d20 books

[kierthos]

Is it just me, or is everything outside of the stuff produced by WotC severely high on the crack factor? I just looked through a couple of the books for the d20 system lying around and my god, are they bad.

No concept of game balance, no concept of class balance....

Anyone else seeing this?

Comments

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on "Dragon Bards".

There is one non-WOTC world I have seen that's good. Dragonstary, produced by Fantasy Flight Games.

Go check it out, and their Legends & Lore series. If it's half so good...

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Dragonstar is good. A friend of mine ran a short-lived campaign using the equipment and classes, but not the setting (what can I say, he has something against a universe run by dragons). I got to play a Gundancer, which was major fun. Alas, that game is no more....

The books I was referring to (which even after a second read, still come off as shitty), are "Path of Magic" by Legends and Lairs, and "Occult Lore" by Penumbra.

Of course, not everything WotC puts out is pure gold either. I've really yet to see a Fighter-based Prestige class that looks good. In terms of sheer mechanics, that is. A lot of them have some good RP possibilities, but the mechanics standpoint seems to be sorely lacking for many a Prestige class from the Fighter viewpoint. (Of course, as I have pointed out, given that Fighters gain Feats every other level just from their class, not to mention level-based feats, they are their own Prestige Class.)

I also think making the Prestige class of Assassin was a waste of time. It's not a Prestige class, it's an occupation. You take money for killing people. It made a lot of sense when it was taken out of the game when AD&D went to 2nd edition. Putting it back in? Bleh.

Oh well, if game designers didn't do something stupid with every book they put out, where would game critics be?

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Assassin was crap. And yes, so far the only decent fighter-based prestige class I've seen is Dwarven Defender, and it's not really that good a PC class unless you're all Dwarves.

[hartley.livejournal.com]

*ahem* Ravenloft is good.

And it's being done by White Wolf this time.

Actually, quite a bit of the d20 stuff being done by WW's Sword & Sorcery Studios is pretty good.