D&D 3.x's

[AdmundfortGeographer]

What were the problems you wanted to see addressed?

 

[prosfilaes]

What were the problems you wanted to see addressed?

I guess I was a little flip on the last review. I do find D&D 3's system for cross-class skills to be frustratingly complex; there's no way to check whether skills are correct unless you figure you figure which skills had points put in at which levels. Pathfinder and Trailblazer both fix that, though I've heard complaints that Pathfinder hurts the rogue in doing so. I like the concept of being able to have effective multiclass spellcasters, but I wasn't really won over by Trailblazer's system--though the other ways it genericized the spellcasters probably had something to do with that.

Unlike the authors of Trailblazer, I find buffs a royal pain. Between the cleric, bard and wizard, I can have a half-dozen at a time, of different durations, some of which don't stack with others (and magical items), some of which have specialty effects (like bless's bonus to saves against fear). (And Conviction's extra bonus to characters of the same faith might be cool, though it's not really party friendly, but it's completely arbitrary for one random spell to give an extra bonus to characters of the same faith.) Maybe I should try writing up a coherent set of buffs for bard, cleric and wizard.

I play wizards, so grappling isn't really my problem, but it's one I see argued over at the table. Sundering, too, though I would be almost as happy to see sundering leave the game altogether. Doesn't help that's almost entirely an anti-PC tool. While I'm on things that aren't really my problem, more balance would be nice; e.g. a playable monk. Trailblazer and Pathfinder both do some of this, but there's still unhappiness in the Pathfinder forums, which doesn't seem to be unjustified.

I've seen a form of polymorph abused before, and at best it slows down the game. Summons, too, slow things down, looking up stats (it was absurd to have stats for Summon Monster creatures require you to add a template to the stats in the book.) I'm mixed on Trailblazer's solution; it's gamable, but I like "I summon a celestial horse!" much better than "I summon an animal ... hmm, let's take the Improved Grab, Burrow and +2 Con."

That's something that got me several times with Trailblazer, is that it feels like it's all a numbers game. They sacrificed in-world sense for out-of-world playability a couple time. It really showed when they apparently felt uncomfortable with increasing barbarian DR, so made a speech about the abstract nature of HP. Don't give a barbarian DR 10/- unless you're actually willing to accept that his skin does in fact turn away daggers.

(Okay, let me quote a large chunk of it, so I can be fair and clear in responding to it.)

Players and DMs alike are reminded to observe the abstract nature of hit points. This change is meant to improve the barbarian’s staying power in combat—not permit him to bend dagger points against his skin!

If a nod to verisimilitude is necessary, the DM may, at his option, deny the barbarian his DR entirely if the barbarian is helpless or otherwise unable to defend against a well-placed attack.

I suspect that you could force a dagger into a high-level barbarian, just like you could shove a pencil into a normal human. But DR 10/- means that the barbarian's skin does turn daggers just like a normal person's skin normally turns pencils. If the barbarian doesn't have skin like armor, how is this being done and why isn't that explained?

I find the "nod" inappropriate and misplaced. In the recent gun thread, Dannyalcatraz mentioned a houserule where an attacker who had the defender at their mercy got a doubled, maximized crit (IIRC). It's a lot more extreme then I'd do, but it seems like that's the style of rule they need here, not something specific to barbarian DR.

HP is something that seems to be more of a problem on EnWorld then in actual gaming. But I do think I'd like to see it reined in and then acknowledged as meaningful. Abstract in the sense of GURPS HP, not in the sense of a Euro game's victory points.

I don't like how prestige classes work for me in practice. In particular, wizards don't gain much from going up in levels compared to a prestige class, so I'm constantly looking for prestige classes. My current character has Nightmare Spinner, and I'd love to continue in it, but it's only five levels. So I'm looking for a new one and it's probably going to be ... Loremaster? If I were playing GURPS, very rarely would my ability to extend my current abilities be so blunted, and almost always could I justify the out-of-character optimization as in-character optimization. Prestige classes came off frequently too arbitrary, and often too weird for the limited dip they are. Pathfinder does away with prestige classes for the most part, which I find a good thing; I'm not always sure about the replacement, alternate class features.

I'll invoke simpler and cleaner, but with hesitation. It's easy to claim, but then in practice... I liked the way Pathfinder made the wizards and sorcerers more flavorful, even at the expense of making them more complex. (I could argue that it was just replacing poorly playtested rules in the Complete Mage and elsewhere that did the same thing, but less integrated.) I like the fact that D&D 3.5 (specifically, PHB + Complete books + Races books) offer more flavorful options than GURPS does, but on the other hand there's such a mess of arbitrarily different, frequently incompatible options that seem to be more gamist then have any connection to the world. (As for incompatible, I was complaining about Trailblazer's homogenization of spellcasting, but there's way too many prestige classes and even classes that offer some low-level casting with tiny spell lists. Like 3rd level spells (and usually not the good ones) are going to be of use at 15th level.) (As for any connection to the world, I guess I'm to blame for that as much as the system, since a bunch of the prestige classes do want to claim connection to some sort of group that I and the DM just ignore. At least part of it is the clash between D&D's generic system and inworld flavor.) Maybe I'd be happier with more a WoD-esque system, where there's 8 or 12 main themes and they pervaded the life of a character, with options directly connected to the main theme, instead of dropping into Nightmare Spinner and then Loremaster. (Which might be partially my fault, but it's not all; Nightmare Spinner is 5 levels, and then there's little incentive to go back to Wizard instead of finding a new prestige class.)

That's entirely too long, but I'm not going to go back and edit it. Sorry.

 

[Voadam]

The ones I could think of

Arcana Unearthed/Evolved
BESM d20
Blue Rose
Call of Cthulhu d20
Conan RPG
d20 Modern
Everquest RPG
Fantasycraft
Iron Heroes
Monte Cook's World of Darkness
Mutants and Masterminds (Warlocks and Warriors)
Pathfinder
Slaine
Tome of the Lost Realms
Trailblazer
True20
Wheel of Time d20
World of Warcraft RPG

 

[SSquirrel]

IMHO, AU/AE should probably be treated much like Pathfinder:

1) Most of the classes are recognizable as variants of the ones in 3Ed & 3.5Ed.

2) The racial class levels are basically an improved version of what appeared in Savage Species.

3) The lesser & greater spell versions are not unlike spells with Metamagic effects.

The big differences are in the base PC races...but you could have essentially the same kind of array with 3.5Ed splatbooks & HRs.

AU/AE is still my favorite d20 offshoot. I thought it was great that the only overlap between the 2 books were Humans. All the other races were new and while the classes were discernible archetypes that fit well against D&D, it wasn't just another cluster of fighters, thieves, wizards and clerics running around together The much more flexible magic system is a huge boost too

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

That's entirely too long, but I'm not going to go back and edit it. Sorry.

Good list of points. I was eventually won over to the unified spellcaster mechanic. I also wish the buffs problem was handled more strongly.

But maybe I wasn't clear, I was wondering what problems with 3.5 you were hoping to see addressed in Trailblazer.

 

[Fanaelialae]

My favorite reworking of 3.x is Enlightened Grognard.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/299297-introducing-enlightened-grognard.html

 

[Neonchameleon]

Thanks for the suggestions and categories, both of you!

As for Iron Kingdoms, I looked at Iron Kingdoms: Character Guide | Privateer Press and it implies its an add-on to D&D, not a new game. Haven't seen the book, and the "Heaps of new skills" makes me run in terror instead of run out to buy it. D&D skills are pretty narrowly balanced; the last thing we need is heaps more of them.

I have put Trailblazer on my to-buy list, though.

Iron Kingdoms is a setting rather than a system. The add ons are because it's a steampunk setting with giant mechanical robots and technomages.