The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Double disclaimer – I am an amateur, and those of you that think that makes this nonsense can skip over this review. I also have not run or played much in D&D since about 1982 when my then-current group, at my urging, threw over D&D for Champions. Therefore, I have seen but not paid a great deal of attention to changes in 2nd Edition D&D and AD&D and all that.

I purchased this book in a spirit of inquiry. I was quite fond of The Primal Order, Adkison's work back when WOTC looked like it would remain a clever, insightful company that made no money at all. I am also quite fond of Over the Edge and thought Everway was a great kid/introduction game that really hit the story over mechanics point. On the other hand, I knew if the authors changed too much of D&D, a horde of wilding gamers would come after them like a tsunami, so I figured they'd have to change what they could get away with.

My overall impression: good. Tweet and Adkison changed enough things to update D&D into being a little more 1990ish (if not millennial) but kept many of the core values from the old game. (Maybe a little too much for me, more on that later.)

I'M SO PRETTY...
It's a nice-looking book, easy to navigate and the art usually matches well. Somehow, I'm not drooling like some of the authors of other reviews I've read, but I did find it nice. The illustrations are in what I think of a "Planescape-y" or "Earthdawn-y" style and have a much freer, wilder look than the old D&D stuff. I really appreciated the great combat example and spell use example diagrams. There are sample weapons, too, so now I know the difference between a Glaive and a Gisarme in looks.

My nitpick is the index. I looked for it at first, didn't find it, snorted sarcastically, and read through the book. Later, I came across it. The "summarize other books before they're published" section was placed BEHIND the index, so you have to page back a little. Fair enough.

YOUR SKILLS HAVE GROWN, YOUNG JEDI
Everything is based off of skills now, not "blank level" on a chart. The concept for skills uses target numbers. I first saw these in Shadowrun, but they've been around for many years. It's nicely implemented, though.

There is no THACO for fighting. Fighters do keep their big lead in the new system, though. Basically, if I remember the old chart, Fighters dropped THACO quicker than anyone else. Now, Fighters add one to their "Base Attack Bonus" per level, Rogues start a little behind and slow down around 9th level, and Sorcerers start out behind and slowly creep along. This gives much the same effect. More on this under ACK!, below.

Not a big fan of character classes, I really liked the way that each class has access to many skills. Each class has "class skills," the skills you'd expect a thief (oops, Rogue) to have. The player can also buy "cross-class" skills, skills that a character might be able to pick up, but with difficulty. They cost twice as much, so it's much easier to build a lock picking, trap disarming rogue than it is to build a lock picking, trap disarming fighter. Certain skills are only open to certain classes, of course. (Spellcasting, decipher script, scrying, etc.) See _Brickbats_ below for slight nitpicking about the skills.

TAKE FIVE, GUYS
My favorite new idea was the concept of "take" a number. It allows skilled individuals to do a good job under good circumstances. Assuming normal circumstances (not fighting, dodging lightning, holding his/her breath, etc.), the player doesn't have to roll dice for a total. The player may instead take 10. When taking ten, one presumes that the player rolled a ten for the character's action.

This allows the character to (in the book's example) climb a mountain slowly and carefully until that wretched Goblin on top starts tossing rocks. Up until that moment, the player may just take ten to move up safely. After the rocks start falling, the player must now roll dice for the climbing check.

Taking 20 occurs in ideal circumstances and where there is no penalty for failure. If creating a nice vase, characters may take twenty. If walking a tightrope above flaming spikes, they just can't do it. This assumes that if the player rolls long enough, they're going to roll a twenty. This takes a great deal of character time (twenty times as long) but cuts the playtime dramatically. I thought it a neat bit of connecting the game world and story to mechanics.

YOUR FEATS TOO BIG
I don't have a lot to say about feats. If you've played WFRP or Earthdawn, these are your special skills or talents. They make the character a little more specialized and capable. I enjoyed these, but they were what I was used to, having played Earthdawn and WFRP. People without exposure to these two games might find them incredible. They were well thought-out to provide the limits of the old D&D in a freer context.

SAVE ME!
There are no longer umpteen saving rolls. Characters now have three saves, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. You can probably connect the dots (Use Reflex saves to get half damage from the fireball. Use Fortitude to save vs. that poison, etc.) Various classes gain bonuses to these rolls, plus players can purchase feats to further improve the character's chances.

ACk!
The new version of AC is still a number to be beaten, but it's a total, not a cross-referenced number. It goes like this: 10 + [armor] + [shield] + [dex] + [size]. [Armor] and [shield] are modifiers provided by the character's worn protection. [Dex] and [Size] modifiers come off of innate speed and size. This reminds me of many systems and is not particularly new. It is welcome to see, though.

The nice thing about it is that for D&D, they've finally gotten around to really codifying for what circumstances each applies. Generally, the character totals all those factors. However, if a Sparky the mage is trying to shock the character with Shocking Hands, we leave out [armor] and [shield] because they don't help. Similarly, Karl the Clueless, a character that is flatfooted (surprised to be fighting) doesn't get to use [dex] in his total because he didn't have time to react yet. Nothing new here, but it's nice to have it in one place.

The character, by the way, totals base attack bonus, size modifier, and strength bonus for the attack roll. (1d20 + [bab] + [size] + [str]) When shooting missiles, substitute [dex] for [str] and subtract a range modifier, if any.

BRICKBATS
Okay, there were things I did not like. Any or all of these could be negligible to your tastes.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS
It's still D&D. Despite some really nice flexibility in making characters, there are certain things from a design standpoint that you do want to let munchkins do. Rogues, for example, are the only ones allowed to read lips, detect magical traps, and with bards, decipher ancient languages or use magical items. If a person wanted a fighting scout who specialized in entering sealed buildings (either an infiltrator or an explorer of lost keeps), that person would HAVE to make a rogue. Even a lip-reading, partially deaf fighter – build a rogue and pump his combat skills and feats. Similar restrictions exist for other abilities.

THE LEVELING EFFECT
Well, we still have levels and we go up them. It's a little better in that slaughtering creatures for XPs is now directly eliminated, but it still looks an awful lot like kill things, steal their dough. Maybe the DMG will be better.

YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME
Unlike fantasy stories, magicians still have that artificial limit on ability. They can memorize X spells. Granted, it starts off better for 1st level Wizards now. They have a little more to do. Still, it would be nice if they could manifest power in a little more story-like manner. It would, of course, require reworking the D&D beloved spells and hit points, so never mind.

Strangely enough, clerics are now limited in the number of times they can turn undead. Go figure. This seems to me to be a step BACKWARDS rather than up. So the traditional holding up a cross only works umpety times a day? Huh?

I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING
There are some neat mechanics for flanking opponents to get at them. Characters may often use opportunity attacks against foes that are not defending themselves or moving incautiously through melee. However, I found the emphasis on these concepts to be a little offputting. I have a number of fun miniature games to play. I am not particularly interested in using D&D as one. I'd rather D&D were a little less mechanical in combat.

This reminds me quite a bit of Champions. Champions is (I think) the pre-eminent game of superheroes on the market. Unfortunately, once a combat occurs, the game breaks down into a huge, drawn out, protracted process. I feel that D&D games might be the same, full of excellent role-playing and then modulating into a miniature game until the fight is over, then warping back to role-play.

SWIM IN PLATE MAIL? SURE!
YMMV considerably on this one. I still remain unconvinced that wearing plate mail improves your AC except in a huge random melee. Personal experience has shown that in a small engagement, the limitations of perception in those helms makes it much easier for unarmored people to outmaneuver armored guys. And it appears (in what we see here) that we're still going to have player characters wandering around the high street of the village in plate mail after wearing it for the last fifty miles of travel, INCLUDING WHILE THEY SLEPT. Sigh.

FINAL SUMMARY
I think this is an excellent attempt to bring D&D forward to mass appeal. It has me thinking of several characters I could try playing, and I usually loathe this game. It may well be a time to go back and take a look at D&D.

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 CapsuleReview by John Ward on 08/14/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	Double disclaimer – I am an amateur, and those of you that think that makes this nonsense can skip over this review. I also have not run or played much in D&D since about 1982 when my then-current group, at my urging, threw over D&D for Champions. Therefore, I have seen but not paid a great deal of attention to changes in 2nd Edition D&D and AD&D and all that. I purchased this book in a spirit of inquiry. I was quite fond of The Primal Order, Adkison's work back when WOTC looked like it would remain a clever, insightful company that made no money at all. I am also quite fond of Over the Edge and thought Everway was a great kid/introduction game that really hit the story over mechanics point. On the other hand, I knew if the authors changed too much of D&D, a horde of wilding gamers would come after them like a tsunami, so I figured they'd have to change what they could get away with. My overall impression: good. Tweet and Adkison changed enough things to update D&D into being a little more 1990ish (if not millennial) but kept many of the core values from the old game. (Maybe a little too much for me, more on that later.) I'M SO PRETTY... It's a nice-looking book, easy to navigate and the art usually matches well. Somehow, I'm not drooling like some of the authors of other reviews I've read, but I did find it nice. The illustrations are in what I think of a "Planescape-y" or "Earthdawn-y" style and have a much freer, wilder look than the old D&D stuff. I really appreciated the great combat example and spell use example diagrams. There are sample weapons, too, so now I know the difference between a Glaive and a Gisarme in looks. My nitpick is the index. I looked for it at first, didn't find it, snorted sarcastically, and read through the book. Later, I came across it. The "summarize other books before they're published" section was placed BEHIND the index, so you have to page back a little. Fair enough. YOUR SKILLS HAVE GROWN, YOUNG JEDI Everything is based off of skills now, not "blank level" on a chart. The concept for skills uses target numbers. I first saw these in Shadowrun, but they've been around for many years. It's nicely implemented, though. There is no THACO for fighting. Fighters do keep their big lead in the new system, though. Basically, if I remember the old chart, Fighters dropped THACO quicker than anyone else. Now, Fighters add one to their "Base Attack Bonus" per level, Rogues start a little behind and slow down around 9th level, and Sorcerers start out behind and slowly creep along. This gives much the same effect. More on this under ACK!, below. Not a big fan of character classes, I really liked the way that each class has access to many skills. Each class has "class skills," the skills you'd expect a thief (oops, Rogue) to have. The player can also buy "cross-class" skills, skills that a character might be able to pick up, but with difficulty. They cost twice as much, so it's much easier to build a lock picking, trap disarming rogue than it is to build a lock picking, trap disarming fighter. Certain skills are only open to certain classes, of course. (Spellcasting, decipher script, scrying, etc.) See _Brickbats_ below for slight nitpicking about the skills. TAKE FIVE, GUYS My favorite new idea was the concept of "take" a number. It allows skilled individuals to do a good job under good circumstances. Assuming normal circumstances (not fighting, dodging lightning, holding his/her breath, etc.), the player doesn't have to roll dice for a total. The player may instead take 10. When taking ten, one presumes that the player rolled a ten for the character's action. This allows the character to (in the book's example) climb a mountain slowly and carefully until that wretched Goblin on top starts tossing rocks. Up until that moment, the player may just take ten to move up safely. After the rocks start falling, the player must now roll dice for the climbing check. Taking 20 occurs in ideal circumstances and where there is no penalty for failure. If creating a nice vase, characters may take twenty. If walking a tightrope above flaming spikes, they just can't do it. This assumes that if the player rolls long enough, they're going to roll a twenty. This takes a great deal of character time (twenty times as long) but cuts the playtime dramatically. I thought it a neat bit of connecting the game world and story to mechanics. YOUR FEATS TOO BIG I don't have a lot to say about feats. If you've played WFRP or Earthdawn, these are your special skills or talents. They make the character a little more specialized and capable. I enjoyed these, but they were what I was used to, having played Earthdawn and WFRP. People without exposure to these two games might find them incredible. They were well thought-out to provide the limits of the old D&D in a freer context. SAVE ME! There are no longer umpteen saving rolls. Characters now have three saves, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. You can probably connect the dots (Use Reflex saves to get half damage from the fireball. Use Fortitude to save vs. that poison, etc.) Various classes gain bonuses to these rolls, plus players can purchase feats to further improve the character's chances. ACk! The new version of AC is still a number to be beaten, but it's a total, not a cross-referenced number. It goes like this: 10 + [armor] + [shield] + [dex] + [size]. [Armor] and [shield] are modifiers provided by the character's worn protection. [Dex] and [Size] modifiers come off of innate speed and size. This reminds me of many systems and is not particularly new. It is welcome to see, though. The nice thing about it is that for D&D, they've finally gotten around to really codifying for what circumstances each applies. Generally, the character totals all those factors. However, if a Sparky the mage is trying to shock the character with Shocking Hands, we leave out [armor] and [shield] because they don't help. Similarly, Karl the Clueless, a character that is flatfooted (surprised to be fighting) doesn't get to use [dex] in his total because he didn't have time to react yet. Nothing new here, but it's nice to have it in one place. The character, by the way, totals base attack bonus, size modifier, and strength bonus for the attack roll. (1d20 + [bab] + [size] + [str]) When shooting missiles, substitute [dex] for [str] and subtract a range modifier, if any. BRICKBATS Okay, there were things I did not like. Any or all of these could be negligible to your tastes. SAME AS IT EVER WAS It's still D&D. Despite some really nice flexibility in making characters, there are certain things from a design standpoint that you do want to let munchkins do. Rogues, for example, are the only ones allowed to read lips, detect magical traps, and with bards, decipher ancient languages or use magical items. If a person wanted a fighting scout who specialized in entering sealed buildings (either an infiltrator or an explorer of lost keeps), that person would HAVE to make a rogue. Even a lip-reading, partially deaf fighter – build a rogue and pump his combat skills and feats. Similar restrictions exist for other abilities. THE LEVELING EFFECT Well, we still have levels and we go up them. It's a little better in that slaughtering creatures for XPs is now directly eliminated, but it still looks an awful lot like kill things, steal their dough. Maybe the DMG will be better. YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME Unlike fantasy stories, magicians still have that artificial limit on ability. They can memorize X spells. Granted, it starts off better for 1st level Wizards now. They have a little more to do. Still, it would be nice if they could manifest power in a little more story-like manner. It would, of course, require reworking the D&D beloved spells and hit points, so never mind. Strangely enough, clerics are now limited in the number of times they can turn undead. Go figure. This seems to me to be a step BACKWARDS rather than up. So the traditional holding up a cross only works umpety times a day? Huh? I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING There are some neat mechanics for flanking opponents to get at them. Characters may often use opportunity attacks against foes that are not defending themselves or moving incautiously through melee. However, I found the emphasis on these concepts to be a little offputting. I have a number of fun miniature games to play. I am not particularly interested in using D&D as one. I'd rather D&D were a little less mechanical in combat. This reminds me quite a bit of Champions. Champions is (I think) the pre-eminent game of superheroes on the market. Unfortunately, once a combat occurs, the game breaks down into a huge, drawn out, protracted process. I feel that D&D games might be the same, full of excellent role-playing and then modulating into a miniature game until the fight is over, then warping back to role-play. SWIM IN PLATE MAIL? SURE! YMMV considerably on this one. I still remain unconvinced that wearing plate mail improves your AC except in a huge random melee. Personal experience has shown that in a small engagement, the limitations of perception in those helms makes it much easier for unarmored people to outmaneuver armored guys. And it appears (in what we see here) that we're still going to have player characters wandering around the high street of the village in plate mail after wearing it for the last fifty miles of travel, INCLUDING WHILE THEY SLEPT. Sigh. FINAL SUMMARY I think this is an excellent attempt to bring D&D forward to mass appeal. It has me thinking of several characters I could try playing, and I usually loathe this game. It may well be a time to go back and take a look at D&D. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition