[3.5] Dungeon Diving Campaign Advice?

[Barmacral]

I am starting to prepare a dungeon diving campaign for my friends, as we've always done homebrew worlds and I think one dungeon ever.

As such, we're trying something new as a group, and this will also be my first time ever as a DM. I've got a few months yet to set it all up, so I'm not in a rush.

Now, I read on this board recently that restricting the players to the core rulebooks is a good idea, as some of the dungeons were written early on and can be broken with the expanded books.

So, what sorts of tips do you have for running dungeons, what books I should use, etc.? I've built myself a map already, and have found a long list of dungeons on the wotc website, as well as have access to basically every book in 3.5 (or can attain any I don't have).

Thanks,

Barm

[Godskook]

Now, I read on this board recently that restricting the players to the core rulebooks is a good idea, as some of the dungeons were written early on and can be broken with the expanded books.

Core is bad too. Sure, its harder to keep track of 9million sourcebooks, but players are less likely to 'revolt' in a non-core environment because its easier to create character concepts outside of core than it is inside of core. Want a reasonable monk-type? Unarmed swordsage. Want a reasonable but non-broken caster? Psion(which I guess is core, isn't it?), Warlock, or DFA. Want a Tank? Crusader.

Currently, I'm playing as a Daggerspell Mage in one of my games. That prestige class is probably underpowered compared to a single-class wizard, but he does exactly what I want him to do, which is to bridge the gap between rogue and wizard, and he does it reasonably well. He's also way less broken than if I had played a straight venerable druid, or a chain-gate-er.

I guess my main advice is to start at ~L5, since there's very little in any book that's brokenly overpowered at L5, and on the other side, its just deep enough into the leveling that the characters start developing 'personality', I guess.