2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Historical Empires

2018-11-27T11:55:51Z

2601:1C0:5C80:28EF:4021:1A2A:5FD3:8390: /* Post-Antiquity */

{{stub}}

An empire is a large political entity where one group of people gains the political, economic, and military muscle to unify a bunch of other groups of people under its banner and either lords over them or integrates them into a cohesive whole; Think the United States, if Washington D.C. was it's own 51st state. ''Empire'' is derived from the Latin word ''Imperium'', which means "Authority" and more specifically the authority to command numerous Roman legions.

== Notable Real Life Empires ==

===Ancient===
*The Akkadian Empire (circa 2234-2154 BC): The oldest known empire in human history, located within northern Mesopotamia.
*The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC–612 BC): An empire which had in its foundation a belief that if their army ever lost a battle, the world would end. Unsurprisingly, it lasted until slightly after they lost their first major battle.
*The Egyptian Empire: Mind you, the civilization is not the Empire. For details, please consult relevant professionals and their works instead of a wiki for tactical genius.
*The Achaemenid or first Persian Empire (550–330 BC): Most famous for being conquered by Alexander and, along with Egypt, providing aesethical insipration for the [[Thousand Sons]].
*The Chinese Empire: Though already unified under a king as late as 841BC (re-dating based on astronomy ''claims'' to trace further exact years way into 2100BC and there is evidence of complex agrarian civilization going back well before that), the Chinese did not live under an Emperor until 221BC. They survived interim catastrophes by coming up with the Mandate of Heaven (if the dynasty turns into a bunch of idiots then your local emperor definitely isn't favored by the gods and every peasant can hang them off), their equivalent of a common law, in the Zhou (not empire), and enhanced social mobility with a general disregard in right of blood (began in the Qin(Chin), first empire) and the test system for enlisting government officials (began in the Sui, some 600 years later). Lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th century. Resurgent, you may say.
*The Macedonian Empire (330-323 BC) One of the largest Empires in ancient history, created by Alexander the Great. Conquered Persia, the largest Empire in history at the time. Shortly after the empire achieved its height, Alexander died at only 32 years old and his Empire was split into several smaller countries such as Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Kingdom, ruled by dynasties started by his generals, called Diadochi.
*The [[Roman Empire]] (27 BC – 476 AD (Western), 330–1204 AD (Eastern/Byzantine)): the trope codifier for fictional Empires everywhere, and (through borrowing/stealing Greek technology) largely blamed for turning Europe from a backwater land of barbarians into the home of the most ambitious superpowers in history. Has lots, and I mean LOTS, of children, whether it be the directly-descended Spanish and French Empires, or the more-religiously-oriented Roman Catholic Church, et cetera. Roma Invicta.

===Post-Antiquity===

*The Holy Roman Empire (962–1806): Sometimes called the [http://europeanhistory.about.com/cs/germany/a/Otherreichs.htm first Reich]. Started as a powerful medieval state, but ever since Charlemagne died devolved into something "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." (Voltaire) So complex that its easier to explain what it was not than what it was. Basically if you know how the [[Empire]]'s politics works, thats the HRE in a nutshell.
*The Ethiopian Empire (1137-1935/1941-1974): an empire of Africans, and one of the only two African nations to remain independent of the West. Also used to have Judaism as the official religion and then switched to its own version of Christianity. Its last Emperor, Haile Selassie, was revered by a religious movement as God incarnate (which, notably, he neither started nor approved of).
*The Portuguese Empire (1139-1975): the Western kingdom-turned-empire that liked keeping their maritime maps secret, becoming the first global empire in the world. Notable for the founding of Nagasaki, moving their capital and court to Brazil to escape Napoleon, and coming back from the brink of dissolution three times. Also, their nicknames, Portugal Overseas: [[Ultramar]] Português or the Império [[Ultramarines|Ultramarino]] Português has something to do with some smurfs made by a [[GW|British company of Grimdark]]. Due to [[Inquisition|secrecy]], nobody has found the old Portugese royal sea route maps.
*The Mongolian Empire (1206–1368 AD): Your stereotypical savage-nomad-kill-burn-kill-maim-burn empire. Put the Four Khanates and the Yuan Empire together, and lol, the second largest human empire, ever, at 88% the size of the British one. Mind you, the Mongol Empire is ''continuous'', though.
*The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923): A vast and powerful Muslim empire which started out as an amalgamation of nomadic tribes uniting to fight off Mongol raiders. From there they became a small Turkish state in Anatolia that conquered Constantinople, the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa. In it's heyday it was huge, technologically advanced, well governed and constantly driving forward, until the 1600s when it got stuck in a rut and overshadowed by the Europeans.
*The Spanish Empire (1402-1975, at its height 1516-1700): colonized huge swaths of the New World, making Spanish the official language of most of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Annihilated the Aztec empire in the process of plundering its gold and silver.
**When talking about the Spanish and Portuguese empires the Treaty of Tordesillas is worth a mention. Created by Pope Alexander VI, the treaty split the New World between the Spanish and the Portuguese, which is why the Portuguese settled Brazil and got to Japan because that was east of the line.
*The Aztec Empire (1428–1521) & The Inca Empire (1438–1533): Inspiration for [[Lizardmen]] buildings and homeland. [[Dakka|Enuff]].
*The Mughal Empire (1526–1857): A Muslim superpower. After squandering the treasury on buildings and war, British influence managed to increase its presence on the subcontinent. Technically spent its last century as a British vassal.
*The [[British Empire]] (1583-1997): At its height, the British Empire ruled a quarter of the Earth's land. Began the decolonization process after World War II and the Empire is considered to have ceased to exist as such when Hong Kong was formally turned over to China. Even so they still have handful of oversees territory [https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/ over which the sun has still yet to set]. God Save the Queen.
*The Russian Empire (1721-1917): Big, powerful but often backwards in technology and social development. And when it ''finally'' started to catch up it decided to enter a world war. Genius indeed.
*The First French Empire (1804–1815): "Vive la Napoleon!" A pampered child of [[/v/]], too.
*Austrian Empire (1804–1918, including time spent as Austria-Hungary): Ripped apart after WWI.
*Second French Empire (1852–1870): Mostly known for getting their ass kicked by Prussia, thus allowing Germany to be created.
*Brazilian Empire (1822-1889): Like Russia but more backwards and way less powerful. Stopped existed when the rich landowners that controlled the country got sick of the Emperor's shit for making the slaves free so they sacked him and delcared a republic.
*The Empire of [[Japan]] (1868–1947): They've had an emperor since 538, but didn't actually make significant conquests of any sort (though in the late 16th century they tried to invade Korea but were '''''Crushed''''' on land by China and at sea by Korean navy let by the famed Admiral Yi's and his turtle ships) until 1894, and even from then through 1947 it is still debated whether the emperor or the military was running things/and or in conflict with each other, with notable incidents such as the military attacking the Imperial Palace after Emperor Hirohito made a public broadcast in 1945, his first broadcast, asking the Japanese people to surrender to the United States. Also, Japanese used to revere their Emperor as the descendant of Amaterasu the sun goddess, and therefore the rightful [[God-Emperor of Mankind]]. <s>And people say the Tau are space weeaboos</s> {{BLAM}}
*The German Empire (1871–1918): The second Reich, put together by Otto von Bismarck's political genius and Prussian efficiency, it took a collection of feuding principalities and, in a few decades, turned them into the greatest industrial power in Europe until it was exhausted fighting pretty much every other industrial power that mattered, twice.
*[[Nazi]] Germany (1933-1945): The third and shortest Reich.
*The Soviet Union (1922-1991): The successors to the Russian Empire, with a Global Ideology based on [[Communism]]. After defeating Nazi Germany managed to extend its influence over Eastern Europe and thanks to the appeal of Communism was also able to influence states on almost every continent. But was unable to keep up economically or militarily with the United States and eventually finally fell apart with a whimper at the end of the Cold War.
*The United States (1776-Present): there is much controversy over whether the global Hegemony established by the United States counts as an empire or not. The merriam-webster definition of empire reads: ''a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority'', which even before you consider out of territory influence the vast amount of states with different cultures certainly means American meets the technical dictionary definition of empire, which means every body still argues about but that some people are just more nerdy about how they do it then others. For argument's sake, we will consider the American Empire a reality here. What is not in doubt is that since the end of WWII, and especially since the end of the Cold War the United States has held near total sway in terms of global power, though recent moves by a resurgent China look to be eroding American Global Power and Influence.

Note that when WWI started, the crowned rulers of Russia, Great Britain, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Germany, Romania, and Norway were all related by blood or marriage, making both the war the single biggest family feud in history, as well as the royal family the single most sucessful genepool in all ecology.

== Notable Fictional Empires ==
*The First Galactic Empire ([[Star Wars]])
*The Galactic Empire ([[Isaac Asimov]]'s Foundation series)
*The Galactic Empire (Legend of the Galactic Heroes, from Japan. This name used to be fairly common but is often avoided today, due to its heavy association with Star Wars)
*The Empire of the Known Universe ([[Dune]])
*[[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)]]
*The [[Imperium of Man]] ([[Warhammer 40K]])

==And what does this have to do with /tg/?==

Historical empires are a commonly-referenced source for fantasy and sci-fi cultures. For example, the Holy Roman Empire had a lot of influence on the design of the Empire of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
[[category:History]]

D20 System

2018-11-27T08:59:20Z

2601:1C0:5C80:28EF:4021:1A2A:5FD3:8390:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:d20 System}}
[[Image:D20.jpg|thumb|right|245px|A big d20 and a little d20. Both roll the same, but the big one costs more and makes a loud ''thunk'' when it lands on the table.]]
[[Image:D20-logo.jpg|center]]
 
The d20 System is a tabletop [[RPG]] system that uses, among other things, twenty-sided dice.

Because [[THAC0]] <s>sucked</s> <s>confused stupid people</s> wasn't as intuitive as simple, always-rising numbers, [[Wizards of the Coast]] distilled the essence of the [[D&D]] mechanics to a more streamlined mechanic.

Most of the d20 System was released as the System Reference Document ([[SRD]]) under the Open Game License ([[OGL]]) as Open Game Content (OGC), which allows people to make and release supplements for free. This led to multiple game-breaking splatbooks for D&D, and a glut of samey RPGs, mostly because people figured it was worthless to challenge Wizards, and so d20 was soon seen on everygoddamnthing.

Mechanically, d20 is basically a watered down reversed version of the AD&D 2E rules, with huge chunks stolen from Megaversal and SPECIAL, like [[Feat|feats]]. However watching it in motion is enough to make a mathematician orgasm. That is because one of the big advantage of the D20 system is that one can break everything into nice easy to understand percentages. Because 20 is exactly 1/5 of 100, it's possible for out comes on a D20 to come out as complete percentage point when trying to determine the odds of something happening. Simply figure out your target number (example: A DC of 10) figure out the number of results that are higher then the number (10), add one since D20 system lets you succeed when you match the result (11), times the result by five and you have your final chance of success unmodified (in this case 55%), lastly each +1 you have gives you an additional 5% chance of success to any roll, simple and elegant. The most complex thing is figuring out how Advantage works when figuring the math out but aside from that it can all be done in one's head or on any phone. As such if one can get an accurately guess about the possible DC of any challenge that you might be up against you can, within reason, play the odd easily and quickly in your head. Not all systems can say this and the fact that the math of the D20 is so easy benefits both the players who are fast enough to play the angles, and DM's who set up challenges so they know exactly the odds of there players succeed. . .. baring 20 1's in a roll because chaos theory and lady luck work like that some time.

Wizards doesn't use the d20 System any more, as they decided to <s>fail</s> <s>fuck everyone over</s> change the mechanics for [[4e|D&D 4th Edition]]. However, there's still hope for people who [[RAGE]] at 4e, since Paizo Games pretty much stole [[3e|3.5]] and renamed it [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Pathfinder]].

After their temporary bout of insanity, WotC came to their senses and released [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition | 5E]], releasing Roleplaying games to the mainstream - and going back to what is clearly a lot of 3.X-sensibilities, with a splash of 4E, and even AD&D thrown in for good measure.

{{stub}}
[[Category: Roleplaying]]
[[category: Systems]]

D20 System

2018-11-27T07:44:21Z

2601:1C0:5C80:28EF:4021:1A2A:5FD3:8390:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:d20 System}}
[[Image:D20.jpg|thumb|right|245px|A big d20 and a little d20. Both roll the same, but the big one costs more and makes a loud ''thunk'' when it lands on the table.]]
[[Image:D20-logo.jpg|center]]
 
The d20 System is a tabletop [[RPG]] system that uses, among other things, twenty-sided dice.

Because [[THAC0]] <s>sucked</s> <s>confused stupid people</s> wasn't as intuitive as simple, always-rising numbers, [[Wizards of the Coast]] distilled the essence of the [[D&D]] mechanics to a more streamlined mechanic.

Most of the d20 System was released as the System Reference Document ([[SRD]]) under the Open Game License ([[OGL]]) as Open Game Content (OGC), which allows people to make and release supplements for free. This led to multiple game-breaking splatbooks for D&D, and a glut of samey RPGs, mostly because people figured it was worthless to challenge Wizards, and so d20 was soon seen on everygoddamnthing.

Mechanically, d20 is basically a watered down reversed version of the AD&D 2E rules, with huge chunks stolen from Megaversal and SPECIAL, like [[Feat|feats]]. However watching it in motion is enough to make a mathematician orgasm. That is because one of the big advantage of the D20 system is that one can break everything into nice easy to understand percentages. Because 20 is exactly 1/5 of 100, it's possible for out comes on a D20 to come out as complete percentage point when trying to determine the odds of something happening. Simply figure out your target number (example: A DC of 10) figure out the number of results that are higher then the number (10), add one since D20 system lets you succeed when you match the result (11), times the result by five and you have your final chance of success unmodified (in this case 55%), lastly each +1 you have gives you an additional 5% chance of success to any roll, simple and elegant. The most complex thing is figuring out how Advantage works when figuring the math out but aside from that it can all be done in one's head or on any phone. As such one, if one can eye ball the possible DC of any challenge that you might be up against you can, within reason, play the odd easily and quickly in your head. Not all systems can say this and the fact that the math of the D20 is so easy benefits both the players who are fast enough to play the angles, and DM's who set up challenges so they know exactly the odds of there players succeed. . .. baring 20 1's in a roll because chaos theory and lady luck work like that some time.

Wizards doesn't use the d20 System any more, as they decided to <s>fail</s> <s>fuck everyone over</s> change the mechanics for [[4e|D&D 4th Edition]]. However, there's still hope for people who [[RAGE]] at 4e, since Paizo Games pretty much stole [[3e|3.5]] and renamed it [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Pathfinder]].

After their temporary bout of insanity, WotC came to their senses and released [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition | 5E]], releasing Roleplaying games to the mainstream - and going back to what is clearly a lot of 3.X-sensibilities, with a splash of 4E, and even AD&D thrown in for good measure.

{{stub}}
[[Category: Roleplaying]]
[[category: Systems]]

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

2018-11-27T07:31:34Z

2601:1C0:5C80:28EF:4021:1A2A:5FD3:8390: /* The Core Mechanic */ This should really go in the D20 system part.

{{cleanup}}
{{Game Infobox
|name = Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition
|picture = [[Image:3ED&Dlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]]
|authors = [[Monte Cook]], Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams
|year = 2000 (3rd Edition) 2003 (3.5 Edition)
|books = [[DMG|Dungeon Master's Guide]] [[PHB|Player's Handbook]] [[Monster Manual]] Tome of Battle Player's Handbook II
}}
The third edition of the '''[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]''' game, albeit dropping "advanced" from the title to make it more accessible to new players. Though initially published in 2000 by [[Wizards of the Coast]] (as the version commonly referred to as "3e"), a "3.5" revision was published in 2003 with some significant changes, and it is the 3.5 revision that most 3rd edition players use. Wizards then went on to release [[4e]], which received a [[RAGE|controversial greeting]], and inspired [[Paizo]] to monetize the ensuing salt by releasing its own 3.5 with blackjack and hookers, called [[Pathfinder]].

==System==
===The Core Mechanic===
3rd edition introduced the now ubiquitous "[[d20 System]]", where almost every action with a chance of failure is resolved by rolling a d20, applying relevant modifiers, and comparing the result to a set difficulty (or, in some cases, another character's roll) to determine success, referred to by the system as the "Core Mechanic". For example, a fighter attempting to hit a monster with his sword rolls a d20 and may add his Base Attack Bonus, Strength bonus, relevant Weapon Focus bonuses, magical enhancements, etc. with the objective of beating his opponent's Armor Class. Rolling equal to or over the target's AC means he has successfully hit and gets to deal damage. In a similar vein, a rogue attempting to pick a lock rolls a d20 and adds his skill ranks, dexterity bonus, any relevant skill bonuses from feats, modifiers depending on the quality of his equipment, etc. in an attempt to beat the target DC (Difficulty Class) of the lock.

This was generally regarded as a significant improvement on the systems used in 1e and 2e, where many different parts of the game were governed by vastly different mechanics. Restructuring the game around the single core mechanic made gameplay much simpler and easier to pick up for new players.

===Characters and Creatures===
Characters and creatures in the system are structured around Hit Dice and ability scores, wherein bonuses and traits from various hit dice are stacked together and combined with modifiers derived from the base ability scores to determine the other statistics of the entity. For example, a 2nd level Cleric/3rd level Fighter would have a +1 BAB for his two cleric hit dice and a +3 BAB for his three fighter hit dice, combining to give him a total Base Attack Bonus of +4, which would then be modified by other abilities such as strength or dexterity to determine his overall bonus when making an attack. The hit points granted to him by each of those hit dice would be added together and modified by the constitution score to determine his overall hit point total, and so on.

Almost all entities have six ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma - that describe basic qualities of their character. The human average ability score, as the baseline from which all other ability scores are referenced, is 10 or 11. Ability scores higher than this grant bonuses to their relevant checks, and lower than this impose penalties. Every two points of score results in a +1 modifier, such that a score of 8-9 is a -1 penalty, 10-11 is +0, 12-13 is +1, and so on. Different races generally have bonuses and penalties to some ability scores to represent how they differ to humans; for example, graceful but frail elves have a +2 to their Dexterity (giving them an extra +1 bonus to Dexterity-linked checks) but a -2 penalty to their Constitution, whereas stout but surly dwarves receive a +2 to their Constitution but suffer a -2 to their Charisma.

In general, having any ability score reduced to 0 (by magic or other effects) results in incapacitation or death; a 0 Str or Dex character is unable to move himself, a 0 Con character is dead, and a 0 in a mental ability stat results in a coma. Some entities are lacking certain abilities entirely, a situation explicitly different from having a 0 in the stat: for example, a mindless magical construct that cannot think for itself both has no constitution score, as it is not a living being and is not subject to poisons, diseases, and other such things as living beings are; it also has no intelligence score, as it is generally incapable of making its own decisions and instead acts only on the orders given to it by its master.

Everything also fits into size categories, which describe how big or small they are. In ascending order, the categories are Fine, Diminutive, Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gargantuan, and Colossal. A creature's size category modifies its Armor Class and attack bonus (a target relatively larger than you is easier to hit), and determines the damage of its natural weapons and its space and reach. Don't think of your space as the area you occupy, otherwise you start thinking of ten-foot-wide horses; rather, think of it as the area you ''control''. How close do you want to get to a guy swinging a longsword, anyway?

==Settings==
*[[Forgotten Realms]] - Basically the same as normal D&D, but with a huge basement called the Underdark, which gave us a never-ending stream of [[Drizzt|Drow edgelords that everyone hated]].
*[[Eberron]] - called "dungeonpunk", and winner of the "make a new setting for D&D" contest. It made your RPG more JRPG. Seriously: robot player characters, magick trains, and dragon tatoo materia. But maybe you'll like it.
*[[Ghostwalk]] - Loads of dead people around. Not really a campaign setting as it consists only of a single book.
*[[Dragonlance]] - Basically the same as normal D&D, but with [[Kender|Kenders]] and Tinker gnomes, arguably the worst player races ever. It also had like 6 or 7 different sub-races of elves for god knows what reason. Most of the Third Edition Dragonlance stuff was licensed to third parties, but only in name; Margaret Weiss and Sovereign Press were actually ex-TSR employees who had worked on the game's first and second editions. This would be like if Blizzard had licensed Runic Games (AKA Flagship Studios, AKA Blizzard North, AKA Condor) to develop Reaper of Souls.
*[[Ravenloft]] - A setting that consists entirely of a single dungeon - Castle Ravenloft - but somehow got a dozen books devoted to it, every one of which was written and published by a third party (Arthaus), except for ''Expedition to Castle Ravenloft'', which doesn't even take place in the Ravenloft campaign setting because everyone at WotC was doing heroin during this time period. The heroin is also how [[Magic: the Gathering]] got 6th Edition Rules and the 8th Edition card face.
*[[Kingdoms of Kalamar]] - Originally created by Kenzerco as a campaign setting that was "game-agnostic" on paper, but in reality was designed exclusively to be used with D&D. WotC officially licensed this setting as a D&D product when they realized that they had no legal way to cock-block Kenzerco and figured that they might as well make money off of it. Feel free to pretend that this one doesn't exist.

==Open Gaming License==
WotC heard about this "open source" thing, and thought they'd get on the bandwagon with [[Open Gaming License]]. Players had been making house rules for forever and a day, but WotC riffed off the GNU Public License and wrote some rules where anyone could publish supporting material off the core rules, for free, just acknowledge the source and use the same license so people can make splatbooks for your stuff. The amount of non-WotC material written for 3rd edition skyrocketed, and the [[d20 System]] became the heart of dozens of role-playing games in dozens of genres. WotC didn't see royalty checks, but it helped cement their grip on the roleplay game industry during the 3e era and sold a lot of corebooks.

WotC chickened out in the next edition, offering a "new and improved" licensing scheme for it, which is more restrictive and far less used.

==Gameplay==
'''See [[Examples_of_Play | Examples of Play]].'''

==Fandom==
Since D&D is relatively mainstream and has been around for so long, many of the design benefits in D&D 3e have been incorporated into other RPGs, so newfags will take these benefits for granted. Keep in mind that D&D 3e broke new ground in many areas, or brought good ideas into widespread attention, and these same newfags probably don't remember how everyone lost their shit when [[Dragonlance]] came out.

* It just works, bitches. Proof by example: if it wasn't so good over ten years later, people would've jumped ship to Warhammer Fantasy or still be playing AD&D 2nd Ed.
* The [[Open Gaming License]] allowed for an explosion of peer-created content. Not all of it is good, but you don't have to buy the crap, you can just take the cream. No more "compatible with most fantasy rpgs (wink wink)," and no more small press crap because real publishers are too scared of lawyers.
* All task resolution is normalized to a single d20 + relevant modifiers vs. Difficulty Class roll.
** Your chance to hit is no longer dependent on an unwieldy THAC0 chart. Each class grants a Base Attack Bonus progression that adds to all your attacks.
** The five source-based saving throw classes based on source are reduced to three defense-based saves: Fortitude (I'm a tough guy), Reflex (I'm a nimble guy), and Will (I'm a wiseguy, er, wise guy).
* Skills replace nonweapon proficiencies. Each class has a set of skills that they excel in, though any character can take any skill they want. The designers finally realized that a fighter shouldn't have to stand at the bottom of a wall and reach ineffectually just because "Climb Walls" wasn't in his class features.
* The [[Feats]] system brought in awesome customizing of classes. You want a swordfighter that specializes in sabre-&-dirk fighting? How about a gladiator that brawls unarmed and can go toe-to-toe with a stone golem? We got you covered. It's like a DIY kit for class features.
* While the older editions covered the basic realistic combat styles, 3e started to see just how far "heroic" combat can go.
* Class restrictions based on race are gone. Anybody can take any class to any level. You no longer need minimum attributes to take a core class (though a caster is effectively useless without at least an 11 in their primary attribute); instead, those attributes contribute to the power of the class.
** Prestige classes are introduced, which are more specialized classes often associated with organizations and the like. They usually require skills and feats, with the design philosophy that specific class levels should never be prerequisites for a prestige class.
* Rules for monsters as player races. With the "Effective Class Levels" system, your party really can have a rakshasa or doppelganger in it and it will balance out, at least in theory. Nearly everything in the Monster Manual has a level adjustment score for use.
* Exceedingly easy and rewarding to make homebrew content for, it's a versatile and open system.

==Criticism==
{{HurfDurf}}
Some of the criticisms of third edition D&D include:

*Not enough anime powers and [[weeaboo]] artwork.
** Attempted to fix it with the nigh-endless train of prestige classes in the "Complete BLAH" and "Book of Vile/Exalted BLAH" and [[The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic|Tome of Battle: 9 Euphemisms For My Dick]]... Starting with 6 prestige classes in the 3.0 DMG (16 in the 3.5 DMG), there's 120 more in official splatbooks (349 in the official 3.5 splatbooks), and that's not counting the Epic prestige classes above level 20, or prestige classes introduced in modules, and I haven't even started on the prestige classes mentioned in official settings...
*Race/class restrictions may be gone, but this edition has merely swapped open restriction of class paths for seemingly offering open choice of character paths yet penalising builds that don't play to your race's strengths. Race and class selection still favours humans heavily; each race has a "favoured class" that is considered the archetype for them, and any difference in levels of 2 or greater between classes when one is not the FC has the game impose increasingly severe XP penalties. Humans have a rule that lets them treat their highest level class as the FC, which combined with extra skill points and a free feat at character creation gives them an annoying advantage; it's the same old human-leaning favoritism from past editions, just differently expressed. This is also a thing for half-elves, which is their only real advantage over elves. Meanwhile, half-orcs get ability adjustments that provide ''diminishing returns'' - +2 Strength, but -2 Intelligence and Charisma. Could you play one as a wizard or paladin, maybe a halfling as a fighter? Sure, but between half-orcs getting the shaft in mental abilities and halflings getting -2 Strength you probably wouldn't get much out of it. It's enough to make you wonder if WotC ''hated'' the idea that anyone would play against the racial stereotypes they had worked hard to lay down.
*[[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|Katanas are seen as underpowered in d20]], although there are also some who feel it doesn't deserve its masterwork quality and instead feel it should receive [[-4 Str]].
*People who enjoy being fucked in the ass prefer [[Anal Circumference|FATAL]].
*RULES. RULES. RULES. ENDLESS RULES.
**In order to play the game, you have to literally buy (and presumably are expected to read) something like about 130 pages of the Players Handbook which are almost all rules. That's as a ''basic'' player. As a DM, or anyone actually wishing to know the deeper mechanics of the game, i.e. anything besides skill use and combat, will have to read a metric ton of material, calculating CRs, learning all of the different rules about special combat manoeuvres, level progression, how to create items, rules for specific items, rules for flight and mounted moving, rules for surviving, tracking, hunting, picking your nose and so on. Thankfully you no longer have to buy them since the SRD is free and contains all ''19 megabytes'' of the rules that are absolutely needed, barring leveling related rules.
** Many 2nd edition rules were presented as optional, allowing the DM leeway to experiment with his ideas and his group. Carrying over beloved characters from 1st to 2nd edition was no big deal. 3rd edition made this impossible, and canonically standardized plenty of bad and broken rules that made us all want to climb back up into Lorraine's warm life-giving uterus and ask for forgiveness.
*Spells all work differently from one another, so instead of looking up the rules on a type of action, you look up the rules for a specific spell. And then the spell's errata. And the Ask the Sage article about that spell.
*No one can even pretend the various classes are balanced against one another. After 10th level or so spellcasters are so powerful and versatile that the average dungeon crawl is cut short when they use a spell or two to redirect a nearby river into the front door, killing everything inside but the skeletons. For comparison, the fighter is about to get his third attack a round! ...With a to-hit rate so low he'll almost certainly miss with it.
** Classes have never been balanced against each other but this is mostly to do with the fact that the power of casters was kept from AD&D but the drawbacks (slower initial leveling speed, greater potential to kill yourself, highly limited spell slots and several things that made spellcasting hell) were removed. Granted this example is a bit [[Rope Trick Bunker of Doom|exaggerated]] since a smart DM could just quietly change the dungeon to an undead filled one as a middle finger for trying to cheese it or if home to anyone of magical ability, bounce off a ward.
*** Even so, casters are WAY more powerful on an individual basis. Just check the [[Tier System]]. Casters are nigh-always superior in personal combat (oh, trolls trying to mess me up? Well, guess I'll just fly straight up a few meters and shoot them dead), and have the ability to handle pretty much everything else (short of traps... Damn rogue-only abilites (they can usually bypass them or deal with them some other way than disabling them, though)) as well. They even have specific spells/powers for doing "whatever I want" ("Wish" and "Reality Revision" comes to mind). The fact that the Adept, a class made for NPCs in mind and thus supposed to be in every way inferior to the player classes, is STILL a solid and perfectly playable Tier 4, at tier or even ahead of most of the Core SRD melee classes, solely because spellcasting is its primary focus, really says something.
* Some rules make a lot of sense for the sake of mechanics in combat and gameplay but sound silly in realistic terms... like "the older you get the wiser you get"... and by default the better your sense of sight and hearing become. Silly things like these are often pointed out in Rich Burlew's [[Order of the Stick]], an [[Webcomic|online comic]] based on D&D characters.
* It's possible for a wizard not to know about magic, a druid not to know about nature and a cleric not know about religion (including his own).
* LA (level adjustment) was total bullshit anyway, some things have LA way too high for the power you get and others don't get enough for LA +0 (kobolds with +0 LA despite they have -4 str and -2 con). This led to a lot of homebrew LA +0 variants of races.

==See also==
* [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]
* [[Dungeons & Dragons]]
* [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]
* [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]]
* [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]]
* [[d20 Modern]] - same mechanics, slightly different rules for a present-day setting
* [[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game]] - a fork of D&D 3.5 edition from when Wizards of the Coast abandoned 3.5 for something more [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|weeaboo]]
* [[Microlite20]] - 3rd edition rules boiled down to 1100 words.
* [http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm d20 Standard Reference Hypertext Document] - all the rules you're allowed to riff for your own splatbooks. Only thing missing to play the game is the experience table, wealth table and character creation rules.
* [[Siegeball]] - yo dawg, I heard you like [[/tg/|traditional games]], so I put a game in your game so you can play while you play.
* [[Incarnum]]
* [[Tier System]] - some character classes are better than others

[[Category:Roleplaying]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]