How come no one's publishing the old Corebooks?

[Uder]

The problem is the very limited number of new gamers who would need that book. Everyone who would play 3e is probably already playing, and already have a PHB.

Not if prices for 3.5 PHBs are any indication. You can still get half to full cover price for a used PHB - more if the buyers are bid-crazy or in a hurry. The pricing on 3.5 DMGs/MMs is pretty stagnant though, so that might indicate there are a limited number of new DMs.

I don't think there's enough demand for anything beyond the secondary market, but there are newbie 3.5 gamers out there, hard as it is to believe.

 

[Sylrae]

Whenever anyone I know talks about wanting to play 3.5 (often due to a disinterest in 4e), a dozen+ people redirect them to pfrpg, or fantasycraft.

The 3.5e gamers here either aren't looking for group or accepting new players, else they convert to a game they can find players for.

I have a huge shelf of 3.5e books that go pretty much unused now that PFRPG is out. none of the other GMs will let me use any of the material in their games, due to the claim that 'powercreep in 3.5e is too much to play with', so it only gets used if I'm gming. and in that case, only if I take the time to convert it over to pathfinder.

I think the 3.5e crowds are shrinking. It's kindof a shame, but in the current game-selection market not all that unexpected.

There are some decent 3.x to pfrpg conversions though.

 

[DMJay]

Not if prices for 3.5 PHBs are any indication. You can still get half to full cover price for a used PHB - more if the buyers are bid-crazy or in a hurry. The pricing on 3.5 DMGs/MMs is pretty stagnant though, so that might indicate there are a limited number of new DMs.

I don't think there's enough demand for anything beyond the secondary market, but there are newbie 3.5 gamers out there, hard as it is to believe.

I fall into that category. I'm currently looking on Ebay for my own copies of DM 1&2 and PHB.

 

[pawsplay]

Assuming you can't just find used 3.5 books, Mongoose already milked this cow for what it was worth.

 

[angelababy]

What incentive is there for the publisher? There's still scads of 3.5e stuff out there, both hardcopies and online references. there's no new Player's Handbooks, no new Dungeon Master's Guides, no new Monster Manuals.

 

[coyote6]

Also, when Mongoose did their pocket book, the d20 boom was still going (mostly kinda, anyways) -- they had money, were in the d20 game, and there was a market.

Nowadays, most of the former d20 publishers have either gone out of business, switched to other games (Mongoose has Trav, RuneQuest, etc; GR has DCA, Dragon Age, ASoIaF, etc.; FFG is WH and board games), or gone PDF-only. Ergo, who's left that would care to pay to reformat and rewrite (because a book that doesn't actually explain how to create a character might not work so well)? Especially given that most of the target audience already has PHBs, or Pathfinder. And what distributor and retailers will order it?

 

[Particle_Man]

I don't think it would work with the corebooks, for reasons stated above, unless one had absolutely Kick Ass art. And maybe some godlike lay-out and organization that makes people go "woah". As a very minor part of an example of the latter, putting the non-epic feats from the epic players handbook section, the non-psionic feats from the psionic section, etc., together with the feats from the players handbook section, so a player could have all available pc feats in one place would be nice. But I imagine someone could do that online too.

There might be a market for other 3.x stuff if someone (not me, btw) has the balls to say "well rules can't be IP so I can't be sued, right?" and puts out the rules of, say, Complete Arcane, etc., but with completely different fluff-text for everything that would otherwise be legally actionable. Witch instead of warlock, perhaps. This would be a hellish amount of work, imho. IANAL, I have no idea if this would work or what else would have to be done to make it work, and anyhow, just because it is technically legal doesn't mean you couldn't be sued into oblivion anyway.

Assuming Wotc/Hasbro does not sue the person/company into oblivion after that hellish amount of work (and remember, Hasbro has more money and better lawyers than you), people might be interested in picking up these works, simply because it will be harder and harder to find the hardcovers (only a finite number were made, and there is no indication that more will be made).

 

[Thanael]

Aren't there already several versions of the core rules available from 3rd party publishers? For example:
SORD

 

[Janaxstrus]

Prices on all of those books aren't reasonable.

My DM has been looking for a 3.5 MM after his other one disappeared in a move. Ebay was running close to cover price for used books.

I finally found 1 on a used book site for 15, which is kind of pricey, considering I found most of my other books on Amazon or Amazon resellers for way less than cover when they were still new.

Amazon is giving 20 gift cards to trade in your PH right now, which says to me that they aren't going to get cheaper for a while.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Prices on all of those books aren't reasonable.

My DM has been looking for a 3.5 MM after his other one disappeared in a move. Ebay was running close to cover price for used books.

I finally found 1 on a used book site for 15, which is kind of pricey, considering I found most of my other books on Amazon or Amazon resellers for way less than cover when they were still new.

This has been my experience as well, though I don't know if prices really are "pricey" or if it's just my perception. But as I recall, you practically couldn't give away 2e stuff when 3e came out. Surely that $2 for a 2e MM in 1999 doesn't equate to the $15 a 3.5e MM commands in 2010, even accounting for inflation.

Are 3.x prices actually high during the shift to PF and 4e, as compared to the shift from 2e to 3e? If so, is there any particular reason for this?

My gut tells me the internet (and maybe used/surplus bookstore chains) keeps prices inflated, but I have no idea. But if the system still has legs as something people are willing to purchase, maybe a (re)release of the SRD in hardcopy would have a limited market.