laudablepuss wrote:


My first impression was: Wizards of the Coast is screwing us again. The original core books were $20 each. These new books are $30. So I was annoyed. But what I discovered was that the books contain tons of extra shit from the paperback handbooks (like the rogue and bard handbook, the fighter and monk handbook, etc.) and tons of stuff from the Manual of the Planes and the Epic Players Handbook. Also, the Monster Manual pulls some of the new monsters together and gets them more in line with the rules modifications in Savage Species. I wouldn't go so far as to say that these books are a bargain, since there is still info in those other books that isn't included, but you do get some good stuff for the price.

Other cool new things: several new prestige classes, the feat list is more complete (drawing from the other published sources), the spell lists are expanded somewhat, and the combat rules are presented in a more streamlined format.

So far, the only thing that's pissed me off is the Assassin prestige class. In the previous version, the Assassin cast arcane spells like a wizard, had a spell book, and the primary spellcasting attribute was Intelligence. In the new version, they fuck everything up by having the Assassin cast like a Sorceror but retaining Intelligence as the primary attribute. This annoys the fuck out of me. Charisma was supposed to be a sort of personal power attribute from which Sorcerors and Bards draw the energy for their spells. Clerics and Paladins use Charisma in a simillar fashion to turn undead and smite evil. Now Intelligence can be used the same way? But only for Assassins? What the fuck? Why not just make Dexterity the primary attribute then? And their spells per day list and spells known list are also bastardizations of the equivalent wizard and sorceror tables. I'm thinking now that the Assassin class is irredeemably fucked up and that I'm going to have to throw it away and start over.