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

[Ahnehnois]

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

Playing fighters in both editions. My point is this: in both versions, fighters don't have a ton of character creation choices. And in both versions, the choices you make in play are very similar. The mechanics for executing those choices may be different, but those get internalized very quickly.

In 2e, you are largely picking which weapon to specialize in, your ability scores, and NWPs. In 3e, you're picking skills and feats. The feats got more complicated with later supplements, but early on the choices were very simple. It's very straightforward. If you're using a greatsword, you specialize in greatsword or pick Weapon Focus (Greatsword). Even in late 3.5, most fighters still make these basic choices. Fighters are for players who don't want to make a lot of character generation choices like spells (or powers).

Once you're actually playing your fighter, you're picking which targets to attack and when and where to move, while assessing the threat levels of enemies and watching your own hp. You're not managing healing surges or power uses. Again, the fighter player is someone who doesn't want to have a spreadsheet of choices, either because he wants to optimize a finite set of options, or because he doesn't care much about these things at all.

So while your statements about mechanics are true enough, on a macro level I think a 2e and 3e fighter are much the same. Their wizardly and clerical and various other counterparts are even more similar. The one that changed the most, IMO, is thief to rogue (but even then, the 4e rogue is a much bigger change).

I wanted to echo this. The CharOp boards created a way of viewing, judging, and playing the game that I think was very poisonous. Worse, I think that this fed (I'm not sure if it created, but it certainly abetted) the idea that a game was fundamentally flawed if you could find a way to break it, something that I think makes about as much sense as saying that your car is based off of a faulty design if you're able to strip the gears by not shifting them correctly.

I see what you're saying, but I wouldn't say they created a toxic culture. I liked them. They're helpful for DMs who don't have time to learn a character the way a player does. They're helpful for players who aren't already min/maxers. They're also fun thought exercises.

The only problem is if you look at those threads and take them too literally. Have people done that? Sure. But I think much of the Charop discussion was perfectly healthy and reasonable. I also think that it simply put out in the open thoughts that people always had but never had internet forums to express them on. I think DMs and WotC overreacting to Charop is as big a problem as the min/maxing itself. The thing that prevents rules lawyering and powergaming is good DMing and players who aren't intentionally disruptive, and I don't see that those elements of the community are ever likely to increase or decrease radically in frequency.

 

[Orius]

I think that these two points actually show that fighters changed a lot from classic D&D to 3E. In classic D&D fighters have two strengths: damage output, and saving throws (in B/X D&D they start with good saves; in AD&D they have to wait a few levels to get them).

Hmm, saves I suppose might be one change. I don't remember the classic saves very much, but I think where they weakened the most in 3e was the Reflex save, in older editions save vs. breath often covered similar situations and IIRC fighters were good at that. They had good Fortitude saves, so that covers what used to be save vs. poison, paralysis, death, pretrification, polymorphing, etc.

But the other change to fighter, the lowered damage output, isn't due to changes to the class. Instead that comes from outside the class, from monsters getting Con scores and thus Con bonuses to hp, as well as some monster types getting base HD bumped up to d10 or d12. Otherwise, the class itself isn't terribly different form earlier incarnations: it's still got the best default selection of weapons and armor, and it's largely meant to be the combat specialist.

 

[pemerton]

But the other change to fighter, the lowered damage output, isn't due to changes to the class. Instead that comes from outside the class, from monsters getting Con scores and thus Con bonuses to hp, as well as some monster types getting base HD bumped up to d10 or d12.

Completely agreed - and this is something that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has also emphasised.

But despite coming from outside the class, I think it's still a real practical change in the way that the class plays.

Similarly for casters - part of what makes fireball so good in AD&D is that even at high levels you'll get off some damage against monsters whose saves are good (and so SoD is not that reliable) but whose hit points aren't that good. Whereas in 3E monsters saves may become harder rather than easier with level, while hit points are much higher, so the relative balance between fireball/lightning bolt and SoD changes quite a bit.

This is a change from outside the class, but nevertheless still a change I think.

 

[pemerton]

Playing fighters in both editions.

<snip>

the fighter player is someone who doesn't want to have a spreadsheet of choices, either because he wants to optimize a finite set of options, or because he doesn't care much about these things at all.

So while your statements about mechanics are true enough, on a macro level I think a 2e and 3e fighter are much the same.

This is interesting. It also paints, for me at least, a certain sort of picture of the fighter player - not only is s/he not looking for a lot of mechanical decision-making, but s/he is fairly relaxed in terms of broader impact on the direction of the game.

The reason I say that is because, in AD&D, a fighter PC can have quite a big impact on the direction of the game, due to the importance of his/her resilience and damage output, whereas in 3E I feel this is reduced. And I think a player who cared more about those sorts of macro-level issues of control/impact would notice this.

I mean, this seems like a fairly edition-warry (warrish?) post from you, pemerton.

It's not intended as edition-warring. But I find in many of the posts on this thread (and not just this thread) an assumption of an unargued consensus that 3E inherited the AD&D mantle and 4e then cast it off. I have no doubt that some people - due to their habits of play, their expectations, the amount of effort that they put into item crafting or spell selection or learning the rules at all, etc - found the transition pretty smooth. You gave an illustration in your post; Ahnehnois gives another illustration in his discussion of the fighter that I've just quoted.

But for others playing with different approaches or expectations, the differences between AD&D and 3E can be fairly marked; and likewise the resemblances between AD&D and 4e. As someone who had ceased to GM AD&D in favour of GMing Rolemaster, what struck me about 3E at release was how different it was from AD&D, and how much it had steered into classic 80s "check based on attribute + skill" territory, but without giving up on hit points. And what struck me about 4e at its release was how much effort had been made to build a game that would take the hit point "heroic fantasy" model and generalise it across the rest of action resolution, which for me promised to realise the idea of heroic fantasy RPGing first conveyed to me by the flavour text of Moldvay Basic.

I don't think any one type of experience is privileged or "default" (least of all mine!). That's really all I was trying to say.

 

[pemerton]

It's a question of system mastery.

My very rough impression is that some AD&D players were interested in system mastery (and would eke out what could be done with the system) and others were not. And that these two groups had quite different early experiences with 3E.

I remember playing an AD&D campaign in the mid-90s, using Skills & Powers, and teaching a new player how to build a strong PC using the points-buy options. Likewise, as I mentioned upthread, I have memories of using the OA martial arts build rules back when these first came out. So the idea of system mastery certainly wasn't invented with 3E. But perhaps 3E - simply in virtue of having more stuff to buy (each level gain in effect becomes a points-buy decision, not to mention spells, feats, items etc) - widened the gap between those with and those without system mastery.

I think "step on up" gamism has always been part of D&D PC building. In the early days it was mostly about how well you rolled on the stat gen dice - a gambling style of "step on up". In 3E it shifts almost totally to elegance of build (and 4e maintains that aspect).

My own view is that it's a big deal, as far as design goes, to build an RPG with a pretty overt "step on up" component to PC building, and then to make "winning" depend heavily on an esoteric knowledge of obscure elements and combos which are, from the point of view of the game's story elements, somewhat counter-intuitive. I'm not going to say this is bad design - certainly not in all games (eg a game like Magic depends heavily on exactly this sort of "step on up" in deck design), and not necessarily in an RPG. But I think if you do design this way you can't then be surprised if a Char Ops culture grows up around your game, and if the experiences of your player base become very different depending on what sort of group and playstyle they are enculturated into.

I personally prefer a more transparent build system (eg in Rolemaster you can't really go wrong if you put most of your build points into the skill that reflects what you want to be good at). 4e is not quite as transparent as I like, but I feel that they tried harder for transparency than they did in 3E, and tried to make "elegance" rather than "power" of build something that you could aim for to try and "win" the PC build aspect of the game. The "role" idea also helped a bit here, by meaning that often players won't be competing on exactly the same turf of effectiveness.

I would have liked it if D&Dnext went evern further in this direction - eg get rid of the stat mod for attack bonus (but not damage) altogether, which is a reform that 4e badly needs - but they didn't.

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.

When I was playing Skills & Powers AD&D I barely knew what the internet was! (I was a Law/Arts student, not a Sci or Eng student.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ditto- I barely did anything "social" online until maybe 10 years ago.* And I still don't use charop stuff for anything beyond the odd pointer.

(Read that as: "I go there to find ways to make my oddball PCs suck less, but don't actually optimize.")






* Edit: make that nine- just looked at when I joined here.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Ditto- I barely did anything "social" online until maybe 10 years ago.* And I still don't use charop stuff for anything beyond the odd pointer.

(Read that as: "I go there to find ways to make my oddball PCs suck less, but don't actually optimize.")






* Edit: make that nine- just looked at when I joined here.

I feel like an oddball then, using the internet to meet women in the mid to late 90s - including a few fairly serious relationships.

 

[Ahnehnois]

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.

HP clearly scale differently in each edition. That said, I don't remember any meaningful difference between what kind of challenges a fighter could handle between 2e and 3e. I definitely don't remember killing any trolls with one hit.

I think you may be talking about base versions in the MM, which would make sense. After all, the 3e monsters were designed such that the MM version is the weakest example of the monster and they advance in HD and size from there. In any case, in both games the level of challenge is titrated by the DM. I suspect 3e makes this much easier to do (which is a real difference), but I never DMed 2e so I don't know. Most of this discussion has been player-side.

Take something as simple as initiative in 2e and compare it to 3e.

IIRC, 3e initiative was essentially putting on paper what many 2e groups actually did. 2e initiative was extremely confusing as written. I can't recall for sure, but IME we either did initiative the 3e way, or the DM tracked it and no one else knew what was going on. Again, I think the issue is that 2e was very old, and got modded a lot, and that 3e probably resembles those mods more than the original 2e core books. Which indeed, is the natural way games evolve. (4e, by contrast, is a pretty fundamental change in direction from most of the 3e houserules and revised 3e-style games out there).

This is interesting. It also paints, for me at least, a certain sort of picture of the fighter player - not only is s/he not looking for a lot of mechanical decision-making, but s/he is fairly relaxed in terms of broader impact on the direction of the game.

In Robin Laws' world, I think the typical fighter player is an "ass-kicker" type who just wants to kill some bad guys. I also see a lot of deep character exploration with fighters, perhaps because they're easier to relate to than clerics or wizards. I do not see a lot of min/maxing.

The reason I say that is because, in AD&D, a fighter PC can have quite a big impact on the direction of the game, due to the importance of his/her resilience and damage output, whereas in 3E I feel this is reduced. And I think a player who cared more about those sorts of macro-level issues of control/impact would notice this.

In general, I've had the same experience with both games, which is that fighters and their martial brethren are the most played classes and have the most combat impact. IME 3e marginally expanded the mechanical support for out of combat actions, but it is quite weak in both.

As very basic principle, a bird in hand is worth two in a bush. Thus, a +1 to damage or a boost to hit points that you pretty much know you're going to get meaningful use out of is more useful than a limited use ability that you may or may not actually use and which may or may not be beneficial.

Another basic principle is that of mutually assured destruction. Magic is generally controlled by the DM asserting implicitly or explicitly that uses of magic that are disruptive to the game and game world will be stopped by someone in the game world. There's always someone more powerful than the PCs, as any DM advice book seems to note. In general, fighters just do what they do without having to think about these considerations (unless they start killing innocent people, in which case the same applies and someone stops them).

There's also the social aspect. Fighters are the ones who end up in leadership positions (keeps, if you go back far enough), not necessarily because they are better at it but because people respect them, whereas people are turned off by magic. That's not in the rules, but it's definitely a part of D&D.

Basically, people playing the game in a rational way generally take actions that reward martial prowess and discourage the use of magic, which creates a tension around magic. That's the same in 2e and 3e (and I expect in earlier editions).

 

[Nellisir]

I feel like an oddball then, using the internet to meet women in the mid to late 90s - including a few fairly serious relationships.

I managed to meet someone online in 93, on a 4-line chatroom. It wasn't really serious, but we're still friends.

I went really online in '95/'96 because of AD&D. TSR had a site on AOL, and I figured the best way to meet people in the game design profession was to go where they were. The internet was new and novel enough that this actually worked, although it didn't turn into a career (at least, not yet). I did get a Dragon article and two rejection letters out of it, though.


Getting slightly back on topic, I've only used charop stuff for one character, when I went looking to build a truly terrifying wizard.

 

[Ratskinner]

It's not intended as edition-warring. But I find in many of the posts on this thread (and not just this thread) an assumption of an unargued consensus that 3E inherited the AD&D mantle and 4e then cast it off. I have no doubt that some people - due to their habits of play, their expectations, the amount of effort that they put into item crafting or spell selection or learning the rules at all, etc - found the transition pretty smooth. You gave an illustration in your post; Ahnehnois gives another illustration in his discussion of the fighter that I've just quoted.

For better or worse, a lot of people seem to feel that way about 4e. I have no real idea why, just a lot of vague suspicions. (Including art-styles!) The OSR grognards in my current group constantly surprise me with things they feel are important about Old-School Play. Like me, they had played 3e happily for a few years before getting bogged down in the fiddly bits (although they have more derogatory terms for it now).

But for others playing with different approaches or expectations, the differences between AD&D and 3E can be fairly marked; and likewise the resemblances between AD&D and 4e. As someone who had ceased to GM AD&D in favour of GMing Rolemaster, what struck me about 3E at release was how different it was from AD&D, and how much it had steered into classic 80s "check based on attribute + skill" territory, but without giving up on hit points. And what struck me about 4e at its release was how much effort had been made to build a game that would take the hit point "heroic fantasy" model and generalise it across the rest of action resolution, which for me promised to realise the idea of heroic fantasy RPGing first conveyed to me by the flavour text of Moldvay Basic.

I think most folks saw 3e as expanding AD&D's attack resolution into skills (which is how it was advertised). Since Non-Weapon Proficiencies, Secondary skills, Thieving skills, and the mechanical miscellany (Surprise, Bend Bars, etc.) that became 3e skill checks had never been terribly consistent across the previous incarnations of the game that change didn't really strike people as "critical" and counted as "inheriting" it. To some extent "attribute + skill", at least in the attack roll, is a D&D invention. I've seen several authors credit or accuse D&D of setting that as the standard for how people think that rpgs "should" work. I know in the FATE/FUDGE community, we see a lot of de-programming in that regard. I think that there were other mechanical changes that had far more profound, yet subtle, impacts on the gameplay and feel (initiative + casting interruption top my list).

I suspect that (like pre-WotC incarnations) 3e is easier to play "sloppy" and thus more people could still see in it (or make of it) what they wanted by running rough-shod over the rules. Even if this is merely a psychological impression, I think it may have had profound impact on 4e's reception.

While I've read your thoughts about Moldvay Basic's flavour text before, I'm not sure what you mean by "hit point heroic fantasy" model or it being generalized across across action resolution in 4e.