Before They're Gone: Best 3E/3.5 Books to Grab?

Nihlin · Post by **Nihlin** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:43 am

So, as my local game store's stock of 3.5 material dwindles to nothing, I've started looking to cart off anything good while I still can. Plus, it gives me perverse pleasure to try to skew the sales statistics. I bet they thought they'd never move that ancient copy of "Enemies and Allies." Not to endorse it in any way at all. Because it's terrible.

With that in mind, I'm wondering what people would suggest as their top picks for 3.5? Feel free to include third party stuff.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:48 am

Huh. Well, Frostburn, Stormwrack, and Sandstorm have some decent stuff in them.

As for 3rd party, I like Dragonmech.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:49 am

PDFs are your friend.

Also, I had a similar situation with a copy of Mentzer D&D for $10.
I figured "It will be there next week, I'll come back if I really want it" and it was gone.
The LGS still has Dark Sun and Planescape box sets, dwarf and elf AD&D books (the brown crap cover), various settings, Sword & Sorcery, d20 non-Wizards settings and AD&D addendums I'd never even heard of, all half off.
But no... that one was gone.
Good thing I have it on file. I just wanted a paper copy to hold.

Top picks for 3e would be the PHB and Tome of Battle: Bo9S, maybe Complete Arcane. Everything else is redundant.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:19 am

...You're not from Oshawa, are you Sigma? Sounds a lot like the stock of Worlds Collide...

Personally, I recommend:
- Arms and Equipment Guide
- Dungeonscape
- the 3.0 splats
- 3.5 terrain books
- Bo9S
- Draconomicon
-Heroes of Battle
- Heroes of Horror
- Unearthed Arcana

And I guess Incarnum, if you want it.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:22 am

Tome of Battle and Spell Compendium are the two books I refer to the most. Red Hand of Doom was also a surprisingly good adventure, despite Frank's scathing "review".

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:44 am

Oriental Adventures is one of the best sourcebooks I've ever seen. It's not really a campaign setting book, though, but you can plop down organizations in it if you feel like it.

Epic Level Handbook, while the numbers are completely whack, do have some good ideas for feats and especially for monsters and adventures. They also give you some idea of what an epic-level character looks like and should be doing.
Book of Vile Darkness is also a good book to read if you have the stomach for it. It gets really graphic in parts.

The best sourcebook I've seen for 3E is the 3.0E Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. It gives just enough stuff in the right areas to make it feel like you're playing Forgotten Realms and enough crunch to keep people who aren't interested in the campaign setting interested in it.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:06 am

Book of Vile Darkness is also a good book to read if you have the stomach for it. It gets really graphic in parts.

You think BoVD is graphic? Astounding. I thought it was weaksauce and was rightly dubbed the Book of Cartoonish Evil.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:42 am

I thought it was the Book of Vile Body Piercings, because the three main messages were:

Kinky sex is evil (see: evil nipple clamps - to be worn by the one gaining the benefit. I'd get it if you had to force them on an unwilling target for an effect and that was evil. Fuck it, Sadism and Masochism are eeeeeevil spells.)

Ugly things are evil (the only confusion I have here is that dorfs aren't inherently evil under this system. I consider mind flayers more attractive than dorfs, possibly because they're decisively non-human whereas dorfs are just plain ugly on a human scale.)

Drugs are bad, kids!

The alignment books are good for a couple of feats and prestige classes, maybe the odd spell or item. Actually, I like strip-mining Book of Exalted Furries for spells (quite apparent to anyone who saw my Battle Sisters stuff for Dungeon Crusade).

As for books I'd recommend:
Ghost Stories II was pretty good. Sure, the Archivist isn't super special amazing, but it's decent, and the dreamscape stuff (and dream related spells, even if you need three fucking feats to get them) is quite cool.

It's Hot/Cold Outside are enjoyable. Wet, Not and Crowded, not so much. But Hot and Cold are good.

The first Complete Series (Arc, Adv, War, Div) is a good set to have in general, simply because they see a lot of use. Spell Compendium as well, for that matter. If you cast spells, you want Div/Arc just for the spells and feats, and some player is usually going to have something from Adv or War, too.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:44 am

DragonChild wrote:Red Hand of Doom was also a surprisingly good adventure, despite Frank's scathing "review".

Don't suppose you have a link or likely title to search?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:55 am

Kaelik wrote:
DragonChild wrote:Red Hand of Doom was also a surprisingly good adventure, despite Frank's scathing "review".
Don't suppose you have a link or likely title to search?

Sure.

-Username17

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:09 am

It is actually pretty good. It requires a minimum of DM-tervention to come up with something that works. In reality is if you go in about ~2 levels higher and keep it that way it's quite balanced until the end bit where it suddenly becomes laughable.

You need a battlefield controller wizard.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:19 am

Didn't Red Hand of Doom win a bunch of awards?

I think it should have. The reviews and after-action reports I've heard of the adventure sounds fun, if infuriating in some parts.

3E released a whole bunch of adventures but unfortunately most people don't remember them. What do you think an adventure needs before it gets some critical acclaim? Extreme but not unfair difficulty (like Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden) seems like one of them.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:26 am

That review has some of the best fucking lines ever.

"What kind of rooms would you like? We have common rooms, fine rooms..."

"-We would like 'Free Rooms' because your entire town is going to be destroyed by hobgoblins in days, and we're the only people who can do dick about it. Send in the mayor when he's free or you are all on fire."

"We've already picked out the spot we're going to make our goblin/human city - Skull Gorge. It'll be called Skull Gorge. "

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:46 am

I liked the casual mentions of chimeras showing up in time to be turned into zombies.

And the Behir "Best zombie you've seen so far"

Also, "The Ghost Lions were worrying. I have no idea what they do, since we killed them all at long range with a ghost touch bow."

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:53 am

I actually liked Stormwrack. I must be the only one. I kind of liked Shifting Sand Land but I honestly think that they should've used that opportunity to introduce Dark Sun.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:59 am

Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer are great sources for mêlée feats.

Races Of Stone gives, well, my favorite PrC ever.

Frostburn has some of the best feats and spells anywhere, as well as some interesting environmental rules.

Many find Dragon Magic useful for the Dragonfire Adept, which can be a rather effective low level class when combined with Races Of The Dragon.

Complete Mage has two to three useful PrCs, but is useless beyond that. Complete Arcane has a couple useful feats and PrCs (Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Mindbender 1).

Rules Compendium, while it shouldn't have been necessary, is better organized than the core books, so it actually makes a useful tool for looking up various rules during a game.

PHB2 and Heroes Of Horror give us two very playable base classes.

Tome Of Battle is the closest WotC ever came to making martial classes fun.

And ... well, the rest of the good stuff (like Divine Metamagic and the Ur Priest) is spread thinly among the rest of the splats.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:00 am

Wait, are we just talking about 3.5E stuff?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:11 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Wait, are we just talking about 3.5E stuff?

Well I don't see why any 3e books would be more likely to disappear now than 6 years ago.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:46 am

NineInchNall wrote:Complete Mage has two to three useful PrCs, but is useless beyond that.

While I wouldn't recommend spending money on it, I did like some of the spell ideas - having spells that make other spells better (Incendiary Slime with Fire, Caustic Smoke/Slime with Acid), having specific spell combinations that work well together (Prickling Torment + Fever Dream + one other I can't remember) and spells that have escalating effects for double-tapping (Touch of Years and so on. Nice for Sorcerers).

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:49 am

Koumei wrote:Ugly things are evil (the only confusion I have here is that dorfs aren't inherently evil under this system. I consider mind flayers more attractive than dorfs, possibly because they're decisively non-human whereas dorfs are just plain ugly on a human scale.)

After seeing (and collecting) the work of Awful Good*, I don't see how anyone could make that statement. Ever.
*Aside from suptg archives, to see any you'll need to register for... (gag).. furaffinity.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5237253

Meikle: Not Oshawa. Any gaming store. The good books are scarce, the mediocre in abundance.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:15 am

DragonChild wrote:Tome of Battle and Spell Compendium are the two books I refer to the most.

Yeah those two and PHB2 I'd add to the list as well.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:47 pm

Core + Spell Compendium + Tome of Battle + Magic Item Compendium. You can make up your own PrCs.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:09 pm

sigma999 wrote: After seeing (and collecting) the work of Awful Good*, I don't see how anyone could make that statement. Ever.

Urk. This is the first time I've seen that. My only regret is that I have now seen it, as opposed to never. You can keep your dorf women.

But I'm willing to say "unattractive to me. Very much so" as opposed to "I can't fathom someone enjoying that".

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:38 pm

The only thing that sucks about so many books is that they have a few really nice things in them spread between a bunch of crap. Some of my favorite non-core books are:

Expanded Psionics Handbook - I like this sub system and can use most of the book.
Tome of Battle - Same as above.
Heroes of Horror - I like this book a lot just from being interesting to read. It's a bit lighter on mechanics than some of the other books, but it has two really nice base classes.
Unearthed Arcana - This one is wierd in that it's all house rules, but a lot of parts of it become standard in quite a few games.
Spell Compendium - If you don't want to buy all the completes, you can get all of the spells at least

Magic Item Compendium - A nice way to consolidate. I like some of the lower level items they added as well.

Other than that, it's up to you how much you want to buy a book for a small amount of material inside.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:16 pm

The Monster Manuals 1-3; The Books -about- Monsters, Libiris Mortis, The Aberrations one.

You get more use out of those as a GM than any other book.

Heroes of Horror has two really nice classes, and some decent monsters.

Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium are also two good books, since they're compilations, and focused in their contents.

Minis HB is good since it has straightforward monsters, and ideas on how to use the D&D Minis in your dungeons; specifically their cards.