D&D 3E/3.5 AD&D 2nd vs 3.5

[Blackbrrd]

Isn't CoDzilla just a straght up cleric or druid with spells from the PHB?

 

[Ratskinner]

Isn't CoDzilla just a straght up cleric or druid with spells from the PHB?

Not all the wanted components are there, but some folks think so. The thing is, they aren't "zilla" by default, that requires effort/attention on the part of the player (maybe not much, but still). For instance, my players never cooked up the notorious CLW Wand. More broadly speaking, I don't recall them ever really using the Magic Item Creation rules beyond a few scrolls, much less abusing them. I've only discovered many of 3e supposedly glaring faults by hearing about them on the internet, never saw them in play.

Why is that? I have no idea. I dunno if its some aspect of my DMing style, the personalities around my table back then, or what.

 

[pemerton]

The reason that 3E creates CharOp is that it is the first version of D&D to have meaningful mechanical choices in PC building and levelling.

In AD&D there was also optimisation, but it was so obvious it didn't need a messageboard: your fighter takes proficiency in longsword, and your MU tries as hard as possible to get Magic Missile as a 1st level spell and Fireball as a 3rd level spell.

At least in my experience, those substystems in AD&D that did permit optimisation - for instance, martial arts design in OA - were being optimised by me and my players as soon as we encountered them.

As for whether or not the game is broken - if the game (i) encourages PC building as a key part of the play experience, with system mastery (otherwise known as "step on up" gamism) built into that, and (ii) falls apart when people push hard on this aspect of the game, then in my view it is broken.

Games like HERO or Rolemaster, which somewhat similarly permit optimisation via points buy, have always at least claimed that PC building is not gamist in this sense, but is to be constrained by simulationist criteria. But 3E never went in this direction as far as I'm aware.

 

[pemerton]

The thing is, they aren't "zilla" by default, that requires effort/attention on the part of the player (maybe not much, but still). For instance, my players never cooked up the notorious CLW Wand. More broadly speaking, I don't recall them ever really using the Magic Item Creation rules

Using the matic item creation rules doesn't really count as effort or attention, any more than using the Attack of Opportunity rules if you're playing a fighter.

And I certainly don't think it can be counted as playing the game wrong, especially when one core class gets item creation feats by default.

My guess would be that many groups who transitioned in from AD&D in which item creation was not common may have left those elements of 3E untouched, and hence not discovered that they were potentially broken. That doesn't defend those elements against the claim that they were broken, though, given that they were (presumably) included so as to be played. (Contrast AD&D, where in my view the high level spells weren't really included to be used by players, but rather to be used by enemy casters.)

 

[NewJeffCT]

Again, I have to wonder where your experiences come from.

Fighters are very, very different between 2e and 3e. A 1st level 2e fighter is easily capable of killing trolls in a single round of combat. A 1st level 2e party can take on giants and reasonably expect to win. That's how powerful 2e parties are. By 3e, the fighter is falling farther and farther behind. He does about half as much damage as his 2e counterpart until he hits double digit levels, but the monsters are scaled WAY higher.

But, let's look at actual play experience. Take something as simple as initiative in 2e and compare it to 3e. A 2e initiative works like this:

Each player declares his action before initiative is rolled. Each player rolls a d10, adds his weapon speed factor, subtracts his Dex bonus and the lowest score goes first. This will be repeated every round of combat.​

In 3e, it works like this:

Each player rolls a d20 and adds his dex modifier. High roll goes first. This will remain static (barring a few exceptions) for the entire combat.​

Note, 4e works exactly the same as 3e here.

wow, your 2E experiences were way different than mine.

For 2E, a 1st level fighter would have d10 + CON hit points, for a maximum of 13, with an average of maybe 7 if you have a +2 CON bonus for having a very high16 CON. A 2E troll with 6d8+6 hit points is going to have an average of 33 hit points ((4.5 x 6)+6). If you used the optional weapon specialization rules, your fighter is going to have a +1 to hit and a +2 to damage. So, your fighter with a 17 STR and a 16 CON and specialized in the long sword is going to start with a THAC0 of 18 (+1 for Strength, +1 for weapon specialization), hitting the AC:4 troll on a 14 or better and gets 3 attacks every 2 rounds because of weapon specialization. The 2E has a THACO of 13 and get 3 attacks/round, hitting the AC:4 fighter on a 9 or better. The fighter will do d8+3 damage per hit, or 7.5 on average. The troll, with its two claws doing an average of 6.5 damage per hit, and its bite does 8.5 damage/hit. The troll hits 55% of the time, while the fighter is hitting only 30% of the time. The fighter has a slight advantage in initiative - weapon speed of 5 for the longsword vs the large-sized troll having a +6 with natural weapons. (also, if the troll has a weapon, it still maintains its 9 or better to hit, but now has +8 to damage with its weapon - basically, killing your average fighter with any hit)

The first level fighter is lucky if he survives round 1, and its doubtful if he makes it past round 2.

Round 1 - fighter wins init. Rolls high and hits the troll, hitting it for 8 points of damage, taking the troll down to 25 hit points. Troll retaliates, hitting fighter with one claw, but surprisingly missing with its other claw and its bite. The one claw does 6 points of damage, leaving the fighter with 1 hit point.

Round 2 - fighter wins init. With his first attack, he misses the troll. Troll retaliates and hits with one claw and its bite attack, dropping the fighter with a combined 16 points of damage.

Now a 2E Hill giant is 12d10 +1 or 2 for hit points. So, an average hill giant is 67 or 68 hit points, or double the troll. With a THAC0 of 9, the hill giant is hitting that same 1st level fighter on a 5 or better and doing an average of 14 points of damage/hit, with a minimum of 9 damage. That 1st level fighter is most likely the best armored PC in the group and has more hit points than the cleric, wizard and thief. So, the giant is killing 1 PC/round 75% of the time or more. The poor wizard only makes it if the giant rolls a 1 in its attack on her.

 

[Ratskinner]

Using the matic item creation rules doesn't really count as effort or attention, any more than using the Attack of Opportunity rules if you're playing a fighter.

?
Perhaps not much, but doing so in order to make your character into the game-breaking CoDzilla might. Certainly it requires attention and some effort to select the item to be created. Additionally, an AoO is a triggered effect, the DM should remind/point out such an occurance in play, which is not true for MIC as they are player-initiated. My players (with one exception) paid minimal attention to the rules. They certainly didn't spend a lot of time pouring over the books for spells or MC choices to maximize the effectiveness of their characters. I guess I could say that they ignored the "system mastery" design goal.

And I certainly don't think it can be counted as playing the game wrong, especially when one core class gets item creation feats by default.

?
I don't believe I made any such assertion.

My guess would be that many groups who transitioned in from AD&D in which item creation was not common may have left those elements of 3E untouched, and hence not discovered that they were potentially broken. That doesn't defend those elements against the claim that they were broken, though, given that they were (presumably) included so as to be played. (Contrast AD&D, where in my view the high level spells weren't really included to be used by players, but rather to be used by enemy casters.)

I wasn't defending the rules, merely pointing out that without the internet providing "builds" and the like that things in 3e aren't as bad as they are often portrayed (or at least don't have to be), at least IME.

My goodness, why do you give yourself permission to read author intent for AD&D high level spells, but not someone else for 3e magic item creation? (Not that I was trying to do so.) I mean, this seems like a fairly edition-warry (warrish?) post from you, pemerton.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Weighing in late here, as usual.

I found a lot more rules-lawyering going on in 2E than in 3.5E because 3.5E had rules for just about everything, which could bog down the game. I remember my 2E DM had a whole 3-ring binder full of House Rules - he wanted to be consistent because most of his group had been together through most of the 80s and 90s, and if he ruled differently than previously, he'd be called on it ("well, 3 campaigns and 6 years ago, you said B, and now you say A??") So, he'd have to go to his binder to confirm his previous ruling and then possibly reverse course if he was in the wrong - he was pretty anal about being consistent, even if it was something he had ruled on 10 years earlier.

However, for 3.5E, this same DM had only a few pages of house rules because he could just look up a rule in one of the rulebooks, instead of his binder. And, because there were rules for so many things in 3.5, people had better be right if they challenged something that was in the actual rulebooks, which ended up leading to less rules-lawyering.

That said, 2E combats ran a lot quicker than 3E and 3.5E combats. Fewer options for the players and monsters, lower hit points for the PCs and monsters, etc. We could run a 2E combat that had twice as many participants (PCs, NPCs, monsters combined) in half the time it took to run a smaller 3.5E combat, or possibly even less than half the time. Plus, if you used the optional death at -10 rule in 2E, it was also harder to die. If a PC was dropped below zero, all a PC or friendly NPC had to do was reach the fallen PC to stanch the bleeding. No heal checks, no roll for stabilization, etc. You reached 'em, you saved 'em.

 

[Ratskinner]

The reason that 3E creates CharOp is that it is the first version of D&D to have meaningful mechanical choices in PC building and levelling.

In AD&D there was also optimisation, but it was so obvious it didn't need a messageboard: your fighter takes proficiency in longsword, and your MU tries as hard as possible to get Magic Missile as a 1st level spell and Fireball as a 3rd level spell.

I think it was also changes in the nature of the internet making that more friendly for more people (i.e. messageboards existed). During the AD&D "Options" era, I think the rules certainly had enough complexity, but things like mailing lists and usenet forums just weren't as user-friendly as something like EN-World.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Isn't CoDzilla just a straght up cleric or druid with spells from the PHB?

It's a question of system mastery.

In a 2006 (or so) 3.5 campaign I was in, we had two clerics. One had one level of barbarian, would spend one round casting a buff spell on himself and then rage, then kick some butt. Time lost to buffing? One round. In the same campaign we had another cleric who insisted on spending three rounds buffing, by which time the battle was over. The second player didn't learn despite not only seeing the first cleric in action, but being told about this.

I knew about "CodZilla" (under a different term) pretty much as soon as 3.x came out. I read the rulebook, learning about stacking, Concentration checks, spell durations, etc... you could get all of that from the SRD, which was important because I was playing before I bought the core rules. IME, there are players who play an edition for years without learning the rules beyond the basics.

(No, I didn't use any item creation feats. I'm sure with more system mastery, and/or perhaps more splatbooks or dodgy interpretations, I could create a "true" CodZilla.)

I'm sure you could cast all those spells in 2e (given enough time), but quite frankly I could never figure out if they stacked and so avoided using such spells. (I played a 15th-level cleric in 2e once. He had a Charisma of 5 and, due to misinterpreting the Giant Insect spell, a 15 HD giant earwig. Which never hit. Sad, because the DM had it doing 15d4 damage.)

On the same note, there was a complaint that CR in 3.x didn't work here a few years ago. The DM had his four players (one ranger, one druid, one wizard, and one rogue, IIRC) all at 2nd-level, take on an ogre. They lost. Why? The wizard had cast Magic Missile, which is an awesome spell in 2e, and didn't kill the ogre. Said wizard could have cast Sleep and Color Spray and basically defeated the ogre by themselves. (Have the rogue CdG the fallen ogre for the actual win.) Even more sadly, this was a perfectly viable option in 2e, which the players had just come off of.

 

[NewJeffCT]

It's a question of system mastery.

In a 2006 (or so) 3.5 campaign I was in, we had two clerics. One had one level of barbarian, would spend one round casting a buff spell on himself and then rage, then kick some butt. Time lost to buffing? One round. In the same campaign we had another cleric who insisted on spending three rounds buffing, by which time the battle was over. The second player didn't learn despite not only seeing the first cleric in action, but being told about this.

I knew about "CodZilla" (under a different term) pretty much as soon as 3.x came out. I read the rulebook, learning about stacking, Concentration checks, spell durations, etc... you could get all of that from the SRD, which was important because I was playing before I bought the core rules. IME, there are players who play an edition for years without learning the rules beyond the basics.

(No, I didn't use any item creation feats. I'm sure with more system mastery, and/or perhaps more splatbooks or dodgy interpretations, I could create a "true" CodZilla.)

I'm sure you could cast all those spells in 2e (given enough time), but quite frankly I could never figure out if they stacked and so avoided using such spells. (I played a 15th-level cleric in 2e once. He had a Charisma of 5 and, due to misinterpreting the Giant Insect spell, a 15 HD giant earwig. Which never hit. Sad, because the DM had it doing 15d4 damage.)

On the same note, there was a complaint that CR in 3.x didn't work here a few years ago. The DM had his four players (one ranger, one druid, one wizard, and one rogue, IIRC) all at 2nd-level, take on an ogre. They lost. Why? The wizard had cast Magic Missile, which is an awesome spell in 2e, and didn't kill the ogre. Said wizard could have cast Sleep and Color Spray and basically defeated the ogre by themselves. (Have the rogue CdG the fallen ogre for the actual win.) Even more sadly, this was a perfectly viable option in 2e, which the players had just come off of.

3E came out in 2000, about the time the internet started really taking off and people were starting to move beyond modems dialing into the internet. Before that, message boards and other forums were creaky, slow and not very user-friendly. However, I still saw huge differences in power in 2E across adventuring parties where almost everybody had the same amount of XP. Much of that was the system, which inherently led people to min-max - why play a human wizard, when you could be an elf fighter/wizard and be way more powerful right out of the gate? Or, a half-elf fighter/wizard/thief? With 3E, playing a human became a more popular choice than it had been in 2E days.

Plus, with staggered XP progression, you could have a level 7 fighter with 100,000 XP in 2E, but the elf fighter/wizard with the same amount of XP is a level 6 fighter and level 6 wizard. So, not only is the elf almost as good a fighter as the human, he can also cast Fireball, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, etc. If they both advanced up to 120,000XP, the elf would then be level 7 wizard and level 6 fighter, with the human still at level 7. Heck, if they were at 124,000 XP, the elf would be level 7 fighter and wizard, with the human fighter still at level 7 until he got to 125,000XP.