Books I need?

[Nyaricus]

Here's my list. Note that there is overlap with the OPs list because this is my own Best of D&D 3.x Edition list.

Absolutely Useful Books no matter the style of game you're playing:
Magic Item Compendium
Player's Handbook II
Rules Compendium
Spell Compendium
Unearthed Arcana

I think these 5 + the Core 3 are the must-haves of 3.5e, simply put. You don't need anything else, IMO.

Decently Useful Books no matter the style of game you're playing:
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Warrior
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Fiend Folio
Monster Manual III

All of these books have parts in them definitely worth a second looksie. The Monster books will be a DMs friend, and the other books have great options for all characters.

"Themed" Books which I found to be very useful:
Draconomicon
Eb: Secrets of Xen'drik
Heroes of Horror
Libris Mortis: The Book of the Dead
Races of Destiny
Races of the Dragon
FR: Unapproachable East
FR: Underdark

Don't let the last two FR + the Eberron titles throw you off. The Underdark book was a great source book for Dungeon Delving (I haven't see Dungeonscape yet, FWIW) the Unapproachable East book, was IMO, one of the greatest 3.0 books written, with great fluff perfectly suitable for any exotic-feeling area of a campaign setting, with fantastic PrCs, Monsters and locales. The Secrets of Xen'drik book, I bought because it has an awesome flavour of Lost World-style adventuring. The others are simply really good books, my favourite being Libris Mortis out of them.

Core Setting Books:
Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Oriental Adventures

There's always something good to steal from these, and all are great books.

cheers,
--N

 

[jdrakeh]

Could you elaborate on the Secrets of Xen'drik? I'm a big fan of exploratory campaigns (it's part of why I love Northern Crown so much) and, though I'm not a fan of Ebberron (it's not bad, it just doesn't grab me much) if the content of Secrets is geared toward exploration, I suspect that I may find it useful.

 

[blargney the second]

Secrets of Xen'drik is indeed a great book. It has quite a few things that are generically useful:
1) Artifact spells. They are basically 1/year spells that use actual spell slots.
2) Encounter traps. Traps that act more like monsters than simple gotchas.
3) Mix & match adventure components. Travel to cool places, meet interesting people, have a reason to kill them. What's not to love?
-blarg

 

[GlassJaw]

This is a cool thread. Giving me some ideas on completing my own 3.5 collection.

There's a couple of books that I'm thinking about getting but haven't really seen them mentioned. Anyone have any opinions on the following?

Races of the Dragon
Dragon Magic
Complete Champion

 

[Greg K]

This is a cool thread. Giving me some ideas on completing my own 3.5 collection.

There's a couple of books that I'm thinking about getting but haven't really seen them mentioned. Anyone have any opinions on the following?

Races of the Dragon
Dragon Magic
Complete Champion

Races of the Dragon: I was unimpressed.

Dragon Magic: Pretty cool book. I don't know that I would make much use of it unless running a campaign designed around it.

Complete Champion: The official spelless paladin and ranger variants were long overdue considering that similar ideas had been tossed around unofficially on these boards and elsewhere. The fighter variant was also cool. However, I was unimpressed with the rest of the book. Too much space on organizations and the deity information was extremely weak compared to Sean K. Reynold's Greyhawk deity articles in Dragon.

 

[jdrakeh]

Complete Champion: The official spelless paladin and ranger variants. . .

Sold!

 

[Greg K]

Sold!

Just so you know, both variants are maybe a half page of material combined out of the whole book.

Both gain a bonus feat at levels 4, 8, 12, 14.

The paladin's bonus feat list include: any divine feat, extra smite, extra turning, a few bonus fighter feats.

The ranger's bonus list includes a few feats and then additional fighter bonus feats based upon the range's fighting style.

 

[szilard]

There's a couple of books that I'm thinking about getting but haven't really seen them mentioned. Anyone have any opinions on the following?

Races of the Dragon

This introduces Dragonborn and Spellscales as PC races. Neither really excite me. It does have a ton of info on Kobolds - so that might be useful. There is very little on actual Half-Dragons.

The prestige classes, feats, and spells are pretty good. There were a few nice things in there for sorcerers. The magic item section included draconic grafts, which seem silly to me.

Overall, not bad, but not necessarily a must-have unless you like the races they introduce, love kobolds, or like playing draconic sorcerer-types.

-Stuart

 

[jdrakeh]

Looks like it's a book a week -- PHB II this week, MIC next week. Thanks for all of the input, folks!

 

[Thurbane]

Looks like it's a book a week -- PHB II this week, MIC next week. Thanks for all of the input, folks!

Two excellent choices.