D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[AbdulAlhazred]

Context changes were important, but much of what breaks the 3.5 wizard compared to the 1e M-U isn't context changes, but mechanical ones. Off the top of my head...

SNIP...

There were a lot of context changes as well, particularly in what we might call the 'default' game world. But I don't believe those were the most critical changes. The details of the implementation are important. In a Vancian system, balance is determined by the implementation of the spells individually. It doesn't matter how balanced the system as a whole is, if the individual spells - the little packets of rules they represent - aren't balanced then the class that consumes them isn't balanced. Much of the balance in 3e can be brought back with some fairly minor rules adjustments and spell revisions. I await high level to truly prove that, but so far things are working out perfectly and I have one more tweak to play (bringing back casting time) if the melee/martial types start losing spotlight that I'm pretty sure will close any balance gaps that begin to develop (if they do) around 11th level or so.

Yeah, I was more meaning Vancian casting specifically as a mechanic in the context of all the other mechanics.

I think the PERSONALLY the problem with Vancian casting is that while it isn't impossibly to sort of balance it the results aren't that great. It just really isn't that good a casting system. Not only does it have to be perpetually policed because every spell could break it, but the system offers nothing but daily resources, which means either the character using it is under equipped or else they have too many spells, and it is not even possible to say which is which unless you build up a whole set of expectations of how play will be structured around the wizard. AEDU avoided all of these problems, and yet could still provide all the interesting features of Vancian casting. Anyway, I don't think any amount of tweaking will entirely fix 3e. It is infeasible to go back to the short spell lists of OD&D, and once you have 100's of spells things are bound to go sour.

Also, IMHO even in OD&D spell casting broke the game around 11th level, so I don't think you're going to fix THAT at all, not with any change you make to 3e short of a completely novel casting system. AT BEST you can maybe make it work OK up to 11th level. After that all bets are off, and I think I'm probably in the mainstream if I say that even AD&D basically stopped being playable around level 12. Things just get too wonky.

 

[billd91]

Celebrim and Iosue are right that there are significant changes in the rules that make the Vancian casting of spellcasters in 3e (and PF) more powerful than in 1e. There is, however, the question of actual rules in practice which, I think, alludes to why the rules changed as they did in 3e in the first place. For a lot of gaming tables, the substantial restrictions on spellcasting, including things so far not mentioned like limited rosters of spells known and available to prep, were relaxed as house rules because they led to wizards being "unfun" to play. I know I've relaxed some casting rules in my day. 3e designers, I honestly believe, intended to move the game in a direction players already occupied rather than, as some people allege, create a game of super-casters and weak martials. Unfortunately, doing so left some unintended consequences that a strong DM and agreeable players can handle, but on which weaker DMs and more divisive groups may founder.

 

[billd91]

AEDU avoided all of these problems, and yet could still provide all the interesting features of Vancian casting.

Clearly, a great many people find this debatable, particularly since AEDU introduces its own problems. Among these are reduced flexibility in arranging daily resources by no longer allowing the caster the flexibility of slotting the same spell twice. And there's also the issue of effectively conforming all spells to the hit point attrition model of opponent neutralization when save or sit spells of previous editions specifically offered an alternative track to that method.

I certainly think that the D&D game changed at various points as a party of adventurers leveled and much of that change was driven by the appearance of significant spells in the casters' repertoires. Raise dead, teleport, fly, various planar spells all have an effect, but I don't think that renders the game unplayable. But even if it did, wouldn't the ritual system in 4e also have the same potential effect? While the AEDU powers may have to conform to a fairly tight structure, rituals were easily as wide open as any spells in any previous edition of D&D.

 

[Celebrim]

I think the PERSONALLY the problem with Vancian casting is that while it isn't impossibly to sort of balance it the results aren't that great. It just really isn't that good a casting system.

I can't agree with that at all. Vancian's system at the heart is compartmentalizing the spell effects into discrete narrative packets and then limiting access to those packets. This has tremendous benefits compared to the alternatives:

1) It's the only spell system I know of that allows for gamist play while still providing for the power level of magic frequently seen in myth, fairy tales, and source material. It's the only system I know that really allows for feeble apprentice and world altering archmage in a really playable way.
2) It's completely extensible and customizable to a very high degree.
3) It allows for either spellcasters with a single trope or spellcasters as loremasters.
4) Subtly altering its core assumptions allows for a very wide range of mechanics. For example, you mention AEDU, but this is really only an extension of Vancian to include different 'cool down' times on the powers after they are activated. The Sorcerer is just Vancian with a different way to organize the compartments you have access to at any given time, etc.
5) Of all the systems I've tried, it actually does the best job of emmulating the appearance and rhythm of magic within narrative and especially within diverse narratives. That's more of a judgment call, but in narrative the real limitation on magic is the author. Even within narratives that seem to ground the magic on some sort of spell point/mana system, if you actually adopt a spell point/mana system it rarely works out like you think.

Balancing 3e style Vancian is perfectly easy on one level. If you forgo allowing magic as versimiltude to the power of plot Wizards of fantasy, and simply forgo allowing spells to be that powerful, you cease to have problems. In a sense, this is where 4e took the game to get balance - the trappings of epic power for wizards but without the actuality of epic power. High level spells stopped being open ended and defined in terms of impact on the setting and narrative. Instead, they became largely constrained to having simple mechanical effects. There is nothing wrong with that one several levels. Certain peoples agendas were getting trampled on by open ended magic, and poor spot light balance is always a problem. But, you are giving up things as well.

I don't agree on it being unfixable.

AD&D stopped being playable around level 12 primarily because of the Unearthed Arcana, relaxations in spell-casting or other rules, and the fact that monters only went up to level 10. With a bit of damper on the availability of treasure, adherence to the rules, and a willing to turn it up to 11 on monster power, it remains playable long after that.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Context changes were important, but much of what breaks the 3.5 wizard compared to the 1e M-U isn't context changes, but mechanical ones. Off the top of my head...

1) 1e M-U's couldn't cast in combat period; 3e Wizards have relatively easy means of casting reliably in combat (5' step, combat casting)
2) 1e M-U's if struck while casting a spell had it automatically disrupted; 3e Wizards have relatively easy means of casting spells through hardship (concentration checks)
3) 1e M-U's faced the problem that as their level increased, targets would be increasingly immune to 'save or suck' (pass saves) because saving throws always trended 'better'; 3e Wizards can expect as their level goes up that targets will often become more succeptible to 'save or suck' via there increasingly high DC's.
4) 1e M-U's faced the problem that their hit points were basically hard capped at 10 HD, that consitution was difficult to raise, and that even at 18 Con they were hard capped at a maximum of +2 hit points per level, and that they died at 0 hit points. This meant that most M-U's never had more hit points than the mid 20's, even at quite high level and as such were always one bad round from death. But 3e Wizards aren't capped on their HD, find constitution easy to ammend through standard belts, gain the same bonus hit points as fighters, and most Wizards can actually expect more of thier hit points to come through con bonus than they do through their HD. Indeed, the high expectations about Con bonus mean that low base HD is relatively less important. A wizard no longer expects to have less than half as much hit points as a fighter of the same level. As such, one of the wizards main mechanical drawbacks is greatly mitigated.
5) As a minor point, 3e Wizards saw their BAB go up at a 1:2 rate and they gained multiple attacks per round; 1e M-US saw their BAB go up at a 2:5 rate, and they never gained multiple attacks per round.
6) A great many powerful spells which had severe restrictions in 1e (haste aged you 2 years each time you cast it, polymorph other forced the target to save or die and frequently altered the mindstate of the target to the shape it found itself in, polymorphy self didn't even let you make attacks, etc.) lost those restrictions in 1e.
7) 1e M-U's didn't get bonus spells like a cleric; 3e Wizards did, additionally, many 1st level spells shifted down to being 0th level spells and the ultimate result was effectively many more spell slots than an equivalent 1e M-U.
8) 1e rounds were divided in to periods called segments, and casting a spell occurred over a that period of segments during which it was vunerable to disruption or by which time it might have lost a certain degree of relevancy. By contrast, in 3e each persons entire turn plays out in a single segment of a round (which in turn has many more segments), which means the only danger of disruption beyond easily avoidable AoO is held actions - a mechanic that forces you to forgo actions in the action economy to use and so is rare, clunky, and often inefficient. Therefore disrupted spells are very rare in most campaigns.

There were a lot of context changes as well, particularly in what we might call the 'default' game world. But I don't believe those were the most critical changes. The details of the implementation are important. In a Vancian system, balance is determined by the implementation of the spells individually. It doesn't matter how balanced the system as a whole is, if the individual spells - the little packets of rules they represent - aren't balanced then the class that consumes them isn't balanced. Much of the balance in 3e can be brought back with some fairly minor rules adjustments and spell revisions. I await high level to truly prove that, but so far things are working out perfectly and I have one more tweak to play (bringing back casting time) if the melee/martial types start losing spotlight that I'm pretty sure will close any balance gaps that begin to develop (if they do) around 11th level or so.

Some good points, but in response to #1, I always remember magic-users being able to cast in combat. However, it was a lot easier to disrupt a spell in both 1E and 2E. All you had to do was deal them some damage in the segments they were casting in, and the spell was blown. In 3E, it was much more difficult. You had to hold your action and try to deal damage on the wizard's action in order to attempt to interrupt the spell - and, then the wizard would still get a concentration check to not be disrupted. And, since most wizards maxed out their concentration and had combat casting, it was almost impossible to disrupt a spell without massive damage dealt.

I found in 3E, though, that both the bad guys and the PCs would make their saves much more often as they went up in level - the expected plusses of the various magic items they had, plus level adjustments, would increase faster than the save DCs of the higher level spells. So, as the campaign went on, I found myself using more spells that would be 'save for half damage' rather than save and nothing happened. I can't count how many times my Finger of Death, Dominate Person (or Monster) or Slay Living or whatever failed.

 

[El Mahdi]

Well, 4e managed to reconcile most of the edition war crap with previous editions. I mean, you used to see all sorts of back and forth between AD&D and 3e. Now, everything pre-4e gets lumped together.

Nah. I don't think any of that went away, it's just being drowned out by the noise around 4E (and now 5E).

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I found in 3E, though, that both the bad guys and the PCs would make their saves much more often as they went up in level - the expected plusses of the various magic items they had, plus level adjustments, would increase faster than the save DCs of the higher level spells. So, as the campaign went on, I found myself using more spells that would be 'save for half damage' rather than save and nothing happened. I can't count how many times my Finger of Death, Dominate Person (or Monster) or Slay Living or whatever failed.

This is likewise what the PC wizard in my last 3.x campaign found, but they were up against outsiders almost exclusively by the end, so all good saves, and the PC didn't take all the usual optimization on top of that. The player gravitated toward damage spells, and especially 'no save' stuff like Magic Missile, because she lacked the system mastery to 'go for the throat.' The PC paladin/cleric OTOH, was much more optimized and went for all the buffs and stuff that had no saves or was not subject to SR.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There isn't a One True Way to Pretend to Be A Magical Elf, and the game isn't ruined if someone else is doing this in a way you hate.

This is, essentially the problem D&D faces. Tabletop roleplaying material isn't in the big leagues in terms of sales numbers compared to other Hasbro products.

Even if all players of D&D of every type got together, joined hands and embraced Next as thier one true system, there wouldn't be enough revenue generated by it to sustain the brand as a tabletop rpg. Some claim that Pathfinder is eating D&D's lunch but is there enough in that lunchbox for Hasbro to care?

We can argue about the mechanical minutia of elfgames all day long but the real nail in the coffin for D&D has nothing to do with mechanics, presentation, or even marketing. D&D as a currently supported rpg is pretty much over at this point unless the brand can somehow be aquired by a smaller entity with realistic revenue expectations for the medium.

Paizo is doing pretty good. For all we know D&D 4E could have made twice the money PF did and still not have been good enough for Hasbro to keep supporting it. It will be hard for 5E to please everyone. Even if it thrills all D&D players it still might not please the money men.

 

[Greg K]

WotC lost me as a customer at 3.5, although granted, I was already at that point more of a Green Ronin customer than WotC to the extent that I was relying heavily on anyone for expansion beyond the core rules simply because Green Ronin had higher production standards IMO than WotC.

Really, after the original PH, DMG, and MM1 for 3e - all of which were amazing - WotC didn't put out another title I consider well done in the entire 3e era. That's how many waste of space hard backs?

This kind of describes me. After the core 3e books, I pretty much went 3rd party.
Green Ronin was the major influence: Advanced Bestiary, Armies of the Abyss, Legions of Hell, Book of the Righteous, Cavalier's Handbook (although, I don't use the class itself), Psychic's Handbook, Shaman's Handbook, Unholy Warriors Handbook, and Witch's Handbook. However, the Book of Iron Might (Malhavoc), Artificer's Handbook (Mystic Eye Games), Book of Templates Deluxe( Silverthorne/Goodman Games), From Stone to Steel (Monkey God/Highmoon) and Poisoncraft (Blue Devil) are also influential. I can name several others that I think are better than the typical 3e offering including Priests of the Celestial Sphere (Lions Den)

When it comes to WOTC supplements, I own both the MM2 and Fiend Folio for some legacy monsters, Book of Vile Darkness (for the Demons, Devils, some PRCs and spells) and Unearthed Arcana. The only other WOTC books that I want on my shelf are Fiendish Codex 1, Stormwrack, Heroes of Horror, Lords of Madness, Forgotten Realms Campaign book. I might want Complete Mage (if I didn't use UA's Specialist Wizard variants), and Cityscape. However, of all those WOTC supplements, I only consider Fiendish Codex 1 and Unearthed Arcana on par with the third party books that I listed above. The rest I find above average (BoVD, I consider average from a DM perspective. However, it contains enough material worth using. I would never let the players use other than one or two spells from it and, as a PC book, I would rate it a 1 or 2).

 

[Celebrim]

Some good points, but in response to #1, I always remember magic-users being able to cast in combat. However, it was a lot easier to disrupt a spell in both 1E and 2E....

My point #8.

And, since most wizards maxed out their concentration and had combat casting, it was almost impossible to disrupt a spell without massive damage dealt.

My point #2.

I found in 3E, though, that both the bad guys and the PCs would make their saves much more often as they went up in level - the expected plusses of the various magic items they had, plus level adjustments, would increase faster than the save DCs of the higher level spells.

This depends on the dynamics of your group, but that isn't my particular experience. Both the 'add spell level to DC' mechanic and the 'add half monster HD to the DC of save vs. ability' mechanic had a tendency to inflate DC's faster than the bonus to resist them. I've worked the math out else where, but in general the fact that saves aren't strictly improving as in 1e is something I've noted as the huge difference.