KDLadage said:
If you have not seen it, Psion's signature includes a listing of the 3.5 rules he will NOT be using. I have some thoughts on those rules and wondered if you did too. Also, what other rules will you avoid?
I assume my collected thoughts are complete so far.
But let me touch on a few:
So... Psion's listing:
Square facings -- this rule actually makes sense to me. It took me a long time to warm up to it, to understand what it was trying to simulate.[/b]
Oh, I understand what it is
trying to do. The problem is that it forgets what miniatures are trying to do in the first place -- represent creatures.
Whan a typical fighter is standing in his 5 ft. by 5 ft. square, he has no "front" or "back" sides. He simply is. He occupies the whole of the square he is in. Nowhere are you going to find a man that is actually a 5 ft. by 5 ft. by 5 ft. cube... so you must assume that the fact that he has no facing is why he takes up his whole square -- he is moving about in his sphere of influence and ensuring that no atack is coming from any given direction.
So why then does a horse (or any other larger creature) have a defined front, a defined back and a space that tries to emulate his actual shape? Because it is an inconsitency in the rules -- that's why.
Why? Because the first purpose of minatures is to represent their shape.
No inconsistency exists because there is no hit location chart in 3e, so it really doesn't matter that the base shows a theoretical shape. It's like an abstract snapshot of where the creature is.
If you are bent out of shape because you are seeing a snapshot of the creature's positional shape, then how do you feel about the fact that movement in the game is happening in discrete blocks? That should bother you too.
The solution: either make all creatures take up a square of space, or give all creatures facing rules.
This "solution" is to a problem that doesn't exist, since 3e does not track specific hit locations.
School Specialization -- never liked School Specialization. In UMBRAGIA Volume III (...)
So obviously you won't be using this either.
That said, I am sort of warming up to the concept.
Andy Collins seems to indicate that the schools will be more balanced. My big problem is that if this effort is successful, the school changes will be anything but transparent and will change the feel of magic in the game, and it is not transparent to existing specialist characters who will have to swap out whole schools of spells, which will create continuity problems.
In short, if done right, this is a change that would be just fine for a new campaign but futzes
big time with existing campaigns that use specialists as (say) major villains or PCs.
And this pretty much represents the biggest departure from the promise of "doing no harm" and "being able to quickly convert the characters."
Nerfed spell focus -- could not agree with you more.
Doubled power attack damage -- don't know yet. I need to see it in play. What is your objection, exactly?
Power attack ALREADY will be made a must-have by the new DR rules. And two-handed weapon fighters benefit the most from the power attack, so this seems like it will really overemphasize the two-hander fighter, which is already a pretty strong type of fighter. I prefer more equally viable options.
Deflect arrows -- don't know yet. I need to see it in play. What is your objection, exactly?
Well, in addition to my general disdain for "automatic" type mechanics because they tend to invariable lead to trouble, I feel at low levels it is a bit too effective. I think Andy's complaints could have been effectively handled by lowering the DR and avoiding the "automatic" bugbear.
Add to that, I think snatch arrows is not as neat or useful as he thinks, but this is an existing problem from S&F. IMC, you can snatch arrows with deflect arrows if your roll is high enough.
The whole "6/17 update" thread goes into gory details about this.
Pokemon Paladins -- of the rules that make no sense to me, this one takes the cake. I cannot imagine what they were thinking when they came up with the Pokemon Palidin concept...[/list] [/B]
I know exactly what they were thinking. A general design criteria of this edition was "let's make everyone at their best in the dungeon." Which is a design criteria I venomously disagree with. It makes D&D much more specialized that it needs to be, and does not reflect how it is really played IMV. Take a look at some published adventures, for example. Many involve things like overland journeys, plots in cities, army struggles, and so forth. D&D is NOT all about the dungeon.
I find the summoned warhorse really silly. It reminds me of summon materia in FFVII ... which is not silly, but definitely NOT my image of a paladin. That's not a paladin; it's a summoner.
I could see this as a spell or maybe a feat. NOT as a class ability.
As a side note, the new DR rules are also concerning me, and I am really seeing the point on the golfbag arguments and when it comes to issues like outsiders and parties having to carry weapons they normally would not. I think the aligned DR thing is the most potentially problematic.
