3.5, 3.0 products, and YOUR game....

[Melkor]

Thanks for the responses all.

For those of you that mix 3.0 and 3.5 Core material, do you lug around both sets of books ?

For those of you who use 3.0 sourcebooks without conversion (Oriental Adventures, Necromancer's Tome of Horrors, etc.) have any in-game issues come up that caused problems ?

 

[Psion]

For those of you that mix 3.0 and 3.5 Core material, do you lug around both sets of books ?

Nope. We usually play at my place.

But if we did go somewhere else:
- I have both SRDs on my laptop.
- I really have no reason to use the 3.0 MM except for spell like abilities (which again, I can look up on my laptop.)
- Tables are almost identical in the DMGs, which is about the only part of the DMG I would use for a game. The 3.0 NPCs are more useful on the fly but the 3.5 NPCs are better for customizing, so I'd default to the 3.0 for which DMG to take to the game.
- PHB, I use mostly new classes but use Green Ronin's Grimoires, not to mention I think I am the only one in the group with the 3.5 PHB, so it's be the 3.5 PHB.

So there you have it: 3.5 PHB and MM, 3.0 DMG, laptop+grimoires = my traveling kit.

That and about a dozen supplements I feel like using at the moment...

 

[Harlock]

I'm with Psion. We game at my house and now that I rearranged a couple of snake cages, I have a bookshelf in the dining area right next to the gaming table. I don't even have to haul my ass outta the chair since I sit in the highbacked leather office chair from my computer desk to DM in, much less haul a book anywhere.

Were I in a situation of needing to haul, I think I'd take the time to "sticky note" or notate the margins with the differences into either the 3.0 or 3.5 books and then not have to haul as much. A lot of the changes are easy enough and the little mistakes between versions probably wouldn't hurt that much anyway. Take square facings for instance: if you miss one, no big deal in the majority of cases. Not much help, I know, but it's the only reasonable solution I can think of and cheaper than buying Psion's laptop!

 

[Crothian]

For those of you that mix 3.0 and 3.5 Core material, do you lug around both sets of books ?

Like Psion, I game at my place. But even then I rarely look up things in game. I prepare notes ahead of time to avoid having to look in books. I've always felt that looking things up slows down and takes away from the game. So, I realy on memorizing what I need and taking notes like writing down monster stats and other complicated information.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm in two games.

One is a NWN-style 3.0 free for all, with few 3.5 rules thrown in (class abilities mostly).

The other is a strictly core only 3.5 game.

Both are fun, but I am enjoying the simplicity of the 3.5 core game. Of course, I could be reacting more to D&D rules-bloat in general than to the nature of the revision itself.

 

[Wombat]

I use version 3.Wombat

Always have, always will

Nope, haven't picked up the 3.5 books -- why pay for books that I still have in good working order (especially the hardly-ever-touched MM)? 'Sides, it was easy enough to pull down the 3.5 SRD, see if I liked anything, and add as appropriate.

I also use many Third Party bits and pieces, devious thoughts of my own, the chucking out of alignment and godstats, and other sundry notions.

So the game is not 3.5, not 3.0, just 3.Me

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm using 3.5, as I am playtesting Urbis and want to keep up with the latest rules - I plan to publish the setting one day, after all.

Still, I certainly don't force my players to buy the latest books, and I let them use the old ones for reference...

 

[HellHound]

We are running using the 3.5 core.

And all the supplements I can shoe-horn in. Only a few spells from the dozen or so spellbook supplements we use saw revisions in house for 3.5, and almost none of the classes, monsters, etc saw any real change (sure, one day I should go through and change the feats and skill points on a bunch of the monster, but that's for another day when I am VERY bored).

We packed up the 3.0 core books about two months ago and moved them into the basement book cases. That may not sound terminal to you, but I have an unfinishedbasement, so you need to put on boots and spelunking gear to go get the books now.

 

[Mystery Man]

We are running using the 3.5 core.

And all the supplements I can shoe-horn in.

3.5 and FR plus any WoTC book thats been done. Thats it.

3.0 core books were traded in for MINIS.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

We're using 3.5 essentially unmodified, so those are the only books I haul around. We do have a number of other elements that we've either tweaked as they've been added (we have a running campaign document of "approved" mechanics), or that can just be used without any conversion.

I use a lot of 3.0 materials DMing, and the vast majority of it either works directly, or I just convert on the fly.

Overall I find 3.5 to be a slightly cleaner revision of 3.0, but it isn't so different that the products can't be used together easily (though it probably helps that I followed the 3.5 development very closely, so I know most of the changes between editions quite well).