Favorite 3.5 Books

[AtopTheMountain]

We all have our favorite splatbooks. What are yours, and why?
Mine:
1. Tome of Battle. Just... Wow.
2. Magic of Incarnum. I love the Incarnum system, and it's probably the most unique thing that ever came out of D&D.
3. Eberron. Great campaign setting.
4. Libris Mortis. I've always loved undead and horror games, and this book has some great disgusting monsters in it.
5. Player's Handbook II. Even when I'm not playing 3.5 or even D&D at all, I still use the character building and personality sections to help me flesh out my characters.

[Vizzerdrix]

Lords of Maddness. Simply for having Aberrant Wildshape. I loves meself some monsters.

Dungeonscape. For the gear and the BHA.

[SurlySeraph]

ToB, of course.
Complete Scoundrel, for skill tricks, PrCs, fun items, and useful ideas.
Complete Champion for the feats, particularly Battle Blessing and all the domain feats.
PHBII.

[Iferus]

ToB, of course.
Complete Scoundrel, for skill tricks, PrCs, fun items, and useful ideas.
Complete Champion for the feats, particularly Battle Blessing and all the domain feats.
PHBII.

This. Nothing left to add.

[KillianHawkeye]

1. Expanded Psionics Handbook
2. Tome of Battle
3. Magic of Incarnum
4. Magic Item Compendium
5. Spell Compendium
6. Rules Compendium (great for quick reference at the table)

[molten_dragon]

Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Tome of Battle
PHBII
Unearthed Arcana

[PId6]

ToB
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Complete Mage
PHB2
Dragon Magic
Races of the Dragon
Complete Champion
And a lot more.

In that order.

[DragoonWraith]

Tome of Battle
Magic of Incarnum
Eberron Campaign Setting

[Sc00by]

PH, DMG, MM 1

For without them there would be no game.

Though the Magic Item compendium is ace as is the Spell Compendium and I like Races of the Wild (in addition to some of the others that have already been mentioned)

[DragoonWraith]

Just to toss this out there, Player's Handbook is one of my least favorite books for 3.5. Yes, a lot of it is necessary to even have a game to begin with, but a lot of that is covered in the DMG anyway, and so much of the PHB's stuff is so bad...

[Seffbasilisk]

The PHB is actually my favorite. First D&D book I ever touched, and bought after my first session. Took it home that night, read it cover to cover, and memorized ~90% of it.


DMG has some nice things.

Beyond that?

Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Tome of Battle.

Spell Compendium is nice, but overwhelms many.

[The-Mage-King]

ToB. Because.

CAr. For the Warlock.

UA. Just for Human Paragon.

MoE. For the Daelkyr Halfblood.

ECS. For the crafters it provides- many a party can be saved by a person with an Artificer cohort and Magewright followers.

LoM. For the mega-Mind Flayers and Aberration friendly feats.

EPH. For the psychic powers.

RoD. For Able Learner and Human Heritage.

Now, put them together, and what do you get?

[AtopTheMountain]

ToB. Because.

CAr. For the Warlock.

UA. Just for Human Paragon.

MoE. For the Daelkyr Halfblood.

ECS. For the crafters it provides- many a party can be saved by a person with an Artificer cohort and Magewright followers.

LoM. For the mega-Mind Flayers and Aberration friendly feats.

EPH. For the psychic powers.

RoD. For Able Learner and Human Heritage.

Now, put them together, and what do you get?

Tobcaruamoeecslomephrod!

[Ormur]

My favourite is usully what I'm using most at the time.
Now it's:

Tome of Battle because I just studied it carefully for the first time and it's pretty sweet.

Complete Scoundrel for synergy feats, skill tricks and items, I love items.

Arms & Equipment Guide for the same reason.

Dungeonscape also has nice stuff and Factotums.

[Danin]

Tome of Magic
Heroes of Battle
Heroes of Horror
PHB2
Ebberon Campaign Setting
PHB1
DMG2
Fiendish Codex 2
Dungeonscape
Champions of Valor
Spell Compendium

ToB is growing on me, but doesn't hit the favorites list just yet. More of a necessary evil...

I like using lots of books. I think I used 14 for my last character...

[aje8]

In a vague, slightly best to worst order:

ToB: For making me want to play a melee character. A big step from one who essentially played DnD to be a caster.

Spell Compendium: For taking some of the pain of spell selection. Also added alot of spells I use all the time.

Heroes of Horror: Great fluff, and several classes I quite like.

Complete Scoundrel: Skill Tricks: AKA why the heck weren't these in DnD to start with given how intuitive and good they are?

Magic Item Compendium: Lots of items I use regularly, plus item combining rules that don't suck.

Dungeonscape: For Factotum. Nothing more needs saying.

[mrcarter11]

ToM: My true favorite.. Simply because the binder...
ToB: Swordsages makes me smile. And because melee had a chance again.
I think that's it..

MoI: I think I might like it.. But I can never understand it.. It just confuses me every time I open the book

[Wonton]

I like any book that has new and interesting spells for arcane casters. So...

Spell Compendium
Player's Handbook II
Complete Mage

Complete Scoundrel is one of my favourite books, and one I always try to reference, no matter what character I'm making.

Magic Item Compendium is very high on my list, as I've always thought the DMG magic items were stupid (mostly useless stuff, or overpriced stuff).

Lastly, I know it's 3.0, but the A&EG has a special place in my heart.

[Amphetryon]

XPH: Two of my favorite classes, Psychic Warrior and Wilder.

Lords of Madness: I <3 aberrations.

ToB: Making melee fun and relevant.

[Optimystik]

XPH, for laying the foundation for great 3rd-party works, Web enhancements, and just generally distinguishing psionics from magic both crunch- and fluff-wise.

Hell, it was so good we forgave Bruce Cordell for greenlighting CPsi the way it was

I'm also a big fan of "Races of..." books; I love substitution levels, they are a much better way of demonstrating a given race's aptitude for a class than the godawful "Favored Class" system. Plus, the fluff tends to be quite meaty.

[Lord Loss]

Complete Scoundrel, Heroes of Horror and MM3-5 are great. I also like frostburn and Elder Evils.