AU - first impressions?

[Hammerhead]

My point is that Hands as Weapons takes away a lot of the Oathsworn's class abilities. It's a must have feat, and Oathsworn tend not to have many feats.

And by 20th level, most monks will have far more than a 24 Wisdom. He would probably use magical books to raise his Wisdom, giving him another +4 or +5 inherent bonus. Besides, a monk in 3e generally has access to Mage Armor nearly all the time, a luxury the Oathsworn does not enjoy. An Oathsworn will likely be behind the Monk in AC for most , if not all, his career.

Although Oathsworn will be more likely to have higher physical stats than a Monk, the Monk's abilities generally mechanically exceed the Oathsworn's. When a MONK, the weakest class in 3rd Edition*, is more powerful than a class, I think you have problems.

Also, does the feat Hands as Weapons apply to a Winter Witch's Iceblade ability. Otherwise, that thing quickly becomes useless at higher levels.

 

[Kitsune]

I prefer the Oathsworn's DR-beating powers to the Monk's, personally. Beating half their level worth of DR points on a normal attack or beating their full level worth of DR points on a single attack should be ample for dealing with creatures that they'll be running across of the appropriate CR.
Also, those Oathsworn attacks beat an object's hardness rating, allowing them to do truly impressive amounts of property damage.
Then, on top of that, they can take the feat to let their hands be enchanted like weapons, which is just great icing on the cake.

 

[Hammerhead]

But ordinary monks can get the Amulet of Might Fists, an item them gives an enhancement bonus to all their unarmed attacks.

 

[Magestrike]

I have it now!!!

We just received our copies at the bookstore I work at tonight, and I now have a copy in my hands. I havent actually had a chance to look at it...but dang it...at least I have it now. Woohooo....

So, the book should be filtering into booksotres today and tomorrow, for those interested.

Mage

 

[Kichwas]

So, as a d20-ish book, how easy is it to pull the material into a regular DnD 3.5 game?

Are the classes and races balanced with the PHB ones?

What issues might I face if I told my players they could use them?

 

[Apok]

So, as a d20-ish book, how easy is it to pull the material into a regular DnD 3.5 game?

Well, that depends on what you are trying to pull. Pulling in races and classes would be easy, as would transporting the feats. However, many of the Ceremony feats exist to give characters special abilities that are typically only acquired as Class abilities in 3.5 (Defensive Roll, Skill Mastery, etc) and those that grant access to the Spell Templates probably wouldn't fit very well.

So, I guess you could say that some things are highly portable while others are less so because of the way the two games are set up.

Are the classes and races balanced with the PHB ones?

The races I believe are, yes. The balance might shift when you take into account racial levels, but then it becomes no more unbalancing than allowing the use of Savage Species.

For the classes, it's much more difficult to say. I'm positive you could throw in the Champion, Warmain, Oathsworn, Unfettered, and Totem Warrior (which constitute the bulk of the non-spellcasters) into your regular D&D game with little trouble. The spellcasting classes, however, are a little trickier because AU's spellcasting system is so different. The Akashic seems to be the only class that I can think of that would definitely not be balanced because it would completely outshine the Rogue in the skill department, which is the Rogue's main schtick.

What issues might I face if I told my players they could use them?

Well, any spellcasting class would have to be seriously revamped unless you don't mind having two totally different spellcasting systems running around in your game. If that's the case, then the AU spellcasters will likely outshine your typical D&D casters in terms of utility and flexability. Individually speaking, the 3.5 spells are more powerfull but AU's are more open and mutable, especially with the addition of Spell Templates and Weaving spell slots. Couple this with the fact that AU uses an open spell list and you're looking at a character who could conceivably take over the roles of party healer, buffer, and blast-mage all in one.

 

[Malacoda]

I have had the book for a few days now, and these are my general impressions:

Ugly. I do not find the book visually appealing. The cover is fairly good, but the insides do not look good at all. Weird spacing and margin choices, with headers that I do not find distinctive enough. Plus, I don't like most of the art. Even Sam Wood, an artist I like, doesn't seem to be in top form.

I dislike much of the skill section, as I feel Monte made some odd choices on what skills to keep and pitch, especially as compared to 3.5e. He got rid of Read Lips completely, but kept Innuendo and Intuit Direction?

The races, while different from the generic D&D races, are generic in their own ways, with a few exceptions. Overall, the races didn't do much for me, and I can't see using any of them.

A lot of the classes look interesting. The one exception is the Warmain, which strikes me as Monte basically admitting you need Fighters in most campaigns, since the differences seem negligible.

Magic looks cool, but sometimes seems ill-defined. For example, do all spellcasters know all spells they could theoretically know? Do Mageblades know all the spells they have access, should they be of sufficient level? Or do they have to go out and learn them? What about the others?

Magic, out of all the new stuff, seems to be the most problematic when it comes to integrating with D&D. I do not think this is a crime, since it allows Monte to go different directions. My one real serious complaint is the idea that spells themselves are less powerful for a given level in most situations (which I have not seen as of yet, but many people say it), which means the spells don't compare to D&D spells well. I think sticking with the same power/utility for a given spell level would have been preferable. Who knows, though, perhaps those people are wrong.

Unless I am reading wrong, most spellcasters seem capable of readying more spells than they can cast. This is not an "error," I suppose, but it is not how I expected it to work.

Ultimately, it seems to me that AU is going to be much harder to integrate into D&D than I feel we were lead to believe. It has a lot of interesting ideas, and I have not truly dug into the meat of some sections, but I am still, currently, disappointed.

I also dislike the fact that the guidelines for integrating the new rules into a D&D game are going to be in a different book. Yeah, yeah, it's a company, make a living, and so on, but I still believe those guidelines should be a free download; many people likely bought it thinking such guidelines would be unnecessary.

 

[woodelf]

Re: I have it now!!!

We just received our copies at the bookstore I work at tonight, and I now have a copy in my hands. [snip] So, the book should be filtering into booksotres today and tomorrow, for those interested.

Around here, they've already come and gone--everybody has sold through (that's 3 dedicated game stores), and can't get any more because the distributors have all sold through. :-(

 

[woodelf]

But ordinary monks can get the Amulet of Might Fists, an item them gives an enhancement bonus to all their unarmed attacks.

My biggest complaint with the monk in 3E (and, i presume, 3.5E) is precisely this reliance on external items. I can accept the idea that magic items are an integral part of character power in D&D3E, and that challenges, etc., are scaled on the assumptions for magic item distribution given in the DMG. However, using magic items goes completely against the basic feel of the monk, IMHO. I think monks without any items should be balanced with fighters (and others) who are properly decked out for level. I play a monk to be self-sufficient. It works great at low levels. At high levels, i either am significantly handicapped, or i give in and rely on magic items. It sounds to me like the Oathsworn are a better conceptual fit, at least for me.

 

[woodelf]

Re: The scales have fallen away from my eyes (or something)

I can't really explain how enthusiastic I am about this book. I had basically given up all remaining love my heart had for D&D (for the second time, actually, came back for 3E and then became disillusioned again).

Flexibility, flavor-first, good engaging writing, ideas that make you go, "God, why didn't I think of that?" The list goes on and on.

I think it's summed up by the way I put it to a friend of mine: This is how D&D should be.

Agreed. I find D&D really lackluster compared to AU. D&D3E wasn't sufficient to get me back into D&D--it didn't fix most of the things i'd thought were wrong with D&D, and introduced new problems. I'd needed 40pp of new rules (and that's just the players' summary, not all the tables and charts and descriptions) to make D&D playable. Exactly one of the things i thought needed fixing actually got changed in the same direction from AD&D2 to D&D3E.

But AU has me excited to play "D&D" again. I like almost all the changes, and only wish he'd gone further (though i gather the armor-as-DR rules are optional, in the Diamond Throne book). The classes are cool, the races are interesting, the magic system rocks. The only things i've heard about that i don't like are things that are the same as those in D&D3/3.5.