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

[Turjan]

I also suggest to buy on a per book basis. The Mongoose "Quintessential" series and the Wizards "Complete" series are built differently, anyway. Those "Quintessential" books that I have are really good in opening up new character options. On the other hand, I hardly have any . I can wholeheartedly recommend the "Quintessential Wizard" and the "Quintessential Sorcerer", and the "Quintessential Rogue" should still work nicely, too. That's about as far as I'd go here .
I was not too thrilled about the "Complete" series from WotC, but as it's just four books, it's not too costly. You may skip the "Complete Divine", which further reduces the costs .

 

[Storyteller01]

The subsystems are what sell me on the Quints. I have not bothered with the Completes. For flavor I will take Mongoose, with all its editing problems, over the WotC class books. From the Quints I have gotten a lot of use out of the Rogue organization rules, the Wizard library rules, and the Open Mass Combat system in Fighter, and the Congregation rules in Cleric - enough to make me glad of the purchases, even if I never used any of the other crunch. (But I do use it, so...)

And weird as it sounds I find the lack of polish rather endearing in some ways, taking me back to the way I felt reading Judge's Guild supplements in the early 1980s.

The Auld Grump

The Quint. Gnome's learn by book rules aren't too bad either...

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

For game-play I find we're getting some leg-work out of the Complete series.

I run a pretty draconian table, and normally allow nothing outside of the PHB without alot of serious consideration. (Draconian only in what we start the game with, I'd like to think I'm pretty easy-going ... unless you get mud on the carpet. Then we beat you with a hose.) Mostly, I think, I only allow PHB stuff because I'm an uncontrolled power-gamer and given fifteen minutes with a rule book I'll spend the whole time trying to break it. To avoid unforseen problems, I don't allow anything in that we haven't all thought about as a group for a while ...

So far we've been working with a few feats from Complete Warrior and Complete Divine. Might go with something from Complete Arcane for a Wizard I'm playing in another game. I'll admit I haven't seen TOO much fluff, though there's usually a bit of fluff contained in a particular crunchy bit that you could take and expand on ...

--fje

 

[Aus_Snow]

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.

Get thee to a FLGS! Or at least see if you can check out some previews of some of the books, if you haven't already. For example, there's this link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20041105a which has a few excerpts from Complete Arcane.

Unfortunately, I don't think the Quintessential books have previews freely available anywhere.

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.

More 'fluff'? The Quintessentials overall, probably. Better? Your call. Personally? I'd say the 'Quints' are - in general - more interesting at least.


So... it might help if you said why you need these books.

For starters, are you a player? DM? Both? Either/or? Compulsive collector? Not sure?

What character classes, archetypes etc. do you favour, if any?

What do you hope these kinds of 'splatbooks' will allow you to do, that you can't do without them?

... stuff like that.

edit --- whoa, hang on a sec. One of your posts does mention playing, in fact. So, presumably you're a player then? Please excuse my oversight there.


I don't know if it's just me, but I wouldn't know what to suggest when I don't even have a clue what you might want to be using 'class-splat' books for.


Oh, I will however second Stormborn's recommendation of Dragon magazines 310-312, and certain others (I'd have to look up some issue numbers there.) I've found them very useful.

 

[Feldspar]

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.

This was my experience as well - especially on the balance front. Maybe you can salvage some of the ideas, but the mechanics were generally fubared.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The Quint. Gnome's learn by book rules aren't too bad either...

It was the only one of the Race Quints that I was interested in, and so was the only one my Not So Friendly Local Game Store (now deceased) never got in. I like tailoring races to fit my worlds more than tailoring classes I guess...

The Auld Grump

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

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.

Others have said it... But I'll say it again...

This has been my experience, too. Does that mean that I don't own some? Nope. Does it mean that sometimes I try to pull a fast one on the DM and get him to let me use (insert incredibly broken ability here)? Nope.

--The Very Devious Queen Dopplepopolis

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I take such a piecemeal approach to D20 products that the issues that others seem to find with the Quints do not bother me at all. I use a line item veto on every book that I allow in my game anyway. (If only to avoid Oozemasters...)

The Auld Grump

 

[Storyteller01]

It was the only one of the Race Quints that I was interested in, and so was the only one my Not So Friendly Local Game Store (now deceased) never got in. I like tailoring races to fit my worlds more than tailoring classes I guess...

The Auld Grump

I lucked out. The store I go to dropped the 3.0 material to rediculously low prices. He only had one of each, and neededthem gone.

If you have an e-mail account you don't mind passing out, I can send OGL material you may want. Let me know if your interested, or what exactly your interested in...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

'Sokay, I will most likely end up getting it as a PDF through Drivetru - now that they have watermarks rather than that horrible DRM protection I have no problem with that at all. (I spent enough time bitching when they had DRM, it is only fair to get their stuff now that I can get it without DRM, after all, I won! )

The Auld Grump, egocentric? I am egocentric?