D&D 3.x If 3.5 was so good...

[charlesatan]

Bear in mind that 3E has had years of supplements giving it "more options". 4E is just coming out fresh.

 

[DaveMage]

Let's be honest, though.

3e has many options, but relatively few viable options -- in the power-gaming sense. How many fighting styles does the effective Barbarian choose from? One.

You can play a Sorcerer with a "non-standard" spell list, and you can play a Barbarian who chooses a bunch of +2/+2 feats in place of Power Attack, Weapon Focus and Cleave, but you do so to your detriment, and reduce the survivability of your group.

Fewer possible options, but more viable options, sounds like a net gain in options for my group.

Cheers, -- N

Other than relatively minor things like lack of gnomes, how do you see 4E reducing initial core options? Compared to the initial core 3E options, not the current complete list of 3E options?

I was being more basic than that - I was just referring to initial race/class options.

 

[mhensley]

1/ Safe bets don't make for big hits; and

2/ The problems with 3.5e are deep and fundamental.

I don't doubt either of these points. The thing is that D&D is already a big hit. They could easily play it safe and still make a lot of money. I think they're looking for more though. They want D&D to make Magic and Pokemon kind of money. They're targeting a new audience with this edition. And why not? Most of us here already have enough rpg books to last a lifetime. The serious money is with new players and that requires an easier and faster playing game. Fortunately, that's just what I was looking for too.

 

[Monkey Boy]

Other than relatively minor things like lack of gnomes, how do you see 4E reducing initial core options? Compared to the initial core 3E options, not the current complete list of 3E options?

A couple of things point to less options in 4E core:

* The page count for core books is down.
* New format will be magazine style. I expect this will also cut into rules / options in the PHB. Full pages of art are pretty but they come at the cost of rules and options.
* Emphasis on streamlining seems to support the less options more viable options discussion.

Page count, magazine format and streamlining seem to suggest a reasonable reduction to the word count which in turn I take to translate to less core options.

Personally I would be amazed if 4E offered as detailed PHB as 3.5E.

 

[Psion]

Especially considering this is from Mike 'the designer shouldn't tell you how to play' Mearls.

Again, sounds like a marketing decision.

I'm guessing 3e had a pretty harsh drop off in sales as it became obvious that supplements weren't adding much that people really wanted. So they carve away stuff that's a bit closer to the core and sell that off separately... they get more even sales.

But, as I disdain core only games as it is, and it appears the base game is even more whittled down in 4e, that's all the more reason to wait a few years before adopting 4e.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

A few weeks ago no one was talking about math being a problem. This discussion all came from a WOTC designer blog. I guess my point here is that while we might have felt that something was wonky we didn't mind. It didn't ruin our game and was not a fundamental problem. We didn't really notice it and we didn't post to message boards about it effecting our games.

Forgive the defunct equine pugilism, but you really should take a look over the "House Rules" forum over the last year. There's plenty of attempted fixes to problems such as bonus stacking, too-quick level progression, gamebreaker spells, and other darlings of D&D high-level play. The mere fact that DMs were thinking of ways to minimise the gaining of experience was an indication that the math in higher levels is seriously screwed up -- to the point that they didn't want to go there.

 

[wgreen]

Saying that 3e has "deep and fundamental" problems does not imply that it is unplayable, or that the problems are even all that significant, necessarily; it just means that the problems run throughout the system, to its very foundation. In other words, even if the problems are relatively minor, they can't be fixed by simple rules tweaks here and there.

I'm no game designer, so I won't say whether or not it's true that the problems are fundamental, but I thought I'd point out the above.

-Will

 

[KarinsDad]

All of these are minor problem. They do not spoil the game if the players and the DM use some grain of salt, otherwise we would have stopped playing or universally switched to house rules or another system. The majority of groups perhaps use some house rule, but there is no single problem which is house ruled by the majority.

Actually, I was not discussing the scope of those problems. Minor or major, they were examples of math problems.

However, there are some universal house rules. As an example, many groups house ruled that Dodge is just a +1 to AC instead of having to declare it against a given opponent.

This is not a math problem. This is a "pain in the butt to remember" problem that groups just do not want to deal with.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I'd hope that 4E would address the things that were introduced in 3E but turned out to be poor design choices, sometimes in ways that the designers hadn't foreseen.

Iterative attacks keep fighters viable at high levels, but slow down the game quite a bit, especially due to the variable math.
Skills are in general a great 3E addition, but do increase the time needed to stat out high-level multiclassed NPCs.
Two-handed weapons were improved SO much that they were just as dominant as the twin-longsword fighter was in 2E. There needs to be some sort of correction here.
Escalating ability scores (no "18 max, absolute" as in B/X or "25 max, absolute" as in 2E) were a 3E innovation.
An expanded selection of buff spells was new to 3E, and somewhat problematic -- contributes to the "nova" approach and the 9-9:15 adventuring day.
Variable-math feats (especially Power Attack) really slow down the game for some players -- either those who are bad at math or those who try to min-max the decision.
Stacking bonuses of varying types slow down the game and make the PCs vastly overpowered.
The concept of "monsters are built using the same rules as PCs" was a 3E innovation that I liked, but Mearls clearly doesn't like.

Now, while fixing the 3E bugs, I really wish they'd keep things that go further back and make the game feel to me like D&D.

Characters starting weak (but still a step above commoners) and -- if they survive -- growing in power. 1st-level PCs with more HP than an ogre don't feel right to me.
Wizards starting very weak but -- if they survive -- eventually becoming very powerful. That risk/reward has always appealed to me, and explains why wizards haven't taken over the world, but as a design principle the 4E team don't like it.
Real risk of PC death -- this is a campaign-specific thing, but different rulesets imply a different "default" lethality.
Paladins being lawful good, the epitome of heroism. Stripped of that iconic archetype, they're just a fighter/cleric.

And finally, they're addressing problems that I don't think are problems.

Bards are weak? Not in my experience, as I've said before.
Dead levels? What? Huh? BAB, saves, skills, and a feat aren't enough?
Desperate wizards resorting to staves or daggers is bad game design? I thought that was a feature, not a bug.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

A few weeks ago no one was talking about math being a problem.

This seems a lot like me expressing surprise to my wife that Britney Spears is a topic of conversation.

Truly, I'd be surprised if you could find more than 100 posts to my name on any Tabloid Gossip site.