[3dom]

With everything we NEED, we now seek what we want with our now expanded GP stream.
However, after some disapointment with the DM's screen (which bent in 1/2 an hour because of the "winter air") ,we decided to be more careful with the moneys.

I had managed to find the Sword and Fist, 2nd hand, and it's very useful. My question is: What to get next? Any advice? Any really good supplicants?

P.S: Getting a sub to DUNGEON.

[Rintaran]

I'd recommend the Book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exalted Deeds for your next two. They're companion books that can add a whole new dimension to your game and totally destroy your party's ideas of what it means to be good or evil.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Uh...I think you meant supliments. Supplicants are people who ask humbly and earnestly, like beggars, but usually of a more dignified stature.

As for good books, here is a list I'd die without:

If You Are Missing These, Seek Professional Help

PHB
DMG
MM

Books on Classes
Comlete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Divine
Complete Warrior
Encyclopedia Arcana: Secret College of Necromancy (Green Ronin)

Books on Magic
Tome of Magic
Encyclopedia Arcana: Demonology
Encyclopedia Arcana: Illusionism
Encyclopedia Arcana: Constructs

Books on Monsters
MM II
MM III
Denizens of Darkness (Ravenloft Setting, but great for the creepiness factor)
Book of Fiends vol 1.: Legions of Hell
Book of Fiends vol 2.: Armies of the Abyss
Lords of Madness
Draconomicon
Races of the Dragon
Fiend Folio

Sourcebook Suppliments
Unearthed Arcana
Ghostwalk
Sandstorm
Stormwrack
Arms & Equipment Guide
Heroes of Battle
Heroes of Horror
Book of Vile Darkness
Book of Exalted Deeds
Stronghold Builder's Guide
Beyond Countless Doorways (great inspirational stuff there)
Frostburn (it's meh, but not bad for some of the stuff in it)

Alternate Campaign Settings - Good for stealing ideas.
Forgotten Realms Core Rulebook
Magic of Faerun
Monsters of Faerun (though most are in the books I listed above)
Power of Faerun (good rules for large scale stuff)
Faiths and Pantheons (great for ideas for your own pantheons)
Underdark
Ravenloft Campaign Setting (still beats the snot out of Heroes of Horror for creep factor)
Oriental Adventures (L5R stuff is awesome for an asian feel or if you want some exotic components)
Creatures of Rokugan
Magic of Rokugan
Eberron Campaign Setting (for high-magic settings)
Starfarer's Handbook [Dragonstar] (for high-tech settings that include lots of magic. Source of a lot of Lilium)
Dragonstar Guide to the Galaxy (more goodies, including some creatures that are shiny. Yay for Star Dragons!)
Dragonlance Campaign Setting (good for lower magic settings with a real mystical feel)
Bestiary of Krynn

Psionics
Expanded Psionics Handbook

General Advice
A lot of the sourcebooks and campaign setting books are only good for grabbing rules and mechanics from. They also help spark ideas, but really, once you are finished fleshing out yoru world, you won't need them except as reference material. The magic books can change the flavor of the game substantially and are highly recommended. Similarly, having a crapload of books full of monsters gives you more room to work. Not only do you have access to a wider range of monsters to better fit various scenarios, but the players will have a harder time of settling into a routine with regard to monsters. For example, everyone is intimately familiar with the stats for a vampire, but not many are familiar with the Ravenloft version, which grows more powerful with age. Usually they are also unfamiliar with the vampire varients rangign from the Nosferau, which is perfect happy in broad daylight, to the Chiang-Shi which is just plain frightening. As for the class books are generally for the benefit of the players, but if you are really evil, you will use them to their full potential to make your BBEG and his/her evil henchmen.

[Axel]

One good way to stay on budget is to make use of the internet for as many books as possible. Now I'm not allowed to suggest P2P networks as a viable alternative to money. However there are many, more legal, options. Such as the SRD, here's a good site that gives you not only all the core rulebooks, but also some variant rules (mainly from Unearthed Arcana) in SRD format:
http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm

You could also look legal ebook downloads, which are usually significantly cheaper than actually getting a hard copy. And then if you really need a hard copy you can just print out the stuff you need from the PDF.

By spending less you can get more books on the same budget. However, there aren't many books out there I'd say are worth the time an effort anyway. Check the free resources here, they're usually better, those that don't draw from the same sources anyway.

[Dthclaw]

Another good place for some freebies:

www.crystalkeep.com

They have .pdfs that get updated every few months with pretty much every WotC thing included (even Dungeon/Dragon). The only thing it does not provide sufficient information on is PrCs, but it will tell you where the PrC came from.

[Sitraahra]

now i'm not much a buyer of books, really its more of my powergaming friend...but the books I liked the best have been the savage species, which adds an interesting element to character creation, and the mosnter manuals, which adds intersting elements that the GM can apply to any game

while there are some very cool prestige classes, new spells, and new campaign settings, I find they sometimes become unbalancing if put side by side with a pure core class character...not that the pure core will suck, but it can be hard to compare, especially with spells and items. races and classes form other campaign settings are also usually quite finely balanced within their worlds, but may be overpowered when put into a different campaign setting

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I don't necessarily agree. It is not easy to compare two character, one who specializes in a narrow feild and one who is more versatile. It is easier to make the specialist impotent in a situation while the core class remains potent. But if you put the specialist in his nich, then he will outshine the core class. It is a matter of degree of focus, really.

[Sitraahra]

I totally agree, but specialization is the problem. I once tried to play a courtier from oriental adventures, a class that specializes in social abilities. While it was kinda cool, it was either ridiculously more powered then everyone else in social areas, or ridiculously underpowered everywhere else. Another kind of example would be playing an old school defiler anywhere but athas, since they gain great bonuses from 'lush area's'. Now, these are a bit of an extreme example, but as a GM, when facing such a character, it is truly a difficult decision as to what to do with them: should i expose the persons weakness multiple times, such as every other person having the one feat which allows them to bypass such and such an ability, or do I make it extremly rare, in which case the thing itself becomes less of a penalty? If I expose them too much, the palyer thinks you're out to get them, if not, he might outshine the rest of the party. Additionally, due to the mechanical nature of Dnd, even if a camapaign is more then hack n slash, there is usually a greater amount of important combat element, so someone who is weighted to combat and weak to social [or some other area] actually has a greater advantage then it would first appear.

I'm not saying an outside core or PrC class can't be balanced, is always overpowered, or shouldn't be played....its jsut in my experiance as a GM, its more difficult to deal with and contains more of an edge to be non-standard

[super sorcerer]

Prestige classes and classes from those other sources should be though by the source. All classes in oriental adventures are ballanced in oriental campaign settings and for my opinion should remain only in these settings becouse ballance is different there. we use classes from complete fighter in low magic campaign or no magic campaign and classes from complete divine and complete arcana in high magic campain. In many campains we use resources from all "3 completes" so all classes benefit from the new feats and spells.

Now back to the topic: as suggested before www.d20srd.org have many usefull resources but for buying more book I suggest that you should decide what you most want to add to your campaign. It is a personal decision and I know you and your party so I can't help but I can say that the order I got the extra books was first complete warrior (I thought warriors are less powerfull than spellcasters so I needed to make them stronger) and then complete divine (to see other spellcasting classes and becouse complete arcana was not in the store at the time I was there) well acualy I got monster manual II before but it by shared effort of more peaple too so I didn't mentioned it becouse it was not only my decision (and becouse it was a mistake made by the one who bought it becouse it was supposed to be the first monster manual and he made a mistake).

[Dthclaw]

Even better than the MM series: Fiend Folio. If you want good, useful monsters, get that book - they are by and large far more creative than those in the MM series.

[Axel]

You don't need the Monster Manual anyway, you've got the SRD for free. Also, somewhere on this site is the original 2nd to 3rd conversion PDF (or it should be, I remember submitting it). If you can find a 2nd, or even 1st, edition Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Unearthed Arcana, or any other expansion really, you can use the conversion PDF to translate them to 3rd edition. You can find the older edition stuff in used book stores, garage sales, ebay, or ask your hobby shop owner where they keep out of date role playing supplements. You can get them for less than half the price of a 3.5 supplement. There's monsters in those old sources that weren't put in the Monster Manuals, or which were added but in a completely different form. You can get a ton of monsters, NPC's, magic items, and such.
While you're at it, those outdated DMG's have a load of usefull stuff they didn't put in the new one. If you can find the AD&D 1st edition DMG it's pretty much nothing but supplemental rules, examples, and suggestions for DM's. You can get some great ideas from those books.
PHB's, not so much really. The 2nd edition PHB has better weapon and armor descriptions, and the 1st has better illustrations. But the actual information in the PHB hasn't significantly changed. Apart from alternate descriptions of the races and classes (which can in themselves be helpful) there's nothing particularly useful.

Another source to look for is the Wheel of Time core rulebook, or any other discontinued d20 rpg that WotC put up. They cost significantly less than the D&D books but contain additional classes, PrC's, races, monsters, items, etc. Again, for about half the cost of one of the core rulebooks you can get supplements for all three. The trouble is finding someplace that still carries them, WotC made only the one book, a single module, and then cut the game. Again, ask a hobby shop clerk for dated RPG books. And since WotC no longer supports the games I see no problem with suggesting a peer-to-peer network as a method of finding the books if you can't get them anywhere else.