RPG News: Revised d20 books | Echoes #6

These stories have been rounded up from all over the internet but many of them come from GamingReport which, as a partner site, remains GameWyrd’s number one choice for industry news. Direct quotes from GamingReport appear in blue text.

• Topics
• Info on the revised d20 core rules.
• New Marvel Roleplaying Game
• The next version of Chainmail
• Lord of The Rings Tradeable Miniatures Game

Revised d20 books

• Player’s Handbook
• Classes are working, for the most part, the way they were intended. But, some of the classes are being fine-tuned. Andy Collins (the designer who was there) specifically mentioned the ranger and the bard as two who would see some changes. Mostly, the changes are being instituted to ensure that each class is relevant and fun to play across the entire 20 levels – “rebalancing the classes”. It sounded as if the Bard would probably get more skill points and will be more interesting as they grow.
• Feats are being added, new ones as well as drawing from various sources (so, in other words, some of the PHB feats will be ones that appear elsewhere). How some of the feats work is also being changed.
• The combat chapter is being restructured, and items clarified. Mass combat rules are not being added.
• Spell lists are being revised and updated. A high percentage of spells are being tweaked, and some changed significantly (can you say Haste? – “Haste no longer turns you into two characters.”). Harm and Shield are also being changed. There are spells being added, spell selection for schools being balanced, domains being tweaked.
• The glossary will be longer and have more, and more extensive, definitions.
• Character conditions (dying, stunned, knocked out, etc) got a lot of attention.
• The concept of racial weapons was kept, and more meat put behind it – introducing “weapon familiarity”.
• Only a couple of new weapons were picked up from other material to put in the PHB, but there are a number of new ones in the Arms and Equipment Guide.
• Unnamed bonuses still exist – it’s important not to go overboard in categorizing everything.
• Skills: Some skill names changed – Wilderness Lore, for example, became Survival. They also attempted to make the skill system stronger, and included more examples (some from the Builder Books). Knowledge (undead) will be part of Knowledge (religion). More classes will have at least one knowledge skill as a class skill.
• Barbarians don’t have as many skill points as Rangers.
• The Races, Description, and Adventuring chapters were not changed much. Equipment and Magic had a few changes

• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Most of the DMG changes are in organization, although magic item creation is being fine-tuned (and, I think, expanded upon). Magic item creation rules are being clarified and expanded, along with prices for item creation, at least.
• New PClasses are added.
• Information to help on running a game is being added.
• Additional environments are being added – such as rules for underwater combat. Most of these came from other published products and are being included here.
• CRs are still more of an art than a science, but are being revised, and the CR/EL system clarified.
• DR (Damage reduction) is being changed. Today it’s hierarchical – a monster with DR 10/+1 can be hit by +2 weapons, for example. The change is to be more specific – DR 10/holy silver means just that. Magical weapons alone won’t work, but only good-aligned silver ones. So, there will be DR bypass designations such as Silver, Gold, Cold Iron, Magical, Bludgeoning, etc. The DRs are also being lowered to make them more reasonable, and monks will have a couple of properties with unarmed attacks that will allow them to bypass certain sorts of DR.

• Monster Manual
• Most of the MM changes are cosmetic (illos for every monster, stat blocks won’t be broken up over multiple pages, etc.)
• There will be a new index.
• General information on playing monsters as character classes is added. For detailed information, see the “Savage Species” book due out later this year.
• All of the CRs for monsters were reviewed, and some revised.

This list first appeared at ENWorld where they maintain a good list of Revised d20 Info. Special thanks to ENWorld and the Scoopers there for the steal.