Mongoose Undead or AEG Undead...Opinions?

[talmar]

Hello all,

I'm about to undertake a fairly indepth campaign using the Undead as it's center theme.

I've been looking at Mongoose Publishing's "Slayers Guide to Undead" and AEG's "Undead"

I know each of these books are related to similar books for these publishers as a series. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the "Slayer's Guide..." series or any of AEG's books.

I've read a few reviews of AEG's "Undead" but haven't found any for Mongoose's "Slayers Guide to Undead" so I'm looking for any opinions from people familiar with these books or thier respective series.

One thing going to the "Slayers Guide to Undead" is it's written by Mr. Gygax himself.

Thanks all.

 

[Crothian]

AFAIK Mongoose's Slayer's guide to Undead has not been written yet.

AEG's Undead is pretty good. It has some great ideas, but needed a little help with some rules and orginazation.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

AEG's Undead is good, and so is Mongoose' Necromancy. If you have the cash, don't choose and get them both.

 

[tensen]

AEG's Undead is good

I looked at that and suddenly saw an Abbott and Costello skit coming on.

AEG's Undead is Good.
AEG's Good is bad
AEG's Bad is .....
But which is on first?

 

[trancejeremy]

According to the mongoose website, the Slayer's Guide to undead is due out in January...

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/slayer_guides_undead.htm


I don't have AEG's Undead, but I have a couple of their other one word books, and while they aren't bad, they tend to not be very coherent, as they have lots and lots of writers.

Also, I imagine the mongoose book will deal mostly with undead monsters (info about them), while AEG probably has lots of stuff for players (just a guess, though).

 

[Psion]

I'm about to undertake a fairly indepth campaign using the Undead as it's center theme.

I've been looking at Mongoose Publishing's "Slayers Guide to Undead" and AEG's "Undead"

I know each of these books are related to similar books for these publishers as a series. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the "Slayer's Guide..." series or any of AEG's books.

I've read a few reviews of AEG's "Undead" but haven't found any for Mongoose's "Slayers Guide to Undead"

Sort of hard to since it's not out yet.

A few thoughts:
I find the slayer's guide to be of generally low value. That said, the Slayer's Guide to Dragons (also by Gygax, also a generic guide to Dragons) was pretty decent, though some (a lot) of credit goes to his co-author Jon Creffileld, as Gygax does not do d20 mechanics. So, the SGtU might be okay.

I liked AEG's Undead. It may not be just what you think, though. It has no undead creatures in it. But if you are running an undead oriented campaign it may be the exact thing you need, as it has a slew of interesting PrCs both for undead and for those who hunt them, with some interesting campaign ideas.

Also, you might look into Necromantic Lore by FFG which was just released. (I don't have mine yet, so can't tell you how that went either.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

The undead and necromancy go hand in hand so here are some things to consider.

Hollowfaust: New PrCs, spells, undead. Mainly a city but lots of crunchy stuff. Surprised me when I compared it to Mithril which had almost all city stuff with adventures, towns, campaign notes, etc...

EA: Necromancy: New undead, spells, new type of feat.

AEG's Undead: Lots of material for an 'undead' based campaign.

Necromancer's Legacy: This is the same as Ambien'ts book on necromancers. Lots of everything in this one as well.

Secret College of Necromancy: Lots of undead, spells, feats, new core classes.

Necromantic Lore: A monster book for the undead. Good for those looking for monsters, bad for anything else.

 

[MEG Hal]

Necromancer's Legacy: This is the same as Ambien'ts book on necromancers. Lots of everything in this one as well.

Due out right around the new year at printer as we speak and should be shipped real soon---by Mystic Eye Games, clicl link in my sig and see what it is about!

 

[davewoodrum]

Personally I'd go with whatever Mystic Eye had first... though Mongoose has some good stuff.

I liked some aspects of AEG's early d20 stuff... but there were still certain flaws that were kind of hard to overlook.

 

[Psion]

I liked some aspects of AEG's early d20 stuff... but there were still certain flaws that were kind of hard to overlook.

Undead has some of these problems. Most specifically, they assume that some of the undead prestige classes don't need a fortitude save advancement. Not so, unless you want your undead to be disintigrate fodder. They also deliberately but for a poor reason IMO fail to give one class a will save progression in the book.

Of course these are easy fixes, but still grating.