Best of 3.5 (particularly hardcovers and settings)

[doctorhook]

Draconomicon (3.5) was great! So was the Eberron Campaign Setting, one of my favorite books.

Yay for rules loopholes that make no sense in context. It was a power innate to a rare to the point of being nearly extinct and virtually unknown race, that could in theory be combined with things from other books that were never intended to be used in that way, etc etc.

Don't blame Serpent Kings for Char Op notions taken to absurd levels.

Ahh, the ol', "It's only broken if you use it the legal-yet-arbitrarily-wrong way," argument!

 

[Mark Hope]

I'm going to have to take the opportunity here to plug one of my favorite 3E supplements that quietly died under the radar: Ghostwalk.

It's 3E and not 3.5, so it technically might not fit into what you're looking for. Still, it's a hell of a read and well worth a look.

It's a campaign setting published by Wizards of the Coast, and the basic concept is that it's a setting where character death doesn't necessarily suck. The focus is around the city of Manifest, where the dead go to pass on to the afterlife, and where the living can come and interact with the dead without special magic or anything. A party of adventurers can contain living and undead members as the party and DM sees fit. Orcus was actually promoted to full-on deity in this setting, which gives it immediate cool points in my book.

Unfortunately, only the core setting book was published. I would love to have seen a Ghostwalk Player's Guide or a good adventure path.

Ditto this. Ghostwalk is fantastic, not least for the prominence that it gives Orcus . I use it in my homebrew (had one character make use of the rules) with a few tweaks and find it really enjoyable. There was a web-enhancement that you could download from the WotC site that updated the entire thing to 3.5. Dunno if it's still there, though. Great book all the same.

 

[Echohawk]

There was a web-enhancement that you could download from the WotC site that updated the entire thing to 3.5. Dunno if it's still there, though.

That web enhancement is indeed still available.

 

[catsclaw227]

Yay for rules loopholes that make no sense in context. It was a power innate to a rare to the point of being nearly extinct and virtually unknown race, that could in theory be combined with things from other books that were never intended to be used in that way, etc etc.

Don't blame Serpent Kings for Char Op notions taken to absurd levels.

In principle, I totally agree with you. I don't like it when a rule (especially one that was pointed out to be extremely rare) is used to min-max a character into absurdity.

But then, why make the feat or spell or racial ability into a mechanic if the DM or player wasn't supposed to be using it? It's was one of my quibbles with 3.x that everything needed to be statted up and therefore should be available to players.

I like the idea that some powers or abilities shouldn't be for players and only for NPCs/Monsters. And if not, then they shouldn't be converted into a mechanical element.

 

[Wombat]

Ptolus would certainly give you a lot of material -- I cannot claim to have read all or even most of it, as I do not personally own a copy.

I love, love, love The Book of the Righteous. You can take the pantheon as is, take just parts of it, or just dip into the extra classes provided, but overall I think it works well as a whole.

I would also like to make a point for a book that is not hardbound -- Hollowfaust. This is one of the greatest settings I have seen for any game system, a not-necessarily evil city run by necromancers, complete with personalities, adventure links, and even holidays. It may not hit your hardback criteria, but please consider it -- it is worth it.

And for lore & mysteries, you won't go too far wrong with Monte Cook's The Complete Book of Eldritch Might. Very useful, including many adventure ideas.