D&D 3E/3.5 Best 3E books for DMs?

[Croesus]

I hate all three of these.
Rules Compendium maybe less so. I just feel the clarification in this should have been in the PHB.
Spell Compendium came up with too many oddball spells, Orbs came from that book IIRC. It is just too much. I'm quite happy with the PHB (or Core) as far as spells go.
Magic Item Compendium broke a lot of magic items that I wanted un-broken. It added opens that (as a DM) I didn't really feel like saying NO to my players about, but had to. I really detest MIC, Spell Compendium I can live with, MIC just annoys me.

Yeah, these tend to fall into the "love 'em or hate 'em" category. While I agree the GM has to show some judgement in using the MIC and SC, there are just too many good ideas in them for me to do without. YMMV, of course.

That's one of the strengths of RPG's - we're not all locked into the same options. We can pick and choose, or what the heck, just create our own.

 

[kitcik]

Everyone disagrees about every splatbook, so to get consensus on the"best" will be difficult. Heck, [MENTION=50460]Waterbob[/MENTION] seems to hate the PH and DMG too.

I suggest keeping your "Complete" books as I am sure even there you can find something of use.

I think the best thing to do is to find the book you like by perusing them online, then purchasing the ones you think have the most content you would actually use. You will just have to take parts of different books and cobble them together into a campaign world.

There is no simple answer, IMHO, to "core + what 3 books makes a good campaign?"

It's more like "Core + stuff you like from splatbooks + a lot of imagination makes a good campaign."

 

[Jimlock]

Everyone disagrees about every splatbook, so to get consensus on the"best" will be difficult. Heck, [MENTION=50460]Water[/MENTION]bob seems to hate the PH and DMG too.

I'm sure Water will be very interested.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I suggest keeping your "Complete" books as I am sure even there you can find something of use.

I went through them this week. Couldn't find anything. When you aren't planning to play a 3E character any more, their utility drops right off. The spells are in the Spell Compendium (and revised, at that) and everything else is pretty mediocre, IMO. (I did keep Complete Mage, because if the game I'm playing in doesn't convert to C&C or Pathfinder, my illusionist will probably go the Master Specialist route.

 

[Voadam]

As a DM I like warlocks a lot as mechanically straightforward magical opponents without having to load up on the complexity of spellcasting NPCs.

I tend to like the monster books most followed by settings and terrain books.

 

[delericho]

The books I'm using with my current campaign:

PHB/DMG/MM *
Expanded Psionics Handbook *
Everything Eberron
Lots more monster books (MM2 *, 3, 4 *, 5 *, FF *, plus anything else as I need it)
Spell Compendium *
Magic Item Compendium *

The ones marked with asterisks are my "basic kit" of books I'll probably use in every campaign.

I would get rid of the "Complete..." books, "Book of Nine Swords", all of the 'environment' books except Frostburn, and almost everything 3rd party. (Well, I would, except that I'm a hoarder so would never choose to get rid of books!)

Also, the "Rules Compendium". That's the only game book that has ever made me angry - my blood boils every time I read the sidebars throughout the text.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Also, the "Rules Compendium". That's the only game book that has ever made me angry - my blood boils every time I read the sidebars throughout the text.

Now there's an issue I'd like to hear more about.

I don't know that I had quite as strong of a reaction, but I have noticed that a lot of designers' notes make me lose respect for the rules, the designer, or both.

Specifically in that book, I noticed many of the comments were negative, some pointing out legitimate holes in the rules and some of which seemed like part of the company's overall approach of promoting 4e by insulting 3e and its fans.

 

[Magesmiley]

Having a fairly close to complete set of 3.5 WOTC books, I'd say that the Magic Item Compendium and Spell Comendium are probably the two books that I most heavily used beyond the core when I am DMing.

That said, I draw on other books for different segments of the campaign pretty regularly. If I need a detailed dragon, the Draconomicon comes out. Someone stuck a bag of holding in a portable hole, time for the Manual of the Planes. Desert area, Sandstorm gets pulled out. Etc.

 

[Celebrim]

What I typically use:

WotC
-------
Player's Handbook (3.0e) - I treat the 3.5 SRD/books as ill-thought out errata as from an ill-informed customer support agent, much of which is suspect and some of which is crazy, and only some of which is worth paying attention to.
Monster Manual (3.0e.)
Manual of the Planes - Good templates, useful information, a few monsters

Third Party
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Tome of Horrors (Necromancer)
Arcana Unearthed (Malhavoc)
Book of the Righteous (Green Ronin)
Shaman's Handbook (Green Ronin)
Beastiary - Predators (Betabunny)
Hot Pursuit (Adamant)

Classics
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1E AD&D DMG - Still use dungeon dressing tables, and still inspirational reading

Pathfinder
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Haven't seen a bad book from them yet, though also haven't been tempted into buying any of their books either.

The vast majority of 3e books to me suffer from uneven quality and far too little useful material for the price. I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth from a monster book, if I'm only going to use 2-8 monsters from it in actual play the whole time I own the book. Most of the player's options books just have way too much broken material in them that leads to power creep and escalating wars of power inflation as the DM deflates CR or otherwise increases the EL by previous standards to keep up. This prompts players to respond in kind with more optimized builds. The plethora of mechanical options that only kick in at high levels (templates, high LA races, prestige classes, etc.) tends to skew player's to see high level play as the only satisfying play. Mutually assured enjoyment destruction is IMO insured.

The monster fluff books like Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, and Draconomicom are really light weight in my opinion.

I love the idea of Template books, but in practice I find just customizing a monster by hand a less troublesome process than checking it against a template, and not only is it quicker (because everything I do is 'right'), but I get exactly what I want at the end of it. Besides, most of them feature a lot of templates which in practice I'd never use. A book that is mostly templates I'd actually use is rare.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As a DM I like warlocks a lot as mechanically straightforward magical opponents without having to load up on the complexity of spellcasting NPCs.

Not a bad argument, but I'm also just as comfortable reskinning a humanoid with a crossbow (or whatever) as one using a special arcane blast ability, a la the warlock..