Complete Book of Eldritch Might- Worth the price??

[slingbld]

I was wondering if anyone else got the Complete Book of Eldritch Might & found themselves a little unimpressed with it.

I have the three origional products but when they mentioned it was being fully revised to the 3.5 standards I figured thier must be some decent amount of changes for them to come out with a new volume like that.

After going through about 1/3 of the book, I have to admit that I was wrong. So far the changes I found could all fit into a 2 page errata.

Anyone else not satisfied with the book?

 

[Crothian]

I'm not that concerned with the errata, or updates to the new edition. I like having it all together in a hardbound.

 

[slingbld]

I'm not that concerned with the errata, or updates to the new edition. I like having it all together in a hardbound.

Hardbound is nice but the price was fairly steep IMHO for essencially reprinted material.
At least it wont get damaged as easily as the softcovers can.

 

[Crothian]

Well, the old softbounds I get to now give away or trade to people who can use them. I don't mind reprinted things becasue it allows me to free up the old material.

 

[James McMurray]

I already had I & II on pdf, and II in softback. I went ahead and bought the compilation because

a) I'd skimmed through III and liked what I saw and
b) having them altogether in one place is very handy.

As Crothian said, I can also now loan out II to my players without fear that I'll need to look something up in the middle of the week.

 

[RingXero]

Well, I think you are asking two things,

one, is the content of the 'Complete Book of Eldritch Might' worth it's cost. I would think it is. A 224 page hardcover for 34.99, whether or not it is reprinted material has no bearing on the cost of printing the book, some 'creative' work also had to be done for the conversion to 3.5, so I would say that someone who did not have any of the previous books would be getting a good deal, as seperately it would have been about $43.

two, I think you made a big mistake assuming it would have any new content. From Malhavoc Press' website -- "This book compiles all the rules and source material previously published as one of the three previous Eldritch Might volumes..." "...All the rules material has been updated to v. 3.5 of the d20 System". The only mention of new material is for the information on integrating it into AU. Monte at no time has lead people to believe that the book is other than what it is, a compilation of the three seperate books.

Personally, I kept with the PDF versions, my upgrade costs were of course low ($9). Should Malhavoc Press released the '3.5 upgrades' for free? *shrugs* It would have been nice, but I understand that he still has to make money, that any time he spends on 'upgrading' takes him away from doing something else that will actually be lucrative, or interesting. It's not as if the original works were broken or anything.

all that said, I too hate spending money on something and have it not what I thought it would be.


RX

 

[Staffan]

From what I've heard on Monte's boards though, the 3.5 version of the alternate sorcerer seems to have been a disappointment - mainly changing the names of spells that changed names in 3.5e. He didn't add any spells (not even scorching ray, which is a spell tailor-made for a sorcerer if I ever saw one) or take into account changes in function for those spells that he put at higher levels for sorcerers on account of abusive natures (e.g. haste, invisibility, shield).

 

[slingbld]

two, I think you made a big mistake assuming it would have any new content. From Malhavoc Press' website -- "This book compiles all the rules and source material previously published as one of the three previous Eldritch Might volumes..." "...All the rules material has been updated to v. 3.5 of the d20 System".

From what I've heard on Monte's boards though, the 3.5 version of the alternate sorcerer seems to have been a disappointment - mainly changing the names of spells that changed names in 3.5e. He didn't add any spells (not even scorching ray, which is a spell tailor-made for a sorcerer if I ever saw one) or take into account changes in function for those spells that he put at higher levels for sorcerers on account of abusive natures (e.g. haste, invisibility, shield).

RX, I see your point. And admittedly he did add all the goodies that were freebies on his site, like the new spellsongs but Staffan has a very valid point. There were some new things from 3.5 that could have been incorporated into the book as well.
I guess it is how you look at it. If you look at it as a compilation that's been tweeked to fit 3.5, then it's what you were looking for. If you were expecting a little more work into more fully integrating theh 3.5 changes into the body of work (I'm guilty of this) you tend to be disapointed.
In the end, I am not terribly upset with it. it does put 3 books all together, reorganized them & made it a more durrable hardback.

 

[Staffan]

RX, I see your point. And admittedly he did add all the goodies that were freebies on his site, like the new spellsongs but Staffan has a very valid point. There were some new things from 3.5 that could have been incorporated into the book as well.
I guess it is how you look at it. If you look at it as a compilation that's been tweeked to fit 3.5, then it's what you were looking for. If you were expecting a little more work into more fully integrating theh 3.5 changes into the body of work (I'm guilty of this) you tend to be disapointed.
In the end, I am not terribly upset with it. it does put 3 books all together, reorganized them & made it a more durrable hardback.

Well, it made me decide not to buy the PDF upgrades. I liked Monte's sorcerer, but I also like 3.5e rules. If all he's going to do about it is change a spell name or two, I can do a better job myself without shelling out $3.