The Blue Elf
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But what about 5th edition and 6th should they bring those out?
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Should D&D be a "Living Game"?
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Desdichado
Legend
Ehh, I think d20 is as good as any system out there, more or less. Certainly it's good enough that I'm not particularly interested in pursuing another system. That doesn't mean D&D is perfect, but I certainly don't want it to evolve into Runequest! And not all of those "relics" are there just because of baggage; hp works well and is easy. I'd be surprised to see it ever go.
Valiantheart
First Post
I disagree. PrCs were made necessary by the inflexible character creation process. Feats were the good idea and they definitely need to be expanded in future editions. I have no problem with gaining a feat every odd level. Maybe then we wont have to see so many classes who need bonus feats in order to fulfill their role(fighter excluded).D'karr said:
D'karr said:
D'karr
Adventurer
Valiantheart said:
Okay, that's an interesting view but I don't see how having availability to feats every 3 levels can be considered inflexible. Most of the classes, except for the fighter, have class features that act very much like feats (e.g. evasion, uncanny dodge, rage, etc.)
Every class has the same availability (1 every three levels), except the fighter - whose class feature is the quick progression of feats.
So exactly, how is that inflexible?
In addition, the relaxed multi-classing gives 3.0 one of the greatest levels of flexibility, without invoking DM fiat.
How are PrC's in any way made necessary by this?
Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
I'm already off the WOTC D&D wagon. Analyzing our style and what was the biggest drag on smooth gameplay, namely combat, I'm switching back to 1e for any D&D games I run. Well 1e with the BD&D combat system tacked on. I'd probably go with basic but the races as classes thing bothers me, and I don't want to have to mess with that.
I would still like to play 3.xe a few times though.
I would still like to play 3.xe a few times though.
I think one of the primary reasons that D&D should be a "Living" game is because of the, heh, "Living Games". Like Living Greyhawk and the like.
D&D has several different forms. One of those is the game you play at home. For that sort of game, the 'official' rules aren't really that important. What's important is having fun, and you can mutilate the rules as much as you want.
The other end of the spectrum is the Living Campaign. Because these are a global affair, with no guarantee on the DM you will have and their interpretation of the rules, a strict form of rules are necessary.
As these rules require modifying, they should be. The way that D&D works, it shouldn't be hard for a new player to get involved in a Living Campaign - not having to learn 1000 Living Campaign Rules that replace the rules in the rulebook is definitely a good thing! Thus, the D&D books should be as close to the Living Campaign rules as possible. (The converse is true, the LC rules should be as close to the D&D rules as possible, but there should be a two-way feedback involved).
The lure is to make the D&D rules too much LC dependent, and ignore the home games - this is bad; but the converse is also not really desirable. As with all things to do with changing the rules, it's a fine line to balance.
Cheers!
D&D has several different forms. One of those is the game you play at home. For that sort of game, the 'official' rules aren't really that important. What's important is having fun, and you can mutilate the rules as much as you want.
The other end of the spectrum is the Living Campaign. Because these are a global affair, with no guarantee on the DM you will have and their interpretation of the rules, a strict form of rules are necessary.
As these rules require modifying, they should be. The way that D&D works, it shouldn't be hard for a new player to get involved in a Living Campaign - not having to learn 1000 Living Campaign Rules that replace the rules in the rulebook is definitely a good thing! Thus, the D&D books should be as close to the Living Campaign rules as possible. (The converse is true, the LC rules should be as close to the D&D rules as possible, but there should be a two-way feedback involved).
The lure is to make the D&D rules too much LC dependent, and ignore the home games - this is bad; but the converse is also not really desirable. As with all things to do with changing the rules, it's a fine line to balance.
Cheers!
Valiantheart
First Post
D'karr said:
Most classes are inflexible because they are essentially the same. Take 2 20th level Barbs and what do you have? 2 20 level Barbs with the exact same rage, damage reduction, speed and a couple of different feats. Now compare the classes with some variety and ask yourself what is it that creates that difference and most of the time it is Feats (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard). WOTC has started down the process of class customization (which Monte expanded further somewhat successfully in AU) with the Ranger class and his choice of combat 'styles'.
The multi-class rules do add to flexibility but they still have problems. For instance the Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Trickster PrCs were all created to alleviate the problem of multiclassing primary casters. Also many PrC abilities would function perfectly well as feats for any qualifying class instead of requiring a player to multiclass. Want to be an assassing? Take a bunch of levels of rogue, a few of sorcerer, and take the Death Attack Feat.
Feats represent the 'happy' median between a class based system and an ability buy based system. Nearly all Prc abilities can be represented as feats except for those abilities that you might wish to remain exclusive as class only based abilities.
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