New Frank & K Tome pdf

[koz]

"The Tome" is a good title, but I prefer "The Tome of Wisdom". Or whatever they called the Wis-boosting book in DnD.

[Cynic]

How about "The Tomes"?

The plural keeps with the old method but keeps it succinct.

[koz]

That works too, actually.

[Hicks]

We bound "The Tomes" in a green cover, and call the collected works "The Green Book".

[koz]

I am tempted to call it 'The Little Red Book' now...

[TheNotSoEvilNecromancer]

Although perhaps orange might be a more fitting color.

[koz]

"The Little Orange Book". The references, they fill me.

[fbmf]

In my gaming group, we refer to our rewrite of the PHB and parts of the DMG based onFrank and Keith's work as "Final Edition".

Pretentious, I know, but I'm doing this once unless I'm getting paid for it.

Game On,
fbmf

[koz]

In my gaming group, we refer to our rewrite of the PHB and parts of the DMG based onFrank and Keith's work as "Final Edition".

Pretentious, I know, but I'm doing this once unless I'm getting paid for it.

Game On,
fbmf

"No cheese, balanced mechanics only, Final Edition?"

[Cynic]

"No cheese, balanced mechanics only, Final Edition?" :rofl:

There's cheese in the Tomes. Oh there is cheese galore. It's not Wish and Word cheese but it's Cheetos cheese. :-D

[koz]

In my gaming group, we refer to our rewrite of the PHB and parts of the DMG based onFrank and Keith's work as "Final Edition".

Pretentious, I know, but I'm doing this once unless I'm getting paid for it.

Game On,
fbmf

"No brokenness, balanced mechanics only, Final Edition?"

Better?

[ckafrica]

What about the "Fiendishly, Utterly Crazy, Killer World Occult Traditions Compendium"? A little long but the acronym is appealing

[koz]

What about the "Fiendishly, Utterly Crazy, Killer World Occult Traditions Compendium"? A little long but the acronym is appealing

My vote goes out to you, sir. As well as my nasal virginity, should you choose to take it.

[Maxus]

In that vein, I think we should have a brief summary of the reasoning behind the rules revisions; i.e., that the WotC designers did not understand how their rules system interacted with itself, such as the disparity between melee and magic, especially against monsters.

And, naturally, entitle it, "Skip Smoked Crack"

[Bigode]

In that vein, I think we should have a brief summary of the reasoning behind the rules revisions; i.e., that the WotC designers did not understand how their rules system interacted with itself, such as the disparity between melee and magic, especially against monsters.

I thought that was called "Races of War". Though having a "Skip Smokes Crack" section's appealing.

[Maxus]

In that vein, I think we should have a brief summary of the reasoning behind the rules revisions; i.e., that the WotC designers did not understand how their rules system interacted with itself, such as the disparity between melee and magic, especially against monsters.

I thought that was called "Races of War". Though having a "Skip Smokes Crack" section's appealing.

Well, it'd be nice to lay out what we believe at the very beginning. You know, Same Game Test, Skip Smokes Crack, etc, so any non-Den reader knows the reasoning behind the rules changes. Some solid examples would go well, too.

[Bigode]

Well, it'd be nice to lay out what we believe at the very beginning. You know, Same Game Test, Skip Smokes Crack, etc, so any non-Den reader knows the reasoning behind the rules changes. Some solid examples would go well, too.

Fair enough, especially with regards to the Same Game Challenge (also, Frank's wizard setting utility benchmarks - wherever they are). Though, for reasons I won't claim to be impersonal, I tend to flip out whenever I hear the word "example" - but maybe they'd help, especially with what one might call average readers.

[Maxus]

Okay, here's a stab at it.

I felt like I was writing baby-talk...

Skip Smokes Crack

What this statement means is that WotC’s own designers often don’t fully understand the rules they write, especially the interactions with other rules. This resulted in rules tricks and exploits and flaws that seem like they could only be inspired by drug use. As a consequence of this incomplete understanding, some things in DnD 3.x are overvalued, and others are undervalued. Full BAB, for example, is much overvalued and the SRD classes who have a 1/1 Base Attack Bonus tend to have limited abilities in other areas. Spellcasting on the other hand, varies wildly. WotC seems to consider direct damage spells (like Fireball and Magic Missile) to be the pinnacle of spellcasting, regardless of the spells which force the target to either make a save or suffer, or spells which have more utility value rather than combat.

So in light of WotC’s misconceptions about the value of various features, DnD 3.x needs some changes to try to get closer to the real value of a given ability or feature, and to bolster important aspects which are sub-par

Same Game Challenge

A principle of the design philosophy of this document is choosing monsters as a balance point for classes. To test balance, a class or build is put by itself against a variety of challenges, of CR equal to the subject’s character level. The challenges are a variety of those found in DnD games (big monsters, large groups, small groups, magic-using monsters, traps, and so on); Ideally, a class or build will be able to win about half of the challenges, by some means or another. To take into account the randomness of the dice, each challenge should be run at least three times.

Edit: Lacking specific cases, of course. Ideally, we'd also include a guide to the Same Game Test, but I can never find the threads which detail the monsters and the like.

[Bigode]

Definitely take the first sentence of "Skip Smokes Crap" (typo noticed before posting and left on purpose) out - readers who can't figure it by the second sentence should die anyway, and breaking the joke in half right at the start shouldn't bode well. And not everyone rolls dice for the SGC - and in a decent number of cases that's actually more sensible than leaving room for statistical anomaly.

[TheNotSoEvilNecromancer]

Okay, here's a stab at it.

A tenant of the design philosophy

So are you renting out the design philosophy to boarders or...

[Maxus]

Okay, here's a stab at it.

A tenant of the design philosophy

So are you renting out the design philosophy to boarders or...

Tenants...Tenets... *not sure which is the right one*

PRINCIPLE!, there we go.

[zeruslord]

We bound "The Tomes" in a green cover, and call the collected works "The Green Book".

Did you get it fancily printed and bound or did you just do it at kinko's?

[Judging__Eagle]

In my gaming group, we refer to our rewrite of the PHB and parts of the DMG based onFrank and Keith's work as "Final Edition".

Pretentious, I know, but I'm doing this once unless I'm getting paid for it.

Game On,
fbmf

"No cheese, balanced mechanics only, Final Edition?"

Second level summoners can summon a 14HD medium sized copper dragon skeleton. It has 5 natural attacks and has like 90-odd HP.

I guess that's not bad for second level.

Nm, the spell in question got changed in a 3rd printing.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Okay, let's all get on the same page here:

I am going to ask questions and I hope to answer with what I am picking up.

What are we doing with respect to the normal system (d20srd.org)?
We plan to include all non-busted stuff (The wizard class, the cleric class, the wizard/druid feats, etc.).

What are we doing with the normal spells (d20srd.org)?
We do not plan on including them at this time because they are too difficult to format. Also, many have no balance as written (Wish, Word, others).

What do we plan on including?
Everything... after we have deemed it worthy. We have have a system of <insert system here> to determine worthiness. I humbly suggest a new section of the forums (Game design section?) where we can put up polls and vote on what we think is worthy of inclusion and why. Things can then be changed. We will need an attentive moderator for this.

How much work will this take?
A significant amount.


Side note: I am on travel for the month of January (my girlfriend and gaming group hate me). I will have time to try to get some of the grunt work done (a cleric class format, for example), and learn LaTEX. Also, I can host as needed. I do not check the forums daily, however (more of a weekly basis).

[Bigode]

We aren't doing anything of that until we go through relevant material on the forum and make it decent. And to those wondering how I'd qualify as part of "we", I'm sitting on an almost finished critique of recent .pdf additions.