3rd Edition too quick? too powerful?

[Piratecat]

Navriin, welcome to the boards! I find that if you fix the experience, everything else adjusts accordingly; if you award half the xp like Buttercup does, then you have to award about 50% of the treasure and 60% of the magic items (potions and other consumables making up that extra 10%) to stay on track. It seems to work fairly well.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm generally in agreement with you.

Experience: My problem as a PC has been that you don't get a chance to fully explore your new powers before you level up and acquire new ones. Newly acquired feats and spells go unused sometimes for a level or two before oppurtunity to use them shows up. You feel rushed. You don't get a chance to savor your newly won powers before you acquire new ones.
As a DM you have to plan for the need to every session or so ratchet up the level of difficulty. You don't get a chance to present even a small slice of the various challenges the party can face at a given level, before the party levels up on you and you must pass on to new challenges.

Wealth: On the good side, experience is no longer tied to wealth, which means that in theory a character could reach 10th or 12th level in our lifetime without being a millionaire several times over. In most peoples 1st edition campaigns, a significant share of a PC's XP came from the treasure he'd hauled out. Monster XP was too low, and the mechanism of treasure=XP seemed to much like scoring points.
But has been often pointed out, the game is not designed to handle 10th level paupers. Wealth which once was used to advance the game without having it grind to a halt, now is necessary to keep the game balanced.
However, nothing says that in your campaign 10th level characters need to be ready for CR 10 challenges, and I might add that that would go quite a ways toward solving the XP problem too.

Magic Items: On the good side, there is actually a fair and reasonable means for players to create thier own items - and it doesn't require them to be 16th level.
On the bad side, like treasure, the game is balanced at a default level of high magic. Most anything that applies to treasure applies to magic items.
I've even had people who play 3rd edition say that there is no since in giving out treasure if you don't allow players to buy magic items at a shop somewhere. Think about that for a while.

Difficulty: In my experience, with a party that has been given the default level of magic items, encounters of CR = party level are cake walks that probably don't take 10% of a parties resources, much less 20%. A default equipped party constructed in a reasonably min/maxed manner probably can by mid-levels take on 4 encounters at 2 above thier CR. This only exacerbates the experience problems. I don't even want to think what a party composed of twinked up smack down types could do. This also tells me that a party could do without a little bit of magic items and still hit the target CR.

 

[WizarDru]

As the two-and-a-half year anniversary grows nearer for my game, I say to WotC, "Thank you." My group matches the core demographic they were attempting to hit, I think. We game 3-4 weeks a month, one night a week, for four to seven hours, roughly. In that time, they've just managed to obtain 17th-18th level. The pace feels just about right, to me.

How fast the game moves is all dependent upon the DM. I agree that there are some significant advantages to a 'slowed' game, but I see it as more of a taste preference. The thing that would make it most attractive to me would be the ease of control that a DM is afforded at low levels, something that is lost, to a degree, later on.

On the other hand, my players are enjoying the hell out of being movers and shakers...something I think they've earned the right to enjoy, due to hard work. You can judge for yourself, right here, in my Story Hour.

Especially if you throw in a good dash of Role-playing, and reward that, as well, you can slow advancement down. If the only goal the players see is getting new abilities at higher levels, than that may be something you could change. Unless that's your play style, in which case, game on!

 

[Belen]

Ouch! Limiting mages and clerics to PrCs!? Who in their right mind would want to play them in that case. Wasting a feat to create ONE item! Wow, I'll bet the fighter does not get to cleave once and then never cleave again. If you're so biased against magic, then you should rule that no magic exists.

As for DnD 3E being overpowered, that really has to do with the quality of the GM. Personally, I like to be able to give my players more gold without them buying a ton of new items. So I limit their magic items to be no more than equal in price to their "wealth by level." This way, I can grant them a lordship without their using the new funds to hose me. Itis a great tool.

 

[Barcode]

Oh, and a word of warning over making the game "low-magic". It actually makes the spellcasters more powerful, not less. Think about it. In a high magic world, Greater Magic Weapon is more or less useless, since all decent fighters have magic weapons. However, in a low magic world, it's very powerful, since no fighters have magic weapons and it makes a greater difference.

I'll second that. We are about one year into a Dark Age era campaign. I designed it to be low wealth, med-low magic. The problem was that 5/6 characters were spellcasters of some ilk - wiz, ftr/wiz, clr, brd, dru and the straight fighter.

The fighter was complaining for a long time how the spellcasters (even the bard!) consistently did more damage than he did, and were generally "cooler". I ended up having to throw a couple of poorly defended barbarian chiefs with big magic swords at them so he would end up with an equalizing weapon.

And as an aside design note - the fighter ended up going the bow specialist route - leading to a very frustrating party dynamic. Specifically, since they always, always, always attack from a distance whenever possible (and on a giant plain that is almost always), you never get to deliver any cool villain soliloquys.

Undead Wizard bad guy: Ha, ha, ha! Puny mortal, I will use your bloated corpse to make a bath pillow for my dark master!

Party (110ft away): Huh? We can't hear you over the whistling wind and pyrotechnics! (Keep shooting!)

 

[Uller]

The thing about treasure that I think a lot of people miss is that treasure should be placed into the adventure in an intelligent way by the DM. If the party encounters 12 kobalds (a CR 3 encounter) and you roll on the treasure table the following (I use Jamis Buck's Treasure Generator):

100 gp
Full-plate (1)
mighty composite longbow (+1 Str bonus) (1)
throwing axe (1)

...those 12 kobalds probably don't have this treasure. Take from it what might be useful to the 12 kobalds (maybe switch the mighty composite longbow with a MW light crossbow or similar).

The rest would go into the treasure hoard of whoever is controlling the 12 kobalds(remember...these are evil monsters...the biggest meanest monsters don't let the weaker ones keep much loot). So if they are in a larger lair, put most of the 100gp and the full plate armor in the treasure hoard of the tribe's chief. If the chief works for some greater bad guy (say a dragon), give most of the treasure to the dragon. Leave the 6 kobalds with nothing but a few copper pieces each...which is more realistic.

Here is another example: I have planned a small campaign around an evil druid. The druid has working for/with him the following:

15 goblins (6 War1, 6 Rog1, 1 War2, 1 War1/Rog1 and 1 War1/Rog2)
20 evil tribesmen (12 War1, 4 Barb1, 1 Barb2, 1 War2, 1 Adept3, 1 Barb4)
1 Barghest

The first adventure will involve 3 combat encounters:
1: The Barghest (which will very likely survive)
2: 6 tribesmen (4 War1, 2 Barb1, 1 War2)
3: any survivors of the first two encounters + 7 goblins (3 War1, 3 Rog1, 1 War2)

For these encounters I generated the following treasure:
900gp in coins
603gp in gems
Breastplate (1)
Tanglefoot bag (2)
Acid (6)
Half-plate (1)
scroll (arcane)
- feather fall (l1, cl1)

With this treasure, I will use to outfit the important NPCs in this group (the War2 in the second and third encounters) with sensible magic/mw items). The useful items (the tanglefoot bag and the acid) I'll give to some of the weaker NPCs to use in the fight and think of neat ways for them to use it. The scroll will go to the Adept in the human tribe (and traded for something he can use). Whatever is left will end up in the treasure hoards of either tribe or that of the druid. In any event, most of this treasure will not be in the adventure except to be used against the party. The rest, they'll have to find later (if at all).

Bottom line: The treasure tables are fine for a guideline...but make the party earn it and place it where it makes the most sense.

 

[Uller]

I'll second that. We are about one year into a Dark Age era campaign. I designed it to be low wealth, med-low magic. The problem was that 5/6 characters were spellcasters of some ilk - wiz, ftr/wiz, clr, brd, dru and the straight fighter.

Yeah...if you want a low-magic world, you must limit wealth AND impose a limitation on casters in the party. Two routes are:

1) Change the magic system in some way...that seems like a big pain.
2) Limit caster level to be 1/2 or 1/3 of character level. So a "wizard" might be a Wizard/Druid with equal levels in each or somesuch.

A third route which might be a mix of the two is to increase casting times...1 Action -> Full Round->1 minute->10 minutes->1 hour->1 day

That way, spell casting becomes less useful in combat (some spells become nearly useless) and makes casters less flashy. You could even make all spells have a minimum 1 minute casting time, making combat spell casting nearly impossible. Instead, spell casters are relegated to healing (after battle), buffs like Bull's Strenght and Greater Magic Weapon, and divinations. Villian NPC casters can still be daunting because they can prepare their lairs with all sorts of magical traps.

 

[DonAdam]

I wholeheartedly agree that advancement is too fast. It feels more like Diablo than D&D.

I simply give a flat xp award per session, with bonuses for roleplaying and for completing significant story goals.

However, if you want to go closer to the AD&D 1st Edition experience chart, one of my players is a math professor that worked out the advancement (this is the same guy that did the Call of Cthulhu math):

Divide all experience gained by the square root of your level.

This will put you roughly in 1st edition territory. Since it slows down levels, your treasure gaining problem should disappear as well, as you can give the same amount of treasure over more encounters.

 

[Piratecat]

Col. Hardisson came up with the best rule I've ever heard for assuring a low-magic world even when players want to be clerics and wizards. He uses it for the Middle Earth conversion:

For every level of spellcaster, the character must multiclass into a non-spellcaster level.

Thus, you'll never have a lot of powerful magic items or high level spells; even if the fighter is 18th level, the wizard is at best a 9th lvl wizard / 9th lvl whatever. I'd never use it for my game, but it's a heck of a lot simpler than a lot of wacky house rules on item creation, and it really strikes me as elegant.

You definitely have to adjust threats accordingly, though. A group in such a campaign would be significantly weaker than a standard group.

 

[seasong]

edit: fixed my goof - the party has 3 slightly magical cloaks

First is experience. You level to fast.

Quick, easy fixes have already been mentioned, of course, but I will say that when I was running 1st edition, I increased the rate of XP to fit my own rate better, and I slow 3E to fit my own rate better. One rate simply won't work for everyone, and for 3E, you and I (and others) are the minority.

Second is the amount of wealth. Since the system is balanced based on GP values of eq per level, you are required to give certain averages of treasure per encounter to keep players up to snuff.

Hogwash! And poppycock, too! I've been running cheap, stingy campaigns since time immemorial. My Theralis campaign has been much the same: the 6th level characters have, between them, several potions, one magic spear, and three mildly magic cloaks. They have enough wealth to live on, and a small base of operations (a few bedrooms and a library).

And yet, at 5th level, the three of them took on a wyvern and managed to drive it off (and had a fair chance of beating it, had it not run away).

Magic items are a part of the balance, but they're no more required by a skilled DM than the CRs - useful as a reference, but not law by any means.

Third, and related to the second, is the sheer amount of magic items in a game.

See above. More hogwash and poppycock .