3.5 supplemental books

what are some of the best 3.5 D&D supplement books? starting a new campaign soon and i want the players to have as many options as possible to do evil stuff.

Just....dear god dont allow book of vail darkness. That out of the way: feindish codex 1 and 2 were pretty good, complete scoundral will probably be up your alley too

I've found that using ONLY ToB and Psionic classes actually works extremely well. You just CALL psionics magic, because in a world without vancian spellcasting, that's exactly what people WOULD call it.

Fuck this guy BoVD is great.

Libris Mortis is good for undead things.

Heroes of Horror isn't bad. I also like Elder Evils but the amount of player options there are limited, more for you but you can take inspiration.

Lords of Madness is one of the better 3.5 books out of all of them. If you're looking for player options with evil fluff, Heroes of Horror and Book of Vile Darkness are okay.

Libris Mortis makes the Dread Master or whatever it was from dragon compendium awesome as fuck.

BoVD was pretty damn good for making villains.

Draconomicon and Races of Dragon are go to books to make dragons a memorable and not just one off encounters in a game.

Forgotten Realms setting had something like Champions of Despair, or something like that, with a whole bunch of evil aligned prestige classes. Chaotic Evil paladin class was one of the more notable ones, iirc

I swear by the following:

Expanded Psionics Handbook
Tome of Battle
Tome of Magic
Magic of Incarnum

Book of Vile Darkness content is very hit or miss, but there are some gems if you want a character to be a horrible piece of shit. Just don't bother reading the bulk of the morality essays or fluff. I'd recommend not letting players have direct access to it, but using it to help build encounters, sprinkling some of the spells into captured spellbooks would work.

Libris Mortis for undead. Heroes of Horror is pretty decent for overall spooky adventures, with some decent GM advice in there. Lords of Madness is OK, but not much useful for players.

For general DnD, it's hard to go wrong with Tome of Battle. Keep the Spell Compendium on hand, but follow the same advice as BoVD. Bonus: pdf is an index of most of the WotC published feats for 3.5.

all the input is much appreciated

Pathfinder

I really like Magic of Incarnum myself. I can't vouch for Savage Species being well balanced, but I liked the concepts in it.

Finally a thread I can post in, I am a major 3.5 Luddite. BoVD is a 3.0 book.

The complete adventurer/warrior etc. series are all good for character options

Spell compendium is great for casters

Libris Mortis and heroes of horror are all your undead stuff

I think book of nine swords did a decent job of making high level martial characters more relevant

There have been 2 editions since then.
These books are all out of print.

This is exactly what everyone has always told me about BoVD

Lords of madness had major minmax loophole. Well, it was part of a greater loop

Those editions suck and the 3e books are available online. So, what's your point?

All of the monster manual. ThE art is good

I'd say Monster Manuals 1-3 and Fiend Folio. 4 and 5 were pretty lame.

Is there a trove with pdfs for 3.5 similar to those that Pathfinder and 5e have?

>Incarnum

Align your chakras and you're still shit compared to everything else you mentioned. Except maybe the shadowmage. And even they're giggling at you.

>I am a major 3.5 Luddite. BoVD is a 3.0 book.

I have never had trouble finding PDF of 3.5 books

The different setting books - not campaign settings like FR or Eberron, but Frostburn for cold, Stormwrack for seas, and Sandstorm for deserts - are good if you're focusing on those kinds of areas.

I'm big on Unearthed Arcana and Tome of Battle for character options. The Complete series books are always useful.

If you're GM, Heroes of Horror, Heroes of Battle, Dungeonscape, and old Dragon and Dungeon magazines are fantastic resources.

I personally use the Draconomicon and Manual of the Planes a lot, and I rarely don't use Deities and Demigods while GMing.

Aside from that, all the monster manuals have useful or interesting monsters, both player's handbooks are essential, and I, personally, like the Dungeon Master's Guide 2.

Personally, I rarely allow anything from the BoVD, but that's mostly because I don't like the balance of the options and how horribly edgy a bunch of the stuff in it is. Some of the options from it in 'fixed' form come from the Tome of the Abyss(?) books, one about demons and the other about devils. I personally like them a lot.

As for other options in general, there are some great Forgotten Realms supplements for various evil concepts that can be adapted easily, the Ebberon campaign setting has some nice stuff, and if you really need something specific, it probably exists somewhere in the morass that is 3.5

Can I have some advice? Psionics aren't allowed because the local mixmaxer doesn't like them.
Like, he regularly tries to break the system in his favor, and brags about it, and can do so in multiple ways with different characters. Psionics are "too OP" and "it's too hard" to figure out psionics resistance vs spell resistance, since "you have to use two books for monsters since some psionic monsters are different in the monster manual than in the psionic splats"

What do? I'm low key buttmad that I can't use the cool books because the munchkin doesn't like it.

Stop playing with shitty people?

Stop playing under a DM too stupid to throw out shitty people?

Combine your soulmelds with maneuvers or psionics, and you'll have giggle at them.

Don't invite him.
Problem. Solved.

The true horror: I live with (most of) my group.

They've got me completely burnt out on 3.5 because of two players and I think I may sit the next game out. I'm tired of one player's opinion being the adjudicating voice in every decision, I'm tired of everyone playing their characters "wrong" when it doesn't suit his tactical plan, and I'm tired of spending five minutes looking up every rule when we don't know something instead of having the DM rule it

>Can I have some advice? Psionics aren't allowed because the local mixmaxer doesn't like them.
Don't play because the stupid faggots don't understand anything, clearly.

Maybe push for a different system. This works best if it's a different genre altogether.

Ah yes, the classic problem of psionics being overpowered because people don't bother to read the rules.

Mah man of African descent!

It's because there are two powers that are direct damage with no save, and overchannel/talented.

For some reason I misread that as herpes of horror.

That munchkin is an idiot. The stuff in the Player's Handbook is actually way stronger. Psionics are at best as strong as a sorcerer, which is still very strong, just no one can break everything.

OP: don't listen to this guy, Tome of Magic and Magic of Incarnum are two of the worst 3e books. Incarnum is a dumb concept, the races are cringeworthy and the classes are horribly underpowered. As for Tome of Magic...it was a playtest document for magic systems they were considering for 4e, that they wanted people to pay for. It's notable for giving us the Truenamer, the only class that gets weaker as you gain levels.

>what are some of the best 3.5 D&D supplement books?
Step 1: Obtain Bo9S and Psionics Handbook.
Step 2: Don't allow other classes than the ones contained in the above.
Step 3: Obtain E6 homebrew.
Step 4: Allow people to make curative potions with Craft (Alchemy) checks.
Step 5: Remember that one of the only things PF did right (and it wasn't even originally PF's idea) was to remove half-ranks and make your max ranks/level equal your HD, with class skills in any class you possess giving you a flat +3 bonus to that skill once you put ranks in it. Expand on this by giving players the flat +3 bonus automatically, regardless of ranks.

Tome of Magic, AKA Tome of the Binder, is fantastic. Just ignore the other two.

I'd agree that Energy Missile is a bit convenient, but it's hard for me to buy any argument about direct damage spells/powers being too good in 3.5. And Overchannel is a joke.

Tome of Magic has very clever takes on alternate magic systems, and makes some effort to make them actually balanced to the midpoint of D&D classes.

It has some highs and lows, but overall the ideas are cool

There is unofficial errata that makes the Shadowcaster decent.

There is a math fix you can apply to the Truenamer to help it out considerably.
Change the Truespeech DC to 15 +(target's HD) instead of 15 +(target's HD x2).
Reduce Law of Resistance adjustment to +1 instead of +2.
Make the save DC 10 +Truenamer level +Charisma instead of DC 10 + half level +Charisma.

>These books are all out of print.
>mfw I found out that the core books in my language are now worth 5x their original value, used

not that I would ever want to sell them