PnP differences

While staying true to the themes and "atmosphere" of Dungeons and Dragons, DDO is not D&D in many respects. There are many "core" concepts from D&D that are not included in DDO, and many new concepts that D&D players will not have seen before. For those familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, this page tries to assemble a list of significant differences between version 3.5 pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons, and Standing Stone's Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Adventuring

• The PnP concepts of darkvision, low-light vision, and portable light sources are gone. In DDO, all characters can see equally well in all areas, and lighting is sufficient for most purposes in most places. However, areas do have varying amounts of light, which affects the difficulty of hiding.
• Long travel to quest locations is gone, as are the concerns about having enough food, water and being able to find shelter each night during the journey. Food and drink consumption now only happens in Taverns to give an accelerated healing rate, and only while you remain inside the Tavern.
• In DDO, Rest shrines are scattered throughout dungeons. These shrines can be used to heal hit points and spell points once per shrine during an adventure, with the exception of adventures on "casual" mode, where the shrines can be used once every five minutes, and on "normal" mode in quests and in wilderness adventure areas, where the shrines can be used every fifteen minutes. Most rest shrines are adjacent to resurrection shrines, which can be used to resurrect a dead character an infinite number of times. Using a rest shrine restores hit points based on the highest heal skill of a player character near the rest shrine and full spell points, and using a shrine, or finishing a quest and leaving the dungeon after, restores daily uses of items and abilities.
• In DDO, Artificers, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, and Wizards can change their memorized spells at a tavern, or while resting at a rest shrine; spell swapping does not add to the length of time required to use the shrine.
• Several classes in DDO act quite differently than their options within PnP, so carefully study them before choosing one to make sure you don't expect a PnP class ability that doesn't exist in DDO. For example, the retributive invisibility invocation and hellfire blast shape invocation of the PnP Warlock do not exist in DDO, and the Hexblade patron and Pact of the Blade feature for the Warlock of the 4th and 5th editions of the pen and paper game does not exist in DDO or the 3.5 edition game that it's based on, but the DDO Warlock's Eldritch Blast has been significantly enhanced for similar adaptability.
• The number of monsters encountered during an adventure in DDO is significantly higher than PnP. It is easily possible to encounter several dozen monsters over the course of one mission, and some missions have over a hundred monsters, with sometimes as many as 50 being encountered in a single continuous fight through several waves, or even 20 in a single simultaneous battle. The spell capacity allotted to a caster at lower levels has been increased to help compensate.
• The penalty for dying is significantly lower in DDO. In PnP the penalty for dying ranges from being forced into a new body with different physical abilities (reincarnation), level loss or Constitution loss (for raise dead or resurrection), or expenditure of an enormous sum of money (true resurrection, miracle, or wish). In DDO, death results in temporary negative levels that will disappear after a set period of time or after resting at a rest shrine. Multiple deaths in relatively rapid succession increase the number of negative levels and, therefore, the length of time needed for the negative levels to wear off. An indirect cost of dying in DDO is the need to repair gear after the quest; however, damage from death is immune to potential permanent damage.
• The rate of advancement is significantly lower in DDO in terms of XP-per-combat, but it is significantly faster in raw time. While in PnP, every 13-14 encounters results in a level advancement, in DDO there are more encounters than that in one quest and each quest gives only 5-15% of the experience necessary to advance a level. However, in raw time PnP may take a few hours of play to go through 13-14 encounters with a group, in DDO a quest with over 20 encounters can be completed in under 15 minutes.
• In PnP, casters must be careful to avoid damaging themselves and their parties with spells such as fireball. In DDO, there's no friendly fire; characters cannot damage party members with most spell and combat items unless they are in a PvP area. Select neutral spells, such as Grease or Sleet Storm, can impair PC allies, although they do little to no real damage to hit points.
• Portcullises, cages, gates, and other barriers with spaces in their construction, although see-through, are impervious to spells, arrows, and other forms of attack in most areas of DDO.
• The typical dungeon trap in DDO is a device-based automaton that is local to the effect: once the control box is located, a character with at least one level of Rogue, Artificer or Dark Hunter can attempt to disable these traps.
• DDO dungeons frequently feature doors that can be opened only after some certain monster (or set of monsters) dies. If a party member charms one of the key monsters, the party will be stuck until the caster uses the Dismiss Charm feat, the spell wears off, or the monster makes a save.
• In DDO, there is no movement penalty for being of the dwarven or halfling races, or for wearing heavy armor; however, carrying heavy loads that cause a player to be encumbered does cause a movement penalty. Being encumbered or wearing heavy armor can cause penalties to movement skills like Jump and Swim, and impair dodging.

Character Classes and Advancement

• Class Enhancements (collections of benefits comparable to the Prestige Classes of PnP, but without requiring multiclassing) provide a new method of character advancement. Enhancements are available starting Level 1, and are a central part of character improvement and planning in DDO, at least as important as Feats and Class selection. You gain 4 action points while progressing through each experience level, which you spend on enhancements.
  • The PnP rulebook Eberron Campaign Setting mentions Action Points, but that's a completely different mechanic—closer to DDO's Action Boosts.
• Multiclassing never imparts an XP penalty. However, no character can have levels in more than three classes.
• Some classes have optional Archetypes that grant variant class abilities. These function much like the mechanic of the same name found in Pathfinder's first edition.
• Characters can reach a maximum of level 34. (This level cap may be increased in later updates.) However, a Level 34 character will only have a total of 20 class levels, and then 10 generic "Epic" levels and 4 "Legendary" levels.
• PCs receive extra HP at first level from Heroic Durability, full hit-dice each level thereafter, and further bonuses from Improved Heroic Durability and numerous other sources. There are many more monsters than in PnP, and those monsters both deal more damage and have more hit points, so boosting PC hit points helps balance that out.
• Bards, Favored Souls, Sorcerers, and Warlocks can retrain known spells. By visiting a trainer and paying a fee based on spell level, a single spell is unlearned and replaced with a new spell. After changing a spell, you must wait three days before you may change another (though there are workarounds, including VIP status).
• Wizards have no familiar, nor can Warlocks get something akin to the PnP Pact of the Chain.
• Spell school specialization is not a wizard class feature, but wizards can specialize by taking Archmage enhancements.
• Sneak Attack bonuses don't rely on flanking or sneaking. Players gain these bonuses while attacking any enemy that isn't attacking them.
• Barbarians get Damage Reduction abilities 5 levels sooner than normal, and the reduction is percentage-based rather than a static value. This compensates for DDO monsters having more damaging attacks.
• The Paladin's Lay on Hands ability has been significantly boosted to compensate for the higher levels of hit points.
  • Paladins may not split up healing between multiple uses of Lay on Hands: they may use it once per day and it heals for the full allotment (certain enhancements can grant additional uses or increase the amount of healing).
  • The healing granted uses Positive energy or Repair (for Warforged), as appropriate.
• The Paladin's Aura of Good ability provides a bonus of +1 to AC and saves to all allies within its radius of effect, which can be further enhanced as ranks (not just levels) are gained.
• Rangers get both Two Weapon Fighting and archery combat styles, and without any limitation of having to wear light or no armor. They do not get tracking, and only a Dark Hunter can get an animal companion.

Races

• Halflings, Dwarves and Gnomes have no penalties regarding slower running speed or smaller weapon sizes. Their advantage of fitting in smaller spaces is also gone.
• Elves are light-skinned primarily in the game, whereas in Eberron elves could be black, dark brown, and many other varieties of flesh tone.

Combat

• Dodge is a percentage chance to miss, not a bonus to AC.
• Combat is real-time, not turn-based. There is no such thing as initiative.
• The concept of attacks of opportunity is gone.
• The condition of being flat-footed is gone. The Uncanny Dodge class feature, which in PnP gives protection against being flat-footed, is now an active ability that provides temporary bonuses to Dodge and Reflex saves.
• Most special attacks are not possible. Aid Another, Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple, and Overrun are gone.
  • Sunder now temporarily reduces an opponent's AC.
  • Trip attempts are opposed by a roll modified using the opponent's Balance skill.
  • The basic Charge attack is unavailable, but a few similar attacks are available as feats or enhancements.
• New attacks gained from higher Base Attack Bonus (BAB) give bonus to attack rolls 5 points higher than the previous attack instead of 5 points lower.
  • PCs receive a second attack at BAB +1, instead of BAB +6. See attack sequence.
  • Hitting a target's AC is rarely an issue with any decently-built character, except in legendary end game content.
• Nobody can be disarmed. Weapons are automatically unequipped when they have taken damage equal to their durability and thus require repair. In practice, this usually results from attacking monsters with damage reduction, rust monsters, or oozes.
• It is possible to block by holding Shift, even if you have no shield equipped. While blocking, you may not attack (though you can shield bash), but you gain a +2 bonus to AC and some Damage Reduction (DR) as well. Shields provide a bonus to DR when blocking.
• Damage is reduced by Physical Resistance Rating or Magical Resistance Rating, new concepts that reduce all incoming physical or magical damage by a percentage.
• A miss is not always a total miss. Depending on a number of factors, misses on high rolls may produce Grazing Hits which do only do the base damage of your weapon.
• Two-handed weapons provide Strikethrough, which give a chance for a single attack to strike multiple targets within reach. The Two Handed Fighting feats improve this.
• Coup de Grace [1] does not exist—although there is an enhancement by that name for Swashbuckler Bards with similar effects. Helpless opponents instead take extra damage.
• Regardless of your Swim skill, underwater combat is impossible except in special quests (Into the Deep, Lost at Sea, etc). Underwater spellcasting (including refreshing a Water Breathing spell) doesn't work either, but you can drink Potions.
• Melee and ranged attacks have a -4 hit penalty while moving. The feat Spring Attack negates the penalty for melee. The feat Shot on the Run negates it for ranged. Note also that tumbling followed by an immediate attack does not give rise to this -4 penalty. Spellcasting while moving temporarily slows your movement speed during the casting animation, and the feat Mobile Spellcasting nullifies this.

Monsters

• Touching a Black Pudding or other ooze monster does not hurt you, so you may attack with Unarmed Strikes without HP worry—in fact, that's the most affordable way to kill them! However, items worn on your hands (gloves, rings and possibly bracers) may be affected by ooze acid and require frequent repairs.
• Monsters' regeneration rates (such as on trolls) are significantly higher, however regeneration halts when they have zero hp, regardless of damage type suffered.
• Hill, Fire, and Storm Giants move slower than PC races, instead of faster. Most giants are about the same height (instead of Storm being much taller)
• Monsters have significantly more hit points than their PnP counterparts.
• Most monsters have higher attributes than their PnP counterparts.

Equipment

• Quite common are items providing bonuses of types rarely (if at all) found in PnP. This opens up many possibilities for increasing the skills and abilities, as bonuses of different types stack. For example, a +6 charisma item (enhancement bonus) and a +2 insightful charisma (insight bonus) will stack for a total of +8 charisma.
  • DDO has at least 36 bonus types of varying rarity, compared to PnP's roughly 16.
• Magic items have a minimum level (ML) prerequisite to equip them. For example, a level 4 wizard cannot use an ML 5 wand of Fireball, but a barbarian4/sorcerer1 can use it because his total levels equal the item's ML. The Use Magic Device skill cannot defeat this limitation.
• There's no discernible difference between a Bow and a Composite Bow except that one has a longer name. There aren't range penalties to hit for ranged weapons: if you can manage to target it, you can shoot at it.
  • Composite bows built for high strength do not exist. Instead, the Bow Strength feat allows a character to add their Strength bonus to bow damage in place of Dexterity. Rangers automatically get it at level 1, and fighters can choose it as one of their bonus fighter feats, though anybody can choose it as one of their regular feats.
• Heavy and light crossbows reload at the same speed.
• All basic weapons have just one physical damage type. Daggers can't Slash, and Morning Stars can't Pierce.
  • Some high-level unique weapons can do more than one physical damage type and so can break multiple kinds of damage reduction. Rahl's Might is an example of this—it does piercing, slashing, AND bludgeoning type damage.
  • Some class Enhancements are also able to adapt weapon damage like this, such as Morphic Arrows from Arcane Archer enhancements available to Rangers and Elves.
• You cannot wield a throwing weapon in your off-hand. You can wield a throwing weapon in your main hand and a melee weapon in your off-hand, but you'll be unable to make melee attacks this way.
• You can only dual-wield crossbows through the use of the Inquisitive universal enhancement tree.
• Not all weapons from PnP made the transition to DDO:
  • Polearms don't exist, and all melee weapons have the same inherent reach.
  • Double weapons don't exist, either.
  • Neither do spears (aside from rare exceptions like Spear of the Mournlands, which are actually quarterstaffs with Bludgeoning damage swapped for Piercing). Similarly, javelins are unavailable for players, but hobgoblin enemies seemed to figure them out just fine.
  • No Flails, Nunchaku, Sai, Siangham, Nets, Whips, Bolas, or weapon types found only in ancient dusty third-party supplements. However, you can find Khopeshes.
• Inventory slots are the main limiting factor of your carrying capacity, given how easy it is to increase your Strength score compared to PnP.
  • If your Strength is high enough, carrying 10 hreataxes is no more cumbersome than 10 daggers.
  • Coins are weightless and take up no space, while gems are low-weight and occupy as much volume as set of platemail armor—unless stored in a Gem Bag (this is the opposite of PnP, where characters will convert coins to high-value gems to make their wealth easier to carry).
• All magical ammunition and throwing weapons are immediately destroyed with one use (unless they have the Returning property).
• No equipment needs to be Attuned to, nor do you have a limit of how many Attuned items you can equip. The only comparable exception is that each character may equip only a single Sentient Weapon and only one Minor Artifact.

Feats

• Activating feats like Combat Expertise or Defensive Fighting takes longer than equipping a shield, and can be interrupted by knockdown.
• It is not possible to use multiple BAB-trading abilities simultaneously, such as Defensive Fighting, Combat Expertise, or Power Attack.
  • When using these feats, you don't have the option to select an exact amount BAB to subtract, which makes them less versatile.
• Weapon-specific feats like Weapon Focus or Improved Critical apply to whole weapon categories (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, thrown, ranged) instead of single weapons. This means that a two-handed fighter can use the same feats to master both greatswords and greataxes, or that a dual-weapon fighter can master the rapier and shortsword together.
• Rapid Shot decreases the reload time of missile weapons. It does not grant multiple attacks per click, nor does it impose PnP's -2 to hit penalty.
• Far Shot does not exist in DDO; there are no range penalties for ranged/thrown weapons.
• Cleave and Great Cleave have been changed to active feats that allow you to attack enemies in an arc.
• Many new feats have been added, such as Precision and Slicing Blow. At Epic levels and beyond, even more new feats unique to DDO become available.
• Crafting feats are gone (Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Brew Potion, Scribe Scroll). In their place are various other Crafting options including Cannith Crafting, Green Steel Items, and Dragontouched Armor.
• Metamagic feats increase spell point costs instead of requiring higher-level spell "slots" to use. They are vastly improved in usefulness as a result. Empower Spell, Empower Healing Spell, and Maximize Spell don't add or modify dice numbers any more, but simply add a percentage of overall damage/healing to the spell.

Skills

• Many skills have been omitted from DDO: Knowledge, Climb, Sense Motive, Disguise, Craft, Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Use Rope, Gather Information, Profession, Forgery, and Animal Empathy.
• Of the skills that remain, many have been changed so that they are not very useful, while some skills that aren't useful in PnP (such as Jump) have become more useful in DDO. See Skill usefulness for details.
• Social skills are still occasionally used to interact with NPCs, but their main function is geared for combat:
  • Intimidate draws enemy attention (equivalent to "Taunting" in other MMOs).
  • Diplomacy works the other way around, encouraging enemies targeting you to switch their focus to someone else.
  • Bluff can make targets open to Sneak Attacks for a few seconds, regardless of who they're targeting.
• Use Magic Device has variable DCs for wands.
• Characters can attempt to Hide without cover, although this becomes difficult in brightly lit areas and if no distraction exists.
• Tumble gives brief bonuses to Dodge and Reflex saves, but you can't tumble through occupied spaces anymore. Jump is more valuable for this.
• Several skills now passively contribute to a caster's damage output, adding 1 Spellpower in their respective types per point of skill bonus:
  • Spellcraft increases the damage you deal with spells of Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Poison, Force (including Physical and Untyped damage), and Light (including spells that deal Alignment-based damage).
  • Heal increases the output of Positive/Healing and Negative spells (good for healing undead creatures). It's also usable with Healing Kits to restore unconscious PCs to 1 hp) and increases healing regained for yourself and allies at Rest Shrines.
  • Perform, apart from being used for bard songs, also increases the damage of Sonic spells.
  • Repair works like the Heal skill for Warforged, and increases Repair healing and Rust damage.

Spells

• Similar to D&D, spellcasters need a modified casting stat of (10 + Spell Level) just to cast a spell at all. DDO effects that boost stats (including via potions like Fox's Cunning, Owl's Wisdom, or Eagle's Splendor) ability-boosting items worn, long-lasting buffs from Guild Airships, and class enhancements can allow a caster to meet this requirement.
  • Offensive spellcasters should still create characters with a high modifier in their casting ability so they can attain high DCs for their attack spells.
• Spells are cast using a spell point (SP) system. Prepared spellcasters must still select a limited list of spells to prepare (equal to the number of spells they get to prepare in PnP), but they can cast each one many times.
  • There are no bonus spell slots awarded for high ability scores, but a higher score will give a caster more total SP to work with.
  • Spell points from different classes (e.g. wizard, sorcerer, cleric) stack into one common pool.
  • Spellcasters can cast far more spells before resting, and resting is often frequent and easy in a dungeon. With regard to healing magic, this makes high hit points and Fortitude saves somewhat less valuable, except in more lethal difficulties.
• Many spells have had their damage ranges altered slightly. Spells which use d6s in PnP usually use 1d3+3 in DDO, to ensure the players always deal a good amount of damage.
• Spells of the same class and spell level use the same material component (assuming they need material components at all). For example, Fireball and Acid Blast are both 3rd level Wizard/Sorcerer spells that require material components, so they both use Ball of Bat Guano and Sulfur—which is specifically used for Fireball in PnP.
  • Some spells such as Stoneskin and Create Undead require special, more expensive material components.
• Touch attacks are gone, both normal and ranged. Some spells have been given Reflex saves in their place, making high-Dex characters relatively less powerful.
  • Some slower-moving rays or other ranged spells can be avoided by players simply moving out of the way—though this can be nearly impossible at shorter ranges.
  • In many cases, touch-ranged spells from PnP (such as Cure Light Wounds have a range of about 15 feet in DDO, which can be increased further with the Enlarge Spell metamagic feat. Other spells (such as Shocking Grasp) retain the touch range limitation, requiring the player to be right next their target.
• Every spell has its own cooldown timer before it can be cast again.
  • The fastest way to heal someone is to use a mix of different spells, such as alternating between Light, Moderate, and Serious Cure spells. Similarly, the fastest way for casters to deal damage is to rotate through a few different damaging spells in their repertoire.
  • Sorcerers tend to have shorter cooldowns than Wizards.
• Major spells gone: Levitate, Fly, Spider Climb, Polymorph, most Illusion spells, and almost all Divination spells (except Detect Secret Doors, See Invisibility, and True Seeing). Other spells have changed in function:
  • Command only allows "Lay down", not any other action.
  • Web has no limit on the distance of anchor points, so it can be used outdoors (and apparently anchor against Eberron's moons). Webbed creatures can't attack.
  • Dispel Magic has far fewer applications, most of them only effective to rid PCs of undesired effects, as monsters rarely buff themselves significantly. It can't be used against many zone-based magical effects (Wall of Fire, Obscuring Mist), but it can come in handy for Flaming Spheres and Spell Wards.
  • You can only Summon one monster at any time, and you can't get rid of it until it either dies or the duration expires. Summoning a new monster will cause an existing one to vanish.
  • Charm Person and Charm Monster are more powerful but less flexible: victims will fight hopeless odds for you, but you can't give the target any other commands.
    • Dominate Person and Dominate Monster also compel the target to follow the caster, whereas Charmed targets sit idle after they run out of things to fight.
    • Command Undead and the like work similarly to the Charm spells. Suggestion is usable on giants in addition to humanoids.
    • All classes (even non-spellcasters, as of Update 26) gain a 'Dismiss Charm' feat that will allow them to cancel their charm effect on a given target.
• Spell Resistance only protects against spells that produce non-damaging effects like Hold, Charm, Enervate, etc.
• Anti-magic effects produced by Beholders dispel all buff spells instead of simply suppressing them. Effects produced by items are neither suppressed nor dispelled: they always apply. Other anti-magical effects in the game, such as Globe of Invulnerability, merely suppress buffs instead of negating them.
• Transitioning into an adventure/quest area dispels all ongoing spells except special "Lasting" effects from a number of sources (such as certain NPCs). All standard buffing must take place inside the quest/adventure area itself.

Miscellaneous

• The concepts of characters learning specific languages and literacy are gone.
• Even if you can't make it to a Resurrection shrine, NPC clerics will provide free Resurrection wherever you bound your spirit, in addition to other pay-per-use spells.
• While it is possible to acquire negative levels, negative levels never result in actual level loss. Instead of giving a -1 penalty, DDO negative levels give a -2 penalty to saves, skills, and attacks. Thus, even a relatively small number of negative levels can become severely debilitating.
• Fear effects prevent attacking, spellcasting, and skill usage, but do not affect player movement.
• Characters, NPCs, and monsters don't die when they hit 0 CON, WIS, or CHA. Instead, if you reach 0 in any statistic due to draining or damaging effects, you become helpless. You can move, but cannot initiate any other kind of action. Normal and Elite monsters can be drained to 0 in a stat and will become helpless, but their stat totals reset after a given amount of time depending on the quest's difficulty setting. Bosses (red names) cannot lose more than 10 points in any one stat—a red heart will flash over their heads to indicate they are at maximum stat drain. Raid bosses (purple names) are immune to stat drain.
• Many, many monsters have immunities that they don't possess in PnP. Most vulnerabilities are intact, although some are less in degree.