I loved 3rd Edition, I just burned myself out on it after running weekly games for 12 years. There are a lot of great things in it and I would play it as a player again in a heart beat, I just have no desire to run games for it myself
This is a phenomenal video, but I want to correct one point of information. The reason Wizards dropped "Advanced" from the title of the game was to pay homage to Dave Arneson. TSR had deliberately re-named the more Gygaxian revision of the D&D rules as "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" to avoid paying co-creator royalties to Arneson. Wizards of the Coast, upon acquiring TSR, went about trying to mend as many fences as possible: they paid distributors, refunded retailers for returned product, set production schedules back on track, and reached out to Gygax and Arneson, neither of whom had been a part of TSR for years. By dropping the "Advanced" from the product name, they were allowing Arneson to collect royalties on the game, something which he had been denied for something like twenty years. Gygax had his own thing going on and wasn't interested in re-joining the design team for Third Edition, but he did come back to write a number of "Up On A Soapbox" columns for Dragon Magazine before Hasbro bought Wizards and sold their magazine arm to Paizo. It was an amazingly awesome move on their part, and something they didn't need to do, but they did it anyway. :)
That's good to know, that didn't turn up when I was researching 3rd but I didn't do as much of that since I had a lot of personal experience and was playing/running games from it's beginning to end.
We still play 3rd edition. We went directly from AD&D to 3rd edition (We did try 2nd edition but weren't fans). Going to d20 from THACO was brilliant and so overdue. We have set up house rules. We cut back on the number of feats and re-adopted the AD&D style of multiclass (Average of the hit die and better of bonuses for saving throws or base attacks). We did adopt a "Dabble" Feat. The character became 0 level in the class - for spell casters they got 2 zero level spells and 0 firsts (plus attribute bonus so usually one 1st level spell. For dabbling in rogue, 2 rogue skills became in class. We broke down feats into major and minor feats, and alternated. The minor feats became interesting little features - with feats one normally would not take (Most people would take Craft Wand over Alertness, etc). While we play other games and have even designed our own (Mystic Plains, etc), D&D will always be the gold standard, Or should I say gold piece standard.
@@DravenSwiftbow The Barbarian class was also present in 2nd edition under the warrior group when it was reintroduced in it's own book: The Complete Barbarian's Handbook, released in 1994.
Indeed the Barbarian class was originally published in Dragon Magazine as an official 1st edition character class. Interestingly, in the UK it was published in Imagine magazine which was technically the ‘Dragon Magazine’ of Europe.
Prestige Classes (although they weren't called that) and Magic-Item Creation came from Basic D&D. 2E's Player's Option: Spells & Magic also had magic-item creation.
You could argue that a form of prestige class was in 1st edition. In Unearthed Arcana, the thief-acrobat progressed as an ordinary thief for 5-7 levels, and then became a thief-acrobat. This is a lot like the prestige classes of 3rd edition. You could also point to the 1st edition bard, that started out as a fighter, then became a thief, and then became a bard.
Good, detailed video, especially for those of us who largely "missed" this edition. One small quibble: the barbarian wasn't new in this edition - the class was actually introduced in the original Unearthed Arcana - a supplementary rulebook in AD&D that came out in 1984/5, if memory serves. They were dropped in 2e, but returned here.
Boris you are correct about Barbarian. I played AD&D years ago and had the UA. Excellent video series Draven. Thanks for doing the research for these. Very interesting.
+Boris Stremlin You are 100% Correct. The only classes that I remembered from Unearthed Arcana was the Cavalier and Thief Acrobat. 3.0 is the first time the Barbarian appears in a Player's Handbook. I'll have to correct that in the next video.
You could've also mentioned how 3.0 facilitated playing with minis, or how modules changed to adventures (and the quality of said adventures) and saying something about feats during the PHB section. On your AD&D video, the red books were also worth mentioning, but overall nice retrospectives. I hope you update the videos in the future. Cheers!
For a long time, I played Palladium RPG. I finally made the switch to D&D and your videos have helped give me insight to the history of D&D. Thank you so much!
I like both styles personally. I did really like these books when they first came out, I also found it interesting how these covers were photos taken of an actual book, if you turn the books upside down you can clearly see the camera's reflection in the gems.
Very pleasant to watch! Can't wait 'till the 3.5, 4th and 5th edition videos (the versions of D&D which I am currently playing in in three different campaigns).
Strongholds were a really big part of 0e D&D, though they began to fade through 1e, and may have been gone by 2e (I missed 2e entirely, playing Champions and Fantasy Hero through those years, so I could be wrong about that). Really, a big stronghold, a standing army, and a noble title were what balanced fighters with mages in 0e campaigns. Magic-users could and did build wizard's towers, but those were really just a place to put your stuff and maybe do a little research between adventures; strongholds made high-level fighters into warlords. Bear in mind that D&D came out of the Castle and Crusade society, in which the members assumed the role of faction leaders in an ongoing campaign of medieval/fantastic miniatures warfare. Though I was out of D&D during the 3e years, the Strongholds book for 3e was probably an attempt to bring back that aspect of play. That it failed to appeal to the new generation of D&D gamers, who had no history with miniatures wargaming, is not really surprising, but as someone who was actually involved in the wargaming hobby in the late 70s, including but not limited to D&D, I appreciate the attempt to return to roots that the Stronghold book represented. BTW, I am continuing to enjoy this series, having only discovered it a year and a half after you posted it. One of the most comprehensive histories of the game I've seen or read. Nicely done!
I ran a campaign (Rappan Athuk mod) for a little bit but once the players got above 5th level they turned into power gaming-rules lawyers. After that the only 3rd edition I played was as a player for the Living Greyhawk campaign. I stopped playing for a couple years until 4th edition came out (around 2010).
Great video...never got my head around Prestige Classes and they got expanded even further with 3.5 but all things to all people. I understand why they are seen as great by people though. Thanks for this comprehensive coverage of the core 3rd Edition D&D books.
+Mark Hyde Thanks for watching, I personally did not really like the influx of Prestige Classes and it reached a point where I had to review and approve prestige classes before my players could take levels in them
I liked the concept of the Prestige Classes to be able to gain a certain fantasy archetype, but it got really overdone, and so many of them appeared to be made just to have weird powered up abilities, but without making much sense. Arcane Archer, Assassin and the originals all made sense as to how they fit in, but later ones seemed be making them just for the sake of inventing some obscure PC. The good thing about things like that in the D&D system is that I see all the rules as Optional. Prestige Classes are easy to just say no to and ignore them. There are some rules that although I say they are all optional, changing some can lead to imbalance, but not with the Prestige Classes.
More options are good. I guess I'm just still stuck in the old AD&D mentality ("2.5ed" did have it's 'kits' seem bolted on I guess)....I stopped playing before Wizards took over TSR and completely missed 3.0/3.5/4th editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Got back into TTRPGs around the time wizards were announcing what came to be known as 5th ed notionally.
We still play 3rd edition, going from ad&d to 3rd and skipping 2nd ed. Eventually we incorporated house rules to avoid power gaming. (My first character, Angelique, was a Fighter-Ranger-Barbarian - massive cheesy) We cut skill points to double not quadruple at first level, max being level +1. Each class had 2 skills for which they got a class bonus of +2 (rogues : usually taking move silent and hide in shadows etc). We cut back on feats : We divided feats between major and minor (feats like Run being a minor). You got a minor feat at first, major at second, minor at third, stat point at fourth - rinse and repeat. Fighters got a combat feat at first, fifth, tenth, etc. Wizards got a magic feat at fifth, tenth, etc). You could be split class but it was like ad&d : average the hit points, and you just got the better of the two saving throws (ie: a fighter thief +2 at first on fortitude AND reflex). We added the Dabble minor feat : For spell casting it gave a person 2 zero level spells and 0 first level spells (with an attribute bonus, you got a first level spell). For dabbling in Rogue, two rogue skills became IN CLASS. This system has work oh so well for years and year. We have looked at 4th and 5th ed, and passed - the books adorning our shelves. For Bards, we did away with bardic knowledge but gave them +2 on ALL knowledge skills which were IN CLASS, and upped their skill points to 6 per level. (Well, basically 5 - since Bards pretty much HAVE to take perform skill for which they are also +2). They use the sorceror table for numbers of spells known/castable making them more useful)
Many of the inclusions to 3rd ed were supplements to 2nd Ed. They were driven into the core rules but there was not a lot of originality. "Rules Lawyers" have existed since first edition by the way. I have had physicists destroy a game on wording and I have had arguments over "protection from evil" warding off outer planar spells unless they were in that plane (although the character didn't know that he was no longer in the Prime... he just persisted with the argument that on the Prime his spell would protect the party from damage regardless of how many times I instructed him to move on and it would be obvious as to why the design of the spell was not working to expectation). Perhaps the best dungeon crawl I ever wrote, pockets of extra dimensional planes that existed in separate caverns in a cave on the prime (it allowed me to introduce minor monsters that they had never faced as only high level characters leave the Prime). I could throw every conceivable minor elemental at them in each plane of existence that they entered but the player couldn't conceive of the idea that because I hadn't put forward a visible portal that he had left the prime material plane. After an hour of asking him to let things proceed I threw my notes at him and told him to read them. Throwing things as a DM is pretty much loss of control. Such is life... We move on.
3e was the version I started on and watching this video has me wanting to pick it up again. There were some needlessly complicated aspects, and there were some broken mechanics, but it was a lot of fun.
+dannalbob I got a little nostalgic while working on this video, I actually chatted with someone I used to game with back in those days, it was nice to talk gaming with him again. I had a few negative experiences with 3.0 but there were a lot of great times as well.
Home rules are what make 3.0 work. Even all the bad things you mentioned are fixable as long as the group were not min-maxing munchkins or lackadaisical roleplayers.
@DravenSwiftbow I usually give them all the leadership feat at 7th level and they really start up some domain play with all their dungeon delving adventures
I enjoyed running this for quite a while, but after a combined 12 years of near weekly games (3rd and 3.5) I honestly burned myself out on it, that is the also the reason why I was never able to get into 1st Edition Pathfinder.
@@DravenSwiftbow Hey I get that . I have one session on Thursdays for 5e and it is hard to get people together for it. I had to miss last session because of work. Totally ruined the day for me as I was looking forward to playing.
@@DravenSwiftbow I'm in the same boat, but I usually attend the local cons in my area every three months and play Adventurers League and run something like Dungeon Crawl Classics/Call of Cthulhu/Boardgames.
I tried to go to 3rd edition when it came out, but it really felt like the company was catering to the whims of players and removed consequence of choice from the game or at least minimized it. I liked the combat system as they had further refined the one presented in the Player Option series so it was familiar, but the game was too different in some fundamental ways than the one we were using in ways that could not be explained like the shift from 1st to 2nd edition. The artwork also took a dive from the previous edition and was generally poor by comparison. Ultimately, 3rd edition seemed more like a simulacrum than the continuation of the game, but that probably had to do with being so immersed in the canon history of the settings from the previous edition which was not compatible with the changes of the new edition. Though I am pleased the game attracted new players of the game and a new generation of gaming.
I disagree completely. 3rd gave you greater control over your character and the kind of character you wanted them to be, which was supported by the mechanics and not solely reliant on DM fiat. Specializing as a grappler in 3rd for instance was a lot more viable and you could become a different kind of grappler as well depending on feats you took. The art was an objective improvement in 3rd in regards to the player book, as they were, for the most part, much better drawn and less cartoony.
@@bud389 No, 3rd edition went full power gaming with the ability to maximize the potential of your character with very little balance. It is why this edition had so many problems with the characters becoming cartoonish to superhero-esque. There was the ability to do the same thing in 2nd edition with specializations, it just was more balanced and far more believable. Where do you think 3rd edition came up with most of their rules after all, most of it was copied directly from the later 2nd edition rule books. 2nd edition wasn't perfect, but what it did that is lost on many later editions is that a benefit almost always came at a cost instead of just giving the milk away for free. There was an attempt to balance most things out and ways to do almost anything, provided you met the requirements to do so. As for art, it went downhill in 3rd edition with even the equipment being drawn wrong. How long did WotC defend the horrible elf art claiming she had low charisma? No, the art took a dive into the fascicle with many of the artist not knowing what things should look like, only what seemed cool to them like the calvary shield being shown with foot soldiers. And that absolutely absurd racial equipment, this wasn't flavor, this was just a venture into the ridiculous. Half of the items could only actually work if they were magical, which they aren't by default. It reminds of WoW artistic influence which is just terrible, though not quite as bad and a stark departure from verisimilitude again. 5th edition's art is better than what 3rd turned out. This was when the the playstyle of D&D changed from a believable verisimilitude about surviving the adventurers life to a more comic book/superhero style of game that plays more like a video game. Not only was the deadliness being nerfed from 2nd to 3rd edition, there was some serious mollycoddling, like priests being able to swap out spells for healing magic instead of having to play tactically and intelligently, and most of the nuance and richness of the game was just dumbed-down, like the carbon copy tieflings. No, this was the power gaming and min maxers preferred version of the game where they got to optimize their characters with very little consequence and there was an expectation of a glut of magical items, something that WotC severely limited in 5th edition as a learned consequence of bad game design.
What was all those complete Fighter, priest, etc.. Books. They were soft cover and mentioned something like kits? There was also a complete psionics handbook too. They were helpful in some areas. Spell Jammer, World of Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Revenloft?
The 3rd Edition soft cover class books were Sword and Fist (Fighters and Monks), Tome and Blood (Sorcerers and Wizards), Song and Silence (Bards and Rogues), Defenders of the Faith (Cleric and Paladin) and I believe Masters of the Wild (Druids, Rangers and Barbarians) They featured new Feats as well as Prestige Classes which required the player to have ranks in certain skills, needing particular Feats and in most cases Multi Classing. Complete Psionics was actually released for D&D 3.5 since 3rd Edition Psionics was utter garbage.
Haha yes they were. I am a little older and played 1st edition. I believe there was a section in either the DM's Guide or handbook that detailed the percentage chance of creating a psionic character. I think it depended upon intelligence and wisdom to help increase the %, but we never bothered with it. I may have had an enemy with psionics but never a player. Thanks for the response. I didn't like the editions after 2, nor my players. It was just too drastic of a change I guess.
Oh, excellent btw. I have learned a tremendous amount and to be fair, I have not progressed to the 5th edition episode yet. In 1982, $15 was a lot of money for a kid and for a book. I bought them all or the ones I could find. I even purchased the Manuel of the Planes. Minimum wage was 3.50/back then. Now I know why my first girlfriend left me. Lol
I think there was also a chance to develop Psionics if you were exposed to a Psionic attack. I'm not 100% on that one, but I recall that being brought up in a conversation about Psionics
If kits per se were presented, those books were 2nd edition, not 3rd. 2nd edition was the one that created all the settings you just talked about (except for Greyhawk, and arguably Ravenloft.)
I quit gaming back 2000 and just got back into it last year. I missed 3rd and 4th edition completely. I still plan on collecting the books and reading them eventually so this videowas really awesome for me!
It was insanely over powered in 3rd edition. You could effectively save an action every other round to give yourself the ability to cast two spells in a round.
I know this may be petty, but one thing that bothers me about 3rd Edition is why don't Halflings have big hairy feet? I always saw the Halfling feet as iconic, much like elves ears, or an orc's tusks.
I feel just the opposite. I think this is the first time that halflings became their own thing, and not just hobbits with the serial numbers filed off. 3e was the first halfling version that I could see existing in a swords-and-sorcery, non-Tolkeinian world, and I think that's a good change. And bear in mind, in 0e/1e artwork, orcs not only had tusks...they had pig snouts! I always found those a little hard to take seriously, frankly. Also, now that I think about it, 0e/1e kobolds were little dog people, not little dragon people--basically, kobolds were to gnolls what goblins were to orcs. So, there have been quite a few evolutions over the various editions.
I really enjoyed 3.0 when it first came out, and to be fair it plays well until about 10th or 12th level. At that point every game I was a part of fell apart
10th or 12th level? That's when you gotta look into the "Prestige Classes"! I really liked those a lot. When 3.5 edition was released is when I finally got my own books. That's when I really got to explore the DM position. I found out I could make a PC that was a commoner then, when that character met the requirements, create a "Prestige Class" character. Look it up. There were these basic classes like warrior or merchant that was for NPCs usually but you could use them with the DM's discretion as PCs. I gotta kick outta that! All in all, my final thought is that whenever "they", whoever they are, change the rules, some of the mystique and therefor, excitement, gets sucked out of the game. If you remember when you had only heard about D&D and wondered how one plays it, then someone gave you some dice, a character sheet, and a rule book, you were intrigued by that alone. The fantasy and story telling aspects were still fun but the rules were very fascinating because no other board game as quite like it. The rules have become commonplace whatever they might be. There are too many rules, in my opinion, and changing them isn't going to make the game better. I think one just has to appreciate there are very good rules set up for any version of the game and then focus on being creative and having fun.
They created 3.5 because there were major balancing changes they implemented, namely Spell Resistance, which gave spells another roll that could potentially negate them, so now along with saving throws, concentration checks, spell Resistance, and in some instances concealment, spells had a total of 4 rolls that could negate a spell.
One thing I truly hate is infighting. It is annoying when a new player wants to join and the other players have character driven friction because "that's how my character would behave". Say like a cleric and meets a new necromantic themed character....Or a thief meets a overly devout paladin who does not trust the story the new player made for his wanted play style.
Wow you are a very good at explanations. Very in-depth. Possibly the best on YT. Well in my opinion. DSB what is meant by the term splatbook?? Does it mean mass-produced books, books turned out every other week?? I had asked this question of another channel I sub to ( Ner@#$&hy) with no reply. Actually several times with different questions, but nada reply. They are probably just real busy. I love their personalities though.
I've come to learn that some terms have different meanings in different areas, but where I lived we used the term Splatbook for the soft covered books that had nothing but new options (no setting material or flavour text). Books like Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood and others of that kind. The phrase could also be used for just about any supplement as well I suppose, but we used it primary as I mentioned above. Hope that helps.
Just re-watching this and just wanted add re Psionics Handbook initially released for 3rd Edition was not ok, just crap really. 3.5ed Expanded Psionics Handbook was so much better. Waiting to hear your views in the new video for 3.5Edition.
Thanks, it took way longer than I wanted (A lot was going on in my personal life) But I am back into recording videos. My 3.5 video should be out within a day or two of this reply.
I don't quite understand why you as a DM didn't just veto those situations where the two players tried to grapple one another or when all the characters died. It'd be as simple as "Whoever rolls highest on the d20 without modifiers goes first, this is a stroke from the gods" for the first one, and, "that didn't happen and that spell is no longer allowed" for the second one.
In my case it was two players that were arguing with each other and neither would listen to me when I tried to rule on it. It was that session that almost caused me to give up DMing all together, as it was I ended up taking nearly a year of from running games. When I did start back up it was with a different group.
@@DravenSwiftbow you can't, by definition, "reinterpret the rules" by using the rules as written. That's crappy DM code for "i don't actually like how that is supposed to work"
Between the two I recommend 3.5. It was designed to fix some of the balance issues that existed in 3.0. It has plenty of its own problems too but I still would choose it over 3.0.
I absolutely hated what 3e did to half-orcs. The 3e half-orc is essentially a 2e half-ogre; a dumb brute of a character that sucked at everything except fighting. Just read the fluff in the '79 DMG concerning half-orcs, then read the fluff in the 3e PHG about half-orcs, and try to tell me with a straight face that they're describing the same character.
+AceProductions91 Sorry it took so long. I was going through a rough time for the last few months. I'm currently recording my 3.5 video and will be working on my 4th Edition script after Canadian Thanksgiving
wish i could adventure in one of your campaigns, you know so much. i'm just starting off and all of the material that gets thrown at me is very overbearing.
3rd Ed for LIFE!!!!! I adapt things I like from 4th and 5th but very little. 3rd Ed is the Elite level in D&D in my opinion. 5th Ed seems like it was make for Snowflakes and Millennials who thought the game was too hard or died too easy LOL So bland
To me it feels like 3E is modern (yes, modern) AD&D and 5E is modern Basic D&D. 4E is a clusterfuster disaster attempt to turn World of Computercraft into a tabletop game and it fails.
I don’t accept 3rd edition as authentic Dungeons & Dragons. It’s publication by a major corporation and it’s dramatic departure from Gygax’s game makes it something else entirely. Even TSR’s evil twin, with it’s 2nd edition, was still largely Gary’s AD&D game, fully compatible and mostly familiar (being essentially a reorganization). I think 3rd edition is a brilliant RPG (groundbreaking even); but it’s only real relation to D&D was the famous trademarked name - now owned by Hasbro. AD&D (and Basic D&D) was largely a Generation X game (those born 1964-1980), and 3rd edition was largely a Millennial Generation game (those born 1981-1996). My 2 cents
3E was my first edition. I remember flipping through these books at ten and just enjoying the art and fluff.
I loved 3rd Edition, I just burned myself out on it after running weekly games for 12 years. There are a lot of great things in it and I would play it as a player again in a heart beat, I just have no desire to run games for it myself
That’s how I got introduced to D&D, and my local library held sessions, so I learned to play and joined a one-shot
1st ed was my first in 1983.
I think 3E is the best rules for D&D, but the best artwork IMHO was in 2nd Edition. Elmore and Easley for the win!
This is a phenomenal video, but I want to correct one point of information. The reason Wizards dropped "Advanced" from the title of the game was to pay homage to Dave Arneson. TSR had deliberately re-named the more Gygaxian revision of the D&D rules as "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" to avoid paying co-creator royalties to Arneson. Wizards of the Coast, upon acquiring TSR, went about trying to mend as many fences as possible: they paid distributors, refunded retailers for returned product, set production schedules back on track, and reached out to Gygax and Arneson, neither of whom had been a part of TSR for years.
By dropping the "Advanced" from the product name, they were allowing Arneson to collect royalties on the game, something which he had been denied for something like twenty years. Gygax had his own thing going on and wasn't interested in re-joining the design team for Third Edition, but he did come back to write a number of "Up On A Soapbox" columns for Dragon Magazine before Hasbro bought Wizards and sold their magazine arm to Paizo. It was an amazingly awesome move on their part, and something they didn't need to do, but they did it anyway. :)
That's good to know, that didn't turn up when I was researching 3rd but I didn't do as much of that since I had a lot of personal experience and was playing/running games from it's beginning to end.
How the mighty have fallen...
We still play 3rd edition. We went directly from AD&D to 3rd edition (We did try 2nd edition but weren't fans). Going to d20 from THACO was brilliant and so overdue. We have set up house rules. We cut back on the number of feats and re-adopted the AD&D style of multiclass (Average of the hit die and better of bonuses for saving throws or base attacks). We did adopt a "Dabble" Feat. The character became 0 level in the class - for spell casters they got 2 zero level spells and 0 firsts (plus attribute bonus so usually one 1st level spell. For dabbling in rogue, 2 rogue skills became in class. We broke down feats into major and minor feats, and alternated. The minor feats became interesting little features - with feats one normally would not take (Most people would take Craft Wand over Alertness, etc). While we play other games and have even designed our own (Mystic Plains, etc), D&D will always be the gold standard, Or should I say gold piece standard.
The Barbarian was not a brand new class when the 3rd ed came, it was in the 1st ed in Unearthed Arcana.
You are 100% correct. I missed that when I was writing scripts for this series
@@DravenSwiftbow The Barbarian class was also present in 2nd edition under the warrior group when it was reintroduced in it's own book: The Complete Barbarian's Handbook, released in 1994.
Indeed the Barbarian class was originally published in Dragon Magazine as an official 1st edition character class. Interestingly, in the UK it was published in Imagine magazine which was technically the ‘Dragon Magazine’ of Europe.
After being on a 2nd edition bend, and watching your overview of 3e. I can now really appreciate all the innovations that went into 3e.
Prestige Classes (although they weren't called that) and Magic-Item Creation came from Basic D&D. 2E's Player's Option: Spells & Magic also had magic-item creation.
You could argue that a form of prestige class was in 1st edition. In Unearthed Arcana, the thief-acrobat progressed as an ordinary thief for 5-7 levels, and then became a thief-acrobat. This is a lot like the prestige classes of 3rd edition. You could also point to the 1st edition bard, that started out as a fighter, then became a thief, and then became a bard.
Good, detailed video, especially for those of us who largely "missed" this edition. One small quibble: the barbarian wasn't new in this edition - the class was actually introduced in the original Unearthed Arcana - a supplementary rulebook in AD&D that came out in 1984/5, if memory serves. They were dropped in 2e, but returned here.
Boris you are correct about Barbarian. I played AD&D years ago and had the UA. Excellent video series Draven. Thanks for doing the research for these. Very interesting.
+Boris Stremlin You are 100% Correct. The only classes that I remembered from Unearthed Arcana was the Cavalier and Thief Acrobat. 3.0 is the first time the Barbarian appears in a Player's Handbook. I'll have to correct that in the next video.
+DravenSwiftbow Actually the Barbarian was introduced in issue #2 of Imagine Magazine
Jiminimonka lol I have it.
You could've also mentioned how 3.0 facilitated playing with minis, or how modules changed to adventures (and the quality of said adventures) and saying something about feats during the PHB section. On your AD&D video, the red books were also worth mentioning, but overall nice retrospectives. I hope you update the videos in the future. Cheers!
For a long time, I played Palladium RPG. I finally made the switch to D&D and your videos have helped give me insight to the history of D&D. Thank you so much!
+Mike Kellett Thank you for watching
Enjoyable video! :)
However, the Deck of Many Things, the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna were all in 2nd Edition.
those covers look much better than the action scene covers, in my opinion.
I like both styles personally. I did really like these books when they first came out, I also found it interesting how these covers were photos taken of an actual book, if you turn the books upside down you can clearly see the camera's reflection in the gems.
that's cool
Very pleasant to watch! Can't wait 'till the 3.5, 4th and 5th edition videos (the versions of D&D which I am currently playing in in three different campaigns).
Strongholds were a really big part of 0e D&D, though they began to fade through 1e, and may have been gone by 2e (I missed 2e entirely, playing Champions and Fantasy Hero through those years, so I could be wrong about that). Really, a big stronghold, a standing army, and a noble title were what balanced fighters with mages in 0e campaigns. Magic-users could and did build wizard's towers, but those were really just a place to put your stuff and maybe do a little research between adventures; strongholds made high-level fighters into warlords. Bear in mind that D&D came out of the Castle and Crusade society, in which the members assumed the role of faction leaders in an ongoing campaign of medieval/fantastic miniatures warfare. Though I was out of D&D during the 3e years, the Strongholds book for 3e was probably an attempt to bring back that aspect of play. That it failed to appeal to the new generation of D&D gamers, who had no history with miniatures wargaming, is not really surprising, but as someone who was actually involved in the wargaming hobby in the late 70s, including but not limited to D&D, I appreciate the attempt to return to roots that the Stronghold book represented.
BTW, I am continuing to enjoy this series, having only discovered it a year and a half after you posted it. One of the most comprehensive histories of the game I've seen or read. Nicely done!
Thanks, I'm glad you are enjoying it. I put a lot of time and work into making this series
Dude this has been inspiring. Love the content, keep doing what you're doing would love to see more!
Enjoying your series. I like the personal examples of how it felt to your own campaign. keep up the good work!
+Mark Humphries Thank you, glad you're enjoying them.
I ran a campaign (Rappan Athuk mod) for a little bit but once the players got above 5th level they turned into power gaming-rules lawyers. After that the only 3rd edition I played was as a player for the Living Greyhawk campaign. I stopped playing for a couple years until 4th edition came out (around 2010).
Great video...never got my head around Prestige Classes and they got expanded even further with 3.5 but all things to all people. I understand why they are seen as great by people though.
Thanks for this comprehensive coverage of the core 3rd Edition D&D books.
+Mark Hyde Thanks for watching, I personally did not really like the influx of Prestige Classes and it reached a point where I had to review and approve prestige classes before my players could take levels in them
I liked the concept of the Prestige Classes to be able to gain a certain fantasy archetype, but it got really overdone, and so many of them appeared to be made just to have weird powered up abilities, but without making much sense. Arcane Archer, Assassin and the originals all made sense as to how they fit in, but later ones seemed be making them just for the sake of inventing some obscure PC.
The good thing about things like that in the D&D system is that I see all the rules as Optional. Prestige Classes are easy to just say no to and ignore them. There are some rules that although I say they are all optional, changing some can lead to imbalance, but not with the Prestige Classes.
More options are good. I guess I'm just still stuck in the old AD&D mentality ("2.5ed" did have it's 'kits' seem bolted on I guess)....I stopped playing before Wizards took over
TSR and completely missed 3.0/3.5/4th editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Got back into TTRPGs around the time wizards were announcing what came to be known as 5th ed notionally.
We still play 3rd edition, going from ad&d to 3rd and skipping 2nd ed. Eventually we incorporated house rules to avoid power gaming. (My first character, Angelique, was a Fighter-Ranger-Barbarian - massive cheesy) We cut skill points to double not quadruple at first level, max being level +1. Each class had 2 skills for which they got a class bonus of +2 (rogues : usually taking move silent and hide in shadows etc). We cut back on feats : We divided feats between major and minor (feats like Run being a minor). You got a minor feat at first, major at second, minor at third, stat point at fourth - rinse and repeat. Fighters got a combat feat at first, fifth, tenth, etc. Wizards got a magic feat at fifth, tenth, etc). You could be split class but it was like ad&d : average the hit points, and you just got the better of the two saving throws (ie: a fighter thief +2 at first on fortitude AND reflex). We added the Dabble minor feat : For spell casting it gave a person 2 zero level spells and 0 first level spells (with an attribute bonus, you got a first level spell). For dabbling in Rogue, two rogue skills became IN CLASS. This system has work oh so well for years and year. We have looked at 4th and 5th ed, and passed - the books adorning our shelves. For Bards, we did away with bardic knowledge but gave them +2 on ALL knowledge skills which were IN CLASS, and upped their skill points to 6 per level. (Well, basically 5 - since Bards pretty much HAVE to take perform skill for which they are also +2). They use the sorceror table for numbers of spells known/castable making them more useful)
Many of the inclusions to 3rd ed were supplements to 2nd Ed. They were driven into the core rules but there was not a lot of originality. "Rules Lawyers" have existed since first edition by the way. I have had physicists destroy a game on wording and I have had arguments over "protection from evil" warding off outer planar spells unless they were in that plane (although the character didn't know that he was no longer in the Prime... he just persisted with the argument that on the Prime his spell would protect the party from damage regardless of how many times I instructed him to move on and it would be obvious as to why the design of the spell was not working to expectation). Perhaps the best dungeon crawl I ever wrote, pockets of extra dimensional planes that existed in separate caverns in a cave on the prime (it allowed me to introduce minor monsters that they had never faced as only high level characters leave the Prime). I could throw every conceivable minor elemental at them in each plane of existence that they entered but the player couldn't conceive of the idea that because I hadn't put forward a visible portal that he had left the prime material plane. After an hour of asking him to let things proceed I threw my notes at him and told him to read them. Throwing things as a DM is pretty much loss of control. Such is life... We move on.
3e was the version I started on and watching this video has me wanting to pick it up again. There were some needlessly complicated aspects, and there were some broken mechanics, but it was a lot of fun.
+dannalbob I got a little nostalgic while working on this video, I actually chatted with someone I used to game with back in those days, it was nice to talk gaming with him again. I had a few negative experiences with 3.0 but there were a lot of great times as well.
Home rules are what make 3.0 work. Even all the bad things you mentioned are fixable as long as the group were not min-maxing munchkins or lackadaisical roleplayers.
Yeah, the group I ran 3.0 for were very much into min-maxing
I still use that Stronghold book for games today. A lot of my players like town building games.
That's awesome!
@DravenSwiftbow I usually give them all the leadership feat at 7th level and they really start up some domain play with all their dungeon delving adventures
Thanks for the overview. I have never played this edition having only 2nd and 5th (2 sessions worth) under my belt. Nice to see what is out there.
I enjoyed running this for quite a while, but after a combined 12 years of near weekly games (3rd and 3.5) I honestly burned myself out on it, that is the also the reason why I was never able to get into 1st Edition Pathfinder.
@@DravenSwiftbow makes sense to me man. Can't always be the DM. It can be stressful.
One of these days I hope to play again. I've been given offers for online games during the week, but with family and work I just can't commit.
@@DravenSwiftbow Hey I get that . I have one session on Thursdays for 5e and it is hard to get people together for it. I had to miss last session because of work. Totally ruined the day for me as I was looking forward to playing.
@@DravenSwiftbow I'm in the same boat, but I usually attend the local cons in my area every three months and play Adventurers League and run something like Dungeon Crawl Classics/Call of Cthulhu/Boardgames.
I tried to go to 3rd edition when it came out, but it really felt like the company was catering to the whims of players and removed consequence of choice from the game or at least minimized it. I liked the combat system as they had further refined the one presented in the Player Option series so it was familiar, but the game was too different in some fundamental ways than the one we were using in ways that could not be explained like the shift from 1st to 2nd edition. The artwork also took a dive from the previous edition and was generally poor by comparison. Ultimately, 3rd edition seemed more like a simulacrum than the continuation of the game, but that probably had to do with being so immersed in the canon history of the settings from the previous edition which was not compatible with the changes of the new edition.
Though I am pleased the game attracted new players of the game and a new generation of gaming.
I disagree completely. 3rd gave you greater control over your character and the kind of character you wanted them to be, which was supported by the mechanics and not solely reliant on DM fiat. Specializing as a grappler in 3rd for instance was a lot more viable and you could become a different kind of grappler as well depending on feats you took.
The art was an objective improvement in 3rd in regards to the player book, as they were, for the most part, much better drawn and less cartoony.
@@bud389 No, 3rd edition went full power gaming with the ability to maximize the potential of your character with very little balance. It is why this edition had so many problems with the characters becoming cartoonish to superhero-esque. There was the ability to do the same thing in 2nd edition with specializations, it just was more balanced and far more believable. Where do you think 3rd edition came up with most of their rules after all, most of it was copied directly from the later 2nd edition rule books. 2nd edition wasn't perfect, but what it did that is lost on many later editions is that a benefit almost always came at a cost instead of just giving the milk away for free. There was an attempt to balance most things out and ways to do almost anything, provided you met the requirements to do so.
As for art, it went downhill in 3rd edition with even the equipment being drawn wrong. How long did WotC defend the horrible elf art claiming she had low charisma? No, the art took a dive into the fascicle with many of the artist not knowing what things should look like, only what seemed cool to them like the calvary shield being shown with foot soldiers. And that absolutely absurd racial equipment, this wasn't flavor, this was just a venture into the ridiculous. Half of the items could only actually work if they were magical, which they aren't by default. It reminds of WoW artistic influence which is just terrible, though not quite as bad and a stark departure from verisimilitude again. 5th edition's art is better than what 3rd turned out.
This was when the the playstyle of D&D changed from a believable verisimilitude about surviving the adventurers life to a more comic book/superhero style of game that plays more like a video game. Not only was the deadliness being nerfed from 2nd to 3rd edition, there was some serious mollycoddling, like priests being able to swap out spells for healing magic instead of having to play tactically and intelligently, and most of the nuance and richness of the game was just dumbed-down, like the carbon copy tieflings. No, this was the power gaming and min maxers preferred version of the game where they got to optimize their characters with very little consequence and there was an expectation of a glut of magical items, something that WotC severely limited in 5th edition as a learned consequence of bad game design.
Shit was ridiculous in that epic level handbook.
What was all those complete Fighter, priest, etc.. Books. They were soft cover and mentioned something like kits? There was also a complete psionics handbook too. They were helpful in some areas. Spell Jammer, World of Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Revenloft?
The 3rd Edition soft cover class books were Sword and Fist (Fighters and Monks), Tome and Blood (Sorcerers and Wizards), Song and Silence (Bards and Rogues), Defenders of the Faith (Cleric and Paladin) and I believe Masters of the Wild (Druids, Rangers and Barbarians) They featured new Feats as well as Prestige Classes which required the player to have ranks in certain skills, needing particular Feats and in most cases Multi Classing. Complete Psionics was actually released for D&D 3.5 since 3rd Edition Psionics was utter garbage.
Haha yes they were. I am a little older and played 1st edition. I believe there was a section in either the DM's Guide or handbook that detailed the percentage chance of creating a psionic character. I think it depended upon intelligence and wisdom to help increase the %, but we never bothered with it. I may have had an enemy with psionics but never a player. Thanks for the response. I didn't like the editions after 2, nor my players. It was just too drastic of a change I guess.
Oh, excellent btw. I have learned a tremendous amount and to be fair, I have not progressed to the 5th edition episode yet. In 1982, $15 was a lot of money for a kid and for a book. I bought them all or the ones I could find. I even purchased the Manuel of the Planes. Minimum wage was 3.50/back then. Now I know why my first girlfriend left me. Lol
I think there was also a chance to develop Psionics if you were exposed to a Psionic attack. I'm not 100% on that one, but I recall that being brought up in a conversation about Psionics
If kits per se were presented, those books were 2nd edition, not 3rd. 2nd edition was the one that created all the settings you just talked about (except for Greyhawk, and arguably Ravenloft.)
ah 3.5 thats when i started, good times!
Love the video's keeping them coming!
+Steelguard327 Thank you, recording this one was an ordeal. I'm glad you enjoyed it, that really means a lot.
I quit gaming back 2000 and just got back into it last year. I missed 3rd and 4th edition completely. I still plan on collecting the books and reading them eventually so this videowas really awesome for me!
The last D&D Basic boxed set was released in 1999. (Not lying, I have it right here)
Was that one the "Black Box"?
Yep! I like it a lot.
I don't know how the Haste spell functions in 3rd Edition, but in 1st Edition, it does not enable a character to cast spells any faster than usual....
It was insanely over powered in 3rd edition. You could effectively save an action every other round to give yourself the ability to cast two spells in a round.
Good job, I enjoyed this. Although rules lawyers were around long before 3.5, sadly enough.
That may be true, in my experience though 3rd Edition really brought out the worst in people I gamed with
Isn't it funny how a game can control it's player's behaviors.
It's a shame some games don't come with warning labels.
I know this may be petty, but one thing that bothers me about 3rd Edition is why don't Halflings have big hairy feet? I always saw the Halfling feet as iconic, much like elves ears, or an orc's tusks.
I feel just the opposite. I think this is the first time that halflings became their own thing, and not just hobbits with the serial numbers filed off. 3e was the first halfling version that I could see existing in a swords-and-sorcery, non-Tolkeinian world, and I think that's a good change. And bear in mind, in 0e/1e artwork, orcs not only had tusks...they had pig snouts! I always found those a little hard to take seriously, frankly. Also, now that I think about it, 0e/1e kobolds were little dog people, not little dragon people--basically, kobolds were to gnolls what goblins were to orcs. So, there have been quite a few evolutions over the various editions.
I really liked this edition. I want to say it lacked some of the magic the previous editions had but can't really rationalize that thought.
I really enjoyed 3.0 when it first came out, and to be fair it plays well until about 10th or 12th level. At that point every game I was a part of fell apart
10th or 12th level? That's when you gotta look into the "Prestige Classes"! I really liked those a lot. When 3.5 edition was released is when I finally got my own books. That's when I really got to explore the DM position. I found out I could make a PC that was a commoner then, when that character met the requirements, create a "Prestige Class" character. Look it up. There were these basic classes like warrior or merchant that was for NPCs usually but you could use them with the DM's discretion as PCs. I gotta kick outta that! All in all, my final thought is that whenever "they", whoever they are, change the rules, some of the mystique and therefor, excitement, gets sucked out of the game. If you remember when you had only heard about D&D and wondered how one plays it, then someone gave you some dice, a character sheet, and a rule book, you were intrigued by that alone. The fantasy and story telling aspects were still fun but the rules were very fascinating because no other board game as quite like it. The rules have become commonplace whatever they might be. There are too many rules, in my opinion, and changing them isn't going to make the game better. I think one just has to appreciate there are very good rules set up for any version of the game and then focus on being creative and having fun.
The Best edition ever. They created 3.5th 4th and 5th only to sell books.
Damn straight - we play almost every week on skype - great during covid
They created 3.5 because there were major balancing changes they implemented, namely Spell Resistance, which gave spells another roll that could potentially negate them, so now along with saving throws, concentration checks, spell Resistance, and in some instances concealment, spells had a total of 4 rolls that could negate a spell.
Any news on when the 3.5 retrospective will come?
+John Smith Hopefully within the next 2-3 weeks. I'm still working on my Curse of Strahd review, then the 3.5 video will be next
+DravenSwiftbow Look forward to them. :-)
cant' find them ...
So it took longer to get to it than I hoped, but I am currently recording the 3.5 video. Should be uploaded within the next 24-48 hours
DravenSwiftbow Fantastic!
Best Edition Ever
One of my fav ed.! 3.0!
One thing I truly hate is infighting. It is annoying when a new player wants to join and the other players have character driven friction because "that's how my character would behave". Say like a cleric and meets a new necromantic themed character....Or a thief meets a overly devout paladin who does not trust the story the new player made for his wanted play style.
Hahahaha wizard of the coast manage to get the magic rule debate problem into Ad&d
Wow you are a very good at explanations. Very in-depth. Possibly the best on YT. Well in my opinion.
DSB what is meant by the term splatbook?? Does it mean mass-produced books, books turned out every other week?? I had asked this question of another channel I sub to ( Ner@#$&hy) with no reply. Actually several times with different questions, but nada reply. They are probably just real busy. I love their personalities though.
I've come to learn that some terms have different meanings in different areas, but where I lived we used the term Splatbook for the soft covered books that had nothing but new options (no setting material or flavour text). Books like Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood and others of that kind.
The phrase could also be used for just about any supplement as well I suppose, but we used it primary as I mentioned above. Hope that helps.
@@DravenSwiftbow Thanks Draven, that makes sense.
Just re-watching this and just wanted add re Psionics Handbook initially released for 3rd Edition was not ok, just crap really. 3.5ed Expanded Psionics Handbook was so much better.
Waiting to hear your views in the new video for 3.5Edition.
Thanks, it took way longer than I wanted (A lot was going on in my personal life) But I am back into recording videos. My 3.5 video should be out within a day or two of this reply.
I don't quite understand why you as a DM didn't just veto those situations where the two players tried to grapple one another or when all the characters died. It'd be as simple as
"Whoever rolls highest on the d20 without modifiers goes first, this is a stroke from the gods" for the first one, and, "that didn't happen and that spell is no longer allowed" for the second one.
In my case it was two players that were arguing with each other and neither would listen to me when I tried to rule on it. It was that session that almost caused me to give up DMing all together, as it was I ended up taking nearly a year of from running games. When I did start back up it was with a different group.
Rules lawyers = lawful evil.
That is how I will describe Lawful Evil from now on
@@DravenSwiftbow you can't, by definition, "reinterpret the rules" by using the rules as written. That's crappy DM code for "i don't actually like how that is supposed to work"
For new players to the edition - do you recommend 3 or 3.5 thank you.
Between the two I recommend 3.5. It was designed to fix some of the balance issues that existed in 3.0. It has plenty of its own problems too but I still would choose it over 3.0.
I absolutely hated what 3e did to half-orcs. The 3e half-orc is essentially a 2e half-ogre; a dumb brute of a character that sucked at everything except fighting. Just read the fluff in the '79 DMG concerning half-orcs, then read the fluff in the 3e PHG about half-orcs, and try to tell me with a straight face that they're describing the same character.
4th Edition retrospective coming out any time soon?
+AceProductions91 It will be yes. I still need to cover 3.5 which is my next video. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks it will be out
+AceProductions91 Sorry it took so long. I was going through a rough time for the last few months. I'm currently recording my 3.5 video and will be working on my 4th Edition script after Canadian Thanksgiving
AceProductions91 garbage
wish i could adventure in one of your campaigns, you know so much. i'm just starting off and all of the material that gets thrown at me is very overbearing.
It was so stupid that WOTC released all the books a month apart.
3rd Ed for LIFE!!!!! I adapt things I like from 4th and 5th but very little. 3rd Ed is the Elite level in D&D in my opinion. 5th Ed seems like it was make for Snowflakes and Millennials who thought the game was too hard or died too easy LOL So bland
To me it feels like 3E is modern (yes, modern) AD&D and 5E is modern Basic D&D.
4E is a clusterfuster disaster attempt to turn World of Computercraft into a tabletop game and it fails.
I don’t accept 3rd edition as authentic Dungeons & Dragons. It’s publication by a major corporation and it’s dramatic departure from Gygax’s game makes it something else entirely.
Even TSR’s evil twin, with it’s 2nd edition, was still largely Gary’s AD&D game, fully compatible and mostly familiar (being essentially a reorganization).
I think 3rd edition is a brilliant RPG (groundbreaking even); but it’s only real relation to D&D was the famous trademarked name - now owned by Hasbro.
AD&D (and Basic D&D) was largely a Generation X game (those born 1964-1980), and 3rd edition was largely a Millennial Generation game (those born 1981-1996).
My 2 cents