Rules Compendium: Previews are up!

[Jacob_Orlove]

Previews/excerpts for the Rules Compendium are up. Discuss!

[bitnine]

I'm sort of confused. What's up with the optimal way to wield a weapon? Is my magical hat of antimagic legit? And what's up with the rolling again in grappling? I always thought that in contested rolls the reactive party set a target/DC such that in the case of a tie the active party had met the target and succeeded.

Okay, I'm not actually confused by the above (except for the grapple bit which is an honest question), but eh... It's a cleaned up collection of rules and FAQstuff that's formatted and indexed. It takes the liberties with the rules that the FAQ always has, but I guess it has the weight of sort of coming out and saying that it's errata-ish.

So, what did anyone expect? It's probably as good as you're going to get as a WotC rules reference and at least it's indexed and blocked off enough to be a more cohesive entity to digest, criticize, and/or alter. Is it going to nail down things like optimal attacks and vital areas (I do recall some of the discussions that the FAQ that contained that bit spawned) and so on? Nope. If you want a single entity unto itself to be able to reference for 3.5 rules + splatbook rule expansions + errata + ad hoc FAQ rulings (now errata as well by virtue of the RC) I suppose it gets the job done. I won't be buying it, but I'm all for indexes as a general idea.

Also, if someone wants to pipe up and tell me I'm crazy and imagined that whole contested roll bit, please go ahead and do so. Because I could have sworn that's how it went, but I find myself less than certain. [Edit: Seriously, the whole roll, compare modifiers and reroll as necessary I thought existed only for group contests like initiative. Did I imagine the contested roll procedure...? /Edit]

[Catharz]

So when does the NDA expire?

[JonSetanta]

bitnine: Either you're not crazy, or I am too. Can't imagine how 4e would be too much different from 3.x or even AD&D.
So it's one less roll in critical confirmation? They probably made it more complex somewhere else.
And grapple, well, just when you think you get it down right....
See the thread on grappling (http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... hread=1103)for weirdness on that. That rabbit hole is deep.

As for the article, the part that caught my eye was this:

Ever wonder why elves are immune to paralysis? As far as we can figure out, that immunity came from a game-balance issue in the original Chainmail rules, which mostly covered medieval warfare (with a fantasy supplement that spawned the game we all play today). Masses of low-cost undead troops were beating up high-cost elf troops, so the "elves are immune to paralysis" emerged as a balancing factor. More than thirty years later, we're still using that rule.

Well now.
Son of a bitch.

[Judging__Eagle]

David Noonan is the assclown that wrote some of the Eberron adventures and seriousl wrote in CR 10+ encounters for lvl 6 parties.

The only reason we survived at all was b/c we had 7 PCs instead of 4-5, a lvl 9 healer that could cast Revivifies (had to do it at least 3 times, 2 for PCs, once for an NPC sailor) and my haxxing archivist that could hulk out by using up his written up scrolls.

Anything he says regarding rules is something that I will not pick up, let alone respect unless he issues a statement saying something along the lines of: "Oh, the Eberron Adventures I wrote are TPKs from the get-go. Whoops, I guess I didn't read the core monster manual when I wrote them up. My bad." David 'Assclown' Noonan

We all make mistakes, at the very least the people who supposedly bring us, the unwashed masses, new glass beads and steel tools could apologize when said trinkets are unwittingly covered in adventure-polio.

[Voss]

Well, its OK. Chris Sims (whoever the fuck he is) wrote the actual book. Rather than the preview garbage.

Still these previews are lame and aren't exactly convincing me that no, I really do need to pick up this steaming pile of shit. (We made witty comments in the margins, so you'd know what we were thinking, tee hee!) An index that goes from D to W on 1 page doesn't bode well, however.

But mostly this material is 'No, shit' stuff combined with a generous helping of 'WTF?'


Anyone else notice that a shitload of damage types are missing from that preview pdf? Force, spell and various other crap? And how any of it interacts with anything?

[shau]

I am philosophically opposed to this. It seems like WOTC seriously wants me to pay for a hardbound copy of their errata. If I buy it, WOTC is going to get paid because they have a large enough errata and FAQ that it can fill a hardcover book.

[Voss]

Its really just a last chance to get some squeeze out of 3rd edition.

The preview books for 4E start in December, and they've set up the schedule to make sure as many people only care about 4E as possible. So they have to make clear the 3rd is done. Kaput.

Take a look at what else is being released- fluff books and an FR adventure subtitled 'The Sundering of the World'. (because FR goes BOOM!, bitches)

The real insult is December's Elder Evils. Mostly fluff, but statblocks that will have to be updated through the online 'dragon' articles.

[the_taken]

1191972011[/unixtime]]

Ever wonder why elves are immune to paralysis? As far as we can figure out, that immunity came from a game-balance issue in the original Chainmail rules, which mostly covered medieval warfare (with a fantasy supplement that spawned the game we all play today). Masses of low-cost undead troops were beating up high-cost elf troops, so the "elves are immune to paralysis" emerged as a balancing factor. More than thirty years later, we're still using that rule.

Well now.
Son of a bitch.

What the fvck? These elves aren't immune to paralysis. What's he blabbering about?

[Catharz]

1191993508[/unixtime]]
What the fvck? These elves aren't immune to paralysis. What's he blabbering about?

In 3e, elves aren't immune to paralysis, but many paralysis effects don't work on elves.

[Fwib]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghoul.htm

I seem to remember it was the same in 2e, also - ghast paralysis worked on elves, ghoul paralysis didn't.

[the_taken]

Obscure rules I never bothered to remember....
Thank you for the clarification. I though the rules would be in the elves entry.

[Koumei]

That'd make sense, though.

[the_taken]

My subconscious still hasn't absorbed the fact that people often don't do things that make sense right away, even though I'm consciously aware of the fact that I often don't make sound decisions immediately either. Man, I'm such a hypocrite.

[JonSetanta]

Yep it's an AD&D thing I remember quite clearly in both Baldur's Gate and PnP sessions.
It wasn't the reason I played elves (and the real reason is much dumber than you might think) but I benefited from it, regardless of my own protesting against such a meaningless and arbitrary ability.
The party is stunned, and I'm running around like a headless chicken trying not to be mauled, trying to I lure the ghouls away and wait for the others to 'snap out of it'. (Encounter ended when the other half of the party caught up, and the Ranger used an amulet of undead turning or whatever.)
But what was it anyway, some ancient pact between Corellon and the Ghoul King? What the hell kind of reason could the designer even come up with to explain that?

Apparently the real cause was much more asinine than we could have ever figured out back then.

I dunno... just makes me pissed that something so stupid could endure for so long.

Sacred Cow.

taken: That's how I function on a day to day basis, with premeditated mental scripts running in hopes that the reaction to unforeseen stimuli will be effective and appropriate, especially in social situations. Is that or hypocrasy better or worse than just being a total idiot? -_o

[Crissa]

In 2ed there's a whole book devoted to Elves and why they don't sleep, age, learn real fast, or be paralyzed and still are the shiznit.

-Crissa

[NineInchNall]

Pointy. Ears.

[Koumei]

Well Races of Rabbitfucking goes on about elves and how wonderful they are, although apparently it mentions some other races or something. I'm too busy not caring about the book to check.

Unfortunately, we're never going to be free of "Books about elves written by total fanboys". I even prefer "Books about dragons written by total fanboys", simply because dragons are (supposed to be) enormous and scary. With fire.