Crispy™ What's your favorite D&D supplement books?

[rusty_shackleford]

Any edition and why

 

[Morblot]

Toss-up between the 3.0 Manual of the Planes and the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook.

I like the D&D cosmology and the MotP is basically 99% fluff about it. Wish it had more on Sigil than a passing mention, though... Still, opening up the book and reading for example about Ysgard almost always gives me ideas about quests, if not whole campaigns, I could write for my players. Inspiring stuff. Be sure to get the Modron web supplement PDF too... and ignore the Formians.

Also I've always had this weird lovin' feeling towards psionics, probably because I like scifi more than fantasy, and the XPH is probably the first functional psionics system for D&D ever. It's quite functional and well balanced mechanically and I also like the weird fluff with all the crystals and ectoplasm. Dreamscarred Press's Ultimate Psionics for Pathfinder is basically a straight copy of this and also recommended.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tempted to choose Supplement I: Greyhawk by Gary Gygax for introducing the thief class or Supplement II: Blackmoor by Dave Arneson for The Temple of the Frog adventure.

More seriously, The Manual of the Planes by Jeff Grubb, published in 1987, was a bit dry (and spent more time on the elemental Inner Planes than I would have liked) but filled in details on the Outer Planes that had just been sketched in 2 pages in the Player's Handbook. Although not a campaign setting itself, this book later formed the basis for the Planescape campaign setting by David Zeb Cook in 1994.

Also, I have a soft spot for AC11 The Book of Wondrous Inventions, also published in 1987, as the only worthwhile comedic D&D material ever released by TSR.

 

[Falksi]

 

[Fishy]

Toss up between the Dark Sun box set, because Dark Sun, and:

Because it introduces wild magic, with wild surges including making it rain anvils. Even the weirdest planes can't compete with raining anvils.

 

[Azalin]

Complete book of Necromancers for the base 2nd ed adnd,it really went into depth into the class and even its priestly counterparts adding many interesting stuff and even had a mini campaign setting with some cool characters as examples for all the kits

Ivory Triangle box for the Dark Sun 2nd ed campaign setting,very good and detailed description of that whole area

Carnival for Ravenloft 2nd ed,great supplement which explores a whole mysterious supernatural carnival.

Ravenloft Gazetter 1-5 for 3/3.5 ed,a great in depth description of the entire Core using and combining all the pre-existing material

 

[catfood]

Does it have to be D&D specifically? Because if not then I recommend The Tome of Adventure Design, which is a system neutral supplement that can be used with any fantasy RPG. It's basically a 300 page long collection of tables that is perfect for when you need ideas for your game sessions. It's really useful when you're in a creative slump. Names, monsters, towns, adventure hooks, missions, you name it, it has it all.

 

[Melan]

The Tome of Adventure Design is indeed the most consistently useful "workbook" for developing adventures. But from the classics, I really have to mention Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, an unassuming little book which contains a treasure trove of great stuff.

• It contains JG's optional guidelines for a lot of stuff - city encounters, trials, mining, trade, offensive locution and more.
• It provides an organised summary of OD&D's rules. You can practically run a game out of this book without having an OD&D set on hand.
• It also contains a bunch of random inspiration tables, of which "Ruins & Relics" is a one-page classic.

Best of all, the supplement was printed in stupendous quantities, and can be bought reasonably cheap today. It is a great look into early gaming, and useful for modern games to boot!

Also,

 

[Gregz]

Any edition and why

I'm not going to restrict myself to supplements.

My favorite, because I grew up playing on it the most, is the 2nd Ed DMG

Why? Because I loved rifling through the item tables, and reading the descriptions of powerful items like the Staff of Magi and Deck of Many Things.

I have a place in my heart for this one however, just because the cover art is so awesome

These are great too

nu-D&D has garbage artwork

 

[Jason Liang]

The Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide

For a 14 year old Dungeon Master running and designing my first campaign, this book was essential, more valuable, and taught me more about DM'ing than the Dungeon Master's Guide.

DL 1-16

For an actual campaign adventure, is there anything that is even close to the original Dragonlance campaign?

Carnival for Ravenloft 2nd ed,great supplement which explores a whole mysterious supernatural carnival.

Besides Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends, the Ravenloft: Carnival of Fear novel is the only other novel published by TSR that was great to the level of literary. It's on par with Poe/ Lovecraft.

 

[Azalin]

Carnival for Ravenloft 2nd ed,great supplement which explores a whole mysterious supernatural carnival.

Besides Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends, the Ravenloft: Carnival of Fear novel is the only other novel published by TSR that was great to the level of literary. It's on par with Poe/ Lovecraft.

Eh I was referring to the Carnival supplement not the novel since this is about supplements

The Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide

Oh I had forgotten about that,yeah it was a great book,the blue series had some quality stuff

Why? Because I loved rifling through the item tables, and reading the descriptions of powerful items like the Staff of Magi and Deck of Many Things.

I loved doing that too,damn the old days were good

 

[deuxhero]

The Star Wars Sourcebook. Essentially wrote the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe from scratch.

the XPH is probably the first functional psionics system for D&D ever.

The d20 Modern system was functional. Full of dumb quirks (still has the all attributes thingy), but ultimately functional. It's half-way between 3E and 3.5 psionics, though I have no idea of it was a prototype of the 3.5 system or if the 3.5 system is based on it.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Never leave home without it.

The why: I always found myself able to have enough imagination to "fill in the blanks" or expand the possibility of a class myself but what I love about these class handbooks is to see different perspectives brought forward. The Thief class is the most interesting and one that can really be given a ton of cool shit so since you didn't have the Internet to read other people's takes and those you did play with may have been very basic in how they played their characters. This handbook and other good ones such as the Fighter was fantastic not just in roleplaying opportunities but also in maybe offering a kit you hadn't ever considered before.

It was nice to see kits out there that went beyond the typical disarm traps, backstab for lots of damage styles. It's why I enjoy seeing unorthodox ones to this day such as the Mastermind. Sometimes I bust this one out to simply read when I feel creatively bankrupt to reinvigorate my inner teenager and get my mind going wild with all sorts of possibilities.

 

[mondblut]

Spoiler

 

[nikolokolus]

Spoiler

I love that cookbook

 

[Gay-Lussac]

Man, I hadn't logged in in a while, got my head twisted thinking this was 12 sad posts of Infinitron professing his love for D&D by himself

 

[Harry Easter]

Bought myself Murder in Baldur's Gate and feel in love with the book for the campaign setting. I love it, not only because of nostalgia for the games, but this is actually a good book that illustrated the interesting parts of the city and also shows why playing there is a cool thing. I want to play there and I already got ideas for adventures. Best sign, that you wrote a good book (still have to try out those adventures).

I'm also nostalgic for the adventure module The Standing Stone (3e). Good, simple plot and there is enough for the players to do, they have to do on their own. It's mostly driven by their own ambitions, which is the best way to play P&Per in my experience.

 

[J1M]

The Eberron setting book (3.5e). Warforged and artificers are fun ideas for player characters, and other settings don't account for how magic would radically alter society.

I expect artificers will make it into the primary player's handbook by 6th or 7th edition. They jumped from Eberron to Unearthed Arcana in 5th edition.

For non-D&D I really like The Book of Nod.

 

[deuxhero]

Second the Eberron Campaign Setting for D&D specifically. Eberron, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape and Ravenloft are the only five D&D settings worth playing because they don't have the problem of "Why play this over any other generic world?" attached. Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer were released as box sets and not a book and Ravenloft started as a module, not a supplement.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Supplement ? Eldricht Wizardry because I like the new spells and love the Psionics. Psionics has pretty much always been bad mechanically, but it's an awesome concept.