Switching from D&D 3.0 to 3.5 -- need advice

[monkeynova]

Hello!

I am finally making the switch from 3.0 to 3.5; I need advice on what WotC books I should get as a player. For the moment, I am going to stay away from Eberron and FRCS; I am in no campaigns which use material from either setting.

The 3.0 books I have:

* PH
* DMG
* MM I
* ELH
* PsiHb
* MotP
* Deities & Demigods (I don't know the abbreviation for this; sorry...)
* S&F
* T&B
* DotF
* MotW
* S&S
* Hero's Builder Guidebook (again, I don't know the abbreviation)
* BoVD

So far, my 3.5 material consists of the following:

* the latest SRD
* Complete Divine
* Complete Arcane
* Complete Adventurer
* Races of Destiny

I am guessing I will need the 3.5 Player's Handbook at a minimum; I would like to pick up the XPH, Complete Warrior, and the other two races books (Races of Stone and Races of the Wild) as well. Beyond that, though, I am at a loss as to which books to pick up as a player.

Is Unearthed Arcana more useful to players or DMs?

Is Frostburn (or Sandstorm or Maelstrom) more useful to players or DMs?

Is the Book of Exalted Deeds more useful to players or DMs?

Is the DMG useful to players at all? What about the Monster Manual I?

Are there any player-useful WotC books for 3.5 that I may have missed?

Thanks for your help,

monkeynova

 

[EricNoah]

I am guessing I will need the 3.5 Player's Handbook at a minimum; I would like to pick up the XPH, Complete Warrior, and the other two races books (Races of Stone and Races of the Wild) as well. Beyond that, though, I am at a loss as to which books to pick up as a player.

Is Unearthed Arcana more useful to players or DMs?

Is Frostburn (or Sandstorm or Maelstrom) more useful to players or DMs?

Is the Book of Exalted Deeds more useful to players or DMs?

Is the DMG useful to players at all? What about the Monster Manual I?

Are there any player-useful WotC books for 3.5 that I may have missed?

Thanks for your help,

monkeynova

UA is more useful for DMs. If the DM is using something from that book I would imagine they'd write up or photocopy the relevant section for you. Same thing with Frostburn etc.

Exalted deeds: good for players but will need a lot of DM approval probably.

DMG material useful to players: the magic items section, so you know what your items do. If you have the SRD handy then that's all in there.

Monster Manual: if you're going to be summoning animals or monsters, may be useful, but there are 3.5 stat blocks for the standard summon monster and summon nature's ally spells out on the net.

I can't think of other player-useful 3.5 books at the moment. I'm sure someone will chime in.

 

[billd91]

I'd be hard pressed to put any of the races books ahead of the DMG and MM in priority. There are simply too many changes to the 3.5 system to treat these two books lightly (and the DMG 3.5 is better organized than the 3.0 version).
While you do have the SRD, and that covers most of what you'd need the DMG for, don't just rely on the SRD for the MM. Not all MM critters are in the SRD. I believe beholders and mind flayers are considered exclusive intellectual property.

I also wouldn't necessarily ditch your 3.0 PHB if you haven't already. We went back to a lot of 3.0 spell durations rather than use excessively nerfed 3.5 versions of some things. As far as my group of players is concerned, the 3.5 spells were balanced with combat a bit too much in mind and not out of combat utility. Several spells that went down to 1 minute per level we've pushed back up to 10 minutes per level.

 

[Ravellion]

The switch is not that big, so I suggest you get the PHB (because of the spell descriptions, mostly), and the XPH, if you use psionics. When you look at the XPH, you understand that 3.0 psionics had left a lot of room for improvement.

You could get Complete warrior I suppose. Complete Adventurer is nice I hear.

I think Monte Cook might be doing a 3.5 revision of all the Books of Eldritch might. Very worthwhile purchase, cool spells and prestige classes.

But really, with the PHB and XPH, you should have plenty, especially with all your old material. Most of it will still work just fine. I certainly didn't feel the need to get anything else since 3.5 for myself as a player, most of it is pretty easy to convert.

Unearthed Arcana is nice for DMs... but pretty usless for a player, unless you can convine your DM to use optional rules you like.

 

[Arnwyn]

Is Unearthed Arcana more useful to players or DMs?

DMs.

Is Frostburn (or Sandstorm or Maelstrom) more useful to players or DMs?

DMs.

Is the Book of Exalted Deeds more useful to players or DMs?

About the same, though (as others have noted) will likely require heavy DM approval.

Is the DMG useful to players at all? What about the Monster Manual I?

Nope. Mostly for DMs (except the magic items in the DMG, but that's all in the SRD).

Are there any player-useful WotC books for 3.5 that I may have missed?

To be honest, you pretty much covered off everything from WotC 3.5 that you'd use as a player.

 

[Voadam]

For the PH/DMG/XPH you are pretty set with the SRD, although you would want the XPH for flavor text on the races if you are playing them.

DMG has some prcs and items you can make with item creation feats, and MM has monsters suitable as PC races but ~98% of all of that is in the SRD. The MM will have a little more info on the monster descriptions and viewpoints, but not much more and it is not that different from 3e if you have that version. The pictures can all be viewed at the WotC site anyway.

Arcana Unearthed has a lot of neat class variants and a few feats to ask your DM about and alternate systems for doing anything.

 

[Estlor]

You shouldn't really need Unearthed Arcana to be a player. If your DM is going to use something out of it, it's his responsibility to let you know beforehand so you can adapt. If you're going to DM, it's invaluable, even if it only causes you to think about why certain things happen in the system and what kind of changes can be made.

Frostburn isn't as big an asset for a player as it is a DM, and it's an even smaller asset if your campaign isn't spending a healthy amount of time in a cold climate. Unless you're a completist, I'd stay away from all the environment books save ones you're likely to spend a lot of time in.

The XPH is a fabulous book and I highly reccommend it. If you're not planning on using or considering psionics, it won't see as much rotation, but it does a great job on the subject and would do in a pinch if you wanted an alternative spell-point system.

Complete Warrior is a good book. Unless you absolutely hate the other Complete books, I'd reccommend this one first as it has truly universal appeal. If you're not playing a combat character, it won't have quite as much use, but fighters, rangers, and paladins especially will find lots of crunch in it.

The Book of Exalted Deeds is probably a low priority unless you're planning on playing a by-the-book "good" alignment type. If that's the case you can probably find some handy feats in here, but a lot of the book is hard-coded to the default heavenly choir of celestials and D&Ds "great wheel" cosmology.

 

[Psion]

For the PH/DMG/XPH you are pretty set with the SRD, although you would want the XPH for flavor text on the races if you are playing them.

Also, some races don't appear in the SRD, like Gith.

 

[Desdichado]

I am guessing I will need the 3.5 Player's Handbook at a minimum;

Not if you're using the SRD you don't. I don't have it, I actually just have the MM3.5.

I would like to pick up the XPH, Complete Warrior, and the other two races books (Races of Stone and Races of the Wild) as well. Beyond that, though, I am at a loss as to which books to pick up as a player.

The Complete books are like updated and expanded versions of the old paperback splats (S&F, etc.) so they're totally player oriented. The Races series is all new, for the most part. The XPH is a vast improvement on the original 3.0 book, to the point of completely eclipsing it, IMO.

Is Unearthed Arcana more useful to players or DMs?

DMs

Is Frostburn (or Sandstorm or Maelstrom) more useful to players or DMs?[/auote]
DMs

Is the Book of Exalted Deeds more useful to players or DMs?

DMs

Is the DMG useful to players at all? What about the Monster Manual I?

Depends on your group's style. All the basic prestige classes and magic items are in the DMG, and any animal companions or summoned creatures (all things a player needs to know) are in the MM.