DnD Book Question

[Tharivol123]

A friend of mine who stopped playing some time ago dumped a large quantity of source books on me the other day. Looking at a list I found online, there are only a couple of source books that look interesting that I don't now have. I was wondering if other playgrounders could suggest which, if any, are worth picking up. I only play, don't DM, so if there isn't anything worthwhile from a player standpoint I'll pass.
The books I'd be looking at are:
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Fiendish Codex II
Weapons of Legacy

I have pretty much all of the books I see get a lot of attention on here already, but if someone can think of an obscure one with something good I would be open to that as well.
Thanks.

[jmbrown]

RttToEE is a terrible module and completely spits on the godly original.

Fiendish Codex II includes the prestige class for Warlocks that gives Hellfire Blast, one of their better abilities. It's otherwise useless for a player.

Weapons of Legacy is okay. You might want to keep that.

[ex cathedra]

As a player, the only book of those I would pick up would be the second; FCII has several useful parts. The hellbred race, though I've never had a chance to use it, seems quite decent, and Hellfire Warlock does a lot for the base class.

Ninjas.

Anyways, as for obscure books, I'd go for Champions of Ruin, Faiths of Eberron, Five Nations, Serpent Kingdoms, and Unapproachable East.

They seem obscure to me, at least, and all have a few parts I'm fond of.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Friends don't let friends use WoL. It's a great concept, great ideas for a DM, but the mechanics are terribly weak and the entire book is essentially useless because of it.

[olentu]

Well I do not really like weapons of legacy so much as I find the legacy weapon rules to be rather lackluster.

[erikun]

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was certainly a large and interesting module, but not something I'd really recommend picking up unless you love elemental stuff. I ran into more than one problem trying to DM through it, where inportant information was either left out or in a completely different place. There is better out there, I'm sure of it.

Weapons of Legacy is pretty lackluster - weapon attunement prestige classes? An entire book about a dozen magical weapons? Tome of Battle did far better, and honestly the Kensai prestige class (Complete Warrior) can probably do most of what the Weapons of Legacy can do anyways.

[Tharivol123]

Awesome. I'm glad to see such quick responses and that I didn't go out and get any of those right away like I considered.
Rather try to list what he gave, I suppose its easier to link to a list. He gave me everything in 2.1 and 2.2 on the Wikipedia list except the three I mentioned, Unearthed Arcana, and most of the Eberron books.

[Dyllan]

Despite detractors here, I'd suggest talking to your DM about picking up Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. It really is an entire campaign in one module.

Yes, it's not horribly true to the original. If you're worried about consistency there, that could bother you. If you never played the original and just want a good adventure, that's irrelevant.

I ran through the entire module as my first D&D campaign. A good DM will find it an excellent base for a campaign. In my case, I started with another module, and a few additions of my own, to get the party up to level 4, then went through the entire RttToEE - adding quite a bit of my own stuff to tailor it to the party, and extend it out to almost epic levels. It's an awesome adventure. If your DM does run it, I highly suggest checking out Monty Cook's forum - there is a ludicrous amount of support material there for it.

It sounds like you're quite set for books now... that's quite a gift. As to what to look at first - I'd suggest the complete series and races books. If you're creating a character, just choose the complete and race books that fit your character class and race.

[Sinfire Titan]

As a player, the only book of those I would pick up would be the second; FCII has several useful parts. The hellbred race, though I've never had a chance to use it, seems quite decent, and Hellfire Warlock does a lot for the base class.

Ninjas.

Anyways, as for obscure books, I'd go for Champions of Ruin, Faiths of Eberron, Five Nations, Serpent Kingdoms, and Unapproachable East.

They seem obscure to me, at least, and all have a few parts I'm fond of.

Serpent Kingdoms is part of Pun-Pun, it gave us Venomfire, and has a ton of other absurd abilities and effects. Faiths of Eberron gave us Planar Shepard, which is reason enough to avoid that book. Champions of Ruin does offer the Splitting enhancement, so if the OP ever decides to play an Archer then he really should try to get that book approved.

[dragonfan6490]

For an obscure book, third party mind you, try the Book of Eldritch Might by Monte Cook. Its a great source for spellcasters and has alot of good spells/magic items in it.