How good are these 3.5 books?

[Zorgoth]

I'm thinking of what D&D 3.5 books I want to buy.

Books that look interesting to me (in the long run) and their prices include:


These books seem tempting at the price for my current campaign:
Heroes of Battle $15
Book of Vile Darkness $15
Draconomicon $20
Player's Guide to Faerun $20

If I need more monsters at some point, these could be useful:
Monster Manual II-V $15, $20, $25, $40

These books I could consider buying if they are relevant to a campaign I am running (including my current one if the players end up taking a turn in one of these directions):
Cityscape $40
Frostburn $30
Libris Mortis $30
Fiendish Codex I-II $25, $40

These books seem too expensive to me relative to other material:
Rules Compendium $35
Complete Mage $30
Complete Champion $50


I'm not interested in buying books for $30+ unless I start a campaign where the material is exceptionally relevant, but I listed them in case the price drops in the future or my discretionary income increases.

Is Heroes of Battle going to be a good buy if the party ends up heading to war somewhere?

Are the extra MMs worth it? I doubt I'll be crying for more monsters in the short term as most of my current players are newbies. How much effort does it take to integrate BoVD with 3.5?

I have my own world that I designed that I run my campaigns in, but could Player's Guide to Faerun be worth it in any case for the inspiration and material?

I already own:


Player's Handbook
Monster Manual
Dungeon Master's Guide
Player's Handbook II
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Divine
Complete Warrior
Manual of the Planes
Tome of Battle
Book of Exalted Deeds
Deities and Demigods
Fiend Folio

[nedz]

The Monster Manuals decrease in value as their price goes up it seems.
Each MM has few pages and more fluff — more mini-scenarios and example builds but fewer monsters.

Oh and FF > MM2 IMHO, also MM2 CRs are notoriously dodgy.
Ed: you already have FF.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Rules Compendium would be awesome, but it also changed some rules and gives no hints as when this happened. It is still useful as an easy lookup but really not worth the money. I got mine by trading Magic cards for above their raw trade value.

Player's Guide to Faerun is meant to be combined with Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Without it there are still some goodies, but honestly you are looking mostly at PrCs (since many of the spells are updated in Spell Compendium) and games tend not to suffer from a lack of Incantatrix.

Book of Vile Darkness is certainly fun and can help make some over the top villains but at times it smacks for for the evulz as opposed to concrete evil plans. Some of the martial PrCs give triple good saves though which is nice for keeping your encounters from being one-shot.

I would recommend collecting the Completes (except maybe Psionics; it has some good stuff but it also flops badly in places and the editing ranges from meh to shoddy). Mage and Champion may not have new classes but they have a lot of new material, including an entirely new type of feat in each (Reserve and Devotion respectively).

[Snowbluff]

Heroes of Battle isn't that great, IMO.

Frostburn and Libris Mortis are pretty good.

[Darrin]

Frostburn $30
Complete Mage $30


These are the books that stand out to me as "keepers". Frostburn has a pretty high crunch-to-fluff ratio, and there's always some place in every campaign world that involves ice. Complete Mage is also very solid.



Is Heroes of Battle going to be a good buy if the party ends up heading to war somewhere?


In my experience, large-scale wars are extremely uninteresting for PCs. It's difficult to let the PCs feel that they have any control over the events, unless you're sending them on "special ops" type missions, in which case you don't need Heroes of Battle and are better off just handling the war stuff as backdrop.



Are the extra MMs worth it? I doubt I'll be crying for more monsters in the short term as most of my current players are newbies.


I find myself digging into MMIII and MMII the most, MMIV and MMV the least.



How much effort does it take to integrate BoVD with 3.5?


Not much effort, but the book is a bit light on "useful stuff", unless the PCs are deliberately trying to be evil a-holes.



I have my own world that I designed that I run my campaigns in, but could Player's Guide to Faerun be worth it in any case for the inspiration and material?


PGtF has a huge amount of crunch, but I imagine it would be quite a large chunk of work to adapt it to another campaign world.

[Ashtagon]

My main problem with Heroes of Battle is a failure of imagination on the part of the writers. Rather than play up what a battle exists within (a war!), they chose to re-frame a battlefield as a special kind of dungeon. Most of the material only really works if you want to play as a warrior in the thick of the battlefield. Special ops isn't really supported by the book, and neither is being the general of the overall army and playing as a commander instead of a beatstick.

[Taelas]

In order of general "usefulness", I would go with Cityscape, Complete Champion, Libris Mortis, Frostburn, Draconomicon, the Fiendish Codices, Player's Guide to Faerûn, Complete Mage, the Monster Manuals, Rules Compendium, Heroes of Battle, and Book of Vile Darkness.

[Scorponok]

If I were you, I'd try and finish the Completes. I can't remember a time when I wanted to looks something up mechanics wise or fluff wise for a class and didn't refer to at least one of these. I like the balance in them also - well most of it.

If you have the Completes (and I can't really say Psionics should be included but I don't have it in any case) I would start getting the environment specific ones, like Sandstorm, Frostburn, etc. I don't have Cityscape yet, but that is high on my list of wants.

[Pluto!]

Frostburn and Monster Manuals 2 and 3 are the only ones I'd leap for. The later monster manuals are pretty bad - lots of old monsters with class levels packaged as new monsters, lots of fluff. They just don't stand up to the meatier PF Bestiaries, especially considering that PF content is free.

Of the other books, narrow monster books are just that, and the character-building books are only really fun if you get excited by building new dudes for the sake of building new dudes.

I think the only 3.5 books to actually prioritize acquiring are Frostburn/Sandstorm/Stormwrack (they have fresh content for both players and DMs, pretty unique content and good production values), the two compendiums you already own and maybe the subsystem books (but most of those have been cribbed and redone better by 3rd party PF publishers by now).

[nedz]

Complete Mage is useful, but not essential.

The first 30 pages are just fluff about how to play a Mage, and the different types of spells and casters. There is some play advice, but it's not brilliant.

There are then a number of ACFs, which are useful, and quite a few feats.

There are then 11 PrCs, most of which are noteworthy.

There are also a few spells and Warlock invocations — but most of these are not outstanding. They are not in the SpC though.

There are also a few items, though many of these were updated in the MiC.

It finishes with another 14 pages of fluff about arcane adventures, including a few named locations.

[Kol Korran]

If I may make a suggestion of a different venue- don't buy the 3.5 books, and just try Pathfinder.
The 3.5 books are a big mish mash from various writers, quality and more. While this is true for PF as well to an extent, it is less so, there is at least an attempt at balance and complimentary design.
But... there are 4 big advantages to PF:
- Most of it, like 90% of it, is free. With all of the 3.5 splat books, it can get very expensive.
- Paizo and some 3rd party companies keep putting in more material (again, mostly free).So you get more material, and an ever growing support base.
- The PFSRD. Really, this was my major selling point for PF. with all of the rules, sub rules, interactions and loads of material both 3.5 and PF have, looking through lots of books is sooooo much more time and effort consuming than using the excellent PFSRD site, which simply make gaming, especially DMing, more fun, and much more productive and simple.
- PF tried to "fix" some of 3.5 problems. Yes, there are still quite a few problems left, but they also did quite a few good things, (such as no dead levels), and they do keep trying to fix/ improve things, and it's handy on the site, instead of fishing for forum internet content.

I'd highly advise PF. you can always import any 3.5 things you really like. I never looked back since starting to use the PFSRD.

[Zorgoth]

Thanks everyone! I'll try to pick up Complete Mage and Frostburn for now.

Cityscape and Complete Champion seem to be good, but they're too expensive at the moment. I'm likely to want to pick up Stormwrack before this campaign is out.

I'm still undecided on PGtF, but I'm probably not getting it in the near future unless it's dirt cheap.

I'm not likely to need new MMs for a while because for now, there's plenty for my players to face off against in MM1 and FF. I'll probably never get MM IV-V, based on what people are saying. Libris Mortis, Draconomicon, and the Fiendish Codexes fall in the same category, except that a specific plot idea could bump them up my list in a way that it won't for MM II-III.

I'll forget about Heroes of Battle and Rules Compendium. I actually am picking up BoVD, primarily because I had a specific idea involving some villains and because it's cheap relative to other books. I doubt that it has as much general utility as other books, though.

[MisterKaws]

Just to add to what everyone has already said about BoVD: Unless you're planning on playing a campaign with evil players, or doing some REALLY detailed evil stuff with your BBEGs as a DM, the Fiendish Codex duo is far more interesting, so I'd recommend to get that instead if you have a limited budget to spend on books.

Also, FCII has ALL of the information about the abyss that constitutes almost 50% of BoVD, but on a 3.5 revised version, so... yeah, BoVD gets obsolete pretty easily I guess.

[daremetoidareyo]

I enjoyed monster manuals 4 and five. Not enough to spend money on. They have some neat campaign building entries for the monsters. Get them through library loan and peruse them. Particularly thoon illithids, which are a creepy blast

[Rubik]

If I may make a suggestion of a different venue- don't buy the 3.5 books, and just try Pathfinder.Unfortunately, that means you have to play Pathfinder. Bleh.

[Fizban]

I'll go one by one:

The most referenced bits of Heroes of Battle can be summed up in a few paragraphs you could just write down in your notes.
The Book of Vile Darkness is extremely close to 3.5, the update pdf is mostly just DR changes, but actually using it in game is more dicey as it's contents are vile as one would expect. In particular, I'd point out that a game with Vile foes is actually very inhospitible to an Exalted character, which you may have since you've already got BoED. Most referenced bits would probably be spells and drugs unless you want the epic archfiend stats, the PrCs are pretty poor.
Draconomicon has stuff that players might jump on but it can also be put in notes (I transcribed many spells years ago), but for the DM I'd say it's most useful in having the interesting Planar Dragons and pre-made sample statblocks for every age category of every chromatic+metallic dragon, quite the time-saver if they ever pop up when you're not prepared/are feeling lazy.
PgtF has a grab bag, but again isn't very necessary unless you're running an FR game where you need lots of FR material. About a quarter of the book is epic level/Faerun/exalted+vile material.
MM2 is all over the place in game balance and shouldn't be run straight out of the book (see Elemental Weirds, Clockwork Horrors, Movanic Devas, Linnorms, the Yugoloths here, just all over the place), the 3.5 update doesn't help it-there's enough unbalanced material to cut that it might be closer to later MMs. MM3 has a lot of solid monsters, MM4 has some more solid monsters, but many of them are Spawn of Tiamat (dragonblood magical beasts suitable for draconic flavor without being dragons) and there's also space devoted to pregen NPCs of questionable quality. MM5 is the most swingy with a number of monster families that are basically adventure-in-a-box, including the spooky Mindflayers of Thoon, but cut out those families and the continued helping of pregen/monsterized NPCs and the book is again quite short.
Cityscape is mostly for city generation, much of the best mechanical content is in the Web Enhancement and the rest can be copied to notes. There's fluff and descriptions of politics and stuff, but you can find essays on that online. If you want to use the city generation system then go ahead, otherwise pass.
Frostburn is the first I'd say is essential for a type of game: if you're doing sub zero temperatures, you're probably going to want the references on hand. It also has plenty of good mechanics and monsters, solid book all in all.
Libris Mortis can probably be passed. It's another one with mechanics very important for some character builds, but the undead fluffing can be done yourself and none of the monsters are on my top list of awesome undead.
Fiendish Codicies: these compile many demons/devils from other books all in one place. Handy if you want those but don't have a ton of monster manuals, but not all of them are super high quality. Mechanics for players are few and the fluff can be quite contrary to that in other books or what you've done yourself. They have less-epic archfiend stats if you want to use those without going high epic like BoVD would do.
Rules Compendium is very useful if you and/or your players are rules hounds. 3.5 is a game where you can usually set the stage and then figure out what happens just with the rules: cover, concealment, terrain, movement, skills, etc, but if you have to check multiple books (PHB+DMG, more for rare skill uses, even more for obscure rules) then you end up winging it instead. It's still best used by someone who already knows the quirks, there are plenty of bits that are easy to miss (melee attacks ignore soft cover, but reach weapons count as ranged for cover from the paragraph before that and do not, constrict deals damage every time the creature wins any grapple check [for almost all constrictors] and not just on it's turn, the list of "when you're pinning" options only matters if you have high BAB because you have to re-pin every round, etc). Hiding has the very important "moving between cover" (read: sneaking through open ground), and Spellcraft has the easy item identify via Detect Magic. It's about as useful as you'd expect: a must-have if you constantly want to look up rules, or useless if you usually just wing it.
Complete Mage and Complete Champion are both from the end of the line and have some much higher power stuff in them than the books you currently have. Newbie players used to the early Complete series may have their eyes pop out, but it certainly allows more more. If you want more then it's there.

I'd not recommend trying to fill out the completes myself, or if doing so I'd grab both at the same time. The stuff in Mage/Champion really is quite a cut above the previous books, I feel it overshadows them quite a bit and anyone not using new stuff might be diminished. Absolutely agree with adding Stormwrack to that list: Stormwrack and Frostburn are books to have (and to an extent Sandstorm but I don't feel games are likely to spend as much time in desert as they would in freezing, there's still stuff players can use out of desert though). With the price ranges I'd also recommend MM3 since when you do want/need new monsters it's at least the cheapest even if you don't like the whole book (there's plenty I pass up), just be aware that it's monsters are generally more high efficiency than those in MM1 and may need some careful handling if your players don't match their speed, some more than others (stupid Nycaloths, wait no-Drowned are the ones to watch out for).

[Chronos]

Quoth Kol Korran:

The 3.5 books are a big mish mash from various writers, quality and more. While this is true for PF as well to an extent, it is less so, there is at least an attempt at balance and complimentary design.
Wait, have you ever actually looked at the PFSRD? There's more variety of quality and writing in it than there is in all official 3.5 material combined, and it's chock full of material that does the same thing in different ways because the authors ignored what was already present.

Back on the subject at hand: Are you a player or a DM? Most of the books you listed, aside from PGtF and the two Completes, are more for DM use than for players.

And I would specifically recommend against Frostburn: Most of the things that stand out from it, stand out by virtue of being overpowered. Your campaign will not be improved by the addition of Shivering Touch or Frozen Wildshape.

[Psyren]

Heroes of Battle isn't that great, IMO.

Frostburn and Libris Mortis are pretty good.

Seconding this


If I were you, I'd try and finish the Completes. I can't remember a time when I wanted to looks something up mechanics wise or fluff wise for a class and didn't refer to at least one of these. I like the balance in them also - well most of it.

Also this

[Zorgoth]

Wait, have you ever actually looked at the PFSRD? There's more variety of quality and writing in it than there is in all official 3.5 material combined, and it's chock full of material that does the same thing in different ways because the authors ignored what was already present.

Back on the subject at hand: Are you a player or a DM? Most of the books you listed, aside from PGtF and the two Completes, are more for DM use than for players.

And I would specifically recommend against Frostburn: Most of the things that stand out from it, stand out by virtue of being overpowered. Your campaign will not be improved by the addition of Shivering Touch or Frozen Wildshape.

I'm a DM. I think that looking at the consensus I still am interested in Frostburn. Otherwise, the rules for adventuring in a cold environment are quite sparse. The fact that some features are overpowered just means that I'll ban or nerf those features.

[Psyren]

I agree with Chronos that Frostburn has some potentially broken things (I would add Ice Assassin, Snowcasting and Skull Talisman to his list) but it's pretty easy to ban that stuff and keep the cold exposure rules too.

[Waazraath]

I agree with Chronos that Frostburn has some potentially broken things (I would add Ice Assassin, Snowcasting and Skull Talisman to his list) but it's pretty easy to ban that stuff and keep the cold exposure rules too.

My humble opinion:

Heroes of Battle $15 --> good book, definitely for this price, good ideas for a war campaign.
Book of Vile Darkness $15 --> fun read, I hardly ever used it, is more 3.0 then 3.5
Draconomicon $20 --> hell yeah, fun read an useful as well, both for the DM as for players
Player's Guide to Faerun $20 --> Interesting options, quite some unbalanced stuff though. Would only buy it for the crunch, not the fluff.

If I need more monsters at some point, these could be useful:
Monster Manual II-V $15, $20, $25, $40 --> MM3 is very good; if you want an addition to the original MM, I'd go for this one, and skip the rest.

These books I could consider buying if they are relevant to a campaign I am running (including my current one if the players end up taking a turn in one of these directions):
Cityscape $40 --> Meh. No way for this price.
Frostburn $30 --> Nice.
Libris Mortis $30 --> Fun book, nice monsters.
Fiendish Codex I-II $25, $40 --> loved 'em both.

These books seem too expensive to me relative to other material:
Rules Compendium $35 --> wouldn't buy it if $5,- Useless.
Complete Mage $30 --> ok
Complete Champion $50 --> ok, but not for this price.

[heretic]

On a slightly different note, Draconomicon is probably the most beautifully illustrated 3.5 book that I've ever seen.