Lord Vangarel
First Post
All this talk about what people miss from the 1st Edition has got me thinking about my own experiences back in the day and I began to seriously think why D&D felt different then mechanics wise and how 3rd Edition differs. I'm not really interested in returning to 1st Edition mechanics as 3rd Edition is much better in those terms. Anyway I've now reached the stage where more input could be useful so here goes with some of my thoughts.
Combat was quicker. We played combat rounds where each player in turn had an action and the process repeated until no players had any actions left. (Most players only got a move and action sequence not multiple attacks). Looking back combat also seemed to be easier to interpret with characters not getting all their actions at once. My thoughts could be to reduce the number of multiple attacks characters get but make all attacks at maximum rating. Combat goes in action turns again where each player gets one action at a time. A character could move up to their maximum distance in the whole round but no more than half distance in a single action. Spells that require 1 action would complete at the beginning of the spellcasters next action or at the end of the round whenever that was giving opponents a chance to disrupt spellcasting without having to have a Ready Action.
Feats and Skills didn't exist. Now while I could never imagine losing either of them entirely they add a layer of complication that just didn't exist in 1st Edition. It seems to me that players now either spend a lot of time thinking of how to make the opitmal choices or spend a lot of time refiguring all their options in combat making things slower. My thoughts would be to remove feats entirely and make them class abilities. To me feats fall into one of three categories: Feats that improve skills, Feats that improve abilities, Feats that give you something you otherwise wouldn't have. These could be replaced with class abilities, bonus skill points (see below) and stuff that all characters could attempt anyway. With Skills each class could have set class skills and bonus points each level. The bonus points could be used on either class skills or non-class skills but not exclusive skills to another class. A Skill check becomes 1d20+appropriate class levels+modifiers.
Multi-classing in 1st Edition meant that a multi-classed spellcaster was one level behind a single classed spellcaster. In 3rd Edition players generally refuse to multi-class if spellcasters as the power drop is too high. I did some working out and the 1 level behind would begin to increase to 2 levels or more after about 10th level using 1E Experience. If players could select a multi-class option in 3E and their experience was split equally they would still be one level behind until about 10th level when the gap starts to widen. Of course in 1E campaigns rarely got high enough for this to be noticed so our memory was that a multi-class character was never that far behind.
That's my thoughts, anyone else have any ideas? I realise some players will be opposed to some if not all of the above but I'm just throwing ideas up.
Combat was quicker. We played combat rounds where each player in turn had an action and the process repeated until no players had any actions left. (Most players only got a move and action sequence not multiple attacks). Looking back combat also seemed to be easier to interpret with characters not getting all their actions at once. My thoughts could be to reduce the number of multiple attacks characters get but make all attacks at maximum rating. Combat goes in action turns again where each player gets one action at a time. A character could move up to their maximum distance in the whole round but no more than half distance in a single action. Spells that require 1 action would complete at the beginning of the spellcasters next action or at the end of the round whenever that was giving opponents a chance to disrupt spellcasting without having to have a Ready Action.
Feats and Skills didn't exist. Now while I could never imagine losing either of them entirely they add a layer of complication that just didn't exist in 1st Edition. It seems to me that players now either spend a lot of time thinking of how to make the opitmal choices or spend a lot of time refiguring all their options in combat making things slower. My thoughts would be to remove feats entirely and make them class abilities. To me feats fall into one of three categories: Feats that improve skills, Feats that improve abilities, Feats that give you something you otherwise wouldn't have. These could be replaced with class abilities, bonus skill points (see below) and stuff that all characters could attempt anyway. With Skills each class could have set class skills and bonus points each level. The bonus points could be used on either class skills or non-class skills but not exclusive skills to another class. A Skill check becomes 1d20+appropriate class levels+modifiers.
Multi-classing in 1st Edition meant that a multi-classed spellcaster was one level behind a single classed spellcaster. In 3rd Edition players generally refuse to multi-class if spellcasters as the power drop is too high. I did some working out and the 1 level behind would begin to increase to 2 levels or more after about 10th level using 1E Experience. If players could select a multi-class option in 3E and their experience was split equally they would still be one level behind until about 10th level when the gap starts to widen. Of course in 1E campaigns rarely got high enough for this to be noticed so our memory was that a multi-class character was never that far behind.
That's my thoughts, anyone else have any ideas? I realise some players will be opposed to some if not all of the above but I'm just throwing ideas up.
