3rd Edition Rules, 2nd Edition Feel?

[Greg K]

For kits

1) Where possible use existing class and UA style class variants. For example,

The Amazon, Barbarian, and Beast Rider from the Complete Fighter's Handbook are primarily the Barbarian Hunter variant from UA while the Berserker is the Barbarian class. The Amazon and Beast Rider might have the Nomad feat as they are listed as being horse people.

The Bandit and Scout from the Complete Thief's Handbook can be done with the Wilderness Rogue variant from UA.

2) For concepts that cannot be done, I had been toying with using cultural and profession feats that grant three or four skills as class skills although I recently learned that AEG's swasbuckling Adventures already used the approach. Some examples:

Acrobat (Professional Feat)
Prequisite: Profession (Acrobat) 4 ranks
Benefit: climb, jump, tumble , and use rope are always class skills

Amazon/Nomad (Cultural Feat)
Prerequisite: Ride (4 ranks) and Barbarian
Benefit: Handle Animal, Ride, Survival and Initimidate (?) are always class skills

Bodyguard
Prerequisite: Profession (Bodyguard):4 Ranks
Benefit: Intimidate, Sense Motive, Search, and Spot are always class skills


Sailor (Profession)
Prerequisite: Profession (sailor) 4 ranks
Benefit: Balance, Sea Lore (Survival variant), Spot and Use Rope are always class skills


Skald (Profession)
Prerequisite: Profession (skald) 4 ranks
Benefit: Diplomacy, Knowledge (History and Law), Perform (oratory, Play Insturment, and Sing) and ? are always class skills

 

[philreed]

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.

Didn't Mongoose release a "character concepts" hardcover that was basically kits for 3.5? I never looked closely at so I may be way off here.

 

[Crothian]

Didn't Mongoose release a "character concepts" hardcover that was basically kits for 3.5? I never looked closely at so I may be way off here.

Yes, they basically do have them in their Quint books. I found them to be pretty usiable and not have problems.

 

[Cam Banks]

Rolemaster Fantasy actually handled "kits" in a pretty sensible fashion by having "training packages" which covered most of those bases, and they were priced out in point values so that you knew that if you picked one up cheap, it'd not be as beneficial as one that cost more. And the price of those packages was related to the character class you chose, making it thematic and balanced in other ways.

I like RM a great deal, and I think it's influences show strongly in 3e. It's a shame points aren't as easy to migrate to D&D.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

From my perspective (as someone who started playing in 3e, and never played a 1e or 2e game) the 2e 'feel' was one of expansive, incredibly rich and detailed campaign settings, and to a lesser extent, a push towards linked and longterm plots rather than just single adventures, and a move towards style, flavor, and DM empowerment at the expense of the explicite rules. That was what I gathered anyways, though I've never played within the actual ruleset of 2e, which as I understand it was a bit obtuse at times.

I could care less about rules, so that's not a part of 2e that I'd want to bring back; rather I'd like the non rules material, the richness of the settings, and the stylistic elements of 2e design philosophy to show their face more often. To me there was a feel of wonder and richness that I never gathered from the 1e material I've read, or as much from the 3e material from WotC as I've found in the 2e Planescape, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and FR material.

You just don't find that in 3e material. You now see a reduction in setting detail so you can put in some more feats, PrCs and 'crunch'. Crunch doesn't inspire me, and I doubt it inspires many people. And so now, an edition later, I'm finding incredible use out of old 2e books for their flavor and detail, and I likely still will in 4e when my 3e books are largely relegated to obsolescence with the change of the ruleset when their crunch is useless, their rules irrelevant, and their typically thin fluff won't hold a candle to the 2e books.

Others may feel differently. Most of the anti-2e feeling I find is by disaffected original 1e players, the substance of which is certainly debateable, but best saved for another thread. And also, perhaps in their defense, keep in mind that I'm looking back on probably only the best aspects of 2e, when its ruleset might have had flaws worthy of valid criticism. The design philosophy and flavor though were often brilliant, and it's a loss to see a reduction in their influence in 3e with a romantic resurgence of 1e ideals in some products.

What he said. All the innovative setting ideas got put in the game in 2E. 3E was when the rules got their turn under the scope, but for whatever reason, the good ideas in 2E (all that great fluff) got left behind so that more and more crunch could happen. I'd love to see a return to the heady days of 2E-style supplement writing, when Dark Sun, Planescape, Forgotten Realms, and other settings were either taking off or hitting their stride.

 

[Ero Gaki]

One of my favorite aspects of 2E was the PHB. I could actually sit down and read it and be entertained. For instance, the initiative portion of the combat section is one of my favorite parts. I wish WotC did stuff like that. The only example of play we see is the one in the DMG, and in my opinion, that one seems like it was tossed in there at the last minute.

 

[Shemeska]

I could actually sit down and read it and be entertained.

2e books were just damn fun to read.

3e books are comparatively dry and written almost exclusively from an OOC point of view; they're boring as textbooks. You'll find 2e books written from an in character perspective, something that you'd never find in 3e, and in general many of them were written to entertain and inspire, rather than just list the rules in a plodding, methodical manner. That's a loss in my opinion.

 

[MerricB]

2e books were just damn fun to read.

3e books are comparatively dry and written almost exclusively from an OOC point of view; they're boring as textbooks. You'll find 2e books written from an in character perspective, something that you'd never find in 3e, and in general many of them were written to entertain and inspire, rather than just list the rules in a plodding, methodical manner. That's a loss in my opinion.

3e books are moving towards more readable - in particular, I'm going to point out both Heroes of Battle and Heroes of Horror.

The 2e core books were dull compared to 1e.

Cheers!

 

[King of Old School]

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.)

For me, the problem is that if I allow imagination to take precedence over mechanical optimization, the least of my problems is that I lose "spotlight time" (i.e. PC involvement in the action) to other players around the table that don't share my fondness for imagination in chargen; the worst of my problems is that I get punked out by opponents that in story terms I should be handling easily, because the DM has to build those opponents to challenge the other (optimized) characters in my party. This isn't something I'm theorizing about either -- it's something I learned the hard way.

Don't get me wrong -- I definitely prefer 3.x mechanics, and I prefer options and mechanical depth. It's just that there has definitely been something lost in the experience for me.

KoOS

 

[Remathilis]

2e feel?

A feeling you were part of something "grander" than the dungeon you were in. This ties to the meta-plot (Times of Troubles! Faction War!) and to the multiverse (A kender, a athasian priest, and a red wizard walk into a bar...) that, while making Athas, Ansalon, and Toril seperate worlds, FEEL like one giant game (akin to the Worlds of Darkness, for example).

(Slightly) less emphasis on the dungeon/combat. Spells like Know Time and Conjure Spell Component. 2e took a more leisurely pace to combat, so not every class was optimized for it (hello thief). NWP that (while never improving) allowed your character a variety of options that 2 skill-points a level cannot.

Variety. Kits, Specialty Priests, etc added local color to a game without the hassle of balancing PrCs or feats. The downside? Balance varied from weak (Comp Priests) to Uber (Faiths and Pantheons).

Thats the best I can manage without diatribing rulesets.