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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 3326975" data-attributes="member: 7737">"Book of Aberrations" is probably a colloquialism for Lords of Madness, which is a monster book focused on... aberrations. Mind flayers, aboleth, grell, stuff like that. Similar to Libris Mortis for undead or Draconomicon for dragons.There are only a few creatures in the Monster Manual that are not in the SRD. Some of them are really iconic D&D creatures, though, like beholders and yuan-ti. So the MM may be worth it for that alone.I personally enjoy MM2, but I know lots of people dislike it. It's got a lot of weird evil creatures in it that make a nice change from the usual MM stuff.MM3 and MM4 seem to be more focused on subsets of monsters, per the reviews I've read. (I don't own either.) Some people like this approach, and some dislike it. I believe both MM3 and MM4 have fewer monsters overall than, say, MM itself. But, MM3 and MM4 give you statblocks for classed monsters, little maps of encounter areas, and suggestions for using the monsters in various settings and adventures. That kind of stuff can be particularly useful for new DMs, or just DMs who are pressed for time.I will second the recommendations for PH2 and DMG2. PH2 is probably the best pure crunch book for players, with a lot of strong feats, and some interesting alternate class abilities. DMG2 has lots of information that will make you a better DM. It's also got a lot of stuff you can use right away, like new traps, magical events (you could build entire campaigns around these), alternate weapon and armor qualities, teamwork rules (introduced here even though more appropriate for a player's book), apprenticeship rules, and... other stuff. I'm actually surprised how much now that I type it out.Spell Compendium is just that, a bunch of spells collected from other non-PH sources -- including the Complete books, so it would be a good buy for you as you wouldn't be duplicating spells you already own in other books.Finally, I know you said you are primarily interested in crunch, but you owe it to yourself to check out Manual of the Planes. It's 3.0 not 3.5, which is a slight drawback, but the sheer amount of imagination and coolness packed into this book is astounding. MotP has plenty of solid, rules-based advice on creating your own planar cosmology, new monsters, new spells (most of which are in Spell Compendium now). It also has just brilliant fluff about each of the planes in the standard D&D "Great Wheel" cosmology, plus various planes from alternate cosmologies.</blockquote>

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