Revised Player's Handbook: Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook [Hardcover]

Problem is that for a new edition, there is not enough revision, and for "just" a revised handbook, there is too much revisions in depths through the details (like classes, combat). This book is a gigantic erratum for a few dozen bucks and the hardcover. Period. In a sentence: if you possess already D&D 3.0, don't buy it. If you don't have any 3rd edition book, you can invest, because it's a good game (which would have 3 or 4 stars if it wasn't a "revised" book but a all new brand new system).

The Player's Handbook 3.5 does a fixes many of the problems of the original book. Wizards of the Coast came up with a much overdue and spectacular idea a few years ago when they opened up their game mechanics wth the open gaming license making source books for any type of character (gladiators, necromancers, and even shamans) easy to find, and it all fit together. 3rd edtion was the grandaddy that started it, and it gets an overhall.

Most notably, they change 3 of the classes. The Bard finally gets more skill points (6) so that he can more resemble the "Jack of all Trades" than a low rent, underpowered mage/theif that nobody wanted to play.

The Ranger, perhaps one of the most loved classes in First and Second Edition D and D was nearly unplayable in 3rd edition (past 1st level anyway.) This problem is fixed, with choices in specialization with the bow or two weapon fighting, more skill points, and increases in power more in line with the other classes. (No more playing for one favored enemy and a few cantrips you can cast at 8 level.)

The Monks are no longer cookie cutters of each other, as you have choices to make along the way so that you can do things that not every other monk you'd meet would be able to do.

Oh, by the way, now every race that has a special weapon (Dwarven Warhaxe) can fight with it without a feat. What an idea!!

The races have minor tweaking, with changes to the Gnome, Half Elf, and Dwarf the most notable.

Feats have been expanded, and some combined. Gone is Ambidextarity, which is now just "Two weapon fighting." Some of this is from the class books (Song and Silence), and some new. Cool feats that give you bonus to a few skills rather than one are a nice touch.

Skills have been combined. Gone is Intuit Direction and Wilderness lore. Hello Survival, that now does both. There are more examples like this. Slight of Hand, which is better, replaces pick pocket in one example of the new skills that are listed.

The combat chapter is rewritten and top notch, answering many of the questions that have come up since we first adopted 3rd edition.

All in all, I think this was a much needed update, and will be imediatly adopted in our playing group. I told a few of the changes at our last session, and all of the ones who "swore" they'd never get it, were already making plans to do so.

Highly Recommeded.

I thought the point of a new revision was to make improvements to the system and to clarify rules that were unclear. As it turns out the improvements are so minor, and the clarifications are only covering about 30-40% of the issues my group argues about. That and stat-boosting spells have been rendered almost completely useless. Unless you are certain that you are going to have an encounter in the next couple of minutes, Bull's Strength is now a trash-can spell. It makes no sense to me. Granted an hour per level is a little long for a duration, but a minute per level is way too short. Our DM house-ruled a long time ago that stat boosters durations were 10 minutes per level, thus usable in most situations, but not lasting all day long.

Rangers took the biggest hit of all the class revisions. They're supposed to be improvemed? I'm having difficulty differentiating between the new ranger and a druid. The only difference I can see is that one is more spell focused vs. combat focused. They even have the same hit die now. They should just be call them Combat Specialist Druids and the Spell Slinging Druids.

What's good about this book? I'm still struggling to find something noteworthy and posative to say about this version. It's a challenge.