Odd sort of question..

[JeffB]

Howdy. Used to post here a few years back quite alot. Life got me away from playing RPGs. and currently I'm selling of my big RPG collection (dating back to the brown books, which I've actually sold already). Finances. Lack of time to play. etc.

Anyhoo, my 6 year old son has quite the imagination, and I do believe at some point I'd like to introduce him to D&D and that he would be insterested as well. So I want to keep a few books out of my big collection to have around "just in case". I have both the 3E Core books (as well as dozens of other 3.0 products), and also the 3.5E books, though I quit playing RPGS around the time 3.5 surfaced. I've never really given 3.5 a scrutinizing look/played it, and it's been a few years since I even cracked the covers of any of them. I would most likely grab the basic game to start my boy off when the time comes, but were it to "take off", I'd like to have the "full" ruleset around.

To the point Jeff...to the questions:

Not worrying about backwards compatibility or future compatibility with published products...

What are the major differences between the two (sub)systems?...which one do you prefer? Do you feel 3.5 added complexity? Or made things "simpler" by fixing issues from 3.0 with more rules? (which IME, adds to complexity, but I digress)

I know this is a somewhat odd situation...perhaps my reasoning is not clear...but suffice to say, I'm not likely to be keeping up with the game/joneses, don't care to, and really only need to have one set of books around and possibly a few modules for a very "basic" game. I can create adventures, etc if/when needed.

thanks in advance

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It's probably a wash for your purposes. It's been long enough now that the line between the two is starting to blur for me, which should give you some idea as to how minor the differences were in the grand scheme of things.

Since six is a little young for a hard-core rules lawyer, I don't think it would make a difference one way or another. The things that were "fixed" in 3.5 aren't likely to come into play for casual players. If the bulk of your stuff is 3.0, and you'd want to use it with your son, it would probably be easier to stick with 3.0 and not have to worry about discrepancies.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I agree with Rodrigo, but only because if you have a fair few "3.0" books there's not much point in switching to the revision.

The changes in "3.5" are minor - which is why it ain't Fourth Edition. Some feats are renamed for clarity (like Expertise becomes Combat Expertise). Two-Weapon Fighting is simpler (the feat includes the effects of Ambidexterity). Some classes are revised a little - the barbarian, the sorcerer. Gnomes' favoured class is changed from illusionist specialist wizard to bard, and a few other races are tweaked; I believe dwarves' counting certain dwarven weapons like the dwarven waraxe as martial weapons rather than exotic is a feature of the revision, for instance.

Some spells have been changed, some a bit counter-intuitively - darkness doesn't create an area of darkness, now, it creates an area in which the light conditions are equivalent to "shadowy illumination", causing some people to suggest that it could actually brighten a lightless room. Most spell changes are pretty sensible - haste no longer allows you to cast two spells per round, for instance.

I think the revised Third Edition rules are better but, as Rodrigo said, it won't make a difference to your young son and having a bunch of reference material you don't need to revise makes it a good idea to stick with the unrevised version.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Hey, I remember you. Good to see you back around.

For the differences between 3.0 and 3.5, go to the link below. It has downloads of the booklet explaining the differences. In my opinion, the differences are generally easy to grasp, and while they require some relatively minor tweaking to update the 3.0 books, they are important and make the game a bit easier and/or fun to play.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a

 

[JeffB]

Thank you all for the detailed responses. I was kind of figuring since the bulk of my stuff is 3.0 that would be the way to go, but as the Colonel mentioned (BTW, Thanks Jeff, I remember you from here as well as over at the Necro boards), simplicity/fun would be my utmost priority.

Then again, my boy is young, and as also mentioned, a rules stickler he's not likely to be

To be honest I would love to start him on *MY* first Basic set (holmes), but no doubt the more straightfoward mechanics and logistics of 3E would likely be easier. Children are so different these days in what kinds of entertainment they are used to ...(not to mention my son has some learning disabilities) . I dove into the holmes set with reckless abandon, but I don't think it would work as easily for him without the consistency of 3.x mechanics.

I'll take a gander at that conversion document!