A Simpler 3rd Edition

[Lord Vangarel]

Following on from my post in the General Forum I've decided to start a thread over here to specifically discuss the various rules concepts people would like to see in a simpler 3rd Edition. The goal isn't to get back to 1E but to remove elements of the game that slow things down.

For anyone interested the other thread can be found here.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1791444

Ok, let's get started with some general aims.

Areas I want to alter:

Character Classes, Skills, Remove Feats, Multi-classing, Prestige Classes, and Combat.

The most contenscious is perhaps the complete removal of the Feats system. When I first saw feats in the 3rd Edition I loved the idea of being able to customise characters exactly as I wanted but there are times when I long for a simpler game and feats complicate the game. Some feats allow characters to do things without incurring AoO, these could be replaced by a negative modifier on their initial attack roll.

Skills, let's alter skills so the basic roll is 1d20+Class Levels+Modifiers. Whenever a character levels they will get 1 rank in each of the class skills. Additionally they will also get a small number of bonus points that can be spent in any skills other than other classes exclusive class skills.

Classes will need altering if feats don't exist. The fighter will need to gain class abilities and

Multi-classing, one of the most common sights in previous editions was a multi-classed spellcaster, it is one of the rarest in 3E because of the power drop. If a character wants to play a multu-classed character they can pick multiple classes and treat it as one class. The experience is divided by the number of classes they pick so a fighter/wizard would have to earn 2000XP to reach 2nd level in both classes and 6000XP to reach 3rd level in both classes. A single classed character would be approximately one level ahead until around 11th level when the difference becomes greater.

Without feats Prestige Classes have lost one their major restrictions on entry. This would mean that the restrictions would be replaced by roleplaying restrictions similar to the ideas in UA.

Combat is something I'd like to alter back to 1st Edition, not in terms of options but in terms of sequence. After initiative was determined each player would take one turn in which they could perform one action. The sequence would continue until no players had turns left and a new round begins.


I'll post some more detailed thoughts on each subject later but for now any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Feats

I propose removing feats entirely from the system and replacing them with character abilities gained at various levels.

In the current feat system you can break feats into three categories as follows.

Feats That Improve Skills

These feats add a bonus to usually two skills, for example Acrobatic. These are removed and rolled into the new Skill system.

Feats That Improve Abilities

Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, etc. These feats when taken make a character better at doing something. These are removed and replaced by increased abilities gained as a character advances in levels.

Feats That Allow Things That Otherwise Couldn't Be Done

These feats are like Improved Initiative, Dodge, Improved Bull Rush, etc. Generally these feats are thrown away without being replaced. Although the combat oriented feats of Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm, etc. I would suggest replacing with a negative modifier to the attack roll to resolve the attempt.


The actual class abilities gained at each level will take a bit of time to work out but essentially if a feat falls into the first and third categories it shouldn't be reproduced in the class abilities. If a feat falls into the second category it will probably be reproduced but again some exceptions exist. The feats that modify saves will be lost as these improve with character levels anyway. Likewise Weapon Focus will go and the Two Weapon Fighting feats would go. Someone who fights with two weapons should always have a worse attack than an equal stat equal level single weapon fighter. Their advantage is getting an extra attack per round in return for a worse chance to hit.

 

[reanjr]

I'm going to get looks of confusion/dismay/anger/etc.

Remove the classes.

Class abilities for the most part can become feats. Not all feats would cost the same.

Move to a raw XP ability buy system.

Most rules can stay the same.

Take similar spells and group them into a single one that can be cast at differing levels of power.

Simplify movement and positioning. Make it so that it doesn't matter where you are, but who you are near.

Remove Attacks of Opportunity for movement; leave them for certain special actions, such as casting a spell.

-----

Is this still D&D?

I'm working on a system like this right now. There's alot of other changes, too, but them's the hilights.

[edit The system itself, under the minimal playtesting it has received, but extensive mathmatical analysis, is much simpler and quicker to play with, but character creation seems to be quite a bit longer. It may be due to inexperience, though. Time will tell.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

reanjr I myself have looked at altering the system in similar ways to yours but always feel I'm moving a little too far away from D&D. To me if you lose the classes you aren't playing D&D anymore just another generic fantasy system. I guess that the one part of D&D I could never imagine losing is classes, even if everything else changes.

 

[Li Shenron]

As a matter of fact I think that classes make the game more simple! You choose your class once (of course there's also multiclassing, but that's already an advance option in a way) and almost everything comes with it. In a class-less game you'll have more to choose every level and it will therefore be more complicated for starters.

Also I think that old-style multiclassing is more complicated to bookkeep as the 3ed one, although the latter gives more choice and is therefore more complex. If I had to simplify MULTICLASSING, the only thing I can think about is removing it completely. (Or otherwise put more restriction such as "you can multiclass only with your favored class".)

Perhaps I am missing your starting point I don't get if you mean to either reduce the choices so that the game is more simple because character management is straightforward, or to unify/simplify rules to speed up action. Or does "removing elements that slow things down" mean both?

The mechanic of skills and feats is blatantly simple! If you want to avoid players taking an hour to choose them when levelling up, you could (among other things)

(1) SKILLS: have the PC choose a number of skills equal to the skill points per level + Int at PC creation and just always have the max rank in them. This won't work when multiclassing, but if you want to simplify a lot, just ban multiclassing completely.

(2) FEATS: remove the ones which are used in an active way, but try to keep the passive ones to help the characters a bit (all the ones that give just a + to something) without slowing combat.

(3) CLASSES: most of them already have quite limited choices to do every level. The exceptions are arcane casters because they have to choose spells. It's hard to think about a more simple situation however, unless you just want to get rid of some of them outright.

(4) PRESTIGE CLASSES: why even bothering about them? You're not necessarily supposed to use them in your campaign.

(5) COMBAT: To make it simpler you may consider some of the following (here I am still thinking of the same combat structure as 3ed)...

- no initiative special actions (ready, delay): just roll once per combat and stick with it

- make all special attacks use the same mechanic of your choice, for example make them all separate standard actions

- ignore AoOs: this is indeed a major change so be careful in considering it, you may want to find a replacement disadvantage for archers and casters in melee

- check out for circumstances which require multiple dice rolls (e.g. grappling) and change them into single rolls as you see fit

 

[wedgeski]

Remove the classes.
<snip>
Is this still D&D?

No, not really. And there's nothing about 'Remove the classes' that makes the game simpler, I don't think, which was the intent of the original poster. All that would succeed in doing is making the game almost impenetrable to new players. Plus not make it D&D any more. Which would be bad.

I have few pet-dislikes in 3.5:

1. Grappling. It's used all over the place and many, many monsters have it, so why does my group still have to refer to the PHB so many years after 3ed arrived? (answers on a postcard!) In particular, the list of available actions needs to be slimmed down/streamlined dramatically. There is no elegance to that list at all; we need to be able to decide if an action is possible without having to refer to a list.

2. AoO's. I enjoy the strategy this brings to the battlemat (and I enjoy the battlemat), but again, the ludicrous plethora of exceptions that exists all over the rules must be dispensed with. I would also actually prefer it if AoO's didn't factor so heavily in movement and combat decisions, perhaps by reducing the efficacy of the attack (a blanket penalty to AoO attack rolls? some kind of opposed skill check to see if the attacker even reacts in time?). This would allow characters to move more freely about the battlemat without fear of getting taken down.

3. NPC generation. Creating high-level NPC's with their massed skills, feats, templates, and all of the various prerequisites that are, or are not met in the course of their levels, is a pain in the rear end. However, given that I like the skills, feats, and templates systems, this is probably just something I'm going to have to live with.

That's about it really. I think d20 is (for the most part) a really good mix of well-designed subsystems hung on an elegant central mechanic, and am pretty happy with it overall.

 

[ashockney]

I'm very interested in hearing more about Reanjr's system, and how it helps to simplify the game and speed up play.

I also started a similiar thread on ENWorld in the general forum called "I hate math". This discussion inspired me to do extensive research around combat in third edition, including charting out over 900 class, skill, feat, spell, magic item, and tactical modifier that can influence combat. From this list, I began to break down those things that were redundant or confusing. It ended up being a pretty short list, but siginficant improvement in the speed of play.

If this is the kind of thing you're interested in, I'd be happy to share my ideas. Particularly if someone would be willing to help evalutate the recommendations and their effectiveness.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Haven't there already been several threads about simplifying the the game?

I do agree that some mechanics do need to be streamlined (such as grappling and some of the redundant conditions).
But I think AoO are fine.
I think feats are great, in 3e not all characters are carbon copies (except for ability scores and proficiencies) by level 20.
And I believe multiclassing (except for alot spell casters) works out alright and is very simple and steamlined.
I dislike the PRC mechanic but thats just my personal taste.
The skill system is simple, and only gets a tad confusing when you multiclass and even then isn't too hard to figure out. (the synergy bonuses can be annoying to keep track of though).


Majorly redesigning the system to make it simpler I believe will end up making it more complicated, where your players will have to learn a bunch of house rules that are just confusing.

 

[reanjr]

As a matter of fact I think that classes make the game more simple! You choose your class once (of course there's also multiclassing, but that's already an advance option in a way) and almost everything comes with it. In a class-less game you'll have more to choose every level and it will therefore be more complicated for starters.

Maybe I should mention that the system does away with levels, too... So you only choose one option at a time. You can purchase a Melee Attack Increase if you have found over the last adventure that you couldn't hit crap, for instance.

Also I think that old-style multiclassing is more complicated to bookkeep as the 3ed one, although the latter gives more choice and is therefore more complex. If I had to simplify MULTICLASSING, the only thing I can think about is removing it completely. (Or otherwise put more restriction such as "you can multiclass only with your favored class".)

Removing multiclassing, while making things simpler, just wouldn't be a very "fun" choice. It means that at first level, a single choice has pretty much defined your entire character for the next 19 levels.

Perhaps I am missing your starting point I don't get if you mean to either reduce the choices so that the game is more simple because character management is straightforward, or to unify/simplify rules to speed up action. Or does "removing elements that slow things down" mean both?

The mechanic of skills and feats is blatantly simple! If you want to avoid players taking an hour to choose them when levelling up, you could (among other things)

(1) SKILLS: have the PC choose a number of skills equal to the skill points per level + Int at PC creation and just always have the max rank in them. This won't work when multiclassing, but if you want to simplify a lot, just ban multiclassing completely.

Again, this is railroading your character's development. Part of role-playing games (one of the most important parts, some would say) is developing your character not just in story, but as defined by the system. Taking away the character's ability to make life-altering choices strips the game of something very important. One thing I have done in my system (and I am sure other people have good ideas on this as well), is to unify the way your character develops. Skills are done the same as Feats, which are done the same as class abilities, which are done the same as Ability Score increases, which are done the same learning spells. That makes things simpler for character development and for entry-level players. I'm currently playing in a group over half-newbie (1 3e newb, 3 RPG newbs, and 3 vets), and they unanimously think that unifying these developments makes the game alot easier to learn.

(2) FEATS: remove the ones which are used in an active way, but try to keep the passive ones to help the characters a bit (all the ones that give just a + to something) without slowing combat.

I actually am of the opposite position on feat removal. I think those feats that grant new options in combat are the only things worthy of being feats. There is already a system in place to develop your skills, initiative, attack bonus, etc. You don't need feats to improve those.

(3) CLASSES: most of them already have quite limited choices to do every level. The exceptions are arcane casters because they have to choose spells. It's hard to think about a more simple situation however, unless you just want to get rid of some of them outright.

(4) PRESTIGE CLASSES: why even bothering about them? You're not necessarily supposed to use them in your campaign.

You've kind of struck at why, after months of pondering, I decided to go with a class-less system. The classes, while providing role-playing guidance as archetypes, are TOO archetypal. Maybe back in the days of OD&D, few people had an idea of what it was like to be a wizard. But today, with the prevalence of fantasy in other forms of media, people usually have an idea of who they want to play. But the class doesn't let them. To rectify this, they take a prestige class. But then there are abilities in there that don't fit their concept, so they tweak the prestige class. But then there's another ability that just needs to be created as a new feat to fit another aspect of the concept. It's too limiting to imaginative players. The class-based system, I have found in my experience, is at the heart of all the added layers of complexity on the rules. It forces your hand too much.

(5) COMBAT: To make it simpler you may consider some of the following (here I am still thinking of the same combat structure as 3ed)...

- no initiative special actions (ready, delay): just roll once per combat and stick with it

- make all special attacks use the same mechanic of your choice, for example make them all separate standard actions

- ignore AoOs: this is indeed a major change so be careful in considering it, you may want to find a replacement disadvantage for archers and casters in melee

- check out for circumstances which require multiple dice rolls (e.g. grappling) and change them into single rolls as you see fit

I agree with all of these, for the most part. I remove Attacks of Opportunity for everything but a select few actions (casting a spell, shooting a missile weapon). I actually haven't quite worked out how to do AoO's in my movement and positioning system yet (every character is threatened by every other character in the melee, so this would create some problems).

 

[reanjr]

No, not really. And there's nothing about 'Remove the classes' that makes the game simpler, I don't think, which was the intent of the original poster. All that would succeed in doing is making the game almost impenetrable to new players. Plus not make it D&D any more. Which would be bad.

It really is easy for new players if it is presented correctly. I sat down and explained the entire system to two players who have only passing familiarity with D20 (one of them always forgets to add modifiers to his rolls; he is equally horrible at everything apparently). It took about 15 minutes and both people felt they had a better grasp of the system than they do of D&D.

I think you're taking somewhat of a reactionary standpoint. What is wrong with making it not D&D? If you're changing rules, you're changing rules. Why stop because of some preconceived notion of what you are going for?

I have few pet-dislikes in 3.5:

1. Grappling. It's used all over the place and many, many monsters have it, so why does my group still have to refer to the PHB so many years after 3ed arrived? (answers on a postcard!) In particular, the list of available actions needs to be slimmed down/streamlined dramatically. There is no elegance to that list at all; we need to be able to decide if an action is possible without having to refer to a list.

I agree. Grappling is the most horrid atrocity of a subsystem I have seen in D&D, excluding the critical hit tables from Combat & Tactics. I prefer the old unwieldly table o' punches and wrestling from 2e over the insidious complexity of the 3e grappling rules.

2. AoO's. I enjoy the strategy this brings to the battlemat (and I enjoy the battlemat), but again, the ludicrous plethora of exceptions that exists all over the rules must be dispensed with. I would also actually prefer it if AoO's didn't factor so heavily in movement and combat decisions, perhaps by reducing the efficacy of the attack (a blanket penalty to AoO attack rolls? some kind of opposed skill check to see if the attacker even reacts in time?). This would allow characters to move more freely about the battlemat without fear of getting taken down.

While I don't like playing with a battlemat, the easiest simplification to make is to remove movement-based AoOs. Leave them for things like spellcasting, missile combat, initiating special combat maneuvers (unarmed attack), etc.

3. NPC generation. Creating high-level NPC's with their massed skills, feats, templates, and all of the various prerequisites that are, or are not met in the course of their levels, is a pain in the rear end. However, given that I like the skills, feats, and templates systems, this is probably just something I'm going to have to live with.

I agree. And there's really not a quick fix for this. In my system (which wouldn't work for D&D, but it might give someone an idea), all abilities are in a hierarchy. This is reflected on the character sheet. You cannot gain more ranks in an ability than you have ranks in the parent ability. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part this sums up the entire system for prerequisites.

That's about it really. I think d20 is (for the most part) a really good mix of well-designed subsystems hung on an elegant central mechanic, and am pretty happy with it overall.

[/QUOTE]

I love the core mechanic. I even like most of the subsystems. I just find the systems to be too tightly coupled, while not benefiting from universal implementation (in programmer speak, the systems need to all implement the ID20 interface and should all be organized into the D20.DandD namespace and should all be fully encapsulated). Adding, removing, or changing any of them has vast repurcussions on a very complicated tangle of rules.