25 Years Ago...

Yes, I know...but it can't be helped; this was released on Jan 5, 2001, so what else am I supposed to do? This is the first Web Enhancement released by Wizards of the Coast for a 3rd edition product. There's one for Sword and Fist  as well, but it's not released for another two weeks after this one. The Speaker of Dreams  is an adventure module that will be reviewed later this month; this Web Enhancement is a ten-page addition to the module that provides more details to the city of Brindinford, which is where the action of the module takes place, as well as some additional encounters that can supplement the action while not necessarily being part of the main plot; after all, not everything that happens is related to the greater adventure. The first page just reviews the basics of city adventuring in the module: Events rather than encounter locations, tougher encounters since the players have much more access to rest and healing in a town as compared to a dungeon; peace-bon...

Yes, it's another Map-a-Week day, which means I'm not posting the next Sword and Fist  installment; that will be later. This month, the Dragon magazine theme is elves, so naturally we get trees in our maps this month. This week's installment is Deciduous Forest , with a treehouse for elves to frolic in while they're bored out of their minds. It also comes with a Legend , which looks suitably elvish as well: So, the treehouse looks interesting; most of it is already labeled, so it's easy to stock it. One thing that's missing: Stairs. There doesn't appear to be any obvious means of getting from one part of the treehouse to the others. How are the elves getting around? Maybe elves in this mapper's campaign are half-squirrels. Let's see what we can stock here. 1. Upper Lookout. There's always an elf on duty here, checking the skies for potential aerial assault from dragons and the like. 2. Upper Quarters, Level Two. I lied; there is a ladder leading ...

Okay, Chapter 2 of this book is all about new prestige classes. Nineteen of them, in fact. Note that in all the 2000 products, there were a total of seventeen. So in one book, we've more than doubled the number of available prestige classes. A sign of things to come... So, let's run through them one a time with brief descriptions. We begin with the Cavalier. A late-addition core class in 1st edition, a kit in 2nd edition...the Cavalier is now a prestige class. He's great on a horse, of course, with most of his special abilities involving mounted combat and riding. And they are the nobility of the fantasy realm, at least most of the time. They get better Will saves than regular fighters, but you have to be a minimum of 8th level to qualify for this as the class requires a +8 base attack bonus as a prerequisite. So, this is not a class that will see much play in dungeon settings. Next is the Devoted Defender. If you ever watched The Bodyguard  with Kevin Costner and Whitney H...

 Alright, it's the first true splatbook of 3rd edition! Splatbooks became a thing in 2nd edition starting with, ironically enough, The Complete Fighter's Handbook , which introduced kits and fighting styles, in an effort to make fighters more interesting. Spoiler: It didn't really work out. All classes ended up with their own kits, and wizards always got more cool stuff than the fighters in any edition. So, this is the first opportunity for 3rd edition to show off what it can really do with an entire book devoted to helping players play fighters and monks to the fullest. The introduction to the book tells us right away that we're getting a bunch of crunchy additions, as well as some advice and fluff to help make fighters and monks more unique. But mostly crunch. In fact, the first chapter is all about new feats and new ways to use skills. In fact, there are 31 new feats in this book, many of them being fighter bonus feats (the others being monk-specific). I won't go...

I suppose this post should have been made last night while it was still 2025, but who wants to be writing blog posts on New Year's Eve? Besides, I don't have the January stuff here yet, so this is a good time to pause and reflect on what went down in the initial stages of 3rd edition D&D. Things started much earlier with the Dragon Magazine Countdown articles that ran for nearly a year before the release of the Player's Handbook  on August 10th, 2000 at GenCon. The core books came out one at a time, the Dungeon Master's Guide  releasing in September and the Monster Manual  in October. After that, there were a few additional supplements and adventures, along with, of course, the magazines: Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron. And the Living Greyhawk Journal , of course. So, my initial experiences with 3rd edition actually go back to 3.5; I was one of the grognards who didn't see the need to buy a new edition when I had a perfectly good 1e/2e hybrid to work with. A fr...