Dungeons & Dragons Manual Del Jugador V 3.5 by Jonathan Tweet

Dungeons & Dragons Manual Del Jugador V 3.5 Reviews

• 
  Juho Pohjalainen

  This was the game that got me into the hobby of roleplaying to begin with, and I played it for several years with people I now consider my best friends, and in retrospect I have to say... by god what a mess.
  
  The system breaks apart all over itself in a hundred different ways without you really even trying to do anything wrong, and the adventures are still some of the worst and most poorly-designed in the history of the hobby. You have so much to read through, so many contradictory rules to memorize, so much devotion needed to character building and optimization in order to remain competent (especially if you're not a caster), and a great deal of work you need to put into it to get it running the way you like - far, far more work than would be worth your while.
  
  The uncountable number of player options and prestige classes and spells can inspire, sometimes, but I'd rather take that inspiration and apply it on another game. If I ever had any fun with it - and for the sake of fairness, I did - it was only because at the time I didn't know of anything better.
• 
  David Sarkies

  A much better edition
  27 March 2013
  
  Isn't it funny that when you go to comment on a book you suddenly discover at least two other books that you have also read (or at least I do) which means that since I write a commentary on every book that I have read, it means that there are more books that I have to review. Anyway, I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Frankfurt waiting for my train to Amsterdam to leave, and since it is incredibly cold outside (and that I have already wondered around the city yesterday) I thought that I might say a few words on this particular book (but then I was going to do that anyway).
  
  This version of Dungeons and Dragons is probably my favourite version of the game, though I have heard arguments in favour of 4th edition. I personally have never looked at 4th edition, particularly since some of the elements from this version that I really liked were dropped. However, from what I have heard they have made 4th edition much easier, and I must agree that the complexity with Dungeons and Dragons is quite high. Further, the earlier versions were quite clunky, but then you pretty much need to be a computer (which technically we are) to be able to run the game.
  
  I loved the introduction of the feats, a more effective skill system, and also the ability to customise your character. They also created an open gaming license (probably in response to their attempts to copyright aspects of the game so that the users of the product were forced to buy things rather than make things up themselves). Also with the introduction of 3rd Edition, the accompanying magazines (Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine) became a lot more glossier. Much of the game was standardised an ended up running a lot better.
  
  The problem with roleplaying games though is that it is incredibly difficult to attempt to make the games realistic. The more realistic the game becomes, the more complex the rules become, which means that game becomes more difficult and much slower to run, and the adventures much more time consuming to prepare (I prefer to create my own rather than use store bought modules – especially considering their price). Therefore one has to sacrifice some reality merely for play value. However, since it is a game, one does not need to be realistic in the way that the rules run, and I have seen some incredibly simplistic games in my time. However, as mentioned, the simpler the rules become, the less realistic the game becomes, and the less complex the characters become. In fact, simplified rules tend to create characters that the only difference is the way the players run them.
• 
  Christopher

  I know lots of people say that 4rth is the low point of DnD. Well, its pretty low on my list but no, it has to be 3rd. What an absolute mess. If your idea of fun is to have to consult overly elaborate and self-contradictory rules for half the play session...you have a dogshit play session.
  
  'Oh but they fixed it in 3.5!' I hear you say.
  
  Yeah, two years after you invested in this mess you had to go out and invest in that one? No thanks. I didnt. Also, they didnt all that much. Sure, it was better than this. But it still had most of the core problems.
• 
  Leon

  Rated a three because it gave a much needed boost to our group but given a choice I'd have stuck with 2nd or preferably moved on to a different game altogether.
• 
  Melanie

  A very important guide for seekers on the path to enlightenment
• 
  Ian James

  this overall was a great revitlization to classic RPG. I really wish WOTC would have stuck with this system and the OGL but such is life hasbro wants to make money.
• 
  Matt

  Single unit wargamming is not role playing.
• 
  Hippocleides

  An improvement over some of the smaller issues that 3.0 had, but still suffers from the endemic problems D&D has.
• 
  Brian Garthoff

  Maybe a little dated by modern standards but I can still pick it up, use it to roll a character and enjoy every minute. Even if 5E blows it out of the water, this was the key to another universe in my early teens.
• 
  Lachlan Hamilton

  I was raised on Third Edition and have fond memories of it - the character art remains emblazoned in my mind. In fairness I was young and more interested in the results than the rules, so we played pretty fast and loose.
  
  Pour one out for Use Rope.
• 
  Mark Austin

  I grew up playing board games against myself. My sister wasn't much into them and whatever friends I managed to scrap together for a year or two before we moved again were either disinterested from the get-go or quickly became disinterested as I beat them mercilessly at whatever we played.
  
  I also grew up in a world of imagination which almost universally drifted to war. I'm not sure why, but my games, movies, books, shows, and idle imaginings only seem to have real staying power if they are somehow associated with combat. One of my earliest memories is drawing viking ships battling on the ocean... and so it went from there.
  
  When I encountered my eventual group of best friends in 7th grade (many of whom I still talk to regularly), they were clustered on a table in the cafeteria playing something with sheets of paper, pencils, dice, and a set of weirdly-sized books. I drifted over, watched for a few minutes, and became instantly hooked.
  
  I only got to play my elven druid with his scimitar and panther a few times before their existing game master moved and the game ended, but endless class periods passed remembering every item of gear, every chunk of quantified capability that the numbers on my crumpled character sheet represented.
  
  Despite being new to the group, within months I was the new game master, spinning worlds, races, gods, ages, and cultures out of nothingness. We played straight up through high school graduation gathering in my friend's garage attic after school every night and sometimes 12-16 hour long weekend sessions. How I did it without burning out I don't know, but I do know it for the first time let others into the private universes I'd constructed, gave me something to look forward to, a group to be myself with, and a place of refuge both physically and mentally.
  
  Middle school was miserable. The trailers we bounced between were places of endless chore lists, terrible food, random hours-long barely-coherent suicidal rambles from an older brother out of his mind on who knows what. Our mom, when she was there, we hoped would take off on one of her regular days-long absences since when she was there it was either panicked, shouted orders to fix the latest crisis or the house filling with drunken bar dregs that'd be invited over to keep partying when the bar closed Friday night and that would sometimes linger until Monday came and swept the last of them away.
  
  D&D was an escape hatch to an alternate reality where such concerns were irrelevant and, for a time, I could forget the misery and uncertainty of my home life, to practice being someone more powerful, resourceful, and strong than I felt.
  
  The actual rules had some issues, especially compared to more modern rule systems, but that's like saying the pioneers' covered wagons were inefficient compared to modern moving trucks - it's true, but without the former to explore the terrain and settle the unknown the latter would likely not come into existence.
  
  Roleplaying games remain an important part of my life even if my playing time has vastly dwindled. The problem solving and social skills, the lessons on story structure, flow, pacing, and engagement, the friendships that remain to this day, all products of that time spent around a table or sprawled across an attic or living room.
• 
  ik.ben.henri

  Read diagonally through this book. Searching for differences with Pathfinder and DnD 5e.
  I've also played the old Neverwinter Nights game, which was awesome back in the time. That game used the 3.0 rules, since it was release before 3.5. I've finished that game without ever reading this book, but because of playing that game and already having knowledge of Pathfinder I mostly knew already what was in this book.
  
  To be honest, this book is ugly. It has a typical naughties graphical style. Sometimes I love these kind of styles because of nostalgia but this book is ugly. The game itself I prefer over Pathfinder. The problems I have with Pathfinder is that it expands on these rules. It added and changed some things. But this game was perfectly fine to begin with.
  
  For example: D&D 3.5 has one page table filled with all the feats. Which is in my opion perfectly fine. While Pathfinder has 3 pages filled with feats. Overkill, especially for people who are not into the technical side of the game but just want to role-play.
  
  The skills are also different, with old school skills like: gather information, spot, listen, sense motive. These don't exist anymore in 5th edition. Since they now encourage to do these things by role playing instead of rolling dice. :)
  
  The special combat moves are in typical d&d style. And this is one of the few things I prefer in Pathfinder. Pathfinder has Combat Maneuvers which are calculated by your CMD and CMB. Which was a specific number. If you wanted to grapple somebody it's an d20 + CMB against the CMD of the defender. It's some kind of special AC.
  
  The races, cultures, classes are typical D&D stuff I've read over and over before. And it's the typical stuff you expect from a Fantasy game.
  
  Overall this game is awesome and it's a very important RPG being the foundation for many computer games and other role-playing games.
• 
  James

  This was an astounding, phenomenal change to the game. It was really wonderful for its time, and led to one of the longest and most enjoyable campaigns I ever ran.
• 
  Brian Wilkerson

  I bought this some time ago for research purposes and I finished reading it last year. Since then, I have also read "Complete Divine" and I'm in the process of reading "Heroes of Battle". For a world-building nut like myself, this stuff is like a triple chocolate sundae with sprinkles for my mind. It's not a novel so I'm not going to use my usual grading scale.
  
  Note: I read on Tvtropes that different versions of the game have their own divided fanbases just like different volumes of a novel series. This is the only version I've read about so I don't have anything to compare it to.
  
  There's lots of stuff here that I recognize without reading it before. Talking Is A Free Action, for instance, is a trope on Tvtropes. The idea of quests for treasure and such is much older than D&D, of course, but I see here the modern template.
  
  　
  Then there's influence I see in video games. I know that turn based combat in video games came from board games like this but now I see that "successful attack role" meant that out of a series of attacks, one or more or them was successful. The in-universe combat does not stop. Also, I see that consoles in video games do the dice-rolling calculations that players do. A D&D board game is like a video game without the restrictions (assuming a sufficiently flexible/skilled/adaptable DM, of course).
  
  I quickly saw how useful this could be for creating characters in a novel. Everything one needs for player building can be repurposed for character creation: background, abilities, religion, language, naming conventions, motivations, culture, behavior etc. This is the foundation for making a character more a collection of facts just as it is for making a character more than a collection of stats.
  
  There were a few typos here and there but those are inevitable in something this long. I count about a dozen across three hundred pages.
  
  Trickster Eric Novels gives "Dungeons and Dragons Player's Manual 3.5" a +
• 
  Luke

  A monumental rewrite of Dungeons & Dragons. One of the best, as you well know, if you're looking up an edition that's not the current one. For my money, it's still my favourite edition of D&D, in spite of the beautiful simplicity of 5th Edition. Honestly, the "completeness" of 3.5, with its huge array of expansions and adventures, makes it a magnificent collection, and the Player's Handbook (PHB) is where it all starts.
  
  At the time it came out, there was valid criticism that a "3 and a halfth edition" was a bit of a cash-grab following the release of 3rd. That might've been the case. But this edition is a sharpening and improvement of 3.0, and has errata'd some of the most frustrating flaws of the reboot. If you are just getting into D&D at this point, there's no point in touching 3.0 when you can go straight to this slicker, more polished version: 3rd edition as it should've been from the beginning, not as they initially rushed it to press.
• 
  Priscilla

  O manual de um jogo que é facilmente um livro de aventura em si.
  
  Qualquer que seja naturalmente curioso em relação ao universo fantástico deveria dar uma olhada nesse livro, mesmo que não planeje jogar... coisa meio difícil porque o sistema de aventura e batalha empolga rapidamente.
  
  O livro é bonito e cheio de ilustrações que ajudam com as descrições, já que jogadores novatos podem ter real dificuldade tentando entender o que é uma alabarda e qual a diferença entre um Anão e um Halfling (Você quer dizer hobbit? Não, pra todos os fins e efeitos: halfling).
  
  Essa edição apresenta alguns problemas como o tamanho da letra e espaçamento e algumas outras falhas de revisão; mas como jogo é uma melhoria do antigo sistema. Se você não conhecia antes, não se preocupe - não vai sentir falta.
• 
  Tamara! aka AmyG.Dala

  In my area, gaming geeks prefer this version, though they do have certain parts of other versions they prefer. Me, as I am new to D&D, pulled a sheeple and am following along with those who know, and am learning as we go, taking their advice on game-play while we laugh and enjoy getting or being slaughtered by some nasty something or other.
  
  For now, I'm quite content with the content...sorry, couldn't resist. Very graphic, lots of details, fun to peruse for new character building. We usually do our own story-line, so don't really use those parts of the book much but as a N00B, it's been a nice to have my own guide to learn with.
  
  And my dice are bomb-diggity ;p
• 
  Francisco Becerra

  This was the first great major overhaul to D&D game system since its beginnings, and it was a total blast. the d20 mechanic was really a stroke of genius, and simplified a lot the gaming; as did the unified level progression and streamlining of saving throws. However, tons of skills and feats added a lot to the players, but made character creation and advancement messy. Graphically, the game orientated more and more to high fantasy, very video game-style, and personally it was a let down: I have always preferred a more fantastic medieval look and feel. Overall, a must have. This book begun a whole new era for D&D.
• 
  Horrorsage

  Good evening and welcome fellow Children of Chaos.
  
  This was the quickest read I've had. So I started playing 3.0 in like '02, '03 something like that and played OGL shit up until. Well my friend just started a PRPG 1E game so today?
  
  Going through I'm just like "I remember this, I remember this."
  
  I did forget about the absolutely stupid cross class favored class rules. What a dumb idea.
  
  This game is a stupid, poorly designed, unbalanced mess. But it's my messz
• 
  Joshua Neil

  This is obviously a necessity for learning D&D, v 3.5. That said, the book, while ENORMOUS, is hugely useful and informative, with really handy examples for every rule that might be a little complex to explain, which helps you understand what's going on. It's in-depth, intuitive and easy to use.
• 
  Patrick

  Not really sure when I read 3rd and 3.5 but they were decent. I won't even review 4th edition... I heard about it, then borrowed the books from a friend who had played it, read it and was appalled at the fact it was basically no longer D&D.
• 
  Liz

  Someone decided that THAC0 was nonsense and the game needed 50 small books, so they made 3.5. It's probably the best edition and my goodness you can feat your character up to your hearts content. That said, this edition is a min max nightmare for DMs.
• 
  Panczito

  Już w czasach w których wychodził miałem wiele zastrzeżeń np. szaty graficznej. Dużo mechanik, bardzo dużo rzeczy totalnie zbędnych, masa klas postaci i kombinacji. Mimo to w tamtych czasach dostarczało wiele radochy hehe
• 
  Nikola

  :D
• 
  Will Boncher

  Have read it a few times now, but recently again for the campaign I'm DM'ing right now.
• 
  Samir Rawas Sarayji

  Could have been better designed for ease of use. Still a great game to play and enjoy.
• 
  Eric Babcock

  I took this off the shelf recently and man was it a trip down memory lane. I love 5E but will never forget this setup.
• 
  Ash Keyes

  It's been years!!! But I do remember 3.5 fondly. Although I'm having a blast with 5e