Honestly my favorite is Tome of Battle. As a DM of a powergamey group, I really strongly dislike the gap in both power and coolness between martials and casters, and Tome of Battle helps a lot with that.
Yes it was one of the first (and successfull) implementation of "what if martial classes do cool stuff too" Also they tried to make it multiclassing friendly/ nicely integrated with non-martial-artist classes with the 1/2 lvl.
Just found your channel and subscribed 3.5 is just the edition for me. . . My list is different especially since the Miniature Handbook would be my top pick but I really enjoyed hearing your opinions
Miniatures Handbook is great. It has a particular style to the art that's hard to put into words... and the style of the feats, like Distracting Attack and Reckless Charge, was never really replicated. it had a lot of generic tactical options.
Savage Species is really fun, but it can get insane fast, especially with things like Symbiotic allowing you to have effectively two characters at once and all 6 dump stats
I know it's considered cringe and edgy these days, but I loved the Book of Exalted Good and Book of Vile Darkness when I was an edgy teenager. I used a lot of stuff from those splat books. For me my top three books were 1. BOED/BOVD 2. Sandstorm 3. Draconomicon
Honestly, me too. I feel like Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds were misunderstood though. I always felt they were designed to be used sparingly, to punctuate things, rather than base entire campaigns or characters around. I still have them on my shelf today and they are still some of my favorites, though I do understand why they never show up on these lists. Libris Mortis is the same for me as well.
Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Savage Species are 3 of my personal top 3.5 books if not the top 3.5 books that I use (also not counting Monster Manuals) and I love them to death, they give so much flavor and variety.
It was really hard not to include Savage Species on my list. Almost came down to a coin flip. Complete Warrior and Arcane are very solid. I can't think of a Complete-series book I didn't like.
@threefivearchive I still don't quite get the monster classes. You get so few HD, and aren't exactly any better off by the end than anything else. (Heck, seems worse overall than Unearthed Arcana's buydown of up to 3 LA.
Draconomicon was definitely in the running as well. Beautiful cover. Interesting prestige classes. I will try to review at least one of them in the near future. Libris Mortis, Draconomicon, Savage Species, and Dragon Magic were strong runners up for the list. I considered a top 20 but that just felt excluding at that point. Hopefully something akin to tactical feats will find their way into 5e at some point. I would love to rework some of them conceptually for the game. Sadly, the most I can really convert to 5e are monsters and some spells.
@@threefivearchive I can definitely get behind Savage Species. There are things from all of the books that you referenced that I have used items from, except Lords of Madness, but I always end up going back to the stronghold builders, or the Arms and Equipment guide. I didn't stress the lack of inclusion, as I think Stronghold Builders Guidebook is "officially" 3rd ed, not 3.5. On a Separate/related line, have you got any thoughts on "Rulebook IV"?
I could agree with that. Arcane and Divine are pretty superfluous, and the classes in Complete Warrior aren't that great. The only one I feel could compete would be PHB II
Magic of Incarnum, Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Lords of Madness, Draconomicon, Frostburn, Complete Divine, Book of Nine Swords, Liber Mortis, and if you'd allow it the short adventure Something's Cooking.
Something's Cooking is a fantastic adventure. I ran it for my brother and when my dad found out he was annoyed because he had also found it and had been planning to run it for us. Worst part was, it would have been a far better fit for his world compared to mine (his D&D world was very much like Lorwyn / Shadowmoor in Magic The Gathering, even though he was working on his world long before that set came out).
Not a bad list. Got me skimming through frostburn again lol. My favorite supliment is the stronghold builders guidebook. I used it all tye time to create npc forts and towers. I based an entire campaing around the players winning a broken down fort that guarded a pass to some forgotten lands. The fort came with tittles and land so the players had a lot of power to change and build whatever they want. I got the idea from might and magic 7 and the harmondale castle.
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is fantastic. My only issue with it is that by the time you reach the level that you can make use of all of those fantastic rooms and traps and such, you are such high level that you don't really need a castle anymore. But you can certainly work around that.
I loved 3.5, but just have to note, you said you weren't including 3.0 in the list, yet The Epic Level Handbook was 3rd, not 3.5....unless I'm mistaken. Great list though, wish I had more 3.5 books,.
No, that is a fair point. What I intended with that statement was the books like Sword and Fist and the like which were mostly reprinted into 3.5 supplements later. The Epic Level Handbook never got a real 3.5 updated version, so I lumped it in with the other 3.5 books.
@@threefivearchive 👍🏻gotcha. I always wanted them to put out an updated ELH that was slightly more tight, like 3.5 was to 3.0. I guess not many play at that level, but I liked it for the ultra powerful npcs that were the campaign big bads.
@@jalair666 Me too. I loved the monster stat blocks with huge numbers. Seems silly but to 13 year old me it was impressive. Actual epic level play a bit of a disappointment comparatively.
Tome of Battle, if it had been released with its original flavor, would have been one of the best supplements for 3.5. Complete Scoundrel is GREAT. 3.5's DMGII and PHBII were my favorite. One of them had guild rules, and ever since, I've been using them as my rules for backdrop battles. Instead of needing mass combat rules, I have segments of armies be counted as "guilds," and roll them against each other. But, aside from D20 Modern, my favorite D20 book are the Star Wars D20 Hero's Guide and Galactic Campaign Guide. Each of them are a mixture of DMG for Star Wars D20 and additional rules to basically expand how the game can be played, but my favorite part is the rules for sympathy. Maybe it's video-gamey, but tracking how far "in" you are with any given faction adds surprising depth to the universe, and adventures, and character interaction, both among NPCs AND PCs. I've never DMed a game without Sympathy since.
Good luck! Be patient and don't be afraid to make up a lot of rules early on as it takes a while to learn stuff. 3e has the coolest content of any edition in my opinion, as much as I love the old AD&D stuff as well it's just hard to put it above the monster manuals and adventure books of 3.5.
@@threefivearchive yeah I appreciate that, also in the introduction of 3.5 it says to make things up as you start as well. To use the book as a reference but not to completely stop the game. Which will help.
Agreed! He is my favorite elder evil and has some of the best encounters. The lineup of skin dancers, greathorn minotaurs, and war trolls guarding the Hulks of Zoretha is a favorite of mine as well. Nothing too unique about the encounter, just that the mishmash of creatures are very diverse yet strangely fit together.
I just discovered this channel, the only book I don't have from this list is Exemplars of Evil, but all are good choices. How would you rank the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting/supplements in general? I'm curious to track down the Hobgoblin sourcebook but I knew nothing about the setting until recently.
I actually do have Kingdoms of Kalamar, though I only read it once, and long ago. It seemed good, I recall there being kobold lore in there I quite liked. Though that might have been another book. I would do a top 10 of 3.5 third party supplements, but that's hard to do when I only own a small fraction of them. Perhaps I could just go through a few of my personal favorites in a video one time.
@@threefivearchive that's very true there are oodles and oodles of the 3rd party materiel out there, I've always liked the Sword and Sorcery books for 3 and 3.5 Ravenloft as well as their Relics and Rituals books like the Scared lands and Camelot.
In terms of supplements that could be carried forward to newer version or other RPGs, I would have thought Book of Challenges and Cityscapes would be valuable regardless of ruleset.
I have never played a game i just like reading the books 😅
No particular order: Draconomicon, Savage Species, Epic Level Handbook.
love to see 3.5 content
3.5 still alive and the Best!
Always!
Yes yes i found elder Elvis as a good book for world endings
Honestly my favorite is Tome of Battle. As a DM of a powergamey group, I really strongly dislike the gap in both power and coolness between martials and casters, and Tome of Battle helps a lot with that.
I've been saying the same thing for a while. Love ToB, love the Warblade ❤
Loved it as a player, hated it as a DM.
yawn
@@Kaiyanwang82 ok
Yes it was one of the first (and successfull) implementation of "what if martial classes do cool stuff too"
Also they tried to make it multiclassing friendly/ nicely integrated with non-martial-artist classes with the 1/2 lvl.
Lords of Madness and Elder Evils are fantastic books!
Just found your channel and subscribed 3.5 is just the edition for me. . . My list is different especially since the Miniature Handbook would be my top pick but I really enjoyed hearing your opinions
Miniatures Handbook is great. It has a particular style to the art that's hard to put into words... and the style of the feats, like Distracting Attack and Reckless Charge, was never really replicated. it had a lot of generic tactical options.
Savage Species is really fun, but it can get insane fast, especially with things like Symbiotic allowing you to have effectively two characters at once and all 6 dump stats
I'm ashamed I forgot it. I would have included it. Just not sure what I could have removed. I should have done a Top 15....
I know it's considered cringe and edgy these days, but I loved the Book of Exalted Good and Book of Vile Darkness when I was an edgy teenager. I used a lot of stuff from those splat books. For me my top three books were
1. BOED/BOVD
2. Sandstorm
3. Draconomicon
Honestly, me too. I feel like Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds were misunderstood though. I always felt they were designed to be used sparingly, to punctuate things, rather than base entire campaigns or characters around. I still have them on my shelf today and they are still some of my favorites, though I do understand why they never show up on these lists. Libris Mortis is the same for me as well.
Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Savage Species are 3 of my personal top 3.5 books if not the top 3.5 books that I use (also not counting Monster Manuals) and I love them to death, they give so much flavor and variety.
It was really hard not to include Savage Species on my list. Almost came down to a coin flip. Complete Warrior and Arcane are very solid. I can't think of a Complete-series book I didn't like.
@threefivearchive I still don't quite get the monster classes. You get so few HD, and aren't exactly any better off by the end than anything else. (Heck, seems worse overall than Unearthed Arcana's buydown of up to 3 LA.
Draconomicon, my beloved. I jest. While I love the book I acknowledge how narrow it's focus is.
And I too love Tactical feats.
Draconomicon was definitely in the running as well. Beautiful cover. Interesting prestige classes. I will try to review at least one of them in the near future. Libris Mortis, Draconomicon, Savage Species, and Dragon Magic were strong runners up for the list. I considered a top 20 but that just felt excluding at that point.
Hopefully something akin to tactical feats will find their way into 5e at some point. I would love to rework some of them conceptually for the game. Sadly, the most I can really convert to 5e are monsters and some spells.
Draconomicon has maybe my favorite artwork of any of them
I gotta say, fiendish codex 2 took me for a whirlwind that idk if I've read any other splat front to back more than once. Great read
Surprised to see your number one, but agree its a great book. I'm currently sending my spelljammer players to a certain dead moon...
That's excellent. I'm not a huge fan of Spelljammer but Atropus would fit in there perfectly as a high level location. Props for thinking of that.
I always find myself referencing The Stronghold Builders Guidebook.
That is an excellent book, and alongside Savage Species is one of the ones I regret not putting on the list.
@@threefivearchive I can definitely get behind Savage Species. There are things from all of the books that you referenced that I have used items from, except Lords of Madness, but I always end up going back to the stronghold builders, or the Arms and Equipment guide. I didn't stress the lack of inclusion, as I think Stronghold Builders Guidebook is "officially" 3rd ed, not 3.5.
On a Separate/related line, have you got any thoughts on "Rulebook IV"?
Lords of Madness has the greatest metamagic feat of all time, Ocular spell. Fire spells from your eyes!!!! F-yeah!!!
The complet Rena had some very useful feats for mage
Complete Adventurer is hands down one of the most necessary for expanding from Core without feeling like a real stretch of the game.
I could agree with that. Arcane and Divine are pretty superfluous, and the classes in Complete Warrior aren't that great. The only one I feel could compete would be PHB II
Magic of Incarnum, Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Lords of Madness, Draconomicon, Frostburn, Complete Divine, Book of Nine Swords, Liber Mortis, and if you'd allow it the short adventure Something's Cooking.
Something's Cooking is a fantastic adventure. I ran it for my brother and when my dad found out he was annoyed because he had also found it and had been planning to run it for us. Worst part was, it would have been a far better fit for his world compared to mine (his D&D world was very much like Lorwyn / Shadowmoor in Magic The Gathering, even though he was working on his world long before that set came out).
1. Heroes of Battle
2. Complete Warrior
3. Complete Arcane
4. Arms & Equipment Guide
5. Lords of Madness
6. Frostburn
7. Exemplars of Evil
8. Cityscape
9. Epic Level Handbook
10. Elder Evils
Is #1 your favorite in that case?
Great supplement. Still have my physical copy
I was hooping for to hear about book of nine swords. Or drangons!
Elder Evils is so good bro
Not a bad list. Got me skimming through frostburn again lol. My favorite supliment is the stronghold builders guidebook. I used it all tye time to create npc forts and towers. I based an entire campaing around the players winning a broken down fort that guarded a pass to some forgotten lands. The fort came with tittles and land so the players had a lot of power to change and build whatever they want. I got the idea from might and magic 7 and the harmondale castle.
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is fantastic. My only issue with it is that by the time you reach the level that you can make use of all of those fantastic rooms and traps and such, you are such high level that you don't really need a castle anymore. But you can certainly work around that.
@threefivearchive that is true. I gave them a lot of gold from completing quests or pleasing allies so they could really get into it.
I loved 3.5, but just have to note, you said you weren't including 3.0 in the list, yet The Epic Level Handbook was 3rd, not 3.5....unless I'm mistaken. Great list though, wish I had more 3.5 books,.
No, that is a fair point. What I intended with that statement was the books like Sword and Fist and the like which were mostly reprinted into 3.5 supplements later. The Epic Level Handbook never got a real 3.5 updated version, so I lumped it in with the other 3.5 books.
@@threefivearchive 👍🏻gotcha. I always wanted them to put out an updated ELH that was slightly more tight, like 3.5 was to 3.0. I guess not many play at that level, but I liked it for the ultra powerful npcs that were the campaign big bads.
@@jalair666 Me too. I loved the monster stat blocks with huge numbers. Seems silly but to 13 year old me it was impressive. Actual epic level play a bit of a disappointment comparatively.
Very good list. It's amazing how much the A&EG is underrated. Obdurium + Oerthblood forever.
Tome of Battle, if it had been released with its original flavor, would have been one of the best supplements for 3.5.
Complete Scoundrel is GREAT.
3.5's DMGII and PHBII were my favorite. One of them had guild rules, and ever since, I've been using them as my rules for backdrop battles. Instead of needing mass combat rules, I have segments of armies be counted as "guilds," and roll them against each other.
But, aside from D20 Modern, my favorite D20 book are the Star Wars D20 Hero's Guide and Galactic Campaign Guide. Each of them are a mixture of DMG for Star Wars D20 and additional rules to basically expand how the game can be played, but my favorite part is the rules for sympathy. Maybe it's video-gamey, but tracking how far "in" you are with any given faction adds surprising depth to the universe, and adventures, and character interaction, both among NPCs AND PCs. I've never DMed a game without Sympathy since.
I love using the Arms&Equip, Epic and Cityscape books as adaptable supplements to use with Pathfinder.
I just got core rule books for 3.5 and it’s what I’m going to teach my friends. Hopefully it’s fun
Good luck! Be patient and don't be afraid to make up a lot of rules early on as it takes a while to learn stuff. 3e has the coolest content of any edition in my opinion, as much as I love the old AD&D stuff as well it's just hard to put it above the monster manuals and adventure books of 3.5.
@@threefivearchive yeah I appreciate that, also in the introduction of 3.5 it says to make things up as you start as well. To use the book as a reference but not to completely stop the game. Which will help.
Awesome content, I can’t believe I’m late to the party and just found your channel. Looking forward to catching up. cheers
Based elder evils enjoyer
It is fun how much Mystara stuff got genericized by Wlder Evils and late-3.5 Dragon and Dugeon magazine.
Father Llimic has the best 1 shot for level 18 characters just ascending the mountain
Agreed! He is my favorite elder evil and has some of the best encounters. The lineup of skin dancers, greathorn minotaurs, and war trolls guarding the Hulks of Zoretha is a favorite of mine as well. Nothing too unique about the encounter, just that the mishmash of creatures are very diverse yet strangely fit together.
I have to say I loved basically every book you talked about.
I just discovered this channel, the only book I don't have from this list is Exemplars of Evil, but all are good choices. How would you rank the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting/supplements in general? I'm curious to track down the Hobgoblin sourcebook but I knew nothing about the setting until recently.
I actually do have Kingdoms of Kalamar, though I only read it once, and long ago. It seemed good, I recall there being kobold lore in there I quite liked. Though that might have been another book. I would do a top 10 of 3.5 third party supplements, but that's hard to do when I only own a small fraction of them. Perhaps I could just go through a few of my personal favorites in a video one time.
@@threefivearchive that's very true there are oodles and oodles of the 3rd party materiel out there, I've always liked the Sword and Sorcery books for 3 and 3.5 Ravenloft as well as their Relics and Rituals books like the Scared lands and Camelot.
@@albertcapley6894 Swords and Sorcery is great. I've never heard of Camelot though. That sounds intriguing.
@@threefivearchive I gave you the wrong name😅 it's actually "Relics and Rituals: Excalibur" they call it a "genre sourcebook"
@@albertcapley6894 Ah that'd explain why I wasn't finding it. Now I'll look at it a bit.
If you want some love from the UA-cam algorithm, do a tier list video of every 3.5 book
Thanks!
In terms of supplements that could be carried forward to newer version or other RPGs, I would have thought Book of Challenges and Cityscapes would be valuable regardless of ruleset.
nice video.
Base class books seem slept on, but it's clear you didn't want the video to be about them
Yeah it was hard to pick a top ten and I had to go for books that had a particular charm to them. Perhaps I can find another way to rank them soon.
Psionics