AU - first impressions?

[woodelf]

The fact that religion, aside from the Faen and there(in my opnion and to my taste) silly creating gods for everything and anything, isnt hardly touched on at all I'm not 100% happy with, but it is better in many ways than how polytheism based around a not always that great an alignment system is shoved down ones throat in DnD.

You sorta say it yourserlf, but it's not like D&D3E really touches on religion, either. In D&d3E, there is no religion, just nifty powers. At least in AU, religion is a part of the fabric of life, as in the real world, and not just an excuse to get more kewl powerz. I particularly like that the various instances of religion (feats, Faen beliefs) aren't munchkin-fodder.

Also, the removal of a "cleric"-type class was deliberate. Apparently, nobody wants to play clerics in D&D, but everybody needs healing, so someone is usually "stuck" playing the cleric. Monte figured that was silly, and tried to design classes that people would *want* to play. Me, i've never seen the problem--but most of the D&D groups (of all editions) i've talked to have. 'Course, i think a large part of the problem is linking the religious class to the Knights Templar archetype. I saw a lot more specialty priests (AD&D2) get played than clerics in any edition. And most players chose a significantly less-combat-worthy priest. Unless they went for the wargod priest with very little healing ability.

 

[JEL]

Have the book and liking it a lot. The races are good, but not anything that impressed me too much. I really like the classes the most, especially the Runethane, which doesn't seem to get any attention. The skills should have been done 3.5 style. The feats are good, if maybe a few too many of them. The magic system, for the most part, is excellent.

The one thing I don't get is exotic spells. I like the idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Specifically, it requires the expenditure of an entire feat to learn one spell that is slightly better than the other spells of that level. At lower levels this is a complete waste and even at higher levels, I'd question it's value in light of all the other feats available. It especially seems odd after he went through the trouble to boil down all the exotic weapons down into two feats. If I use this system, I think I'll have to come up with an alternative to how exotic spells are handled.

 

[drnuncheon]

The fact that religion, aside from the Faen and there(in my opnion and to my taste) silly creating gods for everything and anything, isnt hardly touched on at all I'm not 100% happy with, but it is better in many ways than how polytheism based around a not always that great an alignment system is shoved down ones throat in DnD.

Really? I thought AU had a lot more usable information on religion than the PHB - and by 'usable' I mean information on what the religion is like rather than the name of the god and his favorite weapon. I can read the racial descriptions in AU and describe a Giantish or a Sibbecai religious ceremony. I can read the faen description and picture a bunch of faen 'rabbis' arguing over where the boundaries between each god's sphere of influence lie. I can read the St. Cuthbert description in the PHB...and have zero idea of what a church of Cuthbert is like, what a priest of Cuthbert is like (except for his favored weapon!), etc.

J

 

[Geoff Watson]

Really? I thought AU had a lot more usable information on religion than the PHB - and by 'usable' I mean information on what the religion is like rather than the name of the god and his favorite weapon. I can read the racial descriptions in AU and describe a Giantish or a Sibbecai religious ceremony. I can read the faen description and picture a bunch of faen 'rabbis' arguing over where the boundaries between each god's sphere of influence lie. I can read the St. Cuthbert description in the PHB...and have zero idea of what a church of Cuthbert is like, what a priest of Cuthbert is like (except for his favored weapon!), etc.

J

That was intentional, as the PHB isn't campaign specific.

Geoff.

 

[woodelf]

That was intentional, as the PHB isn't campaign specific.

riiight...

That's why it doesn't assume particular races are PCs, vice enemies; doesn't make any assumptions about the sorts of roles that are tied to various skill sets, or which abilities go together [you wanna be sneaky and deceptive? you must also be interested in killing people by surprise.]; doesn't make any assumptions about what sorts of deities are worshipped, or, for that matter, what sorts of deities *can* be worshipped [where's the Domain of love&sex? or [crop] fertility & health?]; and *certainly* doesn't assume a particular style of campaign by focusing on one sort of challenge almost to the exclusion of others.
</sarcasm>

Monte's absolutely right: there's a *lot* of setting built into D&D, and there always has been. It's a lie to pretend otherwise, and hopeless to try and divorce it completely--you'd end up with something like Aria: awesome game, but can't really be played "out of the box". Embracing the setting causes fewer problems than trying to pretend it's not there--you end up with all sorts of built-in bits that you can't address becaues they supposedly aren't there.

 

[Ezrael]

Monte's absolutely right: there's a *lot* of setting built into D&D, and there always has been. It's a lie to pretend otherwise, and hopeless to try and divorce it completely--you'd end up with something like Aria: awesome game, but can't really be played "out of the box". Embracing the setting causes fewer problems than trying to pretend it's not there--you end up with all sorts of built-in bits that you can't address becaues they supposedly aren't there.

I actually agree with half of your statement: sure, there's lots of setting built into D&D, especially now with 3E using the Greyhawk gods and such as the default. It can, however, be divorced wholly from the game, unless you count the very class concepts as setting material. I don't. I think a fighter can be anything from a massive brawler to a quick and deadly archer, a rogue can be a stealthy assassin or a nimble pilferer, a bard can be a master seducer or a friendly banterer, etc, etc. There's plenty of room to strip the game down to the bare essentials and rebuild it however you want, and you can do that if you choose using just the big three books.

However, in my disagreement with you, I'm not a fool (at least I hope not): using the critters from the MM unmodified, as an example, *does* impose setting ideas on you, as does using the races and gods from the PHB. A lot of good gamers and designers have taken those setting ideas and run with them, of course...both the Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun use elves, dwarves, humans and halflings, as an example, but those worlds are leaps and bounds away from each other. (In fact, I had an interesting idea while reading through the recent Dark Sun 3 PDF, that Arcana Unearthed would be an interesting way to shake up your Dark Sun game. Imagine if, just past the tablelands of Athas, a whole new verdant world awaited, the lands of the Giants whose degraded offspring are the half-giants of Athas...but I digress) That doesn't change the fact that to use them is to accept a certain level of setting.

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that the setting material is setting, but not that you can't reject it and still use the game. But that might in fact be what you mean after all, since you did use the terms "awesome game but can't be played out of the box" - you do need to put the work in to use the PHB to create a wholly new world, just like you would to use AU. Most people, I expect, would simply use the parts they like and discard the parts they don't...I know in my case, the biggest problem I'm having while thinking about how to use AU to create a new campaign is the idea of losing some of those setting ideas from D&D that I really like. In the end, I'll probably cheat and find a way to shoehorn them in.

 

[drnuncheon]

you'd end up with something like Aria: awesome game, but can't really be played "out of the box".

If you can play Aria at all you're a better man than I. Bloody thing makes my head pound after ten minutes. The Worlds book is nice though.

J

 

[woodelf]

If you can play Aria at all you're a better man than I. Bloody thing makes my head pound after ten minutes. The Worlds book is nice though.

J

If you want to see an example of the wondrous things that Aria can bring about, check out <http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/web/ogalepihcra/>. It's a wholly-original fantasy setting [Talislanta has "No Elves!"? Well, we've got "No Humans!"] built with Aria, and initially played with Aria for quite some time. I've even run a few convention games in the setting using Aria rules. We've since created rules for it using BESM and Fudge, and this is the setting that i built a social-centric D20 for. Don't worry, no head-hurting Aria-ness is evident on the webpage. ;-)
</plug type="shameless">

 

[woodelf]

I actually agree with half of your statement: sure, there's lots of setting built into D&D, especially now with 3E using the Greyhawk gods and such as the default. It can, however, be divorced wholly from the game, unless you count the very class concepts as setting material. I don't. I think a fighter can be anything from a massive brawler to a quick and deadly archer, a rogue can be a stealthy assassin or a nimble pilferer, a bard can be a master seducer or a friendly banterer, etc, etc. There's plenty of room to strip the game down to the bare essentials and rebuild it however you want, and you can do that if you choose using just the big three books.

Actually, the classes and races are the biggest elements of setting in D&D, IMHO. You can't really build a con artist who isn't also pretty good in combat, and knows how to sneak attack, frex. Or a cat burglar. There are a whole passal of thief/rogue archetypes out there that either can't be done with the Rogue class, or end up with a bunch of extraneous abilities. Extraneous abilities aren't as bad as missing abilities, but they still cause a problem: the classes are balanced assuming all abilities are used, so if you don't use them you have an unbalanced character. And if you do use them, you've changed your character concept. And you can't "trade them in" for something appropriate, other than through GM fiat. [yes, obviously, you can change the classes. i'm talking about the game as written.]

I still don't understand why they chose to make the dirty-fighting elements of the Rogue the core of the class, and shuffle all the deception and nimble-fingered stuff off to skills (where (1) you might not have them and (2) any class can learn them).

Or, look at the ranger and druid, especially in 3.5E: what if you want a woodsman, not a one-with-nature-guy? And, now, you can't even play a beastmaster, because you get one animal companion, period.

Why do "barbarians" have berserker ability? Where's the class for playing the "noble savage"? How is it that barbarians are "honorable" yet not Lawful? Is this some new definition of "honorable"?

Why must those devoted to a deity (1) be good at magical healing, (2) be very good warriors, or (3) cast spells at all?

If you want to boil the classes in D&D down to their archetypes, you'd end up with
--> guy who can fight
--> guy who's got good social skills (such as fast-talking and/or charisma)
--> guy who's really skilled/jack-of-all-trades
--> guy who can cast spells
--> guy with faith
--> guy who is in touch with nature
--> guy who draws upon inner strength

i can easily argue for the social-skills part to be split between the jack-of-all-trades guy and the faithful/religious guy, with parts of it (being charismatic) being elements associated with all of the archetypes. [The jack-of-all-trades, as a heroic fantasy archetype, is usually the charismatic rapscallion, and/or the quick-thinker who is good in all situations that don't rely solely on brute force.] That leaves me with 6 basic archetypes for heroic fantasy. Sometimes, you see these combined. Sometimes you see them further differentiated (Unfettered vs. Warmain, frex).

How does D&D3E stand up to these archetypes? Well, there are really only two of the pure archetypes that you can do: guy who fights (fighter), and guy who casts spells (wizard). The sorcerer, psion, psychic warrior, and monk all sort of dance around the inner-strength guy archetype, and likely one of them will be appropriate for a character concept in that mold, without too much extraneous junk. The closest you get to the wilderness guy are barbarian (comes with a bunch of personality and ability assumptions, like rage), ranger (comes with spellcasting, and a strange juxtaposition of huntsman and friend-of-nature), and druid (pretty good, but the spellcasting needs to go).

Skill guy? Nope. Your options are rogue (tons of inappropriate combat stuff), expert (explicitly underpowered), and bard (more hedge wizard than bard, much less jack-of-all-trades).

And then we get to faithful guy--this one is the worst match. Your choices are paladin (holy warrior--a much narrower archetype, and this one is a very specific morality of holy warrior), druid (at a stretch--they're about equal parts priest and one-with-nature), and cleric (what's with all the militarism?). And all of them are wizard-style (as in, like wizards in literature/folklore, not wizards as in D&D class) spellcasters.

AD&D2 was moving in the right direction, and D&D3E should've continued in that direction: all of the personality-specific classes shoulda been made prestige classes, and the core classes should've been built around just skill sets, not personalities/societal roles. Then, it'd be relatively easy to create whatever character you wanted by multiclassing just right.

And, lest you think i'm just spouting: yes, i *do* think i can do better. And i'm in the middle of it. There will be 6 classes, with abilities grouped as above. Flexibility, for those who want to differentiate more within an archetype (a la unfettered and warmain) comes from having many of the class abilities be like talent trees or bonus feats: choose appropriately from a broad set, to customize the character.

Oh, and to get vaguely on-topic: i think a previous poster was right that, in many ways, the classes in AU are closer to the fantasy archetypes than those in D&D3[.5]E are. The greenbond, with the spirit-talking abilities and healing, is much closer, IMHO, to the general shaman/nature-magician archetype than the druid is. The akashic, while using a bunch of mystic mumbo-jumbo to get there, essentially is a jack-of-all-trades if you look just at results and game mechanics. The Oathsworn is at least as good as the monk or psychic warrior for inner-strength archetypes, and maybe better (some of the new feats help this one out, particularly). Religion/faith is a core element of your character (through ceremonies/feats) -- or not-- rather than being just another excuse for kewl powerz. Actually, that's not entirely true: the champion is an *excellent* interpretation of the faithful warrior, much better than the paladin, because it's much less straight-jacketed. Finally, the totem warrior, along with the greenbond, is a *very* cool class, very much along the lines of the one-with-nature or noble savage archetypes.

So, while AU has some fairly specialized classes [though the only one i've questioned the grouping of abilities for is Runethane: why do they cast spells at all?], i think it also has classes that let you get closer to more of the pure archetypes of heroic fantasy than D&D3E does.

However, in my disagreement with you, I'm not a fool (at least I hope not): using the critters from the MM unmodified, as an example, *does* impose setting ideas on you, as does using the races and gods from the PHB. A lot of good gamers and designers have taken those setting ideas and run with them, of course...both the Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun use elves, dwarves, humans and halflings, as an example, but those worlds are leaps and bounds away from each other.

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that the setting material is setting, but not that you can't reject it and still use the game. But that might in fact be what you mean after all, since you did use the terms "awesome game but can't be played out of the box" - you do need to put the work in to use the PHB to create a wholly new world, just like you would to use AU.

But, Dark Sun is hardly "straight out of the box" as D&D is concerned. And notice that, other than name, they may as well have invented all new races (even their general appearance is changed), and they basically redid all the classes, tossed several, and invented several more. Obviously, you can strip out the setting elements and/or change them. But that entails a fair bit of work, and stripping things down beyond the basics--some of the "basics" of D&D3E are the problem.

Anyway, my complaint is that D&D3E wants to be a fairly generic system, and it was known that many, if not most, D&D players build their own worlds. So i'm rather disappointed that they didn't go further in getting down to the core genre archetypes, so you *don't* have to break things down, just build them up (such as by favoring certain feat trees).

edit: doh! missed a tag. much better now.

 

[coyote6]

The one thing I don't get is exotic spells. I like the idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Specifically, it requires the expenditure of an entire feat to learn one spell that is slightly better than the other spells of that level. At lower levels this is a complete waste and even at higher levels, I'd question it's value in light of all the other feats available. It especially seems odd after he went through the trouble to boil down all the exotic weapons down into two feats.

That's what I thought, too. I think the same holds true, to a lesser extent, for Complex spells -- one feat for one level is a pretty steep price for non-magisters to pay. Especially given the changes to Exotic Weapon Proficiency.

The first thought I had was to double the benefits of the Complex/Exotic spell feats -- that is, the feats give two levels of Complex spells, or two exotic spells, as appropriate. Or, for Unique Spell, maybe it gives some number of levels worth of Exotic Spells -- it seems kind of silly for a low level spell to cost as much as a high level spell.

A question that just occured to me -- PC-researched spells are automatically considered "Exotic"; so do PCs have to take Unique Spell every time they want to research a new spell? I don't have the book at hand, so I can't check.