John Cooper
Explorer
RULES COMPENDIUM
Edited by Chris Sims
Wizards of the Coast product number 215397200
160 pages, $26.95
Rules Compendium is probably the last great "must have" book of the D&D 3.5 rules set. I have to admit, I originally kind of questioned the utility of a compilation of rules that are already present elsewhere (mainly in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide), but after having read my way through it, I'm a convert. This is easily my favorite of the series (although admittedly I haven't seen the Spell Compendium), and is a book I will be bringing to my game sessions in addition to the three main core rulebooks.
The cover artwork is a Warren Mahy piece depicting a human barbarian dual-wielding two obviously magical axes. It's not my favorite piece, as his odd musculature makes his wrists look rather tiny in comparison. In addition, it doesn't really speak a whole lot about the subject of the book, although I'm stuck on what would make for a better cover image for a rules compendium - maybe a stack of dusty tomes or something?
The interior artwork - 88 full-color pieces by 43 different artists - is striking for several different reasons, the first of which is the fact that there are 43 different artists contributing to this book! Of course, once you realize that virtually all of the paintings (and possibly even every single piece of artwork in the book) is a "rerun," having appeared earlier in an earlier Wizards of the Coast product, the wide variety of artists becomes easier to understand. At first, I was a bit taken aback by this, as I'm generally not a fan of "rerun art," but then as I examined the pieces selected for this book I realized that a great deal of care had been taken to ensure that every piece of art in the book had been specifically selected to represent a concept that was being discussed on that very page. In fact, Rules Compendium does a much, much better job ensuring that the artwork is absolutely appropriate to the subject at hand than most other RPG books I've seen, and for that I applaud the decision to reuse artwork. The fact that art director Karin Powell chose above-average pieces makes the artwork in Rules Compendium better than in most other RPG books I've seen. I also have to credit her with some really creative choices, such as splitting the cover painting from Dragons of Faerûn in half, using the part with the dragon raining fiery death upon a half-dozen soldiers on page 22 to illustrate a Breath Weapon, and the part with the sorceress hiding behind the pillar and watching the conflagration on page 38 to depict Cover. Nicely done! On the down side, some of the illustrations are a bit odd, like the R. Spears illustration on page 141 in which Mialee is missing a good chunk of her right thigh (which should be visible behind her left leg) - and upon closer inspection, "R. Spears" isn't listed in the credits; perhaps that's supposed to have been credited to Ron Spencer? Also, I can't be sure, but that sure looks like a bare breast (complete with exposed nipple) on page 70; did Wayne Reynolds slip one past the censors?
As for the content of the book, the majority of it is various entries on various rules of the Dungeons and Dragons game, much of it already available elsewhere, but with the occasional update or rules clarification that makes it easier to run a D&D game. Plus, it's very handy having one book that you can use to look stuff up quickly in the midst of play, rather than checking out the appendices of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and occasionally even the Monster Manual.
Finally, there are short sidebars and even the occasional full page dedicated to behind the scenes notes from the designers and developers of the D&D game, covering the reasons why some rules are as they are, how they developed over the years (and editions of the game), and even optional rules you might wish to adopt for your game to spice things up (or, more often, streamline game play). I've always found such peeks "behind the curtain" as it were fascinating, and these add that little bit extra of usefulness in an already useful book.
Even the proofreading and editing jobs are higher than Wizards of the Coast standard, with only a few errors making it to print. There was the odd punctuation error (like when a semicolon was used in place of an apostrophe to denote possessiveness, or when a closing parenthesis showed up without benefit of an opening parenthesis beforehand, or a sentence ending without a period), the occasional extra word (or missing word) in a sentence, incorrect word usage ("you're" instead of "you"), one instance of improper alphabetization, and only one instance of an incorrect page number being referenced (despite there being literally scores of such cross-referencing throughout the book). In addition, the Temperature Bands chart has -50°F to -20°F as extreme cold and -21°F to 0°F as severe cold; obviously, the -20°F and -21°F should be swapped there, to avoid overlap. Likewise, 15,000 feet is listed as both a high pass and a high peak elevation on page 155; I believe high pass elevation should be "over 15,000 feet" instead of "15,000 feet or more." The next page over, two consecutive tables have different striping techniques, which could use some standardization.
There were also a couple of rules that brought a question to my mind. On page 101, in a Swallow Whole discussion, it gives the standard interior AC of any given creature as 5 + half of its natural armor bonus. It's always been 10 + half natural armor bonus; if this is a permanent rules change, that's going to mess up an awful lot of stat blocks in quite a few monster books! Also, there's no mention of cutting your way out of the stomach, with muscular action closing the hole (which I always found a rather silly notion in any case); now you just end up back in the creature's mouth, where you can be bitten and/or swallowed again. Kind of weird.
Still and all, the number of errors in Rules Compendium are absolutely trivial compared to just about any other similarly-sized Wizards of the Coast book that comes to mind, and I congratulate Chris Sims for an overall fantastic (if sadly not perfect) job on the editing front.
Overall, there's little doubt about it: I'm going with a full "5 (Superb)" rating for Rules Compendium. Well done, Chris!
Edited by Chris Sims
Wizards of the Coast product number 215397200
160 pages, $26.95
Rules Compendium is probably the last great "must have" book of the D&D 3.5 rules set. I have to admit, I originally kind of questioned the utility of a compilation of rules that are already present elsewhere (mainly in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide), but after having read my way through it, I'm a convert. This is easily my favorite of the series (although admittedly I haven't seen the Spell Compendium), and is a book I will be bringing to my game sessions in addition to the three main core rulebooks.
The cover artwork is a Warren Mahy piece depicting a human barbarian dual-wielding two obviously magical axes. It's not my favorite piece, as his odd musculature makes his wrists look rather tiny in comparison. In addition, it doesn't really speak a whole lot about the subject of the book, although I'm stuck on what would make for a better cover image for a rules compendium - maybe a stack of dusty tomes or something?
The interior artwork - 88 full-color pieces by 43 different artists - is striking for several different reasons, the first of which is the fact that there are 43 different artists contributing to this book! Of course, once you realize that virtually all of the paintings (and possibly even every single piece of artwork in the book) is a "rerun," having appeared earlier in an earlier Wizards of the Coast product, the wide variety of artists becomes easier to understand. At first, I was a bit taken aback by this, as I'm generally not a fan of "rerun art," but then as I examined the pieces selected for this book I realized that a great deal of care had been taken to ensure that every piece of art in the book had been specifically selected to represent a concept that was being discussed on that very page. In fact, Rules Compendium does a much, much better job ensuring that the artwork is absolutely appropriate to the subject at hand than most other RPG books I've seen, and for that I applaud the decision to reuse artwork. The fact that art director Karin Powell chose above-average pieces makes the artwork in Rules Compendium better than in most other RPG books I've seen. I also have to credit her with some really creative choices, such as splitting the cover painting from Dragons of Faerûn in half, using the part with the dragon raining fiery death upon a half-dozen soldiers on page 22 to illustrate a Breath Weapon, and the part with the sorceress hiding behind the pillar and watching the conflagration on page 38 to depict Cover. Nicely done! On the down side, some of the illustrations are a bit odd, like the R. Spears illustration on page 141 in which Mialee is missing a good chunk of her right thigh (which should be visible behind her left leg) - and upon closer inspection, "R. Spears" isn't listed in the credits; perhaps that's supposed to have been credited to Ron Spencer? Also, I can't be sure, but that sure looks like a bare breast (complete with exposed nipple) on page 70; did Wayne Reynolds slip one past the censors?
As for the content of the book, the majority of it is various entries on various rules of the Dungeons and Dragons game, much of it already available elsewhere, but with the occasional update or rules clarification that makes it easier to run a D&D game. Plus, it's very handy having one book that you can use to look stuff up quickly in the midst of play, rather than checking out the appendices of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and occasionally even the Monster Manual.
Finally, there are short sidebars and even the occasional full page dedicated to behind the scenes notes from the designers and developers of the D&D game, covering the reasons why some rules are as they are, how they developed over the years (and editions of the game), and even optional rules you might wish to adopt for your game to spice things up (or, more often, streamline game play). I've always found such peeks "behind the curtain" as it were fascinating, and these add that little bit extra of usefulness in an already useful book.
Even the proofreading and editing jobs are higher than Wizards of the Coast standard, with only a few errors making it to print. There was the odd punctuation error (like when a semicolon was used in place of an apostrophe to denote possessiveness, or when a closing parenthesis showed up without benefit of an opening parenthesis beforehand, or a sentence ending without a period), the occasional extra word (or missing word) in a sentence, incorrect word usage ("you're" instead of "you"), one instance of improper alphabetization, and only one instance of an incorrect page number being referenced (despite there being literally scores of such cross-referencing throughout the book). In addition, the Temperature Bands chart has -50°F to -20°F as extreme cold and -21°F to 0°F as severe cold; obviously, the -20°F and -21°F should be swapped there, to avoid overlap. Likewise, 15,000 feet is listed as both a high pass and a high peak elevation on page 155; I believe high pass elevation should be "over 15,000 feet" instead of "15,000 feet or more." The next page over, two consecutive tables have different striping techniques, which could use some standardization.
There were also a couple of rules that brought a question to my mind. On page 101, in a Swallow Whole discussion, it gives the standard interior AC of any given creature as 5 + half of its natural armor bonus. It's always been 10 + half natural armor bonus; if this is a permanent rules change, that's going to mess up an awful lot of stat blocks in quite a few monster books! Also, there's no mention of cutting your way out of the stomach, with muscular action closing the hole (which I always found a rather silly notion in any case); now you just end up back in the creature's mouth, where you can be bitten and/or swallowed again. Kind of weird.
Still and all, the number of errors in Rules Compendium are absolutely trivial compared to just about any other similarly-sized Wizards of the Coast book that comes to mind, and I congratulate Chris Sims for an overall fantastic (if sadly not perfect) job on the editing front.
Overall, there's little doubt about it: I'm going with a full "5 (Superb)" rating for Rules Compendium. Well done, Chris!
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