3e... good for players, more difficult for DMs

[Henry]

My suggestions for you; hopefully they will be useful in some way.

1) More rules to remember.

The important thing is to learn how to calculate the rules. The hardest section you'll ever have is Chapter 8 of the PHB, and if you get that down, the rest is easy. Most of the rules are based on simple math formulas; everything from additional spells due to high ability scores, to saving throws, base attacks, and even grappling are based on simple formulas.

2) Constantly in the position of saying "no" to my players

While some DM's never had problems with this in 2E, others had it all the time. (Such as myself.) The best thing is to establish a baseline WHEN THE CAMPAIGN STARTS, and only allow the PrC's, feats, etc. that YOU say. I even had to do this back in 2E, because players were coming to me with Player's Option stuff all the time, which I used to categorically strike down, because I didn't have time to read it all.

3) Creating NPCs is more of an administrative burden.

Henry's 4 easy steps to creating an NPC:

• Assign class, level, and motivations. These are the three most important things to know about your NPC.
• Do not assign ability scores unless you must. If you must, assume all stats are average except for ones directly related to class. assign a 13 to 15 to these scores. If VERY good at what they do, assign a 16. Ignore racial modifiers.
• Assume untrained proficiency in any skill unrelated to their profession. (NOT class) Any skill related to their job, assign ranks equal to their level. If they are supposed to be REALLY good at a skill, give them max ranks, and even assign a feat to skill focus.
• Do not assume any feats unless necessary to their profession. (Track for a hunter, etc.) If reknowned for a feat, give it to them.

The above takes approximately 60 seconds to do, and are the ONLY things necessary to know about an NPC which the Players will be interacting with. If the NPC is an important person, is unique in some way, or is to be a main villain or ally, they need to be statted out fully. Your players will not care if the weaponmaster who trains them has every point allocated and every feat taken. The genius of this method is that room is left for plot necessities; if the character needs to know how to swim, jump, climb or weave baskets, there are enough points left over for them to have legally taken such a feat or skill. Once you know the being's class, level, and motivations, you know 80% of what the players need to know about your NPC. This hasn't changed since day one.

4) Game worlds with less support.

On the contrary, there are several very good game worlds out there, with original themes, unlike any seen in TSR worlds, with support out the -- well, it's lots of support.

Check out the following:
--the Freeport setting at www.greenronin.com
--the Scarred Lands and Ravenloft settings at www.swordsorcery.com
--the Draognstar setting at www.fierydragon.com

There are many others, but these three have so much support that you can run full 20-level campaigns with little need for extra support.

5) Preference fragmentation.

I submit that the preference fragmentation was always there, are was exaerbated by the market loss by TSR in the 1990's, but it is more vocal in the past 6 years than it ever was previously, due to the internet.

Not had a problem, since I've played in three different groups from 1998 to 2003.

6) Less quality modules.

See above with regard to the campaign settings. Some publishers rise to the top; Green Ronin, Malhavoc, S&S studios, Fiery Dragon, etc. are all top-notch producers of excellent material.

7) Rapid advancement means that I often can not use module series or mega-adventures.

As noted on a recent thread, slowing advancement is easy, if you cut not only the XP gained, but the magic and money gained as well. However, you are correct in that many mega-adventures requres you to go through them very quickly. Module series can be altered; just insert more adventures between the key modules in order to adjust the proper levels. TV series do this with "filler" episodes all the time; after all, you can't appreciate the HUGE moments, without the little ones.

I hope that some of this is useful. My current group has been playing 3E for a year and a half now, and we were all playing 3E since it came out. It's been nothing but fun. We play other games - star wars, call of cthulhu, d20 modern - but we always seem to return to the dungeons and dragons we love so well.

 

[MGibster]

I dislike the long term planning that goes into character progression. You really have to figure out by 1st or 2nd level what PrC, if any, you want to go after. I would rather players go with the flow and base their decisions to multi-class on what happens. It sure beats mapping out what skills and feats you're going to get from 1st through 20th level.

Marc

 

[Piratecat]

Regarding #2 - In actual play, I actually find myself saying "yes" a whole lot more than I used to. Previously, there were a whole lot of things that you were simply prohibited from doing. Wizards couldn't wear armor, wizards couldn't use a sword, halflings couldn't be paladins, etc. etc. Nowadays, that's all gone.

More importantly, I find that the DC system lets me allow any goofy trick that the PCs want to try! Want to throw darts while doing a backflip? No problem; it's simple to assign a DC to things like this, even if that DC is ludicrously high. I love the flexibility, and I like that I can say "roll it" instead of "no."

 

[Psion]

1) More rules to remember. 3rd edition has a lot more rules to keep track of than 1st and 2nd edition. As a DM of many years experience its been more difficult for me to accurately keep track of them all and I can only imagine how it is for fledling DMs.

Other have alluded to this, but I am afraid that 3e wins hands down when it comes to rules-ease. 1e and 2e had very baroque rules, with different dice types for different things, and different mechanisms for different things. Does anyone here remember how weapon speeds worked in 1e? Or how to handle surprise with different races?

In 3e, it's mostly d20 + mods >= DC. Everything is instances of that.

Further, with the 3e stacking convention, I don't have to worry about ad hoc statements of what works with what. It's simple: only one of each named bonus.

In short, I find your supposition here faulty. 3e rules are easier. I strongly suspect that you are just getting into the game and just have not learned them all yet.

2) I have to be the bad guy more. I am constantly in the position of saying "no" to my players and waste a lot more time having to look through prestige classes instead of focusing on actual campaign development.

Again, I think you are way off base here.

First off, I found kits much worse than prestige classes. Kits claimed to be balanced, but rarely were. OTOH, prestige classes, while not always balanced (caveat emptor), and least you gave up something, as opposed to kits which were just tacked on.

Further, no munchkin abilities for free. In 1e or 2e, anyone could be a drow with little penalty. For 3e, such choices cost you levels. Less munchkin bait in 3e by far.

Finally, tell players to read step zero of chargen in the PHB. Similar statements are at the front of each statbooks. Unlike 2e, the books are much more on your side WRT the fact that the DM is the final authority of what belongs in a game.

3) Creating NPCs is more of an administrative burden. Before I could drop a 5th level fighter into an adventure... now I have to worry about that fighters feats, skills, etc.

This is true, if you want full fleshed out NPCs.

That said, ad hoc NPCs are even easier in 3e than 1e and 2e if you want to know proficiencies/skills. When making an NPC, I know that their best skill is level+3 ranks. If using standard stat block (or close equivalent), I can also tell you that their best two score modifiers are +2. Further, I can get their BAB and Save modifiers in my head vice looking them up on a table.

4) Game worlds with less support. None of the new game worlds are as nearly well supported as Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. When you are a DM without a lot of time you look for a great deal more support from supplements.

While I do lament that PS is still not being supported, I really have to say that you really do not know the state of the market. Ravenloft, Kalamar, the Scarred Lands, and Oathbound are just a few currently supported game worlds for 3e/d20.

5) Preference fragmentation. More options have created more fragmentation of the player base. Having moved states I have found it a lot harder to put together that initial cohesive group than I have during previous editions of D&D.

My experience SO differs here. During the 2e era, finding a D&D group around here was like pulling teeth. Under 3e, I was not only able to find a group quicker, but it meets more consistantly than any prior group. Of course, this is a small data point, but so is yours.

Further, despite that mine is a small data point, I saw the local RPG mailing list turn from a fragment indie-rpg mailing list to one that was majorly D&D and there is a lot less arguing nowadays and more people actually seem to be playing vice bantering. This is a good thing.

6) Less quality modules. Modules are either too generic or too world/class specific. I would guess it is harder for designers to create modules that can cover so much possible variation in characters. I have yet to see anything to match the quality of the Desert of Desolition modules, Saltmarsh series, or Slavelord series in actual design.

Shall I begin by listing the non-quality modules from the 1e/2e era?

At any rate, there are plenty of quality modules out there. Of Sound Mind, Banewarrens, Song of Storms, Hall of the Rainbow Mage, etc.

7) Rapid advancement.

Slow it down. I do (and I am not alone.) The DMG tells you how to do this.

 

[tf360]

I find 3e far easier to deal with as a DM than 1E and 2E for a lot of reasons. The biggest one I felt was the ambiguity of the two previous editions as well as the overpowering kits and races in both of the previous editions.

1) More rules

Simply put, 3E is a lot easier to deal with. All of the rules are in the PHB and the DMG. 1E and 2E had tons of rules in all of the class books as well as some of the other books that came out later such as the Tome of Magic, Unearthed Arcana etc. (Remember the good old days of weapon styles and weapon speed.) Once you get combat down pat and then understand how some of the commonly used spells work, its way easier than 1 or 2 E with a lot fewer "rules on the fly" to adjudicate difficult situations. Like Piratecat said, assign a DC for an unusual situation and let the character roll his own fate rather than guess.

2) Prestige classes

Ever deal with the Humanoid handbook from 2E? Trust me, it was pretty miserable when one of my players decided to be a wood giant with practically no drawbacks. What about the kits? Most of them were either ridiculously underpowered or totally outrageous. Clever players learned to sort the good from the bad and before long everyone wanted to play the same kits as well as the same races. And don't even start me on the Psionics books from 2E or the double weapon specialized grugach elf fighter with a long sword from Unearthed Arcana.

3) NPC's

Creating NPC's does require some work, but like most have reiterated, you don't need to go overboard for lackeys and guards. No one needs to know if the four 3rd level fighters guarding the entrance to the hidden temple spent two ranks in Swim. It's simply not necessary. I only figure out the stats for the skills that may come into play, especially Listen and Spot for guards.

4) Game worlds

The number and quality of game worlds in the present environment is complete unprecedented. 1E had only Greyhawk and maybe Forgotten Realms near the tail end. There are a lot of quality game worlds out there totally including the ones previously mentioned.

5) Fragmentation

I can't really comment on this, since I've played with the same gaming group for almost fifteen years, and we haven't needed a new player in about eight years. Guess we're just lucky with that.

6) Modules

I can't remember very many modules from WOTC or TSR during 2E. Sure there's a lot of poor modules on the market today, but there's also a lot of quality ones as well. While some look back nostalgically at some of the 1E modules, I kind of view them as overly simplistic or just hack and slash fests. 2E didn't bring to mind an abundance of quality modules since the number of available modules was really slim pickings to say the least.

7) Rapid advancement

I personally slow it down as well. Another method that I use is that each player has multiple characters in the campaign, three to be precise. They pick and choose which characters to play for each adventure, also slowly down the advancement of the group as whole as well as allowing everyone the opportunity to play a different character class rather than being the same thing all the time.

 

[Sammael99]

I'm not comparing 3E to previous D&D editions here; since I hadn't played D&D for more than 10 years when 3E came out and I decided to give it another try.

Now, after 2 1/2 years of GMing a 3E campaign, the limits of the system are making themselves apparent. I will definetely finish the current campaign, because I've invested a lot of time in it, the players love it and I want them to see what's in store. But I doubt I will be using 3E again after the campaign is over. Not as a GM anyway.

The things I dislike very much now are :

- the combats simply take forever, and there's no way around this (believe me I've tried) other than avoiding combat.

- building up a no or little combat campaign seems to defeat the purpose because so much in the game design and character progression is about combat (combat spells, BAB, feats, etc.)

- levelling up is a chore because keeping track of the skill points you get each level and assigning them depending on how proficient you are with each skill is a nightmare. In fact, two players in my game have stopped assigning skill points altogether.

- as was mentioned before, even using character generators, it takes a lot of time to work NPCs. Someone on rpg.net was mentioning recently how one of the greats perks of Storyteller was that you could build any NPC in five minutes complete with powers and backgrounds. Man I wish it was so easy in 3E...

- I find it increadible that after 2 1/2 years of playing twice a month there are still so many rules we don't know and have to check up every time they come up. Someone will probably say we're dumb, and maybe that is so, but I want to spend the four hours we have per session roleplaying, not learning the rules... Someone bull rushed last night. The rules for bull rush are insanely complicated for what it is... Why the needless complication ? In the end we just did opposite STR checks.

I'm not saying 3E is a bad system, and I do believe it's the best incarnation of D&D. But I think the design strongly emphasises a way of playing and running it that is no longer to my liking. It's too tactical and very difficult to steer out of a combat focus...

"3E, I don't love you anymore..."

 

[Sagan Darkside]

However, the point I am trying to make is the mantra... that more options = better for everyone is not always true.

Others already covered points I would- I just want to expand on this.

If you work with your group, then this should never be a problem. If you involve them in the creation/running of the campeign, then you are left with a lot less work.

To be honest, I have trouble believing more options != better. Instead of being hammered into playing in one group style, we can now develop groups to match the players and dm.

Bring on the options!

SD

 

[Sagan Darkside]

- the combats simply take forever, and there's no way around this (believe me I've tried) other than avoiding combat.

There have been threads on this before, but you could start another. I have not had a problem speeding up combat.

- building up a no or little combat campaign seems to defeat the purpose because so much in the game design and character progression is about combat (combat spells, BAB, feats, etc.)

But you don't need rules to roleplay. If you want more detailed rules on social situations, then Quint Samurai has rules on social combat- it uses the social skills in a combat-light/like structure.

- levelling up is a chore because keeping track of the skill points you get each level and assigning them depending on how proficient you are with each skill is a nightmare. In fact, two players in my game have stopped assigning skill points altogether.

Wow. ... Wow. I have very casual players, and they have never mentioned this as a problem. What is the problem? cross class skills?

- as was mentioned before, even using character generators, it takes a lot of time to work NPCs.

Well- you have three options:
1) use the tables in the dmg (yeah, they pretty much bite)
2) buy a supplement full of npc's (there are some out there)
3) make it up as you go along (this is what I do)

- I find it increadible that after 2 1/2 years of playing twice a month there are still so many rules we don't know and have to check up every time they come up.

I keep a cheat sheet in my dm binder that lightly sumarizes the steps of complex situations (bull rush, tripping, etc). I also tell the players that if they are going to use an option regularly with a pc, that they should have their own cheat sheet. Finally, if I know an npc is going to use something- then I will definitly refresh myself and reread the section.

Good luck!
SD

 

[Piratecat]

- the combats simply take forever, and there's no way around this (believe me I've tried) other than avoiding combat.

Wow! Our combats are much, much faster than they used to be in 2e. No question about it.

 

[Psion]

I think combats are slow in 3e... but this is a problem that can be worked around.

First off, understanding AoO helps. This is not a problem for me once I was able to cobble everything down to a few basic rules in my mind, but I imagine 3.5 will make this a bit more basic and explicit.

Second, initiative. Going "20...19...18" is tedious. I make a stack of note cards, sort them once, and sift through the pile. Again, this is not new to the game, but I think you are ahead of the game in 3e here, because the initiative numbers don't change every round.

Third... iterative attacks. At high levels, this is a biggie. All too often, players will roll and add there totals on the spot, and when I ask them again, they can't remember what rolls went with what modifiers. I make the players bring a peice of scratch paper and jot down their totals.

Finally, looking up spells and effects. As a DM, having stat blocks in the adventure notes help... lacking that, bookmark the creatures you are going to use in the adventure. For players, insist that when they cast a spell, they must have it open to the page when their turn comes around. (This one was a problem in 2e as well.)