5e DM looking into 3.5e, what do I need?

[UltikanaRe]

I should begin this post with a bit of background, I am running two 5e games but I have a lot of friends who play 3.5e. I have heard that many good things from 3.5 didn't make it into 5e, and overall because 3.5e has had a full course of WotC development whereas 5e is still getting some UA and other updates, I figured it would be useful to look into both and try to take the best of both worlds. I also am considering joining a friend's 3.5e game as a player. All that said, I found the sheer volume of material more than a tad overwhelming. What I am looking for is first and foremost the equivalent of the MMl, DMG, and PHB, and any non-setting specific supplements. One of the things I am most interested in is prestige classes, which is what my friends usually cite as evidence of 3.5e's superiority. I am also interested to see what classes, races, and feats didn't come into subsequent editions, and see if I can port them to improve my player's variety of options.

[UltikanaRe]

Although I would like some of those questions answered if possible, a list of the books and pdfs if you have them would be very nice if somebody could manage it. Thanks in advance.

[Erit]

Even getting non-setting-specific, you're asking for one hell of a litany. There's five Monster Manuals s'far as I know, two Fiendish Codexes and the Fiend Folio on top of them, the DMG and DMGII, PHB and PHBII, Libris Mortis, the Book of Exalted deeds (and it's 3.0 counterpart, the Book of Vile Darkness), the Complete series, the Races Of series, and over a baker's dozen others.

[Fable Wright]

How to describe this...

In D&D 3.5, unlike in 5e, you will want a lot of information beforehand. You will need to know the optimization level of the group, a strong knowledge of the best options available to you (especially when you're a spellcaster and need to know all the best spells in their niche), a crucial understanding of the best magic items you can spend your WBL on, and you probably should plan your multiclassing build out ahead of time.

If I were to put together a short list of the first books you should investigate...

0. Player's Handbook, for the core feats and a basic understanding of the most common casting classes.
1. Magic Item Compendium. Every single person should want this book on hand, just for the option it provides to everyone.
2. Spell Compendium or Tome of Battle, depending on whether you want to play a spellcaster or melee character, respectively.
3. The Complete series of books. (Complete Champion and Complete Mage are the best of their line. What to look into after those depend on your character's interests—Complete Arcane and Divine are passable, Complete Scoundrel is pretty good for mundane gear and roguish characters, Complete Warrior has some good options for melee characters, Complete Adventurer is mostly forgettable aside from one or two niche things, and Complete Psionics is probably the worst.)
4. Sandstorm and Frostburn have some of the best-known options in the environmental book lines, though Frostburn has some broken stuff in it. Dungeonscape was balanced and interesting with good options, but it has more DM options than the other books, so it's not used as much. Stormwrack should wait until you've investigated other things.
5. Auxillary source book. Player's Handbook 2, Heroes of Horror, Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum, Expanded Psionics Handbook, or Dragon Magic. Chock full of player options that change the feel of your character, all of them, and they provide unique playing experiences.
6. Last—definitely after you check out the more interesting books—look into the Races Of series for some auxillary options. Races of Destiny is probably the best, followed by Stone and Wild, followed by Dragon.

The quickest way to throw into a game would be to pick up Player's Handbook, Tome of Battle, and Magic Item Compendium, then run with those. My favorite auxillary sourcebooks would be Tome of Magic and Heroes of Horror, though Tome of Magic has two of the most unique classes in the game, Player's Handbook 2 has a wide variety of features that you can throw on any character, Expanded Psionics Handbook's subsystem is the cleanest and easiest to pick up, and Magic of Incarnum's Totemist forms an amazing build-a-monster class.

That should give you a fairly comprehensive guide to charting the waters of the far-too-extreme depth of 3.5e. Enjoy.

[MisterKaws]

It really depends on how book-savvy your players are. If they're any close to these boards' optimizers, you'd have to look at well over fifty 200-page books(I have 86 of 'em, but I'm one of the weirdos) unless you restrict access to stuff, which most old-timers dislike. I really don't suggest starting your first 3.5 campaign as a DM: there's just too much content to study.

[UltikanaRe]

It really depends on how book-savvy your players are. If they're any close to these boards' optimizers, you'd have to look at well over fifty 200-page books(I have 86 of 'em, but I'm one of the weirdos) unless you restrict access to stuff, which most old-timers dislike. I really don't suggest starting your first 3.5 campaign as a DM: there's just too much content to study.

I got that feeling from looking at the Wikipedia page. Luckily a friend who studies all of this practically for a living will be DMing, and I have two groups already anyhow. As far as my 5e groups go, I really just want to integrate some of the options into 5e that I think my players would enjoy.

[UltikanaRe]

How to describe this...

In D&D 3.5, unlike in 5e, you will want a lot of information beforehand. You will need to know the optimization level of the group, a strong knowledge of the best options available to you (especially when you're a spellcaster and need to know all the best spells in their niche), a crucial understanding of the best magic items you can spend your WBL on, and you probably should plan your multiclassing build out ahead of time.

If I were to put together a short list of the first books you should investigate...

0. Player's Handbook, for the core feats and a basic understanding of the most common casting classes.
1. Magic Item Compendium. Every single person should want this book on hand, just for the option it provides to everyone.
2. Spell Compendium or Tome of Battle, depending on whether you want to play a spellcaster or melee character, respectively.
3. The Complete series of books. (Complete Champion and Complete Mage are the best of their line. What to look into after those depend on your character's interests—Complete Arcane and Divine are passable, Complete Scoundrel is pretty good for mundane gear and roguish characters, Complete Warrior has some good options for melee characters, Complete Adventurer is mostly forgettable aside from one or two niche things, and Complete Psionics is probably the worst.)
4. Sandstorm and Frostburn have some of the best-known options in the environmental book lines, though Frostburn has some broken stuff in it. Dungeonscape was balanced and interesting with good options, but it has more DM options than the other books, so it's not used as much. Stormwrack should wait until you've investigated other things.
5. Auxillary source book. Player's Handbook 2, Heroes of Horror, Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum, Expanded Psionics Handbook, or Dragon Magic. Chock full of player options that change the feel of your character, all of them, and they provide unique playing experiences.
6. Last—definitely after you check out the more interesting books—look into the Races Of series for some auxillary options. Races of Destiny is probably the best, followed by Stone and Wild, followed by Dragon.

The quickest way to throw into a game would be to pick up Player's Handbook, Tome of Battle, and Magic Item Compendium, then run with those. My favorite auxillary sourcebooks would be Tome of Magic and Heroes of Horror, though Tome of Magic has two of the most unique classes in the game, Player's Handbook 2 has a wide variety of features that you can throw on any character, Expanded Psionics Handbook's subsystem is the cleanest and easiest to pick up, and Magic of Incarnum's Totemist forms an amazing build-a-monster class.

That should give you a fairly comprehensive guide to charting the waters of the far-too-extreme depth of 3.5e. Enjoy.

Thank you very much for the comprehensive list. Looks like I will have about two years worth of reading to do lol.

[Waker]

http://www.d20srd.org/ That link will give you the basics of 3.5, including much of the information found in the PHB, DMG, some UA and Psionics.

[MisterKaws]

I got that feeling from looking at the Wikipedia page. Luckily a friend who studies all of this practically for a living will be DMing, and I have two groups already anyhow. As far as my 5e groups go, I really just want to integrate some of the options into 5e that I think my players would enjoy.

Oh, I somehow missed that line. Well, just for starters, you'll want to look at the core three and the Complete series: those will cover most of your needs. For the most exotic character-building needs, like drunken kung-fu fighting furniture (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=9823824), cat assassins with innate mind-bending powers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=9940202&postcount=165), eighteen-tentacle monstrosities(shameless self-plug) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21014315&postcount=119), among other more... peculiar concepts, which need a bit more expertise, you can count on the playgrounds' optimizers to help you with it.

[UltikanaRe]

Oh, I somehow missed that line. Well, just for starters, you'll want to look at the core three and the Complete series: those will cover most of your needs. For the most exotic character-building needs, like <snip>, <snip>, <snip>, among other more... peculiar concepts, which need a bit more expertise, you can count on the playgrounds' optimizers to help you with it.

Thank you very much. Don't worry lol, looking at the title I see it was a tad misleading. Might I ask, on a slightly unrelated note, since you seem to have implied that you have had some kind of encounter with 5e, what your favorite 3.5e feature is that you wish was in 5e? That is the central question I am trying to get at, which I am hoping the core books will help me answer, but the opinion of an expert would be highly valued. Thanks in advance.

[UltikanaRe]

<snip> That link will give you the basics of 3.5, including much of the information found in the PHB, DMG, some UA and Psionics.

Thank you very much. Vastly more complex than 5es introduction, but lets hope I can get the hang of it.

[MisterKaws]

Thank you very much. Don't worry lol, looking at the title I see it was a tad misleading. Might I ask, on a slightly unrelated note, since you seem to have implied that you have had some kind of encounter with 5e, what your favorite 3.5e feature is that you wish was in 5e? That is the central question I am trying to get at, which I am hoping the core books will help me answer, but the opinion of an expert would be highly valued. Thanks in advance.

Probably Monstrous characters(and by extension both ECL and Templates) and Prestige Classes. Both of these are what added so much depth to 3.5, but other than a feeble adaptation of Prestige Classes(I don't think they fit very well in 5e), these are nearly impossible to carry over, since Wizards stopped trying to cater to the minorities and went for targeting the masses, and in doing so, removing all possible ways of adapting the monsters into characters.

Also, you can quote multiple posts at once with the smaller button. Mods like it best if you don't post consecutively. Helps keeping the place tidy, too.

[Troacctid]

I'd hold off on doing work to port monstrous characters into 5e, since Volo's Guide is coming out soon and should do some of that work for you.

Wizards did a survey on what races and classes from previous editions players would be most interested in. The results are here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/july-survey).

[MisterKaws]

I'd hold off on doing work to port monstrous characters into 5e, since Volo's Guide is coming out soon and should do some of that work for you.

Wizards did a survey on what races and classes from previous editions players would be most interested in. The results are here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/july-survey).

I hadn't seen the results yet, but, who the hell thought it was a good idea to vote Kender?

[GilesTheCleric]

I think the key thing that you need if you're moving from 5e to 3e is an open mind. They're different games, with different expectations and assumptions on playstyle, game pacing, mechanics, and roles. I can't say that I've played a ton of 5e (mostly playtest sessions, then a few games after it was released), so I won't say that I can tell you concretely what all the diferences are. You may have already noticed that 3.5 is heavier on crunch, complexity, and maths. However, just like 4e or any other edition, it won't stop you from roleplaying or adjucating however you please.

If you're interested in 3.5 primarily for its content in terms of porting, most of it probably will resist 1:1 ports and will instead require spiritual recreations. Much of 3.5 is based on the concept of adding up bonuses with no cap, while 5e has a polished difficulty curve that's finite and precise.

Here's all of the 3e races: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?401132-Lists-of-Every-Playable-Monster-by-ECL
Classes: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/class
Prestige classes: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/prc
Feats: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/feats

Those wizards lists are not 100% comprehensive, since depending on what sources are allowed (ie. just 1st party, which is those, or also dragon magazine and official licensed content), there can be a fair bit more.

To hopefully elucidate on why your 3.5 friends really like prestige classes, I would say that in my opinion, they are a great way to really specialize a character. Most prestige classes help a character focus on doing one narrow thing, oftentimes something that nobody else can do at all. There's cache to having unique abilities like that, especially in the context of why prestige classes were initially developed: to give characters a really fleshed-out mechanical (and fluff) benefit from joining a specific group or training in unusual techniques. The uniqueness provided by PrCs (and the rest of the complex mechanics) allows for a character, with the right build, to be able to do nearly anything. 3.5 is an edition where you can take almost any character from fiction and create it, with no houserules, hand-waving, or GM help.

If you want a character who deals damage simply based on how fast they run, you can do that. If you want a character who can wield a weapon ten times larger than themselves, you can do that. If you want a character who is a walking dead-magic zone and reflects spells back at their caster, you can do that. If you want a character who grafts parts of their fallen enemies onto themselves, you can do that. It's all within the rules.

Anyway, in terms of playing 3.5, it's still pretty similar to 5e. The spellcasting system has more variation (all of 5e's casters behave similar to a 3.5 sorcerer; 3.5's wizard, sorcerer, and cleric all have slightly different systems), but the basic mechanics are almost identical. Instead of rolling for dis/advantage, you'll add situational bonuses (eg. +1 to-hit fighting from the high ground) to your regular bonuses (eg. +3 BAB, +4 str mod, +1 magical weapon). Rather than game-wide proficiency bonuses being added to your class skills/ability saves, you'll use your specific class's save progressions, and you'll distribute points among skills as you please. The end result is pretty similar, but 3.5's method allows for finer tuning at the cost of more preparation.

Lastly, here's a list of all 3.5 (no 3.0) non setting-specific books:
animated series handbook
book of exalted deeds
cityscape
complete adventurer
"" arcane
"" champion
"" divine
"" mage
"" psionic
"" scoundrel
"" warrior
draconimicon
dragon magic
drow of the underdark
dungeon master's guide 2
dungeon master's guide
dungeon survival guide
dungeonscape
elder evils
exemplars of evil
expanded psionics handbook
fiendish codex I
fiendish codex II
frostburn
hero builder's guidebook
heroes of battle
heroes of horror
libris mortis
lords of madness
magic item compendium
magic of incarnum
miniatures handbook
monster manuals I-V
planar handbook
player's handbook II
player's handbook
races of destiny
"" stone
"" the dragon
"" the wild
rules compendium
sandstorm
spell compendium
stormwrack
tome of battle
tome of magic
unearthed arcana
weapons of legacy


Everyone's recommendations on just checking out a few books to start are good. I'd note that for me (and perhaps a lot of folks on this board/ in 3.5), setting-specific content generally isn't restricted in games. There's little content that's either mechanically or thematically restricted (such as regional feats from forgotten realms, which can only be chosen based on your character's birthplace; or dragonmarks, which are magical tatttoos specific to eberron lore), and many of these can also be easily houseruled into a game in a different setting.

[Exocist]

Some people recommend this for creating a healthy 3.5 game (Though I might not personally agree, it does work out well):

Remove the following books entirely

- Dungeon Master's Guide
- Player's Handbook
- Monster Manual I & II

Ban literally everything printed in them. They weren't balanced correctly.

Instead, use the following books:

- Tome of Battle for Martial characters, Complete Warrior optional
- Expanded Psionics Handbook for casting classes, Complete Psionic optional
- Monster Manuals III through V are generally pretty good.

A general rule for PC classes is to look at JaronK's tier list (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=658.0). Don't allow any of the tier 1 classes because they can do too much (Hence the reason for banning the Core books - they have those classes and most of the broken spells printed in them). Tier 2-3 is generally a good power level to play at. Tier 4 is iffy unless you have a specific build in mind. Tier 5 and below is generally considered too weak without some serious optimization in mind (And even then...)

[Fizban]

Might I ask, on a slightly unrelated note, since you seem to have implied that you have had some kind of encounter with 5e, what your favorite 3.5e feature is that you wish was in 5e? That is the central question I am trying to get at, which I am hoping the core books will help me answer, but the opinion of an expert would be highly valued. Thanks in advance.
Not directed at me, but the answer (and the biggest difference between the two) is: multiple parallel advancement paths.

In 5e, everything draws from the same pool. Your ability ups come from levels in specific classes-if you multiclass out before hitting the ability bonus, you don't get it until you go back and take that level. Same with extra attacks. If you want feats, you have to trade ability bonuses. Skills, saves, attack bonuses, spell DCs, almost every number in the game is tied to your proficiency bonus which is just the same number for everyone of the same level.

In 3.5, you've got more than half a dozen different things going. Feats shows up every third character even if you switch classes every level so you're an x 1/y 1/z 1 etc. Ability scores show up at every fourth level the same way. Attack bonus and saves go up at different rates depending on which class you take. Skills are done by assigning skill points, and each class gets a different amount of points, and will pay more+lower cap on skills that aren't associated with the class.

And that's just your "chassis" bits. Then there's the actual progression of your base class, which could have multiple abilities such as both spellcasting and other class features. Those features could have more options, or be bonus feats that have even more options. Then you can take a prestige class, which might progress some or all or none of those abilities in combination with some or no other unique abilities of it's own. And the prestige class has it's own "chassis" that can be better/worse/completely different from whatever you were taking before, but none of that affects your feats or ability ups, and you can always try shoving skill points where you want them against the grain.

In short, 5e characters get everything from the same resource of class levels: level up in a single class, keep leveling up in that class, mix at your own peril. 3.5 characters level a dozen different tracks simultaneously, letting you be great at multiple things or prioritize whatever you want at your own option. It's not something you can port in, it's baked into the core system, and it means that no matter how many supplements they print for 5e it'll never match up. They can print new unique classes or even prestige classes that mimic the crazy stuff some 3.5s do (and wreck the careful balance they've bent on achieving), but it'll still only be one thing at a time, not a dozen.

Edit: actually the second big difference is: bounded accuracy. 5e just has smaller numbers, while a low level character still has no chance against a high level character, the way proficiency bonus and ability score ups work mean it's very predictable what numbers are going to be. A few extra levels mostly just means more endurance through hp and spell slots, but the rolls change by less than one point per level. Lower level people can punch above their weight simply through force of numbers and good tactical planning or extra resources. In 3.5, this is not the case: attack bonus goes up every level, often by more than one point once you factor in class abilities and magic items. Low level targets simply cannot avoid attacks and get mulched before they can do anything. Monsters gain similar amounts of armor class (when they're bruisers), so against someone too far under their level there's simply no chance of hitting (and DR can make you immune to peasants waaay earlier). It only takes two levels to put someone in a completely different league through spellcasting or other class abilities. In 5e you can conceivably rally mundane soldiers against a lot of threats and a few good magic items will let you take out far superior foes, but in 3.5 anything 3 or 4 levels below you is a speedbump (and generic soldiers are all 1st level) and a suit of +2 armor is the price of entry rather than a game-changer. Punching above your weight requires precision application of entire daily spell allotments.

In a bit longer, the second third big difference is that 5e kinda cuts everything off after 10th. It's quite easy to see the drop in high level spells, and martials are mostly just getting one option every few levels. In 3.5 you keep getting the same progression of spells up to the end so you'll quickly have 4+ spells for each of those levels where 5e gives you one, and even a basic Fighter gets a bonus feat every even level (while a martial adept from Tome of Battle is making a maneuver choice at every level). The top end spells in 5e are a lot tamer as well, mostly comparable to 7th level spells in 3.5. High level games in 5e are more like 13th level games in 3.5. That design change was quite intentional, as the point where things tend to start "breaking down" is sometime after 10th depending on how hard your group is pushing it, personally I'd say you can reach 15th without problems as long as no one tries to cause any, but even with simple damage you can break the game as early as 5th or 6th with some cheese. In 3.5, 9th level spells (that aren't Meteor Swarm) are stupid powerful and that's fully intentional, spellcasters are supposed to be broken and if you've reached that level it means everyone's been okay with that so far, the Fighter never stops being useful unless you deliberately choose to make him so.

Moving further onto casters, 3.5 is about buffs and battlefield control (and blasting if you want). In 5e they made it nigh impossible to have more than one buff up at a time thanks to the "concentration" mechanic (should be called "maintain" or something), and control spells were nerfed into oblivion while often being tied to the same "concentration" slot. 5e characters are meant to roughly survive on their own, everyone can heal themselves a little bit between fights and the game doesn't insta kill you if you didn't cast the right spell. The buffs are extremely powerful since there are few ways to boost your numbers, but you're extremely limited in how many effects you can use.

In 3.5, the game will absolutely kill you if you don't cast the right spell, preferably on multiple people. The standard party includes a Cleric and a Wizard, a large part of their job is supposed to be casting spells that keep everyone alive (even if char-op refuses to admit this), and not bringing them means there are things you will not be prepared for that the game expects you to handle. You survive dragon breath by casting Resist or Protection from Energy on everyone in the party. You survive instant death spells like Finger of Death and ability score/level draining undead by casting Death Ward on hopefully the entire party. You avoid being eaten alive or paralyzed and executed by casting Freedom of Movement on the appropriate party. If people get petrified it doesn't just wear off, you get the Cleric or Wizard to cast Break Enchantment or Stone to Flesh, or you drag the statue back to town and pay someone who can. You deal with large groups of foes with area spells and punch above your weight by dragging them down to your level. This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?504738-Character-Expectations-By-Level) thread here has a couple examples of stuff you can be expected to do, though they lean a little high OP it gets the point across.

Let's see, magic items. In 5e they supposedly aren't required at all (even though people throw them around all the time and there's a million random tables). In 3.5, magic items are required. If you don't have good enough magic items, your numbers will be lower than the game expects, and you'll be underpowered-not so much that you can't deal with things via teamwork for quite a while, but if your DM is also weighting fights against you it'll pile up fast. When there's stuff that the party can't handle with their own spells or skills, they are expected to be able to go buy a magic item or pay another spellcaster to deal with it. These are both core conceits of the system, and with a DM that refuses because "magic items are supposed to be special," or "magic item-mart is stupid," or "this is a low magic world" (ha, the worst one as they'll have plenty of spellcasters, just no magic items), expect that game to be rather difficult.

*Important note: multiclassing in 3.5, while half of what makes it good, has one critical flaw not officially addressed in the books. This flaw is Table Based BAB and Saves. Officially you get exactly what the table tells you, which means that multi/prestige classed characters lose BAB every time they take a new class that doesn't start with +1 BAB, lose save bonus every time they start a class with +0 in a save, and gain a massive +2 every time they start a class which starts with +2 in a save. The fix for this is found in the book of variant rules, Unearthed Arcana (page 73), fractional BAB and saves. It's quite simple: look at those tables, see that BAB is always either full, 3/4, or 1/2 of the class level, and add the fractions (rounding down as always). For saves it's either 1/3 or 2+1/2, use the fractions. Unearthed Arcana skips the second part from the original article, which is that saves should not get the starting +2 more than once, so really saves are either 1/3 or 1/2, with an extra +2 the first time you take a class with a high bonus in that save.

[Endarire]

Having played a bit of 5E but played and GMed 3.x a lot, this is the simple answer:

You need patience and research for 3.x. It's theoretically possible to go (near-)infinite in 3.x. You can also theoretically beat any challenge by research and proper character building.

5E is more about, "Let's get to the game with an approximation of a fantasy tactical miniatures game with a possible story" whereas 3.5 is more variable and often requires understanding a thousand or more pages of rules - somewhere between eventually and immediately - to function close to correctly.

[NomGarret]

To answer the question, I have to flip it a bit. After playing 2e, 3.x, and 4e, I've been slow to warm to 5e. I see and appreciate a lot of the tweaks and adjustments, but every previous edition has either given me something mechanically new and exciting to play with (incarnum, monstrous races) or has fundamentally changed how something old plays to make me want to try something I wasn't interested in before (fast AEDU elf Rangers). There's not much in 5e that does either of those for me after previous editions.

Now since you are coming at it the other way round, here's what I would look at to get the most out of it. Focus on the big options that aren't in 5e. A wizard is going to have a lot more spells and a lot fewer restrictions on what they can do with them. They are still going to feel in play like a 5e wizard /most/ of the time. Heck, a lot of those spells are fundamentally the same. If you like playing a dwarf cleric in 5e, you will probably feel the same about the 3.5 version.

What you should look at is the stuff that doesn't have direct analogues. The binder from Tome of Magic, the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum, the Dragonfire Adept from Dragon Magic. Tome of Battle is arguably more analogous as crusaders, warblades, and swordsages can feel like how I always felt Paladins, monks, and fighters should feel.

[Fable Wright]

They are still going to feel in play like a 5e wizard /most/ of the time.

Noooo, no they do not. The 5e wizard decides on which singular spell they want to sustain in combat, and build all spell choices around that. The 3.5 Wizard... just decides how much they want to invest in a given combat. 5e slots are a precious few compared to 3.5 ones, and choice of school substantially and meaningfully changes how you play.


What you should look at is the stuff that doesn't have direct analogues. The binder from Tome of Magic, the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum, the Dragonfire Adept from Dragon Magic. Tome of Battle is arguably more analogous as crusaders, warblades, and swordsages can feel like how I always felt Paladins, monks, and fighters should feel.

I will second this, though. D&D 3.5's alternate sourcebook classes were the best part of the game as it grew.