Best WotC Books of 3.0/3.5?

[3d6]

Player's Handbook II -- there's just a lot of good crunch in this book.
Expanded Psionics Handbook -- perhaps the first decent psionics system in D&D.
Book of Nine Swords -- makes fighter-types competitive with wizard-types for the first time in 3.x, both in terms of utility and having interesting options in play.

 

[Arnwyn]

1) Oriental Adventures
2) Lords of Madness
3) FC1: Hordes of the Abyss

Honorable Mention: Stronghold Builders Guide (yeah, that's right, I went there)

 

[Ganeldil]

1. Players Handbook II
2. Draconomicon
3. Lords of Madness

 

[kenmarable]

Yikes, this *is* difficult. I thought I had a set list until I really thought about it. I'll just wimp out and say my top several in no particular order are:

Savage Species (Complete Book of Humanoids was one of my most used 2e books)
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Tome of Magic
Tome of Battle
Manual of the Planes

All because I have a brain malfunction that prevents me from playing anything normal.

Very high on the list are Underdark, Eberron CS, Forgotten Realms CS, Magic of Incarnum (hardly every used it, but like I said, I like the abnormal stuff), Oriental Adventures, Draconomicon, Lords of Madness, Spell Compendium, and Magic Item Compendium.

 

[boerngrim]

Unearted Arcana
Complete Scoundrel
Players Handbook 2

 

[Sunderstone]

Not in order....

Draconomicon
Frostburn/Stormwrack (both are awesome)
Expanded Psionics Handbook (though we dont use it atm)

The PH2 has its moments but lately im finding myself more and more out of love with it due to the "warcrafty similarities" (<---- not intended to spark a flame war, just an opinion).

 

[Sundragon2012]

My Favorites:

Midnight 2nd Edition
Conan RPG
Heroes of Horror
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Book of the Righteous
Unearthed Arcana
Player's Guide to Faerûn
Tome of Horrors (all)
Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas settings(Troy, Rome, Testament, Hamunaptra, etc.)
Dawnforge
Denizens of Avadhnu
Monsternomincon
Legends of Excalibur
Ancient Mesopotamia
Portals & Planes
Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Fields of Blood
Torn Asunder Critical Hits
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium


I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them. There is a lot of good 3rd party materials out there. IMO much of it is better than the stuff created by WoTC. I can't even imagine limiting myself to WoTC materials. It seems to me that WoTC, as would be expected from the industry standard company, plays it kind of safe.


Sundragon

 

[Ahnehnois]

My 3 favorites:

Unearthed Arcana
Libris Mortis
Complete Adventurer

 

[blargney the second]

Plastic, prepainted minatures.

Amen.
-blarg

 

[Shade]

1. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss: Possibly the best book of any edition. The perfect marriage of authors and content, they combined the lore from all editions into an exciting, cohesive whole.

2. Lords of Madness: I always liked illithids and aboleths, but not nearly at the level of some of the other iconic monsters like demons and devils. This book took me by surprise at its sheer greatness. The layout seemed perfect for my tastes, with each major race getting a chapter. It was like an expanded Ecology article for each creature. I wish more books had been released in its format.

3. Fiend Folio: The best of the hardback Monster Manuals (and the only one not bearing the Monster Manual title). It broke the most ground of any monster book (swarms, symbionts, and so on), and introduced a bunch of "monsters with traction": kaorti, ethergaunts, nerra, chronotyryn, shadar-kai. It also udated fan-favorite creatures from previous editions (demodands, rilmani) for 3e. The monster books that followed never quite achieved the same level of greatness (although MMV made nice strides).