Beginner's Essentials

Creating game materials? Monsters, spells, classes, adventures? This is the place!
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frzntoz
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Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 11:02 am

Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by frzntoz »

A long time ago, I mentioned that I had some further edits I wanted to try out for Basic Essentials. I finally got a chance to take a stab at them. Below is a list of the changes I've made. My goal for all of this was make it easier to follow and complete for brand new players.
  • Re-organized section ordering; moved combat to the end as it is important after the character has been created.
  • Removed items that would be beyond the purchase power of a first level character, such as a warhorse, plate armour.
  • Corrected holy water splash damage (Crabus's find)
  • Removed silver weapons. This simplifies the tables. My thought was it is extremely unlikely that new players will encounter lycanthropes in the first level, and having the silver weapons makes the list confusing.
  • Changed D6 --> d6 for Cleric hit points to keep it consistent with the others.
  • Fixed variable font sizes & types in the spells.
  • Added equipment descriptions. I think this information is important to beginning players.
  • Removed the small table of contents to conserve space and help formatting.
  • Moved note regarding a Magic-User's first spell book from a note at the bottom of the equipment list to include it at the end of the second paragraph in the Spells section. I thought it was confusing to have a note in the equipment list, yet there is no spell book listed for sale in the equipment list.
  • Minor formatting edits to make things look good, yet keep page counts down.
Again, I hope these edits are helpful (and sorry that it took so long to get to them - life got crazy). My goals were simple: make it more useful for a brand new player and flow better in relation to the process of creating a character and then playing.


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pax et bonum,
frzntoz
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Hywaywolf
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Hywaywolf »

I still think a simple character sheet with BE page numbers on it would be very useful. It could be torn out, copied on a copier/printer, or printed from the PDF. I don't see any difficulty with any of those options. It doesn't really matter to me which one is used, I just made a suggestion on which I like best. Its just a starting point for a beginning player, once they play a few sessions they will know better what they like and can choose from any of the ones available on the website.
Sir Bedivere
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Sir Bedivere »

Frzntoz,

Thank you very much for all your comments. However, I really wish you had put them in a message here as suggestions. I am unlikely to agree with everything you did. Also, making changes just to get the formatting right doesn't make any sense because, again, I'm not likely to accept all of your changes, so it's all going to have to be reformatted anyway.

I don't want to sound ungrateful. You've made some valuable suggestions and I am thankful for your help. But in the future let's discuss proposals here and then I'll make whatever changes need to be made to the document itself.

I'll look over what you've sent and try to get a new version up in the next couple of weeks.
Sir Bedivere
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Sir Bedivere »

Hywaywolf wrote:I still think a simple character sheet with BE page numbers on it would be very useful. ...
I thought it sounded like a good idea as well, but we could never settle on one. I'll look at this again when I revise it.
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Hywaywolf
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Hywaywolf »

just put whatever one you want in there as long as it has the BE pages numbers. Its just to get a player started. After that they can choose any one they want from the downloads page.
frzntoz
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 11:02 am

Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by frzntoz »

Sir Bedivere wrote: Thank you very much for all your comments. However, I really wish you had put them in a message here as suggestions. I am unlikely to agree with everything you did. Also, making changes just to get the formatting right doesn't make any sense because, again, I'm not likely to accept all of your changes, so it's all going to have to be reformatted anyway.
Sorry about that. :( My edits were simply an exercise in editing, and I felt it was a case where was easier show what I intended than describe it. Next time I'll only post such a thing after I've asked. I'll happily remove my revised files if they are an issue. Please, don't feel any pressure to use any of my edits - if they are helpful, great. And if not, that is 100% fine too. I enjoyed doing them, and it was very much a case of getting carried away while having fun. I have no expectation that any my revisions will be automatically accepted.
Sir Bedivere wrote: I don't want to sound ungrateful. You've made some valuable suggestions and I am thankful for your help. But in the future let's discuss proposals here and then I'll make whatever changes need to be made to the document itself.
My bad, I didn't mean to not follow procedure for these things. :( my enthusiasm for the revisions got the best of me. Like I mentioned, I had these edits in mind two years ago but then life got super busy and I didn't get a chance to see if my idea would even work. The document I've posted was my experiment to capture what I was thinking, nothing more. I certainly don't want to imply that this should be yours or anyone else's vision of what is in the document or how it is presented.
Sir Bedivere wrote: I'll look over what you've sent and try to get a new version up in the next couple of weeks.
Again, there is no pressure from me to release a new version. The existing document hasn't changed in a long time, and this is for a good reason - it's good and helpful as is. Feel free to ignore my revisions, and I'll also remove the files from my post if needed. So again, review my suggested edits and if they are helpful then use them. Otherwise, ignore them. :)
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pax et bonum,
frzntoz
Sir Bedivere
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Sir Bedivere »

frzntoz wrote:... I felt it was a case where was easier show what I intended than describe it.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's just that I end up having to sort out what's changed and what hasn't. Another way to approach it I guess would be to turn on 'track changes' so they'll be marked for me, but I'd still really prefer to talk it out in the comments here first.
frzntoz wrote:I'll happily remove my revised files if they are an issue.
They're not an issue at all, so don't worry about it. Some people may prefer yours, and that's fine.
frzntoz wrote:I enjoyed doing them, and it was very much a case of getting carried away while having fun.
That's the best way! You didn't do anything you need to apologize for. It just works better as a group project if we do things the way I described.
frzntoz wrote:Like I mentioned, I had these edits in mind two years ago but then life got super busy and I didn't get a chance to see if my idea would even work.
And by the way, welcome back! It's good to see you around again. And again, thanks for taking the time to do this. You made some good suggestions last time, so I look forward to seeing what you've done this time.
Last edited by Sir Bedivere on Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sir Bedivere
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Sir Bedivere »

Hywaywolf wrote:just put whatever one you want in there as long as it has the BE pages numbers. Its just to get a player started. After that they can choose any one they want from the downloads page.
Yeah, that sounds right.

I guess w/ all the work frzntoz put in and this suggestion, I'll have to put out another revision soon. I had thought I would wait until the next edition of the Core Rules came out, when I'll have to adjust all this, but I guess not.
frzntoz
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by frzntoz »

If timing works better to wait until after the release of the new version then why not wait? This leaves more time to review my suggestions as well as any further changes, and it gives time to pick a character sheet to include. I don't see a need to rush a new revision out, but do what you feel is right, Sir Bedivere.

The list of changes that I gave initially covers all of the major modifications that I made. Anything else was minor and done to appease my formatting compulsions. So I'd just consider my document as an example of those changes applied. Upon rereading what I wrote in the summary, I'll try to clarify the wording a bit later to better explain my motivation and the actual change. Would that be helpful?
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pax et bonum,
frzntoz
Sir Bedivere
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Re: Beginner's Essentials

Post by Sir Bedivere »

I'll go over your suggestions this weekend, probably, and post again then. If I have questions, I'll post them here. That way, you won't waste any time explaining things that are clear enough.
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