D&D SHOULD NOT have a defined atmosphere/style *Semi Rant*

[Andor]

I agree, there are seemingly limitless options but in order to keep things balanced the changes have to be very carefully done so as to not throw things out of whack. I recall the discussions about magic levels in the campaign and I read more than once individuals saying, "well D&D isn't set up for that, maybe you should try a variant rule set."

...

Balance nothing. It wasn't supposed to be balanced and I think that sometimes thats ok. But current D&D gaming philosophy is to balance IMO at the expence of flavor and atmosphere from time to time because if you don't CRs will be off and then XP will be screwy, blah, blah, blah.....

Chris

I think this is probably your sticking point. There was no pretense of balance in earlier editions (actually there was, but nobody was fooled for a second that level caps were balanced with multiclassing.) In 3.x were are told that the races and classes are balanced, and this balance is good and sacred. It's not true, but it is held up as an ideal to strive for, and many fall for it.

Take a deep breath and step back. It's okay to run a human gestalt rogue/fighter in the same party as a half orc sorcerer if everyone has fun. It's cool to limit the PCs to NPC classes. It fair to limit party treasure over 10 levels to 5 copper pieces and a half-eaten stalk of celery if that's what your group enjoys.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the myth of 3e's grand and delicate balance is just that; a myth. I'd also hazard to guess that for most groups, if it's a bit unbalanced, that's no big deal.

I've done things as drastic as only using three of the PHB classes (and then adding about five other third party classes to replace all the others chopped), only allowed one PHB race (human) and whipped some alternate rules on the spot for half a dozen other races. I've completely eliminated the magic system and used the Call of Cthulhu system in its place. I've completely limited XP and gone with arbitrary level advancement. I've made up NPCs--combat NPCs--on the spot. I've made up spells, mosnters, etc. with not much more notice than on the spot as well. I've used action points, and then radically modified how they worked in play. I've used Sanity extensively. I've used Grim N Gritty hit points. I've used WP/VP. I've used nothing but NPC classes. I've completely ignored treasure recommendations by level. I've thought warforged were under-powered and given them more special abilities.

Despite my practice of playing the game very dubiously from a balance perspective, neither me nor my group has had any problem with it. If we all think something is out of whack balance-wise, we'll adjust it in play, same as we would have in ye olde greybeard days or with other game systems. Again, I think the idea of d20 being finely balanced on the edge of a knife is ridiculous. I don't think it's all that balanced to begin with--I think the cleric is overpowered across the board, and wizards and sorcerers are overpowered at higher levels. If anything, the change from 3e to 3.5 should have debunked the myth of the magic balance.

Conversely, I don't think play suffers that drastically from most balance issues. A balance issue that would really majorly negatively impact gameplay would probably also be fairly easy to spot a mile away.

 

[rounser]

I believe a lot of it comes down to primary influences. My concept of fantasy is literary, deeply entrenched in Tolkein, LeGuin, Leiber, and Howard, whereas the younger generation of gamers grew up with anime and wuxia cinema.

I think it's less that than WotC designers and art directors wanting to put a new coat of paint on the old game, which is fair enough. The "dungeonpunk" art looked much better in the sketch previews they showed us than the finished product (did it have the life photoshopped out of it? I can't see why this might happen in theory, but it's definitely missing something that the previews have in spades - kind of like a demotape having a lot more life than the studio version, common problem apparently).

The design changes I'm a bit less forgiving of in the area of monsters. D&D has a massive back catalogue of perfectly useful and flavoursome monsters, and instead they reinvent the wheel with (IMO) lame stuff like the yrthak and destrachan. This was D&D 3E at it's worst; the rules dictating the flavour (oh, we need another sound-attack based monster of 15 HD that flies so that bards can be useful, and some more mid-level undead to balance those clerics and theives) rather than the other way around. The core monster tome is not the place to do this, if at all.

The other depts of the kewl radical stuff were double-ended ridiculousness like the dire maces and two-bladed swords, and further suspension-of-disbelief challenging stuff like those sun sticks and tanglefoot bags. They're not kewl/radical/xtreme, they're lame - I don't want them in my campaign, and again although they're easily removed they should have been in a supplement book, not in the core PHB. Same again for half-dragons and half-demons and half this that and the other ending up as villains everywhere; I think some people got carried away with that, stylistically, just to play with the new template rules. Again the rules trump the flavour of the game to it's detriment, typified by that prestige class with no flavour, the Mystic Theurge, which was designed to patch a problem with multiclass spellcasters. The rules should serve the flavour, not the other way around - some of the design seemed to forget that.

 

[MerricB]

I think the myth of 3e's grand and delicate balance is just that; a myth.

Does 3e have a big balancing act to do? Definitely.

Is it a fragile thing? Definitely not.

You can do things to 3e to throw it out of whack, but the balance it is designed to has wide bands of tolerance.

Cheers!

 

[Akrasia]

...

Despite my practice of playing the game very dubiously from a balance perspective, neither me nor my group has had any problem with it. If we all think something is out of whack balance-wise, we'll adjust it in play, same as we would have in ye olde greybeard days or with other game systems. Again, I think the idea of d20 being finely balanced on the edge of a knife is ridiculous. I don't think it's all that balanced to begin with--I think the cleric is overpowered across the board, and wizards and sorcerers are overpowered at higher levels. If anything, the change from 3e to 3.5 should have debunked the myth of the magic balance.

Conversely, I don't think play suffers that drastically from most balance issues. A balance issue that would really majorly negatively impact gameplay would probably also be fairly easy to spot a mile away.

I agree with this for the most part. It illustrates a key point: the people you play with are the essential determinants in whether your game 'works'. This is true of any game, any edition.

IME I've found it easier to fool around with other systems from a mechanical point of view than 3e, but I fooled around with 3e a fair bit as well. If you have mature players willing to alter things later on in the campaign if it's clear that things are unbalanced (even if it's to their PC's 'disadvantage'), that's the important thing.

 

[Turanil]

Just my thoughts and a semi rant.

Any thoughts of your own?

Well, I both agree and disagree with you. On one hand, it's easy to tone down the game and run it low magic (there has been a thread on this subject recently; about the myth of needing magical items), and add your own flavor to it. Also, I like the plethora of options, but one must select among them for it not becomes everything and its brother put together.

Nonetheless, me too, think there is something wrong with D&D, although I cannot put my finger on it. I got a vague feeling that D&D is to rpgs what MacDonald is to food; or maybe D&D is to rpgs what Disney is to anime... At least, there is something I am fed up with and which enticed me to try other games (Grim Tales, Castles & Crusades, and now Savage Worlds). Maybe that's this dungeonpunk style: having artificial characters such as an aasimar bard-ninja with a trenchcoat, katana, and an attitude? Well... :\

<...> The "dungeonpunk" art looked much better in the sketch previews they showed us than the finished product <...> D&D has a massive back catalogue of perfectly useful and flavoursome monsters, and instead they reinvent the wheel with (IMO) lame stuff like the yrthak and destrachan. <...> and further suspension-of-disbelief challenging stuff like those sun sticks and tanglefoot bags. They're not kewl/radical/xtreme, they're lame <...> Same again for half-dragons and half-demons and half this that and the other ending up as villains everywhere; <...> prestige class with no flavour <...>

I really 100% agree with this post. Especially these lame idiocies of the yrthak and destrachan, though I didn't notice they were there to have specific foes to throw against bards who not.

 

[Sammael]

Maybe that's this dungeonpunk style: having artificial characters such as an aasimar bard-ninja with a trenchcoat, katana, and an attitude? Well... :\

I'd just like to point out something:

Aasimar is a "monster." It can be found in the Monster Manual. Allowing one in a (non-FR) game is essentially house-ruling that game.

Ninja is an optional base class from an optional book. It is the DM's prereogative to allow or disallow classes.

There are no trenchcoats in the game as far as I am aware of.

An evenly multiclassed bard/ninja is a horribly underpowered combination, an aasimar bard/ninja doubly so.

A character with an attitude is nothing new in D&D. As far as I can tell, all of EGG's original players had characters with an attitude, one way or the other.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

For what it's worth, I too found changing 3e in order to suit my campaign setting to be a major pain. It is possible, but d20 is not that easily tweaked IME. If you change a few things, it can have all kinds of 'unintended consequences' (e.g. get rid of AoOs, and suddenly spellcasters become even more powerful than before . . .

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone has ever honestly complained about the attacks of opportunity drawn by spellcasting. It's movement and other actions (drawing weapons, sheathing weapons, standing up from prone, et cetera) that bug people.

In a larger, sense, though, I think this argument is illegitimate. Attacks of opportunity as an example - you can simplify by abolishing them except for spellcasting, for instance, which completely obviates your problem. You can simplify them the way Iron Heroes does it, by granting an attack of opportunity for doing anything in someone's threatened area that isn't an attack.

I think these are things which can be done for any aspect of the d20 System and therefore for any aspect of the D&D game, without blowing the balance of the game to smithereens.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I loved Arcana Unearthed, and that is when I put a halt on buying WotC. It was becoming apparent that it would be the 3rd-Party publishers that would totally revolutionize the system. And after Arcana Unearthed, we have Elements of Magic, Black Company, Castles & Crusaders, Blue Rose, Grim Tales, Mutants & Masterminds, and Iron Heroes that indeed have moved the game closer to the feel that I want from fantasy.

I think the number one problem that people like you have, Aldarc, is that you don't even realise how little you need Wizards of the Coast, given that you have all of these publishers and their games instead.

What in Hell is it to you if every single D&D player really is a mindless KEWL POWERZ-obsessed munchkin anime kid, if you're playing those games?

No, it's people like you who think D&D should matter to them that have the problem.

 

[Aldarc]

I think the number one problem that people like you have, Aldarc, is that you don't even realise how little you need Wizards of the Coast, given that you have all of these publishers and their games instead.

These other games exist, and I play them, but what the "official" game-maker does is the stone that makes the pond ripple.

What in Hell is it to you if every single D&D player really is a mindless KEWL POWERZ-obsessed munchkin anime kid, if you're playing those games?

I suppose it is nothing since I do spend my days worrying about how other people play D&D. I know perfectly well that most players are not "mindless KEWL POWERZ-obsessed munchkin anime [kids]," I just do not want to see a game I love to evolve into this sort of thing in future incarnations.

No, it's people like you who think D&D should matter to them that have the problem.

And it's people like you how make personal generalizations that have the problem. (I hope you catch the irony). You seem to be making a rather rash statement about D&D and myself. But to be accused that I am the sort of person "who [thinks] D&D should matter to them" is a bit absurd. I am no more this sort of person than anyone who regularly visits these message boards. I don't know what I did to suffer the wrath of sweeping accusations, perhaps I zigged where I should have zagged or liked George R. R. Martin where I should have liked Tolkien.