basic differences in rules per edition

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Well, and here is an interesting thing often overlooked about older editions. Just because there weren't rules for some combat manuver did not mean it didn't happen. That's one interesting shift in mindset from 1e/2e to 3e I think.

Unfortunately not all DMs are skilled.

I was in a short WHFRPG campaign last year, with a relatively new DM. (Not to diss the DM. I have a lot more experience and screw up a lot too!)

He plotted an intelligent encounter. We started at the bottom of the hill, and the bad guys, who were archers, were on the top, a very good place for archers to be! But they were weak vs melee, so if we ever got to them... pulverizing time! Naturally, it takes more time to get up the hill than to charge the same horizontal distance against archers, so they get more shots. There wasn't cover either. So far, rules independent.

How do you get up the hill?

In 3.x, you go up at half speed. Make an Athletics check (DC 15) to climb at full speed. This benefits strong, athletic characters, but you take armor check penalties. Fail and you go up at half speed. You could be a gnome cleric with a Strength score of six and heavy armor and still try -- the worst is you move at half speed. You were rewarded for choosing a certain "build" but not punished for not having it. (I believe there were more complicated rules if the terrain was wet or slippery.)

In WHFRPG, the rules are a mess. (It often has rules for rules sake, with lots of complicated tables for things like being afraid.) I don't even know if there were rules for that situation. The DM invented some. Fair enough. Unfortunately, he called for Athletics checks. Seems fair, right? We were just starting out, and Warhammer characters have an average 30 statistic. My own character had a 40 Strength, and most had less; I believe only one character was actually stronger (in Warhammer, you use an ability score as your skill, before you gain "levels" and can maybe boost a few). So my chance of pulling the skill check was 40%, better than most characters (no penalty for armor though, which is ... weird).

If we failed the checks, we made no progress up the mountain, while the arrows rained down!

After failing two checks, my PC attached a rope to a spear and threw it up the hill, then pulled himself up. Flavorful? You betcha. Realistic? Nope. I was pulling myself up with a relatively slender wooden shaft that hadn't sunk all that far into the rocky ground... and my character, being plenty strong, wasn't a small guy, and he was still wearing chainmail. Said spear should have broken.

By the time he got to the top of the hill, our one gunner PC had taken them out. Yay group dynamics! My noble fighter could do nothing, our law priest could do nothing, there was no options for "aid another" (forget a lack of rules, it just wouldn't have been realistic), etc.

In a situation like that, maybe having decent rules would have been a better idea.

You never used overruns or bull rushes or trips or grapples or disarms or just about any other weird-arsed maneuver as a fighter?

The rules weren't that easy to use.

Overrun, bull rush, trip, grapple and disarm all provoked attacks of opportunity without the proper feat, several of which (eg disarm) had completely nonsensical requirements (you need brains* and ... defensive fighting, which also requires brains?). Furthermore, all those attacks had big restrictions (counteracting the occasional "goodness" of them). It's hard to use any of those abilities except disarm on a large or bigger opponent, and disarm is kind of pointless when facing a dragon.

(One reason monks were so weak; they could only really use their abilities against humanoid NPCs, which were weak against everything, unless they were flying invisible wizards, that is.)

In 4e, you can use those special attacks much more easily, except disarm and maybe overrun. Make an attack vs Fort (or maybe Ref for trip). If you hit, apply the effect. No opportunity attack that I've seen. Simple, easy, and if a situation that the rules don't cover come up, you still have existing rules for reasonable guidelines. (You don't need a set of rules for a "flying tackle" when you already have simple rules for bull rushing, tripping, etc.)

*Not that there's anything wrong with rewarding smart PCs, but smart PCs should have abilities where their intelligence would logically come into play.

 

[Beginning of the End]

But that's the problem - at the end of the day, it's not your fighter who's doing everything, it's the magical buffs supporting you.

That's like claiming that receivers suck because they need the quarterback to throw them the ball. Or that pair skaters suck because they need a partner in order to compete.

More specifically, when a wizard casts enlarge person on the fighter and the fighter goes on a rampage while singing "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" before swatting out the rotting beams above their head and causing the enemies on the floor above to fall down in a cascade of broken timber (to pick one example from actual play) I don't think any reasonable person would say, "I'm not actually having fun because I was only able to do this because the wizard cast a spell on me."

 

[Mort]

A newer player won't play that powerful caster as effectively as an experienced player though.

While certainly true, the mage will likely still be quite effective. The fighter, on the other hand, will be difficult to play by an experienced player and and almost impossible for a newbie!

Hmmm... I think I know what you are trying to say here, but my answer is that a reasonable group will help out a newer player not to fall into this trap. A complete group of new players and DM though will have to learn it as they go (with growing expertise being a feature rather than a flaw).

But it's still a major flaw in the system, the fact that an experienced group may avoid the trap does not change that.

Depending upon their magical gear, this can certainly be true. I still contend that it takes a good player to effectively play a wizard, but an effective player with an effective wizard can totally unbalance the game at higher levels - it is just too damn easy to get off your spells. [Pathfinder has actually gone a long way in fixing this by the way - reduced spell selection, spells harder to cast when pressured, increased/more powerful options for non-spellcasters].

That's making my point! a newbie can make an effective wizard, a good experienced player can easily take over the table by playing a wizard well. Pathfinder has taken huge steps, but the fact that it has taken huge steps and at high levels wizards can still easily dominate should say something.

In play though, it is easier to play the fighter than to play the wizard effectively. Character design requires a level of skill regardless of the class.

Because a fighter, of any level, has so many less options! of course they are easier to play at the table.

3e casters needed to be reined in! 4e was a solution to this but resulted in compromises that did not jive with a lot of people. The solution was perhaps a little too extreme and other solutions would have been worked.

Perhaps. WoTC certainly chose a side, anytime you do that your not going to please everybody , they could have been less extreme but, for better or worse, that clearly was not their goal.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

That's like claiming that receivers suck because they need the quarterback to throw them the ball. Or that pair skaters suck because they need a partner in order to compete.

No, it's claiming that recievers suck because the quarterback is casting a move to location spell followed by a catch ball spell after throwing the ball in the first place, and the only thing the reciever actually does is blandly exist while the wizard controls him via magic.

More specifically, when a wizard casts enlarge person on the fighter and the fighter goes on a rampage while singing "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" before swatting out the rotting beams above their head and causing the enemies on the floor above to fall down in a cascade of broken timber (to pick one example from actual play) I don't think any reasonable person would say, "I'm not actually having fun because I was only able to do this because the wizard cast a spell on me."

That sounds like really fun!

It's also utterly, utterly inapplicable to what we're talking about.

Plus, I'm still not seeing your fighter do things there. It looks like the wizard is the one that caused the timbers to break down. Nor am I seeing any reason why it couldn't have been the wizard casting it on himself to do that. Nor am I seeing how this would help in any situation where the enemies aren't standing on rotting beams above you, admittingly a situation I have seen maybe once like ever.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm tired and so unlike my usual longwinded self, I'm actually NOT going to post all the changes between editions. However, 3e changed the most rules. The biggest change however, was as previously mentioned, changing it from D&D to Rolemaster Lite. Made a TON of Ex-D&D players who hated classes delighted to call a rolemaster like game...D&D. Not that it mattered, the numbers playing AD&D had shrunk significantly by that point. There were more Ex-D&D players than active and admitted AD&D and D&D players combined.

HOWEVER...the BIGGEST change which I'll probably post to another sister thread of this one after I read all the way through it is tougher to say. It's pretty hard to say whether it was between 0D&D and it's supplements (Greyhawk changed the world and how it was run...almost literally...many wouldn't recognize 0D&D as the D&D today...they would recognize it after Greyhawk though).

Something else that was a slower change, more in the minds of players rather than the game system was between 0D&D and AD&D as it came to be in the mid to late 80s. Originally, via the wargaming ideas, characters that were low levels were exceptional. They were better than many of the other monsters and people of the world around them. This idea was even found in BECMI...as you can see...a first level fighter isn't some new novice...he's a freaking veteran. They are trained and experienced.

However, somewhere along the way, they became freaking newbies just wet behind the ears...not really trained, and ready to die. This is exemplified by 3.X's take on what a character starts off as.

The older thought process had the idea that it took years just to get to 1st level. Because of that, it was incredibly hard to get levels in another class you didn't start with.

In 3e it was a matter of a simple decision at a level up...or became that. In some ways 4e, with it's feat system has made a return to having the heroes having a slightly tougher time training...as well as starting the heroes as deadly trained warriors instead of some newbie fresh off the boat who hasn't seen a sword before a month ago when they finally got trained on it.

Another massive change was AD&D/0D&D supplemented (that's with the supplements inclusive of Greyhawk, etc.) and BX and BECMI D&D. Races that were classes (even if they simulated what was played previously) and some other items were pretty big changes.

The biggest concept change was probably 3e however. It changed from class as solely the archtype, to where class could be a symbolic thing you dipped into. This of course is a rules change reflected more by the change in through processes in previous editions rather than the rules.

The rules changes are numerous however in many of the editions. Between core 0D&D (without supplements) to AD&D would perhaps be almost equal to the number of changes between AD&D 2e core and 3e. Hard to say though.

 

[nightwyrm]

Something else that was a slower change, more in the minds of players rather than the game system was between 0D&D and AD&D as it came to be in the mid to late 80s. Originally, via the wargaming ideas, characters that were low levels were exceptional. They were better than many of the other monsters and people of the world around them. This idea was even found in BECMI...as you can see...a first level fighter isn't some new novice...he's a freaking veteran. They are trained and experienced.

Really? Maybe it was intended that way at first, but it's difficult to think that your 1st level character is special and a tough veteran when they die with one hit and you go through three of them in a single session.

 

[CuRoi]

Sure, but it is the conclusions thrown out for consideration, often almost as asides...

Throw in a very slight (and entirely understandable otherwise) rules misunderstanding, and then follow it up with such a conclusion, and if it doesn't lead to flames, it is only because of restraint and luck. You'd think we'd have a topic about simple facts without such issues, but already it starts to edge into it.

I definitely apolgize if anything seemed like a slight. It was meant as nothing more than an "aside" and not an attack. This simply referenced an earlier post where I agreed with another's summary of the differences in the Editions on a thematic level. I don't think those were meant as a slight either, just an observation.

My quote was:

I wholeheartedly agree though - 4e does have more of a computer ajudicated feel to it which tying to a past post by Raven Crowking on this topic, tells you why DMs that enjoy storytelling are not thrilled by the system.

I'll mostly stand by that if I can without derailing the thread completely. I'll gladly take up the defense in another thread if someone wants to start one. However, you are right, it was solely based from my opinion and experience and not some detailed analysis of the game or a polling of all DMs. We should all be allowed an opinion and I have no agenda to force this on others. I encourage everyone to play 4e and make their own opinion - it's a decent game IMO that does address many problems of previous editions. For me, however, it doesn't work.

 

[Lanefan]

Plus, I'm still not seeing your fighter do things there. It looks like the wizard is the one that caused the timbers to break down. Nor am I seeing any reason why it couldn't have been the wizard casting it on himself to do that.

Wizard hasn't got the starch to survive beams and enemies landing on him. Fighter does. So Wizzy buffs the tank, and tank brings down the house. Seems simple enough...

Lan-"then Wizzy fireballs everything including tank, and things go sideways"-efan

 

[Aldarc]

Wizard hasn't got the starch to survive beams and enemies landing on him. Fighter does. So Wizzy buffs the tank, and tank brings down the house. Seems simple enough...

Lan-"then Wizzy fireballs everything including tank, and things go sideways"-efan

But with "Transformation" (Wiz/Sor 6; Trans) how much more starch does the wizard need?

You become a virtual fighting machine—stronger, tougher, faster, and more skilled in combat. Your mind-set changes so that you relish combat and you can’t cast spells, even from magic items.

You gain a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, a +4 natural armor bonus to AC, a +5 competence bonus on Fortitude saves, and proficiency with all simple and martial weapons. Your base attack bonus equals your character level (which may give you multiple attacks).

You lose your spellcasting ability, including your ability to use spell trigger or spell completion magic items, just as if the spells were no longer on your class list.

That would seem like enough starch to bring down the house without need of the fighter.

 

[Lanefan]

But with "Transformation" (Wiz/Sor 6; Trans) how much more starch does the wizard need?

If your party is that kind of level to be chucking 6th-level spells around you're more likely to be nuking the house from orbit anyway, in which case yes; the fighter's role would be reduced to making sure nobody escapes down the street.

But frame this as a 4th-5th level party that is somehow sneaking around in the basement and my statement still holds true. In any edition.

Lanefan