Your most surprising purchase?

[Crothian]

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves from Bad Axe.

All second this and add in the Halfling book. Those two become the cornerstone of those races. The prestige classes make great concepts for lots of NPCs and made great use of the base classes that people never used or were seen.

Bluffside. It was an early d20 city by at the time a really unknown company. I was freaking blown away by the city and still love it to this day.

 

[DMH]

Crime and Punishment and Dynasties and Demogauges (sp?)- I know I want to include both campaign types into just about anything I run, but I was a bit antsy over how good the are. Now I keep both in my immediate use shelf.

Pretty much anything of Gamma World after the PH. I still bought them for my GW collection and overall I am happy with them.

 

[Psion]

My most suprising purchase came highly recommended, but just didn't live up to the hype... or even my basic expectations.
http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2011572

Um... the disappointed thread is down the hall and to the left...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Eberron Campaign Setting. I was never one of those castigating WotC for putting out a new campaign setting (I was too busy giving them hell for ignoring Greyhawk while giving Forgotten Realms dozens of books with the best production values in the industry), but I saw no need or desire for it, and I kinda disliked the whole "orc noir" direction of it.

But I bought it after some rave reviews from people whose taste I trust. And they were right. I'm very much looking forward to running an Eberron game.

 

[Pants]

Eberron - I bought it on a whim. Suffice it to say, I was impressed.

Frostburn - I also bought it on a whim and was very surprised at the amount of good stuff in there.

 

[Agamon]

The FRCS. I used to be a Realms hater. Not any more.

The Complete Warrior. In fact, I didn't buy it until well after Complete Divine came out, as I was making sure I was't going to get Sworded & Fisted again...erm, you know what I mean.

Races of Destiny. Oooh, a book about humans! Turned out to be my favorite of the three race books.

 

[Soel]

Denizens of Avadnu - I was thinking, ok, I could use some more monsters, but as I read it, I was really surprised to see how interesting the creatures and the setting itself seemed. Head and shoulders above many other creature books...

 

[Teflon Billy]

Denizens of Avadnu - I was thinking, ok, I could use some more monsters, but as I read it, I was really surprised to see how interesting the creatures and the setting itself seemed. Head and shoulders above many other creature books...

Ditto that.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Ditto that.

Now I'll have 3rded that. Oh wait. Thirded that? No. Still looks like 3.x to my poor ol' brain.

I'll second it again.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised with Creature Collection. I don't have much time for the publisher in question, generally, but I've actually used numerous things from that book already.

 

[Napftor]

Races of Destiny. Oooh, a book about humans! Turned out to be my favorite of the three race books.

Why is that? I've refused to buy it because it seems pretty useless (even after a flip-through at the bookstore).