Avalanche Press: Best Books?

[Knightfall]

Next "Best Books" thread...

I own one Avalanche Press d20 System book -- Twilight of Atlantis. It's got some fun stuff in it, and I didn't have to pay a lot for it.

Therefore, I'm interested in finding out about the other d20 System books by Avalanche Press. Here's the list.

• All For One & One For All
• Aztecs: Empire Of The Dying Sun *
• Black Flags: Piracy In The Caribbean
• Celtic Age *
• Doom Of Odin *
• Endless Sands
• Greenland Saga
• I, Mordred: The Fall & Rise Of Camelot
• Jade and Steel *
• Nile Empire: War in Heliopolis
• Noble Knights: A d20 Guide To Knightly Orders
• Noble Steeds: A d20 Guide To Horses & Mounts
• The Last Days of Constantinople
• The Little People
• Viking Age *
• Vlad the Impaler - Blood Prince of Wallachia

The titles marked with an astrisk are the books I am most interested in.

All opinions welcome,

Knightfall

 

[Voadam]

I enjoyed Twilight of Atlantis as well. Fun Greek Atlantean myth stuff with Egyptian elemental sorcerers, atlantean bioengineered cat people to suppress Egyptians, big Poseidon influence, high atlantean magic and atlantean LA people. It had just about the right feel for doing bronze age weapons, reducing their durability for sunder and not making them less damaging.

I liked Doom of Odin a lot, a fun norse adventure hitting lots of different styles of play, mortal norse politics, extraplanar giant wilderness, magical dwarven dungeoneering, and a fantastic rune trap tomb. The last part is one of the best sets of riddle/puzzle traps I've seen in an adventure, lots of ways to make it through - figure out the puzzle, disarm the trap, dispel the magic, jump to get over a bunch of runes, plowing through and taking damaging but not auto kill effects, only slightly marred by the easily ignored suggested use of bypassing all that goodness through the use of a riddling skill roll or int checks.

Little People is pretty good, it presents low powered European folklore fey that are physically frail but fairly high on tricksy magics. It also presents completely contradictory things on how fey operate and what their guidelines are, which all fits the feel of folklorish fey. Uses a heavy dependence on templates which is fine for frail LA fey players but prep intensive for a DM (not all are templates but there are a lot).


I just recently got Vlad the Impaler and haven't read it yet.

 

[Greg K]

I bought Noble Steeds and was very happy with the purchase. It is like a primer on horses with translation into d20 mechanics. It also discusses other mounts, mount related equipment and magical items, building steeds as companions (with feats, experience levels, etc. for mounts)

I have also read good things about both Celtic Age and Little People although I own neither.

 

[Crothian]

For historica based d20 they aren't that bad. At the time few people got past the cover art and it made for some awesome threads.

 

[S'mon]

Black Flag: Piracy in the Caribbean was way too 'historical' for me, all scurvy and amputations, no actual fun adventurey stuff. Greenland Saga looked promising but the authorial tone rather put me off. The Norse Gods (Ragnarok?) one didn't do anything for me - and why is a daughter of Loki on the cover wielding a hammer, anyway? I did like the idea of statting the gods as 20th level 3e PCs though; the 3e power curve is so outrageous that this works fine IMO.

 

[DaveMage]

At the time few people got past the cover art....

Why would you want to go past the cover art?

 

[Pseudonym]

I bought Noble Steeds and was very happy with the purchase. It is like a primer on horses with translation into d20 mechanics. It also discusses other mounts, mount related equipment and magical items, building steeds as companions (with feats, experience levels, etc. for mounts)

Was that the one where they had a sidebar discussing how riding dogs as mounts was a stupid, unrealistic idea on the same page they discussed griffon mounts?

 

[Aus_Snow]

The only two even close to worth the wood pulp used would be the two (that I'm aware of) that don't have dodgy covers, curiously enough.

They are: Noble Steeds, and Celtic Age.

But quite honestly, if you want a Celtic RPG sourcebook, perhaps this would be more use to you (or anyone) --

On the other hand, if the historical (cough) approach of the Avalanche book appeals more, perhaps an actual history book would be better? Well really, there's no perhaps about it, but hey, it's your money!

 

[Aberzanzorax]

The balance is....off.

By that I mean, there are some very obvious things that just don't "fly" with regular D&D...like a feat that makes you able to decapitate ppl (I think in Vlad the Impaler).

That said, the books are great reads...very historical...good inspiration, and fairly "balanced" if you play using that book, with it's (different) expectations.

I'd say all of the books are of similar quality. I haven't noticed a "best" or a "worst"...but the issues I mention seem present in all.


Still, I can say it's not "sloppy imbalance" as in Fast Forward books...it's more "rules be damned...we're making this work as we want for the historical period".

 

[Knightfall]

The only two even close to worth the wood pulp used would be the two (that I'm aware of) that don't have dodgy covers, curiously enough.

They are: Noble Steeds, and Celtic Age.

I know that Celtic Age won the 2002 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement, which is why I'm definately interested in getting a copy of that one.