Are there Kender in the Monster Manual?
::crosses fingers::
Johnny Angel wrote:
And here we are, three decades later, and the hot new Third Edition rules still don’t let you throw your sword!
Of course all elves are fighter/magic-users! I mean, duuuuuuh. If you were an elf, you’d be a fighter/magic-user too!
And every one knows that “dwarf” and “halfling” are character classes in their own right, too.
No, sorry, there are no kender in the Monster Manual. This is because the MM contains only “generic” monsters, not campaign-specific ones like kender are to Dragonlance. However, I believe that WotC is going to create a 3rd Edition version of Dragonlance, so you can expect to find kender there.
Does that mean they’re not gonna bring back Orcus and Demogorgon either? 
Well, Orcus and Demogorgon aren’t in the MM, if that’s what you’re asking. In 2nd Edition, these beings were changed to full-fledged deities, and so they didn’t have statistics (except, of course, for their avatars.) I believe, but am not certain, that this will be the same in 3rd Edition.
Nuts to that. I liked the Good Old Days, where you could actually kill deities if you were powerful enough. “Hey, Juiblex, don’t make me come over there!” Man, what a power trip.
Tracer: yes, i remember those days also- thanks for the proustian moment. We killed poor old “yeeknowwho” some many times, we were starting to notch our weapons. 
I notice the new PHB and DMG do not make allowances for experience levels beyond 20th.
Fortunately for those of us who want to run disgusting characters, there’s a little note buried in the PHB that says “levels beyond 20th will be handled in a later product.”
– tracer, tapping his foot impatiently waiting for this “later product”
And more good news for our brave adventurers: the blue book price on those Bracers of Armor Class -10 you’ve always wanted has recently dropped through the floor.
For some reason AD&D/D&D has always fascinated me despite the fact that I’ve never played it on pencil and paper (I did play a few of the computer games). Last week I spent and entire afteroon just reading through the Sunless Citadel adventure. Just the story about the palace sinking into the ground and the corrupt druid that made it his home kept me going until the end.
Anyway…the one thing that I always found baffling about the system was that it seemed designed, top-down, to make roleplaying a complete living hell for the players. At least that was the impression I got from the 2nd Edition books; everything from unfair taxes to unfair laws to curses to harmful effects to hyperinflation…and am I the only one to notice that the harmful effects of most magical items are several times as powerful as any beneficial ones? Nothing illustrated this, IMHO, better than the paladin class, a veritable warehouse of restrictions and penalties and consequences. (More than once, I asked myself, what kind of lunatic would want to play a paladin?)
3rd edition seems to have changed all that in favor of a more flexible, initiative-based system. How well the players do depends more on the choices they make rather than completely fearing for their lives or slogging through some DM-imposed power structure. Of course, I’ll have to see more campaigns before I can tell for sure, but it looks like 3rd edition really is a step forward.
Of course, I’m speaking as someone who hates roleplaying unless I can make regular progress, and I absolutely abhor super-cheap features like level drain or instant death, so make of it what you will.
Will see if the Monster Manual is out tomorrow.
Christ!
I just read some of the magic item descriptions from the 3rd Edition DMG. They’ve taken all the good stuff away from my favorite items! The unhealable-damage feature of the sword of wounding is gone, a scarab of protection no longer gives you a saving throw against magic which normally allows no saving throw (which could make its wearer damn near invincible with enough saving throw bonuses from other items), and a full-blown Holy Avenger does only half as much extra damage against evil creatures as a plain old magic sword with the “holy” special ability does.
Now how am I ever gonna beat up Bahamut and Tiamat?
Johnny Angel wrote:
<rimshot>
He’ll be here all week! Tip your waitress!
– tracer, who would have just said “tip your waitstaff” except that “waitstaff” sounds like a magic item.
DKW wrote:
I always used to play “House Rules” paladins – we had to be lawful good, and we had to tithe, but we got to keep all the treasure we got after we tithed.
I ordered it from amazon.com, and it arrived on my doorstep this Monday. It’s in alphabetical order according to broad categories, and not all of the specific creatures appear in the alphabetized index at the front. And worse, I can’t find “brownie” anywhere in it. Now what’s my old 1st Edition magic-user gonna do for a familiar?
That’s an error in the DMG. The holy avenger is still holy, so it does the same “holy damage” as any other holy sword.
The one major thing I like about 3E magic items is that the DMG gives instructions on how to make all of them, including holy avengers. And, no, a mage does NOT suddenly forget what he knows about magic just by making an item. He does have to pay an XP cost, but he can never lose enough XP to lose a level this way, so he doesn’t lose any actual magical capability. XP represents more than just knowledge, anyway; it’s also a measure of the positive energy within a person’s body and soul. In order to make a magic item, a mage needs to expend a bit of this positive energy. Simple, really. Besides, a mage can always go on an adventure and get the XP back. In the old system, you could lose CON permanently, and you could NEVER get it back. Same thing with the spells that aged you. The XP cost system puts a reasonable limit on a spellcaster’s ability to make items while avoiding irreversible damage to that caster.
ricksummon wrote:
Hmmm. Wizards of the Coast now has a complete Errata listing for the Player’s Handbook on their website. I hope they put up the Errata for the Dungeon Master’s Guide some time.
There’s a DMG Errata section on RPGPlanet.
Thanks, Johnny! Now my paladin officially gets to do an extra d6 of damage to evil creatures. 
I’m pissed, I bought the PC game Baldur’s Gate 2 because I heard it used the 3rd edition rules, and it doesn’t. It is still basically 2nd edition rules, with a few 3rd edition character classes and spells added - I realized this as I was creating my first character and moved my strength up to 18 and it put that silly percentile portion of the score in. The game still has the old class/race restrictions, humans cannot multiclass, experience for multiclass is still handled the same way…arrgh.
Not that it’s not a good game - it’s great. I was just really looking forward to playing with the new rules.
Well, what do you expect from a computer game? If ya wanna play real D&D/AD&D, get some pencils, paper and dice. (And maybe a couple of friends, but that’s optional – there are solo adventures out there for those of us that enjoy a kind of D&D masturbation.)
Well, I have some role-playing friends (I’m running a CoC campaign now) but whenever we play D&D one of the other guys DMs, and I generally don’t like how he runs the campaigns (high-powered monty haul type stuff). I’ve played a couple of nights with 3rd edition rules with him, but it wasn’t very enjoyable.