Strengths & Weaknesses in RPGs

[Raven Crowking]

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[redmetal]

Can we have examples?

No offense or anything, but this sort of overgeneralization really is pointless, as this may only be in your experience. I never played a lot of 2e but I don't recall it ever inspiring any more greatness in players than 3.X. In my experiences, players have had to make up for their weaknesses and did so well in 3.X

Maybe it's just what you're used to and the groups you played with... I dunno. Personal experiences will vary greatly between DM's, players and groups.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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[Doug McCrae]

In a video game, you know that you can potentially overcome every challenge you meet.

I'm playing Morrowind (great game BTW). There are a lot of fixed encounters whose power is independent of your character's level. Wandering monsters are geared to your level though.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

In 2e wizards just plain owned at mid to high levels (once you got fire ball it was up and up and up from there) . It was ridiculous. At least now a high level fighter (properly equiped) stands a chance against a high level wizard.

Classes still have strengths a weaknesses. I rarley see a wizard enter melee combat unless he's buffed himself for several rounds (haste, tensers transformation, diplacement, greater magic weapon and so on) but that rarley happens. Thats just an example, I could up with the weaknesses of every class.

And in part of the (3.0) DMG they specifically talk about either having a world where things are more realistic (epic creatures and low level grunts exist regardless of PC level) and worlds where the encounters are taylored for the PCs.

 

[Umbran]

In a video game, you know that you can potentially overcome every challenge you meet. 3.X seems to take that design philosophy.

This is often stated, but is simply incorrect. The rulebooks clearly state otherwise.

Take a look at the DMG - pg 102 in 3e, pg 49-50 in 3.5e. In these places they discuss encounter difficulty. By the guidelines there, 15% of all encounters are supposed to be very difficult, meaning that if they don't play smart, a PC coul very well die. Another 5% should be overpowering, the sort of enounter you're supposed to run or everyone will probably die.

Similarly, a noted percentage of encounters are weak, easily beaten by the PCs.

BTW, I didn't mean to imply that 3.X denies players from doing great things. 3.X is enabling for players and DMs in all kinds of ways. But there seems to be what I would consider a philosophical flaw in the design, in that ANY class seems capable of handling almost ANY kind of encounter roughly equally.

Again, I don't see that this is at all true. The archetype to pull out here is that wizards do very poorly against grappling critters with lots of hit points, while fighters do rather well. That's merely one example among many. The "standard party" has a fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard for a reason - a generic adventure calls for skills and abilities that an all-fighter group simply can't handle well.

I would prefer more specialized classes.

Well, if they made the core classes more specialized, the game would sell poorly. The classes are designed so that a given class can take on many variations of the same role. If you specialize, the classes become inflexible, and a player who has a concept doesn't fit your specialized classes is left extremely unsatisfied. Unsatisfied players don't buy books.

Or, another way to think of it - specialized classes are fine, but not in the core rules. The core rules should be designed with a large market in mind.

Still, I am very tempted to restructure the system from the ground up in order to make it better fit my world concepts.

Well, you're free to do so if you wish. However, I strongly suspect that you can fit your world concepts by using a small number of changes, rather than a massive restructuring.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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[Raven Crowking]

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[Saeviomagy]

Perhaps, though I never actually ran into those problems in game play.

At a guess, your 'wizards don't do combat' stance was most likely due to your wizard player (you know, the guy who always seems to play the wizard?) focussing on utility over combat.

Because believe me - a wizard focussing on combat over utility made the rest of the party redundant in that area.

 

[Saeviomagy]

So, the group should be able to defeat 80% of all encounters without a reasonable chance that a PC could die? I fail to see how this differs significantly from a video game. If you look at a game like DinoCrisis, it is clear that a very few encounters are to be avoided altogether (the T-Rex you encounter repeatedly), and a few encounters are of the "better play smart" variety. Everything else is attrition. The same is true of Resident Evil, or a whole host of other games one could mention.

Instead, wouldn't it make sense to gear the encounters toward what makes sense in the area that is being explored? Explore the ruined city of Shanthopal, and you might find a lot of ancient treasure, but you will also encounter the constructs left behind, creatures who have moved in, and other adventurers. Climb the Horn to the den of a dragon and you'll probably never climb back down. Collect taxes from kobolds and get a small amount of pay for almost no danger.

The idea from previous editions that monsters occur at a given frequency, regardless of the PCs' levels, makes a lot more sense to me from a world-creation standpoint. I do think, however, that individual worlds require different levels of frequency. IMC, you'll encounter wolves more often than trolls, trolls more often than vampires, and vampires more often than dragons. But you can encounter any of them at any level.

Which is entirely possible.

Also included in the 2nd ed rules, was the idea that on a certain 'level' in the dungeon, you'd meet a certain power level of critter. This was a big concept of the game - if you didn't go to an inappropriate 'level' of the dungeon before you were ready, you'd mostly face critters that you could defeat. In fact I seem to recall Gary (although it could be another ultra-old-school DM) boasting that he'd tricked players into going down a level in a dungeon without realising it, and therefore they'd meet tougher creatures. As if that was the only way to make them face tougher creatures...

Overland travel encounters tended to be much wider ranging in power level, but with a much better chance of avoidance. Add to that the fact that metagame knowledge of the monsters in the game was expected, that there were no stats for monsters to spot you, and in practice, encounters WERE around party level.

Among the changes that I am envisioning:

* Gnomes and elves become fey.

You might want to change (or at least consider) the spells which only affect 'humanoids' then. Otherwise (for instance), charm person doesn't work on them, and there is no enlarge spell which will work on them.

* Divine spellcasters are tied into deity more closely.

There are no rules involved with this - it's purely flavour consideration.

* Arcane spellcasters gain more of a "stealing power from the gods" feel.

See above.

* Non spellcasting classes strengthened and structured into world.

Error, incomplete information

* A lot of new classes, including some from Monte Cooke, Oriental Adventures, the Medieval Player's Handbook, Master Class, and other sources.
* A lot of the sillier new bits (spiked everything, some of the new weapons, some of the new monsters, etc.) tossed out.

Zero impact.

* Several new racial choices, and sub-races of humans, elves, etc.

Stat them sensibly, and you've no problems

* Some spells tightened, or made more difficult to cost.

Depends what spells, and what you mean.

For some people, this may be "a small number of changes". For me, it is a significant reworking.

Really, you've given us nothing to work on. I suggest you pick a change, think through what you want out of it, and then make the change so it does two of the following three:

1. Makes the game simpler
2. Makes the game more 'realistic' - that is, it conforms to the reality you have imagined.
3. Makes the game more fun.

As an example - banning items or weapons fails on point number 3, but succeeds on points 1 and 2.

So far, making gnomes and elves into fey fails points 1 and 3 - fey aren't inherently more fun than humanoids, and making players of them remember what the 'fey' type does is making the game a bit more complex.