Post by Gilvan Blight on Feb 14, 2010 17:00:42 GMT -5
Quickly:
Excellent book, all the rules in one place.
Summary:
This 160 page hardcover book contains all the 'crunch' of 3.5 edition D&D. It has all the little and not so little rules.
Everything is listed alphabetically with an excellent tiered table of contents as well as an excellent index. All of the latest versions of the rules are here as well. This contains every errata that was ever published for 3.5 all worked into the rules.
Along with the rules are some clarification and commentary. Chapters are dived by editorial comments about why some rules exist or how some of them changed.
Basically what this book does is condense all the years of errata and rule changes and clarifications from all of the different 3.5 books and puts them in one place. What this means is that you should only have to look through one book when trying to figure out a rule. So if you want to know what the chance is that the deaf monster can spot your invisible incorporeal character underwater is, this is the book to grab.
Note this book does not replace the DMG or PHB. There aren't rules for making characters, xp, leveling up, traps, monsters, etc. This is just all the crunch. How do you move, what's a critical hit, how do you determine line of sight, how does aerial combat work, etc.
The Good:
A great resource. Really clarified some misty rules as well, like invisibility, concealment and cover. It's great having only one place to need to look. No grabbing the PHB and reading invisibility only to have to grab the DMG to read more then having to grap the PHB to read a spell description. The flavour notes were interesting to read as well. It's nice having all of the errata worked in so you are using the most up to date rules as well.
The Bad:
The index could be better. Sometimes when you are looking up something like concealment you may have to reference more then one area. It's still way better then the ones in the PHB and DMG.
The Ugly:
Really the only thing that I can say is ugly about this one is the fact that it needs to exist. It would have been nice if all the rules were clear enough and all in one place in the first place. When buying this you do get a great time saver but in fact you are buying rules you probably already own.
Overall:
Even though you are buying a set of rules for a game you probably already have the rules for, I find this one a great addition to my gaming table. It's very nice to have to pick up this book alone when looking up rules. It's only $35 CDN which seems well worth it, plus you can often find copies cheaper now that 4e is out.
Excellent book, all the rules in one place.
Summary:
This 160 page hardcover book contains all the 'crunch' of 3.5 edition D&D. It has all the little and not so little rules.
Everything is listed alphabetically with an excellent tiered table of contents as well as an excellent index. All of the latest versions of the rules are here as well. This contains every errata that was ever published for 3.5 all worked into the rules.
Along with the rules are some clarification and commentary. Chapters are dived by editorial comments about why some rules exist or how some of them changed.
Basically what this book does is condense all the years of errata and rule changes and clarifications from all of the different 3.5 books and puts them in one place. What this means is that you should only have to look through one book when trying to figure out a rule. So if you want to know what the chance is that the deaf monster can spot your invisible incorporeal character underwater is, this is the book to grab.
Note this book does not replace the DMG or PHB. There aren't rules for making characters, xp, leveling up, traps, monsters, etc. This is just all the crunch. How do you move, what's a critical hit, how do you determine line of sight, how does aerial combat work, etc.
The Good:
A great resource. Really clarified some misty rules as well, like invisibility, concealment and cover. It's great having only one place to need to look. No grabbing the PHB and reading invisibility only to have to grab the DMG to read more then having to grap the PHB to read a spell description. The flavour notes were interesting to read as well. It's nice having all of the errata worked in so you are using the most up to date rules as well.
The Bad:
The index could be better. Sometimes when you are looking up something like concealment you may have to reference more then one area. It's still way better then the ones in the PHB and DMG.
The Ugly:
Really the only thing that I can say is ugly about this one is the fact that it needs to exist. It would have been nice if all the rules were clear enough and all in one place in the first place. When buying this you do get a great time saver but in fact you are buying rules you probably already own.
Overall:
Even though you are buying a set of rules for a game you probably already have the rules for, I find this one a great addition to my gaming table. It's very nice to have to pick up this book alone when looking up rules. It's only $35 CDN which seems well worth it, plus you can often find copies cheaper now that 4e is out.