D20 Issues

[bitonti]

Howdy All

I've been following the D20/R3 products (and have quite a few)
and, while I've found the products on the whole to be pleasing,
I've have also noticed two features that are, to me, a bit
irksome. This post is to see if others in the D20 community
have felt the same. (And to stimulate general discussion!)

*) Too many rules, not enough creativity;

This seems to be most noticable when I review the 'sage advice'
in the Dragon magazine. Whew, what a mess of details. As a
former DM/GM, I generally ruled that what was sensible was more
important than particular rules. That is, that the rules were
guidelines, but I and the players would use our imaginations to
figure out what should happen.

I noticed this too when I considered the 'cruchy bits' of the
Savage Species guide, for example, consider the mind
flayer. How does the level advancement guide for becoming
a fully powered mind flayer represent the actual advancement
of a mind flayer? Where are the ties to explain that a flayer
just out of cerebremorphosis, is weak, and unused to its
skills, and how over time the flayer gradually learns the full use
of its abilities? I mean, is the progression supposed to represent
how real mind flayers grow up, or is the progression just a play
mechanic to allow a flayer to be levelled up in a balanced way?

*) Disconnect between the need to stay in certain classes until
level 20 (ish), and prestige classes which max out at 10;

This seems to be most apparant when considering the
disadvantage in not taking a level of wizard, sorcerer, cleric,
or psion. The power loss (for not taking a higher level in the
core class) doesn't seem to offset the disadvantage of taking
levels in other classes. (Maybe for the first level of the extra
class, but taking just one level in particular classes simply to
max out exceptional skills seems to be an abuse of the rules,
and I wouldn't allow it.)

I've pondered maxing out the core classes at '10', and having
all levels beyond that be in another core class, or in a specialist
class. So a 20'th level wizard is then a 10'th level core wizard +
10 levels of elemental mastery. A 20'th level monk becomes a
10'th level monk + 10 levels of the order of the wispering blade.

Anyhow,

T Bitonti

 

[EarthsShadow]

I think there is to much of everything in the d20 Market.

Just how many book of feats do we need? Monster Manuals? Race books? Class books? Sure, its nice to have options, but most of that doesn't get used much and sits on shelves collecting dust.

Then, after 3.5 comes out, you'll see a bunch of revised books of all said books previously mentioned to keep up to date.

Way to much crunch, not enough fluff (I think that's the word, but I am not to sure).

 

[Nightfall]

So I guess that means you won't be buying my books huh Earth?

 

[Mark]

Way to much crunch, not enough fluff (I think that's the word, but I am not to sure).

Some like to juxtapose the term "crunch" with the term "fluff" but I prefer to call it "flavor"

 

[MThibault]

Disconnect between the need to stay in certain classes until
level 20 (ish), and prestige classes which max out at 10


I'm not sure I take your point here. Considering that most prestige classes can only be entered at 6th-11th level (depending on your route to entry) having more than 10 levels would take you into epic levels.

Even if you do use Epic Levels (and many don't) that is a long time to wait to achieve character defining power. Few core classes (perhaps the monk being an exception) are defined by powers gained after level 15 or so.

I tend to think that the mathematical disconnect nicely compensates for game-play factors.

Cheers

 

[Henry]

*) Too many rules, not enough creativity;

*) Disconnect between the need to stay in certain classes until
level 20 (ish), and prestige classes which max out at 10;

Hi, Bitonti!

Since your questions seem to deal more with 3E than with d20 in general, I'll leave this in the General Forum, rather than moving it to our "d20 systems games" Forum.

To touch your two points briefly:

1) Perhaps the core goal of D&D 3E, from my perception, is a balanced system rules-wise, leaving all other things to follow from that. You seem to place more emphasis on creative story flavor than on solid mechanics and new "crunch," if I read your post correctly. I'm the opposite from that position, myself: give me a system that requires minimum tinkering where new situations are concerned, and I will introduce story creativity myself. While both are great to have, if one can work them both into a product, I sacrifice plot content over story, because the plot content INVARIABLY gets altered to fit my campaign, whereas the rules content almost never gets altered by me.

2) Different designers have different perceptions of the balance of a 10-level class versus a 20-level one; In my perception, a 10-level prestige class should be just as powerful at 1st level as a core class at the minimum level for its entry. In regards to power loss, the loss is QUITE steep, if your party does not have other casters to make the difference; for instance, a sorcerer who does not stay pure sorcerer is MORE than two levels behind a wizard of equivalent character level. In our first D&D 3E campaign, a player learned this the hard way, playing a multiclassed Rogue1/Monk1/Fighter1/Wizard4. The party was 7th level, and the only wizard in the party couldn't even cast a 3rd level spell, much less a 4th!!! It became a big detriment, but he made up for it with strong defense and a rather large basic skill base. We was versatile, but sacrificed raw power - power that they needed when they ran into challenges equivalent to their level, where spells like wall of ice, fly, and polymorph were useful.

I hope this helps explain my position a little bit. Thanks for contributing!

 

[EarthsShadow]

So I guess that means you won't be buying my books huh Earth?

Which ones are they again? Sorry about the Phillies by the way.

I might buy them, depends on how useful I see them for my games I will be running later this year using Talislanta and Savage Worlds. I am thinking I could use them for Savage Worlds.

 

[Nightfall]

Earth,

It's the Flyers but don't worry. Not your fault. I blame it on a lot of things (Chemanek being one of them.)

My books (and understand it's a little loose term here) are S&SS Player's Guide to Wizards, Bards and Sorcerers (wrote spells for that one) and Player's Guide to Rangers and Rogues (I did four of the prestige classes in the book.)

 

[Drakron]

*) Too many rules, not enough creativity;

Is still Sage "Advice".

It only holds as official in some places (Living City) and we are free to ignore Skip.

As for Savage Species ...

Well it gives two systems, the "creature progression" can be used for several things with one being the players having the choice of playing a powerful monster at a lower level and gain that monster abilities as they gain levels and other is DMs to use then "toned down" at the appropriate level.

*) Disconnect between the need to stay in certain classes until
level 20 (ish), and prestige classes which max out at 10;

Multiclassing is easier but remenber that a lv20 fighter is a lot more powerful that a lv10 fighter/lv 10 wizard.

There are some advantages in multiclassing but in many cases (expecialy in the case of spellcasters) there is no advantage in multiclassing.

After all a lv4 fighter/lv16 sorceror just traded some of his more powerful spells for the ability to use weapons better, his BAB may be higher that a lv20 sorceror and have more feats but what is the point?

Unless he is a smart player that will use the spells and meta-magic feats to his advantage he cannot stand in battle for long and both the lv 20 fighter and the lv 20 sorceror are better that him in some roles.

The sames goes to PtC, many have hard requirements and as such its hard to find someone that qualifies for several PtC at trhe same time and the PtC that are have 10 levels only give the best of the class abilities at their higher levels there is a incentive to stay in the class instead of going into another class to gain a buch of low level abilities that are likely to be useless against the adverage creatures he sould be finding at his level.

Also there sould be no "need" to stay, d20 give the freedom to create a character as we like him to be ... instead of having the class he selected descriving the character that happened in 2nd ed we now how have the character descriving the class(es).

However there are limitations, Paladins does not allow easy multiclassing and neither does the Monk class so being a "paladin" or a "monk" is still (in a way) the class descriving the character but we can have a ex-rogue that became a paladin.

 

[Umbran]

*) Too many rules, not enough creativity;

This seems to be most noticable when I review the 'sage advice'
in the Dragon magazine. Whew, what a mess of details.

The existance of a rules-picky Sage Advice column does not indicate an imbalance between rules and creativity in and of itself.

To show such imbalance, you need to show a long-term habit for the magazine as a whole to have much more rules-content than creative content. And that only really means that one magazine is about rules, and not necessarily the whole gaming community.

How does the level advancement guide for becoming
a fully powered mind flayer represent the actual advancement
of a mind flayer?

One of the cardinal rules of 3e is that what's good for the PCs is good for the NPCs. Meaning that a good rules-bit should be useful for either.

While I don't have the book, I think the idea is that any fully-powerd mind-flayer out there is thus assumed to have had a pretty active life, so that time equates to XP. Similarly, if a mind flayer grows up in a particularly cushy environment, maybe it doesn't get it's full powers, as it hasn't had to "exercise" them much.