Official Way to Verify Publishing Status of a book

[pabelfly]

So, I have a book which I strongly suspect is not first-party material (the book in question is Diablerie, from the Diablo II book collection). What do I look for in the product notes and logos to concretely prove or disprove this?

Thanks in advance.

[Zanos]

I'm almost certain that book is 1st party material. Usually you'd look for the WOTC seal and the D20 system logo. The latter indicates compatibility, the former indicates its a first party product. The primary author of the book is also listed as JD Wiker, who worked at WOTC until 2002. So if your standard for first part material is that it was 1. produced by WOTC and 2. was created for 3rd edition D&D, it meets both requirements.

[ngilop]

I'm almost certain that book is 1st party material. Usually you'd look for the WOTC seal and the D20 system logo. The latter indicates compatibility, the former indicates its a first party product. The primary author of the book is also listed as JD Wiker, who worked at WOTC until 2002. So if your standard for first part material is that it was 1. produced by WOTC and 2. was created for 3rd edition D&D, it meets both requirements.

100% the biablo stuff is first party.

It was released right as 3rd ed was a thing. and WoTC actually made a 2nd edition (awakening) and a 3rd edition version (diablerie).

Have you actually looked at the book?

It literally says on the inside cover © 2000 WIZARD OF THE COAST & BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT

Not sure how you can be confused over whether it is 1st part or 3rd party.

[pabelfly]

Not sure how you can be confused over whether it is 1st part or 3rd party.

It's not on any of the official 3e book lists I've read, and I've never seen any of the material discussed on here. You can understand my confusion.

[Vahnavoi]

Just because it is technically 1st party doesn't mean it's very good or compatible with other material. I have not seen these books in two decades, so I cannot speak from experience, but when I saw them discussed, people seemed to be in agreement that the Diablo d20 books were kinda bad.

[Inevitability]

It's not on any of the official 3e book lists I've read, and I've never seen any of the material discussed on here. You can understand my confusion.

I've seen it show up in build competitions (the winning build from the E6 poison round was a diablerie necromancer 6) and the legality judgement has traditionally been to treat it as no worse than dragon compendium.

[Crake]

Never heard of it? Is it a different system based on the d20 ogl kinda like the world of warcraft books? I can imagine it being a sort of standalone product rather than one intended on being directly compatible with the standard 3.0 rules

[Zanos]

It's not on any of the official 3e book lists I've read, and I've never seen any of the material discussed on here. You can understand my confusion.
I've seen the item system in it discussed briefly to create extremely broken magic items by screwing with the RNG loot generation system in the book, but otherwise I haven't heard much from it. Going through the spell list in there nothing really blows me away, and the classes seem kind of mediocre. The item system is extremely goofy and abusable though, which I guess is about on par for Diablo.

Is one of your players trying to abuse something in it?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Is one of your players trying to abuse something in it?

No, or at least not only. It's for one of the optimization competitions.

The book is pretty inarguably 1st party. Then again, you can argue that the barbarian and paladin classes in there were updated in 3.5 and hence would not be legal. It's a similar situation to OA vs CWar Samurai.

[Biggus]

It's not on any of the official 3e book lists I've read, and I've never seen any of the material discussed on here. You can understand my confusion.

I've been coming on 3E boards for about 20 years and I've never heard of it, I'd have assumed it was third party too. I wonder if there's any other official material out there nobody ever mentions?

[Zanos]

I've been coming on 3E boards for about 20 years and I've never heard of it, I'd have assumed it was third party too. I wonder if there's any other official material out there nobody ever mentions?

The Call of Cthulu d20 system is also by WOTC, and even had a section for converting the spells to use in a regular D&D game.

[pabelfly]

I've been coming on 3E boards for about 20 years and I've never heard of it, I'd have assumed it was third party too. I wonder if there's any other official material out there nobody ever mentions?

The adventure modules are first-party and have some unique items and prestige classes, and they rarely get mentioned. Actually was checking out Shattered Gates of Slaughterguarde recently as an example of this.

In all fairness, nearly all of these classes in modules are pretty bad, powerwise, and their flavour is intended for very specific campaign settings. I'd only see myself using them specifically to try to present original in comps.

[Inevitability]

The adventure modules are first-party and have some unique items and prestige classes, and they rarely get mentioned. Actually was checking out Shattered Gates of Slaughterguarde recently as an example of this.

In all fairness, nearly all of these classes in modules are pretty bad, powerwise, and their flavour is intended for very specific campaign settings. I'd only see myself using them specifically to try to present original in comps.

I've made good use of Dark Scholar to get a ton of free Silent Spells on a stealth-focused sorcerer build (in fact, I think you judged that one?) but yeah, other than that, idt I've ever used anything from a module.

[Prime32]

I've been coming on 3E boards for about 20 years and I've never heard of it, I'd have assumed it was third party too. I wonder if there's any other official material out there nobody ever mentions?
Polyhedron magazine (later merged into a segment of Dungeon) is mostly other d20 games, but it has some 3.x-usable content on the same level as other licensed Paizo stuff. Like #151 with rules for crafting spelljammers, #152 with the prestige class that gives you six cohorts, and #159 with lots of githyanki content and the feat that lets blackguards ride a nightmare.

1st-party, there's Enemies and Allies (source of the wrathful healing weapon enhancement, which heals the wielder for half their damage dealt) and Anauroch - The Empire of Shade (source of thaluud stone armor, a non-exotic heavy armor with a base AC bonus of +12).

And then there's the scourge of fangs item from Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land, which has a weird mechanic where you can use your full attack to command five Tiny constructs with your own BAB to attack for you. There's got to be some way to make use of that, but the best I can think of is Opportunist + that flexible flanking stance + giving the constructs maug grafts.