Pre 4e books: your best and worst

[Set]

Faves:
From the Ashes
Al-Qadim Campaign Setting
Grey box Realms setting
3.0 Draconomicon
PHBII
3.0 Unearthed Arcana
3.5 PHB
2nd ed Oriental Adventures

Least Faves:
Dieties & Demigods 3.0 (I liked the 1st Ed one)
Legends & Lore
Die Vecna Die
Time of Troubles stuff
Dragonlance 'adventures' that didn't allow you to do anything but watch the NPCs re-enact the novels
Hall of Heroes (I've got the Rogue's Gallery, and, you sir, are no Rogue's Gallery!)

 

[SSquirrel]

Best 3E era (Tie)
Arcana Evolved/Ptolus!

Worst 3E era
Epic Level Handbook

 

[Woas]

I've only ever played 3rd Edition so my choices of most and least favorite are limited to that.

Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes would be my favorites.

Unearthed Arcana would be my least favorite.

 

[Starman]

Faves 2E: Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Birthright, and Planescape. I loved those settings.

Best of WotC 3E: PHB II, UA, Fiendish Codex I and II, Eberron
Worst: Hard to say because I didn't find anything that was that horrible. Deities and Demigods was disappointing. I didn't mind the stats, but I would have liked to have seen more fluff on how religions worked for the various pantheons. Magic of Eberron was also disappointing for seeming to move away from the flavor of the setting that had been set down before.

 

[Razuur]

Definitely the grey box forgotten realms setting. It was so open and full of possibility. As time went on, it got more and more crowded and limited in scope. The more detailed and crowded it became, the more it departed from our "Realms". Eventually we left the setting because new people didn't know our realms, they knew the later versions fo the realms. A real shame. Even now I would love to go back and play in "our realms" but don't really care for the detailed current realms.

We loved Undermountain too...

Razuur

 

[Grymar]

Restricting it to 3.5 books that I own:

Best: Eberron Campaign Setting or Sharn: City of Towers
Both are filled with great ideas and hooks. On their own they are two of the best books I've read. Together they are a one-two punch that rules all.

Worst: DMG
I don't use it. Ever. Magic items I get from the SRD or Magic Item Compendium. I will once or twice a campaign look at the Wealth by Level rules to see how close the players are, but aside from that I never open it. Compare that to the AD&D DMG that was required for nearly every roll of every game.

 

[Jhaelen]

Best: Eberron Campaign Setting or Sharn: City of Towers
Both are filled with great ideas and hooks. On their own they are two of the best books I've read. Together they are a one-two punch that rules all.

Interesting! It's really amazing how opinions can be different:

I think ECS was the best campaign setting book I've ever read.

I also think Sharn was among the worst supplements I ever read (and definitely the worst for 3E).

I cannot really decide what the best/worst books were among all the different editions. There's simply too many.

I know that I love my 1E Fiend Folio and that was utterly fascinated by the 1E Deities & Demigods (mainly the Mythos section). I thought the [/b]2E Planescape Box[/b] was simply beautiful but also something I was sure I'd never play. The most useful supplement for my favorite setting (Darksun) was City State of Tyr. I am extremely fond of the widely disliked 3E Weapons of Legacy.


I don't remember many books that I truly disliked. The 1E Expedition to Barrier Peaks adventure is one of them. Most of the 'classic' D&D adventures are pretty bad, imho. Almost every other rpg system had better adventures to offer back then.

From the 3E releases I disliked
- Frostburn - So much potential gone to waste - utterly uninspiring!
- Dragon Magic - A hodgepodge of useless stuff in a dozen of only superficially different flavours
- Complete Psion - I cannot express how I HATED that thing!