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Streamlining 3e
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<blockquote data-quote="Nathan P. Mahney" data-source="post: 3393524" data-attributes="member: 29748"><p>Like many here I'm coming to the conclusion that 3e, even when restricted to the core books, is much too complicated as written for me to enjoy DMing it. It's a *great* game for players who like delving into the rules, but it has a few too many fiddly bits for more casual gamers, and it feels like a burden for me to keep track of as the DM.</p><p></p><p>Nevertheless, I love the core principles of 3e, and I want to stick with it - in a streamlined form. I'm aware of OSRIC and Basic Fantasy, but they're more concerned with making 3e more like AD&D/Basic D&D - I want 3e to remain 3e at its core. I'm also aware of Castles and Crusades, but again it's a bit more different than I want and a little *too* simplified.</p><p></p><p>So I'm going to try and houserule my own version of 3e, one that streamlines things down into a form that I can more easily manage and remember at the game table. To that end I'm going through the SRD and tweaking things here and there, simplifying in places and trying to return a bit of 1e flavour here and there. I'll be popping in here occasionally to ask some questions and raise some issues.</p><p></p><p>The first problem that I'm tackling is Stacking. Tracking all those bonuses is more than my tiny mind can bear. The simplest solution would be to let everything stack, but my tastes run to a more low-powered game, so that's out.</p><p></p><p>Another thought I had was to limit each enhanceable score to one spell and one item at a time - so your Strength could be enhanced by one item (i.e. a Girdle of Giant Strength) and one spell (like Bull's Strength), but a second one of either would be ineffective. There would be exceptions for certain items like the tomes that permanently enhance scores, etc. The obvious problem here is Armor Class - magic armour and shields need to work in conjunction, for instance. What are people's opinions here - is it a workable solution? Has anyone come up with a different solution?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nathan P. Mahney, post: 3393524, member: 29748"] Like many here I'm coming to the conclusion that 3e, even when restricted to the core books, is much too complicated as written for me to enjoy DMing it. It's a *great* game for players who like delving into the rules, but it has a few too many fiddly bits for more casual gamers, and it feels like a burden for me to keep track of as the DM. Nevertheless, I love the core principles of 3e, and I want to stick with it - in a streamlined form. I'm aware of OSRIC and Basic Fantasy, but they're more concerned with making 3e more like AD&D/Basic D&D - I want 3e to remain 3e at its core. I'm also aware of Castles and Crusades, but again it's a bit more different than I want and a little *too* simplified. So I'm going to try and houserule my own version of 3e, one that streamlines things down into a form that I can more easily manage and remember at the game table. To that end I'm going through the SRD and tweaking things here and there, simplifying in places and trying to return a bit of 1e flavour here and there. I'll be popping in here occasionally to ask some questions and raise some issues. The first problem that I'm tackling is Stacking. Tracking all those bonuses is more than my tiny mind can bear. The simplest solution would be to let everything stack, but my tastes run to a more low-powered game, so that's out. Another thought I had was to limit each enhanceable score to one spell and one item at a time - so your Strength could be enhanced by one item (i.e. a Girdle of Giant Strength) and one spell (like Bull's Strength), but a second one of either would be ineffective. There would be exceptions for certain items like the tomes that permanently enhance scores, etc. The obvious problem here is Armor Class - magic armour and shields need to work in conjunction, for instance. What are people's opinions here - is it a workable solution? Has anyone come up with a different solution? [/QUOTE]
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