Its Overwhelming!!

[Diremede]

The amount of material out there right now is beyond staggering, and trying to keep up with it, well would be a full time job. I have found some great material out there as well as material I wish I had never spotted. So being one who likes to look before he leaps, I was wondering what materials besides the basic core books and setting books, do other DM's out there feel that they use on a regular every game session basis. What books do you really really use?? Is it mostly additional monster compendiums, rule supplements, class specific books??

I myself have found that monster supplements are the main product that I like to add to my arsenal, and well I'm looking for suggestions for some new monster books to add to my collection. I'm looking for some well balanced monsters that make sense. My current arsenal includes creature collection I & II and tome of horrors I & II, which include several enjoyable monsters.

So does anyone have any recommendations for some more great monsters that I can use?

 

[Crothian]

My players in a few groups over the years of 3.5 have found that the Complete books from Wizards are the best and easiest to use of all the lcass books.

For monsters I find myself letting every book Wizards has made on monster gather dust and I use the Kenzers Kalamar monster book, Inner Circles' Denzen of Avandu, Atlas' Beastiary, and Creatures of the Endless Dark by Gooddman Games. And then I use the Book of Templates 3.5 (Silverthorne Games printed by Goodman games) and Green Ronin's Advanced Beastiary; these are template books and very creative.

For DMing I always use the Atlas' En Route books, Mystic Eye Games Foul Locales, and Atlas series of 7 (cities, strongholds, etc). I have found these to be brilliant for little adventure ideas and not so random random encounters.

For settings I home brew, but I'm a big thief from other places. City State of the Invincible Overlord, Glades of Death, TRouble and Durdenford....basically NEcromancer makes great adventure books that are site oriented. I love these books. I also borrow heavily from the Scarred Lands (Sword and Sorcery), Kalamar (Kenzer again), R&R Olumpus (sword and sorcery), OGL Ancients (Mongoose), Stone and Steel (Monkey God), and a few others.

THen there are the books that I turn to to add a little extr detail to the game: Book of unusual Treasure (Bad Axe games and Ronin Arts), Alchemy and Herbalism (Bastion), Toolbox (AEG), MAgical Medival books (Expititious Retreat), World Builder (TRoll Lords) book of names (also TRoll lords), Expert 3.5 (Skirmisher games).....

That is a small list of what I use. I don't use it all each week, but these are the books I turn to more then others for my own home brew game.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm looking for suggestions for some new monster books to add to my collection. I'm looking for some well balanced monsters that make sense. My current arsenal includes creature collection I & II and tome of horrors I & II, which include several enjoyable monsters.

So does anyone have any recommendations for some more great monsters that I can use?

The Book of Templates, either in pdf or print.

The Advanced Bestiary, from Green Ronin Publishing (also available in either pdf or print). It's also a collection of templates, and dovetails nicely with the BoT.

I'm fond of Creatures of Rokugan (which uses 3.0 rules), from AEG.

Minions, from Bastion Press, is updated to 3.5 rules in the pdf edition.

Alot of people recommend the Monsternomicon, from Privateer Press, and Fantasy Bestiary, from Atlas Games. I find the first-person sidebars to be annoying, both in their inherent nature and simple font selection, but it's up to you.

There are a slew of mechanical errors, but I also really like the Monster Encyclopedias (Vol 1 & Vol 2) from Mongoose Publishing. They're nice, straightforward monster books without some cutesy hook that either doesn't apply to my homebrew world anyways, or makes the monsters too weird to be common.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

My players in a few groups over the years of 3.5 have found that the Complete books from Wizards are the best and easiest to use of all the lcass books.

For monsters I find myself letting every book Wizards has made on monster gather dust and I use the Kenzers Kalamar monster book,

Which is Dangerous Denizens: the Monsters of Tellene.

 

[Crothian]

Which is Dangerous Denizens: the Monsters of Tellene.

You know, one of these days I really should learn the title of this book I use all the time. But then it occurs to me its actually fun having Mark continually quote me listing the name for the book.

 

[DragonLancer]

Not counting the various monster sourcebooks I have (which are pretty much always usable), the few books than I use often enough to be glad I paid out for them are:

Expanded Psionics Handbook.
Manual of the Planes.
Frostburn/Sandstorm/Stormwrack.

and really thats about it. Its one reason why I don't buy very many other sourcebooks now.

 

[JVisgaitis]

For monsters I find myself letting every book Wizards has made on monster gather dust and I use the Inner Circles' Denizens of Avandu...

Thanks man, glad you have gotten use out of it. Out of curiousity, what have you used the most? Any favorites?

I don't mean to thread jack and I'm going to post a more formal announcement on this later, but to clear out our remaining stock of Denizens of Avadnu, we are selling it for 50% off till its gone. That's a 224 page full color hardcover at $20. Get yours here.

 

[JVisgaitis]

So does anyone have any recommendations for some more great monsters that I can use?

I'm an idiot, I totally unintentionally ducked your question. I would say check out our Denizens of Avadnu. From a design standpoint we tried to make each monster have some unique element whether it be mechanics, concept, or both. I don't think many people will disagree with me when I say that we have one of the more unique offerings as far as our creature design is concerned.

 

[The Persian]

For myself, i found it best to mainly stick to WOTC products for what you need, unless of course they are speciailized and you can't find anything online/for free that matches it.

The only exception to this rule is the fact that I own Iron Heroes.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks man, glad you have gotten use out of it. Out of curiousity, what have you used the most? Any favorites?

Argills have gotten some use, Blood ooze scared a group and they never did figure out what the thing was, Dagger worms are a great easy dungeon encounter, dread spires I use as a plot device once not as something to kill, gorg is another good enocounter especially for low level characters, Phylaern are great for an unusual NPC, time walker in a game that they were perfect for, Tulgorths are a favorite as well...