The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I must confess that I hate D&D. HATE it. It repulsed me in so many ways, I hardly have the time or energy to tell you why! But I also believe in second chances, and so I was coerced by fate perhaps to pick 3rd Edition, and here's what I thought of it.

First thing I noticed is the beautiful artwork on the cover and within the book, and the high quality paper. Beautiful! But I never judge a book by it's cover, so TSR and Wizards would have to do better than that to get me to bite the bait. And they did.

To start, the book is well organized, as was expected. That is one thing they usually did well. For example, spells are now given in alphabetical order. No more hunting down that spell in the middle of combat.

The Stats start giving a bonus as early as 12 or 13, which is great! No more thinking your character is useless because he doesn't have an 18. As an added bonus, all stats use the same bonus chart. No more having to look up all the different things each stat can give you. And thankfully, wizards can now use their INT to gain spell bonuses, something 3/4 of AD&Ders did anyway with house rules. The other really cool part was that stats can be raised! Every four levels gives you a point to spend on your stats. Great addition.

The next thing was the races. Nicely described, and the bonuses they races give you are aptly assigned. Further, for the first time ever in D&D history, any Race can be any class. That's right, you can make that half-orc paladin you always wanted. The best part is that humans have significant bonuses built into them, which makes them worth while to play, which was really needed considering they removed the level restrictions that so many of us hated!

Speaking of classes, they are also well done. Finally, the classes have built in abilities, similar to before, but this time, they are much more open ended. And they have skills! If you ever wanted a wizard that could pick locks, now you can. Or a fighter that could cast spells, now you can. You are given skill points to spend on skills much like proficiencies from 2nd Ed. And the classes are more evened out. Not perfectly, but better anyway. That 1st level wizard no longer is johnny one spell that can be killed with sticks and small stones. He can actually fight now, and has more than one spell on average, but still rolls only 1d4 for hit points. Ack!

Combat is vastly improved. Much simpler, it relies on a d20 system similar to Alternity. If you are familiar with that system, you will understand the improvement. Remember what a hard time you had as a GM, when confronted with the problem of AC? "But I just want to touch the creature, not penetrate it's armor. Why should I roll against its full AC?" Well now you don't have to. The AC gives you a modifier to your attacker's roll. Plus, since all monsters now have stats, you can figure out the monster's AC bonus would be without his armor quite easily. Vastly improved.

Speaking of monsters, with stats and skills given for each creature, you can now figure if that skeleton can out wrestle your fighter. Or if the goblin can find that trip wire you just planted. Another plus for the Wizards/TSR crew!

Lastly, they fixed the weapons and their damage. Crossbow finally do more of the bows ('bout time!), and weapons usually do only one type of damage. No longer is it determined by the size of your opponent (sm/l). Like that made any sense!

Now for the bad news.

It's still a level based, super high fantasy, ridiculous hit point allocating, system which still favors hack and slash "roll-playing" over "role-playing". After all this time, you figure they would have learned that most of us don't want hack and slash.

Wizards still have to memorize spells. What a stupid concept. "If only I could remember how to cast that magic missile spell..." Where do the formulas go? The wizards in this game apparently suffer from an acute form of arcane amnesia. I'm surprised they can remember to tie their boot-laces. It's a good thing the boys from NASA don't have that same problem. "How do you land this thing again?"

Hack and slash rules. Well, according to 3rd Ed. it still does. This system fails to stress character development, and instead follows its old system of worrying about things like "what bonuses To Hit do we give to the barbarian?"

So, basically, the game is greatly improved, and it shows some much needed growth, but still falls trap to the old system's hack and slash shackles. The weight of this game's past may be too much for it ever to escape. It must try to appeal to old DNDers and news ones alike, and admittedly, that's not easy, but they must decide if it is worth trying to achieve that goal at all, because every edition they try this, they fail.

Basically, it boils down to this. The upshot of the whole game is that if you liked AD&D 2nd Edition, you will like this one, and if you hated it, you may hate this less, but you will not find yourself sitting around playing it on Friday nights. You'll be playing something else. So Wizards/TSR have failed IMHO, because they failed to fix enough of the things people hate about this game. Though vastly improved from 2nd Ed., it is still D&D. And no fancy bells and whistles will change that.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition
Author: Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook and Skkp Williams Category: game Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Line: D&D Cost: $20.00 Page count: 285 ISBN: 0-7869-1550-1 SKU: TSR11550 Playtest Review by Grndzero on 08/11/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	I must confess that I hate D&D. HATE it. It repulsed me in so many ways, I hardly have the time or energy to tell you why! But I also believe in second chances, and so I was coerced by fate perhaps to pick 3rd Edition, and here's what I thought of it. First thing I noticed is the beautiful artwork on the cover and within the book, and the high quality paper. Beautiful! But I never judge a book by it's cover, so TSR and Wizards would have to do better than that to get me to bite the bait. And they did. To start, the book is well organized, as was expected. That is one thing they usually did well. For example, spells are now given in alphabetical order. No more hunting down that spell in the middle of combat. The Stats start giving a bonus as early as 12 or 13, which is great! No more thinking your character is useless because he doesn't have an 18. As an added bonus, all stats use the same bonus chart. No more having to look up all the different things each stat can give you. And thankfully, wizards can now use their INT to gain spell bonuses, something 3/4 of AD&Ders did anyway with house rules. The other really cool part was that stats can be raised! Every four levels gives you a point to spend on your stats. Great addition. The next thing was the races. Nicely described, and the bonuses they races give you are aptly assigned. Further, for the first time ever in D&D history, any Race can be any class. That's right, you can make that half-orc paladin you always wanted. The best part is that humans have significant bonuses built into them, which makes them worth while to play, which was really needed considering they removed the level restrictions that so many of us hated! Speaking of classes, they are also well done. Finally, the classes have built in abilities, similar to before, but this time, they are much more open ended. And they have skills! If you ever wanted a wizard that could pick locks, now you can. Or a fighter that could cast spells, now you can. You are given skill points to spend on skills much like proficiencies from 2nd Ed. And the classes are more evened out. Not perfectly, but better anyway. That 1st level wizard no longer is johnny one spell that can be killed with sticks and small stones. He can actually fight now, and has more than one spell on average, but still rolls only 1d4 for hit points. Ack! Combat is vastly improved. Much simpler, it relies on a d20 system similar to Alternity. If you are familiar with that system, you will understand the improvement. Remember what a hard time you had as a GM, when confronted with the problem of AC? "But I just want to touch the creature, not penetrate it's armor. Why should I roll against its full AC?" Well now you don't have to. The AC gives you a modifier to your attacker's roll. Plus, since all monsters now have stats, you can figure out the monster's AC bonus would be without his armor quite easily. Vastly improved. Speaking of monsters, with stats and skills given for each creature, you can now figure if that skeleton can out wrestle your fighter. Or if the goblin can find that trip wire you just planted. Another plus for the Wizards/TSR crew! Lastly, they fixed the weapons and their damage. Crossbow finally do more of the bows ('bout time!), and weapons usually do only one type of damage. No longer is it determined by the size of your opponent (sm/l). Like that made any sense! Now for the bad news. It's still a level based, super high fantasy, ridiculous hit point allocating, system which still favors hack and slash "roll-playing" over "role-playing". After all this time, you figure they would have learned that most of us don't want hack and slash. Wizards still have to memorize spells. What a stupid concept. "If only I could remember how to cast that magic missile spell..." Where do the formulas go? The wizards in this game apparently suffer from an acute form of arcane amnesia. I'm surprised they can remember to tie their boot-laces. It's a good thing the boys from NASA don't have that same problem. "How do you land this thing again?" Hack and slash rules. Well, according to 3rd Ed. it still does. This system fails to stress character development, and instead follows its old system of worrying about things like "what bonuses To Hit do we give to the barbarian?" So, basically, the game is greatly improved, and it shows some much needed growth, but still falls trap to the old system's hack and slash shackles. The weight of this game's past may be too much for it ever to escape. It must try to appeal to old DNDers and news ones alike, and admittedly, that's not easy, but they must decide if it is worth trying to achieve that goal at all, because every edition they try this, they fail. Basically, it boils down to this. The upshot of the whole game is that if you liked AD&D 2nd Edition, you will like this one, and if you hated it, you may hate this less, but you will not find yourself sitting around playing it on Friday nights. You'll be playing something else. So Wizards/TSR have failed IMHO, because they failed to fix enough of the things people hate about this game. Though vastly improved from 2nd Ed., it is still D&D. And no fancy bells and whistles will change that. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition