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Netherek wrote:

A new PHB every year is not a good idea. 3 core is the format that has been used, and frankly is the best format to use for D&D. I do not want to buy 75% reprinted material at $35 a pop, no thank you. If WotC goes that direction, I'll kick D&D to the curb.

Yet another downside indeed. I would be willing to buy new PHB's only if they offer new stuff.

Elessar wrote:

The benefit to this, though (I'm just looking for a silver lining) is that it might encourage more individual attention to the bard's class. The problem with the bard's jack-of-all-trades status is that he shares feat, skill, and spell selections with the specialist classes, thus making him feel like a watered down version of a bunch of classes. It would be cool, for instance, to have a list of Songs instead of a list of Spells that gave the bard a bunch of bard flavored spells instead of giving him the leftovers from the sorcerer/wizard list. There are already a bunch of spells that are bard-only, but it might be nice if all the bard's spells were like that.

I agree the Bard class would benefit from more unique abilities, such as a greater focus on Bardic Music as the primary means of spellcasting. Sometimes it does feel like playing a multiclass rogue/sorcerer with a couple of added tricks. If being delayed to PH2 means the Bard becomes a "specialist" class all its own, then I guess I could live with that.

Netherek wrote:

A new PHB every year is not a good idea. 3 core is the format that has been used, and frankly is the best format to use for D&D. I do not want to buy 75% reprinted material at $35 a pop, no thank you. If WotC goes that direction, I'll kick D&D to the curb.

I think 75% reprinted material is an exaggeration. The majority of the PHB contains races, classes, feats and spells, which should be entirely new in PHB2.

The idea is more that the Druid has everything he needs within the book, the Warlock has everything he needs within the book - class description and abilities, feat trees, spells etc.

PHBs wouldn't get bigger and bigger, as one poster suggested, because new classes would draw on their own cool stuff. While players are free to incorporate spells, feats etc from other PHBs, they wouldn't be required to.

However, it seems even 25% reprinted material would be a hard sell, given the responses here so far. I do understand this reaction, but I also think it is better for the hobby in the long-run. New PHBs = more points of entry for new players, instead of a proliferation of supplemental materials.

Another thing to keep in mind is, if 4th Edition has streamlined the skill system, simplified grapple, and many things yet to be seen, then chances are the portions of any PHB that would require repeating would (hopefully) be reduced in page-count.

3.5 PHB2 was mentioned as an example. However, in my mind, that book wasn't any more a PHB2 than any of the other various supplements WotC releases each month. Sure, it contained a few new base classes, feats and spells. I'm not saying it didn't contain some useful information, just that it was hardly the replacement PHB I was hoping for. You couldn't pick it up and run with it, unless you already owned the 3.5 PHB, as well as the various other supplements the other base classes expanded on in the book were drawn from.

In this regard, I feel that Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic and Book of Nine Swords were closer examples of a PHB2 than the actual PHB2 was, and this is probably what WotC are aiming for with yearly PHB releases. At least these books were focused, introducing new classes and covering them well.

(Whether or not you actually like the book) let's look at Magic of Incarnum as an example 4Ed PHB2. It contains races, classes, skills, feats and magic chapters. If the last three chapters (Monsters, Prestige Classes and Campaigns) were moved to MM2 and DMG2 respectively, and replaced with rules on how to play the game (most of which would be the missing combat chapter), we'd have a PHB2 that anyone could use.

For the record, I'm not convinced that ability score generation methods, Prestige Classes or magic items belong in the DMG. These are all things that Players need access to. However, including Prestige Classes and magic items would seriously bloat PHBs, so perhaps they're better remaining in the DMGs. While players are known to go magic item shopping, they're usually items the DM distributes as campaign rewards.

Asgetrion wrote:

From a purely *mechanical* point of view, he actually *can*, unless the wording includes "as approved by the DM" (or something like it) OR you use the DM's authority to 'tweak' it. The latter case would IMHO be effectively you 'house-ruling' over what is said in the Core Rulebooks. Compare this to tweaking a feat or a spell, for example: "Stoneskin is now a 7th level spell in my campaigns, because I think it is far too powerful to exist as a 4th level spell."

No, the skills description could be as simple as "Success = You create a high-quality painting." And that would be it. You would write "1 High-Quality Painting" on your character sheet. What can you do with it? Well, since it has no stats, you can do what the DM lets you do with it, and nothing more, just like every other non-mechanical aspect of the game. Maybe you can sell it, and maybe you can't. Maybe getting a good price for it requires a Diplomacy check, or a Bluff check. But successfully creating the item does nothing other than successfully creating the item.