The best D&D books (Regardless of Edition)

[Wizard Biscuits]

Well, I made it late to the whole D&D thing, just caught the back end of 2nd Edition and went joyfully into 3rd. So my list's a lot more recent.

3E Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting - Because that's how you do a campaign setting right. And I know I'm not the only one to be inspired by its format when making my own.

3E Book of Vile Darkness - It took a lot of flak, but it was nice to see a product for mature adults and one that came with some nice fluff on the Demon Lords and Devils.

3E Manual of the Planes - For reasons already cited.

Every Privateer Press book, because seriously, those guys can do no wrong!

 

[justanobody]

Creative Campaigning, and Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide

 

[(un)reason]

The complete villains handbook. Still incredibly useful now, regardless of system.

Red steel. Just plain awesome setting building, on a number of levels.

Too much planescape stuff to mention. Apart from the adventures, the whole thing was gold.

The new UA, for finally breaking my craving to use every option at once in games.

Lots of monte cook's stuff, with particular shoutouts to Ptolus, AE and McWoD. They manage to be both readable and mechanically very solid (apart from maybe McWoD, but that makes up for it simply for the release of nerdrage caused by letting a d20 world of darkness exist at last. )

 

[MortalPlague]

I always enjoyed the monsters offered by the 3rd edition Fiend Folio. It had a great selection of delightful opponents all the way from CR 1/3 up to CR 25. I found it very useful in a variety of campaigns.

 

[Simon Atavax]

1E DMG
Moldvay basic & expert sets
Tome of Horrors
1E Survival guides

Why the 1E survival guides? As I understand it, they were/are pretty loathed amongst die-hard 1E players.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I'm actually genuinely curious about why you would think so highly of them (I've only flipped through them once or twice in the past, so I don't have much of an opinion of my own either way).

 

[Ycore Rixle]

1e DMG, which is the magnum opus of the genre.

A half a notch down:

Dragon CD-ROM. A stretch to fit the OP's "Best D&D books," but worthy.

I6 Ravenloft.

Dungeon magazine, print version, under Chris Youngs (ne Thomasson), Chris Perkins, and Erik Mona.

There are other great books, but nothing else in the same class as those, not that I can think of anyway.

Honorable mentions:

1e Monster Manual.

Original Forgotten Realms boxed set. So much to cover, so little detail, so much mystery. Greenwood has never been better - except in Dragon, listed above.

3e PHB for design principles.

2e (I think? Jeff Grubb version) Manual of the Planes.

1e PHB for originality.

D1-D3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth; Shrine of the Kuo-Toa; Vault of the Drow. If I knew how to say ZOMG in 1980, this would have made me say it.

Toolbox from AEG for 3e. Kind of like the 1e DMG's tables.

 

[RFisher]

Besides the core rules (most likely the Basic and Expert rulebooklets) the D&D books from any edition that I find most useful:

• 1e DMG
• 1e D&DG
• RC

 

[Serendipity]

Yet another vote for the 1e DMG - I *still* use that in my 3.x game.
At a glance, my favorites (in terms of flavor/fluff, general idea mining and overall port/usability) the 1e DDG, all of my old Dragons (mostly 1e era), the old D&D companion set, Lords of Madness (3e obviously), several of the Malhavoc Event books (Requiem for a God, When the Sky Falls, etc.), the Expanded Psionics Book, and most of the 2e Planescape stuff.
And I'm reasonably sure I'm forgetting something.

 

[rgard]

For me...

1e

Unearthed Arcana
Many of Mayfair's RoleAids products, Witches was mentioned above.


3x

Unearthed Arcana
PHB II
Book of Vile Darkness
Complete Book of Eldritch Might
Relics and Rituals
Conan

 

[el-remmen]

If all I had was the 1E DMG and the 1E Fiend Folio I could run all the D&D I'd ever want, and thus I rank them as a tie.