I'm an old third edition player. 4th and 5th are really not good.

3.5 was the best era for D&D rules-wise, if you ask me.

Here's the basics:

#DS

# = the number of dice
D = shorthand for dice
S = the number of sides the die has.

1D2 is a coin
1D4 is a 4-sided die
1D6 is a 6-sided die
1D8 is an 8-sided die
1D10 is a 10-sided die
1D20 is a 20-sided die
1D100 is two ten-sided die to give you a value between 1 and 100 (double tens is 100)

Character creation: There are several variants of this. My group tended to do it this way:

Roll 4D6, drop the lowest dice and total the remaining three up.

Do this seven times.

Drop the lowest score.

Then, assign these stats to your character's stats however you want:

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

Each stat has a modifier. After you've assigned your stat points, you do a little bit of math to get the modifier score for each of your 6 attributes.

The formula is:

(score/2)-5 round down, of course.

So this would be the possible range of modifiers:

3: -4
4-5: -3
6-7: -2
8-9: -1
10-11: +0
12-13: +1
14-15: +2
16-17: +3
18: +4

These ability scores are used to help calculate dice rolls.

Next, pick a class.

Each class works a bit different. Every level, you additional skill points, hit points, spell slots, feats, base attack power, and base resistances.

Every class has a different hit dice. For instance, fighters have a D10 hit dice, and wizards have D4 hit dice.

At first level, you get the max-roll for your hit dice. So a wizard would start with 4, a fighter would start with 10. Add your constitution modifier to your hitpoints. Every level thereafter, you get to roll your hit dice and add the roll plus your constitution modifier to your hit points again.

Then you calculate base attack.

For ranged attacks it's dexterity modifier + your class's base attack for your level.

For melee attacks it's strength modifier + your class's base attack for your level.

Then you calculate resistances.

There are three resistance types: reflex, toughness, and willpower. All three are based on your class's base scores plus the stat that modifies the saving throw, for reflex, it's dexterity. For toughness, it's constitution, and for willpower, it's wisdom.

Next, you get to do skill points. Every class has a base skill point value. Every level, you get this many skill points plus your intelligence modifier added to your skill point pool. At first level, you multiply this value by four.

Every class has a list of class skills and cross-class skills. Class skills give you 1 level for every 1 point you spend in them. Cross-class skills give you 1 level for every 2 points you spend in them. You can level a class skill up to your current level + 4, and a cross-class skill up to your current level + 2.

Each different skill gives you a modifier to that skill. Each skill also has a primary stat that influences it. You add that primary stat's modifier to the number of skill points you have spent in that skill to receive your base score in that skill.


In D&D 3.0/3.5, you can perform rolls. Most rolls are done with a D20. Attack rolls, skill checks, and saving throws are all done with a D20. Skill checks, you roll a D20, and you add the score for that skill to the roll to determine your result. Attack rolls are done with a D20, but you add your base_attack to the roll to determine your attack's hit score. Saving throws use either reflex, toughness, or willpower scores added to the D20 roll.

Now, there's a thing called a DC. It's "Dice Check". DC means how hard it is to pass a check. "Spot DC 20" would be a skill roll, using the "spot" skill, with a needed total score of 20 or more to succeed. Many checks consider a roll of 1 to be a "critical failure", which will always fail no matter what the final score is, and the DM will decide what bad thing happens to you as a consequence, and a roll of 20 before modifiers is considered to be critical success. This means that you will succeed no matter how high the DC is above your final score.

Every action in D&D uses dice. Picking locks, brewing potions, riding horses, etc. Of course, you can avoid rolling dice by doing what's called a "take 10", "take 15", or "take 20". You'll take longer to perform the action, but you will automatically get a score of 10, 15, or 20 before modifiers to the DC of the task you are attempting. Since all actions are timed in D&D, this often is something you don't decide to do, as it can put you in danger when there are baddies around, or when the party's on a time-crunch.

Now the last thing you really need to know about are armor and weapons.

You have a stat called "armor class". Armor class starts at 10, but you add your dexterity modifier to it. Wearing armor or wielding a shield will increase the player's armor class by the armor's armor bonus stat, but armor can also give you penalties to skills like move silently, sneak, swim, etc.

When you roll to attack, the DC for the attack is actually your opponent's armor class (AC for short). An AC of 15 means you have to roll a 15 or higher for your attack check to hit.

Weapons have stats too. Weapons have a "damage die", and a critical range. Most weapons have a critical range of 19-20. This means that on a roll of 19 or 20 before modifiers, you get a chance to score a critical hit. Roll your attack a second time. If the second attack hits, it's a critical hit. If the second attack misses, it's just a normal hit. If you get a critical roll again, you roll your attack a third time. If this one is a hit, it's an instant kill. If it's a miss, it's just a critical hit. Some weapons have really big critical ranges, like the scimitar, with an 18 to 20 critical range.

When you roll damage, you add your strength modifier to the damage dice with melee weapons, thrown weapons, or with composite bows. For other ranged weapons, you don't add anything. If it was a critical hit, you multiply the total damage you just dealt by two. If it's a 2-handed weapon, you add your strength modifier * 1.5 to the damage instead of just your strength modifier.

...That's really about all I can think to describe. That's sort of the basics.

Ter13 knows his 3.5 rules

Thanks. I DMed for 15 years... So.. You kind of have to get familiar with your rules. The "beheading" rule is a house rule, now that you mention it. I've been running that house rule for so long that it's stuck in my mind as a base rule.

Instant-kill rolls are so incredibly rare that we never much bothered with modifying them. More often than not, when they happened, it was my dice and the target was a player, so I'd just sort of pretend the third 20 was a 4 to keep the player from hating me forever.

Ter13 wrote:

so I'd just sort of pretend the third 20 was a 4 to keep the player from hating me forever.

Lol.
Well now I know where the term rogue-like originated.


Thanks for the explanation, I got a good grasp on it now. One of the games I'm working on uses the die to calculate hits and I was just like "wha-HUH" for understanding when it was explained to me. *his native language isn't english*

Truthfully I coded combat a while ago- I just wasn't entirely sure I did it correctly so I wanted an explanation.
Suffice to say, that's basically how it works, you roll a hit, if your hit is greater than their GC (guard check) you deal a hit. If it's less, you miss, if they are equal, then it's considered blocked by the enemy.

Some of the stats are used in place of the die however, for instance agility * 5 = range of roll for some skills. So if you have an agility of 3, you'd be able to roll a max of 15 with the agility score as the base # for the random grab. (rand(agl,agl*5)

I may go back and make it more "true" to the rules he set forth however 2d6 for instance on spell casts. 2d10 for melee, and so on.

Draconite wrote:

I'm Oldschool 2nd edition, explaining those rules would take up 10 forum pages.

And you're not joking there. Each ability score had its own set of rules and variables in 2nd edition, and then there came the rules for making attack rolls, and when you could use what abilities where...

2nd edition is fun, that's for sure. Although I feel it leaves much to be desired as far as the broad scope of things goes. Once you get used to the rules itself, it's not that bad to worry about.

Ter13 wrote:

What's this 2nd edition crap? There was no "2nd edition". It was "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" (AD&D). Nobody played "second edition". Anybody that was alive when "second edition" was out played "Advanced".

My sarcasm detector is a little weak, so pardon me if I missed it...

According to this, there was an AD&D second edition that came out in 1989. I never bought any of it, I had all the old books that came out in the late 70's, but I did see the new ones in the early 90's. I do remember them taking out all the 'demonic/angelic' type creatures to try and appease the people railing against the evils of D&D...

I used to play D&D back in the mid 80s. Not sure which edition but there were several thick books! My favorite campaign was called White Plume Mountain; IIRC it involved crawling through a maze to find three possessed weapons. The DM for that game was some 30 year old guy that none of us kids knew (think my buddy met him at a 7/11)... I will never forget the expression on his mom's face when she saw him: it basically was "get a job yah dirty hippie". Nowadays it'd probably be a lawsuit!

Ter13 wrote:

Generally speaking, people who claim to have played "second edition" are hipsters trying to claim they were into something before they actually were.

I call it 2nd edition because that's what I originally heard of it as. A friend of mine introduced me to 2nd edition a couple years after I first started playing 3.5.

I'd like to point out that at this point, you're being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. Some people call it AD&D, others call it 2nd edition. Doesn't matter what it's called, it's the same damn game and people know what others are referring to.

Ter13 wrote:

In fact, few people used the term: "D&D" before 3rd edition. Most people came to know it by the name "AD&D" during the great bible-beating of the 1970s and 80s.

Well, we did use the term "D&D", but that was for the original game. At some point post TSR, they changed the name of AD&D to simply D&D, but when I played, they were two similar but distinct games. I played the original a few times, but was I much preferred AD&D. Honestly, I think I enjoyed just reading through the books more than anything :P

@Oondivinezin : Relax, it's all good. Nothing wrong with a little meaningless arguing over something that doesn't matter in the least. :)