[CMG] Plexus - SRD Revised (Version 2!)

[Poster Bard]

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August 2nd, 2003 - Plexus - SRD Revised First Releases!

Creative Mountain Games will be finding many ways to use the materials recently updated for the SRD. The first two are the Plexus - SRD Revised Basics, Spells and Magic Items (which reformats into a PDF those named sections of the revised SRD and adds useful bookmarks) and the Plexus - SRD Revised Monsters (which takes the many monster sections and reformats them to a PDF, also adding bookmarks).

You can purchase them separately or get both of them in one bundle for a discounted price. Another good reason to buy the bundle is that as more gets added, the bundle will grow. Even if the bundle price increases, previous purchasers of the bundle will get free updates!

There are many ways to add to what will be perhaps the most useful set of DMing supplements available.

Of course, the natural one is to add psionics. But reformatting the tables in those sections of the SRD is going to be a ton of work, so I am loathe to tackle it without a lot of my customers making the request for it.

An addition that is already in the works are the spell lists. This one is a must do! Another additional in the works are DMing reference sheets that would make the most use of the many tables included with the Revised SRD. There are many ideas being suggested around CMG as good ideas for updates but ultimately it will be the customer emails and posts on my message boards that determine the priority list for additions.

As you can see, getting in early on the Plexus - SRD Revised (bundle) is an excellent way to go. The Creative Mountain Games slogan, "We do the work, so you can play!" is going to become even more apropos as the next few years unfold.

You can purchase the Plexus SRD Revised Basics, Spells, and Magic Items by clicking here

You can purchase the Plexus SRD Revised Monsters by clicking here

You can purchase the Plexus SRD Revised (Bundle) by clicking here

 

[William Ronald]

I did take a look at the product, and found it to be quite good. It is quite thorough, and prominently features the appropriate licensing agreements.

First, as PDF files, it is very easy to navigate to different sections of the SRD. This is particularly helpful for someone who wishes to work on a spells, for example. A few simple mouse clicks can take the reader to the appropriate section. This will be of particular help to anyone working with the SRD for new D20 products.

Additionally, the product tries to use names similar to those in the 3.5 PHB. Thus, a popular 9th level spell become's Mage's Disjunction. (Some spell names, particularly those associated with campaign settings, are not part of the SRD. WotC has a right to protect its campaign settings, so I consider the similar spell names a reasonable solution to this issue.)

One thing lacking from Plexus -SRD Revised Monsters was a table listing monsters by CR rating. This is a feature that I think would enhance the product.

Fortunately, updates will be free -- which will be important as the SRD is revised.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

An except from the upcoming d20 Magazine Rack review -- a very usable "officially sanctioned" compilation of the SRD (assuming you can adjust to the concept of paying for free stuff )

Critical Hits
OK – the SRD is free. Why should anyone pay money for it? Well, if you’re n average player who just has a copy of Core Rulebook I to play an occasional game, the answer is you don’t; this product really isn’t for you. If you’re a GM, however, this can be an extremely helpful reference, particularly if you do all of your preparation using a computer, and especially if you use a laptop or other computer as reference during play. The bookmarking in SRD Revised is phenomenal. There are bookmarks down to individual spell names, individual monsters, and individual mechanics. If you know a little bit about where to look for a particular mechanic, you can find it within three mouse clicks – no flipping pages, no scrolling. That’s a tremendous time saver; well worth the couple of bucks for the compilation if you use the SRD quite a bit. This is an online tool – you could print it, I suppose, but that’s a lot of paper (and one monster per page doesn’t save a lot of space) – and a quite usable one.

Critical Misses
I’ll admit to wanting to make my gaming dollar go as far as possible (ahem, I’m a bit cheap), and after spending $60 on the revised core books, shelling out another $6 to get the Open Content in digital form is a stretch, but given all the online prep I do, it does save time. What I really need now, though, is to be able to cut-and-paste monster stats directly from the SRD into my adventure documents – which I still can’t do with this file and my free Acrobat reader. An investment in the full Adobe program might be in order (or hope for an early release of the revised Etools database).

There are a few formatting errors that still need to be fixed in SRD Revised. There’s a blank page in the Basic file, (page 333) for example, and a few odd gaps (like after “Intelligent Items”. A couple of tables are split across multiple pages (see the Wilderness Section), and occasionally a section heading is on the last line of one page, with the remainder of the section on the following page. Nothing’s missing that I can tell – just a few spacing faux pas.

 

[Poster Bard]

There is an update on the Spell List additions to the Plexus - SRD Revised (Bundle) on the Creative Mountain Games site

http://www.creativemountaingames.com/

 

[William Ronald]

Olgar,

I experienced a similar problem with page 333 of the SRD Revised. Maybe both of us have the same glitch in Acrobat or one of the shared files that the PDF accessed.


I agree that being able to dig down to individual spells is an added plus.

You might want to check out my review here on EN World.

 

[Mark]

I'll be sure to check that out add it in to any other errata that gets sent out in the next revision. Thanks for the head's up and the reviews!

 

[Poster Bard]

From another board
Looks like some reviews are beginning to surface for the Plexus - SRD Revised (Bundle). Here's one at the d20 Magazine Rack

Thank you, Glenn Dean and the d20 Magazine Rack!

 

[Poster Bard]

The Plexus - SRD Revised - Basics, Spells, and Magic Items has been updated. We've cleaned up a few minor errors, added dozens of additional (precision) bookmarks, replaced a missing page, as well as compressed the file down to a third of the original size to increase speed during reference usage. More updates and revisions to come but buy the "Bundle" now at the same low, sale price!