Name your favorite D&D book

[Wild Gazebo]

I have a weird facination with The Factol's Manifesto. I thing it was a great departure from the normal gaming books yet was wonderfully useful--and still is.

 

[talinthas]

do box sets count? if so- Time of the Dragon. The complete essence of Dragonlance ported to a continent unravaged by hundreds of canon trampling novels, and still full of the wonder and amazement of the setting.

If only books? Sovereign Press's War of the Lance. Dragonlance as it should have been 20 years ago.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Module X12: Skarda's Mirror

Yes it's only 3-4 dozen pages, but at the time it tought me so many new things (like being ready for the group to not do what you think they will.)

 

[Imperialus]

wow... tough question... I'd honestly have to say the Encyclopedia Magica though (all four volumes). I love crazy and unique magic items and seeing as how it was a compelation of everything published prior to 1994 there is a lot in there. I remember one time I gave the players a daffy deck of cards and they spent almost an hour trying to figure out why their supposed deck of many things was behaving so strangely... Especially when the scrawny little halfling thief drew a card and proceeded to have an innkeeper standing across the room prostrate himself on the floor trying to surrender.

 

[DMH]

1st ed Manual of the Planes (so much so I hated Planescape)

To round out the top 5: 1st ed DMG, Book Of Templates (DE), Advanced Bestiary, Oathbound: Domains of the Forge

 

[Bregh]

Only one?

Holmes-edit Basic D&D--it gives everything needed to start, and then some (ie. monsters not given in the Moldvay or Mentzer edits), and anything else I can add by extrapolation.

 

[arscott]

d20 Modern: Urban Arcana

 

[Wombat]

There isn't one.

There are THREE.

The Three Little Books I got back in 1975, the books that allowed me to get away from miniatures-based games and into a far, far better hobby.

...you never forget your first...

Thank you Arneson & Gygax!

 

[JoeBlank]

3rd Edition Players Handbook: It really breathed new life into a game that was slowly dying (or at least stagnating and declining). It revived D&D, replacing 20+ years of clunky and confusing mechanics with a vastly improved system that kept the same feel but was much easier to use.

This pretty much says it for me, the book that brought me back to D&D after years of Champions, and not gaming at all.

 

[EricNoah]

The Planescape Boxed set -- this setting took my game to a new plane of excellence.

Other 2E products I have a fondness for: Drow of the Underdark, Aurora's Catalog, Faiths and Avatars.

3E favorites: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Magic of Faerun, Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, Fiend Folio, and Eberron Campaign Setting.