D&D 3E/3.5 What great third party 3E product did I miss?

[Eminence_Grise]

Hello everyone,

I love books. I love to read them and collect them. I have a lot of books from the 3E era, most of them published by third party companies.

I'm curious to know which great books from that era I'm missing in my collection and I should read. I'm especially curious toward settings and adventures... stuff that I could convert eventually to a 5E game.

I do own this:

• Arcana Evolved
• Eberron campaign setting + a few sourcebooks
• Midnight campaign setting
• Ptolus
• Lots of stuff from Necromancer Games
• A few DCC adventures by Goodman Games

Thanks!

 

[trancejeremy]

It's funny, I bought almost every DCC adventure they put out, but in retrospect, most of them aren't very good. (Castle Whiterock is one big exception, it's excellent).

Green Ronin put out an excellent series of historical settings: Rome, Egypt (Hamunpatra), the Trojan War, Testament, and a Medieval One.

Sword & Sorcery put out an excellent one on Mesopotamia.

I really liked the Westbrook adventures from 3am Games, as well as the adventures from Eda Cha (Open World Press?)

 

[Eminence_Grise]

I got most of the historical setting of Green Ronin when they did a 2$ / book sale a few years ago

The big one missing in my collection is Freeport.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Dragonstar from Fantasy Flight (the same folks who did Midnight) was pretty awesome (well, one of my favorites at any rate). A different take on D&D in Space! than Spelljammer, with more realistic physics and dragons ruling an interstellar empire.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I don't know if I'd consider them great, but I am fond of the Diomin dark fantasy setting and the Forbidden Kingdoms "pulp" setting (a better d20 Modern than d20 Modern to me), both by OtherWorld Creations, Inc. Diomin has some holdovers from 2E, but at least you're given a cultural reason for them. There are a few typos, and you can always tell what they meant.

For Forbidden Kingdoms, you need both the hardcover and the PDF to have the whole game. There is an FKModern product, that I really don't remember much about right now because I only really glanced at it and printed out the class sheets once upon a time. I would say that I prefer FK's firearm penetration rules to Pathfinder's.

 

[Celebrim]

I always end up mentioning the same four books any time this is mentioned.

Green Ronin's "The Book of the Righteous" is probably the best religion supplement for D&D ever written, and one of the best supplements of all time. I'd highly recommend it as a starting point for a novice DM wanting to integrate religion into his campaigns, and its a good example of what a cleric focused book should be like.

Green Ronin's 'Shaman's Handbook' is one of the best class guides of the 3e era, and is one of the few 3rd party classes I allow in my otherwise very restrictive game. Indeed, if I was forced to allow only a single spell-casting class in the game, it would be the GR Shaman.

Beta Bunny's 'Bestiary: The Predators' is the best Monster Manual style book for 3e - and it only covers animals. One of the few pdf's that I bought that I don't regret paying money for, and I will definitely be paying for the long awaited 'Prey' and 'Stinging Creatures and other Hazards' when they finally come out (Yay!). Would that they'd also do Dinosaurs, Prehistoric Creatures, Beasts, Magical Beasts, etc.

And one of the only other pdf's that I bought that I didn't regret buying was 'Hot Pursuit: The Definitive D20 Guide to Chases'. D20's turn based grid centric linear resolution does not lend itself to chases at all. Hot Pursuit introduces an alternative resolution mechanic for abstracting movement within the chase that in many ways can be thought of as "a skill challenge done right that 4e designers sadly didn't pay enough attention to". It's not perfect, but as an inspirational framework that you can tweak to the needs of the moment its great, and as a core rules for true generic chase rules its a great starting spot (probably 90% of the way there).

 

[Voadam]

Argyle Lorebook was a dark points of light setting I really liked. A decadent high magic mage empire with enslaved races and monsters had suffered a magical plague within the last 100 years and fallen leaving rampaging uncontrolled magical monstrosities and communities hunkering down as magical communication and travel stopped and government and civilization fell. Freedom but darkness and magical danger everywhere with people living in a new dark age.

Then there is Scarred Lands D&D done by White Wolf set in the aftermath of a gods versus titatns war where monster armies rampaged and still exist as hordes in the wilderness and the god races try to rebuild the world. Great stuff built around D&D tropes.

Freeport is both a great setting and the trilogy is a great adventure. D&D mercantile pirate city with Call of Cthulhu lieing below the surface.

I was a fan of the second party Ravenloft and Krynn settings in 3e but those are no longer available for sale as PDFs. Kalamar was decent too as a straight tone. Rokugan is D&D samurai land with lots of distinct clans vieing with each other. Lots of politics, lots of asian tropes D&Dified.

Nyambe by Atlas games did a similar thing for D&D Africa and Hamunaptra from Green Ronin did for Ancient Egypt D&D.

Warlords of the Accordlands is a neat setting with a massive 1-20 mega adventure. In the world a group of high level NPCs have struck down the high level good NPCs then took over the world. The PCs job is to take it back.

Spiros Blaak was one I liked a lot, church inquisition, lycanthrope plagues, gunpowder dwarves and goblins.

I pretty much mashed up Ptolus, Freeport, Spiros Blaak, and Eberron in my campaign world during the 3e era with bits of Greyhawk, FR, and Role Aids mini settings.

 

[graves3141]

Some 3E books that I think are important and fun... and interesting to read.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting - great book of the Realms in a single hardcover

Unearthed Arcana - So many cool options. You'll never use them all but it's fun to think you might.

Expanded Psionics Handbook - if you like psionics, this is the way to go in 3.5

Hoards of the Abyss - Great book on demons and information about the abyss

Lords of Madness - One of my favorites from the 3E era, slimy things with tentacles

Rappan Athuk - A great megadungeon that is fun to read and play. Beware the Dung Monster!

Heroes of Horror - Genuinely creepy and full of great advice about horror and disturbing concepts to torment your players with

Manual of the Planes - Cool book about the cosmos, probably the best single book about the planes ever produced

There are others but these were the ones that came to mind first.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I'm pretty sure most of those are 1st party.

 

[graves3141]

I'm pretty sure most of those are 1st party.

Very true and I apologize for misreading the original post. I do love and recommend the Rappan Athuk dungeon.