D&D 5E Why I Changed My Mind About Third Party Books

[Zardnaar]

Actually, Sword of Air, Stoneheart Valley, and Bard's Gate (NG version) were purchased by my party as a gift to me, in the hope that I'd run it for them; turns out it's pretty awesome, so I'm converting it over to 5e. I got lucky with the timing for the new Bard's Gate, since my insurance money started coming in finally (long story).

EDIT: Oh, I've heard that before the end of the year we'll get two of the "Environment" books, Mountains of Madness and one other...can't remember, swamps? Mountains of Madness should have a lot of info on Erod Flan and Tyr Whin, and I'm hoping more on Aka Bakar and dwarves in general, and maybe the dwarven pantheon.

Part of the theme of Lost Lands, I should mention for anyone really looking to get into it, is that your players are meant to discover the deeper mysteries hiding behind the face they're provided; it's a very common theme throughout all of the new FGG books and adventures, as well as the majority of the NG products that I've managed to get a peak at.

I'm not that familiar with the LL world just the snippets I picked up out of the QoD books.

 

[Inchoroi]

I'm not that familiar with the LL world just the snippets I picked up out of the QoD books.

It plays right into my worldbuilder-obsessive personality by only teasing bits and pieces as you go along reading, making me want more and more.

 

[Helldritch]

I have bought the Tome of beast from Kobold press and I strongly recommend it. It is that good.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have bought the Tome of beast from Kobold press and I strongly recommend it. It is that good.

The Kobolds usually make good stuff. Wolfgang goes back to AD&D and Dungeon. He also wrote pt 1 of the Age of Worms AP.

 

[Jester David]

I have bought the Tome of beast from Kobold press and I strongly recommend it. It is that good.

I know a couple ENworlders whose monsters were even picked from that book as Kickstarter backers. So it was a few people's first credits in a hardcover book to boot

 

[delericho]

Yeah, "Fifth Edition Foes" is a good one. And "Tome of Beasts" is causing me a rather nice problem - I gave the 5e MM a 5-star review, and ToB is better so I'm a bit stuck.

Those are the only two 5e third-party books I have, but I'm not averse to getting others. But what I learned from 3e is that it pays to be very selective - there are some great works out there, but there's also a lot of dross, so choose wisely!

(On the other hand, I'm paying virtually no attention to DM's Guild - since Drive Thru lost my credit card details a year ago, they won't be getting my business unless I just happen to see something I simply have to have. And given that I'm therefore barely looking, that is unlikely. But any solution to the "problem" of a small release schedule that includes "look at DM's Guild" is a non-starter for me.)

 

[Zardnaar]

Crap anyone have a link to the PDF of Tome of Beasts?

 

[delericho]

Crap anyone have a link to the PDF of Tome of Beasts?

Not specifically, but it can be ordered from this page, which has an option for the PDF (and hardcopy, and bundle, and pawns...).

 

[aramis erak]

I just slapped down $40 for a preorder of Adventures in Middle Earth by Cubicle 7. When/if my AL game finishes, I may convert over to running AIME, as I can clearly see how to convert stuff from TOR (which would be a HARD sell locally) to 5E.

 

[JeffB]

Overall I have neverhad issue with 3pp (Judges Guild!) but I have been disappointed with the FGG products in recent years, for 5e and S&W. I bought the original 2 volume quests of doom, and was pretty underwhelmed by the newer stuff, and some of it was old conversions from 3.x. Seemed pretty haphazard and uninspired.

I supported the Goodman Games adventure Kickstarter and also the end result seemed flat compared to the adventures they write for their house system. But for some they may be worth checking out.

TLG adventures- in particular, the A series are quite good. The first few are small sandboxy type areas like Phandelver- Small frontier type towns in a larger region with a few adventure locations and lots of hooks/smaller plots in each book. Ive run the first 4 (A0-3) and big fun has been had on both sides of the screen. The originals statted for C&C are still easy peasy to convert to 5e, if some of the later adventures in the series that havent been converted yet, float your boat.