New Game. New Players. Core only?

[Wraithdrit]

Well if you are going to open the door with FRCS then you are liable to get caught up in a mass of other books.

My current campaign went from FR and mostly Core (with a little splat book) to FR and Core only, and is now in the realm of anything from WoTC. Main reason I don't allow d20 is I don't want to have to worry about balance and power levels as much.

That being said throw the Savage Species out of whatever window you can find! There are so many different ways to crank that thing through the roof! Ugh! If I had to do it over again I would definately limit races to FRCS and Races of Faerun (and have since done so).

Problem I have is that one of my players is a REAL power player. He's not a bad guy, but can take any concept and run it through his rulecheesomatic and end up with horribly powerful characters.

 

[frankthedm]

While all the geehaws and doodads from all the splat books and whatnot can be cool, you really can't go wrong with just the core rules, they pretty much everything you like, especially if your flexible (i.e. I want to play such and such type of character, so can I swap the feat for a couple extra class skills). Not only that, some of the stuff that has come before doesn't mix well with 3.5 so you save yourself that headache.

Why do so many people forget this in thier mad dash to a PRC or complain "N class is weak, it needs more X.

 

[Numion]

Having just finished a core only campaign as a player, I'd heartily suggest that. I was amazed how little all those gazillion sourcebooks actually add to the enjoyement of the game.