Wik's Triumphant Return to 3e!

[Mallus]

Glad to hear you're having a good time returning to 3e, Wik. Sometimes you can go home again. Or at least change things up a bit. Last Friday my group made an unexpected and unplanned --our Savage Worlds GM got called out of town-- return to AD&D.

First time I've it run it in 20 years. I swear I even had fun looking up attack roles in the combat matrices (THAC0? What's that?).

Though to be fair, we weren't not playing AD&D in the iconic, treasure-hunting mode. Actually, we played it fairly similarly to the way we played 4e, or even Savage Worlds, with the focus on the picaresque adventures of nutty characters.

Still, it was a good time... rolling 5d4 to see how many giant rats were gnawing on some corpses... Charm Person lasting weeks... hand-waving most skills (after a roll on the 'secondary skills' table at chargen). Best moment, near the end of the session, the players exclaiming 'we forgot to go shopping for flaming oil!"

I'm excited about converting our 4e homebrew to AD&D. And about running an old-school style adventure from the James Raggi chap next week -- full of traps and death and such.

 

[amerigoV]

Still, it was a good time... rolling 5d4 to see how many giant rats were gnawing on some corpses... Charm Person lasting weeks... hand-waving most skills (after a roll on the 'secondary skills' table at chargen). Best moment, near the end of the session, the players exclaiming 'we forgot to go shopping for flaming oil!"

Heh - I remember we added an orc chieftain to our group because his Intelligence was so low... good times.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What's the good of being a dwarf if you are neither a mason nor a smith?

Someone has to brew the beer!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Someone has to brew the beer!

Okay, add Brewer to the list! (Though I think there are some elves who think that good dwarf beer is made by masons. Here, let me chisel you off a mug of our stout....)

The Auld Grump, oh I'll never be a miner, who toils down under the ground.
I'd rather be a soldier when the guns begin to pound.
If ever we are married then a soldier's wife you'll be.
Come and be my partner, won't you walk along with me....
(Traditional)

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I've had characters with Profession (soldier) and Profession (sailor). Both got great usage.

I've seen a character with Profession (lawyer) make great fun with the local constabulary. But the DM and player were both lawyers IRL and were able to wing it quite well. The humor quotient was phenomenal.

I, too have see many instances of (cook), (brewer), (innkeeper), (barkeep) . . .

 

[Spatula]

A PC who multiclassed into Barbarian is probably not going to be as good at Raging as a pure Barbarian. He won't have the same HP, he won't have invested in all the Rage Feats, etc. And if he multiclassed from fighter, he'll have to wear lighter armor to get full use of he Barbarian's class abilities and will give up bonus feats.

I don't accept your premise*, but even if I did, it doesn't change the fact that a barbarian 1/fighter X is just plain better in a fight than a fighter X+1, for any value of X. Similarly, a barbarian X/fighter Y is better than a barbarian X+Y, for low values of Y. The system encourages level dipping to grab key abilities or bonus feats, and for +1 BAB classes, there's no (mechanical) reason not to. You become stronger and lose almost nothing.

But if you're a spellcaster? Sure, you can multiclass. But it's a trap.

* The difference of 1 hp/lvl for a handful of levels is negligible.

A single-classed barbarian can't afford to invest heavily in rage feats because he/she needs those precious few feat slots for general combat feats, plus whatever character feats the player wants.

A fighter dipping into barbarian for rages doesn't care about the extra abilities, he just wants the ability to rage and access to the +3 rages/day feat (which he can afford to spend because of all the fighter bonus feats).

 

[malkav666]

I once played a cleric of Bane who had max ranks in Craft:Milliner/Hatter. In addition to being a murderous bastard he also had impeccable taste in head wear. It ended up being one of the core foundations for RPing the character.
Not to mention it led to some very fulfilling and amusing dialogue.

love,

malkav

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've seen a character with Profession (lawyer) make great fun with the local constabulary. But the DM and player were both lawyers IRL and were able to wing it quite well. The humor quotient was phenomenal.

There are several players of mine who would make me weep if they'd thought to do that. A real missed opportunity for them!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...it doesn't change the fact that a barbarian 1/fighter X is just plain better in a fight than a fighter X+1, for any value of X.

In the mathosphere, perhaps.

But if someone wants feats and they happen to put the value of X at 20...well who am I to say that's bad? Besides, if you go to the optimizers, Druid or Cleric is better than either for any value, anyway. To which I say...So what?

I don't play an RPG to be better than my fellow players at playing D&D. I don't really get concerned that much about balance as long as what I'm playing makes me feel happy. Balance isn't what makes a RPG fun. Being able to make your PC do the cool things you want it to do is.

So while optimizers scoff, I happily play Monks (DEX BASED!!!), Soulknives, and all sorts of things that they consign to the ash-heap.

A single-classed barbarian can't afford to invest heavily in rage feats because he/she needs those precious few feat slots for general combat feats, plus whatever character feats the player wants.

Sure he can if he wants to do nifty things with Rage and doesn't care as much about general combat feats beyond maybe a couple of options from the Power Attack tree. (Guess who did THAT?)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Not to intrude but I find it somewhat telling that what I'm seeing is "I put points in craft/profession so I could roleplay."

I can't help but wonder what you guys did before 3e/NWPs? ;p

No, it means tat the character would have the skill, so they put the points into it. Much like a forensic anthropologist in Call of Cthulhu putting points into Storytelling. The points should be spent because the character can do these things.

If you think backing up the character decisions with the actual skills is a bad thing.... riiiggghhht.

The Auld Grump