If there was one thing about 3rdE that you could change, what would it be?

[Wolvorine]

I am curious, ColonelH, why you think that is so important. Personally, I see no problem with the system as it stands - it encourages people who want to have ready access to rechargeable items to take the appropriate feat(s). If wands and staves could be recharged the 'spell-casting' route as they were in 2e, I fear that would undermine a significant element of the Item Creation system. Just my opinion, of course.

Well for one thing, let's take the Staff of Magius as our example magic item. Now let's say for arguement's sake that Magius created this staff. Then he used it himself up until the point when he died. Years go by, some more years go by, and eventually Raistlin Majere gets the staff. Sadly, by this time there is only 1 charge left in it, and this legendary staff of legend cannot be re-charged. One afternoon our intrepid mage gets sick of toting around this dweomerless cane, and leaves it beside a tavern chair, never thinking of it again. We've now lost a signature item in a campaign world's history, because it can't be re-charged and thus has a finite useful lifespan. It's a simplification, but I think it illustrates the idea at least.

 

[ashockney]

Official 3E Updates

Errata and Sage Advice is for the birds.

If wizards won't do it, someone else should, and I think there would be a good market out there for it.

Download (only) 1/month, $3 - $10 price range. Official changes, updates, and clarifications. These should be official. Gospel.

NOT the opinion of one person, who checked it with...
NOT the espousing of various people on messageboards...

These should be carefully researched rules (using and detailing the statistical modeling refered to by Monte, Bruce, and Ryan), with detailed explanations of how the rule was "orginally" developed, why it was changed, and how the change impacts the rest of the new "official" rules. These official updates should be playtested (in triplicate or more) and developed, written, and re-written to perfection.

I would expect to see things like many of the above "suggested" changes addressed in this ongoing document. In addition, pre-packaged for your enjoyment, here's your 4th edition. Guess what, we'll all still going to line up to buy it, because...we're all more than willing to spend the $30 to get 5 years+ of official "errata" tweaks, and updates, all in one place. For that matter, go all the way to what I'd really love to see, which is offer the PH and DMG in "downloadable format" for $60, and let the updates come electronically, and "patch" my old edition, with an auto-print option built right into the patch that knows to print only the pages that got updated.

I'd even love to see publishers go beyond "core rulebooks" and add additional official material that comes from the OGL material published by themselves or other d20 publishers. Variant rules, variant magic systems, variant classes, prestige classes...all polished to pefection.

 

[RobNJ]

Playtesting It's not that the splat books (heck, even the core books) don't have a lot of good ideas, it's just a shame to see spells like Polymorph get constantly reworded, and spells like Harm be constantly debated. Then there is CR playtesting, weapon bonus pricing. etc, etc. It all really comes down to thoroughly playtesting the product.

Just because people complain a lot about a given spell, ability, etc., doesn't mean it's broken. It just means people need things to complain about. This is the Internet, after all. If every suggestion you make here was re-edited, there'd still be complaints, some of them being that the changes you think are appropriate, aren't.

 

[Humanophile]

While I'm tempted to say less emphasis on flavor mechanics, I have to say I'd like it a lot if WOTC gave a clearer idea what different skill ranks, DC's, levels and the like meant for a "basic" campaign. That'd help gauge how skilled someone should be to fit their role, and discourage certain modes of thinking that you need to have a skill maxed out/need an 18+ stat in order to be "good at it". Plus, it'd be nice for those of us who like making real-world analogues.

I would like to see a three-class system (fighting guy, skill guy, and magic guy), with high degrees of flexibility for each and PrC-like systems for people who prefer to focus for a little more power, as well as the ability to "buy" a skill or feat with raw XP if the need arises. (One of the things that irks me about 3e's skill system is that your character can't get any better at noncombat skills over downtime, and proficiencies were even worse. You could spend years with a primitive tribe your character just discovered, and unless you went up a level, you wouldn't be able to actually learn their language, religion, the area around them, or anything like that.) But those, as well as smoothing out little problem spells and the like, will have to wait for 4e. The current system works well enough for me without having to re-do it all from the ground up.

And finally, I'd like to see more "behind the curtain" stuff, but that belongs in its own book, rather than spread over everything else. I just hope WOTC gets to it sooner rather than later (or never), as if they wait too long, memories will have faded and we'll miss out on some of the really tricky bits and hard choices they made hammering things out.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I agree with Gensys and Zaruthustran. The "core" classes could be whittled back down to the basic four, and the rest could be feat chains or prestige classes.


Perhaps not a major issue, but I have a big pet peeve with respect to the relationship between PCs and arcane/mundane threats. In a nutshell, fighters are weak versus mundane threats while wizards are weak against magical threats.

Example 1: How do you kill a powerful demon/devil? Whittle down with a +n weapon. Spells don't work because of numerous immunities and SR.

Example 2: How do destroy an army? Smash it with spells.

The net effect is that you need wizards against powerful non-magical threats and fighters against powerful magical threats. It is not gamebreaking because it encourages teamwork but it still feels completely wrong to me. It is like sending Aragorn to fight the Balrog and crowning Gandalf king of Gondor; makes sense for purely practical reasons but it is thematically incongruous.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Get rid of alignment. It is extremely lame. You can even have a struggle against good and evil without a lamebrained, hamfisted mechanic like alignment. Witness that no other new d20 ruleset has kept alignment. This isn't necessarily a ploy to make the morality of D&D grayer, it's just that the alignment system does a very poor job of describing motivation, is usually taken as a proscriptive rather than a descriptive mechanic, and is too clumsy to describe behavior accurately.

I think this is more a problem of lamebrained, hamfisted players and DMs, not the mechanics.

 

[Deadguy]

Well for one thing, let's take the Staff of Magius as our example magic item. Now let's say for arguement's sake that Magius created this staff. Then he used it himself up until the point when he died. Years go by, some more years go by, and eventually Raistlin Majere gets the staff. Sadly, by this time there is only 1 charge left in it, and this legendary staff of legend cannot be re-charged. One afternoon our intrepid mage gets sick of toting around this dweomerless cane, and leaves it beside a tavern chair, never thinking of it again. We've now lost a signature item in a campaign world's history, because it can't be re-charged and thus has a finite useful lifespan. It's a simplification, but I think it illustrates the idea at least.

I suppose that I can accept somethign like this as a consequence of the third edition. In 3e, staves and wands are throwaway items, produced to amplify the power of its creator, or a person who commissions it. That's how they've been structured.

However, it's important not to get caught up in names. Just because something is called a Staff, it doesn't have to be made using the Craft Staff feat. The form matters less than the purpose. If it is important that an item have a long lifespan (and signature items do), then make them as Wondrous Items or Rods. Perhaps the Staff of Magius can be created as a Rod, with a certain number of uses per day, or week, or month.

I suppose that is one thing I would like in version 4 (or ideally in 3.1), is a reworked Item Creation system that got away from the absolute form to ensorcelling 'Types' of items. Consider how the table runs in the DMG (or T&B), describing the broad types of item produced (e.g. 50 charged items, etc.). That way, people would find it easier to look at what they want from an item, rather than just looking at its shape.

 

[RobNJ]

I think this is more a problem of lamebrained, hamfisted players and DMs, not the mechanics.

Perhaps I should've backed up my statement with specifics.

The problem with alignment is any single action cannot be placed on the axis reliably, and where things go is entirely up to individual opinion. Is selfishness evil or chaotic? Individuals may make up their minds individually about this. What about gluttony? Lust? Are these evil things?

The problem with alignment is that it wants to be two things at once.

On one hand, it's a rule. But rules need to be clear. Alignment is not clear at all. You cannot reliably define alignment and expect all 5+ people at the table to have the same idea of what is meant. So it fails as a rule, because it's fuzzy.

On the other hand, it's a role playing guide. But it's a role playing guide with all sorts of nasty proscriptiveness saddled onto it. It says that someone can't train as an assassin and be friends with a paladin, and there have been several books written about heroic assassins. It states that taking joy in the destruction of life is an absolutely evil act, but it is impossible to tell, while role playing, whether someone' who silent on the subject is taking joy from the killing they're doing.

Like I said, you can still do a story of good versus evil without the ill-defined, overly-relevent mechanic. Wheel of Time and Star Wars and Call of Chthulu do a pretty good job.

 

[incognito]

RobNJ: While I agree what people need somehitng to complain about, when a majority begin to recognize something that is causing a problem in their campaign (not just: Monks suck vs Monks rule), then it's something that needs to be addressed.

...and clearly, the rewording of a spell two times in two different books, followed by a rewording of the Druidic differences of Wild Shape vs Polymorph is indicative than someone was alseep at the switch.

I won't get into mages who are permanently poly'd Trolls, once they reach 7th level.

Is it your opinion that enough playtesting was done?

 

[Vuk]

The ranger. He was cool when i was 14 because, he could fight with two weapons and stuff. Now i think he should be renamed hunter or change. Out with the favored enemy and twf trip. Xchange fav. enemy with fav. terrain. (woodlands, underground, urban, desert, mountains, sea and swamp and so on.) it instead gives a bonus in that kind of terrain, when he is wearing light armor. the bonus would apply to hide,spot,listen,move-silently,wilderness lore and any thing u could possibly relate to the terrain. i am still looking for ways to make him diff in combat.

Example:3rd edition ranger as is:
So mr ranger u live in the forest. Rgr: Yup
So you must be suited to fighting in the forest? Rgr: Not really.
Why Not? Rgr: im good with 2 weapons and i really hate those goblins. Why do you hate the goblins? Rgr: Because!
Why can you fight with 2 weapons Rgrunno, cause i like, live in the forest!