Game Balance - A Study in Imperfection (forked)

[AllisterH]

I think the difference between 3.x modules and pre 3e modules is that I think the latter were scaled FOR the melee classes.

What I mean is that, since spell acquisition was random pre 3e, there really was no way a module could be designed under the assumption that the party had access to Spell X.

Indeed, there were modules that even explicitly banned/modified spells (queen of demonweb pits I think for example) so that the spellcasters were even more factored out.

Contrast this with a 3e module writer who ahs to assume that the party HAS a spellcaster being played by an average player. A simple spell like Protection from Arrows/Missiles which you could NOT count on the party having access to in a pre 3e module.

That kind of changes in 3.x IMO. Designers assume that the players have characters with access/know most of the spells in the PHB.

 

[MarkB]

It wasn't just access to spell levels that weakened multiclassing in 3.xe - almost all classes used a progression from relatively weak special options at low level to more powerful ones at the highest levels. So you could be a multiclass dilettante and gain a lot of different lacklustre abilities, many of which would scale badly if you didn't focus on them (Wild Shape, animal companion), or you could focus on a single class for the really powerful abilities.

Star Wars Saga Edition manages to be far more multiclass-friendly by doing away with static class-feature progression in favour of Talent Trees. That allows players to pick and choose the features they want from each class, and giving certain more powerful talents prerequisites still ensures that they require some investment.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sometimes. More often, IME, it depended on how much the DM was willing to stand up to his friends.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one around here who played early editions as an adolescent, with adolescents.

FWIW, I started off in '77 at age 10 or so, with contemporaries. My first DM (whose name I cannot recall) would have been a perfect Hobbit, and was a real hard-ass: he'd kill any PC played by a person who displayed out-of-character knowledge, like instantly knowing a monster's vulnerabilities.

It wasn't until well into my adult years- in Law School, actually- that I ever played a game with anyone more than a few years older or younger than myself.

 

[Lanefan]

You know...I'm actually wondering about something more and more....

WERE you supposed to play/have only 1 character?

Read Gary's posts on his campaign and Old Geezer musings/memoirs at rpg.net. It seemed like everyone in Gary's personal campaign was playing multiple characters.

We've almost always played more than one at a time in the same party - if for no other reason than if one dies you still have something to do. It also gives much more flexibility in party makeup and in what you can play - there's less pressure to fill a gap because chances are someone else already has it covered.

Most of the time we cap it at two per player in a party, however, except in unusual circumstances e.g. two parties merge and a player has characters in both.

My first DM (whose name I cannot recall) would have been a perfect Hobbit, and was a real hard-ass: he'd kill any PC played by a person who displayed out-of-character knowledge, like instantly knowing a monster's vulnerabilities.

Good on him! We should all do this. Seriously.

Lanefan

 

[Benimoto]

My first DM (whose name I cannot recall) would have been a perfect Hobbit, and was a real hard-ass: he'd kill any PC played by a person who displayed out-of-character knowledge, like instantly knowing a monster's vulnerabilities.

That's always been a D&D cliche that I've found slightly mystifying. If the player, who plays D&D as a hobby, know that a mummy is vulnerable to fire, why wouldn't the character, whose life depends on knowing how to fight monsters?

It's a weird quirk of the system that produces a module like Tomb of Horrors, where survivability depends on essentially the player's ability to figure out traps, and then later have the DM demand that the player forget even fairly obvious facts about monsters. We could even be talking about a character who manages to memorize, verbatim, several 2, 3, even 6 or 7 page long spells, and yet is literally dumber than a 5th grader when it comes to monsters.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I agree with Benimoto; I think that the players can treat what they know about the game as "lore" known to their PCs. After all, I am likely to change things anyway!

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's always been a D&D cliche that I've found slightly mystifying. If the player, who plays D&D as a hobby, know that a mummy is vulnerable to fire, why wouldn't the character, whose life depends on knowing how to fight monsters?

It's a weird quirk of the system that produces a module like Tomb of Horrors, where survivability depends on essentially the player's ability to figure out traps, and then later have the DM demand that the player forget even fairly obvious facts about monsters. We could even be talking about a character who manages to memorize, verbatim, several 2, 3, even 6 or 7 page long spells, and yet is literally dumber than a 5th grader when it comes to monsters.

Seconded. Especially in older versions of the game. To do otherwise is to expect that a team of professional adventurers does no research, listens to no stories from or about other adventurers in that world and has no common sense. This does not fit most of my PCs. (The exceptions come in the case of undead (yes, you know you need to destroy the Phylactery - but what does it look like?) and in the case of otherworldy threats that have not been seen or defeated before - normally specific demons).

And hell, a mummy is a dry pile of rags anyway. Burning it is just common sense as an attempt to destroy it.

Shorter me: A PC who has even average intelligence (never mind a loremaster) knowing the main weaknesses of common and many uncommon monsters isn't metagaming. Not knowing them is either player or DM induced stupidity in most cases. And any DM who punishes non-lobotomised characters by instant arbitrary death should be force-fed the DMG. (Preferably the 4e ones with the chapters on shared worldbuilding and cooperative narratives.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

And hell, a mummy is a dry pile of rags anyway. Burning it is just common sense as an attempt to destroy it.

Dry or not, setting things on fire unless they are already burning is time honored adventuring tactic.

 

[billd91]

What I mean is that, since spell acquisition was random pre 3e, there really was no way a module could be designed under the assumption that the party had access to Spell X.

While I think then end result is not far off, I wouldn't characterize spell acquisition as random pre 3e. It simply may have required more leg work contacting other wizards and guilds to get the spells you wanted but were unable to plunder out of enemy spellbooks.
In other words, it still had player-directed intentions beyond randomness, but may not have been simple.

 

[Nifft]

That's always been a D&D cliche that I've found slightly mystifying. If the player, who plays D&D as a hobby, know that a mummy is vulnerable to fire, why wouldn't the character, whose life depends on knowing how to fight monsters?

It's a weird quirk of the system that produces a module like Tomb of Horrors, where survivability depends on essentially the player's ability to figure out traps, and then later have the DM demand that the player forget even fairly obvious facts about monsters. We could even be talking about a character who manages to memorize, verbatim, several 2, 3, even 6 or 7 page long spells, and yet is literally dumber than a 5th grader when it comes to monsters.

Agreed. This happened to me once, too.

My 5th level PC did "no damage" to some kind of rat-human hybrid monster using a regular dagger, so he whipped out a silver dagger and stabbed it again. The DM tried to get pissy about "metagaming", but seriously, what kind of idiot doesn't know that you try the obscure metals when regular steel isn't doing the job. And how did this hypothetical person manage escape from the Adventurer's Mart without a helpful sales representative explaining it to him?

Cheers, -- N