FFG - Recommendations
- Thread starter Yair
- Start date
Pants
First Post
The class books are, IMO, sucky to mediocre. I'd avoid them.
Portals and Planes is pretty good with some good ideas and nifty info.
Dungeonscape is not bad. The rules for creating random dungeons are pretty good. Kinda underwhelming though.
Monster's Handbook was great back when it was released. Now... not so much. Still has some good ideas but I find it generally covers A LOT of ground in a mediocre fashion rather than doing one thing really good. Too scatterbrained, I prefer more focused efforts. Worth a look, at least for $5, but set your expectations to low.
Portals and Planes is pretty good with some good ideas and nifty info.
Dungeonscape is not bad. The rules for creating random dungeons are pretty good. Kinda underwhelming though.
Monster's Handbook was great back when it was released. Now... not so much. Still has some good ideas but I find it generally covers A LOT of ground in a mediocre fashion rather than doing one thing really good. Too scatterbrained, I prefer more focused efforts. Worth a look, at least for $5, but set your expectations to low.
Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
Yeah at its inception, Monster Handbook was good. Now, with Advanced Beastiary taking care of some of those needs along with Tome of Horror series carrying the rest, plus the occasional Creature Catalog update/Dragon Creature stuff, it's semi-useful. But still not as cool as it once was.
Edheldur
First Post
Agreed. Personally, I'd recommend:mcrow said:
1) Wildscape: It has some nice new variants (including ranger combat styles), a weather generator (not exactly realistic, but it serves well for a game) and new rules for combat in different terrains -which I find simpler, and more complete than the ones in the DMG-. A definite plus is the "magical locations" features that can be added to regular places.
2) Portals & Planes: It also has a random plane generator, and a whole lot of different features for your plains. It also covers different portals and is overall a pretty good planar resource (I use it mixed with the MotP from WotC).
3) Dungeonscape: I got it since my dungeon-builder skills as a DM were lacking, and I don't regret it. It has comprehensive guidelines about dungeons, their functions and their inhabitants, plus (again) a dungeon generator (actually, there are 2 generators: one normal generator and one express dungeon generator). I really, really like it to this day.
4) CityWorks: And, as usual with these books, there's a city generator system (that I don't really use) plus some rules regarding urban environments. Not my favorite of the whole bunch, but a solid purchase.
Now, some others that I have, but not really use that much:
5) Monsters Handbook (PDF): It's a nice resource. As have been said, there are better out there, but still has some nice ideas for spicing up creatures.
6) Traps & Treachery I/II (PDF): Haven't really used them, so I can't comment on their trap-building rules or the content.
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Xyanthon
First Post
They do the $5 sale every now and again. I picked up quite a bit of stuff from them over a year ago when they had their sale. As others have mentioned, Portals & Planes is fantasitc. Traps and Treachery are great too. For the price, I really don't think you can go bad with anything FFG has to offer. I'd hoped that the full fledged Grimm book would come out but I guess not. FFG definitely put out some quality stuff. Midnight is great stuff but I think it is unfortunate that their other offerings never really had much impact. I would love to have more Dawnforge material.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Errr, the link provided goes to the PDF page - those are their regular prices. 
(Checking Fantasy Flight's web page the hardcopy books are not currently on sale. Sorry. 
)
That said...
City Works is a good book for designing cities, much more useful to me than WotC's Cityscape. If I had to pick one and only one FFG D20 book it would be this one.
Darkness & Dread is handy for folks who want to run a horror game using the D&D rules. (Whereas Heroes of Horror was designed for people adding horror to a D&D game.)
Sorcery & Steam is more useful, at least in my eyes, when combined with E. N. Publishing's Steam & Steel. Each covers material that the other lacks. I have used them together a great deal, and in some ways I have found them more useful for my Iron Kingdoms game than some of the Privateer supplements.
Wildscape is quite good for DMs who run a wilderness heavy game. I have used a fair portion of it, though only a little bit at any one time.
The Auld Grump
(Checking Fantasy Flight's web page the hardcopy books are not currently on sale. Sorry. )That said...
City Works is a good book for designing cities, much more useful to me than WotC's Cityscape. If I had to pick one and only one FFG D20 book it would be this one.
Darkness & Dread is handy for folks who want to run a horror game using the D&D rules. (Whereas Heroes of Horror was designed for people adding horror to a D&D game.)
Sorcery & Steam is more useful, at least in my eyes, when combined with E. N. Publishing's Steam & Steel. Each covers material that the other lacks. I have used them together a great deal, and in some ways I have found them more useful for my Iron Kingdoms game than some of the Privateer supplements.
Wildscape is quite good for DMs who run a wilderness heavy game. I have used a fair portion of it, though only a little bit at any one time.
The Auld Grump
