What are the best of the classbooks?

[Pants]

Hm, I haven't bought many classbooks actually now that I think about it...

I've gotten loads of use out of Tome and Blood and Masters of the Wild even though they aren't exactly perfect.

I've actually found most of the Fighter/Barbarian Classbooks pretty... boring? Path of the Sword did little to impress me and the other Path of... books look little better...

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I was traumatized by 2E's "Complete" series, outside of the Sha'ir's (which should have been called...I dunno, "Stuff for spellcasters that we should have put in the boxed set, but didn't.").

I'll have to give another look at the WoTC splatbooks at some point (I did like PrC's like Drunken Master, new gear's always nice, and just some good fluff), but I'm rather curious about the 3rd party material out there. I have this idea that they have a rather more vested interest in churning out good product.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I was traumatized by 2E's "Complete" series, outside of the Sha'ir's (which should have been called...I dunno, "Stuff for spellcasters that we should have put in the boxed set, but didn't.")...QUOTE]

I quite liked the Priest's one, as it allowed you to make fairly speciifc and semi-balanced proiesthoods for individual gods.

It was, in my opinion, better than 3E's take on Priests (basically modelled on Christian Crusaders)

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I was traumatized by 2E's "Complete" series, outside of the Sha'ir's (which should have been called...I dunno, "Stuff for spellcasters that we should have put in the boxed set, but didn't.")...QUOTE]

I quite liked the Priest's one, as it allowed you to make fairly speciifc and semi-balanced proiesthoods for individual gods.

It was, in my opinion, better than 3E's take on Priests (basically modelled on Christian Crusaders)

I remember reading through the Priest's book. I dunno, I thought it was o.k. But it didn't really mesh well with my view of the cleric class (which is modelled off of the Christian Crusader orders). I guess the idea of Father Flannagan calling down some divine smiting action was too much for me. It was definitely good for pantheon design, totally. Which leads to a question: Should this have been a PHB resource or a DMG?

 

[weiknarf]

I was traumatized by 2E's "Complete" series, outside of the Sha'ir's (which should have been called...I dunno, "Stuff for spellcasters that we should have put in the boxed set, but didn't.").

I thought the Bard's handbook was the best of the bunch.

 

[Joshua Randall]

The recently released Complete Warrior (WotC) is actually very good, especially if you do not already own Sword & Fist.

Complete Divine (WotC) is an editorial nightmare and doesn't really add any class-specific content beyond what was in Defenders of the Faith and Masters of the Wild. (Although the section on relics -- special magic items only usable by those devoted to a particular god -- is awesome.)

I am for the most part highly skeptical of non-WotC d20 supplements. But I have to give props to BadAxe Games for producing a great class book, Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves. I think it's outstanding for anyone playing a dwarf, or even anyone not playing a dwarf if your DM will let you adapt some of the crunch to non-dwarves. BadAxe also has books on Half-Orcs (with PrC's seemingly more geared towards NPCs / villains than PCs), Elves (whose neat rules on magic were unfortunately fubar'd by the 3.5 revision), and Halflings (which I don't own).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My groups get loads of use out of the WOTC softcovers in general, but I also make extensive use of AEG's books Mercenaries and Feats. I personally just sold my Mongoose stuff- too many typos, and the PrCls seemed unbalanced.

However, hands-down the best book I've picked up from the category of class specific books was Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous. It covers Clerics and Paladins, and adds a slew of PrCls. All of the Clerics, Paladins and PrCls are grouped- 1 of each to a specific deiety's church. What makes it stand out, though (in addition to its great layout and the obvious care that went into it), is that it contains a system to create holy warriors.

That means you can make holy warriors who are not Paladins, and also to make your Paladins vary from diety to diety, right down to Domain- appropriate powers. They even made sure that you could make a regular Paladin from scratch when using this system-so even though balance isn't guaranteed, they came as close as humanly possible.

If you EVER want to play a D20 Paladin, you should get this book. Even though you might not use the deities, the church heirarchies are eminently adjustible to any campaign.