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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9368180" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I certainly loved the promise offered in Complete Priests Handbook. Customization with an eye towards worldbuilding was a breath of fresh air. Mind you, the notion of balance was bizarre (IIRC weapons that did 1d6+1 or less were low-value, and 1d8 or more were high-value. It doesn't take much math skill to see the issue there). Likewise, it clearly left it to you not to make a d4 hd, no-weapon/no-armor cleric without curing or dead-raising spell access and try to use it in a party where a traditional cleric would have gone. It worked in the same way that Complete Fighter -- with it's bone-dagger and cord armor savages alongside myrmidons with extra specializatins and new fighting style rules -- worked: everyone had to be on the same page about what type of game you were playing. Faith & Avatar priesthoods were a lot more powerful, but kind of in the margins. Okay, some of the clerics could wield longwords and get fighter 18/## strength and >2 hp/level from con 17+, but what kind of rolls did you need for that to matter (and you still weren't getting fighter-with-specialization rates of attack)? Player's Option Cleric/Priests were imminently gamable, but so was everything at that point (much like the state mid-leatherette books, it was seriously in the 'everyone has to be on the same page' zone. I remember first-printing Complete Fighter's Handbook giving weapon specialization back to multiclass fighters, rangers, and paladins (the later two IIRC being rescinded in later printings, multiclassers I think got to retain them). Kits kept bouncing between single-class only or not. Complete Bard, Druid, and Elf also seemed to play around with who could do what quite a bit.I think I can see the logic. Mind you, this is with the supposition that undead were supposed to be pants-wettingly scary. Also, IIRC, his statement was made like in the early 2000s, after a bunch of stuff like the restoration spell and non-permanent paralysis had all come to pass (so undead were, to a degree, less scary than they otherwise could be). I suspect that, to Gary, a large part of what made Undead scary was that they didn't have to make morale checks.  Everyone I've known/met online from who played with Gary/his inner circle have suggested that that part of the game was not a part that got ignored -- you were supposed to be up against X amount of enemies, but only had to fight Y% of that total because 100-Y% of them would break and run. Undead ignored that, and that was supposed to be a really big deal. That part of undead really did get nerfed hard by the existence of clerics, in that they had this secondary morale mechanic in the turn-undead ability.  This makes undead go from this all-around major threat just by being undead to being a creature type that happens to have a number of varieties with rather scary special abilities like level drain, paralysis, or aging (with corresponding system shock), etc. Those amulets of turn-immunity are kind of a good example. They were introduced around the necks of a skeleton horde, IIRC. Skeletons and zombies are two (maybe the only two in the early game?) undead types that don't have any scary special abilities on top of being undead. Without having to fight them all (whereas other opponents you would only have to fight a portion), they are almost-strictly-worse (discounting their relative arrow/spear immunity) versions of the same troops they were when alive. And, fittingly, they have become synonymous (both in D&D and in D&D-inspired computer games) with entry-level dungeon fodder. Fundamentally, yes. D&D really doesn't have good plans after a certain level, particularly for certain character types. Once you get there, people do tend to retire characters or campaigns (or do level/mechanics-independent stuff). Mechanisms that keep you from reaching that point ought to be a positive. I think there are a few main problems:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Advancement/progress feels good, but only when it feels real. So any backslide can't be automatic (else the advancement is illusory). On the other hand, it if isn't automatic, then actually running into the downgrade feels like a tragedy. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Advancement already felt slow. Whether it was true isn't really relevant to the feel. Each level (at oft-played levels) was about twice as many xp as the last. AD&D had all sorts of other (often ignored) advancement-limiting effects like double-advancement/training costs if DM feels you are changing alignment/not playing your class; having to fight other druids/monks to advance, and such. Also, if (like many) you stopped treasure hunting for more plot-driven adventures, but gp=xp was still the main contributor (or 2e, where the mixture could be anything, but few options contributed as much as large treasure piles did), advancement actually did slow. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Restoration came out in Supplement I (1975). Seriously-- as rough as running into 'lose a level, there's nothing you can do about it' feels, adding something you could do about it (albeit a something you might not normally have access to, and the bookkeeping around tracking xp before and after the drain and how to fit it all together post-restoration) makes having that opportunity and not accomplishing it feel doubly rough.</li> </ol></blockquote>

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