Dungeons and Dragons: 3rd Edition Player's Handbook [Hardcover]

As a new convert, my opinion is probably not worth much, but I wanna do it anyway!

The Complaints:
Some people who have posted reviews complain about how difficult it is to read because of text wraparound of illustrations and illustration lines behind the text. Imo, text wraparound is no problem if you have even a merely basic grasp of spacial relationships; and it is not the lines that are the problem, but the text font, which is a little on the small side for my eyesight and I would have preferred the font to be sized up one level.
I have only one other gripe: I would have preferred ALL the info pertaining to a particular race to be in one place, rather than having to flip from the race chapters to the class chapter.... but I guess the book would have to be MUCH bigger to do that, with even smaller text, so I'm not shouting TOO loudly!

The Praise:
I love the illustrations! And very useful is the drawing showing each of the races in their comparative sizes: it gives you a much better feel for the race of the character you are creating.
Also particularly good are the detailed descriptions of each racial type, which gave me a strong desire to play some I would not otherwise have considered.
I am used to playing PCRPGames and was not aware of how much I was missing when it came to character development. The descriptions of the classes, skills, feats, equipment, etc, were a real eye-opener to me.
And at last I really understand what the arcane symbols 2d4+2, 4d6, etc, really MEAN! (Yeah, well... I'm a bit stupid, ya know!)
I can strongly recommend the book for all newbies, and I suspect even seasoned players find it invaluable.

The proof of the pudding is, as they say, in the eating. I liked the book, it's an excellent read, but how does the game actually play?

Well, I've played 6 sessions now, as DM, and I have to say that it surpasses all expectations. My players agree. Combat is a delight to run. The skill system is totally transparent and it's very, very easy to improvise in unusual situations. I would now not consider running a previous version of D&D - this game is everything D&D should be.

So here we have it, the roleplaying equivalent of The Phantom Menace in all it's hardbound glory. Wizards of the Coast had very hard task ahead of them when they started work on 3rd Edition; re-writing the first and argueably most popular RPG in the world. Somehow, they've pulled it off. The first thing you notice is the presentation. It is designed to look like the tome of some wizard. The cover looks like an ornately-bound fantasy book and the inside is dotted with Leonardo DaVinci-style drawings. Even the text is surrounded bt feint lines, like someone has drawn a guide onto the paper before starting to write. Everything is illustrated, from character races to equipment, meaning you don't have to guess what everything looks like from text descriptions as is the case in many RPG's. The illustrations have moved away from the usual medieval style and are reminiscent of the D&D Planescape setting, or WotC's Magic: The Gathering card game. The book is also accompanied by a CD-ROM with a character generator program and a number of other extras. This simplifies character creation no end and is a great bonus. The rules have been greatly simplified. In 2nd Edition the game's wargaming heritage was all too apparant with the number of different mechanisms for different actions. This time they stripped the rules down to the elements that make it D&D and then built it up again around the d20 system, where there is only one roll required for each action. It does involve a lot of tables full of modifiers and I can see it being hard for the novice player who doesn't have any instruction. It improves no end on the old system whilst retaining the D&D feel. In many ways 3rd Edition goes back to it's roots. The return of monks, half-orcs and the Greyhawk world as a kind of 'default' campaign setting all hails back to 1st Edition. In other ways it consilidates. It shifts the focus from it's historical roots to a more fantasy flavour, with the popular barbarian class in the main rulebook and the weapon selection becoming more fantastical, (Earlier editions had their weapons based on historical ones. For example, while a real-life warhammer is a fairly small, armour-piercing weapon, a fantasy one is a huge, heavy thing, the new rules have changed to accomadate this.) It simply brings things together from numerous supplements and the feedback from fans. But it also reaches into the future, with the sorceror class, the new weapons, the rule restructuring and the new style. The fact that it brings these elements together so well is a testimony to the skill of the writers and the overall quality of the book. WotC couldn't have done much better.