with ways on connecting various campaign worlds and genres together. Can't find out much more than that.
Faces of the Tarnished Souk is actually part of an overarching setting in the Plane of Dreams by Rite Publishing, as first seen in the Coliseum Morpheuon. From what I saw of the preview, the NPCs seem monstrous and trippy, like a scaly dinosauric warrior who is actually a contemplative ascetic, or a fallen inevitable who now enforces the law dressed as a wandering monk on busy city streets.
Most Expensive 3PP D20/3.X Books
1. Ptolus: Monte Cook’s City by the Spire ($59.99)
2. Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock ($59.99)
3. Wilderlands of High Fantasy (new) ($48.00)
4. The City of Brass ($39.99)
5. The World’s Largest Dungeon ($39.95)
6. Heroes of the Jade Oath (AE) ($29.99)
7. Dungeon Crawl Classics #35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms ($29.99)
8. City State of the Invincible Overlord ($28.50)
9. Starship Troopers: The Role-Playing Game ($26.97)
10. Big Bang Ricochet - Workhorse #1: HMMWV ($26.00)
11. OCS Tome of Terrors ($25.00)
12. "ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution" - DIGITAL BOXED SET! ($25.00)
13. Etherscope ($24.99)
14. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG ($24.99)
15. Dragonmech ($24.99)
16. Egyptian Adventures – Hamunaptra ($24.00)
17. Slaine the RPG of Celtic Heroes ($23.99)
18. Silver Age Sentinels: D20 Edition ($23.98)
19. Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game ($23.97)
20. The Eamonville Incursion ($22.99)
21. Tome of Horrors II ($22.99/$24.99)
22. The Black Bestiary ($21.95)
23. Legends of the Samurai Hardcover ($21.95)
24. Trinity D20 ($20.99)
25. Book of Erotic Fantasy ($20.99)
26. Aberrant D20 ($20.99)
27. Adventure! D20 ($20.99)
28. BESM D20 Revised Edition ($20.97)
WIP