Rant on d20

[vturlough]

Okay,

I like DND. Love DND. Been playing it for a long time. Therefore, here is my rant on d20 and DND.

Bad things:

Classes
Importance of items
Game Balance
Wargaming
Skills
"Upping the Numbers"
AC

kind've a rant
Hit points
CRs

Good things
Simplicity
Gets casual gamers


For me, I will be brief, as many of these are connected.

In redesigning DND, since they created a new system anyway, they should have gotten rid of the wargaming roots of DND. The whole progression of characters and monsters is based in wargaming and should be done away with. Why? IMO (as all of this is), the wargaming roots is what keeps the focus away from the individual.

Classes - Classes are fine but I don't like a system where classes can't be replicated through special abilities. For example, no one else, not even the fighter with his many feats, can be as good of an unarmed fighter as a monk. Why not? Why do I still *HAVE* to be a monk to get better unarmed damage? Sure, the odd feat here and there might up me a die or two, but nothing to compare to the monk. This doesn't even talk about his special abilities.

"Game Balance" - Things work differently. That's just the way it is. While I don't want to have a race that has +6 to all attributes, having choices that give bonuses without penalties would be nice. In 2E, with the increased level limits, there was sometimes little reason to be human, except for role playing. I still had more than 66% human characters in the group because that's what the guys wanted to role play. That was their character. In general, though, "game balance" can't happen because at some point, the classes will be good in their area and no one else can touch them. Would anyone consider having a wizard fight a fighter? Yes, part of a wizard's abilities are spells and ignoring them isn't fair to the wizard. The point is, that given the circumstances, the fighter has the advantage.

Items - WHY IS THE EMPHASIS ON ITEMS? Why isn't it on the character? Why is it that, as shown by money for characters of higher than 2nd level, a character MUST have a certain gold amount of items after 1st level? What does that say about the system? Why can't we have a system that allows me to have a character who inheirited his father's magical sword and not have it ruin "balance".

Skills - I personally don't like black and white, hit or miss skills. There is too much subjectivity in them. I mean, if a character has a +25 in something and rolls a 34 but needed a 35, they still notice nothing? (or whatever?) That is higher than probably a 10th level character can get and yet they still didn't notice something?!??

"upping the numbers" - I was worried about it with Deities and Demigods and it seems to be continuing with Epic Level stuff. The numbers just go up. Want to challenge your 21st level characters? Make the DC be 50! Want to have more powerful items? Up the total bonus from 10 to 25! Want to have creatures to challenge them? Give them ACs of 100 and +125 to hit! GIVE ME A BREAK! I take a very simple approach when assigning a DC. Can ANY class/race do this? Do you need to be experienced to do it? If the answer is yes and then no, the DC should be easy. Not higher! I know it is corny but I have yet to find myself facing things in life that I can't handle. Having said that, what happens when suddenly something that was a DC of 15 becomes a 40?!??

AC - Armor was created to reduce damage, not make it harder to hit. Yes, you can nit pick this and say an actual hit is when it does damage. What? So, the big guy with the hammer who hit the guy in full plate didn't roll high enough to wound him? That dent in the breastplate doesn't mean anything?

Minor rants
CRs - A very good start but still too subjective. Too many situational bonuses. For example, 3 orcs with daggers is a CR of 1. But, arguably, the same 3 orcs with bows might be a 1.5. The same three orcs with bows at 150' might be a 2. And, give the last ones some cover and they might be a 3. (Also, see previous rant on items.) Again, a good start and probably the best it can be, given the rest of the system.

HPs - THEY MEAN NOTHING! THEY HAVE NO MEANING! We could rename them Squishy Points and it would be the same thing. What this does is take away from desciptors in battle, or anytime HPs are lost, because what does losing 10 HPs mean? What about 20?

Why do I keep coming back?

Many reasons. First of all, this game is simple. By keeping it simple, I get to emphasize the STORY and CHARACTERS, not what they are carrying. This is a very good thing. Second, the simplicity has allowed casual gamers (such as my wife) who might not otherwise play to play. That attracts more players, which is a good thing in my opinion.

I am not going to stop playing DND. I do like it. There are some days when I just have to scream at what it is instead of what it could have been.

Okay, *deep breath* I am done now. Thanks for reading!

turlough, who still thinks that Alternity is the BEST game ever written. Period.

 

[LostSoul]

HPs - THEY MEAN NOTHING! THEY HAVE NO MEANING!

I was thinking about Hit Points earlier today. Specifically, how poisons did Ability Score damage and not Hit Point damage (well, almost all poisons do this). Shouldn't they do damage to Hit Points as well, since Hit Points are abstract? But that would mean that poisons would either always kill normal (level 1) people or never kill anyone but the weakest characters (such as low-level Wizards & Sorcerers).

So (for whatever reason) I've come to the conclusion that Hit Points don't measure physical resistance to damage (except for the first 6 or so).

Maybe combining the two types of damage (ability score and hit points) would be interesting. Such as: you lose 1 ability point per 10 hit points lost.

Hit points are fun, but the whole damage thing is weird. It doesn't even follow the standard d20 mechanic.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm I think Scarred Lands is the best d20 setting out there...Alternity was quite frankly...boring. I hate space. Space is waste. That's why there's so much of it and why infinity is just boring. It goes on, and on, and on, and on... I'm supposed to be happy with just THAT?!

 

[Eternalknight]

Okay,

I like DND. Love DND. Been playing it for a long time. Therefore, here is my rant on d20 and DND.

Bad things:

Classes
Importance of items
Game Balance
Wargaming
Skills
"Upping the Numbers"
AC

kind've a rant
Hit points
CRs

Good things
Simplicity
Gets casual gamers

The only problem is, if you take away classes, levelling up, AC and hit points it no longer is Dungeons and Dragons. Those have been there since the beginning. I think if someone was to "officially" publish a system with those things missing and call it, say, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition they would be crucified.

 

[Black Omega]

I tend to agree with EK, God help me.

All the stuff you mentioned are parts of DnD. EVen the bad stuff have been accepted as features now.

DnD actually does a pretty good job with the type of game they are trying to simulate. The magic system works pretty well. AC is weird but the idea that everyone who possibly can wear heavy armor should is realistic. Fantasy generally has fairly strong archtypes that lend themselves to classes. For most other games I'll just use Hero System.

 

[EOL]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, to paraphrase Churchill:

"D&D is the worst RPG except for all others."

 

[Atreus]

Vturlough,

I think your 'problems' with the system can all be resolved by rule zero. Every single one of them.

The rules in the book are a guideline, they are suggestions, a stick by which to measure things, and provide a baseline from which YOU can change things as you like.

If you don't like the class based system, abolish it. I believe d20 CoC uses a class-less system. Adapt it to d20 DnD, it should be easy becuse their both d20.

About 'balance', well in your campaign, you can bloody well do as you please. If you want some races to have benifits without any weaknesses, then just put em in. Absoultly nothing is stopping you.

The items issue thing is a guideline. If your characters have fewer items than is 'typical' as defined by the core rules, then the DM needs to understand this when they are looking thru the monster manual. The Challange Ratings will be much less useful of a unit of measure. The oposite is also true. You can give your 1st level characters +5 great swords of flaming doom and ultimate destruction all you want, but those CR 1 monsters are just not going to be all that challanging, and yes you can bloody well have them fight CR 1 monsters just because every fight isn't always 'challanging'.

On skills, if your the DM, and somebody gets 34 when they need a 35, just rule zero it and declare it an 'almost success' and decide what happens.

This 'upping the numbers' you speak of is supposed to represent your characters facing tougher and more 'heroic' challanges. Low level adventures would challanged to climb a high wall on the hobgoblin fort belonging to Goomba the local hobgoblin cheiftan, epic level adventures would be in situations that would call for them to scale a 3 mile high tower of glass of a demon lord, while it was raining oil, and don't forget the gale-force winds.

After climbing the tower of glass, said adventures would view climbing the wall to a hobgoblins fortress as easy as pai. They are soooo good at climbing that it is unthinkable that they wouldn't be able to do it. Something that was DC 15 should always be DC 15, but characters with a +30 mod to their rolls wouldn't be wasting time on a DC 15 (well they could, it just wouldn't be very fun).

As for your never encountering something you couldn't do, you must not get out much or challange yourself. There are pently of 'real life' things that there is no way an inexperianced person could do them. You might be able to aim and fire a rifle and hit a target and have it be moderatly challanging. The challange of hitting that target with a rifle would be down right simplistic to somebody who has enough skill with a rifle to hit targets while firing from a helicopter. Thats the diffrence between requring a 10 to hit and requiring a 100 to hit.

As for AC and HPs, they are an abstraction.

High AC means a high ability to evade and to absorb/deflect damage. Rolling low to hit a guy in full plate means that your attack just wasn't well enough executed to do jack. You didn't dint the armor, your hammer swing, while potentially dangerous, was effectively negated when it glanced off the angled plates of the armor and had the majority of the force of the blow distributed out across a larger area via virtue of the armors design. But it still is an abstraction.

High HPs represent high resistance to pain, suffering, stay concious, minimize injury, etc. Hitting a 20th level fighter with a hammer isn't like hitting a 1st level fighter with a hammer. The 20th level fighter is a master at melee and tough as nails, and his high HPs reflect his ability to that hit into a glancing blow and having a threashold for pain that is so high that it does not even give him pause. A 1st level fighter would be clobberd by that same hammer blow because he just does not have the skill experiance that a 20th level fighter does.

If you want every little gory detail, add them. I wouldn't find it fun, I'd rather have a simple little number and some good verbal discriptions by the DM than having every fight require that I know every detail of some long and involved grizzly accounting system that takes hours to resolve the effects of being hit in the head with a rock.

"You were hit in the head by a rock. It hurt. Lose 1 hp". I really don't need, or want, any more detail than that.

As for CR, use rule zero. Orcs in the MM don't come with daggers, use some common sense and adjust accrodinly.

Sigh, enough of my counter-rant.

 

[Falcon]

Other than all those numbers, I like d20.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Seeing as how 3e raised D&D from the dead, revitalized the RPG industry, and outsold any RPG before it, it's possible - just possible, mind you - that all the stuff you think is bad is loved by the vast majority of fans. Take them away or alter them much, and you'd likely lose a large portion of the fan base. Can the game be improved? Sure. But it doesn't need that many radical changes.

 

[Shadowdancer]

The thing I don't like about d20 is that one dice gets worn out much more quickly than the others, and all the other dice in my set get jealous that I use the d20 so much.