Gentle people (and DMs
), while I appreciate your input it seems to me that we had become mired in yet another 3e vs e4e debate. My original intention was for the discussion to be more encompassing of all published editions. So if you are familiar with say Homes edition and wants to chime in, by all means do so.
IME 2e philosophy was :"Here are the official rules. We use those for sake of consistency if we have to play tournaments and living campaigns. Feel free to do otherwise." As I said before in this tread I want to beyond what the rule are and focus on how the game was played. The experience will undoubtedly vary based on the individual experiences. But (hopefully) that will still be a insightful discussion.
Personally when I was playing 2e the DMs did not feel that they have to follow all the official canon. So when a player would show them a contradiction in their game based on rulebook X it was acceptable for the DM to state that he or she was not achieving to X in their campaign. In 3e in such situation it was expected for the DM to retro change his narrative in order to preserve consistency. May be this was because TSR was printing so much material in short amount of time most groups could not keep up, may be DM fiat was more accepted as way the game was run, may be players could not just go to their local library and find the setting books there.
In other words, in the 2e plot kingdom the DM was king and canon was an adviser while in 3e the canon was king and the DM was his herald.
Could you please elaborate as to dispel the contradiction the above two quotes create? The way I read it one one hand you are OK if the campaign have deviates from the rules while also stating that you value the consistency undiluted canon provided. Or may be you are stating that as a player you value creative changes, but you play your character as if the canon was real until proven otherwise in game?
It's the split that's obvious in 4e and not so much in 3e. The PC/NPC split. It's a matter in this case of what should be known in character - if my PC has to do something a certain way (e.g. Vancian Casting) that has an immediate impact on the way I play my character with spell preparation every morning. If it's something involving an NPC then unless it really changes the setting (all urchins are 8th level fighters) it is not something that means I'm no longer sure what the character I'm roleplaying is.
Ok, granted, might be forced flavor, now where is my unicorn?
Off the Fey Beast Tamer theme to use the most obvious. Or depending how the unicorn behaves there are ways to get companions such as multiclass Shaman and Hybrid Ranger.
You mean that because the lack of rules I have to tell other people at the table how to play their characters in order for my character to work as it should?
I mean that D&D is a cooperative game and the fluff you've described is downright silly. You attack someone and they will not die by normal means simply because you hit them with your sword. If you want that then it's a five second agreement by the other PCs (the DM doesn't even have to be in on this, merely the other people hitting the monsters). If you don't think that's good enough then you can stop with your insistent claims that we can houserule things as you don't even need a houserule here, merely agreement of a possibility within the rules.
I'm not sure if this was sarcasm or not.
It wasn't. It was a 3.X cleric actually behaving like a mythological healer. The 4e Compassionate Healer Paragon Path goes to that extreme, sacrificing your own hit points and healing surges for others so you can kill yourself. It doesn't, however, have Con damage.
Again tell me which powers.
The obvious At Will is Astral Seal from Divine Power. Range 5, attacks at Wis+2 vs reflex. On a hit the enemy takes -2 to all defences and the next ally to hit it regains some hit points. If you want to play a cleric who never does damage, as of Divine Power you can set it up so your only damage-dealing power is your second At Will - and that can involve hittng someone with a weapon if you like.
well it sounds like a 3.5 rogue/wizard/fighter/arcane trickster, but if you care so much about being very powerfull on all fronts I have
I don't. That was the 2e version of him - and the reason he was an epic fail is because he's certainly not that high level.
Still finding the right power/spell is an important step towards homebrewing a prestige class. (DMG II has some good guidelines on how to create them).
You mean you can homebrew but object to a gentlemans agreement, and object to earning a companion character.
Well I haven't read (or even owned) all of those, forgive me for not knowing them from memmory, but soemthing that I liked from third edition was "if you look hard enough you'll find something", at least 3rd edition has an endless amount of third party support to speak of.
And most of it really doesn't add very much. That's the problem.
First of all, it isn't a prefabricated concept, and all it takes from BoED are three feats, it is a base class from miniatures handbook, and it is the dream come true of any dedicated healbot player, on 2e it was the pacifist priest of love, on 3.5 it is a healer with exalted feats, why a healer and not a cleric? well, the cleric has been progressively gainning more and more aggressive and martial bent as editions have advanced, having a class with a code of conduct that includes "no denying good people healing", is refreshing, and the semi druidic flavor overtones really help, a healer really screams "field medic".
Oh nonsense. The Cleric has been getting less and less martial as the years have gone on and more and more focussed on casting. Before 1e clerics didn't even get spells at first level. And a 4e cleric who specs for it can be a pure healbot. There was never any point to the healer being a separate class from the cleric - they are merely focussed clerics.
Combat Reflexes + Improved trip, pluss *cof, cof* Thicket of blades... And shield counter works very similar to marking.
OK. That's a third level stance and a seventh level counter. Minimum level to come close to touching the concept of a first level 4e fighter: 13. And Shield Counter doesn't cut it - the whole point about marking is that it puts the enemy into a lose/lose situation - either he can attack you in which case he's attacking the heavily armed and armoured guy or he's attacking someone else in which case you get a free swing. Eitrher way he loses and he knows it. Shield counter is just an extra attack and so exerts no control at all over what the enemy does.
So Shield Counter resembles marking in all ways except the important ones.
In short your 13th level Crusader resembles the fighter in that he prevents the enemy walking away - but doesn't prevent them attacking someone else which is a key part of the fighter's role.
Grey Mouser is also in the 1E Legends and Lore/Deities & Demigods. And were you expecting, for comparison Elmister to be statted up as a 1st level wizard? Of course the printed stats are going to be for the character at the prime/top level of game. Balking about how high level he is doesn't change the fact he's been statted out for close to 30 years in D&D - which you said he wasn't.
I wouldn't expect the Mouser to be level 15. Level 8, maybe. And he certainly isn't a 3rd level wizard. Three spells per day?
As if. The point is that attempts to stat him up in D&D
fail. Whatever that statted up thing is, it only bears passing resemblance to the Grey Mouser.
And it fails because Gygaxo-Vancian magic is bad flavour and doesn't resemble any fiction, not even the works of Jack Vance. (The self-harming healer is good flavour on the other hand - it's very mythological).
