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In recent months, I have sorted role-playing again after a lengthy layoff. In the ten or more years since I have played there has been a rise in computer role-playing games, many of which I have played and enjoyed such as Diablo, and collectible trading card games like Magic the Gathering. I haven't given in to the temptation of Everquest since I know what it would do to me. In the end, I have found that actual gaming with real people is the most fun, and that the computer stuff is great for killing time when you have no humans to play with.
Another innovation during my layoff has been the 3rd Edition, which in my opinion is the best edition thus far. I have played the first edition and the second, and I feel that the third edition is the most balanced and versatile version of DnD that I have ever played. I will be including things here from my role-playing experiences. My goal is to include material that is a combination of old school "power gaming" from the first edition, with the new "rules light" system that the 3rd edition has become.
An example of balance is the weapons available in the 3rd edition. In the 1st edition there were 5 weapons that were superior to all others in the game: the bastard sword (1d10, can be used with a shield, or two handed) the spear (1d8, can be thrown, used with a shield or two handed) the long bow (1d8, great range and rate of fire), the light crossbow (1d8, good rate of fire) and the morning star (1d8, can be used with a shield, used against undead). All the others were either too heavy, too slow, or did too little damage. Now that there are classes of weapons (simple, martial, exotic) all the weapons are fairly balanced, some of the good ones like the spear (now called the short spear) and the morning star are simple weapons so almost everyone can use them (including rouges and druids), almost every class can use the light crossbow, and the bastard sword, the king of all swords, is now an exotic weapon, so everyone must spend a feat to use it.
The classes are now fairly balanced. The fighter gets more and more powerful with each edition, and with the advent of feats, the fighter is now extremely powerful when compared to the barbarian, paladin or ranger. With all the skills available, the rogue is now a far cry from the first edition thief. New classes, like the sorcerer and the psion add more variety to the classic "mage" role. Plus, multi-classing is now simple and effective. There is so much more variety now that making a new character is fun, and an exercise in creativity.
Stay tuned as I get more material together and make it available on this site. One more thing, check out PCGen, it's a great tool and it needs our help to make it even better.
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