3.P & The Complete Series....

[Lastgrasp]

How useful is the material in the Wotc Complete Series for Pathfinder? What books are pretty good and which one should be avoided? The only one that is pretty cheap used is Complete Warrior, but most of them have sky rocketed in price. If you had to pick one or two that would be most useful, which ones would they be?

[GoatBoy]

The latter ones, ie. Complete Psionic, Champion, and Mage, tend to have the most well-balanced feats and character options. I'd say those give you the most useful material and viable options per book.

There are some gems in the other Completes, but a larger amount of the content is sub-optimal, either too powerful or too weak. Though a lot of it is fluff, which is subject to personal taste.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The latter ones, ie. Complete Psionic, Champion, and Mage, tend to have the most well-balanced feats and character options. I'd say those give you the most useful material and viable options per book.

*blink blink*

Did you just say "Complete Psionic" and "most useful material and viable options" in the same sentence? :smalleek: It has a few gems, sure, but..."most well-balanced" character options? Can I please have some of what you're smoking?

The utility of the Completes for Pathfinder is about the same as for 3e, since 3.P doesn't really change enough to change that. Arcane and Mage are exceptional for arcanists, Divine is good but has things like DMM and Radiant Servant which you might want to avoid, Champion is great, Warrior and Adventurer are good, Scoundrel is handy.

[GoatBoy]

*blink blink*

Did you just say "Complete Psionic" and "most useful material and viable options" in the same sentence? :smalleek: It has a few gems, sure, but..."most well-balanced" character options? Can I please have some of what you're smoking?

Did I say Psionic? I meant Scoundrel.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Did I say Psionic? I meant Scoundrel.

Whew. You scared me for a moment there. Definitely agree that Mage, Champion, and Scoundrel are the the best of the bunch in terms of their "useful crunch to crap" ratio, though the Complete base classes like the warlock and scout are popular enough that I've seen plenty of attempts to pathfinderize them.

[GoatBoy]

Whew. You scared me for a moment there. Definitely agree that Mage, Champion, and Scoundrel are the the best of the bunch in terms of their "useful crunch to crap" ratio, though the Complete base classes like the warlock and scout are popular enough that I've seen plenty of attempts to pathfinderize them.

Yeah, it goes to show how good a class is when stuff like Warlock and Scout endure, while Wu Jen and Spellthief... uh, what books were they in again?

The fact that the creator of the Hexblade admitted that it needed a buff goes to show that Wizards took a while to get the hang of their own game.

Reserve and Domain feats are exactly what feats should be - scale-able in power so they are worth taking at low and high levels.

[classy one]

I like complete psionics.....

Aside from what Sverige has said I think complete divine deserves a mention just for divine Metamagic. The feat on which all clerics are made from.

[Lastgrasp]

If I own Psionic Unleashed by Dreamscarred does complete psionic complement it? I don't own XPH, but was looking for more psionic options and although Complete Psionic has so so reviews......is there anything worth while in it?

[Jude_H]

If I own Psionic Unleashed by Dreamscarred does complete psionic complement it? I don't own XPH, but was looking for more psionic options and although Complete Psionic has so so reviews......is there anything worth while in it?Most of Complete Psionic falls into one of these categories:

Easily breakable (Link Power, Anticipatory Strike, Synchronicity)
Horrifically weak (Flayerspawn Psychic, Zerth Cenobyte, most feats)
Fluff-wise gibberish (Divine Mind, Illumine Soul, Illithid Heritage feats, Stygian X)
Page filler (the entire feats section, the lightning and summoning prcs, the entire powers section)
Errata for obvious typos in the 3.5 Psionics handbook. And for Astral Construct, for some reason.
The amount that's left over (Ardent, Erudite, Lurk, Soulbow) really doesn't justify buying the book, IMO.

If you're looking to expand on PsiUnleashed, it'd be better and easier to convert the Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b), Malhavoc Press's Hyperconscious (the 3.5 Psionics writer's response to the shlocky CPsi) or some of Dreamscarred Press's 3.5 materials (srd here (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/)) to Pathfinder than to deal with Complete Psionic. The 3.5->PF transfer generally means bumping d4-d6 HD up a step, condensing skills and tacking on a talent trees of a similar PF core class.

[McSmack]

I have most of the Complete books and honestly they haven't seen much use once PF came out. The Warlock class being the notable exception.

A few fets get used now and again, but for the most part anything I need I can get out of the PF book or the APG.

[classy one]

Complete psionics should have it's own thread.....

I'll be quick in my defense of it.

The good:
Linked power: many people who complain about this feat forget that it is a metapsionic feat. That means you lose your focus and can't spam it. For a psywar, it is essential for buffing purposes.

Ardent: it's unique method for selecting powers makes this one of the best psionic base classes around. If you include ACFs in Mind's Eye then it is easily the best class around.

Anticipatory strike: this is pretty broken. Although at 9 PP I would hardly call it cheap.

Synchronicity: Trade a standard action for a readied action. Funny thing is this was published in Races of Stone first, the same book that published Stone power, the key to many recharge tricks. Yet for some reason no one complained about RoS..... Kind of unfair.

Dimensional hop: teleport as a swift action at level 1. Everyone should have hidden talent or EK to get this IMO. This is an often neglected power, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

Soulbow: considered the one of the only viable build for soulknives (atavist is the other), barring any homebrew. Is available online though.

Mantles: while the divine mind is santorum (just felt like using that word), the concept of mantles has spawned a bunch of ACF that give access to mantles and hence the powers in them. This one feature can be used to save many feats that would have been spent on EK.

I did have an incomplete review on hyperconscious. I might just revive it if there is interest.