Getting back into Forgotten Realms

[Brakkart]

Thanks for the info, it gives me a good starting point.

So right now I plan on getting the FRCS and the Player's guide as well as Waterdeep.

Any suggestions where to go from there?

Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerun is a good buy imho, it has a lot of the classic FR creatures in it (though quite a few have just been redone for 3.5 in Lost Empires)

I'll add another recommendation for Lost Empires of Faerun, a truly great book, which could only really have been improved by the addition of some more maps.

Useful but by no means essential are Lords of Darkness, Races of Faerun and Magic of Faerun (in that order).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

He was a woman, that was like 2 editions ago. :\

OK, the level of apparent self-parody in the Forgotten Realms novels makes it WAY too hard to make jokes about the setting sometimes.

 

[Nightfall]

Hasn't stopped me yet, Whiz.

Also might want to consider Underdark too.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The FRCS is an outstanding book, highly recommended. The player's guide is also considered a core book by wizards, the new books refer to stuff in it (but you might get by without). It also explains the new cosmology further and incorporates several core D&D books into the Realms (Book of Vile Darkness/Book of Exalted Deeds, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Epic-Level Handbook) Those two make a good basis.

Now that you have covered the bases about what's new, you might want to know what's old. Real old. Get Lost Empires, it's great reading.

Lords of Darkness is another nice one - 28 or so evil organizations explained, 7 or so in greater detail. Everything from Drow over the major evil Churches to Zhentarim, Red Wizards, Shadow Thieves, Night Masks, Fire Knives, you name it. Twisted Rune, Knights of the Shield, and stuff like the Eldreth Veluuthra (fanatical elves out to eradicate humankind)

Other than that, I can recommend every single FR 3.5 book out there, with one exception: Champions of Ruin. Out of a line of awesome books this one is merely "okay". One of my main problems with is the power level of the legendary Elder Evils (Kezef the Chaos Hound, Dendar the Night Serpent, Ityak-Ortheel the Elf Eater), who have the reputation to be a threat to even the gods. They have CR 21, 26, 22 respectively. This is a joke. So Mask is running away from something that only hits him on a natural 20, but which he could take apart in less then a minute. Yeah right.
Rich Baker said that they wanted those beasts to be beatable by player characters, which are supposed to be the hot , but that really doesn't explain creatures like Elminster (CR 39 with about 30 levels wizard and the chosen of mystra bonus), Ioulaum (Which is an elder brain lich wizard 40 or something like that, cr well past 50), or even Aumvor the Undying, a lich with effective wizard level 32 from the very same book. "Sure, we wanted the PC's to be able to kill Kezef as a small side-encounter, but then we inteded them to be pressed through a fine mesh by that Aumvor character."

 

[Thanee]

As others have said, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is the big must-have, as is the Player's Guide to Faerûn for any 3.5 campaign (it refers to some other books, mostly Magic of Faerûn, but you don't *really* need that/those).

Other than that, I would start with the sourcebooks, which are most likely to be of use for an upcoming campaign (i.e. Silver Marches, Unapproachable East, Shining South, Underdark, etc).

Lords of Darkness is otherwise also highly recommendable.

In fact, pretty much all of the FR books are of an outstanding quality.

Bye
Thanee