Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition
Tabletop Roleplaying Games · Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition (D&D 3E) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of dungeon delving and heroic adventure, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. It was the first edition the company released entirely itself, and the Player's Handbook went on sale on August 10, 2000, with its debut at Gen Con that month. Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams all contributed to the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual, and each then wrote one of the three books, with Tweet credited with the design of the Player's Handbook. The designers set out to simplify and declutter the whole system. "Advanced" was dropped from the title because the Basic game had been discontinued and the simpler name was more marketable, but it was still called the third edition.
The system directly replaced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (1989). It was revised in 2003 as Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5, a deliberately small update.
Description
Players take on adventurers built from a race and a class, and the Dungeon Master (DM) runs dungeons, monsters and campaigns. The edition removed many of the old limits: restrictions on class and race combinations, and on level advancement for non-human characters, are gone. Combat expanded to include a grid system that supports tactical play and miniatures.
The game asks a table to be comfortable with character building. Skills and feats give players more ways to customize a character than the older edition did, and the options keep growing with each rulebook. Reviewers at the time praised its art and tightly packed rules, and one called it the best combat-oriented roleplaying game available.