Quintessential Splatbooks vs the Wizards Class Books

[Flexor the Mighty!]

None of my players seem to want to take any PRC's so I can't really say. I'm not very impressed by the WOTC books though. Too many silly things, IMO, like the Fang of Lolth, Oozemaster, and the Frenzied Berzerker, but I'm not a familiar with the Mongoose stuff.

 

[demon_jr]

i've been rather disappointed in the Quint books. in my opinion, many of the rules within are unbalanced, being kewed to having more powerful characters.

on the other hand, i am for the most part pleased with the WOTC books, although i have some issues with them as well. balance is certainly a factor, although in this case, i believe many of the balance issues are skewed to making things more difficult or less useful to the player.

considering both cases, i would rather have rules skewed against me as a player, instead of rules that tilted game balance in my favor.

 

[Psion]

The definitive answer, IMO: It varies. Widely.

Some WotC Splatbooks are better than the corresponding Q book -- the Quintessential books aren't quite as balanced. But I think 3 of the Quint Books -- Wizard, Rogue, and Monk -- match or surpass the WotC splatbooks. OTOH, S&S is easily the most boring WotC splatbook.

As for the path books, I'd say they are somewhere in between. I'd call PotS a 4 and PoM a 3, but with the caveat that PotS is great for monks and barbarians and PoM is great for bards (possibly the best bard material in printe -- BoEM II just reclassifies the bard's abilities and S&S does almost nothing for the bard).

 

[Sulimo]

Re: Where did the term "splatbook" come from, anyway?

I have personally enjoyed the class books from WoTC much more than the Quints... Maybe I'm a little marketing brainwashed because they feel more "official".

Sword & Fist and Tome & Blood rocked my world.
Not just the PrCs, but maps of castles, hideouts, magic ideas, items and whatnot are a real resource - I've used them a lot.

Defenders of the Faith had some nifty stuff too. Cult ideas, Church organizations, etc. A coupla overpowered feats for Paladins, but Paladins are kinda meant to be played that way, that's okay.

But then things went downhill bad. Masters of the Wild and Song & Silence were pretty sad, IMO.

Hmmm...Sword & Fist actually turned me right off the splat books alltogether for a long time. Getting a look at Masters of the Wild did make me relent though. I really like this book...although I would've liked it to be thicker like the Quint books. Of course I've always been a huge fan of the wilderness classes (esp the Druid).

I can't wait to see the Quint Druid book...or any other Druid book for that matter.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

PoM is great for bards (possibly the best bard material in printe -- BoEM II just reclassifies the bard's abilities and S&S does almost nothing for the bard).

I've got to agree on your opinion of Song & Silence.

I was actually shocked at how little effort was put forth for the bard class. 1 PrC (two if you count the spy fella), a few feats and a discussion of musical instruments does not a "bard" book make. Of all the WotC splat books, this was the one most skewed towards one particular class. Sadly, the book was so blah that it didn't do much for rogues either (though I do like the thief acrobat).

Meanwhile, I thought some of the stuff in MotW was pretty cool (likewise, some of it did NOTHING for me) and I have used some of the spells and PrCs from T&B (my best 3E character was a Sor10/Elementalist10, with a lightning theme).

Of all of the WotC books, I prefer S&F. Though there were some bad errors (thankfully corrected), some of the PrCs are just great ideas (though only the Drunken Master impresses me monk wise). Including a PrC that channels the spirit of the Man With No Name was a stroke of mad genius.

Patrick Y.

 

[Synicism]

Originally posted by Albert_Fish Which do you guys prefer?? I tend to enjoy Mongoosses "Quintessential" series far more plus they tend to be more bang for the buck. The PrCs are not as creative but then again they make more sense ( uhm...slimelord anyone?). The Mongoose books are more expensive as a whole ( about the same price per book but each book only covers one race/class). Of course the Wizard's books have more legitimacy plys the PrCs have ten levels as opposed to Mongoose's typical Five level PrCs. One final Question, has anyone used the "Fighting styles" from either the Monk's book or Fighter's book from Mongoose? Do they need tweaking? Xp Penalties? GP costs? to make them work?

Actually, as far as my "default" books of PrC's, I prefer Fantasy Flight's Path Of... series. Even though only Sword and Magic are out now, I've been really impressed. I still use the WotC splatbooks and allow a good deal of stuff from them.

I was disappointed as anyone else when Sword & Fist was so, well... bad. I mean there was some good stuff in it (the duelist, the weaponmaster, the warmaster, to name a few), but there was some stupid stuff (the red avenger), some seriously overpowered stuff (the ninja), and some stuff that plain didn't work (the halfling outrider). There were a lfeats that could have been cool but were interpreted into uselessness (dirty fighting, circle kick), and so on.

OTOH, it came out pretty early on, so I can understand somewhat. For example, the idea of the "monk prestige classes" hadn't really been developed yet.

The problem I have with the Quintessential series is that it strikes me as overpowered. I don't use the fighting styles because (1) they are really overpowered, and (2) you get them for free. I much prefer FFG's approach to fighting schools. You have ten "lessons," each requiring a longer time to learn, and each having a higher EXP cost. Actually, the FFG system is easily expandable to epic levels so you can have some really weird stuff going on. Their equipment is often seriously overpowered for its price, and so on. Some of the stuff isn't bad, but it generally requires so much work to fix that I might as well build a new one myself.

 

[Synicism]

Originally posted by The Cardinal well, according to the ELH, 5-level PrCs are not really fit for epic progressions...

It depends. I've actually found that FFG's Legendary classes work really well for Epic characters.

 

[Psion]

It depends. I've actually found that FFG's Legendary classes work really well for Epic characters.

That may well be, but I definitely wouldn't extend the progressions of FFG legendary classes, which was his point.

 

[Corlon]

First off, what's wrong with the Oozemaster? It happens to be one of the more creative in concept of any prestige class.

For the most part, I use them both. Quint books have their strength as do the class books by Wizards. It really depends on what class you are talking about and what you need the books to do for you.

You REALLY like oozemasters, don't you?

It seems more of an obession than me always being a rogue

 

[residieu]

So are the Quint-books less focuses on prestige classes than the WotC books? That's my main gripe with the WotC splat-books (as well as lots of other d20 products)
it seems like they think people just want tons of prestige
classes. I'm more interested in feats, spells, misc. equipment (like in beginning of DoF) and non-crunchy bits.