D&D General The limiting drawback of character customization

[Coroc]

heh. I was running ToEE in 1e, and the Paladin wanted a holy sword. But of course. So how did I handle it? His god gave him a quest to retrieve Blackrazor from white plume mountain, take it to an ancient white dragons lair and have it breathe on it, and immediately smash it to pieces with whelm. Then take the pieces and find a lost temple of his god (another complete adventure module) and have it reforged into a holy sword.

That’s how I roll

So like in some bad designed computer games you get the flaming sword after you slew all the trolls?

 

[Coroc]

Heh. But I prefer "pirate."

One oddity of 1e proficiency & magic item tables: at high level (like, y'know, 9th), it was pretty darn likely that the best magic weapon you'd've found was a longsword, so, really, at that point you hardly needed much variety in weapons of proficiency, but, you had a number of 'em.
At lower levels, you just might encounter a +1 what-the-heck-is-that-anyway-looks-like-a-giant-can-opener-on-the-end-of-a-10'-pole, because +1 was about all that was on the table, and a +1 just about anything was possible. Also, you DM mightn't've gotten sick of weapon v armor adjustments, yet (and your foes might still be humanoids in armor other than plate) so you might get a bonus for using just the right weapon. So, being proficient in more than just longsword and made-for-your-STR longbow would've been nice.

In my games there are no long swords. For renaissance setting tech level You get great swords, bastard swords (=long swords), arming swords, Rapier, Katzbalger (short swords), daggers (That's the straight blades), Kriegsmesser (two handed Messer), Langes Messer (one handed Messer), Scimitar, Knife that's the single edged curved ones.

And elves get proficiency in Rapier short sword eventually but never in Longswords.

Long sword stat (= 1d8 /1d10versatile) are the stats I use for bastard sword.

Long sword correct name = Great sword

Long sword mental image (The slender blade things fitting for elves) = rapier

 

[TwoSix]

shrug Doesn't seem like a big issue to me, as long as you're clear up front that magic items are random, and characters that choose to limit themselves to certain weapon types might not get a magic weapon of their favorite type.

Good optimizers optimize themselves to the table they're playing at, not expect the table to conform to their play style. If you know magic items are both prevalent and random, focus on concepts that aren't weapon-limited.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If you’re talking about the original game, sure, but considering that the Basic line ran concurrently with Advanced for 23 years, I don’t think relative age has anything to do with it.

Holmes basic was out a few years before the PHB, so...no.
I don’t know why people act like those years before don't count or matter. It wasn’t like a weekend. It was years.

besides, I’m not sure why you feel the need to be pedantic to tear down the point when it’s not even all that accurate pedantry.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So, from the title this thread has very little to do with what I thought it would...

Anyway, when I DM I roll randomly for treasure and the players get what they get.

That being the case, we do house-rule allowing characters to change a "focused" weapon as part of their concept on a level up, much as a known spell can be changed on a level up. Say you are Kensai, and get a magical weapon with properties you really want. So, when your next level comes, you can swap out your prior weapon choice for the new one. That solves the issue and works narratively in game.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

We tend to agree that more customization is a good thing. More choices. Well, I’ve noticed one area where it’s actually more limiting: treasure. Which is no small part of the game

Back in the day, if you were a fighter, it didn’t matter what magic item you found. Axe? Mace? Pole arm? You used it without a second thought because you were equally skilled in all weapons and armor

since 3e however, I’ve seen a lot of players over the years complain that the magic item they found didn’t fit what they specialized in (started in 1e with UA, but really started seeing it in 3e as a frequent complaint vs a rare one). It seems a strong correlation that the more specialized you could become, the more this became an issue. The common answer seems to be “as the DM, just change the magic item type to what the PC wants”. I get it, but that never sat right with me. It counters the living world concept. I.e., the world and everything in it doesn’t cater or change to player desires, but acts independently.

so do you as a DM change items to be what the player wants, or do you keep them as is and the players decide what to do with them, sell them, use them, etc? As mentioned, I keep them as is. I find it also as a way to balance against specializations. After all, the point of a specialization is to better at a few things, but take the drawbacks of not being as good all around. If you cater to the specialized player, essentially removing the drawbacks, that leads to feeling like the PC is OP, or too good compared to the players who chose not to specialize. IMO anyway.

Honestly that is part of why I moved back to a different system with no specialization rules for my "D&D" campaign. Always bummed me out a bit when they would get a powerful spear with a cool backstory but because they were quadruple specialized in bastard sword it was like "spear...how much can we sell it for?" I think removing those kinds of things reduced the "need" for the Walmart of Magic Items so they could get the items that fit their various build specialties.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So like in some bad designed computer games you get the flaming sword after you slew all the trolls?

um..no. A holy avenger is a tremendously powerful item. It shouldnt be handed out to level 7-8 PCs just because they want it. It’s the object of a quest. I think he ended up around level 11 by the time he got it, so his adventuring days weren’t over.

 

[Hriston]

Holmes basic was out a few years before the PHB, so...no.
I don’t know why people act like those years before don't count or matter. It wasn’t like a weekend. It was years.

besides, I’m not sure why you feel the need to be pedantic to tear down the point when it’s not even all that accurate pedantry.

It wasn’t a few years. It was one year if you don’t count the Monster Manual, which came out in 1977, the same year as Holmes Basic. Now the MM didn’t have weapon proficiency, so if you want to claim 1977 as “back in the day”, I’ll concede that, but the PHB was published the following year, in 1978.

I think my pedantry stems more from the impression I got from your OP. You make it sound like this is how things were until 3E, basically ignoring the entire run of AD&D.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think my pedantry stems more from the impression I got from your OP. You make it sound like this is how things were until 3E, basically ignoring the entire run of AD&D.

Except the part in my OP where I specifically stated it started in 1e. Yeah, except that part....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Which is why people who play OD&D say it's the game with the most ability to freely play. It lacks the restraints that come with customization options in a massive tome of rules, which has the unintended consequence of limiting those without those options.

I feel like saying that with a caveat or qualification is going too far, myself.

Everything you say is true, to a point, and 3E was a good illustration of "rules gone wild" where tons of Feats or the like effectively made stuff impossible unless you had them in rather extreme ways.

However, the caveat is that in order for a lack of rules to enable stuff, you must have a cooperative and imaginative DM (something in far shorter supply in say, 1989 than now, I'd suggest), and even the there are usually limits, particularly if you want to do something magical or quasi-magical. Good luck playing a Bard type who is anything but another class who occasionally strums a lute in OD&D, for example, or Sorcerer or the like.

I suspect there might be a way to pare things back and yet have these sort of classes and so on, but it might look more like Dungeon World than OD&D (I do always fondly remember Rules Cyclopedia D&D though).