What Aspects of Older Games Have Aged Well? (+)

[James Gasik]

If there's one sin above all others I can't forgive 3e for, it was iterative attacks. Just...why?

EDIT: just thought of two more bonuses our 2e Fighter could get. Be an Elf (+1) and spend proficiency slots on Bladesong fighting style (+1 or +2, if memory serves).

 

[Jd Smith1]

It's not really about "doing math in your head" being something older gamers can do and newer gamers can't. If anything, the older gamers still using the system are merely those who happened to be good at this particular calculation not math in general. The fact is, the math is more difficult than it needs to be, and that inherently slows the game down because you're doing it very often. Between the PCs and DM, it's not unusual for a table to make 20 attack rolls over the course of a single combat round. So it might be just a little bad, but when it has that much of an impact on the game being a little bad is a big problem.

Actually, I've had younger games at my table (college students), who in addition to not being able to read cursive, simply can't do calculations in their head. So yeah, what I was referring to was in fact about 'doing math in your head'.

 

[Hussar]

Um...I beg to differ about modifiers. For example:

Joe the Fighter has exceptional Strength.
Weapon Specialization.
A magic longsword.
Is under the effects of a Bless spell.
Is under the effects of a Prayer spell.
Owns a luckstone.

Gets even more fun.

Joe is attacking one creature with a large shield,
one with a small shield,
one wearing chain mail
the other wearing leather
one is standing slightly above Joe
the other is standing slightly below
one has not been attacked
one has been attacked twice previously

 

[billd91]

If there's one sin above all others I can't forgive 3e for, it was iterative attacks. Just...why?

EDIT: just thought of two more bonuses our 2e Fighter could get. Be an Elf (+1) and spend proficiency slots on Bladesong fighting style (+1 or +2, if memory serves).

Why? To gradually stage in attack power for multiple attacks as they had been in 1e/2e AD&D. Unlike 5e, when you got a multiple attack in AD&D, you didn't go from 1 attack to 2 at the same attack bonus. That doubles a character's effective output. AD&D increased by a half-step by going from 1 attack a round to 3/2 - or 3 every 2 rounds (1 attack one round, 2 the following round, 1 the next, then 2, etc). The iterative attack penalties for secondary attacks do pretty much the same thing as the expected damage from the reduced attack bonus gives you about the same increase in damage output as the 3/2 attack rate without having to suffer the annoyance of making different numbers of attacks each round to handle that extra half attack.
Going right to double damage output for 5e is a more significant boost in power when you get that multiple attack.

 

[James Gasik]

I understand why 3e gets flack. The dev teams of later editions specifically call out the "mountain of bonuses" as something they want to replace. But ultimately, 3e's problem wasn't "lots of random bonuses" as much as it was "finicky situational bonuses". You knew what your character had available to them by default. It was when casters started throwing weird buffs around that you had to stop and not only identify the bonuses, but figure out which ones stacked. And that's where it descends into madness.

 

[billd91]

I understand why 3e gets flack. The dev teams of later editions specifically call out the "mountain of bonuses" as something they want to replace. But ultimately, 3e's problem wasn't "lots of random bonuses" as much as it was "finicky situational bonuses". You knew what your character had available to them by default. It was when casters started throwing weird buffs around that you had to stop and not only identify the bonuses, but figure out which ones stacked. And that's where it descends into madness.

Well, if players self-regulated the number of bonuses they took on, it wouldn't have been so bad. The design really was clever, but it sure gave players enough rope to hang themselves (in recalculation annoyances) if anyone ever hit them with dispel magic.

 

[James Gasik]

Why? To gradually stage in attack power for multiple attacks as they had been in 1e/2e AD&D. Unlike 5e, when you got a multiple attack in AD&D, you didn't go from 1 attack to 2 at the same attack bonus. That doubles a character's effective output. AD&D increased by a half-step by going from 1 attack a round to 3/2 - or 3 every 2 rounds (1 attack one round, 2 the following round, 1 the next, then 2, etc). The iterative attack penalties for secondary attacks do pretty much the same thing as the expected damage from the reduced attack bonus gives you about the same increase in damage output as the 3/2 attack rate without having to suffer the annoyance of making different numbers of attacks each round to handle that extra half attack.
Going right to double damage output for 5e is a more significant boost in power when you get that multiple attack.

Ok, that's fine in theory, but, we go from a system where a Fighter gets 5/2 attacks at level 13 and AC is generally capped at -10 (30 for later editions) at the same bonus to one where AC is no longer capped and now a 13th level Fighter gets +13/+8/+3.

And, let's not forget, he's probably not hitting anything with that +3, even with all of his other modifiers.

Then of course, the "Full Attack" rule makes this even worse, so now, to claim all these attacks you have to basically stand still.

 

[billd91]

Then of course, the "Full Attack" rule makes this even worse, so now, to claim all these attacks you have to basically stand still.

They pretty much already had to stand still if you applied the 1e rules thoroughly. If you weren't in melee contact on your turn, you could close and make an attack. Note, that's AN attack. If you were in melee range, you could move 1" scale - 10' indoors - and still get your attacks. And that's reasonably close to the 5 foot step. It sure wasn't running all over the battlefield and making all of your attacks like a lot of people played it.
5e simplifies a lot and is willing to balance things more around the jumps up in power than pretty much any previous editions did.

 

[James Gasik]

Huh, that's obviously a change 2e made, where it clearly states: "when closing for combat, a character can move up to half his allowed distance and still make a melee attack" (allowed distance being 10 x movement rate in feet). But you can also charge to increase your movement rate by 50%.

And "make an attack" is defined in the PHB as "make attack rolls up to the maximum number allowed the character class at a given level".

 

[Hussar]

They pretty much already had to stand still if you applied the 1e rules thoroughly. If you weren't in melee contact on your turn, you could close and make an attack. Note, that's AN attack. If you were in melee range, you could move 1" scale - 10' indoors - and still get your attacks. And that's reasonably close to the 5 foot step. It sure wasn't running all over the battlefield and making all of your attacks like a lot of people played it.
5e simplifies a lot and is willing to balance things more around the jumps up in power than pretty much any previous editions did.

Yes, but, in AD&D, if anything tried to move out of melee, it got attacked by everything as well. When your baddies only take 2 or 3 hits to kill, that was really, really punishing. Which then tied into the morale rules (if you used them) where you could trigger a mass rout without a great deal of difficulty. In AD&D, most fights finished with half the baddies running away and then being cut down from behind.

OTOH, watching you guys talk about buffs and dispel magic and remember players who had actual spreadsheets for calculating their attack bonuses makes me realize just how glad I am that some aspects of older games have fallen by the wayside.