What to buy... Help!

[JVisgaitis]

I've been on a pretty strict budget lately as me and the Misses are looking to purchase a new car and I desparately need a laptop. Anyhoo, these are the books I have been mulling over for a long time. Can anyone sway me one way or another? I'm still undecided. Here's my list of must haves:

• Green Ronin's Advanced Players Manual (I love rule toolkit type books)
• Green Ronin's Black Company (I hear a lot of good things and I like the grittiness of it)
• Fantasy Flight's Midnight 2nd Edition (I always wanted to get the first one, but never did)
• Red Spire Press' Dark Legacies (It always sounded somewhat like Violet Dawn to me and I love the art)
• Bad Axe's Grim Tales (More then any other book on this list it intrigues me and the guys from Bad Axe do some sweet work)

What I am looking is something that has both good fluff and exceptional mechanics. I'm a huge sucker for mechanics and I can't make up my mind. Suggestions?

 

[Breakdaddy]

You might consider Spycraft 2.0 if you are a mechanics whore. It is so chock-full you will be in heaven. Grim tales is excellent but borrowed a good deal from Spycraft 1.0 which has been greatly improved in 2.0.

 

[Crothian]

None of those is a clear cut must own, though I actually do.

Advanced Players Manual is the weakest in the Advanced line. It has some good player and character options in it, but the mass combat and psionic section are basically from other books.

Black Company is great if you want to run that game. For pure gritty though I'd run something else.

Midnight second edition is great, but again more so for the midnight game and less so with things to steal for other games.

Dark Legacies...which one? There is a campaign and a players guide. I think these might be the strongest books of wht you have listed and of all the campaign setting books this is the one I'd steal the most from.

Grim Tales is good, but I'm not a big a fan of it as other people.

 

[JVisgaitis]

You might consider Spycraft 2.0 if you are a mechanics whore.

I loved the first one. Hmm, maybe I'll have to add that to the list.

Dark Legacies...which one? There is a campaign and a players guide.

Well from the reviews I've read it seems like you need both as they work better hand in hand. Is the magic system in Black Company really cool? That's partly why I want it.

 

[Crothian]

Well from the reviews I've read it seems like you need both as they work better hand in hand. Is the magic system in Black Company really cool? That's partly why I want it.

Watch for my review of the Campaign Guide of Dark Legacies coming later this week.

I perfer the magic systems of Dark Legacies and Thieves World (And why isn't Thieves World on this list? Damn good book!! ) to that of Black company personally.

 

[JVisgaitis]

And why isn't Thieves World on this list?

Honestly, I was waiting for that comment. I've seen you pimp it quite a lot. Truth is, I don't know a lick about Thieves World besides hearing of it. Beyond that, nothing. You can close your mouth now... If you want to give me a run down, be my guest.

 

[Crothian]

Honestly, I was waiting for that comment. I've seen you pimp it quite a lot. Truth is, I don't know a lick about Thieves World besides hearing of it. Beyond that, nothing. You can close your mouth now... If you want to give me a run down, be my guest.

Thieves world is the ultimate in gritty setting that does not totally kill magic. It is hard to become a good and compitant caster in the setting and system, but not completely impossible. Since you are more interested in rules I'm going to concetrate on that aspect of the book more then setting and feel. But I can go into that if you like as well.

Not too much changes for the combat oriented character except massive damage which is equal to ones con score plus possible armor. THe setting is urban so characters with out armor are possible and not uncommon.THey do a little more with regular and non lethal damage. Healing spells to dot heal, they convert regular damage to non lethal.

Every one is human but with the combination of nationalities and backgrounds, a wide varity of humans can be created.

Magic is based on a spellcasting skill and a die is rolled to cast a spell. THe character gathers mana and it can take a few rounds to gather the spell. One cool thing the setting does is itr can have places that are easier and harder to gather mana. There are was to "fumble" the roll and score a "critical" for lack of better terms. Casting can and often does damage the caster, and a caster is not limited to what spells they can cast by level. A first level character can cast a fireball. It is harder and will hurt them more, but if they want to they can.

How about curses? What if anyone can curse someone else? That's how it is in Thieves World but the person doing the curse pays a cost as well. There are different severities of curses and only the simplist can be done by anyone. But still, makes some people think twice about doing something really nasty knowing they can psosible be cursed for it. Okay, it really doesn't stop anyone from being evil, but it can still happen.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'm a big Grim Tales pimp.

I think, as it is now, it's a solid buy. While SpyCraft 2.0 might have introduced some revolutionary new mechanics, it's not like GT is entirely based on SC1.0. It borrows some areas from it, especially in gun combat, and in some feats, but draws just as much from d20 Modern (more, really), and D&D 3.0. It's its own man.

GT doesn't have huge amounts of fluff ... really the only fluff in it is at the end when it introduces some short campaign seeds that you can use, like d20 Modern.

It is my system of choice, though, for homebrews. No reason why not.

I've got the Black Company book. It's pretty well done, but I got it mostly for the magic system. I like the magic system, but found it pretty hard to actually play with. Too much of a good thing, maybe. I actually have gotten more legwork out of the smaller sections like the mastercrafting rules. If you're a big fan of the books, its pretty interesting, though.

If -I- were to choose a mission-critical selection out of that, it would be Grim Tales. It's like a snapshot of d20 taken from when it was published, grabbing everything good and adding some other stuff to make it better.

I like to think of it as the GURPS of d20.

--fje

 

[Nightfall]

Crothy,

Man and people accuse me of pimping SL stuff... Serious though Crothy you are right, the Thieves World book rules, especially if you're a fan.

Course I'm also a fan of The Black Company so having both is like the HEIGHT of cool.

 

[tetsujin28]

None of those is as cool as Malhavok's Iron Heroes. It's the D&D I've (literally) waited 30 years for.