Suggested reading?

[Kymus]

I'm really interested in understanding more about the how things work and why within D&D. My PnP experience is limited to 2nd edition and my DM used the base rules, but everything else was just made up on the fly; outside of that, my D&D experience is strictly limited to NWN and Baldur's Gate. Due to this, there's a lot of lore and mechanics that I am clueless about (I was looking up arcane spell failure the other night just to understand how that actually worked).

When I try and look up suggested D&D books, I generally find expansion material that has all sorts of different feats and classes. Needless to say, that's not useful for me here. 

I know some of you are machines when it comes to the lore, so maybe someone can suggest something? I'm especially interested in anything having to do with the arcane, but really, everything is helpful.

[Edge]

Rather than pointing you at a book, because frankly there are so many books that you could look in for both mechanics and lore that to recommend them all would keep us busy all day for several weeks, but the simplest method really would be to just ask people what you want to know. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who would be willing to answer your questions, and many of them would share your experience with 2E and be able to explain the reasoning and purpose behind the actual changes.

That said, for basic reading beyond the PHB and DMG, the Complete series of books (particularly the first four - Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Complete Divine) provide a lot of the basic mechanical information and some of the less-complex stuff beyond that. They're a pretty good place to start for explaining the how's and why's of the common stuff, both lore-wise and mechanics-wise, that crosses the boundaries between settings.

For reading 3E stuff about FR specifically, most of the 3E stuff follows the common naming tradition of "______ of Faerun". Magic of Faerun. Dragons of Faerun. (Insert Race Here) of Faerun. And so forth. There are others, obviously, but I'm less in-the-know about FR lore than I am other things.

[valiea987]

Oct 1, 2015 13:53:29 GMT -5 Edge said:

Rather than pointing you at a book, because frankly there are so many books that you could look in for both mechanics and lore that to recommend them all would keep us busy all day for several weeks, but the simplest method really would be to just ask people what you want to know. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who would be willing to answer your questions, and many of them would share your experience with 2E and be able to explain the reasoning and purpose behind the actual changes.

That said, for basic reading beyond the PHB and DMG, the Complete series of books (particularly the first four - Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Complete Divine) provide a lot of the basic mechanical information and some of the less-complex stuff beyond that. They're a pretty good place to start for explaining the how's and why's of the common stuff, both lore-wise and mechanics-wise, that crosses the boundaries between settings.

For reading 3E stuff about FR specifically, most of the 3E stuff follows the common naming tradition of "______ of Faerun". Magic of Faerun. Dragons of Faerun. (Insert Race Here) of Faerun. And so forth. There are others, obviously, but I'm less in-the-know about FR lore than I am other things.

To expand upon this, if I salvaged Wikipedia properly, all the FR 3.0 and 3.5 books are:

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001)
Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn (2001)
Magic of Faerûn (2001)
Lords of Darkness (2001)
Faiths and Pantheons (2002)
Silver Marches (2002)
Races of Faerûn (2003)
Unapproachable East (2003)
Underdark (2003)
Player's Guide to Faerûn (2004)
Serpent Kingdoms (2004)
Shining South (2004)
Lost Empires of Faerûn (2005)
Champions of Ruin (2005)
City of Splendors: Waterdeep (2005)
Champions of Valor (2005)
Power of Faerûn (2006)
Mysteries of the Moonsea (2006)
Dragons of Faerûn (2006)
The Grand History of the Realms (2007) (Though FW said take this book with a grain of salt)

Adventure Modules:
Dragon's Lair (2000)
Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor (2001)
City of the Spider Queen (2002)
Sons of Gruumsh (2005)
The Twilight Tomb (2006)
Expedition to Undermountain (2007)
Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave (2007)
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land (2007)
Anauroch: The Empire of Shade (2007)

[Kymus]

Oct 1, 2015 13:53:29 GMT -5 Edge said:

Rather than pointing you at a book, because frankly there are so many books that you could look in for both mechanics and lore that to recommend them all would keep us busy all day for several weeks, but the simplest method really would be to just ask people what you want to know. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who would be willing to answer your questions, and many of them would share your experience with 2E and be able to explain the reasoning and purpose behind the actual changes.

That said, for basic reading beyond the PHB and DMG, the Complete series of books (particularly the first four - Complete Adventurer, Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, and Complete Divine) provide a lot of the basic mechanical information and some of the less-complex stuff beyond that. They're a pretty good place to start for explaining the how's and why's of the common stuff, both lore-wise and mechanics-wise, that crosses the boundaries between settings.

For reading 3E stuff about FR specifically, most of the 3E stuff follows the common naming tradition of "______ of Faerun". Magic of Faerun. Dragons of Faerun. (Insert Race Here) of Faerun. And so forth. There are others, obviously, but I'm less in-the-know about FR lore than I am other things.

Edge, I skimmed through Complete Arcane last night (99% sure it was Complete Arcane) and it looked like just extra spells/feats/etc. If you say that what I'm looking for is in there, I'll give it another shot!

[Kymus]

Oct 1, 2015 14:13:58 GMT -5 valiea987 said:

To expand upon this, if I salvaged Wikipedia properly, all the FR 3.0 and 3.5 books are:

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001)
Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn (2001)
Magic of Faerûn (2001)
Lords of Darkness (2001)
Faiths and Pantheons (2002)
Silver Marches (2002)
Races of Faerûn (2003)
Unapproachable East (2003)
Underdark (2003)
Player's Guide to Faerûn (2004)
Serpent Kingdoms (2004)
Shining South (2004)
Lost Empires of Faerûn (2005)
Champions of Ruin (2005)
City of Splendors: Waterdeep (2005)
Champions of Valor (2005)
Power of Faerûn (2006)
Mysteries of the Moonsea (2006)
Dragons of Faerûn (2006)
The Grand History of the Realms (2007) (Though FW said take this book with a grain of salt)

Adventure Modules:
Dragon's Lair (2000)
Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor (2001)
City of the Spider Queen (2002)
Sons of Gruumsh (2005)
The Twilight Tomb (2006)
Expedition to Undermountain (2007)
Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave (2007)
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land (2007)
Anauroch: The Empire of Shade (2007)

I owe you a cookie or two, me thinks

[Edge]

Oct 1, 2015 16:18:45 GMT -5 Kymus said:

Edge, I skimmed through Complete Arcane last night (99% sure it was Complete Arcane) and it looked like just extra spells/feats/etc. If you say that what I'm looking for is in there, I'll give it another shot!

There's a lot of that in all the books. You'll want to really just stick to the front few sections of each book - that's where you'll find the lore-ish info and flavor text and that sort of thing. Past that, it's pretty much all mechanics, except perhaps at the end of some books where they add things like sample dungeons or character profiles.

[Kymus]

Oct 1, 2015 16:39:35 GMT -5 Edge said:

There's a lot of that in all the books. You'll want to really just stick to the front few sections of each book - that's where you'll find the lore-ish info and flavor text and that sort of thing. Past that, it's pretty much all mechanics, except perhaps at the end of some books where they add things like sample dungeons or character profiles.

Gotcha. Thanks