Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (
More info?)
Okay, here's the short course:
All classes now work on the same Experience point basis to level.
Stacking classes is easier, but no longer "cheap", in that adding a
level in a new class costs the same Exp as adding a level in the old
one. If it's your 5th level, it's your 5th level, no matter what class
it's in.
Exp to advance is no longer doubling each leve, it's closer to a
Fibinacci sequence. You advance fast, and continuously.
The combat tables used to calculate "to hit" don't exist any more.
Instead, you roll a dice, add in your attack bonuses from levels,
abilities, and magic, and compare it to their Armor Class. If your
total is higher, you hit. On a related note, Armor Class now gets
*bigger* as it gets better. So AC 20 is now what AC 0 used to be.
Gone are the days of 18/76 Strength. Abilities can and do go over 20,
in a smooth progression.
Every ability score has a bonus/penalty potential, and they all work the
same way: +1 bonus for every 2 points over 10. Penalties on the same
scale for numbers under 10.
There's a Skill system that really comes into play. Each skill has an
ability score that it's based on, so you do skill checks by taking the
number of points you have in the skill, adding in the bonus or penalty
from that appropriate ability score, and add the results to a D20.
Compare this to the Target # for the problem at hand to see if you succeed.
Feats become a major part of character development. Feats are tricks
and techniques that characters can learn. You start with one or two,
depending on race and class, and gain more over time. They let your
character do special things, like swing at every character around yours
with a single attack, or carry a blow through one opponent and into another.
There are rules for making your own magic items, in game. This depends
on specific Feats.
The "round" of play is now officially 6 seconds. Miniatures are now
more called for than ever.
So they've changed the way armor class works, character creation rules
are different, combat is different, magic is different, advancement is
different, monsters are different, many character classes are different,
and racial modifiers are different.
Other than that, nothing much changed
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