Books that proved worth the money spent

[Stalker0]

The Hero Builder's Guidebook.

Dirt cheap, and 90% of the book is absolute garbage. But the character background generator in the back is so useful I've made dozens of good characters with it. Worth every penny.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I'll use more undead in my next game", went out and bought Libris Mortis, and ended up with a whole campaign of undead. I've used so many things out of that book: feats, spells, items, PrC's, variants, and most especially monsters. Over maybe 10 sessions I've probably used the book significantly for every one. I can't even say that of the 3.5 MM! Definitely a book that just caught my interest and ended up getting constant use.

OTOH, I got Magic of Incarnum on the cheap out of interest. I did manage to use a template from the book for completeness in my latesr template-laden monster, but I'll probably never do the work required to make that book usable for my game. In any case, I've got so many other untested 3.5 classes lying around, my PCs will never want it anyway.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

Another vote for Libre Mortis. So good!

Here's a few unusual books I enjoyed:

Hot Pursuit: The D20 Guide to Chases. I put 3 chases in my last campaign, two were tremendous fun and one didn't happen because the PC's refused to break off combat. But now whenever I'm playing in someone else's game and chases are 'I double move so I get an AoO when the guy I'm chasing runs' round after round in a straight line, I'm disappointed. I really hope 4e does something with chases/pursuits.

I guess I'm one of the few who got their $ worth on Deities and Demigods, as I was running a planescape game and the PC's traveled through the realms of various deities, two of whom I statted from scratch using the rules from the book. It was very helpful to know what the deities would know and what they could do about any PC actions that caught their interest.

The Tome of Artifacts. I already had a couple of powerful items in my campaign when I got this book. I was able to quickly insert a few others and rebuild the ones I was using so they were more consistent and easier for me to keep track of. Great stuff.

--Z

 

[Hstio]

While a lot of the responses have centered on directly lifting things out of other books, my choices are based on books that altered the way I approached writing and creating game settings. The two most influential were the first Relics and Rituals book and the First edition of the Midnight setting. Both books oozed flavor and moved away from the vanilla +1 sword syndrome. Relics and Rituals was uber-powerful but each item or spell was interesting and tied into the setting. Midnight was just the opposite, low power, mundane items or a masterwork weapon were the real treasures. Both books helped create a fantastic but tangible world. The styles of writing also helped me change how I approached building worlds. Two of my desert island books.

Hstio

 

[Voadam]

Complete Minions from Bastion Press. I use it all the time and the monsters stand out in my mind when I'm thinking of monsters to fill certain niches in my game. (dover for a woodland race, asherake for a LE war aspected race, forlorn for a Neutral plane outsider encounter, some big bug thing starting with a U for a high level tough combat, etc.)

Fantastic Science from E.N. Publishing. I got it during a $1 sale and I feel it does a great job integrating fantasy tech as a separate magical tradition from arcane, divine, and psionic magic in a fantasy setting. I love the warlockesque version of the class at the back of the supplement in particular as a straightforward easy to use caster class. I had a player use the book when making a character and elements of the book have integrated well into the generally fantasy wilderness campaign.

 

[Seule]

Hero Builder's Guidebook, just for the lists of names by race at the back. I suck at names, so this is always good.

--Seule

 

[Claudius Gaius]

World Tree, from Padwolf Publishing. The best-developed world setting I've ever run across.
Champions is still probably the best-developed super-hero game out there, although it doesn't scale that well on either end.
The older Shadowrun editions were pretty creative in their day, but are hard to find now.
Nephelim (the older game by that name) made character creation a game in itself, but is pretty much unavailable now.
Eclipse: The Codex Persona and The Practical Enchanter pretty well cover everything we use d20 for these days. They're available in shareware versions.

 

[Arnwyn]

So, I’d like to know from your own hidden gems, those books you didn’t expect to be that useful on purchase but proved worth each penny in your campaigns.

Using this criteria: None.

But that's because I only buy books in which I expect I will use a full 80% or more (my goofy little personal 'line in the sand'). I don't buy books that I don't expect to be useful...

Unexpectedly useless books, though?
- Nightmares & Dreams (I think that's the name) - Mystic Eye Press monster book. Got it early in 3e, and the monsters just didn't click for me after I went through it in detail.

- Expedition to Undermountain - whoah, did that book ever turn out to be terrible. My 2e box set(s) are far superior in every way.

 

[C.W.Richeson]

Primetime Adventures. It's the perfect 'go to' game for me when I just want to run a one shot or random folk are over and we want to roleplay.

 

[Rugult]

City of the Spider Queen.

I've never liked the Realms in 3rd edition and never run the adventure... but when I need to reference a good adventure structure and outline when making my own, CotSQ is perfect!