Best fluffy 3E books?

[dragonlordofpoondari]

Anyone got an opinion on the rest of Gygax's Living Fantasy sourcebooks?

From what I've seen, these are aboveboard products with some minor editing issues. I've got the Insidiae and Book of Names, and I like them both a lot. For the rest, it really depends on whether you like the charts in the 1e DMG or AEG's Toolbox. If so, they're a sure bet!

 

[DMH]

Anyone got an opinion on the rest of Gygax's Living Fantasy sourcebooks?

I own 2 others. Living Fantasy is filled with lists just like Worldbuilder. Cosmos Builder is great if you want to stick with bog standard D&D planes (ie good vs evil).

Some more suggestions:

The enchiridion series from ST Cooley (pdf only). Treasures and Objects D'Art is the least fluffy and covers economics, crafting and the magic inherent in materials. Mystical Music covers most angles of sonic based magic. It includes feats that allow bards to use sound to "turn" various monster types (the selection is based on the bard's race) and a rewrite of how bardic magic works. The Enchiridion of Elided Enduements of the Expanse is on rangers. The gem is a new class type- there is only one level and taking it allows the character to unlock the class features with skills, feats and bab prereqs.

Of monster books, there are so many and what is good is so subjective, I will stick with those that are based on templates:

Goodman/Silverthorne's Deluxe Book of Templates and Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary are the core 2. Both are pdf and print and cover a lot of ground, though AB has a large chunk devoted to undead. In pdf Silverthorne's Template Troves are specialized and mildly fluffy. Second World Simulation's Bodies and Souls is fluffy and has some rules on how characters could earn some of the templates. It also has one, the insect scion, that is unlike other templates as it has different options (and is very easy to add to).

As for races, Primal Urge's Emerging Forms line is super fluffy and worth every penny. There are at least 4 pages devoted to society, religion and personality in each pdf.

And the last 2 pdf publishers I suggest you look at are Ronin Arts (on e23 these days) and Clockwork Golem Workshop. There is too much to describe for both, but they do produce good fluff.

Edit, if you like fantasy genetic engineering: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=186052

 

[00Machado]

Power of Faerun

Draconomicon

Dragons of Faerun (for dragon personalities - mechanics will be out of date to a greater or lesser degree)

Agree that Heroes of Battle and Heroes of Horror will still be relevant. Does that count as fluff since it's about running certain types of campaigns, encounters, etc?

Renegade Crowns - similar to Power of Faerun, but for Warhammer FRP. I still like it for any fantasy genre politically focused campaign

Ptolus

Charge!

Any books of lists and tables - Gygax's, etc.

The Forge of War, if you play Eberron

Pirate's Guide to Freeport (no mechanics)

Magical Medieval Society books by XRP

Book of the Righteous

Along with the Manual of the Planes recommendation, I'd toss in Infinite Doorways.

Any of Malhavoc's event books, with Cry Havoc being the least useful mechanically, but very useful for an idea of how to scale the current rules to skirmish and mass combat scale.

If the changes to 4E are anything like SW Saga, then some mechanics will be salvageable, especially sub-systems.

I'm inclined to think that the Legends and Lairs books Mike Mearls wrote will still inspire regardless of rules, and that some sub systems can be mined from it (either concepts - or whole cloth rules used) even for 4E.


I have all the above. The below are ones I think might be good and am considering for myself.
I've read lot's of good things about Darkwalkers. And possibly the Relics and Rituals historical books for fluff (just a hunch on those) like Olympian, and Excalibur ones. And isn't there a d20 line for Arthurian playing that got excellent reviews? Conan Road of Kings

And any setting book that you might want to mine for ideas - Castlemourn, Violet Dawn material, etc.