Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

D&D Is 30

Posted by Hemos on from the celebrate-mountain-dew-and-church-basements dept.

mainframemouse writes "For those who have not seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old. After many years of role-playing is wonderful to see the mother of all RPG's given respect and mention in the national press. There's even a note about the false accusations of the 80's." And for the record - flanking & attacks of opportunity in 3/3.5 Edition still irritate me. Combine a familiar with Master Tactician and some rogue levels, and you're off to the races.

3 of 763 comments (clear)

  1. A great movie for D&D players... by Abraxis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pardon the slight off-topicness... but some friends of mine from college started their own production company, and made a movie called "The Gamers". It certainly ain't no hollywood production, but that's the charm of it. Do yourself a favor and grab the DVD and watch it with your gaming buddies to celebrate D&D's 30th... I promise it'll be a good time. I think they have a quicktime trailer and stuff here.

  2. support your local indie RPG author by sammy+baby · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you remember your times long past playing D&D fondly - heck, if you're still playing it - you really owe it to yourself to check out some independent roleplaying game producers. They're cheap, they're great, they're a break from THAC0 and saving throws and god only knows what else. A great place to start is with The Forge, which specializes in such games.

    And while you're their, a shout out please for Lumpley, an old friend of mine, and the author of kill puppies for satan: an unfunny roleplaying game. (I'd link directly to his site, but I doubt it could take the slashdotting. Still, I must advise folks to look him up. And send him money.)

  3. Your familiar has been slain! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    And for the record - flanking & attacks of opportunity in 3/3.5 Edition still irritate me. Combine a familiar with Master Tactician and some rogue levels, and you're off to the races.

    First, I don't know what "Master Tactician" is; you are probably referring to "Expert Tactician" which allows you to make an additional attack whenever someone is denied their dex bonus to AC. Since a Rogue also adds sneak attack damage to any attack when the opponent is denied their dex bonus to their AC this is a good combination.

    However flanking does not deny the opponents dex bonus to their AC, so the familiar flanking example you used would not work to give you an extra sneak attack as you suggest. Additionally if your familiar is killed there are harsh penalties. You must make Fortitude save DC 15 or lose 200xp per master level (save for half). You also cannot get another familiar for a year unless you raise dead. Since you will be progressing as a Rogue and not a Wizard or a Sorcerer, your familiar will not increase along with you. By level 6 opponents will simply squash your familiar like a bug, costing you 6750gp each time for a scroll of raise dead.

    AC: Armor Class, how hard you are to hit in combat.
    Dex Bonus: Dexterity is a measure of how nimble a person is, the bonus from this score adds to your AC.
    XP: Experience Points, a measure used to determine the level of your character.
    DC: Difficulty Class, in order to succeed you must roll a twenty sided dice (d20) and add your relevant bonus and get a result equal or higher.
    GP: Gold Pieces.