3E shortcomings

[ColonelHardisson]

Thank you for the post, olive.

THAT, for those of you who seem to have no clue, is the sort of answers that are given in a civilized forum.

But, I gave a nice, polite reply too!

 

[Quinn]

Thank you for the post, olive.

THAT, for those of you who seem to have no clue, is the sort of answers that are given in a civilized forum.

Harold, I find your posts disingenuous. You've received nothing but civilized, respectful posts.

 

[Tewligan]

THAT, for those of you who seem to have no clue, is the sort of answers that are given in a civilized forum.

Ah, good. That should certainly go a long way toward building goodwill, and in no way makes you seem like a snotty jackass.

 

[Breakdaddy]

I participate in forum discussions about a lot of different issues (mostly individual rights issues and RKBA) but haven't, despite my rpg addiction, really participated in any rpg forum until the past couple of weeks.

I must say that, with a few notable exceptions, the level of rudeness on THIS board far outweighs the level on forums devoted to inflammatory real-world issues. It is amazing to me that this is so.

To those who recommended Dragonsfoot...thank you. I've been reading it and the level of maturity there far exceeds what I have seen here. Really a pretty good site.
stayed around.

Hmmm, Im curious. Is the level of maturity their much greater because they are telling you what you want to hear? Im still pretty new here, and overall, while there are some sourpusses here (as on any board), Ive seen exceptional restraint on the part of most posters when it comes to flame wars.

 

[Zappo]

1) I really dislike that it is really promotes min-maxing. Even the "official" stuff feeds off of it (note the little "Power Play" asides in DRAGON magazine). Optimizing a character is fine, but it goes too far to actively promote this, IMO.

Min-maxing is a problem with the players, not with the system. If a player powergames, it's because he wants to.

That said, it's amazing how many players I know that find it normal to at least dump Charisma and complain about useless feats in D&D, and at the same time find it horrible to min-max merits and flaws in Storyteller - this even before having been told the campaign style.

It is undeniable that there is an "aura" around D&D - all editions - that pushes players to powergame. Since there are heaps of games, from GURPS to Storyteller, that are easier to min-max and yet don't have that aura, I think that it is entirely due to the status of D&D as an entry game (and thus with a naturally higher percentage of players who only know CRPGs) and to D&D's reputation, which attracts powergamers like a self-sustaining vortex.

I doubt that any rule change would really affect that on a large scale. Min-maxing is part of D&D's brand identity, and WotC knows that better than all of us put together. That's the reason for items such as the "power gaming" column. The ruleset is almost irrelevant.

2) It gives the tendency to create "super-characters" because of the abuse of the min-maxing potential. Instead of a nice fantasy combat like might be seen in (for example) the Fellowship of the Ring movie (where characters struggle), you end up with something more akin to a fight out of a cheesy martial arts movie. This is really, sort of, a continuation of (1) above but it's a separate gripe in my mind.

Well, first of all standard D&D doesn't fit the low-magic middle-earth very well. It wasn't designed to do so, and it would be unreasonable to expect it to do so. It can be done, but it takes tinkering. In D&D combat, magic necessarily plays a much bigger part.

But let's limit to "mundane" combat; I don't understand if your gripe is that D&D characters tend to perform outlandish combat manouvers or that combat is too easy. In the first case, I hope you'll recognize that that's entirely a matter of taste. In the second case, well just as min-maxing is a problem with the players, all the same not providing a challenge is a problem with the DM. Any party can be challenged. Indeed, it is easier to do this in 3E than in any other game, thanks to the CR and EL system.

In both cases, your gripe doesn't exist at low levels. So stick to low levels and you'll be fine. I think it's fairly obvious that high level combat involves actions of outlandish power. That's why it's called high level.

3) It encourages mapping out the progress of a character from 1st level onward. This may not be a bad thing for some people, but I, as a player AND as a DM, would prefer to let my character's experiences in the game shape his development rather than KNOWING that I am going to take this or that prestige class at a certain level or that I am going to multiclass at level x so that I can gain special ability y.

Besides Chaosium, I can't think of any other system that shapes the character according to his experiences. Every system that allows for different paths to character advancement lets the player choose that path. The player can therefore plan it.

Here I'm seriously not understanding what you're suggesting to change or even if you're suggesting something as opposed to simple destructive criticism. There are only three ways to prevent the player from planning their character advancement: A) no advancement, B) no control (Chaosium), C) no options (AD&D). Four if you count "changing the rules mid-game explicitly to screw the players' plan" (I've seen DMs do that). Neither of them sounds fun, except maybe for Chaosium which however has a whole other set of issues.

4) Feats are a neat idea but they aren't really done "right". I REALLY like the feats that a lot of OGL companies are coming out with that are regional, cultural, or racial in nature. I REALLy like that because I never did like the sheer equality of older editions of AD&D. I was overjoyed when the Player's Option books came out and there were traits and disadvantages given as official rules. Feats are great but are, under the current rules, more for combatative purposes than for anything else. Since fighters gain more feats than anyone else, they can, potentially have more neat things from their "background" than any other character. The problem is that the feats were really designed more around enhancing the abilities of the character classes, especially fighters, than for adding "color" to the game and the system falls flat on its face when trying to use feats for this purpose.

Feats aren't supposed to be used for backgrounding the character. That's a side-effect. Feats are feats; stuff that your character can do. You could pick feats that reflect your character's training, but you can't pick a feat that says "you are friend to the King and get +4 to Diplomacy checks with local nobles" because that's not stuff you get with training/experience/levels, no matter how many of them you get.

Advantage/disadvantage systems are abusable like nothing else, especially when you can take a roleplaying flaw and get a mechanical merit. It is one of - nah, make that THE reason for which the Player's Option: S&P book is almost universally recognized as a min-max festival.

5) 3E has the "feel" of a computer game. Simplistic and enabling you to gain a lot of power quickly. 3E has been out for three years? Is that right? Have to check on that, but it seems about right. I have heard more people talk about 20th level characters since the 3E rules came out than EVER in all of my 24 years of playing D&D put together. It "feels" like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale more than pen & paper role-playing. I heard a rumor that this was actually what the designers were shooting for since computer games have bitten into the pen & paper rpg market share so much that they felt that they needed something to lure them in. Don't know if it's true but, if it is, they sure succeeded.

The DM can slow down the rate of experience gain to suit his desires.

You may be interested to know that the 3E standard rate was designed by WotC after a survey which revealed that most campaigns last about, what was it, nine months IIRC. They set the rate so that players would be able to experience the full range of levels.

Of course, it can and does happen that a group finds itself most comfortable at low level. That's simply accomodated by changing the advancement rate. Incidentally, that's easier to do in 3E than in any other previous edition, since in 3E the classes are balanced at all levels while in previous editions, for example, wizards were underpowered at low levels and overpowered at high levels.

I don't know if I'll ever switch over to 3E (or, darn it, 3.5E). If I do, I'll have to do a lot of changing. I've already done that when 1st edition went to 2nd and when 2nd got the Player's Option and DM's Option stuff. I can see advantages in doing it over the long run, but I just have SO MUCH material that I would have to alter.

That's not a problem with 3E, it's entirely dependant on your situation. I hope you'll notice that.

Other editions have no more and no less problems than 3E.

In the post from which this quote is taken, however, you describe a heap of rules you have changed from 2E, and they are all very radical changes. And in the very same post, you say that you expected 3E to fix all the problems. Don't you see a contradiction here? You had to severely change 2E to suit your style, but you don't want to make minor changes to 3E. It seems clear that even for you 2E did have many more problems than 3E.

To those who recommended Dragonsfoot...thank you. I've been reading it and the level of maturity there far exceeds what I have seen here.

"They agree with me" != "They are more mature". Try posting a thread over there about 2E's huge and numerous flaws and see how civil it is. You said that you aren't an expert of RPG forums. Well, edition wars exist and your initial post just happened to look a lot like the typical troll.

On the other hand, keeping on attaching a "this whole board is very immature" line at the top of each of your posts isn't certainly going to help.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Harold having just insulted just about everyone here, I'll let Zappo have the last word.