[3.5] Rules Compendium

[Hairb]

I plan to keep playing 3.x into the future, and have started thinking about buying the various expansions as they vanish off the shelves.

Is the Rules Compendium worth buying? What new material does it have?

[Frosty]

very few new materials, but it pretty much roll all of the old errata, and maybe a few new ones as well into one single book. It's good if you wantall the esoteric rules in one place so you don't need tolook in 12 different booms to get the most updated ruling.

[Hairb]

So I take it doesn't collect the feats etc introduced in Races, Complete et. al. like the Spell and Magic Item Compendia?

[Eldariel]

Nope. It's just rules.

[Gorbash]

And some pretty nifty pictures. Such as an armored Medusa riding a Gorgon by Wayne Reynolds.

[KillianHawkeye]

As mentioned, the RC doesn't have any feats, spells, items, etc. It just has a bunch of rules for things such as action types, combat actions, combat modifiers, special attacks, damage types & damage reduction, bonus types, cover & concealment, skill rules, etherealness & incorporeality, fear, falling, light sources & darkness modifiers, line of sight & line of effect, movement rules, conditions, poisons, diseases, suffocation, starvation & thirst, spell resistance, encumberance, weather, size modifiers, and a variety of the more general special abilities and special qualities, among a few other things.

Personally, I'm a fan of the book because the information is very well organized in addition to having all that information consolidated in a single place.

[hamishspence]

I identified most of the unusual pictures as Dragon mag ones: Medusa on Gorgon, halfling on dire weasel (It could have been elf on dire wolverine, picture makes it hard to tell)

I think one is from Oriental Adventures. Haven't got that one so not sure.

[RebelRogue]

If you're somewhat new to the game it's practical. But if you've got a working knowledge of 3.5 anyway, I think it's a potential waste of money. There's some interesting anecdotes here and there, though.

[Chronos]

But most of the rules are already contained in the PHB, and of those that aren't, most are in the DMG. It's not too hard to just check the indices of those two books, or run a search on d20srd.org if you have a computer handy.

[RTGoodman]

But most of the rules are already contained in the PHB, and of those that aren't, most are in the DMG. It's not too hard to just check the indices of those two books, or run a search on d20srd.org if you have a computer handy.

True, but I still find it relatively helpful. Particularly, it does include the errata and such, and provides everything in a really easy-to-find order (which, in my opinion, is not the strong-suit of the core books). If you carry your laptop to session and use it, then it might not be as helpful, but otherwise it really speeds things along from what I've seen.

Also, it helps eliminate the need to pass books around - players should find everything they need in their PHBs or other splatbooks, and the DM can just have the RC and (if he needs XP, items, or something) the DMG.

[Thurbane]

Buy it if you can get it cheap - I paid full price, and didn't feel it was really worth it.

[sonofzeal]

Yeah... tis nice if you have it, but way low on the priority list, not nearly the same league as the other two Compendiums.

[Ascension]

It has a few sidebars talking about game design, too, which is something I find interesting.

Like was said, it isn't the best thing if you've got a laptop handy with a searchable SRD or if you have to pay full price for it, but if you can get a hold of one for a reasonable price it's a nice little compilation of things.

[Curmudgeon]

Mostly you're paying for organization. It's just repurposing material, mostly from the core books + errata. There are some exceptions, though, such as this gem from page 85:
Activating a spell trigger item takes the same amount of time as the casting time of the spell that the item stores, but activating the item doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. You can’t activate a spell trigger item in the area of a silence spell or if unable to speak. This is one example of a completely new rule. Here's the original:
Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.