My philosophical approach to the 3rd edition choices

[Edena_of_Neith]

I have Crystalkeep here, and I see ... 110 pages of feats. Over 2,000 feats.
So, what am I seeing?
A candystore. Herein are endless shelves of candy and ice cream, for the players - my friends - to gorge themselves with.

I thus create rules to allow them to eat away. Normal advancement? 11 feats + 3 feats per character level. Gestalt single class (2 classes, counting as 1 character level) ? 22 feats + 6 feats per character level. Gestalt triple class (3 classes, counting as 1 character level, ala a 1E or 2E triple multiclassed character) ? 33 feats + 9 feats per character level.

Likewise, quadruple the skill points. Fighters, wizards, and others of like ilk receive 8 points per level, the rogue receives 32 points per level.
Gestalt characters receive the combined skill points of all classes they have, each character level (if a fighter/wizard, they would receive 8 + 8. If a fighter/rogue, 8 + 32. If starting off, x4.)

Why not?
Why not simply open the candy store completely to the players? Let them have a free for all in the store? Let them eat to their heart's content?
Even with this many feats, and this many skill points, they still won't have anywhere near all the feats, or all the skills (the candy store is simply too big, too vast, for it to be possible, even at 20th level, even after 20 levels of eating the candy!)

The candy was put there by the creators of 3rd edition for player consumption. Why not allow them to eat?
The players are one's friends, and as DM one's purpose is to give them a good time (in the game.) Fun is the word. I think giving them the candy is an appropriate way to help with the fun.

I and the players would discuss certain feats before the game, such as Spellfire, or Irresistible Spell. These could affect the fun of the game. But if the players desire these feats, who am I to deny them? These feats will definitely alter the game, and the players should be aware of that, but the players should have the last word in this, for they want the fun.

REMEMBER that whatever the Player Characters have, the Monsters also have.
So if a PC wizard has Irresistible Spell and Material Sacrifice and/or Divine Metamagic (the original version), a Monster may well have these feats too. So the Autokill Spells work both ways!
If a PC has Spellfire, an opponent might have it.
If a PC can Polymorph Self (the older spell version) into a being with multiple arms and hands, and attack with each and every one of them proficiently (gaining 15 attacks!) then there are undoubtedly Monsters out there who can also do this.

In short, the Monsters are also dining in the candy shop. And the Monsters - and NPCs - are taking some of the very best of the ice cream for themselves. It is going to be a nasty ride for the PCs, with all these skills and feats floating around out there!

But why not? Why not allow the players full access to the candy store? Give them the skill points and the feats, and let them have fun engrossing themselves with the full potential of the rules? The rules are there to be used, and I say: let the players play away!

I think that this is the approach, *the* approach, to a great game.
Fun is the Word.
Choice is for Fun.
And these are my friends. I, as DM, am there for the purpose of entertaining them, and vicariously feeling their enjoyment.

If you believe my approach is incorrect (I am certain that most of you believe my approach is incorrect) then why is my approach incorrect?
Where am I going wrong? What is needed to make it right?
For all I seek here, is to grant my players a good time. If my approach is failing, if choice is a failure, then what actually works?

Most of you are competent, experienced, and long-time DMs. You know what has worked and what has not worked, in your games and campaigns.
Some of your are Game Designers, and that speaks for itself (to your immense credit and honor, obviously!)
If my approach is incorrect, explain why. And explain what does work, what has worked, what will work, in your opinion.

Would you?

Edena_of_Neith

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(Is reminded of the game Knightmare Chess, with it's chaos and uproarous fun, and nobody ever knowing quite what is going to happen next. That's the result of all this 3rd edition choice. Which is a Good Thing, from my point of view.)

 

[Runestar]

The problem I see with having so many feats is the hassle of keeping track of what they do.

Unless you invest mostly in passive feats which you can basically forget about after factoring its benefits into your stats, it can become very time consuming to have to constantly bear in mind the options available to you, which can lead to option paralysis.

Every round, you may have 10+ alternatives open to you, but only 1 move, standard and swift action, and you spend a lot of time mulling over what the best course of action is. Or you forget to use a feat when the chance presents itself, or forgot that it even existed altogether. A real book-keeping nightmare.

Let us use your candy store example. If you let the kids go wild and gorge themselves to their hearts content, they may end up overeating, and start falling sick or puking over the place. Too much of a good thing, so to speak.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Good morning, Runestar. Hey there!

Remember when we were all starting off? And nobody (including the DM) knew the rules? Everything was exciting, messy, lethal, and you-learned-as-you-went? (In short, sheer chaos, but hopefully everyone had a good time anyways ... I realize this was not always the case!)

3rd Edition's choices represented a return to this situation, for all of us.
I mean, they kept inventing new feats, and throwing them at us (us, meaning us experienced gamers and DMs) as food for thought. And new skills. And new PrCs. And a whole lot of new ideas, period.
It put us all back into the position of being Beginning Gamers.

We learned the rules, way back then, through using them (hopefully ... obviously, we had many arguments over them (remembers those illusion spells))
We can do it again, with 3.0. Or 3.5. Or the hybrid of both, if the players desire. (Or, with any edition of D&D, obviously. Or Pathfinder. Or Castles and Crusades. We are always learners.)

-

What does the above philosophy boil down to, for me?

As DM, there is no way I am going to know everything my players have available to throw at me. I cannot memorize it all. I do not necessarily have access to it on a computer (and I certainly don't have the books.)
Likewise, my players do not have access to everything I have - although as DM I would do everything in my power to grant them that access, this being only reasonable. I would apologize to my players and explain that I was doing my best to give them all the information I had, so they could use it also.

Furthermore, my players - obviously - might not understand what they were reading. They might badly misunderstand or misinterpret things.
Same with me.

But if I - the DM - stop and check everytime there is a question, the game will get nowhere. If I stop and check the player's PCs abilities everytime there is a question, we will get nowhere.
We will *ALL* start gagging on all that candy! It would be too much. It would completely overwhelm and ruin our game!!

My answer? Just keep going. Don't stop. If it's not clear, just wing it. (And look up the rules after the game.) If it's in question, rule in the player's favor (the player will like that, and one can always look it up after the game.) If the player thinks it's like X, then let him have it his way (he'll like that, and we can always look it up after the game.)
In return ... I would ask my players (BEFORE the game) to allow me leeway, not to stop me and question me with everything I do, with what my monsters can do, with whether my NPCs and foes and whatever can or cannot do what they are doing.
I would ask my players not to question my rulings on DCs, challenges, obstacles, terrain, and other calls. Because, after all, we will never get anywhere in the game, if they are doing this! (It isn't so much a matter of 'I am the DM' as it is a matter of 'let's just *play*, and have fun ... and discuss and fix problems after the game. I'm the DM, your *friend* ' )

Heck, I wouldn't even use the hex grid unless the players requested it to clarify things. Just wing it (the opponent is 50 feet away from you, on the path!) and let the player's imagination take over. (Obviously, the players must want to do this, or we can't do this by default.)

In short, we must play a very flawed game. Until everyone is clear on the rules (which will take a long time) we must play a flawed game where we can only guess at the rules, and do our best to have fun with what we know, and keep the pace of the game up (so that it is fun, not tedious and boring.)
I couldn't run a module like S1 The Tomb of Horrors under such circumstances, since precise knowledge of the rules is required for that module (it is a tournament module, as it were.)
But I could run a lot of low level adventures in this way, in a laisse faire manner.

In time, I think we would all memorize the relevant rules simply through endless usage.
And thus, we would not gag on the candy.

If everyone wanted precision, then yes, the candy would make everyone sick to their stomach, the game would fail, combat would grind to a halt, and tedious would be the byword of the session.
We'd have to let go, and let mistakes happen, and extrapolate as best we could, and simply try to have fun - crazy, chaotic, and slipping on the rules like slipping on a floor covered with grease - in our gaming session.

It is the only way we could stomach all that candy.
And I am saying that we should have the candy ... I just don't see any other way of trying to stomach eating it all that fast! We can only do our best.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

I give each of my players a dollar and then let them buy anything they want in the candy store -- that way they don't eat themselves too sick.

More specifically, I give them 10 "buy-in points" at character generation, and then another 1 at each level up. Buy-in points can be used to buy things like extra feats (5 points), ability score bumps (5 points), and non-core feats/spells/options/etc. (free or 1 point, depends).

It's far from perfect, but it works well enough for us; in fact, my players have told me they like having some boundaries, since otherwise they can't help themselves from going hog-wild.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I understand. I've been in similar situations (as a player) and seen similar reactions from my fellow players (that they would have gone hog wild.)

Now (grins) ... if they *could* go hog wild, and take all these feats and skills, what happens next?

The DEFAULT answer to the question is that the game becomes a Monty Haul catastrophe, the DM is overwhelmed, and the players are bored to tears.
Obviously neither I, nor anyone else, wants that result (I hope ...)

But let's say, for the sake of discussion, that another possibility exists, one created - perhaps - by the fact that the Monsters also have all these feats, skills, and choices, so the ghastly Monsters are a match for the ghastly (overpowered, as we might say) Player Characters.

So, we come into situations where feats and skills, and combinations of feats and skills, are going up against opposition feats and skills, and combinations of opposition feats and skills.
Sorta like a sports game. My party has all these different characters, with different classes, and one heck of a lot of feats and skills. But your team (the Monsters) has an equally impressive array of classes, feats, and skills. They chose a wholly different set of classes, feats, and skills than my team did, but they chose competently nonetheless (or so the DM hopes.)
May the best team win!

I doubt that this Team Versus Team concept (my classes, PrCs, feats (with this many feats allowed), and skills (with this many skill points allowed) versus your classes, PrCs, feats, and skills, was much practiced in 3rd Edition. That is to say, there is a lot of 'stuff', a lot of 'things', that could have happened in 3rd Edition, that probably never happened or rarely happened. But such 'competitions', such 'things', such 'team versus team' or 'set of feats versus set of feats' or 'set of ideas versus set of ideas' or most basically 'our nasty creativity versus their nasty creativity' could occur ... and I believe it should occur, regularly. Why not? (not that all games need be complex, of course ... but a rip roaring complex battle now and then would be interesting!))
Why has this not happened, as I am saying? Because the RAW don't allow it: feats are rare. You gain 1 (or 2) at the start, and 1 at levels 3/6/9/12/15/18. Fighters gain fighter feats, wizards metamagic feats. But nothing like 3 feats per level (much less 6 feats per level.) Even the Book of Experimental Might only goes with 1 feat per level. Even the Feat Master PrC does not allow for such advancement. I am suggesting a handout of candy from the candystore that is unprecedented in 3rd Edition. That's why I do not believe that such 'team versus team' situations have often occurred between players and the DM's Monsters.

With 110 pages of feats from 3.0 to choose from, an equal number from 3.5, and of course you can substitute 3.5 for 3.0, or 3.0 for 3.5 as you please, and there are d20 feats as well ... I think we could have some truly interesting Team versus Team situations.
And it would be interesting to see what individual players and DMs, or groups, could dream up for their side.
Ditto with the classes, gestalt (duplicated 1E and 2E multiclassing), skills, PrCs, and other 3rd Edition concepts, for - in this case - all these concepts stack.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

So I would say to the Game Designers - or I would have, if 3rd Edition was still fully supported - that they should Open Up the Candy Store, and Pass Out the Goodies.
In short, open up 3rd Edition in a massive way to the players. All those possibilities? Let the players have the chance to give each of their characters a slice of those possibilities.

This does not necessarily mean that every 7th level wizard has Material Sacrifice and Irresistible Spell (meaning, all their spells are Autokills.)
Instead they might have one heck of a lot of those Social Feats, a lot of those Skill Feats, a lot of those General Feats, from that massive list on Crystalkeep.

And characters with 4x the standard skill points per level are going to be more skill diversified, more branched out into different things.
Let the character's Prime Attribute multiply his starting skill points! If a fighter, strength. If a sorcerer, charisma. If a rogue, dexterity. These are their requisite attributes, likely to be their highest scores. Don't just reward high intelligence, reward them all. : )

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Now (grins) ... if they *could* go hog wild, and take all these feats and skills, what happens next?

This depends so much on group composition. For example, one of my players has a hard time not making the most powerful character possible. Not in a broken sort of way, but he makes intelligent choices that always significantly increase the power of his character. Others in my group don't really think about character optimization, but will get bored if they are constantly out-classed. (They either don't have the time or the interest in "studying" D&D with a view towards optimization.) Letting everyone go hog-wild would likely end up with some super-stars and some bench warmers. Since everyone is sensitive of the others' feelings, the strong characters would reign themselves in, but then likely think to themselves, "Why even have all these options/powers?"

Like I said, my solution isn't perfect and definitely isn't for everyone, but it works for us. (BTW: It's the "strong" player that likes this approach so much.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(regards that ungodly colossal list of feats, 110 pages, from Crystalkeep)

Since we are talking about so much candy, and min/maxing is going to result in such grandly disastrous results (stomach aches galore ...) why not try something like:

Gestalt fighter/wizard (counts as one character level)
Feats: Starting 22, 6 per level from 2nd level onward

Rules for taking starting feats:

- The player must start by selecting one feat from the General Feat List
- The player then selects a feat, *optionally*, from the Fame and Reputation Feat List
- The player then selects a feat from the Social Feats List

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Skills Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Armor Proficiency Feats (fighters start with their usual Armor, Shield, and Weapon Feats)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Weapon Proficiency Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Initiative Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Saving Throw Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Gaining Hit Points Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Bardic Feats (if appropriate only)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Rage Feats (if appropriate only)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Operating at Negative Hit Points Feats

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the General Combat Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Defensive Combat Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Mounted Combat Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Ranged Combat Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Two Handed Combat Feats
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Favored Enemy Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Smite Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Sneak Attack Feats (if appropriate)

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Clerical Feats (if appropriate)

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Spellcasting Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Metamagic Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Familiar Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Magic Item Creation Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely at 1st level)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Wild Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Shadow Metamagic Feats (if appropriate)

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Shaman Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Chaos Magic Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Necromancy Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Demonology Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely)

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the General Psionic Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Psionic Combat Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Psionic Item Creation Feats (if appropriate, which is not likely at 1st level)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Metapsionic Feats (if appropriate)

- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Exalted Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Vile Feats (if appropriate)
- ... then one feat, *optionally*, from the Unusual Feats (if appropriate)

The player, if he or she has not selected 22 feats by now (there are more than 22 categories to choose from here, by far), must now go and select another General and Social Feat, and optionally a Fame and Reputation Feat.
The player can then proceed down the categories of feats again, and may choose one (but not more than one) from each category as he passes it.

This continues until 22 feats are selected.

The point here is to require the player to at least skim over the entire list of feats. And you know what? Feats are tempting to take.
The player *could* take all of the initiative feats and become the Fastest Gun in the West. Or the player *could* take a massive number of feats in one area.
But the temptation is going to be there to take feats in many categories. Feats are simply that tempting. Also, when you see how feats from different categories work together synergetically, it encourages a closer reading, more intent study, and thus a greater temptation to spread the feats around.

Also, the player is going to appreciate that the Monsters (with access to all these feats, and starting with 22 themselves) are going to have some really nasty capabilities. A through reading of the list will help prepare them for the dangerous world their characters will face in this candy rich environment (yes, candy causes tooth decay, and the Monsters are your dentists.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

This depends so much on group composition. For example, one of my players has a hard time not making the most powerful character possible. Not in a broken sort of way, but he makes intelligent choices that always significantly increase the power of his character. Others in my group don't really think about character optimization, but will get bored if they are constantly out-classed. (They either don't have the time or the interest in "studying" D&D with a view towards optimization.) Letting everyone go hog-wild would likely end up with some super-stars and some bench warmers. Since everyone is sensitive of the others' feelings, the strong characters would reign themselves in, but then likely think to themselves, "Why even have all these options/powers?"

Like I said, my solution isn't perfect and definitely isn't for everyone, but it works for us. (BTW: It's the "strong" player that likes this approach so much.)

I understand. The Superstar and the Bench-Warmer.
I have no easy solution to this. The two types of players you speak of, are often quite incompatible. I've seen this incompatibility first hand, and I know you are right.

The problem of incompatible players, different playing styles, and different desires amongst the players is very complicated, and quite beyond my ability to address here.
I merely suggest a basic candy rich start-up character philosophy, as opposed to the current approach in 3E. Were this philosophy to have ever been adopted, or were it to ever be adopted (which isn't likely, obviously) then the complex situation of what players desire in the game, and how they go about working towards this, will still dominate the equation.

Nothing I can really say about it. Except that we always compromised, when we gamed, I and my friends. If we were in a feat rich, skill rich environment like the one I propose, we'd have to compromise still.