I like 3E, but I miss...

[woodelf]

Actually, most people I knew who ran 1E/2E had under 5 pages of house rules, including me. 3E has so many assumptions built into the system, that if you want to do ANYTHING differently, you have to change large portions of the system since so much is interconnected. 3E assumes a very high magic level, combat-heavy game set in a dungeon- none of which appeal to me. My current 3E campaign has over 70 pages of houserules- including things like rituals, spellcasting rolls, alt hp system, new feats, spells, revised clerical domains more like spheres, etc. We have modified the system so it suits our needs, but it requires a lot of revision to do so.

Ditto. Outside of my group, every group i've ever met that played AD&D1/2 (and i at least met a lot of them when i was in college) had no houserules more extensive than which classes/races they were using, and which optional rules. IOW, just listing the options from the rulebooks (and maybe Dragon, for those that used some of the alternate classes published there). In fact, i lost a whole bunch of players precisely because of my houserules--not because they particularly disliked them, but because they just didn't want to deal with them, vice the book. They also didn't use a lot of the official rules i used (Tome of Magic, specialty priests, etc.)--they just wanted a simpler game, all-round.

Also, Gothmog said it better than i was: one of the advantages to the pastiche of unrelated rules in AD&D2 was that you could often change a subsystem without affecting anything else, so it made alterations easier in that way. In D&D3E, one simple change echoes all over the place, necessitating further changes to compensate (or carry through), and so on. And to varying degrees, depending on your opinion of the current degree of balance, and the desirable degree of balance. Frex, i'm currently in the midst of a fairly heated argument over the proposition (someone else's, just for the record) of switching touch attacks and/or light-weapon attacks to be Dex based by default.

 

[Greg K]

Here are the things that I can currently think of that I miss.

1) the artwork of Caldwell, Elmore and Easley.

2) specialty priests (2e)

3) The non-raging barbarian (especially David Howery's rewrite of the 1e Barbarian from Dragon Magazine)

4) Illusionists (and other specialists) having their own spell lists

5) The Complete Thief's Handbook kits and The Complete Druid's Handbook

6) characters starting with a limited number of weapon proficiencies

7) weapon groups from both the "Complete Fighter's Handbook" and "Combat & Tactics".

8) PO: Criticals where you had to hit by more than 5 to threaten a critical. Critical threats were actually based on the ability of the attacker.

9) Optional Magic Systems from PO: Spells and Magic.

10) Slower experience progression at mid to higher levels. I don't want to see the almost impossible to level at high levels found in 1e//2e, but the current version 3. versions allow leveling at too fast a rate for my tastes.

11)The feel of DM relevance. Monte Cook has said that one of the goal's of 3e was to remove the DM from the equation.

 

[jasamcarl]

Ditto. Outside of my group, every group i've ever met that played AD&D1/2 (and i at least met a lot of them when i was in college) had no houserules more extensive than which classes/races they were using, and which optional rules. IOW, just listing the options from the rulebooks (and maybe Dragon, for those that used some of the alternate classes published there). In fact, i lost a whole bunch of players precisely because of my houserules--not because they particularly disliked them, but because they just didn't want to deal with them, vice the book. They also didn't use a lot of the official rules i used (Tome of Magic, specialty priests, etc.)--they just wanted a simpler game, all-round.

Also, Gothmog said it better than i was: one of the advantages to the pastiche of unrelated rules in AD&D2 was that you could often change a subsystem without affecting anything else, so it made alterations easier in that way. In D&D3E, one simple change echoes all over the place, necessitating further changes to compensate (or carry through), and so on. And to varying degrees, depending on your opinion of the current degree of balance, and the desirable degree of balance. Frex, i'm currently in the midst of a fairly heated argument over the proposition (someone else's, just for the record) of switching touch attacks and/or light-weapon attacks to be Dex based by default.

I just have to note how dumb an argument this is. The reason that 3e is so tightly integrated is because it actually has a balance point. You can alter the rules just as easily as in earlier editions, but the problem many seem to have is that they miss the balance when they do so. Earlier editions, on the other hand, did not have a mainline balance and so making houserules did not come at a cost. But that was because the rules as written had no value to begin with. Many who wish to houserule 3e just don't like to be faced with the fact that their rules lack value, often adding needless complexity or butchering the options presented by the game as written, so they crow about 'tight integration' and unified mechanics. Some people just like to turn the virtue of a transparent design intent into a vice, because they can't do better....

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

3E assumes a very high magic level, combat-heavy game set in a dungeon- none of which appeal to me.

Played Midnight?

 

[Quasqueton]

Actually, most people I knew who ran 1E/2E had under 5 pages of house rules, including me. 3E has so many assumptions built into the system, that if you want to do ANYTHING differently, you have to change large portions of the system since so much is interconnected. 3E assumes a very high magic level, combat-heavy game set in a dungeon- none of which appeal to me. My current 3E campaign has over 70 pages of houserules- including things like rituals, spellcasting rolls, alt hp system, new feats, spells, revised clerical domains more like spheres, etc. We have modified the system so it suits our needs, but it requires a lot of revision to do so.

"rituals, spellcasting rolls, alt hp system, new feats, spells, revised clerical domains more like spheres, etc."

These would be house rules in AD&D too. So, do you mean to say that your AD&D house rules were 75 pages long? 70 for the flavor, 5 for the mechanics?

Quasqueton

 

[Hardhead]

...the holisticity of AD&D 2E.

Back in the previous edition, the campaign worlds were all interconnected, and this led to what I felt was a very rich amount of diversification through the various campaign models cross-pollinating.

Khelben Arunsun the Younger lives in Greyhawk. A section of Sigil is named New Tyr by gladiators from Athas. Baba Yaga has a living wall she got from Ravenloft. Teldin Moore visited Astinus of Palanthas to learn more about spelljamming. An awnsheigh named The Blowfish lives on Gehenna. All these things added great color to the multiverse TSR developed because it reinforced the fact that the characters lived in a huge existence that was not composed of isolated little worlds.

I found it highly ironic that when WotC stepped in, they revolutionized the mechanics of the game to a wonderful new level, and simultaneously destroyed this particular storytelling aspect that I loved. I feel, contrary to what is now the popular opinion, that AD&D 2E had not gotten to the point where you needed a large number of books to play the game due to them all referencing each other. Even in world-specific campaigns that just didn't ring true to me. (Although it was true that TSR was killing themselves by dividing their own market with different supported worlds simultaneously.)

On that note, I feel WotC has gone too far in the other direction. It can be just as bad to go out of your way to make sure none of the books borrow from each other, also. Just look at the mess that happens when you compare Deities & Demigods with the Epic Level Handbook. And I won't even go into the whole part of them giving the Realms some new cosmology based on a tree, just so you wouldn't feel any pressure to buy Manual of the Planes.

I agree one thousand percent.

I also liked the Realms a lot better in 2e. The Dwarves and Elves (especially the Dwarves) felt like tragic races on the decline. I have no idea why WotC changed it, unless it was just to make them less interesting. Admitedly, both were somewhat Tolkien-ish (ESPECIALLY the elves sailing into the west), but D&D borrows virtually everything from some other source, and you can't borrow from better than Tolkien!

Also, the dwarves "fix" was mind-bogglingly inconsistent. 2e took place 9 years after the Time of Troubles. 3e is only one or two years after *that*. Yet the 3e box talks about the Thundering and increase in dwarven birth rates as if it happened 50 years ago (dwarves born during that time are coming to maturity now). That really irks me.

I also agree that the number of elven subraces has gotten ridiculous. I especially hate the wood elves. Elves should not be a better melee fighter race than half-orcs and dwarves! Star Elves make excellent sorcerers. Sun Elves are great Wizards. Once we get a +WIS elf, we'll have one for every class!

And I LOVED Planescape. I really wish they'd bring that setting back.

 

[fuindordm]

Psionics

Hypothesis: because they don't have a destinctively "this is psychic powers" feel to them. I know that's why i don't like them. The purely mental stuff should be lower levels (as in, 3 or so) than the magical equivalent, and able to do stuff that magic has real trouble doing. The physical-world stuff (i.e., the whole metacreation discipline) should be hard-to-impossible. If they're leveled the same as spells, i'd expect it to take a 3rd level psionic power just to fling a small stone, and a 6th level psionic power to create something--IOW, lagging 4 or more levels behind the magical equivalent. Instead, they can do most of the same stuff at roughly the same level, and only the flavor is really different. Plus, for me, the displays are both a game-breaker and a genre-breaker. I want psychic powers to be like Scanners or Babylon 5 or Blake's 7--they're mental, dammit, and if the power itself doesn't have a physical effect, nobody should know they're happening.

Yeah, I think you're right. There should have been fewer psi powers overall, but each more versatile than a spell could be.
The list of powers given looks just like a spell list, and is too finely balanced against the wizard spell list.

The end result is that psions just don't feel very psychic.

Oh--that and the power crystals. Must all classes have a familiar these days?

And the snot, as mercule so rightly pointed out.

--Ben

 

[Endur]

I miss the 1e notion that combat wasn't about the buff spells.

In 1e, I don't ever remember asking a wizard or a CLERIC for a buff spell before combat.

I remember clerics healing people and turning undead. I remember clerics casting other spells, maybe the occassional protection from evil to protect against summoned creatures, but that was about it.

At high level, a fighter might have a ring of spell storing with spells in it, but except for the real cheesy fighter with a Tenser's Transmutation in the ring, it usually was spells like Teleport, Heal, and Word of Recall in the Ring of Spell Storing.

Now, the bad part about 1e, was that it was all about the magic items. The fighter with magic armor and a magic sword walked all over the fighter with neither. And that hasn't changed in 3e.

 

[Henry]

In 1e, I don't ever remember asking a wizard or a CLERIC for a buff spell before combat.

Strength, Enlarge, Stoneskin, Permanency from the Magic-user.

Goodberry, Barkskin, Protection from Fire and Lightning from the Druid.

There were TONS of buffs, in some cases (like enlarge) MUCH more powerful in 1e/2e than today. Ask a 15th level mage to cast a 1st level spell on the toughest fighter in the group, and watch the bodies of your enemies fly!!! I did it all the time, and the DM actually started planning the combats expecting us to throw that much forethought into our combats.

I remember clerics healing people and turning undead. I remember clerics casting other spells, maybe the occassional protection from evil to protect against summoned creatures, but that was about it.

I will agree, clerics have some God-awful powers now in the offensive area, and I dislike them in certain circumstances having access to Power words, Bigby's hands, lightning bolts, etc.

Now, the bad part about 1e, was that it was all about the magic items. The fighter with magic armor and a magic sword walked all over the fighter with neither. And that hasn't changed in 3e.

Not nearly as true in my experience, thanks to the levelling of the playing field with feats. All things being equal, a fighter with magic will still probably win over the non-magicked fighter, but nowhere near as sure a bet as first edition, where ability-wise, a fighter was a fighter was a fighter. To me, the neat part is reducing the amount of magic in a game, and watching the players still have tons of options and fun things to do, without missing the magic quite that much!

 

[Henry]

As an aside, I have a personal rant on the HORRIBLE term, "buff spells",which has only seen serious use in the past five years or so (thanks, Everquest, for NOTHIN'!!!!) I hate that term, because it sounds like the characters are preparing spells to polish their cars...