Okay so me and my friend have spent many hours going over this again and again with possible solutions and theories. So far we reckon that either we need to abandon D&D or completely rewrite it.
The flaws in brief (as far as I can remember them)
#1 Power disparity
This is kind of the primary flaw in the whole system. A 3rd level fighter can probably take down two 1st level fighters. A 10th level fighter could quite conceivably take down a company of 1st level characters. Generally unless the lower level combatants start to use advanced tactics to ensure flanking bonuses and stacking aid anothers then they are like so much cream cheese in front of the death dealing monster.
#2 Class System
Right well your a wizard, you adventure for six months in the wilderness and come back with more knowledge of architecture??? Survival still remains cross class no matter what you do. Oh and wizards are just refused armour completely. Basically the whole concept of classes is restrictive and seems more like a good excuse to release reams of books than out of any intrinsic value to the idea. Oh and this also leads to the temptation to make the classes in the next book slightly more powerful or attractive than the last to try to tempt more people to buy the book.
#3 The whole d20 thing
Basically the d20 idea is not a good one from a statistics point of view and neither is it any good for representing what a person can reliably do as compared to what they could potentially do (ok that's like a reiteration of the statistics point). D&D has a flat probability curve. You are as likely to roll a 20 as a 1. That alone doesn't sound too bad but when you consider that 10 is basically a reliable result to reflect normal responses but rolling a 9 means failure then it's getting too twitchy and isn't a reliable result at all. There are ways around this but whilst still using the D20 system it tends to lead to more capability than you wanted and more cost than you can afford.
#4 Break points
Right well let's assume that your playing the game and your happy with the rules structure. At first level everything is deadly. Stubbing your toe can force you to return to a safe haven and rest up for 3 weeks whilst you regain your confidence. Now through your career your progressing (usually at an alarming rate or one so dull as to be torturous) and you hit some "break" points. The first is around level 6 and the others are usually about level 12 and leel 16, roughly in line with when a full BAB character gains an additional attack. At these points it seems your abilities suddenly shift up a gear and you become more than a mere level above your previous point. This is quite odd but it's all to do with how the level system works out and the way all those charts sum together.
Quite often what was a challenge the day before is now a walk over and you feel much more powerful. This would represent real life only in terms of psychology but here it's made real. Of course in about 2 levels your back to your normal state of pride ready for the next break but that's an aside.
#5 Magic
Okay so fantasy needs magic like Star Trek needs to be able to beam people or create food from nothing but the present philosophy regarding magic is terrible. Any time something happens which is not explained by what we regard as reality, it's labelled as magic. Strangely however it seems that magic is actually about a dozen different elements working in concert. No regard is paid to making any kind of sense with magic, it is just left completely open as some kind of weird thing which just does what it wants and yet conforms to the petty rules laid out in the books. Why oh why is there such restricted and tightly defined spells with almost no allowance for customisation and yet virtually anything can and will be explained away with a singular mention of the word magic. Personally I'd like to see some kind of overall general capabilities of magic which are guidelines for what magic can and cannot do whilst simultaneously relaxing the borders on spells so that a fireball (for instance) is not it's own spell but rather something you can do with a certain level of skill in a fire based spell. It'd be quite simple to break down most spells into various categories so that skills could be used and then each casters personal choice on where they place their skill points would be reflected in their capability with their spell selection.
As you can see just from that we pretty much shot the system to pieces. Why not change systems? Well we have a group of dedicated D&D players (read can't be arsed to learn a new set of rules) and the system is simple and keeps moving. If only it did not grind so much when people stopped just walking up and trying to trade blows in a static fashion.
We have looked into some alternatives but it seems that all of them are trying to differentiate themselves too much from D&D and end up being acquired tastes (something our players aren't liable to do willingly).
I do hope that any version 4 that the mages of muhlah come up with is an improvement but I fear that they believe so strongly in the d20 religion and the infallibility of the original D&D concepts that we are liable to be left with a simple rehash of what exists now, including all the flaws.
Yes we could just look for new players but we like the current lot (changing the system from ground up would be preferable to changing friends).
Oh and yes if your thinking that I'm a little old school then that's true. I do hanker after the days of musty black and white rule books with long words in them and a recommended age past ten. I don't see that as bad though as I increasingly am finding role-playing games getting "dumbed down" to attract larger portions of the populace. Thank he who always rolls 20 that Hero still exists as a paragon of complexity and I shall always be forever grateful for the unwieldy system of GURPS and all it's multitude of expansions. These systems show what's possible when you really want detail. D&D should not be consigned to the oversimplified section of role-play games. It should be the middle ground, the nexus and it's just so not.
The flaws in brief (as far as I can remember them)
#1 Power disparity
This is kind of the primary flaw in the whole system. A 3rd level fighter can probably take down two 1st level fighters. A 10th level fighter could quite conceivably take down a company of 1st level characters. Generally unless the lower level combatants start to use advanced tactics to ensure flanking bonuses and stacking aid anothers then they are like so much cream cheese in front of the death dealing monster.
#2 Class System
Right well your a wizard, you adventure for six months in the wilderness and come back with more knowledge of architecture??? Survival still remains cross class no matter what you do. Oh and wizards are just refused armour completely. Basically the whole concept of classes is restrictive and seems more like a good excuse to release reams of books than out of any intrinsic value to the idea. Oh and this also leads to the temptation to make the classes in the next book slightly more powerful or attractive than the last to try to tempt more people to buy the book.
#3 The whole d20 thing
Basically the d20 idea is not a good one from a statistics point of view and neither is it any good for representing what a person can reliably do as compared to what they could potentially do (ok that's like a reiteration of the statistics point). D&D has a flat probability curve. You are as likely to roll a 20 as a 1. That alone doesn't sound too bad but when you consider that 10 is basically a reliable result to reflect normal responses but rolling a 9 means failure then it's getting too twitchy and isn't a reliable result at all. There are ways around this but whilst still using the D20 system it tends to lead to more capability than you wanted and more cost than you can afford.
#4 Break points
Right well let's assume that your playing the game and your happy with the rules structure. At first level everything is deadly. Stubbing your toe can force you to return to a safe haven and rest up for 3 weeks whilst you regain your confidence. Now through your career your progressing (usually at an alarming rate or one so dull as to be torturous) and you hit some "break" points. The first is around level 6 and the others are usually about level 12 and leel 16, roughly in line with when a full BAB character gains an additional attack. At these points it seems your abilities suddenly shift up a gear and you become more than a mere level above your previous point. This is quite odd but it's all to do with how the level system works out and the way all those charts sum together.
Quite often what was a challenge the day before is now a walk over and you feel much more powerful. This would represent real life only in terms of psychology but here it's made real. Of course in about 2 levels your back to your normal state of pride ready for the next break but that's an aside.
#5 Magic
Okay so fantasy needs magic like Star Trek needs to be able to beam people or create food from nothing but the present philosophy regarding magic is terrible. Any time something happens which is not explained by what we regard as reality, it's labelled as magic. Strangely however it seems that magic is actually about a dozen different elements working in concert. No regard is paid to making any kind of sense with magic, it is just left completely open as some kind of weird thing which just does what it wants and yet conforms to the petty rules laid out in the books. Why oh why is there such restricted and tightly defined spells with almost no allowance for customisation and yet virtually anything can and will be explained away with a singular mention of the word magic. Personally I'd like to see some kind of overall general capabilities of magic which are guidelines for what magic can and cannot do whilst simultaneously relaxing the borders on spells so that a fireball (for instance) is not it's own spell but rather something you can do with a certain level of skill in a fire based spell. It'd be quite simple to break down most spells into various categories so that skills could be used and then each casters personal choice on where they place their skill points would be reflected in their capability with their spell selection.
As you can see just from that we pretty much shot the system to pieces. Why not change systems? Well we have a group of dedicated D&D players (read can't be arsed to learn a new set of rules) and the system is simple and keeps moving. If only it did not grind so much when people stopped just walking up and trying to trade blows in a static fashion.
We have looked into some alternatives but it seems that all of them are trying to differentiate themselves too much from D&D and end up being acquired tastes (something our players aren't liable to do willingly).
I do hope that any version 4 that the mages of muhlah come up with is an improvement but I fear that they believe so strongly in the d20 religion and the infallibility of the original D&D concepts that we are liable to be left with a simple rehash of what exists now, including all the flaws.
Yes we could just look for new players but we like the current lot (changing the system from ground up would be preferable to changing friends).
Oh and yes if your thinking that I'm a little old school then that's true. I do hanker after the days of musty black and white rule books with long words in them and a recommended age past ten. I don't see that as bad though as I increasingly am finding role-playing games getting "dumbed down" to attract larger portions of the populace. Thank he who always rolls 20 that Hero still exists as a paragon of complexity and I shall always be forever grateful for the unwieldy system of GURPS and all it's multitude of expansions. These systems show what's possible when you really want detail. D&D should not be consigned to the oversimplified section of role-play games. It should be the middle ground, the nexus and it's just so not.
