Buying 3.5 again...

[Grynning]

So, my situation with 3.5 is this - I stopped buying it when 4th came out, which was silly of me, because now prices are climbing again. I used to have access to a ton of books because my old roommate owned them, but he moved away to get married so now I'm down to a much smaller pool, and I'm about to run 3.5/Pathfinder again. It's going to be an Eberron based game adapted to Pathfinder rules for the most part, but allowing other 3.5 classes.

I found Lords of Madness, MoI, and Dungeonscape reasonably priced on Amazon, so I'm buying those. I have the PHB, Magic Item Compendium, a few completes (Warrior, Adventurer, Arcane, Scoundrel, probably getting Divine soon), Eberron CS, ToB, and the Dragon Compendium (which I won't really ever use). My friend who will be in the game has the Pathfinder books that are out, Races of Eberron, Tome of Magic, and a smattering of other 3.5 books.

The game will (mostly) be focused on fighting the Daelkyr and cults of the Dragon Below. Are there any other books that I should probably pick up before I start writing out the adventure in earnest?

[jiriku]

Spell Compendium is made of win. It would probably be a good idea to grab some Monster Manuals. MMI, MMV, and Fiend Folio are my favorites (although FF requires some converting from 3.0 to 3.5). I regard Complete Mage and Complete Champion as some excellent contributions to the Complete series. Depending on the campaign that you're planning, you might find Frostburn, Sandstorm, or Stormwrack to be of value.

[Grynning]

Spell Compendium is made of win.

It's also apparently made of gold...the cheapest copy I've found is like 50 dollars and that's not in great condition. I'm checking my local half-price books for it later today, I heard they have one.

[mucat]

Are you watching eBay as well as Amazon?

[jiriku]

It's also apparently made of gold

ROFL! You are such a...comedian.

If the hunt for the books is difficult, you can at least console yourself that you'll get lots of XP for completing the quest.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Magic of Eberron, has some good stuff for both Daelyrs and their oponents.

It has the Daelkyr Half-Blood race, the Impure Prince Prg Class and most importantly, many symbionts (which IMO are the best to give your player's a bit of Daelyr-ian flavor)

[Achernar]

Get Complete Divine, and some of the "Races of" series (Stone and Wild are my favorites, although it is true I don't play kobolds). They are very rich resources for a wide spread of character concepts.

[grimbold]

Ultimate Prestige Classes is always handy as it gives meleers some good options. Using some 3.0 books and editing where neccesarry is what i do if i come across any it dramtically increases your book pool if you're willing to be flexibel.

[Callista]

They could make a mint if they started printing 3.5 again.

[grimbold]

They could make a mint if they started printing 3.5 again.
agreed
thats why we have pathfinder

[Dr.Epic]

Every Monster Manual you can find.

[Callista]

Is there still a way to buy the online versions? For some reason I thought those were still up, but I guess they're not, if the print versions are increasing in price. I'm going to stop by my own half-price bookstore today and see if there are any possibilities there; I don't buy a lot of books, but I figure if I want them I'd better get them now, or else share a dog-eared copy with the entire party.

[TheThan]

Book suggestions?

Well if your planing on Dming here’s my top picks. (in no particular order)

dungeon masters guide
Spell compendium
Tome of battle: the book of nine swords
Dungeonscape
Stormwrack
Sandstorm
Cityscape
Magic item compendium
Rules compendium


These are all great resources for building adventures (and campaign worlds) outside of monster manuals.

[ShriekingDrake]

Spell Compendium is made of win. It would probably be a good idea to grab some Monster Manuals. MMI, MMV, and Fiend Folio are my favorites (although FF requires some converting from 3.0 to 3.5). I regard Complete Mage and Complete Champion as some excellent contributions to the Complete series. Depending on the campaign that you're planning, you might find Frostburn, Sandstorm, or Stormwrack to be of value.

What do you like particularly about MMV?

[jiriku]

The xorvintaal dragon template. Banshrae. Bladerager trolls. Dalmosh! Deadborn vultures. Ember guard. Guulvorg. Hobgoblins warsoul. Illurien. Mind flayers of Thoon. Phantom template. Ruin chanter/ruin elemental. Spirrax. Vivisectors!

The evil fey are especially cool, as there's a shortage of interesting fey-type opponents in other books, IMO (and the banshrae is one of the few monsters I've found that can challenge an optimized party of appropriate EL right out of the box, without any tinkering). The BBEG-style monsters like Dalmosh, Illurien, and the Spirrax are really interesting monsters both in history, style, campaign impact, and actual battle mechanics. Many of the others I mentioned are interesting takes on old monsters that breathe new life into stale archetypes. And vivisectors are just damn cool. I like to advance them up to double or triple their basic hit dice, tinker their feats (Improved Critical, baby!) and maybe give them the shadow template of some kind so they can hide in plain sight.

[raitalin]

Spell Compendium might be expensive, but if you can afford it I'd get it while you can, as its "expanded" core (and not part of the SRD) for a lot of people and the price is likely to rise even higher.

ToB and MIC are the same way.

[Thurbane]

The price of some of the 3.5 books, notably the cores, SC and MIC, is just plain ludicrous thorugh Amazon/Ebay at the moment.

Our group pretty much have all of the books covered, but we wanted to pick up spares of PHB and DMG...as noted above, they are like freakin gold! :smalleek:

[Callista]

Is there still a way to buy the online versions? For some reason I thought those were still up, but I guess they're not, if the print versions are increasing in price. I'm going to stop by my own half-price bookstore today and see if there are any possibilities there; I don't buy a lot of books, but I figure if I want them I'd better get them now, or else share a dog-eared copy with the entire party.*sigh* Yeah. All the good stuff's been picked clean there, too. Are there balanced third-party books out there? I don't wanna get something only to discover I can't use it because it's ridiculously overpowered.

[The Dark Fiddler]

*sigh* Yeah. All the good stuff's been picked clean there, too. Are there balanced third-party books out there? I don't wanna get something only to discover I can't use it because it's ridiculously overpowered.

Not third-party, but I got my copy of Magic of Incarnum for $12 after shipping and handling, and Amazon has Complete Warrior for $7 right now. So if anybody's looking to expand their meager collection as I was, MoI and CW are both pretty cheap places to start.

[Grynning]

Not third-party, but I got my copy of Magic of Incarnum for $12 after shipping and handling, and Amazon has Complete Warrior for $7 right now. So if anybody's looking to expand their meager collection as I was, MoI and CW are both pretty cheap places to start.

Yeah I just got MoI for 8 dollars, which I found surprising, though I guess it's not a huge book. Dungeonscape, Complete Divine and LoM were all close to $25 each though, which is only a little less than their original retail price.

[tcrudisi]

They could make a mint if they started printing 3.5 again.

I don't think so. I still see a lot of 3.5 books in the bookstores. They aren't selling but they are there for anyone who wants to pay normal price. Considering they would be selling them at normal price... I just don't see a profit opportunity there.

Perhaps your area is different, though.

[BobVosh]

Book suggestions?

Well if your planing on Dming here’s my top picks. (in no particular order)

dungeon masters guide
Spell compendium
Tome of battle: the book of nine swords
Dungeonscape
Stormwrack
Sandstorm
Cityscape
Magic item compendium
Rules compendium


These are all great resources for building adventures (and campaign worlds) outside of monster manuals.

A very solid list, although I didn't care much for the RC.

I would recommend getting the complete mage as the only other complete you really need. SpC is almost worth 50, it is so amazingly helpful.