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

[pogre]

Adventures got the most mileage for me. I especially was fond of Necro's Lost City of Barakus. My group got a lot of gameplay out of that megamodule. I'm always willing to pick up a module, if only to steal a few encounters. Splat books I have almost no use for - keep in mind I'm a pretty much core rules guy.

 

[Psion]

For my players, magic and feat books got a lot more use than class books. Feats and spells were much easier to integrate into the game. Books you hardly ever hear about like Feats (AEG) and Complete Divine Spellbook (Mongoose) got loads of use in my game. Complete Book of Eldritch Might also figured prominently.

Spell Compendium was probably the single most useful tome after the core books for WotC 3.5 to date.

As for me as GM, I find that it's good utility things and things that give me ideas get me going the most. This includes the likes of:

Toolbox (AEG)
Advanced Bestiary (Green Ronin)
Advanced GM's Guide (Green Ronin)
Book of Templates Deluxe Edition
Portals & Planes
Expanded Psionics Handbook
The Book of Fiends
Relics & Rituals

Most of these had a nice combination of interesting fluff (or lacking that, interestin implications) coupled with good mechanical support.

Adventures... especially long mega campaigns... not so much. The only adventure product I find to be greatly useful is The Adventure Begins by Goodman Games.

I'll also note, outside of D&D/D20 Fantasy, the Spycraft 2.0 core book has provided me with a great many hours of pulse pounding modern action entertainment.

 

[AnonymousOne]

Thoughts on Mongoose Publishing?

I liked a a lot of the flavor in such books as The Quintessential Rogue.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Arcana Evolved - very good and an interesting take on D&D-concepts.
Various Books of Might by Malhavoc Press - All good stuff, the CBoEM stands out, of course.
Iron Kingdoms - Good setting, good read.


This was the stuff, that stands out, when I look at my bookshelf right now. I have also good memories of some Paizo stuff (Dragon Compendium, plus magazines) and Creature Collection, as well as Tome of Horrors. And Denizens of Avadnu.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Treebore]

Adventures and "setting" books are far and away the most useful products to get, for any edition. So I'll keep buying stuff from Paizo, Necromancer, Goodman, Green Ronin, etc..., no matter what edition or system they are published in.

System neutral would definitely have the strongest appeal to me, but I won't be excluding anything else.

Since I DM a lot I also find Monster Books very useful, but I doubt I'll be buying 4E versions.

Other than that, I have a ton of other books, and will be keeping them as sources of inspiration. Thats what I have liked about many books in 3E. It detailed aspects of the game that have never been really addressed before. So I love stuff like Book of the Righteous, the Legends and LAir series, Monte's books of ...., Goodmans Compleat books, etc...

Not to mention the stuff by Fiery Dragon, Fat Dragon, WOTC Map Tiles, etc... Never have I had such cool counters, map tiles, and other "accessory" type items to enhance my game with. Heck, even music made for games!

Plus some seriously awesome boxed sets! Rappan Athuk relaoded, DCC 35, DCC 51 Castle Whiterock, the one for Midnight, Wilderlands, Hall of Mirrors, etc... Especially the super well done beyond my imagining City of Brass boxed set. Definitely the King of the boxed sets for 3E.

Lots of good memories from lots of great products from 3E.

Plus Paizo is off to a great start off with 4E with their PF setting materials and their modules, not to mention what they are publishing for Necromancer games, Tegal MAnor, Eamonvale Incursion, and so on. Plus I am sure we can all count on Goodman Games to keep on doing their stuff.

I may not being adapting 4E as my system of choice, but I look forward to seeing what goodies are made for it.

 

[Li Shenron]

Adventures and campaign setting books for sure.

But we got a lot of use from the early splatbooks too, they gave a significant boost to available feats and spells. Later splatbooks were not nearly as good, with feats becoming too complicated and spells becoming disguised copies of existing ones, but the early splatbooks even seemed to cover some holes in the core (and in fact I think they contained some material originally meant for the PHB).

Some other books went used a lot, like Manual of the Planes (for the fluff mostly) and both Traps & Treachery.

What were underused are some early books about magic variant systems (Mongoose's Eancyclopaedia Arcane). I bought a small bunch of them and some were really cool even with some balance problem, but at the end I never got a player interested enough to make a PC fully based on one of them, so we ended up using some spells here some feats there, but certainly not the major parts of those books (I thought I'd use them for NPCs, but it's hard since you might want to master the variant rules to make them work best, except that your NPC won't live before the first encounter...).

 

[Wormwood]

Arcana Unearthed was the first book that really gave me the confidence to open up the d20 system and start tinkering with the core assumptions.

Then Unearthed Arcana came along and I haven't played any d20 game 'out of the box' since.

d20 Toolbox was an incredibly useful resource for me as a DM. My D&D campaigns can always use a little more texture and detail---something I'm terrible at coming up with on short notice.

Blue Rose was a lovely book, and while I never played it, I was greatly inspired by its mechanics.

 

[Psion]

Thoughts on Mongoose Publishing?

Well, I already mentioned I get a lot of use out of the Ultimate Divine Spellbook.

Some classic play books I find useful (especially Book of the Planes, Book of Dragons, and to a lesser extent, Book of the Sea).

I still use one of their first offering, Seas of Blood, for ship combat and a few character options, and have a few drabs of some of their Encyclopeadia Arcane books drifting though my games (especially Constructs and Abjuration, believe it or not.)

I find that while they get some smack talk (in many cases well deserved), I find that by sticking to the trifecta of Mearls/Younts/Hanrahan, you'll usually hit the best that they have to offer.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I find that while they get some smack talk (in many cases well deserved), I find that by sticking to the trifecta of Mearls/Younts/Hanrahan, you'll usually hit the best that they have to offer.

I'm familiar with two of those, but who is Hanrahan, and what have they done?

 

[Psion]

I'm familiar with two of those, but who is Hanrahan, and what have they done?

Gareth Hanrahan. He's sort of low on everyone's radar who isn't into B5, because that's been his vocation lately. He's also doing Mongoose Traveller (see the thread about Mongoose Traveller's new initiative system for some recent buzz on this).

My first encounter with his work was with Sorcery & Steam by FFG. I really though the mechanics in that book stunk it up pretty bad. But the campaign sections had some really cool ideas and flavor. I found out he was responsible for the campaign section.

He also did a few of the Quintessential books, but the stuff I know him for best is the material in the classic play series, especially Book of Dragons and Book of the Planes. I find his little idea seeds inspiring.