Well, what do you all think of the new rules for D&D 3rd edition? Personally, I like much of what I see. If you take 2nd ed. to 1st, 2nd edition was a face lift, taking out a few wrinkles and padding up a weak system. 3rd edition would be more like a heart transplant. :) Or maybe liver... the heart is still in the game. Just the game is quite different. One thing I enjoyed was the opposed skill rolls. White Wolf attempted something like this and failed. It is too easy for a barely-talented person with luck and high stats to outdo someone who's the world's expert but not necessarily the best stat-wise. How else can you explain that someone with 1 dot in musical instrument and 5 dots in (let's say Dex.) could play a song as good as someone with 5 dots in musical instrument and 1 dot in Dex? :) The skill level progression is much more uniform. Allowing anyone to gain thieving abilities is also something I agree with - there is no reason a mage cannot be sneaky and silent while trying to get into position to cast his spell. Before now, it was up to the whims of the GM. Combat, what I've seen of it, also looks streamlined. No more factoring in negative ACs. Instead, it goes from AC 10 on *up*. Ac -10 would now be something like AC 30. And they further sub-divide it into Dex, Magical, Natural, and Armor defenses, so the ability of Crossbows to punch through armor can be more accurately used - a pixie is not well armored but is quite agile and thus harder to hit than someone with a comperable AC that came about because of armor. And armor now affects Dex! The player must decide: Plate mail and no dex? Or only Chain and a minor dex penalty? And so forth. The ability to increase ability stats as you level is also much welcome in the game. It has always irked me that the only way to increase stats is to age. No matter how many weights a wizard lifts, his strength of 5 is eternal unless altered with magic. ;) Now... now it's possible to slowly increase stats. I must admit, there are some things I don't like as much. Having most attacks happen equally quickly - a casting of a spell can take as much time (or little) as swinging a short sword and as attacking with a pike. All take one action. And higher level spells don't take a little longer to cast than lower level spells. One of my favorite memories is of the ground rushing to grab an Arch-wizard as he started casting "Time Stop". Nine segments of pure hell as people hoped and prayed to get their initiative across in time to stop the spell... they failed. :) Hopefully the DMG 3rd ed. will have varient initiative systems. And I'm not so sure I like the ability of everyone to multi-class. The PH did not go into how *long* it takes someone to become a wizard as a second class (or a Priest or a Paladin, or whatever). It was a little vague there. But there are far fewer negatives to the positives. In all, I enjoy the new rules and think they will help keep me interested in D&D instead of trying to lure my group over to a game of Werewolf or Changeling or Dark Conspiracies. ;) So, what are your impressions of 3rd ed. D&D? Rob ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
