John Cooper
Explorer
Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats
Layout by Michael Todd
Big Finger Games product number BFG1201
60 pages (PDF), $3.00
I received Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats out of the blue, and I have to admit that it isn't something I'd ever have gone out and purchased on my own, as I prefer using the core rulebooks as printed products. Still, a copy of the SRD can be handy, especially for those writing their own gaming products who want to be sure that they are staying within the boundaries of the Open Game License and not go treading on any of WotC's product identity.
The very first thing anybody needs to know about Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats - and it's a really important one - is that this product is intended for electronic use only. That's important enough for me to repeat: this product is intended for electronic use only. Don't bother printing it out (as I did, because I find it easier to look over printed text than text on the computer, and that way I can read over the review material while away from the computer), because none of the tables will be present in the printed text. Instead, any time there's a table to go with the subject at hand, Michael Todd has embedded it as "pop-up windows" when you place your mouse cursor over the appropriate place in the document. It's a clever way of doing it, and I applaud the effort that Michael went to in order to do so, but it has the unfortunate side effect of diminishing the target audience for the product. I, for one, would never have bought this product (I was provided with a free review copy), given my preference for printed products. (I always print out any PDF I purchase.) So be warned.
The cover art is by Jason Walton, and consists of a monochrome (blue and white) ink drawing of an orc swinging a morningstar. Jason also handles the one piece of interior artwork, a human wizard holding a staff with a flaming tip, also in blue and white. I like the human wizard much better than the orc; the detail is much clearer, for one thing, and there's more of the subject showing (the orc's body is obscured in part by the "swoosh" lines of the weapon being swung). As far as personal preferences go, I'm not really all that fond of the font style used on the cover of the PDF; I find the fact that some of the letters are only half as tall as the others somewhat irritating (but that could well just be me). That's it as far as artwork goes, unless you count the "border art," which consists of a concave polygon along the right side of each page (the layout is in landscape, the better to be read on a computer screen). The "border art" serves no real purpose, other than making the outer edge of the second column on each page have odd margins. (It's a good thing this product wasn't meant to be printed out, or it would probably eat up quite a bit of blue toner!)
So, what will you find in this product? Well, that's a silly question - as it's taken directly from the SRD, you'll find the appropriate sections of the SRD that cover the ability scores, alignments, races, classes, skills, and feats. In fact, I should confess here that for the first time in any of my reviews, I didn't actually read every word of the product I'm reviewing. But that shouldn't be a concern; it's the SRD - everyone who has already read the Player's Handbook has already read the contents of this product. However, I did skim over each page and I managed to find a few formatting errors, proving that even in a product that contains absolutely no new content, it's possible to make mistakes. Nothing too messed up, but there are several places where a new paragraph isn't indented (the "Neutral Evil" section has one, as does the Druid class section), there are a couple places where an inadvertent carriage return creates half a line or more of wasted space (this occurs in the section dealing with the paladin's Aura of Courage, as well as the last line of the Open Game License on the very last page), a "-5" split between two lines (with the minus sign at the end of one line and the 5 at the beginning of the next), and a feat title at the end of a column and the information about that feat at the top of the second column. The last five bullets in the Gnome racial traits section were not indented properly, and I also noticed that the Diplomacy section uses the phrase "use the table below" even though the table is hyperlinked above that section.
Besides that, there were a few things that I think should have been included, but apparently weren't. At the top of this list are the Skills and Feats "brief glance" tables - you know the ones I'm talking about; the one that lists all the skills and which classes have them as class skills or cross-class skills (plus the appropriate ability that they're based upon), and the similar table that lists all of the feats with their prerequisites and a brief description of what they do. I don't know about you, but I use those tables out of the Player's Handbook all of the time. Likewise, I didn't see the table that has the breakdown on BAB, Good/Poor saves, skill points, feats, and ability score increases by character level, another very useful table I reference all the time (especially when creating monster stats).
So, this leaves Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats as somewhat of a mixed bag. It's a pretty good resource for those only interested in referencing the product from their computers, but leaves those preferring printed material in the cold. It has a bunch of formatting errors that really should have been caught before being released (especially since the SRD was already written - and formatted - for Michael before he started monkeying around with it). The artwork is minimal, but I can't really fault them for that, as anyone interested in purchasing the SRD (or even just a section of it) isn't buying it for the artwork; they want a down-and-dirty chunk of material that can be used as-is. The pop-up tables make it easier to find material (as the tables themselves don't take up any room, so there is a corresponding lower number of pages overall to the product), but might make it harder to copy and paste if you're buying the section of the SRD to use in your own hopefully-to-be-published manuscript. On the plus side, the bookmarks all seem to go where they're supposed to. All in all, though, I have to go with a "3 (Average)" for this product. At least with a $3.00 price tag, even if you're not entirely happy with it you aren't out a lot of money.
Layout by Michael Todd
Big Finger Games product number BFG1201
60 pages (PDF), $3.00
I received Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats out of the blue, and I have to admit that it isn't something I'd ever have gone out and purchased on my own, as I prefer using the core rulebooks as printed products. Still, a copy of the SRD can be handy, especially for those writing their own gaming products who want to be sure that they are staying within the boundaries of the Open Game License and not go treading on any of WotC's product identity.
The very first thing anybody needs to know about Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats - and it's a really important one - is that this product is intended for electronic use only. That's important enough for me to repeat: this product is intended for electronic use only. Don't bother printing it out (as I did, because I find it easier to look over printed text than text on the computer, and that way I can read over the review material while away from the computer), because none of the tables will be present in the printed text. Instead, any time there's a table to go with the subject at hand, Michael Todd has embedded it as "pop-up windows" when you place your mouse cursor over the appropriate place in the document. It's a clever way of doing it, and I applaud the effort that Michael went to in order to do so, but it has the unfortunate side effect of diminishing the target audience for the product. I, for one, would never have bought this product (I was provided with a free review copy), given my preference for printed products. (I always print out any PDF I purchase.) So be warned.
The cover art is by Jason Walton, and consists of a monochrome (blue and white) ink drawing of an orc swinging a morningstar. Jason also handles the one piece of interior artwork, a human wizard holding a staff with a flaming tip, also in blue and white. I like the human wizard much better than the orc; the detail is much clearer, for one thing, and there's more of the subject showing (the orc's body is obscured in part by the "swoosh" lines of the weapon being swung). As far as personal preferences go, I'm not really all that fond of the font style used on the cover of the PDF; I find the fact that some of the letters are only half as tall as the others somewhat irritating (but that could well just be me). That's it as far as artwork goes, unless you count the "border art," which consists of a concave polygon along the right side of each page (the layout is in landscape, the better to be read on a computer screen). The "border art" serves no real purpose, other than making the outer edge of the second column on each page have odd margins. (It's a good thing this product wasn't meant to be printed out, or it would probably eat up quite a bit of blue toner!)
So, what will you find in this product? Well, that's a silly question - as it's taken directly from the SRD, you'll find the appropriate sections of the SRD that cover the ability scores, alignments, races, classes, skills, and feats. In fact, I should confess here that for the first time in any of my reviews, I didn't actually read every word of the product I'm reviewing. But that shouldn't be a concern; it's the SRD - everyone who has already read the Player's Handbook has already read the contents of this product. However, I did skim over each page and I managed to find a few formatting errors, proving that even in a product that contains absolutely no new content, it's possible to make mistakes. Nothing too messed up, but there are several places where a new paragraph isn't indented (the "Neutral Evil" section has one, as does the Druid class section), there are a couple places where an inadvertent carriage return creates half a line or more of wasted space (this occurs in the section dealing with the paladin's Aura of Courage, as well as the last line of the Open Game License on the very last page), a "-5" split between two lines (with the minus sign at the end of one line and the 5 at the beginning of the next), and a feat title at the end of a column and the information about that feat at the top of the second column. The last five bullets in the Gnome racial traits section were not indented properly, and I also noticed that the Diplomacy section uses the phrase "use the table below" even though the table is hyperlinked above that section.
Besides that, there were a few things that I think should have been included, but apparently weren't. At the top of this list are the Skills and Feats "brief glance" tables - you know the ones I'm talking about; the one that lists all the skills and which classes have them as class skills or cross-class skills (plus the appropriate ability that they're based upon), and the similar table that lists all of the feats with their prerequisites and a brief description of what they do. I don't know about you, but I use those tables out of the Player's Handbook all of the time. Likewise, I didn't see the table that has the breakdown on BAB, Good/Poor saves, skill points, feats, and ability score increases by character level, another very useful table I reference all the time (especially when creating monster stats).
So, this leaves Quick and Easy...SRD 3.5 Classes, Skills & Feats as somewhat of a mixed bag. It's a pretty good resource for those only interested in referencing the product from their computers, but leaves those preferring printed material in the cold. It has a bunch of formatting errors that really should have been caught before being released (especially since the SRD was already written - and formatted - for Michael before he started monkeying around with it). The artwork is minimal, but I can't really fault them for that, as anyone interested in purchasing the SRD (or even just a section of it) isn't buying it for the artwork; they want a down-and-dirty chunk of material that can be used as-is. The pop-up tables make it easier to find material (as the tables themselves don't take up any room, so there is a corresponding lower number of pages overall to the product), but might make it harder to copy and paste if you're buying the section of the SRD to use in your own hopefully-to-be-published manuscript. On the plus side, the bookmarks all seem to go where they're supposed to. All in all, though, I have to go with a "3 (Average)" for this product. At least with a $3.00 price tag, even if you're not entirely happy with it you aren't out a lot of money.
