How would you do 3.5e in 160 pages?

[Kem]

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

.doc mosly at the moment by copy/pasting or retyping... I'd use excel for the tables, but for some reason its acting up with the printer drivers so I can't get a print area to show up.

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 swap out the margins, font, and put in 3 columns just as a test of how small it is to start.

To put it in perspective when I cut/paste all of the srd .rtfs into a fresh word doc it starts at over 1200 pages (well 1100-1200 I don't remember exactly). Reducing the font, pushing out the margins, then giving it 3 columns makes it the smallest at 489 pages.

So that is the real number I am starting with. As I put more into the docs that I have I remove it from that one file. This gives me a decent running total. I know the final product will not be larger then 489.

As far as 2 or 3 column that is something that depends on the area it is. For the whole SRD 3 worked better, but for already text dense areas 2 works better or just as well and is morem readable.

But for the monsters it will definitly be 3 column as I am doing it landscape to have all the combat states for each of the monsters on that page in a table at the top.

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.

I am unsure if its that doable in 10pt, but I know that 8pt is the only way to get all the "Class Basics" on one page. Otherwise the 190 versions of Knowledge kinda take over.

 

[Kem]

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).

Eh, I decided if I'm going to do this, might as well do psionics and PrCs. I can always cut things later, but adding things would be difficult.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

Check out my old thread for an analysis of text-per-page layout in the 3.5 PHB and the Castles & Crusades PHB.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=198414

 

[Ry]

Eh, I decided if I'm going to do this, might as well do psionics and PrCs. I can always cut things later, but adding things would be difficult.

Sounds good. If you're working in .doc than we can both tailor the results to taste afterwards.

 

[green slime]

8 point, one page, Core race abbreviations, as per rycanada's posting, for young eyes, or those with powerful electron microscopes:

Edit: I refer viewers to post 114, to a later update, which includes PHB, XPsiB, and random Age, Height, & Weight tables.

 

[Ry]

Slightly revised the wording and gave it a bit more spacing, easier on the eyes. Also lined up titles so that races don't cross columns.

 

[Kem]

I could make a simple website to store all of this if desired.

Well let me rephrase that, I am making a website to put my stuff on, as I know I have extra webspace. I am willing to store other people's stuff there too as long as it doesn't hurt my other websites (which isn't likely until we hit gigs of stuff and a ton of downloads).

Let me know if this would be beneficial or not yet really.

 

[Delta]

I understand this isn't the mission-statement for this project but, man, the synergy bonus category is the number one thing that really, really, really needs to get a stake driven through its heart from 3E D&D. All that fiddly work and text and cross-referencing for maybe a +2 skill bonus, yechh.

 

[Kem]

I understand this isn't the mission-statement for this project but, man, the synergy bonus category is the number one thing that really, really, really needs to get a stake driven through its heart from 3E D&D. All that fiddly work and text and cross-referencing for maybe a +2 skill bonus, yechh.

I like how it shows up in the Psionic SRD actually. Just a simple table that takes up a tiny bit of room with none of the piles of text saying exactly the same thing all over the place.

 

[Ry]

That's the route I took with the skills file, but the file's at home. I'll post what I've got so far tonight, someone can play with the layout, and if I see any ways to tighten it up further I can work from there.

1 Page for abilities and 1 page for races is already an improvement.