I allow core books and complete series books. Everything else is on a case-by-case basis. I don't think I'm going to allow the Book of Exalted Deeds.
I'm very liberal to what I allow in the game, but I check everything that I'm not familiar with. I would allow my players to use any of the resources that I've used, and I've passed the books around.
These are the resources that the players have used:
Core Rule Books
The "Complete" series
The "Races of" series
Dragon magazine
Spell Compendium
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Miniature's Handbook
Books I have used to DM:
All of the above, plus:
Dragon Compendium
Path of Faith
Cityworks
Wildscape
Dungeon Magazines of the past
Monster Geographica: Marsh & Aquatic
Eberron Campaign Setting (some feats and hero point system)
Fiend Folio
Monster Manual II and III
Draconimicon
Heroes of Horror
Lords of Madness
Resources (non-game mechanics)
City of Greyhawk Boxed Set (purchased off Ebay)
From the Ashes Boxed Set
Living Greyhawk Gazeteer
Return of the Eight
The Scarlet Brotherhood
Iuz the Evil
Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins
Greyhawk Player's Guide
The Doomgrinder
The Marklands
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There may be more, but I can't think of them right now.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I allow basically anything, including Dragon magazine. So far I know for a fact players are using stuff from:
Dragon Compendium, Vol. 1
Heroes of Battle
Tome of Magic
Spell Compendium
Complete Adventurer
Draconomicon
Libris Mortis
That's more than I expected, honestly, but I keep an open door policy on the weird stuff.
--Erik
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As a DM: DMG, PHB, MM, MM2, Dungeon mag, DMGII, Arms and Equipment Guide, and some of the complete series if given a good rationel for their usage.
As a player: I limit myself to only classes and races from the three corebooks. I also stick with the core 3 for feats unless we have regional feats for the campaign. I find I can emulate any PrC pretty closely by multiclassing, feat selection, and spell selection with some good roleplaying mixed in. K.I.S.S.
FH
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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As far as Greyhawk sourcebook goes, pretty much all of them, plus Living Greyhawk material. I have a disturbingly complete Greyhawk collection.
For player use:
Complete Adventurer, Arcane, Divine and Warrior plus Races of Destiny, Stone and Wild, with some material banned or slightly altered
Masters of the Wild (Deepwood Sniper only)
Spell Compendium
All items from outside of the PH need approval.
It's likely I'll allow in some of the feats and classes from Draconomicon and Libris Mortis, but I wanted a fairly normal starting set. Normal races only. Some of the classes (in particular warlock) are disallowed as a blanket rule.
On the DM side:
Libris Mortis
Book of Vile Darkness
Savage Species
Draconomicon
I've been doctoring the feats and spells on the foes the party faces. At some point, will likely also alter the items.
Russ
I allow all books, as long as anything that I'm not readily familiar with gets prior approval. For example, one of my players is using a custom-built Adventuring Guild prestige class that combined several guild mechanics from the DMG2 with stuff from a third-party d20 sourcebook.
Some of the more interesting books we're using are:
*All the Eberron books
*Spell Compendium
*Stormwrack (airship stuff)
*Races of the Dragon
*Weapons of Legacy
Well, I recently moved my campaign from Forgotten Realms to Greyhawk, so I will allow the following books.
PHB 3.5
DMG 3.5
Complete books
Races of books
Some articles from Dragon.
And that's it. As a DM I will use all books myself, naturally.
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Core and Complete.
I will most likely add PHBII to this when it comes out - I like what I have so far seen.
However, rather than handing out XP bonuses, I have been handing out options from other WoTC books and Paizo Material - for example, the wizard in my group did some pretty nifty stuff so I let him take any 1st/2nd level spell from the Spell Compendium for one of his going-up-a-level spells.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Why did you ban the warlock?
Right now my party consists of: swashbuckler 2/Wiz 3 (yeah, not exactly the most powerful PC ever), half-orc cleric of Hieroneous 4, halfling spirit shaman 4, and warlock 5. So, all but one are from the Complete series. The warlock is powerful, for sure, but doesn't dominate the game or anything. However, if it weren't for his bad rolling he would probably be hitting all the time with his eldritch blast.
I allow anything. However, if it's not from the Player's Handbook or one of the Completes, the player must get an OK from me before implementing it. I usually give them a green light, but have nixed a request a couple times.
I wanted to slow down the flow of non-core stuff to keep it managable. So I introduced the idea of the "Stack." At each level a player can choose one non-core item to add to their Stack. This could be a non-standard race, feat, spell, etc. From that point on they have access to that feature. They can also get non-core stuff if it comes to them through game-play. The group is happy with this compromise and I think I will use this in all future campaigns.
I'm allowing for Players:
Complete series
Unearthed arcana
Arms & Equipment guide
Spell Compendium
Dragon articles after vetting...
Problem is that I'm the only one with those books (book junkie - ask me about my collection of GURPS books I'm never going to use in my life...), so no one is all that interested in the stuff (except I have a spirit shaman in the group).
That and I'm having a hard enough time remembering what the PHB and DM rules are, much less anything else.
DM-wise I will add:
DMG II
Libre Mortis
Draconomicon
Lords of Madness
Dungeon / Dragon where useful.
Also, I've gotten dependant on DMGenies, and none of the above are OGL so I'll have to get around to learning how to code the monsters/classes/spells/feats/skills... Yeah, right...
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I wanted to slow down the flow of non-core stuff to keep it managable. So I introduced the idea of the "Stack." At each level a player can choose one non-core item to add to their Stack. This could be a non-standard race, feat, spell, etc. From that point on they have access to that feature. They can also get non-core stuff if it comes to them through game-play. The group is happy with this compromise and I think I will use this in all future campaigns.
I tried a system like that, but I only had one player take advantage of it. And, I couldn't come up with a good term for the concept. Stack is a great way of putting it.
do you allow your spirit shaman to detect ethereal ghosts with the detect spirit ability?
It made for an interesting encounter with Alastor Land in my group.
in our group im the only one who buys books so i introduce the players. whn we roled up the AOW pc i gave acces to the phb, the complete books and heroes of horror after one guy wanted to play a specialist necromancer wizard but changed his mind to the dread necromancer instead. in looking to add more stuff from heroes of horror and liber mortis and gonna give some weapons of legacy to the group too. added a huge lump of spell compendium spells to the druid, clerics and rangers spell list a few days after getting that too. after spending out for the books i do try and use em as much as i can.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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At some point, I'd like to run an entire non-core campaign to explore all the various supplements. I would replace all the core characters with variants from the various complete books and UA.
For example, the hexblade would replace the paladin; the spirit shaman would replace the druid; the warlock would replace the sorcerer; etc.
Instead of using the core races, I'd use ECL 0 races from the monster books along with the kobold, goblin, and orc.
Some day...
do you allow your spirit shaman to detect ethereal ghosts with the detect spirit ability?
It made for an interesting encounter with Alastor Land in my group.
It hasn't come up.
The spirit shaman was created due to a TPK during TFoE - Alastor Land was already put to rest when he entered the scene.
(Fortunately, the party trusted Allustan, showed him the letter to Filge, and was asked by him to go to Dourstone. Leaving Allustan as the ideal launching point for the replacement adventurers)
I allow pretty much anything. However, Oriental Adventures, Rokugan, and AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures are forbidden, as well as Vow of Poverty from BoED. I also ask to first thoroughly review anything from the Races of... books before allowing it in.
As far as I know, the following books are being used in my game by players: Races of Stone, Artifacts of the Ages (from The Game Mechanics), Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer, Dragon magazine, Spell Compendium, Eberron Campaign Setting (some feats, game isn't set in Eberron), Unearthed Arcana, Complete Divine, Book of the Righteous (from Green Ronin), Complete Arcane, and playtest material from an upcoming D&D book I wrote. So yeah, we're very non-core.
Though, when I ran Shackled City we might have used more, since every character was required to choose a race or class not from the PHB.
I allow the sprytes from Arcana Evolved, I think they are the best race add on ever...
In fact I replace elves with Faen, so all elves are short in my AOW.
Giants are also allowed from AE
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I've allowed all WotC books- except Unearthed Arcana (which I really don't like).
In terms of what's actually being used, the 5 Complete Series, Exp Psi HB, Spell Compendium + core (of course).
I have added in the Dragon Compendium for my use - theoretically now using Goods Hits and Bad Misses (no confrimed miss or crit has triggered it yet).
