Drop Lowest

Wizards of the Coast have pushed out an update for the D&D 5E Basic Rules document, taking their free, pared-down version of the game to version 1.0.

There hasn’t been an official changelog published yet, but most of the obvious updates seem to focus on polishing the layout and design. Tables and stat-blocks have been coloured to fit in with the general D&D style, and blank spaces have been filled with small splashes of black and white line art.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the Basic Rules are no longer divided into separate volumes for players and DMs. Instead they now share one single document.

On top of this, the ruleset appears to have been updated to match the latest set of errata rulings, which were released earlier this month.

The Basic Rules were released shortly after D&D 5E launched. As the name suggests, they lay out all the basic rules needed to get a game going, though the options for both characters and monsters are limited. The amount of third-level wizard spells listed in the Basic Rules is just eight, for example, while in the Players’ Handbook it stretches to almost 30.

Still, it’s hard to argue with the cost of a free product, especially when you could potentially use it to run an entire campaign end-to-end.

You can download version 1.0 of the Basic Rules here.