D&D 3E/3.5 4E reminded me how much I like 3E

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A fighter can go out and buy a sword that will work forever without even having to spend a feat on it, while a wizard has to spend a feat and a day of work just to understand an orc ONCE. So of course things are tilted towards fighters.

Really? To use the Sword, the fighter needed a feat - granted by his class, just like Scribe Scroll to the Wizard. And the Sword can be sundered, and, more importantly, he will have to upgrade it for a lot of money at some point, since his Greatsword will need a (higher) magical enhancement bonus at some point.

I never ran the numbers in detail on how many levels/encounters consumables or charged items last, but I remember that one of my Wizards once had a Wand of Fireballs and carried it with him for several levels, eventually desperately finding an excuse to use it because those 5d6 DC 14 Blasts of Fire didn't mean much at those levels he still had it.
A +1 Longsword costs ~2.300 gp. A Wand of Knock costs ~4.500 gp? Which one will stay longer useful for the party?

 

[pemerton]

Regarding Hold Person: where there coup-de-grace mechanics in 2e against victims of hold person?

We knew the power of Hold Person (though we played that held creatures took max damage, not auto-kill)

This is the official 1st ed AD&D rule (don't know about 2nd ed) - an attack against a held/paralysed target hits automatically for maximum damage.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe some skills should have a power source option. Rogues take Open Lock (Martial). Wizards take Open Lock (Magic). Rogue is tinkering with his Thief Tools and uses MW THief Tools to get a bonus, the Wizard casts a spell and uses a Wand to get the MW bonus. Game result is the same, but the Rogue doesn't feel outshined by a simple 300 gp scroll or one of dozens or hundreds of spell entries in the wizards spellbooks.

Some games do in fact go this route, if I am not mistaken.

I'm not sure whether or not this is an ironic allusion to 4e - in large part it does go this way, doesn't it (compare eg the Rogue to the Warlock bluff buff). 1st ed AD&D did also with respect to saving throws - the mechanic is the same, but the DMG says that the Fighter is toughing it out while the Magic-User is manipulating the magic to his/her advantage.

 

[pemerton]

I can't easily envisage a version of 3E that downplays item creation.

As in "not terribly uncommon house rules", the likes of which have been argued about around here (the ever-present low magic wars) for the past several years?

It's not that I can't call to mind what the rules text might look like with item creation excised.

It's that I can't easily envisage how that excision would be consistent with the overall tenor of 3E, which is to give the player control over such essential aspects of character build as class choice (thus no need to roll improbably high stats), race choice (ditto, because no racial minimums), feat and skill choice (no training rules), magic item choice, etc.

To be consistent with this trend while dropping item creation it would be necessary to increase the prevalance of magic shops, or else do what 4e does, and encourge the metagamed placement of treasure based on player wish lists.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm not sure whether or not this is an ironic allusion to 4e - in large part it does go this way, doesn't it (compare eg the Rogue to the Warlock bluff buff). 1st ed AD&D did also with respect to saving throws - the mechanic is the same, but the DMG says that the Fighter is toughing it out while the Magic-User is manipulating the magic to his/her advantage.

No, I was more thinking of other games. I am not sure if it was Man & Machine or Hero, or yet another game that did this. I have never played them.

4e is not explicit in supporting this, unless I have overread some flavor text or anything. But of course, the generic level bonus can be exactly this. A mage jumping might use some magic to augment the distance travelled or height reached, while a Cleric might send a short prayer that lifts him, and so on..

 

[Imp]

It's that I can't easily envisage how that excision would be consistent with the overall tenor of 3E, which is to give the player control over such essential aspects of character build as class choice (thus no need to roll improbably high stats), race choice (ditto, because no racial minimums), feat and skill choice (no training rules), magic item choice, etc.

I suppose so; but then, so... what's the point in caring about the overall tenor of an edition, except to construct a narrative?

Also re AD&D I am pretty sure there were coup-de-grace rules, something like one per (minute-long AD&D-style) round or something. I forget the details and don't have the books around though.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, another rule I missed. We always played you could slit throats on sleeping/helpless targets and they died instantly.

 

[BryonD]

Really? To use the Sword, the fighter needed a feat - granted by his class, just like Scribe Scroll to the Wizard.

Ok, well if you see a Wizard's bonus feat class feature as being equal in value to an individual martial weapon prof for a fighter then we have a big difference in opinion here.

And the Sword can be sundered,

That is pointless. The scroll can be destroyed as well. And if played by RAW can be destroyed by accident vastly more easily than the sword. So both can be destroyed, but one can last forever and the other goes away after a single use.

and, more importantly, he will have to upgrade it for a lot of money at some point, since his Greatsword will need a (higher) magical enhancement bonus at some point.

That is even more pointless. Both character will need to enhance their gear as they level. It exactly cancels out.

Remember, I never said that the sword was better. I set up that argument, but the immediately pointed out that it was just an opposite absurdity.

I never ran the numbers in detail on how many levels/encounters consumables or charged items last, but I remember that one of my Wizards once had a Wand of Fireballs and carried it with him for several levels, eventually desperately finding an excuse to use it because those 5d6 DC 14 Blasts of Fire didn't mean much at those levels he still had it.
A +1 Longsword costs ~2.300 gp. A Wand of Knock costs ~4.500 gp? Which one will stay longer useful for the party?

IME a wand of knock will provide no where near twice the bang for its buck that a +1 longsword will. Remember the point of this dispute is the redundancy of the rogue. I've had a wand of knock appear in my games. But I've never had a wizard craft once because there are also other things the party can do with the money than blow it on something the rogue can easily do for free.

 

[BryonD]

LOL - the assumptions you make are staggering - that I've been on the "losing end" of a player abusing the rules and am therefore somehow bitter about it?

Dude, YOU said it was problematic. If you are complaining about a problem in a game on a message board then clearly you have some degree of issue. I didn't use the word "bitter", but the words I did use were quite reasonable.
Further YOU said, you knew this because of sufficient experience with wizards. So the only assumption I made is that you were not a liar. Was I wrong to make that assumption?

In point of fact I realized how ridiculously over the top scribe scroll combined with a wizard can be when I was playing the wizard and how unfair I could be to the other players.

There's no need to "run roughshod" over the RAW; that implies some kind of non-intended perverted usage of the rules when using the rules exactly as written is quite bad enough.

Obviously your game experiences have failed to live up to mine. Sorry about that. But my game has show that your proclamation is not implicitly true.

 

[BryonD]

It is amusing to me how the argument keeps coming down to "someone had a problem therefore everyone is required to have that problem"