The Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition Player's Handbook set a standard for style only recently exceeded by D20 Modern and Mutants & Masterminds. While there are a few pieces of bad art (the armor -- ugh!), most of it is topical, striking, and very well done (The cover however, doesn't work -- a really good piece or Elmore, Easley, or Parkinson would have stood the test of time better).
My copy of the PHB features a sewn binding (first printing only -- subsequent printings used glue, though these have proved fairly durable in my experience), and glossy, full-color pages. It has held up to regular use and abuse for 2.5 years without incident, and still looks great.
Chapter One: Abilities (4 pages) Straight and to the point; Much more consistent across various abilities than previous editions. However, I was disappointed by the reliance on random score generation. Although this is addressed in the DMG by the point buy system, it really belongs here. Another little nitpick -- a few unnecessary inconsistencies do manage to hang on -- for example, why does one not earn bonus 0-level spells for high ability scores? Clearly there is no balance issue, so I would have erred on the side of consistency.
Chapter Two: Races (10 pages) Good range of choice here. I would have liked to see the racial abilities broken into inherent and cultural categories -- that would have made playing a character raised in a different culture easier. Halflings are drastically different that the familiar (read: Hobbit) previous incarnations, and I found the new halflings to be fairly flavorless. Halflings in my campaign are still modeled on Hobbits. For the first time in D&D, any race may now play any class, and choice of race does not limit level attainable.
Chapter Three: Classes (36 pages) Multi-classing now consistent and playable for the first time, which is a huge relief. Bardic magic curiously lacks a musical focus -- will they ever manage a decent bard?
Chapter Four: Skills (20 pages) Not too much to say here -- good range of skills. Tracking is clunky; it is based on a skill called wilderness lore, but you have a huge penalty unless you have the tracking feat. Tracking should have been a separate skill. Also, not to beat this one to death, but why is intimidate not a class-skill for fighters?
Chapter Five: Feats (10 pages) Feats really let you customize your character and are a key to shoehorning various character concepts into the class system. Feats in the PHB do have a definite combat slant though; I would have preferred to see a more general focus.
Chapter Six: Description (8 pages) Gods and character background. Note that no deities are given for some really common areas of influence (god of the sea, etc.), so a larger selection would have been a nice addition.
Chapter Seven: Equipment (20 pages) Very complete equipment list. I really like the way armor limits your dex bonus to AC; Makes high dex lightly armored characters at least somewhat viable.
Chapter Eight: Combat (26 pages) Ah...attacks of opportunity. poorly explained, but IMHO long needed. No longer can you blithely stroll past an armed person without facing attack. Turning undead seems needlessly clunky. What not just assign each type of undead a Turn DC?
Chapter Nine: Adventuring (6 pages) Sort of a "we didn't know where else to put this" catch-all, contains information on gaining levels, vision, movement, etc.
Chapter Ten: Magic (12 pages) Spell preparation and casting well explained.
Chapter Eleven: Spells (116 pages!) Provides a well-rounded spell selection for a high fantasy game while still leaving room for research. Spells mechanics are still handled on a case-by-case basis, resulting in some spells which are similar in effect but not in mechanics finger of death and power word kill come to mind). Some spells are a bit unbalanced (Harm, Enervation), but are easily adjusted by adding a saving throw.
Glossary (8 pages) and Index (3 pages) A very complete glossary; The index would have benefited from another page.
So, with 2 1/2 years of DM'ing and playing with the 3E PHB, what do I think?
Third edition is a vast improvement over the first and second editions, managing to maintain the flavor of the earlier games while banishing much of the mechanical inconsistency. Combat, while improved greatly over previous editions' ludicrous one minute rounds, can be very complicated, especially with multiple spells in effect. Modifiers also seem to proliferate, further slowing matters. However, these are not deal-killers. The game plays fine, is open ended enough for expansion, and manages to (mostly) stick to a unified resolution mechanic. In general, a little rules-heavy for my taste, but by far the best D&D yet.
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