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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Edition Experience - Did/Do you Play 3rd Edtion D&D? How Was/Is it?
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<blockquote data-quote="teitan" data-source="post: 7982851" data-attributes="member: 3457"><p>The 3e era and up sense of balance is very different from previous editions. Previously it was an amorphous concept and was handled by varying XP charts that had thieves and clerics leveling very quickly and Wizards and Paladins much more slowly to try to maintain an illusion of relative party power. </p><p></p><p>In 3e plus it was in relation to one another and to the monsters. Encounter design was built around a very gamist approach with challenge ratings vs party level creating expectations that didn’t exist in previous editions. A low level party encountering a monster beyond their means wasn’t necessarily considered bad adventure design because encounters were designed with what makes sense and combat was, in spite of people thinking otherwise, not the default assumption of either 1e or 2e as well as OD&D and Basic D&D. </p><p></p><p>When combat became more of a focus of the game, even though the 3e designers clearly state that its overcoming the encounter, not necessarily killing the monsters, that rewarded XP equally rather than collecting gold coins there was a sea change and people look back on older editions as having bad encounter design or poor balance. No they have different criteria and ideas of what that means. </p><p></p><p>Within their respective paradigms pre and post D&D work but when comparing 2e or earlier to 3e sense of balance and design the game falls apart the way Vampire the Masquerade or Shadowrun would fall apart. Different default assumptions. </p><p></p><p>Interestingly, what many forget about 2e design is that more powerful races come with suggested XP penalties that were codified in the FRCS as Level Adjustments or Effective Character Levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="teitan, post: 7982851, member: 3457"] The 3e era and up sense of balance is very different from previous editions. Previously it was an amorphous concept and was handled by varying XP charts that had thieves and clerics leveling very quickly and Wizards and Paladins much more slowly to try to maintain an illusion of relative party power. In 3e plus it was in relation to one another and to the monsters. Encounter design was built around a very gamist approach with challenge ratings vs party level creating expectations that didn’t exist in previous editions. A low level party encountering a monster beyond their means wasn’t necessarily considered bad adventure design because encounters were designed with what makes sense and combat was, in spite of people thinking otherwise, not the default assumption of either 1e or 2e as well as OD&D and Basic D&D. When combat became more of a focus of the game, even though the 3e designers clearly state that its overcoming the encounter, not necessarily killing the monsters, that rewarded XP equally rather than collecting gold coins there was a sea change and people look back on older editions as having bad encounter design or poor balance. No they have different criteria and ideas of what that means. Within their respective paradigms pre and post D&D work but when comparing 2e or earlier to 3e sense of balance and design the game falls apart the way Vampire the Masquerade or Shadowrun would fall apart. Different default assumptions. Interestingly, what many forget about 2e design is that more powerful races come with suggested XP penalties that were codified in the FRCS as Level Adjustments or Effective Character Levels. [/QUOTE]
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