Nothing a few houserules don't tend to fix and I tend to use a few to balence the game out and hopefully make it more fun. Fighters for example in my games have 4 skill points/level and a revised skill list while Rogues get 10 skill points/level. Anyway heres a few comments and thoughts about various books for 3.5.
Core Rulebooks.
Player Handbook
Monster Manual
Dungeon Masters Guide
Not alot to say about these books. As far as Darksun is concerned you can also include the Complete Psion. Personally I don't use the Psionics is different rule as it tends to vastly overpower Psions. Not many creatures for example have power resitence but alot have magic resistence. Using that rule lets Psions blow through magic resistence all the time. I'm reasonably sympathetic towards Psions though and generally let Psionic equivilents for prestige classes and spells if they make sense. Psionic Loremaster sure, Psionic Incantrix no. Alot of spellcaster PrCs convert reasonably easily.
Core Rule Books 2
While technically onlt the Players Handbook 2 and Dungeon Masters Guide 2 are core rulebooks 2 I consider the following books as Core Rules 2 as they are all quite useful.
Dungeon Masters Guide 2
Magic Item Compendium
Players Handbook 2
Spell Compendium
Monster Manual 2,3,4,5
Fiend Folio
The above books are some of the best 3.5 add ons you can get. The Players Handbook 2 has affliation rules which can be adapted should PCs do missions for various power groups on Athas. In addition the book has alot of great fighter type feats and 4 new classes. One reason Fighters get alot of flak for sucking is that spells are generally better than feats. PHB2 feats are quite powerful compared to the PHB but aren't exactly. The Dungeon Master Guide 2 has the Favoured in Guild Feat and Guildmaster Feats which let PCs join guilds or even rule them. The guild rules of course can be used to represent membership in various organisations on Athas such as the Veiled Alliance or even Sorcerer Kings Templarates. Theres also lots of other crunchy bits to be nibbled on as well.
The Spell Compendium not surprisingly is a book full of spells. I've used spells in here to customise domains and Templar spell lists for darksun but the list of new domains in the back of the book is pure gold. Clerics in my Darksun Campaigns use the Players Handbook elemental domains and may choose one other non-elemental domain of their choice. More domains add flexabilty to Clerics and can make sese in alot of ways such as an Athasian Elven Cleric of Air with Air and Celerity domains. I also took the sun domain from the Players Handbook, renamed the Windstorm (in the Spell Compendium) domain the Rain domain and used the Compendium to flush out Magma and Silt domains which I invented for my games.
The Magic Item Compendium is exactly that but alot of items are alot cheaper thanitems in the Dungeon MAster Guide. Basically most magic items in various sourcebooks are over priced to the point of being useless and PCs will never buy them or make them instead focusing on stat boosting items and magic weapons etc. The Monster Manuals are also useful for DMs with several monster which are interesting for Darksun.
The Complete Series
The following books are in the complete series.
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Champion
Complete Divine
Complete Mage
Complete Psionic
Complete Scoundral
Complete Warrior
I don't have the Complete Divine but can recommend the original 4 (Adventurer,Arcane, Divine,Warrior) as all have new feats, classes,prestige classes, spells etc. The best book is probably the Complete Adventurer which has the Scout class in it which is a very easy addition to Darksun and I even changed the Haflings favoured class to scout. The worst is Complete Psion despite Athas being a rich Psionic world. The other 3 (Champion,Mage, Scoundral) are average at best and I wouldn't recommend getting them. I even blended the Favoured Soul (Complete Divine) and Warmage (Complete Arcane) into a class and called n a Templar which are spontaneous casters in my games who know all their spells on their list but have an extremely narrow spell list to choose from.
The Races Books
Races of Destiny
Races of Stone
Races of the Wild
Since Darksun is so different from normal D&D these books are less than useful but they all have spells and feats in them that could be used in Darksun easy enough. They also tend towards average even in a normal D&D game. My advice is avoid them.
The Enviroment Books
Frostburn
Sandstorm
Stormwrack
Sandstorm for obvious reasons is quite useful for a Draksun campaign the other 2 virtually useless without heavy modifications. I personally haven't used much material from Sandstorm yet so don't feel qualified to comment that much on it.
Monster Books
Quite Different form monster manuals heres what I consider the monster books are.
Draconomicon
Drow of the Underdark
Fiendish Codex 1-Hordes of the Abyss
Fiendish Codex 2-Tyrants of the Nine Hells
Libris Mortis
Lords of Madness
Most of the above books are great quality for a normal D&D campaign. A bit less than usefull for Darksun however. Libris Mortis is quite suitable however espicially if you have an interest in the Deadlands as alot of the material is very useful. The Draconomicon and Lords of Madness have some limited use and I could easily see Dregoth with a few levels of the Dragon Ascendant PrC for example but the rest of the books are less than useful for Darksun.
Other Books
I own to many splatbooks and the only other one I've used much for Darksun is Unearthed Arcana which has alot of rule varients in it of which quite a few are suitable for Athas. Other books I own are all but useless for Darksun (Planar Handbook, Manual of the Planes, Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds etc)
Other Campaigns
I'm quite familar with Forgotten Realms and I have some Eberron books as well. All settings have something slightly useful that you can mine for Darksun but I have found the follwing books particuly useful.
Forgotten Realms
Lost Empires of Faerun
Players Guide to Faerun
Serpent Kingdoms
Lost Empires of Faerun has 2 new epic spell seeds in it- Shadow and Mythal. Mythal in particular is very interesting as it could easily be used for the wards of Ur Draxa, Saragar, any city of the Sorceror Kings or even the spell that imprisoned Rajaat. In Dragons of Faerun one of the Epic Spells even used this spell seed for a global effect which drove Dragons mad. Lost Empires also has several examples of epic spells in it in addtion to the usual far for any D&D splatbook- PrCs, feats, spells etc.
Players Guide to Faerun
Hang on we're in Athas not Faerun (Forgotten Realms). Thats true but this book has initiate feats and regioanl feats. The regional feats are easily adaptable to Darksun- Militia feat for Urik for example while the initiate feats could be adapted for Templar use or used to give you an idea on how to design initiate feats. Also has some epic spells in it and the usal D&D splatbook fare.
Serpent Kingdoms
I love this book as it mostly fluff with very little mechanics in it. Also helps that I like Yuan Ti which the book focuses on and wait until you see the Sarrukh which I really want to transfer to Athas. Imagine if you can psionic Yuan Ti on Athas with racial feats form this book to give your players nightmares. Could also be combined with material from Lost Empires of Faerun. Epic psionic Yuan Ti using mythals to ward their lairs with racial feats and spells/powers. My PC's wouldn't even know what a Sarrukh is- Yuan Ti progenitor race and in Faerun one of the 5 creator races.
The Buy List
If I had to narrow the above books down to a handful or so to recommend buying consider.
For DM's
Dungeon Master Guide 2
Monster Manual 3
Libris Mortis
For Players
Players Handbook 2
Complete Adventurer, Arcane, Divine, Warrior.
For Both
Sandstorm
Spell Compendium
I share your thoughts and would like to add another: I have spend too much effort converting DS to 3.5e.
As you could see in the last posts in the "Gladiator revision?" thread, I have redesigned most of the PHB standart classes (specially the combat classes and the bard) to give then an "athasian feel"... and even through these classes are not balanced with the PHB old combat ones (the "vanilla classes", as Chahir likes to say) they are balanced with each other, while wizards remain the same.
I don´t know about you, but I feel that if I decide to go following WoTC steps into 4e I will be engaging in an endless conversion routine. I guess, when I just finish the 4e conversion (classes, spells, feats, etc.), WoTC will be releasing the 5e... then I finish my "5e DS" to 5e, WotC releases the 6e... it never ends just because WoTC has focus on business.
I am happy with my current DS conversion and wouldn´t like to change that, for better 4e can be... 3.5 still work for me.
A) some people don't have the cash
B) many of us have spent energy to convert DS to 3.5 (whether for athas.org or at home), and are less active at it than before because we're growing psychologically tired of the effort
Both are valid, and if you happen to be in both situations then switching looks like a nightmare. Situation B is worst in that eventually everything looks like it will be soon converted to 3.5...and then another edition comes out. "Let's start again from scratch! Yay!"
Personally I'm not an A person but a B one ;)
What gets people ruffled about switching to yet another edition, in this case, is two-fold:
A) some people don't have the cash
B) many of us have spent energy to convert DS to 3.5 (whether for athas.org or at home), and are less active at it than before because we're growing psychologically tired of the effort
From what I have seen on wizard's site and SW Saga, the migration process won't be very hard on us, except perhaps for the monster books, which pretty much will need to be made from scratch.
The "good" part is that I think it will take so long for athas.org to release the 4e core rules (personal opinion, not exactly athas.org's opinion), that it won't make such an impact for those 3.5 fans.
Keep that entusiasm and the good work you are doing here.
We'll dominate this forum faster than they can spell "Brown Tide" :P
Is it the end of Quebec's dominion over this board? :P
That's just because we have real jobs and real lives now. "Vlan!"
/runs like hell
Heres a few of my thoughts about Darksun 3.5. I for one won't be converting to 4th ed D&D for various reasons. Rather than be an old fogey who is a die hard hold out of previous editions of the games basically I'm not ready for it. I've got several thousands of dollars invested in 3.5 material. In previous updates I was more than eager to change editions. Its been less than 5 years since 3.5 was released and for the most part its a good system, the main problems with it being high and epic level play which don't tend to work so well IMHO due to the power level of magic involved.
Finally intelligence. I figured WotC has receved about five grand from me in the last few years (between 3 and 3.5 Ed.) I'm not up for yet another revision, plus if 4th is anything like Star Wars SAGA Ed. it's a step backwards for RPG's.
That's just because we have real jobs and real lives now. "Vlan!"
/runs like hell
Oh yeah? OH YEAH? No more Brazilian babes for you!
I'm used to Eberron where pretty much everything Wotc published is allowed, as well as a healthy amount of 3rd party stuff.
Do you use much from the supplements in your Dark Sun games? For example, would you allow a player to run a daggerspell shaper, or a duskblade, or a shadowbane inquisitor in your Dark Sun campaign? Do you use most of the base classes and prestige classes and just change around the fluff, or do you find that many of the prcs and newer base classes just don't belong in athas at all?
I liked your breakdown of the various books on how they apply to Dark Sun. This is a good thread for me since I'm just starting out on developing a campaign for Dark Sun, but I'm pretty familiar with all the D&D supplements.
I'm used to Eberron where pretty much everything Wotc published is allowed, as well as a healthy amount of 3rd party stuff.
Do you use much from the supplements in your Dark Sun games? For example, would you allow a player to run a daggerspell shaper, or a duskblade, or a shadowbane inquisitor in your Dark Sun campaign? Do you use most of the base classes and prestige classes and just change around the fluff, or do you find that many of the prcs and newer base classes just don't belong in athas at all?
I let most things in. Theres a few feats, spells and PrCs I don't allow and I'll generaly tweak something to make it fit perhaps renaming it. I even managed to squeeze in the Shadow Adept PrC from the Forgotten Realms replacing Shar with Rajaat/The Black.