Storm Raven said:
Laugh all you want. Doesn't change the fact that 3e is easier to simplify than 1e or 2e were.
1e - To simplify combat to a very simple, story based, hit-hit-hit-done combat we do the following:
1. Remove re-rolling initiative every round: Negligible impact on other areas of the rules.
2. Remove weapon speed: Impact on interrupting spell casting. Negligible impact otherwise.
3. Remove armor vs. weapon type: Negligible impact on other areas of the rules.
4. Remove miniatures: Negligible impact on other areas of the rules.
Done! Now we have combat that is resolved very quickly. Since rounds last 1 minute each there is no need for strategic manipulation since the 1 minute round assumes all of the repositioning. Everyone rolls their attacks and flavor text handles the rest. Psion, what you call "bland" might also be considered an expediant way to get through the combat mechanics and number crunching, which some people find to be "bland" in general, and get back into the fun story that makes the game exciting.
The only problem remaining is that the mechanics for interrupting spell casting are a bit tweaked. You can ignore it completely or come up with a suitable fix with a few minutes of thought.
Now let's look at 3e. What are some things that we can do to simplify combat?
1. Get rid of Aoo: Impacts interrupting spell casting, spell-like abilities, and some extraordinary and supernatural abilities. Impacts fleeing and pursuit. Impacts flanking. Breaks disarm, grapple, overbear, sunder, and trip. Makes several feats much less useful or broken in some other way.
2. Get rid of miniatures, and simplify the movement system: Requires a complete re-working of flanking rules, requires a complete re-working of the action system (which is very foundation of a very large percentage of the game mechanics), impacts all situations involving threatened areas and those that rely on these rules, impacts concealment and cover rules, impacts attacks of opportunity, makes several feats very difficult to work with (e.g. Spring Attack, mobility).
There are still many other small things we need to do to really get combat down to a bare bones quick and dirty approach, but already with just these two factors added up the following feats, at least, are significantly impacted and need to be reworked or eliminated: combat casting, combat reflexes, mobility, spring attack, improved disarm, improved trip, improved unarm strike, ride-by attack, trample, shot on the run, sunder, quick draw. I'm sure that I missed some others as I'm not being too scrupulous. Without additional work fighters have a pretty limited selection of core feats leftover to choose as bonus feats, no?
In addition, we have a 6 second combat round, so whereas in 1e where we could just assume that all of the maneuvering, fun theatrics, and tactical positioning, and such were done as part of that round we now have to manually hand all of this with mechanics for each action and theatrical flourish. If we want to extend 3e rounds to 1 minute we break the entire action system and distort time in numerous and unforseeable ways.
Finally, all future rules supplements, if I want to include them, need to be prescreened to determine what is broken, what becomes overpowered, and what is made useless by my rules modifications.
Easier? I think not! In both editions you have to modify caster interrupting rules. Other than that, it's all about wrestling with 3e.
Again, don't get me wrong. I like 3e better too. I was simply pointing out one thing that I think 1e had going for it, and I still think that it has this advantage. 3e adds a lot of complexity and a lot of options. Simplicity is the sacrifice. Getting combat to run smoothly and efficiently in 3e has a sharp learning curve and requires in depth familiarity with a wide range of rules, rulings, special cases, and exceptions to the rules. When you start seeing many different factors starting to overlap (someone going full expertise while provoking an attack of opportunity by picking an object up from the ground (as MEA after he threw a ranged weapon at another person for expertise) while invisible, blurred, and mirror imaged - standing next to someone with the blind fighting feat who is unarmed and has an action ready to grapple anyone near him, for example) there is much more overhead in resolving the situation and trying to figure out what happens. You just don't get into a situation like this in 1e.
