The 3 Core Books plus THIS ONE BOOK are all you can use to game--What's the one book?

Scribe Ineti · May 18, 2009

My three 4e core books are all I'd need for gaming; I could design anything I wanted based off the examples in those three books.

And then I'd have my copy of The Lord of the Rings to use as inspiration for creating my own fantasy worlds.

Betote · May 18, 2009

Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting (works in any edition

).
The reason for this is that you said you wanted only one book, so it must be the book which offers most variety. Ravenloft, Planescape, Eberron, Greyhawk, Birthright and Dark Sun are great settings in their genres, but in Golarion I have a place for almost every fantasy genre I'd want to play.

If we leave settings apart, It would depend on which edition we'd be talking about:
BD&D: Nothing but the RC
AD&D1: Unearthed Arcana
AD&D2: Tome of Magic
D&D3.x: Book of Iron Might
D&D4: Player's Handbook 2

Turbiales · May 18, 2009

Ad&d: Unearthed Arcana.

Ad&d 2: Any moster's compendium, there's a lot of inspiration from many descriptions.

D&D 3: The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

D&D 4: The PHB II.

Jhaelen · May 18, 2009

For 3E: MIC
For 4E: PHB2 - Without it the game feels incomplete to me.

Wombat · May 18, 2009

Crothian said:
Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, and I wouldn't even need the three core books.

And a fun little book this is, too!

If I were to stick to D&D (as opposed to any of the other games I play), I would say Arcana Evolved -- that would make for a decent little game.

questing gm · May 18, 2009

In 3.x, I would have only needed the core 3 but my players insisted that they were allowed to use splats. *pfff*

For me, I would have just add in any of the campaign setting book.

kitsune9 · May 18, 2009

joethelawyer said:
I all you could use were the 3 core rulebooks and just this ONE book what would that one be?

Pick a specific book that exists, rather than saying a type of book.

Narrow it down and just pick one. Note: it doesn't even have to be a RPG book.

And tell us why you feel that way.

For me it is Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved Spell Treasury. I like it because the spells in there are so unique, in that they bring more to the game than just different ways to damage or tinker with stats and scores. Just by reading them I think of how my casters can be more creative, envisioning scenarios in which I can do the unexpected.

Book of Fiends. Love to have more monsters in my campaign!

coyote6 · May 18, 2009

I'd go with Mutants & Masterminds. One game wouldn't be enough.

kenmarable · May 18, 2009

3.x: would have thought Tome of Magic barely edging out Expanded Psionics Handbook, but Secrets of Pact Magic has so much more pact magic fun, I'd go with that.

4e: Probably Adventurer's Vault because it's really the 4th core rulebook, and there's not near enough goodies without it. But I'd try to distract whoever the meanie is who won't let me use more books and sneak a copy of PHB 2 with a print out of One Bad Egg's Witch Doctor inside of it - because I loves me some variety.

w_earle_wheeler · May 18, 2009

joethelawyer said:
Interesting. Why the switch? Is there something about 3.5 to you that makes Wilderlands play differently than LGG?

I guess I was thinking about books in order of their availability (their real-time release dates during different edition periods) and their rules compatibility.

LGG is rules-light and could be used for any edition, really. The same for the WoG box.

But as much as I loved both the WoG and LGG books, I thought that the 3.5 edition of Wilderlands beat them in terms of usefulness.

With the 3.5 Wilderlands box, the DM has a huge area detailed for open campaigning. 3.0/3.5 can be pretty draining on a DM's mental resources, so the less work one has to do, the better.