Book Question

[pirateking89]

Best 3.5 Books to pick up as a DM. Any suggestions?

[Hadessniper]

Dungeon master's guide

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Cityscape, Dungeonscape, and at least one campaign setting. Even if you don't use that setting, it can be good inspiration for how to make a setting. MIC as rewards for players, and DMGII for crafting a believable world.

[sonofzeal]

Dungeon master's guide

Ew, no. I've DM'd for close to 8 years now, and there's only like three pages in the entire book that I use aside from the magic item tables, and those are available free online.



For a DM, I'd recommend....

#1 - Dungeonscape (all sorts of awesome encounter/trap advice)
#2 - MM3 (my personal favorite, followed by MM5)
#3 - Tome of Battle (great for beefing up some underpowered monsters via Martial Study)

[streakster]

Tome of Battle!

[Chrono22]

Tome of Battle - it will make your warrior playing players very happy.
Magic Item Compendium - gives treasure rewards more variety, without breaking the game.
Dragon Compendium - packed full of great ideas from the best D&D magazine line that was ever published... before Paizo lost the license.

[PhoenixRivers]

Draconomicon.

Because it's fun, and it carries a lot of information on one of the meanest monsters in the game.

[Chrono22]

Draconomicon.

Because it's fun, and it carries a lot of information on one of the meanest monsters in the game.

Yeah, this would have been on my list for DMs, except using dragons correctly requires a decent amount of system mastery.

[TempesT]

My favorite would have to be the splat books for the environments(sandstorm, stormwrack, frostburn).

They make the extreme invironments fleshed out and get a little more depth as far as monsters and classes go for BBEG.

[Volos]

Book of Exalted Deeds
Book of Vile Darkness
Book of Erotic Fantasy
Player's Handbook 2
Dungeon Master's Guide 2

[Magnor Criol]

DMGII and the Magic Item Compendium - especially the Magic item Compendium - have been really helpful for me both as a DM and a player.

If you can pick up the Spell Compendium, it's also really nice, and your players will love it, especially any that play classes like Ranger or Pally - with the SpC's arsenal, it actually makes their spellcasting worthwhile, as opposed to an incidental addition. And there's some good spells for BBEGs to cast in there, too.

[Emmerask]

I assume as a dm the basics are covered (dmg, phb, mm1 ^^)?
else get these

Unearthed Arcana has some nice variant rules.

If you have decided on a setting some campaign setting book might be nice for extra information for your players ;)

Magic Item Compendium for some really interesting loot