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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 3699897" data-attributes="member: 545">It is not necessarily the radical change that you are suggesting here.  If you ran 1e very literally, it is likely most of your xp came directly form acquiring lucre, on a 1 gp = 1 xp exchange rate.I would say that 3e has taken some pains to make all levels from 1-20 playable out of the box.  Regardless of one's opinion on the effort, the attempt necessitated a fairly explicit ceiling and floor to wealth as a starting point/guidepost.There has always been a tension & controversy around competence, level, and how they should relate.If you consider the Take 10 rule, those 4 ranks guarantee a character of modest talent can hit DC 15 checks 100% of the time.  If I am an extraordinary talent (very high stat, some miscellaneous other bonus), I can automatically hit DC 20 as well -- more than sufficient to win the respect of the man on the street.So "20%" measured in ranks can mean the difference between 0% chance of failure and ~60% chance of failure.  Obvious this argument applies to only some kinds of checks.Not sure about OD&D, but relative to 1e/2e the combat pace of 3e is very fast.  It is not just the melee damage output, but the effectiveness of spells.In 1e/2e at middling levels, monsters and PCs alike make their saves most of the time against everything under the sun.While there may be more combat modifiers that can come into play, IME there tends to be fewer rounds ina  combat.  Fewer rounds with only one attack per PC.  Fewer spells that do nothing.  The net effect is combat takes less time overall.This is a significant change in feel.Is someone going to start ranting against the eurogame aesthetic?  Just kidding!  Just kidding!The other side of the coin is that there is no compelling design reason to include "sucker plays" or "overpowered/broken feats" into a game at all.  At least not on purpose.One might suggest this coddles players.  But I see it as primarily saving a DM a lot of hard crunching that I would prefer a highly competent game designer would take a crack at first.It is easy to add overpowered options that a highly appropriate to the specific themes and needs of a specific campaign.  Just add "more".  It is a lot of work for a DM to digest even a single splatbook when the powerful level of the material is all over the map.A fair point.  The other side of the coin is that the campaign can organically grow through a range of levels that would probably have never happened otherwise.If campaigns have a modest half-life, some of that expertise probably comes from going over the same ground for the upteenth time.</blockquote>

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