Third edition RPG icon Monte Cook comes to Paizo with a new print edition of his popular Books of Experimental Might! Previously available only in electronic form, The Collected Book of Experimental Might contains hundreds of options and new rules meant to inject life into 3.5 fantasy RPG campaigns.
This 144-page hardcover collection of Monte's own house rules includes:
A spell progression system redefining spell levels from 1 to 20
New rules for fighting domains, including Two-Weapon Fighting, Mounted Combat, and Fighting Dirty, as well as techniques based on agility, speed, strength, and intellect—the domains provide new abilities to fighter types willing to devote themselves to a focused path
A retooling of the feat system, with three new concepts—double feats, oblation feats, and uberfeats—and dozens of new choices
Special benefits for choosing a feat as a fighter bonus feat, reinstating the fighter class as the king of feats
New rules for healing and curative magic
Powerful magical disciplines that allow wizards, clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers to have magic always active
The runeblade, a base class that combines magic and martial skill without the need for spells
Additional skills, feats, and combat rules
Dozens of spells and magic items
Inherent within these two books is the idea that characters should be able to keep on adventuring longer than the rules currently allow and that every class can use some extra options for greater playability. Start your own experiment now!
This book combines The Book of Experimental Might and The Book of Experimental Might II: Bloody, Bold, and Resolute.
Monte Cook has been working on games professionally for more than 20 years. In that time, he has worked on a variety of games, including Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, and Alternity. He designed HeroClix, and co-designed Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, and wrote Planewalker's Handbook, Dead Gods, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and the Book of Vile Darkness, among many other D&D supplements. In 2001, he founded Malhavoc Press, and over the next few years published titles like the Book of Eldritch Might, Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, and Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire.
Monte's also published two novels and numerous short stories, as well as a nonfictional but humorous book called the Very, Very Secret Book of Conspiracies.
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While I'm not sure how I'm going to swing this into my PFRPG games, I will heartily endorse this product. Monte Cook delivers a thoughtful, well conceived set of alternative rules on a great many things. Spell levels from 1 to 20 alone would be worth the price of admission. Fighter domains easily worth the cover price. Bravo on another fine book, Monte!
The Collected BOXM certainly will remain as one of the greatest game variants to D&D itself, in my opinion, along with Arcana Unearthed, Pathfinder, True20 and others.
The changes are selective but dramatically change the game play. Healing becomes target-based instead of cleric-based, characters get feats every level, spell levels now match character levels (from 1 to 20th level spells), wizards don't run out of magical things to do while still retaining the Vancian magic system as a base for increasing power and abilities.
I think it would have been premature to take Pathfinder as a base since the final rules are not even published. It is, furthermore, totally possible to get a Pathfinder sorcerer concept going with BOXM as a pure Wizard, with the inventive use of some Bloodline feats.
A word of caution, however: this clearly is a game variant destined towards people who are already familiar with the 3.5 rules. The multiplication of feats, spells and other game components makes the game significantly more complex to approach (though easier to play in the end for the initiated). This is not a good product to bring people to gaming, in my opinion.
Now, that said, this is totally awesome. If you were the kind of player or DM interested in thoughtful variants to the base D&D game with Unearthed Arcana, Arcana Unearthed and others, this book is for you.
Before I say why I found this was one of my most disappointing purchases for a long time, I'd like to say that this is a fantastic product; the changes to the rules that it introduces bring a breath of fresh air to 3.5, and more importantly, they are really, really, really cool.
My gripe? Well, gripes actually because there are two.
Firstly that the book addresses changes to 3.5 in such a way as to completely ignore all the brilliant work on Pathfinder. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most discerning gamers have moved from 3.5 to Pathfinder (3.75?) and appreciate the updated character classes presented there. This (brilliant) book also updates (and up-powers, it must be said) the character classes but to implement those changes into my Pathfinder campaign will require too much work. I, for one, buy a book where someone has already done the dirty work of play-testing for me and not to then slog my guts out adapting the rules to fit my game.
My second gripe involves Sorcerers. What has Mr Cook got against Sorcerers? They get a brief mention that says you don’t need them with the new rules, which is fine as far as 3.5 goes but in Pathfinder they are not only way cooler but also add a huge dollop of flavour to a character’s background. Again, Pathfinder is ignored, which is fine for those still playing 3.5 (if they exist) but I'm sure that they are few and far between these days.
So all in all a great book that I could have done with two years ago and if Monte adapts it to take the improvements already presented in the Pathfinder rules into account I’ll probably buy it again but for now it’s just a very good, idea provoking read on the shelf in my loo.
Will it be unchanged from the original offering? I think it will be nice to have a second copy for use around the table, whenever I get the chance to play with these rules.
Other than taking out references like "If you have the other book" from the manuscript, TCBOXM contains all the material from the two BOXM. In some cases I consolidated chapters (for example, all the feats are in one chapter, rather than the BOXM1 feats as one chapter and BOXM2 feats as another chapter) but all the content is there.
That's Awesome!
I got the True20 revised edition and they didn't consolidate the content, which means you end up with a book that feels like 2 books, it's weird.
Monte wrote some hugely successful 3.0 and 3.5 accessory books:
Add "Beyond Countless Doorways" to that list - a Malhavoc book co-authored by Mote, Wolfgang, and others, an absolute must have for any planar campaign, a book full of awesome.
Add "Beyond Countless Doorways" to that list - a Malhavoc book co-authored by Mote, Wolfgang, and others, an absolute must have for any planar campaign, a book full of awesome.
I only listed the "Book of ..." Books.
There are other awesome Books by Malhavoc Press;
1) Beyond Countless Doorways - those who like planescape and the planescape authors will get their fix with this book.
2) Requiem fo a God - What happens when a God dies? How does it affect followers? Is a god ever really dead? This awesome book helps a DM to design and play through the death of a god. I will use one of the PRCs in this book for the last Priests of Aroden who tap into his fading power...
3) Chaositech - Chtulhuesque magic items and body Grafts. And for thos who are willing, changes to the body itself. A Cool book that can be used to surprise the players with a new kind of magic (said chaositech) and give the baddies an edge.
4) Ptolus - THE ultimate City book. IMHO there is no city supplement that is halfway near to the quality of this book. The design of this book is so awesome and DM friendly that it sets the bar impossibly high for other city supplements.
Ptolus - THE ultimate City book. IMHO there is no city supplement that is halfway near to the quality of this book. The design of this book is so awesome and DM friendly that it sets the bar impossibly high for other city supplements.
This cannot be said enough. As far as I am concerned Ptolus is the ultimate supplement in everyway.
Ptolus also happens to be a very beautiful book! The art, the layout, and the overall design are just outstsnding! It's chock full of gaming ggodness too!
Monte Cook - YOU ROCK!!!! If anything thinks for a moment that 4e (essentially a different game) has replaced Monte's incredible 3e - they are mistaken. 3.5 Never Dies!
By the way, its now January - when will this thing arrive????
Monte Cook - YOU ROCK!!!! If anything thinks for a moment that 4e (essentially a different game) has replaced Monte's incredible 3e - they are mistaken. 3.5 Never Dies!
By the way, its now January - when will this thing arrive????
Is it there yet?
Is it there yet?
Is it there yet?
Is it... ~a nerf dart passes right by me~ Uh oh! Cosmo is after me for being too annoying! Bye! ~runs~
I was hoping to get copies before 31/01/09 to use the holiday discount. I have a basket load of goodies for me and my playgroup with some copies of this book. Is it possible to put an order in woth this book and wait until it is no longer pre-order?
I was hoping to get copies before 31/01/09 to use the holiday discount. I have a basket load of goodies for me and my playgroup with some copies of this book. Is it possible to put an order in woth this book and wait until it is no longer pre-order?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but the book may not arrive in January, so waiting for it may not pay off...
The season gift discount does not apply to preordered stuff right?
I wanna get this book along with other products and use the holiday code. If I place the order now can it sit and wait until this book is in stock so the code can apply and have everything shipped out at the same time to save cost.
The season gift discount does not apply to preordered stuff right?
I wanna get this book along with other products and use the holiday code. If I place the order now can it sit and wait until this book is in stock so the code can apply and have everything shipped out at the same time to save cost.
Sorry to cross post and high jack the thread.
If you placed the order now, the discount would apply to in-stock stuff, but not this book... but you could elect to wait to ship it all when this book comes in, so you'd save on shipping.
The only way to have the discount apply to this book is to place your order after it's in stock... but if it doesn't arrive until after January 31—which is possible—then you're out of luck.
Monte Cook - YOU ROCK!!!! If anything thinks for a moment that 4e (essentially a different game) has replaced Monte's incredible 3e - they are mistaken. 3.5 Never Dies!
By the way, its now January - when will this thing arrive????
Monte Cook - YOU ROCK!!!! If anything thinks for a moment that 4e (essentially a different game) has replaced Monte's incredible 3e - they are mistaken. 3.5 Never Dies!
By the way, its now January - when will this thing arrive????
We've heard that it should arrive this week.
-Lisa
Any news?
It probably won't arrive until the very end of the month.