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My Biases and Such
This review is more of a serious sequel to the review of D&D 3.0 I wrote but never posted. Nope, just wrote it and then sat on it... terrible, scorching case of procrastination, mostly. You can read the original review by clicking on the link above, but I should warn you that it has almost nothing to do with the game itself and isn't terribly informative.
Likewise, this review is several weeks late, way past the time it would even be remotely helpful to those of you wondering if you should buy into the new edition. If not, great, read on. But more than likely, you're just reading this to see what axe I've got to grind.
I've been playing D&D off and on for the last twenty years or so, but I'm not much of a fan of it or D20 in general. D&D is more of a game I tolerate rather than enjoy. I'd much rather play Deadlands or Feng Shui, but hey, I'm sure you've got embarrassing habits that you don't like to talk about in public, either.
Overview
My gut reaction is that "Three and a HALF" is an accurate assessment... in other words, this is a half-assed revision. Half the things they fixed needed it, but there's this whole other half that was fixed incorrectly or just wasn't fixed at all. And so I'm conflicted... half of me is relieved that they've fixed some existing problems, the other half is INFURIATED that they didn't take the time to do it right the second time around.
It seems obvious enough to me that putting out this revision had more to do with filling a "revenue hole" in the production schedule or promoting a new line of collectable miniatures than actually trying to fix the rules. Andy Collins even said in the D&D Version 3.5 Chat Transcript that they had "nowhere near the time or resources that 3.0 had, so we had to pick and choose what we spent time on and what we left for the next edition."
I find that comment very interesting... I didn't really see the D&D community holding a gun to their head, demanding "You must fix Haste by Summer 2003 or we switch to Hackmaster!" Hats off to the beautiful people in marketing for selling us $30-90 worth of rulebooks... AGAIN.
And so, as loyal fans, we carve out another $30-90 piece of our own flesh and what do we learn? That the rules are cumbersome, kludgy, confusing, and require a bunch of house rule patches before anyone can be happy with them.
And that's ultimately what upsets me most about this revision... every rule change means I have to dig back into 3.0, compare the two versions, and then decide if the new one is worth adopting. And while I get the sense that 3.0 was heavily playtested, I don't get that feeling at all with 3.5. Mostly I've got a bunch more house rules, which I find rather counter-intuitive for a "revision" that's supposed to fix problems with 3.0. That, to me, is the cardinal sin of a rules revision... it shouldn't need to be revised, and this one does. But enough of my bellyaching... let me get to some of the specific changes. There's some good, some bad here.
Races
Overall, a lot of good changes here that should be easy to adopt.
Dwarves and Gnomes now have "weapon familiarity" for Dwarven/Gnomish weapons, which means they don't have to burn a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency if they're already proficient with martial weapons. Dwarves also get a seriously-needed break on movement while encumbered, hopefully sparing them from more "very dangerous over short distances" jokes.
The preferred class for Gnomes is now bards. I never thought that a specialist spellcaster was a good choice for a preferred class, so I'm pretty much on-board with this change. However, I do think the design team missed an opportunity to smooth things over for those Gnome-Illusionists out there who are now taking XP penalties for multiclass violations by not introducing a sub-race that have identical racial abilities but Illusionist as a favored class.
Half-Elves are now better at Diplomacy and Gather Information. Well, good, I guess... of all the races, these guys had the biggest lead in the "completely uninteresting" category, although I'm puzzled... I thought the whole concept of half-elves was they were discriminated against by both elven and human communities? So now these in-bred half-breeds are master diplomats for getting along with both races that don't like them? How'd that happen? Shouldn't half-orcs, also straddling two races, get the same bonus? Ultimately, I don't find something I can just spend skill points on to get the same ability all that interesting.
Classes
Barbarian - My current character is a halfling Barbarian/Fighter, so I was happy to see more interesting things happen early on for the guys and gals in the Viking helmets. I really like the improved Rage stuff that happens up towards the max levels... it's nice to see a good payoff to sticking with a basic class, which now looks more attractive than switching to that idiotic "Ensign Euthanasia" Frenzied Berzerker prestige class.
Bard - A lot of changes here, but unlike the Barbarian the bards didn't actually get anything new or interesting at higher levels. Ok, there's some bardic-music abilities that now have level requirements... but are otherwise identical to the previous requirements. The higher-level stuff isn't that interesting. It's nice to see Inspire Courage ramp up to +4, but Song of Freedom at 12th level is identical to a break enchantment spell the bard can cast at 10th level, and Mass Suggestion at 18th level is almost identical to the same spell available at 13th level.
There are some good things here, though... the 6 skill points are very nice. I love the no spell failure while wearing light armor, but on the other hand I can't help but think this throws more napalm on the extremely old "spellcasting in armor" debate. We've got a Bard/Sorcerer in our group right now, and it just seems completely asinine that he doesn't have to check spell failure for bard spells but does for sorcerer spells. If bards, clerics, and druids can develop an entire magic system that can be cast in armor, why can't wizards or sorcerers? There are plenty of other fantasy systems that handle spellcasting in armor perfectly fine... why can't D&D?
The spell list for bards also got a well-needed infusion of new spells... but I'm still scratching my head over the removal of two very-dear staples, Mage Armor and Magic Weapon. The bard may not need Mage Armor now that they can wear light armor and not worry about spell failure, but what about his companion, the Sorcerer or Wizard who spent all his slots on Magic Missile? Or the Paladin after getting chummy with a rust monster? I can think of several other uses for it that fall well within the concept of the Bard being an important support character. And Magic Weapon... with the damage reduction system overhauled, I find it completely befuddling that such a basic spell used to bypass magic weapon requirements would be removed from a support class that is much more likely to be directly involved in melee combat than a Wizard or Sorcerer. And so we come to my first house rule for 3.5... Mage Armor and Magic Weapon go back into the Bard's spell list.
Druid - Some good changes here. Although I'm disappointed that their weapon list is still excruciatingly lame, they are no longer penalized for using non-druidic weapons. It'll cost a feat or two, but they can actually do more than 1d6 damage in melee (or more than 1d4 at range). I would have liked to see them get bows (what, druids live in the wild but can't HUNT?) and other harvest-related weapons (sickles but not scythes? C'mon!), but those are still in house rule territory.
Maybe the best change in the entire 3.5 PHB, Druids can now spontaneously cast Summon Nature's Ally in exchange for any other prepared spell. I was a big fan of this when it was suggested in Dragon, and it's nice to see such a good idea in the official rules. I'm also happy to see a much better spell selection at every level for Druids... especially now that Magic Stone, the only offensive spell designed to work with slings, is available at 1st level.
I'm very, very glad to see that animal companions now advance, although I'm a little puzzled about how staggered it is... looks like every three Druid levels or so, the animal companion gains 2 HD and some extra abilities that look a lot like Wizard familiars. I wasn't a big fan of the whole "let 'em die or get rid of 'em, we don't care!" attitude in Masters of the Wild, and it's nice to see an advancement scheme better than "spend 200 XP for another HD".
Ranger - Biggest change in the book here, but ultimately I think the class that needed the most help got the biggest NERF in the book. The 6 skill points is nice, but the two "combat styles"... um, a 2nd level fighter can get Two-Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot. Things get better later, as Rangers get Improved Two-Weapon Fighting at 6th, two levels before anyone else, but if you went the archery route you get... Manyshot? Whoo-pee... out of all the archery feats available, those are the only feats they can give rangers? That's just lame. Looks like you can make a much better ranger by going straight fighter and picking up Tracking and Endurance... at 6th level you can't get Improved Two-Weapon yet but you can have Rapid Shot, Manyshot, and Weapon Specialization (+2 damage on all attacks, not just against favored enemies), and if you're lonely pick up an animal cohort instead of an animal companion.
The real crime is that although these changes help out the lower-level rangers, the class becomes completely uninteresting after the 11th level, when they max out their "Combat Style", and we're back to the old ranger, with nothing much to look forward to but a couple more favored enemies.
Rogue - trap sense now shows up a little earlier, but the most significant changes are in the skill system, which is where rogues generally shine. Rogues have lost two of their "exclusive" skills, Innuendo and Read Lips. Innuendo has been folded into Bluff, which I guess makes much more sense than Read Lips being folded into Spot. This kind of a good/bad thing... good means that rogues have more skill points to spend on skills they'll actually use, and bad because anybody can buy Bluff or Spot to "listen in" on private conversations. More on this when I get to the skills.
Monk - Some good changes here. No more silly separate monk-only BAB, and Flurry of Blows is much more effective now, and there are a couple more choices, but ultimately I think the attempt to make individual monks more "distinctive" failed. Every few levels, monks get a bonus feat and can pick from a huge list of... two choices. So, out of all those feats from Sword & Fist and Oriental Adventures... two choices. Great job, way to make one monk stand out from the others.
Paladin - More smiting is good, but the biggest change is now paladin mounts are extra-planar creatures that show up whenever the Paladin "summons" them. Um... I don't get why this was necessary. The game apparently has no problem with druids and rangers dragging around their animal companions, but Sir High-And-Mighty gets to send his mount to another plane so he doesn't have to drag his poow widdle horsey through a dungeon where it can get chewed on by wandering monsters? While this may have made an interesting optional rule, I don't see why it was necessary for 3.5.
Sorcerer - In my opinion, this class needed much more help than the ranger. They got a little bit, but not nearly enough... you'd think a class that relies entirely on Charisma would have more to offer than one single charisma-based skill... Bluff. Well, I guess it's better than what they got in 3.0, but I can't help but think the Sorcerer got royally screwed in every single department. Thankfully, they can now trade out spells that become useless later on, but it doesn't help the fact that they get fewer spells and less often than any other spellcaster.
Wizard - Only real change here is how specialist schools work. I'm with Monte on this one, I don't see why it was necessary to make this big of a change and require every existing specialist to completely rework his opposed schools and spell lists. If there were significant discrepancies with the various schools, it would have been much easier to just add more spells or rework a handful of existing spells. This would have left the existing specialists intact.
Skills
All in all, a lot of good changes here, although there's a few head-scratchers.
Alchemy is now Craft: Alchemy, but for some reason you now need a spellcaster level to create alchemical items... which is really silly, since a lot of them are, as far as I can tell, extremely non-magical. So all those NPC alchemists who weren't spellcasters? Sorry, here's your pink slip.
Animal Empathy - gone, now a class ability for druids/rangers. Which is fine, didn't make much sense as a skill anyway. ("Okay, you empathize fine with the giant rabid badger... it's VERY angry. You take 12 damage from its claw attack.)
Innuendo - folded into Bluff, which I guess makes sense... never actually saw anybody use Innuendo. Although it does remind me of a minor gripe I had with 3.0... Bluff is a fairly common social skill, but the skill used to detect it is Sense Motive, which only Rogues and Bards get as a class skill. You'd think that something so basic, so vital to finding out if someone is lying, would be more common. Given how friggin' useful Bluff is, I'm tempted to make Sense Motive a class skill for everyone.
Perform changed a bit, it's now subdivided into 9 areas like Craft/Profession, so you can buy up individual areas of expertise separately. Makes sense now, I think.
Read Lips - folded into Spot...??? So... anybody can read lips now? So, what was the whole reasoning behind making this a Rogue-only class skill to begin with... couldn't this have been done as a Rogue-only class ability like Animal Empathy, or maybe as a Feat rather than rolled into a skill just about anyone can buy?
Ride: mount is now just Ride... so if you can ride a horse, apparently you already know how to ride a griffon, dragon, dewback, or whatever, which doesn't make a lot of sense but I guess is less of a bookkeeping headache.
Pick Pocket is now Sleight of Hand. No argument here.
Scry is gone, and the clairvoyance/scry spells now have will saves instead. Not sure this is the best fix for that, but this is another skill I'd never actually seen anyone use.
Swim is no longer -1 per 5 pounds. The swim penalty is now double your armor penalty. I like this change, although I can't help think we lost a little bit of realism here... trying to swim in chainmail kinda strikes me as being in the same boat as trying to skydive while chained to a Volvo.
Wilderness Lore is now Survival. This covers orientation, tracking, food gathering, and other survival stuff. Good move here, I think.
Tumble - Whoa! No one mentioned this had changed. You no longer designate a 20-foot section of your movement as tumbling. Tumbling now cuts your movement in HALF. Although this is a serious NERF to the existing tumble rules, I think this change makes more sense... my current DM is particularly fond of sicking assassins on us that tumble away and bolt before we can surround them and beat them into a bloody pulp. This may give us a chance to catch up with them before they can get away.
Feats
There's some hits and misses here. I'm not a big fan of any feat that I can effectively replicate by spending skill points, but I guess I understand the need for standardization. So, lots of +2/+2 feats. Ho-hum. Skill Focus is now +3, which makes it only slightly less useless than it was.
Sorry if I rant a bit here, but I don't see anything interesting or heroic about being 10% better than someone else. Did the Greeks remember Odysseus because he was 10% better at bluffing as the next guy? Was Hercules so fearsome because he was 10% better at Intimidate? To me, the whole term "Feat" inspires something heroic and unusual, something the average joe doesn't do every day, and +2 on a roll just doesn't seem all that heroic. I'd rather see a reroll mechanic on things like Skill Focus or Athletic.
If I went through every change here, this thing would probably be 200 pages long, so let me touch on some of the bigger changes.
Improved Critical - no longer stacks with Keen, or apparently any other threat-range increase. I don't know why this change was made, since the 3.0 rules are pretty explicit about how multiple threat-range increases are handled... I'd have to guess the design team saw way too many vorpal keen scimitars floating around.
Power Attack - not sure how I feel about this one, although it finally makes Power Attack useful for larger weapons... maybe TOO useful. Two-handed weapons now get double the damage bonus on the amount taken off the BAB, which means a 20th level fighter could get up to +40 damage on every attack. I'm puzzled why Combat Expertise has a 5 point cap on its effects and this one doesn't... This may be a fix that just wasn't playtested enough. Two-Weapon Fighting - Ambidexterity has been folded into this feat, adding a 15 Dex requirement. However, there's some serious WTF? factor when you look at the Improved and Greater versions... beyond all logic and reason, the Dex requirements for these more advanced feats has gone up to 17 and 19 Dex. I don't agree with this AT ALL, partly because the 3.0 version of these feats had no Dex requirement, but mostly because this flies directly in the face of the reasoning behind this entire expansion. Remember, the design team said these revisions were about providing more "options, not restrictions". So why have the restrictions for Improved/Greater TWF gone through the roof? I strongly suspect you'll see some errata on this later, but for now, it requires yet another house rule.
Weapon Focus/Specialization - there are several new "fighter-only" advanced feats here, Greater (not sure why they didn't use Improved) Weapon Focus gives another +1 to hit but you need to be an 8th level fighter, and Greater Weapon Specialization is another +2 damage but you need to be a 12th level fighter. So, yet another example of the "more restrictions, less options" philosophy, I suppose. I guess I can see the reasoning behind providing incentives to stick with the basic classes, but that sort of begs the question of what's the fighter going to do after he reaches 12th level?
Weapons
This is a perfect example of a change that may create more headaches than it solves. I do realize that small characters were getting completely shafted with certain weapon-related restrictions or requirements, but this is solution is a mess. I like the idea that weapons can be scaled up or down based on size changes, as it solves an occasional headache with an Enlarge/Reduce spell. Small druids were getting shafted on their already excruciatingly lame weapon selection by not being able to use half-spears, as well as small duelists were having trouble holding on to rapiers.
The solution for 3.5 is all weapons are now "created" for a wielder of a particular size. If a halfling wants a rapier, then he buys one from the appropriate column. If he makes a mistake and gets a rapier made for a medium-sized owner, he gets a -2 on his attack roll for not having the correct size. It gets worse... if he picks up a medium-sized dagger, a weapon he could wield without penalty under 3.0, he still gets the -2. In fact, every single halfing in every previous edition of the rules way back to 1979 could pick up a dagger and expect to use it without penalty. But now, to get a weapon with absolutely IDENTICAL stats, he has to buy a small-sized shortsword. I find this EXTREMELY odd, especially when Sword & Fist went out of its way to point out that if it looks, walks, and talks a like a dagger, then it's a dagger. The new rules are also careful to point out that although a weapon may be made for a small or medium-sized owner, the actual size of the weapon itself is completely different. Thanks for clearing that up, sure, no way anyone could confuse those now.
I can't believe anything this bad got through playtest. I can only imagine the arguments this will create, but I suspect they'll be of the tipping tables, dividing parties, and ending friendships variety. Not only does this cause untold headaches with Weapon Specialization and deities with preferred weapons, it adds a level of complexity to determining random treasure. I haven't seen the new DMG yet, but the odds of a character getting a magic weapon that he could actually use was fairly low to begin with, but now it has to be nigh impossible. Particularly distressing is the lack of feats or spells to change or deal with an improperly sized weapon, other than shrink item. Enlarge is gone, replaced by enlarge person. So there's no possible way to get around this -2 penalty other than to find a different weapon.
One other thing that still makes my blood boil... the artwork for the rapier still looks like a friggin' MACHETE.
Combat
This chapter has been cleaned up quite a bit, and in general is a lot clearer and easier to understand. It's also a lot more miniatures-heavy. The most controversial change seems to be all creatures must now be square, with some consequences bordering on just plain silly. Large creatures such as Ogres now not only take up a 10x10 square, they still have a 10' reach, so they now threaten a 90'x90' square. This means if you put four ogres evenly spaced on one half of a football field (50-yard line to the endzone), you wouldn't be able to set foot on their half of the field without entering a threatened square. Add another four ogres to the other side and the entire football field is threatened. And these changes are apparently absolutely necessary just to prevent some wanker from stealing another 5' of movement by cutting diagonally past a corner.
Speaking of diagonal movement, it's nice to see some actual rules for this. The D&D Rules FAQ hinted a bit that moving diagonally twice in a row was 15' instead of 10', but I'd never actually seen this mentioned anywhere in the rules or official errata.
Spells
I won't touch on the big H's here (Heal, Harm and Haste) because those changes have been fairly well publicized already. More recently, the big stink seems to be over the six "Bull's Strength" type stat-increase spells. The designers claim these spells were being "overused", crowding out other 2nd level spells and leading to long arguments about which characters should get which boost. I didn't see such a problem in our games. I'd suggest if the design team seems problems that may be occurring in a game to consider an optional fix, rather than forcing everyone to change their spell selections and playing style. Like most of the changes in 3.5, the DM is going to have to put some thought into whether these changes should be brought into the game.
Anyway, rather than me yammering away on every spell that changed, I'll just touch on some of the "substantial changes".
Alter Self now allows you to change up to one size category larger or smaller. Combined with Enlarge Person, this allows a 3rd level Wizard to turn himself into a huge humanoid with 15' space, 15' reach, and at least +4 Strength... although he will apparently be crushed by his equipment, which will weigh at least 8 times what he's used to.
Barkskin changed slightly, down to +2 enhancement bonus, but this now stacks with a natural armor bonus. Blade Barrier is now actually wall-shaped instead of a pretty lawn ornament. Call Lightning can now actually be used (even indoors and underground), and has a Storm version for some severe ass-kicking. Change Self has been renamed to Disguise Self, but I have no idea why... I would guess the designers were worried about semantics, since it's an Illusion rather than a Transformation spell, but is semantic purity really much of a reason to force people to buy new books?
One of the worst NERFs in 3.5, Endure Elements now does... absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell. I can't recall a DM ever making me roll Fortitude to resist temperature changes, and this new version is now useless against other energy types like sonic or electrical. I guess I can kind of understand that in 3.0, Endure Elements, Protection From Elements, and Resist Elements all did roughly the same thing, just with different effectiveness, but I don't understand how they think the 3.5 versions are an improvement. Instead of three spells doing roughly the same thing, we've got one useless spell and two spells (Resist Energy and Protection From Energy) that do roughly the same thing.
Most of the "choose from multiple effects" spells have been split up into individual spells. Eyebite may have come out better off than the others, it no longer mimics Charm, Fear, and Sleep spells. Now it induces the cumulative effects of sickness, panic, and comatose (don't you just hate it when you're comatose and panicked?). Emotion was removed and split up into individual spells... not sure I'm on board with that, I guess I like the convenience of one spell slot having four different effects. Symbol got shafted the most, and is now split into seven different spells. While I understand allowing specialists with restrictions against Necromancy from casting Symbol of Death may be a bit odd, a spellcaster now has to find/research seven different spells and use seven spell slots to get the same effects. At that level, my spellcasters generally have better uses for those 6th, 7th, and 8th level slots.
Flame Arrow's been NERFed, or at least the fiery bolts version of it is gone. I don't understand what was wrong with the old version... although the new version seems to be geared towards large tactical battles, as it now affects 50 projectiles. Good Hope and Heroism now seem a little redundant. Tree stride supposedly changed, but other than being a Conjuration, I don't see how.
Wall of Force no longer has a spherical option. I don't understand why it was necessary to remove this at all... what happened to "options, not restrictions"?
Conclusion
Thumbs down. Granted, I've already bought the book, so a fat lot of good it does me, and I'm sure Wizards could care less that I don't like it. They've got my $30 and I've got pretty much the same book I bought three years ago. What scant new material is in there is more flawed than good. So, while I agree with Monte that this was too much change, too quickly (and not nearly enough playtesting), I don't necessarily agree that we should keep buying expensive hardbacks just to save a few jobs at Wizards. I don't plan on buying the Monster Manual or the Dungeon Master's Guide, not if this is the level of quality we're supposed to expect.
And I'm sure you give a rat's ass about what I will or won't buy. If you've already bought the books, great, hope you enjoy them. If you haven't however, I'd recommend a good hard look before you buy. Are there improvements in 3.5 that will help your game? Yes, there are. Some of them are even insightful and don't require additional fixes. But I'd suggest there are cheaper ways to get this material: glance through the books in WaldenBordles, or check the updates on the Wizards website, or dig into the various discussion boards. The 3.5 druid is on the Wizards website along with the Harm/Heal/Haste spells. A couple versions of an improved ranger are on Monte's website. Changes to feats like Power Attack can be summed up in a short sentence: "double the damage bonus on two-handed attacks". Do you need to buy the whole book just for that?
So, if you can stand it, wait for 4.0. Or at least until the 2nd printing. Last time I checked, the errata boards had over 100 mistakes. Yeah, for a revision. Feh.
Style = 2 for recycled artwork, minimal new artwork, those damned brown lines, and the friggin' rapier still looks like a machete.
Substance = 2 because very little content was actually new, and what was new was shoddy and requires further fixing.
