Is D&D too complicated?

[kamosa]

Did anyone else think of Microsoft when reading this post?

Where do you want to Hack today?

 

[Henry]

And there goes Balance out the window plus a million other things and a bag of chips. Sure you can do it... but should you? In OD&D and AD&D I would just assign a level and USE THE FRICKING SAVING THROW CHART on my DM's Screen for that information, throw in a magic item or two and randomly determine money and if he had spells I would just cast spells keeping track of how many he used as compared to the class chart in the PHB just so I didn't use too many... 3E offers too many tactical and balance options to be able to do that on a lark and create an NPC that doesn't overpower my players or is underpowered.

I can't say as I've ever seen it that way. My experience with the previous systems was that no attempt at balance was made when comparing classes level for level, not even with the core books; Fighters were woefully unprepared next to rangers and paladins. Balance was instead attempted through different XP charts. When that one stricture was changed, EVERYTHING had to be balanced one class for another, and it couldn't be thrown back onto the XP charts to make up for any slights.

But then, you had monsters of equivalent hit dice, but VASTLY different challenges (Ghasts and Ankhegs being two good examples - ghasts were worth more XP but easier to kill!) so really the problem has not changed much.

All of the things you mentioned I still do - guesstimate from the class spell charts, etc. and balance suffers just as much as any other edition - which is to say, if it does suffer, it's by roughly the same amount.

Heck, the new variables for monsters and NPC's should be a DM's friend, not his enemy! I was more likely to get called on incorrect stats in previous editions than now, because the players knew the rules inside and out! Nowadays, who can know why the ghoul spellcaster had 5 magic missile spells instead of four? Maybe he had a feat, or a higher intelligence, or maybe he used a higher level slot! In the old days, none of these things were recommended or even suggested; a DM could come up with them, but they didn't readily suggest themselves except to experienced DM's.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

As far as statting out an NPC, it's basically no more complicated than 2e save for one minor detail: skills. Skills, especially for advanced, non-spellcasting characters, are by far the most time-consuming aspect of creating statistics. My advice is to simply choose a few applicable skills and just stick some ranks in them. How many NPCs are actually going to make Profession (gigolo) or Alchemy checks during combat? I'm assuming that these posts are referring to quickly creating NPCs to combat the characters, such as Bandits or whatnot. Also, there are some utilities available on the net to randomly generate NPCs (check the eNWorld homepage for a link to Jamis Buck's RPG Generators), and I believe that eTools is also capable of producing similar results. These programs will generally allow you the option of creating NPCs in stat block format, so that you can include several on the same page. If you get some wierd results for spell choices or whatever, just make changes as you see fit, swapping on a 1-for-1 basis. Of course, Magic Items cause more adjustments, but hey- what can you do? *shrugs*

 

[francisca]

Heck, the new variables for monsters and NPC's should be a DM's friend, not his enemy! I was more likely to get called on incorrect stats in previous editions than now, because the players knew the rules inside and out! Nowadays, who can know why the ghoul spellcaster had 5 magic missile spells instead of four? Maybe he had a feat, or a higher intelligence, or maybe he used a higher level slot! In the old days, none of these things were recommended or even suggested; a DM could come up with them, but they didn't readily suggest themselves except to experienced DM's.

Well, one of the things 3E purports to do is to standardize these sorts of things, for better or worse:

(Preface all of this with "In my opinion,")
For the better:
1) Rookie DMs have some guidelines and are less likely under or over challenge the players. Of course, this is dependent on the CR and other assorted ratings being close to reasonable for the character party.
2) DMs are encouraged to create interesting opponents. They are encouraged because they have the backing of the rules, which at least make an honest attempt at balance by providing a CR and how to recalculate it as you add templates, etc... Without a rule in print, many DMs (especially those who didn't play previous editions) don't want to do this sort of thing. You have to worry about that Kobold standing in the back of the room now (well, at least more often than in 1E). Is he casting a spell?

For the worse:
1) If you do it by the book, as many players and DMs insist, you cannot wing it unless you have a good portion of the ruleset memorized, or have incredibly good organization and can quickly find the info you need. Without what amounts to "instant access" to the particular rule/feat/skill, etc.. the game will bog down while you flip pages. Either way, the DM must spend a lot of extra time before or during the game to locate, memorize, or organize all the materials. There is no getting around it. there is simply way more info to process than in previous editions.
2) Astute rules-oriented players can guess what sort of power their opponents are wielding, because they can consult the same rulebooks as the DM. To me, this changes the game to a resource management problem, rather than a game of heroic adventure.
3) If you deviate from the rulebooks to keep your players off balance, you will probably run afoul of a good portion of 3E players because of your ad-hockery and disregard for game balance.

So, there is the give-and-take as I see it. In 1E, you had to trust the DM not to screw you. An inexperienced DM who tinkers with creatures by adding spellcasting, etc.. can realy hose the players bad. But come to think of it, so can a 3E DM. But at least with 3E, the players can point to the rule book and say that a particular encounter had too high of CR, etc... (Yet another example of how 3E is player-oriented, rather than DM-centric.)

 

[francisca]

As far as statting out an NPC, it's basically no more complicated than 2e save for one minor detail: skills. Skills, especially for advanced, non-spellcasting characters, are by far the most time-consuming aspect of creating statistics.

Since I've gotten my hands on Unearthed Arcana, I've been using "maximum Ranks, Limited Choices" method for NPC skills (The Sigil uses this in his OGL Fantasy Lite as well.) Basically, each class gets a number of skills equal to: (it's skill points per level) + Int Mod The skill check for class skills is then: d20 + (level + 3) + ability mod + misc mods. Cross-class is the same, but with (level + 3)/2, rounded down.

The effect is that the NPC has fewer skills, but they are maxed out. For me, usually one 2 or 3 skills really matter for the encounter, so this really, really has helped both in prep time, and for winging it.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

Since I've gotten my hands on Unearthed Arcana, I've been using "maximum Ranks, Limited Choices" method for NPC skills (The Sigil uses this in his OGL Fantasy Lite as well.) Basically, each class gets a number of skills equal to: (it's skill points per level) + Int Mod The skill check for class skills is then: d20 + (level + 3) + ability mod + misc mods. Cross-class is the same, but with (level + 3)/2, rounded down.

The effect is that the NPC has fewer skills, but they are maxed out. For me, usually one 2 or 3 skills really matter for the encounter, so this really, really has helped both in prep time, and for winging it.

I haven't gotten to check out Unearthed Arcana yet- good book? Is that the one from Malhavoc Press, or the one from WotC? One is Arcana Unearthed, and one is Unearthed Arcana, I believe. Confusing.

Anyway, yeah, that's basically what I meant anyway. If you just stick to combat-pertinent skills and stick a reasonable number in there, it cuts your preparation time way down.

 

[francisca]

I haven't gotten to check out Unearthed Arcana yet- good book? Is that the one from Malhavoc Press, or the one from WotC? One is Arcana Unearthed, and one is Unearthed Arcana, I believe. Confusing.

Anyway, yeah, that's basically what I meant anyway. If you just stick to combat-pertinent skills and stick a reasonable number in there, it cuts your preparation time way down.

Unearthed Arcana by Wotc, and it has proven useful. I'm using 3 or 4 things out of it, which is more than most d20 books I've bought.

 

[zodiki]

3rd edition is very complicated, but I think most gamers can handle it. The one thing I have noticed is that since D&D has so many rules, and 99% of them make sense, many players and DMs expect there to be a rule in the book for every situation. When there isn't and there has to be some interpretation, a large discussion breaks out. It's as if the rules belong to both the players and the DM and there has to be some sort of concensus reached on every point. That's fine, but at what point do the rules take over the game, at what point is form more important than function?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A modest proposal

What if, instead of doing a stripped down version of 3Ed/3.5Ed...

perhaps there should be a good shakedown adventure with pregenerated PCs from a variety of classes.

For $15-20, you get an adventure that takes a party of pregens through multiple character levels, has plenty of pointers for the DM (because he might be a novice, too). There would be a pregen PC from each PHB class and race (perhaps a few different combos), and some selected ones from OA, Savage Species, XPH, etc., each crossreferenced with the appropriate pages in the relevant rulebooks.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

But do you use every available WoTC source, or just the core rulebooks

No, not everything. I know there's a staggering number of feats out there, and I do own a lot of the WotC stuff, all the Dragon mags, and a few third party publications, as well as many I've gleaned from the web (and boy, let me just say a LOT of those STINK..anyway). I have at my disposal a LOT of feats. But, I'm such a geek that I'm always just picking up one of these sources and thumbing through it, whether watching tv, on the phone, or in "the office". When I go to make a character, I've got a pretty good idea where the which feat I want and where it is, so I can find it pretty quickly.

I will also add this, regarding rules knowledge and game play. I played in a DC Heroes game (From Mayfair Games) from 1988 to 2000, and really only knew the rules that applied o my characters. I didn't need to know the entire ruleset to play and have an absolutely terrific time, in what is probably my favorite experience as a player (not a DM). Having said that, I echo the sentiments of some I've read here that a player really only needs to know enough to play his or her character, and just a basic grasp of movement types and combat options are necessary. A good DM will be patient enough to help them along where needed.