PDF E-Books - Are they any good?

[Graf_Ulrich]

I have always bought the traditional paper-based D20 resources books, but now I am looking a buy some of the online PDF's. Are these publications (such as "The World of Elkor") produced to such a high standard as the traditional paper publications?

Opinions Please.

 

[Tsyr]

Some are. Some aren't.

Some I would suggest from my own experience:

Elements of Magic
In the Saddle
Taverns, Fairs, and Tournaments (Is that name right?)
Call of Duty
Beyond Monks
Wild Spellcraft

Have not had time to look over the Nat 20 Enchanter book since I got it, but what I have seen looks promising.

 

[Crothian]

pdf's are hit and miss. There are soem really good ones a nd some really bad ones (just like the paper ones).

Here are some of the best ones as judged by the reviewers here :

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/reviews/top20.php

 

[Voadam]

Some pdfs are exactly the same as print material just in a different format (such as Monte Cooke's Malhavoc press books, monkey god games modules, Atlas games modules, MEG e-blight).

Some have more material (Bastion Press' Minions rebirth has the material from the print version plus the little e-minions integrated together).

Many are individuals or family or friends putting out a product.

I think it is a great medium as I like to compile big master spell, feat and monster files and it is much easier to copy from electronic files than to type material in.

There are some excellent pdfs out there and some not so professional ones. I'd advise checking out reviews of products instead of just going by product descriptions as you can not really flip through them before purchasing.

Many are also revised at some point so you get updated replacement files with errata integrated instead of just a list on a separate sheet.

I have a lot of pdf products that I think are excellent d20 products.

 

[Desdichado]

That's a really odd question. PDFs aren't any more or less likely to have as professional a layout and presentation as any other type of product, IMO. A better question would be about specific PDF files available for purchase, I think.

 

[mistergone]

I generally don't like the idea of PDFs. While I can see their merits, I'm way more likely to buy an actual print product. I like to have something in my hands, usually, to flip through. Sure, you can print out PDFs, but my printer is not so great, and I'm lazy... I like it already all printed and ready to go. Plus I stare at a computer screen enough daily, it's nice to have a book to read through. Another consideration, and this is not a strong argument either way really, but something that I have been thinking about lately, is that if you get tired of or decide you have no longer any use for a PDF, you can't sell it as used to anyone. I strongly doubt I will ever buy a PDF product. You might find them to be more worthwhile, however.

 

[seasong]

I've gotten some really good ones. Roughly in order of how well I liked them:

Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns is excellent. Reading it made me want to run it. My only real issue with anything in it was a sentence stating that teamwork wasn't very useful in poker, but they give a rule to make it useful in the section before that sentence, so I wasn't too offended.

Magical Medieval Society is a good workbook, although not quite as good - they used the D&D demographics and economic system, which hurt my estimation of the book. Still, they give a fairly clear path to reverse engineer and use real numbers. However... this is NOT a plug-in resource, it's a builder's resource for world-building. Still, at under $10, it was a no-brainer for me .

3 Arrows for the King is a good archer's resource. They have some twinky feats, and some not-as-good feats, but the archer class is pretty well balanced, and the rest of the resources and commentary on archery is well taken.

Elements of Magic hasn't really captured my interest yet (I got it because of the GM's Day Sale: $2.50), but it's decent quality - I just tend to build my own magic systems anyway.

Group Feats is a few nice new feats to stick into a campaign. It costs $0.60. I can dig.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I'll second Tsyr's comment. I've generally been pretty lucky with my .pdf purchases, but I've also played it pretty safe —

* I've most of Malhavoc's stuff in .pdf and I've been happy with most of it (for some reason, BOEM III doesn't do it for me — I need to spend more time with it),
* Elements of Magic and Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns are both good reads and look really promising, but I haven't used either yet (the first because it doesn't fit either of my current games, although I love the idea, and I keep on forgetting I have the second).
* I like Ambient's stuff, too, and could see myself using it for sure.

Other than that, I've not really picked up many .pdfs (excepting SVgames and their old TSR .esds). I just tend to buy in bunches from certain publishers.

Best,
tKL