Christopher Perkins (1)Recensioni

For a game rule book, this one kept my interest!

This is my 3rd D&D player's handbook and I really like how they've gone back to a more traditional feel to the game while still allowing for (and giving support to) DMs and Players who are used to the miniatures and tiles based play of 4th edition. I'm excited to start DMing under 5e in the coming weeks.

Much improved from the previous editions. Much easier to deal with!

I just started this campaign for the 2nd time about a month ago, but since it's supposed to start at 3rd level and I didn't want to use the included mini-scenario, I haven't actually ever gotten to the content in the book. The first campaign crashed after 4 or 5 sessions.

After reading the entire book (I didn't last time), I'm left with tons of post-it notes in the book, a couple pages of revisions that were too big to fit on post-it notes, and scraping or redoing an entire chapter/encounter area (Amber Temple).

I'm on a FB Group for DM's of Curse of Strahd and from there I've learned there are TONS of "mods" people have written, but I've decided to avoid those so as not to get too confused. One thing I find odd from the group is some of the parts I have completely removed seem to be some of the things other DM's liked the most. I guess it's all about group play style and past experience.

I'm hoping to return here and up this rating after playing the entire campaign, but only time will tell.

I was a die-hard fan of 3.5e for a long time but 5e seems to be a worthy successor! I really enjoyed this handbook and look forward to giving it a spin.

I started playing in times of AD&D 2e and this system was unnecessarily complex even then and the worldbuilding was absolutely minimal. So when 3.5e came around it was very refreshing, books looked inviting, it felt epic, and it gave a sense of the world that adventures happen. 5e takes it to the next level - mechanics are simplified, but it doesn't limit player's options; the book is full of story hooks and many are baked into character creation (read: mandatory); it provides glimpses of different settings and sets basic themes of each (multiverse in the 1st core book!).

5e seems to be fast and intuitive mechanic-wise and gives a lot of inspiration for both DM and PCs to build an epic story. It gives a variety of options to chose from and basically everything you need to start playing (even without other core books). A lot of OP combos, powers, and spells seem to be nerfed or eliminated, so I hope for a balanced play where every choice (race/class/etc.) gives a player an awesome experience.

My only issue with this book is the lack of a short core mechanics summary. The index is very poor and frustrating, there is no glossary (like in 3.5e), and the book is full of "You will learn more about it in Chapter X". So when you want a summary of what the Proficiency Bonus is for, you need to skip through 4 different chapters of the handbook to get a full picture.½

What a cool game and insane amount of lore!

Guys, that's official. I'm addicted to DnD.

An update of the classic 1983 adventure, this campaign takes a sandbox approach to the setting of Barovia, a mysterious valley with serious Eastern European flavor. An ancient vampire, Strahd van Zarovich, rules over the land with an iron fist. The heroes are drawn unwilling into the land, and the only way out is to defeat Lord Strahd.

It's thick with gothic horror elements, and the new stuff is well done and thoughfully woven into the overarching plot.

From the art to monster descriptions, this is absolutely top-notch.

Possibly the best D&D edition so far crawls out of its baby bed. It's still to soon for this baby to grapple with its elders but the die has been cast with force. The newest D&D has new things that seem so fundamental in retrospect it's hard to realize they haven't always been there. Full review coming up on my blog.

Great creatures lie within. Simplicity and a good balance of fluff/crunch makes it a good bestiary. I deduct two stars for its lack of flexibility. There are no rules for creating your own monsters or NPCs. Review in my blog coming soon.

As an avid table-top RPG player, I found this latest edition of DnD to be the best yet to come out of Wizards of the Coast. Granted I have only dabbled in 1st and 2nd edition, but playing 3rd, 3.5, and 4th for the past 11 years or so, this 5th edition book seems to take all the good things in the last few tries and compiles them all together into this version. It was an enjoyable read especially if you read it out loud as I did to my newborn daughter.
Now for a little uber-nerdom fan talk - If you follow RPG politics you may know that a lot of 4th edition DnD game designers jumped ship over the past couple years to make their own kickstarter games like Numenera and 13th Age. It's rumored that they did this because they wanted to get back to basics but Wizards of the Coast wasn't having it because it's hard to make a "back to basics" RPG profitable. Having played these recent offshoots for the past couple years now, you can tell that Wizards of the Coast took the hint and decided to get back to their roots a bit and incorporate more "theater of the mind" and storytelling elements into their game mechanics. This is a good thing in my opinion, but some of it seems a bit borrowed. Numenera for instance, has a random roll list of bizarre items that you might come across as a player. The items tend to be weird and quirky, like a two headed cat fetus in a jar for instance. These items are called oddities and add a bit of strangeness to the world but rarely do they serve any real tactical advantage. That's ok because Numenera isn't really about combat, it's about discovery. DnD is however about combat a majority of the time This new version of DnD happens to included a random roll list called "trinkets" which appears to be very similar to the Numenera concept. When I came across the trinkets page in the new edition of this player's handbook it seems a little out of place. Wizards of the Coast also added the idea of "bonds" which seems to be directly drawn from 13th Age. I find this funny because these are probably the kind of concepts that Monte Cook and Rob Heinsoo wanted to incorporate into DnD before they left. Regardless of these interesting asides, the book is well put together, well edited, and contains decent art that isn't too cartoony. I look forward to checking out the new Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide soon. I have also been given a reprieve from DMing by my players since we have a new edition to the family and I don't have a lot time to plan out adventures. So another brave soul is DMing for now and I'm really looking forward to playing through this new system over the next year or so.

Some decent material here, though a bit uneven, as WotC's supplements can sometimes be. The Vow feats are interesting, but can easily be broken by a canny player. The spells and feats focus on either obliterating extraplanar creatures or dealing non-lethal damage so as not to besmirch one's soul by killing another creature. This can work if your whole party goes along with it, but much like the paladin, an Exalted character can create friction with his teammates. The archangel/saint/demigod-type creatures discussed give some interesting complexity to D&D religious culture. Overall, worth a look, if religion or moral quandaries are to play a serious part in your game.