GraysonAC wrote:I haven't read anything about C&C, but I honestly can't see any game system as "modular". Game balance isn't a series of unconnected factors - doing something like you mentioned, adding the Sorcerer to the game, would affect a lot of other things. Each "module" of the rules would have to be balanced against each other to keep a good game, and that makes them interdependant by their very nature.
GraysonAC wrote:killjoy32 wrote:i like 1E because its quick and simple and its about ROLEPLAY not dice rolls and tables.That's the kind of stuff I understand - folks not liking 3E because it's a different style than the original game. It's very different. That's a dislike based on the game philosophy.i found when i played the 3E game (which i actually got up and left in mid-game) i spent so much time trying to figure out all the skills and calculate stuff all the time, that i got no enjoyment out of the scenario or the role play at all.maybe that was just me *shrugs**nods* Definately not just you. 3E is way, way more complicated as far as rules go. That's why I have to laugh when I see folks here saying things like "3E is meant for younger gamers" - no 12 year old is going to figure out 3E Our group is still looking stuff up all the time, and we've been playing once or twice a week for a few years now.
killjoy32 wrote:i like 1E because its quick and simple and its about ROLEPLAY not dice rolls and tables.
i found when i played the 3E game (which i actually got up and left in mid-game) i spent so much time trying to figure out all the skills and calculate stuff all the time, that i got no enjoyment out of the scenario or the role play at all.maybe that was just me *shrugs*
I have too agree with Diemos here. I hate the way 3.5 looks and feels. It might play fine, but it is not the D&D that I associaite with. It never will be, and that is ok, too. To me, 3.5 brought out all the things I hated about power gamers who mutilated earlier versions to make their super characters of everything slaying. There seems to be no sense of balance. Everything has its place. An orc is an orc - yeah, the orc king might be 5 hit dice, so what. In 3.5 that orc king could be the equal to 15th level fighter and slaughter an entire army by himself. Shipley - Not to be critical. But what the hell kind of game were you playing where an 11th level 1 ed fighter can wipe out a Cloud giant without taking damage? If that was the norm for your group, then something was seriously wrong with your game. (at least compared to our group)
GraysonAC wrote:Everything has its place. An orc is an orc - yeah, the orc king might be 5 hit dice, so what. In 3.5 that orc king could be the equal to 15th level fighter and slaughter an entire army by himself.Honestly, does that make any sense to you? That because it's an orc, it's always going to just be an orc? In 3.5, that orc could very well be tough enough to challenge the entire damn party. In 1st/2nd, it was just another speedbump.
Everything has its place. An orc is an orc - yeah, the orc king might be 5 hit dice, so what. In 3.5 that orc king could be the equal to 15th level fighter and slaughter an entire army by himself.
MShipley88 wrote:bbarsh wrote:Shipley - Not to be critical. But what the hell kind of game were you playing where an 11th level 1 ed fighter can wipe out a Cloud giant without taking damage? If that was the norm for your group, then something was seriously wrong with your game. (at least compared to our group) OK, so SOME damage. But, a first edition 11th level fighter with even a moderately magical suit of armor, a +3 sword and double specialization could chop up a cloud giant (12d8 hit dice, average of 54 hit points, one swing, no strength bonuses to hit, no constitution bonus, no skills, slow and only a ceremonial armor class) without much worry. Reducing all character stats down to 12 (no bonuses) might prolong the agony, but the result would be the same...particularly if PC magic-users were also involved. In fact, the first and second edition game tended to break down when the party fighters reached 7th level and/or the mages reached 9th level...particularly after Unearthed Arcana made all of the Dragon magazine material official. In fact 9th or 10th level was usually the level at which we started a new group of characters because it made no logical game sense to populate a region with literally hundreds of huge monsters for the party to chop up while laughing and drinking wine from crystal goblets without spilling a drop. By comparison, last night a couple of basic 3.5 cloud giants (2 of them), with nothing but the stats right out of the book, sent my campaign's party of seven 10th and 11th level PC's screaming in terror and trying to hide from giants who could run faster than them, hit harder than them and utilize all of the same combat skills of the party's fighters. 8) Much fun. :wink: Mark
bbarsh wrote:Shipley - Not to be critical. But what the hell kind of game were you playing where an 11th level 1 ed fighter can wipe out a Cloud giant without taking damage? If that was the norm for your group, then something was seriously wrong with your game. (at least compared to our group)
GraysonAC wrote:I Dmed a 3E campaign for a while, and I tried so hard to force people to roleplay that I nearly burned myself out on gaming.Again, a problem with people, not with the system. Your problem is with non-rp players, not with the system you're using. The guys in my 3E game are as focused on their 'build' as anybody else - and they also roleplay the characters created. One of my players wants to pick up the Aasimar template (he's a 15th level Favored Soul), not because it gives any particular advantage (it's not actually a good choice, power-wise, for him), but because it makes sense with his character and the setting. He's using the rules to further roleplaying. Imagine that, the system actually helps that.
I Dmed a 3E campaign for a while, and I tried so hard to force people to roleplay that I nearly burned myself out on gaming.
GraysonAC wrote:Traveller wrote:Raise Dead in AD&D had very nasty (and balancing) side effects. If you survived the system shock roll, you were revived with one hit point and had to spend one week in bed for every level you were. In d20 Fantasy, there is no system shock roll, and you return to play immediately with one hit point for every level you are.Ah. Well, I certainly concede that then. I do remember the system shock roll, although I think by 2nd Edition (again, if memory serves), there was no bed rest required.I happen to agree that raising characters from the dead is too easy. In my game, Raise Dead (normally 5th) takes the place of Ressurection (7th), and Ressurection gets moved to True Ressurection (9th). True Res is the domain of the Powers only, not players or NPC spellcasters.
Traveller wrote:Raise Dead in AD&D had very nasty (and balancing) side effects. If you survived the system shock roll, you were revived with one hit point and had to spend one week in bed for every level you were. In d20 Fantasy, there is no system shock roll, and you return to play immediately with one hit point for every level you are.
Yama-Arashi wrote:I normally stay out of these kind of fights because they make me feel old. I'm hearing the Arduin vs. D&D fights again. I'm hearing the "my anti-paladin can beat up your ninja" fights. We had the D&D vs Runequest fights in my neighborhood, no quarter asked for or given.Video games are ruining today's youth? That's exactly the same argument I heard from my fossilized elders about how playing D&D "on a perfectly good day when you should be out riding your bike" was ruining me. But they were right...look how overweight I am now.... Those same elders seem pretty comfortable with my paying 35 grand a year in taxes to keep them in Social Security and Medicare, using skills I developed through years of role-playing, so I'm willing to cut kids today a little slack that they'll come out all right when it's their turn to step up and support me in my dotage. Probably not, ever see "Soylent Green"? I don't look for much better in the future from this generation of clods. 8O I don't care who likes or plays what. I personally think that Champions was the lamest excuse for an RPG to ever come down the pike, but I have many good friends with great memories of their Champions games. Good on them. I know someone who still likes Aftermath!, which to me is a real puzzler, but, hey, it takes all types.Champions did suck. Villains and Vigilantes was MUCH better, IMO.However, I have to step in and support the guys fighting the good fight for 3e. It's a good system, it's an interesting system, and it's a flexible system. It isn't perfect, but neither was 1st edition. It can be roll-playing focused, or role-playing focus depending on the emphasis. I love the fact that when it was released, it was decried by the 1st editioners as being too "touchy feely" with its skills rules. "True AD&D," we were told, "is kicking in doors, killing the monsters, and taking their loot." This same group now decries 3e for being too "roll-playing focused?" Because you know, there was a lot of role-playing that took place in the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl or Descent into the Depths of the Earth. They may be great memories, but be honest, how many times did you shoot the s**t with the Jarl or any of his cronies as opposed to going through their pockets for spare change after the fight?People will always hate what they don't understand. Truthfully, no one roleplayed back in the early days unless it was threatening to beat the shit out of Gremag and Rannos Duval in Hommlet for selling you a crappy horse, or hitting on the serving wench at the local tavern for fun because it made you feel cool. It was all about killing the bad guys and counting the coins. Memories are fuzzy things, no one cared about roleplaying until after Dragonlance came out anyway.....As for arguments about d20 books being too shiny? Good lord. Still using a VGA monitor because SVGA is too colorful? 3e isn't the "true descendent" of 1e? I'm sorry, but the removal of negative AC scores does not create a rupture in continuity that forces 3e to a lifetime of bastardized shame. I actually heard someone complain about how 3e was "too miniature focused" as if 1e didn't list all of its distances in table top measurements.I don't care about the books being shiny, just like them in a font I can read without squinting....Grayson, Blackmoor -- we're fighting against the haze of nostalgia. It's hopeless. I know it because I have it, too. I love 1st edition because I loved it when I was 9 years old with the kind of passion that is impossible to work up over a game in my late 30s. But for me, it's a love that isn't blind, and I have as much fun growing with a new system as I do fondling my collection of the old.
Yama-Arashi wrote:I normally stay out of these kind of fights because they make me feel old. I'm hearing the Arduin vs. D&D fights again. I'm hearing the "my anti-paladin can beat up your ninja" fights. We had the D&D vs Runequest fights in my neighborhood, no quarter asked for or given.Video games are ruining today's youth? That's exactly the same argument I heard from my fossilized elders about how playing D&D "on a perfectly good day when you should be out riding your bike" was ruining me.
Yama-Arashi wrote:I normally stay out of these kind of fights because they make me feel old. I'm hearing the Arduin vs. D&D fights again. I'm hearing the "my anti-paladin can beat up your ninja" fights.
Video games are ruining today's youth? That's exactly the same argument I heard from my fossilized elders about how playing D&D "on a perfectly good day when you should be out riding your bike" was ruining me.
Those same elders seem pretty comfortable with my paying 35 grand a year in taxes to keep them in Social Security and Medicare, using skills I developed through years of role-playing, so I'm willing to cut kids today a little slack that they'll come out all right when it's their turn to step up and support me in my dotage.
I don't care who likes or plays what. I personally think that Champions was the lamest excuse for an RPG to ever come down the pike, but I have many good friends with great memories of their Champions games. Good on them. I know someone who still likes Aftermath!, which to me is a real puzzler, but, hey, it takes all types.
However, I have to step in and support the guys fighting the good fight for 3e. It's a good system, it's an interesting system, and it's a flexible system. It isn't perfect, but neither was 1st edition. It can be roll-playing focused, or role-playing focus depending on the emphasis. I love the fact that when it was released, it was decried by the 1st editioners as being too "touchy feely" with its skills rules. "True AD&D," we were told, "is kicking in doors, killing the monsters, and taking their loot." This same group now decries 3e for being too "roll-playing focused?" Because you know, there was a lot of role-playing that took place in the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl or Descent into the Depths of the Earth. They may be great memories, but be honest, how many times did you shoot the s**t with the Jarl or any of his cronies as opposed to going through their pockets for spare change after the fight?
As for arguments about d20 books being too shiny? Good lord. Still using a VGA monitor because SVGA is too colorful? 3e isn't the "true descendent" of 1e? I'm sorry, but the removal of negative AC scores does not create a rupture in continuity that forces 3e to a lifetime of bastardized shame. I actually heard someone complain about how 3e was "too miniature focused" as if 1e didn't list all of its distances in table top measurements.
Grayson, Blackmoor -- we're fighting against the haze of nostalgia. It's hopeless. I know it because I have it, too. I love 1st edition because I loved it when I was 9 years old with the kind of passion that is impossible to work up over a game in my late 30s. But for me, it's a love that isn't blind, and I have as much fun growing with a new system as I do fondling my collection of the old.
bclarkie wrote:Let me repost my previous post as I imagine folks didnt see it on the other page:Personally IMHO I think this 1 edition versus 3 edition argument is kind of silly. I say this becuase it is like trying to compare apples and oranges. The current rules system in place for 3rd edition is not Dungeons and Dragons. The similarities in 1st ed and 3rd ed are the fact that they are both FRPGs and they both deal with characters and monsters. Other than that there is virtually no common ground shared by the 2 editions at all. Personally I dont see who you can take a game, tear up everything and start from the begining again, make it completely different than the original and want to call it the same thing. Imagine if some modern day artist took the original Mona Lisa tore it up and made a new painting. In this new painitng there was a dark haired woman standing at a party of people with all of her freinds in the mid-city location.This new painting created the artist now wanted it the Mona Lisa. Would anyone in their right mind ever believe that the new painting was now the Mona Lisa? Of course not, so why does anyone accept the fact that 3rd edition is actually Dungeons & Dragons, because it is clearly not. The current edition of D&D is clearly geared toward the video game crowd, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't mean that it should be accepted as D&D either..
Badmike wrote:But then again I'm willing to believe the kids I see play 3e would have min/maxed 2e also down to a souless video game.
Truthfully, no one roleplayed back in the early days unless it was threatening to beat the shit out of Gremag and Rannos Duval in Hommlet for selling you a crappy horse, or hitting on the serving wench at the local tavern for fun because it made you feel cool. It was all about killing the bad guys and counting the coins. Memories are fuzzy things, no one cared about roleplaying until after Dragonlance came out anyway.....
Deadlord36 wrote:Let's see someone come forward and name a 3E player that they know that adds skill points to etiquette. Or weaving. Or forgery. No, can;t do that, it would be wasting points......
Badmike wrote:Properly Dmed, D1-3 should be able to challenge levels over 10th.
