Cheap Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Core Rules 2.0 (Software) (Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Core Rules 2.0

It could be better
For those of you us who owned version 1.0 of the AD&D Core Rules CD-Rom, a revision is a long time in coming. Version 1.0 was a mess, with inconsistencies, broken programs, and a general feeling that TSR rushed it out as soon as possible without a whole lot of quality control (not an uncommon theme with TSR pre-WOTC takeover).

I'm happy to say they fixed a few problems. They also created a few more.

There are some staple elements that make you wonder why you ever bought any rule books. There's no less than nine of them, even more than version 1.0. Of course, that led me to wonder where the other ones were. Where's the Complete Book of ? The Wizard's Spellbooks? It doesn't matter. That's for Version 3.0.

Something seems to have happened to the Monster Manual, however. The pictures are no longer neatly displayed next to the descriptions. Instead, they're crammed into the RTF documents like the rest. Who wants to look at a monsterful of naked text?

What you will find is a hand-dandy number crunching program that allows you to make sense of all those Player's Option rules. I actually enjoyed this system, even if it was a bit awkward, because the Player's Option rules can make creating a character a much more complicated process.

Then there's the database. This database allows you to customize various objects, from magic items to monsters to encounters to kits. Which is neat. But only kits, and kits in the Players Option sense. Which means the kits are very weak. Also, there's a bit of confusion between giving a kit a bonus to a proficiency, a free proficiency, a preferred proficiency, and a required proficiency. Forget customizing classes -- THOU SHALT NOT TOUCH THE CORE RULES! Okay, so it's not THAT customizable.

I forgive all that. Having the cash equivalent of over $100 on a CD makes it worth the investment, especially if you're fond of hacking up the rules and want to insert your own house rules. To me, one of the biggest benefits of having AD&D rules in electronic text is what you can do with them.

What I can't forgive, however, is the mapping programs.

They tried. They tried very hard by including the Campaign Cartographer, which proved to be exceptionally dense and not particularly effective in mapping anything at all. I suspect it can be used by someone capable who wants to sit down and read the instruction manual, only there is none that accompany the CD. But that's not all! There's also another mapping program, the original mapping program that came with Version 1.0, Map Maker II.

That collective groan you're hearing in the background is from anyone who ever bought the first version. The reason they're groaning is because that sorry excuse for a mapping program didn't work. The good news is, it works now.

That's about it though. Worse, it's not exportable to any useful graphics format. No .pds, .bmps, .gifs. or jpgs. What good is this map? It works, but it's not even compatible with the Campaign Cartographer on the same CD!

Ultimately, the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Core Rules CD-ROM 2.0 does what it's supposed to do: it's a solid reference that would make a valuable addition to any Dungeon Master's collection. But it could be better.

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A Good Idea but NOT user friendly
I got this product a couple of weeks ago because I am not converting to 3rd edition D&D rules .I found it useful. However, it has a lot of bugs and requires a lot of time if you want to specialize your game any.

First the good things that this product provides: *access to the handbooks is nice especially if you don't have one of them. *character generation is quick *ability to make maps on the computer *speeds up monster encounter creation

Now the many drawbacks! *NO KITS; which is what makes 2nd Ed so fun the versiblity. The product does have some kits but I don't know how they got them. The kits provided are not class specific (i.e. not from the complete handbooks) and turn out to be pretty useless. What's worse it is extremely hard to create kits that work correctly because the program is vary limited in adapability. *Specialty priest are a pain to set up. Program won't allow weapons not normally allowed to priests and sphere conflicts. *basically if you don't want a core character straight out of the player's handbook you are in for a real nightmare; however, it is possible given time. *be careful buying equipment. There is a bug

*The map programs are not easy to use. It is probably better to do them by hand unless you will be adjusting them and reusing them (i.e. campaign atlas or regional map) *monster creation can sometimes gooff up. But the results can be changed and the tables are adjustable (again if you have the time it can make your life easier in the long run) *when making treasure it just rolls gp values. It does not create art objects you still have to do that.

I COULD GO ON AND ON. HERE ARE THE KEY FACTS. IF YOU ARE NOT CONVERTING TO 3RD ED IN AUGUST THEN THIS PRODUCT IS STILL USEFUL (IF YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE TO CUSTOMIZE A LOT OF STUFF) HOWEVER, I HAD THE SAME FEELING AS THE LAST REVIEWER.

THIS PRODUCT SHOULD DO MORE!

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5 Stars with a lot of qualifications
After deciding to get back into D&D after a long layoff I went to a store to see if there were any new books I might want. I got this (AND the expansion) instead. As a DM, I can't get over how much time it saves me. It is great for generating NPC's and encounters, as well as maps. Since all the basic D&D books are available, looking up stuff (if you know where to go) is handy. And maintaining characters and printing out new records after going up a level (or other significant changes) is really wonderful (especially for my kids who aren't so good at keeping records). I am able to develop and maintain a much more detailed adventure world in a lot less time. And another big plus - there are quite a few web sites with stuff that can be downloaded and imported (npc's, monsters, magic items, maps, etc.). Doing it is easy.

Now for the drawbacks: First, it is pretty buggy. I downloaded the latest patches and upgrades from the web, and that helped a lot. But there are several places where it crashes, or does dumb things (like generate 2000 mind slayers for a random encounter).

The documentation is pretty useless. Most of the stuff is so straightforward that documentation is hardly necessary, but not so for Campaign Mapper. I can now say I like CM, but it took quite a bit of experimenting and correction of mistakes to get the hang of it.

This is NOT a game. It is simply a tool, primarily for DM's.

There aren't enough character portraits. You can add your own, or perhaps find some on the web to download. But given that most characters start young, there are scarcely any portraits of youth.

I have this vague feeling that it should do more. It doesn't really do anything that I can't do without a computer. But it sure does it faster and neater!

For quality, I'd only rate this 2 stars. I'd have been pretty embarrassed (I'm an applications developer) to put something out with this many bugs. I'm going to be checking their web site with some regularity for patches (and upgrades, hope, hope). But as to overall value to me as a DM, definitely 5 stars. It could be a lot better though, so if there were competing products I'd probably have to rate it 3 to 4 stars.

Signed, Karen's hubby