Looking back on 3.x-era d20 products: which kinds were most useful?

[WayneLigon]

The only third-party D&D crunch books I bought were from Green Ronin and Malhavoc Press. I used those and found them to be good; the other stuff I looked over didn't do too much for me, save for a couple of PrC's from Scarred Lands.

I'll buy setting books if they have high production values: good maps, city maps that don't look like someone using Campaign Cartographer for the first time, and who have some interesting race variations. I'll get crunch books that fullfil a certain need for whatever campaign I'm doing at the time.

 

[Pinotage]

Yeah, Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary is probably the best monster book I own. Lots of people adore Monsternomicon (it does nothing for me) and I think Creatures of Freeport is crazy swell.

But really, it depends on the developer and it depends on the publisher.

Yes, to me the most useful 3.x products were the monster products and some of the classics like Tome of Horrors, Denizens of Avadnu, Advanced Bestiary, Book of Templates Deluxe, Template Troves Series, etc.

Some fantastic support crunch material for monsters and creatures that rivalled or even bettered most of what WotC put out in the Monster Manuals. Some 3rd party adventures and settings, I'd agree as well, were on par or above.

Pinotage

 

[DaveMage]

I agree.

Still... my tolerance for third-party D&D crunch has dropped almost to nil. Even authors and companies I really admire will have a hard time selling it to me going forward. So, in that sense, I think DaveMage is right. The path of the splat is going to be a dodgy one come 4e.

I should add one exception to no 3rd party rulebooks - monster books. There were a lot of these that were really good from 3rd party publishers (as the ones mentioned above).

Too bad you stopped. You missed some great stuff later on. I'd easily slip into my games anything from monte cook.

I read through many of Monte's products, and didn't see anything of concern, but I was the only one who owned them in the group, so none of my players ever asked to use them.

Also, we had enough rules/options from WotC to really not need any more from 3rd parties once 3.5 was out. What we never had in sufficient quantity from WotC (IMO) was a good variety of adventures (and settings).

 

[Nellisir]

I generally DM, and I homebrew almost everything, so...I almost never use prebuilt adventures. I read settings for ideas to steal, not to run them.

The most useful books? Monster books, including Tome(s) of Horror, Advanced Bestiary, Book of Templates, and the Monster Encyclopedias. OGL and/or d20-variant standalone settings with new classes/races/ideas - Dawnforge, Midnight, Thieves' World, Black Company, World of Warcraft RPG, Rokugan, Arcana Evolved, Oathbound. Toolbox books, like the Legends & Lairs series from FFG and AEG's "one-word" series (which included the book "Toolbox").

I did not use, or use little of; sourcebooks with a narrow focus; low-magic anything (except Midnight); adventures; variant magic systems (except pact magic), including psionics, spell point systems, and etc etc; epic material.

In general, I've found the broader and more general the theme of a book, the more likely I am to find something I can use, and the more likely I am to be happy with it. Thus, I'd rather 96 pages on "core races" than 96 pages on "elves".

 

[Angel Tarragon]

My homebrew has been heavily influenced by the following: Advanced Player's Guide, Arcana Evolved, AE Transcendence, Complete Book of Eldritch Might, Creature Collection Revised, Experts 3.5, Iron Heroes, Kalamar Player's Guide, Masque of the Red Death, Nyambe, Portals & Planes, Relics & Rituals I & II and Sorcery & Steam.

 

[SiderisAnon]

When it comes to third party products, the three I've gotten the most value for my money are "Elements of Magic" and the "Magical Medieval Society" line of products, especially "Western Europe" and "Silk Road". The EoM with some heavy rewrite has become the standard magic for my games and those two MMS books heavily influenced my world.

I really like the Skeleton Key Games tiles, though I honestly have to admit that I've bought more than I'll ever manage to print out, let alone use. (I own almost all the sets.) There have also been a few prestige classes that I've taken from third party products, but usually that's because I was looking for something for the campaign and found a product in the right area.

There have been a few additions in rules, but these are generally corner cases that need filling. One player was focusing heavily on constructs for this new character, so I picked up some decent rules. A current rogue in the party is heavily into alchemy, so we've added a few books with advanced rules on that. Otherwise, I tend to avoid new rules. (Though I am currently looking into finding some good ship combat rules.)

We really enjoyed "Arcana Evolved" and I based a whole campaign around it. I would still be using it, except that I like the "Elements of Magic" system so much better. Monte Cook's book did get me creating all of my races with racial levels.

Mostly what I tend to purchase most is interesting modules. I like some variety that the players can predict, and they've really helped lately because I've been in kind of a writing slump.

Other than that, I've picked up a few things that seemed interesting, but a vast majority of it has gathered dust. (Electronic dust in most cases. I prefer to buy PDF over hardback for my gaming materials.)

 

[Scribble]

Some 3rd Party books that I bought and use a considerable amount.

Tournaments Fairs and Taverns. (The drinking rules alone are awesome, and worth the price of the book.)

Magical Medieval Society Western Europe

Relics and Rituals 1 and 2

Book of Eldritch Might. (Soul Magic, New spells... wish there would have been more guidelines on reformatting the spells to = spell songs...)

Psychic's Handbook (Cool alternative to the core psionics...)

Tome of Horrors

Creature Collections (1 and 2)

A lot of the Scarred Lands stuff... (Steal ideas from them all the time...)

Anger of Angels... (Using it in an upcoming campaign...)

 

[the Jester]

I got the most use out of 'easy-insert' books, i.e. books that have a lot of stuff you can easily insert into your campaign. Monster books were by far and away the most useful for me, but I also got some good use out of adventures and books of spells and the like.

Most of the 'systems books' I checked out, I got less out of, even if they were very cool. (Still haven't played either Iron Heroes or Blue Rose, f'rinstance.)

 

[Aus_Snow]

I've got the most use out of [some] third party d20/OGL systems, [one or two] settings and [some] new kinds of rules or new takes on existing rules (i.e., not rules, settings or approaches covered in WotC books) for D&D / d20 Modern/Future. In that order.

Of course, some books I haven't used much, or at all in a couple of cases. But then, I've always liked having shelfloads of options anyway.

If I was going to adopt 4e rules (which I'm not) I would be most interested in products that don't merely ape WotC's efforts, or even try to get the jump on them. The 'me too' game doesn't impress me much, and just isn't useful.

 

[scourger]

Here's what I found most useful (kept to run another day):

Dungeon Magazine. I ran a few nice games with those adventures.

Judge Dredd d20. This was a real treat.

Omega World d20. A great game. Really brilliant.

The Vault of Larin Karr. I'm still running it with the 3.0 game.

Honorable Mentions (loved and set free):

DragonStar. It had really neat concepts. I used it before I had Omega World.

Spellslinger. I used it for a great mini-campaign with adventures adapted from Dungeon.

Skull & Bones. I ran a great pirate D&D game with it. The free adventure was really good.