What's the best and worst D&D book you own from any edition?

[the Jester]

Best: Hard to say- but I think I'm going to come down on the side of the 1e DMG.

Worst: Not half as hard, but there are still a few contenders- but I think the 2e DMG wins.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Worst...Book of Nine Swords in 3.5

What about it didn't you like?

 

[pemerton]

This is a hard question: I've got a lot of D&D books, and have used them in different ways over the years.

For single best book I'll go 4e PHB, for showing me that D&D could really be the sort of game that I wanted to play.

For single worst book I'll nominate an adventure module that, in principle, I would have liked to use: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. A shocking railroad that I could never use even close to how it's written in a million years.

 

[Novaseaker]

Hmm, this is really hard.

I'm so torn for the best book, I have to separate it into categories for best rules and best flavor.

Best Flavor: Sharn, City of Towers. While the Eberron Campaign Setting (3.5) was obviously what got me into Eberron, the Sharn sourcebook pretty much stole my heart. I've run in and played games set entirely in Sharn, and in one game where me and friends were playing private investigators, we once went about 6 hours (real time) of just pure roleplay, getting into the setting and our characters. The crunch bits toward the back aren't much to talk about, but the setting of the City of Towers is fantastic and gritty and noir and so, so awesome.

Best Crunch: Tome of Magic (3e). This book stands out to me as a sort of masterpiece theater of sourcebooks, detailing three entirely new magic systems, each with its own class, prestige classes, monsters, and other crunch. It was fantastically laid out, and it sparked my imagination so well.


Worst stuff. Hmm. Also hard to pin down. There are lots of books I never got to use (Tome of Battle, Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Demigods) but I derived lots of enjoyment from anyway (the ELH was just fun for me to read, and Deities and Demigods was like number porn. Just got a kick out of seeing what Thor's attack with Mjolnir looked like!). But if I had to choose one...

Dragonlance Campaign Setting (3e). It just did nothing for me. It described a world much better described elsewhere, and the crunch was laughable (Hey, wanna play a bard that has no spellcasting and gets nothing to make up for it? How bout a class even weaker than that? Then the Noble is right for you! Want to play a Paladin of Paladine? Tough! They don't exist!) Overall just a worthless book.

 

[HiLiphNY]

Best: Ptolus

Worst: Savage Species

 

[NotZenon]

Best: Unearthed arcana (3rd ed), I got alot of use out of red hand of doom (although it has its flaws), and rise of the ruin lords
Trailblazer is by far the best 'fix' to 3rd, although i never got to run it for more than a session here or there cause everyone wanted to play pathfinder or 4rth at that point.

Honorable mention: i got more use out of the 2cnd ed players handbook than anything (mostly cause thats when i started gaming) i must have read it 10 times.

Worst: the "splat" books from just about any edition, but in particular, complete warrior, sword and fist
Dishonorable mention: The complete book of Elves, i loved and hated this book, it had lots of good stuff in it but in the end just made elves and their kits way to powerful.

 

[Agamon]

Best? The 1e DMG. While B/X is my favourite edition, and the 2e Monsterous Manual was the epitome of monster books, the AD&D DMG is just a special book.

Edit: I noticed the OP allowed 3rd party options. If we're allowing retroclones (which, honestly, is what PF is), then Adventurer Conqueror King System by Autarch is slightly ahead of the DMG.

Worst? Probably the stinktacular Epic Level Handbook for 3e. The premise of high-level play seemed cool at the time. Live and learn. The Book of Vile Darkness and Stronghold Builder's Guidebook are the other contenders for "why did I spend money on this?"

 

[Remus Lupin]

Best book: hard to say. The short answer is "whatever's grabbing my imagination RIGHT NOW!!!" But if I had to pick one: The red Moldvay basic book, because I started there and it basically fed my imagination for years when I was a kid.

Worst: Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Just. Dreck. Completely useless for any practical purposes for building a stronghold for your character in an actual campaign context.

 

[athos]

Best : 1st ed. AD&D core books. It's hard to explain to people that didn't play in 1977 how wonderfully new and original these works were. I still use ideas from the 1st edition to this day.

Worst : 4th ed. PHB. I ended up selling all my 4th ed. books after about 4 months. The system just sucked. I tried it for a few months and just couldn't convince myself that this was D&D.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

One book that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned is Weapons of Legacy (3.5E book).

I really wanted to like that book as I think the concept of a cool weapon, with an interesting backstory, that gets better as you go up in levels is a really good one. However, the mechanics behind them really didn't work.

I mean, who wants a weapon that, while being really cool, makes you have worse saves, less hit points, and less effective at wielding all other weapons. Balancing cool weapon abilities by reducing the PC's saves, hit points and BAB was just not a good idea as it did not encourage people to want a Weapon of Legacy.

I tried hard to use this book in one of my campaigns, but gave up in the end because it just work well as written. I do hope someone has another crack at the evolving weapon concept in 5E though.