Despite how great D&D 4E is supposedly selling, I can't help but notice that all the D&D 3.5 books on DrivethruRPG are still selling for full price. In addition, they still don't offer the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Original Monster Manual.
Despite how great D&D 4E is supposedly selling, I can't help but notice that all the D&D 3.5 books on DrivethruRPG are still selling for full price. In addition, they still don't offer the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Original Monster Manual.
Part of that may be they see no real profit in it. Outside of a few monsters (IIRC, the Beholder, Illithid and Thoqqua), the XP and advancement rules and a couple of goodies from the DMG, all of the crunchy bits are online for free as the SRD.
Despite how great D&D 4E is supposedly selling, I can't help but notice that all the D&D 3.5 books on DrivethruRPG are still selling for full price. In addition, they still don't offer the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Original Monster Manual.
The core rulebook PDFs have been withdrawn intentionally by Wizards. They have no interest in selling anymore 3.5 core rules. They also most certainly have no interest in distributing then for free. If they could make all 3.5 rule books go away, they would.
Part of that may be they see no real profit in it. Outside of a few monsters (IIRC, the Beholder, Illithid and Thoqqua), the XP and advancement rules and a couple of goodies from the DMG, all of the crunchy bits are online for free as the SRD.Fair enough, but for those willing to buy a copy, why not upload PDFs of the old corebooks? It's not like there is a serious cost involved and they might just make a few bucks off of it. I know there was a time when I would buy copies, since I preferred paging through the PDFs to looking things up in the SRD. I know that makes me a weirdo, but still, I'm the kind of guy Wizards could have made some money off of.
*not intending to threadjack, but...*
Bill Coffin, as in Palladium/Septimus Bill Coffin? Hi! Are you a Pathfinder RPGer as well? Glad to have you here.
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If they could make all 3.5 rule books go away, they would.
... and this is the ugliest part of what wotc is doing. Ending support for an older system is one thing, snubbing a nose at the 3.5 fan base is insulting, along with trying to shut it down.
As Erik Mona once said, wotc's biggest threat may be from their own system (as in 3.5). This is why it is more important now, than ever, to support 3.5/PAIZO. PAIZO is the fan-driven, quality customer care that this community deserves.
To refuse sale of a former 3.5 PDF, is just disgusting to me, as my family has some familiarity with totalitarians who engage in book-burning. This type of censorship and acts of destruction should galvanize us against those monsters.
Heck, I'm just looking at it from the point of view that I'm getting too old to lug 35+ books to a game. I'd like nothing more than to buy every 3.5 book in pdf and just carrry a laptop to my games. I just refuse to pay full price for books I already own (and paid for) in hardback.
Wait a minute...are you guys saying that WOTC use to sell the 3.5 core books online, but have removed them since 4E?!? I just assumed they were never made available.
Wow, Paizo has really spoiled me. Getting free pdf copies of each paperback I buy from them has been awesome.
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What I'm mostly annoyed about is that the Soceity games are in 3.5 and there is no way to get them online from Paizo. *grumble* Yes, I know that they will be converting in August, but that doesn't help me with a game this weekend. (I'm new to it and am trying to create a character, but I'm not at home where my books are)
What I'm mostly annoyed about is that the Soceity games are in 3.5 and there is no way to get them online from Paizo. *grumble* Yes, I know that they will be converting in August, but that doesn't help me with a game this weekend. (I'm new to it and am trying to create a character, but I'm not at home where my books are)
You mean the 3.5 core rules? Well you have to thank wizards for that. They thought it would be smashing to pull all PDFs off the market to make it harder for people to play older editions.
But there's still the d20 SRD, from www.d20srd.org, and you can get offline versions of that, too. So you can get at least some of the rules.
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You mean the 3.5 core rules? Well you have to thank wizards for that. They thought it would be smashing to pull all PDFs off the market to make it harder for people to play older editions.
Although the 3.5 PHB, DMg & MM were never made available in the first place as PDFs by WotC (despite me asking several times) :(
Another advantage of PF over 3e: Core rules available as PDF!
I don't know wheather this is a trend or not but I have to think 5E will be comming out in a few years to fix this debacle.
I don't give 4e more than, say, 6 years, total, anyway.