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So, My Chum and I Want to start playing D&D, but I'm not sure as to what books to buy first, I ask today as we're going to Forbidden Planet in Southampton tomorrow.
Is the £8 Starter Kit any good, if not, what else, I don't want to spend much though.

Thanks,
TC

Are you southampton based because if so I can help you out.
Also what is the £8 box?

Which edition are you getting started in? They've rereleased their old books and whatnot. I've heard the newest(4th) is very friendly to players and GMs.
Also, usually the Player's Handbook, Dungeonmaster's guide, and a Monster Manual 1 are usually a good start. Most starter kits have very basic rules, and not a lot of depth to them. Usually one encounter to see if you will enjoy the game before purchasing the basic 3 books.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
Are you southampton based because if so I can help you out.
Also what is the £8 box?

Nah, we're only there for the day on the train, and by the £8 box i meant This
But we're mostly there for comics etc, it's just a plus if they have it in stock.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Which edition are you getting started in? They've rereleased their old books and whatnot. I've heard the newest(4th) is very friendly to players and GMs.
Also, usually the Player's Handbook, Dungeonmaster's guide, and a Monster Manual 1 are usually a good start. Most starter kits have very basic rules, and not a lot of depth to them. Usually one encounter to see if you will enjoy the game before purchasing the basic 3 books.

4th, I guess, as it's the newest (?)

 Tyranidcrusher wrote:

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
Are you southampton based because if so I can help you out.
Also what is the £8 box?

Nah, we're only there for the day on the train, and by the £8 box i meant This
But we're mostly there for comics etc, it's just a plus if they have it in stock.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Which edition are you getting started in? They've rereleased their old books and whatnot. I've heard the newest(4th) is very friendly to players and GMs.
Also, usually the Player's Handbook, Dungeonmaster's guide, and a Monster Manual 1 are usually a good start. Most starter kits have very basic rules, and not a lot of depth to them. Usually one encounter to see if you will enjoy the game before purchasing the basic 3 books.

4th, I guess, as it's the newest (?)

Alright- these books are what you'll need to make your own campaigns/characters(if you want to pick something up besides the starter box, albeit it is a little expensive. You can get by with just the player's handbook.)
Spoilered for size

If you are going 4E, and for getting started it is an excellent way to go, I would say skip the oler 4E stuff and go straight to Essentials. It is cheaper and more streamlined.

Heroes of the Fallen Lands
- Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Halfling, Human
- Warpriest (Cleric), Knight (Fighter), Slayer (Fighter),Thief (Rogue), Mage (Wizard)

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
- Dragonborn, Drow, Half-Elf, Half-Orc,Teifling, Human
- Sentinel (Druid), Cavalier (Paladin), Hunter (Ranger), Scout (Ranger), Hexblade (Warlock)

Rules Compendium
- The DM Guide/Rulebook
- There is a Dungeon Masters Kit that is this book and comes with two double sided maps, monster tokens, an adventure, and a DM Screen. I guess it must be hard to find nowadays because the new price on Amazon is stupidly high, and not worth it. If you can get a cheap one it would probably be worth it.

Monster Vault
- Two maps, Tokens, and Adventure, and the Monsters Vault book.

There is also the Red Box starter set, which isn't necessary, but is a good way to learn the system, especially for new younger players, and more maps and tokens. It has an adventure that teaches the system as you play it, as I understand it, as well as to totally broken Wizard Spells that were removed from others sources.

Thanks, guys, I'm just hoping they have anything in stock (knowing Forbidden planet)

I hope I'm not to late but get pathfinder instead it's a revision of the last editon of dnd and a MUCH better game. And they have a great beginner box.

 thewisewizard wrote:
but get pathfinder instead it's a revision of the last editon of dnd

It is a revision to the edition before the last edition, at least until D&D Next is released.

 thewisewizard wrote:
and a MUCH better game

While it is better then 3/3.5, that just makes it the shiniest turd in the pile that is OGL awfulness.

OGL also covers Basic and AD&D -- or do you consider them turds as well?

Also, edition wars ... this is how they start, Ahtman.

Manchu wrote:
OGL also covers Basic and AD&D -- or do you consider them turds as well?

Since when has AD&D been part of the Open Game License? OGL didn't even exist at the time of Basic and AD&D.

It was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000 to license their Dungeons & Dragons game as the System Reference Document, or SRD, in a move spearheaded by Ryan Dancey.[1] It is commonly used with the d20 license to allow individuals, amateur and professional companies and groups to publish the SRD and derivative works under the d20 System trademark.

The rules for the d20 System are defined in the System Reference Document or SRD (two separate SRDs were released, one for D&D edition 3.0 and one for edition 3.5), which may be copied freely or even sold.[4] Designed for fantasy-genre games in (usually) a pseudo-medieval setting, the SRD is drawn from the Dungeons & Dragons books Player's Handbook v3.5, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide v3.5, Monster Manual v3.5, Deities and Demigods v3.0, Unearthed Arcana, and Epic Level Handbook. Information from these books not in the SRD include detailed descriptions, flavor-text, and material Wizards of the Coast considers Product Identity (such as references to the Greyhawk campaign setting and information on mind flayers).

d20 Modern has its own SRD, called the Modern System Reference Document (MSRD). The MSRD includes material from the d20 Modern roleplaying game, Urban Arcana Campaign Setting, the d20 Menace Manual, and d20 Future; this can cover a wide variety of genres, but is intended for a modern-day, or in the case of the last of these, a futuristic setting.

Manchu wrote:
Also, edition wars ... this is how they start, Ahtman.

Combine thread necromancy with blatant lies and I was blunter then I should have been. If you hadn't already gotten here I had come back to edit it, but alas such is life.

 Ahtman wrote:
Since when has AD&D been part of the Open Game License? OGL didn't even exist at the time of Basic and AD&D.

Chronology isn't really important BUT technically it's the retroclones of Basic and AD&D that are OGL rather than the originals.

 thewisewizard wrote:
I hope I'm not to late but get pathfinder instead it's a revision of the last editon of dnd and a MUCH better game. And they have a great beginner box.

I got to agree here. If you want to play a pen and paper fantasy rpg, pathfinder is the way to go. The online PRD alone makes pathfinder one of the best rpg systems you can use. Check it out here:

http://paizo.com/prd/

Both Pathfinder and 4.0 are good games, albeit in different ways.

How dare you be reasonable in an Edition War Balance!

I would probably point new players at Paizo at this stage just because of all the material they have available.

 Da Boss wrote:
I would probably point new players at Paizo at this stage just because of all the material they have available.

I'm not sure bloat is the best reason to point someone new to gaming in the direction of Pathfinder, unless overwhelming them with options, feat traps, and learning about that systems love of 'game mastery' the hard way is the intention.

Well, the thing is, it's also free if you use the online rules. So at least if they don't like it, they've not splashed out for a whole bunch of expensive hard backed books. I should have tagged "for free" onto the end of my sentence there, I'm sure I meant to because that was what I meant to communicate, sorry!

I agree, the PRD is a bit over the top in terms of options, and they'd be well served to have a "beginners section" or something which specifically organises things for beginning players, but recommending someone to start 4th when I know it's going to lose support soon in favour of Next seems to me to be a worse move. (I run games in both systems btw and think PF could do well to use many of the ideas in 4th)

YMMV.

I think every edition of dnd gets bloated before its done. I think the system is secondary to having a good DM (who isn't an as what) and enthusiastic players (who aren't asshats).

I would play any system if I had the time and a half decent group!

 Da Boss wrote:
How dare you be reasonable in an Edition War Balance!

I would probably point new players at Paizo at this stage just because of all the material they have available.

Well, my first draft of my earlier post had a lot of ranting about pros and cons of both games. The main point, thoguh, is ultimately you can do most types of games with both, it really does come down to preference.

I think 4.0 has an advantage for 'pick up' games as it's a bit easier to quickly make functional, fun mid-level characters. Making and playing high-level characters can be cumbersome in both games as there's a lot of hidden synergies and things to remember, but I think at certain sweet spots 4.0 shines if you need a replacement character to join a group, especially if it's a player with limited D&D experience. An experienced group of 3.0/3.5/PF players is likely to have done some work to make their characters effective. Or, in other words, it's harder to make a 4th character that is completely useless, while previous editions do allow you to make choices that may seem effective, but aren't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GrimDork wrote:
I think every edition of dnd gets bloated before its done. I think the system is secondary to having a good DM (who isn't an as what) and enthusiastic players (who aren't asshats).

The biggest thing, I think, is that the players and GM need to accept that the game they're playing is a subset of available content. If the GM's running a norse-inspired game, then info from the Pirate Adventures book isn't really appropriate.There needs to be a consensus as to what material is valid, and limit that. Adding cinematic pirates to a grim norse saga game is an extreme example, but even the 3.0 class-books should probably be considered the kind of thing GMs should make individual rulings on as to prestige classes, etc.

Speaking of prestige classes, one interesting tidbit is I felt that the 3.0 DMG presented them as a sort of alternative quest reward, not the character-building tool they became. I think it'd be interesting to go back to that, with better examples. (The 3.0 DMG had the first Prestige Classes, which I believe included an arcane archer, a dwarven defender, and the blackguard, which required being a Paladin and turning evil.) Imagine that in a setting fi your characters help out a group of Knights they get rewarded by a cluster of Prestige Class options ranging from full Knight (for the warrior-types) to Knight Allies (for the mages and thieves).

 Balance wrote:
Speaking of prestige classes, one interesting tidbit is I felt that the 3.0 DMG presented them as a sort of alternative quest reward, not the character-building tool they became. I think it'd be interesting to go back to that, with better examples. (The 3.0 DMG had the first Prestige Classes, which I believe included an arcane archer, a dwarven defender, and the blackguard, which required being a Paladin and turning evil.) Imagine that in a setting fi your characters help out a group of Knights they get rewarded by a cluster of Prestige Class options ranging from full Knight (for the warrior-types) to Knight Allies (for the mages and thieves).

The issue with that, to me, is that many prestige classes contained requirements that were completely off the wall and would almost never be fulfilled without prior knowledge of the class being available. Take Weaponmaster (I think) which required 3 ranks in Craft (Calligraphy) and was built for warriors. How many warriors outside a Lot5R/Kara-Tur are going to walk around making pretty characters? And with skill points for some classes (especially warriors) being so scarce...

One more reason I never looked back to 3.0/3.5. How much that edition hated the warrior archetype.

 streamdragon wrote:

 Balance wrote:
Speaking of prestige classes, one interesting tidbit is I felt that the 3.0 DMG presented them as a sort of alternative quest reward, not the character-building tool they became. I think it'd be interesting to go back to that, with better examples. (The 3.0 DMG had the first Prestige Classes, which I believe included an arcane archer, a dwarven defender, and the blackguard, which required being a Paladin and turning evil.) Imagine that in a setting fi your characters help out a group of Knights they get rewarded by a cluster of Prestige Class options ranging from full Knight (for the warrior-types) to Knight Allies (for the mages and thieves).

The issue with that, to me, is that many prestige classes contained requirements that were completely off the wall and would almost never be fulfilled without prior knowledge of the class being available. Take Weaponmaster (I think) which required 3 ranks in Craft (Calligraphy) and was built for warriors. How many warriors outside a Lot5R/Kara-Tur are going to walk around making pretty characters? And with skill points for some classes (especially warriors) being so scarce...

One more reason I never looked back to 3.0/3.5. How much that edition hated the warrior archetype.

Well, yes. Presumably making Prestige Classes into a quest reward element would probably also involve writing them to have less tortuous qualifications, as the big qualification is doing whatever the quest is.

Also, in general I'd prefer a Prestige Class to add Something Cool to the base, not just be more powerful.

Still I preferred them as optional instead of them just being part of your level progression like 4th did.

 GrimDork wrote:
Still I preferred them as optional instead of them just being part of your level progression like 4th did.

4th doesn't have Prestige Classes, nor does it have level dipping. In Fourth you have Heroic classes (1-10), which branch into different Paragon classes (11-20), which then branch into Epic classes (21-30).

On tortuous requirements, I recall a Prestige Class in which the character had to be struck, at random, by lightning and survive on three separate occasions.

Ahh, paragon. That's right, to me they seemed kind of the same though. You couldn't just level up to 20 or 30 or whatever you got before dying or retiring as a fighter or a rogue or what have you, you had to instead migrate into some specific (sometimes oddly specific) variation of your class. That's what I was trying to get at, seemed kind of like the same thing but more forced.

In some ways I would rather just work out something custom for a player than them having to dig through a bunch of extra material to find "just the right" prestige class. Especially since some of those classes were kind of specific and may or may not have easily fit into my campaign world etc.

On another note, although I didn't get to do a lot of experimentation with it, I kind of liked the cross/multi/hybrid/whatever classing you could do in 4th. Pick up an extra ability here or there to add some flavor, or eventually push towards full half and half down the road.

 GrimDork wrote:
That's right, to me they seemed kind of the same though.

And yet they aren't. You can't just take one or two levels of them, they have no quest requirements, and they are extension of the base class instead of a separate class that might be compatible. There are certainly similiar elements, broadly, but their function is quite different within the game mechanics.

 GrimDork wrote:
You couldn't just level up to 20 or 30 or whatever you got before dying or retiring as a fighter or a rogue or what have you, you had to instead migrate into some specific (sometimes oddly specific) variation of your class.

That also describes Prestige classes. If you choose a prestige class you are not just taking fighter to level 20. Of course, and maybe where you are is different, but in all the games of 3/3.5 I've played or seen played, or read about online, the vast majority level dip into other classes and/or get prestige classes. Very few just play one class all the way to epic. Pathfinder has given some incentive to stick with one class for your career, but you'll still see lots and lots of dipping. To often if you say "Id like to be a fighter" the response is going to be along the lines of "then you want 2 levels from x, 1 level from y, and ect ect" instead of "then play fighter for 20 levels". Heck, one of the things I tend to not like about 3/3.5 is level dipping and the diffusion of classes. In Essentials the Paragon and Epic are just straight extensions: Thief becomes Master Thief becomes Epic Thief.

On another note, although I didn't get to do a lot of experimentation with it, I kind of liked the cross/multi/hybrid/whatever classing you could do in 4th. Pick up an extra ability here or there to add some flavor, or eventually push towards full half and half down the road.

For Hybrid, I liked it, though you would have to really think it through, as it really had some checks and balances, at least for Hybrid. Mutliclass did as well, but worked very differently, and tended to be much more mild. Hybrid was a merging of classes, both strengths and weaknesses, whereas Multiclass was more of Class A dabbled a bit with Class B.

I could never get into Dungeons and Dragons. I played it a bit with some friends in high school; but the whole dungeon crawling thing never appealed to me; I found Werewolf and Shadowrun way more fun.

Re. Paragon/Epic, you've obviously dealt with it more than I have so perhaps I have a skewed perception of it, we only got to play a little 4th before I had no more gaming group.

I think I was mostly meaning to refer to multi, just couldn't remember if they kept the terminology the same. Hybrid came in the players handbook 2 or something like that right? I never owned it, just looked at the book on the shelf long enough to know it was a thing.

4th edition (base) doesn't have Multi-classing in the traditional sense. There are a group of feats that represent dabbling in another class that simulate it, though.

The feats work reasonably well for characters that are "I'm a fighter, but I took a semester in wizard school." but I don't think they'd work as well for the traditional fighter/mage that is approximately 50/50 in each. However, for many combinations of classes there's probably a class that fits anyway.

There's also the 'Hybrid' class thingy, which I've never even read. It didn't interest me, as the existing classes are pretty fun and interesting.

Reskinning and the wealth of classes led me to not be too interested in multiclassing in 4, despite often 'dipping' into various classes in 3 to make Prestige Class requirements easier.

Multiclassing in some editions was really weird. 2nd had the weird thing where only humans could actually choose to change their class: everyone else had to start the game as a Fighter/Cleric/Thief or whatever. 3rd adopted an interesting idea of making classes something that was selected each level, so when a 2nd level fighter hits third (using the same XP chart, finally) he or she can choose any class desired. It's assumed they've been studying wizardry or clericness in the background.

[edition debate]

After playing Basic and its retroclones, it's really hard to get excited about all these moving parts and the differences between 3.5/PF and Fourth really start to blur. I've had a lot of fun with both of those games in the past but with my current gaming group ... I just know if we feel like playing with miniatures we can break out an actual miniatures game and if we feel like playing a RPG we can ... well, you see where this is going, I'm sure. All those moving parts can be interesting in miniatures games (and they make up the very substance of board games) but I think they tend to get in the way of the roleplaying.

 Bromsy wrote:
but the whole dungeon crawling thing never appealed to me

When you say "dungeon crawl" do you mean the idea of going into a cave and facing peril for treasure or do you mean tactically moving minis around in cramped spaces while managing declining resources (e.g., HP, spells, potions, etc)?

Sadly my players are not really suited to playing without minis on a map, as that's what they learned with, though to be fair that's how I learned as well. Now I've played my fair share of games without maps that had just as much exploration and 'moving around on a map' as our normal game, but my players are very much out in the cold on this. I think it takes a lot of give and take with the combat rules when not playing with a grid map. My last DM was running a game for the first time, and we got to the point where a map wasn't possible on his time restraint so he tried his best at making it work, but he was gak at describing the scene, combat took longer (instead of shorter) because we'd have to constantly ask how far away we were from things because the strict movement rules were still in place even though we didn't have a way to keep track of who was where, and it was just unfun. I'm currently running an adventure with no map because I want to focus on the roleplay rather than the combat maps and it's working well, the people are getting more into their characters, and are playing out of their comfort zones (but in a good way). I do have maps for when things in combat do get a little hairy (like when they might get blasted by water coming out of a sewer drain).