[3.5] Before they disappear for good - Essential books

[Ashtar]

3.5 is gone, never to come back (apart from Pathfinder, but that's another story). So what is the best we have to keep? What is the essential list of books to possess to have the best essence of 3.5 for all the foreseeable future?

Apart from the Holy Trinity (PHB, DMG, MMI), which books are the essential ones to preserve / buy / possess ?

The Epic level handbook? Which books are really necessary to access to most broken class / feat and power combos ? Which books do you have ? And finally, where to get the missing ones of our respective collections?

Many questions I hope we can all help each other answer

Spoiler

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I have PHB, DMG, MM1, MM2(3.0/3.5ed by errata), DMG2, Spell Compendium, Unearthed Arcana, Tome of Battle, Manual of the Plains, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Complete Adventurer, Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Complete Warrior.

PHB2, Magic Item Compendium, Rules compendium, MM3, MM4, MM5, Complete Scoundrel, Frostburn, Sandstorm, Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations, Arms and Equipment Guide, Tome of Magic, Fiendish Codex 1, are on their way courtesy of Amazon marketplace.

To find: Libris Mortis, Stormwrack, Dungeonscape, Book of Vile Darkness, Draconomicon, Heroes of Horror

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Fear not: All knowledge has been preserved digitally in the great archives of the interwebs.

[Ashtar]

Yes, but dead tree is soooo nice. To handle, to possess and then to legally be able to use the PDFs.

Seeing as some books have already hit 90£, it's a case of get them now, or never, ever.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Yes, but dead tree is soooo nice. To handle, to possess and then to legally be able to use the PDFs.

Seeing as some books have already hit 90£, it's a case of get them now, or never, ever.

Obtaining a PDF and printing out the contents is much cheaper than buying any book.

[AslanCross]

If you care anything for setting-specific books, you could get those. They're not essential, but a lot of them have good things.

[Haven]

The quality of a real book can't be dispensed with so easily, you're right.

I'd love to have a deadtree ToB.

[AslanCross]

The quality of a real book can't be dispensed with so easily, you're right.

I'd love to have a deadtree ToB.

I was fortunate enough to pick up one of these in Singapore two years ago.

[Ashtar]

You can pry my ToB from my cold dead hands after the zombie apocalypse has struck...

[Anonanimal]

You can always print out your PDFs (gotten through legal means or by being a scourge of the high seas) for paper copies.

But in terms of essential books...hm. It kind of depends on what you're doing, I guess. But for me, the essentials (minus the SRD, which includes the XPH) are the Tome of Battle, the Tome of Magic (Binders), Libris Mortis (I love using the undead as enemies when I'm DMing), the Spell Compendium, and Complete Arcane (Warlocks). Other essentials include realmshelp, for all those feats listed handily online. Other books are nice, but those are my essentials.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

You can always print out your PDFs (gotten through legal means or by being a scourge of the high seas) for paper copies.

I think you can get color copies made and bound for less, if you decide to print out a bunch of them at once.

Better than spending money on drugs, at any rate...

[Anonanimal]

Better than spending money on drugs, at any rate...

What, you don't grind your books to a fine powder and snort them?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

What, you don't grind your books to a fine powder and snort them?

>.>

<.<

All I'm saying is that I have no more books.

[jmbrown]

Don't worry about books disappearing. Aside from the original woodgrain box, the rarest D&D products are probably the 1st edition of Deities and Demigods AD&D and Complete Necromancer for 2nd edition. Everything else can be found in decent quality for >100$.

With that said, here's my Quintessential 3.5 Collection(tm)

Core books
Players Handbook II
Spell/Magic Item/Rules Compendium
Arms and Equipment Guide
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Complete scoundrel, adventurer, arcane, and divine
Tome of Battle (yes, I finally got around to reading it)
Libris Mortis

That's a lot of material, but if I were to be limited in what I own I'd take that. It presents, IMO, the greatest quality in writing, highest number of choices, additional material for players and DMs, and is basically cream of the crop. Everything else is gravy.

[Haven]

You can pry my ToB from my cold dead hands after the zombie apocalypse has struck...

Yay! Thank you!

[Anonanimal]

>.>

<.<

All I'm saying is that I have no more books.

I know a guy who knows a guy, Pharaoh. You want some Complete Psionic? That ****'ll mess you up good.

[Grumman]

The Epic Level Handbook is not good, from what I've seen. And the Epic Spellcasting rules are an abomination.

Get the Tome of Battle.

[Rasman]

ToB is just one of those books that even a scroob like me appreciates...

...my personal Favorite is Sandstorm though...

...want to be a sand chucking monk that breaks your wrist like Steven Segal in every movie he's ever been in? you need Sandstorm...

Libris Mortis is a great book to have just for the flavor of it all, any book that has a Bard PrC like Dirge Singer is just plain awesome...

Can't forget the Dragonomicon...my roommate glared at me because I did...

[Ashtar]

Yeah, I'd need to Zombie Apocalypse the world to get MY copy of the Draconomicon back from my ex-fiancée... Luckily not more books were lost in that tragic endeavour.

[Curmudgeon]

Things you can get by without, because they're mostly available online:

• Unearthed Arcana
• Deities and Demigods
• Epic Level Handbook
• Expanded Psionics Handbook

Things I'd get ASAP:

• Complete Scoundrel
• Dungeonscape

[Gnorman]

Fiendish Codex I & II. Lords of Madness. Complete Scoundrel. Dungeonscape. Races of Stone.

[Bakkan]

If you like arcane casters, I recommend Complete Mage. It also has magic items and ACFs for non-arcane classes, and is one of the few books that provides serious Warlock support.

[Ashtar]

Well, I splurged again and ordered Complete Scoundrel, Frostburn, Sandstorm, Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations, Arms and Equipment Guide, Tome of Magic, Fiendish Codex 1. So they should be on their way too.

There's still Libris Mortis, Stormwrack, Dungeonscape (For Dungeon crasher), Book of Vile Darkness (For Kythons), Draconomicon (For beauty), Heroes of Horror and maybe Complete Mage (for Aberrant Champion) to be found. But those that are cheap on Amazon don't ship to Switzerland so I'm a bit stuffed. ><

I'm a bit wary of the Races of Stone and other Races of ..., do they really bring anything useful to the table?

Edit: I've basically succumbed to pokemonitis... "Gotta catch them all!" and the 13th salary coming in at Xmas is an added incentive.

[jeek]

I'm a bit wary of the Races of Stone and other Races of ..., do they really bring anything useful to the table?

Races of the Wild has the Elven Wizard racial variant.

Races of Destiny has the Underfolk (which I like but no one else seems to use), the Illumian (which shows up in weird builds), and the Cham...*HMMPGHT*.. the Chamel...*URRNNNNGHT*... *pantpant*..

CHAMELEON *AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

I need a towel.

[Thurbane]

I'd recommend the following, outside of core:

PHB II
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Monster Manual III
Completes (Arcane, Warrior, Adventurer, Divine especially)
Races (Destiny, Stone, Wild)
Heroes of Horror

[The Dark Fiddler]

and the Cham...*HMMPGHT*.. the Chamel...*URRNNNNGHT*... *pantpant*..

CHAMELEON *AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

I need a towel.

...do I want to know?

[Eldariel]

I'd recommend the following, outside of core:

PHB II
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Monster Manual III
Completes (Arcane, Warrior, Adventurer, Divine especially)
Races (Destiny, Stone, Wild)
Heroes of Horror

I second most of this, thought I'd add especially Complete Scoundrel and Mage and remove Divine & Warrior; personal opinion. Oh, and I'd add Tome of Battle and Dungeonscape. And replace Races of Destiny with Races of the Dragon. And add Stormwrack since unlike the other "Dangers of"-books, it truly expands what kinds of campaigns you can arrange; you needn't have Sandstorm for Desert environment nor Frostburn for arctic environment, but the Core-stuff on the seas is SO lousy that you pretty much do need Stormwrack for those. So I'd end up with:

ToB
PHB II
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Monster Manual III
Completes (Arcane, Adventurer, Scoundrel, Mage, especially)
Races (Dragon, Stone, Wild, especially)
Heroes of Horror
Dungeonscape
Stormwrack

[Tackyhillbillu]

Hey, don't knock Warrior. Warshaper is still one of the coolest PRC's out there.

[Eldariel]

Hey, don't knock Warrior. Warshaper is still one of the coolest PRC's out there.

Warrior is a fine book, but just has so much useless trash and annoying-to-manage nonsense that I can't with good conscience suggest it as a must-have. It's still handy, of course.

[Rainbownaga]

Hey, don't knock Warrior. Warshaper is still one of the coolest PRC's out there.

Unfortunate that it's level 1 ability is vague and a potential for exploitation (did somebody mention infinite attacks?)