I stumbled upon Monte Cook’s Review of D&D 3.5 – the review is several years old now, obviously.
I some things I found interesting:
That reminds me of the package of adventures I’ll be getting soon. It will include some Rappan Athuk by Necromancer Games stuff. And guess what I found on Flickr?
Rappan Athuk by Necromancer Games
Rappan Athuk: Because some times players need to be punished
Rappan Athuk: Because some times players need to be punished
#RPG #thoughts
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Heh. It’s a frighteningly accurate depiction of Rappan Athuk too. It’s quite a meat grinder of a dungeon - I’ve had one adventuring party lose over half their number at the entrance; they didn’t even make it into the dungeon 😄 After that they healed up, re-quipped and stormed the place.
Only to exit, seriously wounded several hours later. Heh.
It’s definitely not a dungeon for the faint hearted gamer, that’s for sure.
The package is now ready to be posted 😄
– GreyWulf 2007-05-30 08:48 UTC
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Re: Monte’s review.
One thing I agree with Monte about more than anything else is the switch made to weapon sizes. That was a huge step backwards and did more (in my game, at aleast) to derail the change to 3.5 than anything else. The whole idea of the DM generating treasure that “just happens” to be sized for the Halfling character in the team stretched credibility too much. So, we ditched the whole weapon size thing and just said that Small characters could use Light weapons without penalty (so a halfling with a shortsword does 1d6 damage, as nature intended). Heavier weapons needed two hands (so, no Gnome Fighters with Longswords and shields) and two-handed weapons could only be wielded with a STR of 16 or greater.
That simplified things greatly and gave Small characters all the rationale they needed to stick with (sensible) lighter weapons. A Halfling that can wield a Greatsword should be the stuff of legend, methinks. Hence the STR requirement.
As regards his other points, 3.5 is slightly better set of rules than 3.0, mainly because of the improved character gains dues to levelling. I’m looking forward to the day that it’s closer to d20 Modern where characters get something neat each level (a feat, talent or whatever), but 3.5e is almost there. The changes to spell duration didn’t affect my group too much - in fact, we hadn’t even noticed it until it was pointed out on one of the forums - and took the wholescale change to being a miniatures-based set of rules as just something to be expected. Then ditched ’em 😄 Miniatures are bad for the game, but good for the profit margin margin, it seems.
Feat-wise, I quite like the feats which give +2 to two skills. I know this puts me in a minority here, but anything which encourages out-of-combat role-playing and characterization has to be a good thing. Far and away too many feats are combat focused IMHO. I’d rather have players with a character who’s got Alertness and Negotiator than yet another Power Attack + Cleave monkey any day!
– GreyWulf 2007-05-30 09:48 UTC
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I think I’ll ditch small characters instead! Seriously, what are halflings and gnomes doing out there adventuring. 😄
I’ll take another look at your houserule when a small character joins the party.
I think the problem with D&D in terms of usability is that it [WhatIsAffordance affords] combat & miniatures because there are lots of rules & spells & monsters dealing with them. Players and dungeon masters are nudged along these lines. I find it takes a conscious effort to play a different game. I liked that about M20.
I think I’m going to like Star Wars Saga... I need more players and less work so I can play four times a week!
– Alex Schroeder 2007-05-30 12:41 UTC
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I need more players and less work so I can play four times a week!
Lol! Don’t we all 😄
I’m on the fence about the Saga Edition, and will wait until it’s in my hands before voicing an opinion. I doubt it’ll be a purchase though. From what I see they’ve changed some things that weren’t broken in the first place (skills and saves, mainly) while folding in a few neat ideas (fewer classes and using the talent tree idea from d20 Modern). If it’s supposed to improve Star Wars gaming, I’m not sure it’s a success as I reckon the current edition of the rules is brilliant for that already.
As a preview of 4th Edition D&D I’m even less inspired. Why not just release it and be done? Or, even better, release a playtest pdf of the proposed rules changes and let the gamers themselves decide what’s good and what isn’t. Peer review would make for a better product than just relying on their own particular brand of play in the WoTC offices.
– GreyWulf 2007-06-01 09:56 UTC
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Well, I don’t have d20 Modern and I’m interested in simplified semi-official d20 rules. I’m also more interested in buying a Star Wars game rather than a generic Modern game. Thus, I’m interested in Star Wars Saga.
Furthermore, I think that Star Wars Saga is not so much a preview of what is to come for 4th ed. as an option of what you can do with the d20 rules. As far as I am concerned, I’m hoping we won’t see a 4th ed. in a long time. I just recently bought all that 3.5 material!
Oh, and public betas are a good thing, of course. Release early and often before it goes to the printer. Maybe now that they’ve learnt to accept PDF without DRM, they might consider it...
Perhaps I should just get all the current Star Wars stuff on Ebay and Amazon Marketplace, if all I want to do is play Star Wars. I’m sure those will swamp the market real soon now.
All this talking makes me realize I still have an unopened Xbox game on my shelf: *Star Wars – Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords* (KOTOR II). ¹
– Alex Schroeder 2007-06-01 16:01 UTC
