Mongoose or Wizards..........

[prodigyxss]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post on Enworld even though I have been lurking for quite a long time. Im stuck in a boat here on buying class related products from two different companies..mongoose and WOTC. I've read the reviews on the complete books and some of the quintessential series, but can't decide which company presents the material better. To me they both just seem like mostly crunch, but what I am looking for is like half crunch, half fluff. So if you guys have an opinion on which company offers some fluff added to the obvious crunch could you please point them out for me. It seems like the quintessential series has more fluff, but is it really better compared to WOTC? Or if there are other books that would be better suited for me, just tell me .

PS. These is geared towards all class books from the companies which is either the complete series or the quintessential series.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

My Wizard has a mongoose familiar. Does that help?

 

[Turanil]

If you plan to buy all the books, I suggest to first get a close look at one Mongoose, and then one WotC, before buying. It would be better than just base yourself on reviews.

 

[prodigyxss]

Thanks for the advice I guess, but what I meant was just a basic question of which contains more fluff and which series was better in your opinion.

Sorry if I didnt really word it right...

 

[Li Shenron]

Thanks for the advice I guess, but what I meant was just a basic question of which contains more fluff and which series was better in your opinion.

First of all you may want to have class books which are 100% compatible with the edition you're playing Are you currently playing 3.0 or 3.5?

Wizards' 3.0 class books are Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood, Defenders of the Faith, Masters of the Wild and Song & Silence.

Wizards reprinted almost all the 'crunch' from those books in 3.5 format, adding more crunch (I guess at least 30% more), and making the series of Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine and Complete Adventurer.

IIRC, all Mongoose 'quintessential' books are 3.0, but you better check this because they might have switched to 3.5 before the end of the series. The are also a couple of 'quintessential II' books but I know nothing about them. Quintessential books are one for each class (and one for each race), so the cost of the whole series is definitely higher.

None of these are 'fluff-heavy' IMO, but there are things here and there which can be considered 'fluff'. The 3.0 WotC series had organizations examples for instance, and some articles about e.g. managing a familiar or a divine mount. The quintessential books had several character concepts presented with small class changes (and you can of course ignore the changes and just steal the concept), which may make the series more worthwhile for you, but the quality of those books is more irregular.

Definitely check out the reviews before buying!

 

[prodigyxss]

Thank you Li for a helpful post. Well since Im playing 3.5, I guess it would be wise to follow up on the complete series and I dont have any 3.0 class related material so it will all be new to me.

Thanks.

 

[Storyteller01]

Depends on what your looking for. Being a Mongoose fan *wink wink* I feel that they have a greater amount of fluff to add to a game. It's the main reason I buy them. The 3.0 material is easy enough to convert over. Mongoose also tends to provide some innovative rules sets/variations that can add a distinctive feel to the game, so you have a greater amount of options. I personally like the point based system they give for illusion specialists. You're not limited to the illusion spells listed in the PHB.

Having played 3.0, alot of the material in the complete series hasn't struck me as nessecary, since it's largely reprinted material from previous 3.0 sources and Dragon mags.

However (there's always one), Mongoose hasn't done so well with editting. Every book I've purchased (mostly older editions due to sales, so it may have changed) has some major editting flaw inbedded in the works. The lastest purchase has a PrC ability description half missing. WotC also also has a much better presentation via artwork (barely, but having color pics goes a long way...)


Not out to start a flame war. An opinion was asked...

 

[Mouseferatu]

D'oh! Wrong thread. Nevermind.

 

[JustKim]

The Wizards stuff has game balance over Mongoose. The early Quintessentials were one of the exceptionally bad product lines that scared me away from third party products for the longest time. It depends on the author, really, but even an excellent author can let slip terrible material when quality control is as poor as Mongoose was in its genesis.

The Quintessentials are all grab bags of optional material, so the fluff is largely dedicated to rationalizing this material that would otherwise not be in your game- probably not what you're looking for. For fluff I would actually recommend Sword & Sorcery's Guide line, which is 3.5 and more than half dedicated to general fluff (As opposed to optional fluff). You will still pay a price in game balance with this material though, springing to mind is an option for taking a hawk with vorpal wings as a familiar, at little or no cost. That's not to say WotC is perfect when it comes to game balance, but usually they catch things like the familiar that lops heads off on an 18-20.

Complete Arcane and Complete Adventurer have a reasonable amount of fluff, they were around the turning point when WotC began to feature more fluff and coming from WotC (Some of it TSR even) I would estimate it's more poignant and relevant to the typical gamer. Mongoose will often ignore canon material to explore their own fluff, and this was one of my biggest frustrations with the Slayer series.

 

[Sammael]

My experience with Mongoose books is such that I can never, ever recommend them to anyone. The ones I've seen are poorly written, poorly balanced, poorly edited, and poorly illustrated. All Mongoose materials are pre-banned in my games.