What motivated you to purchase splatbooks for 3e?

[Stalker0]

I bought them mainly to try new characters. I had done the concepts I wanted to do with the core books, and then wanted to see what could be done with the splats.

 

[Jhaelen]

My primary motivation was getting all base classes. It was the only reason I bought books like Dragon Magic or Dungeonscape.

Since I found that I liked all of the Complete books, I continued to buy those even though the second round didn't have any new base classes.

My secondary motivation was getting everything connected with mind flayers since they're the center of my campaign. It's why I bought MM5 and 'Lords of Madness'.

I also purchased 'Elder Evils' since I was looking for advice on how to properly end a long-going campaign.

I got 'Weapons of Legacy' because I like Earthdawn and its treatment of legendary items.

Finally I bought MIC and RC because I got tired of lugging so many books around...


There were also some books I didn't buy, even though I probably should have considering my motivations:
- SC: Imho, most spells beyond the PHB are either too situational to be useful or broken, so I passed.
- MM2-4: I always felt that MM1 is pretty much sufficient to poulate a campaign, expecially when utilizing templates, advancement rules and classed monsters.
- 'Magic of Incarnum': Purely for fluff reasons. I just didn't get what Incarnum was supposed to be and why it should have a place in my campaign.

 

[Woas]

Simple, I was a newborn to the wonderful world of RPGs around the release of 3rd/Revised 3rd edition and naive, so thought those extra books would actually help my game.

 

[frankthedm]

I bought the 3.0 splat books hoping for new, but still balanced options. I should have learned my lesson after sword and fist.

In 3.5, I bought none of the Complete books.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Im the kind of player that loves boosts to power and options, options, options. You mention a book with new feats, templates, monsters and prestige classes and you had me.

 

[Remathilis]

To win the arms race against my PCs.


What?!?

 

[Herobizkit]

For me, splatbooks = kits from 2ed. Kit books were vastly unbalanced, sure, but they also were a great way to differentiate Joe Fighter from Fred Fighter. In 3.x, a feat chain is the only real way to tell the fighters apart.

Splatbooks improve on the basic role of each class (not just fighters, of course) and allow players to get kewl powerz along with their more individualized roles.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I bought 3.x books for the same reason that I bought 1e and 2e books.

Inspiration and options.

Yeah, that.

Note, however, that I STOPPED buying them long before they stopped making them. That would be not long after 3.5 was released. I found them very thin for inspiration that I could actually use in ongoing games. As for the options they never got used, whether because my players were seldom that interested, they were imbalanced or broken, totally inappropriate for my campaign, and probably a few other reasons.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

A deep-seated hunger in my soul to feel what I felt when I first opened up the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook and felt like a new world of possibilities had opened up to me for the first time, that I was on the brink of experiencing a new awesome, as I had never awesome'd before. That, and the way the ink smells (this applies doubly to magic cards).

 

[Ydars]

When I DMed I never had any interest in the splatbooks; only the core 3 books and the MMs. Ironically, I think, though I knew certain parts of the rules very very well, I knew almost nothing about feats and PrCs.

Once I started playing regularly (I have played for the longest continous period ever in last year) I LOVED the splatbooks for designing feat combinations and for making characters with just the right mechanical abilities to match the character background.

I guess this what I love about 3.5; there is a chance to actually create almost any character and have the mechanics back it up so that it is not just a bunch of fluff that the DM can ignore. I haven't ever seen an RPG that is so complete in this sense, although the big problem is players who won't invest the time getting left behind. Having said this, I have designed quite a few characters as backups (I used to keep getting killed, I think because I was such a pain in early sessions and because other players often would mess up tactics) and these replacements have ended up becoming the PCs for other players and hence I designed half of the party.

Going back to the "are you a problem player" thread; I am, and so I needed something else to engage my brain to stop me being such a pain.