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Re: This question is a swirling black vortex of nerdiness by Mysterious Stranger 07/08/2009, 8:47pm PDT
Mischief Maker wrote:

So after more than 10 years I'm going to be playing Dungeons and Dragons tomorrow night. I've arranged with a friend to run the Ravenloft "House of Strahd" module, one of the best canned adventures ever, in my opinion. He's DMing and to compensate for the details I will remember of the module from when I devoured it back in High School, that I'll be playing the part of the NPC Van Richten, temporarily hooking up with his bewildered party of forgotten realms fags.

The problem is, now I have to learn these gay new 3.5 rules (since when do editions have decimels?) and design my character in time for tomorrow's game.

Does anyone have a link to a tutorial for AD&D 2nd edition players to quickly pick up 3.5? Also, does anyone know where I can find the official 3.5 stats for the Ravenloft character Van Richten?


Well, I looked for a tutorial online, and I found this. Hope that helps! Fucking step 1: buy the books. Gee, thanks assholes.

Anyway, I'd see if you can get the 3.5 players handbook at least off bittorrent or something. I know they're out there. As for a brief tutorial, here you go: the ability stats are more or less the same, but strength is no longer different from the other stats. Your saves are based on dexterity, wisdom, and constitution, and what class you pick.

Don't attempt to multiclass, it's insanity. You literally gain 1 level in one class, then gain another level in a different class. So at 2nd level, you're just two crappy first level characters joined at the brain. Imagine a 16th level character that's really just two 8th level characters. AWFUL. The only way to do this is to have like 3 levels in one class and 27 in another.

Feats and skills are a way to customize your character. They're hugely important, so spend some time going over what the feats do. Skills are pretty easy to figure out, feats require some reading. How many skill points you get per level depends on intelligence, so it's hard for me to make guys that are dumb, even if they're burly fighters.

Let's see, what else. AC goes up instead of down. A 20 AC is better than a 15 AC. It's odd at first, going from THAC0 to the new system, but it makes more sense I think.

Oh yeah, there are cool prestige classes for folks over 6th level, and that's a major exception to the "don't multiclass" rule. They tend to continue some of the benefits of your original class and give you all kinds of sweet new benefits (usually extra and unique feats).

Spell names have changed. Good luck with that.

Last thing: it's almost impossible to do combat anymore without miniatures and a map, however hastily drawn. The combat rules of how far you move, what spaces you "threaten" and when you get a free attack are pretty important, but hopefully the GM can cut you some slack on that and help you out for the first few combats until you get the hang of it.
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This question is a swirling black vortex of nerdiness by Mischief Maker 07/08/2009, 5:35pm PDT NEW
    if anyone doubted that mischief maker was male NT by this answers the questions 07/08/2009, 7:37pm PDT NEW
    Re: This question is a swirling black vortex of nerdiness by Mysterious Stranger 07/08/2009, 8:47pm PDT NEW
        Re: This question is a swirling black vortex of nerdiness by Jerry Whorebach 07/08/2009, 9:09pm PDT NEW
            Oh, I see they mentioned that in your tutorial, only about fifteen paragraphs in by Jerry Whorebach 07/08/2009, 9:24pm PDT NEW
        Hell, this was me by the way. :( NT by laudablepuss 07/10/2009, 8:49am PDT NEW
 
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