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Eldrys
2009-04-11, 08:30 PM
Okay I was looking throught some of the RPG section and I noticed a whole bunch of D&D books that looked interesting, but I didn't have. I was wondering if the people of the playground would help me chose the best books to have. I want to get some more books before all of them are 90$ collectibles on amazon.

wadledo
2009-04-11, 08:31 PM
This should probably go in the RPG forum.....

RTGoodman
2009-04-11, 08:33 PM
My favorite 3.x books:
-Core (PHB, DMG, MM)
-Player's Handbook 2
-Tome of Battle
-Races of Stone
-Spell Compendium (I don't own it, but I wish I did)
-Any of the first half of the Complete series (Adventurer, Divine, Warrior, Arcane)
-Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage from the second half of the Complete series


My favorite 4E books:
-Core (of course)
-PHB2
-Martial Power
-Adventurer's Vault
-A D&DI Subscription (it's not a book, but it's DEFINITELY worth it)


EDIT: Also, what he^ said.

Eldrys
2009-04-11, 08:53 PM
Thanks for the info RTG, and also, wadledo, how do you change the location of a thread.

wadledo
2009-04-11, 09:11 PM
PM a mod, preferably the one presiding over this section of the forum.

Eldrys
2009-04-11, 10:05 PM
and would that be Lilly

RTGoodman
2009-04-11, 10:46 PM
and would that be Lilly

Well, it doesn't really matter anymore, since it's been moved already, but Roland St. Jude is usually a good bet (as a super-mod and all).


Also, to add something to the conversation at hand. Since my last list was mostly player-related books, you might also be interested in...

Books to Buy as a DM (3.x):
-Monster Manuals 3 and 5. (But probably not 2 or 4.)
-The Environment series (Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack)
-Monster-specific books for monsters you like (Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, etc.)
-Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors. (It's not WotC, but it's one of the best 3rd-party books EVER.)

Baalthazaq
2009-04-12, 01:21 AM
The question is: For what?

I love the two Fiendish Codexes, but they offer very little in the way of feats/classes/etc. If you're looking for building characters then you want something else.

I don't like the spell compendium, but it's great for wizard building. I've not bought it yet, but I might saying as my next char might be one. I'm trying something special with him and I need all the help I can get.

Draconomicon (if you can find it) is pretty good again for story, and gives you some nice insight into Dragons (and why they collect treasure for example).

Book of Vile Darkness is cool. Book of Exalted Deeds not so much.

Races of Destiny is one of my faves. Plenty of everything in it. I liked it so much my very first campaign had Illumians as the world's "in charge" race. Above Humans.

Eldariel
2009-04-12, 07:51 AM
For PCs and monsters alike (provided you like monsters/humanoids with class levels as the primary adversaries):

Tome of Battle: For melee-types
Spell Compendium: For spellcasters (especially half-casters like Rangers, Paladins & co. - this gives them actually unique spells worth something for combat purposes instead of being really bad Druids/Clerics)
Complete Scoundrel: For skilled characters
Player's Handbook II: For everyone


Those 4 books are the first ones I'd get.

gabado
2009-04-12, 11:37 AM
My favorite 3.x books:
-Core (PHB, DMG, MM)
-Player's Handbook 2
-Tome of Battle
-Races of Stone
-Spell Compendium (I don't own it, but I wish I did)
-Any of the first half of the Complete series (Adventurer, Divine, Warrior, Arcane)
-Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage from the second half of the Complete series

honestly RTG, the tome of battle is hardly suited for beginning players.

RTGoodman
2009-04-12, 03:02 PM
honestly RTG, the tome of battle is hardly suited for beginning players.

I don't see anywhere in the OP that says it's for a group of beginning players, and I have to say I disagree anyway. I mean, it's no harder than, say, playing a Sorcerer. And with power cards, you don't have to do all that much learning, just pick which seems cool for the occasion and read it off of there. I'd say it's as easy as anything else in non-Core 3.x (i.e., more complex than a lot of the Core classes, but not irredeemably so).

Eldrys
2009-04-12, 04:17 PM
The question is: For what?

I love the two Fiendish Codexes, but they offer very little in the way of feats/classes/etc. If you're looking for building characters then you want something else.







In answer of your first question--it may seem silly--jsut for the joy of reading it. I have three books tht I have never actually used but I will sit in my bed for hours just reading my books.

Thank you all for the sugestions so far. After reading I have decided to get either races of stone or races of destiny first.

Gnorman
2009-04-12, 04:51 PM
If you're simply interested in the literary merits of the books, the core rulebooks are fairly dry. Collections of feats, prestige classes, and spells, mostly.

The books I've found to be the most pleasurable to read have been:

Races of Stone (I'm a HUGE gnome fan)
Races of the Wild
Races of the Dragon
Races of Destiny

(what can I say, the Races of series is very well-done)

Dungeonscape
Cityscape (if only for their alternate viewpoints on what D&D can be)

And various campaign settings. Eberron and Ravenloft are my favorites - Eberron's basically the coolest elaborate balance of nations ever created, while each realm of Ravenloft has a tragic, intriguing backstory to it, whether Strahd and Tatanya or Mordenheim and Adam or strange, bardic werewolves. Really interesting stuff with a lot of overt literary references.

Ernir
2009-04-12, 05:31 PM
Aside from Core/SRD-material... these books I keep running into:

Player's Handbook II (something for everyone)
Magic Item Compendium (fantastic for everyone who is DMing or in a campaign that allows fully stocked Magic-Marts)
Spell Compendium (for every magic-user out there)

These are the most general and universally useful books around, in my opinion. After that there is the Complete series, I get the most use out of the Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Complete Divine. And most (otherwise Core) characters fall under at least one of the Warrior type/Divine caster/Arcane caster categories, anyway.

And my latest book-love is the Tome of Battle. For anyone who is serious about making a warrior type that actually scales with levels.

Chronos
2009-04-12, 07:00 PM
If you're interested in the literary merits, then Complete Scoundrel has some amusing story-snippets interspersed among the other material.

For other books for fun play, you should also check out the first third of Tome of Magic, the pact magic section. Unfortunately, the shadowcaster is just a less-flexible sorcerer, and the truenamer is nigh-unusable.