Essential PRPG-compatible GM's Library (Non-WotC products)


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Liberty's Edge

We all have our own opinions about which WotC products are the best to use. Some of us love various products, other of us hate them, but it seems to me there's precious little time given to some of the better third-party products out there. That, plus the sheer, staggering volume of such products means that I think a lot of us GMs have some cool little gems in their collection that they love. Why don't we start sharing some of those that fit particularly well with Pathfinder and enhance the experience for all of us?

Since I'm starting this exercise, I'll go first.

Path of the Sword, Path of Faith, Path of Magic, and Path of Shadow
Fantasy Flight Games
These used to be about $25 each, but they can now be had in PDF form for $5 apiece at RPGnow.com. They were fairly solid 3.0 "complete" style books, but the real gems in these were the legendary classes. Legendary classes are 5-level prestige class-eque classes with extremely high requirements (mechanically, they can't be entered by characters of less than 13th level) and (and this is the important bit) at least two quests, detailed enough to be impressive but vague enough to fit into pretty much any campaign world (and heavily open to GM interpretation; things like slaying demons, finding lost tomes of lore, and taking all comers from a local thieves' guild in knife fights) that the character must fulfill to get in. Once those are accomplished, the character is locked into the legendary class until they finish it, but the legendary classes are massively worth it. They each have a menu of powers that you pick, and the longer you wait to take a power, the better it is. For instance, a couple of the roguish legendary classes have an increased sneak attack power. You get an extra number of sneak attack dice equal to the level of the class you take it at. That leaves you with an interesting choice. Do you want one extra die of sneak attack NOW, or do you want to wait until the fifth level of the class and get a whopping extra 5d6 of sneak attack? Somewhere in between? Want to pass that up entirely for some other ability? I love that mechanic for a number of reasons. It gives players something to shoot for, but it also gives GMs some great fodder for adventures AND if all the characters are going for a legendary class, it guarantees everybody some screen time. That's a lot of coolness packed into a five-level class. As an added bonus, there are evil legendary classes that the GM can use to make truly memorable villains. A great creative resource for GMs.

The Tome of Horrors Series (Revised, II, and III)
Necromancer Games
Some of the best monster books ever. The first one, as I'm sure many of you know, updates all kinds of old, previous-edition monsters to 3.5. The other two volumes are original material from the Necromancer Games staff. I think of the three, the second volume is my favorite (some of the coolest undead I've ever seen), but they're all fantastic.

That's seven books already, but I'll have more later in the thread.

Dark Archive

I'm a big fan of Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary and (judging by the number of times they've used it in Pathfinder so far), so are Paizo.

Its a book of very interesting monster templates.


I'd add the Book of Roguish Luck from Malhavoc Press to that list. It has some interesting variant rogue-like classes and some new systems, ie luck, that seem to fit in well to the general feel of Pathfinder. I have all four of the Path books and love them but can never seem to find a DM willing to let me use the Legendary classes.

Sovereign Court

I'll put in my two cents for Iron Heroes from Malhavoc Press. Monte Cook's Book of Experimental Might is also good material.

Also, if you like crossover campaigns, I enjoyed Rokugan and the other L5R D20 books from AEG, though I believe they're out of print.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

I pull a lot of stuff from the Complete Book of Eldritch Might by Paizo's new companion Monte Cook. Some of the magical locations, spells, and wondrous items in there are just fantastic. From time to time, I'll also take something (with a bit of reworking) from the Wheel of Time RPG, but this is mainly cause I love the flavor, not because the mechanics are anything wonderful.

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