Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

[ThirdWizard]

It seems to me that it isn't what you can do that makes the round take so long, but figuring out what to do.

I can go along with that.

I really need to inject an extra helping of Iron Heroes into the combat rules at my table. At least that way, for the time spent, there'll be more bang for the buck.

I've been meaning to put combat challenges and such into my games. Iron Heroes also streamlined AoO for the most part, except for that weird movement thing it has going on, which, IMO, reintroduces the complexity right back in.

Here we agree.

Uh oh...

Again, I agree that it can be done.

Darnit! Finding commong ground. Quick, gotta say something controversial... um...

Of course not. But the point is that leveling, in and of itself, isn't a good thing either.

Yes it is!

 

[Raven Crowking]

ThirdWizard,

Reading through our posts, I think that we largely agree on the changes that 3.X has made to the combat system; what we disagree on is what "streamlined" means in this context.

BTW, I don't disagree just to be disagreeable. Look at the current thread about Tomb of Horrors and whether or not it is an example of good module design. What I enjoyed about that module is steeped in nostalgia, but even then I wouldn't have called it good design. It isn't simply a knee-jerk reaction.....

......unless you bring pokemounts into it......

 

[JohnSnow]

OP chiming in here again. I actually think this has been a very enlightening discussion.

I guess I really am after the sense of wonder again. With the players, of course, that naturally fades the more experience they get with the game. In my opinion, there are two ways to do this:

1. Constantly introduce "new and nifty" magic, in an attempt to bring back that sense of wonder. After a while, this would lead to a game with Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Psionic Magic, and magic with all kinds of other premises like soul-magic, invocations, musical magic, truename magic, pact magic...oh, wait...

2. Have the inhabitants of the game world reflect an attitude. IF the players are roleplaying, they will naturally reflect the attitudes of the people in the setting. There was a great comment in one of the 2e books that went something like this...

"Make your mundanes mundane. If all of the peasants in the world treat the fantastical as everyday, your players become much less important. Consider the following:

'Dang dragon's in the back yard again Ma! Go call us an adventurer? Do it meself? Listen woman, I'm busy sorting spell components for market, I can't be bothered!'

This naturally makes the PCs more important in the game world as well as preventing the players from treating magic as if it's humdrum."


Now, I admit that Eberron (for example) has done a great job of preserving the delicate balancing act between making the game's assumptions make sense and still keeping the adventurers important. This is, basically, a demographic trick that Keith pulled off. If members of the adventuring classes are rare, then they're more important - especially as they become higher level. But there will probably be enough of them that they have an impact on society at large - often an impact disproportionate to their numbers. First level characters are common enough that first-level spells should be common. That IS logical. But the question is, are 5th-level characters that common? If not, then spells like invisibility may not be EITHER.

I've thought about introducing a campaign-specific houserule that characters who retire from active adventuring convert levels to an NPC class at the rate of 1 level every x years. Basically, you don't get to retire as a 5th level wizard and STAY a 5th level wizard without working at it. The conversion rate would vary from campaign to campaign.

One "magic as commodity" problem that's unique to 3e is: wands. In 3e, a character can use a wand for any spell ON their spell list. That means that a ranger can carry (and use!) a wand of "cure light wounds" or any other spell from 1st-level on. They don't have to wait to be spellcasters to BE spellcasters. That's something new.

 

[Herobizkit]

One "magic as commodity" problem that's unique to 3e is: wands. In 3e, a character can use a wand for any spell ON their spell list. That means that a ranger can carry (and use!) a wand of "cure light wounds" or any other spell from 1st-level on. They don't have to wait to be spellcasters to BE spellcasters. That's something new.

And it's great... but it's not new.

Consider 2ed; back when wands had command words, certain classes could use certain wands without needing to be a spellcaster so long as they knew the command word. I recall mention of a command word option in the RAW somrwhere, but I digress...

Wands are meant to be spell batteries for spellcasters... and only spellcasters can make and use them (with exceptions; wait for it). The Fighter and Barbarian get the shaft in this respect (as IMO any Rogue worth their salt has Use Magic Device maxed out and at least a low-powered cloak of charisma), so if said Fighter or Barbarian happens across a wand of something-or-other... they can't use it, but someone else can. Why NOT sell it?

Granted, by today's standards, just because I find a gun or knife on the street doesn't mean I'm going to pawn it off to any regular Joe... but there ARE pawn shops that take licensed firearms.

I guess it's that I don't see wands as a "problem" so much as a resource. Players who want the magic items they want can and will go through the effort to create them themselves, find someone who has one they're not using, or go kick in some monster lairs until the DM gives them what they want.

 

[Odhanan]

Specifically about Ptolus and Eberron, I don't think their treatment of magic is going against any Sense of Wonder per se. That's a bit like saying Harry Potter's treatment of magic goes against the SoW one may feel when talking about Witches and Wizards. I don't think so: it's just a different approach.

 

[Particle_Man]

I think Iron Heroes does a good job at "chancy, dangerous" magic, which is different from the "magic is as controllable and common as electricity" model.

I think I will do a C&C game where, Rifts-like, the medieval humans have been transported to a world, as have other fantasy races from various worlds, say 100 years ago. And magic was gone from the land for millenia but now is beginning to return, because the dragons are waking up...

That might capture some of what I am after.

 

[SSquirrel]

Check out the 2e PHB.

Had to wait on a friend to drop me the XP charts from 2E as my book is safely hidden away where THAC0 will never hurt anyone again *grin* For those not paying attention, I showed that in 1E Wizards cost more XP to level, contradicting Hussar, who had said that they started taking off from eveeryone else at later levels, leveling quicker and the like.

Here's the 2E XP charts. Wizards are the most expensive as they always have been. Well, until the 3E unified XP chart.

Fighter: top: 20 XP needed: 3 million XP/level above: 250k
note: Warrior includes Fighter, Paladin, Ranger.
Paladins and rangers require 3,600,000 for level 20, and 200k for each level
beyond.

Priest (cleric): Top: 20 XP needed: 2,700,000 XP/level above: 225k
Priest (druid): Top: 20 XP needed: 2,000,000 XP/level above: 500k
note: druids are funky. Level 17 is reached through different methods by
heirophants (former Grand Druids who stepped down).

Rogue: Top: 20 XP needed: 2,200,000 XP/level above: 220,000

Wizard: top: 20 XP needed: 3,750,000 XP/level above: 375k

Unless by "top" you mean the plateau at which all level start costing the
same. In that case:

Fighter: Level 9 (250k total, all future levels cost 250k)
Paladin/Ranger: Level 9 (300k total, all future levels cost 300k)
Cleric: Level 9 (225k total, all future levels cost 225k)
Druid: Irregular as all get out.
Rogue: Level 11 (220k total, all future levels cost 220k)
Wizard: Level 11 (375k total, all future levels cost 375k)


Thanks for directing meto somewhere else you're wrong about the XP tables Hussar

 

[SSquirrel]

We could feed everyone on earth. We could house everyone. We could control our population and save our environment.

Please explain the difference.

I could explain the difference in the way I would prefer but it involves the verboten "politics" to be introduced to the board.

For one thing, there's a lot less WORK and hasle involved when you literally just snap your fingers and X, Y and Z are all done. The simple answer is that you are looking at things on a grand scale and I was talking of smaller scales. You could use clerics to generate lots of food and water and feed everyone. Send them around healing and curing everyone. Bunch of wizards casting Wall of stone 4 times, put a thatch roof on and soon a whole village has a house. Repeat a million or so times.

To control the population you either need to sterilize people en masse or else slaughter them after they're already breathing. Unless we come up with a macrobe that eats pollution (thanks Aberrant!) I don't see us saving the environment.

It is a far far simpler thing to have a fantasy kingdom, connected by crystal balls, a lightning rail, air ships etc than those of us in the real world getting our governments to solve the problems you list. On the local level, this is as simple as a mayor getting a wizard to make a decanter of endless water to irrigate the arid land near the city to make it into workable farm land. Getting contiunual light street lights made. Not earth shattering (or saving) events, just conveniences and general life improvements.

Thanks for keeping the arguement grounded in its original intentions and not distorting one side completely tho.


On a different note,

"True. But that doesn't mean that making magic items a valuable commodity should be hard-wired into the game. "

Because magic items ARE a valuable commodity, someone is going to want to make a dime off them somewhere. It's human nature. Dwarven nature surely You also bemoan that they made the ideas meet the rules and not the otehr way around. Well considering when they made 3E they wanted to put out the game they felt was most like what was being played by a large majority. This meant common house rules all became standard. Others just got listed as new options. I'm betting that, since ENWorld is rather atypical apparently for D&D gamers, many more people out there responded that they have an enjoy magic shops.

The people spoke. The designers listened. Now go houserule to your heart's content, but the game was made this way b/c that was the perception of what the gaming community WANTED.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Here's the 2E XP charts. Wizards are the most expensive as they always have been. Well, until the 3E unified XP chart.

Sort of. Check out the middle levels.

Fighter/Wizard 6th level: 32,000/40,000
Fighter/Wizard 7th level: 64,000/60,000
Fighter/Wizard 8th level: 125,000/90,000
Fighter/Wizard 9th level: 250,000/135,000
Fighter/Wizard 10th level: 500,000/250,000
Fighter/Wizard 11th level: 750,000/375,000
Fighter/Wizard 12th level: 1,000,000/750,000
Fighter/Wizard 13th level: 1,250,000/1,125,000
Fighter/Wizard 14th level: 1,500,000/1,500,000
Fighter/Wizard 15th level: 1,750,000/1,875,000

Which is weird. For a while the only ones better off than the wizard are druids and rogues.

 

[Hussar]

Thank you Third Wizard. I knew that I wasn't entirely wrong on this. Sorry, I wasn't entirely accurate, but, for the "sweet spot" xp, wizard's absolutely glisten.

I really should actually break out books before opening my mouth though.