What books/supplys should I ask for the holidays?

[Mitchbones]

I am unfamiliar with what is in an issue of Dragon. Can someone tell a less vague reason why I should get it?

DMG2+Eberron+ Dungeon = $90ish. Still $100 left to spend. Out of the MM should I get 4?

Thanks for all the help guys, greatly appreciated.

 

[Festivus]

I have to agree with the keep it simple approach if you are new. A setting would be a good investment, be it Forgotten Realms, Ebberron, or any of the other third party ones (goodman's, ptolus, bards gate, etc).

I find I don't get as much from Dragon as I do from Dungeon, but it's still a good read every month and I am never disappointed. Lately every month they have had a article on a particular demon or god, DM advice, player advice, stories, a companion article for the current adventure path (Savage Tidings and Wormfood articles) which were very nice. In fact I am missing like half the wormfood articles and I reget not buying those now.

Dungeon Crawl Classics are inexpensive (meaning you could get a lot of them) and make for good, fun short adventures that can be dropped into almost any campaign setting.

The Spell Compendium has seen a lot of milage around my house, I expect the Magic Item compendium will too once published. This would be my highest recommended book.

DMG2 is on my Christmas list too

 

[Ranes]

I wouldn't get any monster books. There's a ton of things you can do with the critters in the MM and there are guidelines for creating your own. If you're getting a Dungeon subscripton, there will be new beasties in that every month, as well.

Now, this is a personal quirk but I wouldn't get a campaign setting either. If you do, you'll start itching to build it up with some or all of the other books that support that setting. If you get DMGII (which I'd heartily recommend), you'll find that gives you a detailed city and your Dungeons will add areas and cities you can transplant into a homebrew; you might not be ready to run adventure x for level y but if it features a new village, town, ruin, crypt... Yoink it.

If you're finding it difficult to make a homebrew with the time you can allocate to the task, you may be trying to achieve too much. You can build a successful homebrew campaign without knowing everything about the world you're creating. Start out small. Being one or two steps ahead of the players is as good as being ten or twenty steps ahead of them. It might even be better.

You may have noticed I haven't suggested what you ask for with the money that won't have been spent on monster books and a campaign setting. Aren't I mean?

 

[megamania]

DMG II check
Campaign book of either F Realms or Eberron check
Red Hand Adventure check
Dragonicom (especially with Red Hand) check

Spell Comp is a good idea

The best idea I've read is the gift cert in truth. Pick up one or two books then go from there. Its hard to digest too much at once anyway.

 

[delericho]

Out of the MM should I get 4?

I have all the Monster Manuals, and the Fiend Folio, and Monsters of Faerun. To tell the truth, there aren't too many monsters in the more recent books that have leapt out at me saying "you must use this!"

Most of the monsters I do use are from the first Monster Manual, and the Tome of Horrors (from Necromancer - it's a book I do recommend if you're short on monsters).

As for the others, I would rate them in the following order:

Monsters of Faerun (even if not running a FR campaign)

Monster Manual IV (this got attacked for too many Dragonspawn, fairly IMO, and too many 'classed' versions of MM monsters. Turns out that I'm far more likely to use the 'classed' monsters than almost anything from any of the other books.)

Fiend Folio

Monster Manual III

Monster Manual II.

Note that Monsters of Faerun and Monster Manual II are 3.0 books, so need some conversion to use with 3.5. The Fiend Folio came out just as the rules were changing, so needs some work but not as much as the previous two. MMIII and MMIV are 3.5 books.

It's also worth noting that these are my current and highly-subjective recommendations based on what I've used. Others are likely to recommend a different set in a different order. And, if you ask me again in a year, the order will have changed.

 

[jdrakeh]

You can get the whole Warlords of the Accordlands set (Master Codex, Atlas, Bestiary, and Adventure Path) for under $200. That gives you a setting, setting-specific rules, setting-specific creatures, and enough adventures to take characters from level one to level twenty. While you'll only need the combat rules from the D&D PHB, both the DMG and the MM will get used a lot if you pick up the WotA material and run with it.

I recommend this purchase option, not only because I'm a fan of the material, but because it covers a lot of bases (so far as having a ready to run campaign goes) and also lets you make use of the D&D core books that you already own.

 

[greywulf]

Wow. Can I have your parents when you've finished with them? Thanks.

I'd go:

DMG II
PHB II
Eberron + published adventures (vampires blade, etc)
Dungeon AND Dragon subscription

Don't get any Complete.... books or Monster Manuals just yet. Your life will be complicateder enough.

 

[David E]

From the sounds of it, you don't have the time or the inclination to come up with your own adventures or (as you've said) your own campaign setting. In that case, I definitely agree with the others that Dungeon is an excellent buy, especially since the magazine is only two adventures into the Savage Tide adventure path. If you're not familiar with adventure paths, they are essentially a series of 11 or 12 linked adventures that form a complete campaign, taking the characters from 1st to 20th level. If this sounds like your cup of tea, you really wont need a campaign setting book at all - Paizo provides FORGOTTEN REALMS and EBERRON conversion notes for each adventure in the AP.

That being said, if you are still interested in a campaign setting book or want to run your own adventures in a campaign setting, there are a lot of options. As I really only have experience with the two settings supported by Wizards of the Coast, I'll stick to those.

FORGOTTEN REALMS is a very high-magic, high-fantasy campaign. It's an absolutely HUGE world, with tons of diverse areas to explore, with famous villains and heroes galore. In a nutshell, it's essentially what most people think of when they think "traditional fantasy."

EBERRON is more of a comic book/action movie flavored setting (kind of). It's actually pretty diverse in terms of atmosphere, ranging from horror to dark and seedy, but it really emphasizes the "over-the-top" action. Also a very good setting, in my opinion.

People have suggested that Dragon magazine is a very good buy, and while I agree that the magazine is excellent, it is generally filled with lots of extra rules content that may confuse your game. But that is just my opinion.

I guess my list comes down to: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Eberron Campaign Setting (if you have both, you can decide which you would prefer to run a campaign in, or both ), DMG II (lots of good campaign ideas), Spell Compendium (perfect for someone who doesn't already own a lot of books). From here it's up to you.

 

[smootrk]

You could go to Amazon.com and create a wishlist of books. You can then send this wishlist to whomever you like so that they can buy the books there for you. Another decent way is for your mother to get you a gift card to Amazon.com or Barnes&Nobles or whatever outlet (probably even Drivethru, or whatever it is going to be called).

 

[smootrk]

Now for suggestions:

If you want an addiction that ropes you into vast sums of spending, get Forgotten Realms started.
If you want an alternative to that, get Eberron and you may be able to keep up with the book production (after your $200 is gone).
Pholtus might be a good buy, but I have not read it in depth.
Any/All monster books are great, but I specifically suggest you get Tome of Horrors 1 (or better yet the revised 3.5 pdf of the same).
Another really great way to spend your money is plastic crack... I mean plastic minis, and honestly it is a very reasonable way to build up a collection rather than metal minis (although I love metal ones as well).