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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CRGreathouse" data-source="post: 2657957" data-attributes="member: 474">I never saw this rule in 2E.  Was it in the core books?(Oops, you're right about the cap.  Bad memory, there, sorry.)You've got to be kidding me.  A Maximized fireball is a 6th level spell, comparable then to the 2E disintegrate, chain lightning, and death spell.  In addition, it takes a feat and has the save of a 3rd level spell.  It's weak, only worth using if you're otherwise out of options or have special circumstances.I killed many creatures in 2E with fireball.  In 3E it does much less damage, proportionately.  An ogre had around 20 hit points in 2E, so a fireball would be likely enough to kill it; in 3E they have half again as many hit points.  An owlbear's typical hit points have nearly doubled; other creatures are similar.I'm just not seeing your argument here.I did play for several years under 2E, so I was pretty familiar with it and its basic supplements.  I just didn't find it balanced like you did -- the DM would often complain about balance problems.  Frankly they all went away come 3E, and (in my opinion) balance was improved by the transition to 3.5 from 3.0.As for 2E vs. 3E, you're right in that the spells remained basically the same.There are a lot of spells that don't age subjects in both editions, why not always cast all of them?  It's a matter of time and resources, as always.  3.0 haste was strong, no doubt, but in 3.0 with wizards routinely casting haste my groups found less balance problems than in 2E.  Chalk it up to different experiences, I guess.Why would you have to min/max in 3E?  I'm lost.I don't remember the mechanics precisely, but the first thing that springs to mind was a ranger kit (with much augmentation from various splatbooks -- this was a piece of work) that allowed some ungodly number of attacks per round, at a very high bonus to atk/dmg.I remember that no characters were worthwhile *at all* unless you did some serious min/maxing.  Throw together a 2E human figher using the more generous 3E rolling method (it was a 2E DMG variant) and make him a level higher than everyone else in my group and he would be weak to the point of contributing almost nothing.  At least, that's as I recall it.I don't know, I feel that I can throw together almost any character concept in 3E and have a viable character, while in 2E you were constrained to min/max the living daylights out of something just to be barely playable, radically restricting character choice.</blockquote>

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