Best 3.5 books

[molten_dragon]

I've got a bit of spare money lying around, and I've decided to pick up some more 3.5 books. I'm wondering what to get though. I currently already have print versions of:

PHB
PHB2
DMG
DMG2
MM
MM3
Complete Arcane
Complete Divine
Complete Adventurer
Complete Warrior
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Tome of Battle
Unearthed Arcana
Magic of Incarnum
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Elder Evils
Eberron Campaign Setting
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

What would you get next? I'm thinking about stormwrack, since we may be playing the PF adventure path Skull and Shackles in our next campaign.

[only1doug]

If you play around a table the Rules Compendium can be handy

[Roguenewb]

The "Second Complete" cycle is really good. Complete Champion, Scoundrel and Mage.

[Bard for Kicks]

Races of Destiny
Races of the Dragon
Dragon Magic

[Darklady2831]

I'd have to say that Heroes of Horror and the Libris Mortis are excellent for the dark and diabolically minded.

[HunterOfJello]

I thought Cityscape was very well written and is an excellent book for any DM who is interested in designing their own cities from the ground up. A book similar to this one, yet designed for creating campaign settings could be beyond amazing. I hope they provide more support for that sort of thing in 5e.


Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium are my go to books.

Unearthed Arcana was a genius idea for a book. I think the 'modules' in DnDNext will be something similar in form.

The Arms and Equipment Guide is actually one of my favorites too. I like having lots of options for items without using 10 books to find information on them all.

Fiend Folio and Monster Manual III are my go to books for enemies outside of core. I love the monsters in both of them.

[SSGoW]

Tome of Magic.

Binders have the best fluff that I have ever seen

Truenamers are cool just broken in a baaaad way (can be fixed)

And who doesn't like using shadows as spells? To bad they weren't made to copy the Warlock....

[maxrz]

Complete Scoundrel and Complete Psionic are worth it, but Mage not so much. Champion is meh. I'd also recommend the Arms and Equipment Guide. And if you feel a need, Races of is whatever. It can't hurt, they're cheap, but they're just 75% fluff, 25% useful stuff. Yeah :) You have the bases covered though.

[molten_dragon]

Complete Scoundrel and Complete Psionic are worth it, but Mage not so much. Champion is meh. I'd also recommend the Arms and Equipment Guide. And if you feel a need, Races of is whatever. It can't hurt, they're cheap, but they're just 75% fluff, 25% useful stuff. Yeah :) You have the bases covered though.

I do have the arms and equipment guide actually. I didn't mention that initially, because it's 3.0 (or at least I thought it was, maybe I'm wrong).

[Big Fau]

Complete Scoundrel and Complete Psionic are worth it, but Mage not so much. Champion is meh. I'd also recommend the Arms and Equipment Guide. And if you feel a need, Races of is whatever. It can't hurt, they're cheap, but they're just 75% fluff, 25% useful stuff. Yeah :) You have the bases covered though.

CP is not worth the paper it's printed on. CM has several very useful PrCs, a number of interesting (and oddly balanced) spells, and a large selection of feats. CS has almost bupkis, but it makes up for it by giving support to under-supported classes. CC has Devotion feats and numerous ACFs. Those alone are worth looking into. The rest of it isn't really worth it.

[Prime32]

CP is not worth the paper it's printed on.It has the ardent and soulbow... and that's about it. Even Psionics Unleashed rants about how little sense that change to the Damage Reduction rules made.

Tome of Magic is cool, but shadowcasters and truenamers just don't work that well. It's worth it for the binder section though.

Complete Champion has some very nice support for a number of character archetypes, like Lion Totem barbarian, the Devotion feats, Fist of the Forest, and IIRC that PrC that lets your spells ignore immunity to fire.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Hmmm... My top picks for 3.5e?

Dragon Magic Magic Item Compendium Tome of Battle Magic of Incarnum Monster Manual III Expanded Psionics Handbook Player's Handbook II Draconomicon Races of Eberron


Agreed with the people who say that CPsi isn't worth the paper that it's printed on. There's only a few good things that emerged from that monstrosity - Ardent and Soulbow among them

[Tvtyrant]

Of the things you haven't mentioned...

Dungeonscape
Frostburn
Stormwrack
Sandstorm

Tome of Magic is good, both because of the Binder and because the Shadowcaster's mysteries are amazing if you allow custom items. However, about 1/3 of the book is worthless.

[Bard for Kicks]

Meh. I don't know about Sandstorm and Stormwrack. There aren't many useful things in there. So much of the book is circumstantial that it doesn't seem to work so well with the other books, in my humble opinion.

I forgot to add:

Book of Vile Darkness: Fluff, cheese-related stuff, torture devices...(but if you had to pick one, get Book of Exalted Deeds)

Book of Exalted Deeds: Godsend for bards! -->Word of Creation, Nymph's Kiss...not to mention...a huuuuge listing of PrCs, and featfeatfeats...and VoP (but no one cares about VoP..i guess it is bonus though)

[Amphetryon]

Another vote for Heroes of Horror and Libris Mortis, for the Dread Necromancer, Archivist, and support for the undead.

[HunterOfJello]

I do have the arms and equipment guide actually. I didn't mention that initially, because it's 3.0 (or at least I thought it was, maybe I'm wrong).

A&EG is 3.0, but everything in it is so easily convertible and not OP that it shouldn't really be excluded from any 3.5-only games. It's not the stronghold builder's guidebookThe only true complaint that can be made about it is that the magical items are waaaaaay overpriced.

[limejuicepowder]

I second the call for Book of Vile Darkness (it is 3.0 though, just to note. Not that big of a deal). I know my villains became roughly 50% more sinister, awful, and memorable after I got this book. One of my favs for sure. While it's exalted counterpart has some gems in it for certain classes, overall I would say skip it - the ideas presented aren't nearly as useful or cool as Vile Darkness.

[Suddo]

Tome of Magic, Dungeonscape and Complete Mage

Those are the 3 I'd suggest.

[Draz74]

Dungeonscape. Several good ACFs, the Factotum, several monster templates/adaptations that make classic monsters more fun, a ton of good mundane equipment (and a few very sensible magic options), and traps that are actually fun to encounter rather than just "Roll Disable Device. You fail, take 3d6 damage."

[Mordokai]

Another vote for Heroes of Horror and Libris Mortis, for the Dread Necromancer, Archivist, and support for the undead.

And another. I just love both of these books and with possible reprint, I may even get me Libris Mortis for less than 60 dollars.

[NikitaDarkstar]

The rest of the complete books is a must. And I strongly recommend Sandstorm, Frostburn and Stormwrack. And if you DM Exemplars of Evil is quite interesting. :)