(3.X) stranded on an Island??

[Lastgrasp]

Fun Question. Now let's say you and your gaming group get shipwrecked on an island. You can only have eight gaming books from 3.X. The first three books are your core three.(PHB, DMG, MM for 3.0/5 and PFC, GMG, and Bestiary I for Pathfinder) Now what other five books would you have in your backpack? What would you consider your essentials?

Two rules
1 Book must be a Monster Manual of some sort
1 Book must be a Campaign Setting.

For Me
1. Advanced Players Guide (Alchemist/Summoner alone makes this book for me)
2. Spell Compendium
3. Magic Item Compendium
4. Bestiary 2 (MM) (Don't have to mess around with converting stuff)
5. Inner Sea World Guide (CS) (Kitchen Sink Setting)

[Doc Roc]

Legend, covering my core three and giving me two spare slots, Tome of Battle, XPH, Planar Handbook, Manual of the Planes, Magic Item Compendium, Fiend Folio, Tome of Magic so that I can finally get around to hacking up a Track for binding.

[Jude_H]

Tome of Battle and Book of Exalted Deeds.

If gaming forums have taught me anything, it's that those two are sure to get some sick fires going.

[FMArthur]

1. Stormwrack (contains a campaign setting)
2. Tome of Battle
3. Complete Mage
4. Complete Arcane
5. Complete Champion

[Protecar]

Legend, covering my core three and giving me two spare slots, Tome of Battle, XPH, Planar Handbook, Manual of the Planes, Magic Item Compendium, Fiend Folio, Tome of Magic so that I can finally get around to hacking up a Track for binding.

If you get a Binder in Legend, point me to the nearest pbp game. :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

On topic:

I'd choose Tome of Magic(for Binders), Fiend Folio(for the grafts), Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionic Handbook(I think...I always get the psion books confused), aaaaand MIC sounds pretty good too. One must have one's items.

[Hirax]

ToB, XPH, MIC, SC, Frostburn

Not easy choices.

[Drakevarg]

Libris Mortis, Complete Arcane, MM III, Complete Warrior, and a notebook (containing a campaign setting of my own design. I will eat a live scorpion before I run a campaign in someone else's setting).

[RaginChangeling]

Player's Guide to Eberron
Sandstorm
Tome of Battle
Magic of Incarnum
Tome of Magic

[Doc Roc]

If you get a Binder in Legend, point me to the nearest pbp game. :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

On topic:

I'd choose Tome of Magic(for Binders), Fiend Folio(for the grafts), Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionic Handbook(I think...I always get the psion books confused), aaaaand MIC sounds pretty good too. One must have one's items.

I can't do it officially, since it doesn't fall under fair use, but I'm pretty sure we could do a binding track.

[OverdrivePrime]

Tome of Battle (duh)
Spell Compendium (duh)
Complete Mage - my favorite of the completes
Frostburn (for snowflake wardance and a couple spells. I don't give a hoot about published campaign settings)
MM... V maybe? I've never used any of the monster manuals in 3.0 or 3.5 beyond the first one. :smallconfused:

[*.*.*.*]

MM... V maybe? I've never used any of the monster manuals in 3.0 or 3.5 beyond the first one. :smallconfused:

I personally find Monster Manual 3 to be the best~:smallcool:

[Darklady2831]

So:
PHB
DMG
MM1
Libris Mortis
Book of Vile Darkness
Spell Compendium
Drow of the Underdark
Notebook with a Homebrew Campaign setting.

[nyarlathotep]

Bestiary 2 (pathfinder)
Tome of Battle
Tome of Magic
Advanced Player's Guide (pathfinder)
3.5 conversion of spelljammer or if that doesn't count Eberron

[Fable Wright]

Hm... so, after core, the most important thing for making different characters are a wide variety of options. So, adding Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium to the list. Now I can support a variety of different characters with a variety of options. Tome of Magic for similar reasons; three different magic systems, even if two of them are... odd, to say the least, make for more character versatility. It also has a setting, crossing that off my list. The monster tome will be Fiend Folio; it has a ton of monsters, making for a good read, though I rather like MMV, as well. However, Fiend Folio does have a huge set of available grafts, and some nifty classes for different demons. Lords of Madness increases the number of available grafts, as well as give a decent number of classes, as well as fluff for different villain races. It would be rather cool, though I wish I had psionics as well to complement the design. However, I don't, and the book isn't completely hinging on that one system.

[Divide by Zero]

Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Tome of Battle
Monster Manual III
Eberron Campaign Setting

If I could get one more, it'd be Tome of Magic for sure. After that, hard to say.

[Arutema]

Pathfinder Core Rulebook
Game Mastery Guide
Bestiary
Bestiary II
Inner Sea World Guide
Advanced Players Guide
Ultimate Magic
Psionics Unleashed

[Malkav]

I will eat a live scorpion before I run a campaign in someone else's setting.

Agreed.

1. Complete Arcane
2. Complete Warrior
3. Complete Divine
4. Book of Erotic Fantasy
5. MM3(wherever the Greathammer is)

[DragonOfUndeath]

1. XPH
2. Librus Mortis
3. Heroes of Horror
4. Ebberon (or a custom if allowed)
5. ToB

[Eldan]

I'd just try to find books I haven't read yet, so I'd have something to read. Then I'd run a game of FATE, to avoid people bickering over rules :smalltongue:

[Telonius]

Campaign Setting - Eberron
Monster Manual - 2
Tome of Battle
Complete Adventurer
Complete Warrior

I was also considering Complete Psionic - after all, there's no guarantee the island has any kindling, and we might need to start a fire at some point.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

My cores would be Pathfinder's Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide and Bestiary I, and my other five would be:

Bestiary II, for completeness' sake
Inner Sea World Guide, since this is Pathfinder
Advanced Player's Guide, for more options
Ultimate Magic (Not out yet, but more options are always good)
Ultimate Combat (Again, not out yet, but more options are always good)

[Edenbeast]

pathfinder core rulebook
advanced player's guide
bestiary 1&2
those 4 and my fantasy :)

In exchange for the other books: some dice, a pack of charactersheets and a picnic table would be fine.

[Mordokai]

Tome of Battle and Book of Exalted Deeds.

If gaming forums have taught me anything, it's that those two are sure to get some sick fires going.

Yer funny.


Libris Mortis, Complete Arcane, MM III, Complete Warrior, and a notebook (containing a campaign setting of my own design. I will eat a live scorpion before I run a campaign in someone else's setting).

Shall we put that to the test? :smalltongue:

Ravenloft CS, Heroes of Horror, Elder Evils(I count this as my MM of choice, whether you like it or not), Lords of Madness and World's Largest Dungeon.

[Chess435]

My cores would be Pathfinder's Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide and Bestiary I, and my other five would be:

Bestiary II, for completeness' sake
Inner Sea World Guide, since this is Pathfinder
Advanced Player's Guide, for more options
Ultimate Magic (Not out yet, but more options are always good)
Ultimate Combat (Again, not out yet, but more options are always good)

Didn't Ultimate Magic come out last week? :smallconfused:

[SlashRunner]

Now I need to start memorizing sourcebooks in case this ever happens to me.
God dammit.

[Doc Roc]

Shall we put that to the test? :smalltongue:


I'll go get the scorpion.

[Lastgrasp]

For Me
1. Advanced Players Guide (Alchemist/Summoner alone makes this book for me)
2. Spell Compendium
3. Magic Item Compendium
4. Bestiary 2 (MM) (Don't have to mess around with converting stuff)
5. Inner Sea World Guide (CS) (Kitchen Sink Setting)

As I've been pondering. I think I'd drop the Inner Sea World Guide and replace it with the Manual of the Planes.

[Seth62]

I would take the following:

Players Handbook Book
Dungeon Masters Guide
Forgotten Realms Campaign setting
Monster Manuel 4
Underdark

underdark campaigns are fun

[Bakkan]

Player's Guide to Faerun - I don't think I'd use the setting, since I like to create my own, but this seems to be the solid setting book that has the highest useful crunch to setting-specific fluff ratio.

Monster Manual III - Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness were also contenders, but MM3 has more variety of monsters

Tome of Battle - Because I like playing spellcasters and I like for the melee people to keep up.

Magic of Incarnum - The single most friendly multiclassing system in 3.5 combined with easily obtainable feats to gain blue goodness, plus some additional classes

Complete Champion - Gives a lot of additional options, and not only for divine casters. Has Pounce Barbarian, devotion feats, and some domain feats

Some runners-up:
Besides LM and LoM, mentioned earlier, I would have a hard time going without the Spell Compendium (but caster's don't really need more than core) and Magic Item Compendium (though if the DM is cool with custom magic items this hurts a lot less). I also really like Player's Handbook II, but to me it seems less useful than the other books mentioned.