babomb
First Post
<b>Release Date</b>:
Shooting for mid-month (14-17th)
<hr />
<b>On Psionics</b>:
Ed: "All we can talk about is what's in the current catalog. I will say that we are taking psionics more into account in future product."
<hr />
<b>Bard Spell Changes</b>:
Andy: "The bard picked up a lot of spells that improve his proficiency with charms, illusions, and general trickery. Some were brand new spells, others were spells from other classes, and others were picked up from other sources. Examples of spells new to the bard list include deep slumber (a more powerful sleep spell), fox's cunning (Int-booster), and greater shout."
<hr />
<b>Cleric Changes</b>:
"We tweaked a couple of domain abilities...but I can't think of much of anything that needed work. Anything else would be minor."
<hr />
<b>Wizard Specialization</b>:
"Specialization will require giving up 2 schools (except diviners, who give up only one). You can't give up Divination. That seems harsh, but it makes much more sense when you see how much help many of the schools of magic have received and how a couple of schools have been ratcheted down a bit. Necromancers, for instance, have picked up a bunch of cool new spells, making necromancy a much better specialization than before."
<hr />
<b>Feat Changes</b>:
Andy: "We really didn't rework many feats. For the most part, the feats in 3.0 were pretty darn solid. There were a few places where some feats got beefed up (Power Attack; Weapon Finesse applies to all light weapons, etc.) and a few where feats that were too potent got ratcheted down (Spell Focus is only +1, but Greater SF is now in the PH, which stacks another +1 on top). But by and large, the feats your characters have will do what you expect them to do."
<hr />
<b>On the toad familiar</b>:
Andy: "I'd say it went from Insanely Too Good to Roughly As Good As The Others. I can't believe that most wizards pick their familiars based on their attacks and +2 Con was simply way too good an ability to be handing out for a mere 100 gp. Now, each familiar's granted ability replicates the effect of a feat, hence the +3 hp for the toad. As someone who's played a sorcerer from 1st level, I'll go on record saying that +3 hp at low levels is really handy."
<hr />
<b>Weapon Familiarity</b>:
"Humans gain no weapon familiarity, and neither do the half-races. Gnomes get hooked hammer as a martial weapon, but it's still a double weapon so not every gnome'll be walking around with it. Dwarves gain dwarven waraxe and dwarven urgrosh. Elves still get longsword, rapier, shortbow, and longbow as free proficiencies, to show that it's OK to have two mechanics that accomplish similar tactics in different ways. Nothing for halflings, though they still get their bonus with thrown weapons and slings.
Orcs get orcish double axe."
<hr />
<b>Paladin Changes</b>:
"The paladin got some boosts; some subtle and some overt. An extra smite every 5th level (2 at 5th, 3 at 10th, etc.) and the new paladin warhorse (summon once per day for 2 hrs per paladin level, so no more dragging it down the stairs to the dungeon to have it when you need it) and of course a few new spells on the list (lesser restoration at 1st, bull's strength at 2nd, remove curse at 3rd, and restoration at 4th, to name a few) add up to a tougher paladin at just about every level."
<hr />
<b>Use Magic Device</b>:
Andy: "I advise adding UMD [to the sorceror's class skills] as a house rule for all DMs with sorcerers."
<hr />
<B>On polymorph granting extraordinary attacks, but not qualities</b>:
Andy: "That's correct. There are simply too many game-breaking special qualities held by even simple monsters (plants and animals) to give those out to any druid with wild shape. That tells me that there are some great feats waiting to be written, granting one or more special qualities to characters who wild shape or polymorph into the appropriate forms."
<hr />
<b>Square spaces</b>:
Andy: "All creatures now have a square space on the battle grid. "Space" in this case refers to the creature's fighting space--the area it needs in battle to fight properly. Horses and other large creatures will take up a 10x10 space, mimicking the fact that they wheel around in a fight, rather than standing in a rectangle. The PH will include rules for big creatures to fit into smaller spaces, so that 15x15 cloud giant can still pursue you down the 10-ft. corridor. : )"
<hr />
<b>New tools in the books</b>:
Andy: "Simply standardizing a lot of effects is a powerful tool--it makes the game easier to run because you don't have to remember as many tiny little variables. Just like 3.0 standardized a lot of ranges (Personal, Close, Medium, Long), we standardized a lot of areas, making the spell effect templates possible and useful. The magic item construction guidelines are also more robust than ever (though still as much art as science). Magic item descriptions include strength of magic and school of effect, making detect magic much easier to adjudicate on the fly."
Ed: "The MM has a lot of tools for creating new monsters, advancing monsters, and using monsters as player characters and cohorts. We reviewed ..each monster, for example, and if we thought there was a good chance it might be used as a PC, we gave it a level adjustment. If it was a monster that someone would like as a cohort, we gave it an LA (cohort) notation. We also included read aloud text describing every ..monster so that you don't have to wing it whenever you introduce a new monster."
<hr />
<b>On deciding CRs for home-brew monsters</b>:
Ed: "There's a section on setting target challenge ratings for new monsters and material on how to consider CRs for advanced monsters. We talk about how to playtest a CR and we also talk about how adding a class level to your monster affects its CR. This is more detailed than we've published before but, remember, setting CRs isn't a complete formula; you have to playtest and use your judgement"
Andy: "As always, it's a combination of numbers and judgment. The game's not cut-and-dried enough for a simple system to cover all the variables."
<hr />
<b>On the new Flurry of Blows</b>:
Andy: "We found that it was too frustrating for monks in melee combat. When they got to flurry, they simply never hit anything thanks to a lower BAB than the fighters and the -2 penalty. We made it better by reducing the penalty from -2 to -1 at 5th, and to -0 at 9th. Also, the monk gains an extra flurry attack at -5 from BAB at 11th level. The fact that flurry isn't a separate BAB category means it'll stack with other classes' BAB, which makes it easier to use in game. The monk also only has one BAB line, just like everybody else. The monk can now "keep up" much better with other melee characters, though she's still not the equal of the ftr or bbn but that's OK, since she has plenty of other shticks that they don't."
<hr />
<B>About the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion guide</b>:
Andy: "For the core books, it's mostly nomenclatural (is that a word?) in its approach--showing you where names have changed or where things have gone away or been folded into other elements."For the other books covered in the guide (DDG, ELH, MotP, MM2, FF) the guide goes into a bit more detail, but it's hardly a "revision" of those books. Overall, the booklet's about 30-something pages of pretty dense text, designed to help DMs adapt their games from 3.0 to 3.5. Most savvy DMs may well not even need the booklet, as most of the material is common-sense types of changes."
Ed: "Mostly, there's about 36 pages of direct application and insight in the booklet. Much of the advice will be comparative in nature, but we aren't shy about saying why you do something. That makes extrapolating for other material fairly easy. "
<hr />
<b>Why base Wild Shape on Polymorph?</b>
Andy: "Because there's something to be said about making similar effects work in the same way. In this case, wild shape and polymorph can work in very much the same way (though not identically, mind you), which saves the DMs and players from having to...remember variant rules for similar effects. The two effects are complicated enough that it's well worth making them similar in effect. And the druid's is better--it lasts longer."
<hr />
<b>Monster Types and sub-types</b>:
Andy: "Those definitions get better with the new revision. We've reduced the number of types to maintain stronger difference between them. No more Beast (move to Animal or Magical Beast), no more Shapechanger (now a subtype). More subtypes, and clearer use of subtypes (Reptilian is a subtype for Humanoids only and we've added the Extraplanar subtype to clarify which creatures are treated as "foreign" to the plane you're on)."
<hr />
<B>How much of the material is brand new?</b>
Ed: "Well, we added 32 pages to the PH, 64 to the DMG, and 96 to the MM. Much of that is clarification and inclusion from other sources, but some of it is brand new geez, I'm not sure I could put a tag on it, either. I think of the three books, the MM has the most "new" material, the DMG has the second most, and the PH has the least completely new material but a lot of revision. The PH still looks like the PH. The DMG and MM have more noticeable changes, but they did get more proportionally large."
Andy: "The DMG has the most "new" material, in that it's the book that was most heavily reorganized."
<hr />
<b>Epic Support</b>:
Andy: "...there is some significant epic support in the DMG, taken from ELH."
<hr />
<b>Round-by-round tactics for monsters</b>:
Ed: "I wrote a few myself. We didn't do it for every monster, of course--only the ones we thought it was most important for. Sometimes, that meant the more complicated monsters, like demons and devils; sometimes it meant for "simple" monsters who could get more interesting."
<hr />
<b>Buff spells' reduced duration</b>:
Andy: "I think they were way too overused at 1 hr/level, to the point where they crowded out not only other 2nd-level spells, but also the stat-boosting items. When we see no-brainers like that, we tend to target them, because a lack of interesting choices is bad for the game. As a DM, I was tired of the players taking a half-hour before every dungeon to argue over who got what stat-boosters and with 3 more of them being added, the problem was only going to get worse. And if high-level characters stop relying on these spells, that's FINE--they're only 2nd level, after all."
Ed: "We've been finding in our playtests that a lot of casters initially stopped using those spells, but then they started working their way in. It became the hallmark of a climactic encounter that the spellcaster will buff as many party members as could benefit and then the game really rocked for that one encounter. It made the climactic encounter feel that much more special, since people got a boost then and not for the entire scenario. Oh, one more thing about that. It also took care of the other thing we found in playtesting; everyone walks into the room buffed, the not-an-idiot-enemy-spellcaster would then throw dispel magic. Nearly all the buffs went away. Now the DM doesn't feel his actions proscribed anymore, either."
Shooting for mid-month (14-17th)
<hr />
<b>On Psionics</b>:
Ed: "All we can talk about is what's in the current catalog. I will say that we are taking psionics more into account in future product."
<hr />
<b>Bard Spell Changes</b>:
Andy: "The bard picked up a lot of spells that improve his proficiency with charms, illusions, and general trickery. Some were brand new spells, others were spells from other classes, and others were picked up from other sources. Examples of spells new to the bard list include deep slumber (a more powerful sleep spell), fox's cunning (Int-booster), and greater shout."
<hr />
<b>Cleric Changes</b>:
"We tweaked a couple of domain abilities...but I can't think of much of anything that needed work. Anything else would be minor."
<hr />
<b>Wizard Specialization</b>:
"Specialization will require giving up 2 schools (except diviners, who give up only one). You can't give up Divination. That seems harsh, but it makes much more sense when you see how much help many of the schools of magic have received and how a couple of schools have been ratcheted down a bit. Necromancers, for instance, have picked up a bunch of cool new spells, making necromancy a much better specialization than before."
<hr />
<b>Feat Changes</b>:
Andy: "We really didn't rework many feats. For the most part, the feats in 3.0 were pretty darn solid. There were a few places where some feats got beefed up (Power Attack; Weapon Finesse applies to all light weapons, etc.) and a few where feats that were too potent got ratcheted down (Spell Focus is only +1, but Greater SF is now in the PH, which stacks another +1 on top). But by and large, the feats your characters have will do what you expect them to do."
<hr />
<b>On the toad familiar</b>:
Andy: "I'd say it went from Insanely Too Good to Roughly As Good As The Others. I can't believe that most wizards pick their familiars based on their attacks and +2 Con was simply way too good an ability to be handing out for a mere 100 gp. Now, each familiar's granted ability replicates the effect of a feat, hence the +3 hp for the toad. As someone who's played a sorcerer from 1st level, I'll go on record saying that +3 hp at low levels is really handy."
<hr />
<b>Weapon Familiarity</b>:
"Humans gain no weapon familiarity, and neither do the half-races. Gnomes get hooked hammer as a martial weapon, but it's still a double weapon so not every gnome'll be walking around with it. Dwarves gain dwarven waraxe and dwarven urgrosh. Elves still get longsword, rapier, shortbow, and longbow as free proficiencies, to show that it's OK to have two mechanics that accomplish similar tactics in different ways. Nothing for halflings, though they still get their bonus with thrown weapons and slings.
Orcs get orcish double axe."
<hr />
<b>Paladin Changes</b>:
"The paladin got some boosts; some subtle and some overt. An extra smite every 5th level (2 at 5th, 3 at 10th, etc.) and the new paladin warhorse (summon once per day for 2 hrs per paladin level, so no more dragging it down the stairs to the dungeon to have it when you need it) and of course a few new spells on the list (lesser restoration at 1st, bull's strength at 2nd, remove curse at 3rd, and restoration at 4th, to name a few) add up to a tougher paladin at just about every level."
<hr />
<b>Use Magic Device</b>:
Andy: "I advise adding UMD [to the sorceror's class skills] as a house rule for all DMs with sorcerers."
<hr />
<B>On polymorph granting extraordinary attacks, but not qualities</b>:
Andy: "That's correct. There are simply too many game-breaking special qualities held by even simple monsters (plants and animals) to give those out to any druid with wild shape. That tells me that there are some great feats waiting to be written, granting one or more special qualities to characters who wild shape or polymorph into the appropriate forms."
<hr />
<b>Square spaces</b>:
Andy: "All creatures now have a square space on the battle grid. "Space" in this case refers to the creature's fighting space--the area it needs in battle to fight properly. Horses and other large creatures will take up a 10x10 space, mimicking the fact that they wheel around in a fight, rather than standing in a rectangle. The PH will include rules for big creatures to fit into smaller spaces, so that 15x15 cloud giant can still pursue you down the 10-ft. corridor. : )"
<hr />
<b>New tools in the books</b>:
Andy: "Simply standardizing a lot of effects is a powerful tool--it makes the game easier to run because you don't have to remember as many tiny little variables. Just like 3.0 standardized a lot of ranges (Personal, Close, Medium, Long), we standardized a lot of areas, making the spell effect templates possible and useful. The magic item construction guidelines are also more robust than ever (though still as much art as science). Magic item descriptions include strength of magic and school of effect, making detect magic much easier to adjudicate on the fly."
Ed: "The MM has a lot of tools for creating new monsters, advancing monsters, and using monsters as player characters and cohorts. We reviewed ..each monster, for example, and if we thought there was a good chance it might be used as a PC, we gave it a level adjustment. If it was a monster that someone would like as a cohort, we gave it an LA (cohort) notation. We also included read aloud text describing every ..monster so that you don't have to wing it whenever you introduce a new monster."
<hr />
<b>On deciding CRs for home-brew monsters</b>:
Ed: "There's a section on setting target challenge ratings for new monsters and material on how to consider CRs for advanced monsters. We talk about how to playtest a CR and we also talk about how adding a class level to your monster affects its CR. This is more detailed than we've published before but, remember, setting CRs isn't a complete formula; you have to playtest and use your judgement"
Andy: "As always, it's a combination of numbers and judgment. The game's not cut-and-dried enough for a simple system to cover all the variables."
<hr />
<b>On the new Flurry of Blows</b>:
Andy: "We found that it was too frustrating for monks in melee combat. When they got to flurry, they simply never hit anything thanks to a lower BAB than the fighters and the -2 penalty. We made it better by reducing the penalty from -2 to -1 at 5th, and to -0 at 9th. Also, the monk gains an extra flurry attack at -5 from BAB at 11th level. The fact that flurry isn't a separate BAB category means it'll stack with other classes' BAB, which makes it easier to use in game. The monk also only has one BAB line, just like everybody else. The monk can now "keep up" much better with other melee characters, though she's still not the equal of the ftr or bbn but that's OK, since she has plenty of other shticks that they don't."
<hr />
<B>About the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion guide</b>:
Andy: "For the core books, it's mostly nomenclatural (is that a word?) in its approach--showing you where names have changed or where things have gone away or been folded into other elements."For the other books covered in the guide (DDG, ELH, MotP, MM2, FF) the guide goes into a bit more detail, but it's hardly a "revision" of those books. Overall, the booklet's about 30-something pages of pretty dense text, designed to help DMs adapt their games from 3.0 to 3.5. Most savvy DMs may well not even need the booklet, as most of the material is common-sense types of changes."
Ed: "Mostly, there's about 36 pages of direct application and insight in the booklet. Much of the advice will be comparative in nature, but we aren't shy about saying why you do something. That makes extrapolating for other material fairly easy. "
<hr />
<b>Why base Wild Shape on Polymorph?</b>
Andy: "Because there's something to be said about making similar effects work in the same way. In this case, wild shape and polymorph can work in very much the same way (though not identically, mind you), which saves the DMs and players from having to...remember variant rules for similar effects. The two effects are complicated enough that it's well worth making them similar in effect. And the druid's is better--it lasts longer."
<hr />
<b>Monster Types and sub-types</b>:
Andy: "Those definitions get better with the new revision. We've reduced the number of types to maintain stronger difference between them. No more Beast (move to Animal or Magical Beast), no more Shapechanger (now a subtype). More subtypes, and clearer use of subtypes (Reptilian is a subtype for Humanoids only and we've added the Extraplanar subtype to clarify which creatures are treated as "foreign" to the plane you're on)."
<hr />
<B>How much of the material is brand new?</b>
Ed: "Well, we added 32 pages to the PH, 64 to the DMG, and 96 to the MM. Much of that is clarification and inclusion from other sources, but some of it is brand new geez, I'm not sure I could put a tag on it, either. I think of the three books, the MM has the most "new" material, the DMG has the second most, and the PH has the least completely new material but a lot of revision. The PH still looks like the PH. The DMG and MM have more noticeable changes, but they did get more proportionally large."
Andy: "The DMG has the most "new" material, in that it's the book that was most heavily reorganized."
<hr />
<b>Epic Support</b>:
Andy: "...there is some significant epic support in the DMG, taken from ELH."
<hr />
<b>Round-by-round tactics for monsters</b>:
Ed: "I wrote a few myself. We didn't do it for every monster, of course--only the ones we thought it was most important for. Sometimes, that meant the more complicated monsters, like demons and devils; sometimes it meant for "simple" monsters who could get more interesting."
<hr />
<b>Buff spells' reduced duration</b>:
Andy: "I think they were way too overused at 1 hr/level, to the point where they crowded out not only other 2nd-level spells, but also the stat-boosting items. When we see no-brainers like that, we tend to target them, because a lack of interesting choices is bad for the game. As a DM, I was tired of the players taking a half-hour before every dungeon to argue over who got what stat-boosters and with 3 more of them being added, the problem was only going to get worse. And if high-level characters stop relying on these spells, that's FINE--they're only 2nd level, after all."
Ed: "We've been finding in our playtests that a lot of casters initially stopped using those spells, but then they started working their way in. It became the hallmark of a climactic encounter that the spellcaster will buff as many party members as could benefit and then the game really rocked for that one encounter. It made the climactic encounter feel that much more special, since people got a boost then and not for the entire scenario. Oh, one more thing about that. It also took care of the other thing we found in playtesting; everyone walks into the room buffed, the not-an-idiot-enemy-spellcaster would then throw dispel magic. Nearly all the buffs went away. Now the DM doesn't feel his actions proscribed anymore, either."
Last edited:
