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Grey Paladin
2008-02-19, 05:26 AM
I have been working on the unholy child of 3.5 and AD&D 2E for a while now, but it has only now occurred to me that I am not entirely sure what did the majority of AD&D players actually liked about their version(or what they dislike about regular D&D, especially 3.X), knowing that my taste in gaming is vastly different then that of most and holding the hope of homebrewing the (best, I am sure there are already many others) unofficial 3rd edition of AD&D I figured out I should research this before continuing with my work.

Thanks ahead.

Ashtar
2008-02-19, 06:02 AM
Well there was much less emphasis on numbers, more emphasis on RP. Faster combat rounds... And much longer levels, in 3rd I always get the impression I'm gaining levels too fast...
Simply less rules.

And specially, I could make out a new enemy with 3 numbers, HD, AC, Damage. All the rest was derived, quickly. (HD -> THAC0 + Saves).

Oh well, I don't know, it just *had* that different feel.

Matthew
2008-02-19, 06:24 AM
Yeah, pretty much that there are less default rules. Also, Fighters have the best saving throws going. Task resolution is open to interpretation, combat movement is simultaneous, no Feats or Skills to limit the actions of the Characters, no critical hits and much lower power increments.

I'm not a fan of the Attribute Tables or one miute long Combat Rounds.

Have you taken a look at Castles & Crusades (http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?filters=0_0_10126)? That's pretty much a modern version of AD&D.

Yami
2008-02-19, 06:56 AM
I disliked what they did with elves. Greatly. I liked what they did with minotaurs, as well as the weapon speed tables and spell casting times.

But I also liked haste.

Swordguy
2008-02-19, 08:05 AM
3.x seems like it should work better in theory - what with all the different combat options and Feats and things - but AD&D just flows so well in practice. Part of it is not having to keep track of so many minute modifiers or situational bonuses. Part of it is the general "looseness" of the system - a DM has more reign to make decisions without having to consult a rulebook. Part of it seems to simply make more sense (weapon speeds and casting times).

I don't like the long combat rounds, though. We always called a combat round 10 seconds instead of a minute - made more sense to us. Of course, the single best house rule (as voted by my players) I ever had in my D&D games was to transform the initiative system into something very closely resembling Shadowrun, using passes within the same round dependent on one's init score. Worked wonders. I could never do something like that with 3.x - the system isn't flexible enough for it since there's so much stuff that messes with init.

John Campbell
2008-02-20, 04:20 AM
In all honesty, the only things I really like better about 3.x are the removal of the class/race restrictions, and replacement of the bizarre and exception-laden saving throw categories with ones for which it's generally obvious which save is required in any given situation... though I dislike how the actual bonuses are produced. Oh, and attacks of opportunity, though as someone with extensive real experience in melee combat, I have some quibbles with the particulars. The basic concept is sound, though.

I'm still torn on whether or not 3.x's sometimes useful but frequently totally broken skill system is actually better than 2E's half-assed useless non-weapon proficiency system or not. 2E's system you could at least totally ignore without it having much effect on the game.

Basically everything else that 3.x changed, I hate. Multiclassing - which pretty much worked, except for the race/class thing - was eliminated in 3.x; instead they force everyone to do what AD&D called dual-classing - which has never, ever worked right - and introduced combo prestige classes to putty over the gaping holes. And, uh, seriously, guys, when you've got a class/level-based system that has dozens of "base" classes and hundreds of prestige classes, you're Doing Something Wrong. They also accelerated the XP curve, which not only ramped the power curve up to a ridiculous degree, it even further broke (multi-/dual-)classing.

There's a lot of stuff that got simplified, without any apparent understanding of why it was complicated to begin with. The ability modifiers are one of those (the new scale is simpler, but drastically increases the gap between the haves and the have-nots). The XP tables are one of those (there was a reason that it cost more to level up as a wizard than as a rogue).

And, of course, everyone harps on how difficult THAC0 was, but it's fundamentally the same mechanic as BAB, except that you subtract instead of adding. (Yeah, yeah, I know... subtraction is haaaaaaaarrrrd.) That said, I do slightly prefer the newer AC system. It's not actually any easier, but higher numbers being better is more intuitive, so it's one less thing to have to explain to new players.

Feats were a nice idea, as a way to give characters some variation, get them out of the class straightjacket, but as things currently stand, there's a feat for everything, and you can't do anything without the feat, which actually reduces flexibility. In AD&D, you could come up with a bright idea, and maybe the DM would have to come up with some rules on the fly, but you could try it. 3.x has rules for it! Sadly, they almost always say that you can't do it because you don't have the right feat. (This is becoming more and more the case with more recent expansion books. It's not so bad in core.) And you can't get the right feat, because you don't get nearly enough of them, and there's a handful of feats that you have to get or your character will be severely handicapped in day-to-day use.

I hate what they did to armor. I've always disliked the complete unrealism of D&D's method of handling AC - the Armor Provides DR + Defense Bonus variants make things much better - but 3.x's Dex mod limits make things even worse. Heavier armor stops being better (and, historically, people almost always wore the heaviest armor they could get their hands on, for good reason), and there are several historically popular armor types that you'd have to be severely brain-damaged to ever even consider wearing in D&D 3.x. And they didn't even do a rational job of handing out the crippling... "chain mail" has a worse Dex modifier than a breastplate? WTF? These people really need to actually try wearing the stuff before they make rules about it.

The elimination of casting times turns casters from major but manageable threats to unstoppable gods. Having casting provoke attacks of opportunity almost fixed that, except for the minor problem that no mage worth their salt can fail a defensive casting roll. Metamagic makes this worse.

Meh. That's enough ranting for tonight.

Reel On, Love
2008-02-20, 05:28 AM
Oh, man. I've actually been in an AD&D game, recently (modified, of course, as all AD&D games are).

The system is utter crap. It has no redeeming values. I'm still enjoying the campaign, mind--but it's because it's a fun campaign; the system is hindering, not helping.

Very little of it is actually coherent or thought-out or related to other things. If you like that the DM has to handwave everything, I can see no reason to run this system instead of freeform or Wushu or something else that has that emphasis. Something like FATE would definitely be a lot better. Modify for grittiness at your leisure.

Things that have caught my baleful eye:
-As a house rule, all mages can specialize, including multiclassed mages. Also, multiclassed Fighters can specialize and even double-specialize. This is obviously not a balanced house rule, but my double-bow-specialized Fighter/Illusionist is ridiculously good anyway. Without this house rule, I'd be just as good; being a mage, too, just gives me a tiny bit of flexibility, really (once a day, I can throw a Phantasmal Force out). The point is, double-specialized archers specifically and double-specialized fighters overall have a huge advantage.

-At level one--although due to a huge windfall of XP last session, this character in particular is gaining at least one, maybe two levels--my THAC0 is 13: 20, -2 for Dex, -3 for Double Specialization, -1 for being an elf, -1 for a Quality bow. This means I hit a reasonable AC of 5 on an 8... for 1d6+3 (specialization) + 2 (we're adding STR damage to bows built for it, but halved and rounded up. I rolled high stats, which is, of course, the key to Winning AD&D). I can do this from horseback thanks to the Riding NWP, or at two shots a round, since bows have an ROF of 2.
Compare this to a melee fighter, who has to actually get into range to trade blows (although he does even more damage once he's there). Compare this to a thief, who can't actually make any damn skill checks at ALL reliably yet. Compare this to a wizard, who gets ONE SPELL at this level. One. Spell. Two, with specialization.

-That reminds me: the "10% bonus XP for having a high stat!" is pretty much the most compact example of ABSOLUTELY AWFUL game design I can imagine. A Fighter with, say, percentile strength is already at a HUGE advantage over one who doesn't have it. Whee, let's make sure he earns even more XP, too!

-I'm also running a bard; we have two characters each. I don't get XP for doing my social thing--in fact, if I remove a combat, I can deprive us of XP. What's more, my thief skills suck worse than a thief's, and the inspire ability is absolutely stupid.
To give a +1 bonus to hit, I have to inspire for THREE rounds first... and then the bonus lasts ONE ROUND at level 1. That's unutterably pointless.

-The XP tables don't actually make any sense. Fighters are much, much better than wizards at low levels. Shouldn't wizards level faster at first, and then taper off? Why do bards level so fast they get a caster level or two on Wizards?

-The saving throw tables are totally arbitrary, and, bizzarely, as you become a more powerful mage, your opponents get much less likely to be affected by your spells. They're just as challenging... your spells with saves just stop working.

-Infravision is stupid in execution. The section that warns you to BEWARE of mixing SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY with a FANTASY REALM, however, is hilarious when read out loud in a booming self-important voice.

-"Skills" are stupid. Non-weapon proficiencies never tell you what to roll, so success is basically arbitrary; why bother having them? I can just say "my character learned astrology, tailoring, and bongcrafting because of his upbringing".

-Opening doors is a Strength check. Lifting grates is a percentile roll. Why? Because AD&D is totally incoherent; each bit of the rules is designed arbitrarily in a near-complete void.

-At 17 Strength, you have +1 to hit, +1 damage. At 19 Strength, you have +3 to hit, +7 to damage. WTF.

-Stats in general: the bonuses follow no coherent, sensible pattern... and you don't start getting them until unreasonably high numbers. This makes the most important part of the game rolling well on stats.

-System Shock and Resurrection Survival: both stupid. Both arbitrary. They're even different arbitrary numbers! Incidentally, Resurrection Survival is such a stupid idea. "You're resurrected! Now roll to NOT GO BACK TO BEING DEAD. Wow, THIS makes the game fun!
Also, a character with 3 CON has a 30% chance of surviving System Shock to a character with 18 CON's 99%. However, neither has a bonus/penalty to save vs. poison (although even lower/higher CONs give one).

-Chance to Learn Spell: this is stupid and pointless. Why bother making it even more difficult? It's like somebody decided to throw in some things just to annoy players. We dispense with this one.
Also, being really intelligent makes you immune to illusion spells of a certain level. Even though a higher-level spell producing the same illusion would still work.

-Chance of Spell Failure: with a 12 Wisdom--above average!--a spellcaster still has a 5% chance of any given spell fizzling.

After making high ability scores so mechanically important, the book then tells you about how you shouldn't care about having them.

-Class restrictions and level limits: so obviously stupid that as far as I know, EVERYONE, ALWAYS ignored them. So there's no reason to play a human anymore.

-Class ability minimums. Back to the design philosophy of playing what the dice tell you to play... which sucked. And good luck rolling that 17 CHA if you want to run a Paladin for some reason. Which you don't, since then you can't double specialize, which wins.

-Ranger followers include animals. That they can't speak to. So they randomly get things following them around. "Yep, this bear just follows me around. No clue, dude."

-Many of the racial thief skill adjustments make no sense. Also, they're way too absolutist.
-The Dexterity adjustments to thief skills are also pretty arbitrary. Also, with a 12 Dexterity, you still have a penalty to move silently. That's right, your above average dexterity still gets you penalized.

-It is basically impossible to be a thief who is not a complete and consistent screw-up, since until you're very high level you've got a ridiculous chance of just plain failing your rolls. You screw up often and you screw up hard. Meanwhile, guys who aren't thieves are simply totally incapable of sneaking around. Unless the DM decides to make it a DEX check... the odds of which he then needs to compare to the thief skill percent success rate, making it appropriately lower.
--The thief "always THINKS he is being quiet". That's right. If you screw up horribly on your quite movement--like, say, by stepping on a horribly creaky plank--you don't get to be aware of this.

-Backstab: ridiculously hard to pull off.

-Use Scrolls: it has a constant, flat chance of failure, unmodified by anything. World's smartest thief and world's dumbest thief? Same chance to flub that Fireball scroll.

-Unless you're a Fighter, there's essentially NO reason not to multiclass. If you're a human, there's never a reason not to dual class (taking Fighter 1 into anything else has obvious advantages, AND it makes you more likely to survive level 1)... assuming you can. "To be dual-classed, the human must have scores of 15 or more in the prime requisites of of his first class and 17 or more in the prime requisites of any classes he switches to." Good freaking luck.

-Like I said, all of these rules read pretty much like someone half-assedly jotted down some arbitrary numbers on the spot. Speaking of which, who decided that Ancient History takes 1 NWP slot, but Herbalism and Healing take 2?

-Wizards get randomly assigned their starting spells. You know, because level 1 wizards didn't SUCK enough.

Man, I'm not even going to go through the rest. This system has no redeeming value beyond any the GM brings to the table wholesale.


I'm still torn on whether or not 3.x's sometimes useful but frequently totally broken skill system is actually better than 2E's half-assed useless non-weapon proficiency system or not. 2E's system you could at least totally ignore without it having much effect on the game.
Of course it's better. DCs are generally pretty reasonable, and you actually have some rubric that differentiates between skilled and unskilled characters. "DM handwaves it" should be a fallback option, not a default.


Multiclassing - which pretty much worked, except for the race/class thing - was eliminated in 3.x; instead they force everyone to do what AD&D called dual-classing - which has never, ever worked right - and introduced combo prestige classes to putty over the gaping holes.
Multiclassing didn't "pretty much work". Neither did dual-classing. Look, at a certain value of experience I can be a Wizard 10, or I could be a Fighter 9/Wizard 9. Forgive me for thinking the latter one is obviously vastly superior. And what if I want to stop studying wizardry and focus only on swordsmanship? That's right, I can't. Also, which races are allowed to take what multiclasses (and the fact that humans can't take any)? Those rules are stupid.


And, uh, seriously, guys, when you've got a class/level-based system that has dozens of "base" classes and hundreds of prestige classes, you're Doing Something Wrong. They also accelerated the XP curve, which not only ramped the power curve up to a ridiculous degree, it even further broke (multi-/dual-)classing.
Multiclassing is much *less* advantageous than it ever was. There's no reason a class-based system can't have lots of different classes.


There's a lot of stuff that got simplified, without any apparent understanding of why it was complicated to begin with. The ability modifiers are one of those (the new scale is simpler, but drastically increases the gap between the haves and the have-nots). The XP tables are one of those (there was a reason that it cost more to level up as a wizard than as a rogue).
A lot of the stuff was complicated because of Gygaxian tradition.
You can't possibly be having the temerity to tell me that it costs more to level up from Wizard 2 to Wizard 3 than from Fighter 2 to Fighter 3 because a level 2-3 Wizard is that much more powerful than a level 2-3 fighter. In short, the XP tables are basically totally arbitrary in 2nd edition. At least in 3rd ed. it's consistent.


And, of course, everyone harps on how difficult THAC0 was, but it's fundamentally the same mechanic as BAB, except that you subtract instead of adding. (Yeah, yeah, I know... subtraction is haaaaaaaarrrrd.) That said, I do slightly prefer the newer AC system. It's not actually any easier, but higher numbers being better is more intuitive, so it's one less thing to have to explain to new players.
THAC0 is deeply inconvenient. It's not that subtraction is hard, it's that it's counterintuitive and it slows things down there, unless you've been playing AD&D for quite a while and are totally used to it.


Feats were a nice idea, as a way to give characters some variation, get them out of the class straightjacket, but as things currently stand, there's a feat for everything, and you can't do anything without the feat, which actually reduces flexibility. In AD&D, you could come up with a bright idea, and maybe the DM would have to come up with some rules on the fly, but you could try it. 3.x has rules for it! Sadly, they almost always say that you can't do it because you don't have the right feat. (This is becoming more and more the case with more recent expansion books. It's not so bad in core.) And you can't get the right feat, because you don't get nearly enough of them, and there's a handful of feats that you have to get or your character will be severely handicapped in day-to-day use.
That is entirely not true. In AD&D, you could come up with a bright idea, and the rules wouldn't allow it at all. The DM could then handwave it. 3.x generally still allows you--you can disarm without Improved Disarm, say; it's just going to provoke the AoO &etc. There are very few things you truly need a feat for. Meanwhile, in AD&D, how likely I am to disarm someone depends completely and TOTALLY on my DM's arbitrary decision. Come *on*. I mean, I've played in freeform games, but they're set up with those expections. A rules system should cover that crap.


I hate what they did to armor. I've always disliked the complete unrealism of D&D's method of handling AC - the Armor Provides DR + Defense Bonus variants make things much better - but 3.x's Dex mod limits make things even worse.
As opposed to AD&D, where I could be a 19-DEX elf who wouldn't lose ANY of his ability to dodge by putting on full plate.


Heavier armor stops being better (and, historically, people almost always wore the heaviest armor they could get their hands on, for good reason), and there are several historically popular armor types that you'd have to be severely brain-damaged to ever even consider wearing in D&D 3.x. And they didn't even do a rational job of handing out the crippling... "chain mail" has a worse Dex modifier than a breastplate? WTF? These people really need to actually try wearing the stuff before they make rules about it.
People in D&D still generally wear the heaviest armor they can get their hands on... unless they've got a lot of Dex. Armor ACPs/max dex bonuses are no less completely arbitrary than anything in any AD&D table.


The elimination of casting times turns casters from major but manageable threats to unstoppable gods. Having casting provoke attacks of opportunity almost fixed that, except for the minor problem that no mage worth their salt can fail a defensive casting roll. Metamagic makes this worse.

Meh. That's enough ranting for tonight.
I'd rather run with 3.x casters than with the mess that is AD&D casters.
Metamagic has very little to do with defensive casting.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-20, 05:38 AM
Ultimately, there's a reason that AD&D turned into 3.X. The original D&D did a huge variety of things, but virtually all of those things have since been done better by other games, the only real exception being the good honest dungeon bash.

Which is what 3.X was designed to do.

In all seriousness, though, if you *do* want to produce some kind of true successor to AD&D you might be better off looking at ... well ... other RPGs.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-20, 05:45 AM
The system is utter crap. It has no redeeming values. I'm still enjoying the campaign, mind--but it's because it's a fun campaign; the system is hindering, not helping.

While that angry post is certainly true (well, except that the part that complains about house rules not really relevant to the actual ruleset), it is weird to see that other people make similar angry posts pointing out in detail what is so wrong with third edition. Or 3.5, or skills-and-powers, or tome-of-battle, or even 4th.

Apparently it's not possible to write an RPG without getting a group of fierce detractors.

Kantur
2008-02-20, 08:05 AM
Oh, man. I've actually been in an AD&D game, recently (modified, of course, as all AD&D games are).

What 3.5 games aren't modified in some way?


The system is utter crap. It has no redeeming values. I'm still enjoying the campaign, mind--but it's because it's a fun campaign; the system is hindering, not helping.

Hmm, personally I enjoy the system just as much, possibly more than 3.5...


Very little of it is actually coherent or thought-out or related to other things. If you like that the DM has to handwave everything, I can see no reason to run this system instead of freeform or Wushu or something else that has that emphasis. Something like FATE would definitely be a lot better. Modify for grittiness at your leisure.

I can follow the book just fine, and what do you mean by 'handwave everything'? That the DM has to make up on the spot rules for something the designers wouldn't think comes up enough to merit space in the book instead of having to look up "Rules you never knew you needed" and/or the Rules Compendium to search for the relevant rules to come to the conclusion that: It isn't there, on the spot rule time/You don't have this feat you'd never heard of so no, or with massive penalties/You can do it, just follow this set of rules as concise as the grapple rule. Or that everything's mystically decided by DM whim and not dice? In which case you are playing freeform, you just haven't noticed yet.


Things that have caught my baleful eye:
-As a house rule, all mages can specialize, including multiclassed mages. Also, multiclassed Fighters can specialize and even double-specialize. This is obviously not a balanced house rule, but my double-bow-specialized Fighter/Illusionist is ridiculously good anyway. Without this house rule, I'd be just as good; being a mage, too, just gives me a tiny bit of flexibility, really (once a day, I can throw a Phantasmal Force out). The point is, double-specialized archers specifically and double-specialized fighters overall have a huge advantage.

-At level one--although due to a huge windfall of XP last session, this character in particular is gaining at least one, maybe two levels--my THAC0 is 13: 20, -2 for Dex, -3 for Double Specialization, -1 for being an elf, -1 for a Quality bow. This means I hit a reasonable AC of 5 on an 8... for 1d6+3 (specialization) + 2 (we're adding STR damage to bows built for it, but halved and rounded up. I rolled high stats, which is, of course, the key to Winning AD&D). I can do this from horseback thanks to the Riding NWP, or at two shots a round, since bows have an ROF of 2.
Compare this to a melee fighter, who has to actually get into range to trade blows (although he does even more damage once he's there). Compare this to a thief, who can't actually make any damn skill checks at ALL reliably yet. Compare this to a wizard, who gets ONE SPELL at this level. One. Spell. Two, with specialization.

That's a problem with the houserule being unbalanced, not the system. You could have a similarly powerful houserule in any system. As for one spell right now? Yeah, it sucks, but realistically, you could have a pure mage with throwing weapons or a quarterstaff still add their contributions to damage, just don't be in the front line.


-That reminds me: the "10% bonus XP for having a high stat!" is pretty much the most compact example of ABSOLUTELY AWFUL game design I can imagine. A Fighter with, say, percentile strength is already at a HUGE advantage over one who doesn't have it. Whee, let's make sure he earns even more XP, too!

This one I agree entirely with.


-I'm also running a bard; we have two characters each. I don't get XP for doing my social thing--in fact, if I remove a combat, I can deprive us of XP. What's more, my thief skills suck worse than a thief's, and the inspire ability is absolutely stupid.
To give a +1 bonus to hit, I have to inspire for THREE rounds first... and then the bonus lasts ONE ROUND at level 1. That's unutterably pointless.

That's bad DMing - if you've removed the need for combat, you've still defeated the encounter, you just found a different way to defeat it. Your thief skills are worse than a thiefs because otherwise there's little point to play a thief! Play a thief who gets some backstab and Thieves' Cant, or play a thief with spells and inspiring abilities...And yes, I agree that inspirations could've been done better, but when you start going up levels, bet it'll seem a lot better...


-The XP tables don't actually make any sense. Fighters are much, much better than wizards at low levels. Shouldn't wizards level faster at first, and then taper off? Why do bards level so fast they get a caster level or two on Wizards?

Because it's a way to try and balance the classes. Why try to balance the level 17 Fighter against the level 17 Wizard when you can just make the better classes for that level need more experience so they get their best abilities later? And, by the way, I personally find it amusing you didn't mention the druid's XP table...


-The saving throw tables are totally arbitrary, and, bizzarely, as you become a more powerful mage, your opponents get much less likely to be affected by your spells. They're just as challenging... your spells with saves just stop working.

Unfortunatly, I don't have my PHB here, but I'm pretty sure most of the higher level spells have save penalties inbuilt, spells to knock down saves and hefty problems if you fail it. And I don't find it arbitrary - Fighter, tough, bulky, muscled, good vs poisons and similar, bad vs magical effects...Rogues, decent against most things...Wizard, good vs magical effects, poor vs poisons...


-Infravision is stupid in execution. The section that warns you to BEWARE of mixing SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY with a FANTASY REALM, however, is hilarious when read out loud in a booming self-important voice.

I think it works well enough.


-"Skills" are stupid. Non-weapon proficiencies never tell you what to roll, so success is basically arbitrary; why bother having them? I can just say "my character learned astrology, tailoring, and bongcrafting because of his upbringing".

They tell you the stat and they tell you the bonus/penalty on it...I'll give you a hint, getting under the stat's the most sensible result for success.


-Opening doors is a Strength check. Lifting grates is a percentile roll. Why? Because AD&D is totally incoherent; each bit of the rules is designed arbitrarily in a near-complete void.

They're both strength checks technically. But go on, tell me how easy it is to break down a door compared to lifting a similar sized solid metal portculus...


-At 17 Strength, you have +1 to hit, +1 damage. At 19 Strength, you have +3 to hit, +7 to damage. WTF.

Exceptional strength fills in the gap nicely between the most brilliant of humans, elves, etc and the weakest of giants. Bear that in mind, 19 is a Giant's strength.


-Stats in general: the bonuses follow no coherent, sensible pattern... and you don't start getting them until unreasonably high numbers. This makes the most important part of the game rolling well on stats.

I think it models a population quite nicely, some people are better at hitting or dodging, the vast majority aren't. And it's not as punishing as 3.0/3.5 either. Darn, I got a 9 and a 8 that I have to put somewhere...Oh look, no penalties unless I take a skill related to that stat...


-System Shock and Resurrection Survival: both stupid. Both arbitrary. They're even different arbitrary numbers! Incidentally, Resurrection Survival is such a stupid idea. "You're resurrected! Now roll to NOT GO BACK TO BEING DEAD. Wow, THIS makes the game fun!
Also, a character with 3 CON has a 30% chance of surviving System Shock to a character with 18 CON's 99%. However, neither has a bonus/penalty to save vs. poison (although even lower/higher CONs give one).

You use SS/RS? Can't say my group ever has, just seems pointless to be honest. Also, you seem to say at the end that high/low Con scores don't give a modifier to save vs. poison, but then in the same sentance that they do...


-Chance to Learn Spell: this is stupid and pointless. Why bother making it even more difficult? It's like somebody decided to throw in some things just to annoy players. We dispense with this one.
Also, being really intelligent makes you immune to illusion spells of a certain level. Even though a higher-level spell producing the same illusion would still work.

Now if you used it, would it possibly make the Fighter vs Wizard XP tables a bit more balanced? The Wizard's share of the gold went on these scrolls, but he's not got all of the spells. The Fighter's went on potions, rings, armour, etc that all work fine. And yep, but then, the higher level illusion likely has more raw magical energy in it - it's not the illusion that's important, it's how powerful it is.


-Chance of Spell Failure: with a 12 Wisdom--above average!--a spellcaster still has a 5% chance of any given spell fizzling.

Because being in the, what, 40% most wise people in the realm means you should be able to tap into the weave/divine power flawlessly?



-Class restrictions and level limits: so obviously stupid that as far as I know, EVERYONE, ALWAYS ignored them. So there's no reason to play a human anymore.

That's a problem with the houserule. My group sticks to it and it works.


-Class ability minimums. Back to the design philosophy of playing what the dice tell you to play... which sucked. And good luck rolling that 17 CHA if you want to run a Paladin for some reason. Which you don't, since then you can't double specialize, which wins.

Tell that to my group's paladin...Who does the most damage out of our group round for round easily, except possibly for out machine gun mage with several castings of Magic Missile and a wand of Magic Missile. Besides, Paladin's are supposed to be rarer than other adventurers. And you want to run a Paladin? Talk to the DM about it. So long as they're reasonably, it should be a problem to get a slight fudge for the 17, or a comprimise like roll for all stats that don't have a minimum, if you get better Dex than required Str, possibly swapping them, etc.


-Ranger followers include animals. That they can't speak to. So they randomly get things following them around. "Yep, this bear just follows me around. No clue, dude."

I'm fairly sure there's some form of empathic link, but then, I've never seen a ranger used, so I can't be sure.


-Many of the racial thief skill adjustments make no sense. Also, they're way too absolutist.
-The Dexterity adjustments to thief skills are also pretty arbitrary. Also, with a 12 Dexterity, you still have a penalty to move silently. That's right, your above average dexterity still gets you penalized.

Yes, but look at the bigger picture. You don't have an opposed listen percentage with bonuses for points in MS, that has to be factored in some other other way, and that way is penalties and a slightly lower base chance/bonuses that if there was a listen check involved.


-It is basically impossible to be a thief who is not a complete and consistent screw-up, since until you're very high level you've got a ridiculous chance of just plain failing your rolls. You screw up often and you screw up hard. Meanwhile, guys who aren't thieves are simply totally incapable of sneaking around. Unless the DM decides to make it a DEX check... the odds of which he then needs to compare to the thief skill percent success rate, making it appropriately lower.
--The thief "always THINKS he is being quiet". That's right. If you screw up horribly on your quite movement--like, say, by stepping on a horribly creaky plank--you don't get to be aware of this.

Wait, actually having to use Thieves and Rangers as scouts instead of the full plate wearing Fighter? And there're still ways, items like boots/cloak of elvenkind to aid sneaking to even the clumbsiest of warriors. And if your DM has you step on a loud, squeaky floorboard and you don't get to know? That's a problem with the DM, any fair one usually has a range of acceptable failure where you don't know and the "Oops..." failures.


-Backstab: ridiculously hard to pull off.

I've never had problems getting a Backstab off unless it's a crowded combat or near a wall. Ok, I may have to give up a round to get there, but it's worth it for the bonus to hit alone in my opinion.


-Use Scrolls: it has a constant, flat chance of failure, unmodified by anything. World's smartest thief and world's dumbest thief? Same chance to flub that Fireball scroll.

But have they been trained in how to read arcane preparations, etc? Ok, it's a bit odd, but 3.5s not free of odd things either.


-Unless you're a Fighter, there's essentially NO reason not to multiclass. If you're a human, there's never a reason not to dual class (taking Fighter 1 into anything else has obvious advantages, AND it makes you more likely to survive level 1)... assuming you can. "To be dual-classed, the human must have scores of 15 or more in the prime requisites of of his first class and 17 or more in the prime requisites of any classes he switches to." Good freaking luck.

Except for possibly "I could by a pure mage, getting new, better spells quickly, or I could be a multiclass thief/mage and get the same spells more slowly, have fractionally better hit points and some thief skills, but not as many as a pure thief could have. Not to mention that for that 10% bonus, I need a 17 in both stats instead of just one..."


-Like I said, all of these rules read pretty much like someone half-assedly jotted down some arbitrary numbers on the spot. Speaking of which, who decided that Ancient History takes 1 NWP slot, but Herbalism and Healing take 2?

Considering that Healing's always useful in D&D and Ancient History isn't, I think it's perfectly fair.


-Wizards get randomly assigned their starting spells. You know, because level 1 wizards didn't SUCK enough.

Speak to the DM, but then, who said that everyone taught their apprentices from a set list? If you were taught by someone who was a specialist conjurer, why would you know any of the forbidden magics when you start out?


Man, I'm not even going to go through the rest. This system has no redeeming value beyond any the GM brings to the table wholesale.


Of course it's better. DCs are generally pretty reasonable, and you actually have some rubric that differentiates between skilled and unskilled characters. "DM handwaves it" should be a fallback option, not a default.

Until you start focusing on one skill to break it. "The dragons looks at you angrily, roaring." "Diplomacy, 57, no he's not." "Damnit..."



Multiclassing didn't "pretty much work". Neither did dual-classing. Look, at a certain value of experience I can be a Wizard 10, or I could be a Fighter 9/Wizard 9. Forgive me for thinking the latter one is obviously vastly superior. And what if I want to stop studying wizardry and focus only on swordsmanship? That's right, I can't. Also, which races are allowed to take what multiclasses (and the fact that humans can't take any)? Those rules are stupid.


Multiclassing is much *less* advantageous than it ever was. There's no reason a class-based system can't have lots of different classes.


A lot of the stuff was complicated because of Gygaxian tradition.
You can't possibly be having the temerity to tell me that it costs more to level up from Wizard 2 to Wizard 3 than from Fighter 2 to Fighter 3 because a level 2-3 Wizard is that much more powerful than a level 2-3 fighter. In short, the XP tables are basically totally arbitrary in 2nd edition. At least in 3rd ed. it's consistent.


I think it worked better. Partly because of 'arbitrary experience tables'. I can be a Thief 5/Mage 4 when the rest of my party's about 6th level. In 3.5, I'd be a mediocre thief and a poor mage when we face that CR9 creature because whether I'm taking my first level in a new class, or my sixteenth, if I'm currently level 15, I need the exact same amount of experience to get it. Who knew Fighter 1 could be as complicated as Mage 16 or Ranger 16?


THAC0 is deeply inconvenient. It's not that subtraction is hard, it's that it's counterintuitive and it slows things down there, unless you've been playing AD&D for quite a while and are totally used to it.

I'm sure if you desperatly wanted, it could be converted into a BAB-like system, but after a couple of sessions, you do get fairly quick at it. To be honest, I take about as much time to work out what AC I've hit in AD&D or 3.5



That is entirely not true. In AD&D, you could come up with a bright idea, and the rules wouldn't allow it at all. The DM could then handwave it. 3.x generally still allows you--you can disarm without Improved Disarm, say; it's just going to provoke the AoO &etc. There are very few things you truly need a feat for. Meanwhile, in AD&D, how likely I am to disarm someone depends completely and TOTALLY on my DM's arbitrary decision. Come *on*. I mean, I've played in freeform games, but they're set up with those expections. A rules system should cover that crap.

For that example it's easy, give the weapon a better AC by say 3, opponent makes a Dex check with a penalty of 1 per point/2 points of damage, failure drops it. Or go through the "To make my attack, he needs to make an attack and if he hits me then I can't". And it should, but maybe they didn't expect players to want to disarm opponents.



As opposed to AD&D, where I could be a 19-DEX elf who wouldn't lose ANY of his ability to dodge by putting on full plate.


People in D&D still generally wear the heaviest armor they can get their hands on... unless they've got a lot of Dex. Armor ACPs/max dex bonuses are no less completely arbitrary than anything in any AD&D table.


I'd rather run with 3.x casters than with the mess that is AD&D casters.
Metamagic has very little to do with defensive casting.

Yes it's a little silly, but if you get to choose where your stats are, there's normally one that's better - Thieves won't be wearing heavy armour anyway, Fighters are going to want that stat in Strength/Con, Mages Int, Clerics Wis, Paladins Cha, etc.

And to be honest, the only thing I'd like to see from 3.5 on AD&D casters is a couple of 0-Level spells, other than that, I think it's fine.

Pronounceable
2008-02-20, 08:21 AM
Apparently it's not possible to write an RPG without getting a group of fierce detractors.
Unless you're planning to use the ruleset just for your own games.

Pros of ADnD:
-feels better (hard to explain, subjective, but it's there)
-different xp tables
-fixed xp for monsters (this is a bit double edged, ease of use vs flexibility)
-casting times and weapon speeds(admittedly a bit complicated)
-hardcapped stats (at 25)
-infravision (which is infinitely cooler than darkvision)
-xp gain for magic item creation (or was that a widespread houserule?)
-Planescape used it (PS applies a flat +5 awesome bonus on everything related to it, even the damned alignment system)

Pros of 3e:
-unrestricted class levels for everyone
-straightened attack numbers
-saves
-opposed skill checks
-multiclassing
-aoos
-fixed initiative order

Cons of everything DnD:
-alignment system
-elf subtypes
-gnomes
-dragons (how many motherbleeping types of the damned lizards are there?)
-dungeons (I hate dungeoncrawling. I hate, I hate I HATE dungeoncrawling)
-vancian spell slots (easy but eww...)

Matthew
2008-02-20, 08:22 AM
Oh, man. I've actually been in an AD&D game, recently (modified, of course, as all AD&D games are).

The system is utter crap. It has no redeeming values. I'm still enjoying the campaign, mind--but it's because it's a fun campaign; the system is hindering, not helping.

*stuff*

Hah, hah. Sounds like you're having a lot of the problems that led to the creation of D20. Honestly, the majority of that post I disagree rather strongly with (though some points I agree with), but there's far too much there to respond to in one go.

I'll take a couple of points on:

Weapon Specialisation: Widely known to have the potential to break the game (especially in conjunction with other Optional Rules, such as Blade Singing Fighting Style Specialisation and Two Weapon Fighting Style Specialisation); DMs should think very carefully before including it and in what form.

Non Weapon Proficiencies: Well known for being a poor half way house between no skill system ("I can cook") and a skill system ("I have Cook +6"). I wouldn't use them unless I was also using the Character Point System and, even then, I would end up House Ruling the hell out of them.

Thief Skills: To put it simply, your DM is probably using them wrong. Thief Skills have great potential to cause confusion, as they are sometimes thought to be synonymous with ordinary task resolution .

[I]Task Resolution: I brought this up with David Cook over on Dragonsfoot the other day. David Cook's Question and Answer Thread on Dragonsfoot (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26912&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=120). Hand waving is not quite the same thing as having an open task resolution system.

Saving Throws: Opponents don't get better at resisting Wizard Spells as the Wizard gets higher level. Opponents get better at resisting magic as they get higher level.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-20, 08:48 AM
What I liked:

- Slightly faster combat, IF people knew what they were doing
- The Bard class. I like the 3x version too, but I liked the sort of jack of all trades blend of rogue and wizard a little more.
- Weapon specialization
- More flexibility with stunts (i.e., no rigid rules for how something like a "bull rush" should work), but only if you had a GM that was good at coming up with how to implement those sort of things. If you didn't, then having less of a concrete system for how to handle various combat maneuvers could quickly devolve into an argument, or a GM just saying, "No, you can't do that. Just hit it with your sword."
- Some really, really nice Forgotten Realms supplements, and everything Planescape.

What I disliked (I acknowledge some of these things were eliminated via house rules and updates, but these were in core and therefore the official rules, so I include them):

- Race restrictions regarding dual class and multiclass
- The utter brokenness you could achieve with dual classing
- The utter suck you could achieve with multiclassing
- Race restrictions for classes
- "Prime requisites" especially when doing ability generation by the book
- Racial level caps--and by extension, the fact that ultimately, by "core," playing anything but a human ultimately sucked
- Calculating f****** THAC0. I never want to play a game where I need a "cheat sheet" for my to-hit rolls again.
- The extreme limitedness of secondary skills and nonweapon proficiencies, especially when you played with a DM who said, "If you don't have the proficiency, you can't do it. You can't even make an ability check, no."
- The general inconsistency of the core mechanic--you needed to roll high for some things, low for others. Increased the learning curve of the game unnecessarily. Veteran players don't worry about it, but I remember it was frustrating when learning how to play.
- The fact that casting "Teleport" comes with a chance of death. (Admittedly, I hold a special grudge against this because this happened to me. When we were in the middle of fighting the Tarrasque.)
- The fact that "Haste" ages you.
- Generally, any other bizarre, life-threatening side-effect of casting a simple spell, and most save-or-suck situations, which I seemed to encounter far more often while playing AD&D than playing D&D 3.x
- By the book, female characters couldn't have an 18 strength.
- The fact that any stat under 16 completely sucked, even though 16 was theoretically supposed to be significantly above human average (and when you had a Str of 16 and a party member had 18/00 strength, and people considered you the "weak" and "useless" member of the party because of it)
- Too much left to the DM's judgement. AD&D might be great if you have a really, really good, flexible and creative GM. It absolutely sucks if you don't.

That's all I can think of for now.

hamlet
2008-02-20, 09:25 AM
Oh, man. I've actually been in an AD&D game, recently (modified, of course, as all AD&D games are).

The system is utter crap. It has no redeeming values. I'm still enjoying the campaign, mind--but it's because it's a fun campaign; the system is hindering, not helping.

<snip a whole lot of bunk>



Wow, that post was astonishing. You managed to misunderstand, misinterpret, or just flat out not bother to read most of the AD&D system.

It looks as if you've managed to distill every misconception about AD&D into a single post. I'd go through point by point and argue them all, but somebody's already done that and it seems you've already decided to hate the system unreasonably anyway.

EDIT: On second thought, I realize that this post is pretty harsh. I'll add this to say that no personal offense is intended. My post was merely intended to express my amusement at what I perceive to be stubborn and willfull non-comprehension.

LibraryOgre
2008-02-20, 10:03 AM
Very little of it is actually coherent or thought-out or related to other things.

This is false. Unfortunately, they consistently fell between making things simulationist and gamist, and didn't really satisfy either group's requirement.


-As a house rule, all mages can specialize, including multiclassed mages. Also, multiclassed Fighters can specialize and even double-specialize. This is obviously not a balanced house rule

And irrelevant. If you're going to attack AD&D, attack it on its own merits.


The point is, double-specialized archers specifically and double-specialized fighters overall have a huge advantage.

Which, in 2nd edition, was an advantage that was only open to single classed fighters. Multi-classed fighters couldn't have it. Other warriors couldn't have it. That your group broke it with a house rule isn't the fault of the game designers.


-At level one--although due to a huge windfall of XP last session, this character in particular is gaining at least one, maybe two levels

He's gaining one. If he's gaining two, your DM is again house-ruling outside the scope of the RAW, and you're blaming the RAW for the DM.


my THAC0 is 13: 20, -2 for Dex, -3 for Double Specialization, -1 for being an elf, -1 for a Quality bow. This means I hit a reasonable AC of 5 on an 8... for 1d6+3 (specialization) + 2 (we're adding STR damage to bows built for it, but halved and rounded up.

I'll point out that not only did you roll high stats, but you have phenomenal gold for 1st level, as well. A strength bow is prohibitively expensive (though, look, you're using a house rule!), and you seem to have a bow which adds additional strike bonuses, which is two to five times as expensive (from a note in the DMG; I'll give you the page number when I get home).


I rolled high stats, which is, of course, the key to Winning AD&D).

It isn't the key to winning 3.x?


-That reminds me: the "10% bonus XP for having a high stat!" is pretty much the most compact example of ABSOLUTELY AWFUL game design I can imagine. A Fighter with, say, percentile strength is already at a HUGE advantage over one who doesn't have it. Whee, let's make sure he earns even more XP, too!

This was an attempt at simulationism; people with higher stats would find their jobs easier to learn, and thus would advance faster. Obviously, the idea that they'd do better at them, and thus advance faster didn't follow.


-I'm also running a bard; we have two characters each. I don't get XP for doing my social thing--in fact, if I remove a combat, I can deprive us of XP. What's more, my thief skills suck worse than a thief's, and the inspire ability is absolutely stupid.
To give a +1 bonus to hit, I have to inspire for THREE rounds first... and then the bonus lasts ONE ROUND at level 1. That's unutterably pointless.

Your DM failed to read the rules properly. I'll comment more on this when I get home. However, I'll point out that AD&D originally (pre-Combat and Tactics) had 1 minute rounds, meaning you had to inspire for about 3 minutes... a short speech, or sing a song. That inspiration, IIRC, lasted for one TURN, which was ten minutes. In 3.5, there are 6 second rounds, and it requires a standard action to inspire... meaning it requires only a few seconds to inspire people to courage, competence, or heroics.

An AD&D bard is Henry V, reciting "We few, we merry few, we band of brothers." A 3.x bard is Ray Stantz saying "Get 'er!"


-The XP tables don't actually make any sense. Fighters are much, much better than wizards at low levels. Shouldn't wizards level faster at first, and then taper off? Why do bards level so fast they get a caster level or two on Wizards?

Why would wizards learn faster than fighters? They have more difficult things to learn at first, whereas fighters will eventually reach a plateau where it is difficult to learn more.


-The saving throw tables are totally arbitrary, and, bizzarely, as you become a more powerful mage, your opponents get much less likely to be affected by your spells. They're just as challenging... your spells with saves just stop working.

Read the rationale behind saving throws in the 1st edition DMG. It was never about the wizard.


-Infravision is stupid in execution. The section that warns you to BEWARE of mixing SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY with a FANTASY REALM, however, is hilarious when read out loud in a booming self-important voice.

There are two versions of infravision. The optional version is the gradients of heat. The standard is "see in the dark."


-"Skills" are stupid. Non-weapon proficiencies never tell you what to roll, so success is basically arbitrary; why bother having them? I can just say "my character learned astrology, tailoring, and bongcrafting because of his upbringing".

You are wrong, but I am at work, so I'll address this when I get home.


-Opening doors is a Strength check. Lifting grates is a percentile roll. Why? Because AD&D is totally incoherent; each bit of the rules is designed arbitrarily in a near-complete void.

Maybe because it's easier to open a stuck door than it is to bend a bar or lift a gate, and thus the probabilities reflect that?


-At 17 Strength, you have +1 to hit, +1 damage. At 19 Strength, you have +3 to hit, +7 to damage. WTF.

Because of the intervening percentile strength, and the feeling that strength didn't add as much to your chance to hit as it did to your ability to cause damage. Strength always, except at 17, added more to damage than it did to hit.

Ok, I have to get to work. I'll address the rest of this, either at lunch or when I get home. You make some very flawed assumptions about the game that seem to be based on house rules and an incomplete understanding of the rationales behind the mechanics. I suggest reading the 1st edition DMG; it can be a slog, but it does explain a lot of the rationales.

its_all_ogre
2008-02-20, 10:07 AM
i'm with reel on love.
i'm not willing to go into it all again though as i bore quickly of following the thread to respond to those who disagree.
think i have been involved in two of these threads other the time i have been on these forum boards.

AtomicKitKat
2008-02-20, 10:11 AM
Round to round Initiative bogs down combat, but I liked it. Made for a more organic fight.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 10:16 AM
What I liked:

- Slightly faster combat, IF people knew what they were doing
- The Bard class. I like the 3x version too, but I liked the sort of jack of all trades blend of rogue and wizard a little more.
- More flexibility with stunts (i.e., no rigid rules for how something like a "bull rush" should work), but only if you had a GM that was good at coming up with how to implement those sort of things. If you didn't, then having less of a concrete system for how to handle various combat maneuvers could quickly devolve into an argument, or a GM just saying, "No, you can't do that. Just hit it with your sword."
- Some really, really nice Forgotten Realms supplements, and everything Planescape.

I agree.



- Weapon specialization

I disagree. :smallwink:



What I disliked (I acknowledge some of these things were eliminated via house rules and updates, but these were in core and therefore the official rules, so I include them):

- Race restrictions regarding dual class and multiclass
- The utter brokenness you could achieve with dual classing
- The utter suck you could achieve with multiclassing
- Race restrictions for classes
- "Prime requisites" especially when doing ability generation by the book
- Racial level caps--and by extension, the fact that ultimately, by "core," playing anything but a human ultimately sucked
- Calculating f****** THAC0. I never want to play a game where I need a "cheat sheet" for my to-hit rolls again.
- The extreme limitedness of secondary skills and nonweapon proficiencies, especially when you played with a DM who said, "If you don't have the proficiency, you can't do it. You can't even make an ability check, no."
- The fact that casting "Teleport" comes with a chance of death. (Admittedly, I hold a special grudge against this because this happened to me. When we were in the middle of fighting the Tarrasque.)
- The fact that "Haste" ages you.
- Generally, any other bizarre, life-threatening side-effect of casting a simple spell, and most save-or-suck situations, which I seemed to encounter far more often while playing AD&D than playing D&D 3.x
- By the book, female characters couldn't have an 18 strength.
- The fact that any stat under 16 completely sucked, even though 16 was theoretically supposed to be significantly above human average (and when you had a Str of 16 and a party member had 18/00 strength, and people considered you the "weak" and "useless" member of the party because of it)

Broadly, I agree.



- The general inconsistency of the core mechanic--you needed to roll high for some things, low for others. Increased the learning curve of the game unnecessarily. Veteran players don't worry about it, but I remember it was frustrating when learning how to play.

Heh, heh. There was no real core mechanic in AD&D, just the idea that tasks with a chance of failure should use dice to model the probability.



- Too much left to the DM's judgement. AD&D might be great if you have a really, really good, flexible and creative GM. It absolutely sucks if you don't.

I think that's putting things too strongly. A good game experience did heavily rely on having a skilled DM. On the other hand, when everyone is new to the game (including the DM) it doesn't seem to matter.

Given the choice, I probably wouldn't play in any RPG with an unskilled DM, unless it was with a view to seeing him improve!



Wow, that post was astonishing. You managed to misunderstand, misinterpret, or just flat out not bother to read most of the AD&D system.

It looks as if you've managed to distill every misconception about AD&D into a single post. I'd go through point by point and argue them all, but somebody's already done that and it seems you've already decided to hate the system unreasonably anyway.

EDIT: On second thought, I realize that this post is pretty harsh. I'll add this to say that no personal offense is intended. My post was merely intended to express my amusement at what I perceive to be stubborn and willfull non-comprehension.

Indeed, let's try and keep our heads. It's easy to respond to an inflammatory post (whether intentional or not) in kind, which is of course self perpetuating.

It is not like the AD&D rules are well edited, so many misunderstandings are the result of poor layout and the fact that fully understanding the AD&D 2e Core Rules almost necessitates familiarity with the 1e AD&D Core Books!

More importantly, we should recognise that AD&D is in no way a complete or systematic rule set and so will always fail to meet that criteria if set up as the standard of 'good'.



i'm not willing to go into it all again though as i bore quickly of following the thread to respond to those who disagree.
think i have been involved in two of these threads other the time i have been on these forum boards.

More than that, I would say. I didn't realise it was boredom that stopped you responding. A pity, because, as I recall, the counters to your points were pretty devastating.

Zincorium
2008-02-20, 10:31 AM
Things about 2nd Edition that bugged the heck out of me:

-The myriad saving throws. If there was some consistent reason why certain things were one save and other things were different saves, I could see this as a pro, but 'incoherent' is a good term.

-Weapon types vs. armor types. No one I know actually used this rule in game, it slowed things down way too much and didn't improve the game at all.

-Magic item creation rules. WTF. Cleric item creation was stupidly easy if you were in your diety's good graces, for wizards it was essentially 'have your DM make something up'. Thank you TSR, for telling me in a page and a half long section that I need to make something up out of thin air. If I'm looking in a section on creating magic items, maybe it's because I'd like some rules, eh?

-The high ability score bonus XP. Enough has been said on this one.

-Kits. Oh man. Either they were broken to the point of no return or they simply had no point. Admittedly, this was an optional thing, but even the bad prestige classes in 3rd ed aren't that extreme, especially as you don't get everything in a prestige class at 1st level.

-Unless you were willing to make up 80% or more of the rules, the game was nearly unplayable. A mediocre DM could ruin a game without trying.


Things I did like:

-Settings were pretty much entirely fluff, something like planescape is impossible to nail down in crunch.

Unfortunately, that's about it. Everything else is just happy memories.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-20, 10:35 AM
-Unless you were willing to make up 80% or more of the rules, the game was nearly unplayable. A mediocre DM could ruin a game without trying.


A mediocre DM can ruin *any* game without trying.

I'd rather have to make up 80% of the rules than have a game which won't let me do anything there aren't rules for.

Zincorium
2008-02-20, 10:48 AM
A mediocre DM can ruin *any* game without trying.

A mediocre (not bad, not good, just mediocre) DM can run a 3.x game in a way that's still relatively fun.


I'd rather have to make up 80% of the rules than have a game which won't let me do anything there aren't rules for.

What is it with people who are willing to change rules in one edition but not in others?

Its the same deal. Third edition just gives you something to work with, a starting point if you will. Second edition didn't even have guidelines for many things.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 11:01 AM
A mediocre (not bad, not good, just mediocre) DM can run a 3.x game in a way that's still relatively fun.

Lots of issues there (such as whether good DMing is an acquired skill, how one acquires it, whether D20 is condusive to acquiring it, whether it needs to be, what constitutes a good or bad DM, etc...). It is true that D20 runs along pretty nicely by itself, but I think that is pretty much the issue (and the root of the "it's too much like a video game" complaint).



What is it with people who are willing to change rules in one edition but not in others?

Its the same deal. Third edition just gives you something to work with, a starting point if you will. Second edition didn't even have guidelines for many things.

True, of course. For me, though, it's the difference in expectation and emphasis. D20 is supposed to work straight out of the box, whilst AD&D was put together with the expectation that it would be used as a tool kit. If you ever owned First Quest, you might know what AD&D out of the box looks like (pretty good, in all honesty).

Kurald Galain
2008-02-20, 11:02 AM
A mediocre (not bad, not good, just mediocre) DM can run a 3.x game in a way that's still relatively fun.

You're using two separate definitions of "mediocre" here. It is simply false that, for the same "level" of DM skill, any 3E game will automatically be better than any 2E game.

Since "mediocre" means "average", and the average group playing whatever game you think of is having fun or they wouldn't be playing that, it follows that any half-way popular game can be played by "mediocre" players (and DMs) and still be fun.

Bad DMs, on the other hand, can ruin any system, any setting. That's what makes them bad, and that's their fault, not the setting's.

its_all_ogre
2008-02-20, 11:26 AM
@ matthew

i typically did read the responses but it got to the point of silliness.
i liked playing it when i first started.
then i dm'd and found that a lot of the 'rules' were not in fact rules at all. lacking of so many things i regard as essential (magic item creation in the 3 necessary books-i don't much care about splatbooks) ruined it for me.

3.x has those rules.

plus i prefer games with clear concise rules that state what you can do so that players can design their characters with that in mind. 2nd ed just did not have that.

2nd ed games could be good with a good dm. but an ok dm can run 3.x fine purely because there are actual rules in place and not 'make it up' guidelines, you could point to the dm the section of move silently for example. rather than no rules for a fighter sneaking along leaving a dm to just let enemies hear them etc.

end of the day some people like some things and others like different things.

i'm a regular gym goer and some of my friends try it and don;t like it. when i ask why they explain all their reasons and i tell them all sorts of solutions to the issues they're having and they try them and it doesn't work out.
end of the day i like it and they don't, that's life end of the day :smallsmile:

Dan_Hemmens
2008-02-20, 11:39 AM
A mediocre (not bad, not good, just mediocre) DM can run a 3.x game in a way that's still relatively fun.

The key word here is "relatively".


What is it with people who are willing to change rules in one edition but not in others?

Its the same deal. Third edition just gives you something to work with, a starting point if you will. Second edition didn't even have guidelines for many things.

The point is that there is a big, important difference between adjudicating something not covered by the rules, and actively changing something that *is* covered by the rules.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 11:44 AM
*stuff*

I agree with that. After all, diverse preferences are the reason so many different, but essentially similar, RPGs exist.

On the other hand, misinformed or absolute statements are guarenteed to cause considerable consternation (and inflammation!), which I think we can see in action above. :smallwink:

hamlet
2008-02-20, 12:28 PM
Indeed, let's try and keep our heads. It's easy to respond to an inflammatory post (whether intentional or not) in kind, which is of course self perpetuating.

It is not like the AD&D rules are well edited, so many misunderstandings are the result of poor layout and the fact that fully understanding the AD&D 2e Core Rules almost necessitates familiarity with the 1e AD&D Core Books!

More importantly, we should recognise that AD&D is in no way a complete or systematic rule set and so will always fail to meet that criteria if set up as the standard of 'good'.



You know, I realized that what I said was harsh and I'll try to soften it, but it's posts like Reel On Love's that really really get my ire up. It's broad opinion based on shoddy or non-existant comprehension presented as fact that just makes me see red. I deal with it every day, all day at work, and then I cruise this board where I try to relax and see it all the time.

It actually took me a good while before I could respond to that post with something other than a whole lot of four letter words.

Oh, I'll never say that the AD&D rules were well edited, but then again, I'll never say the same about 3.x rules. And you're right, the fact that I usually have to be familiar with 1st edition, or be willing to go from the intent to the execution is a detractor at times, but then again, that's something I like: that the intent is stronger than the written execution.

And I would love to know what your issue is with non-weapon proficiencies. I've heard that one so often, and no actual explination of it, that I often suspect that it's just a mindless tautology, but to hear you repeat it . . .

Matthew
2008-02-20, 12:52 PM
Heh, I can't say my initial thoughts were very generous either.



And I would love to know what your issue is with non-weapon proficiencies. I've heard that one so often, and no actual explination of it, that I often suspect that it's just a mindless tautology, but to hear you repeat it . . .
Two reasons, really, neither of which have much to do with the actual mechanic itself, which I have defended on many occasions. :smallwink:

1) Player Character Non Weapon Proficiency Acquisition Rate: To be frank, this sucks. I hate that my options as to what a character can do are limited by an arbitrary number of slots, that I am tempted to take a Kit to pick up the slack and that my next slot won't appear until Level X. It's basically the same thing that I hate about the D20 Feat System. It does provide a solid reason to invest in Intelligence for more initial slots, but that's about it. This also applies to Weapon Proficiency Slots, of course.

2) Defined Limitations: In telling me what my Character can do when he has Proficiency X, the Non Weapon Proficiency System also tells me what he cannot do without it, which rubs me the wrong way. As soon as you create a 'Ride' skill you have Player Characters falling off horses (I know that's not the way the Ride Proficiency was supposed to work, but it was in practice the way it was often implemented). I want to be free to decide what skills a given character possesses and for him to acquire new ones as a result of in game actions. Again, this is basically the same problem that I have with the D20 Feat System.

hamlet
2008-02-20, 01:28 PM
Heh, I can't say my initial thoughts were very generous either.


Two reasons, really, neither of which have much to do with the actual mechanic itself, which I have defended on many occasions. :smallwink:

1) Player Character Non Weapon Proficiency Acquisition Rate: To be frank, this sucks. I hate that my options as to what a character can do are limited by an arbitrary number of slots, that I am tempted to take a Kit to pick up the slack and that my next slot won't appear until Level X. It's basically the same thing that I hate about the D20 Feat System. It does provide a solid reason to invest in Intelligence for more initial slots, but that's about it. This also applies to Weapon Proficiency Slots, of course.

2) Defined Limitations: In telling me what my Character can do when he has Proficiency X, the Non Weapon Proficiency System also tells me what he cannot do without it, which rubs me the wrong way. As soon as you create a 'Ride' skill you have Player Characters falling off horses (I know that's not the way the Ride Proficiency was supposed to work, but it was in practice the way it was often implemented). I want to be free to decide what skills a given character possesses and for him to acquire new ones as a result of in game actions. Again, this is basically the same problem that I have with the D20 Feat System.

I've never had a problem with this ever. Either as a player or DM.

I'll admit to occasionally bemoaning a lack of slots to devote to language skills, but that's only very occasionaly and can be solved with a simple patch of "everybody knows x number of extra languages."

Add on top of that that I've NEVER seen them as restrictive in the slightest. Have never told a player (or been told as a player) that just because my character doesn't have "Rope Use" he can't tie a basic knot. However, I have said that without it, you can't tie complicated knots or creat rigging or something complicated.

Having the non-weapon proficiency always meant only one thing to me and to everybody I've gamed with over more than a few sessions: that the character is skilled enough at that proficiency to make his living with it. Having the "Weaponsmithing" proficiency means that the guy can earn a living making weapons. Not having it means that you never learned, or were never taught the skills that coincide with that proficiency, but given a bit of time, some luck, and a fair amount of swearing, you could fake it (i.e., you might be able to clumsily repair the chain on your flail, or reattach the crossguards on your sword. Someone with the carpentry proficinecy is a master carpenter, but the guy without the proficiency can still muster up enough native talen to build himself your basic peasant hovel, or throw together a makeshift scaffold.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 01:49 PM
Heh. Don't get me wrong, I understand that point of view, but then why not just use Secondary Skills or simply assume characters have whatever skills seem appropriate and ignore the whole Proficiency issue? [i.e. "Jeros is a skilled carpenter," as opposed to "Jeros has devoted x slots to the carpenting proficiency."]

Mind, I should probably point out that I don't think the D20 skill system is any better (probably even worse).

Thane of Fife
2008-02-20, 02:05 PM
As soon as you create a 'Ride' skill you have Player Characters falling off horses

I've always liked the Eating proficiency out of the Complete Book of Humanoids, personally.

hamlet
2008-02-20, 02:23 PM
Heh. Don't get me wrong, I understand that point of view, but then why not just use Secondary Skills or just assume characters have whatever skills seem appropriate and ignore the whole Proficiency issue?

Mind, I should probably point out that I don't think the D20 skill system is any better (probably even worse).

I've got little against the secondary skills system. It's pretty nice if you're wanting to go for a very down and dirty, ultra-gritty style game where you're trying to reflect a significatnly more medieval attitude (i.e., you are what you do). However, I found that it required a whole lot more handwavium than I was really happy with.

I actually created a document for when I last used secondary skills based on what your character class could reasonably be expected to know of, and know how to do. It's long since lost, but it went something like this:


The fighter.

Congratulations, you've graduated from advanced "how not to die" training. This training includes such basic skills as knowing not to set up your tent in the dry creek bed or eat the red berries by the side of the road without the trail master's say so.

You are a trained warrior, which means that, at some point in the past, you saw a goblin and didn't soil yourself.

You know enough to identify various weapons and armors of common type, how to maintain your own equipment in most standard environments, and just enough to repair minor damage (dings, scratches, dents, twisted blades, snapped hafts, or torn straps) to your own equipment.

You are an expert in skills such as stabbing other people, carrying heavy things, running away in fear while looking professional, obeying orders, giving orders, formulating basic battle plans (the pointy end goes in the other man), and fighting things with big pointy teeth and scarey claws.

With an INT check, you might be able to do the following: the name, function, and import of a particular formation battle maneuver; repair a weapon or bit of armor that has been badly damaged (though it'll never look new or professional); remember an old and pertinent war story; recognize when your enemies are doing something suspicious in battle; recognize the relative military skill of your oponents (after they've whalloped you for a few rounds) . . .



It went on for about two pages per class like that.

After a while, I realized it might just be better to let them have non-weapon proficiencies and let the rest come down to common sense.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 02:36 PM
Heh, tell me about it. Back in 2000, and before I knew much about D20, I turned AD&D into a Class/Skill Based Game with several hundred proficiencies and uniform advancement rates. The net result was that I still couldn't quite build characters how I wanted and NPC creation had become laboriously complex. Castles & Crusades strikes a good middle ground for this sort of thing, but I'm not struck on the concept of 'Primes'.

Now I only use common sense!

hamlet
2008-02-20, 02:59 PM
Heh, tell me about it. Back in 2000, and before I knew much about D20, I turned AD&D into a Class/Skill Based Game with several hundred proficiencies and uniform advancement rates. The net result was that I still couldn't quite build characters how I wanted and NPC creation had become laboriously complex. Castles & Crusades strikes a good middle ground for this sort of thing, but I'm not struck on the concept of 'Primes'.

Now I only use common sense!

I've never had the chance to look at C&C close enough to form an opinion about it, but I get the sense from it that it's so close to AD&D in intent that there'd be no point in playing it as opposed to AD&D. Especially since the community of players appears just about as sparse.

Though I will say it's far more appealing than 3.x or what I've seen of 4.0.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 03:18 PM
Check these links out:

Quick Start Rules (http://www.trolllord.com/newsite/downloads/pdfs/cnc_qs.pdf)
Monsters & Treasure ( http://www.trolllord.com/files/monsters.pdf)
The Rising Knight ( http://www.trolllord.com/newsite/downloads/pdfs/knight.pdf)
A Lion in the Ropes (http://www.trolllord.com/files/cclion.pdf)

Castles & Crusades is very close to AD&D, but it has something called the 'Siege Engine', which is used for Task Resolution. Basically, a Character choose 2-3 Attributes to be 'Primes'. What this means is that any task associated with that Attribute has a basic 45% (12+ on 1D20) chance of success. Any task that is not associated with a Prime Attribute has a basic 15% (18+ on 1D20) chance of success. The Player adds the level and Attribute Modifier (-3 to +3) of his chararacter to the roll and the DM/CK adjusts the target number (12 or 18) for difficulty and in accordance with the character/situation.

So, for instance:

In D20 a Level 1 Bard might have 4 Ranks in Diplomacy, a Charisma of 18 (+4 Modifier) and Skill Focus: Diplomacy (+3). To hit a difficulty of 18 he needs 7+ (70%) on 1D20.

In C&C a Level 1 Bard with Charisma 18 (+3) as a Prime needs to roll 8+ (65%) to succeed with the same task.

Me, assuming we didn't roleplay it out, I would probably just assign a percentage of around 50%, add the character's attribute and take into account his class, level and background.

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-20, 03:36 PM
Here are what I hated about AD&D:

1)Elves couldn't be raised. This was based on something Tolkien established, how the Elves were immortal in Middle Earth, and how their souls were different than the other races. In practical terms it meant that if your Elf died he wasn't coming back.

2) Race/Class restrictions and Level Limits. Level limits always bugged me, even back in my Basic D&D days. Having established that Elves are immortal, let's prevent them from reaching higher than 12th level as Wizards unless they have a 19 INT. Elves love music so much we won't let them become Bards. Dwarves shouldn't be able to be Magic-Users because there were none in Middle Earth. The weirdest Race/Class restriction was for the Fremlin from the Complete Book of Humanoids. These Gremlin-types couldn't become Fighters!

3) Dual-Classing. No one I played with ever did this, when they could just play a Half-Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief at first level.

4) The number of Weapon Proficiencies given out were too few. In practice you either chose the Weapons you could afford, or you took Two-Handed Sword, Composite Longbow, and hoped you got enough gold on your first adventure to buy weapons you could use. People who complain about not having enough Feats in 3.X should track down a copy of the 2E PHB: Fighters got to be proficient in exactly 4 weapons at first level, three or less if you specialized.

5) The rediculous Non-Weapon Proficiency system. There were proficiencies for weaving, telling the weather, and rolling dice, but not for hiding, moving silently, listening or any social skill. The proficiencies were based on an Attribute plus or minus a number, which you had to roll less than to succeed. The only way to improve a NWP was to take it again, when you got another in three levels (four if you're a thief or a bard). While the 3.X skill system has problems (I much prefer the one in Star Wars Saga Edition), at least the number of skills are kept down compared to the sheer number of NWPs, and you can improve a skill at a regular interval (every level, or every other level).

6) THAC0. There I said it. :P

7) Maximum number of spells per level for Wizards, and no bonus spells from high INT. These two rules made life hell for Mages. Unlike Priests who got bonus spells for high WIS, Mages got no bonus spells for a high INT, and if their INT was too low they were limited in the number of spells of a particular level they could ever learn. Let's say a Wizard had an INT of 15. That's a respectable score for a 2E character rolling 3d6, but this character can only learn 11 spells of each level. That's right 11. (I looked it up in my old 2E PHB.) An INT of 19 allows someone to learn All spells of a given level, provided they have money for spellbooks.

8 ) Percentile Strength.

9) The Unarmed Combat Rules.

10) Five Saving Throws. What is the difference between saving vs. Spells and saving vs. Rods, Staves and Wands? Or between Spells and Petrification/Polymorph? Beats me. If I get polymorphed by an Actaeon's breath weapon I save vs. polymorph, but if I a wand of polymorph is used on me I save vs. Rods, Staves and Wands. Why did it have to be so complicated?

11) Spells that age the caster or recipient, like Haste. I never would have let Haste be cast on my character in 2E, because you age 1 year when it's cast on you.

12) The Initiative and Weapon Speed system. In 2E characters with a lower Init roll went first. However characters attacking with spells or weapons had to add a number to their Initiative total. Which meant that a ponderous beast would go before a lightly armored archer with a bow, since the composite longbow adds +7 to her initiative roll.

13) Movement rates based on inches. This was a holdover from the Chainmail rules. In 2E the numbers were kept, but the inches sign disappeared, replaced by tens of yards.

14) Surprise rolls were inconsistent with the move silently and hide in shadows thief skills.

I could probably think of more, but this covers many things I disliked about 2E.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 03:45 PM
14) Surprise rolls were inconsistent with the move silently and hide in shadows thief skills.

I can understand the other complaints, but I have to ask about this one. If a Thief successfully Moves Silently or Hides in Shadows he should get the same bonuses (or close to them) as being Magically Invisible or Silent.

Also Weapon Speeds and Monsters. Though I think weapon speeds are borked in 2e, I should point out that they were supposed to be used in conjunction with the Initiative Modifiers for Monsters.

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-20, 03:56 PM
I can understand the other complaints, but I have to ask about this one. If a Thief successfully Moves Silently or Hides in Shadows he should get the same bonuses (or close to them) as being Magically Invisible or Silent.


Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems much simpler in 3.X, where anyone can try to hide, and there is a simple rule for determining whether anyone sees them. In 2E a thief can try to Hide in Shadows, and if he suceeds no one has a way of detecting him, at least without the Detect Noise ability.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 04:09 PM
Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems much simpler in 3.X, where anyone can try to hide, and there is a simple rule for determining whether anyone sees them.

Common misunderstanding. Anyone can try and hide in AD&D. If you hide behind a wall, you're hidden. If there is a chance of being discovered, the DM assigns the probability and rolls the dice. Same for sneaking. D20 provides an explicit mechanic that varies by Class/Race/Skill Ranks/Feats/Distance etc... which is also fine, but results in the same thing, the creation of a probability of discovery. The only difference is how it' determined.



In 2E a thief can try to Hide in Shadows, and if he suceeds no one has a way of detecting him, at least without the Detect Noise ability.

Actually, Detect Noise is useless for perceiving somebody hidden in the shadows. :smallbiggrin: It's also useless for detecting somebody moving absolutely silently, though. Thief Skills are very powerful, which is why the percentages of success are so low. The only way to detect a Thief hidden in shadows is to physically touch him or otherwise magicall detect him. It's impossible to hear a Thief who is Moving Silently - he is silent.

Surprise, though, is abstract. A Thief who moves silently or hides in shadows has an increased chance of achieving surprise, exactly how much is never spelt out, but based on the modifiers for being invisible, silent or an Elf/Halfling it's not hard to guess what they should probably be.

hamlet
2008-02-20, 04:58 PM
Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems much simpler in 3.X, where anyone can try to hide, and there is a simple rule for determining whether anyone sees them. In 2E a thief can try to Hide in Shadows, and if he suceeds no one has a way of detecting him, at least without the Detect Noise ability.

Dang, had a nice post, then the interweb ate it.

This is a misconception.

Any moron can try to hide or sneak. A fighter, for example, can hike up his chain mail so that he clinks less and can creep past a closed door, or around a camp of sleeping gnolls. Or a wizard could try to hide behind a bush.

A thief, however, is a master at hiding and sneaking, and his skill in the area is so great that his actions are qualitatively different. His ability to hide is so good that it's uncanny. He can hide while somebody is looking right at him. He doesn't just sneak, or move quietly, he moves entirely silently.

These are a thief's special abilities, and when third edition handed them out to other classes like candy it kind of killed the class in my mind.

Blue Paladin
2008-02-20, 05:02 PM
3) Dual-Classing. No one I played with ever did this, when they could just play a Half-Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief at first level.Ah, but you could have cheezed so much more out of the level-limit-less human dual classer. Once that Half-Elf hit the racial level limit for one of his classes, that's suddenly 1/3 of his XP going entirely to waste. Then 2/3 of his XP...


4) The number of Weapon Proficiencies given out were too few. In practice you either chose the Weapons you could afford, or you took Two-Handed Sword, Composite Longbow, and hoped you got enough gold on your first adventure to buy weapons you could use. People who complain about not having enough Feats in 3.X should track down a copy of the 2E PHB: Fighters got to be proficient in exactly 4 weapons at first level, three or less if you specialized.For the melee artist, 3 Proficiencies for Broad Weapon Group (something melee). 1 Proficiency for Specialization with one of those weapons.

Or for the ranged specialist, 1 Proficiency (ranged weapon). 1 Proficiency for Specialization. 2 to put into Awl Pike and Flail, just for fun.

If you want "well-rounded", 2 Proficiencies for Tight Weapon Group (some melee type). 1 Proficiency for Specialization. 1 Proficiency for (ranged weapon).

I usually specialized in Daggers. ROF second only to Darts, and Specialization bonuses to hit and damage applied to both melee and range. The rest of those Proficiencies were so much wasted space...


9) The Unarmed Combat Rules.These were awesome! I usually used those aforementioned wasted Weapon Proficiencies to Specialize in unarmed combat and/or wrestling. Chart Bonuses were the best. You wanted to roll high enough to hit, but low enough to score the big K.O. percentage... Good times!


11) Spells that age the caster or recipient, like Haste. I never would have let Haste be cast on my character in 2E, because you age 1 year when it's cast on you.You just quoted the exact reason I learned the spell with my one (and only) Evil character. Haste was my favorite torture spell.


12) The Initiative and Weapon Speed system. In 2E characters with a lower Init roll went first. However characters attacking with spells or weapons had to add a number to their Initiative total. Which meant that a ponderous beast would go before a lightly armored archer with a bow, since the composite longbow adds +7 to her initiative roll.A ponderous beast would have added his natural attack speed (at least spd 3, and if it's as ponderous as you're suggesting, it probably had a +modifier from low Dexterity). The archer would reduce her spd 7 by her Dexterity modifier, hopefully at least -2 (one would hope -4) for a ranged type character. And if you really wanted to be "sure" about it, then you'd bust out the Long Sword (spd 4) or even Dagger (spd 2) instead. Doesn't stop those pesky rolls of 1 vs 9 though...

Man, now I'm all nostalgic.

Mike_G
2008-02-20, 05:27 PM
Ah, but you could have cheezed so much more out of the level-limit-less human dual classer. Once that Half-Elf hit the racial level limit for one of his classes, that's suddenly 1/3 of his XP going entirely to waste. Then 2/3 of his XP...

For the melee artist, 3 Proficiencies for Broad Weapon Group (something melee). 1 Proficiency for Specialization with one of those weapons.

Or for the ranged specialist, 1 Proficiency (ranged weapon). 1 Proficiency for Specialization. 2 to put into Awl Pike and Flail, just for fun.

If you want "well-rounded", 2 Proficiencies for Tight Weapon Group (some melee type). 1 Proficiency for Specialization. 1 Proficiency for (ranged weapon).

I usually specialized in Daggers. ROF second only to Darts, and Specialization bonuses to hit and damage applied to both melee and range. The rest of those Proficiencies were so much wasted space...

These were awesome! I usually used those aforementioned wasted Weapon Proficiencies to Specialize in unarmed combat and/or wrestling. Chart Bonuses were the best. You wanted to roll high enough to hit, but low enough to score the big K.O. percentage... Good times!

You just quoted the exact reason I learned the spell with my one (and only) Evil character. Haste was my favorite torture spell.

A ponderous beast would have added his natural attack speed (at least spd 3, and if it's as ponderous as you're suggesting, it probably had a +modifier from low Dexterity). The archer would reduce her spd 7 by her Dexterity modifier, hopefully at least -2 (one would hope -4) for a ranged type character. And if you really wanted to be "sure" about it, then you'd bust out the Long Sword (spd 4) or even Dagger (spd 2) instead. Doesn't stop those pesky rolls of 1 vs 9 though...

Man, now I'm all nostalgic.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

Do you do the 1040 long form for fun?

Reel On, Love
2008-02-20, 07:24 PM
What 3.5 games aren't modified in some way?

Hmm, personally I enjoy the system just as much, possibly more than 3.5...
I'm not sure how you can. It's very, well... primitive. I don't think it even has a coherent goal, much less one it's streamlined for.

The 3.5 games I play in are modified somewhat, but nowhere near to the extent AD&D essentially *had* to be. Has.



I can follow the book just fine, and what do you mean by 'handwave everything'? That the DM has to make up on the spot rules for something the designers wouldn't think comes up enough to merit space in the book instead of having to look up "Rules you never knew you needed" and/or the Rules Compendium to search for the relevant rules to come to the conclusion that: It isn't there, on the spot rule time/You don't have this feat you'd never heard of so no, or with massive penalties/You can do it, just follow this set of rules as concise as the grapple rule. Or that everything's mystically decided by DM whim and not dice? In which case you are playing freeform, you just haven't noticed yet.
The AD&D grappling rules are no shining stars. Random-roll what you do in a grapple? WOO WOO.
Yes, I mean the DM making up percentages. "You're, uh... 40% likely to sneak by him."

Just what are these thing you can do by the AD&D rules that you can't do by the 3.5 rules?



That's a problem with the houserule being unbalanced, not the system. You could have a similarly powerful houserule in any system. As for one spell right now? Yeah, it sucks, but realistically, you could have a pure mage with throwing weapons or a quarterstaff still add their contributions to damage, just don't be in the front line.
Yeah, I'm sure a pure mage with throwing weapons or quarterstaffs would add so much to damage. Our pure mages are apparently doing it wrong, though, because even though they're elves with bows, they still don't do anything noteworthy whenever they're not plunking down one of their two spells.

The problem is definitely with archery specialization, NOT the house rule. My character could be a pure fighter--there's one in the group with pretty much the same archery skill--and the problem would be the same. Being a mage on top of it just means that I get a spell every day.


This one I agree entirely with.
I should bloody well hope.


That's bad DMing - if you've removed the need for combat, you've still defeated the encounter, you just found a different way to defeat it.
Welcome to something that ISN'T AD&D mentality. That's perfectly reasonable, and it's 3.5 rules--but it's NOT AD&D rules. You get XP for combat and treasure, period. Oh, and traps, if you're a thief.


Your thief skills are worse than a thiefs because otherwise there's little point to play a thief! Play a thief who gets some backstab and Thieves' Cant, or play a thief with spells and inspiring abilities...And yes, I agree that inspirations could've been done better, but when you start going up levels, bet it'll seem a lot better...
Bards are already limited in which thief skills they can take; giving them so few points means I can't have a reasonable chance of success at anything.



Because it's a way to try and balance the classes. Why try to balance the level 17 Fighter against the level 17 Wizard when you can just make the better classes for that level need more experience so they get their best abilities later? And, by the way, I personally find it amusing you didn't mention the druid's XP table...
You try to balance the level 17 Fighter against the level 17 wizard because then you have a comparison point. The AD&D equivalent would be balancing the 1,000,000 XP fighter against the 1,000,000 XP wizard, say--you still have to DO it.

Also, the XP tables *don't* balance things--they're a hodgepodge of attempts balance *and* attempts at realism. What Mark said about clashing simulationism and gamism applies here. A level 2 Fighter is obviously more powerful than a level 2 wizard... but he needs LESS XP to level. And thieves level fastest of all, presumably so they can actually try to *use* their skills, but as a result learning to be a master thief requires a lot less XP than being a skilled warrior.


Unfortunatly, I don't have my PHB here, but I'm pretty sure most of the higher level spells have save penalties inbuilt, spells to knock down saves and hefty problems if you fail it. And I don't find it arbitrary - Fighter, tough, bulky, muscled, good vs poisons and similar, bad vs magical effects...Rogues, decent against most things...Wizard, good vs magical effects, poor vs poisons...
Yes, spells with saving throw penalties. But then there's the ones that don't have them... and you're not going to cast them. Really, that's the kind of thing that should just be formalized into the spell's level having an effect on--oh, right, spell DCs factor spell level in.

The actual numbers, and when they increase, are pretty arbitrary. Warriors start out as universally worse than rogues, but then get nearly universally better... and for some reason have finer granularity. Oh, yeah: wizard saves change every 5 levels, Rogue every 4, Priest every 3, and Warrior every 2.
Rogues start off as better at resisting death magic, because it's part of the poison group. Meanwhile, priests are always more poison-resistant than Warriors, and *much* more so than rogues.


I think it works well enough.
It does so long as you don't try and make it *actual infravision*, as in heat-source-based, yes.


They tell you the stat and they tell you the bonus/penalty on it...I'll give you a hint, getting under the stat's the most sensible result for success.
Yeah, OK, my bad there. Still, that leads to some really wonky things, because attribute influences it so much.


They're both strength checks technically. But go on, tell me how easy it is to break down a door compared to lifting a similar sized solid metal portculus...
My problem isn't with the difficulty. My problem is that one strength-based task is a Strength check, while the other is a percentile roll. Why do Forcing Open Doors and Bending Bars (which is exactly as difficult as lifting a portcullis, apparently) have different resolution mechanisms?! Apparently 5% increments are fine for opening big doors, but not for lifting gates. Thank you, Realism?



Exceptional strength fills in the gap nicely between the most brilliant of humans, elves, etc and the weakest of giants. Bear that in mind, 19 is a Giant's strength.
It's also the maximum half-orc strength.
The difference between a human and a halfling is a mere 1 strength despite halflings being half as big, but then there's five categories of exceptional strength and the guy with 15 Strength still doesn't hit any harder than the guy with 8 and how is this coherent? What, other than long-term familiarity, could make you think that 16 being +1 Damage, 18 being +1 AB, +2 damage, 18/99 being +2 to hit and +5 damage, and 18/00 beign +3 to hit and +6 damage (apparently, that extra bit of muscle pushes you over the edge into being able to hit better) is somehow rational and well-thought-out?

Apparently, strength doesn't factor. Also, damage scales a lot faster than AB... just for that exceptional strength; once it hits 19-25 it goes back to +1 AB for every +2 damage or so. WTF? Who wrote this, and why did they do that?


I think it models a population quite nicely, some people are better at hitting or dodging, the vast majority aren't. And it's not as punishing as 3.0/3.5 either. Darn, I got a 9 and a 8 that I have to put somewhere...Oh look, no penalties unless I take a skill related to that stat...
Most people in a population hit exactly as hard, from the scrawny slightly underweight guy to the muscular guy who works out... except for a very small group which hits hard enough to kill people with one shot of a club on 100% of hits?
Having a 9 in Strength for a non-STR-based character is going to hurt you more in AD&D whenever you make Strength checks.


You use SS/RS? Can't say my group ever has, just seems pointless to be honest. Also, you seem to say at the end that high/low Con scores don't give a modifier to save vs. poison, but then in the same sentance that they do...
Having a 3 or 17 CON won't get you a modifier to save vs. poison... but apparently, 2 or 19 CON pushes you over the edge. To... getting a minor modifier. God, why didn't they just leave that out entirely?
We've used System Shock; it came up with illusion spells. It's a crap mechanic, and it's even more crap because of how it's applied. "I Haste you! Make a System Shock roll to survive". WTF.


Now if you used it, would it possibly make the Fighter vs Wizard XP tables a bit more balanced? The Wizard's share of the gold went on these scrolls, but he's not got all of the spells. The Fighter's went on potions, rings, armour, etc that all work fine. And yep, but then, the higher level illusion likely has more raw magical energy in it - it's not the illusion that's important, it's how powerful it is.



Because being in the, what, 40% most wise people in the realm means you should be able to tap into the weave/divine power flawlessly?
YES! First of all, being a CLERIC means you should be able to tap into the spells your god grants you flawlessly; if they didn't want you casting them, they wouldn't have given them to you. Why is this percentage the same for both divine and arcane magic? And finally, YES. You should not have to have an *exceptional* wisdom just to use your class abilities already. Wizardry's hard. Isn't that what the wizard XP/level table is for? Isn't that how we justify low-level wizards sucking? Why do we need THIS, too? Why does that 5% chance disappear at 13 wisdom, rather than at 9 or 10 or 15? No one knows!



That's a problem with the houserule. My group sticks to it and it works.
Your group sticks to racial level caps? You're pretty much the only ones, as I understand it. No, that doesn't work! Racial level caps are completely stupid. "Durr, my elf just can't learn to fight any better than THIS. Woo, fun times 'round the table for all!"


Tell that to my group's paladin...Who does the most damage out of our group round for round easily, except possibly for out machine gun mage with several castings of Magic Missile and a wand of Magic Missile.
Okay--and your Paladin wouldn't do more damage as a pure Fighter *how* exactly?


Besides, Paladin's are supposed to be rarer than other adventurers. And you want to run a Paladin? Talk to the DM about it. So long as they're reasonably, it should be a problem to get a slight fudge for the 17, or a comprimise like roll for all stats that don't have a minimum, if you get better Dex than required Str, possibly swapping them, etc.
Ah, yes. Fudge your stats. The key to being able to do what you want in AD&D.
Paladins are supposed to be rare in the game-world. That doesn't mean you should have to roll a number on some dice to get to freaking play one, it just means there shouldn't be a high population of them in-game.


I'm fairly sure there's some form of empathic link, but then, I've never seen a ranger used, so I can't be sure.
No, these are ranger followers. You know how Fighters get armsmen that show up and follow'em? Well, rangers can get bears. Who just show up and chill. But you can't talk to them or anything.


Yes, but look at the bigger picture. You don't have an opposed listen percentage with bonuses for points in MS, that has to be factored in some other other way, and that way is penalties and a slightly lower base chance/bonuses that if there was a listen check involved.
What? We're talking about *percentage chance of success*. If what you were saying had a point, that should be subsumed by the base percent chance of Move Silently. You in no way explained why it makes sense for a "positive", above average 12 DEX to provide a penalty to sneaking, but 13 gets away just fine.


Wait, actually having to use Thieves and Rangers as scouts instead of the full plate wearing Fighter? And there're still ways, items like boots/cloak of elvenkind to aid sneaking to even the clumbsiest of warriors. And if your DM has you step on a loud, squeaky floorboard and you don't get to know? That's a problem with the DM, any fair one usually has a range of acceptable failure where you don't know and the "Oops..." failures.
No, see, sometimes my Fighter isn't wearing fullplate. In fact, my Fighter/Mage in my game has a high DEX, because he's an archer, and no armor, because he uses the Armor spell. I can be reasonably expected to maybe have to sneak up, if not on somebody, then within a hundred feet of them or something. How do we do that? The rules don't say. Apparently, they never thought anybody but Thieves would want to do that.

The problem isn't with the DM--the rules explicitly state that a thief who is trying to Move Silently ALWAYS thinks he's doin' great. Really crappy Move Silently rolls presumably mean you're making a lot of noise.
But you can't hear that noise.
Sure, a DM can handwave that away. A DM SHOULD handwave that away. DM-handwaving seems to be more fundamental to this system than the actual *system*.


I've never had problems getting a Backstab off unless it's a crowded combat or near a wall. Ok, I may have to give up a round to get there, but it's worth it for the bonus to hit alone in my opinion.
Except... don't you have to be stealthing *and* behind them to get it, rather than just going behind them, backstabbing, and repeating?


But have they been trained in how to read arcane preparations, etc? Ok, it's a bit odd, but 3.5s not free of odd things either.
Actually, yes, my hypothetical 10th-level Theif *has* been trained in how to read arcane preparations. I have a high intelligence, an appropriate background, and even the Spellcraft non-weapon proficiency, among others. But, nope, still a 25% chance. Meanwhile, Morgo the Barely Literate has that *same* chance. It's just yet another arbitrarily decided thing that doesn't really make any sense.



Except for possibly "I could by a pure mage, getting new, better spells quickly, or I could be a multiclass thief/mage and get the same spells more slowly, have fractionally better hit points and some thief skills, but not as many as a pure thief could have. Not to mention that for that 10% bonus, I need a 17 in both stats instead of just one..."
Or I could be a fighter/mage, use a bow, have a lot more hit points (especially if I happen to have a good CON). Or a priest/mage and have two sets of spells, especially at level 1 (where priests can have three or four spells to the mage's one).
You gain "new, better spells" at, like, one level ahead, as a pure mage... or you can have something to do when you're not spellcasting (95% of the time, at first), more survivability, etc etc. A Mage/Thief is probably superior to a pure Mage and definitely superior to a pure Thief. A Fighter/Mage is superior to a Mage and not superior to a pure Fighter only if you're using specialization/mastery, at which point multiclassing Fighter becomes a complete travesty no one should ever do.


Considering that Healing's always useful in D&D and Ancient History isn't, I think it's perfectly fair.
But Ancient History is easier to learn than Herbalism?


Speak to the DM, but then, who said that everyone taught their apprentices from a set list? If you were taught by someone who was a specialist conjurer, why would you know any of the forbidden magics when you start out?
Because I'd prefer to decide? How about if I have magics forbidden to conjurers, obviously my master wasn't a specialist conjurer?
By this thought, shouldn't wizards random-roll their specialization (since it's What They Were Taught)? Keep in mind that as a Conjurer's apprentice, I could still roll a spell my master can't cast.


Until you start focusing on one skill to break it. "The dragons looks at you angrily, roaring." "Diplomacy, 57, no he's not." "Damnit..."
Diplomacy is a special, notoriously problematic thing. It's also harder to break than you think--you have to be able to do it in one turn.



I think it worked better. Partly because of 'arbitrary experience tables'. I can be a Thief 5/Mage 4 when the rest of my party's about 6th level. In 3.5, I'd be a mediocre thief and a poor mage when we face that CR9 creature because whether I'm taking my first level in a new class, or my sixteenth, if I'm currently level 15, I need the exact same amount of experience to get it. Who knew Fighter 1 could be as complicated as Mage 16 or Ranger 16?
In 3.5, you'd be a Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 1, for example. It's a perfectly viable character compared to a normal rogue.
Meanwhile, that Thief 5/Mage 4 sure compares VERY favorably to a Thief 6.


I'm sure if you desperatly wanted, it could be converted into a BAB-like system, but after a couple of sessions, you do get fairly quick at it. To be honest, I take about as much time to work out what AC I've hit in AD&D or 3.5
We get by, now. It remains lame.


For that example it's easy, give the weapon a better AC by say 3, opponent makes a Dex check with a penalty of 1 per point/2 points of damage, failure drops it. Or go through the "To make my attack, he needs to make an attack and if he hits me then I can't". And it should, but maybe they didn't expect players to want to disarm opponents.
Okay, so you just made up a rule to disarm. Depending on whether the penalty is 1 per point or per 2 points, that's already a HUGE difference--and that matters a lot to me if I make a character who's going to be disarming a lot. And the rule isn't written down, so it's not like you can't change it if you're tempted. Changing established rules is a bigger deal.
You'd think they might've figured out players would want to disarm opponents.


Yes it's a little silly, but if you get to choose where your stats are, there's normally one that's better - Thieves won't be wearing heavy armour anyway, Fighters are going to want that stat in Strength/Con, Mages Int, Clerics Wis, Paladins Cha, etc.
But if the fighters or clerics or paladins end up with a good Dex, it becomes totally unrestricted by their full plate. This is clearly at least as ridiculous as the values 3.x assigns to armors.


And to be honest, the only thing I'd like to see from 3.5 on AD&D casters is a couple of 0-Level spells, other than that, I think it's fine.
It's not fine. Low-level wizards in AD&D are inexcusably terrible, and it stems from a "well, they'll rock later, pay for it now!" philosophy.





Weapon Specialisation: Widely known to have the potential to break the game (especially in conjunction with other Optional Rules, such as Blade Singing Fighting Style Specialisation and Two Weapon Fighting Style Specialisation); DMs should think very carefully before including it and in what form.
I've already covered how ridiculously good double specialization is and can make fighters, yeah.


Non Weapon Proficiencies: Well known for being a poor half way house between no skill system ("I can cook") and a skill system ("I have Cook +6"). I wouldn't use them unless I was also using the Character Point System and, even then, I would end up House Ruling the hell out of them.
But without them, I'm just good at whatever I say I'm good at. Hey, I'm an elf, I've had a hundred years to learn crap.


Thief Skills: To put it simply, your DM is probably using them wrong. Thief Skills have great potential to cause confusion, as they are sometimes thought to be synonymous with ordinary task resolution .
...okay, so if Move SIlently isn't sneaking and Hide In Shadows isn't hiding, then what the hell are they? Where does it clarify?


[I]Task Resolution: I brought this up with David Cook over on Dragonsfoot the other day. David Cook's Question and Answer Thread on Dragonsfoot (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26912&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=120). Hand waving is not quite the same thing as having an open task resolution system.

Not quite... but the percentages are handwaved, so it might as well be.




This is false. Unfortunately, they consistently fell between making things simulationist and gamist, and didn't really satisfy either group's requirement.
I'll say they didn't. It's like a twisted mashup of "it's realistic" (picture that said in Whiny Basement Dweller voice), wargame, and just plain incompleteness.


And irrelevant. If you're going to attack AD&D, attack it on its own merits.
Part of which are how it's vastly more house-ruled than 3.x, but okay:


Which, in 2nd edition, was an advantage that was only open to single classed fighters. Multi-classed fighters couldn't have it. Other warriors couldn't have it. That your group broke it with a house rule isn't the fault of the game designers.
My group didn't break it with a house rule. The fact that I'm also a mage is irrelevant, because my magery is nigh-irrelevant. As a pure fighter, I'd be just as effective (and tougher, because of hit points), at this point.


He's gaining one. If he's gaining two, your DM is again house-ruling outside the scope of the RAW, and you're blaming the RAW for the DM.


[quite]I'll point out that not only did you roll high stats, but you have phenomenal gold for 1st level, as well. A strength bow is prohibitively expensive (though, look, you're using a house rule!), and you seem to have a bow which adds additional strike bonuses, which is two to five times as expensive (from a note in the DMG; I'll give you the page number when I get home).[/quote]
I've got a good bow, yes. Pretty much everybody's got something. There are no wealth-by-level tables or anything to conflict with.
But ignore the bow. Let's say I have a normal one. I'm still clearly at a huge advantage, because I'm a double-specialized archer. Without the bow my THAC0 is 14 not 13; big whoop. Doing 1d8+3 twice a round isn't exactly bad in AD&D at low levels, and doing it at up to a huge range is great. Low-level enemies make for trivial challenges anywhere that I can actually shoot in. Coincidentally, most of our adventuring takes place outdoors--otherwise, I'd be specialized in darts, to even greater effect. (And, of course, at level 3, I can be both double specialized in the bow and specialized in darts.)


It isn't the key to winning 3.x?
No. The difference between a 19 and 15 STR in AD&D and 3.5, or 18 and 14 DEX, or etc, is a lot more important to the game.


This was an attempt at simulationism; people with higher stats would find their jobs easier to learn, and thus would advance faster. Obviously, the idea that they'd do better at them, and thus advance faster didn't follow.
It was a crappy, crappy attempt. It is literally the worst design I can think of.


Your DM failed to read the rules properly. I'll comment more on this when I get home. However, I'll point out that AD&D originally (pre-Combat and Tactics) had 1 minute rounds, meaning you had to inspire for about 3 minutes... a short speech, or sing a song. That inspiration, IIRC, lasted for one TURN, which was ten minutes. In 3.5, there are 6 second rounds, and it requires a standard action to inspire... meaning it requires only a few seconds to inspire people to courage, competence, or heroics.

An AD&D bard is Henry V, reciting "We few, we merry few, we band of brothers." A 3.x bard is Ray Stantz saying "Get 'er!"
Sorry, but the inspiration lasts for one ROUND per bard level. My book is clear on this

Also, "one minute rounds" are very, very lame, and it's no wonder everybody dispenses with them in favor of 6-second rounds.
Anyway, in 3.5, bardic music is mystical.

An AD&D bard is Henry V, reciting "We band of brothers"... and inspiring people no further than 10 feet away for him for one round. Oh, BABY.



Why would wizards learn faster than fighters? They have more difficult things to learn at first, whereas fighters will eventually reach a plateau where it is difficult to learn more.
I dunno, because it'd be better balanced at low levels, since Fighters are enormously more effective there? Isn't class balance the point of the different XP progressions? Apparently not.


Read the rationale behind saving throws in the 1st edition DMG. It was never about the wizard.
Sure, but the end result... anyway, I talk about saves above. Also, you can't tell me the categories are sensible.


There are two versions of infravision. The optional version is the gradients of heat. The standard is "see in the dark."
Yes... but I expect more out of infravision than "see in the dark". That's what you get for calling it infravision. And the "see heat" version is just chock-full of problems.


You are wrong, but I am at work, so I'll address this when I get home.
Yeah, I was wrong about that.


Maybe because it's easier to open a stuck door than it is to bend a bar or lift a gate, and thus the probabilities reflect that?
Okay, sure--but why is it a Strength check to open the door whereas it's a percentile roll to lift the gate? Why are we using two different systems here? Are the percentages given so realistic, so accurate, that turning them into ability checks would make the game worse somehow?



Because of the intervening percentile strength, and the feeling that strength didn't add as much to your chance to hit as it did to your ability to cause damage. Strength always, except at 17, added more to damage than it did to hit.
Except at 17. And during exceptional strength,


I suggest reading the 1st edition DMG; it can be a slog, but it does explain a lot of the rationales.
I separate the house rules from my problems with the system. I'm not about to slog through the 1E DMG, and I'm not really interested in the rationales--the results are telling.

Hamlet: I don't hate the system unreasonably, I'm just looking at it from the perspective of someone used to 3.x at worst (as a largely "gamist" experience), and, say, Spirit of the Century at best. I see no redeeming values. It seems, well, very primitive.
Why would I want to be running AD&D, again? What does the system offer me? Nothing I can see. It's definitely not realistic. It's certainly not much fun to tinker with mechanically the way 3.x is.

Matthew
2008-02-20, 07:50 PM
I've already covered how ridiculously good double specialization is and can make fighters, yeah.

You know, I should point out that Double Specialisation isn't actually an AD&D 2e legal rule, it's from AD&D 1e. Something similar did turn up in the Player's Option Series, though. I have to ask, what edition are you using? I'm finding it a little difficult to tell, especially with your comments on experience points. 2e explicitly did grant experience for more than killing Monsters and grabbing treasure. There's an entire section devoted to the possibilities (story based, roleplaying awards, individual, group, class based, player based). D20 just pretty much lifted the section, as far as I can tell.



But without them, I'm just good at whatever I say I'm good at. Hey, I'm an elf, I've had a hundred years to learn crap.

True, but would that not be okay? Who cares if the Elf is skilled at building fires, singing, dancing, swimming, running, fishing, tracking, can speak four languages and knows about the ancient history of X? It's the kind of stuff you would expect him to know, isn't it? Anyway, yeah, it does require the Players and DM to make reasonable game decisions, but I guess I just like it that way; it's not supposed to be idiot proof, after all.



...okay, so if Move SIlently isn't sneaking and Hide In Shadows isn't hiding, then what the hell are they? Where does it clarify?

Move Silently is literally moving silently. Hide in Shadows is literally hiding in shadows. This is unfortunately one of those areas that got a bit lost between 1e and 2e. If you can get a copy of the 1e PHB it's page 28. If you can get a copy of the 1e DMG it's page 19. In the 2e PHB it's in the Class description, but is a bit more vague. Essentially, you treat the Thief pretty much as though he were magically Invisible or Silenced. Normal stealth is just handled by conventional means [i.e. modify Surprise or roll assigned percentages].



Not quite... but the percentages are handwaved, so it might as well be.

Well, so are DCs when it comes down to it, especially when using Circumstance Modifiers it's all at the DM's will. Percentages are just a faster (and less precise) way of getting to pretty much the same result. You could codify it and say: 0-20% Very Hard, 21-40% Hard, 41-60% Average, 61-80% Easy, 81-100% Very Easy, but there's no real need to do so, since percentage based probability models imply degrees of difficulty. It really doesn't need to be more complex than that.

LibraryOgre
2008-02-20, 10:03 PM
Very little of it is actually coherent or thought-out or related to other things.

I'm including this again as part of my rebuttal to your response, ROL. Being midway between simulationist (i.e. an attempt at realism within the game) and gamist (abstract game mechanics) is what gets AD&D. This is what I said. Your statement of "It's like a twisted mashup of "it's realistic" (picture that said in Whiny Basement Dweller voice), wargame, and just plain incompleteness" appears to agree with this.



-At level one--although due to a huge windfall of XP last session, this character in particular is gaining at least one, maybe two levels--my THAC0 is 13: 20, -2 for Dex, -3 for Double Specialization, -1 for being an elf, -1 for a Quality bow. This means I hit a reasonable AC of 5 on an 8... for 1d6+3 (specialization) + 2 (we're adding STR damage to bows built for it, but halved and rounded up. I rolled high stats, which is, of course, the key to Winning AD&D). I can do this from horseback thanks to the Riding NWP, or at two shots a round, since bows have an ROF of 2.

I'm unclear on some things here... what edition were you playing?

If you're playing 2nd edition, you've got several house rules working here that add considerably to your perception of unbalance. First of all, you are allowing "double specialization" at 1st level; in 2e edition's Combat and Tactics, that was called Mastery, and was delayed until 5th level. This says nothing about the quality bow; for a quality bow and riding horse, you're looking at a minimum of 225 gold, which is 25 more than the maximum a 1st level fighter will have at character creation. And that assumes you, with no arrows, no armor, and a naked horse.

Let's look at a similar 3.x character. Assuming a 17 Dexterity (the minimum to get a +2 to strike with ranged weapons in AD&D), a Human Fighter with a Masterwork Mighty (you seem to have an 18/76-90 strength) bow will be able to hit an AC 15 on a 10 or better, and do it twice on a 12 or better, for 1d6+4 damage; he has to spend quite a bit more money than your individual (600gp), but that's also because prices went up considerably, and weapon specialization was deferred until 4th level. This character would have Point Blank shot, Rapid Shot, and Weapon Focus: Short Bow (of course, to pull it off mounted, he'd also need two more feats, instead of one NWP).



To give a +1 bonus to hit, I have to inspire for THREE rounds first... and then the bonus lasts ONE ROUND at level 1. That's unutterably pointless.

I rechecked once I got home; it is one round per level.



Sure, but the end result... anyway, I talk about saves above. Also, you can't tell me the categories are sensible.

No, they're not terribly. I remember talking to a person who designed something very similar to the 3.x saving throws back in the 90s, and liked them better.


Yes... but I expect more out of infravision than "see in the dark". That's what you get for calling it infravision. And the "see heat" version is just chock-full of problems.

Your expectations are not a fault of the rule system.


Okay, sure--but why is it a Strength check to open the door whereas it's a percentile roll to lift the gate? Why are we using two different systems here? Are the percentages given so realistic, so accurate, that turning them into ability checks would make the game worse somehow?

Tempocentrism.

While 2nd edition has some reason that these things weren't addressed (if I understand correctly, they stem, in large part, from politics within TSR), 1st edition did a lot of them this way because they didn't have 25 years of game design behind them saying "This is an annoying way of doing things." 2nd edition carried a lot of this forward.


ROL:-At 17 Strength, you have +1 to hit, +1 damage. At 19 Strength, you have +3 to hit, +7 to damage. WTF.

Me:Because of the intervening percentile strength, and the feeling that strength didn't add as much to your chance to hit as it did to your ability to cause damage. Strength always, except at 17, added more to damage than it did to hit.[/b]

ROL:Except at 17. And during exceptional strength

As I said, except at 17... and find me where, during exceptional strength, damage and to-hit bonuses are equal.


-Stats in general: the bonuses follow no coherent, sensible pattern... and you don't start getting them until unreasonably high numbers. This makes the most important part of the game rolling well on stats.

Unlike 3.x, where there are specific rules to throw out characters with too low of stat totals?



-Chance to Learn Spell: this is stupid and pointless. Why bother making it even more difficult? It's like somebody decided to throw in some things just to annoy players. We dispense with this one.

Do you also dispense with Spellcraft checks to learn spells?


Also, being really intelligent makes you immune to illusion spells of a certain level. Even though a higher-level spell producing the same illusion would still work.

The rationale here is that highly intelligent people are more observant and will notice flaws that lower-level illusions are not capable of correcting.



-Class restrictions and level limits: so obviously stupid that as far as I know, EVERYONE, ALWAYS ignored them. So there's no reason to play a human anymore.

In person, perhaps. We used class restrictions, and never reached level limits.


-Class ability minimums. Back to the design philosophy of playing what the dice tell you to play... which sucked. And good luck rolling that 17 CHA if you want to run a Paladin for some reason. Which you don't, since then you can't double specialize, which wins.

Again, with the double specialization. It's a rule from Unearthed Arcana, which your DM seems to have brought into 2nd edition. In 2nd edition, it was called "Mastery", and limited to 5th level and higher.


-Ranger followers include animals. That they can't speak to. So they randomly get things following them around. "Yep, this bear just follows me around. No clue, dude."

Ranger's available proficiencies included Animal Handling and Animal Training. 2nd level spell of the Animal Sphere (which rangers can cast) was Speak with Animals. Rangers got 2nd level spells the same level they got followers, and had a class minimum Wisdom high enough to cast 2nd level spells flawlessly.


-Many of the racial thief skill adjustments make no sense. Also, they're way too absolutist.

I'm lost here. Most of the bonuses and penalties make sense, and the settings with variant races usually presented variant thieving adjustments, as well (and, sometimes, variant thieving skills).


-The Dexterity adjustments to thief skills are also pretty arbitrary. Also, with a 12 Dexterity, you still have a penalty to move silently. That's right, your above average dexterity still gets you penalized.

Your slightly above average dexterity gets you penalized to being absolutely silent.


-It is basically impossible to be a thief who is not a complete and consistent screw-up, since until you're very high level you've got a ridiculous chance of just plain failing your rolls. You screw up often and you screw up hard. Meanwhile, guys who aren't thieves are simply totally incapable of sneaking around. Unless the DM decides to make it a DEX check... the odds of which he then needs to compare to the thief skill percent success rate, making it appropriately lower.

Incomplete understanding of the rules.

Thieves, until they are high level, are usually specialists. They are sneaks (MS, HS). They are "box men" (OL, FART). They are pick pockets (PP). You throw the majority of your points on one or two skills, and balance out the rest.

If you fail a HS or MS roll, you simply failed to be silent or invisible. You didn't say "HEY, I ROLLED A 94!" If someone else wanted to sneak, there was an established method... the surprise roll.


--The thief "always THINKS he is being quiet". That's right. If you screw up horribly on your quite movement--like, say, by stepping on a horribly creaky plank--you don't get to be aware of this.

I've never players roll their Move Silently checks in 3.x. There's no reason they should know how quiet they are being, unless they obviously bollox it up. And, again, failing to move silently doesn't mean moving loud.



-Use Scrolls: it has a constant, flat chance of failure, unmodified by anything. World's smartest thief and world's dumbest thief? Same chance to flub that Fireball scroll.

Same in 3.x, actually. Now, the world's HANDSOMEST thief? He's got a good shot.


-Unless you're a Fighter, there's essentially NO reason not to multiclass.

Well, you know, aside from advancing quickly and hit points and character concept.


-Like I said, all of these rules read pretty much like someone half-assedly jotted down some arbitrary numbers on the spot. Speaking of which, who decided that Ancient History takes 1 NWP slot, but Herbalism and Healing take 2?

Someone who knows the difference between healing people and ancient history. I compare what I've had to learn as a history scholar compared to what even a nurse has to learn, to say nothing of a doctor.


-Wizards get randomly assigned their starting spells. You know, because level 1 wizards didn't SUCK enough.

Depends on the campaign and edition. In 2nd edition, possible method, not suggested. In 1st edition, one possible method, suggested.



As opposed to AD&D, where I could be a 19-DEX elf who wouldn't lose ANY of his ability to dodge by putting on full plate.

I'll address this a little bit. I was, at first, all on board with the Max Dex penalty. However, I talked with a friend who wears and fights in plate. One of the main keys to wearing it is using the armor and letting it take the blow, or even letting it deflect a blow that would otherwise hit. Assuming you've got the strength to wear it, with a 19 Dex you can move the armor to deflect better.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-21, 05:24 AM
even though they're elves with bows, they still don't do anything noteworthy whenever they're not plunking down one of their two spells.
The notion that you should spend most of your active time combat, or should get the prerequisite four encounters per day, is a 3E invention. In 2E, a first-level character (of pretty much any class) is an apprentice, who simply can't fight all day. If that bothers you, play a higher level.



Being a mage on top of it just means that I get a spell every day.
Yes, multi-classing is broken. So are several 3E prestige classes. Just like most 3E players don't play the cheesy prestiges, most 2E players don't multi-class.



Welcome to something that ISN'T AD&D mentality. That's perfectly reasonable, and it's 3.5 rules--but it's NOT AD&D rules. You get XP for combat and treasure, period. Oh, and traps, if you're a thief.
False. Unlike third edition, second edition explicitly gives you experience for good roleplaying, having a good idea, and saving the party when they're in trouble. Casters also get XP for spellcasting.



Also, the XP tables *don't* balance things--they're a hodgepodge of attempts balance *and* attempts at realism.
Okay, so second edition isn't really balanced. No argument there. But neither is third edition.


Apparently 5% increments are fine for opening big doors, but not for lifting gates. Thank you, Realism?
It is a clunky mechanic, yes, but realism doesn't have anything to do with that.


the guy with 15 Strength still doesn't hit any harder than the guy with 8 and how is this coherent?
Why are you so angry about all of this?

It is a design decision. The idea behind 2E is that ability scores are, for the most part, flavor, but an extreme score gives you a relatively minor bonus or penalty. You don't have rules for the difference between 8 int and 14 int, you roleplay it. On the other hand, the idea behind 3E is that ability scores are extremely important, that every other step of difference gives you a tangible bonus (even if +1s aren't all that tangible on 1d20) and that it helps just about any character if you have decent optimization skills to juggle your scores around.


We've used System Shock; it came up with illusion spells. It's a crap mechanic, and it's even more crap because of how it's applied. "I Haste you! Make a System Shock roll to survive". WTF.
Haste doesn't work that way.



YES! First of all, being a CLERIC means you should be able to tap into the spells your god grants you flawlessly; if they didn't want you casting them, they wouldn't have given them to you.
Says who? It seems perfectly reasonable that if you're not a very devout cleric, your god doesn't always listen to you.



Why is this percentage the same for both divine and arcane magic?
It's not, it only applies to divine spells. Again, why are you so angry at the game?


Racial level caps are completely stupid. "Durr, my elf just can't learn to fight any better than THIS. Woo, fun times 'round the table for all!"
The point of AD&D simply isn't to have T3H strongest character by level 20. The caps do one thing well - they explain why the world isn't ruled by elves and dwarves who've genocided the poor inferior humans.



Ah, yes. Fudge your stats. The key to being able to do what you want in AD&D.
I hate to break this to you but it's not like 3E invented point buy.



No, these are ranger followers. You know how Fighters get armsmen that show up and follow'em? Well, rangers can get bears. Who just show up and chill. But you can't talk to them or anything.
Sure you can, rangers get spells.


You in no way explained why it makes sense for a "positive", above average 12 DEX to provide a penalty to sneaking, but 13 gets away just fine.
It's as arbitrary as saying that <10 gets a penalty and >11 gets a bonus (3E) or saying that everything gets a bonus and there are no penalties (4E).


I can be reasonably expected to maybe have to sneak up, if not on somebody, then within a hundred feet of them or something. How do we do that? The rules don't say. Apparently, they never thought anybody but Thieves would want to do that.
Dex check opposed by his int check. Circumstance modifiers as necessary. Easy.



The problem isn't with the DM--the rules explicitly state that a thief who is trying to Move Silently ALWAYS thinks he's doin' great.
Yeah, you're entirely taking that out of context. And no, a crappy MS roll doesn't mean you're making a lot of noise; you're just making that up. The intent of that rule is that a player isn't supposed to react to his dice rolls like that, for the exact same reason that the DM makes some spot checks for you in 3E. You're not supposed to know whether "you don't see any traps" means that you rolled well and there aren't any, or that you rolled poorly.


Except... don't you have to be stealthing *and* behind them to get it, rather than just going behind them, backstabbing, and repeating?
You're misinterpreting things again. The idea that a rogue should be a DPS'ing combat monster is not something that existed back then.



But Ancient History is easier to learn than Herbalism?
Balance issue. The latter has a common function in game, and the former is flavor.



Because I'd prefer to decide? How about if I have magics forbidden to conjurers, obviously my master wasn't a specialist conjurer?
Why not? If your study is part self-experimentation, you can easily learn things that your master doesn't know. Indeed, the whole point of graduating from college IRL is to research a thesis that nobody knew yet.



In 3.5, you'd be a Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 1, for example. It's a perfectly viable character compared to a normal rogue.
Yeah, we get it already.



Okay, so you just made up a rule to disarm. Depending on whether the penalty is 1 per point or per 2 points, that's already a HUGE difference--and that matters a lot to me if I make a character who's going to be disarming a lot.
Why on earth would you want to make a "character who's going to be disarming a lot"? Such optimized one-trick ponies are part of 3E's design philosophy, not 2E's.



But ignore the bow. Let's say I have a normal one. I'm still clearly at a huge advantage, because I'm a double-specialized archer.
You're not supposed to be able to double-specialize by level one. Aside from that, the only thing you've proven is that it's possible to make a build that's overpowered. Gee, that's not possible at all in 3E.


It was a crappy, crappy attempt. It is literally the worst design I can think of.
Trust me, you haven't seen crappy design until you've read a dozen or so homebrew RPGs on the internet.


Anyway, in 3.5, bardic music is mystical.

An AD&D bard is Henry V, reciting "We band of brothers"... and inspiring people no further than 10 feet away for him for one round. Oh, BABY.
You're making that up again.


I dunno, because it'd be better balanced at low levels, since Fighters are enormously more effective there?
Fighters aren't "enormously more effective", only your heavily degenerate double-specialized archer is "enormously more effective". I still don't get why you're so angry at all this, but many of your arguments are simply made up, or non sequiturs.


I see no redeeming values. It seems, well, very primitive.
And nevertheless, it was the most popular and best-selling RPG system for over a decade.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-21, 07:30 AM
I agree.

Thank you. :smallbiggrin: And thanks, in general, for a civil reply. Always a nice thing to see around here.



I disagree. :smallwink:


(This was re: weapon specialization). Yeah, I took note of that earlier discussion. I remembered it working pretty well in the 2E games I played, but it may have been the peculiarities of the campaign or GM; I honestly can't remember at this point.


Heh, heh. There was no real core mechanic in AD&D, just the idea that tasks with a chance of failure should use dice to model the probability.

Heh, indeed. :smallsmile: Broadly, yeah, that's probably my main beef with AD&D. It's a collection of ideas roughly based on statistics put together as a ruleset. And the general statistical estimations are pretty good, most of the time. I've become fond of unified core mechanics though... makes a game easier to learn and easier to know what to expect in a given situation. As much as I dislike it though, I realize it's the exact reason why some 2E players like the system...



I think that's putting things too strongly. A good game experience did heavily rely on having a skilled DM. On the other hand, when everyone is new to the game (including the DM) it doesn't seem to matter.

I may be carrying old game baggage around with me more than I intended (played some good AD&D games; played some rotten ones too... ). I do generally think if you take a 2 equally mediocre GMs, hand one 2E and one 3E, the 3E game is going to be slightly better at least as far as a player knowing consistently what he is capable of and what he is not, and a GM can be called on being inconsistent more easily.

But, to be honest, that is a (relatively) untested theory.



Given the choice, I probably wouldn't play in any RPG with an unskilled DM, unless it was with a view to seeing him improve!

Sure, given the choice, I'd feel the same. I've been to (mostly local) cons and things, and played with people from my university's gaming club back in the day, or agreed to one-shots run by friends thinking I was getting into something fun--but on occasion ended up discovering the GM was... not what I'd hoped. If you're the kind of player who only plays with one single GM or set of well-known GMs, it's never going to be an issue for you; it may be for other people who end up in groups with relative strangers at cons and the like.


It is not like the AD&D rules are well edited, so many misunderstandings are the result of poor layout and the fact that fully understanding the AD&D 2e Core Rules almost necessitates familiarity with the 1e AD&D Core Books!

That may be true, and I wonder if at least some of my lack of understanding of 2E (despite my having owned and read over the rules for well over a decade, if not two) comes from a lack of familiarity with 1E. I'd read 1E on occasion, but never had the books and could not say I was intimately familiar with the process. I almost wonder if 2E had been published 5 years ago, it would ahve been called "1.5 edition." :smallwink:

Mind you, I've played AD&D 2E a fair amount (though sadly, not quite as long as I've owned the books), enough to see a number of things I don't like (as listed previously) in practice that I don't necessarily need to "understand" where such things came from, but it'd be interesting to go back and look at the evolution of the system to see how these decisions came about more clearly.

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-21, 08:33 AM
Yes, multi-classing is broken. So are several 3E prestige classes. Just like most 3E players don't play the cheesy prestiges, most 2E players don't multi-class.


I just want to discuss this point, because I have seen the exact opposite in both 2E and 3.X. When word comes out that something is broken, people flock to it, unless the DM bans it. I saw plenty of Half-Elven Fighter/Mage/Thieves in 2E, and I see plenty of Radiant Servants of Pelor in the Living Greyhawk games I play in today. Divine Metamagic and Divine Spellpower were both banned from LG, as were Nightsticks, because enough players of clerics found out they were a killer combo.

In 2E Multiclassing was broken because it gave you all the benefits of two (or three) classes up front. Sure you leveled more slowly, but it raised the odds that you'd survive to level. AD&D could be fairly lethal at low levels, and multiclassing ensures survival. In addition, playing a Half-elf Fighter/Cleric, with four Weapon Proficiencies and four Non-Weapon Proficiencies, the ability to turn undead as a cleric, and spells at first level, was more appealing than playing a Human Paladin, who has no racial abilities at first level, needs a 17 in a useless attribute (CHA), has only two Non-Weapon Proficiencies, can't casr spells until eighth level, can't turn undead until third level, and is restricted to ten magic items. The odds of even rolling the 17 for the paladin were low enough (without cheating or house rules allowing you to swap points) that most players I knew would prefer the Fighter/Cleric to playing a paladin.

The only area where playing a Human mechanically makes a difference is when the campaign gets to around tenth level, which is when those Demi-human level limits start to hurt, but I was never in an AD&D campaign that lasted long enough for anyone to hit fifth level, because we leveled so slowly, and then the group broke up. Essentially the player of the demi-human gets lots of mechanical abilities from the game in exchange for a penalty that may or may not arise, while the player of the Human gets two mechanical abilities that may or may not arise (no level limits and ability to dual-class). If the camapign dies because one player moves away (a problem I faced constantly until I joined the RPGA in 2005) the player of the human is losing out, while the player of a demi-human got a reward he didn't have to pay for.

In addition there were rules in the 2E DMG for advancing a demi-human beyond the level limits, provided that they had high prime requisites. So an Elven thief with a 19 DEX can advance almost as far as a Human one, while getting all the benefits of an elf. As for role-playing benefits, these can vary from campaign to campaign, and they don't keep a character alive in a dungeon.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-21, 09:22 AM
I just want to discuss this point, because I have seen the exact opposite in both 2E and 3.X. When word comes out that something is broken, people flock to it, unless the DM bans it.

Not really. A certain kind of player flocks to it, yes, but most people don't.

The reason is that most players are either (1) not interested in power playing, (2) not skilled enough in mechanics to take advantage of brokenness, or (3) unaware of the brokenness in the first place. Bear in mind that 2nd ed essentially predates the internet, so there was no easy communication about brokenness; for third edition, sales figures of PHBs are an order of magnitude higher than the amount of active users on D&D-related message boards.

Of course LG is going to ban broken things, to put a stop of the minority that would use them. This is a vocal and attention-seeking minority, but a minority nevertheless.

And yes, 2nd ed can be lethal at low levels, but so can 3rd ed (critical hit from a 1 HD orc = insta-kill). The difference is that 3E does pretty much expect people to face four combat-oriented encounters per day, whereas 2E does not. In 2E, first-level characters are expected to be relatively weak apprentices and act accordingly; in 3E, they're expected to be powerful heroes from the start, even if they're really not. Regardless, I tend to recommend that people start at level 3-5, regardless of edition.

And I agree that demihuman level limits were not such a good idea.

Kantur
2008-02-21, 10:38 AM
I'm not sure how you can. It's very, well... primitive. I don't think it even has a coherent goal, much less one it's streamlined for.

The primitiveness it part of what I like, it's open to what you want to do with it. Is it perfect? No, but point out a system that is...


The 3.5 games I play in are modified somewhat, but nowhere near to the extent AD&D essentially *had* to be. Has.

The AD&D grappling rules are no shining stars. Random-roll what you do in a grapple? WOO WOO.
Yes, I mean the DM making up percentages. "You're, uh... 40% likely to sneak by him."

The 3.5 Grapple rules aren't shining starts either. How long do the 3.5 grapple rules need? Almost a page and a half. And how good are they? My 3.5 DM, despite having played 3.5 often, doesn't use them. He, ironically really given on of your main points, handwaves it instead of slowing down the combat massively for one action.



Yeah, I'm sure a pure mage with throwing weapons or quarterstaffs would add so much to damage. Our pure mages are apparently doing it wrong, though, because even though they're elves with bows, they still don't do anything noteworthy whenever they're not plunking down one of their two spells.

If you're going to focus on level 1, I'll focus on level 1 as well. At level 1, the monsters won't have all that many hit points, the mage may well take down a monster either outright or a fighter getting poor damage, or even a thief/bard/cleric/druid getting an average result for damage.


The problem is definitely with archery specialization, NOT the house rule. My character could be a pure fighter--there's one in the group with pretty much the same archery skill--and the problem would be the same. Being a mage on top of it just means that I get a spell every day.

Has been adressed by others.



Bards are already limited in which thief skills they can take; giving them so few points means I can't have a reasonable chance of success at anything.

As others have said about thieves, specialise, then specialise in another skill once it's competant enough and continue. At 1st level I can have a Bard with 40% Detect Noise. Decent enough, and if there's a thief in the party lets him prioritise other skills or ensure that between you, you should succeed at hearing things. Or say 30% Pick Pockets. Not brilliant, but when you hit level 3 or 4, it'll be about 60-80% if you specialise so could get you a nice supplement to your income if nothing else.



You try to balance the level 17 Fighter against the level 17 wizard because then you have a comparison point. The AD&D equivalent would be balancing the 1,000,000 XP fighter against the 1,000,000 XP wizard, say--you still have to DO it.

Yes, but it's now at the same quantity of experience instead of an arbritrary character level.


Also, the XP tables *don't* balance things--they're a hodgepodge of attempts balance *and* attempts at realism. What Mark said about clashing simulationism and gamism applies here. A level 2 Fighter is obviously more powerful than a level 2 wizard... but he needs LESS XP to level. And thieves level fastest of all, presumably so they can actually try to *use* their skills, but as a result learning to be a master thief requires a lot less XP than being a skilled warrior.

3.5 ain't so balanced either. I have 7 words: Level 18 Fighter, meet Level 18 Wizard.



Yes, spells with saving throw penalties. But then there's the ones that don't have them... and you're not going to cast them. Really, that's the kind of thing that should just be formalized into the spell's level having an effect on--oh, right, spell DCs factor spell level in.

There's always going to be good spells and bad spells to choose from.



Most people in a population hit exactly as hard, from the scrawny slightly underweight guy to the muscular guy who works out... except for a very small group which hits hard enough to kill people with one shot of a club on 100% of hits?
Having a 9 in Strength for a non-STR-based character is going to hurt you more in AD&D whenever you make Strength checks.

What's the damage of a fist, something like 1d2 or 1d3? At 1d2, +1 is a big difference (Av. damage is 167% of av. damage at +0), same with the d3 (175% of +0. On a d12 or a d20, it's less so (115% and 110% respectively). So no, the guy at 9 Str doesn't hit as hard as the guy at 14, but he does about the same approximate damage and'll need about the same number of good solid hits in against an opponent to take him down.



Okay--and your Paladin wouldn't do more damage as a pure Fighter *how* exactly?

Better equipment from his class for one. While he swings a +3 Purifier, the rest of us are waiting for +2 weapons.
Also, as an aside, sometimes it doesn't matter how optimised something is, sometimes it fun to play a paladin to be the noble knight with a few not as brilliant abilities of the cleric instead of the ordinary, but noble, fighter with grand mastery as soon as he can get it.



Ah, yes. Fudge your stats. The key to being able to do what you want in AD&D.
Paladins are supposed to be rare in the game-world. That doesn't mean you should have to roll a number on some dice to get to freaking play one, it just means there shouldn't be a high population of them in-game.

Or you use one of the other stat generation mechanics. One of the ones in the DMG is also in Complete Bard and reveals it has a ~97% probability of successfully generating a bard. And the worst low stat on any of the six samples? 10. Ok, the bard doesn't quite need the same exemplar stats as the paladin, but he's not a million miles from it.



Diplomacy is a special, notoriously problematic thing. It's also harder to break than you think--you have to be able to do it in one turn.

Off the top of my head, I can get a 12th level character to needing a 9 to turn someone from Hostile to Friendly. Without any equipment or items.


And other people have dealt with the other points.

And by the way, I know I'm not going to convert you to liking AD&D more than 3.5, and I'm not trying to. All I'm doing is trying to spread understanding about why it's not deserving of conemnation to the hells.

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-21, 11:17 AM
Not really. A certain kind of player flocks to it, yes, but most people don't.

The reason is that most players are either (1) not interested in power playing, (2) not skilled enough in mechanics to take advantage of brokenness, or (3) unaware of the brokenness in the first place. Bear in mind that 2nd ed essentially predates the internet, so there was no easy communication about brokenness; for third edition, sales figures of PHBs are an order of magnitude higher than the amount of active users on D&D-related message boards.



Then you played 2E with far more mature players than I did. There was the player who ran an Alaghi from the Complete Humanoids Handbook (he also once ran a Lizardman from the Spelljammer Campaign set in a non-Spelljammer campaign). There was the player who used the Skills and Powers to create an elf who was half drow and half grey elf, with lots of the abilities of both. Then there were the DM I played with in high school, who figured out the most insane monster combinations that were completely unbalanced to our party. There are problems with 3.X's assumption of 4 PCs vs. one opponent of the same level, but the problem with 2E was that there were no assumptions about encounter balance. A party could face a single kobold, or a band of giants depending on what the DM rolled on an encounter table. The end result were lethal adventures for first level characters if the DM didn't know what he was doing.

Sir_Leorik
2008-02-21, 11:31 AM
Of course LG is going to ban broken things, to put a stop of the minority that would use them. This is a vocal and attention-seeking minority, but a minority nevertheless.


It wasn't just because of a small minority of players. Unlike a home game where one DM has final say, and will notice these things quickly, in LG there was an arms race of sorts between a distinct group of LG players in certain regions, especially in the Sheldomar Valley Metaregion, and the mod authors. As a result one party could waltz through an APL 8 encounter while another party would be TPKed by the same encounter at APL 6. The arms race has cooled down, most of the Core mods from Year seven are relatively easier, but last week I was at a table of a regional mod where half the party died in the first encounter, along with a paladin's warhorse and my druid's animal companion. The variance between mods causes problems, since Core mods need to be written with the broadest audience in mind, while the authors of some regional mods seem to feel that they need to challenge the most optimized players or they've lost. In any event, LG has had to ban several things since the 3.5 conversion, such as the Leap Attack feat, the Wraithstrike spell, nightsticks, and the polymorph spell (the latter after adopting the erratta).

LibraryOgre
2008-02-21, 11:39 AM
A party could face a single kobold, or a band of giants depending on what the DM rolled on an encounter table. The end result were lethal adventures for first level characters if the DM didn't know what he was doing.

Did you ever consider running away?

As in "Holy crap, we can't take on four giants at 1st level, let's run away"?

Or directing the adventure yourself a bit?

"Hey, let's go look for some orcs."

It's a bit metagamey, but it gives a novice DM somewhere to stand.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-21, 12:25 PM
It wasn't just because of a small minority of players. Unlike a home game where one DM has final say, and will notice these things quickly, in LG there was an arms race of sorts between a distinct group of LG players in certain regions, especially in the Sheldomar Valley Metaregion, and the mod authors.
That's a very cool story, actually, and if you can tell us more about that I'd like to hear it. But I'd like to ask - did this apply to most of the LG players, or to a prominent but relatively small group among them?



Or directing the adventure yourself a bit?

"Hey, let's go look for some orcs."
I wouldn't call it metagaming for a low-level fighter to know that he can probably best an orc, and likely doesn't stand a chance yet against a giant. I mean, you personally would know better than to attack a real-life lion in melee, would you not?

Mike_G
2008-02-21, 03:19 PM
While he may have expressed it with more venom that I, I more or less agree with all of Reel On Love's frustrations with AD&D. I lived through Red Box, Expert, AD&D, briefly 2e, and 3e, and I love the changes 3e made.

As far as the argument that a good DM cam arbitrate any of the situations not speled out, and you shouldn't play with a mediocre DM, many of us can't choose to play with only brilliant DM's, we play with somebody who has the time and inclination to DM. I also feel strongly that a DM who may be a good storyteller, and craft an interesting world, but who isn't good at numbers on the fly will struggle much more with AD&D than 3e, which at least gives a quick, uniform baseline for all task resolution, rather than the multiple systems and lack of systems in AD&D.

I've had the same DMs for both, and in my experience, 3.5 has fewer arguments like "Why can't I climb out of the pit" that derail the game. I like the book having a clear rule. The DM can always modify it, if needed, but he has a starting point, rather than the "You can't climb, you're a Cleric" arguments we used to have all the time.

3e is also far easier to teach to new players, since there's one mechanic, all stat bonuses are the same, (ie, 17 in anything is +3, not +2 ranged attack or +3 to AC if it's Dex, + 1 to damage and attack if Str, +3 Hp if it's con, but only if you're a fighter, otherwise +2 etc.)

Level limits for demihumans sucked, but being human didn't help until you outleveled the demihumans. This is just one example of "gain now, pay later" that AD&D was full of, like mages sucking at low level and being awesome at high level, and vice versa for Fighters.

Likewise, multiclassing and dual classing were poorly done. Only demihumans could multiclass, and a Wiz 5/Ftr 5 was better than a Wizard 6, but had the same xp. In 3e, a Wiz 5/Ftr 1 is the same xp as a Wizrd 6, and closer to balanced. Demihumans had no reason not to muticlass, since they were going to hit a ceiling anyway, and they couldn't switch to Wizard after they maxed out their Fighter levels, only Humans could switch classes. An Elf who hit Ftr 9 (if memory serves, the number may be a bit off, but the principle is the same) was done advancing, ever. He couldn't get better as a Fighter, and he couldn't decide to advance as a Thief, or take up holy orders and becoem a Cleric or study wizardry or anything. Nope. "Shoulda though of that at Character Generation, Glorfindel old buddy. Have fun as a 9th level Fighter, since you're there for the next 1500 years or until you get killed."

And, why, for the love of God, do the grognards endorse DM fiat in AD&D, but assume it can't happen in 3.5? If not having a rule for resolution of stuff that is likely to happen is better, why buy a dozen books of rules? Why not just go diceless, like Amber?

All in all, I found AD&D to be less a rule system than a hodge podge of barely compatible rule systems, with plenty of hole, that were expected to be smoothed over by the DM. It was fun, but primitive game design, and I really do feel that a ground up rebuild was needed, and what we got in 3e.

And in closing, I don't think 3e feels any different that 1e, since we have many of the same players, and we play the same way, so for me, the feel comes from the group, not the system.

Jacob Orlove
2008-02-21, 03:41 PM
We've used System Shock; it came up with illusion spells. It's a crap mechanic, and it's even more crap because of how it's applied. "I Haste you! Make a System Shock roll to survive". WTF.
Haste doesn't work that way.

It does, unfortunately. In 2E, Haste ages you one year, and magical aging is one of things you have to make a system shock roll to survive.

Matthew
2008-02-21, 04:02 PM
Thank you. :smallbiggrin: And thanks, in general, for a civil reply. Always a nice thing to see around here.

No problem.


(This was re: weapon specialization). Yeah, I took note of that earlier discussion. I remembered it working pretty well in the 2E games I played, but it may have been the peculiarities of the campaign or GM; I honestly can't remember at this point.

Yeah, Weapon Specialisation isn't always bad, it's just that it is an optional power up for the Fighter Class and that has to be taken into account. Given that the party is composed of reasonably equally powerful characters (or the players don't mind a noticable power differential) and the challenges the DM provides are appropriately scaled, it's fine.



Heh, indeed. :smallsmile: Broadly, yeah, that's probably my main beef with AD&D. It's a collection of ideas roughly based on statistics put together as a ruleset. And the general statistical estimations are pretty good, most of the time. I've become fond of unified core mechanics though... makes a game easier to learn and easier to know what to expect in a given situation. As much as I dislike it though, I realize it's the exact reason why some 2E players like the system...

Yes, indeed. That is key to understanding why some people prefer AD&D to D20 and vice versa. Not everyone likes the same things and that's fine.



I may be carrying old game baggage around with me more than I intended (played some good AD&D games; played some rotten ones too... ). I do generally think if you take a 2 equally mediocre GMs, hand one 2E and one 3E, the 3E game is going to be slightly better at least as far as a player knowing consistently what he is capable of and what he is not, and a GM can be called on being inconsistent more easily.

But, to be honest, that is a (relatively) untested theory.

My experience is that AD&D is as easy to teach players the basics of as D20, but that once you start adding rules it starts to become relatively easier to teach D20. More significantly, I think that teaching someone to DM AD&D is quite a lot more difficult than teaching someone to DM D20.



Sure, given the choice, I'd feel the same. I've been to (mostly local) cons and things, and played with people from my university's gaming club back in the day, or agreed to one-shots run by friends thinking I was getting into something fun--but on occasion ended up discovering the GM was... not what I'd hoped. If you're the kind of player who only plays with one single GM or set of well-known GMs, it's never going to be an issue for you; it may be for other people who end up in groups with relative strangers at cons and the like.

Absolutely. As a player, I think having mainly consistant rules between groups is a major advantage when moving between groups and being able to 'fit right in'. As a DM, I'm not quite so thrilled about the prospect of a player, as a result of having certain specific expectations of how D&D 'should' be played, becoming an obstacle to my running the game as I see fit. Of course, given the choice, I wouldn't be DMing for such a person unless it was with a view towards broadening his horizons. :smallwink: It's all very subjective.



That may be true, and I wonder if at least some of my lack of understanding of 2E (despite my having owned and read over the rules for well over a decade, if not two) comes from a lack of familiarity with 1E. I'd read 1E on occasion, but never had the books and could not say I was intimately familiar with the process. I almost wonder if 2E had been published 5 years ago, it would ahve been called "1.5 edition." :smallwink:

Mind you, I've played AD&D 2E a fair amount (though sadly, not quite as long as I've owned the books), enough to see a number of things I don't like (as listed previously) in practice that I don't necessarily need to "understand" where such things came from, but it'd be interesting to go back and look at the evolution of the system to see how these decisions came about more clearly.

More than likely. I ran and played AD&D for years without really understanding it and fell prey to just about every misconception about it along the way. Amusingly, I only really began to appreciate AD&D after becoming familiar with D20 and realising that I just didn't like the direction the brand had taken.

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As far as the argument that a good DM cam arbitrate any of the situations not speled out, and you shouldn't play with a mediocre DM, many of us can't choose to play with only brilliant DM's, we play with somebody who has the time and inclination to DM. I also feel strongly that a DM who may be a good storyteller, and craft an interesting world, but who isn't good at numbers on the fly will struggle much more with AD&D than 3e, which at least gives a quick, uniform baseline for all task resolution, rather than the multiple systems and lack of systems in AD&D.

This kind of depends on whether acquiring good DMing skills is something that can be learnt or something that some people can never attain or not without significant and prohibative investment of time. I think D20 is great for just the kind of DM you're describing, but that's rather the point. Neither D20 or AD&D are for everyone. If you want the things that D20 has to offer, but AD&D does not, then D20 is fantastic, but of course the opposite is also true.



I've had the same DMs for both, and in my experience, 3.5 has fewer arguments like "Why can't I climb out of the pit" that derail the game. I like the book having a clear rule. The DM can always modify it, if needed, but he has a starting point, rather than the "You can't climb, you're a Cleric" arguments we used to have all the time.

Heh, heh.



3e is also far easier to teach to new players, since there's one mechanic, all stat bonuses are the same, (ie, 17 in anything is +3, not +2 ranged attack or +3 to AC if it's Dex, + 1 to damage and attack if Str, +3 Hp if it's con, but only if you're a fighter, otherwise +2 etc.)

Whilst I agree that the Attribute Tables are not appealing, I haven't found D20 to be easier to teach to new players than AD&D. However, I think it is way easier to teach to new DMs.



Level limits for demihumans sucked, but being human didn't help until you outleveled the demihumans. This is just one example of "gain now, pay later" that AD&D was full of, like mages sucking at low level and being awesome at high level, and vice versa for Fighters.

I agree, but I don't like the way this was solved with D20. I like variable experience progression myself.



Likewise, multiclassing and dual classing were poorly done. Only demihumans could multiclass, and a Wiz 5/Ftr 5 was better than a Wizard 6, but had the same xp. In 3e, a Wiz 5/Ftr 1 is the same xp as a Wizrd 6, and closer to balanced. Demihumans had no reason not to muticlass, since they were going to hit a ceiling anyway, and they couldn't switch to Wizard after they maxed out their Fighter levels, only Humans could switch classes. An Elf who hit Ftr 9 (if memory serves, the number may be a bit off, but the principle is the same) was done advancing, ever. He couldn't get better as a Fighter, and he couldn't decide to advance as a Thief, or take up holy orders and becoem a Cleric or study wizardry or anything. Nope. "Shoulda though of that at Character Generation, Glorfindel old buddy. Have fun as a 9th level Fighter, since you're there for the next 1500 years or until you get killed."

Again, I agree, though to be fair that's probably an accurate reflection of Glorfindel in LotR. He doesn't ever seem to get any 'better', though he apparently lived for century after century. :smallbiggrin: Again, though, I'm not happy with the mix and match multi classing of D20.



And, why, for the love of God, do the grognards endorse DM fiat in AD&D, but assume it can't happen in 3.5? If not having a rule for resolution of stuff that is likely to happen is better, why buy a dozen books of rules? Why not just go diceless, like Amber?

Well, why not go the whole hog and play RoleMaster? It's just a matter of balance, how heavy you want your rule set and how you want it to function out of the box. I don't think anybody really thinks DM fiat is impossible in D20, but I do think there's more resistance to it built into the rule set.



All in all, I found AD&D to be less a rule system than a hodge podge of barely compatible rule systems, with plenty of hole, that were expected to be smoothed over by the DM. It was fun, but primitive game design, and I really do feel that a ground up rebuild was needed, and what we got in 3e.

I just don't care much for the rebuild. Castles & Crusades is closer to what I would have liked to have seen in a third edition of AD&D.



And in closing, I don't think 3e feels any different that 1e, since we have many of the same players, and we play the same way, so for me, the feel comes from the group, not the system.

I think that is broadly true, but I also think that the rule system has an impact on the formation of a group and how they learn to play.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-22, 04:17 AM
I also feel strongly that a DM who may be a good storyteller, and craft an interesting world, but who isn't good at numbers on the fly will struggle much more with AD&D than 3e, which at least gives a quick, uniform baseline for all task resolution, rather than the multiple systems and lack of systems in AD&D.
I believe the opposite holds true - this good storyteller can basically tell what he wants to tell in 2E, but has to do a lot more things "by the rules" in 3E. For instance, he can't put up opposing monsters unless they're of the proper CR; he can't hand out the treasure he likes unless it's the proper WBL; etc. Well, of course he can do exactly that, but it's strongly implied by the rulebooks that he shouldn't. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if 3E core was actually balanced, but as this message board can attest, it isn't even close (That Damn Crab, anyone?).



And, why, for the love of God, do the grognards endorse DM fiat in AD&D, but assume it can't happen in 3.5?
Of course they still endorse that. However, there is a vocal group of 3E players who assume that if the DM is using fiat, he is "doing it wrong". I believe this sentiment is caused by the 3E design principle that "there should be a rule for everything".

That, in a nutshell, is what the conflict is actually about - people who believe the DM can "rule zero" things, and people who believe that he should never do that. 2E explicitly says the former, 3E tends to imply the latter.

Mike_G
2008-02-23, 11:41 AM
I believe the opposite holds true - this good storyteller can basically tell what he wants to tell in 2E, but has to do a lot more things "by the rules" in 3E.


I think you misunderstand. He can always tell the story he wants. He's the DM. Even in 3e, Rule Zero specifically says he can ignore or overrule what he wants to.

The mathematically challenged but creative DM's I'm talking about in my experience make up settings and monsters from scratch. They don't feel shackled by the CR table. What they do badly, that AD&D was no help with, was quickly adjudicate the out of class skill use, or stunt, or "outside the box" idea. If the party's Thief was unconscious, the Magic User out of spells, the Cleric not played since nobody wanted to play a Cleric, and the so the Fighter's girlfriend got roped into it, but they just broke up, so the party decides to avoid the Ogre guarding the exit of the tomb by sneaking or climbing up the side of the canyon and going around, the DM had to make up a way to resolve that.

In 3e, it's simple. Roll your Move Silent or Climb. Ok, you're untrained, just roll and add your Dex or Str mod, subtract your Armor Check penalty. We know the Ogre's Listen, and we can quickly gt the DC for climbing a rough stone wall. Easy.

In AD&D, it always started with "You can't do that, you're a Fighter (MU, etc)" So the player points out that, yes, people who don't steal for a living can actually not stomp and do climb things. So the DM looks bewildered and hunts for rules, or argues, or just says, "Ok, roll under your Dex," which will generally make the Fighter's chance better that the Thief's would have been.

Yes, yes, a good DM can make the perfect spot ruling. Yes, yes, the Initiative system or the Surprise Roll can be used to arbitrate sneaking, but that's not intuitive. The Move Silently skill versus the Listen roll, even cross class or untrained, is the intuitive solution, which will give a result consistent with the rest of the game, if not reality. The untrained Fighter with a Dex of 16 who takes off his mail won't sneak better than a Rogue who's put points in it, which always freaking happened with the spot rulings.

I played through this. A lot. This isn't a thought experiment, or a hypothetical, it happened. All the damn time.



For instance, he can't put up opposing monsters unless they're of the proper CR; he can't hand out the treasure he likes unless it's the proper WBL; etc. Well, of course he can do exactly that, but it's strongly implied by the rulebooks that he shouldn't. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if 3E core was actually balanced, but as this message board can attest, it isn't even close (That Damn Crab, anyone?).


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

He's the DM. he can throw the Tarrasque at you at third level if he wants, and the books give him permission.

The CR table is horribly flawed, but it's there to give a rough guide for the DM making up an adventure for a party of a given level. It's not a "rule" any more that it's a "rule" that you only get four encounters a day. That's a guideline to balance the per day spell slots, since they had to use some baseline. In 3e the new or bad-at-numbers DM knows that the designers planned the Wizard's spells per day with four CR appropriate encounters in mind. Without that guideline, he could plan the One Big Fight every day, and wonder why the Elf-in-a-dress always Pwnzorred everyone. Or he could do the Endless Wave of Shrieking Chicom Hordes and wonder why the Wizard burned out and cried after the ninth wave of goblinoid cannon fodder, while the Tank had a ball. With the four a day guideline, he can still have either type of encounter pace, but he has an understanding of how the resources can be expected to hold up.



Of course they still endorse that. However, there is a vocal group of 3E players who assume that if the DM is using fiat, he is "doing it wrong". I believe this sentiment is caused by the 3E design principle that "there should be a rule for everything".

That, in a nutshell, is what the conflict is actually about - people who believe the DM can "rule zero" things, and people who believe that he should never do that. 2E explicitly says the former, 3E tends to imply the latter.

3e implies nothing of the sort. It specifically states that the DM can trump any rule. Sure there may well be some rules lawyer punks in the party who cry, but they don't understand D&D. Probably never had to color in the numbers on their dice with that damn crayon we used to get in the boxed sets. D&D cannot model every setting and situation. The difference in approach was that AD&D didn't really try, or tried to resolve every new situation with a new system (unarmed combat, opening doors, lifting gates, finding secret doors, thieves' skills, everybody else's skills; all these had a unique resolution system, none of which looked much like the combat resolution system.)

3e has one basic mechanic for almost everything. Any situation can be resolved with the one mechanic D20 + relevant stat or skill bonus versus DC modified by circumstance.

So, when the player says, "I'm gonna try to jury rig a parachute out of those tapestries and jump from the tower rather than fight my way past all the guards choking the steps," the DM, whether on his first day or his hundredth adventure, says, "OK, roll a D20, add your Int bonus and pray," instead of "You're a Bard. Only PC's withe the Italian Renaissance Inventor class can design parachutes,"

Or look for it in Dragon issue 437, which has a base eight, abaccus driven, floating point fuzzy logic algorthym for resolving parachutes.

Or just roll under your Int.

NEO|Phyte
2008-02-23, 11:59 AM
My AD&D experience is extremely limited (and by extremely, we're talking the only reason I have ANY is because I saw a book at the half-price bookstore that I had to get.), but there is one thing from AD&D that I most certainly like.

The Fluff.

In this one skinny book (Thri-kreen of Athas), I've got a small dictionary of words (including THE worst possible insult a thri-kreen can give/be given), pronunciation guide, social structure, mindset, lifestyle, history, and there's even a chapter or two devoted to some rules I'll never use because the odds of me playing AD&D are nil. For someone that <3s thri-kreen, this thing is practically a bible.

Matthew
2008-02-23, 01:10 PM
Sure there may well be some rules lawyer punks in the party who cry, but they don't understand D&D. Probably never had to color in the numbers on their dice with that damn crayon we used to get in the boxed sets. D&D cannot model every setting and situation. The difference in approach was that AD&D didn't really try, or tried to resolve every new situation with a new system (unarmed combat, opening doors, lifting gates, finding secret doors, thieves' skills, everybody else's skills; all these had a unique resolution system, none of which looked much like the combat resolution system.)

Isn't it arguable, though, that the "rules lawyer punks in the party" in a D20 game who "don't understand D&D" are anagolous to those arguing and searching for rules in the AD&D party? Surely, it could just as easily be said of them that they "don't understand AD&D"?



3e has one basic mechanic for almost everything. Any situation can be resolved with the one mechanic D20 + relevant stat or skill bonus versus DC modified by circumstance.

So, when the player says, "I'm gonna try to jury rig a parachute out of those tapestries and jump from the tower rather than fight my way past all the guards choking the steps," the DM, whether on his first day or his hundredth adventure, says, "OK, roll a D20, add your Int bonus and pray," instead of "You're a Bard. Only PC's withe the Italian Renaissance Inventor class can design parachutes,"

Or look for it in Dragon issue 437, which has a base eight, abaccus driven, floating point fuzzy logic algorthym for resolving parachutes.

Or just roll under your Int.

Honestly, I don't think there's much of a difference between an Attribute Check in AD&D and D20. They're very similar mechanics and both subject to the DM's decision to modify for difficulty. It's true that many people (including myself) misconstrued Move Silently and Hide in Shadows as 'conventional stealth', but that was because "we didn't understand AD&D", not because there is an actual contradiction within the rule set. In any case, that is no reason to reject AD&D Attribute Checks as a means of task resolution.

For comparison's sake, and assuming '10' to be the basic DC for D20, this is how it breaks down:

Attribute | AD&D | D20
3 | 15% | 35%
4 | 20% | 40%
5 | 25% | 40%
6 | 30% | 45%
7 | 35% | 45%
8 | 40% | 50%
9 | 45% | 50%
10 | 50% | 55%
11 | 55% | 55%
12 | 60% | 60%
13 | 65% | 60%
14 | 70% | 65%
15 | 75% | 65%
16 | 80% | 70%
17 | 85% | 70%
18 | 90% | 75%
19 | 95% | 75%
20 | 100% | 80%
21 | 105% | 80%
22 | 110% | 85%
23 | 115% | 85%
24 | 120% | 90%
25 | 125% | 90%
26 | n/a | 95%
27 | n/a | 95%
28 | n/a | 100%
29 | n/a | 100%
30 | n/a | 105%


The variance is greater with AD&D, but hardly game breakingly so, and arguably it makes different Attribute scores more relevant and reduces the need to make them 'open ended'. Obviously, D20 Skill Ranks are a lot easier to obtain than AD&D Proficiency Slots, but that actually reduces the overall variance and power disparity between Levels. If it were desired for level to be a factor, you could simply add it to the percentage chance in the form [Level x (X)], where X would be 5 if you wanted it to mirror the importance that D20 gives to it.

What D20 does do well is spell things out. It provides tons of guidelines as to what is appropriate in terms of modifiers and what the consequences should be for failure. That is both a good and bad thing, in that codifying the rules makes it easier to learn the game, but at the same time creates the illusion of less flexibility [i.e. an unwillingness to discard the rules when they are failing to model something appropriately, summed up in the statement "I know it's stupid, but that's what what the rules say."].

Mike_G
2008-02-23, 05:43 PM
Isn't it arguable, though, that the "rules lawyer punks in the party" in a D20 game who "don't understand D&D" are anagolous to those arguing and searching for rules in the AD&D party? Surely, it could just as easily be said of them that they "don't understand AD&D"?


What I mean is "don't understand the concept of D&D" which is that the DM is the final arbiter, and the rules are guidelines for him to interpret, not "don't understand the minutia of the rules" since nobody understood all the rules of AD&D.




Honestly, I don't think there's much of a difference between an Attribute Check in AD&D and D20. They're very similar mechanics and both subject to the DM's decision to modify for difficulty. It's true that many people (including myself) misconstrued Move Silently and Hide in Shadows as 'conventional stealth', but that was because "we didn't understand AD&D", not because there is an actual contradiction within the rule set. In any case, that is no reason to reject AD&D Attribute Checks as a means of task resolution.


It's not that I have a huge problem with attribute checks, if that was the base resolution engine. It wasn't. Thieves, who were the primary skill users, had a percentage, modified slightly by Dex and race. In 1e, this was a flat percentage by level, in 2e, you could increase the skills you prioritized, which was better. Anyway, lets say a low level thief has a 40% chance to Move Silently, which was about right for low level. Cool if it's a special power you have that only you have. If the DM allows the Fighter to Sneak past guards (whether they mean the same or not, they are the same in practice, especially with a mediocore on the math DM.) on a Dex check, the Fighter probably has a 60% chance, even though his Dex is two to fouir points lower than the Thief, and he isn't trained to sneak.

Could the Thief just opt for a Str check to hit? No. So why not use the same system to resolve everybody's chance to sneak, hear noise, etc. Not percentage off the table for one class, but a diverse melange of Surprise rolls, initiative checks, attribute checks and ad hoc, wild ass guess percentages for everybody else.

My gripe is with the dozen incompatible resolution systems, any one of which a DM could use for a quick check, and which did not give consistent results.




What D20 does do well is spell things out. It provides tons of guidelines as to what is appropriate in terms of modifiers and what the consequences should be for failure. That is both a good and bad thing, in that codifying the rules makes it easier to learn the game, but at the same time creates the illusion of less flexibility [i.e. an unwillingness to discard the rules when they are failing to model something appropriately, summed up in the statement "I know it's stupid, but that's what what the rules say."].

I've not seen less willingness to disregard rule in D20 than in AD&D. But I do play with a group where al but one of us did play AD&D back in the day. The one player who did learn on D20 is baffled by AD&D's rules. We dragged out the old 1e DMG for some of the random flavor tables one time, and she was aghast at the incompatible parallel systems running through the game. All of us grognards picked up D20 pretty quick.

Matthew
2008-02-23, 06:17 PM
What I mean is "don't understand the concept of D&D" which is that the DM is the final arbiter, and the rules are guidelines for him to interpret, not "don't understand the minutia of the rules" since nobody understood all the rules of AD&D.

But surely the same applies? If the DM is the final arbiter of the rules and everyone understands that, then you shouldn't get the same arguments coming up again and again in the same group. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying AD&D had all the answers, but the 1e DMG is pretty specific about what you should do when there is a task to be performed not covered by the rules.



It's not that I have a huge problem with attribute checks, if that was the base resolution engine. It wasn't. Thieves, who were the primary skill users, had a percentage, modified slightly by Dex and race. In 1e, this was a flat percentage by level, in 2e, you could increase the skills you prioritized, which was better. Anyway, lets say a low level thief has a 40% chance to Move Silently, which was about right for low level. Cool if it's a special power you have that only you have. If the DM allows the Fighter to Sneak past guards (whether they mean the same or not, they are the same in practice, especially with a mediocore on the math DM.) on a Dex check, the Fighter probably has a 60% chance, even though his Dex is two to fouir points lower than the Thief, and he isn't trained to sneak.

But Mike, this is to misunderstand the rules of the game. The Thief's chance to Move Silently is not his chance to sneak past the guard, it is his chance to be perfectly quiet. If his Move Silently check failed, then you still determine the results of conventional stealth, if it succeeds then his chance of sneaking past is increased.

That is to say, if a Thief is trying to surprise a party of Orcs, he rolls his Move Silently to increase his chance to Surprise, not to see whether he Surprises them or not (unless the result of successfully Moving Silently leads to automatic surprise).

If you use Attribute Checks to sneak past guards, everybody sneaks using Attribute checks. However, the Thief has a chance of moving perfectly silently, in which case, if he is successful, then the DM modifies his Attribute check (maybe even declaring it unnecessary).



Could the Thief just opt for a Str check to hit? No. So why not use the same system to resolve everybody's chance to sneak, hear noise, etc. Not percentage off the table for one class, but a diverse melange of Surprise rolls, initiative checks, attribute checks and ad hoc, wild ass guess percentages for everybody else.

Well, I think the clearest answer to that is not every skill is equal, so using a universal resolution system to handle every skill is not necessarily appropriate. In my opinion, though, whether you build the percentage chance into the check or you raise the difficulty makes little to no difference in the resolution of the task.



My gripe is with the dozen incompatible resolution systems, any one of which a DM could use for a quick check, and which did not give consistent results.

Sure, I can understand that. It doesn't bother me because I tend to just think about it in terms of probabilities. The method for getting to the desired probability doesn't worry me overmuch, as I do get consistant results.



I've not seen less willingness to disregard rule in D20 than in AD&D. But I do play with a group where al but one of us did play AD&D back in the day. The one player who did learn on D20 is baffled by AD&D's rules. We dragged out the old 1e DMG for some of the random flavor tables one time, and she was aghast at the incompatible parallel systems running through the game. All of us grognards picked up D20 pretty quick.

Heh, I know one thing for sure. The way different groups play any given ruleset tends to vary wildly. D20 is definitely easier to pick up than AD&D.

Creeps
2008-02-23, 07:29 PM
I'm gonna start with what should be the closing line of this post:

All I know is that I had years of fun with AD&D (2nd) and years of fun with 3(.5). In the end, that's all that matters.

Neither are perfect. AD&D didn't have rules for every situation and that could bog things down. 3rd tried to have rules for every situation and that could bog things down.

I know jack all about 4th and I'm not going to until I purchase the new PHB filled with the same grating apprehension I had when I bought 3.0...and 3.5 two weeks later (I didn't know it was coming out. Yes. Yes, I was a touch angry).

But, to be on topic (ie: likes/dislikes of AD&D)

-Halflings were basically hobbits. I miss this. I admit it. I dislike gypsy halflings.

-I miss the support for a ton of different settings. The "loss" of Planescape hurts me something deep. The fact that they basically killed the factions in the city was also a deep burn.

-Non weapon proficiencies were stupid, yeah, but at the time it didn't bother me. The skill system we have now occasionally bugs the hell outta me, but I do suppose it's more "realistic." Granted, talking down a raging dragon with an obscene diplomacy check seems bunk, but hey, whatever.

-The way they made humans a desirable race (giving everyone else level and class restrictions) always bugged me. We always skipped the level caps, though. Did this make humans "worthless?" Well, yeah, but humans were also less likely to suffer from racial hatred (at least in most of my games)

-I don't miss save or die poisons. Type F FTL.

-Kits were stupid. PrC are much, much better.

-I miss tieflings having strange random appearances from the Planescape box, but that's something that I house rule (and will continue to HR).

-I honestly miss the varying experience tables. I thought the idea made sense.

-I miss the art. Not the cheesy blue line art (you know what I mean), but that amazing Easley et all art in full pages and on the covers.

-Generic D&D went from medieval fantasy to a pseudo classical/renaissance. I <3 serfs and the dark ages. (but not as much as I <3 Sigil)

-I miss the percentile die. I don't know why. How they would fly, the percentile die...

-THAC0 never, ever bothered me. I think the new system is a wee bit better, but I still prefer armor actually making you, I don't know, harder to damage rather than to hit.

I'm sure there's more. In the end, both games involved lots of house ruling. I enjoyed both for a long time. Stuff changes. :shrug: Maybe I'll jump onto the 4th ed bandwagon, but not a moment before I get a copy of the book in hand.

LibraryOgre
2008-02-23, 09:13 PM
-Kits were stupid. PrC are much, much better.


People compare kits and prestige classes a lot, but most kits were a different concept than PrCs. Kits are more akin to class variants (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/variantClasses.htm) or racial substitution levels... they provided some initial changes to the class, and occasional by-level changes, but they weren't, usually, going to provide you new abilities every level.

Creeps
2008-02-23, 09:52 PM
People compare kits and prestige classes a lot, but most kits were a different concept than PrCs. Kits are more akin to class variants (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/variantClasses.htm) or racial substitution levels... they provided some initial changes to the class, and occasional by-level changes, but they weren't, usually, going to provide you new abilities every level.

Noted. Still hated 'em, but noted.

LibraryOgre
2008-02-23, 10:15 PM
Noted. Still hated 'em, but noted.

Doesn't bother me. I just like to keep these things clear. I liked some of them, though some of them were f'ing stupid (Greenwood Rangers... grrr...)

JadedDM
2008-02-24, 02:19 AM
Kits were optional, though, so you could always not use them. Or do what I do, and make 'em up yourself.

Anyway, as for the main topic, I like everything about AD&D (2E, specifically--no Player's Option). I can't think of any real complaints, as if there was anything about it I didn't like, I could change it pretty easily.

xyzchyx
2008-03-02, 05:44 PM
The thing I like the least about the current edition of D&D is the sheer volume of beancounting that seems to be required to run a game... knowing how many points you have in each possible skill you can perform, for example, which may be fine if one is using it as a model for a video game, but I find that it bogs a pen and paper tabletop game down.

I far preferred 1st edition's drastically simpler initiative system... it was less concerned with simulating the battle than it was with simply getting things done.

I also preferred 1st edition's version of psionics, where it had a distinctive feel from magic but was not particularly robust by itself, as 2nd edition psionics was.

I similarly preferred first edition's non-weapon proficiency system, where you were either good at something, or you weren't. If you were knew how to do something, then you would almost always succeed, and if you weren't, you'd probably fail. The DM, of course, being free to assign precise percentages depending on the circumstances. There was no real issue about becoming progressively better at something, even though that may be how things work in real life, that is an example of the sort of beancounting that I dislike about late 2nd edition and later versions.

Another thing I *REALLY* liked about the first edition was that TSR initially seemed to be interested in regularly publishing quite a few prefabbed adventure modules that anybody could play, where a lot of the DM's work has already been done, and the module itself is playable in only a few hours. Such modules could easily be used to introduce new players into the game who might then turn around and go and buy their own core materials. That strategy of TSR's ensured a continually growing market segment which could easily make up for not always having new big books coming out several times per year. This is something that TSR started to pull away from around the time that Gary Gygax left, and I think by focussing too much on individual campaign settings instead of modules that anyone could use, regardless of the game world they played in, I believe they fragmented their market to below sustainable levels, which is what ultimately led to their demise.

horseboy
2008-03-02, 08:24 PM
It wasn't just because of a small minority of players. Unlike a home game where one DM has final say, and will notice these things quickly, in LG there was an arms race of sorts between a distinct group of LG players in certain regions, especially in the Sheldomar Valley Metaregion, and the mod authors. As a result one party could waltz through an APL 8 encounter while another party would be TPKed by the same encounter at APL 6.
Heh! Come on down to Dyvvers if you think they're bad. My buddy had a gnome illusionist solo I think it was an APL:8 just to see if he could. :smallwink:


Well, why not go the whole hog and play RoleMaster?
:smalltongue:


But Mike, this is to misunderstand the rules of the game. The Thief's chance to Move Silently is not his chance to sneak past the guard, it is his chance to be perfectly quiet. If his Move Silently check failed, then you still determine the results of conventional stealth, if it succeeds then his chance of sneaking past is increased.

That is to say, if a Thief is trying to surprise a party of Orcs, he rolls his Move Silently to increase his chance to Surprise, not to see whether he Surprises them or not (unless the result of successfully Moving Silently leads to automatic surprise).

If you use Attribute Checks to sneak past guards, everybody sneaks using Attribute checks. However, the Thief has a chance of moving perfectly silently, in which case, if he is successful, then the DM modifies his Attribute check (maybe even declaring it unnecessary).

Yes, and had this concept been in one of the books ANYWHERE I wouldn't have had to have ripped apart the thief and given "thief skills" to everybody just so they could also "sneak".


Things I liked about prior editions:
Spelljammer. There I said it in public.
Dark Sun.
That it didn't take itself so seriously. There was a lot of silly fun that was had "back in the day". Yes, I'll remember it fondly, but it now resides in the same spot as Herculoids, and Galtar. Best in the past, rather than have me face it without the obscuring mist of time.

Animefunkmaster
2008-03-02, 08:29 PM
I disliked Thac0, it never really sat well at our table... and never really felt very intuitive.

Matthew
2008-03-02, 08:42 PM
Yes, and had this concept been in one of the books ANYWHERE I wouldn't have had to have ripped apart the thief and given "thief skills" to everybody just so they could also "sneak".

Aw mate, check it out, it's on page 102 of the 1e PHB under silent movement (as well as littered elsewhere in the DMG and implied in the skill descriptions on p. 28 of the PHB; anywhere but in plain sight! :smallwink:)... and, yeah, I did the exact same thing.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook 1e, p. 28.


Moving Silently can be attempted each time the thief moves. It can be used to approach an area where some creature is expected, thus increasing chances for surprise (q.v.). or to approach to back stab, or simply done to pass some guard or watchman. Failure (a dice score in excess of the adiusted base chance) means that movement was not silent (see SURPRISE). Success means movement was silent.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook 1e, p. 102.


Characters typically make a certain amount of noise, and thus alert opponents of their presence. But thieves, as well as characters able to move quietly because of a magical device such as boots of elvenkind have a chance to be absolutely silent when moving. This chance to be absolutely silent is given as a percentage, +/- modifiers, and the character must roll percentile dice to score less than or equal to the percentage chance he or she has to move without sound. Success indicates silent movement and an improved chance to surprise an opponent or slip past it.

Thane of Fife
2008-03-02, 08:55 PM
Things I liked about prior editions:
Spelljammer. There I said it in public.


Hear, hear! The idea of a fleet whose superweapon is a giant slug which they drop on planets is simply too awesome for words.

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-02, 10:38 PM
I liked a few things about AD&D:

1) Low-magic world. Magic was rare, odd, and not for sale, generally; if you wanted to make a potion, you had to round up the ingredients.
2) Less power creep. Sure, characters were powerful, but they did not gain exponential power the way they do in the current edition.
3) Longer levels. Again, as someone else said, 3rd edition leads to hyper-fast levelling.

All that said, I think what I disliked the most about AD&D was the general weirdness; the saving throw system was far from intuitive, THAC0 was just bizzare, negative AC and the whole initiative system was bizzare, and the non-uniformity of plusses and minuses being good and bad was outright bizzare. I think uniformity of rolls is a good thing - either high numbers are good or they're bad, and it should work that way on everything in terms of rolling.

Chronos
2008-03-02, 10:43 PM
Things I like better in 3rd:

Higher numbers are always better. Granted, this doesn't actually make any mechanical difference, but it makes things much easier to keep track of. I remember being overjoyed, the first and only time I rolled a natural 20 during a game... Only to realize a moment later that it was a proficiency check, so it was a critical fail.

The multiclassing system. Yeah, some options that used to be viable aren't any more, but some options that weren't viable before now are. You gain some, you lose some, no complaints either way, there. No, the reason I prefer 3rd edition's multiclassing is that it makes sense. Back before 3rd edition was even rumored, I came up with a simple test to determine if a multiclassing system made sense: Invent a new class, called fighter-prime, that has the exact same abilities as a fighter. Then, create a fighter/fighter-prime, and see if it looks the same as a pure fighter with the same amount of experience. In 3rd edition, it more or less does: You're getting one feat more than you should, and you have an unexplainable +2 to your Fort save, but your chance to hit, number of attacks, skill points, hit points, etc. are all just the same as they would be. But in either of the 2nd edition multiclassing systems, it would be completely different, and a total mess to figure out every time you leveled up (or half-leveled-up, or whatever).

And that's another thing... Why were there two completely different multiclassing systems in 2nd edition? Humans can dual-class, but other races can't, because humans are more flexible than the other races. The other races can multi-class, but humans can't, because the other races are more flexible than humans. Huh?

Related to the above, of course, I prefer the uniform XP tables in 3rd edition. In addition to making 3rd's multiclassing system possible, it also removed some odd quirks of the 2nd edition system. For instance, there came a point in a party's progression where the thief was by far the best tank in the party, because he had 2d6 HP and a 19 base THAC0 to the fighter's 1d10 and 20 THAC0. Why?

Finally (and I know this is hotly debated), I prefer 3rd's rules-heavy approach. In any system, if you have a good DM, he's going to change the rules whenever needed, anyway. In 3rd edition, the DM always has a choice between using what the book says, and making something up by the seat of his pants. In 2nd, the DM also always had the option to make something up by the seat of his pants, but he didn't always have the option to go by what the book said, because all too often, it didn't say. So if the DM were lacking in the particular skill of making things up well on the fly, the game fell apart. 3rd edition DMs still need skills, of course, but it's at least possible to play the game without that particular skill.


What I miss from 2nd edition:
Reversible spells. Yeah, ok, it's a small little feature of the magic system, and the reversed versions of most of the spells are still around. I just liked the concept that, say, Cure Light Wounds and Cause Light Wounds were in some sense the same spell, just twisted around in a different way.

Casting times. In both 2nd and 3rd, mages losing a spell from being distracted while casting it is supposed to be a balancing factor between casters and non-casters. But it worked in 2nd edition, and not in 3rd, partly because of the loss of casting times. In 2nd edition, you didn't have to specifically ready an action to distract a mage; you just had to take your turn and hit him some time while he was casting. And most high-level spells had casting times close to the full range of initiative rolls, so if the mage were in range, you'd be almost guaranteed to get the timing right and disrupt him. This also meant that you could, in effect, use quick, low-level spells like Magic Missile as counterspells, which kept them useful through all levels. Of course, to bring back the possibility of spell loss through distraction, you'd have to seriously overhaul the Concentration rules.

Sir_Leorik
2008-03-03, 09:53 AM
Heh! Come on down to Dyvvers if you think they're bad. My buddy had a gnome illusionist solo I think it was an APL:8 just to see if he could. :smallwink:


The problem in Keoland is that some of the authors really got into the whole arms race mentality, trying to outdo the most optimized players, and a lot of players got caught in the cross-fire in a Year Five mod called Tale of Two Lions. For the final encounter, a Rust Dragon appears and breathes on the party, to destroy all their gear, then you roll for Init. We have a saying here in Keoland, "Welcome to Keoland! Roll for initiative!"



Yes, I'll remember it fondly, but it now resides in the same spot as Herculoids, and Galtar. Best in the past, rather than have me face it without the obscuring mist of time.

I remember Galtar. That was one of Hanna Barbara's better '80's series. I don't remember how the series ended (did it have an ending, or was it cancelled?), but it had some of the best comic relief. There were those two Dwarves, a father and son who kept trying to swindle their way through the fantasy kingdom. Know that I think about it twenty years later, they were probably based on various ethnic groups, but it was subtle enough that it wasn't too offensive. I don't think that the animators on, say Cartoon Network, could get away with that today.

Sir_Leorik
2008-03-03, 09:59 AM
Casting times. In both 2nd and 3rd, mages losing a spell from being distracted while casting it is supposed to be a balancing factor between casters and non-casters. But it worked in 2nd edition, and not in 3rd, partly because of the loss of casting times. In 2nd edition, you didn't have to specifically ready an action to distract a mage; you just had to take your turn and hit him some time while he was casting. And most high-level spells had casting times close to the full range of initiative rolls, so if the mage were in range, you'd be almost guaranteed to get the timing right and disrupt him. This also meant that you could, in effect, use quick, low-level spells like Magic Missile as counterspells, which kept them useful through all levels. Of course, to bring back the possibility of spell loss through distraction, you'd have to seriously overhaul the Concentration rules.

IMO it is balanced in 3.X, because you can ready an action to disrupt the caster, something you couldn't do in 2E. In 2E you had to hope you rolled a higher (i.e. worse) initiative than the caster, but that the caster's spell casting time would bump his spell into your initiative. If you went first you can't delay until the caster is about to cast, you just hit him, and if he doesn't die from your blow (say by having cast Stoneskin already), he gets his spell off, and there isn't even a chance for an Attack of Oppurtunity.

Thane of Fife
2008-03-03, 10:26 AM
In 2E you had to hope you rolled a higher (i.e. worse) initiative than the caster, but that the caster's spell casting time would bump his spell into your initiative. If you went first you can't delay until the caster is about to cast, you just hit him, and if he doesn't die from your blow (say by having cast Stoneskin already), he gets his spell off, and there isn't even a chance for an Attack of Oppurtunity.

Actually, you just had to hit him before he cast the spell - the initiatives didn't need to match. You didn't even have to hurt him, just hit or make him fail a saving throw at some point in the round before he cast the spell.

JadedDM
2008-03-03, 03:44 PM
For instance, there came a point in a party's progression where the thief was by far the best tank in the party, because he had 2d6 HP and a 19 base THAC0 to the fighter's 1d10 and 20 THAC0. Why?

A level 2 thief had a THAC0 (base) of 20. They didn't get a THAC0 of 19 until level 3, and by that point the Fighter would have a THAC0 of 18.

Matthew
2008-03-03, 03:58 PM
Actually, you just had to hit him before he cast the spell - the initiatives didn't need to match. You didn't even have to hurt him, just hit or make him fail a saving throw at some point in the round before he cast the spell.

Exactly right, and if you had Multiple Attacks, you automatically attacked first.

Of course, this was a much easier prospect in 1e, where Initiative was determined by 1d6 and Weapon Speeds were not added, but Casting Times were.


Related to the above, of course, I prefer the uniform XP tables in 3rd edition. In addition to making 3rd's multiclassing system possible, it also removed some odd quirks of the 2nd edition system. For instance, there came a point in a party's progression where the thief was by far the best tank in the party, because he had 2d6 HP and a 19 base THAC0 to the fighter's 1d10 and 20 THAC0. Why?

As JadedDM says, it's because you were reading the rules wrong. You may be thinking of the 2,500 XP break where the Level 2 Fighter has THAC0 19 and 2D10 Hit Points (Av. 11), but the Level 3 Thief has THAC0 19 and 3D6 Hit Points (Av. 10.5). The simplest answer is because at that point they remain roughly balanced in power at 2,500 XP. The Thief has some Thief Abilities, the Fighter has greater access to Weapons and Armour, but they are otherwise similarly combat effective. I believe D20 calls that 'balance' or something?

dwaro
2008-03-03, 04:23 PM
A level 2 thief had a THAC0 (base) of 20. They didn't get a THAC0 of 19 until level 3, and by that point the Fighter would have a THAC0 of 18.

Actually, you're both wrong. A 3rd level thief would have 3d6 HD and a 19 THAC0. A fighter at the same experience point total would have 2d10 HD and a 19 THAC0.

Matthew
2008-03-03, 04:31 PM
There's also the possibility that if you're using AD&D 1e (and the DM is not implementing the optional rule that advances the Fighter's combat capability by 5% per Level, but instead using the standard rule that advances his combat capability by 10% per two levels) that the Level 2 Fighter has THAC0 20 at 2,500 XP.

JadedDM
2008-03-03, 06:02 PM
In any case, the fighter has specialization (+1 to hit, +2 to damage) and probably has better weapons and armor, too. And while not necessarily true, it's not unreasonable to assume he has higher STR and CON, also.

Matthew
2008-03-03, 06:11 PM
Well... Specialisation is an Optional Rule, but it certainly increases the divide between Fighter and Thief. Personally, for 2e, I just don't see the problem in the Thief and Fighter being on a relative parity at 2,500 XP. I drew up a chart to show the distribution once, but it almost blinded Fax_Celestis, so look upon its glory at your own risk... :smallbiggrin:

{table=head]Experience|Class|Level|Attacks|THAC0|Hit Dice|Saving Throws|Abilities

0|
Thief|
1|
1|
20|
1D6 |13/14/12/16/15|Thief Skill Points 60, Back Stab x2

0|
Cleric|
1|
1|
20|
1D8|10/14/13/16/15|Spell Slots 1, Turn Undead 1

0|
Fighter|
1|
1|
20|
1D10|14/16/15/17/17|

0|
Mage|
1|
1|
20|
1D4|14/11/13/15/12|Spell Slots 1

1,250|
Thief|
2|
1|
20|
2D6|13/14/12/16/15|Thief Skill Points 90, Back Stab x2

1,500|
Cleric|
2|
1|
20|
2D8|10/14/13/16/15|Spell Slots 2, Turn Undead 2

2,000|
Fighter|
2|
1|
19|
2D10|14/16/15/17/17|

2,500|
Mage|
2|
1|
20|
2D4|14/11/13/15/12|Spell Slots 2

2,500|
Thief|
3|
1|
19|
3D6|13/14/12/16/15|Thief Skill Points 120, Back Stab x2

3,000|
Cleric|
3|
1|
19|
3D8|10/14/13/16/15|Spell Slots 2/1, Turn Undead 3

4,000|
Fighter|
3|
1|
18|
3D10|13/15/14/16/16|

5,000|
Mage|
3|
1|
20|
3D4|14/11/13/15/12|Spell Slots 2/1

5,000|
Thief|
4|
1|
19|
4D6|13/14/12/16/15|Thief Skill Points 150, Back Stab x2

6,000|
Cleric|
4|
1|
18|
4D8|9/13/12/15/14|Spell Slots 3/2, Turn Undead 4

8,000|
Fighter|
4|
1|
17|
4D10|13/15/14/16/16|

10,000|
Mage|
4|
1|
19|
4D4|14/11/13/15/12|Spell Slots 3/2

10,000|
Thief|
5|
1|
18|
5D6|12/12/11/15/13|Thief Skill Points 180, Back Stab x3

13,000|
Cleric|
5|
1|
18|
5D8|9/13/12/15/14|Spell Slots 3/3/1, Turn Undead 5

16,000|
Fighter|
5|
1|
16|
5D10|11/13/12/13/14|

20,000|
Mage|
5|
1|
19|
5D4|14/11/13/15/12|Spell Slots 4/2/1

20,000|
Thief|
6|
1|
18|
6D6|12/12/11/15/13|Thief Skill Points 210, Back Stab x3

27,500|
Cleric|
6|
1|
18|
6D8|9/13/12/15/14|Spell Slots 3/3/2, Turn Undead 6

32,000|
Fighter|
6|
1|
15|
6D10|11/13/12/13/14|

40,000|
Mage|
6|
1|
19|
6D4|13/9/11/13/10|Spell Slots 4/2/2

40,000|
Thief|
7|
1|
17|
7D6|12/12/11/15/13|Thief Skill Points 240, Back Stab x3

55,000|
Cleric|
7|
1|
16|
7D8|7/11/10/13/12|Spell Slots 3/3/2/1, Turn Undead 7

60,000|
Mage|
7|
1|
18|
7D4|13/9/11/13/10|Spell Slots 4/3/2/1

64,000|
Fighter|
7|
3/2|
14|
7D10|10/12/11/12/13|

70,000|
Thief|
8|
1|
17|
8D6|12/12/11/15/13|Thief Skill Points 270, Back Stab x3

90,000|
Mage|
8|
1|
18|
8D4|13/9/11/13/10|Spell Slots 4/3/3/2

110,000|
Cleric|
8|
1|
16|
8D8|7/11/10/13/12|Spell Slots 3/3/3/2, Turn Undead 8

110,000|
Thief|
9|
1|
16|
9D6|11/10/10/14/11|Thief Skill Points 300, Back Stab x4

125,000|
Fighter|
8|
3/2|
13|
8D10|11/13/12/13/14|

135,000|
Mage|
9|
1|
18|
9D4|13/9/11/13/10|Spell Slots 4/3/3/2/1

160,000|
Thief|
10|
1|
16|
10D6|11/10/10/14/11|Thief Skill Points 330, Back Stab x4

220,000|
Thief|
11|
1|
15|
10D6+2|11/10/10/14/11|Thief Skill Points 360, Back Stab x4

225,000|
Cleric|
9|
1|
16|
9D8|7/11/10/13/12|Spell Slots 4/4/3/2/1, Turn Undead 9

250,000|
Fighter|
9|
3/2|
12|
9D10|8/10/9/9/11|

250,000|
Mage|
10|
1|
17|
10D4|13/9/11/13/10|Spell Slots 4/4/3/2/2
[/table]

Chronos
2008-03-03, 07:03 PM
IMO it is balanced in 3.X, because you can ready an action to disrupt the caster, something you couldn't do in 2E.That would be a balancing factor, if it weren't for the problem that readying actions to attack the spellcaster is suicidal.

Fighter: I ready an action to hit the wizard as soon as he casts a spell.
Wizard (seeing that the fighter didn't actually act, and guessing why): I hit the fighter over the head with my staff.
Second round starts, same as the first, except now the wizard has gotten a free attack in and is no longer flat-footed, and the fighter hasn't done anything.

And I was misremembering the Thief THAC0 progression, but they're still equal when the thief is at 2 and the fighter is at 1 (everywhere from 1250 to 1999 XP), and the thief still has more HP.

Oh, and Matthew, all of your thief rows are skewed in your table. You have the number of attacks and THAC0 separated by returns, not |, so everything past that point is in the wrong column.

Matthew
2008-03-03, 07:48 PM
And I was misremembering the Thief THAC0 progression, but they're still equal when the thief is at 2 and the fighter is at 1 (everywhere from 1250 to 1999 XP), and the thief still has more HP.

Depends how you calculate hit points. If everyone gets a full Hit Die at Level 1, then the Thief is behind by 0.5 on average [10 versus 6+1D6]. If the first Hit Die is rolled for (I don't recommend this), then the Thief has an average of 1.5 more Hit Points [1D10 versus 2D6]. Still not enough to really do more than put them on a reasonable parity, given that the Fighter will generally have a better AC.



Oh, and Matthew, all of your thief rows are skewed in your table. You have the number of attacks and THAC0 separated by returns, not |, so everything past that point is in the wrong column.

Yeah, bear with me. I am having trouble putting the data into a Forum Friendly format and connectivity issues are compounding the problem.

kjones
2008-03-03, 08:21 PM
Aw mate, check it out, it's on page 102 of the 1e PHB under silent movement (as well as littered elsewhere in the DMG and implied in the skill descriptions on p. 28 of the PHB; anywhere but in plain sight! :smallwink:)... and, yeah, I did the exact same thing.

*stuff*

Great. Now where does it say that in 2nd Edition, anywhere?

Matthew
2008-03-03, 08:49 PM
I doubt it does (Mike G and HorseBoy are former 1e Players, which is why I haven't mentioned the 2e problems). The 2e PHB and DMG are not very well edited and occasionally give the impression that the authors hadn't grasped some of the key concepts.

As far as I know, there's the Thief Skill description:



Move Silently: A thief can try to move silently at any time simply by announcing that he intends to do so. While moving silently, the thief's movement rate is reduced to 1/3 normal. The DM rolls percentile dice to determine whether the thief is moving silently; the thief always thinks he is being quiet. Successful silent movement improves the thief's chance to surprise a victim, avoid discovery, or move into position to stab an enemy in the back. Obviously, a thief moving silently but in plain view of his enemies is wasting his time.

...very vague, and clearly reliant on the original text.

Then there's the Back Stab example:


The ogre marches down the hallway, peering into the gloom ahead. He fails to notice the shadowy form of Ragnar the thief hidden in an alcove. Slipping into the hallway, Ragnar creeps up behind the monster. As he sets himself to strike a mortal blow, his foot scrapes across the stone. The hairy ears of the ogre perk up. The beast whirls around, ruining Ragnar's chance for a backstab and what remains of his day. If Ragnar had made a successful roll to move silently, he could have attacked the ogre with a +4 bonus on his chance to hit and inflicted five times his normal damage (since he is 15th level).

...which I think suggests that Move Silently is equivalent to sneaking.

On the other hand, I think David Cook recently confirmed that the former interpretation was the correct one for 2e also.

LibraryOgre
2008-03-03, 08:58 PM
Great. Now where does it say that in 2nd Edition, anywhere?

Page 40 of PH (the original version):

"Successful silent movement improves the thief's chance to surprise a victim, avoid discovery, or move into position to stab an enemy in the back." Emphasis mine; failing a move silently roll doesn't ruin your chances of surprising someone, though making it improves it.

Re: Hide in Shadows, same page: "However, hidden character are equally concealed to those with or without infravision. Spells, magical items, and special abilities that reveal invisible objects can reveal the location of a hidden thief."

So, if you've Hidden in Shadows, you're essentially invisible (though you're limited in that you can make only limited movements.

Mike_G
2008-03-03, 09:48 PM
Things I like better in 3rd:

Finally (and I know this is hotly debated), I prefer 3rd's rules-heavy approach. In any system, if you have a good DM, he's going to change the rules whenever needed, anyway. In 3rd edition, the DM always has a choice between using what the book says, and making something up by the seat of his pants. In 2nd, the DM also always had the option to make something up by the seat of his pants, but he didn't always have the option to go by what the book said, because all too often, it didn't say. So if the DM were lacking in the particular skill of making things up well on the fly, the game fell apart.



I agree.

This is totally what I was trying to say, but probably didn't get across. You have rules for anything. Ignore or overrule 'em if you want, since "rules" in D&D are pretty much just guidelines, but if the DM isn't quick on his feet, at least there is a ruling in th book to adjudicate most any action.

Matthew
2008-03-03, 10:05 PM
I agree.

This is totally what I was trying to say, but probably didn't get across. You have rules for anything. Ignore or overrule 'em if you want, since "rules" in D&D are pretty much just guidelines, but if the DM isn't quick on his feet, at least there is a ruling in th book to adjudicate most any action.

No, no, don't worry there. You got that across; much of the debate regarding the relative values of AD&D and D20 hinges on that distinction. There are basically two viewpoints that revolve around the idea.

1) Some people find it easier to remove rules from a game than to add them. Some people find the opposite to be true.

2) Some people find the guidelines helpful and particularly useful to new DMs. Some people find the guidelines constraining and unhelpful, especially because they encourage defaulting to them.

That's basically all there is to it. The first is clearly preferential, but the second has given rise to some fairly interesting discussions, as it deals with how new DMs and Players are 'trained' or 'encouraged' to play.

EvilElitest
2008-03-03, 11:27 PM
Correct me if i'm wrong, but weren't 4E casters more hindered in their magic, more components, rituals, casting time ect?
from
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