Gotta get this off my chest...

[jlhorner1974]

Ooops. Missed earlier post.

I actually either let all players choose one "favored class" for their character, or just ignore the XP penalty altogether.

The multiclassing system already balances things out well enough, and the other 3.5 class revisions help to avoid some of the "class sampling" by removing some of the front-loading that happened with some of the classes.

 

[Grundle]

Yeah, I agree that they are a business and need to make money. I'm probably just over reacting to some things I've heard and read. I'll definitely give the game a chance as it's written before I look at house rulling anything.

Just let me state up front, yes I would like some cheese with the following whine...

I understand that WotC is not operating a charity for indigent gamers.

I for one - and I believe most people here - would have gladly put money down to buy what 3.5 was billed as, but that (apparently) is not what we're getting. This Revision was billed as three core books that have been throughly cleaned up, all erratta's fixed, the VERY FEW OBVIOUS 3.0 PROBLEMS cleaned up (Haste, Harm, Ranger, etc.), and new art incorporated. I love it. I'd buy it. What the hell happened to it?!

I was pumped, but not any more. Guess I was just being a bit naive.

What it appears we are getting is alot of maybe good, maybe bad, but certainly arbitrary changes for change's sake. Compatibility be damned. We're getting spell's renamed left and right, durations and areas changed, weapon-handedness , and a plethora of other unnecessary twiddling with unbroken stuff!

Will I still buy it? Yeah, sure.

Will my group use it? Don't know.

Will the hobby be better or worse off because of it? I'm a pessimist, you decide.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I mean, really. Are we really going to differentiate between a large longsword and a medium greatsword? Don't they seem to be basically the same weapon?

I thought so at first, too, until by accident I noticed something about my bastard sword and rapier: they both have the same diameter hilt. Think about that: all medium weapon hilts are roughly the same diameter.

To a small creature, even if the blade portion is basically the same, that grip will be far too thick. A Large longsword will have a hilt that is about twice as thick in diameter as a Medium greatsword. Give a child a shortsword and they won't be able to weild it like a longsword because their hands will have trouble with the grip.

I'll just say that I'm glad I'll still have my 3.0 DMG since apparently the NPC tables are now useless for on the fly NPC's.
Were people really abusing the ability enhancement spells that badly that the durations needed to be shortened to such a small amount of time?

I'm irritated about the NPC tables but as far as the ability enhancements, yes. I noticed from the NPC table that the designers didn't expect people to use the buff spells the way I knew they would. Almost every NPC has a good amount of cash sank into buff items, something that won't happen in most groups. So at least in the 3 gaming groups I deal with, the buff spells were being used in that way.

 

[Pax]

What if you didn't know the NPC existed when you started playing? If that's never happened to you, you are very lucky.

I pluck a name, age, gender, race, and appearance out of thin air ... and select (at random) a pregenerated "generic NPC". Put the two together, and voila! instant fully-built NPC.

It's not a technique for everyone; I actually ENJOY making characters (I'm nearly addicted enough to suspect some mild form of OCD, heh) ... so it's not much of a problem for me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's not a big problem, and I have some pregenerated ones too (mostly for a PS campaign making use of SS rules), but I still want to know what good the new NPC tables are for.

Oh, and I've heard that they're full of errors, too.