My gaming group is discussing what sources to use when we start Curse of the Crimson Throne. We're going to use the Pathfinder RPG rules of course. But then, the question came up about which other 3.5e books to allow? We've historically allowed "all WotC books" which has ended up in quite a mess.
Here's my cut at rough classifications of the extant player-oriented 3.5e books. What do other Pathfinders think?
The True Scriptures
The Old Testament
The first "Complete" series (Warrior, Divine, Arcane, Adventurer) -
good additions, needed some more p-classes etc.
Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords - just too much fun to leave out. If it and SW:Saga were really guiding 4e more than mini gaming and DDI were, I might have gone ot it instead.
The New Testament
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Cityscape, Dungeonscape
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness
Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness
Heroes of Battle, Heroes of Horror
Planar Handbook
IMO, all 12 of these add flavor and distinctive things
for given campaigns without being overpowered. (except vow of poverty).
Apocryphal Writings - of questionable power level
Player's Handbook II, Unearthed Arcana - yay substitution levels!
The second "Complete" series (Mage, Scoundrel, Champion) - this one goes to 11
The "Races of" series (Stone, Destiny, Wild, Dragon) - bah
Miniatures Handbook - more 3.0, mostly superseded by various 3.5es
Spell Compendium - feel the power!
Magic Item Compendium - more power power power
False Prophets - ultra cheeeeeeeze
Expanded Psionics Handbook - like magic, but better!
Draconomicon, Dragon Magic - fetishist fodder
Weapons of Legacy - actually more gimped than powerful.
Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic - no
Drow of the Underdark- spare me
All Eberron Sourcebooks- besides power, not appropriate for a diff campaign world
All Forgotten Realms Sourcebooks - the place where all the worst (aka
best) builds on the Wizards CharOp boards derive their power
All Dragonlance Sourcebooks - but that's just because I'm bitter about "Goldmoon & Hawkwind's song" from DL1
The Gospel of Enlightenment:
Players Guide to Faerun
Magic of Faerun
Magic Item Compendium
Spell Compendium
Epic Level Handbook (until Paizo get around to supplying Epic progressions and Feats)
I think Pathfinder RPG will fit the old 3.0 FR setting nicely, so I'm really looking forward to that.
I've thought about this same thing quite a bit. My initial conclusion was the following.
Unfortunately I think I'd actually have to go through them and redline stuff to really make a great list. There is great material in a lot of WoTC books but a lot I don't like either. Keep in mind I'm not even necessarily saying that the stuff I don't like is badly written, but perhaps just not right for the games I run.
Off the top of my head books that I'd be likely to green light stuff from:
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Complete Psionic
Sandstorm
Stormwrack
Frostburn
any of the Complete books (though some are substantially better than others)
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Additionally, I'd be willing to house rule action points or dragon marks from Eberron if it seemed right for the campaign. In fact I like the warforged and shifters from Eberron and with some tweaking would make good PC races for my Pathfinder games.
I think it's odd to list entire books as "broken" or not. If an individual class/feat/spell is broken, why ban the entire book?
As Frank and K have pointed out, you don't have to go outside the Player's Handbook for broken material -- Planar Binding and Gate are two prominent examples.
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All Dragonlance Sourcebooks - but that's just because I'm bitter about "Goldmoon & Hawkwind's song" from DL1
...
I...just took a ride
on a gnomish machineAnd I just can't get cleeeean
Do you wanna ride?
Wanna see how it feels?
Just deliver those meals
To the Space Hamsters' wheeeels....
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine (gnomish machine)
It flies
ass-backwards, fine
In a zig-zaggy line
Then it runs out of steeeeam
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine
I've got...a gnomish machi-ine (gnomish machine)
Sorry; did you, perhaps mean Riverwind?
Fun thread!
For us, it's Pathfinder only for classes but character selections may come from:
Complete series
Player's Handbook II
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
I like Golarion as seen through the core classes--giving it that neo-classic feel that's oh so good!
-peter
My all-time favourite player supplement it Spellbound, from Living Imagination. It's a 3.0 supplement, but it works fine with a few tweaks in 3.5, and I expect the same to be true with Pathfinder RPG.
Spellbound introduces ritual magic. The effects are stronger, but they're much more labour to produce.
Just remember, anyone with Frostburn: Shivering Touch! Watch out for that spell!
I reccomend houseruling it to a ability score penalty rather than ability score damage. See Ray of Enfeeblement as the spell it appears to be based on, and as such should bear more similarities to.
I think it's odd to list entire books as "broken" or not. If an individual class/feat/spell is broken, why ban the entire book?
As Frank and K have pointed out, you don't have to go outside the Player's Handbook for broken material -- Planar Binding and Gate are two prominent examples.
Sure, but we're not real rule obsessed - our GM doesn't want to have to weed through every single choice we take or every single item in all the books. I'm sure he'll still have oversight over what remains, but there seem to be a number of books where:
a) there's a lot of unbalanced stuff
b) what's left isn't worth saving
c) it's a pain to weed through it
Also, in 3.5e you kinda have to plan your level progression out way in advance to make sure you qualify for stuff - so if you go ten levels and then try to take some prestige class and the DM says "no" the player is rightfully going to feel like their character's crap now (note how many p-classes want you to take suboptimal feats or skills to qualify).
So what you want is the DM to be able to easily give red light/green light at the beginning of the campaign and then interfere very minimally thereafter. Book bans and then a handful of "known bad" bans on the remainder's the only real way to do that.
All Dragonlance Sourcebooks - but that's just because I'm bitter about "Goldmoon & Hawkwind's song" from DL1
...<insanity deleted>
Sorry; did you, perhaps mean Riverwind?
I don't know, I'm trying to forget. Leafblight & Poppycock? Hippieho & Poofterdude? Whoever they were.
Just remember, anyone with Frostburn: Shivering Touch! Watch out for that spell!
I reccomend houseruling it to a ability score penalty rather than ability score damage. See Ray of Enfeeblement as the spell it appears to be based on, and as such should bear more similarities to.
Not as good as the Spell Compendium's Ray of Stupidity (L2). Ranged touch, 1d4+1 Int damage, no save. Also known as "night night to the biggest dire animal in the world." In our Rise of the Runelords campaign, I'm using it to rid our party of pesky dire bears and even many aberrations. Two will get rid of a troll, ogre, or hill giant for you. If you can get through the SR this is a one shot Tarrasque kill.
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Very good topic.
There is so much rules bloat with 3.5 that almost any game not just Pathfinder needs a limit on the books available.
I solved the problem with my following house rule.
[quote=]Characters will be created according to the rules presented in the System Reference Document. Due to the 'rules bloat' that is caused by so many books I'm going to only allow certain books.
I'm going to allow:
* The SRD (Players Handbook, Expanded Psionics Handbook, DMG, Monster Manual I)
* ANY THREE(3) - 3.5 OGL/d20 source books--WOTC or 3rd Party. Each Dragon/Dungeon magazine, the 3.5 archived material on WOTC web site, and any 3.5 published PDF will count as one source each. I'll consider some 3.0 source books, but you'll need to run those by me first. Albeit slightly limited, this is the ultimate freedom; however, if you feel overwhelmed by the amount of material available, I'll be happy to suggest some sources that would go well with the adventure.
This means that each player will have access to different items, feats, spells, etc..., that the other players won't have access to, even during the game.
No variant rules from Unearthed Arcana. As the DM I can and will use ANY d20 source.
If I were to run Pathfinder I would limit it to any three books, not to include any campaign specific books--no FR, Eberron, etc...
YMMV. :)
False Prophets - ultra cheeeeeeeze
Expanded Psionics Handbook - like magic, but better!
Er... What?
Psionics aren't for everyone or every campaign, but a 20th level wizard beats a 20th level psion, hands down. This has been pretty thoroughly proven.
I'd say that any book which could work in 3.5e could work in Pathfinder, depending on the DM, the campaign, and the players. Not all campaigns (perhaps not even most?) will be set in the default Pathfinder setting, and FR/Eberron books would certainly be expected in a campaign set in one of those worlds.
Whatever books are used, there'll likely be a lot of feats and spells which will need to be modified (a lot of feats would, at very least, become [Combat]).
Am I the only person who actually likes tome of magic?
I see no problem with any of the classes in them except for the simple fact that they may not be as powerfull as you would like.
WHO CARES THEY ARE COOL
If anything BoNS should be burned at the stake.
Creative Director
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Am I the only person who actually likes tome of magic?
I see no problem with any of the classes in them except for the simple fact that they may not be as powerfull as you would like.
WHO CARES THEY ARE COOL
If anything BoNS should be burned at the stake.
You're not! I quite like Tome of Magic, especially the section on Binders. They're really interesting.
And to further agree... yeah, Book of Nine Swords is not for me. Pass.
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I have the Book of Broken banned from all of my campaigns. I've seen more firsthand cheese from that single book than anything else combined at my own table. I like Tome of Magic a lot as well. In terms of Eberron, I don't like the Artificer at all as a class either. The idea of a magic as technology just doesn't feel like D&D to me. Other than that I can't think of anything off hand I would completely ban, but I do put restrictions on the number of classes/prestige classes any one character can use unless the player writes me up a backstory that explains why they want all those different classes. Otherwise I know they are just cherry picking to min/max.
Just remember, anyone with Frostburn: Shivering Touch! Watch out for that spell!
I reccomend houseruling it to a ability score penalty rather than ability score damage. See Ray of Enfeeblement as the spell it appears to be based on, and as such should bear more similarities to.
See, this is a good point to my way of thinking. I'm not big on banning whole sources, because a lot of books have stuff I like, but often there are bits hiding in those books that can be problematic.
For example, I love Frostburn. Its one of my favorite books for 3.5, but it does have some issues. Some books have more issues than others, and some problems really don't show up until you put option X from book Y with option Z with book A and together you get horrible smelling cheese.
So I tend to not make hard and fast rules on what I ban so much as I review one bit at a time what player's want to use and what I use.
Oh, and Tome of Battle didn't do much for me, but I loved Tome of Magic. It offered actual different, flavorful magic systems that were imaginative and good story elements for the game, as opposed to a bunch of PrCs that one upped the ones in the last splatbook.
Hmmm...there are so many suppliments, and so little time to discuss them all...I made it very clear to my players; for the first campaign, we were going with the base books, basic classes, and I'd use a few tidbits here and there from some of my Kalamar setting resources... We're developing our own prestige classes on a character by character basis. The city campaign will be different in that we'll be trying out variant classes with the pathfinder system. I say all this to say that I think it's a flavor thing with reference books, as I believe it always was a selective process...
Special note though...I really appreciate the generic reference books: PHBII, DMGII, Magic Item Compedium, and the Races of series! They are all valuable for added dimension for characters and setting!
See, this is a good point to my way of thinking. I'm not big on banning whole sources, because a lot of books have stuff I like, but often there are bits hiding in those books that can be problematic.
For example, I love Frostburn. Its one of my favorite books for 3.5, but it does have some issues. Some books have more issues than others, and some problems really don't show up until you put option X from book Y with option Z with book A and together you get horrible smelling cheese.
So I tend to not make hard and fast rules on what I ban so much as I review one bit at a time what player's want to use and what I use.
Oh, and Tome of Battle didn't do much for me, but I loved Tome of Magic. It offered actual different, flavorful magic systems that were imaginative and good story elements for the game, as opposed to a bunch of PrCs that one upped the ones in the last splatbook.
I'll have to agree with everything KnightErrantJR just said.
Go Binders!
Fizz
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Am I the only person who actually likes tome of magic?
I see no problem with any of the classes in them except for the simple fact that they may not be as powerfull as you would like.
WHO CARES THEY ARE COOL
If anything BoNS should be burned at the stake.
You're not! I quite like Tome of Magic, especially the section on Binders. They're really interesting.
And to further agree... yeah, Book of Nine Swords is not for me. Pass.
BoNS is one of the few Utterly Baned books at my table. On the other hand, Binders are so cool - I've been begging for someone in my group to play one!
The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.
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Any book we as a group own is acceptable at the table (which is most WotC books). We've rarely run into anything too broken, and the few things we have (Divine Metamagic, Healing Belt) we just house rule. It's not really that big of a deal. I think the only non-WotC/Paizo books we have are Quintessential Druid/Fighter (which we rarely touch) and the BoEF (which is used far too often)
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The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.
I'd really like to see Binders creep into Pathfinder, and since Secrets of Path Magic is open content, it seems do-able. James?
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Creative Director
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The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.I'd really like to see Binders creep into Pathfinder, and since Secrets of Path Magic is open content, it seems do-able. James?
Probably not. That's a kind of slippery slope. Just as I'm not really all that interested in introducing a Thought Flenser monster that has psionic powers and a tentacly face, or an Eye Lord monster which is a round many-eyed creature with beam weapons... I don't really want to try to skirt the binder issue either. Also, a lot of the traditions that WotC used for the binder stuff is elements that we're already using in other ways in our outer planes.
That... and I'd have to read up on the Pact Magic stuff to make sure it fits Golarion thematically and to learn the rules... and I don't really have the time to do that right now. Mabye someday...
Everything.
I reserve the right to bar anything specific that I feel gets out of hand.
Using the power of hindsight, do I regret the half-black dragon unseelie fey fox hengeyokai battle dancer?
Maybe.
A little part of me does.
However the rest of myself had a good time. The character was not devestating to the game in any significant way and I think the players had fun.
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Since Pathfinder is OGL, anyone can write an OGL Binder with the serial numbers scraped off that works with PRPG. Depending on how the pathfinder license ends up, they might even be able to mention that it works with PRPG. In fact, I can easily imagine the first few third party products for Pathfinder being 3.P conversions of some of the stuff from the 3.5 books. Look out world, here comes the Curseblade (Hexblade), Warwizard (Warmage) and Sergeant (Marshall)!
I've personally always thought the Binder was the perfect mechanic for reproducing elements of Afro-Caribbean magic -- Houdon, Voodoo, etc. -- such as the concept of being "ridden by the loa." A-C folklore is filled with stories of magicians allowing loa (powerful spirits/minor gods) to temporarily posses them, and gaining powers as a result.
You could easily sneak the Binder into 3.P by calling it "The Bokor" (a voodoo sorcerer), and replacing the vestiges with loa like Chango (war god) and Baron Samedi (death god). All of which are public domain and not copyrightable!
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Interesting thread!
My players seem to be a total exception: always willing to try new proposals made by the DM, but never keen on bringing up any new rule books on their own... :p
So either I offer some new options to players or I spice up adventures by adding material from other sources yet unknown to them.
In both cases I prefer these books:
"Core Rule Extensions":
- D&D "brown supplements" (complete and races books, preferring the older ones)
- Book of Exalted Deeds and its counterpart
- Spell compendium
- Dragon compendium
- PHB II and DMG II
- "ecology books"
- FR supplements (I feel that they are pretty well usable with Golarion)
- Tome of Horrors, Creature Collection 1 - 3, MM 3 + 4
More Expansive Material (-> rather rarely used):
- Mongoose's "renegade" spell books
- Tome of Magic (but not Book of Nine Swords - I just don't like this turn on martial combat although I had really liked to see more support for fighters & co. in addition to PHB II)
- Magic item compendium
- Dragon articles and WotC website material
- Atlas "campaign styles" series
- Penumbra fantasy bestiary, MM 2, ToH 2 + 3
- Advanced Bestiary and Book of Templates
- AEG's feat book (3.0, but still usable with some care)
- various 3rd party "ecology style" monster books
- various campaign specific books.
The latter ones are only used if really something extraordinary is needed. Due to Paizo's wide use of modified/ non standard critters I feel less and less often in need of inserting other monsters into adventures. So most often I use these books in order to add encounters or side tracks (-> we use slowed down level progression, therefore cheers to Paizo for including rules on that topic in the rules alpha!).
So all in all I feel quite in line with posters above, even though my players seem to be of the more hesitant crowd when it comes to new rule material. ;-)
Greetings,
Günther
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The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.I'd really like to see Binders creep into Pathfinder, and since Secrets of Path Magic is open content, it seems do-able. James?Probably not. That's a kind of slippery slope. Just as I'm not really all that interested in introducing a Thought Flenser monster that has psionic powers and a tentacly face, or an Eye Lord monster which is a round many-eyed creature with beam weapons... I don't really want to try to skirt the binder issue either. Also, a lot of the traditions that WotC used for the binder stuff is elements that we're already using in other ways in our outer planes.
That... and I'd have to read up on the Pact Magic stuff to make sure it fits Golarion thematically and to learn the rules... and I don't really have the time to do that right now. Mabye someday...
A follow up question:
I read about Secrets of Pact magic and wondered whether its rules were compatible to the Binder rules of Tome of Magic.Would you like to share your experiences?
Thanks!
Günther
You're not! I quite like Tome of Magic, especially the section on Binders. They're really interesting.
I've got one player in our CotCT campaign who is playing a Binder. He wrote up his background and it revolves around his powers manifesting while under the "tutelage" of Graeden Lamm. I wasn't sure he could integrate the class with the Korsova setting, but so far, so good!
I've got another who's playing a Hexblade in this campaign. She hasn't provided me with a detailed background, just saying that she's been under the teachings of another HB since her teens. To fit into the game she's LN, walking the line between the "non-good" class requirements and the "non-evil" campaign requirements.
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I will allow any WotC D&D book to be used by my responsible players along with the new Pathfinder RPG.
"Except the Book of 9 Swords".
That new sentence comes at the end of most rules discussions I have.
:-)
Also, I am going to tread very carefully and slowly introducing anything psionic into my Golarion campaign.
-DM Jeff
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Pfft. I'll use all of it. And I disagree about the XPH being more powerful than a PrCed character with vancian magic. Psions and psywars are neat and all, but they've been on the receiving end of too much floor moppage for me to believe the myth of them being overpowered. Ditto for magic of incarnum. The Tome of Magic is an interesting case. I'm less-than-excited about the shadowcaster and truenamer, but binders are really cool, especially as bad guys.
Then again, I tear material out of eberron and FR books, file off the serial numbers, and drop them into my homebrew setting with no problem. The "sovereign speaker" is now the Pantheonist. The Argent Fist is now a "Sunfire Monk". The Silver Pyromancer is a "Koradite Purifier" the Bone Knight is still called a bone knight, but now they work for a different group. If you're willing to divorce the original flavor from PrCs and substitute your own, it can save you a LOT of time building custom ones for organizations in a homebrew game. One of the things I liked about WotC's most recent PrC format was the adaptation notes.
Let's get away from WotC product for a sec, though. Here's the REAL stuff you should use with the PRPG (this is a radically-shortened list; I'm putting down the stuff that I consider rock-solid and not terribly open to debate).
Green Ronin:
Advanced Bestiary (used in RotRL)
Book of Fiends (used in RotRL)
Necromancer Games:
Tome of Horrors Revised (used in RotRL)
Tome of Horrors II (used in RotRL)
Tome of Horrors III
Malhavoc Press
Book of Roguish Luck
Year's Best d20
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Am I the only person who actually likes tome of magic?
I see no problem with any of the classes in them except for the simple fact that they may not be as powerfull as you would like.
WHO CARES THEY ARE COOL
If anything BoNS should be burned at the stake.
You're not! I quite like Tome of Magic, especially the section on Binders. They're really interesting.
And to further agree... yeah, Book of Nine Swords is not for me. Pass.
See, I like both ToB and ToM. Binders & Crusaders are both awesome.
What's wrong with these two?
False Prophets - ultra cheeeeeeeze...Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic - no...
Mainly just too weird and complicated and different. They'd be fine if you based a campaign on it probably. But if one of six people is "incarnumy" and no one else knows what the heck it is... Just makes things more complicated/go slower.
Same deal with psionics IMO. If you start a campaign (Dark Sun, for example) and say "Hey, this is going to be psi heavy" then it's OK. (Kinda, though the fact that psis are pretty much optimal blasters instead of focusing on the more subtle stuff according to XPH is a conceptual design flaw in my book.) But if the campaign is otherwise non-psi then you have to deal with the DM not knowing all the darn rules, enemies being hard to balance because they have weak spots to it, the player getting jacked because no treasure/magic items show up that support their weird variant...
In my experience, substantially variant bolt-on rules are best taken when given some focus on a campaign by campaign basis.
Pretty much if it's for use with D&D, I say go for it. I just keep the Nerf Bat at the ready for any proud nails that can be abused.
Overall, though, my preference of books are:
Old Testament
PHB
MM
DMG
Tome of Horrors
New Testament
Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior
MM 2, 3
Fiend Folio
Tome of Horrors II & III
Creature Collection I
Apocraphal
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack
Races of Stone, Wild & Destiny
Spell Compendium
Expanded Psionics
Creature Collection 2
Rites and Rituals
MM 5
Oriental Adventures
Arms & Equipment Guide
(Ghostwalk)
(Tome of Magic)
(Incarnum)
(Magic Item Compendium)
FR & Eberron books
Manual of the Planes
Heroes of Battle
Ravenloft (By S&S Studios)
(Heroes of Horror)
False Prophets
Savage Species
Miniatures Handbook
Weapons of Legacy
MM 4
Dieties and Demigods
Planar Handbook
Creature Collection 3
Fiendish Codexes
Complete Mage, Champion and Scoundrel
Dragon Magic
Bo9S: Tome of Battle
Book of Vile Dorkiness/Book of Exalted Cheese
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Well, we tend to look at characters before approving them. Races of Destiny's Half-Elf bard substitution class gave the Soothing Voice ability, which was deemed too powerful (DC 35 Will or Calm Emotions!) We house ruled it to "DC = Diplomacy bonus", which still was DC 18.
We don't really have straight out taboos. Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic are seldomly forbidden, but mostly numerous aspects, feats and PRCs are banned from various books, whereas some other neat things can be found. Interestingly, Greater Many Shot feat can only be found from XPH.
Spoiler:My gaming group is discussing what sources to use when we start Curse of the Crimson Throne. We're going to use the Pathfinder RPG rules of course. But then, the question came up about which other 3.5e books to allow? We've historically allowed "all WotC books" which has ended up in quite a mess.Here's my cut at rough classifications of the extant player-oriented 3.5e books. What do other Pathfinders think?
The True Scriptures
The Old Testament
The first "Complete" series (Warrior, Divine, Arcane, Adventurer) -
good additions, needed some more p-classes etc.
Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords - just too much fun to leave out. If it and SW:Saga were really guiding 4e more than mini gaming and DDI were, I might have gone ot it instead.The New Testament
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Cityscape, Dungeonscape
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness
Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness
Heroes of Battle, Heroes of Horror
Planar Handbook
IMO, all 12 of these add flavor and distinctive things for given campaigns without being overpowered.(except vow of poverty).Apocryphal Writings - of questionable power level
Player's Handbook II, Unearthed Arcana - yay substitution levels!
The second "Complete" series (Mage, Scoundrel, Champion) - this one goes to 11
The "Races of" series (Stone, Destiny, Wild, Dragon) - bah
Miniatures Handbook - more 3.0, mostly superseded by various 3.5es
Spell Compendium - feel the power!
Magic Item Compendium - more power power powerFalse Prophets - ultra cheeeeeeeze
Expanded Psionics Handbook - like magic, but better!
Draconomicon, Dragon Magic - fetishist fodder
Weapons of Legacy - actually more gimped than powerful.
Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic - no
Drow of the Underdark- spare me
All Eberron Sourcebooks- besides power, not appropriate for a diff campaign world
All Forgotten Realms Sourcebooks - the place where all the worst (aka
best) builds on the Wizards CharOp boards derive their power...
I don't like your list:
The first completes were faulty. (For example, the Hexblade and the Samurai are horrbly underpowered.
I like ToB, too. But there is much controversity.
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness are broken. (It is much to easy to heal ability damage. And ravage: Poison but goo??)
Your "Apocryphal Writings" alongside the rulescompendium are the most essential books in addition to the SRD and the first completes.
Psionics is not broken!!!!!! Play it and USE the rules. Than have a opinion.
I like most of your other "False Prophets", too. (For example: the artificer is great for any steampunk setting).
But you are right about the Weapons of Legacy.
Regards, WD
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Binders are so cool - I've been begging for someone in my group to play one!
The Secrets of Pact Magic is also extraordinarily awesome and a nice non-WotC way to introduce it to your campaign.
I played a binder from 1 to 20, and my DM was begging me to play something else.
Its a lot easier to DM if you know what the PCs can do - and my binder was a new character every morning. Enormous fun.
And I'll second the praise for Secrets of Pact Magic.
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Since Pathfinder is OGL, anyone can write an OGL Binder with the serial numbers scraped off that works with PRPG. Depending on how the pathfinder license ends up, they might even be able to mention that it works with PRPG. In fact, I can easily imagine the first few third party products for Pathfinder being 3.P conversions of some of the stuff from the 3.5 books. Look out world, here comes the Curseblade (Hexblade), Warwizard (Warmage) and Sergeant (Marshall)!
I've personally always thought the Binder was the perfect mechanic for reproducing elements of Afro-Caribbean magic -- Houdon, Voodoo, etc. -- such as the concept of being "ridden by the loa." A-C folklore is filled with stories of magicians allowing loa (powerful spirits/minor gods) to temporarily posses them, and gaining powers as a result.
You could easily sneak the Binder into 3.P by calling it "The Bokor" (a voodoo sorcerer), and replacing the vestiges with loa like Chango (war god) and Baron Samedi (death god). All of which are public domain and not copyrightable!
Secrets of Pact Magic is an OGL book about binders. It can be done easily enough.
However, James doesn't seem interested in "sneaking" stuff into Pathfinder on ethical grounds, which I respect.
However, apparently, in the case of the binder WotC didn't have a lot of fluff or crunch that was original, so ethically I don't have a problem with Secrets of Pact Magic taking the same real life source material and coming up with a very similar result.
However, doing stat blocks for a spirit binder is a nightmare - I've just done one for my entry into EnWorld's War of the Burning Sky adventure competition - so for printed products I think by and large they are more trouble than they are worth.
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A follow up question:
I read about Secrets of Pact magic and wondered whether its rules were compatible to the Binder rules of Tome of Magic.
Secrets of Pact Magic is almost completely compatible with Tome of Magic.
The vestiges are called "spirits", and are arranged into constellations (so you can specialise in binding a thematically linked group of spirits if you want). They also have an extra "capstone" ability, which you only get if you succeed the binding check by a significant amount.
(My Tome of Magic binder didn't bother rolling for some vestiges when he got to high levels because he couldn't fail the check; a Secrets of Pact Magic spirit binder would still roll to see if he could get the "bonus" power.)
From memory, spirits go up to 9th level, whilst vestiges only go up to 8th.
Apart from binding, the binder and the spirit binder have different class abilities (but same BAB, saves, hit dice and skill points) and I'd probably only allow one or the other, to avoid having two classes which were so similar. [Actually, my preferred solution would be some kind of hybrid of both books, but then I'm a sucker for creating work for myself!]
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As I see it
The first "Complete" series (Warrior, Divine, Arcane, Adventurer) -
Case by case situation, some good, some broken.
Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords-Haven't made up my mind.
Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Cityscape, Dungeonscape - Has their use. Not really impressed with the classes
Book of Exalted Deeds / Book of Vile Darkness - Loved these, Vow of Poverty needs a tweek. If you have a player doing anything with a shade of grey you have to pull it.
Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, Heroes of Battle, Heroes of Horror
Loved these
Planar Handbook This book fell mostly flat. Loved the touchstones. Classes mostly a wash.
Player's Handbook II, Unearthed Arcana - Keeping!
The second "Complete" series (Mage, Scoundrel, Champion) - These series was better. I like reserve feetsm if you don't do recharge magic.
The "Races of" series (Stone, Destiny, Wild, Dragon) - Actually liked Races of Destiny, but the feat that gives Humans a perk for of class skill won't work really in Pathfinder.
Miniatures Handbook - Not needed
Spell Compendium - Yep I will use, will need to tweek.
Magic Item Compendium - Wish it would be able to mesh better with Pathfinder. Will have to review.
Expanded Psionics Handbook - Keeper until Pathfinder makes thier own book.
Draconomicon, Dragon Magic - Keep the first dump the last.
Weapons of Legacy - nerfing characters for ballance is bad.
Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic - I loved these books. Tome more so than Incarnum.
Drow of the Underdark- Better to use Pathfinder versions.
All Eberron Sourcebooks- I loves me some artificers. Don't see the fit in Pathfinder.
All Forgotten Realms Sourcebooks - I love some of the magic items. Some of the PRCs though were painful to look at.
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I played a binder from 1 to 20, and my DM was begging me to play something else.
I played a binder for about five sessions (level 6 to 7), and then got myself killed so I could justify playing something else. I found the class obnoxious and tedious to play, and so underpowered as to be a hindrance to the campaign. The character was simply incapable of pulling his weight. And so much bookkeeping for so little benefit! I just went back to playing my Knight.
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Secrets of Pact Magic is almost completely compatible with Tome of Magic.
The vestiges are called "spirits", and are arranged into constellations (so you can specialise in binding a thematically linked group of spirits if you want). They also have an extra "capstone" ability, which you only get if you succeed the binding check by a significant amount.
(My Tome of Magic binder didn't bother rolling for some vestiges when he got to high levels because he couldn't fail the check; a Secrets of Pact Magic spirit binder would still roll to see if he could get the "bonus" power.)
From memory, spirits go up to 9th level, whilst vestiges only go up to 8th.
Apart from binding, the binder and the spirit binder have different class abilities (but same BAB, saves, hit dice and skill points) and I'd probably only allow one or the other, to avoid having two classes which were so similar. [Actually, my preferred solution would be some kind of hybrid of both books, but then I'm a sucker for creating work for myself!]
Thanks for the information.
I can imagine Pathfinder eventually using the OGL Binder (of course after considerable tweaking). Maybe a future AP could evolve around this class...
Definitely not the Book of 9 Swords. IT IS OUT in any game I run. Tome of Magic is definitely in. Freaking awesome classes, but the truenamer REALLY needs tweeked. That is definitely a class that was not well playtested.
For the most part, I do things on a 'per book' basis. There's a definite bias towards WotC official material, but as long as the player is ok with letting me look over their hardcopy to look over, I don't usually have a problem going further afield.
Depending on the game, I may encourage or discourage certain books; for example, 'skill tricks' or whatever their called from Complete Scoundrel end up adversely affecting character competence, because of the assumed 'you need this trick to do this,' so I discourage players from getting them.
On the other hand, Book of Nine Swords has proven to be fairly balanced. The only problem I have is if someone wants to play a Fighter next to a Warblade; the Warblade is balanced against the Cleric and Wizard, AND gets more skills AND weapon familiarity, so I'd probably ask one of the players to consider switching.