It's like your core book, but better!
Dungeon Master’s Guide
Core Rulebook II v3.5
Special Edition October 2005
Written by Monte Cook, revised by David Noonan and Rich Redman
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN: 13:978-0-7869-3942-8
320 full color pages
$74.95
The Dungeon Master’s Guide receives the deluxe treatment with a black leather cover and silver lettering. The center of the front cover has a world with the words, dungeon master’s guide surrounding it. The D&D logo and the core rulebook statement are both done in silver. The back cover has the world in the same position, The cover has some leatherwork done on it and looks very attractive on the shelf. The end pages are done up in silver as well.
About the only negative thing in terms of format, is that the pages were a little sticky when first opening it. I don’t know if that’s a process of making the outer edges silver or if it’s just my book though. The pages didn’t rip during my reading of the book, and after separation, the stickiness didn’t seem a problem anymore. It even has a little cloth bookmarker for those who want to read while they’re getting read to go to bed.
This is a collector’s item. The fact that it has the errata incorporated into it is not a signal from WoTC that you need to buy this to get the errata, as the errata is available online and if you’re reading this, you probably already have that. In addition, new printings of the DMG will have that errata incorporated into them just as the Player’s Handbook did. One of the burning questions I see asked is does it have that one little line that notes that PrCs do not count against experience points earned? And the answer to that, is yes!
The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a lot of tools and toys for a new GM and even some things that an experienced GM can use. For example, there are details on how to set up an adventure, focusing on the two traditional types: site-based (can we say dungeon crawling) and event-based adventurers. Numerous sample traps are included, as well as information on the dangers of adventuring in the wilderness, such as getting lost.
Some of my favorite non-standard rules include the standard point buy on page 169. By using point buy; an experienced GM can decide right away what type of campaign he wants to run. For example, you can have a dangerous and challenging campaign at 22 points, or run a high-powered campaign using 32 points. In this variant, all stats start at eight and points up to 14 or lower cost on a 1-for-1 basis with the points going up a bit more as the stat goes higher. For example, an eighteen costs sixteen points.
For those new to the art of running a game, or new to the concept of PrCs, the DMG provides a nice selection of classes that are specialized, such as the arcane trickster, a arcane spellcaster who has some sneak attack ability, to the archetype of warrior-mage in the eldritch knight, a spellcaster who has a fighter’s base attack bonus and gains spells almost every level as if he were still an arcane spell caster.
Despite being called the DMG, there is some stuff in here for players as well. For example, if you’re a wizard and want something different than the familiars in the Player’s Handbook, the feat Improved Familiar allows you to have a different familiar as long as you meet the alignment and level requirements. For example, what neutral good spellcaster doesn’t want a pseudodragon and what evil spellcaster doesn’t want that outsider servant in the form of an imp or quasit?
And what happens when your character hits that magic level 21? Well, he becomes an epic character. The rules for a character gaining these lofty levels are included here with sample charts going up to 30th level in terms of attack and save bonuses, and experience point coast with feats, and ability score increases noted as well as skill max ranks for both class and cross-class skills.
Of course one of the biggest things that players will want to look through this book, is the section on magic items. The DM gets some advice on how to use magic items as treasure, how to describe what they look like, methods of identification, and what size these magic items are, based on a random roll for armor and weapon sizes. Looking through the massive selection of goods here, I notice that there is room for improvement. For example, spell casters can take feats to craft magic items.
Why not make the player’s job easier by putting next to the market price the caster cost in gold and experience points or at least do it for every item in the book? It’s there for some items, like the good old Frost Brand, but others that have a price equaling a bonus for example, just refer back to the table, which has market costs but not player costs. To be honest, I wouldn’t even mind seeing a breakdown of items by level that the caster can create them. It would certainly make taking the item creation feats easier if you know what you could make at what level.
While that information is found latter on, in the section on creation magic items, it’s not quite as nice as having it all in one spot in the first place. Why should a user have to flip to page 287 to look over scroll and wand base costs as opposed to having an extra field in the table?
While there are some nice tools for a GM here, in the form of spell templates, given that this is a special edition, I think that one extra thing that could’ve been done, was instead of the character sheets, which are useful, but have their own product line, is to have all those templates as a separate pack. I know for certain that I could not subject this book to the rigors of photocopying. The templates include cones, examples of space and reach, numerous counters for doors, statue, chairs, magic circles, rocks, treasure, dead bodies, coffins, columns, and other stuff that to be completely honest about, I’ve forgotten existed.
Unlike many of the newer WoTC books, this one has a length index of four pages. It could use a little work. For example, say I wanted to get that page number for point buy. Well, it’s not under point buy. It’s not under character creation. Instead, it’s under ability score generation. A good place for it, but it could’ve been listed a few ways in my opinion.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide really is a core book and it’s utility cannot be underestimated. Often times it’s good to give it a read through just to see if there’s something in there that you might want to incorporate into your game that you’d forgotten about, such as the tiles. Other times, you might be surprised by what’s hidden in here such as the bare bones of a ranger variant that’s an undead hunter, or an example of customizing a class to make the witch as a class.
Wither it’s looking for adventure on the planes, advancing to epic levels, or reading about core prestige classes like the duelist, the Dungeon Master’s Guide is a solid addition to anyone playing 3.5.
