Which Should I Buy and Why?

[Arnwyn]

For me, it would be Lords of Madness by a long shot.

By far my favorite monster book - blows Libris Mortis out of the water, and I even liked LoM more than Draconomicon.

 

[megamania]

Much will depend on what you play and your style.

I play Eberron but voted Lords of Madness since this book can be used anywhere and in any campaign.

 

[Pants]

Here's my list:

1. Lords of Madness - Great ideas, mostly flavor text, societal stuff, and important information about Aberrations. Won't be much use if you're a player, but as a DM... it's fantastic.
2. Complete Arcane - Personally, it's my favorite of the splats. It inspires me quite a bit more than any of the others and it has a lot of cool ideas. Then again, since one of your players already has it, you may want to wait.
3. Races of Eberron - I don't actually have this yet and I haven't really read through it... at all, but it looks good and you don't need the Eberron CS book to use it!
4. Sandstorm - Get this ONLY if you want the desert hazard/weather rules. The rest of the book is rather boring and uninspiring... except for the Dry Lich template. But that's it really.

 

[DonTadow]

My egyptian final fantasy campaign is high magic pulp at times and i use the races from the Eberron campaign so it came into effect immiediately.

 

[Shemeska]

Lords of Madness. I cannot say enough about this book. It's a level of crunch/fluff that all 3.x books should honestly aim for. I sincerely hope that its a mark of things to come. God this book is awesome

Sandstorm was good, but not as good as frostburn. I bought it however and I'm not unhappy with that decision.

Never played in Ebberon, so can't comment on RoE.

Complete Arcane... is one of the complete series. That seals its fate almost immediately. The best I can say is that it's not Complete Divine. *chuckle* I'm not paying for a 3e splatbook a second time even if there's material added. I don't need to buy a hardcover just for some spell tweaks, feat tweaks, and PrC reprints. And having read the book it's not bad, but it's not worth the coverprice if you already have the earlier splatbook. If they had offered a 'cheap'* pdf I'd have bought the pdf.

*ie not coverprice

 

[Shade]

Ditto what Shemeska said about Lords of Madness. This one far exceeds Libris Mortis, and after spending some time with it, I'd almost say its better than the (gasp!) Draconomicon.

If you're not DMing, I'd go with Complete Arcane.

 

[DragonLancer]

If you are running Eberron, then go with Races of Eberron.

If not then I'm torn between Lords of Madness and Sandstorm, both of which are excellent books.

I wouldn't bother with Complete Arcane but thats just me.

 

[demiurge1138]

Races of Eberron is good if you're playing or DMing Eberron, but Lords of Madness is by far the superior book. It's easily the best D&D book released this year, and it's easily much better than Libris Mortis, and on par with Draconomicon. If you DM, you'll want Lords of Madness. As a player, though, it's not so useful... but it's still an excellent read.

Demiurge out.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

OK, poll over. I went out at lunch and picked up a book. It was a toss up between CA or LoM, and they didn't have CA in stock. So I got Lords of Madness. Thanks for the opinions!

Keep in mind, a big part of the reason I like Lords of Madness is that it's chock full of Cthulhu-esque flavor text.

Good! I like Cthulhu-esque, if you haven't noticed.

 

[Desdichado]

Good! I like Cthulhu-esque, if you haven't noticed.

You've gotta be pullin' my leg!