Wizards Releases 3.5 Edition System Reference

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Wizards Releases 3.5 Edition System Reference

Posted by CowboyNeal on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @02:19AM from the rules-lawyering-and-world-building dept.

Randar the Lava Liza writes "Wizards of the Coast have released the 3.5 Edition System Reference Document. Essentially it's the three core rulebooks in RTF format. This includes the 3.5 Edition Player's Handbook, 3.5 Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and 3.5 Edition Monster Manual. All of these are released under their Open Gaming License. You can also read a very interesting review of 3.5 Edition by Monte Cook, one of the original creators of 3rd Edition D&D. He goes into detail on a number of the changes in this new edition."

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It's not quite the core rulebooks.... by Drantin · 2003-07-30 02:31 · Score: 5, Informative

Q: What's missing from the SRD compared to the core D&D rulebooks? A: Mostly the "flavor" elements. There are no named gods, none of the spells have significant NPC names, there's no mention of Greyhawk, etc. You'll also note that there are no rules for character creation, for advancing characters in level, calculating experience, or anything else related to the topics forbidden by the Usage Guide.
It doesn't seem to be quite the three core rulebooks, although the missing information shouldn't be hard to find elsewhere...

--
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by apoc.famine · 2003-07-30 02:35 · Score: 3, Informative

My local gaming group has decided to switch up to 3.5, and we'll be starting a campaign this saturday with the ruleset. At first glance, this edition seems far more streamlined, more flexible, and much more open-ended when it comes to character development. I think it will promote a lot more variety, and overall will speed up the mechanics of game sessions. That and at first glance, the classes are better balanced.

At the same time, there is no pressing reason to switch from 3.0 - the core of the game remains the same, and 3.0 is still a very solid ruleset. There is nothing terribly broken in 3.0 that was fixed in 3.5. That in itself leads to a fair amount of "wizards is grubbing for money" comments.

I can see both sides of the coin here - while 3.5 is indeed an easy way for wizards to make money, it also provides some sweet new art, greater flexibility for classed monsters, and just feels slicker.

Since I made pretty good use of 3.0, I'm not opposed to spending some cash on 3.5 - bare minimum it's cheep entertainment/hour compared to just about everything else.

--
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
1. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by Outland+Traveller · 2003-07-30 04:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In true software-development form, 3.0 introduced tons of new, poorly tested ideas. Even the copyediting quality was abysmal. If you turn to the combat section you will find the same information repeated again and again, without any clear organization. In some cases the exact same paragraphs repeat.
  
  3.5 is a cleanup, both on the production quality and on the rule balancing. I think it's much better, I only regret that more time wasn't spent making sure 3.0 was ready. There's a quite a bit of nerfing, but again that is 3.0's fault, not an intrinsic problem in 3.5.
2. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by apoc.famine · 2003-07-30 05:44 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yeah, I agree with harm and most of the class tweaks. I think the bard looks pretty good now, and overall, fixing the front-loading of classes was a great idea.
  
  But because I had an issue with the 3.0 ranger I have no issue with the d8 hd in 3.5, in light of all the other stuff they get. In fact, I'm playing my first 3.x ranger in our first 3.5 campaign. I almost fear that they're too powerful in 3.5, but it's hard to judge without playing one. Thus my "sacrifice" for the campaign... ;)
  
  I must be angsty this month, but I also have issues with the half elf getting +2 diplomacy and gather info. It forces half elves into a role that isn't right for all half elves. We're fixing this with a house rule that gives them a choice from a number of "quasi-feats" to replace the dip/gather info bonus. These being:
  
  Acrobatic (+2 jump and tumble)
  Athletic (+2 climb and swim)
  Deceitful (+2 disguise and forgery)
  Diligent (+2 appraise and decipher script)
  Friendly (+2 diplomacy and gather info) (yeah, I made the name up.)
  Magical Aptitude (+2 spellcraft and use magical device)
  Negotiator (+2 diplomacy and sense motive)
  Self Sufficiant (+2 heal and survival)
  "Elven" Weapon Proficiency (choose long/short bow, rapier, or LS)
  
  This list is designed to point half-elves towards a trait that fits in well with whatever human elements they have grown up with, but also represents their elven heritedge. It also purposely filters out a lot of feats which could be really be munched to overpower the race.
  
  I think they made a stride towards a better half elf, but something like this really rounds it out.
  
  --
  Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
3. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by apoc.famine · 2003-07-30 05:51 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I really like where rangers are now - they really fit in well between rogues and fighters. Before they were too much like poor fighters without enough skill pts for the skills they needed. Now they are skillful hunters - what I view rangers to be.
  
  They aren't tanks - that's left for the fighters. They really have their own place now, and I like that. I think it's a stride forward towards making the class more of a core class, and less of a "we've got a fighter and a rogue, what else can I play?" sort of class.
  
  --
  Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
4. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by August_zero · 2003-07-30 07:17 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I agree with your rogue complaints myself, at least I did during first and second edition as far as HP is concerned but the number of skills and abilities that they now have in 3rd/3.5 more than makes up for it.
  
  The medium leveled rogue will take no damage from powerful AOE attacks if they can pass a simple reflex save (which they likely will) where as the fighters and clerics are going to see a large chunk of their HP knocked off in a heart beat. Also the reworking of sneak attacks makes them ideal snipers/back stabbers. These abilities can let them eaisly out pace fighters in straight damage but of course you need to be careful and creative. If you have a "Final fantasy" DM (that is one that pictures combat as all the combatants just standing in a line and exchanging blows without any sort of strategy) your going to have a boring night.
  
  THe best way to get that tankable thief is to dual class. A few levels of fighter can give you an extra bunch of HP, better attack rolls and a few extra combat feats. These combined with your hiding and sneak attacks makes you a force to be reckoned with.
  
  --
  On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
5. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by Golias · 2003-07-30 09:44 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  If your rogue was going into melee a lot, then you were playing him wrong. Rogues do not get many extra hit points because they make it their business to almost never need them.
  The Rogue Way is to let the foolish Paladins keep the monsters busy, while you sneak off and help yourself to the best gems in the treasure horde. They might resent your "cowardice," but what are they going to do about it? Kick you out of the trap-filled dungeon for not joining the fight?
  Insist that you are a pacifist by nature, and can't stand the sight of blood. They might not know about that noble Duke you once stabbed between the ribs in order to liberate the deeds to his properties in the East, which you later sold for a tidy sum.
  If you really want to help the party, buy items with your ill-gotten gains that enhance your sneakiness, such as a ring of invisibility. Then you can silently slip around to the enemies flank, use magic items to confound them from a hidden alcove, and finally emerge to backstab the poor bastard at just the right moment.
  If that kind of play does not appeal to you, then maybe you should play a fighter... or a rogue on EverQuest.
  
  --
  Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
6. Re:Is it worth switching from 3.0 to 3.5? by Golias · 2003-07-30 15:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The other major "rogue" skill, besides thievery, is scouting. In large-scale campaigns, they are pretty good at sneaking behind enemy lines for recon.
  As for the backstab, it does a lot of damage, but the intention is that you avoid melee one way or another so the enemy will ignore you, then you sneak in to the flank and jab them, especially if it looks like that +10d6 will probably be enough to finish them off.
  If any monster lets a rogue just hang around on their flank for an entire melee confrontation without repositioning themselves, they deserve the quick death that will surely follow.
  Unless multiclassed as a fighter, the clever rogue avoids danger whenever possible, looking out first for their own safety before helping those heavily armed and armored thugs chop up the monsters. Giving the rogue a lower HP serves to motivate the player to adhere to this mentality.
  By the way, the Rogue hit die is really not so pathetic as you make it sound. Monsters, clerics, monks, druids, and now rangers all average 4.5 HP per level. Rogues average 3.5 per level, meaning that a level 10 rogue will only have an average 10 HP less that a cleric with the same constitution at tenth level. That's a difference of one good sword blow from a strong level 10 fighter. Add to that the fact that mid-level Rogues tend to have fantastic dodge bonuses, and can never be caught flat-footed, and I would insist that they are really well-balanced, if not a bit munchkiny. Sure, they don't melee as well as a fighter or barbarian, but they are not supposed to. Be creative and sneaky, and your rogue will be absolutely murderous.
  
  --
  Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Damn you Hasbro!!!! by WildFire42 · 2003-07-30 02:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Damn you for making me buy something else to keep up with current D&D gaming! Damn you for not respecting the gamers, your true source of...

Wait, you mean I can download it?

Without Kazaa?

I'm dead sure I'll get modded to hell for this, but for the cynicism impaired, I'm making a slight social commentary on bi*ching gamers who have, for years, complained about first about T$R, then about Wi$ard$ of the Coa$t, now about Ha$bro, if you catch my drift. Oddly, I don't hear that many Warhammer fans who bitch about GW though, and they actually have some very good reasons to (80 dollars for a few pieces of unpainted plastic? Some assembly required, of course).
1. Re:Damn you Hasbro!!!! by BMonger · 2003-07-30 03:39 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  People can complainin about T$R, Wi$ard$ of the Coa$t, and Ha$boro along with Micro$oft all they want... this is because these companies have letters easily replaced by the dollar symbol. Warhammer does not.
2. Re:Damn you Hasbro!!!! by Mandoric · 2003-07-30 03:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Warhammer's the game. "Game$ Work$hop", as would be used here, is the producing company.
  
  And, yeah, I'll back up his point... everybody at uni complained about the prices -except- for those who played.
3. Re:Damn you Hasbro!!!! by American+AC+in+Paris · 2003-07-30 05:00 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  People can complainin about T$R, Wi$ard$ of the Coa$t, and Ha$boro along with Micro$oft all they want... this is because these companies have letters easily replaced by the dollar symbol. Warhammer does not.
  ¥¥arhammr, perhaps?
  
  --
  Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It's quite nice really by Jonsey · 2003-07-30 02:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

I've got the 3rd edition books, even bought 'em locally to help my gameshop. I now have a SRD with the majority of 3.5's changes.

Due to easier format, I now have a snazzy, easy reference to rules I had been bending my DMG to get photocopies of (Those last ~8 pages)

Maybe I'm somewhat alone in the no-screen DMing... But it makes my concience clear when I kill a PC :D

--
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Re:editorial suggestion... by WildFire42 · 2003-07-30 02:49 · Score: 3, Funny

it would have been helpfull if someone would have mentioned that this was Dungeons and Dragons we were talking about.

Yes, because Wizards of the Coast puts out so many other high-quality, well-loved games, it's hard to tell them apart. Such as Magic: The Gat...uhhh, well, there's always Lord of the Five...

Harry Potter the Trading Card popularity milking?

NFL Showdown?

Hello? Is this thing on?

/me sighs.

The only other game that I respect Wizards/Hasbro/whatever for is Call of Cthulhu. Now that's a fun game.
Re:d20 Rocks by blacksway · 2003-07-30 04:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

Re: Bioware
Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, and Icewind Dale all used AD&D second edition rules. Icewind Dale II used a mish-mash of the two I believe.

Re: Cost to license D20 or OGL
Nothing. Not a jot. Its Free. Use it, modify it and release under the same license.

Re: Cost to license the "Dungeons and Dragons" name
Lots!
Re:Arcana Unearthed or D&D 3.5 by LordYUK · 2003-07-30 04:50 · Score: 3, Informative

how in all that is Geekdom did this get modified as "informative"??

A short sword and a long sword are not the same blade with differing lenghts. The SS is weighted for stabbing, whereas a LS is weighted for slashing. While a LS CAN stab and a SS CAN slash, they arent as effective as they are when used properly. The greatsword, or two-handed sword, was also weighted differently, and wouldnt have been as effective as a longsword because of its balance.

That said, it was always a "convienience" rule which let, say, a halfling use a human longsword as a greatsword or a giant use a human greatsword as a shortsword. While these weapons are all "basically" the same (in that a mace is basically a fancy club), they are all used differently and require different sets of skills to use to full potential.

It makes SENSE that each race would make their own "variant" swords sized to their stature, however, the damage that a halfling longsword would do would compare to the human short sword.

all that really changes is that if you're small or large (human being medium), and you find a human sized sword, well, you're not going to be able to use it quite right.

In the end though, unless the DM is a jerk off, if he is giving you magical items that he wants you to have, you'll be able to use them.

On that note, 99% of the rules are "house approved" only... just because its in the rule book doesnt make it law.

--
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Re:editorial suggestion... by EllF · 2003-07-30 05:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Yes. CoC-D20 exists, but the Cthulhu license and brand still belongs to Chaosium. They've an arrangement with Wizards to release some products, but it's specifically referred to as "Call of Cthulhu D20". Not sure how long-lived that venture will be -- the Delta Green D20 book seems to have gone on hold, and not much has been released in the line aside from the core rulebook.

--
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Re:What the fuck is this?! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-07-30 06:09 · Score: 2, Funny

I think you meant:

Still no smurfing good. One one hand, why the smurf would I pay $30 for those smurfing books I see in the bookstore when I can get them for free? On the other hand, these downloaded books don't look anything like the smurfing books you can buy! How the smurf do you guys play D&D, by constantly cross-referencing two sets of books that are similar but different?! smurf that! Good thing we have smurfing games like Baldurs Gate because real D&D is like smurfing doing your taxes, always looking shit up in books when all you really want to do is smash some smurfing goblin skull.

So the smurfing Open-d20 system changes what is already set in the DnD manuals? They should smurfing print a new version of the DnD manuals that have pictures and shit in it, based on 3.5 for smurf's sake. Everything's a smurfing cross reference.

Or did you perhaps intend "I am adjective impaired, so I say 'fuck' a lot to make myself look cool and angst-ridden?"
damn RTF by Anonymous Coward · 2003-07-30 08:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm very happy that WoTC released their rules, and I probably sound like a jerk for bitching, but I wish the information was in a more useful format then RTF.

The D20 rules would really benefit from a conversion to heavily linked HTML, so that I can quickly hop around between skills/spells/feats etc.

Anyone agree?

More importantly, anyone willing to assist with such a conversion? We've got at least a couple of years before the next version is out, so a hyperlinked D20 ruleset would be useful for a long time.
1. Re:damn RTF by Yuioup · 2003-07-31 02:57 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I believe you can open the .rtf with Word and then you can use a wizard to create a table of contents and an index.
  
  Does openoffice have functions like that? Are there any open source auto-indexers out there? It would be cool to be able to feed those .rtf in an app and generate indexes, etc...
  
  Yuioup
2. Re:damn RTF by metamatic · 2003-07-31 11:19 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  http://meta.ath0.com/d20/
  
  --
  GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
More clearly... by Uriel · 2003-07-31 09:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

People are reacting without actually knowing anything. Many people in the community rail against this or that change they've heard about without considering the new rules as a whole. The SRD is free, go read it.

Though reacting before reading is a pretty common /. problem.