D&D Must Buys
- Thread starter DralonXitz
- Start date
Derulbaskul
Adventurer
Frost said:
I agree that's good advice: the Completes are far too hit and miss in terms of design quality and the Quintessentials are too often simply appalling to be freely recommended.
How about this: core books plus Dungeon 112 (Maure Castle) and run a 12th level dungeon crawl to see how much you like the ruleset?
mac1504
Explorer
DralonXitz said:
I can't believe no one else has mentioned this so far, but I would highly recommend Fantasy Flight Games' setting of Midnight for your players. This should fit their bill just right. The (almost a cliche now) likeness is to that of Middle Earth if Frodo and Sam had failed to destroy the one-ring and Sauron defeated man kind and enslaved them all.
Your PC's will definitely be outlaws and on the run!
Secondary suggestion
After reading the rest of the messages so far I just wanted to make an addition to my earlier book suggestions. It will probably make me sound like an old, crotchety gamer, but so be it. After the 3 main books, and the few others I suggested, my next suggestion would be what NOT to buy. Don't bother buying a campaign setting.
Make your own campaign setting, it's not as hard as you might think. All you need to start with is a town or city and a rough idea of what is around it. You can create the rest of the world map as you go along. You can have a rough outline of societies, cultures, religions, and what not, but they only need fleshing out a little at a time.
I think that in the 25 years I have been running games I have used exactly 3 campaign settings that were not my own. I used the Third Imperium for Traveller when I was running that game, but there's a huge amount of that left for the Ref to create. I used Grayhawk when I frst started running AD&D because I had no idea of what to put into a fantasy world, but I learned from that. Finally, I used the Shadowrun Awakened World because so much of the available material for the game was tied to it. For the dozens of other fantasy, SF, superhero, espionage, mystery/horror games I played I always made my own world/universe. There's quite a bit of fun involved in it, and it gives you a chance to really personalize the setting to fit your players.
After reading the rest of the messages so far I just wanted to make an addition to my earlier book suggestions. It will probably make me sound like an old, crotchety gamer, but so be it. After the 3 main books, and the few others I suggested, my next suggestion would be what NOT to buy. Don't bother buying a campaign setting.
Make your own campaign setting, it's not as hard as you might think. All you need to start with is a town or city and a rough idea of what is around it. You can create the rest of the world map as you go along. You can have a rough outline of societies, cultures, religions, and what not, but they only need fleshing out a little at a time.
I think that in the 25 years I have been running games I have used exactly 3 campaign settings that were not my own. I used the Third Imperium for Traveller when I was running that game, but there's a huge amount of that left for the Ref to create. I used Grayhawk when I frst started running AD&D because I had no idea of what to put into a fantasy world, but I learned from that. Finally, I used the Shadowrun Awakened World because so much of the available material for the game was tied to it. For the dozens of other fantasy, SF, superhero, espionage, mystery/horror games I played I always made my own world/universe. There's quite a bit of fun involved in it, and it gives you a chance to really personalize the setting to fit your players.
Trickstergod
First Post
Yeah, campaign settings are definitely the furthest thing from "must buys." They're fairly narrow, defined books, for the most part. I personally love campaign settings - but that's me, and I generally have a good idea of what I want. Campaign settings tend to provide some story and flavor to them, which is why I enjoy them - if I don't use them, I can still probably just enjoy the book for the book itself. But better books that you can use, in most cases, I think.
Outside of the core rule-books, I don't know that there are any "must-buys." More options are always nice, but not really required.
I think monster books are the way to go, though, actually. Books of new magic items aren't really necessary; the DMG has a fairly good system for making new ones all on your own, anyway, and they tend to be less creation intensive as, say, making up a new monster all on your own would be. The same with making up a new spell. Much easier to do than, say, whipping out a 10 CR aberration, between its skills and special abilities and attacks and so on and so on...
Similarly, unless you're getting a class book for every class, you're screwing players of certain classes out of advantages that are opened up to other ones. Even then, in the case of prestige class books, all you're doing is giving an advantage to those who have concepts that fit into what's printed there, while leaving those who's concepts haven't been given a prestige class behind.
If you do go the route of the Complete Divine or Quintessential's or whatever, though, as I said - at the very least, buy one for all the classes. Or at least any you allow in your games (I personally ban Monks - or nearly always do, anyway). I'd consider a grouping like that a potential must-buy, but individually, wouldn't consider any of those books anything of the sort.
Certain option books as Unearthed Arcana or Savage Species might be the place to look; Savage Species doesn't really do much for me, but Unearthed Arcana's something I enjoy in parts. The Expanded Psionics book seems near as close to a fourth core rule-book as they come, but personally, like with monks, I'm not so keen on the psionics. Still, if that's your sort of thing...similarly, there's also the Epic Level Handbook, though that's not always viewed in the best light...
Anyway, maybe not the best of suggestions, but there you have my opinion.
Outside of the core rule-books, I don't know that there are any "must-buys." More options are always nice, but not really required.
I think monster books are the way to go, though, actually. Books of new magic items aren't really necessary; the DMG has a fairly good system for making new ones all on your own, anyway, and they tend to be less creation intensive as, say, making up a new monster all on your own would be. The same with making up a new spell. Much easier to do than, say, whipping out a 10 CR aberration, between its skills and special abilities and attacks and so on and so on...
Similarly, unless you're getting a class book for every class, you're screwing players of certain classes out of advantages that are opened up to other ones. Even then, in the case of prestige class books, all you're doing is giving an advantage to those who have concepts that fit into what's printed there, while leaving those who's concepts haven't been given a prestige class behind.
If you do go the route of the Complete Divine or Quintessential's or whatever, though, as I said - at the very least, buy one for all the classes. Or at least any you allow in your games (I personally ban Monks - or nearly always do, anyway). I'd consider a grouping like that a potential must-buy, but individually, wouldn't consider any of those books anything of the sort.
Certain option books as Unearthed Arcana or Savage Species might be the place to look; Savage Species doesn't really do much for me, but Unearthed Arcana's something I enjoy in parts. The Expanded Psionics book seems near as close to a fourth core rule-book as they come, but personally, like with monks, I'm not so keen on the psionics. Still, if that's your sort of thing...similarly, there's also the Epic Level Handbook, though that's not always viewed in the best light...
Anyway, maybe not the best of suggestions, but there you have my opinion.
DralonXitz
First Post
Derulbaskul said:
Lol, thats exactly what I own. 3.0 core books and I just got Dungeon 112. Im looking right now at a few books, Mainly Quintecential Rogue, Freeport, and Traps & Challenges(think thats the name). But before I get these, Im going to start my campaign from ground, with One town in the desert, and dungeon will be a dungeon sort of, its a rich noblemans home, 3 stories tall with a large Catacomb system that houses a pretty valuable Chalice. Ill make a basic write up and post here, feedback will be appreciated.
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