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providing a rules compendium, character builder, digital character sheets, and more

I'm hoping it will have a free tier, at least for players (I would be OK with only the DM having to pay, but only a very small fee.) If it's too expensive, we'll all just go back to the free options floating around. PCGen for charater sheets and overlays, d20 SRD for the rules, classes, monsters and items, and our imaginations for the rest.

If you don't eat sushi you can't have any pudding

FTFY

If you don't eat sushi you can't have any pudding

FTFY

A better name?

Power Words! As in, Power Word Stun, Power Word Kill, etc.

See also http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/powerWordStun.htm

for someone to make a will save vs insanity.

Seriously, no single word, by itself, should have the power to shock.

Tsk, Tsk.

But you need to take the Shadowdancer prestige class to Hide in Plain Sight.

...tens of millions died because of their words.

Yeah? How does that work? How does a word kill a person if it can't pick up a gun and pull the trigger? How does a word get up in the morning, take a shit and a shower, and put on its uniform? What size boot does a word wear?

Depending on which you prefer, you can try reading here or here. First one is relevant to a person mentioned by GP, but second is more geeky.

I'm tethering at the brink of aquiring the pseudo-natural template due to methylphenidate "withdrawal" here, but I think I can coherently formulate myself thus: due to human nature, I would be difficult to convince that self-interest in any shape or form could cover up adequately for what we can call "natural altruism", or the will and drive to help your fellow man and participate to create a stable and just society, regardless of what you call it.

What, you don't know a cleric or paladin capable of casting restoration?

It looks to me like you'd need more gas-manipulation punch to pull off the Scorcher; at minimum (3rd) caster level, it's a roughly 5 foot wide by 30 foot long damage zone but producing only a brief flash of singeing flame.. As it is, it looks more to me like a first-level Zann Esu style Inferno, with maybe 10 foot range but higher and more sustained damage delivery.

...if you have a Cleric with a 5th-level spell slot open.

• good vs. evil
• law -- e.g., bureaucrat/corporate citizen vs. disorder -- bending or violating the rules
• neutrality -- just don't make waves, I don't care, or it's not important

and gave me a starting point on 'measuring' motivations and tendencies. This in turn helped me predict behavior for various people in the workplace. If nothing else, it makes it obvious that people have motivations and tendencies along more than one axis; I then added on a 'radius' from true neutral and a 'strength/weakness' axis and it still serves me (albeit simplistically) in learning how to work with other people to get results.

If absolutely nothing else, it gives me a common language and a starting point for identifying good and evil behavior that I can use in discussions with D&D-familiar wage slaves -- otherwise it sounds weird to use the word 'evil' to describe behavior in a world of moral relativism. Being able to back it up with a clear description helps. (Read from here on for the next 210 strips for a version with pictures).

I must have played with house rules under AD&D, but it looks like it was folded into the 3rd Edition and the d20 system.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/injuryandDeath.htm

Seems to me they really *are* shooting themselves in the foot with this. Consider people like myself:

• Look at D&D rules via OGL SRDs
• Download some PDFs and realize they are a bit easier to find information in, and I enjoy much of the artwork
• Purchase several dead-tree versions to the tune of a few hundred dollars. Cash to WotC.

The 4th ed policies make SRDs harder, and with no PDFs to help draw me to paper versions ... well, they'd entirely have lost customers like me, and several of my friends who did the exact same thing. Bad idea, WotC.

I want my book in my hand (ever tried bringing a laptop to a fantasy RPG session? Talk about mood killer.

I don't know about that. I have a *lot* of hardcover D&D books, far too many to carry around when I DM. I don't need to have all of them on hand at any given game session, but I like to bring the ones I need to reference. I do bring my laptop so I can run some very nice tools (an initiative tracker, a very comprehensive die roller, a couple other things) I've written, and also to use the d20 SRD site so I don't have to carry around the PHB/MM/DMG/ExpPsi/Epic books.

However, WotC cannot stop other companies making D&D-like games, settings, adventures, and products for 3.x rules -- as long as they're not called "D&D". Several companies are still doing that.

I am in the industry and have co-authored several products published under the OGL.

Nontheless, if WOTC decided to file suits against OGL publishers on narrow technical grounds (improper referencing, use of the d20 mark as seen at http://www.d20srd.org/, etc.), the will or ability to defend against such suits would be minimal. Even if they were on the right side of the law.

When we're counting humans, don't we also count dwarf humans?

Dwarf humans? I am only familiar with elf humans and orc humans. Or are they in Fourth Edition?

When we're counting humans, don't we also count dwarf humans?

Dwarf humans? I am only familiar with elf humans and orc humans. Or are they in Fourth Edition?

You don't need to wonder. The license has been out for eight years now. Read it for yourself.

As long as something as useful as d20srd.org is produced under the new license, I will be happy.

Wizards don't "learn" spells, they copy new ones into their spellbooks. I think you need to re-read the chapter on magic.

In fact, the text in the SRD (here) clearly uses the word "learn" for this process of wizards studying spells in order to copy them. So, I'm not sure that its quite appropriate to go advising others to "re-read the chapter on magic".

They never did. The current 3e/3.5e SRD is quite far from "Free" in many regards, and the d20 System License is full-blown branding

It seems you understand the difference between the SRD, the OGL, and the D20 License, but a lot of readers might not. So others can follow as we get technical: the OGL is the Open Gaming License, which I and some others would argue is not really very open. The SRD is the System Reference Document, which are the D&D 3.x rules as trimmed down and released under the OGL. The D20 System License is a separate license one could use to put a "D20 System" logo on one's product, which was supposed to indicate some level of compatibility with D&D. To get that logo one had to consent to rather odious and very non-free license terms.

What about the SRD is not free? I don't see how the "Product Identity" clause of the OGL affects the SRD because the SRD doesn't include any WotC "Product Identity." Are you referring to something else?

Yeah, the SRD for 3.5 is actually pretty expansive for free content. It's the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Expanded Psionics Guide and a little bit of Unearthed Arcana. Some enterprising gentleman in St. Louis compiled it into a cross-referenced document online. It's not surprising that they're axing the SRD. With the Hypertext SRD, you honestly didn't need to buy a single book from WotC to play or DM.

My question wasn't really answered :/.

What I meant was, suppose I have a character that gets fatigued and shaken. Do I need to manually update the character sheet on various points to reflect this? What about hits from various spells that have effects, like bane ? Will I be able to do something like PCGen, whereby I just click a button saying I'm hit with bane, and my stats are updated accordingly? Or is it still the gamer's responsibility?

There are actually already a number of programs that can do that (and there are numerous voice chat/VoIP apps out there). The real question is the one that WotC didn't answer here, namely, what's their pricing structure look like, and will they be charging a monthly fee for access as opposed to the flat fees that the existing software packages charge for?

The other question (unasked) is whether 4th edition would be licensable for third-party virtual tabletop (VTT) software. When the d20/OGL license was instituted, WotC wasn't all that interested in VTT, though they did include provisions for VTT software (such as banning functionality for autocalculation of things like "did my attack roll result in a hit"). Now that they foresee that being a not insignificant part of their business model, they hold all the, er, cards in terms of preventing third-party VTT vendors from playing in the 4th edition arena.

Of course, given the openness of the previous OGL, my group is sticking with 3.5th edition and our already-paid-for VTT software.

One of the best resources I can point you to is the d20srd. All of the open content in the PHB, MM, DMG, and Unearthed Arcana, all nicely arranged in a hyperlinked format. I keep my laptop open with that up at all times when I'm DMing, and it's invaluable. One of the best tricks I've found for speeding up combat is to go ahead and open up tabs for all of the monsters that the group might run into today, and then I can just click on the tab rather than flip through the MM and try to hold it in such a way that the players can't see what I'm looking at...

Also, pick up a good DM's screen at your local gaming store. It should have a lot of tables and charts on the inside for commonly referenced values. Make sure you know what type of actions the players can take each round; see the list of actions in combat and special attacks in the d20srd. Remember that you can only attack once as a standard action, so if a character has use a move action in that round, he can't attack multiple times or with multiple weapons. If he only took a 5-foot step, though, that counts as a free action, so he can still make a full attack. Try to memorize what provokes attacks of opportunity and what doesn't. Grappling rules are, quite frankly, a mess, and even in an experience group, we have to just wing it sometimes when things get weird.

When you do have to houserule something, here's a few things to keep in mind: characters make skill or stat checks when they want to accomplish something, saving throws when they want to resist something. When you're trying to think of the difficulty of performing arbitrary tasks and you're not sure what the DC should be, a DC 10 check is doable by anybody with a little effort; a DC 15 check is still doable by anybody, but it's tough and they might mess up a few times; a DC 20 check is almost impossible for anybody who's not trained at what they're doing; DC 25 is impossible for anybody who's not well-trained at what they're doing; DC 30 is a fair challenge for somebody who is a master in that area. Feel free to adjust the DC by +/- 2 or so for unfavorable or favorable circumstances.

You might also consider buying the Rules Compendium, which has all of the basic rules condensed and indexed. It's organized better than the PHB and DMG and frequently explains the logic behind particular rules, so that you at least know what the developers had in mind when you have to house rule something.

Creating your own game world can be fun, but it's a lot of work. I honestly wouldn't recommend doing it until you have some more experience and you've got a month or two to work on it before your players will play in it; I guarantee that as soon as you drop them in, they're going to go off exploring in directions you hadn't thought of, wanting to meet with important NPCs in organizations that you hadn't detailed, and so forth. There's no shame in playing prebuilt modules; you do have the problem of eventually running out of modules and your players want to keep using their characters, but at that point you can just pick up the prebuilt NPCs and locations that you've been using and run with them. I like Eberron, myself, but Forgotten Realms is much more a "standard" fantasy setting.

I wouldn't be too surprised to hear about Vista hitting customers with a prismatic spray.

Can you publish an edition that likens back to 1st Edition AD&D where four books and a module pretty much could sum up a session?

Four books? In 3.5 you only need three books (PHB, DMG, MM) and a module. Heck, you don't even need the module if you're up to making your own. In fact, you don't really need the books at all, you can just use d20srd.org; the only things it's missing are some flavor text and the experience & gold charts for players.

How about putting more energy into fleshing out a world instead of bloating the ruleset or creating more classes?

If you want a fleshed out world, you might check out the Eberron setting. There are a number of books for it that are filled mostly with content that expands the setting with relatively few new rules or mechanical options.

Besides, you could always use the 4th Ed SRD. In case you don't know about the System Rules Description (SRD), it's the core of the 3.x d20 system. In particular, the parts that are accessible to third party RPG developers under the Open Gaming License without being a violation of WotC's copyright.

Therefore, it's available for free on the internet, and it basically consists of all the rules from the 3.0 and 3.5 PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual. There's no art, it's plain text, and all references to WotC specific characters have been removed (eg Mordenkainen's Lucubration renamed to Mage's Lucubration, no stats a handful of monsters like beholders and illithids) and doesn't cover any of the expansions. But, it's more than enough to run a pretty good game.

WotC have said that OGL is continuing for 4th Ed, so hey, there ought to be a 4th Ed SRD as well! With that and your 3.x library, you shouldn't *need* to buy any 4th ed books if you're willing to do conversion yourself. If you want the official conversions, of course, maybe WotC has a product for you after all.

Anyway, here's a link to a nicely HTML-ified copy of the 3.x SRD.

Other arguments entirely aside, I dare you to point out where in the SRD it describes character creation (in sufficient detail).

Post a link.

You will find information on the basic stats, but nothing that describes how to generate the ability scores themselves. In aggregate, it comes close. The SRD is not entirely sufficient for character creation (although it comes very close).

The main point of the "d20 System" (which underlies 3E D&D from 7 years ago) is to get rid of things like THACO. In 3E, you always have some "bonus", add it to a rolled d20, and compare to an enemy's target number to determine success. See: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#theCoreMec hanic

The combat cycle is still attempting to get a hit, roll damage, and subtract from hit points. Armor does make you harder to hit, not reduce damage. Many people have tried the "damage reduction" variant, and the company officially published the alternative in more than one venue. However, the majority of people who tried it tend to come back thinking that it's too complicated for tabletop play (considering that it adds another statistic and another lookup-and-subtraction to every attack in combat). See: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armo rAsDamageReduction.htm

The main point of the "d20 System" (which underlies 3E D&D from 7 years ago) is to get rid of things like THACO. In 3E, you always have some "bonus", add it to a rolled d20, and compare to an enemy's target number to determine success. See: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#theCoreMec hanic

The combat cycle is still attempting to get a hit, roll damage, and subtract from hit points. Armor does make you harder to hit, not reduce damage. Many people have tried the "damage reduction" variant, and the company officially published the alternative in more than one venue. However, the majority of people who tried it tend to come back thinking that it's too complicated for tabletop play (considering that it adds another statistic and another lookup-and-subtraction to every attack in combat). See: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armo rAsDamageReduction.htm

Because there's one very good reason that my players and I are using 3.5ed right now instead of the 3ed that we bought all those books for.

Oops. I meant: Have a look at this custom gaming setup.

Wrong. Paladins must be Lawful Good, and it's never been any other way.

To be more specific, they're another type altogether - Giant as opposed to Humanoid. That and they have +5 level adjustment. Gnome: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm Troll: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm

To be more specific, they're another type altogether - Giant as opposed to Humanoid. That and they have +5 level adjustment. Gnome: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm Troll: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm

Better drawing.

With stats, even.

What exactly is the Challenge Rating on an army of Russian-born Bulettes? It sounds fairly horrendous.

Although no one was still calling it chainmail, I started playing DnD back when they came in colored boxes and you needed to fill in the numbers on your cheap plastic dice with the included crayon. And I accept that since that age there has been a literal deluge of additional books and materials, which make it nigh-impossible for all but the most rabid and die-hard fans to keep track of it all. Even still, Placetouched characters have been around since Advanced D&D, and featured notably in the many Placescape books. The Tiefling is also part of the current core rules system, under their Open Game Content license.

they have these things called projectors. they work real well.

http://www.d20srd.org/extras/mapProjection.htm

There are certianally things that are nicer about an electronic distribution, but when they try to recreate a book on a computer, it loses a lot of what makes reading on a computer better. When I can do a spin-find, resize the window and have the text rewrap, change fonts for maximum readability, etc., then I'll give it some more thought.

Like this?

The D20 system is already online, it's open source:

http://www.d20srd.org/

Almost every RPG book there ever was and will be gets scanned in and put on usenet/irc (see also comics). Can't be much fun playing without a big pile of books though.

I think they mean the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual I. But you can get basically free copies of these in the SRD site. It won't be PDF, but they'll be good enough. Or use http://www.d20srd.org/ for your core book needs. Except for the XP chart, starting gold for high level characters, and some WOTC monsters.

IMarv

Why do you think you need more now? The books cost about the same in 2006 dollars as they did then, and you still only need the three core books to play. In fact, if you're an experienced gamer you can get by with just the PHB and the free Open version of the d20 System, the System Reference Document. They've been churned out supplements almost since the beginning, it's what killed TSR, and they're no more required now than they were then.

They aren't talking about any D&D rules that I'm aware of...and I play 3.5e on a weekly basis.

Seriously? I play 3.5 and these are all rules as can be found in the SRD. You may want to look into some of them as they could be a great boon to your chatacter.

Minor Cloak of Displacement:
http://d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm #cloakofDisplacementMinor

20% miss chance, under concealment:
http://d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#c oncealment

True Seeing:
http://d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm

Sneak Attacks:
http://d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#sneakAttac k

They aren't talking about any D&D rules that I'm aware of...and I play 3.5e on a weekly basis.

Seriously? I play 3.5 and these are all rules as can be found in the SRD. You may want to look into some of them as they could be a great boon to your chatacter.

Minor Cloak of Displacement:
http://d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm #cloakofDisplacementMinor

20% miss chance, under concealment:
http://d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#c oncealment

True Seeing:
http://d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm

Sneak Attacks:
http://d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#sneakAttac k

They aren't talking about any D&D rules that I'm aware of...and I play 3.5e on a weekly basis.

Seriously? I play 3.5 and these are all rules as can be found in the SRD. You may want to look into some of them as they could be a great boon to your chatacter.

Minor Cloak of Displacement:
http://d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm #cloakofDisplacementMinor

20% miss chance, under concealment:
http://d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#c oncealment

True Seeing:
http://d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueSeeing.htm

Sneak Attacks:
http://d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#sneakAttac k