I Have A Problem With 3E

[Nightfall]

So a significant number of D&D characters you've seen have died from natural causes and old age?

I've seen exactly one die of natural causes.

Depends. Does rapid aging due to being stuck in the Deep Ethereal count?

 

[Nightfall]

And proof for me that it doesn't.

Getting a character to high levels, in ANY edition of D&D should be a thing of pride, not an everyday thing. Only the strong survive. Or wise. Or agile, etc.

Maybe but you'd think by the number of times people play the game, they'd accumulate more high level PCs. Lord knows that while mine ended up in the lower/mid, most of my friend's characters usually ended up in the graveyard, if not worse.

Lan,

I was under the assumption that just being dead wasn't enough. Unplayable characters do exist and therefore people don't play them.

Psion,

Did my explanation help any?

 

[Psion]

Psion,

Did my explanation help any?

I think I get what you are getting at: you fail more saves or other crucial rolls in campaigns where saves (or other important rolls) vs. deadly effects are common.

Which is not to say I think your reasoning is correct or that randomization vs. point buy has a particularly large bearing in this case. It's not like I see most players max out their "save stats" or do lots of level dips into classes that would maximize their saves if it would be a big cost to them, which would have a bigger bearing.

 

[Nightfall]

Psion,

That's all I'm asking for, understanding. Acceptance is something else and I doubt I'll ever get that from everyone anyway. Thanks Psion.

 

[RFisher]

Silly? Try swinging a baseball bat one handed, then swing it with two. Or an axe. Or a stick.

IME, using both hands improves accuracy much more than damage. But then, accuracy & damage have never been as well separated in D&D even though they appear to be. (& arguably they should be more tightly coupled.)

Well, you can't lose a level spending XP on magic items. You can go down to the base for your current level, but no further. So you don't have to worry about that

I hated that rule. "Sorry, I've just become a better wizard so I can't make magic items right now. I have to do some more adventuring first. I could have done it last week, when I was a worse wizard."

I've always allowed deficit spending. You don't actually lose a level when your XP drops low enough. Although, I limited it to only one level's worth, which always provided enough overhead that the limit didn't come up yet discouraged outright abuse.

 

[Nail]

Random rolling limits the opportunity to min-max. Sure, you can put your lowest score in charisma. But you can't pull even more points out of your lowest score to pile on your strength because you don't think this DM will make it important.

Sure. That's pretty close to a truism. Point-buy allows the player to make some additional decisions about his/her PC. Psuedo-random ability generation takes that choice away.

In my book, taking away choice in a game can be a Bad Thing(tm). Clearly, YMMV.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

IME, using both hands improves accuracy much more than damage. But then, accuracy & damage have never been as well separated in D&D even though they appear to be. (& arguably they should be more tightly coupled.)

That just doesn't make sense. By that logic, Pete Gray could have been a power hitter and hit 40 homeruns a year, yet maybe strike out a bit more. Two hands increases the muscle used, which increases damage.

 

[Psion]

In my book, taking away choice in a game can be a Bad Thing(tm).

In my book, player choice is only one of many factors to be considered when it comes to what makes for a good game. For every one "unique and interesting character that would have not likely come about under a system with random ability scores", I see ten "formula characters."

And my experience is, further, that the good players who would have been making interesting and unique characters have enough cleverness to work with the random rolls.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Has anyone else noticed that the OP has not posted any further in this thread?

I will admit to disagreeing with many of his points, and have house ruled others. The single exception is in regards to metamagic feats, of which I can only remember two PCs taking*, too much cost, too little pay off.

The Auld Grump
*Actually this is a bit of a lie, in my home brew campaign there was a great deal of war, and several metamagic feats are worth taking for mass battles. Aside from that campaign, I have seen only Silent Spell and Quickened Spell taken by PCs. NPCs on the other hand....

 

[Thurbane]

A possible solution for those who don't like the concept of spending XP to manufacture magic items: how about some kind of "Mana Point" system, that works similarly to the Action Point system, but the points can only be spent on manufacturing items?

I'd be surprised if something similar hadn't been suggested before, but it's just a stray thought...