D&D 4E State of the Art - 3rd Party Material for 4E - Your Experiences

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So, I personally don't own any 3PP material yet (aside from the WotBS 4E subscription). So, what kind of stuff are you using? What are your experiences with it? What questions came up?

I am asking this in the rules forum because I am mostly looking for the rules component of 3PP products for 4E. I don't care about cool fluff in this thread.

How well are rules described? Do they follow the guidelines implicitely or explicitely stated by the rules? Do they create balanced stuff, or is power all over the place? Who makes (or made) good stuff? Who has improved, who has gone worse? What was really innovative? Did it need more work or was it just plain awesome? How well did it run in play? (Did you use it all?)

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

Sticking purely to 4e-specific stuff, because you want crunch:

My Wizard player recently picked up Mongoose Publishing's The Quintessential Wizard. After flipping through it (not combing it for every possible minor imbalance), I allowed it. It seems to offer a ton of really cool options that all seem pretty in balanced It actually gives more cantrips for free, but they were designed well enough where I allowed it without batting an eyelash. There are also some cool rituals in there. Not sure about their other products.

Though I have yet to hit actual play with most of it, Goodman Games' 4e products seem very nice. Though I didn't buy it, I flipped through Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens, which had a lot of cool options. If I had the cash I'd consider it. The flavor in Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud is excellent, and the classes seem pretty balanced, though I haven't seen them in play so I can't say for sure. Sellswords of Punjar is a pretty cool adventure, IMO, but if the flavor isn't your type, they have plenty of other options... unfortunately I haven't run it, so I can't say for sure how well-designed it is when it comes to actual play.

One of my players plans on picking up Azagar's Book of Rituals, which sounds awesome, but it's hard to judge having not seen it. I'll possibly maybe post an update if/when he ever gets a copy.

 

[Jack99]

Sticking purely to 4e-specific stuff, because you want crunch:

My Wizard player recently picked up Mongoose Publishing's The Quintessential Wizard. After flipping through it (not combing it for every possible minor imbalance), I allowed it. It seems to offer a ton of really cool options that all seem pretty in balanced It actually gives more cantrips for free, but they were designed well enough where I allowed it without batting an eyelash. There are also some cool rituals in there. Not sure about their other products.

What? Balanced? I am sorry, but did you smoke something illegal recently? Or did they errata 80% of all the crunch? It was horribly broken beyond words when released.

Any, to answer the German's question:
Codex Venenorum (One Bad Egg) - If you want to expand on poisons. Also some very useful crunch for adjusting and balancing powers.

Critter Cache - Daemons (Blackdirge) - If you need more cool monsters that take no prisoners. IMO the best 3PP monsters released so far.

Critter Cache - Fey Folk (Blackdirge) - Another batch of high quality monsters.

Hard Boiled Armies (One Bad Egg) - Do you want to run skirmishes or wars? This is *the* product to get, without doubt.

BlackDirge's Dungeon Denizens (Blackdirge Publishing) - Even more monsters. High quality with some misses.

Hard Boiled Cultures (One Bad Egg) - Want to diversify your races, making interesting cultures? Look no further.

Book of Rituals (Goodman Games) - Because there is at least 8 awesome rituals in there by your favorite dane!

Last but not least,

Spoiler

The Mentalist (Dreamscarred Press) - Because it is a more interesting take on the Psion (and I need a new car... )

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Most of what I've used has been from Goodman Games, and has seemed pretty good. Several monsters from Black Dirge's Bestiary and Critter Cache. I've also handed out a couple rituals from Azagar's Book of Rituals to my players, but that haven't put them into use yet. (I am a little biased to Book of Rituals having contributed a few).

 

[Badapple]

I've only checked out Goodman games stuff so far:

I really like Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens - I'd get Monster Manual 2 before this, but if you have the money for another monster hardback, this is pretty good.

I love reading about the city of Punjar, but haven't been impressed with any of the Punjar DCC adventures. A year ago on free RPG day, GG gave some sort of little guide to Punjar and it was a great read if you like gritty cities full of cutpurses and murderers.

Citadel of the Corruptor was a pretty good mid heroic tier adventure, but I modified it quite a bit.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

What? Balanced? I am sorry, but did you smoke something illegal recently? Or did they errata 80% of all the crunch? It was horribly broken beyond words when released.

The key word here was "seem", not to mention the fact where I said I just flipped through it rather than combing through it in some detailed faction. It was mostly just jumping around/skimming, I don't own it.