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<blockquote data-quote="Sammael" data-source="post: 5176349" data-attributes="member: 4475"><p>As a DM, Complete stuff gave me a lot of tools to play with for my NPCs, so I benefited from it far more than the players did. Sure, some of the stuff was poorly balanced, and some was just way too difficult to implement but, for the most part, I was pretty OK with allowing it as long as the players told me in advance what they intended to take so I could eyeball it and adjust as I saw fit. Allowing stuff indiscriminately is out of the question, of course.</p><p></p><p>Vanilla 3.5 (core only) gets really boring for the non-magical classes really fast. Casters are better off, that's for sure, but I feel that Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger are way too bland unless you mix in some PHB2 and Complete books in.</p><p></p><p>However, I still found that the best 3.x books were the so-called "DM books" which provided ideas, flavor, and tools that improved my games:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Manual of the Planes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (best written campaign setting of all times)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Silver Marches</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unapproachable East</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Draconomicon</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lords of Madness</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fiendish Codex I & II (though I was slightly better)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Serpent Kingdoms</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lost Empires of Faerun</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Power of Faerun</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic of Faerun</li> </ul><p></p><p>The books that had potential but failed to deliver were Underdark, Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Libris Mortis. I never bought Drow of the Underdark, so I can't comment on it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sammael, post: 5176349, member: 4475"] As a DM, Complete stuff gave me a lot of tools to play with for my NPCs, so I benefited from it far more than the players did. Sure, some of the stuff was poorly balanced, and some was just way too difficult to implement but, for the most part, I was pretty OK with allowing it as long as the players told me in advance what they intended to take so I could eyeball it and adjust as I saw fit. Allowing stuff indiscriminately is out of the question, of course. Vanilla 3.5 (core only) gets really boring for the non-magical classes really fast. Casters are better off, that's for sure, but I feel that Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger are way too bland unless you mix in some PHB2 and Complete books in. However, I still found that the best 3.x books were the so-called "DM books" which provided ideas, flavor, and tools that improved my games: [list] [*]Manual of the Planes [*]Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (best written campaign setting of all times) [*]Silver Marches [*]Unapproachable East [*]Draconomicon [*]Lords of Madness [*]Fiendish Codex I & II (though I was slightly better) [*]Serpent Kingdoms [*]Lost Empires of Faerun [*]Power of Faerun [*]Magic of Faerun [/list] The books that had potential but failed to deliver were Underdark, Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, and Libris Mortis. I never bought Drow of the Underdark, so I can't comment on it. [/QUOTE]
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