The PDF for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook is now available at RPGNow. While it does have the reprint cover it has the remastered searchable text and the file size clocks in a 5.3 meg. I still have the version I bought off of Paizo and it was a series of scanned images at 23 meg. So the smaller size is appreciated.

While Wizards doesn't allow page extraction it does allow you to copy text and graphics out of the book.

This is absolutely fantastic. Now if they would just set it up for print on demand!

Quote from: estar;840115The PDF for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook is now available at RPGNow. While it does have the reprint cover it has the remastered searchable text and the file size clocks in a 5.3 meg. I still have the version I bought off of Paizo and it was a series of scanned images at 23 meg. So the smaller size is appreciated.

While Wizards doesn't allow page extraction it does allow you to copy text and graphics out of the book.

This is absolutely fantastic. Now if they would just set it up for print on demand!

What an ugly cover. They should have left it as it was.

Great news!

Quote from: Omega;840131What an ugly cover. They should have left it as it was.

Yeah it's a bummer about the cover.
I've seen a few original PHBs in local 2nd hand bookshops anyway, so I don't particularly need this.

I wanted to print out a sheet from the preview, but even printing is disabled. Is printing disabled with the purchased pdf?

Quote from: estar;840115The PDF for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook is now available at RPGNow. While it does have the reprint cover it has the remastered searchable text and the file size clocks in a 5.3 meg. I still have the version I bought off of Paizo and it was a series of scanned images at 23 meg. So the smaller size is appreciated.

It is a very good thing to have searchable text and the smaller size is even better.  That makes it easy to store on things like dropbox without losing a ton of storage space.

I found that I'd rather play 2E if I'm going to go that Old School.
That said, the original AD&D stuff has a lot of good stuff that I am told is easily portable.

Nice; I was wondering when this would happen.  This either signals the final sell-out of the hardcopies of the reprints or that WotC just "gave up" and decided to release the rulebook anyway.

Quote from: JasperAK;840156I wanted to print out a sheet from the preview, but even printing is disabled. Is printing disabled with the purchased pdf?

No printing is not disable with the purchased PDF

The new covers look really great in print.  I should also note that I have all three of the reprint books and they've held up spectacularly well after some heavy use over the last year or so.  They still look almost like new.

Is there any important difference between this and OSRIC? If I have the latter, what are the good reasons to buy the other?

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;840425Is there any important difference between this and OSRIC?

Important? No. Some details? Yes.

Monk Class, Psionics, Weapon Speed Factors, and Weapons vs. AC, different coinage system, slightly different xp tables, race class restriction.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;840425If I have the latter, what are the good reasons to buy the other?

Well the goal of OSRIC is to get materials for 1st edition AD&D out there. The goal was to have a publisher's reference to clearly define what permissible to use and what isn't. But then gamers went off-script and started to use it as their primary rulebook.

Partly because it better organized, explains some of the original subsystem better, and has everything under one cover. Partly because of the bias of consumers to buy NEW books over USED books. Partly because hard copies showed up on dealer's tables at old-school conventions, (Black-Blade Publishing), etc.

This prompted a subsequent edition that is explicitly laid out as a rulebook. And this is the one widely available now in print.

Whether any of this is a "good" reason to use the original PHB over OSRIC is up to you. In my opinion with OSRIC you are playing a game that 95% the same as AD&D 1st.

I would go so far to say if you use OSRIC BtB you are playing a version of D&D closer to AD&D BtB than how most people played AD&D back in the day. Which was B/X Combat with AD&D details.

In particular, I seem to recall that 1E AD&D had this absolutely wild initiative process that more or less nobody used as written.

Quote from: Warthur;840433In particular, I seem to recall that 1E AD&D had this absolutely wild initiative process that more or less nobody used as written.

Um... each side rolled a d6. Highest got initiative.

Quote from: Omega;840438Um... each side rolled a d6. Highest got initiative.

At its absolute heart, yes. But there were a heap of additional rules which modified it one way or another, and then there's the issue of how multiple attacks work. The matter's complex enough that there's multiple Dragonsfoot threads on the subject (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3223this one) provides a useful summation of the conversation to date on Dragonsfoot as of 2005, and even then it's clear that intelligent, well-read and highly experienced 1E fans like those there found it troublesome to work out.