Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3100439" data-attributes="member: 22779">There are two complaints that I see about 3.x DnD.  Well, that's not true, I see more than two, but, I only want to talk about these specific two right now, so sit yer pedandic butt down in the back.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The first complaint that I see is that the d20 rules are so tightly wound that it is virtually impossible to change the rules.  Usually the term Knock On Effect is used to say that any change you make will cascade into a large number of unforseeable effects that will grind the game to a halt.  To some degree I agree with this.  There are some rules in the game that would be very difficult to change.  Take initiative for example.  Rerolling initiative every round could have many effects, and most of them are bad.  Generally, any change to base mechanics is going to have multiple effects and, frequently, they will have bad effects.  Then again, IMO, this is true of any game.  If you change base rules of any game, it will lead to massive changes in gameplay.  If you gained 500 dollars every time you rolled doubles in Monopoly, it would have a very large effect.  If pawns in chess could move three squares at a time, it would have a huge effect.None of this is terribly big news.  We know this.But, what confuses me is there is a fairly large and vocal crowd who talks about how complex D&D has become with endless splatbooks and optional rules.  I've read comments about how it's virtually impossible for some DM's to keep up with all the new rules and whatnot.How does this jive with the first complaint?  If D&D is so incredibly tightly wound that we cannot make house rules, then how can we have so many optional rules?In my view, both complaints are fallacious.  While there are some things in D&D that are difficult to change, there are a huge number of things that are very easy.  Within the game we now have some five or six different spells systems - Vancian, Point Based (Psionics), unlimited per day (Warlocks), Limited per day (Shadowmages), Skill based (Truenamer) and probably two or three that I've forgotten.Never mind the two or three THOUSAND feats published by WOTC alone which are all variations on combat rules.  Or the couple of dozen new classes, few hundred PrC's and, of course, the variant rules in Unearthed Arcana.Add to that the d20 publishers out there and I'd say that 3e is emminently tweakable.But, does that make it too complex for any one DM?  IMO, no.  For a few reasons.  First, you will never see all those rules in the same campaign.  At best, you might see half a dozen of them.  The majority of the game will still draw from core and base rules.  Sure, the feat might tweak this or that rule, but it rarely outright changes any.  The unified mechanic is still used.Secondly, even if every player is using elements that are completely non-core, not a single piece of equipment, class, spell, everything, is from outside core, you still are only looking at a small number of new elements to learn.  At most, eight classes - all of which follow more or less the same pattern as core classes - a handful of feats, this and that.  At no point does a DM have to learn all that material.  That's what players are for.Arghh, ran out of time, will finish this thought anon.</blockquote>

Verification