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TheEmerged
Jul 9th, '03, 02:06 PM
Linkage! (http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=987135)

Information that was news to me:

Effects which increase the threat range no longer stack. For example, a scimitar has a threat range of 17-20 (4). If the user has Improved Critical, or the scimitar in question is Keen, this doubles to 13-20 (8). Before, if both were true this increased again to 9-20 (12) -- meaning almost any hit was in the threat range. Under 3.5 Keen and Improved Critical would be either-or -- so 13-20 at best.
Rangers and monks now have their virtual feats as part of "trait trees", ala d20 Modern.
Sorcerors and Bards now have a limited ability to "buyback" their spells known -- mitigating the power redundency problems these classes face. For sorcerors it works like this: at 4th level, and every even level thereafter, the sorceror can "trade" a single spell known for a new spell -- provided that spell is no higher than 2 levels below the highest level spell the sorceror knows (which of course means the "buybacks" at 4th level will be useless, so I figure the document is missing something here). For bards it starts at 5th and every 3rd level thereafter.
Spell school specialization now has the +2 Spellcraft it should have always had. However, every specialization except Divinination now loses 2 schools if they take this option.
"Most spell schools have been strengthened."
Metamagic feats no longer self-stack -- they can however still stack with other metamagic feats.
Toughness was conspicuous by its absence on the list of changes (apparently it's still going to be a non-scaling +3 HP).
Augment Summoning has been given a stricter prereq, and gives a flat +4 STR and +4 CON instead of its more obtuse earlier pattern.
Tanglefoot bag DC now 17 instead of 27.
Hold spells now allow a save every round.
The Summon spells now have a much-expanded list of what can be summoned.


This of course in addition to a number of things we already knew...

misterdeath
Jul 9th, '03, 03:36 PM
Most of these are gleaned from the WotC boards. They had a thread that Andy Collins was posting on. I already waded through it, and can clarify a couple of things (that way you don't have to)

Oh, yeah, someone sent me a copy of the Conversion Guide. It's available in Europe, you know. ;)

Monks get Imp Grapple or Stunning fist at 1st, Combat Reflexes or Deflect Arrows (which no longer has a roll associated with it) at 2nd, and Imp Disarm or Imp Trip at 6th. If you pick Imp Grapple, say, you can't go back and pick Stunning Fist with your second level.

Sorcerers and Bards can trade in one level lower, not two. So, at 4th level, the Sorc gets new spells of 2nd level, and can trade a 0 or 1st level spell. At 6th he can swap 2nd, etc.

Paladins get extra smiting (5x day at 20th, but a lot of their other abilities are postponed later). "calling" a warhorse is now a form of 1 hr/level summoning, not actually getting a horse. It's a celestial critter, though.

Divination can't be one of the schools you ditch to get a specialization. Conjecture: They folded Detect Magic and Read Magic back into Divination, and mostly did away with the Universal School.

Oh, yeah, they clarified that Int boosting Items don't give skill points. At all.

And, they thought Skill Boost items are too inexpensive, so they made the cost Level^2*100 instead of Level^2*20. They rebalanced the items to have nearly the same cost. Boots of Elvenkind are a +5 bonus (instead of +10) and cost 2500.

I don't know what else you've heard, so I don't know what else to say.

D

tkdguy
Jul 9th, '03, 11:05 PM
I don't plan on buying 3.5 stuff myself. It took me a while to switch to 3E in the first place, and I still prefer 2E.

I think either version I have works fine by me. Then again, I didn't play 3E extensively, so I had no complaints about it in the first place.

CrosshairCollie
Jul 13th, '03, 09:18 PM
The math is slightly off on the scimitar, but the theory applies, yeah. Scimitars are 18-20 base crit. The biggest crit range I'm aware of, that's legal, is 10-20 (Scimitar, Keen, Improved Critical, Weapons Master class feature), though that's only 3.0. The no ImpCrit/Keen stacking may be the big thing in 3.5 I don't use.

Toadmaster
Jul 14th, '03, 12:04 AM
Not really into d20, but since I have bought a fair number of products, do you happen to know what if any changes the 3.5 update will have (if any) on the stand alone d20 products such as CoC, Spycraft, d20 Modern etc?

misterdeath
Jul 14th, '03, 04:54 AM
AFAIK, not much. A lot of the Modern changes to feats are being incorporated into 3.5.

I think the Modern stuff is pretty much stand alone. I haven't heard anything about revisions.

D

tkdguy
Jul 14th, '03, 01:20 PM
I was 5 seconds away from buying d20 Modern at one point. The I remembered I already had FREd, so I decided d20 Modern would be redundant in terms of playing a modern setting.

JohnathanChance
Jul 14th, '03, 02:00 PM
Originally posted by CrosshairCollie
The math is slightly off on the scimitar, but the theory applies, yeah. Scimitars are 18-20 base crit. The biggest crit range I'm aware of, that's legal, is 10-20 (Scimitar, Keen, Improved Critical, Weapons Master class feature), though that's only 3.0. The no ImpCrit/Keen stacking may be the big thing in 3.5 I don't use.

Actually the weapon with the largest crit range that I recall is the Rapier with a 17-20 base crit.

Pteryx
Jul 19th, '03, 09:12 AM
Originally posted by JohnathanChance
Actually the weapon with the largest crit range that I recall is the Rapier with a 17-20 base crit.

Nope, that's 18-20 too. There was a weapon with a 17-20 crit range in Sword & Fist (bladed gauntlet), but they errataed it into 19-20 -- suddenly making it weaker than other exotic weapons.

One thing that looks nice about HERO is that it looks like there's not nearly so much keeping up with errata. -- Pteryx

misterdeath
Jul 22nd, '03, 07:56 AM
It's available, at least to some degree http://www.wizards.com/D20/article.asp?x=srd35

Beware the All-in-one download. It's not updated. The grouped SRD is updated, however. Use those.

D