The thing I miss most from AD&D is...

[Storm Raven]

That severely understates the time and system knowledge required to select skills and feats, as compared to the "roll and/or pick one" nature of the other elements, and it gets even worse if a player intends to take a PrC later.

It takes at most a few minutes to pick a feat. A few minutes to pick skills. Most are well summarized and you only need to look at a few more fully to decide.

The "if a player intends to pick a PrC later" is exactly the sort of agonizing over things that will happen many months down the line that I pointed out you don't actually have to do. (And one could argue a PrC makes feat and skill selection easier, since it guides the player to make some choices without having to think about them).

 

[Falling Icicle]

I miss kits. I liked being able to customize my class at level 1, rather than waiting to get a "presige class" or "paragon path" at higher levels.

I also really miss the old books. They seemed alot more story-oriented back then. 3rd and 4th edition books are mostly mechanics. There's more "meat" in them, but they aren't as much fun to read.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The "if a player intends to pick a PrC later" is exactly the sort of agonizing over things that will happen many months down the line that I pointed out you don't actually have to do. (And one could argue a PrC makes feat and skill selection easier, since it guides the player to make some choices without having to think about them).

This is only easier if the player is already familiar with all the PrC's being used in the campaign and the requirements/prerequisites for every one that he/she might be interested in playing.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I was talking about group initiative. Maybe you missed that.

We are talking about group initiative. I asked why you thought the rules were functioning in lieu of the party and never got an answer.

 

[Drowbane]

A few things I miss about AD&D (here, that means 2e - didn't play all that much before that)...

* My youth and thus the time to game 4-6 times a week (god I miss 3-day weekend marathon gaming!)

* Whacky super-powered Psionics. Back in the day, I never got why the group's main "wizard-player" *hated* my psionicists... looking back it had to be the use of Disintegrate by 3rd level (as one example of "borken")

* Planescape - Do I need to elaborate there?

* DARK SUN (or "what do you mean you're playing an Elf-eating Thri-Kreen Psionicist?!") - I can't think of anything in that setting that I *didn't* like. I can't say that about any other setting to date.

* Ravenloft - 3e's Ravenloft treatment felt... "weaksauce" to me so I didn't buy into it.

* Forgotten Realms - I'd love to find a copy of the "Grey-box Realms". 3e went in a few whacky dirrections and 4e simply raped the setting.

* Katanas - awesome damage to initiative-speed ratio... and yet they weren't so powerful that everybody had to use one. The majority of my group's 2e characters kept with longswords, broadswords and scimitars.

*Super-cool Elves - Back in 2e you were at a disadvantage if you played a core race other than Elf. One reason I loved my Thri-Kreen so much. Bladesingers were cool once!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is only easier if the player is already familiar with all the PrC's being used in the campaign and the requirements/prerequisites for every one that he/she might be interested in playing.

I think the fundamental thing behind here:
People assume that feats, skills, powers, spells, prestige classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, racial substitution levels and so on are important and they want to optimize them. You get better for picking the right feats, spells, skills or powers.

But you could just pick the first thing that you find. Your character is still playable, he doesn't become invalid or anything. You just don't get that extra inch or mile of performance out of it.

But so what? When you didn't have any of these options, you didn't get any extra performance either. If you could live with it then, you can live with it now.

The thing Storm Raven seems to be missing, though:
Players have different preferences. Some like this optimizing and do not miss the "easier" times. But other players want that easier times. Sit them at the same game table, and you create conflicts, because the optimizer will have a far easier time to get the spotlight then the suboptimal characters.


So to fulfill what you miss from old games and still have a satisfying experience, you also need players that miss the same. And you might have had them then, but you might not have them now. And you might not get the old ones back and might like the current ones too much to just give them up.

 

[Storm Raven]

We are talking about group initiative. I asked why you thought the rules were functioning in lieu of the party and never got an answer.

Because when group initiative is being used, then the players function "as a team" as a side effect of the rules, not because they actually do any kind of team functioning. They act together in concert because the rules make them act together in concert. This isn't acting as a team, this is being forced by the rules to simulate acting as a team.

 

[Storm Raven]

The thing Storm Raven seems to be missing, though:
Players have different preferences. Some like this optimizing and do not miss the "easier" times. But other players want that easier times. Sit them at the same game table, and you create conflicts, because the optimizer will have a far easier time to get the spotlight then the suboptimal characters.


So to fulfill what you miss from old games and still have a satisfying experience, you also need players that miss the same. And you might have had them then, but you might not have them now. And you might not get the old ones back and might like the current ones too much to just give them up.

I disagree. Even if you are a non-optimizer playing in a game with an optimizer, that doesn't mean that the optimizer will get more spotlight time, especially since for the most part even if you spend time tweaking your character to perfection, the gains are usually pretty modest (save for rule abuse characters like Pun-Pun). Further, the non-optimizer can easily make up for his mechanical deficiency with (for example) better non-mechanical elements like character background (if that's what the player likes to do). In the end, the DM you play for is far more critical for determining who gets the spotlight than how the other PCs design their characters.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Because when group initiative is being used, then the players function "as a team" as a side effect of the rules, not because they actually do any kind of team functioning. They act together in concert because the rules make them act together in concert. This isn't acting as a team, this is being forced by the rules to simulate acting as a team.

Thanks for the clarification. I still don't see how the mechanics of side OR turn based initiative force any kind of action or simulation. All side based initiative does is say that the members of team one may act before the members of team two. Individuals can still act completely on thier own. It would be no different than using turn based initiative in a situation where all the PC's rolled higher than the monsters. In this case the PC's could coordinate thier actions or everyone could do thier own thing. Side based just skips all the hoops of the take-a-number customer service line and does away with the delays, holds, and waits, and just lets the party members work out when it is best for a given individual to act.

 

[Storm Raven]

Thanks for the clarification. I still don't see how the mechanics of side OR turn based initiative force any kind of action or simulation. All side based initiative does is say that the members of team one may act before the members of team two. Individuals can still act completely on thier own. It would be no different than using turn based initiative in a situation where all the PC's rolled higher than the monsters. In this case the PC's could coordinate thier actions or everyone could do thier own thing. Side based just skips all the hoops of the take-a-number customer service line and does away with the delays, holds, and waits, and just lets the party members work out when it is best for a given individual to act.

But that's the point. With team based initiative, the PCs don't act as a team. All the delays, holds, and waits are the PCs actually acting as a team by making decisions. But with team initiative, the PCs don't make the decision to work together, they work together because the rules make them work together. In other words, the rules do the functioning as a team part, the PCs just go along for the ride. With individual initiative, the PCs can act as a team, if they actually make teamwork related choices.