Post/Author/DateTime	Post
smoker 08-28-07, 10:04 PM	Since 4e is coming out, I would like to pick up some fluffy books without a lot of mechanics in them. I can use this stuff between editions. What are the best books out there?
bonethug0108 08-28-07, 10:08 PM	I can say that while the race books contain crunch, they were VERY fluff heavy. So if you like races, these would be good. The books about specific monsters are much the same way. Some of these books are the draconomicon, the books of the abyss(demons), the books of the nine hells(devils), and the lords of madness(aberrations).
MonkeyPaladin 08-28-07, 10:15 PM	Draconomicon, hands down. Beautiful art, and lots and lots of information about everyone's favorite creatures, dragons.
bonethug0108 08-28-07, 10:16 PM	Draconomicon, hands down. Beautiful art, and lots and lots of information about everyone's favorite creatures, dragons. Agreed. Really a must buy if you are a huge dragon fan(raises hand:P)
Calestin Kethal 08-28-07, 10:19 PM	Most of the creature books were decent enough on fluff that I'd consider them worth the buy. This includes the Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, Codex Anathema (I mean Lords of Madness), Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of Hell, and Drow of the Underdark. As always, your mileage may vary.
Galstaf, Sorcerer of Lite 08-28-07, 10:39 PM	Depending on your setting of choice, a lot of location-based books were released that were pretty fluffy: Sliver Marches and Waterdeep for Forgotten Realms, for example, or Sharn: City of Towers for Eberron (which was probably my favorite fluff book in a long time -- one could easily run an entire campaign out of that book and not run out of new material for years).
Kensan_Oni 08-28-07, 10:48 PM	Books that I consider valuable going between the editions. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting/The Eberron Campaign Setting: These two books will not be outdated simplly cause the rules are updated. They will always be useful for the ideas and settings contained inside. By that measure, Any of the books that go into details about the lands of those worlds will also be valuable. The DMG II. The DMG two had a huge amount of useful tips and ideas, a city that could be used in any game, and mechanic ideas that will probably survive the transition due to their uniqueness. This book should be able to make the transition, no issues. The Enviroment series (Stormwrack, Sandstorm, Frostfell). Like the world books, guides that provide details on harsh enviroments and how to run games there will also probably be highly useful. Manual of the Planes/Planar Handbook : More setting ideas, and the only rulebooks that deal with the newly invented Plane of Shadows. Will always be useful due to most of the information being non-mechanic orientated. Expedition to Undermountain: One can never have enough dungeons, and Undermountain is large enough where it can never be fully covered by any of the books. It will always be useful, even if all it's used for is for a quick map for a random game. Those are the ones that I feel will make the transition without losing any value. I also tend to think that the orginizations introduced in the Complete Adventurer will see use sometime in a future setting in one of my games, but that book in itself isn't all that useful.
Count Nerindil Van Seraph 08-28-07, 10:55 PM	I agree with all of the above and would like to add: The Forge of War (Eberron) Five Nations (Eberron) Players guide to Eberron (duh) Secrets of Sarlona (take a wild guess) Both Fiendish Codices Though they were all three mostly fluff, Tome of Magic, Tome of Battle and Weapons of Legacy had some really cool fluff.