What are your favorite pre-3e D&D/AD&D books.

[shadow]

Dark Sun Boxed Set: It was one of the most original and unique campaigns ever made!

Birthright Campaign Setting: Deffinately one of the best "high fantasy" campaigns, even if you weren't playing regents. Most of all, the authors paid a lot of attention to linguistic and historical detail, so the setting had internal consistancy, something that most gaming worlds sorely lack.

Player's Option: Combat and Tactics: Say what you want, but IMHO this was one of the best combat supplements ever! Sure some of the rules slowed down combat, but they added a lot more detail. No longer would fighters stand toe-to-toe slugging away until one ran out of hit points. Many of the combat rules such as "disarm", "trip", and "attacks of opportunity" made their way into 3e. Beside the huge table of weapons was a definate plus!

 

[kobold]

four simple words
Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes
Changed the game for ever- can you say type 5 demon

 

[Quickbeam]

I'm with Henry in listing the Magic Item Compendium.
I was also rather fond of the original DMG and Fiend Folio.
As for modules, I liked White Plume Mountain and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks...mainly for its unique setting.

 

[TroyXavier]

Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Inner Planes and Complete Necromancers Handbook

 

[Dark Jezter]

I guess I'll also add Complete Book of Dwarves to the list.

 

[johnsemlak]

I started this thread so I should add mine...

Gazateers I, II, and III (Karameikos, Ylarum, and Glantri). I posted many times in many places, the Gazateer line is my all time favority product line for D&D. These ones were awesome. There was so much detail on each kingdom.

Unearthed Arcana--Others have posted many reasons why, but no one mentioned the most important--The POLE ARM section!

Oriental Adventures--The closest I came to actually using this book was to allow some classes and equipment in a standard campaign, but I loved reading it.

 

[Krieg]

Not sure I could ever pick a single "favorite", there have been a lot of excellent products mentioned so far (and one that I named on the "worst" list...lol), however there is one seldom mentioned product that deserves mentioning...

The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook!

Nogian Mystics, Ghul Lords, Jackals & Spellslayers are just too darn cool (and all of them really need a 3E update)!

 

[Orius]

You know, I was thinking of starting up a thread like this myself. My favorites are pretty much all 2e era, since that's when I first picked up a PHB and rolled the dice. I don't know the old classics.

Anyway, here's my pre-3e favorites:

World Builder's Guidebook: Hands down the best product I ever bought. I definitely got my money's worth with it. Has some great guidelines to work with, has that pad of hex mapping paper. I still use it today.

Encyclopedia Magica: Every magic item from the first 20 years of D&D. Yummy. There's more stuff in these books than I could ever use. A nice resorce for players who haven't been around from the beginning. I also liked the fake leather type covers and ribbon bookmarks used in the original printings. Biggest downside: too much to convert to 3e.

Wizard's/Priest's Spell Compendium: I like it for the same reason I like the Encyclopedia Magica. Both sets also included interesting rules in the appendices, and the idea of spell rarity was a great idea, I use it in my own game to make the series more managable. Unfortunately, like the Encyclopedia Magica, it's all 2e, although spells are pretty easy to port into 3e. Also, the last Priest's Spell Compendium was released only months before 3e came out, so I didn't get the opportunity to really use the material in 2e.

Monstrous Compendium Annuals: I like monster books, so these are also more favorites of mine. The only downside is that the monsters were usually just copied from their source, so some were still pretty campaign specific.

D&D Rules Cyclopedia: The one product I regret not getting. It's a shame TSR killed off Basic D&D, because this was a great product for new DMs to learn with. The 2e DMG was sub-par in that it assumed DMs had already worked their way up through Basic D&D.


Hrrrmmm...interesting. My favorites seem to be mostly products that compiled "crunchy bits" from earlier products.

 

[Orius]

Interesting how several products which were on the 'worst' list are now appearing here.

Yeah, UA and the Player's Option books. They seem to be either love or hate items.

 

[Silver Moon]

Without doubt, the Four-Volume Faux-leather Magic Item Compendium that TSR released in 1995.

Isn't that the book where the first print of volume one had a major typographical error because of a search-and-replace edit that changed "Mage" to "Wizard", so that every reference to the word "Damage" became "Dawizard" ?


And in answer to the original question, I'd have to name the 1st Edition Players Handbook, as it was the very first gaming book that I received.