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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 3055991" data-attributes="member: 53">Yes & no.  I don't think that 3rd party books are inherently more "broken" than WotC books.  Yes, the horribly balanced books are non-WotC books (counting PDFs as books) because the requirements to publish, especially online, is so low.  Still, those books get so little attention that no one really discusses them (or considers them worth discussing).However, I've noticed that I'm using very, very few 3rd party books in my game, even though I'm not inherently against 3rd party material.  Looking back I see two main reasons, both related to the idea that WotC books are the baseline assumptions for a standard game.The first reason focuses mostly on the early days of d20.  If you grant that WotC books give what most consider the baseline D&D experience, a lot of 3rd party books don't measure up. To me they operated with a completely different balance level and didn't feel right.  Often classes, monsters, etc. were too powerful or not powerful enough (yes, WotC does this, but less often).  Sovereign Stone to me was an excellent world, but had a much lower power level balance, that meant you either used all of it or none of it.The second reason applies to books that didn't have the same balance issues.  Books like Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might was well balanced within the WotC baseline.  However, it required you to fit in large swaths of material in some places.  The whole concept of Eldritch feats really requires most of it be added to work.Another book I want to use, but find myself using little is Hyperconcious.  One problem is that a good part of the book makes assumptions about the dream world.  However, I run my game in Eberron and there are different assumptions about the dream world.  So, I can't use that as written.  I'd have to make some changes, and its just not worth the effort to me.  I don't really need it.To grab another Monte Cook book, I love Unearthed Arcana.  The magic system is great, I love many of the concepts.  However, it's different enough that, for the most party, you use all or nothing.  I could go through and rewrite the D&D magic system so there are diminished spells, but that's not really worthwhile.  So, I'll use all of the magic system, or none.  Mostly, people choose none.  Those that choose to use all rarely see any balance issues within it.So, I think a lot of it is that many (or even most) 3rd party books are built having a different base for the power balance.  If you have a standard D&D game, you likely don't like them.  If you do, then you likely feel they have the proper balance.</blockquote>

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