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Thread: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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2008-01-26, 02:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.For the last time, it stands for Shadow of Darkness!
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2008-01-26, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-26, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
Rules Compendium.
Its usefulness knows no bounds.
Treat it as a fourth core book, seriously.Last edited by Theli; 2008-01-26 at 03:03 PM.
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2008-01-26, 03:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-26, 03:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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. )Last edited by Adumbration; 2008-01-26 at 03:11 PM.
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2008-01-26, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- A long time ago in a ... well, you get the idea.
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
I am surprised that the Tome of Battle has not been mentioned!
I vote for ToB!Funny, I always figured I'd be killed by a paladin.So, what you're saying is we rolled a 1 on our credit check?
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2008-01-26, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.Johannes factotum of the Bard Defense League
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2008-01-26, 03:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-26, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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2008-01-26, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-26, 05:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-26, 11:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
Definitely PHB2!
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2008-01-26, 11:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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) SpellBookAvatar by Banjo1985Spoiler
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2008-01-27, 12:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-27, 01:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
I'm going with the crowd, PHBII or Tome of Battle.
Dungeonscape is also excellent."Where we have strong emotions we are liable to fool ourselves." -Carl Sagan
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2008-01-27, 02:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.For the last time, it stands for Shadow of Darkness!
Thankin' Nevitan fer me babytar!
Kasaad Shadowweb-Chitine Paladin of Freedom (now a clickable link!).
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2008-01-27, 03:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-27, 03:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-27, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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2008-01-27, 02:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-27, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-29, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.Last edited by CASTLEMIKE; 2008-01-29 at 07:19 PM.
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2008-01-29, 06:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
The PHB2 is a good choice.
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2008-01-29, 07:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.Generic Expendable Grunt of the Society for Hobgoblin Equality in Level Adjustment (SHELA)
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2008-01-30, 04:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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.
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2008-01-30, 04:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: New 3.5 book (me buying)
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!
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