Complete Warrior 3.0 or 3.5

[kbob]

So I've read countless times that Complete Warrior (CW) is 3.5 as it is supposedly published after June 2003. Places like Amazon list it as a 3.5 edition. However, while looking online at the hexblade, I noticed that one of his possible spells was Nystul's Magic Aura. That spell is supposedly banned since 3.5 came out. So I started searching online and pretty much everyone I've came across says CW is 3.5. However one commenter on a particular forum posted that there is a way to tell if a book is 3.5 or 3.0 (though he never spoke specifically about CW). He noted the following:
"Under this, if it is a 3.5 book, it will say:

This product uses updated material from the v.3.5 revision.
If it's a 3.0 book, it will continue:

This Wizards of the Coast game product [...]"
(I would site the author but he posted as "community". After clicking on his tag he seemed to be administrative. But it was on "rpg stack exchange" forum.
My copy of CW does not contain the line about 3.5 but has the latter.

Another clue that confuses me further is that the lead designer at WotC, in an unnoficial thought on how the hexblade could be helped, mentioned that it came at the early stage of 3.5. So is it 3.5 then? If so, did they not put the afore mentioned writ in all of the 3.5 books? Would that mean Nystuls Magic Aura was taken out later or that it simply slipped through the cracks on that one. Or was the designer confused, like myself?
Thoughts?!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nystul's magic aura is in the 3.5 PHB on page 257. Complete Warrior is an unambiguously 3.5 supplement.

[Goaty14]

Dunno where you got "Nystul's Magic Aura is banned in 3.5", because 1) 3.0 is backwards compatible with 3.5, and 2) 3.0 -> 3.5 just changed the names for most spells (i.e Mordenkainen's Disjunction -> Mage's Disjunction). Anywho, Nystul's Magic Aura -> Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm).

(I personally like the named spells of 3.0 better because they sound cooler, but to each their own I guess)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dunno where you got "Nystul's Magic Aura is banned in 3.5", because 1) 3.0 is backwards compatible with 3.5, and 2) 3.0 -> 3.5 just changed the names for most spells (i.e Mordenkainen's Disjunction -> Mage's Disjunction). Anywho, Nystul's Magic Aura -> Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm).

(I personally like the named spells of 3.0 better because they sound cooler, but to each their own I guess)

They didn't change the names for 3.5. They pulled the product identity items, like the names of the wizards from Greyhawk for which those spells are named, for the system resource document; the SRD.

[frogglesmash]

Several of the prestige classes are 3.5 updates of prestige classes that appeared in the 3.0 Sword and Fist splat book. Based on that and the fact that every other book in the "Compete" series is 3.5, I feel comfortable in assuming that Compete Warrior is also a 3.5 book.

[Troacctid]

The way I always tell is by looking at the skills. If you see Alchemy, Animal Empathy, Innuendo, Scry, or Wilderness Lore, you know it's 3.0.

[hamishspence]

Fiend Folio (very late 3.0) had already introduced a few 3.5 skill name changes, like "Survival" for "Wilderness Lore", "Craft: Alchemy" for Alchemy, and "Sleight of Hand" for "Pick Pocket".

Savage Species was the first book with some of those changes.

A sure-fire way of telling though - is with Damage Reduction.

3.0 has DR/+1, DR/+2, etc. 3.5 has DR/magic.

The first 3.5 book, PHB, came out in July 2003. Complete Warrior came out in December 2003.

[ben-zayb]

The way I always tell is by looking at the skills. If you see Alchemy, Animal Empathy, Innuendo, Scry, or Wilderness Lore, you know it's 3.0.
Invisible Blade has Innuendo as a class skill, so that makes Complete Warrior 3.0

[Crake]

Invisible Blade has Innuendo as a class skill, so that makes Complete Warrior 3.0

Haha, wow, it does, I never noticed that before. Not only that, but it wasn't removed in the errata.

[Uncle Pine]

So was Innuendo a very specific subset of the Bluff skill or...? I can't imagine it being any useful as a standalone skill if it just allows you to make very subtle sex jokes :smallconfused:

[Eldan]

It's a bad name. It basically meant "secret messages". The intent was that you'd roll that skill to communicate with a party member silently with things like subtle gestures or signals across a room. Say, if you were both captured.

It was stupidly specific and I don't think we ever used it.

[Mordaedil]

So was Innuendo a very specific subset of the Bluff skill or...? I can't imagine it being any useful as a standalone skill if it just allows you to make very subtle sex jokes
It was apparently in the original printing.
Innuendo
(Player's Handbook 3.0, page 70)

Description

You know how to give and understand secret messages, while appearing to be speaking about other things. Two rogues, for example, might seem to be talking about bakery goods when they're really planning on how to break into the evil wizard's laboratory.
Check

You can get a message across to another character with the Innuendo skill. The DC for a basic message is 10. The DC is 15 or 20 for complex messages, especially those that rely on getting across new information. Also, the character can retry to discern the hidden message in a conversation between two other characters who are using the skill. The DC is the skill check of the character using Innuendo, and for each piece of information that the eavesdropper is missing, that character suffers a -2 penalty on the check. For example, if a character eavesdrops on people planning to assassinate a visiting diplomat, the eavesdropper suffers a -2 if he doesn't know about the diplomat. Whether trying to send or intercept a message, a failure by 5 or more points means that some false information has been implied or inferred.
The DM makes your Innuendo check secretly so that you don't necessarily know whether you were successful.
Try again

Generally, retries are allowed when trying to send a message, but not when intercepting one. Each retry carries the chance of miscommunication.
Synergy

If you have 5 or more ranks in Bluff, you get a +2 synergy bonus on your check to transmit a message. If you have 5 or more ranks in Sense Motive, you get a +2 synergy bonus on your checks to intercept (but not receive) a message.

[Troacctid]

Innuendo and Intuit Direction are still in the game, of course. They were rolled into Bluff and Survival, respectively.

[zergling.exe]

So was Innuendo a very specific subset of the Bluff skill or...? I can't imagine it being any useful as a standalone skill if it just allows you to make very subtle sex jokes :smallconfused:

Innuendo is any time where you are not being straight forward with what you are saying. Young people nowadays just appropriated the term for sex jokes.

[Thurbane]

The way I always tell is by looking at the skills. If you see Alchemy, Animal Empathy, Innuendo, Scry, or Wilderness Lore, you know it's 3.0.

A sure-fire way of telling though - is with Damage Reduction.

3.0 has DR/+1, DR/+2, etc. 3.5 has DR/magic.
Both true.

Others to look out for are monster stat blocks.

If it says "Face/Reach:" it's 3.0.

If it says "Full Attack:", it's 3.5 (although this was dropped for the new monster stat blocks in later 3.5 books, like those ion MM4; side note: I much preferred the earlier stat blocks.).

[frogglesmash]

side note: I much preferred the earlier stat blocks.

Same, it was a much more comprehensive, and efficient display of info imo.

[Thurbane]

Same, it was a much more comprehensive, and efficient display of info imo.

When I'm using a monster with the later stat block in my game, I usually try to transcribe it to the older version for my use if I get time beforehand.

[T.G. Oskar]

Complete Warrior is 3.5 content. Not just that - Complete Warrior is an attempt to transcribe some of the 3.0 content into 3.5.

Take, for example, the prestige classes. Bear Warrior is from Oriental Adventures, Bladesinger and Thayan Knight are from the Forgotten Realms books (the former was worked twice, until CW made the official version...a kinda nerfed one, tho); those are to mention a few. Or the feats - the Divine Feats like Divine Might were packaged as regular feats.

Thing is, CW was on the early stage of 3.5, where the devs knew they had to make a revamp to the rules, but were still constrained to 3.0 mentality. That's why you see stuff like Bladesinger, which has a pretty horrendous spell progression, compared to Eldritch Knight or latter gishes (Abjurant Champion, or Knight Phantom from Five Nations). Content is still unrefined, though not exactly unbalanced. Most of the feats are...bland, somewhat unimaginative, aside from a few shining examples.

As for the spells - the SRD merely removed product identity, as others mentioned. Beholders aren't banned - they're just unable to be on the SRD as they're WotC's product identity; i.e., they were created by TSR or WotC, and thus are their property; notwithstanding the fact that Origin Systems, now owned by EA as a shallow shadow of its former self, had Gazers which were pretty much nerfed beholders, or that Square-Enix, then Squaresoft, used Mindflayers in a nerfed form (see anywhere they mention "Piscodaemons", at least one of them is actually referred as a Mindflayer, and uses Mind Blast, which happens to paralyze. No, seriously - look at Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, or Final Fantasy V for examples. So, "product identity" is an iffy concept; it's not a copyright, but for all intents and purposes, it acts like one. The SRD merely made it so that you could use 3.5 rules, but not the monsters WotC considers their creation. Mindflayers...fall into that, but their appearances in the Final Fantasy series are pretty much grandfathered; you don't see current games, like Final Fantasy Record Keeper, which references all the other games, put a copyright on Mindflayers indicating they belong to WotC. Then there's the thing about Mindflayers being essentially repackaged Deep Ones, and thus the only aspect of their identity that's protected is the lore about them, as their image is pretty much public domain by now.

But yeah - CW is 3.5 content, and the first attempt of updating the rules of 3.0 into the new format: specifically, a portion of the stuff in Sword & Fist, except they went with the idea of "not a splat about Fighters and Monks, but a splat about how everyone could turn into a Warrior". There's little debate about it, what with the amount of proof stating that.

[Thurbane]

I always found the distinction on which creatures WotC considered intellectual property not to appear in the SRD incredibly arbitrary.

How are Beholders, Kuo-toa or Mind Flayers any more iconic and original to D&D than, say, Ankhegs, Owlbears or the Tarrasque?

I'm sure there's some legal-ese reasoning to it, but it escapes me...

[Uncle Pine]

I always found the distinction on which creatures WotC considered intellectual property not to appear in the SRD incredibly arbitrary.

How are Beholders, Kuo-toa or Mind Flayers any more iconic and original to D&D than, say, Ankhegs, Owlbears or the Tarrasque?

I'm sure there's some legal-ese reasoning to it, but it escapes me...

The Tarrasque is a mythological French creature. However, I have no clue how things such as owlbears made the cut and got into the SRD.