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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But made by silverthorne games:

Book of Templates

Right, I was clearing up the confusion about why Goodman was in people's mind, not getting involved in this stupid pissing match.

 

[Edheldur]

Some more suggestions, off the top of my head:
Advanced Bestiary: Templates, more templates, and then some templates.
Portal & Planes: Planar traits make this one worth it. By Mike Mearls.
Wildscape: Environmental effects, combat terrain rules and a variant system for wandering monsters and encounters. By Mike Mearls.
Book of Iron Might: Combat maneuvers, Arcane Battle feats, new uses for skills -mostly related to combat- and a stunt system (that is, quite frankly, basically a prototype of what later appeared in Iron Heroes). By Mike Mearls -again-.
Magesmithing 101: Ever wanted to make non-casters smiths able to forge magical weapons and armors? Then, this product is for you! (I'd really love to see more in the "101" series by Dog Soul Publishing).
101 Feats, 101 More Feats, Another 101 feats: A lot of feats.
Fantasy Player's Companion: Higher Level Feats: A nice collection of higher level feats -and a reason for Patrick Younts to keep writing gaming material!-
Hot Pursuit: The Definitive D20 Guide to Chases, Hot Pursuit: ON FOOT: A nice little system to adjudicate chases while keeping them abstract. Way better treatment than what the core rules state.

 

[Nightfall]

Ed,

Nice suggestions, especially about Portals and Planes. It is lesser known book. But then Beyond Countless Doorways...wow that's just awesome.

 

[Edheldur]

Hey Night!

Ed, Nice suggestions, especially about Portals and Planes. It is lesser known book. But then Beyond Countless Doorways...wow that's just awesome.

Beyond Countless Doorways is, indeed, awesome; but the reason I recommended P&P is because it presents you building blocks to create/modify planes and demiplanes. Besides, I just love the way Mearls streamlined a lot of things in the "Legends & Lairs" series.

 

[Nightfall]

Ed,

True, Mike did streamline a great deal. That's why it's a great builder block. I guess what I liked about BCD was the fact it was so...pulpy yet still so Planescape too. But you are correct, best way to create stuff is with Portals and Planes.

 

[Ace]

Ill third the Psychics handbooks -- lurvly stuff and double awesome if you combine bits from Blue Rose/True 20 with it.

I also really liked Citizen Games Way of the Witch. It was one of the few game books other than Blue Rose with good fluff text and the rules were cool too.

 

[Celebrim]

So hard to saying why I don't like some of the well recommended picks, but I'll control myself and limit myself to my recommendations.

Green Ronin - Book of the Righteous (This is the book I wish I could write if I had time to write an RPG book, and pretty much the gold standard for a divine supplement and an RPG book period. Also, definatively what the Paladin should have been in 3rd edition. Awesome. Amazing.)
Green Ronin - Shaman's Handbook
A Magical Medieval Society
A Magical Medieval Society - City Guide
AEG - Toolbox (It's like the random dungeon dressing tables at the end of the 1st edition DMG, only for a whole world)
Mongoose Publishing - Book of the Planes
Ambient - Everyone Else (I could do this or wing this, but now I don't have to.)
Ravenloft Player's Handbook - I personally feel that the fear/horror/madness rules should be made core.
Hot Pursuit - the Definitive Guide to D20 Chases (The best rules supplement to have been published for D20. Still has some kinks in it, but definately a big step in the right direction.)
Necromancer Games - Tome of Horrors (Mentioned, but really, worth mentioning again)
Dungeon Crawl Classics - Into the Wild (DDC mentioned, but really, can't mention this enough)

Special mention, 'D20 Firearm Mechanics, by Kenneth S. Hood'. It's a fairly short pdf document (21 pages). Mine has 'beta version' on it. I'm not even sure where I got it, but its far and away hand's down the best firearm rules for d20 ever published - and I'm pretty sure they never were actually published for sale. Absolutely and unquestionably makes any other D20 firearms manual look like a freaking joke, and makes some more famous products on the market look like an utter waste of your money. If I ever have need for D20 modern in any setting, firearms will be converted to Mr. Hood's most excellent rules.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I wish Denizens was available as a PDF...

Coming soon, don't worry...

I absolutely love From Stone to Steel by Monkey God. First PDF I ever purchased where I had to hunt down the book. Not only are the weapons awesome and well done, it kinda serves as a history lesson for warfare. Very very cool.

I also really like the Dark Legacy books from Red Spire Press. Very well done setting which is different then a lot out there. It certainly doesn't get enough props.

Fantasy Personae: Spies, sages and informants

Thank you! Denizens gets lots of praise which helps alleviate the pain of still having half the print run, but Fantasy Personae is really like some sort of bastard stepchild of ours. I think Alex put together a lot of great NPCs for that book and we had a whole product line ready with 5 more in the series planned. It didn't flop, but didn't do well enough for a sequel. That always bugged me as I thought it was a solid product. Anyway, thanks for mentioning it!

 

[Soel]

I'll add some recent purchases...

Metablades - from Genjiutsu Games, for the fighter/mage or psychic warrior in you

Classic Play - Book of the Planes - from Mongoose, a lot of cool ideas, and my fav of all the 3e planar books.

 

[Stormborn]

Magesmithing 101: Ever wanted to make non-casters smiths able to forge magical weapons and armors? Then, this product is for you! (I'd really love to see more in the "101" series by Dog Soul Publishing).
.

Thank you! I was selfishly scanning this list to see if one of my books showed up, but wasn't expecting it to be this one. I too would like to see more 101 books, and a 3rd was in the works but basically there were so many other projects between Dog Soul and myself that it got put on hold. I wont do another one unless I have a really good idea for one and its something that a ton of other products haven't covered.