What book to get?

[Scorpionfolke]

Get the Deluxe Book of Templates first, then Advanced Beastiary. Together those books will make all your other books much more useful.

Fortunately I already have the DBoT---the 3.0 pdf anyway ---I'll get it(the hardback) if/when Barnes & nobles gets it in

 

[Hjorimir]

I really would have to recommend the Advanced Bestiary.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Fortunately I already have the DBoT---the 3.0 pdf anyway ---I'll get it(the hardback) if/when Barnes & nobles gets it in

I think if you own the 3.0 pdf, that you can get the 3.5 version for like $4.00 in PDF format.

Based on what you're saying though, Advanced Bestiary is next. Very similiar in terms of overall utility to DBoT.

 

[Voadam]

Well, it of course depends on what you want.

Advanced Bestiary is more templates and sample critters, I'm tempted to get it for the swarm template and the apocalypse ones. The gelatinous cube of force free sample was fun but rather silly.

MMIII is full color new base monsters, with warforged, rakshasa variants, dinosaurs, trolls, and a few mechanical stat problems. I know my brother likes it.

Lords of Madness is much more in-depth exploration of a few aberrations, so if you want to really flesh out the illithidae and aboleths and get a good culture/ecology/mythology/cosmology read for iconic aberrations then this might be best for you. My brother told me he wasn't that happy with the graft mechanics though, they were either too expensive for small stuff or incredibly cheap for very powerful junk.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Don't have the MMIII or LoM so can't comment on those. However I must say I was a little disappointed in the Advanced Bestiary. It's got some great versatility in it, and a couple of the templates are very useful, but a lot of them I just don't think I'll ever use. I was annoyed by the extent of the undead templates - though mainly because I don't really use undead a lot. And a lot of the others just seemed like the type of thing I'd just never use. There are however a few templates I've found very useful and I know that with a different campaign more of the templates would be useful so I'd say it was certainly worth it and it will give you a lot more versatility than a straight monster book.

 

[Crothian]

Get Thieves World

Ofd the three Lord of Madness is the best book.

 

[devilbat]

Some very good advice being given. Of the three, I found the Lords of Madness to be the best of the books, although both MM III and advanced Beastiary gets used often.

The mention of the Book of Templates and DMG II suggestions are very sound as well.

I'd say go with Lords of Madness of the three you've narrowed down, but if you are upen to suggestion, I'd say buy the DMG II.

 

[DragonLancer]

Tough choice. I'd suggest either Monster Manual 3 (the best WotC monster book so far) or Lords of Madness (Excellent sourebook).

Depends on your campaign but I think my recommendation is the MM3.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Get the Deluxe Book of Templates first, then Advanced Beastiary. Together those books will make all your other books much more useful.

Is there much duplication ( in theme at least ) for the various templates in these books? I own advanced beastairy, and have heard some good things about DBoT, but I'm not sure how much ADDItional utility it will provide.


Scorpionfolke - if you already own a template book, go with MM3 or another monster book like Monsternomicon 3.5!

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Don't have the MMIII or LoM so can't comment on those. However I must say I was a little disappointed in the Advanced Bestiary. It's got some great versatility in it, and a couple of the templates are very useful, but a lot of them I just don't think I'll ever use. I was annoyed by the extent of the undead templates - though mainly because I don't really use undead a lot. And a lot of the others just seemed like the type of thing I'd just never use. There are however a few templates I've found very useful and I know that with a different campaign more of the templates would be useful so I'd say it was certainly worth it and it will give you a lot more versatility than a straight monster book.

I was happy to see the abundnace of undead templates. A lot of low level undead become much more versatile with templates, as they can't advance the same way other monsters can.