Rating: 
Summary: Marvelous Product With Clear Writing, Excellent Artwork
Review: The new Player's Handbook (PH) D&D Design Team has created a marvelous product--filled with generally clear writing and excellent artwork--containing a major change in game mechanics. The PH nonetheless manages to retain the spirit of the D&D game created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974.The 3rd edition replaces the old movement system, denoted in confusing scale inches--which goes back even before D&D to Gygax's Chainmail rules for medieval combat--with a clear system of speed denoted in feet. Yet the 3rd edition includes familiar races and character classes. It retains the bard, cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, rogue, paladin, and wizard, and resurrects the barbarian, monk and half-orc. Fans of clerics and druids will cheer the addition of 8th- and 9th-level spells. Clerics will love the 9th-level Miracle spell, similar to a Wish. Barbarian fans will rejoice that the 3rd edition removes the unplayable restrictions of the original barbarian, even at the cost of somewhat reduced physical prowess. Fans of the monk and druid will celebrate elimination of limited levels. Each class now requires the same amount of experience to advance in level. Regardless of which class you choose, your character initially will advance rapidly because reaching the lower levels requires relatively small amounts of experience; earning a mere 1,000 experience points, for example, will gain your character second level. The 3rd edition grants each 1st level character full hit points. Combining easy advancement at lower levels with full hit points at 1st level will help keep characters alive through their fragile early days. The 3rd edition introduces a sorcerer class. The sorcerer gains access to the same spells as the wizard, gets more per day, and needn't carry spell books or prepare spells, but can't learn as large a repertoire. The sorcerer can't specialize in schools of magic like the wizard, while the wizard specialist now has some control over the school from which she can't learn spells. All spellcasters except the ranger and paladin now have access to zero-level spells, the way Gygax intended in 1982 when he introduced cantrips in Dragon magazine issues 59-61. The spellcaster will find that she's more effective because a touch spell no longer needs to penetrate an opponent's armor. She also gains the ability to counterspell an enemy's spell, which, when successful, negates the enemy's spell entirely. A rogue will find that his sneak attack comes into play more often than did the old backstab, making him more useful in combat. Your rogue or barbarian will learn to avoid a surprise attack which leaves the rest of the party flat-footed. Your warrior continues to grow in power at higher levels by gaining up to 4 attacks per round, substantial bonuses to hit, and even more hit dice. Characters continue to gain hit dice right up through 20th level. All character classes also eventually get more than one melee attack per round, but the warriors get more and get them faster than anyone except monks. Any character, regardless of race, can now belong to any class. You can play hafling paladins, dwarven rangers or anything else you choose. Any character, regardless of race, can belong to multiple classes. The 3rd edition removes limits on class combinations and maximum levels. It allows you to decide in which class your character will advance with each new level she gains. Best of all, your character gains all the skills and benefits of each level she gains in each class! You can decide, for instance, that when your 4th level wizard reaches 5th level she should take her new level as a fighter. She will remain a 4th level wizard and become 1st level fighter, adding the hit points, skill points, and combat bonus normally gained by a 1st-level fighter to her existing hit points, skill points and combat bonus. She can train as a wizard or fighter, or in another class, each time she earns a new level. Humans gain small advantages over non-humans when advancing in multiple classes. Humans gain a small advantage in acquiring skills too. The 3rd edition divides the old non-weapon proficiencies into skills, which you can "buy" with points your character earns at each level, and feats, which your character acquires more slowly. Skills include more ordinary abilities like Climb, Swim, and Wilderness Lore. Feats include more extraordinary abilities like Alertness, Endurance, and Lightning Reflexes. The 3rd edition fully integrates skills and feats into play, making often-neglected ability scores more important. Your barbarian, for example, may find the Intimidate skill quite useful, but if he has a low charisma he'll find that it won't work as often as he might like. The 3rd edition bases the results of virtually every attempted action on the roll of a 20-sided die (d20). You roll a d20 to determine initiative in combat, whether your attack hits an opponent, whether you successfully save against a spell, and whether you successfully use a skill or perform a feat. In the 3rd edition, the higher you roll on the d20, the better. A higher roll hits a higher armor class (which now sensibly rises as it improves), performs a tougher feat, gives you a faster initiative (which likewise rises as it improves), and saves against a more powerful spell. Unlike the old system, which varied between high and low rolls being better, the new system always makes high rolls better. The 3rd edition simplifies combat by generally limiting the initiative roll to the start of each encounter and eliminating weapon speeds and numbered casting times; it complicates combat with rules on movement, surprise attacks, partial actions, attacks of opportunity and being caught flat-footed. I believe that players will tend to have the most trouble adjusting to the new combat system. After a cursory examination, however, I think they'll find the adjustment worthwhile...
Rating: 
Summary: The reasons this is collecting dust in my attic
Review: I played RPGs for 20 years. I liked them, i liked the people I played with and then i stopped. Nothing interested me after a while until 3E. I thought this was going to turn it all around again. Boy was i wrong. The ideas behind this haphazard collection of material is sound. The problem is, the rules do not survive under scrutiny. Balance seems to have been thrown out the window in exchange for the 'cool' factor. If you want to make a cartoon charavter out of your imaginary alter ego, this is the game for you I think. The skill and feat system is broken so badly that you probably can't fix it without rewriting the rules. The skills are restrictive by class - making absolutely no sense at all. Afterall, you're character wasn't born this class or that. Class seemes to have become your defining trait more than your personality. Trying to make a character a certain way is actually tougher in 3E as you have numerous skill restrictions. In short, Fighters get paltry skills and Rogues get the mother load. everyone else gets to fill in in-between.
Rangers are useless, becoming simply lightly armored fighters with a few useless special abilities, little opportunity for growth and a dazzlingly undazzling array of spells.
Sorcerers are similiarly built, with a few extra spells to cast per day than wizards, but FAR fewer to pick from and absolutely no class abilities that the wizard gets to choose from.
The old moronic +1 to this ability -1 to taht rules are still in place for non human characters, with the elf that lives 750 years somehow being more frail than you average human. By the same token, dawrves get a nice constitution bonus but are uncharismatic. Why? Well because they had to pick an ability and charisma looked like a good one......
You get to multiclass more easily according to 3E lovers. You needn't split your XP between classes, you simply take a level of any class any time you earn enough experience points to go up a level. Wanna be a fighter/paladin? GO for it. The only probalem is, it is almost useless to multiclass as a spell caster. With a level limit of 20 (which is fine IMHO) you mayonly have a TOTAL of 20 levels all classes included. That's great, but if you take 15 levels of Wizard and 5 levels of Rogue, you are going to be one disappointed mage when you realize you missed out on the best spells in the game in exchange for some paltry lock picking ability. To be fair, multi classing any of the fighter classes works just fine.
On the topic of levels, you should reach 20th after anout 35-45 game sessions if you follow their experience charts. WAY too much XP is awarded and in addition, all classes use the same experience point table. It seem that someone decided that a 20th level paladin and a 20th level bard were pretty evenly matched. I think we all know better.
Finally, the comabt system - which most gamers agree is the most tedious and time consuming part of any game - has been dragged out with so many extra and optional rules, that it takes forever to resolve the simplist battle. Some may applaud the detail, but the game has taken a step back toward the old CHAINMAIL table top battle rule srather than advancing as a ROLEplaying game.
With a chartr included for every detail in the game, this book has taken all of the imagination out of your hands, and given you a rule to cover it. 3E Roleplaying is actually more ROLLplaying, and after a while, that just gets tedious.
Well aware that the game is a mess, WoTC is releasing 3.5 later this summer to suck a few hundred dollars more out of your wallets.
I beg you consider what you might be getting before flushing your money down this over simplified, over hyped toilet of an RPG. Go play Vampire or Werewolf - at least they don;t charge you $... to insult your intelligence by including a chart for your eye color.
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