What are the better 3rd-party D&D supplements?

[Belegbeth]

*A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe* from Expeditious Retreat Press is the best "campaign-building" supplement I've ever seen.

 

[Psion]

The gods are decent, but break no new ground; they aren't fundamentally different from gods in Greyhawk or in the Forgotten Realms.

The gods may not be that worthwhile. But the utility of the material is worlds better in BotR IME/O.

With Greyhawk and FR deites, you get some basic statistics, and perhaps a few paragraph on church and dogma. And stats. I'm not against stats, but I think they don't get used much on the average.

With BotR, it's more about what you need to run a game. Lore, theology and philosophy, conflicts within the religion, heirarchy of the church and information on how they operate, and so forth. To me, that is so much more useful than anything WotC has offered me for 3e in the vein of deities, there is almost no comparison.

 

[white tiger]

I'm more interested in creating the story and the adventure in my game. I'd rather buy supplements which cut down on my time creating the more mundane stuff (new animals, new monster stats, pick pocket results, etc.) so I can spend more time creating the adventure, suprizes and drama for the characters.

With that in mind and giving books for D&D 3.x, these are the books I'd recommend:


- Toolbox (Alderac) - TONS of tables that can be used at the spur of the moment for eveything from foods, to plants, to pick pockets results, to random citizens.

- Monsters Handbook (FFG) - Great for giving building blocks for monsters. Also great for pointing out areas to exploit and potential weaknesses.

- The Complete Book of Eldritch Might(Malhavoc) - LOTS of magic feats, spells, items, PrC's and locals.

- In the Saddle - PDF - Alot of information on mounts, taking care of mounts, equipment for them and new mounts.

- Everyone Else - PDF - great source for those "common" people need to interact with the PCs. Taxcollector? No problem. Baker? No problem. City Guard? No Prolbmem.

- Traps & Treachery I & II - nice. A lot of traps and puzzles.

There are a lot of other good books out there that deal with classes (Beyond Monks (PDF)), races (Mythic Races) and cities(A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe), as well as sci-fi/space opera settings as well.


The books above were just the ones that came immediately to mind.

 

[iceifur]

I'm a HUGE fan of most of Fantasy Flight's books. Granted, the power levels are off a tad on some of their spells and classes, but overall they do good work.

-B-

 

[trancejeremy]

IMHO, the best unofficial supplements are:

Lords of the Night: Vampires, Lords of the Night: Liches, Torn Asunder: Critical Hits, The Starfarer's Handbook (for Dragonstar), Dweomercraft: Familiars

Setting wise:

Redhurst: Academy of Magic, 7 Cities, The Book of Taverns (all of these are locations you can plug into your game). I also liked Freeport before it got campy.

Adventures:

The Hamlet of Thumble, The Village of Oester, some of the Necromancer stuff (Grey Citadel, Vault of Larin Karr, and their Mr. T book, or so I've heard)

For many other companies, it really depends more on the author, not the company, because most of the bigger companies use a lot of freelancers. For instance, I've liked most of Sam Witt's stuff. Most seem to like Mike Mearls stuff (I'm more of an 'eh' on him)

 

[trancejeremy]

Also a very interesting (and overlooked) book you might want to consider, is Experts, from Skirmisher Press (or something like that).

I bought a copy, but my dogs ate it, so I never got to review it. They really liked it though, and before they did eat it, I really liked what I saw. It was all differing variants of the Expert class, and lots and lots of uses of the profession and craft skills

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'll second the Experts book trancejeremy mentioned. It's very cool and looks sort of old school Judge's Guild with its white cover and woodcut art.

My collection isn't very up to date since I moved away from my gaming group but here's some of my old favorites:

The Freeport books (city book and modules) are nice for their flavor. Bluffisde and Streets of Silver are great for their depth of detail though I find Bluffside a bit easier to drop into my campaign since Streets of Silver has this strong Venetian theme running through it. I've like the distinctiveness of the Scarred Lands city books--each of the cities feels unique--but they don't have as much depth as the big city books and I feel a little uncomfortable using them outside the Scarred Lands.

Seven Strongholds is another nice supplement--it has seven castles. They aren't generic and that's actually what I like about them.

The Monsternomicon is still my favorite monster book after the Monster Manual.

I like Spells and Magic from Bastion, and Occult Lore from Atlas is pretty decent.

Monster's Handbook is a great thing for juicing up some critters.

I've enjoyed the Necromancer Games modules. Didn't get a chance to finish Rappan Athuk before I had to leave but I liked the way there were lots of different routes through the dungeon. However, it did have some design problems, a little too much of the old school no-chance-deathtraps. Still, I just used it as something of a template then filled in a story around it.

Darkfuries maps (in PDF) have been awfully handy. This is where I go for more generic castles, inns, or temples.

 

[Macbeth]

Hmmm, since I don't know what kind of book your looking for, I'll just give you some of the books I've enjoyed reading the most. Since utlity is subjective, and I don't know what you're looking for in a book, this is just a collection of books I've liked reading:

Skull & Bones
Psychic's Handbook
Arcana Unearthed
Anger of Angels
Mindscapes

And for Non-D&D d20 books:

Spycraft
Mutants and Masterminds
Crooks! (Mutants and Masterminds suplement)


All of the above are fairly safe choices, most of them are fairly highly thought of. Arcana Unearthed is either fiercly loved or fiercly hated by just about everybody, but all the others are safe bets.

 

[Sir Elton]

One man's drek is another man's campaign setting though!

Rokugan is my favored Eastern campaign setting, though.

I'm on the look out for a really good medieval campaign setting. Fortunately, Games Workshop is going to cater to me on that level.

There are way too many Tolkien rip offs. Scarred Lands and the Forgotten Realms just to name a few. And don't try to combine North America with Tolkien and Greece and expect to feel good about it. BAD IDEA!

Back on topic.

The best I have are:
Dragonlance Campaign Setting.
Relics and Rituals
Magic of Rokugan
Shadowforce Archer
Occult Lore (my Favorite. I bet you can't guess why . . .)
Mindscapes
The Book of Eldritch Might

 

[Macbeth]

*snip*
The best I have are:
Dragonlance Campaign Setting.
*snip*

There was a bug on Amazon that may still be there where you could get the Dragonlance Setting hardcover for $15. I'd be a bit more hesitant about paying full price, but at $15 it can't be beat.