Delta said:
But at the same time it added a lot of complexity in brand new areas -- like the feat system, skill system, combat options, etc.
The beauty of it is that this can be as easy or as complex as you want:
Skills: Just pick x skills and max them (like a human fighter with 12 int, you max out 4 skills - 2 for fighter, 1 for int, 1 for human). I'd say that's not harder or more complex than picking your non-weapon proficiencies or messing with your thief skills. If you want, though, you can go go all the way with cross-class and synergy and all that. Not a must, a can.
Same for feats: Just go with the PHB feats if you don't want any hassle. There's some obvious choices for most concepts and classes. But, of course, you can go crazy and get the crazy stuff.
It emphasizes using miniatures in all combats.
Doesn't require it, though.
And whenever this comes up, I remember one particular 2e session I played in where I would have killed for minis (or the DM not trinking - him being slightly drunk at the time could have something to do with the situation).
It boiled down to this: The party fighting a bunch of bad guys and the following out of game conversation taking place:
DM "So, each of you gets two guys attacking him."
Player1 "Not me, I'm standing in the hallway shooting into the room with my bow"
DM "Alright, your guys attack player 2 instead"
P2 "Huh? they already dropped me, do they really want to slit my throat with three guys when there's several other guys around?"
DM "Fine. They attack only you two then Players 3 and 4"
P3 "Not me, I'm not even there, I went my own ways 10 minutes ago"
P4 "Alright, they just all attack you P4"
Would have loved to use a battlemat back then.
You don't need minis for that, either. Just use M&M's, and eat what you vanquish!
Making monsters and NPCs is hellaciously complicated for the DM, since you have rules dictating how to account for all the hit dice, attack and save bases, feats, skill points, adjustments, magic item price guidelines and purchasing, etc. Lots and lots of spells changed from 2E (effects, level, etc.)
The changes to 2e stuff are a temporary problem until you got used to it(and not a problem with 3e itself)
As for the rest: It's not that hard. Most monsters can just be advanced by monster HD, so you increase the attacks and saves accordingly, get some very basic feats, increase the skills by the number of extra hd, and you're done, basically.
If you add HD (or build an NPC from scratch), you don't have to sweat the small details, either: You don't have to get all the skills completely done - just wing it, do some general stuff. If you want to make a memorable character, you can still fine-tune everything up to the last skill point, but it works remarkably well without.
It again means that you can have it simple, or you can have it complex (which also means that you can determine every little detail).
That's how I made most of my NPCs (assuming I wasn't just running them straight out of some book - the NPC chards from the DMG can generate NPCs in a couple of minutes, and there's hordes of them out there, and not only in books you have to buy, but on the net, for free. There's d20 Character Wikis out there and all.)
Adding to that, I build some NPCs to sic on my players, putting almost the same effort into it as I do creating a starting character for a campaign (real personality has to be built up during play - all the background is nice and well and important, but it's really all about how the other players will see him). That way, I got to try this wacky character Idea or that - stuff that sounds funny for a session or two but wouldn't really be a great character for a whole campaign. Well, they only have to last for that one combat. If you've got lots of character concepts you want to try out as a player but can't, because you can't find 25 campaigns to play in at once, the best thing you can do is run a campaign!