Its been over a decade since I've played a PnP RPG but I'm getting a new PnP D&D 3.x group together. I am looking to spend about $50 on used books. Which Wotc D&D 3.x supplements would you suggest I buy to get the most bang for my buck? Also, if you could mention what is good about each that would be great. -Thanx
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Best 3.x supplements?
- Thread starter zaarbuc
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Dandu
First Post
Tome of Battle: It gives melee characters lots of options.
Spell Compendium: It gives casters lots of options.
Player's Handbook 2: It has a lot of interesting feats for fighters.
Expanded Psionics Handbook: It's better than it's successor, the Complete Psionic, which nerfed things that didn't need to be nerfed, changed things that didn't need to be changed, and etc. Not strictly necessary for purchase, as it is essentially available for free on the SRD.
Complete Divine, Arcane, Adventurer, others in the series. In roughly that order.
Spell Compendium: It gives casters lots of options.
Player's Handbook 2: It has a lot of interesting feats for fighters.
Expanded Psionics Handbook: It's better than it's successor, the Complete Psionic, which nerfed things that didn't need to be nerfed, changed things that didn't need to be changed, and etc. Not strictly necessary for purchase, as it is essentially available for free on the SRD.
Complete Divine, Arcane, Adventurer, others in the series. In roughly that order.
aboyd
Explorer
Core books + complete series is what I find to be the "typical" set of books -- lots of options, not too terribly broken. The "Races of ..." series and the elements series (Frostburn, etc.) are a little more outside of my realm of knowledge. There are really a lot of official books. Maybe over 100 3.5 edition books if you include all the setting-specific books. There is a list somewhere on the official site.
If I had $50, yikes, that's maybe only good for 2 books. I just looked on both Amazon & eBay, and the only 3.5 edition WotC hardcover that is under $15 is Complete Warrior (on both sites). If you're careful, you might be able to get 3 books for $50. Here is my summary:
My suggestions are as follows. Get the Spell Compendium & Magic Item Compendium first, because you can likely only get 2 books, so you might as well get the "best of" books. If you can get something beyond that, go for the Player's Handbook 2, as there is a little bit for everyone in there. After that, personally I'd want Complete Adventurer even though I didn't write much about it -- I simply love bards, so I must have that book. You mileage may vary. For you, perhaps the reserve feats in Complete Mage or the weapon style feats in Complete Warrior, depending upon whether you see wizards or warriors as needing a boost in your campaign.
If you really see warriors as needing a boost, though, you'll probably want to look into the Book of 9 Swords (aka Tome of Battle) -- it is all about martial classes on steroids. I haven't used it, though, so I have few ideas about it yet.
Have fun!
If I had $50, yikes, that's maybe only good for 2 books. I just looked on both Amazon & eBay, and the only 3.5 edition WotC hardcover that is under $15 is Complete Warrior (on both sites). If you're careful, you might be able to get 3 books for $50. Here is my summary:
- Complete Arcane: Introduces the warmage, wu jen, and warlock classes (warlock can do very limited magic, but can do it over & over again). Introduces draconic feats for sorcerers, extra metamagic feats for neat effects, and new "sudden metamagic" feats (these allow a spellcaster to apply metamagic on the fly without planning ahead).
- Complete Mage: Introduces "Reserve Feats" -- these allow spellcasters to have a single weak but never-depleted spell. This is important if you dislike the "15 minute adventuring day" (where the players sleep after every battle to regain spells). Having a simple blasty attack means the spellcasters can keep going even when their limited normal spells have run out. Also offers alternative class builds (give up a class feature to get something new, such as a sorcerer giving up a spell to get +2 HP per level).
- Complete Adventurer: Introduces scout, ninja, and spellthief classes. Tons of feats for bards, even some for fighters & barbarians.
- Complete Scoundrel: Introduces luck feats (allow for re-rolls when the dice are not on your side), ambush feats (allow rogues to trade sneak attack damage for various combat advantages), and skill tricks, which expand how skills are used.
- Complete Divine: Introduces favored soul, shugenja, and spirit shaman classes. Has an expanded list of deities & portfolios for clerics, along with a lot of new deity domains. I'm a fan of the oracle domain, as it gives clerics the identify spell at level 1, and access to the scrying spell a level earlier than normal. It also introduces divine feats, which allow a character to swap daily uses of turn undead for other supernatural abilities. This is where divine metamagic comes from, and this is how clerics become powerful fast. Also introduces wild feats, which work like divine feats, but for druids.
- Complete Champion: Has interesting divine alternative class builds (such as a rogue giving up his/her trap sense feature, and getting the ability to sneak attack the undead). Introduces domain feats, which grant supernatural abilities based upon the cleric/god domains, but with no prerequisites so anyone can take them. Has more reserve feats & wild feats too.
- Complete Warrior: Introduces the hexblade, samurai, and swashbuckler classes. Also has boatloads of feats for martial classes such as the fighter & barbarian. I like the ranged disarm feat -- the king says "disarm them" and suddenly the players are surprised to see that their weapons are shot out of their hands. Introduces weapon style feats that really do encourage fighters to develop a style of fighting.
- Player's Handbook 2: This is lumped with the Complete Warrior because many people think it was originally intended to be the companion book. Offers alternative class builds, such as the ranger that gives up his animal companion in exchange for being able to flank with ranged weapons. Has lots of general feats for mid-level characters, and a handful of high-level feats for fighters. Has good new spells for various classes, and introduces the rebuilding rules (for re-doing your character without having to start over).
- Spell Compendium: I didn't mention the spells that in the other books (except the PHB 2) because most of them are compiled here. This book makes spellcasters of all types even more diverse and interesting than before.
- Magic Item Compendium: Likewise, while there are many magic items scattered throughout many books, this compiles a huge number of them. I like this book a lot, though I feel healing belts are underpriced.
My suggestions are as follows. Get the Spell Compendium & Magic Item Compendium first, because you can likely only get 2 books, so you might as well get the "best of" books. If you can get something beyond that, go for the Player's Handbook 2, as there is a little bit for everyone in there. After that, personally I'd want Complete Adventurer even though I didn't write much about it -- I simply love bards, so I must have that book. You mileage may vary. For you, perhaps the reserve feats in Complete Mage or the weapon style feats in Complete Warrior, depending upon whether you see wizards or warriors as needing a boost in your campaign.
If you really see warriors as needing a boost, though, you'll probably want to look into the Book of 9 Swords (aka Tome of Battle) -- it is all about martial classes on steroids. I haven't used it, though, so I have few ideas about it yet.
Have fun!
I assume you already have the 3 core rulebooks then?
Spell compendium for all the spells you could ever need or want, though I am not sure if casters need the boost. Can get pretty overwhelming for new players too.
MIC for revised and more fun magic items.
Tome of battle, making melee fun again. However, try to preview this first, as DMs/players hate and love this equally.
I didn't find PHB2 all that useful, save for certain parts (some of the class ACFs, feats and teamwork benefits). Not worth the money in my opinion.
Races and environment books are a tad too specialised, I won't focus on them first.
Complete series...again, one issue I have is that they are like 20-30% useful stuff, and the rest all junk.
Spell compendium for all the spells you could ever need or want, though I am not sure if casters need the boost. Can get pretty overwhelming for new players too.
MIC for revised and more fun magic items.
Tome of battle, making melee fun again. However, try to preview this first, as DMs/players hate and love this equally.
I didn't find PHB2 all that useful, save for certain parts (some of the class ACFs, feats and teamwork benefits). Not worth the money in my opinion.
Races and environment books are a tad too specialised, I won't focus on them first.
Complete series...again, one issue I have is that they are like 20-30% useful stuff, and the rest all junk.
rgard
Adventurer
I'll second the suggestions for the Complete series, PHB 2 and the two Compendiums.
If you continute to build the library after those, I'd leave that to the players to do. Somebody is may want more options for their elf or dwarf, etc so they can pay for those.
I'd add Unearthed Arcana to the list as well. Good news is the bulk of UA is part of the SRD.
The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org
The rules from Expanded Psionics are in the SRD too.
Thanks,
Rich
If you continute to build the library after those, I'd leave that to the players to do. Somebody is may want more options for their elf or dwarf, etc so they can pay for those.
I'd add Unearthed Arcana to the list as well. Good news is the bulk of UA is part of the SRD.
The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org
The rules from Expanded Psionics are in the SRD too.
Thanks,
Rich
Uber Dungeon
First Post
1st Complete Scoundrel; Offers Prestige classes and introduces skill tricks and luck feats, also offers a small list of new spells for spell casters. This book would be best for people interested in rule playing. $45.98 +3.99 S&H
2nd Complete Mage; Alternative class features for the base classes aimed toward spellcasting. Also feats, prestige classes and a sizable list of new spells. 27.65 + $3.99
3rd Complete Warrior 11.00 +3.99 S&H
4th Complete adventurer 15.00 + $3.99 S&H
5th The faerun campaign setting; This book offers some races, prestige classes, feats and loads of good reading/information. I'd also suggest the 3.0 vision of the book as it has more to it. $8.00+3.99 S&H
6th Spell Compendium; This book is basically a huge list of spells that can be found in other books and lots of new spells, also includes a excellent list of domains for cleric. Is very useful to spellcasters but does not offer much in the way of class options besides spells, also can be a very expensive book. $75.00 +3.99 S&H
Those prices are based off of Amazon.com used book prices. Good Luck -_^
2nd Complete Mage; Alternative class features for the base classes aimed toward spellcasting. Also feats, prestige classes and a sizable list of new spells. 27.65 + $3.99
3rd Complete Warrior 11.00 +3.99 S&H
4th Complete adventurer 15.00 + $3.99 S&H
5th The faerun campaign setting; This book offers some races, prestige classes, feats and loads of good reading/information. I'd also suggest the 3.0 vision of the book as it has more to it. $8.00+3.99 S&H
6th Spell Compendium; This book is basically a huge list of spells that can be found in other books and lots of new spells, also includes a excellent list of domains for cleric. Is very useful to spellcasters but does not offer much in the way of class options besides spells, also can be a very expensive book. $75.00 +3.99 S&H
Those prices are based off of Amazon.com used book prices. Good Luck -_^
Wyvernhand
First Post
I'd say Magic Item Compendium. All classes use magic items. Thus, this book touches the widest number of characters...all of them. MIC is neat in that it has a lot of cool magic items that don't cost 40% of your WBL each. Your low level character can have 3-4 trinkets without breaking the game, and feel cool. Of particular benefit are classes that lack swift action options, as there are a number of things in the MIC that require one to activate. Really, with the exception of stat boosters, you could probably just trash the DMG and ONLY use magic items from this source.
Beyond that, Spell Compendium is great because while it boosts the big casters, most of its boosts are for partial casters and gishes. Paladins, Rangers, Assassins and Blackguards all got a LOT of love in this book.
Lastly, it was already mentioned, but Tome of Battle is a great suppliment. It really goes a long way toward making melee combat more entertaining than "I hit it again". It has resource management, action cost management, and OPTIONS!, something that most melee characters lacked prior to this book. It really goes a long way toward increasing options. Use as much or little of them as you want, having more options is generally better than having less.
Beyond that, Spell Compendium is great because while it boosts the big casters, most of its boosts are for partial casters and gishes. Paladins, Rangers, Assassins and Blackguards all got a LOT of love in this book.
Lastly, it was already mentioned, but Tome of Battle is a great suppliment. It really goes a long way toward making melee combat more entertaining than "I hit it again". It has resource management, action cost management, and OPTIONS!, something that most melee characters lacked prior to this book. It really goes a long way toward increasing options. Use as much or little of them as you want, having more options is generally better than having less.
#1) Magic Item Compendium is great, as has been said before.
#2) Tome of battle is awesome - but it does change the balance of the game, its three warrior classes are almost as good as the mage/cleric/druid at high level play, and completely dominate the game at low level play (and therefore the fighter/ranger/etc.. become obsolete).
The complete series are pretty good. I liked the complete adventurer the most (don't know why) and liked the complete warrior the least.
If your open to non wotc sources, trailblazer by badaxe games fixes the game without changing it (IMO) it has a very old school DnD feel to it. (of course i love pathfinder too, but really its a new game).
#2) Tome of battle is awesome - but it does change the balance of the game, its three warrior classes are almost as good as the mage/cleric/druid at high level play, and completely dominate the game at low level play (and therefore the fighter/ranger/etc.. become obsolete).
The complete series are pretty good. I liked the complete adventurer the most (don't know why) and liked the complete warrior the least.
If your open to non wotc sources, trailblazer by badaxe games fixes the game without changing it (IMO) it has a very old school DnD feel to it. (of course i love pathfinder too, but really its a new game).
DumbPaladin
First Post
I add my vote for Magic Item Compendium & Spell Compendium likely adding the most to your game and going the farthest for your dollar.
I also concur with those people saying PHB 2 is not really worth the money; it has a few things that I've liked, but the value is nothing close to how much I've enjoyed the money I spent for Spell Compendium.
If you're interested in "Complete" series stuff, I recommend Complete Adventurer as a good book for many classes. Most of the Complete books are pretty decent, but some are a better value than others.
I also concur with those people saying PHB 2 is not really worth the money; it has a few things that I've liked, but the value is nothing close to how much I've enjoyed the money I spent for Spell Compendium.
If you're interested in "Complete" series stuff, I recommend Complete Adventurer as a good book for many classes. Most of the Complete books are pretty decent, but some are a better value than others.
frankthedm
First Post
PHB2 is a solid choice. Several fixes and new options for the PC classes. Fixes / replacement for Polymorph and Wildshape area huge plus.
Spell compendium and magic item books have lots of interesting things, but really require the DM to keep an eye on what gets in. Those at the table at a new group could be a hassle.
Spell compendium and magic item books have lots of interesting things, but really require the DM to keep an eye on what gets in. Those at the table at a new group could be a hassle.
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