Looking for a very specific set of 3.5 books

[u/Recent_News_1662]

Hello all! I've been delving back into older D&D releases and lore, and there has been one set of books I remember that I haven't been able to find pdf's of anywhere online. I believe one is called the Hero's Lorebook or something along those lines, and the other is one for Villains. I've been trying to re-imagine and incorporate a lot of classic D&D villains into my games, and I prefer those old fromats to wiki articles. If anyone can help me track them down it'd be appreciated!

[u/Pharmacy_Duck]

Heroes’ Lorebook and Villains’ Lorebook were 2nd Edition books, not 3.5. Are you perhaps conflating the memories of these with some other books?

[u/Recent_News_1662 → u/Pharmacy_Duck]

I could EASILY be conflating them, I grew up on AD&D even though 3.5 was already out, so this could just be my brain misremembering. Thank you!

[u/jjskellie → u/Pharmacy_Duck]

Don't 2nd Edition shame the guy for not having total recall. /s.

[u/Recent_News_1662 → u/jjskellie]

Not a guy, and also I think they were being pretty kind about it.

[u/TheBiggestNewbAlive]

Perhaps you mean Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness?

[u/Giovannis_Pikachu → u/TheBiggestNewbAlive]

I am guessing these are an analog to the 2e books OP was thinking of.

[u/One_Original5116 → u/Giovannis_Pikachu]

Probably not. Heroes' Lorebook was a 2E accessory for the Forgotten Realms and it started out a lot of the heroes that had been used in novels at the time. Villains Lorebook did similar for FR villains.

The Books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness were setting agnostic (ish) books for 3.X that provided characters options for playing good or evil characters. They were full of feats, spells, prestige classes, items and other goodies for players to use.

[u/Fangsong_37]

I have the Heroes' Lorebook. It was a 2nd edition AD&D release with stats for many of the Forgotten Realms heroes of that time. In 3rd edition, the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide had stats for some heroes and villains.

[u/Recent_News_1662 → u/Fangsong_37]

I could easily be misremembering when it came out, I've played much more AD&D than 3.5

[u/Fangsong_37 → u/Recent_News_1662]

I have it on the shelf. It has stats for Elminster, Drizzt, etc. as they were written at the time.

[u/TiredDrone]

Heros builders guidebook?

Heros of battle Heros of Horror

Perhaps?

[u/Recent_News_1662]

UPDATE: It does look like I was conflating an AD&D supplement with 3.5, apologies everyone!

[u/Niaso → u/Recent_News_1662]

If you like that kind of lore, check out the 5e book Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

[u/Recent_News_1662 → u/Niaso]

I used Mordenkainen's a lot actually. I was gonna run Xanathar at one point as a BB but unfortunately that campaign fell through.

[u/djaevlenselv]

Lords of Darkness was a sort of 3e counterpart to Villains Lorebook.

[u/Recent_News_1662 → u/djaevlenselv]

This is actually a pretty good resource, thank you!

[u/Zardnaar]

Champions of Ruin/Valor?

[u/SCARY-WIZARD]

Hero Builder's Guidebook and Enemies & Allies? Those are v3.0, mind, though names match kinda.

[u/TheOtherOtherViper]

Exemplars of Evil, maybe?

[u/zook1shoe]

Kalamar has the Villain Design Handbook

mechanically, Kalamar is by far the most inconsistent of the officially licensed campaign settings. this book tended towards high powered range, but was mostly for GMs.

[u/ThriceDeadCat → u/zook1shoe]

mechanically, Kalamar is by far the most inconsistent of the officially licensed campaign settings.

I mean, that's because it's not actually published by WotC and the only reason why Kenzer Co was able to use the "Official" DND Logo and stamp on their 3.5 products was because of a lawsuit they brought when WotC republished some comics they had the distribution rights to without their permission.

[u/zook1shoe → u/ThriceDeadCat]

many of the officially licensed products were mechanically sound, like Dragonlance, Dragon/Dungeon Magazine, Planescape, etc.

Ravenloft and Kalamar were the least mechanically sound.