As the sig says, Heretic of the 3.0 edition here. While I don't think 3.5 is bad per se, its not what was talked about leading up to it. About the only thing I find 100% offensive is the 'pokemount' - paladins are an important part of my campaign, and they're powerful holy mounted warriors. They don't summon squat. Otherwise, if someone new to the game wanted to pick up D&D I wouldn't hesitate to point them at the 3.5 books.
But personally, I don't see $90 worth of value in the books. I could spend that $90 on several other suppliments and RPGs, rather than have something that played pretty much the same as 3.0. And I've had no problem converting material - there's no real conversion to be done most of the time. I've used Complete Warrior and Draconomincon without trouble.
I really got turned off because I feel they were deceitful about the nature of the product. We were told that 3.5 was going to be all the errata cleaned up, some problem classes and spells fixed, and some new content. Instead there's just as much errata and errors for 3.5, every spell in the book was rewritten, other things were changed that I'd never seen a single complaint about (looking at you, weapon size and facing), and 3.0 player's handbooks were rendered useless at a 3.5 game. From the initial description I'd planned to buy the core myself and give my players a list of changes. Since WotC delivered something other than what they promised, that couldn't happen. Of course that was back when WotC still talked to us over here, so I don't see things getting better in the future.
But personally, I don't see $90 worth of value in the books. I could spend that $90 on several other suppliments and RPGs, rather than have something that played pretty much the same as 3.0. And I've had no problem converting material - there's no real conversion to be done most of the time. I've used Complete Warrior and Draconomincon without trouble.
I really got turned off because I feel they were deceitful about the nature of the product. We were told that 3.5 was going to be all the errata cleaned up, some problem classes and spells fixed, and some new content. Instead there's just as much errata and errors for 3.5, every spell in the book was rewritten, other things were changed that I'd never seen a single complaint about (looking at you, weapon size and facing), and 3.0 player's handbooks were rendered useless at a 3.5 game. From the initial description I'd planned to buy the core myself and give my players a list of changes. Since WotC delivered something other than what they promised, that couldn't happen. Of course that was back when WotC still talked to us over here, so I don't see things getting better in the future.
