3.5 book usefulness

[Meianleader]

Assuming one already has computer access to all 3.5 material, and wanted to start buying physical copies of the books, what would you say would be the best order to buy them in (assuming very slow accumulation)?
(like, top 5~10, or more if you want)

[LansXero]

The Compendiums would be the most useful, easily. Then I guess setting books if you are really invested in any particular one. Enviromental books are nice as well; not really a fan of the completes.

[Daftendirekt]

In descending order of important, in my own opinion:


Core, obviously (plus Unearthed Arcana)
Complete series
Races Of series
Spell Compendium & Magic Item Compendium
Tome of Battle
Expanded Psionics Handbook (if you use psionics at all, anyway...)
Draconomicon (extremely well put together book) & Dragon Magic
Environmental books (Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Frostburn)

[AspectOfNihil]

I'd have to agree with Annulus though I'd probably put SPC and MIC up a bit higher, certainly above Races, maybe on par with Completes.

[ClothedInVelvet]

I'd have to agree with Annulus though I'd probably put SPC and MIC up a bit higher, certainly above Races, maybe on par with Completes.

It depends on what your priorities are. If you have someone you think would love playing a Raptoran or a Dragonborn (or combine them), Races will be more important. If you want to vastly expand your spell and item lists, the compendiums are going to be up there.

If you've got computer access to all of them, I'd probably hold off on the compendiums, as they're just lists anyway. They are probably easier to use in computer format where you can just search for them.

I would also put off buying core and anything else you can get at d20srd.org. Completes are great, especially for expanding class options. XPH can open up a new world to people who don't like certain casting formats. And ToB is critical for making melee characters effective and fun to play at high levels.

[Flickerdart]

I suppose it really depends on why you want to do this. The rest of this post assumes that your motivation is having easy access to as much material as possible while offline, for in-game reference.

Core is pointless to purchase, because it contains the most amount of rules that people know by heart, plus most Core material sucks anyway.

The first purchase has to be ToB. It's basically the law. Spell Compendium should be the second. Magic Item Compendium should come after, for sweet loots, then one of the good Monster Manuals. These four books have much more balanced options than the core books do. If having rules citations is important to you, Rules Compendium should be the fifth. Now wherever you go, you have a wealth of options for spellcasters, melee or gishes, since you've maximized the "useful crunch" to "useless fluff and crappy crunch" ratio.

After that, Complete Psionic gets you 99% of all the game's psionic powers. The next book should be the PHBII, for Duskblade and Beguiler, as well as a wealth of spells not in the SpC.

[sonofzeal]

Core is actually pretty far down the list, given how most of the useful stuff is on the SRD. I'd rank it thus...


1) MIC / SC
2) PHB2 / ToB / Dungeonscape
3) Complete Warrior/Adventurer/Arcane
4) Complete Scoundrel/Mage (But skip Champion. Seriously. Psionic is a maybe.)
5) "Races of" and environmental books (Stormwrack, Frostburn, etc) as relevant to your campaigns.

From there... whatever.

[GoatBoy]

I'd place Complete Warrior/Arcane/Adventurer/Divine near the top, not because they are amazingly excellent, but because they are referenced quite often in other books.

I guess it depends on whether you want the highest quality material, the most commonly referenced, the most popular, the highest crunch-to-fluff ratio, the most player resources, the most DM resources, the prettiest artwork...

[KillianHawkeye]

I find that the Rules Compendium is nice to have on hand at the table. It makes looking stuff up much faster.

[Feytalist]

Assuming you have online access at the table, Core isn't all that necessary. When I started playing, the SRD wasn't even a thing yet, and at least one PHB and DMG at a table was mandatory. But really, it's a good idea to have the Core three physically anyway.

I'd think, for easy access, the Compendiums (not including Dragon) are quite high up on the list. And if you use Tome of Battle at all, that's a good one to get as well. There's always some sort of maneuvre/stance/rule query at my table (and probably the same goes for Incarnum, Tome of Magic, Psionics Handbook and so on).

Probably the Completes, Races and environmental books after.

[Tr011]

Assuming one already has computer access to all 3.5 material, and wanted to start buying physical copies of the books, what would you say would be the best order to buy them in (assuming very slow accumulation)?
(like, top 5~10, or more if you want)

In my opinion, the best way is to give a DM the labtop and get books for the players. That is: 1. PHB. 2. Spell Compendium. 3. Depending on the players maybe MM1 for Summons. Unluckily Spell Compendium is really hard to get.

[molten_dragon]

I'd say:

PHB - Overall the most useful of the core books, and though it's almost all available on the SRD, the utility of having physical books at the table can't be overstated.
DMG - Second most useful of the core books.
MM1 - Third most useful of the core books
Magic Item Compendium - Probably the next best book beyond core. Everyone at the table can use it
Spell compendium - As good as the MIC, but fewer people can use it
Tome of battle - Everyone should own this book. It makes fighting types fun again.

Those I feel are the books every table should own.

After that it gets a bit more subjective. If you want more classes and prestige classes, go for the complete books. If you want more in-depth stuff dealing with races, get the race books. If you want new systems to add to the game, grab Expanded Psionics, Magic of Incarnum, or Tome of Magic.

[molten_dragon]

Unluckily Spell Compendium is really hard to get.

Nah, it's not difficult to get, just expensive. You can find them lots of places online.

[DigoDragon]

Going by what my players utilize the most from my collection, my top 3 book picks are:

Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Magic Item Compendium

[Person_Man]

I know that this is heretical, but I try to discourage any books at the table. The DM should make his rulings based on his best understanding and recollection, make a note of it, and look up the correct answer later. Players should do their best to organize everything about their character on to a single character sheet (and note cards or a binder, if using spells or powers or maneuvers or whatnot) before the game starts. It makes everything move much more quickly.

[Elfin]

- Core (though you can generally do fine with the SRD)
- Tome of Battle
- Spell Compendium
- Magic Item Compendium
- Player's Handbook 2
- Magic of Incarnum
- Tome of Magic
- Complete series
- Races of series

[kestrel404]

This question depends very strongly on what you're using your books for. For example, more than 1/2 of the characters I make up are for Iron Chef or similar optimization-only builds. Keeping that in mind, the 3 books I find most useful are:
Unapproachable East (Forgotten realms)
Tome of Battle
Dragon Magic

[Malachei]

If I was limited to buy just five books, I'd select:

PHB Spell Compendium Magic Item Compendium Tome of Battle Complete Mage

[LansXero]

Id say instead of having to chase and buy Tome of Battle, you really should just print out the maneuver cards. Far easier to use and sort out than actually referencing the book, and much more helpful during actual play.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that your first purchases should be the setting core books and the setting player's guides (MotP, PlH, ECS, PGtE, FRCS, PGtF, Ravenloft, Dragonlance).

[Godskook]

The most useful book you can buy, assuming you already have .pdf access to everything is called a 'laptop'. It has the most rapid access to the most rules, monsters, and character options. It comes with additional resources above and beyond other books, cause it can potentially give you access to online articles, user feedback, and other minutiae.

More to what you actually asked, usually the best books to have on hand are those you'll need to look at the most often. Since players often have 95% of needed information for their character sheets(minus spells, powers and similar), the most needed books are the ones the DM is going to use. Thus, Compendiums and Monster Manuals should top your priority list. Next, prioritize rare and/or unusual books that you expect to either use a lot or not at all, depending on the game session. Setting material, late-splat stuff like MoI, ToM, ToB, and the Environmental books are what I'm thinking of here. After that, there's not much left, so just buy what you can.

[Meianleader]

-thanks for the input everyone, rlly helps

are there any other books that are rather innovative? (more like ToB, rather than Unearthed Arcana)

[Lateral]

Well, Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic both introduce interesting new things. ('Course, 2/3 of the Tome of Magic sucks, but the third that isn't is really frakking cool.) I wouldn't put them as top buys, though, unless you're specifically looking for new subsystems rather than general content.

[Malachei]

-thanks for the input everyone, rlly helps

are there any other books that are rather innovative? (more like ToB, rather than Unearthed Arcana)

Tome of Magic, absolutely.

Magic of Incarnum, perhaps. Most other books offer a bit of new material, options are Races of the Dragon and Complete Scoundrel (for the Skill Tricks). Libris Mortis and Heroes of Horror if you want to play Undead-heavy. Fiendish Codex I and II if you want to play Demon/Devil-heavy.

Oh, and Players Handbook II is great.

[Venger]

I know that this is heretical, but I try to discourage any books at the table. The DM should make his rulings based on his best understanding and recollection, make a note of it, and look up the correct answer later. Players should do their best to organize everything about their character on to a single character sheet (and note cards or a binder, if using spells or powers or maneuvers or whatnot) before the game starts. It makes everything move much more quickly.
not heretical in the least, the DMG backs you up here, discouraging arguing about rules during game-time since it throws off the rhythm.


I would also put off buying core and anything else you can get at d20srd.org. Completes are great, especially for expanding class options. XPH can open up a new world to people who don't like certain casting formats. And ToB is critical for making melee characters effective and fun to play at high levels.

XPH is actually on the SRD since it's OGL, so there's no need to buy it

spell compendium is great but as mentioned is much better as a pdf since you can search through it that way (plus it's just spells so it's not like you'd want to sit down and read it)

I would highly recommend the fiendish codices. their fluff is surprisingly a lot of fun to read. it deliniates the demon (1) and devil (2) mythology in the D&D universe, has a ton of cool monsters to throw at players and has a bunch of neat feats in there too. (there's a couple PrCs, but none I really like much, although hellreaver is quite popular)

anything by bruce cordell is good (sandstorm, xph) as far as mechanical balance goes (tends to fall more on the highish side of power creep and has a generally good understanding of the rules) most of the stuff by monte cook and skip williams is less so (never let a new player read the suggested play tips that comprise the first 20% of complete mage, it's hard to unlearn that kind of wrongness)

the one that I've probably enjoyed the most is cityscape with races of destiny as a close second.

any of the eberron books are great choices (eberron campaign setting, magic of eberron, faiths of eberron, eberron explorer's guide, dragonmarked, etc) and help a lot understanding the world since it's by far the most well fleshed out published campaign setting

[Daftendirekt]

The most useful book you can buy, assuming you already have .pdf access to everything is called a 'laptop'. It has the most rapid access to the most rules, monsters, and character options. It comes with additional resources above and beyond other books, cause it can potentially give you access to online articles, user feedback, and other minutiae.

I normally would never want a Kindle or similar device, since books >>>> words on a screen, but having one loaded with all your DnD books would be pretty bitchin' to have at the game table.

[Person_Man]

I normally would never want a Kindle or similar device, since books >>>> words on a screen, but having one loaded with all your DnD books would be pretty bitchin' to have at the game table.

I'm very much looking forward to the day when 6 ft wide tv's are cheap enough that I can just lay one down horizontally on my gaming table and use it as a playing surface. It be pretty easy and awesome to just hook it up to my backup PC or laptop, pull up map grids files from the internet, and reveal them as needed.

Given the rapidly declining prices for wide screen tv's, I'm guessing it'll take about 1-5 years before this is a feasible alternative, and maybe 5-10 years before table sized Ipad-like touch screens with tabletop gaming apps are an affordable option.

Then when my children complain about how the table sized touch screen isn't a 3-D hologram, I can shake my fist and tell them that "In my day we used graph paper and miniature chess pieces to play D&D, and we liked it! And we had to calculate THAC0! And get off my lawn!"

[DrDeth]

I find that the Rules Compendium is nice to have on hand at the table. It makes looking stuff up much faster.

I agree, the Rules Compendium is super useful, even when you have the core books on your laptop.

[Dr.Epic]

1. PHB
2. DMG
3. MM
4. MM II
5. UA
6. one of the completes based on favorite class type
7. MM III
8. another complete
9./10. BoVD/BoED (gotta have good/evil)

[EccentricCircle]

after the three core rule books the Rules Compendium is definitely the most useful. the blurb says it best "all the rules of the game in one awesome book" it makes things so much easier when you need to look up a rules question at the table. everything else is a matter of taste. if you are a player then lots of player option books like the completes and the spell compendium will be useful, if you are a DM then the environment books are an excellent resource etc.