Quintessential Books - What's good?

[Nellisir]

Now that Mongoose has released their Quintessential line as watermarked pdfs at DrivethruRPG, I thought I'd reward them a bit and buy one. Or two. Or more. The Quintessential Fighter put me off Mongoose material for 2 years, but I've heard they've improved, and I've been very impressed by some of the stuff I've picked up recently.

So which Quintessential books are the best?

Thanks
Nell.

 

[Crothian]

My top 4 are Rogue, Wizard, Monk, and Sorcerer. The first two are written by Mike Mearls and the second two are written by Patrick Younts. Both authors have proved to me to be very skilled and they are some of the few that I will buy books based solely on their name on it.

The Bard one has s ome fun options, the cleric one might be the worst I've seen, Ranger and Druid have some okay options but neither are creative enough for me, Dwarf has some really good mine and smelter rules and everything else is okay, Human was bland and really needed some definition, Fighter has some good ideas but some people find the fighting styles "broken" I personally like them since it really offers something unique, Fighter 2 is not as good as fighter one but offers some good ideas for new feats based on PHB ones, Halfling has some fun things in it like the Cook prestige class, Samurai was a disappointment though it has some interesting martial art options in it.

That's a brief rundown on all the Quint books I own.

 

[Voadam]

I've got wiz and monks. I liked Wiz a bunch, a very solid sourcebook that I have used as a PC. Monks was OK IMO but did not have anything I wanted for my eldritch knight who knows martial arts. I much preferred Beyond Monks from Chainmail Bikini (on rpgnow.com) for my martial arts stuff.

It looks like Mongoose took the higher profit but exclusive sales option in putting most of their stuff on DTRPG. Other stuff they have on www.rpgnow.com includes a few quint, encyclopedia, and slayers guides on there to consider as well for mongoose stuff. The quints are temptress, aristocrat, and kobold I believe.

 

[Crothian]

I forgot about Quint Aristocrat since it is PDF only. great book, great ideas for taking an NPC class and making it playible with out rewriting the class.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

I've got wiz and monks. I liked Wiz a bunch, a very solid sourcebook that I have used as a PC. Monks was OK IMO but did not have anything I wanted for my eldritch knight who knows martial arts. I much preferred Beyond Monks from Chainmail Bikini (on rpgnow.com) for my martial arts stuff.

Well, it was written to be the Quintessential Monk, not martial artist. It is absolutely written with the monk class in mind, and material for other classes would mostly have to be altered to fit - it's also written for the 3.0 monk class, meaning it's built with the original mechanics of the class in mind - things like the seperate listing for unarmed attack progression, and so on (and my God, am I glad that's gone. That was a real [censored] to write around).


Quint Rogue is pretty cool, though I was never much of a rogue man. It still has some cool rules for stuff. Wizard is also very cool. The first Quint Barbarian has some interesting things in it as well, and I'm also fond of the psychic books, though they are most assuredly not for everyone.

Patrick Y.

 

[Man-thing]

It sort of depends on what you are looking at for characters because each focuses on one class and the stage of your game.

Primarily the Quint Ones provided Character concepts for new characters, prc, feats, equiptment, strongholds (lairs) for each class and one or two new mechanics to add.

For the Quint I line I've made extensive use of Wizard, Psychic Warrior, Psion, and Halfling.
Psychic Warrior in particular is really creepy. It was in Rappen Athuk when for the "good" of the party my psychic warrior consumed parts of a crippled comrade for extra reserves of power.

From RPGNOW: Quintessential Kobold

For Quint II: Rogue II, Druid II, Dwarf II, and Bard II. (Bard II and Druid II are my groups favourite)

In fact the Bard II spawn our current campaign where we are all playing single or multiclass bards. The book is worth is for the Power Performances in themselves. (Alternates to the same old Bardic Music)

- Standard Bardic Music - Songs of Inspiration
- Dirges (some can affect undead)
- Rhythm of the Heart (percussion)
- Songs of Despair (discouragement)
- Songs of the Wild (Animal Charmer)
- Blinding Blade (Bladed Weapon Style)
- Idle Hands (Juggling)
- Staged Magic (stage magic tricks)
- Touch of Thespis (acting)
- Vortex Dance (dancing)
- Words of the Wise (oratory)

 

[Doctor Shaft]

I really liked the Quintessential Monk.

Granted, it's 3.0 material, but I felt that the feats, the uses for the skill checks, and especially the "Legendary Forms" section were really neat ideas that I know would be a huge pain in the arse to get any DM to approve (especially the forms).

What's great about Quint Monk was that nothing was "obviously" broken (I wonder if anyone would make a case for anything though). It doesn't have that much "direct combat" splat material in it, so it's definitely not just a "how to make your monk stronger than everyone else". Though it definitely DOES provide ways of improving on the monk class so that it is more fun to play, and versatile.

The Prestige Classes and the School Style stuff is interesting... but at the end of the day not that useful or even fun. It's still a good read and can easily inspire what kind of "monk character" you would make based on the archetype the PrC's were using.

The Legendary Forms was the most "unique" part. It was kind of like a wizard's crafting stuff... only instead of making magic weapons, you gained a "feat". By spending several in-game months training, and then expending a sum of xp, you'd gain a new ability. The abilities, however, are very subdued. There's no "fireball" or "increase your BAB" stuff in there. Some skills are better than others, and make characters pay for the XP as a result, and increase the time span greatly. And, to top it off... you can't learn more forms than your total wisdom modifier.

It's a cool book. But... I don't know about Monk II at all. Has anyone ever read it.

PS: Beyond Monks is mostly crunch... it's a good book, though some of the stuff in there is kind of bleh. And... I'm not a big fan of their Martial Artist class, although it's still a quality design.

 

[Man-thing]

My friend has it and from what I can remember The Monk II covers:

An introduction to the common setup of the Quint II Line

Career Paths - Sort of extended character concepts (focuses skill and feat choice so that the character maintains a certain theme). - All possess and minor bonus and hindrance. I think that are 6-8.

Multiclassing - Multiclass path for the monk with all other classes it includes suggests as well as 3 variant options for each path to compensate for the multiclass weakness.

PRCs - typically for higher levels which include epic progressions

Tools of the Trade: New weapons, armour, adventuring items, religious items, drugs

MAgic of Enlightment - suggestions on what spells are great to cast on monks what magic items to seek and several new magic items.

Tricks of the Trade - new combat options/techniques (strangulation, joint locks, that sort of thing)

More Martial Forms and fighting styles

And general monk roleplaying advice.

Signs and Portents issue 13 also supported it with more martial arts quirks. SO you can make Blind Swordsman and drunken boxers.

What did I miss Patrick?

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

I think that's about it.

The Quint II line was MUCH more strict in terms of content and style. Basically, every Quint II book had to have Career Paths (with a specified format of 1 path per ability score, plus 3-4 paths based off skills), 10 level PrCs for characters of 10th level and above, a chapter on Multi-class Paths which laid out progressions for every possible combination (monk/fighter, monk/cleric, monk/wizard, and so on), and that sort of thing.

The benefit of this was that you always knew what was in a Quint II book, at least in a basic sense. Each one was pretty much like the rest.

The downside of it is that none of the books have the quirkiness their Quint I counterparts did, and that there are times when a square pegged was forced into a round hole because of the strict formatting. There were two or three career paths in Quint Monk II, for example, which I had to scrap entirely and replace with others, just because they didn't conform to exact guidelines.

I still like the way the book turned out, but I wish I'd had more room just to riff on martial arts myth and pop culture, like I did in the first book.


I will say that I consider the PrCs in Quint II to be more visibly exciting - the Quint I PrCs are designed to be utilitarian tools for creating all sorts of monks common to martial arts culture. The ones in Quint II are shiny toys to be played with.


Patrick Y.

 

[Acid_crash]

My favs are Quint Monk and Quint Samurai. I haven't seen any of the Quint II books with the price increase and that to get use of them I would probably end up purchasing more than I should because sometimes I get crazy with spending. Not that Mongoose would complain.