Customer Reviews

Core Rules Cd-Rom 2.0 : Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I recently purchased both Core Rules 2.0 & the expansion pack. The latter prior to the 2.0 purchase. In a phrase... the product is great!

Quick, easy character generation. (Some don't appreciate staying within "standard" limits... I find it the most enjoyable way to play)

Invaluable wealth of information.... My favorite part is that while creating a character, purchasing items, selecting spells, abilities, etc. I can simply right-click on the name... and POOF! Up comes an explanation of the item, effect, etc. No searching. No page turning. Right there at your fingertips in a split second. That alone saves me time over searching for the effects of _insert random spell_ here that a player wishes.

NPC generation... awesome. PCs and NPCs automatically have a random "fantasy" name generated (overridable of course).

Map creation. Nice. Frustrating at times... but pretty nice none-the-less.

Dice roller.

Treasure generator.

Awesome! If you don't have it.... Don't walk, RUN to your nearest seller and purchase it.... of course... you could order it here as well... if they get some in.

This product is great. The price is a good value, especially if think of all the books you get with it. The map generators allow you to post your stuff to the web if you want. The generators are excellent, and I definitely recommend getting the expansion to get more flexibility if you are a player or DM that plays beyond the Core stuff, like most of us do. If you are just starting the game, this is great too because it gives you all you need to jump right in. Don't waste your bookshelf space or money with the books to get the core stuff when it is all right here.

Minus, some, especially DMS, might find it a little to contraining, even after the expansion addition, but that is just the generator stuff. The books are still good.

Core Rules 2.0 is a great program for a basic AD&D campaign, with a lot of the advanced features available. I created several of my own races, and they worked very well, but you are unable to create your own class. I hear that the Expansion allows you to do that, and if it does, the program will be flawless.

I only recently bought this product, and was very impressed. Ive been playing and DMing for 15 years, and this has to be the best thing since sliced bread. Takes hundreds of hours off DMing. Im in line for the expansion set. And for approx. 90 bucks, you get nearly all the Core, options, and handbooks, what a bargain, thats hundreds of dollars saved. Great work TSR.

Do not ever think this CD-ROM will permit you to stop dragging those god-awful books along during every gaming session. Unless you are planning to conduct all of you role-playing gatherings right by your own computer, all the screenfuls of materials in the eyes of your PCs.... but I hope that you are simply more sophisticated than that. This is a creative aid for DMs who desire more in their role-playing than pencils and paper. It lets you do more with the data that you possess ( make maps, among other things), but unless you plan to print out every single thing you will need to play AD&D, you will still have to own the books.

This program has just about everything you would need to run an entire campaign. Save for the bugs that are fixed by the patch, there are very few problems with it. Once the expansion comes out custom classes will be available, along with all the books. Core Rules will be complete. I recomend this to any one who plans on sticking with AD&D 2nd Edition for a while. However, TSR recently announced the long awaited arrival of 3rd edition coming out in August of 2000. So, I'd hold onto your cashflow for now, and wait for version 3.0 for 3rd edition. Overall, I think it was well worth the money, and with Amazon I didn't have to drive out and pick it up!

When first I bought this product, I was thrilled! It makes fantastic character sheets, and character generation is easy and fun, but there were a few rules missing. Weapon specialization was missing, for the crossbow anyway, when it came to the point blank range +2 bonus. This and a few others missing from the final sheet are very minor.

Then I tried to create an encounter with a group of orcs. When I tried to edit each orcs hit points, # apperaing, add a differnet creature, it was like the software had a mind of its own. After painstakingly editing these details, I hit "OK" and it changed everything I worked on! FRUSTRATING!!! The help menu and manual were very light on the subject, and not much help at all. Then I asked the software to randomly create a 3rd level gnome fighter as an NPC, and it did! However, how many 3rd level fighters have +5 armor of blending? A +3 sword of wounding? I know 12th level characters that don't have such treasures! I wound up taking a lot of time creating the NPC myself.

Not to be unfair, the map-makers are quite outstanding and very easy to use. The on-line manuals are also very good, but is there a search engine I'm not aware of yet? That would help a great deal.

Dice roller is nice, but unless you have your labtop at the gaming session, is it realy practical? Besides, most people I game with love thier multi-colored, textured dice, and wouldn't trade them in for some fancy software. Good if you don't like to add up all those d6's for that 19th level fireball spell!

I went to the TSR web-site hoping there would be a patch for the minor errors above, but nothing yet.

All in all, for DMs who like to get into a lot of detail, you might want to wait for Ver 3.0 or just do it the old-school way.

This was so close to being perfect, except the lack of flexibility within the character generation. I like having the guidelines in place to follow the rules, but I wish they had added an option to just let me make a character however I wanted to with whatever options I wanted. Having electronic copies of the book is nice, especially playing a cleric or mage, cause you can copy and paste spell lists or even individual spells to create a customized spell book. If only they had added psionics also!

Great program. A must-have for any aspiring or aspired PC/DM. With all the books there it makes spending money on all the others non-existent (unless you just want the hard copy). The Character Generation is the best ever. Saves time and it allows me to modify it however I want to fit my campaign. Only downside is that i don't have a lap-top, so i can't use the dice roller during a game.

I've been running a D&D campaign since 1981 and have always avoided using any "tech" advances in gaming. This CD Rom is absolutely indispensable and fun to use at the same time. All the old timers should give it a try.