Considering jumping on D&D Express

[Great Dane]

I've been an avid reader of OOTS for years and after taking a "what character would you be" quiz online found on someone's sig, I'm somewhat interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons now. I know of at least two others who would also be interested.

I have a few questions for those far more educated in this subject than I. I'm sure you're far more knowledgeable than the local Game Preserve employees and you aren't going to try and make a sale off of me. Without further ado...

1) Should I start with 3rd, 3.5, or 4th edition?

2) If I wanted a bigger group to start out, where would I go?

3) Other than the Player's Manual, Monster Manual, and DM Guide, what else would you suggest?

4) Are there any good places a la Amazon that have used items for sale?

That's all I've got off the top of my head. If you've got any other advice I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: In case you were curious, I am planning on playing a Cleric and my roommate a Sorcerer. His fiance might play a Ranger or Druid.

[Caeldrim]

1) I Like 3.5. If you want to play the game that OOTS is based on, 3.5 is it. 4th is supposed to be easier to pick up, but I found my previous knowledge of 3.5 made it harder to grok quickly.

2) Look at friendly neighbourhood gaming shops, comic book stores, and www.meetup.com for groups in your area.

3)At first, the core 3 books will do you just fine. In fact, if you're planning on joining a group as a PC, you should only really need the player's handbook.

4) Amazon has some good deals on 3.5ed books. I just bought a bunch off there and the experience was good.

Have fun!

[Inyssius Tor]

1) Should I start with 3rd, 3.5, or 4th edition?

You want either 3.5 or 4E. As far as I can tell, the only thing that makes 3 preferable to 3.5 is inertia; the changes aren't that substantial, so this is understandable.

4E is the currently supported one. There's a lot of stuff for 3.5 still floating around, though, not even counting the third-party community. I'd recommend 4E myself, because it seems easier and provides more options to players and so forth. It's geared towards fun combat encounters, and I like fun combat encounters. Since it's still supported by Wizards, it's kind of the default option right now; take a look at it, and if it doesn't suit you then take a look at something else.

2) If I wanted a bigger group to start out, where would I go?

When you figure this one out, let me know, will you? The RPGA probably isn't what you're looking for.

3) Other than the Player's Manual, Monster Manual, and DM Guide, what else would you suggest?

For players: you want the Tome of Battle (: Book of Nine Swords) if you're going with 3.X and your DM allows it. For 4E, you want Martial Power if you're playing a martial character; Adventurer's Vault if you want more magic items; and a DDI subscription--it's seven dollars to look at everything they've put out so far, and that's definitely worth it even if you don't think it's worth an ongoing subscription.

[Starbuck_II]

Assuming PHB classes:
Barbarian not the Fighter is the easiest class to play. Fighter's have to deal with making good feat choices (which was why Roy had high Int).

I think 3.5 or 4th would be easy.
3rd will be closest to Order of the Stick though.

In 3.5: Beside Core:
I recommend Magic Item Compendruim, Expanded Psionics Handbook (if DM allows Psionics), and PHB 2

Optional (either due to hard to understand, new system, or too many options for beggining):
Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, Book of Incarnum.

But mostly, I'd stick to Core (PHB, DMG, Monster Manual) and one or two recommended.

[Ascension]

3rd will be closest to Order of the Stick though.

No, OOTS is 3.5-ish, not 3-ish. The very first comic featured the update from 3.0.

And because of the title...

[The Cats]

lasses:


I think 3.5 or 4th would be easy.
3rd will be closest to Order of the Stick though.

Wrong-o! The comic actually starts with the change to 3.5.

[Flickerdart]

I've been an avid reader of OOTS for years and after taking a "what character would you be" quiz online found on someone's sig, I'm somewhat interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons now. I know of at least two others who would also be interested.

I have a few questions for those far more educated in this subject than I. I'm sure you're far more knowledgeable than the local Game Preserve employees and you aren't going to try and make a sale off of me. Without further ado...

1) Should I start with 3rd, 3.5, or 4th edition?

2) If I wanted a bigger group to start out, where would I go?

3) Other than the Player's Manual, Monster Manual, and DM Guide, what else would you suggest?

4) Are there any good places a la Amazon that have used items for sale?

That's all I've got off the top of my head. If you've got any other advice I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

The Player's Handbook II and Dungeon Master's Guide II contain a lot of nice content to help out your roleplaying and DMing, as well as more classes, spells and so forth. The Spell Compendium is worth a purchase if you find yourself playing primary spellcasters a lot, and the Tome of Battle is wonderful for melee types. Expanded Psionics Handbook is also worth a shot, as it provides a very nice alternate system to primary spellcasting, and Magic of Incarnum is reportedly another good alternate system. But PHBII is the one I'd recommend most.

[Siosilvar]

If you'd like to try 3.5, d20srd.org has most of the core rules for it. It's playable as long as you have someone who actually has the books around (or are playing online).

[Oracle_Hunter]

(1) Which System?
Now, I'd say start with 4th for the following reasons:

Spoiler

Show

(A) It is the currently supported game, so it may be easier to find people willing to play it who are newbie friendly (being newbies themselves).

(B) It is an amazingly easy system to use. 3E has a million splatbooks and many difficult-to-play classes (wizards, for example). 4E has a concise and internally-consistent ruleset and all classes are equally "complex" rules-wise.

Of course, you should really decide which version to start with depending on what games are available in your area. If all you can find are 3.0 games, then join one of those.

(2) How do I find games?
Some of my friends have had success using NearbyGamers, so you may want to try that, or similar "meet up" sites.

Bad comes to worse, though, you can wheedle your friends into playing a game you DM. Running a game isn't as hard as you'd think (particularly in 4E, IMHO) and once you hook someone on gaming, you got 'em for life

(3) What Books?
This depends on the edition you use. In general, I'd say don't buy anything aside from Core until you are familiar with the system. Once you have a feel for it, you can start browsing the books to see if there's anything in them that you'd think would be good to have in your game.

In general, I've found splatbooks that contain more rules to be less useful than the "how to" books TSR released back in 2E. It's all well and good to find rules for quad-swords or the Superman Prestige Class, but the heart of a RPG experience is in the roleplaying, not the gear.

Of course, your mileage (and bankroll!) may vary from mine

[Starbuck_II]

Wrong-o! The comic actually starts with the change to 3.5.

3.0 is 3,.0; 3rd will always be 3.5 to me.

So kinda I am right.

[Mando Knight]

Since you're just starting, I'd definitely go with 4th edition: 3.X books are already out of print, so if you decide to get some splatbooks later, you're going to have to look a lot harder to find them. However, with that said, the splats are currently somewhat readily available, especially the later ones. 4th edition's selection of extra books is only going to go up, but 3.X material's pretty much hit its limit (barring homebrew, which 3.5 homebrew is pretty common on these boards), and the supply of that material is diminishing.

[Dyllan]

Don't buy anything yet. Find a group - whatever they're playing, buy the Player's Handbook for that version. Don't buy more until you've played for a while - and until you find out what books everyone in the group has. The only book everyone needs is the PHB - the rest, one copy per group should be sufficient.

I prefer 3.5 myself, as I find 4.0 to be too oversimplified and balanced to the point where it makes it too bland for my tastes. But, that's a personal opinion - there are a lot of people who like either version.

As for finding a game, unless you live in Cincinnati, Ohio, I can't really help you there.

[Great Dane]

WOW, this is all great information. I did not expect such a response from you all. Thank you! Keep 'em coming!

So from what I've gathered, I should start with at the least a Player's manual. In case you were curious, and I'll add this to the original post, I've decided to play a Cleric, roommate will be a Sorcerer, and his fiance might be a Ranger or Druid.

One response stood out in particular:

Siosilvar

I wasn't aware that online D&D communities existed. While I see a huge benefit in sitting around a table interacting with people, I can also see a benefit to the ease of logging in somewhere and playing (however it is set up). I'll at least look into this!

Responding to a few of you:

Caeldrim

I'd read (from the 1-Star Amazon reviews) that 4ed plays more like a MMO than a tabletop game. I've been playing MMOs for years so I could understand having less frustration over this compared to a seasoned RPG fan.

Inyssius Tor

I had not factored in the support variable. Great point. If 4ed does cater towards fun combat, then I can see how players of 3-3.5 view 4ed as MMO-style. Course, that's from a rook's POV :)

Oracle_Hunter

Some nice information there, well-articulated. Thanks :D

[Mando Knight]

I wasn't aware that online D&D communities existed. While I see a huge benefit in sitting around a table interacting with people, I can also see a benefit to the ease of logging in somewhere and playing (however it is set up). I'll at least look into this!

There is, y'know... here...

You'd need a site like Myth-Weavers to keep track of the character sheets, though. GiantitP forums have enough server load as-is, so this site doesn't carry a character sheet generator/database.
(Note to self... the screenshot dates back to when Freeform Roleplaying subforum was known as "The Town." May want to update image...)

[Flickerdart]

Except that Play by Post takes untold ages to get anything done. We run games on the IRC channel occasionally; #giantitp on GameSurge, although it's an unofficial channel not endorsed by Burlew in any way.

There's a 3.5 game that runs Thursday evenings, and one or two more 4E and 3.5 ones. We generally get a lot more done, since combat can go that much faster.

[afroakuma]

That's why I'm not a fan of PbP; however, for lack of a better way, it's what I use.

I second d20srd. It's got almost all the information necessary to play the game, since it is a compilation of nearly all the 3.5 core material.

[poxjedi]

1) You want either 3.5 or 4.0
It's a matter of preference, 3.5 is much more true to the classic D&D experience, but you might not care about that if you're only starting to play. 4.0 is much easier to play, however, and because it's still rather new you won't have the problem with 3.5 where there are dozens of books you've never heard of that different people will want to use. I personally prefer 3.5, which is the version from OotS and it's far less expensive to buy nowadays. 3.5 isn't hard to learn, but it can't really be picked up for the first time and played in just a few minutes like 4.0

2) Don't really know how to help you here xD. I've always just asked my friends if they were interested. It's really not as embarrassing as you might think. Or maybe I just have abnormal friends.

3) Tome of Battle is supposed to be the greatest thing ever, but I don't have it (yet). Complete Arcane has a good collection of feats, spells, monsters, and items. Most importantly, CompArc contains the Warlock class, which has pretty much become a core class these days (it's included with the original 12 in videogames and is in the Core in 4.0). Spell compendium is supposed to be really great, I actually want it more than Tome of Battle, but I wouldn't recommend it for a brand new player (the hundreds of spells in the Player's handbook are confusing enough, thanks!)
If you are feeling lucky, buy something on Psionics ;)

4) Don't know much about this. Whatever you do, DON'T pay list price for 3.5 or 3.0 materials, they're no longer supported so they SHOULD be cheap.

[AslanCross]

Since you mentioned one of the people you're going to be playing with might be a druid, I'm assuming you're playing 3.5 (since the druid isn't officially released for 4E yet).

The core books are of course the necessities. d20srd has most of the rules (except for some things WOTC cleverly left out to preserve product identity, among other things).

While it may not be as easy to find 3.5 books in stores, you can also order used or new copies on Amazon or eBay.

Books to consider:
-Player's Handbook 2 has solid options and is widely used, so it's a good investment.
-Spell Compendium: Heaven for casters. It has most of the spells that aren't in core, save for books that came after it.

Books I like, but require more learning:
-Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. This beefs up melee players a lot, and is my favorite book by far. It introduces additional melee options, and some people find the flavor too "anime-ish," but I like it and always include it in my games somehow.
-Expanded Psionics Handbook (not to be confused with the 3.0 Psionics Handbook) gives us psionics, which allows "spellcasting" much like the MP/mana system found in many other RPGs.

If you're a DM:
-Monster Manual III and Monster Manual V are considered the better ones of the lot. Both contain really cool monsters and ideas for running them.

[poxjedi]

Except that Play by Post takes untold ages to get anything done.

Nothing truer has ever been said. A brief conversation can easily last a week. A battle can take a month if someone gets lazy. In my opinion, PbP should be Plan W, not Plan B.

There's a 3.5 game that runs Thursday evenings, and one or two more 4E and 3.5 ones. We generally get a lot more done, since combat can go that much faster.

Well, if you could get that type of schedule, that could actually work out pretty well. I probably should have tried that in all my PbP campaigns that died in an endless sea of disintrest.

[Awesomologist]

You've gotten a lot of great advice here so far but I figured I would add my own 2 coppers.

1) My experience with 3.X is very limited since it came out just as I was leaving table top gaming while in college so I won't offer an opinion on it. I have played 4e since it came out last June. From someone who had not played in almost 10 years (along with a group of others with similar situations), 4e was very easy to learn and a lot of fun to play.

2) Finding a group can be tough. If you're still in college I would suggest looking around campus to see if there are any groups actively seeking players or start a group yourself! Also check at your local game shop, especially if they hold events. Otherwise there seem to be a bunch of websites like meetup.com out there.

3) At first you shouldn't buy anything besides the Player's Handbook. If you're looking into 4e the Player's Handbook 2 comes out in about 3 weeks. The only reason I mention this is because you have two players which are looking at the Sorcerer and the Druid, both of which are PHB2 classes. If you want a preview of the classes you can always sign up for a D&D Insider account over at Wizards.com. If you have a computer running Windows they also have a free limited beta version of their character builder which includes the Druid class. If you don't have an Insider account you can only make characters up to level 3, which is fine for starters.
If for whatever reason you can't find a group, you might want to pick up a D&D Starter Set (I don't know if you can still find a 3.X copy but you can check). These come with pre-generated characters and a mini-adventure which you or one of your friends can run. While limited its a great way to get started and try it out without investing too much money.

4) When I buy online I stick to Amazon.com or BN.com and I'm able to find just about everything I need.


Good luck and happy gaming.

[Kurald Galain]

Oh, and for the record:

3rd edition is still supported, and will be for sale again in a few months, in the form of Paizo Pathfinder ( http://paizo.com ). It now has a complete rulebook available for free downloading.

I believe that if you'd held a poll on this forum on which edition to use, you'd end up with a 50-50 split in favor of either; and that pretty much every comment on how "edition X is so overpowered/underpowered/annoying/unbalanced/etc" is extremely subjective. So yeah, make up your own mind.

Do you want to play on a board with minis, or by talking and explaining what you do? Do you prefer versatility, or prefer that everything is balanced and equally strong? Do you want the scale of "wimp that has to run away from kobolds" to "godlike", or do you want uniformity on all levels? It's all a matter of taste, of course.

[Tempest Fennac]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sys...rence_Document and http://crystalkeep.com/d20/ contain pretty much everything you need to play 3.5 Edition D&D, as well as a load of other things. http://realmshelps.dandello.net/datafind/feats.shtml is good for the few feats which Crystal Keep doesn't cover.

[toasty]

Nothing truer has ever been said. A brief conversation can easily last a week. A battle can take a month if someone gets lazy. In my opinion, PbP should be Plan W, not Plan B.

Okay, while the above is true... good PbPers can keep things moving at a slightly faster pace. I mean, I'm in 5 games at the moment (I'm gming 2). My DnD 4E game is moving at "slow" rate but its a steady slow rate. The GM just won't update more than 3 days a week. Since he was very clear about this at the start of the game (and has kept to his monday wednesday, friday update schedule almsot exactly) all the PCs are fine with that.

My star Wars games I'm in moves much faster because the GM really keeps us moving. 1 GM update a day basically. That means most battles will take, at the most, perhaps a week and a half, maybe two weeks.

However, I will warn you that PbP games ARE slow compared to Table top games. When my very unregular face to face group gets together we can do what might take a PbP game moving at around 3-5 posts a week around... 12 months? I mean, I know, that sounds horrid, but I've gotten used to it. I compesate by playing 5 games of which only 2 are the same RPG ruleset/setting.

I like PbP a lot actually and I think it does have some advantages to Face to Face. However, I would recommend to any new player that they start out with a face to face group and if they want more or their face to face group falls apart THEN they do some PbP. PbP is definatly at least Plan B for most people (I know a few people who don't do F to face stuff... but they are most likely the minority).

[Panda-s1]

I'd read (from the 1-Star Amazon reviews) that 4ed plays more like a MMO than a tabletop game. I've been playing MMOs for years so I could understand having less frustration over this compared to a seasoned RPG fan.

I find a lot of people who say that are D&D fans who have played WoW and haven't really sat down and played the game. Or are the type who hate WoW on principle because their real life gaming experiences have been ruined by their friends having to do instances and what not with their guild. Basically, the game is nothing like an MMO, and the only real similarity is that of 4e being a power based game. Seriously, if it were anything like an MMO I would not be playing 4e (I hate grinding. A lot).

But to answer your questions:
1) 4e. Okay, maybe I sound a bit biased, but they did design the latest edition with new players in mind. Not that you can't get into 3.5, but it has more rules to remember, and you're gonna forget some of them, or just completely miss some altogether. If you can find a person who's well versed in the rules then it's the best way to learn 3.5, otherwise I'd just go 4e.

2) Your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) is your best bet, and there will always be people looking for a group. But I must emphasize this above all things, and in any edition of any game: a bad group will break your game experience. It seems like you get along with your roomate and his fiance, but I'm gonna guess that if you're a cleric you're gonna need a DM, so I really hope you find a good one. If the people at your FLGS are amiable and, well, friendly then you're on the right track.

3) Aside from the core three, I would recommend getting the starter game, just to see how things go and what you're supposed to do in a game of D&D. Other than that, Martial Power is good if you want a ranger with an animal companion, but the rest of it is just interesting powers and builds for other martial classes. But waiting for the Player's Handbook 2 is essential if you want a sorcerer or druid. If you have a D&Di subscription you could see the first 3 levels of both classes, but waiting a few weeks isn't bad either.

4) Okay, this I'm not good at answering. Um... eBay? ^^;;

And because of the title...

Oh man, I love that song. For a second though, I thought you meant the title of OotS, and thought "What does the comic have to do with smoking pot...?"