I like 3E, but I miss...

[FrankTrollman]

Which sounds more like a campaign setting than houserules. I played 3E with four house rules. I play 3.5 with none. [shrug]

Do you allow people to use Shapechange to transform themselves into Balors and drop Vorpal Swords on the ground and then Shapechange into different Balors, dropping another Vorpal Sword, and so on, creating hundreds of thousands of gold pieces for the purposes of magic item creation in minutes?

If not - you are using Houserules.

Do you allow player characters to create and control Shadows, who in turn run around killing squirrels in the forest making more shadows under their control until they have an army of hundreds of thousands of incorporeal slaves?

If not - you are using Houserules.

Do you allow player characters to Polymorph themselves into Badgers and then use Limited Wish to Awaken themselves gaining 2 hit dice and a stackable unnamed bonus to Charisma at the cost of 300 XP each time with no upper limit?

If not - you are using Houserules.

Do you allow players to use Planar Binding to capture Efreeti and then force them to use their Wish Granting ability to create Epic Magical Items now that Wish has no upper limit on how powerful of a magical item it can create?

If not - you are playing Houserules.

Everyone plays with Houserules. In every edition. All the time. Without exception. Whether you notice the house rules you are using Houserules or not is a separate - and irrelevent - discussion.

Every time you've ever said "that's dumb, they obviously mean...." you are creating a House Rule. That you haven't felt the need to write them down in your game simply means that other people from different games will be more confused when they attempt to join your group.

-Frank

 

[MerricB]

I miss Tracy Hickman writing the coolest adventures I've ever seen.

I miss elves that looked like elves, not like mutants. (I detest the look of 3E elves, with the exception of the one picture of elven chainmail in the 3.5E DMG).

Apart from that - not much.

I *really* don't miss 1E Initiative.

Cheers!

 

[WizarDru]

Do you allow people to use Shapechange to transform themselves into Balors and drop Vorpal Swords on the ground and then Shapechange into different Balors, dropping another Vorpal Sword, and so on, creating hundreds of thousands of gold pieces for the purposes of magic item creation in minutes?

If not - you are using Houserules.

I'm missing where you got that from, frankly. Even the unerattaed version of the spell doesn't indicate that you get it's equipment. Trying to use sophistry to imply that since it says you gain the Balor's attacks that you get it's magical equipment is more than a little bit of a stetch. I'd say you're the one using the house-rules, actually. The same applies to the other things you've mentioned. Given that the ShadowDancer entry specifically mentions how many shadows she can have, you're the one house-ruling, again.

And if WotC came and said these were valid strategies, I'd allow them..and the consequences such actions would engender in-game. If you think that the Djinni princes would tolerate such behavior, you're welcome to their wrath when it descends upon you. How many Djinn can you control at one time? Of course, it helps that I don't have players who are jerks.

 

[Endur]

Do you allow people to use Shapechange to transform themselves into Balors and drop Vorpal Swords on the ground and then Shapechange into different Balors, dropping another Vorpal Sword, and so on, creating hundreds of thousands of gold pieces for the purposes of magic item creation in minutes?

Nowhere in the rules does it say that shapechanged creatures get equipment or that the equipment doesn't go away when they change shape. No house rule necessary.

Do you allow player characters to create and control Shadows, who in turn run around killing squirrels in the forest making more shadows under their control until they have an army of hundreds of thousands of incorporeal slaves?

Nowhere in the rules does it say that one shadow can control a hundred thousand shadows. Besides, that's why the Sun domain was invented.

Do you allow player characters to Polymorph themselves into Badgers and then use Limited Wish to Awaken themselves gaining 2 hit dice and a stackable unnamed bonus to Charisma at the cost of 300 XP each time with no upper limit?

Nowhere in the rules does it say that a player can awaken himself.

Do you allow players to use Planar Binding to capture Efreeti and then force them to use their Wish Granting ability to create Epic Magical Items now that Wish has no upper limit on how powerful of a magical item it can create?

Wish does have an upper limit on creating magic items. You have to pay double the XP cost plus 5000 xp. So, if your character has saved up 25,000 experience points, he is able to use 10,000 experience points to create a magic item. I don't see that as an issue. If a player doesn't have access to 9th level spells, but he does have planar binding, I don't have a problem with him summoning up the Efreet and following the persuasion process to offer the Efreet 25k exp for wishing up a magic item worth 10k exp.

Your overall point is valid, We always interpret the rules. But a house rule is something else. It is a specific formulation, typically in writing, that this is how you will interpret a rule, or it is a specific formulation changing a rule in the book.

House rules aren't necessary to deal with any of the points you brought up.

 

[Endur]

We never bothered with the Strength spell. It had an 18 str maximum and most of our fighters had 18 strength, or they had higher strength from girdles.

Nor did we ever use enlarge. My recollection of AD&D 1e enlarge was that it didn't increase damage at all.

We didn't use stoneskin because our wizards preferred fireballs and magic missiles and lightning bolts.

When we had a Druid, Protection from Fire and Protection from Lightning were interesting, but they were much more valuable for the Druid himself, then they were for other characters.

Likewise, my recollection is that barkskin didn't stack with armor, and all the fighter types were wearing plate.

Strength, Enlarge, Stoneskin, Permanency from the Magic-user.
Goodberry, Barkskin, Protection from Fire and Lightning from the Druid.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Nowhere in the rules does it say that shapechanged creatures get equipment or that the equipment doesn't go away when they change shape. No house rule necessary.

The Balor's sword is a [Su] ability, not equipment, and Shapechange grants [Su] abilities.

However, the ability is phrased that "Every Balor carries a vorpal sword", so it actually requires a house rule to allow him to drop it. If the ability is active, he "carries a vorpal sword", so he can't drop it. If the ability is suppressed, he's no longer carrying a vorpal sword, so there's nothing to drop.

Nowhere in the rules does it say that one shadow can control a hundred thousand shadows.

Create Spawn (Su): Any humanoid reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer within 1d4 rounds.

Now, since squirrels aren't humanoids, Frank's example needs work. But the shadow can rampage through the kobold warrens, creating dozens of spawn under its control, who produce hundreds of spawn under their control, who produce thousands of spawn... and since the first shadow is under your control, the chain of command works its way back to you. You just need to make sure you order your shadow to order all its spawn to obey and not harm you, and to order them to pass that order down the chain...

Nowhere in the rules does it say that a player can awaken himself.

Wildshape, Polymorph, and Shapechange in 3.5 all grant the type of the form. A Druid who wildshapes into an animal is an Animal, and Awaken targets any animal.

Nowhere in the rules does it say an animal who can cast Awaken cannot cast it on himself.

Wish does have an upper limit on creating magic items. You have to pay double the XP cost plus 5000 xp.

... unless you have Wish as a Spell-like Ability... like an Efreet, say.

Spell-Like: Spell-like abilities are magical and work just like spells (though they are not spells and so have no verbal, somatic, material, focus, or XP components).

-Hyp.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

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 have great respect for your opinion, Woodelf. I really do. So with hesitation I pronouce that this argument has always struck me as the Dumbest Thing Ever Said About D&D. This idea has always been the most bizarre defense of the rabid D&D faction when arguing (pointlessly) about the relative merits of game system on Usenet.

In my mind it boils down to arguing: "AD&D 1e/2e has such hopelessly bad mechanics that nothing I do will noticeably improve or damage the system. Therefore D&D is an easer system to customize."

By the standards of 3e, every single customizable of 1e/2e is an utter failure, because the end result is a hopelessly unbalanced system. (No big surprise if that is what you started out with.)

For those of you who care not about play balance, it is theorectically possible that 3e is not an improvement for your style of play over 1e/2e. But then it becomes impossible to logically argue "one simple change echoes all over the place" in 3e. The echoes are all irrelevant -- they are mere play balance issues.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Well said, jasamcarl.

 

[Endur]

Now, since squirrels aren't humanoids, Frank's example needs work. But the shadow can rampage through the kobold warrens, creating dozens of spawn under its control, who produce hundreds of spawn under their control, who produce thousands of spawn... and since the first shadow is under your control, the chain of command works its way back to you. You just need to make sure you order your shadow to order all its spawn to obey and not harm you, and to order them to pass that order down the chain...

Sorry, that won't work.

Did you ever play the communications game in school where the teacher has written a sentence on a 3 x 5 card, he shows the card to the first student, the student then whispers the sentence to the second student and the whispering goes all around the classroom until the last student stands up and says what the message is.

By the time you go through several levels, your orders will be all confused.

Especially since I don't think Shadows can talk.

So you have a boss shadow mentally commanding another shadow. Boss Shadow has no way to communicate directly to Shadow 4th generation.

This is all GM interpretation stuff. Nice try.

Wildshape, Polymorph, and Shapechange in 3.5 all grant the type of the form. A Druid who wildshapes into an animal is an Animal, and Awaken targets any animal.

Nowhere in the rules does it say an animal who can cast Awaken cannot cast it on himself.

First sentence of the spell. "You awaken a tree or animal to humanlike sentience." If you already have humanlike sentience, then obviously the spell won't do anything.

... unless you have Wish as a Spell-like Ability... like an Efreet, say.

Spell-Like: Spell-like abilities are magical and work just like spells (though they are not spells and so have no verbal, somatic, material, focus, or XP components).

Except that Wish says Exp Cost, not Exp component. Any port in a storm, I always say.

 

[Pants]

The Balor's sword is a [Su] ability, not equipment, and Shapechange grants [Su] abilities.

However, the ability is phrased that "Every Balor carries a vorpal sword", so it actually requires a house rule to allow him to drop it. If the ability is active, he "carries a vorpal sword", so he can't drop it. If the ability is suppressed, he's no longer carrying a vorpal sword, so there's nothing to drop.[/b]

Nowhere does it say in the Shapechange spell that you keep Su abilities when the spell ends or when you Shapechange to something else, so the sword disappears when you change back.

Create Spawn (Su): Any humanoid reduced to Strength 0 by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer within 1d4 rounds.

Now, since squirrels aren't humanoids, Frank's example needs work. But the shadow can rampage through the kobold warrens, creating dozens of spawn under its control, who produce hundreds of spawn under their control, who produce thousands of spawn... and since the first shadow is under your control, the chain of command works its way back to you. You just need to make sure you order your shadow to order all its spawn to obey and not harm you, and to order them to pass that order down the chain...

Yeah, but if your shadow dies, then you have an army of shadows to deal with.

Wildshape, Polymorph, and Shapechange in 3.5 all grant the type of the form. A Druid who wildshapes into an animal is an Animal, and Awaken targets any animal.

Nowhere in the rules does it say an animal who can cast Awaken cannot cast it on himself.

From the SRD: You awaken a tree or animal to humanlike sentience.
If you already have humanlike sentience, then you just wasted 250 xp.