Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2511444" data-attributes="member: 10201"> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fantasy Bestiary</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spycraft</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spycraft 2.0</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">M&MM (both editions)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Redhurst</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Arcana Unearthed [i actually think it looks considerably better than Arcana Evolved]</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Iron Heroes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Primeval Groves</li> </ul>And that's just off the top of my head--most of the books i think are better than the WotC offerings, i nonetheless don't own, so i'm not immediatly thinking of them. Of the above list, i want to highlight a couple specific items. The original edition of Spycraft is, in every way, superior to D20 Modern, IMHO. It looks better, it's better put together, it has better rules, and it's better written and organized. I haven't had a chance to give it much look yet (i only just got it), but i suspect the same applies to v2.0--the material/art quality certainly do, and i think it wins on price-per-page now, too.Likewise, i think that Arcana Unearthed is better than the D&D3E PH as a players' handbook for playing D&D than the D&D3E or D&D3.5E PHs, in every way: better layout, better binding, better cover art, better rules, better organization, better editing. And when i decidid i wanted to play a D&D game (specifically using Al Qadim), i pulled out AU, not the D&D3E PH.If we're talking content only, the list gets a lot longer. Frex, Beyond Countless Doorways is head-and-shoulders above Manual of the Planes, IMHO, but it's not quite as pretty. I consider myself a pretty fussy consumer. Nothing from WotC has made the cut in 8 years, even at 50% off. Plenty of D20 System stuff has made the cut, however, so i obviously think that there is D20 System stuff that is better than anything WotC has published. And, in some cases, i think it's better in all ways, including production values. Some of this as as objective as matters of design get: the lines in the D&D3E PH really interfere with readability, the lower contrast of not having black-on-white pages hurts readability for some, tables are poorly offset, and some images are placed to cause text to wrap in a way that is hard to read. Some of this is purely subjective: i really dislike the art in most D&D3[.5]E book.</blockquote>

Verification