What books/supplys should I ask for the holidays?

[Mitchbones]

I have told my parents that I mainly want stuff for DnD for my gifts. The problem is I don't know what books I exactly want. My mom said she would spend $200 ($160, minus the Dungeon Subscription). I am a DM (still new to the hobby) and only have the core books. I own no Campaign setting either and find myself stressed for time and cannot create a homebrew. I was wondering what you ENworlders think I should get.

Thanks
~M1tchbones

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Do you play as well as DM? Are you after just DM'ing type products or do you want books that your players could get some use out of as well?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Mitchbones]

I set up a group donation for the player related products. I rarely am a player, so I would prefer books that are either useful to us both or mainly geared towards DMs

 

[Olaf the Stout]

In that case I would recommend:

DMG II (lots of useful things in here, especially for newbie DM's)
Spell Compendium (plenty of additional spells for players and DM's alike)
A campaign setting of your choice - There are plenty to choose from. I suggest that you have a look around at what's out there and pick one that grabs your interest. The Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Kingdoms of Kalamar, The Wilderlands of High Fantasy and the new Dungeon Crawl Classics setting are just a few that you can choose from.

You may want to look at Draconomicon, Libris Mortis or Lords of Madness if Dragons, Undead or Aberrations are of particular interest to you.

Other than that I think you are better off playing for a bit first to see what you are interested in before spending too much money and over-complicating your game.

The subscription to Dungeon magazine is a good decision. It is probably the best value for money adventures out there. Depending on when your subscription started you may want to see if you can get a hold of the first couple of issues of the Savage Tide Adventure Path so that you can run that for your group.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I have told my parents that I mainly want stuff for DnD for my gifts. The problem is I don't know what books I exactly want. My mom said she would spend $200 ($160, minus the Dungeon Subscription). I am a DM (still new to the hobby) and only have the core books. I own no Campaign setting either and find myself stressed for time and cannot create a homebrew. I was wondering what you ENworlders think I should get.

Thanks
~M1tchbones

You could always ask for a gift voucher. Like from that store listed in my .sig. That way, no pressure to make decisions right away or risk of the parentals getting the wrong thing...

 

[Endur]

I am a DM and only have the core books.

Definitely get a subscription to Dragon. You want both Dragon and Dungeon.

I have almost all of the 3e/3.5e books. My comments are:

Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and Red Hand of Doom are excellent adventures that could keep your players busy for a long time. I strongly recommend both of them.

My favorite 3.5e books are: Draconimocon, Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, Players Guide to Faerun, and Underdark.

The various Complete X books are ok, as are the Monster Manual 2+ and Fiend Folio. PHB2 and DMG2 and Unearthed Arcana add some neat variant rules.

 

[Aus_Snow]

There's just so many directions you could go. But I'll try basing this on what you've said so far, given that you're also definitely getting a sub to Dungeon.

A campaign setting (FR? - one that appeals; whichever)
DMGII
(maybe) PHBII

... whatever other stuff.


So much of it depends on what you like to run and how, what your players like to play and how, stuff you've all done before, things like that.

 

[Masquerade]

After a Dragon subscription the Eberron Campaign Setting, Spell Compendium, and Player's Handbook II would all be great to have. After that, I would go for Unearthed Arcana and the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but both of those may add unnecessary complications to the game.

I cannot speak from personal experience, but Red Hand of Doom is said to be an excellent adventure.

 

[Turanil]

I am a DM (still new to the hobby) and only have the core books. I own no Campaign setting either and find myself stressed for time and cannot create a homebrew.

I would thus suggest a campaign setting book, one or two supplements for that setting, and DMG II plus PHB II. For campaign settings it all depends on your tastes, Kalamar is typical vanilla fantasy D&D, while Eberron is more weird. Dungeon magazine is also a must if you don't have time to create adventures.

 

[delericho]

If you're a new DM, I recommend not getting lots of expansion books for a while - they'll just make your life more complicated. The Dungeon subscription is a good buy; I would also consider subscribing to Dragon - there's a lot of good stuff there, too.

Dungeon Master's Guide 2 has a lot of good advice that seems ideally suited to new DMs. Or you could pick up the .pdf of the "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide" from Paizo.com - it's for 2nd Edition, but has no mechanics in it whatsoever, and represents one of my best buys for DMing advice.

I would recommend the Shackled City hardcover, which compiles the first Adventure Path from Paizo. My group spent a year running through this, and it is an excellent campaign.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book is excellent. Alternately, if you prefer, there's the Eberron Campaign Setting book, which is also good, if that's more to your taste, although I didn't find the book itself as well put together. There are other settings out there, but I can't speak to their quality as I haven't checked them out.

Beyond that? I don't know. There are a wealth of books out there, and a lot of good books. However, I'm not sure they'll actually improve your game experience - in general, I recommend that new DMs use just the core rules for a while. However, if you are determined to go ahead, the ones I would recommend are the Players Handbook 2, Lords of Madness, Fiendish Codex I (this will be rated higher once volumes II and, hopefully, III are released), Spell Compendium, the Expanded Psionics Handbook (if you like psionics, of course) and Unearthed Arcana, in that order.

Edit: Forgot the Spell Compendium!