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 Wussies of the Coast has completely destroyed the game this time. Their committee approach to game design has resulted in a bland, watered-down, thoroughly boring system. Character classes are now completely meaningless. Humans-in-funny-costumes Syndrome (HifcS) is now complicated by every character having access to every skill and every feat. Why not just play GURPS?
Starting with races, there were several minor changes. For example, dwarves can now use dwarvish exotic weapons without a feat, orcs can use orcish exotic weapons without a feat, etc. Plus, for all of you that love gnomes, be warned that their favored class has been changed to bard. Moving on to classes, a lot of things have been clarified, like the barbarian's rage ability (the lowdown on what you can and can't when you're a raging maniac). However, there is also a lot of new stuff. I'm not crazy about bards, but I noticed that there is a new song, the Song of Freedom. Rangers have been changed quite a bit, which I am happy to see because I love rangers a lot and agree with many of the changes. Now for the biggest changes, Skills and Feats. A bunch of skills that were pretty much useless have left the game or joined up into a new skill. For example, the new skill Survival incorporates Intuit Direction and Wilderness Lore into one skill! Yay! Plus, in feats, there are plenty o' changes too. Ambidexterity has merged with two weapon fighting, a much needed change, and several new feats have been added. Like Improved Counterspell, which improves your ability to counterspell (go figure). That is a great idea and I'm happy to see it! Finally, spells. Once again, a number of small changes, but I'll stick with the big ones. As I usually DM, I'm glad to see that the Harm spells have been weakened (they were just too powerful). However, I think they might have weakened them a bit too much. Oh well. Just a rotten barrel in a barrel of good ones... or something like that. Anyways, that is how I now feel about the 3.5 Player's Handbook, after getting rid of my bias. The only reason I gave it a 4 was because part of me wishes there were larger changes. But thankfully WotC realized that there is no point of putting changes into the game just for the sake of change.
What a mess. The 3rd is very good,and i like it very much. But the errata 3.5 just makes the powerful classes more powerful and less powerful classes even less powerful. The mage is castrated, the fighter and bard classes strengthened without any logical reason.No thanks. The release of this book has only one reason:money. Save it, and don't be the fool of WOTC!
Notably, having seen the books at Origins and purused them somewhat, I will say that they have added a small bit of rather nice artwork, though much remains the same, and the changes to Monks, Bards and Rangers are nice... But the weapon thing has to go. That a halfling can't pick up a longsword and use it two handed without a penalty anymore really [bad]. And that spells like Bulls Strength and Eagle's Splendor will only last 1 minute/level instead of hour is another [bad] change. I guess we'll all just have to make our own minds up and usher in some "house rules." |
I'm back to D&D after many years of not playing. I think the 3.5 players handbook is very well done. The writing, graphics, and organization are excellent. I can't think of any ways to improve it. It's full of useful stuff and well-written!
I, too, have read the review of one of the three aurthors of 3rd edition D&D. I must say that I agree with him on many points and have my own skepticism about just what the updated versions will actually do for the game. Needless to say I will buy them anyway... probably here or at GenCon as most of us addicted RPG-ers will. Still, it worries me that the same people who make Cabbage Patch Kids (Hasbro) are the ones deciding the future of such a great game.
