Freaking Awesome 3rd Party Books That Don't Get Enough Praise

[Grum_l]

Immortals Handbook - EPIC BESTIARY: Volume One from Eternity Publishing

 

[Mark CMG]

Freaking Awesome 3rd Party Books That Don't Get Enough Praise

Here are some of the ones I have felt most strongly about since the beginning of 3.x . . .

From 2WS - The Second World Sourcebook and Skill Focus: Talking

From AEG - Dragons, Dungeons, Evil, Gods, Good, Magic, Mercenaries, Monster, Undead, and War

From Atlas - Crime & Punishment, Love & War, and Dynasties & Demigogues, as well as Nyambe, Seven Cities and Occult Lore

From Bastion - Guildcraft, Ink & Quill

From Blue Devil Games - Poisoncraft: The Dark Art

From Dark Furies - Mudhollow Inn and Strongholds & Sanctuaries (Likely any of their stuff is useful to any DM)

From Eden Studios - Fields of Blood: A Book of War

From Fantasy Flight Games - Cityworks, Dungeoncraft, Monster's Handbook, Traps & Treachery, Traps & Treachery II, and Wildscape.

From The Game Mechanics - Thieves’ Quarter and Temple Quarter

From Goodman Games - The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide and The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Wizard Strategy Guide

From Green Ronin - The Book of the Righteous, The Medieval Players Handbook, and the three Advanced Books (Advanced Bestiary, Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide, and Advanced Player’s Manual)

From Kenneth S. Hood - Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules

From Mongoose - Many of the Slayer's Guides and Quintessential books have some good in them, and the Combat System from Conan is worth having around, IMO

From MonkeyGod - From Stone to Steel

From Skip Williams - Cry Havoc

From XRP - Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe

Plus, anything from Creative Mountain Games, of course.

 

[occam]

I'll reiterate a couple that have already been mentioned: I gave Airships from Bastion Press, by Same Witt, as a gift (to my DM), and it looked complete and well laid out. And Nyambe is just crazy good.

I also loved The Complete Guide to Rakshasas from Goodman Games, by Matt Sprengeler. Lots of great background info on rakshasa culture drawn from Indian mythology, new rakshasas that are totally different than the standard one, a half-rakshasa template, the yogi base class... all great stuff.

 

[Psion]

Just a few... I'm sure that I'll miss lots.

• Spycraft 2.0. Distilled modern action that flows.
• Darwin's World 2 & Sidewinder Recoiled- not a huge fan of D20 modern itself, but somehow, it seems a great framework for other systems. These two are great examples.
• Second World Sourcebook: A great innovative little world-building cookbook that is mechanically inspired and throws the doors wide on the mechanics of D&D and d20 modern and lets you meld them together.
• Hyperconscious - Psionic sourcebook jam packed with flavor and neat character building materials.
• Advanced Bestiary and Book of Templates: Two tastes that taste great together! A bottomless well of cool monster ideas.
• Magic and Mayhem and...
• Spells and Magic - really cool magic sourcebooks.
• Rappan Athuk Reloaded - a classic megadungeon taken to new heights.
• Book of Fiends - Fiendish Goodness
• Denizens of Avadnu - Definitely one of the most undersold victims of the d20 market crash. Pure monster awesomeness.

Again, sure I'm missing lots...

 

[DMH]

One I am currently rereading is Atlas' Splintered Peace. Not for everyone, it covers the issue of racism and the mechanics can be extended to other social issues.

 

[Belen]

Possibly. With tens of thousands of PDFs sold there's a good chance any D20 fan that buys PDFs has at least one PDF that I worked on.

Announcement?

One? I have them all, Mr. Reed. I only violate my no PDFs rule for you.

 

[Nightfall]

Psion,

You are so right about adding Advanced Beastiary with Book of Templates. That makes for some VERY interesting combos/encounters. *also glad you mentioned RAR since it is the grand-daddy of d20 dungeon crawling*

 

[Angel Tarragon]

*also glad you mentioned RAR since it is the grand-daddy of d20 dungeon crawling*

I thought that was World's Largest Dungeon?!

 

[jdrakeh]

#1:Northern Crown. AKA "Septrionalis." It's a mouthful, but the concept is a winner: take early North America, from about Columbus through to the 18th Century and make it Fantasy. A "New World" is a fertile ground for all sorts of mythos and conflict and drama, and NC rolls it all up pretty dang nicely. As a bonus, it's in the same world as Nyambe (which is also great), and makes me really sad that we'll probably never see a Southern Crown.

Amen! Northern Crown has been rockin' my world this month Let me add. . .

Legends of the Samurai. I have the "forthcoming" hardcover and despite a couple of cut and paste errors where material was lifted from other OGL sources, this book puts Oriental Adventures and Rokugan to shame. This book gets feudal Japan right. The only thing that could make it better is an expanded bestiary with more traditional Japanese monsters (currently, the Japanese beasties of pop culture outnumber those of actual myth).

 

[Psion]

I thought that was World's Largest Dungeon?!

RAR is much more stylish and is not laden with bizarre assumptions and a redundant first level.