Post/Author/DateTime	Post
rogar2465 04-07-06, 07:37 PM	My PHB, DMG, and MMI get used several Xs per game. Adventures will eventually get used, got lots, including Red Hand, shackled city, will get Mysteries of the Moonsea. My other books I could rate... 1-Intresting read once 2-Some usable stuff 3-Nice to have on the shelf 4-used in game,once in a while 5-Used 1/3-6 games 3-Manual of the planes 3-Unearthed Arcana 1-Sword & Fist 1-Song & Silence 3-DMG2 2-Heroes of Horror 3-F.R. Campaign Guide 4-F.R. Maps 1-L.G. Gazettier So if I'm looking for ratings 3-5, should I buy... 1-Sandstorm 2-Frostburn 3-Stormwrack 4-MM3 5-MM4 6-Fiendish Codex 1 7-Libris Mortis 8-Lords of Madness 9-Draconomicon 10-Dragons of Faerun 11-Complete adventurer 12-Spell Compendium 13-Explorers Handbook 14-Weapons of legacy You'r opinion of these would be very appreciated. Rogar
TheFallenWriter 04-07-06, 09:54 PM	Depends on what you use, no matter what though I would suggest Spell Compendium. And first off, upgrade your books by getting Complete ADventuer and Warrior, its never good to have conflicting editions if you can upgrade. Libris morthis is good, MM3 is really good, don't have MM4. Didn't know it was out. That is all I have experience in. ~The Fallen
Board_Rider 04-07-06, 10:21 PM	Here is my take on the books Environment Books Stormwrack, Sandstorm and Frostburn really are not needed although they may provide you with a few things that you can use. Basically, these three "environment" books, focus in on their respective locales. If you need more that what the DMG has, say, for cold weather adventuring then get Frostburn. If you really don't wish to delve to deeply in locale rulesets I would not recommend these books as they simply are not needed. In short, look through them first. Monster Manuals You can never have enough monsters. Having said that if you plan to run pre-mades don't worry about getting these books as most modules use the MM1 or give the stats for the monsters presented. Buy these on Amazon for cheap if you do buy them. Libris Mortis This book is great. However there is WHOLE LOT of stuff that you will likely never use in it. I love to use undead in my games and the variants for zombies and stuff are nice. Undead progression? Not so much unless you want to create a special BBEG. There are some great feats for evil PCs/NPCS who control undead. Weapons of Legacy, Fiendish Codex, Lords of Madness None of these books really interested me as all they basically do is expound upon one thing which may only be used one time in my campaign. Depending on your DM style you may like these books. Personally, I don't need to know a complete backup of Illithids or Demons. Weapons of Legacy is nice but probably will sit on your shelf. Spell Compendium Great book. Really good for those DMs who tire from their players digging through tons of books to find one spell. Complete Adventurer To me this is the best book of the entire Complete series. Out of the books you wrote this is the one I recommend. Any Complete book is good. Tons of ideas and good stuff in this book. Draconomicon Good book and worth the money. You may or may not use this book so read it first. Explorers Handbook Decent book but not really needed. I recommend the Races of Eberron book or the ECS. I do not know of Dragons of Faerun. Power of Faerun is basically useless unless you allow a lot of cohorts and leadership stuff. Same with the Champions of...line. I would also recommend Tome of Magic or Magic of Incarnum
rogar2465 04-07-06, 11:17 PM	WOW, out of 14 books I'll probably only buy Complete Adventurer, and Spell Compendium. Hmmm..., Unless I learn to Wing/Wright adventures, most books outside the core are usless to me. What can WotC learn from this? I wish there was more I felt worthy of the money, I buy every modual, 2-3 boosters of each D&D mini,s then singles on E-Bay, but it can't be good for WotC's living. Can it? :confused: Rogar
revnk 04-07-06, 11:23 PM	Board_Rider offered some excellent advice. Where I'd differ is that I use Lords Of Madness quite a bit, since I tend towards more Cthulhu-y adventure settings. Which brings up the ultimate criteria for usefulness: what do you want to use? Like Board_Rider said, if you don't need in-depth rules on arctic settings, you don't need Frostburn. On the other hand, if you're running an ice-age campaign, you probably should have bought it yesterday. I put a high premium on monster books, because I think a DM can't have too many monsters. It helps keep players on their toes. Aside from that, the rating for a book's usefulness depends on your need. In spite of all the great things I hear about it, I'd give Draconomicon a "0"--because I don't do much with dragons. As a horror-leaning kind of guy, I'd give Libris Mortis a "5." But some other DM would quite validly reverse those ratings, if he throws lots of dragons into his campaign and undead are only an odd bit of variety every now and again. Evaluate what you need, and go from there. You don't need Sandstorm to run a naval campaign. Good luck!
Chrono Nexus 04-08-06, 01:58 AM	3-DMG2 2-Heroes of Horror 9-Draconomicon 11-Complete adventurer 12-Spell Compendium 13-Explorers Handbook Rogar In order of relevence by number... 3 9 12 11 2 13
dungeonmasterblog 04-08-06, 08:34 AM	Spell Compendium would be my first choice as well. After that, it depends on which way you want to go. Libris Mortis is a great supplement, but only if you want more undead. I really Dracominicon as well, but again, only if you're going to be using a dragon sometime soon. I personally like Weapons of Legacy, but it's gotten some pretty rough reviews here in the forum. If I'm looking for a quick campaign, I usually pick out an item and center that night's play around that particular legacy item. Dungeon Master http://www.dungeonsdragonsblog.com
Burgundy Lotus 04-08-06, 08:39 AM	If you use or plan to use the Manual of the Planes a fair bit you may want to look into the Planar Handbook as they compliment each other
kelvinaw273 04-08-06, 08:54 AM	I recomend all of the Complete series of books for your players and you, and players may be interested enough to buy them so you don't have to fork out. Complete Adventurer is just the supplement for Rogues, the others replace Sword & Fist, Song & Silence etc. Draconimican? Handy if you have a dragon-themed campaign or adventure. I had a dragon character (my ex-wife, not joking), so it was useful to me. Otherwise, missable. Other books? Never felt the need for them. Expanded Psionics and Complete Psionics if you want psionics in your campaign, maybe (for some campaigns like Eberron it is virtually essential), but otherwise I could skip.
DM_Firecracker 04-08-06, 09:56 AM	I recommend the entire complete serries, my players use almost every one of them in almost every game, also the MMII-IV is a great choice. I use the DMG2, and the FRCS a bunch in my games, and I'm going to pick up the PHB2 when I can. My players tend to lean towards anti-heroes, and I have catered to them buy picking up Libris Mortis (often refered to around my table as the Lee-bee Mee-bee), and also the Book of Vile Darkness (BVD). I don't have the Spell COmpedium or Magic Incarnium yet, however; they are two of the top three on my shopping list (along with the ECS). Hell, I'd say buy 'em all if you can, if nothing else you will have +5 bookshelf of player frightening, the more resources avaliable, the more you can find to throw at them, and the more doors that are opened to have a good time at every session.
jaydubyadub 04-08-06, 11:16 AM	Errr.. MMIV?! We have no way of knowing the worth of something that won't come out until July. ;) On that note, though, from what little we do know about it, I'm personally expecting the Player's Handbook II which comes out in a month to be a very good accessory.
rogar2465 04-08-06, 03:24 PM	Well Thanks, I guess I'll be growing my book list. Spell comp. Comp. Adven. Libris Mortis Planer Handbook Draconomicon PHB2 Lords of madnss For starters,.... Yea see I lowerd my standerd for Buying books? I'll just get anything that rates a 2 or better. :D Rogar
savant_warlord13 04-08-06, 03:49 PM	if it is a 3.5 book published by wizards, it is useful. 3.0 books and 3rd party books may or may not be useful
Witch 04-08-06, 03:55 PM	And if you're going for 3rd party books too, I've heard a lot of good things about Monte Cook's books.
Mist of Shadows 04-08-06, 04:01 PM	I found the book weapons of legacy to be rather useless, though using it for the adventures might be alright. I find the costs rather outragious for the benifit. The incarnum book I hated because it was only useful if you play heavily with alignment. Everything in there has alignment restrictions. It's not always clear on what works with other things. For a book that has a great number of new magical effects that are a poor mans magical items it's not a bad book. the complete books are rather nice, the frostburn book sees a bit of use though it is by no means needed. I've heard good things about libimortis. For the rest get them as your budgit allows.
Greg K 04-08-06, 04:05 PM	if it is a 3.5 book published by wizards, it is useful. 3.0 books and 3rd party books may or may not be useful For you perhaps. I know many people that believe even 3.5 books published by WOTC may or may not be useful.
Secrets Untold 04-08-06, 04:05 PM	Monte Cook helped write the core books and porbably some other ones, too. Weapons of Legacy is fun! I like LoM, MM3, HoH, MoI, XPH, Stormwrack. and SS as well. All have good stuff.
rogar2465 04-08-06, 04:14 PM	Oh,yea In order to keep my campaign reasonably adjudicated, I'm avoiding, Psyonics, Incarnim, truename............ I'm just not glued together enough for all that. Prestige classes I could live without too! Rogar
Witch 04-08-06, 04:16 PM	No prestige classes? Auwtch. I'd be hard pressed there ^^ Just for the flavor, I really like those :)
Greg K 04-08-06, 04:35 PM	A good place to learn about third party products is the review section at ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org) There are many good third party companies. Monte Cook's Malhavoc is one and Green Ronin is another. Mongoose Publishing has supposedly gotten better after thier initial few releases (Quintessential Monk, Quintessential Sorceror, Quintessential Wizard are all supposed to be top notch despite being 3.0 compatible) Unfortuantely some other really good third party companies which produced some excellent 3.0 books, but have since left the d20 market. Among these companies are Fantasy Flight Games (Seafarer's Handbook, Traps and Treachery, Path of Books, Cityscape and Wildcraft), Alderac (AEG) (Mercenaries and Wilds) , Monkey God (From Stone to Steel) w Then there are some smaller companies producing good things. For example, Experts (by Skirmisher Press)
75RD Drum Clip 04-08-06, 10:51 PM	I think that all the books I ave been useful at some point, some books have been used much more than others. I made a lot of use out of the Complete Arcane, Oriental Adventures, all the Monster books, all the Class based books hard and soft cover, the Spell Compendium has been a breath of relief, so has the Draconomicon. If my gaming sole remain player had not joined the Navy, I would more than likely at some point have gotten all the or almost all the books.
Witch 04-09-06, 08:27 AM	For some reason I don't really like monsters, exceptions granted, ofcourse. I prefer humanoid opponents :)
Horatio Hornblower 04-09-06, 09:11 AM	Beyond the three core books I got the Complete Series, Spell Compendium and Stormwrack. The Complete Series is great for ideas, but be very careful what you use out of them. Some of the stuff is out of wack and will mess your campaign up. The Spell Compendium is great. Lots of spells and domains gathered from many books. Any of the Environment books would be good if you need more rules for that type of setting. I got Stormwrack for obvious reasons. BTW, what does everyone think about MMII and MIII for a campaign that has a lot of nautical adventures? I've never looked through them.