How would you do 3.5e in 160 pages?

[Kem]

OK, well, just fixing wording and removing duplication, and doing nothing to the formatting, I've got the skills from the SRD down to 24 pages from 30. I'm sure there's a lot more that can be done with it but I don't see it. If anyone wants to take a fresh crack at it feel free.

One thing that's weird is that the rule that you can't take 10 or 20 on a Caster Level check only appears in the Skills chapter. You'd think it would get into magic or something.

Edit: I can do better. I'll get back to this tomorrow.

Don't forget that you have a bit of duplication with the class section.

I'm taking the Ability Score of the skill and what classes use it as a class skill and making it a single table. See how that goes on space.

One method I'm using to judge cross file optimizations like this is to cut/paste all the stuff you are replacing into one file and work on it there.

Thats how I know Skill info will be 15 pages or less (0.5' margins, 3 columns, 8pt font takes it there).

I'd focus at first on the tables. Lots of whitespace there and I am sure some tricks could be used to cut that down. Also want to get the table to either be full and cross page or less full and fitting in a column or having the text flow around it.

Basically, I feel the tables are the big thing. Rewording is a minimum gain but needed to get the best compression.

The issue I am having with monsters is keeping them mostly alphabetical. I am already rearranging monsters to fit better, although thats only because the "A"s have so many groups of monsters real fast, along with a crazy complicated monster to start with. (Angel, Animated Object, Archon, and the PitA Aboleth)

 

[Ry]

I'm cutting this from the Disable Device section:

OTHER WAYS TO BEAT A TRAP
It’s possible to ruin many traps without making a Disable Device check.
Ranged Attack Traps: Once a trap’s location is known, the obvious way to ruin it is to smash the mechanism—assuming the mechanism can be accessed. Failing that, it’s possible to plug up the holes from which the projectiles emerge. Doing this prevents the trap from firing unless its ammunition does enough damage to break through the plugs.
Melee Attack Traps: These devices can be thwarted by smashing the mechanism or blocking the weapons, as noted above. Alternatively, if a character studies the trap as it triggers, he might be able to time his dodges just right to avoid damage. A character who is doing nothing but studying a trap when it first goes off gains a +4 dodge bonus against its attacks if it is triggered again within the next minute.
Pits: Disabling a pit trap generally ruins only the trapdoor, making it an uncovered pit. Filling in the pit or building a makeshift bridge across it is an application of manual labor, not the Disable Device skill. Characters could neutralize any spikes at the bottom of a pit by attacking them—they break just as daggers do.
Magic Traps: Dispel magic helps here. Someone who succeeds on a caster level check against the level of the trap’s creator suppresses the trap for 1d4 rounds. This works only with a targeted dispel magic, not the area version (see the spell description).

 

[Zulgyan]

Castles and Crusades is basically 160 page 3e d&d with some of the 1e/basic spirit

128 pages actually. And it's not 3e, but a reaction to it.

 

[Kem]

Fixing? You can eliminate the first 4 columns by just have a single line: BAB: Good, Fort: Good, Ref: Bad, Will: Bad.

Yes fixing. Instead of having 1 table per class, there is one big chart that has HD, Skill Points, BAB, and Saves.

So instead of Having Hit Dice, Skill Points, BAB, Fort, Refl, and Will each appear once per class, those words appear once total.

Tables are one of the denses ways to show data. Remember the back of the 1st edition DMG? With that table of monsters that spanned pages? You could literally play using that. The monster might be blah but you have enough info there to just use that.

Late Night Edit: On one page I have every class from the SRD (Psionic and Normal and all Prestige). This page has, Hit Dice, BAB, Saves, Skill Points, Class Skills, and what ability score goes with each skill.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Where do I sign up for a copy?

 

[Ry]

I'm just playing with .rtfs - Kem, what format are you working with?

 

[starwed]

Remember the back of the 1st edition DMG? With that table of monsters that spanned pages? You could literally play using that. The monster might be blah but you have enough info there to just use that.

Heh, one of the first times I played D&D the DM was using that. It was pretty funny when we fought the terrible monster which is the Dryad.

Things like feats and spells can be compacted quite a lot by increasing the number of columns in a page.

 

[jmucchiello]

I'm just playing with .rtfs - Kem, what format are you working with?

Basically, I feel the tables are the big thing. Rewording is a minimum gain but needed to get the best compression.

I do believe Kem is modifying stuff by creating tables and eliminating other tables.

Kem, 3-column format is not optimal. You should do long bits of text in 2-column and choppy bits of text in 3-column. Believe me I know. My PDFs generally hit 900-1000 words per page as I hate to waste "space". And I achieve that generally by checking 2-col versus 3-col. 3-col is great for spells and monsters. But stuff like skills, feats and class features work best in 2-columns. I do, however, appreciate your statement that it should be 8pt. Rycanada hasn't shrunk the font yet and I think 160 pages is impossible at 10pt.

Also, if you like tables, have you tried combining all the "class feature" columns into one table where the columns are "barbarian class featuers", "bard class features", "cleric class features". etc. and the rows go 1-20 and then just listing all the class features alphabetically beneath that pulling out the class names as appropriate:

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 2nd level, a barbarian retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If a barbarian already has uncanny dodge from a different class, he automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see below) instead.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): Starting at 4th level, a rogue can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.
If a rogue already has uncanny dodge from a different class she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see below) instead.

becomes

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): The character retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he still loses his Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If a character already has uncanny dodge from a different class, he automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see above) instead.

 

[Ry]

I like the 2 columns idea. I'm hesitant when it comes to putting Prestige and Psionic classes in though; since you can run a perfectly good D&D game without either, I'd leave them seperate (even though it's very cool that you got everything onto 1 page for all those classes).

 

[Ry]

Races

Here's races abbreviated. They can go a lot further if they get tabled up, but I was just looking at the text itself.