Endarire
2013-12-10, 10:16 PM
Greetings!
Having played a lot of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition lately, I've realized that second edition is whack.
More politely, AD&D 2E (the tabletop version) is about selective empowerment. Randomness plays a major part of character creation, and survival is a priviledge, not a right. (That's my experience.)
Fast forwarding to 3E, the classes that are easy to pick up and play are usually lower tier than a more complicated counterpart. The lowly Fighter, for instance, does his little thing - in theory at least - all day long. The Barbarian, another pick up and player character, fills a similar role to the Fighter, but gets to determine when he gets mad and gains stat bonuses.
On the magical side, the Warlock and Dragonfire Adept can do their things all day long. They get few tricks to start, and get more tricks as they level. They're kinda like the magical equivalents to the Fighter in this regard; all day stamina with a class-granted default attack mode (Eldritch Blast for Warlocks and a breath weapon for Dragonfire Adepts).
On the higher end is the Sorcerer (and basically spontaneous versions of prepared casters). There are more decisions to make, but a Sorcerer's spells are available anytime without preparation. Want to cast a magic missile or a shield or a glitterdust? If you know it and have at least 1 spell slot of that level remaining (and all other factors permit), you can! That's pretty dang convenient!
But experienced players know that there are often better options. Psionics offers convenience and versatile powers. Tome of Battle offers "Fighters" with more spammable special moves (as well as feats), and Druid/Tier 1 casters often have loads of... less convenient mechanics involved but with plenty of power.
It's like the class authors assigned convenience fees (wittingly or not, and probably not) to certain classes and thought, "This is so cool! Let's make the more complicated version offer more benefit for the experienced player! This is the newbie's version of the same/a similar class/concept!"
This advice applies mostly to starting at low levels, the "E6 levels." After this, subjecting new players to the intricacies of D&D 3.x is complicated.
Having played a lot of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition lately, I've realized that second edition is whack.
More politely, AD&D 2E (the tabletop version) is about selective empowerment. Randomness plays a major part of character creation, and survival is a priviledge, not a right. (That's my experience.)
Fast forwarding to 3E, the classes that are easy to pick up and play are usually lower tier than a more complicated counterpart. The lowly Fighter, for instance, does his little thing - in theory at least - all day long. The Barbarian, another pick up and player character, fills a similar role to the Fighter, but gets to determine when he gets mad and gains stat bonuses.
On the magical side, the Warlock and Dragonfire Adept can do their things all day long. They get few tricks to start, and get more tricks as they level. They're kinda like the magical equivalents to the Fighter in this regard; all day stamina with a class-granted default attack mode (Eldritch Blast for Warlocks and a breath weapon for Dragonfire Adepts).
On the higher end is the Sorcerer (and basically spontaneous versions of prepared casters). There are more decisions to make, but a Sorcerer's spells are available anytime without preparation. Want to cast a magic missile or a shield or a glitterdust? If you know it and have at least 1 spell slot of that level remaining (and all other factors permit), you can! That's pretty dang convenient!
But experienced players know that there are often better options. Psionics offers convenience and versatile powers. Tome of Battle offers "Fighters" with more spammable special moves (as well as feats), and Druid/Tier 1 casters often have loads of... less convenient mechanics involved but with plenty of power.
It's like the class authors assigned convenience fees (wittingly or not, and probably not) to certain classes and thought, "This is so cool! Let's make the more complicated version offer more benefit for the experienced player! This is the newbie's version of the same/a similar class/concept!"
This advice applies mostly to starting at low levels, the "E6 levels." After this, subjecting new players to the intricacies of D&D 3.x is complicated.