The Quintessentials Collector Series Discussion (and Request for Erratas)

[JonathonWilder]

Who here has read through and played using the Quintessentials Series? I have managed to get all of them except for The Quintessential Psion II which seems to have never been printed.

Part of what drew me to this series of books was because of how much it reminded me of the 2nd Edition Completes Series, even having what are pretty much 'kits' but for 3rd Edition 3.5 Edition (as it seems some say they are compatible with 3.5) and much to my surprise and enjoyment multiclass archetype classes essentially.
I especially found interest in the last bit, though there seemed to be possibly a few errors (hence why I need the Erratas) like one I found amusing was the fact that the Barbarian/Bard and Wizard/Bard class were both called Lore Keepers.
------------------------------------------------------


Now onto the purpose of making this thread:
Can anyone give their thoughts and experiences with these books, perhaps give what they feel to be the most balanced and/or interesting ideas in these series of books? Also could someone point me to where I can get the Erratas for these books, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Stormonu]

I have the guides, and they're great fun for reading.

However, I've steered clear of using rule material from the books. They suffer from some of the same issues of this series from 2E*; while some of the material is underpowered or "just right", the later the book was published in the series the more apt it is to be "too good".

If you do allow the material in, I strongly advise letting players know it is on a trial basis, and as DM you might need to tweak an ability up or down (or possibly completely revise it). What may break one person's campaign and what's fine in another is going to vary - but for my own games, I felt many of the abilities offered were greater than what I wanted to allow (I tend to run low-magic/low-level games; above 8th level gets on my nerves).


*Yes, I know Mongoose made the 3E versions, while TSR made the 2E books they were designed off.

 

[JonathonWilder]

I plan on allowing players to use what is in them but make sure they understand that if there are problems we will need to figure out a way to fix things. How better to play test what is in the books then to allow intellegent and knowledgable players to make classes work and yes even found out how their characters can break the game.

 

[JonathonWilder]

Does anyone have any particular examples of unbalanced/over powered kits or multiclass classes I should look out for?