New 3.5 book (me buying)

[SoD]

OK, I'm looking into buying a fourth book (I have PHB, MM1 and DMG on paper). Any recomendations (there's no paticular race/class/whatever for a favorite, I'm just as happy no matter what I play, and I'm happy DMing). Any good things that are useful often and can be used for a bunch of different styles of character? Oh, and 3.5 edition.

I also have, on pdf, a bunch of others, but I prefur having stuff on paper.

[Fax Celestis]

My standard recommendations: Player's Handbook II, if you want new options for existing characters. Magic of Incarnum if you want a whole new system.

[Theli]

Rules Compendium.

Its usefulness knows no bounds.

Treat it as a fourth core book, seriously.

[AmberVael]

I'd second PHB II. It gives quite a few different options.

However... if you're talking about getting things on paper...
I'd recommend Unearthed Arcana. You can find it in the SRD, which is why people balk at buying it, normally, but it has a lot of interesting things in it (in my opinion). If you're looking to get everything on paper, I believe it would be a worthy addition.

[Adumbration]

Ooooh, a new book, shiny!

...No, I don't have any suggestions. I'm here just to keep you on your toes.

(Jeah, he's my main DM, and I'm not experience enough to give any good advice about books. )

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

I am surprised that the Tome of Battle has not been mentioned!

I vote for ToB!

[BardicDuelist]

For generic usefulness: PHB2, Rules Compendium, or Spell Compendium

For my personal favorites
as a DM:
Stormwrack
Dungeonscape
Cityscape

as a player:
Complete Adventurer
Complete Scoundrel

In my opinion, even though they are focused on skill-monkeys, they can prove useful to all characters.

[Tren]

ToB is great but very specific to melee obviously. If you want a good general book I'd recommend PHBII, I think the options are more practical and more fun than Unearthed Arcana. PHBII is more like adding new content to the existing rule set where UA is more redefining the rules set.

[Swooper]

Depends on what you want, as they say. Any of the first four Completes (Arcane, Adventurer, Divine, Warrior) is good, so is PHB2, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Tome of Battle and Spell Compendium.

[Magnor Criol]

The Unearthed Arcana would be a pretty good one if you're a DM and you enjoy reading things on paper better than electronically (as I do); having it in hardbound form would allow you to peruse its contents easier than you could online, and you'd have all the supporting material they included in the book that they chopped off for the SRD. This way you, as the DM, would be very familiar with the variations they suggest, and you'd be familiar with the processes they talk about behind making variant rules and homebrewing, which could lead to all new sorts of things.

Barring that, PHBII, as other have said, is, as other have said, good, as others have said.

You could also spring for one of the other MMs. MMII, though its hardbound version would be stuck in 3.0ed (and may be hard to procure), has lots of interesting monsters in it, and there's a free update booklet .pdf you can download from the WotC website to update the book to 3.5ed. Same story with Fiend Folio.

[AslanCross]

I'd go for PHB II or Tome of Battle. If you want to get Tome of Battle, getting the Spell Compendium after that might be a good idea, so you can give options to both melee characters and casters.

[serow]

Definitely PHB2!

[Shraik]

Expanded Psionics Handbook.
Fun. Adds Psionics. Its a good book to own.
Otherwise...Spell Compendium. Almost all the spells they have made, except a few that never made it in. Its Morgenkenan's(Guy from Greyhawk with lots of spells) SpellBook

[Snadgeros]

PHB2 didn't offer much in it. It consisted mostly of tips on character backgrounds and a few variants for the classes. If you really want to mix things up and implement some interesting new aspects of the game, try out Unearthed Arcana. That thing is just PACKED full of content. I'm quite fond myself of the optional sanity tracking mechanics. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Lovecraft though.

[ShadowSiege]

I'm going with the crowd, PHBII or Tome of Battle.

Dungeonscape is also excellent.

[SoD]

...Spell Compendium. Almost all the spells they have made, except a few that never made it in. Its Morgenkenan's(Guy from Greyhawk with lots of spells) SpellBook

What? So it has all the spells, except the ones that aren't in it?

Three that I was considering before were Dragon Magic, Dungeonscape and Cityscape (I don't have them on PDF, absolutely NO acess to them).

What exactly is in these books? Apart from the Factotum in Dungeonscape.

I'm probably not going to buy one of those three, but it's still good to know.

[Baerdog7]

Dragon Magic is another alternate-magic system like Magic of Incarnum, the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and Tome of Magic. I personally don't have any experience with it and cannot attest to its usefulness.

Dungeonscape is the environment supplement for dungeons. Aside from the factotum, it has lots of info an gubbins for designing underground dungeons, explanations of dungeon ecology, traps, and such. A very good resource if you like to send your PCs underground.

Cityscape is the environment supplement for urban environments. It will have similar types of things as Dungeonscape, just tailored specifically for cities. A very good resource if you like to run urban campaigns.

My personal recommendation if you like running darker campaigns is Heroes of Horror. It introduces a couple new base classes, some PrCs, and new mechanics and has lots of helpful advice for running horrific campaigns. I really like the book and all I have to do to scare my PCs since I got it is mention that I'm using taint rules. Otherwise, I would recommend the Expanded Psionics Handbook. The Psionics system sometimes get a bad rap, but it's a lot of fun and provides a neat alternative to Vancian casting (damn you Vancian casting!). My group actually tends to prefer psions to wizards or sorcerers. My third recommendation would be Tome of Battle which is an alternate rules system for melee characters and makes them a whole lot more competitive at higher levels. It is another one of my favorite 3.5 sourcebooks.

[Farmer42]

Dungeonscape has nice traps, but I don't run traps as per core, so that's a non-issue. PHBII is a great addition, and it has rules in the back for quickly generating PCs and NPCs. The stuff about role-play is really nice, and it can greatly help you flesh out, again, PCs or NPCs very quickly. The varients and feats it presents are also nice.

[AmberVael]

My personal recommendation if you like running darker campaigns is Heroes of Horror. It introduces a couple new base classes, some PrCs, and new mechanics and has lots of helpful advice for running horrific campaigns. I really like the book and all I have to do to scare my PCs since I got it is mention that I'm using taint rules.

I'm pretty fond of Heroes of Horror myself, but I might add that the aforementioned Taint rules, and (if I remember correctly) sanity rules they introduce in that book are originally put into Unearthed Arcana.

[Baerdog7]

The sanity rules are only in Unearthed Arcana, not in Heroes of Horror. I believe taint was introduced in Heroes of Horror though, but I can't remember exactly. If it is introduced in Unearthed Arcana, it is vastly expanded on in Heroes of Horror.



Now that I think about it more, the more I think you may be right. In any case, I would get Heroes of Horror if I were using taint anyway just to have the extra feats, PrCs, and the like.

[Drascin]

First recommendation by me is always Expanded Psionics Handbook. It's like the fourth core book. Adds a new magic system, point based. Up to now, all my players have loved it.

Apart from that... a single book won't get you up to much speed in terms of classes and such, so completes are out... I'd go with Magic Item Compendium or Tome of Battle. MIC over SC because if you're playing just core, more shiny items for everyone is probably nicer for the people involved. Tome of Battle due to general awesomeness.

[CASTLEMIKE]

PHBII or Unearthed Arcana for the most variants in a hand held copy.

Since you have no preferences with X amount of dollars, I'd suggest some of the older source books since you can pick up quite a few at a significant discount to suggested retail price even factoring in shipping charges instead of one new shiny book at or near retail price you could get several used like new or never used shiny books at a nice discount. I just make up a Wish list I monitor at Amazon every week or so.

Expanded Psionics Handbook (Most is in the SRD), Magic Item Compendium, Spell Compendium, Tome of Battle (Quite a bit at Wizard's feats and maneuvers with some searching), the various Complete Books to personal taste, Sharn City of Towers or Waterdeep City of Splendors for a fleshed out Metropolis that can be tweaked to taste, ECS and FRCS.

I like campaign source books with fluff so I don't have to reinvent the wheel and some get pretty cheap like the ECS 5 Nations used copies are selling for $1.05 +$3.99 shipping.

Many other books sell in the $6-10 range and quite a few get down around $15 if you are willing to wait a few weeks you can usually get a book you really want for a good price.

[Miles Invictus]

The PHB2 is a good choice.

[Dullyanna]

Dungeonscape has nice traps, but I don't run traps as per core, so that's a non-issue. PHBII is a great addition, and it has rules in the back for quickly generating PCs and NPCs. The stuff about role-play is really nice, and it can greatly help you flesh out, again, PCs or NPCs very quickly. The varients and feats it presents are also nice.

It seemed to me that DS has more for DMs than some nifty traps. It has quite a few good ideas/concepts for any sort of "dungeon", and gives stats for a nice variety of exotic and/or unnatural architecture i.e. walls made of chattering (And biting) skulls, or unstable glass bridges. It's a lot more useful to DMs than players, although Factoti are pretty awesome, IMHO.

I'll also give my word for the PHB2, Heroes of Horror, and the Tomes of Magic/Battle.

[Atticus Bleak]

Off topic, I'm 100% sure that the insanity rules are also in HoH, it's my favorite book, it has all the "side effects" of insanity. On topic, Heroes of Horror! It has new classes (archivist, sort of a divine wizard, they use books for magic, and dread necromancer, who's capstone is becoming a lich) and it has a bunch of fun rules, like madness and taint (which was originally in Oriental adventures, if you can find oriental adventures i highly recommend it) plus new monsters, a Demi-god, some neat magic and items, a few fun Prestige Classes...Plus tips on how to make a game scary for your players, and lastly it makes you appreciate gray.

[KIDS]

I say either PHB2 or ToB. PHB 2 is more generalistic and rounded, while ToB is for melee and combat, but really expansive and good. Since you own only 3 core books, I'd actually go with PHB2 first!