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Check out the Feb 2001 issue of Dragon; the article "Magic in the blood" outlines different sorcerer "backgrounds," with suggested skills, feats, spells, races, and roleplaying tips. It's a wonderful example of the flexibility of the core rules. Some examples: Experimentation Fey-touched...

Looks like we have a very similar approach. As for your comments: 5) I didn't use WBL when I started running 3e, I pretty much went with the "gut feeling" approach of BECMI/2e, but ex-post, looking at the games I ran, I realised that (barring some spikes), the average wealth I tended to...

Right. I guess something must be "lost in translation" as I am not a native English speaker. How would you call using rules variants from the DMG (which is one of the three core books)? I didn't add any house rules; everything I use is in the DMG. I am more than happy to learn an alternative...

Yes I have seen that. It's not an hypothesis if there is at least one case where it's actually true :) You also make the case of capping at 12th level; I tend to limit my campaigns around 15th level, but more out of boredom, and the fact that the play style tends to change dramatically after...

Thanks. Obviously all elucubrations on core spellcasters' "brokenness" are strongly conditional on the spellcasters having the spell slots to cast the desired spells, and actually being able to cast them. Easier said than done, however, because in my games, following the DMG guidelines/variants...

I exclusively run 3.0 core, which has no natural spellcasting (and call lightning requires a storm, can't be cast in a dungeon like in 3.5). As I said, 3e druids and 3.5 druids are two different objects. I don't care about 3.5 in general. [edited] Don't care about discussing CoDzilla or other...

I bet few people ever read the DMG, considering the arguments and discussions I have seen online! Like I jokingly tell my friends "the best never read book in gaming history." Yet it's such a fundamental part of the game not only for the extra rules, but for the "knobs and levers" which pretty...

Well, the "basic rules" are represented by PHB, DMG, and MM. The rules in the DMG apparently tell us that not everything in the PHB need be available or must be used as-is (amongst other things, race/class combinations.) The point is not just doing as we wish in our games (which is always a...

Well magic markets are just an option. See the "Power components" variant, which I started using from day 0. If the DM says that black onyxes don't exist (or are very rare), then black onyxes don't exist (or are very rare.) The Wealth by Level table is built on an assumption of averages; one...

A few things, though: 1- Animate Dead is not cheap: 50gp black onyx gems for each corpse. The DM is in total control of whether these are easy to find, and if he doesn't want the spell cast/deems it unbalancing, he simply limits access to the gems. 2- Animate Dead has the "Evil" descriptor. Evil...

I have always been extremely stingy with magic items (since the BECMI days; carried this habit well into 3e), way below the averages in the 3.0 DMG (actually bordering on the bare minimum), so stacking of bonuses has rarely been problematic. I also use the DMG variant "power ingredients" for the...

Definitely. At my table we stayed with 3.0, never used any of the splats, kept playing with an "AD&D mind", and never had any major issues.

Ah yes, one change from the PO books, Spells & Magic in particular, was extremely beneficial: we used the revised spell spheres for Druids and Clerics, to boost the former and tone down the latter.

The second printing is clearly marked "Second Printing November 2000" in the credits page. You definitely want one to play, as it corrects quite a few things. I have been looking for later printings of the 3.0 DMG and MM, but I don't know if there were ever issued.

We didn't care for a single thing 3.5 changed, we had invested in the books (my friends had the Italian versions), we had campaigns going; not really worth our time. "Organic" creation is one of the methods in the DMG. Essentially, roll 4d6 drop lowest in order, re-roll one of the scores, swap...

And the Ranger got Tracking for free!

As we moved to 2e from BECMI, we started with the analogous rules, and gradually added most (if not all; memory is failing me now) optional rules. One thing we practically never used was individual initiative; rather, we used group initiative modified by each player (which is another optional...

That's 13th Age approach; Heinsoo and Tweet suggest that the mechanical effects of the heal-up (13A name for long rests, after three nasty battles or equivalent) correlate with events in the game world. In my experience it works very well in general, but sometimes it may feel strained and contrived.

Nice thread! 2e was the longest edition I have ever DMed continuously. And I still love it. Coming straight from BECMI, I planned to move to 2e as soon as it was published. But since I was young and naive (17), I only bought the 2e DMG at the start, because I was always the DM, and the players...

Awesome thread! Good luck with your game, Yora! Just for context, I share pretty much all your reservations regarding 3.0 vs. 3.5/PF. I agree the feel is definitely different; the things I like more: no pokemon warhorses for paladins; no spontaneous summoning spells for druids; no magical animal...