Rating: 
Summary: Burn the damn thing.
Review: 3.0 was a breath of fresh air into the D&D genre. A new system with new rules that kept most of the flavor of the 2nd edition of the game. 3.5 can be summed up in one sentence: Some idiot out-there's houserules for actual D&D. Traps meant for 9th level characters that require a "wish" spell to repair, idiotic table for random treasure that do not include weapons for small character, metamagic rods that render characters beyond powerful. Pathetic. My only fear is that a new generation of gamers pick this piece of garbage up and begin to think it's D&D.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly edited trash
Review: 3.5 gave many high hopes for DnD, too bad WotC failed. This book contains many errors and inconsistancies that even an old timer can get confused. Wait for offical errata or a 2nd printing to purchase this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice update
Review: After reading Frostburn, it makes you appreciate Environmental information. You know, traveling in a jungle isn't just about creature hazards, there is the monsoons, the disease, and perhaps the temperature to deal with. But most of what DM3 discussed was monster effects. They had some on drowning and getting set on fire, but very little on specific terrain. I'm looking right at DM3 right now, it doesn't even mention them in the Contents. Whereas I looked in the contents for this book, and they were right there. Someone else is DMing, and he is trying to decide which terrain to start at. He is thinking Frostfell, though this might better help him to come to a decision. And it isn't just the terrain that is better informed, it is also the presence of more prestige classes. In general, the Contents itself is better laid out, allowing you to find sections more easily. The first one was still only to page 86 at the bottom, and it was difficult to find the PrCs on the list, except by carefully looking.
Rating:
Summary: Great for New D&D Players, & Old
Review: As a new Dungeons and Dragons player, I was very fascinated when first cracking open this book. After reading several pages, I got what I expected, and more. This book explains the whole world of D&D that I had heard so much about. Its explanations are simple and give you an idea of what the writers are trying to create while giving you room to create your own worlds. I enjoyed reading this book even as a player, when I moved on from DMing. It really adds deapth the D&D world, expanding on the old editions and bringing in new players with ease and intrigue.
Rating:
Summary: Might as well call it something other than D&D
Review: As someone who was first exposed to D&D in the late 70s, I have to say that this game is not what it used to be. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 (I love the hip, contemporary "3.5" denotation as if this is computer software) is obviously aimed at the adolescent, power-gaming, comic book-reading gamer. Even the style of artwork suggests it, the D&D of today looking more like an extension of the comic book realm, with superhero player characters and hip monsters and humongous steroid warriors who look like they're out of the pages of Spawn. It's with a long, wistful sigh that I remember the days of DM manuals with cheesy homebrewed art and the beautiful Erol Otus covers on the game modules. It was the days when D&D was spoken of by the general public as if it was the dangerous pastime of Devil-worshippers and cultists. It was a mature, intelligent game that drew heavily upon the great fantasy realms of Tolkien, Howard, and Leiber, not to mention centuries of old folklore and mythology. Even the language used in the manuals was sophisticated and not easily digested by someone with less than a college reading level. It was a game of substance, a game with real SOUL. It was geeky and esoteric and a lot of fun. You played wizards and warriors, clerics and thieves, and each class had its own drawbacks and advantages. Some were even plainly more powerful than others. That's just the way it was. There was no obsessive attention paid to making every class so perfectly balanced, into turning AD&D into egalitarian fantasy, but since when is everyone in life so equal? Wizards were pathetically weak early on but then turned into the most dangerous of characters at higher levels, undoubtedly wielding the greatest power in the game. Cavaliers were unbalanced too, and barbarians. Yet at the same time the game wasn't so crazy like the D&D of today where suddenly everyone has loads of skills and super abilities and anyone can do anything and the object seems to be making your character into a superhero. But I suppose that's what everyone is looking for nowadays, Diablo II with pens an paper. A pity, because so much richness has been lost over the past 20 years, ever since TSR started cleaning up its image in the mid-eighties and marketing its games towards teenage gamers. That's what big business is about though, and how can a company reap big profits nowadays without turning "corporate" and catering to the lowest common denominator? And profits are obviously WOC's primary concern. It really breaks my heart though to see what's become of a game that once meant so much to me. At least I still have all my old 1st and 2nd edition books and they'll always be there. Let me close by saying this to everyone: No one's forcing you to be sheep and run out and spend money on this crap. If you're happy with what you're playing then what's the need to ever "upgrade"? Why not do the truly creative thing and stop buying this garbage that Wizards of the Coast is churning out and use your old stuff (be it 1st or 2nd edition or 3.0) and make your own adventures? And who needs a company's house rules when any decent DM can make up his own? Give me a break people. Think for yourselves and stop being victims of consumerism and slick marketing.
Rating:
Summary: Might as well call it something other than D&D
Review: As someone who was first exposed to D&D in the late 70s, I have to say that this game is not what it used to be. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 (I love the hip, contemporary "3.5" denotation as if this is computer software) is obviously aimed at the adolescent, power-gaming, comic book-reading gamer. Even the style of artwork suggests it, the D&D of today looking more like an extension of the comic book realm, with superhero player characters and hip monsters and humongous steroid warriors who look like they're out of the pages of Spawn. It's with a long, wistful sigh that I remember the days of DM manuals with cheesy homebrewed art and the beautiful Erol Otus covers on the game modules. It was the days when D&D was spoken of by the general public as if it was the dangerous pastime of Devil-worshippers and cultists. It was a mature, intelligent game that drew heavily upon the great fantasy realms of Tolkien, Howard, and Leiber, not to mention centuries of old folklore and mythology. Even the language used in the manuals was sophisticated and not easily digested by someone with less than a college reading level. It was a game of substance, a game with real SOUL. It was geeky and esoteric and a lot of fun. You played wizards and warriors, clerics and thieves, and each class had its own drawbacks and advantages. Some were even plainly more powerful than others. That's just the way it was. There was no obsessive attention paid to making every class so perfectly balanced, into turning AD&D into egalitarian fantasy, but since when is everyone in life so equal? Wizards were pathetically weak early on but then turned into the most dangerous of characters at higher levels, undoubtedly wielding the greatest power in the game. Cavaliers were unbalanced too, and barbarians. Yet at the same time the game wasn't so crazy like the D&D of today where suddenly everyone has loads of skills and super abilities and anyone can do anything and the object seems to be making your character into a superhero. But I suppose that's what everyone is looking for nowadays, Diablo II with pens an paper. A pity, because so much richness has been lost over the past 20 years, ever since TSR started cleaning up its image in the mid-eighties and marketing its games towards teenage gamers. That's what big business is about though, and how can a company reap big profits nowadays without turning "corporate" and catering to the lowest common denominator? And profits are obviously WOC's primary concern. It really breaks my heart though to see what's become of a game that once meant so much to me. At least I still have all my old 1st and 2nd edition books and they'll always be there. Let me close by saying this to everyone: No one's forcing you to be sheep and run out and spend money on this crap. If you're happy with what you're playing then what's the need to ever "upgrade"? Why not do the truly creative thing and stop buying this garbage that Wizards of the Coast is churning out and use your old stuff (be it 1st or 2nd edition or 3.0) and make your own adventures? And who needs a company's house rules when any decent DM can make up his own? Give me a break people. Think for yourselves and stop being victims of consumerism and slick marketing.
Rating:
Summary: Second Edition is still King.
Review: Bought the three 3rd Edition core rulebooks.Read and playtested them, and all I can think of to say good about these 3rd Edition Manuals(and now 3.5..lol)is that they sure are pretty, and make very good bookends to hold up your collection of 2nd Edition Material.I have been playing AD&D for 15 years and this is an awesome attempt to make money.I believe that this was WOTC primary concern in delivering this mess to the masses.It was supposed to have been playtested by over 600 people...my question to WOTC is: "were any actual D&D players allowed to join the playtesting?".If so how much were they paid to approve this 3rd Edition for sale?To all newbies who read this review BEWARE!!!!!!!...Search the net for the original second edition stuff and leave this alone.
Rating:
Summary: Bad move, very bad move
Review: Changing the Player's Handbook is already hardly arguable, since the changes cover in fact a dozen or twenty pages, and that the game seems "changed without being rewritten" which is by itself really awkward, and makes the PHB 3.5 a kind of useless buy. The DMG is worse. PrC that are useless (Red Wizard specially for Forgotten Realms has nothing to do here, or archmage and hierophant which are particularly hard to get) or completely non-logical (Mystic Theurge using both Divine and Arcana spells as cleric and wizard combined at same level?! Apart of that, it's a copy word for word (advices on campaign and world design etc) of the 3.0 DMG. For short: it's not worth a buy if you already have 3.0, and it adds trouble for the new DM to D&D who will have always to compare and talk about 3.0 or 3.5, a confusion that players definitively did not need.
Rating:
Summary: Dungeon Master
Review: D&D is a great game. You need a dungeon master to play it. He needs this book. If he is poor and can't afford it print out the SRD from wizards.com, although it won't have all the nice pictures.
Rating:
Summary: A better revision than the 3.5 PHB
Review: Even if you refuse to pick up the 3.5 PHB, I seriously recommend getting the 3.5 DMG, for these reasons. 1) More prestige classes. The ones in the old 3.0 were subpar; the new ones added are great, even through they should have left out the Red Wizard one if they insist on it being a Forgotten Realms only class. 2) You want to have extra-planar or epic level adventures. Well, you can buy the new DMG and skip buying the Manual of the Planes and Epic Handbooks, as the core stuff in both books is in the new DMG as well. However, you probably don't want to use the Epic system used here, as without the Epic Book's spell seeds, spellcasters are rather subpar. The new DMg is basically the old DMG with all the best stuff from the past 3 years included. A must buy for any DM, even if you have the old 3e DMG, especially for the ... price.
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