For example if a Wizard casts Sleep, it apparently causes a magical slumber to come upon 4 Hit Dice of creatures.
Does it mean any and all creatures within its radious of 4 HD or up to 4 HD of creates and either way how does one determine HD? The Monster Manual sometimes give "HD" or gives "5d10+etc"
Also, Will Saves and Spell Resistance, how do I roll opposing rolls? If I cast sleep on an Orc how do I determine if it affects the Orc? Orc rolls die, adds on will save and I compare it to what? How do I determine the DC of a given spell? Like whats the difference between a Level 1 Wizard casting Sleep and a Level 5 Wizard casting sleep on the same Orc?
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4 HD of creatures means 4 HD, total, not each.
Hit dice are determined by the number of dice rolled to determine hitpoints. Your 5d10+whatever example means that the creature has 5 hit dice (which are d10s) and then additional hit points (usually from a high constitution).
Will saves and SR aren't opposing rolls. Opposing rolls implies that two people roll against each other. A will save is rolled by the person being affected by the spell - a spell penetration check is rolled by the caster against the target's spell resistance.
With your example, the Orc would have to roll a will save against DC 10 + spell level + caster's relevant stat modifier. (For example, a sorcerer with 16 CHA would have a DC for sleep of 14). Orcs don't have spell resistance, so that part wouldn't matter, but say, for the purpose of the discussion here, that it had SR 15. The caster would then have to roll 1d20 + caster level against this.
Of course, you should know this, especially the part about the spell DCs, if you just took the time to look at the class description for any base class that has a spellcasting component.
I recommend d20srd. It has all of the SRD material (which is basically everything you need to play) and is easily searchable.
Edit to add: Also, Blayne, if you started this thread because you are just starting to DM and have these sorts of questions, I would highly advise you to think twice. DMs need to be pretty experienced with the game and familiar with all of the basic rules without needing a book, or the game will either run very slowly, or all of your players will completely trample over you because they can game the system so much better than you can. I'd suggest spending more time playing the game before switching to DMing.
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Blayne Bradley
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All the groups at my local school are full, and have sessions if they do, at like once a month.
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Are you more familiar with the game than any of the people you'd be asking to play? I ask because these are some of the very basic rules; there are many, much harder rules that you'll also need to know. If you're all at roughly the same level of experience, the game might be satisfying -- but if you've got an experienced player in your group, you should let him run the game.
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I think it's a good rule of thumb to read through the basic rulebooks of a game you plan to run cover to cover at least once before running.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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Everyone are newbs, the most any of us have had is 2 sessions (I have played at least 3 sessions) under someone else.
There is someone who might play who wants to co-dm but hes an ass that picks on the players continuously and follows the rules inconsistently and makes it blatantly obvious.
I badly want to play but if theres no group I can play with then the only solution is to start my own group newbs are not and let the dice fly high.
I read through the DM guide but it didn't really well explain HD to my satisfaction.
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But I agree with you that it's better to slog through a game with an inexperienced DM than to not play at all.
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Also, I think it would be cool to just make this thread a general D&D help thread. Instead of starting several dozen D&D threads over the course of the next few months, you could post all your questions in this thread as they arise.
That has the added benefit of keeping all the info in one place, where someone like me could reference it if I need to.
I'm pretty new to PnP games, myself, so I will probably have some questions as well.
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Blayne Bradley
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Gah, the Forgotten Realms campaign setting has the "wealth by character level" in the dmg at chart 2-24 yet its actually at table 5-1.
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You might want -- and I'm being completely serious, here -- to run through a few prepared scenarios, pre-built modules, and/or introductory games. (Wizards released a lot of these with 3.0, and a couple with 3.5.) I know it crimps your style a little, but it'll give you a much better feel for the flow.
Running a game well is quite difficult, especially with new players. Making the rules feel seamless and organic can be very hard, and you really need an encyclopedic knowledge of them. That said, when in doubt, make crap up; ignoring the rules for the sake of everyone's enjoyment is never a bad idea.
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Blayne Bradley
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I have the following House Rules thought out:
- Chance of Instant Death: When you roll a confirm critical, you can also roll again and if you succeed the enemy is instantly killed. - Roll Initiative Each Round: Initiative is rerolled every round to provide additional fun. - Clobbered: When a PC or NPC takes more then half of its HP in damage it is clobbered for one round, in that round the character can only do 1 standard action but next round is no longer clobbered. - Damage to Specific Areas: When damaged to a specific area or limb the character (NPC/PC) takes a -2 penalty to all rolls that use that limb. - Critcal Failure Fumbles: If you roll a 1 you must make a DC Dext check of at least ten or drop your weapon. - Critical Checks: If a character rolls a natural 20 or 1 he may reroll and if he confirms the Critical Success or Failure Something very good or very bad may happen. - Spell Roll: When a spell requires the target to make a Saving Throw have the caster roll a 1d20 and add the spell level and approbiate ability modifier the result is the DC. - Power Components: Should a spell require the sacrifice of XP to achieve instead the caster could use extra powerful components (Human Soul or Tears from a Unicorn etc) in exchange. - Summoning Individual Creatures: Rather then summon Random Creatures with Summon Monster Spell you may summon a specific creature(s). (Much like how Drizzt only Summons the Panther Gwen. To provide a greater sense of ownership over the summoned ally. - You may Choose between the Point Buy System for Ability Scores or Rolling for them.
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quote:Should a spell require the sacrifice of XP to achieve...
Wait... what? I know I haven't played in a decade (OK, maybe two decades), but what kind of spell has that kind of cost?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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Which source books talks about deals with Ships?
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Nighthawk:
quote:Should a spell require the sacrifice of XP to achieve...
Wait... what? I know I haven't played in a decade (OK, maybe two decades), but what kind of spell has that kind of cost?
Miracle or Wish spells I think. There are others.
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- Chance of Instant Death: When you roll a confirm critical, you can also roll again and if you succeed the enemy is instantly killed.
This is going to come back to bite you. Random chance favors the PCs enemies - it'll hurt a whole lot more when your epic-level PC dies because a 1/2 HD goblin gets a lucky crit on him. Plus, the way this is worded as described, critical hit = instant death, which totally screws up any balance the critical hit system had before. The only way to get around this is to fudge the rule - and a good house rule shouldn't require fudging. D&D has vorpal weapons for a reason - use those instead.
- Roll Initiative Each Round: Initiative is rerolled every round to provide additional fun.
While this could work, excessive dice-rolling gets tedious, especially when you have several PCs and a half-dozen enemies to re-roll every round. Plus, it'll blow for anyone who actually tries to play tactically - variations in turns makes it impossible to figure out anything in advance (which I suppose may be what you want...)
- Clobbered: When a PC or NPC takes more then half of its HP in damage it is clobbered for one round, in that round the character can only do 1 standard action but next round is no longer clobbered.
This could work. You'd want to clarify whether it's damage taken in a round, or in a single hit, and whether you mean remaining or total HP.
- Damage to Specific Areas: When damaged to a specific area or limb the character (NPC/PC) takes a -2 penalty to all rolls that use that limb.
There are variants floating around regarding location-based damage. You'd want to look one of those up if you wanted to use it (and actually, there might be some "official" variants regarding it somewhere, though I don't know of any off of the top of my head). Generally (and these variants provide for this) you'd want to restrict location-based damage to called shots, rather than rolling to see where someone hits every time - again, because massive amounts of dice rolling becomes tedious and slows down combat.
- Critcal Failure Fumbles: If you roll a 1 you must make a DC Dext check of at least ten or drop your weapon.
This is a pretty popular one - a dex check of DC 10 sounds reasonable.
- Critical Checks: If a character rolls a natural 20 or 1 he may reroll and if he confirms the Critical Success or Failure Something very good or very bad may happen.
Again, there are variants floating around with these - though, for example, natural 20 or 1 on a saving throw or attack roll is already an automatic success or failure, respectively.
- Spell Roll: When a spell requires the target to make a Saving Throw have the caster roll a 1d20 and add the spell level and approbiate ability modifier the result is the DC.
Again, randomness tends to hurt the PCs in a well-balanced campaign. Also with the tedious dice-rolling. But it's been done before, and would certainly work.
- Power Components: Should a spell require the sacrifice of XP to achieve instead the caster could use extra powerful components (Human Soul or Tears from a Unicorn etc) in exchange.
This would likely cause game imbalances. There are reasons why these spells have XP costs - they would be far too powerful for their spell levels, otherwise. If you do use something like this, be very stingy handing them out.
- Summoning Individual Creatures: Rather then summon Random Creatures with Summon Monster Spell you may summon a specific creature(s). (Much like how Drizzt only Summons the Panther Gwen. To provide a greater sense of ownership over the summoned ally.
The summon monster spell already works like this, to an extent. You can choose what monster you wish to summon within the scope of the spell. Everything past that is just roleplaying, which doesn't need to be governed by a rule, per se. Beyond that, you already get this effect with an animal companion or a paladin's mount.
- You may Choose between the Point Buy System for Ability Scores or Rolling for them.
It's generally easier if you let people use just one or the other system, but I can't see any reason why this wouldn't work, in theory. Though, I would hazard that, if your players are like you, they're going to want to play fairly powerful characters - I'd suggest doing rolling, and letting them re-roll their stats if they don't have a single stat over 15 and their total modifier is less than +10, or something similar to that. That'll insure that everyone has a character with a reasonable amount of power.
In general, though, I'd try to stay away from house rules, especially as a beginning DM. A lot of time and effort has been put into the rules in order to make it fairly balanced. Most of these things have a reason for being the way they are - I wouldn't go arbitrarily changing the rules without having a concrete reason myself - and I wouldn't count "because it would be cool!" as a concrete reason.
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Blayne Bradley
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nonono its roll once to see if your in threat range, then roll again to confirm the threat, then roll again to confirm instant death.
I think yould notice that even rolling a 19 a Goblin is not nessasarily going to even get a hit on a level 20 Dwarven defender with its like 60 AC.
Also these are ALL from the Dungeons Master Guide they are official.
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Don't use house rules until you know the original rules. You wouldn't sit down at a poker table for the first time and say, "Okay, house rule: all the red cards are worth double."
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Chance of Instant Death: When you roll a confirm critical, you can also roll again and if you succeed the enemy is instantly killed. If you apply this fairly, your characters will all die. Besides, there's already a Massive Damage rule in the game. It's also worth noting that this dramatically reduces the power of x3 and x4 crit weapons, and increases keen and 19-20 weapons; after all, if even a x2 crit weapon has a decent chance of killing someone on a crit outright, people are going to trade damage potential for crit frequency.
Roll Initiative Each Round: Initiative is rerolled every round to provide additional fun. If rolling = fun, this makes sense.
Clobbered: When a PC or NPC takes more then half of its HP in damage it is clobbered for one round, in that round the character can only do 1 standard action but next round is no longer clobbered. This seems fair enough to me, but I think I'd permit a Fortitude save against the effect.
Damage to Specific Areas: When damaged to a specific area or limb the character (NPC/PC) takes a -2 penalty to all rolls that use that limb. This sort of rule is almost always a mistake. Don't allow called shots and don't allow targeted damage. It dramatically increases the amount of recordkeeping you'll need to do, and doesn't actually increase the "fun" factor.
Critcal Failure Fumbles: If you roll a 1 you must make a DC Dext check of at least ten or drop your weapon. I wouldn't do this. A 1 as an automatic miss is fine -- but do you really think seasoned warriors are out there dropping their weapons every twenty swings?
Critical Checks: If a character rolls a natural 20 or 1 he may reroll and if he confirms the Critical Success or Failure Something very good or very bad may happen. Dude. What is your obsession with trying to attach super-duper-spectacular effects to randomness? Remember, you get to describe what happens ANYWAY. So if he rolls a 20 or a 1, you can CHOOSE to describe the result in as flashy a way as you want. There's no need to tie it to a game mechanic.
Spell Roll: When a spell requires the target to make a Saving Throw have the caster roll a 1d20 and add the spell level and approbiate ability modifier the result is the DC. You will regret this enormously. There's a reason this particular mechanic was only implemented for Wild Mages; randomized DCs are a pain in the butt.
Power Components: Should a spell require the sacrifice of XP to achieve instead the caster could use extra powerful components (Human Soul or Tears from a Unicorn etc) in exchange. This is one of those things that you want to think about, since you're the DM. Will you be providing those things in the game? Will they be sufficiently rare so as to appropriately limit the use of these spells -- which is what the XP cost is for? Or are you going to be, in essence, making these spells less expensive to your players?
Summoning Individual Creatures: Rather then summon Random Creatures with Summon Monster Spell you may summon a specific creature(s). This is already the case. You may want to pick up the Complete Arcane books, BTW, for more summoning-related stuff.
You may Choose between the Point Buy System for Ability Scores or Rolling for them. I would recommend letting your players choose one or the other, but applying that decision to all players. The reason for this is that, in some situations, a high point buy is enormously superior to rolling. This is especially true for people playing non-humans, as the racial modifiers apply after the point cost is paid, thus making it very easy to buy very high stats.
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Blayne Bradley
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I think thats moot as theyld all probably opt for point buy, the point of rolling is for the chance of getting multiple 18 stats.
By individual creatures I mean individual creatures with names/personality as in choosing the same ones. If you have say 3 creatures Zylin, Rya and Kukuzo each one a different creature, rather then summoning a generic creature.
Also wouldn't a seasoned warrior be able to succeed his Dex roll?
Power Compenents: The suporior compenents would also for example say give an addition 1d6 and etc etc but they'ld be rare enough to be worth questing for.
The Idea for a spell roll is if applied the way I want to apply it allowed for a certain Raistlin Effect where a spell caster with suitable high will power can overcome the spell resistences of higher spell casters etc.
Say I cast Fire Ball thats a level 3 spell, and I have Intelligence say +5 so thats 3+5+1d20 + Possibly Will Save I don't think its that random and adds some idea of excitement, and theres a benefit now its not a foregone conclusion when fighting creatures with high SR.
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quote:By individual creatures I mean individual creatures with names/personality as in choosing the same ones.
That's what I meant, too. And that's already in the rules. I believe the creature has to be willing to answer the summons, however, unless you've got specific feats, and can demand favors of you (per Gate) in order to be willing. And if the creature dies and is not extraplanar, it's dead.
quote:Also wouldn't a seasoned warrior be able to succeed his Dex roll?
Not necessarily. Many viable builds are low-DEX, high-STR. And since the armor check penalty applies to DEX checks, too, you're going to have a lot of dwarven soldiers dropping their hammers all over the place.
quote:Power Compenents: The suporior compenents would also for example say give an addition 1d6 and etc etc but they'ld be rare enough to be worth questing for.
Unless you intend to actually run a series of quests designed to retrieve a rare spell component -- which the non-spellcasters in your party might not enjoy -- the truth (in my experience, at least) is that consumable items which are rare enough to go questing for are almost never the actual object of quests. You probably have a plotline in mind, and running a subquest so that a player doesn't have to burn 25XP is not going to be something you'll want to do too often. So you'll wind up introducing these rare components as gifts or bribes or occasionally the bait of a trap, but almost never as quests. Just keep that in mind.
quote:The Idea for a spell roll is if applied the way I want to apply it allowed for a certain Raistlin Effect where a spell caster with suitable high will power can overcome the spell resistences of higher spell casters etc.
But that's not what you get. Since the roll is randomized, a measure of innate willpower doesn't come into it at all. And Spell Resistance has nothing to do with the DC of the spell, or how difficult it is to resist. There is already a feat that increases the DCs of all spells from a given school, and another feat that increases those DCs further. There are also a number of feats designed to reduce or bypass enemy Spell Resistance. A Raistlin-like character in D&D3E would be assumed to have purchased those feats, not to be randomly determining his DCs.
quote:Say I cast Fire Ball thats a level 3 spell, and I have Intelligence say +5 so thats 3+5+1d20 + Possibly Will Save I don't think its that random and adds some idea of excitement, and theres a benefit now its not a foregone conclusion when fighting creatures with high SR.
You're confusing SR with saving throws. The DC of a spell has no effect on Spell Resistance, which is checked independently of the DC. Note that the existing DC of a spell is 10 + spell level + stat modifier, which means that a first-level spell cast by a wizard with an INT of 18 will have a DC of 15 (plus any feat modifiers, etc.) And a sixth-level spell cast by someone with a stat modifier of +4 would be DC 20. Note that the caster level is irrelevant here.
You'll also notice that replacing the flat +10 with a +d20 check introduces serious randomness, here. Given that most spells cast are in the 3-6 level range, and most casters have +3 to +6 to the relevant stat, you're actually introducing a random element that is as powerful as the non-random elements.
Spell Resistance, on the other hand, is checked against spell penetration, which IS d20 + caster level + feat modifiers. (In other words, overcoming spell resistance already does what you want, except that stat modifiers don't come into it).
Just have people take the appropriate feats to increase their Spell Penetration.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Don't use house rules until you know the original rules.
Seconded, underlined multiple times, and circled in red. On a related note, at this beginning stage, you shouldn't be dealing with characters who are anywhere near having spells like Wish. I've been there and done that... resist the lure of the cool high-powered stuff and just go with basic low-leveled adventures at the outset, lest you suddenly find yourself in a world in which everyone rules their own island kingdom. (Seriously, this happened in the campaign I first played in.)
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Blayne Bradley
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It is a ECL 5 campaign so no one would be using wish but perfectly possible that Dragons blood could be used to cast Fireball.
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Umm... Fireball doesn't have an XP component to cast. Unless you made it have one, which would completely and utterly screw over casters and/or just force them to use a different spell. Nobody would use fireball if it was unique in requiring some sort of extras to cast unless you revamp the entire casting system, which I don't think you want or are able to do well.
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Blayne Bradley
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I was trying to say that Powerful Spell compenents can be used for more then simply negating an experience cost, I'm thinking it can be used as an equivilent for an Empower/Maximize/Quicken/Still Metamagic feat.
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Blayne, I believe I understand what you're thinking of.
Such things already exist. For example, in the Eberron Campaign Setting book. Extra components that, when used, have effects on spells, like increasing their DC, or adding bonuses in other ways. I think one of them will increase the caster level, though that's quite an expensive one IIRC.
Take a look over there, though. It's what you're thinking of. Though most of them aren't quite so powerful as you're thinking of.
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Blayne Bradley
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What would the stats on a Gunblade (from like FF8) be?
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I do not believe anyone's brought out something quite like that. You could always check the archives of the WotC forums to see if some fan made one, but I'm not aware of where you would find such a thing.
Why do you want one is a better question.
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Blayne Bradley
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Because its useful? Being able to switch between a far range weapon to a close range weapon with ease?
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: What beats Fire Cold? Or Does Cold beat fire? If a Cone of Fire met a Cone of Cold of equal power what happens?
quote:Because its useful? Being able to switch between a far range weapon to a close range weapon with ease?
This is actually a fairly major advantage. I'd spec it out this way:
code:
Gunblade Two-handed Exotic weapon Damage: 1d6 19-20x2 ranged, single 1d6+2 19-20x3 ranged, dual-bore 1d8x2 melee Range increment: 50' The gunblade is a short-hafted, dual-bore polearm capable of firing one sling bullet out of each bore (either together or singly.) When used as a firearm, both barrels may be fired at a single target as one attack and resolved with a single roll with a +2 to-hit bonus and enhanced damage; otherwise, each barrel may be fired separately. Reloading each barrel of the gunblade is a complicated process that takes a standard action (not a movement action) and consumes gunpowder, padding, and a sling bullet. Use of the Quick Reload feat reduces this time to a movement action.
Shifting the gunblade into position for use as a melee weapon (or back to a ranged weapon) requires a free action.
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quote:What beats Fire Cold? Or Does Cold beat fire?
No. Some creatures and spell effects have special vulnerability to other effects, but those are always listed in the description. Do not invent vulnerabilities where not listed, because that will imbalance certain things.
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Anyone who played Final Fantasy VIII would know that, in fact, the gunblade, as shown, never, ever fired a projectile. It didn't do so in the battles, the special attacks for the character, or in the cut scenes. It simply wasn't one of the capabilities of the weapon.
So, while a gun that can also shoot a bullet is a good idea, the gunblade is not this weapon.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: That's what I meant, too. And that's already in the rules. I believe the creature has to be willing to answer the summons, however, unless you've got specific feats, and can demand favors of you (per Gate) in order to be willing. And if the creature dies and is not extraplanar, it's dead.
I think you're confusing Summon Monster with Planar Ally.
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No, I don't think so. There's actually a whole section on Summon Monster in one of the 3E books that goes into some length about how the caster can eventually form cute little relationships with the summoned creatures.
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There are a number of OGL materials on the topic, many available quite cheaply. I use my own house rules, though.
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Blayne: Why not start at level 1? Part of the joy of D&D is pulling your characters up by their bootstraps. Starting at lvl 5 is bypassing kobolds and goblins and orcs.
In my hubby's campaign, a "fumble" had to be confirmed with a 2nd D20 roll of 5 or less. Then he consulted a table (which I never saw) to decide if the weapon was dropped, broken, what have you. It wasn't tied to dex because that would have harmed the plate-fighters and helped the dex-fighters. (unbalancing)
Instant death on extra lucky crits will kill your players. I'm sure it'll be fun for the PCs when they get one on a monster, but it will be less fun when the monsters get one on the PCs. And the monsters generally get more tries.
If I were you, I'd keep it as simple as possible. There's a LOT of rules you need to know and you're going to be fumbling over them for a while. There is no reason to make it extra difficult.
Which ties back in to starting at level 1. Fewer powers means fewer interruptions to look up exactly what it does and when it does/doesn't work.
There is no hierarchy of elements. Fire doesn't beat cold or vice versa. If people on the same round cast fireball and cone of cold, you would roll the dice and assign damage. That's that. However, it should be noted that fewer mobs have resistance to Sonic than any other form of energy. "Energy Substitution: Sonic" is a feat worth taking.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: [CODE]Reloading each barrel of the gunblade is a complicated process that takes a standard action (not a movement action) and consumes gunpowder, padding, and a sling bullet. Use of the Quick Reload feat reduces this time to a movement action.
If the guns themselves did more damage, I'd probably change this to a full round action per barrel (I seriously doubt even a seasoned vet from the napoleonic wars could reload a musket in 3 seconds, even 6 seconds is pretty rediculous).
As it is, I'd say the reload time is fair, but I'd probably change it around a bit. I'd say each stage of the reloading process takes a single action (Powder, Wadding, Bullet, Ramming) or two full round actions to reload, but I'd ramp up the damage a lot (maybe borrow a massive damage rule). I'd also change the rule for the double-shot so that, on a successful attack roll, there's a 50% chance that one projectile will miss.
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I considered this, but the difficulty of determining whether the weapon is loaded at the start of a combat -- especially since it'd be so advantageous for that to be true -- argued against it, IMO. I mean, if you bump the damage up to something ridiculous, this item becomes something like a Sword of Massive Ranged Damage (usable once per encounter).
The double-shot effect is basically stolen from d20 Modern's Double Tap feat, with minor modification.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Blayne: Why not start at level 1? Part of the joy of D&D is pulling your characters up by their bootstraps. Starting at lvl 5 is bypassing kobolds and goblins and orcs.
In my hubby's campaign, a "fumble" had to be confirmed with a 2nd D20 roll of 5 or less. Then he consulted a table (which I never saw) to decide if the weapon was dropped, broken, what have you. It wasn't tied to dex because that would have harmed the plate-fighters and helped the dex-fighters. (unbalancing)
Instant death on extra lucky crits will kill your players. I'm sure it'll be fun for the PCs when they get one on a monster, but it will be less fun when the monsters get one on the PCs. And the monsters generally get more tries.
If I were you, I'd keep it as simple as possible. There's a LOT of rules you need to know and you're going to be fumbling over them for a while. There is no reason to make it extra difficult.
Which ties back in to starting at level 1. Fewer powers means fewer interruptions to look up exactly what it does and when it does/doesn't work.
There is no hierarchy of elements. Fire doesn't beat cold or vice versa. If people on the same round cast fireball and cone of cold, you would roll the dice and assign damage. That's that. However, it should be noted that fewer mobs have resistance to Sonic than any other form of energy. "Energy Substitution: Sonic" is a feat worth taking.
The advantage of level 5 is endurence, its easier to persist and keep doing encounters over a longer period at level 5 with roughly 30-60 hp and some 20 total spell slots then at level one where after essentially one "tough" encounter you need to rest.
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Blayne Bradley
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Also my friend who i depend on as my most reliable player stated he was tried or half starting campaigns where all they fight was half legged blind goblins.
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quote:The advantage of level 5 is endurence, its easier to persist and keep doing encounters over a longer period at level 5 with roughly 30-60 hp and some 20 total spell slots...
In all seriousness, by the way, you should try Fourth Edition. It is actually written specifically to address some of the things you've found wanting in Third Edition.
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Blayne, Tom's advice throughout this thread has been excellent, and accurate.
His recommendation of 4th Ed to you is no less so.
Seriously. Look into it.
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Blayne Bradley
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Woah woah woah, 4th Ed aside from Dragonborn as a core race is crazytalk. Mystra dead!? Magic everywhere the very fabric of the Weave itself unraveled? Insanity.
Also I'm poor and already invested in 2 Player's Handbooks, 1 DMG, 1 Monster Manual, Spell Compendium, Dragon magic, and Races of the Dragon and Elder Evils.
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1) You don't have to play in the Realms, you know. The Realms in 4E do indeed suck, but they suck only relative to the Realms of any other edition -- which also sucked. So it's like saying "I can't eat this! You've got some kind of icky-looking beet paste all over my moldy biscuit!"
2) I am genuinely astonished to learn that you have actually paid for any of those books and would not consider playing 4E until you could afford to purchase those books. That seriously rocks my understanding of your personal economic policy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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To be honest I "do" have the Pdf's of the other 30 or so misc source books like "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" but I use so little information in there that aside from having them for the sake of having them they're not worth it. Reason #2 is that they're not available at my local Chapters Anymore, I had to order the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Realms 3.5 was fun, in book form anyways, and Dragonlance isn't 4 ED yet. I know next to nothing about any setting outside of FR and DL, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Something or Other I know nothing.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: But I agree with you that it's better to slog through a game with an inexperienced DM than to not play at all.
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