sniff sniff...Do I smell 2nd edition mistakes?

[hong]

We all realised 2E multiclassing was way better than single classing but they you have freaking Unearthed Munchkin Domain that brings back exactly that with "gestalts"

Sigh.

and even the bloody PrC like the Mystic Theurge.

Sigh.

It does smell like 2nd edition - a lot, minus the good smells.

This is because your smellometer overloaded and got stuck on eleven. Fix it.

 

[haakon1]

So far, I've kept all the adventures, but I could easily part with most of them as well. Only a handful of d20 games in other genres have survived. I consider them to be the best ones, and I am glad that the basic rules set allows easy cross-overs into sci-fi, post-apoc & other genres. . . .

All of this brings me, in a long-winded way, back to the topic of this thread. I don't think WotC is making the same mistakes of AD&D. But, I realize now that I really don't know since I don't buy all that stuff. What I think they should do is publish more adventures. I've heard that adventures don't sell well, but modules are what I'm most interested in buying. I also think modules are what drive sales of other RPG books.

I agree completely. The 3.5 rules are good, and genre cross-over is a fun part of OGL. And adventures are the heart of the game: it's all about Keep on the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc., not the Complete Book of What-Ever. Modules would sell better if they were more generic in setting, I think -- a Forgotten Realms or Eberron adventure just doesn't get my interest as much as a Greyhawk or even generic D20 Greyhawk-like setting. I'm sure it's similar to Forgotten Realms addicts, etc.

So: adventures with good plots, and good writers, in generic/Hawk settings. Get Bruce Cordell, Monte Cooke, maybe even Gygax writing again (he needs an editor though), and maybe the game sells more. Or not, but it'd be fun!

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Not all of these are high level. Shivering touch as an example is a 3rd level spell.

Yeah. Only the ones that are actually somewhat broken are high level.

I agree that a sensible DM will lay these issues to rest within minutes of them being obvious in game - that's not my argument.

Good thing. Because the hulking hurler, if limited as you outlined, is welcome in my game and isn't even going to be that great. Rolling to hit for four rounds and finally killing the monster vs. dealing less damage but hitting many times over four rounds and finally killing the monster? No problemo. As for your fear of shivering touch and wraithform... I don't use D&D spellcasting when I GM, because I consider it clunky and somewhat broken, but if I did, these spells would be low on my nerf list.

My argument is the actual rules as written are horribly awful for balance. Their potential for game abuse is enormously more than anything I have heard/seen/experienced of 2nd edition.

They are indeed enormous. But they don't really hurt the game the way 2e's less spectacular but just as broken options did, because they don't marginalize one player at another's expense.

I'm more than willing to hear horror stories, I just can't claim to have heard any nearly as horrifying as "race feat prestige class multiclass" land.

Examples have been given already. But four words: Complete Book of Elves.

I don't think there's any possible way you can go from a system with more restrictions to a system with less restrictions (more variables) and come out on top in the balance equation.

Sure there is.

System one: You can either play a godling or a mortal, and they have these set abilities. The godling is better at spells and fighting. The mortal is better at... well, nothing.

System two: You can play whatever you want within a range of dozens of compatible options. They have set abilities you can mix and match. Some are godlings and have a "level adjustment," which means they have fewer abilities to start and gain them slower; others are mortals, who are much weaker but more customizable and can get just as powerful in their own ways, if not more powerful.

Alternately, DP9's Silhouette Core system. It's a point buy system with skills with two different 'ranks,' 10 ability scores, flaws and traits - more options than 2e, right? It's about as unbroken as you can get. It's almost impossible to secure a high power level.

Another thing that bothers the freaking hell out of me is the willingness to repeat these same damn mistakes. We all realised 2E multiclassing was way better than single classing but they you have freaking Unearthed Munchkin Domain that brings back exactly that with "gestalts" and even the bloody PrC like the Mystic Theurge.

The mystic theurge, which everyone who plays it finds to be weak for essentially the entire span of average levels? Gestalt, which is explicitly there as an alternative to ordinary classes?

If you mix gestalt and ordinary characters, with no LAs assigned to the former, then it will be even worse than 2e multiclassing. Pity that Unearthed Optional Rules For The Entire Campaign So It Can't Be Munchkin, I Mean, Duh explicitly states that they aren't meant to mix, and recommends roughly CR +2 challenges for gestalt characters.

The problem with 2e multiclassing (aside from racial level limits) was that it combined strong (elf wizard/fighter) with weak (human fighter). Not that it was strong in the first place. If everyone played kits that were similarly broken, it didn't matter at all.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I agree completely. The 3.5 rules are good, and genre cross-over is a fun part of OGL. And adventures are the heart of the game: it's all about Keep on the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc., not the Complete Book of What-Ever. Modules would sell better if they were more generic in setting, I think -- a Forgotten Realms or Eberron adventure just doesn't get my interest as much as a Greyhawk or even generic D20 Greyhawk-like setting. I'm sure it's similar to Forgotten Realms addicts, etc.

So: adventures with good plots, and good writers, in generic/Hawk settings. Get Bruce Cordell, Monte Cooke, maybe even Gygax writing again (he needs an editor though), and maybe the game sells more. Or not, but it'd be fun!

Emphasis on the "or not."

I'm not entirely confident in WotC's market research, but the fact that basically every successful RPG company seems to be steering away from modules/adventures speaks volumes.

Premade adventures, beyond an introductory/basic set, cater to the group the RPG industry least needs to market to - experienced GMs too busy with the rest of their lives to design their own scenarios.

I'm biased here, admittedly. I've not once, in more than a decade of DMing, gotten use out of a module/adventure save to crib fluff or crunch from it, to steal a cool location, or to admire the design work - all of which is easier to do from a sourcebook. Premade adventures have always seemed far more trouble than they were worth. It's vastly easier for me to whip up a plot skeleton and some sketchy stats (typical prep time: 3-5 hours) and wing it based off player choice, rather than try to adapt some "classic" dungeon crawl for my oversized group and their rare-magic espionage campaign.

 

[Staffan]

Whatever happened to that 'big list of products tSR published during its last years' that we had floating around here?

There's a pretty good list at http://users.rcn.com/aardy/rate/display.html . From that list, we can get, for example, the (A)D&D stuff TSR released in 1995:
Core: Revised PHB, Revised DMG, Combat & Tactics, High-level Campaigns, DM Screen and Master Index, MC Annual Volume 2, Encyclopedia Magica volumes 2, 3, and 4, Complete Barbarian's Handbook, Complete Ninja's Handbook, Complete Book of Necromancers, Night Below, Shaman, Castle Sites, Country Sites, Thief's Challenge II: Beacon Point, Cleric's Challenge II, The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, The Labyrinth of Madness, Introduction to AD&D Audio CD Game. Total: 21.
Birthright: Birthright Campaign Setting, Blood Enemies: Abominations of Cerilia, Cities of the Sun, 7 domain sourcebooks, Sword & Crown, Warlock of the Stonecrowns. Total: 12.
Dark Sun: Dark Sun Revised campaign setting, Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium Appendix II, Thri-kreen of Athas, Beyond the Prism Pentad, Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs. Total: 5.
Dragonlance: The History of Dragonlance. Total: 1.
Forgotten Realms: Elminster's Ecologies Appendix I, EE Appendix II, Ruins of Zhentil Keep, Spellbound, The Seven Sisters, Giantcraft, Pages from the Mages, Wizards & Rogues of the Realms, Volo's Guide to Cormyr, The Moonsea, Sword of the Dales, Secrets of Spiderhaunt, Return of Randal Morn. Total: 13.
Lankhmar: Cutthroats of Lankhmar, Avengers in Lankhmar Total: 2.
Mystara: Glantri, Player's Survival Kit, DM's Survival Kit, Mark of Amber, Savage Baronies, Joshuan's Almanac. Total: 6.
Planescape: Planes of Law, Planes of Conflict, Planescape MC Appendix II, In the Cage, Player's Primer to the Outlands, Factol's Manifesto, Fires of Dis, Harbinger House. Total: 8.
Ravenloft: Nightmare Lands, Van Richten's Guide to Fiends, Chilling Tales, Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani, Gothic Earth Gazetteer, When the Black Roses Bloom, Circle of Darkness, A Light in the Belfry, The Evil Eye, Neither Man Nor Beast. Total: 10.

Total altogether: 78, or 6½ things per month. Note that this ignores novels, which I'm pretty sure were also churned out at a much higher rate than they are now.

 

[Staffan]

3.5 has warforged which are completely immune to much more than just enchantments - and that's a LA 0 race. You can do MUCH better with a template and a monstrous race.

Note that warforged generally aren't immune to enchantments. They are immune to certain common low-level enchantments by virtue of not being humanoids (Daze, Charm Person, Hold Person, Dominate Person), but they don't have any blanket immunity to them. Point infact, they're usually more vulnerable to them since they have a -2 penalty to Wisdom, which translates into -1 on Will Saves.

They are immune to a bunch of physical stuff, mostly things that rely on the victim having a flesh and blood body. There are also certain disadvantages to being a warforged - having to spend a feat on getting decent armor (sure, almost having the equivalent of adamantine full plate at first level at the cost of a feat is nice, but at level 10 you're gonna wish you had the feat instead of the 17,500 you save), as well as not being able to remove said armor if you need to do something requiring mobility; vulnerability to certain spells , only getting half benefit from common healing magic, and so on.

 

[Ranger REG]

The problem with WOTC is they think they can maximize their profit by making splatbooks and ever more prestige classes. We need to convince them that's not what we (I, anyhow) want and will buy, and that there's more money to be made in other ways.

Good luck finding more customers on your side who does not want more prestige classes.

I'd rather see WOTC charge a modest fee for allowing other companies to publish under the OGL (like console game machine makers charge a fee to game publishers) rather than trying to "churn" us into a new edition, or slight "upgrades" like the Complete Books that, IMHO, get in the way of fun by over complicating the game.

"Charge a modest fee"??? That would defeat the purpose of OGL. Even if they add such a stipulation in the new version, anyone can use any old version of the OGL. It does not go away.

You want to charge a fee on the d20 System Trademark License? Hah! They just drop it in favor of the OGL.

IOW, both are royalty-free licenses.

 

[beaver1024]

The presence of 3.5 absolutely stinks of 2e mistakes. Especially the godawful Skills and Powers revision to the 2e core rules. Both completely untested and both producing DMing nightmares.

I think it might be that WoTC has too many former TSR employees working in their ranks who are not re-educated to the new ways of doing things.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm wondering if they'll decide to go with the bazillion different worlds, but make them all balanced within each other's context. So there would be no problem playing a Warforged in the Forgotten Realms or whatever.

That way they could do all the splatbooks for all the different worlds but they wouldn't worry about someone not buying products for a given line because it wasn't set in the right campaign.

The problem with that is that settings are defined as much by what is not in them as by what is in them. The Forgotten Realms doesn't have warforged. It doesn't matter if they'd be perfectly balanced in the Forgotten Realms, they don't exist there and it would damage whatever internal consistency is left in the realms if Warforged suddenly started popping up.

This is more obviously true with other worlds. Greyhawk does not have the lightning rail. It and the Lightning Rail Conductor prestige class could be perfectly balanced for Greyhawk, but put a lightning rail connecting the Theocracy of the Pale to Keoland and it's not really Greyhawk anymore. Dragonlance does not have halflings. A halfling Champion of Arvoreen class could be perfectly balanced for the setting, but it still wouldn't be useful if you wanted to maintain the Dragonlance feel. Its true of third party worlds like Arcanis too. You could try to import Dweomerkeepers of Mystra and Spellfire Wielders into Arcanis and, even though they might be perfectly balanced, they wouldn't fit with the setting without a LOT of tweaking. (A Dweomerkeeper of Sarish could be an interesting adaptation, but the class doesn't feel very Sarishan).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The problem with that is that settings are defined as much by what is not in them as by what is in them.

Some things just aren't there, but could be introduced. I can imagine warforged in the realms in fact. They would be creations of Gond and his worshippers. And as we're talking about living constructs and the realms: In the time when Cyric was really mad (read his own book and was affected by its lies into believing he's the supreme god) he had Gond construct some, well constructs, which he fed with souls. They were completely immune to magic and responded to every blasphemy anyone in the Realms would commit against Cyric (starting with speaking bad about him, and in the end it was even thinking bad about Cyric). They were under a compulsion to act, but they were aware of things.

Other things are indeed unfit, like the Lightning Rail and Greyhawk.

And then, of course, some things would totally screw up both concept and balance, like Psionics in Midnight.