SRD 3.5 Competition

[kreynolds]

Something remeniscent of the PHB/DMG would be nice.

You mean red/green rust with blue gems (or yellow gems for DMG)? I think I could whip up something like that. I've been working on a leather texture lately (kinda like the blue leather on the cover of the 3.0 DMG), but I'm still tweaking it.

I still have a problem with your current background, despite the color changes. Just looks way to "mechanical", high-tech. If you're going to go for the "tome" look, it needs to be more organic, less "bundle of high precision metal plates hinged together".

Hmm. Considering that the three core books don't have a very organic appearance to them, IMO (aside from the covers), I don't think I'm straying that much from the norm. In fact, if you look real close, the borders in the core books are in fact "metal plates" with a texture (one I'm not too fond of) on them. There just aren't any hinges.

Speaking of the hinges, the only reason I even have a spine of a sort is because of online viewing. I thought it might be a nice touch. However, if printed out and bound together, the majority of the spine will vanish anyway, so I might just strip it out alltogether. It would give me some more room to work with at least.

I rather like the simplicity of Cergorach and TOGC's backgrounds: just a strip of BW illustration along one side (top for Cergorach, left side for TOGC). Takes up less space, and doesn't draw attention away from the actual contents.

Well, this is where our opinion's differ. I like detail (but not busy), and while I like the borders in the core books, they're not detailed enough for my tastes. While the single-sided border approach saves a lot of space, I can just do that for HTML (and that type of layout works great for the web), but I'm not going for HTML with this layout. I think a PDF can be a lot more than a distilled webpage, and I'm very certain that this is an attainable goal. It's just a matter of exploring my options and tweaking the layout a little.

If anything, I'm going for dual-purpose...online viewing and a nice printout. That's my goal, anyway. I suppose I could make two different versions, and if I have time (which I doubt), I may do that, but I don't think it's necessary.

I'm still tweaking the layout though, but mostly just colors at this point. I may look into narrowing up the outside edge to give me more space though. We'll see.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Drawmack]

The fourth statement is absolutely false. It might be to the same quality and then again it might not. I think that is going to vary by the level of effort that one is forced to make at work. Is someone supposed to stop roleplaying to get this done? They might have to stop roleplaying if they are forced to for work because it is a job. You need to keep job so you can feed your family, keep your house, dog. The level of effort that anyone puts into this is really whatever they care to. If you don't like that I guess that you can keep your high ideals.
Self-respecting

I was not attacking you, I was explaining my point. Sorry if I did not come across that way, which is appears from this post that I did not.

I am not doing this as a "job hunt". But there is a chance that someone looking for a web-site would see it and think hey this guy is/is not worth a look. Any piece of code that I put out I hold to the same integrity as an artist would a piece they were signing. I would think that others would do the same, but possibly others don't.

Let's say you have a friend who is a mechanic. He says that he can fix your breaks to save you a few bucks. If you go through a wall or off a cliff a couple weeks later and you're in traction for a couple of months is it okay because after all he did it in his spare time so shoddy work is okay? It is about personal standards and to me personal standards do equate heavily with self-respect.

These are just my views.

 

[Conaill]

I think they only included descriptions of the weapons that actually had some kind of special rules. The weapons above are all "vanilla" - they just hit people and do damage.

Not really. The sap is definitely not a vanilla weapon. And I think most people could use a description of a kukri.

Mind you, some of these descriptions were missing in the 3.0 SRD as well. Handaxe, Maces, Morningstar, Battleaxe, Longsword, Warhammer, Greataxe and Greatsword are all missing in 3.0. But that still leaves a bunch of weapons for which they could have copied the description verbatim from the 3.0 SRD...

 

[Conaill]

How's this for a quick response:

response from Andy Smith
Those weapons aren't described because there are no special rules that go along with them. I cut a lot of text that is purely flavor. It's absence doesn't mean we consider it IP, it means I was trying to save time and space by removing non-rules material.

Siege engines were left out because they're tucked in the corner of a page and I overlooked them. I'll make a note to get them put in.


Andy Smith
Publishing/d20 Licensing
Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

 

[TheAndy tm]

Missing stuff in the SRD

Great topic here.

About the missing stuff in the SRD:

Weapon descriptions - These are missing because they contain no rules information and it was faster for me to delete then it was to format the text properly. We're not claiming that our description of a longsword is IP or anything. I'll see about tossing those bits back in.
Don't look at me like that, if you had to convert 3 books at once you'd be looking to cut corners too.

Siege Engines - Don't know how I missed these, tossed on the update pile.

I didn't see anyone here mention it, but I also left out the section on slimes, molds, and fungi. Again, on the pile.

 

[Elvinis75]

Let's say you have a friend who is a mechanic. He says that he can fix your breaks to save you a few bucks. If you go through a wall or off a cliff a couple weeks later and you're in traction for a couple of months is it okay because after all he did it in his spare time so shoddy work is okay? It is about personal standards and to me personal standards do equate heavily with self-respect.

These are just my views.

I guess that I will just agree to disagree. I think that your example is flawed as that isn't what we are talking about here. If that same friend offered to fix your breaks if your car was using standard parts that 90% of cars used but said that you were on your own otherwise that would ring true. If I had that friend I would tell him I have a dodge stratus and if he help me then great if not then fine. I'm not going to get angry at him for not spending more time than he is willing. Again I'll agree to disagree. Your personal standards do not equate to all others. Not everyone strives for greatness in things they do during their spare time. I do thank you for your work though as it sound like I will be able to use it using IE.

 

[woodelf]

BOT (more or less), does anyone else have any ideas for a color scheme? I'm getting the feeling that a lot of folks like a combo of red and gold, and some like a little rust thrown into that. Any others?

Something that prints well in B&W, and doesn't use a lot of ink--i.e., very light shades. IMHO, PDF is so-so for onscreen reading, but da bomb for printing, so it should be printer friendly. I'll probably fire up an HTML version if i'm going to be doing lots of reading on screen or cut-n-pasting into another document.

Also, large borders are a no-no. For reading on screen, large borders are a pain, because you either have to manually resize (and sometimes horizontally scroll everytime you switch from R to L page, and vice versa), or everything is smaller--it's easy to automatically fit width of the document, not so easy to automatically fit the width of the text. And since the border is basically constant, it doesn't really add any visual interest. When printing, borders eat ink/toner, get cropped and look funny (or require a printer capable of full bleed (which is a fairly rare breed in the home)), and boost the page count, using more trees. Functional stuff, like section tabs, are good. Decorative borders, especially large, colorful ones, are bad. IMHO, of course, but i hope i've supported my opinion adequately.

 

[Drawmack]

So far I have completed the basics, abilities, races, classes, skills, feats and am now working on equipment (I've completed weapons and I'm working on armor).

81 tidy validated files.

 

[Conaill]

Also, large borders are a no-no. For reading on screen, large borders are a pain, because you either have to manually resize (and sometimes horizontally scroll everytime you switch from R to L page, and vice versa), or everything is smaller--it's easy to automatically fit width of the document, not so easy to automatically fit the width of the text. And since the border is basically constant, it doesn't really add any visual interest. When printing, borders eat ink/toner, get cropped and look funny (or require a printer capable of full bleed (which is a fairly rare breed in the home)), and boost the page count, using more trees. Functional stuff, like section tabs, are good. Decorative borders, especially large, colorful ones, are bad. IMHO, of course, but i hope i've supported my opinion adequately.

Excellent points, woodelf! Also, for online viewing, borders along the side of the page are marginally more annoying than a border at the top, because making the page narrower makes it fit the screen dimensions even worse.

For those who *do* insist on using a decorative border along the side, keep in mind that most people will tend to print single sided, and bind it in some way along the left hand side of the page (3-ring folder, comb bind, whatever). So if you're going purely for looks, putting the decorative border on the *right* will probably look best.

Enterprising pdf-ers may want to create several versions, including a print version with minimal graphics, perhaps one with alternating left-right borders for double sided printing, or even a landscape version for online viewing.

 

[kreynolds]

Something that prints well in B&W, and doesn't use a lot of ink--i.e., very light shades.

Very light shades only equate to good printing depending upon the printer. On a 600dpi bw laser printer (like my HP LaserJet 6L), very light shades pretty much don't print at all. If they do, they all bleed together, so it's simply best not to have them in the first place (it looks odd, that's why I say that). On most color inkjets, very light shades come out decent, so it's not so bad. Strangely enough, color laser printers do just as bad as a bw laser if it's not of high enough quality. For example, very light shades (less than 20% fill) are almost non-existant or look awful on a printout from an HP Color LaserJet 4500/4550. Howeverr, on a Xerox 6200, it looks pretty good. On a Xerox Phaser 860/8200, it looks beautiful.

In short, the quality of really light shades is directly proportional to the printer in question, so that's why I avoid them. About the only light shades I'll use are fleshtones and grays, but even if I use others, I won't use multiples (they tend to bleed together on some printers).

IMHO, PDF is so-so for onscreen reading, but da bomb for printing, so it should be printer friendly.

This is where our opinions differ. Every RPG book I own I also have in PDF, and I use those PDFs quite extensively. Personally, I love PDF for online reading. But, like I said before, I don't think a PDF has to look like a distilled webpage. (That's the graphic designer in me on revolt. )

Also, large borders are a no-no. For reading on screen, large borders are a pain, because you either have to manually resize (and sometimes horizontally scroll everytime you switch from R to L page, and vice versa), or everything is smaller--...

Depends on your resolution. At 1024x768, my layout is perfectly readable (to me) on as small as a 17-inch display. At 800x600, its perfectly readable on as small as a 15-inch display (I tested this on my laptop at both resolutions). I didn't need to scroll at all. They look great at fit-width. On the other hand, I like high resolutions, even on small displays, so I'm probably in a minority. *shrug*

And since the border is basically constant, it doesn't really add any visual interest.

Well, when I'm reading a doc, whether its in hand or on screen, I want it to be attractive. Otherwise, I'll just by the book instead of printing it out.

Decorative borders, especially large, colorful ones, are bad.

I have to disagree here. Having been a graphic designer for over half of my life, there are varying opinions on what constitutes a large border, and I've learned over the years what does and doesn't detract from the page. IMO, my borders don't detract from the actual content (though I've run into a few color schemes that did that, so I've avoided those).

IMHO, of course, but i hope i've supported my opinion adequately.

Absolutely. We just disagree. Basically, I'm just designing my PDF based on what I like see in a PDF from someone else.

Thanks for the input!