There was a great deal of fear and trepidation when Wizards of the Coast bought TSR. It was thought that Wizards might plunder the Grand Daddy of all Roleplaying Games and leave its battered body to rot in the wasteland.
Thankfully, they did no such thing.
The Old D&D and AD&D systems were products of their time. They had one way for handling attributes, a different way for handling abilities, and another (pretty poor) way of dealing with skills. Once you had chosen a class, the characters all tended to end up the same way. Even picking different races rarely helped, since an Elven Thief, a Halfling Thief and a Human Thief all had access to exactly the same types of skills and abilities.
Roleplaying games evolved in the 80's and 90's. West End Games came out with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which unified all skill resolution and attribute checks under the same system. It meant that no matter what you were trying to do, you knew exactly how the system worked, because there only was one system. This notion of a single task resolution system would inform the design of all the games to come.
The other change in the 90's was the move away from randomly generated characters, and towards systems which allowed players to choose exactly what abilities their characters had. This allowed far more variation and meant that no two players had exactly the same character.
But through all this change and invention, D&D stayed relatively the same. Until now.
With its third edition, the Dungeons and Dragons design team have taken a good look at the changes in Roleplaying Games, and taken much of it on board, as well as adding a few refinements of their own. They have also managed to keep the old spirit of D&D alive by bringing back a few old friends.
The first major change is that the entire system is powered by the D20. It was always central to the game as the Combat Dice, but now it is used to resolve any task. Want to hit an Orc, roll a D20, Want to pick a lock, roll a D20. Want to jump over a chasm, roll a D20. Want to Turn Undead, Roll a D20.
This is a fundamental shift for D&D, and it works very well. You roll a D20 and add various modifiers. High numbers Good, low numbers Bad. The result of this streamlined system are most apparent in combat. Roll a D20, ad your "to hit" modifiers, and if the resulting number is higher than your opponents Armour Class, then you've hit. No more THAC0's. Just some basic addition. Simple and efficient.
But this basic system works for everything. The DM assigned a difficulty number for the task, you roll a D20 and add any modifiers. The higher you get, the better.
With a streamlined system comes a more open character creation process. Several options are offered for rolling up your attributes, including a point allocation system. The GM and Players can choose whichever system they prefer. There are no level limits and no prerequisites. If you want a Halfling Paladin with a Charisma of 3 then go ahead. There is a skill system which actually works, unlike the Non-weapon proficiencies of AD&D second edition. Then there is the really major shift, the Feats. This is the point where you can really personalise your character. They allow the character to specialise in one or two areas, to give them an edge, or to improve on a feature in which they are currently lacking. A smart player can combo up a few Feats early on to create some impressive results. And multi-classing is a lot more straight forward.
From a DM's point of view the game now offers far more scope to challenge the players. For a start there's lots of advice and ideas which are applicable to both new DM's and old hands alike. New treasures and magic items which can be more easily customised to fit the needs of your particular players. There are new threats to the players and a few surprises. The various monsters can be beefed up to match the level of the characters. Some can even have class levels of their own. This means that the monsters can stay level with the PC's and can remain a challenge to them. In the past once you got to 10th or 11th level you could wade through an Orcish tribe with no real problem, as all the member of the tribe would only have a maximum of 8 hit points each.. Now, that tribe could have a couple of 10th level clerics and a 15th level Barbarian as leader. Not only that, but with the inclusion of Monster Templates, you can have a 15th Level Orc Barbarian/Half Dragon/Vampire. Scary.
D & D 3rd edition is a major improvement on the old systems, but it still maintains the traditions of the past. Critical Hits are still there. Vorpal swords still chop your head off. And the Demons and Devils are back.
Now your adventures are only limited by your imagination.
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