Class Books - which do you recommend?

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
G'day people!

I was just wondering what class books (or similar) there were out there for D&D 3E, 3.5E and the d20 System.

In D&D, there were the original 5 (Sword & Fist, etc.) which are being superceded by the Complete series.

In the d20 System, I know of the Quintessential books from Mongoose.

Are there any others?

What do you think of them?

Cheers!
 

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I prefer any of the books from Green Ronin. They fit my style of gaming very well, and they seem to fit together. That said, I thought the Assassin's book they did was the one I would least recommend. I really enjoyed their necromancer's book, though some did not. The witches book was good, but some preferred one written by Jean Raabe (sp?) and some other women, but I can't remember its name. They have several other class books, and their race books are the best race books.



off topic, thanks for your strategy advice on your minis site.
 

The Green Ronin books on Witch, Shaman, Unholy Warrior and Noble are by far better than anything WotC has put out. Also the Path of Sword, Magic, Faith, and Shadow books by FFG are good and get a decent amount of use in my game. The Quintessential books are good as a whole too, with only a few issues. We have all but ignored the WotC splatbooks in preference of other d20 publishers since my group feels other d20 publishers consistently put for better material for our style of game.
 

I like the Green Ronin books and the Path books by Fantasy Flight. I had several of the Mongoose Quintessential books, but I sent them to Maldur, who probably tried to foist them off on yet another gamer.:p
 

I'm mostly looking for books that expand the capabilities of existing classes, not invent new ones. :)

I'd probably rate the WotC class books as follows:
Sword & Fist: 3/5
Defenders of the Faith: 2/5
Tome and Blood: 3.5/5
Song and Silence: 3/5
Masters of the Wild: 2.5/5
Complete Warrior:4.5/5 (for it provides a lot of useful information),

Mongoose:
Quintessential Druid as 2/5. (I've not seen other Q books).

Cheers!
 

I'm a little biased but I'll point out the Player's Guide series by Sword and Sorcery Studios. There are reviews out for most of them floating around here. They are ideal if you run a Scarred Lands game, but I think they serve a good resource for non-SL games. Some might argue me, but the books describe the roles of the classes in the world, using the Scarred Lands as an example. Some of the things they do is break up geographical regions/nations/politcal groups and state things like preferred feats, skills, weapons, spells, or what have you from people in that demographic. These can either be taken whole cloth (maybe just changing the names) or used to model the same things in your campaign. They all usually have a score or more of feats, a dozen or so prestige classes, and then other stuff like variant rules, materials, spells, magic items, etc, that mostly can be pulled right out of the scarred lands and into your campaign (with maybe a little work on the part of the PrCs.)

Werner Hager
 


My impressions:

For fighter-types, Masters of Arms is one of my all time favorite books. It is ALL about feats and classes specializing in different weapon types/style. But it has some interesting spins on this. Want a demon who specializes in using it's telekenisis? It's in there. Or how about a character who has honed their mastery of magical trinkets like the immovable rod to an art. Way less bland than the "weapon master."

Green Ronin has some good selections. Their witch, shaman, and unholy warrior books are all good, as are most of their race books. Their assassin book and Secret College of Necromancy are a bit shaky.

Quint books are hit or miss. I would agree druid is not the strongest book. However, I really liked Wizard, Sorcerer, Rogue, and Monk.

Speaking of Monks, Beyond Monks by chainmail bikini games is nice. The martial artist is a bit close to the monk for my taste, but I blame that on the monk for being too narrow of a core class. Still, if you don't use the martial artist class, it still has a bevy of useful feats and PrCs for monks and other characters.

The path series has already been mentioned. My two favorites of these books are the Path of the Sword and Path of Faith. The series in general is pretty good if PrCs in what you are looking for, and if you (like me) think you don't have to be 20th level to be epic, legendary classes are a great concept (though I feel that of the four books, path of magic's legendary classes are the least appealing.) On the not so bright side, all of these books have "schools" that trade feat like powers for XP with no real good explanation for why they aren't feats or class abilities. Other than that, the path books vary widely with a variety of supplemental material. I like Sword for its different combat terrain rules (good DM fodder) and I like path of faith for its expanded rules on small gods.
 


MerricB said:
Complete Warrior:4.5/5 (for it provides a lot of useful information)

At the moment, it also has the benefit of being available at Amazon.com for 60% off cover price!
 

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