airwalkrr
Adventurer
Unearthed Arcana is, for me, indispensable to running any 3.5 game. Whether you are looking to tweak your game just a little bit or drastically alter the mechanics, this books offers a trove of ideas for simplifying, expanding, and just snazzing up your game.
The Player's Handbook II I find to be a most valuable resource of character building tools and variants. And it isn't just for players. There is lots of helpful information on making up quick NPCs that I feel is superior to the NPC tables in the DMG.
The Rules Compendium is handy to keep around. Aside from my notes, this is the only book I usually like to keep on the table for reference during the game, and then, only to resolve important rules disputes (such as the death of a character). As a player, I frequently consult it when performing some unusual maneuver or heading into strange territory (underwater for instance).
The Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium I have mixed feelings about, but they are too important to neglect mentioning. On the one hand, if you allow these books without any control into your game it will throw game balance up into the air. On the other hand, the supplemental material from these books opens up so many doors and offers so many options. If you run a high-magic game, these books are probably a must-have.
All the others are highly situational IMHO. To give some examples, if I am running a game set in the outer planes a la Planescape I would use lots of content from the Planar Handbook, Fiendish Codex I and Fiendish Codex II. If I am running a horror game (as I am wont to do), I find Heroes of Horror to be invaluable as well as Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness.
The Player's Handbook II I find to be a most valuable resource of character building tools and variants. And it isn't just for players. There is lots of helpful information on making up quick NPCs that I feel is superior to the NPC tables in the DMG.
The Rules Compendium is handy to keep around. Aside from my notes, this is the only book I usually like to keep on the table for reference during the game, and then, only to resolve important rules disputes (such as the death of a character). As a player, I frequently consult it when performing some unusual maneuver or heading into strange territory (underwater for instance).
The Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium I have mixed feelings about, but they are too important to neglect mentioning. On the one hand, if you allow these books without any control into your game it will throw game balance up into the air. On the other hand, the supplemental material from these books opens up so many doors and offers so many options. If you run a high-magic game, these books are probably a must-have.
All the others are highly situational IMHO. To give some examples, if I am running a game set in the outer planes a la Planescape I would use lots of content from the Planar Handbook, Fiendish Codex I and Fiendish Codex II. If I am running a horror game (as I am wont to do), I find Heroes of Horror to be invaluable as well as Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness.
