3rd Edition Rules, 2nd Edition Feel?

[Digital Archon]

Sounds like (meaning no offense) an issue with the user, not the system. It was just as trivially easy to create a storyless crunchy character in 2e. I've never played 1e, but I see no reason to expect anything different there either.

Well... it is the systems fault that you designed a soulless character based on combat stats how, exactly? What I see in these nostalgia threads is essentially "take away my options for character customization so that I dont have to think and can use my imagination again"

Thing is, you can STILL use your imaginiation. But now you can have mechanics to back up that imagination.

I totally agree, actually.

I remember arguments back in the days of 2e over whether or not some character could throw 6 (or maybe it was 9, don't remember) darts a round because he had used both hands, had weapon specialization and a really high dex...i forget exactly what the heck was going on, but thought it was kind of silly.

You want Garth? You can still make Garth. Take a step back, decide he's "Garth the Farmboy who never gave up, even when the chips were down", and don't try to crunch out the highest damage per round you can with him. I'm sure there's some feat or two out there that will allow you to reflect what you want in mechanical terms for Garth.

There's a hell of a lot more fiddly bits in 3.x than there were in the previous editions of D&D, sure, but the only person "forcing" you to use them is you.

 

[Greg K]

Major differences in feel

1) 3.x is too concerned with everything being mechanically balanced . Instead, of leaving the GM to decide what is balanced for his or her campaign, the rules try to prescribe what balanced means: Some examples
CR
ECL
Monster Classes
Character Treasure per Level
Magic Items and Treasure that grow in power require taking either penalities at various levels (Weapons of Legacy) or levels in a special class (Scion Classes).

2) Power and advancement: 3e characters begin more powerful (which in my opinion is not a bad thing). Furthermore, they advance much faster than characters in previous editions (too fast for my tastes). In previous editions, the focus was on levels 5-10 as advancement tended to become extremely slow if you played by the raw. Now, you are expected to get to level 20 within a year of regular play by RAW.

3. Sources of inspiration/influence.

 

[ForceUser]

There's a hell of a lot more fiddly bits in 3.x than there were in the previous editions of D&D, sure, but the only person "forcing" you to use them is you.

Actually, we're all in agreement. My point still stands--there are a lot more bright shiny objects in 3E with which to be distracted away from the story.

 

[Klaus]

I think that may be painting with a broad brush, but it definitely true for DS. It's what ruined the setting IMO. It really couldn't help but be true for any setting with a novel series the way TSR ran it.

It wasn't really true for PS outside of faction war... which again, was a bad thing.

It also happened to Greyhawk, with Greyhawk Wars, Vecna Lives, Rary The Traitor, etc. Planescape, I'll admit, was too broad to be affected by a single storyline (although Hellbound offered the PCs a chance to affect the multiverse is a BIG way, which is definitely a plus). But, like you said, any setting that had a novel line suffered from metaplotinitis to some degree.

 

[Odysseus]

Major differences in feel

1) 3.x is too concerned with everything being mechanically balanced . Instead, of leaving the GM to decide what is balanced for his or her campaign, the rules try to prescribe what balanced means: Some examples
CR
ECL
Monster Classes
Character Treasure per Level
Magic Items and Treasure that grow in power require taking either penalities at various levels (Weapons of Legacy) or levels in a special class (Scion Classes).

Those are all DM mechanics. A good DM doesn't need rules to balance the game.
I found there's a tendancy to just crunch characters . Even players who think about a character, don't link the character to the stats. They just maximise the numbers.

 

[Qualidar]

Power and advancement: 3e characters begin more powerful (which in my opinion is not a bad thing). Furthermore, they advance much faster than characters in previous editions (too fast for my tastes). In previous editions, the focus was on levels 5-10 as advancement tended to become extremely slow if you played by the raw. Now, you are expected to get to level 20 within a year of regular play by RAW.

That's very true. My Al-Quadim group played everything that ever came out for that setting, as well as a few things I did on my own. That took them from 1st to 13th/14th level. They would have been well into epic by the time they had gotten through a third of that material in 3e. I think there is something to be said for enjoying the ride, and not the destination.

~Qualidar~

 

[Thotas]

Specialist Wizards feel 2e to me; in the 2e games I played in, they were jumped on immediately and generalists were never seen again. Likewise, all the NPC wizards where specialist. Now in 3rd, I've yet to see any specialists at all. I'm not even sure some people have read that part of the rules.

 

[Greg K]

Those are all DM mechanics. A good DM doesn't need rules to balance the game.

True, but , one of the design goals of 3.x was to take the DM out of the equation as much as possible. Rather than encourage DMs to use their own judgement as to what is balanced, the RAW and WoTC supplements, imo, discourage DM judgment and reenforces the notion that that balance can only be achieved via mechanics.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think the issue is that a lot of us get wrapped up in the robust mechanics of 3E to the point that we forget or worse, forego, story in favor of crunchy characters. I don't recall this as being as much of an issue in previous editions (I admit that I could be wearing rose-colored glasses here.)

This largely reflects my experience with D&D3x and is, in fact, why I prefer C&C in its stead. Not all of the people that I've played D&D3x with have been utterly fixated on mechanics, but the majority certainly have been (often at the expense of story, as you suggest). I think that this is merely a product of introducing a much more tactical rule set that emphasizes a focus on mechanics by design. It's not necessarily good or bad, but it isn't to my taste.

 

[Orius]

A 2e feel? This is how you do it:

You don't want ANYTHING that will offend parents who will hate the game no matter what you do. No demons and devils; no assassins, and get rid of the half-orcs just in case. Make sure all the major NPCs in the campaign are a bunch of snotty meddling do-gooders (a plus if they DM plays them all the time and outshines the PCs doing so), and villains must be bumbling idiots.

Oh wait. You mean the GOOD feel of 2e. I was confused there for a minute.

To be honest, I really wasn't sure about this until reading through the thread, and I think these points really focus on the good aspects of 2e:

To me, 2E = Kits, as far as the main rules design element that was pretty
unique. I would love to see something like that for 3rd Ed -- not prestige classes, but maybe base classes that allow a lot of pick-n-choose type abilities at each level.

I think that the promise of 2nd edition was never fully achieved, as the game went in a different direction once the "Complete" handbooks started to come out. I remember being very happy with the initial release of the 2nd edition PHB and DMG, but not as keen on the loose-leaf binder approach (and the urds! where did they come from?).

I think 2nd edition was shooting for this idea of strengthening the "four core classes" approach that was already partially an element of 1st edition (with subclasses): Warrior, Wizard, Rogue, and Priest.

Early 2nd Edition was all about "let's explore the AD&D mechanics!" Thus we got wildly divergent takes on what they could do. The Complete Priest's Handbook is my favourite example of an author creating something incompatible with the regular system, and pursuing it as an "option".

"Options, not compatibility" - that's the slogan of 2e.

2.5e - the Player's Options series did its darndest to bring everything together. Yes, the system could be broken, but it did afford me a great campaign, which has been the basis of many later great experiences in 3e.

2.5e is of the same nature as 3e: mechanics represents the concept. It didn't quite have the mechanics in place to do it really successfully, though. (Skills and Feats are *such* an advantage over NWP and WP)

I think these three posts sort of do it for me somewhat.

Mainly the biggest thing are the kits; they were always a main feature of 2e. Downside was the lack of balance and compatability, and the fact that some kit concepts from the class books were repeated under the race books but with different names. The total lack of compatability Merrick mentioned was a downside. To do kits in 3e, I'd take some basic concepts, like a Noble, Peasant Hero, Pirate, Swashbucler, whatever, and present it as a list of recdommended classes (including prestige classes), skills and feats. Sort of a loose blueprint for character building, I would not include specific numbers of class levels, or skill ranks, or say that certain feats are required.

The character class groups was once of the better ideas of 2e. Don't really know how I'd apply it to 3e though.

Both Cam and Merrick mention another point: the fact that 2e went every which way after the release of the "core books", and in ways that were imcompatible, or at least difficult to use together. The problem comes from different groups of designers working simultaneously on multiple game worlds and freelancers who seemed to write the material independantly. There doesn't seem to have been any sort of central group coordinating any of these efforts.

In some ways 2e is like the bridge from 1e to 3e. Particularly the Player's Option series, that's where the whole idea of character options originated, and Combat and Tactics saw the introduction of some important 3e concepts: AoOs, facing, weapon reach, even some proto-feats. The biggest problem with PO is that is tried to pice together stuff that had been bolted onto D&D every which way over 20 years, and which did not always try to fit together. That for me is the best aspect of 3e; going back to the roots and reworking the material from the ground up, but this time doing it at once rather than piecemeal.