3.X essential books

[Runestar]

The problem with the majority of splatbooks is that I seem to end up using ~10% of the material inside, the rest are either irrelevant or flat-out worthless.

For example, Complete mage was nice for focused specialist, master specialist prc, some of the reserve feats, a few neat spells here and there...but that was pretty much it.

FC1/FC2 were chock-full of flavour, but I never got to use the stats for the demon/devil aspects.

Tome of battle was probably the most worth it for me, but again, I realise you either love it or hate it with a passion.

 

[CleverNickName]

Of all of the 3.5E splatbooks, I got the most mileage out of these:

- Unearthed Arcana
- Sandstorm
- Frostburn
- Stormwrack
- PHB2
- DMG2
- Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords

And like Steel Wind and others have said, be very careful about allowing anything into the game. Always have a gentleman's agreement with your players that if something proves to be unbalanced or broken, it will be removed. Because there is some seriously unbalancing stuff out there, even in the books I have listed here.

 

[doctorhook]

To me, the Eberron Campaign Setting felt... forced. It was more like a giant plot hook dressed up as a campaign setting than an actual campaign setting. Additionally, Eberron tried too hard to incorporate almost every D&D trope in a meaningful way; unlike FR, which was designed as a world first and then adjusted to accommodate the rules, Eberron (to me) looked like it was designed to fit the rules and then turned into a campaign world.

...Really? I thought Eberron seemed way less forced than FR ever did. To me, FR always looked like a homebrew setting made up of fantastic versions of real-world cultures, smushed alongside one another on a map...

("Oh look, it's fantasy-China! And fantasy-Arabia! And fantasy-Spain! And over here there's the fantasy-New World! Oh, and fantasy-Japan! And that spot over there is where the author's favorite character lives. Don't forget about fantasy-Ancient Egypt!")



PS: Don't get me wrong, though. The FRCS is still a great book, just like the ECS is. I just don't personally buy that Eberron somehow seems more forced than does FR. [/MHO]

 

[Sammael]

PS: Don't get me wrong, though. The FRCS is still a great book, just like the ECS is. I just don't personally buy that Eberron somehow seems more forced than does FR. [/MHO]

I really can't explain it better than I already did. To me, Eberron is not a world. It's a collection of adventure sites. Every page of the setting is filled with Mystery! Adventure! Thrills! Action! Drama! It's a gigantic plot hook, a world for heroes; it's not a world where you expect to ever see ordinary people living ordinary lives. Somehow, it makes the heroes less... heroic.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

My list beyond the core would include:

PHB II - The extra classes are cool, the optional class abilities for both new and core classes mean there is something in the book for everyone and I also like a lot of the feats in there.
Spell Compendium - I like more than the core spells
Magic Item Compendium - More magic item goodness, especially a lot of lower priced items, yes please.
Rules Compendium - A lot of rules clarifications all in the one place
Complete Warrior - Fighters really need access to feats outside the PHB to make them a bit more competitive compared to other core classes.
Book of 9 Swords - I like the quasi-magic, quasi-fighter abilities.
Complete Mage - Reserve feats give Wizards some interesting choices to make
Complete Scoundrel - I like the Skill Tricks

In my game I generally allow anything from WotC books. However, I have a couple of provisos in place. Firstly, anything outside of the PHB has to get specific approval from me. That allows me to stop any major rules abuse/overpowered combos before they occur. Secondly, if something that didn't look broken at first glance turns out to be breaking the game then I reserve the right to take it back out of the game.

My players all know this and are quite happy with that. I really only have 1 powergamer in my group (and he happily admits that he is) but he is happy to work within my guidelines. So long as you communicate with your players I think that allowing them access to all the splatbooks is fine.

Olaf the Stout

 

[MerricB]

I really can't explain it better than I already did. To me, Eberron is not a world. It's a collection of adventure sites. Every page of the setting is filled with Mystery! Adventure! Thrills! Action! Drama! It's a gigantic plot hook, a world for heroes; it's not a world where you expect to ever see ordinary people living ordinary lives. Somehow, it makes the heroes less... heroic.

I think in some part this problem comes from the "fixed point in time" approach to the game world. It's not a living world where new plot hooks appear and old one disappear - it's a world that needs to be at this point of time full of adventure hooks, because there'll never be another time.

But that might be just me. I rather like Eberron myself, and would have a lot of fun running a homebrew campaign in it... if I wasn't already so wed to, first, Greyhawk and now the 4E/Nentir Vale setting.

Cheers!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Of all the Complete Books the only ones I didn't like were Complete Scoundrel (I didn't care about skill tricks) and *shiver* Complete Psion.

Argh! Curse my incredible ability to completely ignore the existence of C.Psionic! That toally belongs at the BOTTOM of the list of books to avoid.

Anyone have the demotivational poster, btw? Pic is the C.Psionic cover, text is something like "This is what a Natural 1 looks like." Forget where I saw it, may have been on the wizards psionics forum.

 

[Votan]

Argh! Curse my incredible ability to completely ignore the existence of C.Psionic! That toally belongs at the BOTTOM of the list of books to avoid.

Anyone have the demotivational poster, btw? Pic is the C.Psionic cover, text is something like "This is what a Natural 1 looks like." Forget where I saw it, may have been on the wizards psionics forum.

I remember reading this bhook (we never sued the material) but it seemed okay to me. What did I miss?

 

[doctorhook]

I really can't explain it better than I already did. To me, Eberron is not a world. It's a collection of adventure sites. Every page of the setting is filled with Mystery! Adventure! Thrills! Action! Drama! It's a gigantic plot hook, a world for heroes; it's not a world where you expect to ever see ordinary people living ordinary lives. Somehow, it makes the heroes less... heroic.

I agree with everything expect your final sentence, but I think we're mostly just disagreeing about what a campaign setting should be.

At any rate, I think that the Eberron Campaign Setting and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting are two of the best books overall that anyone playing 3E/3.5E could buy. I recommend both.

 

[Horhay]

Wow, I'm really surprised to read all of the people who don't allow any splat books. One of the many things that cause me to like 3.X over 4E is all of the customization of character that can be greatly benefited by splat books. Yea, there's some stuff that's overpowered but to just blanket every book with a ban in your game is really stifling the enjoyment and originality that can be had in a campaign. So what if a character is overpowered? Make the encounters more difficult.

If one character lives while all the others die....maybe that will encourage them to put more work into their next character. As a DM; find the weaknesses of the group and exploit them. I both play and DM with a mixed group of average players and power gamers. If one person is mowing down the enemy then that person is the one to get attacked (just stands to reason from the enemy standpoint); I generally build a big encounter to be able to kill off any one character, just to keep the players in check. I know I wouldn't play with a DM who was so adamant about disallowing players to make non-standard characters. And when I'm DMing and a players wants to make something unique (from a samurai to a frost giant to a psion) I try to work it through with them to make it happen in a reasonable way. Games are about having fun, after all. Anyway, enough of the soapbox.

When it comes to really good splat books I prefer any that aid in creating unique and interesting characters. Not in any order I really like:

1. Complete Warrior
2. Complete Adventurer
3. Magic Item Compendium
4. Players Handbook 2
5. Savage Species

These books have allowed my friends and I to make some really interesting and fun characters to play and write back stories for.

EDIT: I search through these forums some times when I'm looking for ideas about a character or a campaign or whatever. This is the first time I've posted because I just felt so strongly about the idea of disallowing splat books. Just wanted to account for posting in an inactive thread and my total post count of 1.