New 3.5 "splat books" worth it if you have the old ones?

[KenM]

I need to catch up on some DnD books, money has been tight. I have all the old 3rd ed. splat books, do you think I need to pick up the newer 3.5 ones? I'm going to pick up Unearthed Arcana, Exalted deeds, Underdark. Not sure on the new 3.5 class books though.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Very much worth it. They aren't as specific IMO as the old class books were, and there are enough options for all the classes. There's a good amount of revised stuff, but I still think they're worth getting.

 

[resistor]

I liked Complete Warrior a lot, but Complete Divine not so much. Complete Arcane looks interesting, but there's not lot of info on it yet.

In all, I like them a lot more than the 3e books. They're more generally applicable and open-ended.

 

[scourger]

I never bought any of them for 3e. I got a few for 2e, but it put my game out of control. Thanks goodness I never went in for Player's Option. I was much happier when I took it back to the core, so my d20 games are core games.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I found that I wouldn't use enough of Complete Warrior to make it useful (a good chunk of it's PrCs), so I sold it. As it is, I find the 3.0 splats more than meet my needs.

Best,
Nick

 

[Nightfall]

Complete Warrior was decent (though I agree with K-lion, there's a good bit of Pr-classes in it). What I felt separated it from S&F was the fact they focused on ALL melee/ranged/fighting classes, not just a specific sect. While there are some good 3rd party class books out there, CW I felt helped those that already had a campaign focus on various aspect of combat. In comparision I found Complete Divine only marginally as useful. The relics and Greyhawk gods stuff was nice, but overall it didn't wow me like CW did in some ways.

So overall, I'd say get the Player's Guides by S&SS. Oh wait you wanted 3.5 WotC splats? Eh. Try out Complete Warrior then.

 

[Awakened]

Ordering Complete Divine, Races of Faerun, and Unearthed Arcana tomorrow. Player's Guide to Faerun is a good deal of fun, and Complete Warrior has some really interesting class variants and PRCs. Also, the full-paged art is excellent.

 

[haiiro]

I tend to agree that Complete Warrior is a bit better than Complete Divine (partly just because CD's editing is really rough), but there's some cool stuff in both of them. For me, there's more than enough new stuff to justify owning the hardcover splats and the old ones, and it's nice to have the revisions.

If you're not sure about it, pick up the one that sounds more interesting to you, give it a read-through, and then decide whether or not to pick up the other.

 

[kingamy]

I liked Complete Warrior a lot, but Complete Divine not so much.

I agree with this. I have both, but think CW is a far better product. My imagination was stirred by CW; I found myself planning out characters as I read it (I used 3 PrCs and 2 feats in the RPGA module I'm writing). When I read CD it didn't affect me to the same degree, even though I tend to play Clr/Drd type characters. I like the spells, but the feats and PrCs seem less exciting to me.

Mike

 

[Ferret]

Since I never owned the 3rd edition splats, I'm going to go with 'What the hell, why not?'