Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 820788" data-attributes="member: 317">I'd have to agree that the power level of D&D does keep creeping up.  As to whether this is a bad or good thing depends on your style of play.  Personally, I don't care for high-powered play much, but to each his own.Having said that, the core system of 3E is much better than 1E or 2E.  The way skills and feats are handled are much more realistic.  Likewise, BAB and saves in 3E are much easier to work with than the old THAC0 and saves of 1E and 2E.  The classes are more balanced against each other, and no race is overwhelmingly more powerful than the others now (elves anyone?).  The new multiclassing rules are great, and encourage character development (as long as the DM keeps an eye out for munchkins).What is a problem to some people at least is the assumption in the core rules that every game is going to be high-powered.  Yeah, I know- everyone can make their own house rules (which I do), but some people take the books as gospel and balk when house rules are introduced.  In particular, the main problems are:1) Very fast leveling rate- It is assumed that PCs level every 13 or so encounters assuming equal party level CR encounters by the books.  I feel that such fast progression doesn't give the characters adequate time to develop and explore their abilities before gaining a new level.  In a sense, 3E is very video-gamish- its all about the power-ups.2) Reliance on magic items at higher levels.  Although all versions of D&D have had this flaw, its especially bad in 3E.  It is assumed that PCs need certain levels of magic in order to survive and advance in 3E.  While its not hard to restrict magic items, it is annoying that the whole CR/XP/magic item system is so interlinked that if you want to change one part of that equation, you have the throw out the other aspects as well.  What I ended up doing was giving story awards for XP, and not worrying about XP per kill or CR.3) Uncapped character abilities at high levels.  In 1E and 2E, after 10-12th level, character advancement and capabilities slowed down.  I think A'koss is right here, after 10th level, the game needs to reign in the classes somewhat and restrict power, otherwise its an ever-increasing power escalation of PC vs NPC power.  Hit points, saves, and AC become so disparate at higher levels for PCs in the same party that the DM has to be much more careful what he thows at the PCs, or some of the PCs will be useless.  For example, fighters need monsters with high HP and AC to be challenged, but then the other classes can't hit them, or substantially contribute to a combat.  On the other hand, creatures with high DR are pretty much immune to the fighters, and require spellcasters to deal with.  And realistically, how many level 12+ characters and/or monsters are there in a world to throw against the PCs?  It becomes increasingly hard to justify increasingly powerful opponents in the world.Not to mention the whole Power Play blurb atrocity in Dragon- that's evidence enough that 3E has been geared toward a powergamerish type of play.  I still like 3E, but hopefully WoTC will reign in the power levels a little bit by the time 4E comes around.</blockquote>

Verification