2E vs 3E: 8 Years Later. A new perspective?

[Gothmog]

in other words, 3e for me is less than "whatever game i want it to be" and more "the game as the majority play it". if i disagree with the majority, tough for me.

Thats a really good summation of my frustrations with 3E as well. In general, I preferred playing and running games under 2E- it was more freeform and flowed MUCH better for me and my group.

Now 3E did do a few things I did like- BAB and the new saves are great, and AC scaling upwards in response to BAB was fine. THAC0 was never that hard of a concept for me and my groups to grasp, so it wasn't the bugaboo to us that it was to many groups.

However, there are things that look good on the surface in 3E, but which turned into a nightmare in play.

#1 The interconnectedness of everything in 3E- feats, skills, magic items, assumed power levels, monster CR ratings, experience gain for challenges, etc- the list is endless. Basically, its very hard to houserule 3E without impacting some aspect of the core rules which has been codified and "balanced". As long as you're playing with the assumptions 3E D&D is built with, it runs fine. If you want to play at a lower magic level though, for example, you've got to basically rebuild the system from the ground up, which isn't worth the time. There are just WAY too many assumptions in 3E about how you should be playing for it to be as flexible as previous versions of D&D. In 2E, we played low magic games with no problem without having to revamp the entire system. 2E was a much more flexible and in many ways, robust system than 3E.

#2 The complexity of the system. I don't know how many times playing 3E things ground to a halt while we looked up rules. While 3E has a rule for every situation, in a lot of ways that is a drawback to the system since it breaks the flow of the game to refer to the rules. And for some reason, since the rule is there, people feel compelled to use the rule in question even though the situation might better be handled by something simpler or DM fiat.

#3 Character/monster complexity. Feats, skills, class powers, synergy bonuses, level-appropriate equipment, spell selection, GAH! Statting up a vital NPC or new monster is a nightmare, as is advancing or adding templates to monsters. I play RPGs to spend time playing the game, NOT to spend 3-4 hours before each session simply statting opponents up. And god forbid something should come up on the fly for the DM, like if the PCs decide to attack the badass captain of the guard who is supposed to be a plot point, and the DM doesn't have stats ready since he didn't anticipate a confrontation. I've seen games literally stop for 1 hour while the DM prepares for unforseen circumstances by statting up new foes. When its that difficult to follow the rules of the system in order to play the game, there is a serious design flaw in the system.

I guess in summary, 3E had some neat ideas, but poor execution. Also, the overcodification of the system is a problem for me and my group, since it tends to restrict our options and playstyle instead of accomodating them. A game that has the same features (character customization, high adventure, etc) 3E does without the complexity is Savage Worlds, so it can be done. 2E was superior to 3E in many ways, including flavor, worlds, and for my group, the performance of the system for our playstyle. Ive gone back to playing 2E for my D&D needs, at least until 4th edition comes out. I'm cautiously optomistic about 4th, but we'll see.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would like sometime to play this marvelous game called "2e" where you can remove heavy armor without hurting Fighters, yank out the skill system without a negative effect on Thieves, remove magic weapons without worrying about monsters immune to non-magical weapons, run a low magic campaign without a single thought about power level of the PCs, run a high magic campaign just as easily, or rewrite any sub-system any way you please on a whim, just for the heck of it, and everything "just works" automagically because everything is so poorly integrated.

Alas, I only have years of experience with TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, where none of those things were true by the remotest stretch of the imagination.

I seen this claim that by virtue of being "too integrated" certain kinds of changes are more difficult in 3e of couple of dozen times. But when it comes to actual examples of an apples to apples comparison, the silence is always deafening.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

That said, the removal of feats and skills from D&D 3x is comparable to removing THAC0 from AD&D in that they are both integral parts of the system. If somebody is mad because a system won't function when they tear out integral parts, it's not really a fault of the system.

If you removed THAC0 from AD&D or its functional equivalent, I am not sure you even have a game anymore. At least not one worth playing...go find an even simpler game that does more instead.

The funny thing is it would be entirely plausible to remove Feats and Skills entirely from 3e. That would not even be difficult. A number of classes would become obsolete, but if such simplifications are your style surely that is a good thing. There would be consequences, of course. Whether the consequences are good or bad, require mitigation or not, that would be a matter of philosophy and personal taste.

Level of integration is not a hindrance to drastic brain surgery on a game system...if you know what you are doing.

 

[Lanefan]

Speaking for 1e rather than 2e (though I suspect there is much overlap), let me try here:

I would like sometime to play this marvelous game called "2e" where you can remove heavy armor without hurting Fighters

Could be done in any edition, though the effect on play would be much less in in 1e where AC only has a 20-point range (+10 to -10) and many magic defenses won't work with armour anyway and thus would merely serve to replace it.

yank out the skill system without a negative effect on Thieves

Yanking out the skill system for everyone except Thieves and Thief sub-classes is easy in 1e; mostly because there isn't much of one to begin with. Doing the same in 3e is a big change with lots of ramifications. Taking thieving skills away from Thieves in any edition requires a complete class redesign.

remove magic weapons without worrying about monsters immune to non-magical weapons

Removing magic weapons entirely does require a rethink of a lot of monsters. Reducing things such that weapons top out at +3 instead of +5, however, is easy in 1e.

run a low magic campaign without a single thought about power level of the PCs, run a high magic campaign just as easily

PC power level is constantly changing anyway, and any DM worth her salt soon learns what the party can handle on a regular basis whatever their magic level. Thsi one's almost irrelevant.

or rewrite any sub-system any way you please on a whim, just for the heck of it, and everything "just works" automagically because everything is so poorly integrated.

Not everything "just works", but it's far easier to tinker with bits of 1e than 3e even if the tinkering is just experimental; things being more isolated allows experiments to not bring the whole system down if they fail. For example, I redesigned my 1e Bards a long time ago to make them a normal class - no big deal there - and then, years later once I'd seen how 3e worked, I redesigned them again from the ground up to be essentially a feat-based class. Did the same with Monks, too; early returns are so far so good from such run-out as they've had. In 3e, how easily could you take a class and redesign it from the ground up sch that it both worked differently mechanically from any other class yet remained vaguely balanced and in-type?

Lanefan

 

[Orius]

Agreed; 3e gave monsters a better break, and long overdue. I'd already sort-of started doing the same thing in 1e, but nowhere near what 3e did...until I saw 3e and started swiping ideas, that is. I'm hoping 4e continues this trend of giving the opposition an even break.

So did I. I was using the Complete Book of Humanoids in 2e to give humanoid leaders classes and levels rather than just tacking on a few extra HD. So now, that group of orcs the players run into isn't just a 2d4 orcs with a 3 HD-leader; it's 2d4 orcs lead by a 3rd level orc fighter with weapon specialization and some specially tweaked proficiencies, pehaps even a kit to make the PC's lives even more miserable.

One thing I liked about 3e is that the rules to do this were put into the core and it was easier to come up with classed humanoid opponents with the NPC charts in the DMG.

 

[FireLance]

PC power level is constantly changing anyway, and any DM worth her salt soon learns what the party can handle on a regular basis whatever their magic level.

This is the key point that I would like to highlight. This is true in 3e as well, no matter what changes you make to the game. While 3e makes it easier to run a game using the built-in assumptions, I don't see how running a game without these assumptions would be any more difficult in 3e than in any previous edition. I'd be eyeballing challenges against what I know of the party's capabilities instead of relying on guidelines*, which is what I did in 2e, 1e and Basic D&D anyway.

* Actually, even when DMing 3e by-the-book, I still give the challenges a once-over eyeball after narrowing them down with the guidelines, but old habits die hard.

 

[Orius]

Kits were a neat feature of 2e, and I think it'd be nice to see something similar come back. I mean, you can do it in 3e with background feats, but it's not the same. I'd like to see something more like the occupations from d20 modern. That'd be nifty.

Kits were a good idea, but the freelance design of core 2e suppliments and a tendancy towards front loading threw their balance all out of whack. So there was a combination of relatively balanced kits combined with overpowered (bladesinger) and just plain weird (Greenwood Ranger, though I considered making a PrC out of that one).

I liked that kits gave players a list of suggested proficiencies. The Player's Option kits also made taking recommened NWPs a little cheaper, and I was trying to fit thhat feature into my 2e games as a house rules (as I was using the S&P NWP system).

 

[Orius]

We've had lots of pure fighters in 1e; more than any other class by a long way, and we use a roll-up system even nicer than 4d6. Check your numbers, if you have records of characters played...you might be surprised.

Lane-"holding the keys to the penalty box since 1984"-fan

I wasn't playing 1e, and yeah the pure fighter was pretty rare IME.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Kits were a neat feature of 2e, and I think it'd be nice to see something similar come back. I mean, you can do it in 3e with background feats, but it's not the same. I'd like to see something more like the occupations from d20 modern. That'd be nifty.

In a sense, we do have kits in 3e, most notably with substitution levels and alternative class features. Prestige classes fill this function too, but you can't begin with one. Basically, all of these ideas help to shape a character. With things like paragon paths in 4e, it looks like the tradition will continue.

Still, I sometimes do miss the old kits.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

In 3e, how easily could you take a class and redesign it from the ground up sch that it both worked differently mechanically from any other class yet remained vaguely balanced and in-type?

The thing called "balance" as some kind of automagic property of the system is 3e-speak.

You are gulping down the Kool-Aid...while complaining about it at the same time.

If you are going to use a significant degree inherent mechanical balance as a yardstick, then 2e is completely broken out of the box.

It is completely trivial to build things in 3e that are every bit as balanced as typical 2e.

All these things that are allegedly hard to do in 3e are not. Yes, I can remove heavy armor, rewrite skills, remove Feats, change magic item rarity, change wealth level without breaking a sweat. That is because an integrated system makes it very simple to anticipate side effects, so a DM can easily compensate with a light touch.

3e is a game that allows the DM to drive with one hand on the steering and the other holding a brewski, windows down, music cranked up. Or at least you can get away with that lackadaisical attitude some of the time. 2e is game you need to keep both hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road.

Some DMs drive 3e wildly and end up wrapping their campaign around a tree.

At this point you can try putting both hands firmly on the 3e steering wheel and stop pounding down those high proof supplements. Or you can go back to 2e, and put both hands on the steering wheel, and complain that 3e is hard to drive because doing so one-handed while drunk did not work out for you.

IMNSHO, there is a double-standard here. If you judge 3e by a higher standard, you are implicitly endorsing the idea that 3e has absolutely superior mechanics.