D&D 3E/3.5 Here's What I Wish I Could Fix About 3E/4E

[Uder]

This is a historically significant thread; we’ve already learned that 4E is broken before it’s even been announced!

You're the third to point this out. I guess 1 post in 10 isn't a bad noise ratio. So now that the joke is out of the way, what do you think of the OP's point?

 

[JVisgaitis]

Until someone shows me some numbers, I have to work with the anecdotals, and that suggests to me that the current path of entry is a sort of apprenticeship model. Mostly, folks learn rpgs from someone who already plays them.

Sorry I disagree. Of course your saying mostly people learn from someone who already plays them, because people that play are the only metric you have to measure it against. Your not going to really get numbers, but I don't think your line of reasoning works. Regardless of what's on the shelves or not, Wizards is no slouch in market research and the fact that they are releasing a new intro kit is good enough for me to think that something like an intro product is a valid entry point. When I started, I bought the game. I didn't have someone teach me.

 

[bytor4232]

The new player experience, as regards making the first character, as presented in the core rules on PHB p. 4-5. I'm talking about complete newbie material, a newcomer being invited to RPGs for the very first time.

The number of decisions to make at 1st level should be very small.

D&D should be easy to get into, easy to make the first character, like in OD&D: pick race, class, equipment, and you're done. Character customization is a good thing (skills, feats, more spells, domains, etc.) but the problem is it's front-loaded at 1st level for the new player.

Ideally, it should be the other way around: very few choices to be made at 1st level; more and more options opening up, as rules-mastery grows with the higher-level character. If you want a wide-open campaign for expert players, have it start at a higher level. But the way it stands now, the greatest number of decisions (ability placement, skill points to spend, feats to pick, spells to select, etc.) all occur at 1st level, where it is a barrier-to-entry to the complete newbie trying to enter the system.

That's the #1 thing I'd like to see fixed in the d20 System version of D&D.

Well, if you actually own a PHB, there are starting packages with each class. That kinda solves the problem of people having a hard time deciding, when they really just want to play a ranger, or wizard, etc. When I first got into the game I wanted to play a Ranger, you know Strider and all that. I simply took the starting package, and I was good to go.

 

[Staffan]

Maybe we should just skip all this nonsense and go straight to 5e, then?

Is that you, Al Lowe?

 

[whydirt]

Well, if you actually own a PHB, there are starting packages with each class. That kinda solves the problem of people having a hard time deciding, when they really just want to play a ranger, or wizard, etc. When I first got into the game I wanted to play a Ranger, you know Strider and all that. I simply took the starting package, and I was good to go.

I agree with a previous poster who said that the starting packages should be presented in a way that makes them stand out a bit more than in the current PHB.

 

[DM-Rocco]

The new player experience, as regards making the first character, as presented in the core rules on PHB p. 4-5. I'm talking about complete newbie material, a newcomer being invited to RPGs for the very first time.

The number of decisions to make at 1st level should be very small.

D&D should be easy to get into, easy to make the first character, like in OD&D: pick race, class, equipment, and you're done. Character customization is a good thing (skills, feats, more spells, domains, etc.) but the problem is it's front-loaded at 1st level for the new player.

Ideally, it should be the other way around: very few choices to be made at 1st level; more and more options opening up, as rules-mastery grows with the higher-level character. If you want a wide-open campaign for expert players, have it start at a higher level. But the way it stands now, the greatest number of decisions (ability placement, skill points to spend, feats to pick, spells to select, etc.) all occur at 1st level, where it is a barrier-to-entry to the complete newbie trying to enter the system.

That's the #1 thing I'd like to see fixed in the d20 System version of D&D.

I understand what you are saying.

I stopped playing during the whole "fun purging" of second edition and was forced by friends to check out 3.0.

I both love and hate the new editions. Even if you just limit yourself to the three core books, it is very hard and time consuming to make a character. I love the idea of feats, but there are over 10,000 feats to chose from if you take them from every source. Skills are nice, but you are a much weaker rogue in some respects cause in order to cover all the things you could do as a rogue in 1st edition, you need like 14 skill points a level, and that just covers everything you had in the older editions, like move silently and stuff.

Now, a friend of mine just started a game, I just got done making a first level character. He wanted to give us options so he opened the character creation process to all WOTC books.

Think about that. That is a lot of books. Tons of feats, waaaaay too many feats. It also opens tons of PrC classes. I felt obligated to post many different threads on ENWorld in the last few weeks just to make sure I didn't miss something. Specially cause there are a lot of choices that you can only make at first level.

I am seriously thinking of starting a AD&D game back up, just cause things are simple and the rules don't need thousands of pages of errata to play.