Product Description
Weave exciting tales of heroism filled with magic and monsters. Within these pages, you’ll discover the tools and options you need to create detailed worlds and dynamic adventures for your players to experience in the
Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.
The revised
Dungeon Master’s Guide is an essential rulebook for Dungeon Masters of the
D&D game. The
Dungeon Master’s Guide has been reorganized to be more user friendly. It features information on running a D&D game, adjudicating play, writing adventures, nonplayer characters (including nonplayer character classes), running a campaign, characters, magic items (including intelligent and cursed items, and artifacts), and a dictionary of special abilities and conditions. Changes have been made to the item creation rules and pricing, and prestige classes new to the
Dungeon Master’s Guide are included (over 10 prestige classes). The revision includes expanded advice on how to run a campaign and instructs players on how to take full advantage of the tie-in
D&D miniatures line.
Anonymous @ 11:55 am
I was among the most vehemently obstinate when it came time to make the decision to convert to the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve been playing using the first and second edition rules sets for nearly 15 years, and my first read-through of the 3e core rules made me think about only one thing – Magic: The Gathering.
However, my group and I have recently seen the light and moved into the realm of Third Edition, and I will admit that I was very wrong to cast it aside so quickly. Streamlined rules, simplified spell descriptions, combat rounds that don’t seem to stand still – I could go on an on. But this review is about the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and I have but one word – OUTSTANDING.
One of the fatal flaws of the second edition DMG was its apparently convenient “parallel organization” – that is, the chapters were organized in the same order in both books to make reference easier. However, the 3e DMG has done away with this, and for good reason – most of the information in the PLayer’s Handbook doesn’t need to be repeated in the DMG.
The new DMG is chock-full of Dungeon Master stuff. Combat? See the PHB. Character class or race? See the PHB. Encumbrance, alignment, magic? See the PHB. The DMG boasts such goodies as presitge classes, a modularized magic item system, a complete (finally) description of every extraordinary and supernatural ability in the game, prestige classes, the fundamentals for Epic Characters, and on and on.
Bravo, Wizards. Bravo.
David C. Harris @ 2:46 pm
Well when they did 3.5 I would have thought that is was a fill in on the holes in 3.0. It is not. Most things have the basics from 3.0 but many things are totaly different from the ground up. If you want to do 3.5, you have to do all the books. This is not a partial switch, it is an all or nothing. When you first switch you keep finding more changes that on first look make no sense. After playing 4 or 5 sessions, you start to realize that , hey this is really good. My first impression was that 3.5 was the pitts, but after a good while, I realized it is much better than 3.0. I started playing d&d in 1977, and this is a really nice version, once you realize that it is a new total rework, not just a half step. If you are going to switch and need to get all three books, by them as the set. The price drop for the set makes it much easer on the money.
C. Bedford Crenshaw @ 4:14 pm
Even if you refuse to pick up the 3.5 PHB, I seriously recommend getting the 3.5 DMG, for these reasons.
1) More prestige classes. The ones in the old 3.0 were subpar; the new ones added are great, even through they should have left out the Red Wizard one if they insist on it being a Forgotten Realms only class.
2) You want to have extra-planar or epic level adventures. Well, you can buy the new DMG and skip buying the Manual of the Planes and Epic Handbooks, as the core stuff in both books is in the new DMG as well. However, you probably don’t want to use the Epic system used here, as without the Epic Book’s spell seeds, spellcasters are rather subpar.
The new DMg is basically the old DMG with all the best stuff from the past 3 years included. A must buy for any DM, even if you have the old 3e DMG, especially for the … price.
Keen Anthony @ 4:21 pm
I’ve played D&D since the early 1980s when I was introduced to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons & Dragons has gone through many evolutionary changes to reach its current 3rd Edition state – many of which I do not favor. I must agree with a previous reviewer in saying that this is not the D&D I remember playing; rather, it is an overcomplicated game meant to satisfy a generation of computer and console gamers by emphasizing combat development of super-heroic player characters over social roleplaying. While it is nice to see Advanced Dungeons & Dragons become simply, Dungeons & Dragons, again; the trendy Digital Age version nomenclature of 3.5 is rather sad.
Criticisms of 3rd Edition aside, this tome is vital for gaming in the 3rd Edition world. It resolves issues presented in the previous 3.0 release. If you own the original 3rd Edition DMG, you might be better off looking for the errata elsewhere.
This DMG, along with other 3rd Edition books, has very high production value (which adds to the cost). The pages are full color and glossy. We old timers had grainy paper and black & white artwork until 2nd Edition when pages had more color. I was disappointed to find that the groundbreaking artwork found throughout the 2nd Edition pantheon of books has been replaced with distorted, almost comic book-like works, that just do not do D&D justice.
The DMG by its very nature is like a college textbook full of tables and charts. The book isn’t supposed to be entertaining reading, unlike the many other books in the D&D pantheon. Therefore, the decision to use extensive color and graphics in this book is more for consistency than function. Overall, while the book is very attractive, I found the graphics and typography to be a major distraction that would slow me down if I needed to shoot through the book to find an important chart. I preferred the more mundane appearance of the 2nd Edition books.
Since the advent of 3rd Edition D&D, there is a new “Behind the Curtain” feature that gives reader some insight into why a particular rule change was made. I like this, and I hope to see it more extensively used. Unfortunately, these footnotes run sparse in the DMG. Of all the D&D books, the DMG should have used this feature the most.
I did enjoy the introductory chapter that explains to aspiring DMs their role in the game, and I thought that the Chapter 5 section on Campaigns does a good job of outlining some of the more noticeable details of a game setting.
As with all previous D&D editions, you will need more than this one book in order to run a game. If you just want to play D&D, get the Player’s Handbook. If you are like me and continue to run Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st or 2nd Edition games, then you will not get much from 3rd Edition. You’ll already have your own house rules, and you’ll probably agree with me in saying that 2nd Edition offered more supplements to evolve your character.
If you are new to Dungeons & Dragons, don’t be alarmed. For the unitiated, D&D 3rd Edition is a solid game based on time-tested mechanics. You won’t have any biases or expectations to satisfy. Realizing that the 3rd Edition will lay serious damage to your wallet, you might consider collecting the 2nd Edition books, which though out of print, will provide you with limitless options for gaming at a much lower cost and give you a faithful introduction to now famous settings as the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dark Sun.
C. F Higgins @ 4:24 pm
The 3.5 edition Players Handbook contains virtually all the necessary rules to play D&D. This book is basically supplementary material. It is reasonably well put together and I love the artwork, but 3.5 edition takes some getting used to.
When compared with OD&D or AD&D (1st and 2nd edition), somethings have been improved, and other things have become harder to manage. I’ll start with the improvements…
1. Movement and time are pretty standardized and a little easier to handle in 3.5 edition. The game lends itself towards combat simulation with minatures, and is very exact.
2. Skills have been introduced, which allow for greater character development, although I should mention that OD&D had skills as well (see the Rules Cyclopedia).
3. Wizards has ditched the negative numbers, which lessens the complexity of the game a bit.
4. Apologies to Gary Gygax, but the writing is a whole lot better in the new books.
5. Detecting secret doors, and searching is handled in a much better manner than earlier editions of D&D.
Now for the bad…
1. Savings throws are no longer based on a table, and now require a mathematical calculation based on the level of spell, modifications made by the spellcaster, etc. This is a bit clumsy.
2. Turning undead is a lot more complicated.
3. Attacks of opportunity can slow the game down, as players sit and wonder how they will perform an action without invoking an attack of opportunity.
4. Way too many feats are available, and they also make characters overly powerful and disrupt game mechanics. It would have been a lot better to have a handful of feats available to each character class.
5. I’d like to see the other dice used more (d12, d10, etc.)
So it’s far from a perfect system, but the d20 system works well, especially at lower levels. The nice thing about the d20 system, is it can be ported to other time periods and games (Star Wars, etc.)
Wizards seems to want to print as many hardcovers as possible. It would have been pretty easy to combine the DM’s guide with the Player’s Handbook and cut out some of the fat. Most of the dungeon modules are printed by other companies.
I’m worried that 4th edition will be out very soon, and players will feel compelled to go out and buy all new books. This is what I loved about OD&D -the same system was in place between 1974 and 1993, with some minor modifications.