Best books for your buck [Archive] - Wizards Community

Best books for your buck [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Piggyfreak6
11-03-06, 05:13 PM So, I'm planning on getting a new book or 2, but I'm not sure what I want. I know I don't want a complete book, I've never used a PrC from it anyways, and I have these books:

BoVD
Savage Species
Epic Level
3 cores
Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer
Fiend Folio
Arms and Equipment Guide
Stronghold Builders Guide

So, I want to know what book I should get. I was thinking of picking up the Heroes of Horror, but I heard that's way to short. Could someone give me some ideas? And also, Arcen is right, I'm playing a homebrew, so please no Eberron or FR.
Arcen
11-03-06, 05:16 PM Both Heroes of Horror and Heroes of Battle are good books. I'm guessing you play either homebrew or Greyhawk so none of the FR or Eberron stuff will really do you any good.
mike_beavers
11-03-06, 05:19 PM depends on what you want to do as a dm. That would help make your decision. Do you want to do undead stuff-Libris mortis would be good, seaborne campaign-stormwrack, desert-sandstorm.

for general I would suggest phb 2 or dmg 2. I found both of them to be useful. perhaps mm 2. I own the lot and find them all useful in different ways.
GenghisUber
11-03-06, 05:43 PM Players Handbook 2 redefines the game for players. It sharpens up a lot of the character classes, removing normally lame abilities (like the paladin's warhorse) and replacing them with something cool, it has interesting new classes that are often fusions of other classes (this is WAY cooler than it sounds), and it has some good feats that help core classes scale better.

PHB 2 really addresses the fact that some character classes just start getting boring at certain levels. You get 3 new levels but no new abilities. You might get more uses of old abilities, but nothing new. That sort of thing.

I'm starting a new campaign in a few weeks and I'm actively encouraging players to draw from the book.
Lazaro
11-03-06, 05:54 PM Best books I've found so far.

1)Tome of Battle
2)PHB II
3)Heros of Horror
4)Dragon Magic
5)I know you said no complete books, but the Complete MAge is great imo
ressurrector
11-03-06, 06:17 PM Tome of Battle is nice if you find spellcasters dominating in your game, or just want system that allows melee characters some extrordinary attack options.

PHB II is nice if you want to expand on the classes allready presented (to be honest I have it, I like it, and I have hardly used it)

The Complete Series is nice if you're a player and have a specific archeotype that you prefer to play. (Comp Mage and Adventurer are my favs, Warrior and Divine are my least favorites)

Monster Manuals aren't that useful honestly, it'd be something different if they had some sort of tables or organised index by creature type/ terrain.

Campaign Setting books are nice if you run or play in that campaign.

The only two purchases I've really liked (and used) over the last year were Complete Mage and Tome of Battle.
The_Puppetmaster
11-03-06, 06:18 PM Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords

This book does a fantastic job of closing the gap between high level spellcasters vs. melee fighters. A must have for your fighter players.

Players Handbook 2

This book is great for players, since it updates the core classes and makes them more interesting to play. It has new classes and retraining rules. Good for you as well if you are playing core-only.
AmericanYeti
11-03-06, 07:56 PM PHBII is an awesome book and the classes from Tome of Battle are beastly. The Warblade can rival a wizard in damage and go toe-to-toe with a Barbarian at the same time.
Voldar_Mecorthio
11-03-06, 08:23 PM Heros of Horror. If the title intriques you, you will love it. If the title repulses you, you will hate it. It basicly gives a guide on how to make a D&D campaign like a horror movie, I've used stuff from the book to make stuff that would make Stephen King shudder. It also gives stuff for players, including a new installment on the "specialist" line of basic classes: the Dread Necromancer. Not the strongest class in the books, but excelent flavor and is great if you want to be good at necromancy and nothing else. The Archivest is basicly the cleric with a wizardly feel, and with some "dark and disturbed" flavor. Add the Tainted Scholar PrC to emphasize the evil of the class. It also gives an alternitive to the blackguard for fallen paladins, the Corrupted Avenger. For DMs it gives guides for making horror in individual encounters, complete adventures, or entire campaigns, including rules for play in dream (including nightmare) worlds. I love the book and recommend it to all who like horror.

Tome of Battle is excelent, it makes fighting types MUCH more fun to play, and if you play it correctly you can DECIMATE your enemies, just take Warblade with the Iron Heart and a little Stone Dragon and watch your enemies run away. For the non-optomizing types out there, you can easily make a non-doommachine character with it, and they're very fun to play, including three classes: ToBified paladin, fighter, and rogue. (crusader, warblade, and swordsage, though the SS could be rogue-esq, monk-esq, or pretty-much-anything-esq) Crusader and Warblade get very few manuvers, getting 14 and 13 respecivilly at 20th level. Swordsage gets double that. However, swordsage only has a 3/4 BAB and a d8 HD, while the other two get full BAB and a d10 and d12 HD. Once I got ToB, I never played a core meleer ever again.

If you watched the Battle of Minas Tirith scene in Return of the King and loved it, then you will love Heros of Battle. Giving instructions on running a war campaign, it proves invaluble if you run those kinds of games. You could even just run a big battle once or twice in your campaign, it would create a great atmosphere and IMO is very fun. Running a total military campaign where everything is centered arround the military barracks and the battlefield isn't as fun IMO, but having an occasional huge battle (possably as the climax or almost-climax, like in Red Hand of Doom or Return of the King) is extremely fun.

Tome of Magic provides some awesome options for varient spellcasters. I don't own it personally, but a friend of mine does and is currently playing a shadowcaster. I know absolutly nothing about it, but it seems really cool and I think I might play a binder when my Dread Necromancer dies.

I'm going to go against the grain and say no to PHBII. I find it to be a meaningless splatbook, just adding new classes, PrCs, spells, feats, and unlike the completes it doesn't even have an overall theme, it's just a chaotic jumble of stuff. It's good for splatbook lovers, but I am not one and prefer my books to add truly new stuff, not just new bits and pieces.
Goon_for_Hire
11-04-06, 11:22 AM I suppose it depends on your campaign, really.

I'll definitely get behind the PHB II crowd. I does a lot for the base classes to make them more useful and interesting.

If you feel that the meat shields need to get a bosot, I also won;t argue with ToB, but I think that the usefulness of the Meat Shield depends more on the player than the resources available to him.

Persoanlly, I think that UNEARTHED ARCANA has more to offer a DM in terms of world building and inspiration than a lot of material does, but only if you are willing to tweak your rules a bit.

I can't give enough accolades to FROSTBURN and STORMWRACK. They are incredibly flavour- and concept-rich books. It's hard not to find at least some material you would want to use.

The new deities in FB are a campaign in themselves, and while the material seems isolated at first, most of it can be ported into any setting, from villains ranging ar afield, to moving cities, to dungeons with magically chilled areas to keep the warm-weather PCs on their toes. The deities and the races (especially the Uldra) are pretty handy for getting a good adventure or subplot idea.

SW covers something every DM has to deal with eventually: water. Whether its a river swamp or ocean, It's going to be in any setting except a desert. SW covers things like ship-to-ship battles, sea monsters, piracy, and underwater adventures in depth that gets ignored, especially considering how often they come up in a campaign. The Darfellan and Aventi races also seem to be walking adventure hooks.
Zerchai
11-04-06, 01:13 PM Player's. Handbook. II. This book simply can't get enough praise, even two of the four base classes are pretty lacking (the beguiler and the knight are nice, though). I think you'll find everything that everyone else here has said to be true about this book, and one thing that I'd like to add is that the feats in this book are absolutely fantastic. Finally! Reasons to use crossbows and alchemical items!

From a DM perspective, the environment books are pretty fantastic as well, and I definately have to throw in a Second! for Stormwrack being the best of the bunch.
Voldar_Mecorthio
11-04-06, 02:04 PM I will applaud the PHBII feats, but if you just take a looksie at this (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/featsform.pl) then there's no need to buy the book if all you want is the feats. It does give some nice character options, but you could easily homebrew create all of these, and as for the "retool your character", every campaign I play in has an unspoken "if you don't like it, change it" rule. I find the new classes slightly lacking, though they're pretty good with a little tweaking. If you can get it used or otherwise at a discount, go for it, but I don't think its worth full price.
Kaya Kenobi
11-04-06, 02:13 PM So, I'm planning on getting a new book or 2, but I'm not sure what I want. I know I don't want a complete book, I've never used a PrC from it anyways, and I have these books:

BoVD
Savage Species
Epic Level
3 cores
Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer
Fiend Folio
Arms and Equipment Guide
Stronghold Builders Guide

So, I want to know what book I should get. I was thinking of picking up the Heroes of Horror, but I heard that's way to short. Could someone give me some ideas? And also, Arcen is right, I'm playing a homebrew, so please no Eberron or FR.

magic of faerun is good for spellcasters (Or the spell compendium which has the spells from magic of faerun too)
all the monster manuals
creature collections, tome horrors, and relics and rituals from sword and sorcery studios
All the complete books
Unearthed Arcana
Hell, I own 54 WotC books, and 48 3rd party books. I use bits and pieces from all the books too.
Chrono Nexus
11-04-06, 05:25 PM The monster manuels are good for when you want to throw your players a curb ball.

The best two noncore books I ever bought were the DMGII and the Draconomicon. Both are stuffed with tons of good fluff and crunch.
Senevri
11-04-06, 06:22 PM Monster Manual III
Tome of Battle
Heroes of Horror
Fiendish Codex I
drake_vampiel_d
11-04-06, 07:06 PM Wow best book hmmm....I like the expanded psionics handbook and Magic of incarnum PHB II was awsome Fendish codex I was ok too theres so many to choose from I guess go to your book store look at what they have and decide what kind of campain you want if you want fun with dragons go for dragonomicon or races of the dragon
GoofsterStud
11-04-06, 07:20 PM Spell Compodeium - For DM 's quick refrence to the moder versions of the spells is nice!

Book of Exalted Deads - It might be overpowered a bit, but it is still my favorite book.
DDdreamer
11-11-06, 11:19 AM players handbook and dungeon masters guide.
Demarest
11-11-06, 01:23 PM It seems to me that it is unnecessary for you to buy any more Monsters Manuals, as you have the Fiend Folio, Monster Manual and Savage Species. That is, unless, you feel the need for more monsters than the ones you already have.

You also have a lot of resources for how the characters should play the game and things for them to use while adventuring: the PHB, Stronghold Buillder's Guide, Complete Warrior and Adventurer (which I personally like), Epic Level Handbook and Arms and Equipment Guide.

So my recommendations are the following:

You have Book of Vile Darkness. Now, I don't own these books, but from what I've heard, the Book of Exalted Deeds balances out somewhat the BoVD, and neither should be used in a campaign without the other. At least, that's what I think I've heard, but you don't have to take my word for it as I peronally have neither.

I would highly recommend the Environment series. You have books on monsters and options for characters. Why not present yourself, as DM (as I suppose you are) with more options for your world (unless you are not doing a homebrew world, but from you book list it seems that you are). Out of those, Stormwrack is (and I think others will agree with me on this) the best of the bunch. Sandstorm and Frostburn are debated as to which is better, but they're both good. Cityscape is much shorter than the other three, and I think would be a benefit to new DMs who do not own the DMG II, or need more sources of inspiration for their cities. It's not a bad book, but it just isn't that long, and to match up with the other supplements, many of its sections should have been extended where they weren't. Cityscape seems like a rough draft of an amazing book that could have been published later and been great with more work. It's alright nevertheless.

The Races series are good when you know specifically as DM if you are throwing your characters into an environment where humans (this is excepting Races of Destiny) are not in droves. If you are going to have your PCs in the forest and in an elven city, Races of the Wild (while having been highly criticized) has invaluable information on Elven cities and their way of life. These books are about the flavor of the campaign, and variety is the spice of life.

As for PHB II, I am supportive of the book if you really want new classes and feats and etc., and some of the new things it offers like remaking characters, etc.. If you don't, the book is unncessary. Personally, I like the beguiler and have played a beguiler in two separate campaigns. So naturally, I have the book. It's just more stuff to add, and it's good and interesting stuff, but I don't think it's a first priority unless you want more base classes, feats, spells, or if you are a new player. And as I am assuming that you are a DM, this shouldn't be your first concern, but that is just my opinion.

I hope that I've helped.
White_Wizard
11-11-06, 01:37 PM My favorites are:
FRCS
FR: Silver Marches
Warcraft d20 RPG: Magic and Mayhem
Wannabessj4
11-11-06, 02:26 PM I have bought quite a few books, however these 3 are my favorites:
1. Heroes of Horror. It is one of the most exciting books (Just watch my games turn around and get creepy) and strangely enough, it actually allows your game to get scary, and you can get the PCs to sit and shiver, jumping into the air next time someone opens the door
2. Expanded Psionics HAndbook. Just a good book, with good and interesting classes
3. Libris Mortis. I liked undead for my horror stories, so why not grab a wellwritten book about it?
resscane
11-11-06, 05:40 PM Pavis big rubble
The_Undertaker
11-12-06, 01:04 AM you might wanna look into the Expanded Psionics handbook or as others have said PHB2.
KurenaiYami
11-12-06, 03:45 AM I like anything that puts a whole new system into your game.

As such, Tome of Magic is a must.

Tome of Battle is also nifty.

Magic of Incarnum is very nice, though I wish there were more Soulmelds...

Also, Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Piggyfreak6 11-03-06, 05:13 PM	So, I'm planning on getting a new book or 2, but I'm not sure what I want. I know I don't want a complete book, I've never used a PrC from it anyways, and I have these books: BoVD Savage Species Epic Level 3 cores Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer Fiend Folio Arms and Equipment Guide Stronghold Builders Guide So, I want to know what book I should get. I was thinking of picking up the Heroes of Horror, but I heard that's way to short. Could someone give me some ideas? And also, Arcen is right, I'm playing a homebrew, so please no Eberron or FR.
Arcen 11-03-06, 05:16 PM	Both Heroes of Horror and Heroes of Battle are good books. I'm guessing you play either homebrew or Greyhawk so none of the FR or Eberron stuff will really do you any good.
mike_beavers 11-03-06, 05:19 PM	depends on what you want to do as a dm. That would help make your decision. Do you want to do undead stuff-Libris mortis would be good, seaborne campaign-stormwrack, desert-sandstorm. for general I would suggest phb 2 or dmg 2. I found both of them to be useful. perhaps mm 2. I own the lot and find them all useful in different ways.
GenghisUber 11-03-06, 05:43 PM	Players Handbook 2 redefines the game for players. It sharpens up a lot of the character classes, removing normally lame abilities (like the paladin's warhorse) and replacing them with something cool, it has interesting new classes that are often fusions of other classes (this is WAY cooler than it sounds), and it has some good feats that help core classes scale better. PHB 2 really addresses the fact that some character classes just start getting boring at certain levels. You get 3 new levels but no new abilities. You might get more uses of old abilities, but nothing new. That sort of thing. I'm starting a new campaign in a few weeks and I'm actively encouraging players to draw from the book.
Lazaro 11-03-06, 05:54 PM	Best books I've found so far. 1)Tome of Battle 2)PHB II 3)Heros of Horror 4)Dragon Magic 5)I know you said no complete books, but the Complete MAge is great imo
ressurrector 11-03-06, 06:17 PM	Tome of Battle is nice if you find spellcasters dominating in your game, or just want system that allows melee characters some extrordinary attack options. PHB II is nice if you want to expand on the classes allready presented (to be honest I have it, I like it, and I have hardly used it) The Complete Series is nice if you're a player and have a specific archeotype that you prefer to play. (Comp Mage and Adventurer are my favs, Warrior and Divine are my least favorites) Monster Manuals aren't that useful honestly, it'd be something different if they had some sort of tables or organised index by creature type/ terrain. Campaign Setting books are nice if you run or play in that campaign. The only two purchases I've really liked (and used) over the last year were Complete Mage and Tome of Battle.
The_Puppetmaster 11-03-06, 06:18 PM	Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords This book does a fantastic job of closing the gap between high level spellcasters vs. melee fighters. A must have for your fighter players. Players Handbook 2 This book is great for players, since it updates the core classes and makes them more interesting to play. It has new classes and retraining rules. Good for you as well if you are playing core-only.
AmericanYeti 11-03-06, 07:56 PM	PHBII is an awesome book and the classes from Tome of Battle are beastly. The Warblade can rival a wizard in damage and go toe-to-toe with a Barbarian at the same time.
Voldar_Mecorthio 11-03-06, 08:23 PM	Heros of Horror. If the title intriques you, you will love it. If the title repulses you, you will hate it. It basicly gives a guide on how to make a D&D campaign like a horror movie, I've used stuff from the book to make stuff that would make Stephen King shudder. It also gives stuff for players, including a new installment on the "specialist" line of basic classes: the Dread Necromancer. Not the strongest class in the books, but excelent flavor and is great if you want to be good at necromancy and nothing else. The Archivest is basicly the cleric with a wizardly feel, and with some "dark and disturbed" flavor. Add the Tainted Scholar PrC to emphasize the evil of the class. It also gives an alternitive to the blackguard for fallen paladins, the Corrupted Avenger. For DMs it gives guides for making horror in individual encounters, complete adventures, or entire campaigns, including rules for play in dream (including nightmare) worlds. I love the book and recommend it to all who like horror. Tome of Battle is excelent, it makes fighting types MUCH more fun to play, and if you play it correctly you can DECIMATE your enemies, just take Warblade with the Iron Heart and a little Stone Dragon and watch your enemies run away. For the non-optomizing types out there, you can easily make a non-doommachine character with it, and they're very fun to play, including three classes: ToBified paladin, fighter, and rogue. (crusader, warblade, and swordsage, though the SS could be rogue-esq, monk-esq, or pretty-much-anything-esq) Crusader and Warblade get very few manuvers, getting 14 and 13 respecivilly at 20th level. Swordsage gets double that. However, swordsage only has a 3/4 BAB and a d8 HD, while the other two get full BAB and a d10 and d12 HD. Once I got ToB, I never played a core meleer ever again. If you watched the Battle of Minas Tirith scene in Return of the King and loved it, then you will love Heros of Battle. Giving instructions on running a war campaign, it proves invaluble if you run those kinds of games. You could even just run a big battle once or twice in your campaign, it would create a great atmosphere and IMO is very fun. Running a total military campaign where everything is centered arround the military barracks and the battlefield isn't as fun IMO, but having an occasional huge battle (possably as the climax or almost-climax, like in Red Hand of Doom or Return of the King) is extremely fun. Tome of Magic provides some awesome options for varient spellcasters. I don't own it personally, but a friend of mine does and is currently playing a shadowcaster. I know absolutly nothing about it, but it seems really cool and I think I might play a binder when my Dread Necromancer dies. I'm going to go against the grain and say no to PHBII. I find it to be a meaningless splatbook, just adding new classes, PrCs, spells, feats, and unlike the completes it doesn't even have an overall theme, it's just a chaotic jumble of stuff. It's good for splatbook lovers, but I am not one and prefer my books to add truly new stuff, not just new bits and pieces.
Goon_for_Hire 11-04-06, 11:22 AM	I suppose it depends on your campaign, really. I'll definitely get behind the PHB II crowd. I does a lot for the base classes to make them more useful and interesting. If you feel that the meat shields need to get a bosot, I also won;t argue with ToB, but I think that the usefulness of the Meat Shield depends more on the player than the resources available to him. Persoanlly, I think that UNEARTHED ARCANA has more to offer a DM in terms of world building and inspiration than a lot of material does, but only if you are willing to tweak your rules a bit. I can't give enough accolades to FROSTBURN and STORMWRACK. They are incredibly flavour- and concept-rich books. It's hard not to find at least some material you would want to use. The new deities in FB are a campaign in themselves, and while the material seems isolated at first, most of it can be ported into any setting, from villains ranging ar afield, to moving cities, to dungeons with magically chilled areas to keep the warm-weather PCs on their toes. The deities and the races (especially the Uldra) are pretty handy for getting a good adventure or subplot idea. SW covers something every DM has to deal with eventually: water. Whether its a river swamp or ocean, It's going to be in any setting except a desert. SW covers things like ship-to-ship battles, sea monsters, piracy, and underwater adventures in depth that gets ignored, especially considering how often they come up in a campaign. The Darfellan and Aventi races also seem to be walking adventure hooks.
Zerchai 11-04-06, 01:13 PM	Player's. Handbook. II. This book simply can't get enough praise, even two of the four base classes are pretty lacking (the beguiler and the knight are nice, though). I think you'll find everything that everyone else here has said to be true about this book, and one thing that I'd like to add is that the feats in this book are absolutely fantastic. Finally! Reasons to use crossbows and alchemical items! From a DM perspective, the environment books are pretty fantastic as well, and I definately have to throw in a Second! for Stormwrack being the best of the bunch.
Voldar_Mecorthio 11-04-06, 02:04 PM	I will applaud the PHBII feats, but if you just take a looksie at this (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/featsform.pl) then there's no need to buy the book if all you want is the feats. It does give some nice character options, but you could easily homebrew create all of these, and as for the "retool your character", every campaign I play in has an unspoken "if you don't like it, change it" rule. I find the new classes slightly lacking, though they're pretty good with a little tweaking. If you can get it used or otherwise at a discount, go for it, but I don't think its worth full price.
Kaya Kenobi 11-04-06, 02:13 PM	So, I'm planning on getting a new book or 2, but I'm not sure what I want. I know I don't want a complete book, I've never used a PrC from it anyways, and I have these books: BoVD Savage Species Epic Level 3 cores Complete Warrior and Complete Adventurer Fiend Folio Arms and Equipment Guide Stronghold Builders Guide So, I want to know what book I should get. I was thinking of picking up the Heroes of Horror, but I heard that's way to short. Could someone give me some ideas? And also, Arcen is right, I'm playing a homebrew, so please no Eberron or FR. magic of faerun is good for spellcasters (Or the spell compendium which has the spells from magic of faerun too) all the monster manuals creature collections, tome horrors, and relics and rituals from sword and sorcery studios All the complete books Unearthed Arcana Hell, I own 54 WotC books, and 48 3rd party books. I use bits and pieces from all the books too.
Chrono Nexus 11-04-06, 05:25 PM	The monster manuels are good for when you want to throw your players a curb ball. The best two noncore books I ever bought were the DMGII and the Draconomicon. Both are stuffed with tons of good fluff and crunch.
Senevri 11-04-06, 06:22 PM	Monster Manual III Tome of Battle Heroes of Horror Fiendish Codex I
drake_vampiel_d 11-04-06, 07:06 PM	Wow best book hmmm....I like the expanded psionics handbook and Magic of incarnum PHB II was awsome Fendish codex I was ok too theres so many to choose from I guess go to your book store look at what they have and decide what kind of campain you want if you want fun with dragons go for dragonomicon or races of the dragon
GoofsterStud 11-04-06, 07:20 PM	Spell Compodeium - For DM 's quick refrence to the moder versions of the spells is nice! Book of Exalted Deads - It might be overpowered a bit, but it is still my favorite book.
DDdreamer 11-11-06, 11:19 AM	players handbook and dungeon masters guide.
Demarest 11-11-06, 01:23 PM	It seems to me that it is unnecessary for you to buy any more Monsters Manuals, as you have the Fiend Folio, Monster Manual and Savage Species. That is, unless, you feel the need for more monsters than the ones you already have. You also have a lot of resources for how the characters should play the game and things for them to use while adventuring: the PHB, Stronghold Buillder's Guide, Complete Warrior and Adventurer (which I personally like), Epic Level Handbook and Arms and Equipment Guide. So my recommendations are the following: You have Book of Vile Darkness. Now, I don't own these books, but from what I've heard, the Book of Exalted Deeds balances out somewhat the BoVD, and neither should be used in a campaign without the other. At least, that's what I think I've heard, but you don't have to take my word for it as I peronally have neither. I would highly recommend the Environment series. You have books on monsters and options for characters. Why not present yourself, as DM (as I suppose you are) with more options for your world (unless you are not doing a homebrew world, but from you book list it seems that you are). Out of those, Stormwrack is (and I think others will agree with me on this) the best of the bunch. Sandstorm and Frostburn are debated as to which is better, but they're both good. Cityscape is much shorter than the other three, and I think would be a benefit to new DMs who do not own the DMG II, or need more sources of inspiration for their cities. It's not a bad book, but it just isn't that long, and to match up with the other supplements, many of its sections should have been extended where they weren't. Cityscape seems like a rough draft of an amazing book that could have been published later and been great with more work. It's alright nevertheless. The Races series are good when you know specifically as DM if you are throwing your characters into an environment where humans (this is excepting Races of Destiny) are not in droves. If you are going to have your PCs in the forest and in an elven city, Races of the Wild (while having been highly criticized) has invaluable information on Elven cities and their way of life. These books are about the flavor of the campaign, and variety is the spice of life. As for PHB II, I am supportive of the book if you really want new classes and feats and etc., and some of the new things it offers like remaking characters, etc.. If you don't, the book is unncessary. Personally, I like the beguiler and have played a beguiler in two separate campaigns. So naturally, I have the book. It's just more stuff to add, and it's good and interesting stuff, but I don't think it's a first priority unless you want more base classes, feats, spells, or if you are a new player. And as I am assuming that you are a DM, this shouldn't be your first concern, but that is just my opinion. I hope that I've helped.
White_Wizard 11-11-06, 01:37 PM	My favorites are: FRCS FR: Silver Marches Warcraft d20 RPG: Magic and Mayhem
Wannabessj4 11-11-06, 02:26 PM	I have bought quite a few books, however these 3 are my favorites: 1. Heroes of Horror. It is one of the most exciting books (Just watch my games turn around and get creepy) and strangely enough, it actually allows your game to get scary, and you can get the PCs to sit and shiver, jumping into the air next time someone opens the door 2. Expanded Psionics HAndbook. Just a good book, with good and interesting classes 3. Libris Mortis. I liked undead for my horror stories, so why not grab a wellwritten book about it?
resscane 11-11-06, 05:40 PM	Pavis big rubble
The_Undertaker 11-12-06, 01:04 AM	you might wanna look into the Expanded Psionics handbook or as others have said PHB2.
KurenaiYami 11-12-06, 03:45 AM	I like anything that puts a whole new system into your game. As such, Tome of Magic is a must. Tome of Battle is also nifty. Magic of Incarnum is very nice, though I wish there were more Soulmelds... Also, Expanded Psionics Handbook.