Player's Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Monster Manual
Bundle of all three core rulebooks
However, WotC seems not quite to have gotten the memo about reasonable pricing of PDF products, since they've set the price at $25 per book--almost $2 per book higher than the Amazon price for physical books. The core bundle is $75, almost $10 higher than the Amazon price for the slipcased physical bundle.
Which is why I started a thread in General about 3 hours ago. ;)
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1058590
And they don't have bookmarks ?!?
Sorry WotC, too late and too expensive.
And they don't have bookmarks ?!?
If you would look on the page, RPGNow/DriveThruRPG are in the process of adding bookmarks and hyperlinks for the ToC and Index, and possibly other things.
And it's only too expensive compared to the ridiculous deflation Amazon has caused. [Only time you'll ever hear of deflation... heh]
If you would look on the page, RPGNow/DriveThruRPG are in the process of adding bookmarks and hyperlinks for the ToC and Index, and possibly other things.
And it's only too expensive compared to the ridiculous deflation Amazon has caused. [Only time you'll ever hear of deflation... heh]
When I looked at them yesterday and read the PHB review, the reviewer commented about the lack of bookmarks and only the DMG entry had a comment that bookmarks were being added. If they're going to add the bookmarks to all, good - but they should have been there to begin with.
And I stand by the comment they are too expensive. If the user is going to print them out as his primary copies (don't ask me why, other than maybe printing the power lists & magic items), he has to put out on top of the PDF ink & paper costs. If it's going to only be used electronically, the owner probably already has a paper copy and is paying close to double the cost for a back-up of his smudge-prone hardcopy. :D
H1 Keep on the shadowfell will be released sometime next week too
It has been released today but it appears the miniature maps are missing. I hope that was a mistake and that they're going to add them soon.
Then I read this in a DriveThruRPG.com review:
There are no bookmarks or usable table of contents. Not to mention that the PDF is 130mb.
That right there rules it out - having no bookmarks is pretty poor. Mongoose don't do bookmarks as well and it means even though I have the RuneQuest PDFs I end up referring to the free SRD PDFs because they have bookmarks!
And 130mb - too big to use, especially on my mobile phone pocket pc (I fear it will render very sloooooowwwwwllllllllyyyyyy).
Oh well, I can but hope WOTC upgrades the PDFs at some point.
I guess that's why people will probably still continue to download the unofficial versions. Considering that most of what we use are laptops when my group plays, having an electronic version is quite handy, but the last thing I'm going to do is spend more on an electronic version than I did on my books. Also, DigitalMage, the unofficial version of the Player's Hand Book is only 63MB, and still has good resolution images and can be copied as text. One of my friends has it on his little electronic organizer, and it seems to work great.
Speaking of which, is having an actual account with DDI supposed to give you access to things like the electronic copies of books that you already have registered? Granted, I have reservations on that as well, since the price it's been rumored to be ($15/month) is more than I pay for an MMO, and I only get to play DnD once a week, but at least if you get access to all the electronic versions of books, it may be more worth it.
And 130mb - too big to use, especially on my mobile phone pocket pc (I fear it will render very sloooooowwwwwllllllllyyyyyy).
Oh well, I can but hope WOTC upgrades the PDFs at some point.
While it was cute in older editions to have a full page art to keep chapters starting on the left page, they just don't work anymore.
There is so much wasted space in the books from what I saw that the 4/3 page art really adds to the number of pages just for bloat, and when it comes to the electronic format that cannot be so easily condensed.
If they removed all the unneeded art, and then the extra gradients from the pages then the PDF would be a lot smaller, but even just removing the excess gradients would do a lot by removing excess art on each page.
I don't know why they still think every page needs artwork unless it is to keep people from getting bored...reading a book.
I am curios what the size would be if those standard page arts were removed.
Think I will download the preview and se what happens when the art for those pages is removed to the filesizes.
In which case I must apologise to WOTC - they have acted swiftly to resolve the issue and do seem to be getting this digital stuff
Kudos to you!I could be wrong though.
I have been informed that WOTC have actually updated the PDFs, bookmarking them and reducing them in size considerably.
In which case I must apologise to WOTC - they have acted swiftly to resolve the issue and do seem to be getting this digital stuff
The books are now considerably smaller. The PHB does have bookmarks and hyperlinks, everything else is under construction. I have to concur with RPGNOW that the books is lacking in a printer friendly version. As it is selectable text though, my suggestion is to copy past into Word and clean it up as needed.
Sizes are between 25 and 30 mb.
And as far as price goes, its probably not cheaper b/c they expect when you buy your pdf its going to your whole gaming group. If it was 15$ then they would be everywhere.
And as far as price goes, its probably not cheaper b/c they expect when you buy your pdf its going to your whole gaming group. If it was 15$ then they would be everywhere.
So the PDFs grant a multiuser license and permission to copy and distribute them?
And as far as price goes, its probably not cheaper b/c they expect when you buy your pdf its going to your whole gaming group.
Second WotC lets us do this without being called pirates let me know. I'd be more then willing to pay a 6th of the price and find 6 people online to help pay for it.
I have to concur with RPGNOW that the books is lacking in a printer friendly version.
Not an issue for me, I would never print off an entire copy (I would just buy the hardcopy book), I would only print off a few pages at most.
And as far as price goes, its probably not cheaper b/c they expect when you buy your pdf its going to your whole gaming group.
As has been said, I highly doubt that you are legally allowed to distribute the PDF. There may be a licence to print off a number of copies and distribute those to your group (some Savage World Players Guide PDFs have this) but I doubt WOTC would do that TBH.
Mnd you, now that I hear of the errata I will postpone any purchase until the hardcopy and PDF both incorporate the errata. I am in no rush to get into 4e, if ever, so I can wait.