New player needs advice.

[Hatter]

I've always been fascinated by Dungeons and Dragons ever since I played Neverwinter Nights 2 and I would love to get into it. Problem is, I'm a married man with kids which leaves me with no time for live groups if I could even find one. I've instead chosen to come here, though intially for the sake of playing an LoC, I've seen the amount of PbP DnD games and I am in awe.

I would prefer to play 3.5 due to my experiences with NwN 2.

So far, I have the players handbook and races of destiny. I would ask you experienced players to recommend books for me to have if you'd be so kind.

Also, if you're starting up any new games and would have the patience for a newbie, please feel free to invite me as well.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you're looking for the tabletop experience without the travel time, there are virtual tables like roll20.net as well.

What type of games and character do you enjoy playing? There's about 150 3.5+3.0 books to choose from. Do you have a particular setting preference (Ghostwalk, Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Cold, Desert, Horror...)?

[Hatter]

I really like the Forgotten Realms. Big fan of R.A. Salvatore's books.

I prefer High-Fantasy, Heroes riding against danger, saving a city, saving the world, rescuing damsels in distress etc. etc. The reason why I want to get into PbP is because it seems like it would be so much easier to Roleplay on and doesnt require me to be at the computer for a whole session. instead I can come back to it once or twice a day.

I like to play the unlikely hero. One of my characters was a gnome bard in search of his missing lute who soon discovered that he was descended from a dragon. With his newfound powers, he joined others and helped defend Silverymoon against threats from random monsters.. he was a fun character to play.

Another character I loved was a half-elf sorcerer who lost all of his connection to the Weave and ended up as a lone ranger in the wilds. Eventually turning feral, he took classes in assassin and ended up binding himself to the shadowrealm and became part shade. Despite all that, he still became something of a local hero to the towns that existed around that forest.

No real preference on the climate hot, cold, desert, jungle, forest etc. as a matter of fact, a mixture of such would be lovely.

[Ephemeral_Being]

Well, if you like RA Salvatore's books then I'm going to recommend you check out Underdark, Player's Guide to Faerun, and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. The latter two are concerned with running or playing a campaign in Forgotten Realms, while the former gives you the gameplay statistics of the subterranean races like Duergar and Svirfneblin.

The most USEFUL books for a player (in my opinion), are the Complete series, the Spell Compendium, and the Magic Item Compendium. The Spell Compendium has (you guessed it) a ton of spells. The Complete series of books introduces a bunch of new classes, variant abilities for the classes in the PHB, and a slew of new ways to use them all to make the campaigns feel more "high-fantasy." The MiC is exactly what you would think. It has magic items in it. Great ones, that will help you to make an effective character.

The PbP forum here is always recruiting people for games. It's almost astonishing how fast the page moves. I would recommend looking there for a group.

[GilesTheCleric]

There's a goodly number of FR books; I'll list each of them and a little about them so you can decide if you're interested.

Champions of Ruin -- what it says on the tin. If you play evil or GM, then you'll have more options for evil organizations and locales, plus the usual complement of PrCs (Prestige Classes), feats, and spells.
Champions of Valour -- "valour" means paladins, clerics, and rangers in this case. There's a bunch of ACFs (alternate class features/ substitution levels) to make your paladin/cleric/ranger a bit more unique and deity-themed. Other than that, spells and a little fluff.
City of Splendours - Waterdeep -- My last GM used this to great effect; we spent levels ~5-13 mostly in the city. This is mostly a GM resource with lots of fluff.
City of the Spider Queen -- Lots of fluff for GMs on drow.
Dragons of Faerun -- fluff, but pretty weak in that. This is a book for GMs, but it's pretty heavily padded with useless things.
Faiths and Pantheons -- as a cleric player, this is one of my favourite books, rife with plot ideas, niche PrCs, and history fluff. Non-GMs and non-clerics will have little use for it, though.
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting -- Definitely a useful book. Meaty with options for players and GMs alike. Just like the PHB, but FR-flavoured.
Grand History of the Realms -- pure fluff, but a useful compilation of everything you'll ever need to know about the realms from a high-order perspective.
Lords of Darkness -- Again evil-themed, but has a lot of information about evil organizations. Great for GMs to add flavour to locales (Red Wizards, Zhentarim, etc).
Lost Empires of Faerun -- plenty of fluff on the history of the realms, and even includes monsters so it's useful for both GMs and druids!
Magic of Faerun -- about evenly useful for players and GMs. The information in it should be known to players (how the shadow/weave works, what mythals are, how magic is handled in the realms), and it has some nifty PrCs.
Monsters of Faerun -- in my groups with experienced players, I lean on this heavily for unexpected creature encounters, since the MM stuff is pretty well-known. It's a pretty small book, though; definitely not worth the asking price when it was new (only 85 pages?!?).
Mysteries of the Moonsea -- pure fluff for setting info. No monsters.
Player's Guide to Faerun -- the 3.5 update to the FRCS. This book is useful just for players, though -- feats, PrCs, spells, and some magic items.
Power of Faerun -- roleplaying guide for players. Eh.
Races of Faerun -- what it says on the tin; additional options to things from the FRCS (151 pages of subraces, basically), and a few items and PrCs.
Serpent Kingdoms -- aka Unplaytested Kingdoms. Most of the broken things from FR are in here, with dubious usable returns (a bunch of GM info for nagas, yuan-ti, and other lizardfolk). This book is mostly for GMs anyway.
Shining South -- mostly GM setting fluff, but a respectable amount of race, feat, and PrC content (40/190 pages).
Silver Marches -- GM setting fluff. Better than most of the other setting fluff books for dungeon/wilderness encounters.
Unapproachable East -- what it says on the tin. If you want to deal with Hathran/Thayan circle magic, this book has both of those in it. A very good balance of GM setting fluff and the full complement of player options.
Underdark -- mostly for GMs, with better location information than the non-FR Drow of the Underdark (though that one has better creatures, and feats, though the same PrCs).

In terms of non-FR content, Player's Handbook 2 might actually be a good pick for underdog heroes, and many folks here on the forums are proponents of Tome of Battle for making melee more interesting. It sounds like you're more into interesting things than overtly powerful things, which means that books with niche classes and options might be better picks than things like the (mostly flavourless in my opinion) Completes line. The Races of line has neat options, and many of the themed PrCs in the environmental books (sorry, I don't think there's any that support a huge range of environments) and FR books I like to use for silly build concepts. The Miniatures Handbook is a mix between niche and the well-balanced PHB2 for base classes, but is a pretty thin book, especially for player content.

For typical playground build staples, Complete Champion, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Magic Item Compendium, and Spell Compendium are the go-tos for many builds. Even if you care more about roleplay than power, efficiency in build choices frees up more space for silly or flavourful options in a build if you want mechanics-backed fluff.

[Hatter]

Much appreciated. Now to see if I cant find PDFs for those books. Thank y'all so much!

[Afgncaap5]

Much appreciated. Now to see if I cant find PDFs for those books. Thank y'all so much!

There's actually an online store (http://www.dndclassics.com/index.php) that can help you out there. They don't have everything yet, but you might be able to get some of what you're looking for here (http://www.dndclassics.com/browse.php?filters=0_44710_44702). Hope you can find a game and have some fun. :smallsmile:

[Troacctid]

You can also find a lot of useful material online, legally, for free, in the SRD. Here (http://www.d20srd.org/) is a handy-dandy reference. It has lots of stuff that isn't in the Player's Handbook, including prestige classes and magic items from the Dungeon Master's Guide, all you need to know about psionics and psionic classes from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and a healthy dose of variant races and classes from Unearthed Arcana.

The psionic stuff is a lot of fun, and the Unearthed Arcana material gives you a ton of extra flexibility in implementing your character concepts. I'm a big fan of both.

[Heikold]

How old are your kids? Would it be possible to play with them?

[Hatter]

How old are your kids? Would it be possible to play with them?

Not an option though I wish it was. They're 6 3 and 1. Still too young to comprehend. I plan to eventually corrupt them to daddy's nerdy ways but it will take time.