Best DCC Support Books

The DCC books tell you to borrow like crazy from your other OSR and fantasy books. Specifically, the game does not have a treasure or magic item system and tells you to "use another game's tables." This is how we did it in the old days, too.

Since DCC is a game more like 3.5E, the 3.5E books are the best places to start. The D&D 3.5E DMG does not get enough love and attention, and this is one of the better DMG releases by Wizards since the book has treasure generation, encounter tables, magic item creation, lists of traps, and many other valuable bits for stocking an adventure site. There isn't a detailed dungeon random generation system, but it comes close. This is on my DCC shelf as part of my treasure and magic item system.

Another great and overlooked book is the 3.5E Magic Item Compendium, which provides Diablo-like unique properties and weapon qualities. If every magic item in DCC is supposed to be exceptional, then this book gives you the tables to generate those randomly.

Also, shout out to another tremendous 3.5E magic item generator, One Million Magic Items, which gives you even more randomness. This one is over on Drive-Thru.

One of the nice things about a 3.5E collection is that they act as excellent DCC support books and the best version of Wizards' D&D, so it's like having two games in one. I have Hero Lab and the 3.5E module, so my character creator support is there. Everything 4E and after ended up a mismanaged disappointment. I had some fun with 5E, but not as much fun as with DCC and 3.5E.

One could play DCC with the D&D 3.5E Monster Manual, and I made a page here covering conversion notes. This would likely be a deadlier campaign, depending on the encounter. What shocked me was how well this worked and how DCC could drop in and replace the D&D 3.5E rules engine.

Do I like 3.5E monsters in my 3.5E game? I feel more on the DCC side here; monsters should be unique and interesting, not "mass-produced" and feeling cookie-cutter.

DCC could run an entire Eberron campaign without a problem and run the setting better than 3.5E ever did. DCC fits right in with demons fighting robots, dinosaurs fighting elves, etc. Steampunk tech? Works with DCC, and there are zines with gun rules (The Crawl series). Since this setting is so unhinged and strange, DCC would match the tone better than a serious and heavyweight system. In DCC, you could also play as the dinosaurs if you wanted. Just come up with 3.5E ability score modifiers for them, call them a race of humanoid-sized dinosaurs, and go to town.

I would use Adventures Dark & Deep for the Realms and Greyhawk since the classic feel will do justice to those settings.

You could play DCC with 3.5E races since they are just a few ability score modifiers and special abilities. Simply eliminate race-as-class options and do the race-plus-class generation system. This is how you get Eberron races in the game, too. Most of the Player's Handbook is not used, except if you want a nice gear list, which is also helpful. Spells and classes are not used.

Another excellent book for DCC character options is the D&D 3.0 Savage Species book. If you want to ignore "race as class" and just throw a template onto a standard class, modify the ability scores, and this is your book. Note, humans will need a slight buff if you do this, such as letting them generate 4d6 and drop the lowest, since most will go for the special racial abilities and ignore the "plain old human" choice. This is an excellent book with 3.5E, and it lets you play all sorts of monster classes and different templates, even intelligent animals or hybrids.

A special shout-out goes to Pathfinder 1e's Advanced Race Guide, which has a race designer system. This book is more tightly tied to Pathfinder 1e's classes and feat systems, so it is not as highly recommended, but the designer is perfect for hackers and homebrewers.

While Pathfinder is an excellent resource for 3.5E content, I tend to let Pathfinder 1e stay in its own universe since the game is a complete monolith and fantastic as a standalone system. I have the system in my closet, and these days, I focus more on D&D 3.5E since that system never had the entire life it deserved. Pathfinder 1e is still an S-Tier game for me, but it is its own thing.

DCC plus D&D 3.5E is one of the best gaming combinations. D&D 3.5E is suitable for a serious, character-building game that fully uses Hero Lab and many of your books (and classic settings). However, D&D 3.5E is heavy; it is a simulation boardgame style of game.

DCC is for the times I don't want a lot of complexity and want to run fast and loose in a strange but gonzo fantasy Appendix N sword-and-sorcery romp. DCC is a faster game that does not care about "protecting player egos," which is a freedom for me. Do I care that the fighter grew a third eye by touching a strange statue or that the mage grew a pair of bat wings?

No. No, I don't.

Those are surprises and fun changes to the characters in my game, and I embrace them. Shadowdark rarely touches casters with permanent disfigurement and changes, and like 5E, it protects players from the game and avoids stepping on egos and "self-image" all that much. I don't want games that protect characters and player egos. If the designers are so afraid of their players' feelings being hurt, the game will end up in the garage storage crates. I am sick of them.

Even 3.5E has some of this "overly careful" design going on.

DCC is a game that embraces change and randomness. That is where my head is right now. Games that take the same character from one to maximum level, with zero change except powers and numbers, are boring.