General frustrations (and solutions) with 3E

[FreeTheSlaves]

Here's a topic that hasn't been discussed ;-)

Ok, me and my mates are 11th level into a heavily modded RttToEE campaign that are using revised core rules only (+ minor and few houserules).

As I'm a PC player for a lengthy time I'm seeing things that do frustrate. Don't get me wrong. I use the term "frustrate" over "hate" or any other highly emotive expression, because these aren't game breakers.

Anyway, in no particular order here's my list of 3E frustrations:

1) Treasure accumulation and divvying. It requires bag(s) of holding for all the masterwork stuff and me to build a spreadsheet to split it evenly as per the suggested method.
2) Rolled HPs and stats. Needs to be mentioned but I won't go there any further.
3) Spell buffs. With our spreadsheet print-outs it is manageable but it chews up 5 minutes while all the various +1's get added up. (Our spreadsheet solves any duration headaches, so that's no probs)
4) Class cans and can'ts. It is becoming really pronounced what my Paladin is good at and what he is bad at. He can withstand and slay a Red Dragon, or hold the gate vs Bugbears and armoured Minotaurs, but he'll fail to see a slightly concealed doorway or fall on his backside when on slightly unstable ground. Some parts of his capability have not and will not significantly improve since he was 4th level.
5) Spellcaster impact. If a spellcaster is not part of the adventure for the session it has a more pronounced impact on the combined heroes capability than if it was a non-spellcaster that was absent. Some spells that feed into this feeling include: find the path, scry, divination, teleport, fly, and commune.
6) Chases. In combat movement gives one side guaranteed success, while ability checks outside of combat introduce a great degree of randomness due to the d20 roll.
7) Flight. My Paladin rides an average flight maneauverability Pegasus. It hurts.
8) Complex stat blocks. To be fair, we've taken the law into our own hands and are dropping info that just isn't relevant.

There are plenty of minor other stuff like animated shields but that's quite character specific.

Anyway, I'd like to read what general frustrations others have had, and because we'll be gaming with 3E for over half a year to come, what solutions people have had. I'd really like to see solutions to general frustrations that don't require much alteration or work. Family commitments rule out spending more time on D&D - heck, I have trouble justifying the weekly 4 hour session as it is!

Thanks all.

 

[RFisher]

1) Treasure accumulation and divvying. It requires bag(s) of holding for all the masterwork stuff and me to build a spreadsheet to split it evenly as per the suggested method.

Keep party treasure rather than splitting it constantly. PCs cherry-pick the most useful stuff from the common pool.

It's OK if the PCs have to leave stuff behind because they don't have the means of transporting it.

2) Rolled HPs and stats. Needs to be mentioned but I won't go there any further.

Use either max or average hp. (Or max at 1st level & average thereafter.) Use point buy.

3) Spell buffs. With our spreadsheet print-outs it is manageable but it chews up 5 minutes while all the various +1's get added up. (Our spreadsheet solves any duration headaches, so that's no probs)

Good question.

4) Class cans and can'ts. It is becoming really pronounced what my Paladin is good at and what he is bad at. He can withstand and slay a Red Dragon, or hold the gate vs Bugbears and armoured Minotaurs, but he'll fail to see a slightly concealed doorway or fall on his backside when on slightly unstable ground. Some parts of his capability have not and will not significantly improve since he was 4th level.

Some of the variant skill rules from the UA can help here.

5) Spellcaster impact. If a spellcaster is not part of the adventure for the session it has a more pronounced impact on the combined heroes capability than if it was a non-spellcaster that was absent. Some spells that feed into this feeling include: find the path, scry, divination, teleport, fly, and commune.

In the most extreme cases, the DM can just say that the PC casts the spell.

6) Chases. In combat movement gives one side guaranteed success, while ability checks outside of combat introduce a great degree of randomness due to the d20 roll.

If it's just a straight race then I'm happy to handle it simply by movement rates. Rolls would only be made for actions other than movement.

In general, I sometimes like to use a non-linear probability for skill checks. 4d6 treating 6s as zeroes or 3d20 drop the high & low dice (a.k.a. mid20). While d20 is fine for combat & saves, I like more consistency for skills.

You might need to adjust some DCs.

The UA also has some bit about this. (Using 3d6 instead of d20 for everything.)

7) Flight. My Paladin rides an average flight maneauverability Pegasus. It hurts.

No advice on this one.

8) Complex stat blocks. To be fair, we've taken the law into our own hands and are dropping info that just isn't relevant.

Yeah. And don't be afraid to just wing-it.

Some of these issues are reasons I tend to prefer classic D&D to 3e.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

1. Equipment's too important
2. Some classes could be better
3. Multiclassing could be better
4. High-levels get wonky, and require a lot of preparation

That pretty much sums it up. And still, it's not that bad, I still think the system's awesome.

My solutions:
1. Get rid of most magic stuff, get rid of stuff like DR (or make it much smaller amounts) and SR, allow high point buy and 3/4 or even full HP, maybe bonus feats, extra boosts, or even gestalt, and you're good to go.
2. Give those classes some extra punch. Bards with d8 and the ability to do music and magic at the same time as fighting, or maybe full BAB, solve problems.
3. Give them a partial effective level progression for cross-classing (like the Book of nine Swords does)
4. If you get rid of magic items, a lot of the work to build high-level NPTs or characters is gone.


As for your problems:
1) Treasure accumulation and divvying. It requires bag(s) of holding for all the masterwork stuff and me to build a spreadsheet to split it evenly as per the suggested method.

Get rid of magic and give them other benefits, then get rid of some monster abilities (see my 1.)

2) Rolled HPs and stats. Needs to be mentioned but I won't go there any further.

That's beyond easy to fix. Just don't do it. The rules are even in the DMG. Got rif of those years ago. Never had any problems.


4) Class cans and can'ts. It is becoming really pronounced what my Paladin is good at and what he is bad at. He can withstand and slay a Red Dragon, or hold the gate vs Bugbears and armoured Minotaurs, but he'll fail to see a slightly concealed doorway or fall on his backside when on slightly unstable ground. Some parts of his capability have not and will not significantly improve since he was 4th level.

Usualy, there's ways to get around the more mundane problems, but anyway, characters should not become better at everything all the time, in my opinion.

5) Spellcaster impact. If a spellcaster is not part of the adventure for the session it has a more pronounced impact on the combined heroes capability than if it was a non-spellcaster that was absent. Some spells that feed into this feeling include: find the path, scry, divination, teleport, fly, and commune.


Do you(r playes) really depend so much on divination magic? I always felt that it was "cheating" and taking the fun out of finding out things the old-fashioned way.

As for teleport: that was never a problem for us, we always assumed that he'd teleport us there and otherwise keep in the background. We never look too closely at things like that

6) Chases. In combat movement gives one side guaranteed success, while ability checks outside of combat introduce a great degree of randomness due to the d20 roll.


Unless one side has spring attack, it has to stop next to the guy every now or then in order to hit, and evenif not, it's going to be a problem to stay out of range while still hitting.

The d20 roll is an universal "problem", and if you don't like it, there's always things like rolling 2d10 or 3d6 instead, producing more average results.


7) Flight. My Paladin rides an average flight maneauverability Pegasus. It hurts.

My solution: Just ignore flight rules. If you think that makes some things too powerful, decrease their fly speed.


8) Complex stat blocks. To be fair, we've taken the law into our own hands and are dropping info that just isn't relevant.

Never had too much problem with these. A lot of stuff I just make up as I go along as DM. The nice thing about being the DM is that you can cheat like that and it won't ruin the game for the rest!


There are plenty of minor other stuff like animated shields but that's quite character specific.

Yeah, animated shields. I made that enhancement +4 in my games.

Anyway, I'd like to read what general frustrations others have had,

Not really frustrations. Minor annoyances.

and because we'll be gaming with 3E for over half a year to come, what solutions people have had.

Personally, I plan to play it for more than that. I'm not sure I'm giving it up when 4e arrives. In fact, it's more likely that I skip 4e.

 

[delericho]

Anyway, in no particular order here's my list of 3E frustrations:

Several of these things are the big frustrations with the game in general, and hopefully will be fixed in 4e. Things like narrowing the gap between what your character can and can't do, reducing the frustration of buffs and debuffs, and cleaning up flight are hopefully high on the designer's agendas.

Anyway, one thing I can help with:

3) Spell buffs. With our spreadsheet print-outs it is manageable but it chews up 5 minutes while all the various +1's get added up. (Our spreadsheet solves any duration headaches, so that's no probs)

You probably find that your group use exactly the same buffs 90% of the time, right? Or maybe there are a couple of combinations you use, but there tend not to be many, yes?

So, I recommend setting up a standard 'buff package' or two, agreed between the players and the DM, listing who casts which spells, on whom, and in which order. You can then pre-calculate the effects, and just use the appropriate set of results when the time comes.

Additional savings can be had by the DM introducing a House Rule that Dispel Magic and similar debuffs will strip the 'buff package' in layers, always starting with the shortest-duration spells. That way, if your 'buff package' consists of five spells, you can pre-generate six sets of stats:

Basic Char
Basic Char +B1
Basic Char +B1 +B2
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3 +B4
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3 +B4 +B5

If your character is then hit with a targetted Dispel Magic, the DM should roll five dispel checks, as normal. However, the order in which they are rolled is ignored - if any three succeed then you are dropped three steps down the track.

(Where this fails is if the spell effects have different caster levels, especially if some come from potions or scrolls. Here, I see several options:

1) Ignore this issue, and just use the highest (or average) caster level for all the spell effects
2) Instead of peeling back the buffs in order of shortest-duration, they get peeled back in order of lowest-caster-level. This isn't ideal, because the shortest-duration option handles also the case where the 'buff package' is gradually wearing off, which this adjustment fails to cover
3) Use the character level of the recipient as the caster level for the purpose of the dispel check
4) Calculate the caster level equal to that of the weakest effect, plus 1 per additonal effect (so, if a Wiz 5 contributes B1, a Clr 4 contributes B2, B3 and B4, and a potion at CL3 gives B5, then the caster level for the dispel checks would be 3 + 4 = 7))

 

[Gort]

That way, if your 'buff package' consists of five spells, you can pre-generate six sets of stats:

Basic Char
Basic Char +B1
Basic Char +B1 +B2
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3 +B4
Basic Char +B1 +B2 +B3 +B4 +B5

If your character is then hit with a targetted Dispel Magic, the DM should roll five dispel checks, as normal.

Augh! I seriously hope there are fewer buffs in 4e so I don't have to do this

 

[Psion]

3) Spell buffs.

As buffs seem to be pretty powerful as it is, I am thinking of just making a "buff limit". Forget stacking, make all buff spells a "buff bonus" to pare down how many you have to track.

4) Class cans and can'ts. It is becoming really pronounced what my Paladin is good at and what he is bad at. He can withstand and slay a Red Dragon, or hold the gate vs Bugbears and armoured Minotaurs, but he'll fail to see a slightly concealed doorway or fall on his backside when on slightly unstable ground. Some parts of his capability have not and will not significantly improve since he was 4th level.

Now that I can't sympathize with. I just watched a player aggravated to the edge of frustration because he couldn't make a character that was basically good at everything. Part of the reason I think D&D plays so well is the team oriented nature of the game, where you have to rely on your fellows.

5) Spellcaster impact. If a spellcaster is not part of the adventure for the session it has a more pronounced impact on the combined heroes capability than if it was a non-spellcaster that was absent. Some spells that feed into this feeling include: find the path, scry, divination, teleport, fly, and commune.

Do you have multiple fighters? If not, this doesn't match my experience. If you don't have some tanks to anchor down your offense while your rogue is sneaking around the periphery and your wizard is casting from the back lines, I think that many tough fights become untenable.

6) Chases. In combat movement gives one side guaranteed success, while ability checks outside of combat introduce a great degree of randomness due to the d20 roll.

Running chases using combat grid rules is folly. Use hot pursuit (an adaptation of the Spycraft chase rules) and/or ENPub's simple rule of using speed checks (i.e., add 1d20 to movement rate.)

Anyway, I'd like to read what general frustrations others have had, and because we'll be gaming with 3E for over half a year to come, what solutions people have had.

1) Players trying to make loners as part of a party. (Both in personality or capability.) Only solution I have here is to spell out the compromises and point out that "other players are there to take care of that."
2) Yeah, buffs.
3) Iterative attacks. In high level game, my players tended to forget what their totals were, and the dice didn't help as a recorder because they forgot which dice went with which mod. My solution here was to have all players have a scratchpad with their mods pre-figured, and jot their dice rolls into columns under the mod.

 

[delericho]

Augh! I seriously hope there are fewer buffs in 4e so I don't have to do this

The problem is really two-fold:

1) There are too many bonus types, and especially minor bonus types. I think seven is quite a good number to go with, but it must not be added to by future designers.

2) Spells tend to give out a slew of minor effects, some of which overlap with other spells, but some of which don't. If spells were made more cohesive (so that they each do exactly one thing), then buff packages become much easier to track. As it is, we have the likes of Bless (+1 bonuses to some d20 rolls), Aid (the same? +1 bonus, and some bonus hit points), Prayer (a different +1 bonus to a different set of rolls) all in play at low levels, and the whole thing only gets more complex as we go up the levels.

Better, where possible, to have 'families' of spells that each give a single bonus to a single thing, with the magnitude of the bonus increasing with level. Then, you just have to track which spells are in effect, and applying each spell is a snap, since they each just do one thing.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Thanks for the responses guys.

For clarification when I talk about spellcaster impact, I'm talking about the adventure dramatically changes shape when they're not there. E.g. the teleporting Sorceroress was absent the last 2 sessions and it feels like we're 8th level again. We've become dependent on divinations and communes too. Before someone says get over it, we're caught in the vice of needing such tools to battle our recurring enemies and the desire to not have the characters of absent players clogging up mid-high level play...

I'm unaware how the party fares when my character's not there, but my Paladin is very armoured and can handle the heat. Combat-wise the party will suffer not having someone so durable but his absence lowers combat capability, it doesn't affect the magical information gathering and instant transportation. Maybe his absence is as great as other absences - I'll investigate further.

The examples in my class cans and can'ts are simple DC10 stuff. We're talking about a corner temple door covered by an obscuring shadow, and battling on uneven ground in a cave. When the 11th level anything is still blundering over 1st level trivia, it does feel a little odd.

It's not really about being good at spot or balance, rather it's about not being stuck in 1st level capabilities for the character's lifetime. When the rogue has and needs +20 on these skills to face equal EL challenges, whether my character has +2 or +10 wouldn't step on his toes because either way I'm much less capable. Oh, and putting crossclass skill points into it won't really help, because the same applies to a whole multitude of skills and 2 skill points per level are already getting stretched pretty thin.

Thanks also to the whole buff package idea. I'll run it past people and see if we can get some standardisation to the buff spells selected. I think people will come to the party in part at least.

To be honest, most of these frustrations look like they need a lot of work to get around... I think my best effort will be spent on buff packages and that's all my time I can spare. The rest I'll just have to get over it and handle.

As an aside, we made animated shields act like the dancing property and lowered their cost to +1.

Lone wolf play is not something I have seen in a while. One friend as I remember tried to make a self sufficient multi-classed sorc/rogue, that could not do much except a very weak 'invisibility - sneak attack'. You know I don't know why they allowed multiclass options that sucked so badly. It was almost a case of "haha, you chose poorly, now your character will suck, FOR EVARRRR!"

Then there was the lone wolf Cleric who joined the party as it was debating the merits of sailing to the undead infested island in the middle of a lake. In a fit of pique he water walked ,alone, across to the island, set up camp on a sunny slope. He joined the undead ranks that night in his sleep, all that remained was his bedroll, and sun umbrella.

We're brutal on lone wolves, and we're not even trying to be. Maybe the D&D world/rules are just hardcoded to be nasty to them, if you let it play out naturally?