Café de Nuit

Is there really enough difference between the 3rd edition Ravenloft campaign setting and the Player's handbook? I have the Dungeon master's guide and it's wonderful, a real wealth of information. I'm just wondering what the differences would be.

From our FAQ:

What is the difference between the Ravenloft Campaign Setting and the Ravenloft Player’s Handbook/ Denizens of Darkness and Denizens of Dread?

In the case of the RL: PHB about four pages. And some new art.

Due to the licensing agreement between Wizards of the Coast and ArtHaus, when WotC upgraded to 3.5 ArtHaus was obliged to reprint their Core Books, such as the Campaign Setting and the monster supplement. These were done hastily by only the developers of the line at the time.

The RL: PHB had a new Prestige Class added (the Monster Hunter, which was updated from the 3.0E Witch Hunter from Secrets of the Dread Realms, where accidentally only half of its information was published), updated monster information, the new Magic Rating rules and additional class weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the new optional rules for Class Weaknesses were not well received and generally considered badly conceived at best and a mistake. Thus, by extension, the book has been reviled and disliked despite otherwise being 98.4% identical to the Ravenloft Campaign Setting. Most people recommend new players to buy whichever they can get cheaper.

...

So, I have it because I'm a completist, but I would by no means say it's essential. The DMG is a whole different animal.

So the general opinion is that the changes were bad? While I'm working on my Ravenloft collection, I don't really see myself picking this one up. I really enjoy the Dungeon master's guide, that book is such a big help. I think I will stick to picking up the 2nd edition adventures that I didn't get back when I should have.....

The changes weren't really bad, but some were pretty universally ignored as Gonzoron quoted.

Others that were useful but not necessary included the expansion on the monster-hunter prestige class and the inclusion of a specialized monster-hunter prestige class. There were a couple of new spells that allowed the caster to return as an ancient dead to finish a specific task they couldn't in life and errata about the Monster Lore skills being folded into existing Knowledge skills based on what said skill dealt with (Aberration and Ooze Lore in Knowledge [Dungeoneering], for example).

There were mentions about spells that were new to the 3.5 PHB that functioned differently in Ravenloft that were nice to have, like how disrupting weapon would alert a darklord to the caster's location when it was used on an undead minion with specific ties to said darklord (like Strahd undead). Most of it was pretty intuitive when we applied the general guidelines about altered spells; the example I gave stands out simply because there was no previous analog and it was an alteration that wouldn't have occurred to me specifically but does make a weird sort of sense.

The correction of the title of half-Vistani in Paaterna to giomorgo (lit., "half-Vistani") rather than giogoto ("Vistani friend") was important to me simply because I'm an anal-retentive purist.

In the end it's nice simply because it helps bring things into line with the 3.5 revision, but it wasn't really a necessity. I'd always hoped there would be some sort of official errata to the RDM regarding psionics when the Expanded Psionics Handbook came out. It never happened so I began writing Van Richten's Guide to Psionics in the Fan Fiction area, something I do plan to finish some day, to act as an unofficial errata that included classes and powers from the EPH and Complete Psionic. If anyone knows where I can find the 3.0 rules for psionic attack modes/defense modes, either an actual copy of the original book or just an online copy of those specific rules, it would be much appreciated. I'd love to include them as an optional rule.

Thanks! I honestly don't know if I can bring myself to pick it up based on the small amount of changes, but I very much appreciate the feedback!

Honestly, I think that the monster book was deserving of the hate that the PHB got.
The updated monster book is an example of how not to update a book between versions of the game. Since it was done quickly and by people who were line editors (with a flavour writing background) rather than a rules background, it was rife with errors. It's pretty much unusable.

We started a fan errata document here, that I don't believe was ever finished owing to the amount of corrections needed....

Oh, I remember... I don't want to trash the work of anyone but it had some horrific mistakes.
Like saying a mummy cleric had 8d12 hp (from mummy) + 6d8 (from 6 levels of cleric) :/