Your Top 5/10 Favorite WotC Supplementary Rulebooks

[Angel Tarragon]

Its been a while since we had one of these threads. Tellus us your Top 5 or 10 favorite official (meaning WotC brand only) supplements. One rule: The supplementary book must not be campaign specific.


I'll go first:
01. Unearthed Arcana
02. Player's Handbook II
03. Expanded Psionics Handbook
04. Complete Adventurer
05. Cityscape
06. Draconomicon
07. Planar Handbook
08. Libris Mortis
09. Heroes of Horror
10. Tome of Magic

 

[questing gm]

Hmm....let's see if i can make it to a Top 10 list.

1. Expanded Psionic Handbook
2. Heroes of Battle
3. Tome of Battle
4. DMG II
5. PHB II

Nope...can't make it Top 10 because i equally love the Complete splatbooks....

 

[Aus_Snow]

1. Fiend Folio
2. Monster Manual II
3. Monster Manual III
4. Unearthed Arcana
5. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
6. Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
7. Tome of Magic
8. Players Handbook II
9. Book of Vile Darkness
10. Complete Adventurer


That will do for now. Tomorrow, who knows. . .

 

[Nyaricus]

In order:
1. Unearthed Arcana
2. PHBII
3. Expanded Psionics Handbook

and in no specific order:
4. Complete Series, first round
5. Spell Compendium
6. Magic Item Compendium (I don't even own this yet, lol, but it's seems so useful!)
7. Heroes of Horror
8. Weapons of Legacy
9. Savage Species (mainly for the templates!)
10. Any of the Enviroment series.

cheers,
--N

 

[blargney the second]

1) Tome of Battle
2) Magic Item Compendium
3) Player's Handbook 2
4) Unearthed Arcana
5) Expanded Psionic Handbook
6) Complete Adventurer for the scout
7) Complete Arcane for the warlock
8) Magic of Incarnum

If setting books were allowed, Eberron Campaign Setting would take #3 above PHB2 and Player's Guide to Eberron would pop in at #7 above Complete Adventurer.
-blarg

 

[Bagpuss]

1. Player's Handbook II
2. Magic Item Compendium
3. Heroes of Battle
4. d20 Menace Manual
5. d20 Critical Locations

I actually prefer Heroes of Battle as a book, but I'll probably get more use out of the first two.

 

[Alnag]

01. Dungen Master's Guide II
02. Unearthed Arcana
03. Draconomicon
04. d20 Critical Locations
05. Book of Challenges

 

[AllisterH]

1) PHB II - People worry about WOTC not being able to produce good products and I like to show them this. A product for everyone and no class gets shortchanged and great expansion material? What's not to love about this. Honestly, this product (and the one below) are what made me confident about WOTC.

2) Tome of Battle - Finally, a book for melee that makes it fun. I love this book and the only reason it is below is that it only applies to melee combat.

3) Magic Item Compendium - Talk about a time saver and I liked the reasoning behind the new item prices as well...

4) Heroes of Horror - Just for the dread necromancer alone and the campaign advice this book is superior to the DMG2.

5) Complete Adventurer - Skill tricks FTW

 

[Arkhandus]

....I assume this means Oriental Adventures is out. :\

In that case:
1) Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (yay wuxia/ninja/anime style combat maneuvers)
2) Manual of the Planes
3) Psionics Handbook
4) Sword & Fist
5) Tome & Blood

Despite the errors and bits of overpowered material, I generally liked S&F and T&B a lot, and found them useful and informative 3.0 resources for warriors, mages, and related stuff. I liked the organizations, items, and prestige classes too. I consider the PsiHB to be less broken and wierd than the XPH of 3.5, needing few houserules for me to use it effectively (and none of that crystalpunk crud that crept into 3.5; before the XPH it was just a bit of crystal use in psionic items, and the psicrystal). MotP has lots of useful stuff, even though I would've preferred a full-blown Planescape 3rd Edition boxed set. The Tome of Battle is possibly the only 3.5 product I'll actually purchase, once I have a steady income again. The Draconomicon and Lords of Madness are possibilities too, but wholly dependant on whether or not I value their roleplaying flavor enough to buy them for use in my 3.0 games.

Fiend Folio, Monster Manual II, and the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer would be on my list, if I were sure they fit the OP's query. And Oriental Adventures would be at the top if it weren't for the fact that it doesn't fit the OP's query, being mostly Rokugan-specific in its material.

I might consider DMG II and PHB II if they weren't very-3.5 specific and half-worthless to me.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Top 5

1) Tome of Battle: Bo9S - As stated, it makes melee-types truly fun to play, and melee-types are my preferred character type.
2) Player's Handbook II - Some neat new classes (Duskblade kinda overdoes it IMO), feats for everyone, interesting new spells, and plenty of advice on character personality and traits, as well as how to play those at the table and not annoy your gaming group.
3) Magic Item Compendium - 'bout friggin' time! Not only a neat collection of stuff, but also an index on where to find the description of what a particular item does.
4) Unearthed Arcana - Lots of options for just about every class to set them apart from the run-of-the-mill.
5) Heroes of Horror - I've used this for a couple Star Wars campaigns, and just the advice alone on how to better craft a good horror-themed adventure makes this book worth it. The new base classes are also interesting, particularly the Archivist (divine magic without the preaching, you say? Brillant!).