Charles Ryan on the Sacred Cows of D&D

[rounser]

So what? Back in, oh, 2000, there was this company that radically redesigned the most popular RPG ever. Many people said that it was no longer the game they knew... oh wait, that's D&D and Wizards.

But most of the changes they made are two-edged...and this was them being conservative.

For example...I remember one of the designers of NWN complaining that skills didn't map to levels any more, so it was difficult to predict how tough to make an open lock CR on a chest. Feats and skills have encumbered NPC character creation to such a degree that computer utilities were even recommended by one of the designers. New players needed reference to a site called ENWorld in order to make sense of an arcane new set of rules involving "attacks of opportunity" and "move-equivalent actions" that arguably slowed the game down more and caused more conflict than they were worth. The core monster tome was given a questionable selection of critters because rules needs were put before whether the monster concepts were any good. And the rules were more tightly integrated than ever before, and therefore the least easily customisable ruleset D&D had ever had.

The designers have said more than once that if they'd known it would be so well received, they'd have changed more. After seeing the encumberance on the game of what did get through, and the misfires for rules additions that are the psionics and epic rulesets, I'm not certain that WotC "taking the gloves off" is going to be a good thing. That conservatism might have done more for them than you or they acknowledge.

 

[MerricB]

I'm not certain that WotC "taking the gloves off" is going to be a good thing. That conservatism might have done more for them than you or they acknowledge.

However, Charles hasn't said they're "taking the gloves off". What he's said is something entirely different.

When Wizards decided to put out a new edition of D&D, there wasn't a list of "sacred cows" that everyone agreed upon beforehand. Instead, it was something they decided upon early during the process: these pieces of D&D shouldn't change.

Wizards aren't currently designing the new edition of D&D (except in the sense of continuing to expand the parameters of 3.5e, which, of course, lays the groundwork for 4e), so such "sacred cows" are unnecessary.

Cheers!

 

[rounser]

so such "sacred cows" are unnecessary.

Fair enough - optional rules supplements can generally do whatever they like, because they can be easily ignored, but most people think of the "sacred cows" as being built into the core rules, which are less easily ignored.

 

[ecliptic]

Magic Missile is not unbalanced against the half-orc. It's unbalanced against other 1st level spells. What other 1st level spell would you take over it (for general combat)?

Hmm, True Strike, Summon Monster I and Sleep.

If he says there are no sacred cows, he must be looking at a different game altogether, because D&D has more than any other game that exists.

Magic Missle at first level that always hits
Fireball at third level that goes BOOM
Fire and Forget magic
Alignments
Weak wizards until 5th level, then they are the center of the group

Fire and forget magic? Last I checked in 3rd edition you prepared your spells and did not memorize them.

 

[johnsemlak]

Fire and forget magic? Last I checked in 3rd edition you prepared your spells and did not memorize them.

'prepare' and 'memorize' are just two different words for the same thing in D&D. Either way, a wizard has to choose spells at the beginning of the day and looses them as he casts them. The mechanics are pretty much the same.

But WotC probably did use the word 'prepare' to get just slightly away from Vancian magic.

 

[Torm]

'prepare' and 'memorize' are just two different words for the same thing in D&D. Either way, a wizard has to choose spells at the beginning of the day and looses them as he casts them. The mechanics are pretty much the same.

But WotC probably did use the word 'prepare' to get just slightly away from Vancian magic.

Something just occurred to me, and I realize I'm going off-road from the topic, but this little bit of conversation is what made me think of it, so here goes:

If spells are "prepared" under 3E & 3.5E, rather than memorized, this says to me that basically your character gets up in the morning, takes a look at which spell components and wotnot he has already made ready and handy, and preps any more that he needs to. That being the case, it should be (with at least a percentage chance) that if you take down another wizard, and he has spell preps, you should be able to take those and use them to fill back up your own prep slots, provided you're familiar with the spell.

Seems to me that the fact that there are no rules for this means that the designers were confused on the memorization vs preparation issue.

 

[Knight Otu]

I don't know if I misunderstand you, Torm, but what you propose would seem to me like it could only work if spells were physical objects - but they aren't.

I'm not sure if 3.5 retained that, but prepared spells are essentially pre-cast spells laking a final trigger, be it purely mental (no components), or accompanied with the use of components. The components are not the whole spell - instead, they are the final ingredients to complete something that resides in the casters mind. Unless you have something "yank" out the near-complete spell from the casters' mind, the components won't do any good.