Please Help! Advice on train travel between Germany/France/Austria

Check out the Deutsche Bahn website. That would give you much better information and better prices. Most likely you'd be better of with point-to-point tickets than with a Pass.

http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/index.shtml

and stop looking at RailEurope. They only show SOME trains, they charge too much and they run NO trains - they are nothing more than an expensive third party.

Based on what you say your needs are it is highly unlikely that a pass would save you any money; in fact passholders have to pay extra just to ride the fast trains in France.

in and around Stuttgart is a world of interesting things to see and do and you can do it all on very cheap regional Laender tickets.

Ah, thank you Beatrix and Nigel. I will check out the Deutsch Bahn website and delete RailEurope from my favorites list. :)
Is there any benefit to getting the Laender tickets now before I travel abroad, or would it be easy and cost effective to get them once I get there to allow for more flexibility?

Is there any benefit to getting the Laender tickets now before I travel abroad, No. buy it at the station when you need it. The process couldn't be easier.

If you do decide to go to Paris, you can potentially get discounted tickets through the Deutsche Bahn site. I would book these now - the cheapest may already have sold out.

liannm;
The Baden-Würtemburg "Länder ticket" costs €23 for one person for one day. Details here: http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/offers/national/regional/laender-tickets/baden-wuerttemberg-ticket.shtml
That is the price from a ticket machine on the day, you pay more if you buy it from a manned ticket window,
Here is a map of all the rail lines and stations in Baden-Württemberg, and all the lines the Baden-Württemberg Ticket is valid on. This is on the DB site, but only linked to from the German part of the site, not the English one.
http://www.bahn.de/p/view/mdb/pv/deutschland_erleben/baden-wuerttemberg/regionales/baden-wuerttemberg-ticket/2016/mdb_214079_20150622_sk_badenwuerttemberg_a2.pdf
As you can see, starting from Stuttgart there are lots of places to go to for day trips: Ulm, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg (small add-on fare) etc. etc.
Länder tickets (including the Baden-Würtemburg ticket) are only valid on local trains, NOT IC or ICE

You could go to Paris, but you would need to stay at least 3 nights to make the trip worth it. With places to visit in Stuttgart (which is a nice city), and the rest of Baden-Würtemburg to visit, you could easily fill up 2 weeks.

Thank you so much everyone! I think I will take your advice and plan a trip to Paris another time. Another question about the Länder tickets....if I want to travel to Bavaria as well, do I have to get a separate ticket to get through the Baden-Würtemburg region first? How does that work?

liannm,
"if I want to travel to Bavaria as well, do I have to get a separate ticket". If you look at the map I posted previously, a few lines just outside Baden-Würtemburg are covered by the Baden-Würtemburg ticket. And, if you look at the corresponding map for Bavaria (click here), there is also a small overlap.
If you want to go further, say to Munich you could buy two Länder tickets. But, if you are going that far it would be a lot easier and quicker to buy a normal advance purchase ticket which would then allow you to use the faster IC and ICE trains.
Stuttgart to Munich by regional trains takes 3h21 (I just looked it up on www.bahn.de ). By ICE high speed train it takes 2h13, and for a random date in May I can see fares of €19 and €29 each way.

I understand that you're probably ditching the Paris plan, but following up on the error message from Rail Europe, I'd say that the problem is that the name "Eurail France-Germany Pass" is not in use this year. It is now are called the Eurail Two-Country Select Pass. When you choose that pass name from the pull-down list, you enter the two countries of coverage, and then you get seat reservation fees of $16 in 2nd class or $37 in 1st (from Stuttgart to Paris). If anyone else has a two country pass issued last year, it looks like they must use the new naming format when making seat reservations through RE.

Why dont you just book the discount individual tickets for the inter-city-trains instead of the rail pass. Look for Sparschiene on bahn.de and/or oebb.at. The local trains are super cheap anyway. You should book soon as these tickets are only in fixed amount and sell out quickly especially for the Stuttgart--Innsbruck and Innsbruck--Salzburg connections. Also depending where you want to go Meinfernbus/Flexbus is a super cheap alternative within Germany and Austria, albeit it is by bus, but it is much much cheaper.

Thank you everyone for your input!

Laura, I did select the Eurail Two-Country Select Pass from the pull-down list, and then entered Germany and France as the two countries. When I went to the section to book a ticket and entered the name of the pass, I got the message that the pass does not cover the train from Stuttgart to Paris.

Based on recommendations here, I think I will use the Deutsche Bahn website instead of RailEurope to make my plans.

liannm: No one has mentioned the Metropolticket, which covers outings within the Stuttgart region in 9 different local travel authority zones and costs €20/day. There are a LOT of good places to visit within this area.

Page in German with Map

Sorry, I do not know of a specific source in English that addresses this ticket