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

[Philotomy Jurament]

I get a hell of a lot of use out of Gary Gygax's World Builder and Living Fantasy, both from Troll Lord. Also a fan of The Black Company Campaign Setting and the Tome of Horrors. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set is awesome. I also recently picked up the adventure module, Coils of Set, which looks pretty damn good, too (although I haven't run it, yet).

 

[dougmander]

#1:Northern Crown. AKA "Septentrionalis." 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.

Wow, what an honor to head this list of 3rd-party awesomeness! Thanks!
It spins my head to think of how many of of these recommended books I've yet to read.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Wow, what an honor to head this list of 3rd-party awesomeness!

I wasn't familiar with Northern Crown before reading this thread, but have been checking out the web pages about it and it sounds pretty damn cool -- I ordered it (and the Gazeteer) from Amazon.

 

[Fishbone]

The Monster Handbook, Mike Mearls(Man, is he heading up the list or what!)
I've been addicted to this mofo since Christmas. Please make one for 3.5 with Magical Beasts, Mikey, I'm beggin' yah!
You know what, to save time I'm just going to give a blanket recommendation to anything Mike Mearls has ever done on the Legends and Lairs line, is doing on the Legends and Lairs line, and will do on the Legends and Lairs line, world without end, amen.

 

[Sir Elton]

I would have to add Necromancer's The Book of Taverns to the list... a very cool resource, pretty much exactly what it sounds like. I'd also really liked Atlas's Occult Lore and Dynasties and Demigogues, Eden Stuidos' Fields of Blood: A Book of War, and EGG's The Canting Crew from Troll Lord Games.

Thank you.

I'm still working on that thing for dreamscarred press.

 

[DMH]

Ones that have not been mentioned:

Genjitsu's Shaping the Self- leveled templates done right. I also find the racial levels much more interesting than those in UA.

En Publishing's The Fantastic Science gets so little love for being the very best in the subject.

Primal Urge's Emerging Forms line has many useful races in detail for cheap.

Throwing Dice Games' Notebook Essentials: Swarms, Stampedes and Skirmishes for masses of creatures larger than tiny. The gorgon stampede and demilich swarm are perfect for evil DMs.

Tabletop has many useful pdfs for those who want to develop the scenery of their settings.

Adamant's Dread Codex for undead from many sources updated to 3.5 (plus spells and magic items).

Bloodstone's Book of Broken Dreams cover the mental illnesses that everyone has and good advice in creating personalities.

Parent's Basement Games' Murchad's Legacy for a setting with a twist.

Dire Press' Lineage of Earth has 3 classes for those with the taint of earth elemental power.

And last, but not least is Plot Device's color scheme for magic. The pdfs have all the SRD spells within that color to make the DM's and player's life easier.

 

[Napftor]

Ones that have not been mentioned:

Adamant's Dread Codex for undead from many sources updated to 3.5 (plus spells and magic items)...

Thanks! It's nice to see this hasn't dropped off the radar completely.

 

[philreed]

As PDFs go, I've purchased a lot of Phil Reed's work, and gotten far more value out of it than I had ever expected . . .

Thank you. This means a lot to me (and your timing is perfect, considering the announcement coming the first week of April).

 

[Aus_Snow]

Thank you. This means a lot to me (and your timing is perfect, considering the announcement coming the first week of April).

Oh, OK then . . .

I thought your excellent PDFs were too well known for this thread, but while others are at it, I'll also thoroughly recommend the Campaign Planners (I, II and III) (on the list on that page) and several of the 101s too (particularly 101 Mundane Treasures and Another 101 Mundane Treasures, as it happens). Both have been godsends, so. . . thanks again!


Announcement, eh. . .? Hmm. . .

 

[Twowolves]

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

No pissing match here, friend. I didn't think Goodman had put it out, did a websearch and came up with Silverthorne games and it had no mention of Goodman on the rpgnow page, so just posted it. But hey, if you want to take offense, be my guest.