Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook Review

 

The Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook is considered to be old school gaming right now.  I remember when Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition burst on the scene back in 2000 (almost twenty three years ago).  It was a revolutionary phenomenon.  It was designed by a luminary cast of designers, one of them was Johnathan Tweet.  I bought all three books, knowing that I can get the kind of character I wanted.  I was really excited then and I'm still excited now (through the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, which I'll review at a later date).

What was cool about 3.5 is that it offered players customization of their characters beyond the scope of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition.  Put out by Wizards of the Coast, the company also put out a system reference document and opened the system under the OGL.  It was a revolutionary move in the history of Gaming.  Finally, people can produce their own derivative work for D&D through the OGL.  This caused many works to be made, like the Crucible of Freya from Necromancer Games (which I shall review later on).

This is the 3.5 book, that came out later.  I bought a pdf of the book, and I expect to get hard copies from Drivethru soon.  The book is divided into eleven chapters, all which describe the game in detail.  The first thing you see in the book is a description of the Character Creation process.  You start with abilities, select a race (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half elf, half orc).  Then you select a class, choose your skills (according to each class), and then select your feats.  Humans start with two starter feats and more skill points.  Finally an alignment is selected and equipment is bought and paid for.

Then, with your character created, you can start play.  Although it doesn't get heavily into Roleplaying, there is a chapter on combat -- which includes miniature combat (or combat using miniatures).  Combat is resolved through rounds, after every player (combatant) takes a turn, the combat goes on to another sequence of rounds called a Turn.  Each weapon or spell used does a certain amount of damage.

After that, magic is discussed.  Although the making of magic items is discussed in the Dungeon Master Guide (3.5).  Another book which I will also review. 🔍  There is a large number of spells you can choose from to cast: as a caster.  The magic system is still the Vancian system in D&D, something that is improved upon with Guardians of Order's Advanced d20 Magic.

Hits and Misses

The system is dated, but it's tried and true.  This becomes apparent with Pathfinder, which I will also review shortly.  It's a good system, one that you can invest in.  Also, if you like character customization, then this is the game for you.  If you prefer one of the later games, that's good too.  There are other games you can try that's also out on the market.  Also, not everything in D&D 3.5 is open game content.  So you can't create derivatives on most of the items that Wizards had put out for D&D.  This was because Wizards owned the OGL.  Something the Open RPG Creative license aims to rectify.