D&D 3E/3.5 Help us decide which WotC supplemental D&D 3.5 rulebooks to get

[Azlan]

After a couple of years of using only the three core D&D 3.5 rulebooks for our campaigns, our group is looking into adding some of WotC's supplemental rulebooks, into our present campaign.

However, we are overwhelmed by the number of supplemental rulebooks that WotC has pumped out for D&D 3.5, over the past few years. We find ourselves wondering about the purpose and application – and, especially, the actual usefulness – of some of these books. We're also wondering about the amount of cross-over and duplicated material in these books. Note, some of the players in our group are on a tight budget, and so they can ill afford a supplemental rulebook that they will end up not getting much if any use out of.

Some questions...

Why is there a Complete Arcane and a Complete Mage, i.e. why are there two different "Complete" books for arcane spell casters? What are the differences between these two? Is there duplicated material between these two books, and if so, how much? Assuming a player of an arcane spell caster doesn't want to buy both books, which is the better one to have?

Is The Complete Adventurer pretty much a "must-have" for a player of any character class? Or only for those who play a class that often uses skills, such as a rogue, a bard, or a ranger?

Spell Compendium: Is this book really necessary to have for a player with a spell-casting character, if that player already has the "Complete" book that caters to his character's class? (After all, an individual "Complete" book that caters to a spell-casting class will have lots of additional spells in it, for that class. Wouldn't that be enough for a player?)

Is Races of Destiny really a useful book for a player of a human character? (Note, there are no players of half-orc or half-elf characters, in our campaign.)

For a player of a good-aligned divine spell caster (i.e. a cleric or a druid, or a higher level paladin or ranger), is The Book of Exalted Deeds really a useful book to have, given that player already has The Complete Divine?

 

[nittanytbone]

Like you, I used just the core books for a long time. I have recently added a few books that I HIGHLY suggest, however.

Spell Compendium: This book is great for casters and non-casters alike. Rangers and Paladins benefit a ton, with many useful spells that either perfectly fit the themes and abilities of these classes. For example, these melee classes pick up quite a few Swift Action spells, which are obviously great for them. They provide a sorely needed boost to the usefulness and viability of mid to high level rangers/paladins, who often get overshadowed by their spellcaster companions around level 5-7ish.

Furthermore, spellcasters will find some very handy stuff as well. I particularly like that many classic, potent, high level spells have been scaled down to the low-mid levels. For example, Blade Barrier is out of reach of many clerics in many low-mid level campaigns. However, Spell Compendium introduces a level III cleric spell, "Ring of Blades," with similar -- but lower powered -- effects.

One house rule I use with this book is that any caster must pay an additional 50 GP * SL to aquire a SC spell. This prevents Divine Casters from suffering "spell overload" in that they immediately double their spell lists of known spells, and it makes Arcane Casters still focus much of their effort on the core PHB spells. It is not a big issue at all for paladins/rangers/bards, who tend to use lower level spells.

Magic Item Compendium: Absolutely fantastic. Many items aimed at the low to mid levels. I play most of my games under level 10-12ish, so adding in items in the <1000 GP price range is a great idea. There is also a system presented in here for rapidly equipping PCs/NPCs with magic gear, which works rather well.

PHBII: An instant hit at my gaming table. First, the new base classes are great. The beguiler is a Thief/Mage, duskblade is a Fighter/Mage, Knight is a great area-control fighter, and Dragon Shaman is a support role. While its possible to build a great Fighter/Mage, many of my players don't want to go through the trouble of poring through many books and feats to do it. These classes work "out of the can", straight 20 levels, and have great flavor as well as being very soundly designed.

Furthermore, there's a great section of feats that does a lot to beef up melee types in particular. A set of class variants nicely rounds off the collection of rules material. There's a "fix" for variant druids that I LOVE. MUCH simpler, retains flavor, and brings druids back into line with a more reasonable power level.

Useful sections on roleplaying, character background, and how to work together as a party are great advice for new players and welcome reminders to a more experienced group. There's also some good tips on how to compensate for the lack of an "iconic" role ("What if there's no cleric/wizard/skillmonkey/tank?"). My players have also really gotten into Affiliations, which I think are rather elegantly presented.

Finally, the retraining rules make sense and give you a concrete way to "fix" a campaign gone awry by unwise character decisions (Maybe taking Toughness at level 1 wasn't such as good idea now that you're level 9 and realize that Improved Toughness would have been much better, or the ranger's Archery thing just isn't working out and he wants to try melee for a time so he's not competing with the elf).

These three books contain a good chunk of the material from many other publications and give you great bang for your buck.

 

[nittanytbone]

And now some specific feedback for you...

Why is there a Complete Arcane and a Complete Mage, i.e. why are there two different "Complete" books for arcane spell casters? What are the differences between these two? Is there duplicated material between these two books, and if so, how much? Assuming a player of an arcane spell caster doesn't want to buy both books, which is the better one to have?

Complete Mage is the more recent publication. In general, I prefer it to Complete Arcane. Complete Mage introduces Reserve Feats (great idea, IMHO, reducing bookkeeping is always great!), provides many options for warlocks, and gives excellent PrCs and feats aimed at specialist wizards.

Complete Arcane introduces the warlock class and provides some interesting feats such as Sudden Metamagic. Most of the feats are better for NPCs, honestly. Clerics will be interested in the Persistent Spell Metamagic feat, which combines quite nicely with DMM.

Is The Complete Adventurer pretty much a "must-have" for a player of any character class? Or only for those who play a class that often uses skills, such as a rogue, a bard, or a ranger?[/]

I like Complete Adventurer. Its great for any skilled character, especially melee types. Interesting PrCs (if not the most potent) and feats.

Spell Compendium: Is this book really necessary to have for a player with a spell-casting character, if that player already has the "Complete" book that caters to his character's class? (After all, an individual "Complete" book that caters to a spell-casting class will have lots of additional spells in it, for that class. Wouldn't that be enough for a player?)

This book includes most magic that's in the Complete Books. So, yes, there is doubled material. SC puts it all in once place, and it gives you great bang for your buck.

Is Races of Destiny really a useful book for a player of a human character? (Note, there are no players of half-orc or half-elf characters, in our campaign.)

Races of Destiny is ok. I usually have no trouble convincing folks to play humans, however. Races of Stone and Races of the Wild are MUCH more handy, IMHO, for fleshing out Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Elves.

For a player of a good-aligned divine spell caster (i.e. a cleric or a druid, or a higher level paladin or ranger), is The Book of Exalted Deeds really a useful book to have, given that player already has The Complete Divine?

BoED is hit or miss. Some love it. Some hate it. I cautiously like it, but some things in there need careful looking at before including in your game. My experience has been that Monks and Druids benefit the most.

Notable feats/PrCs -- Fist of Raziel, Touch of Golden Ice (I suggest nerfing!), Vow of Poverty (much debated)

I would suggest hitting up your local bookstore and leafing through books before buying them. Could save you from a lemon.

 

[Arkhandus]

Why is there a Complete Arcane and a Complete Mage, i.e. why are there two different "Complete" books for arcane spell casters?

Because Wizards of the Coast used a stupid naming convention for those lines of books when they really are not "complete" in any way, shape, or form. It's just a stupid marketing ploy, to give the impression that each has everything you'd need to know for a character of that archetype. Pffft.

You don't "need" any supplements.

Spell Compendium copies many spells from various WotC sources, especially from the Complete X series. Do not bother with the Spell Compendium if you're going to spend money on a few so-called "Complete" books. Of those, Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer are probably the most useful ones, I suppose. But avoid the Frenzied Berserker prestige class at all costs.

You may or may not want the Spell Compendium (CW and CAdv have little if anything in the way of spells, but the other Completes aren't so good) anyway. Complete Mage may or may not be worth it, but certainly not as useful as the SC for spellcasters in general. Still, even the SC has several broken spells, but so does most any WotC supplement.

Take a look at the Hypertext d20 SRD's section on divine feats instead of bothering with Complete Divine, or look for a copy of the old 3.0 book "Defenders of the Faith" from Wizards of the Coast. That has many of the divine feats in it (unlike the SRD), excluding the more broken ones that were added in Complete Divine, and the divine feats from DotF are compatible with 3.5. DotF will likely be cheaper than CD though since it's older, softcover, and thinner.

Is Races of Destiny really a useful book for a player of a human character? (Note, there are no players of half-orc or half-elf characters, in our campaign.)

For a player of a good-aligned divine spell caster (i.e. a cleric or a druid, or a higher level paladin or ranger), is The Book of Exalted Deeds really a useful book to have, given that player already has The Complete Divine?

Heck no!!

Avoid Races of Destiny and the Book of Exalted Deeds. RoD has minimal useful material. Book of Exalted Deeds is just horribly broken and unbalanced, along with having some wierd contradictory stuff (like its "ravages" being "good" while poisons are evil....). The Vow of Poverty and its ilk will only cause problems and imbalance.


I'd suggest the Player's Handbook II. Likely to be really handy, though a few things are of course unbalancing or in need of some DM rulings on their interpretation/function (just like every other book :\ ).

Secondly, get the Monster Manual III perhaps, for the DM to have more critters and such at his/her disposal. Lords of Madness (if the DM likes aberrations, like illithids, aboleths, or Far Realms horrors) or Draconomicon (if the DM likes to use dragons a lot) would be a fine substitute, and more specialized.

Magic Item Compendium may be useful as well, if you guys get tired of the same set of magic items in the DMG.

Other than what I've already mentioned, I don't think there are any 3.5 rulebooks you really need for expanding your game, when strapped for cash. PHB2, MM3/Lom/Draconomicon, MIC, and SC would probably give you the most for your money. Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer would be the next-most-useful after those, I think (if the DM doesn't need/want more monsters to use, then CW would probably be more useful than MM3).


At some point, if you like different combat and magic systems, rules variants, or other variant/optional stuff, you might want to take a look at Unearthed Arcana, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, Magic of Incarnum, or Tome of Magic.

 

[questbreaker]

SC is amazing for all casters.
MIC is good if you want a bigger selection of items at all prices. the tables in the back of the manual are worth the price of the book!
Complete Mage is preferable in all ways to the Complete Arcane. Complete Arcane has the Warmage class though, and that is an awesome class.
PHB II and MM III are good additions if you dont want to dive head-first into non-core stuff.

 

[wildstarsreach]

The books I own, not have on PDF are, PHB, DMG, MM, PHB II, Spell Compendium, Drow of the Underdark, Comp Adv and Comp War. Book of exalted deeds is more 3.0 rather than 3.5 and isn't balanced though there is a lot I like in there. I have everything else including these on PDF since I bring my laptop to game. But these are what I call must own books for 3.5.

 

[eamon]

PHB2 - instant success, almost a must have

Complete XYZ series - not bad, but quite a few books (thus expensive) and not as good as PHB2, IMHO. Complete Warrior is fine, Complete Adventurer is fine, Complete Divine OK - I don't know the rest as well, but I've gathered they're not much different. Generally these books focus a great deal on prestige classes, which, if you trying to maximize some particular character aspect, is fine, but I'm not too enthralled by prestige classes otherwise.

Races of Destiny - no good. The flavor is boring, the power level odd.

Races of Stone, Races of the Wild - better than Races of Destiny, but not exactly brilliant either.

DMG2 - no character options (essentially), but great book about DM-ing. Contains actually useful tips on how to DM, not just rule mechanics. If you're short on cash and want to focus on splatbooks for characters only, avoid - but otherwise this is an interesting DM-aid.

Spell Compendium - much much better than Complete Divine or Complete Arcane or Complete Mage. Contains far more material than those splatbooks. However, as such, it greatly increases caster versatility, and thereby, power. To balance this, I require that each player researching a SC spell spend 50XP per spell level (except wizards which can get a cheaper option), or encounter it ingame. It's still a powerful choice, and people still make use of it, but only in a limited fashion to get access to a few signature spells, which increases PC personalization.

Magic Item Compendium - Brilliant. Bored of +2 strength items? Bored of +1 weapons? The MIC has huge number of small cheap magic items (and quite a few expensive and powerful ones too) which enable a bunch of extra effects. Rather than an increase in power, this just hugely increases the diversity, especially at low levels (quite a few cost less even than 1000 gp), which is simply great fun. Even if the PC's can't choose themselves, as a DM, it's still a neat book just to liven up loot. A must have.

My recommendation, in order of value:

PHB2, Magic Item Compendium, Spell Compendium, Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Complete Divine.

And consider the DMG2, and perhaps a campaign setting such as Eberron, which has a number of character options which help flesh out the link between PC and world (you can still change the "actual" world anyhow. If you go for Eberron, then the Campaign Setting is a must have, and the Player's Guide is great great flavor (really!). Races of Eberron is pretty crappy, the flavor in that book comes across as filler, and the crunch is... not so great.

 

[Dargon]

I would say go for PHB2

The complete books are okay too but it will only be useful for one are of the game were as PHB2 is more spread out.

Stay away from the Races of x books, waste of gold IMO

 

[Jhaelen]

Here's another vote for PHB2. Much more generally useful than any of the other supplements by a wide margin.

 

[Nail]

Wow.




Uh.......you know 4e is coming soon, right?

Why bother getting any 3.5e books now? (just wait a few months and there'll be tons of used books.....)