Does 3E/3.5 dictate a certain style of play?

[Cthulhudrew]

I tend to agree with the sentiment that powergaming in 3E takes a lot of work, and constantly marvel at the builds I see people put together. I can't decide whether they are ingenious, the builders have way too much time on their hands, or some combination of the above.

One fact that may come into play that makes 3E seem more powergamey than earlier editions is the proliferation of information via the internet. I remember letters in Dragon back in the day about people posting their uber-characters and builds (the Waldorf scenario being a key absurdist highlight), but nothing to the extent of what you see nowadays. There simply wasn't a medium for it back then.

[EDIT- Crothian beat me to it.]

 

[molonel]

I tend to agree with the sentiment that powergaming in 3E takes a lot of work, and constantly marvel at the builds I see people put together. I can't decide whether they are ingenious, the builders have way too much time on their hands, or some combination of the above.

Heh. No kidding. And even having access to the information doesn't translate into the ability to break the game. There is one guy in our World's Largest Dungeon campaign that we know reads the powergaming boards. He refuses to admit it, though. He came in with an Iajitsu Master. I was actually looking forward to seeing what it could do, but we never got the chance because he got turned into a road pizza in the 2nd or 3rd combat encounter. Being able to do uber butt-tons of damage doesn't mean anything when you have a REALLY bad AC and you're caught in a web.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I'm saying that in AD&D there are obvious choices that are simply better than others, that are easy to identify and exploit. And some people seem to consdier such obvious exploits to be "normal" that they become frustrated when 3e won't let their uber character be translated over (witness the various threads that involve people complaining that 3e won't let them properly translate their Skills and Powers cleric or multiclassed elf or whatever and keep him as powerful as he was in previous editions). And in 1e these exploits are found in the PHB and UA, front and center, and easy to find, and, for the most part, the bonuses and benefits kick in the day the character starts adventuring.

In 3e, you may be able to create an overbalanced character, but it requires you to hunt down non-obvious choices to do so. In 3e, to powergame you have to be able to have access to a pile of books, hunt through them all to find the combination of feats, classes, spells, and race attirbutes that will give you the edge you are looking for (which usually comes with some sort of disadvantage, or requires that you deliberately misinterpret a rule somewhere to make work), an in play, assemble them (usually requiring several levels of advancement to make it work) until your plan crystallizes a year into the campaign. And then it usually requires several rounds of specific preparation to make the combination work, during which time, your "nonpowergaming" allies will have dealt with the opposition on their own, and be left wondering why all you did was cast four buff spells that will expire before you get to the next challenge.

I'm not trying to be obtuse but we're back to square one: you can powergame in AD&D if you know the rules. You can powergame in current D&D if you know the rules.

And a corollary to that is: you can't powergame in any edition if the DM won't have it!

 

[molonel]

I'm not trying to be obtuse ....

Mmmm-hmmm.

I believe you. Totally.

 

[buzz]

I'm not trying to be obtuse but we're back to square one: you can powergame in AD&D if you know the rules. You can powergame in current D&D if you know the rules.

This is true of all RPGs; you're not actually addressing the question. The issue at hand is whether doing the actual powergaming is easier or more difficult from edition to edition. If someone is going to assert that 3e better facilitates powergaming, then I'd assume they mean that 3e makes doing so easier. Actual evidence of 3e play contradicts this.

Granted, I don't really know why this issue really matters. Rules mastery is part-and-parcel of D&D, IMO. The fact that 3e makes this process robust, facilitating lots of options in the build process, is a plus in my book.

If one really finds "powergaming" that abhorrent, I don't see why they should play a system that so actively rewards it... which, IMO, is true of every edition of D&D ever published.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'm not trying to be obtuse but we're back to square one: you can powergame in AD&D if you know the rules. You can powergame in current D&D if you know the rules.

You can easily powergame in 1e if you can spot the obvious rules exploits that are readily apparent when you crack open the first pages of the PHB. You can only powergame in 3e if you can spot the connections between a wide variety of possible options spread out over a dozen different sourcebooks and figure out a way to jigger them together. You also, almost always have to accept some sort of disadvantage (things like "he can deal lots of damage, but his AC is 4 and he only has 22 hit points at level 12") or misinterpret various rules. Most of the time, the "powergaming" example involve pumping a character up with spells of extremely limited duration, which means you are spending valuable time in combat buffing yourself rather than actually dealing with the threat (the "AC 56 at 6th level" character is an example of this, parsing him out revealed that you had to use four or five wands to cast protective spells, a couple of which would only last for a couple of minutes to accomplish the 'easy" goal). These are flaws that are rarely revealed on things like the optimization board. It looks easy to have a 12th level cleric who casts five big buffing spells to make himself a combat monster - in actual play, the challenege is over, or nearly so, before he gets going.

You can powergame in 1e from level 1, with an overbalanced character right out of the gate. To powergame in 3e, you have to build your character over the course of several levels, spend time pumping yourself up, and don't get any kind of pay off until your character has avoided getting his til then underpowered head handed to him for months.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You can easily powergame in 1e if you can spot the obvious rules exploits that are readily apparent when you crack open the first pages of the PHB.

And what are they, exactly?

RC

 

[Psion]

And what are they, exactly?

Do you have me on ignore? See my post #332 for a few.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Heh. No kidding. And even having access to the information doesn't translate into the ability to break the game...

That's a great anecdote, and very true. Much as I hate to make the comparison- due to critics of 3E complaints about it being a game for computer gamers- I've seen the same thing happen in MMORPGs. You get a person who powerlevels their character because they want to play an 'uber' guy and not have to actually go through the process of getting the experience, and they end up getting beaten because, powerful as they may be, they have absolutely no idea how to play the game.

 

[Storm Raven]

And what are they, exactly?

In 1e, play a nonhuman (specifically, an elf), and multiclass for a start. If you are playing an a campaign that you know will go to high level, play a human, and dual class. If you are usuing UA, play an elven subrace. If you want to get fancy, find the rules for dual wielding, and do that, especially if you are playing UA and can specialize and double specialize. Alternatively, when using UA, make sure to play a cavalier or barbarian, if you can do that as a nonhuman, all the better.

Now, it has been more than a decade since I last tried to play 1e, and I remember these rules exploits off the top of my head. Every party of adventurers was overrun with (gray or drow) elven fighter/magic-users and half-elven fighter/clerics or cleric/magic-users and so on. Why? Because the alternatives were, for the most part, clearly inferior.