What details do you miss from older editions?

[Bendris Noulg]

thanks. please do. it will save me the trouble.

Now, Diaglo, behave ol' chap. Look at his post count; He doesn't know you like we do.

 

[Samothdm]

If by "dated" you mean that earlier edition art sometimes actually tried to represent what MEDIEVAL amour and weapons looked like, then dated is good! (Okay, Otus's stuff was occasionally pretty wild, to be admitted, but his art had other virtues.)

Sure, it's good if you're playing a MEDIEVAL-type game. What if you're not playing that kind of game, though? What if you're playing Dark Sun? Or Spelljammer? Or a homebrew that's not based on medieval Europe?

What if, since this is a fantasy game, you'd rather have a completely different "fantasy" style look to your weapons and armor? There are tons of non-fiction encyclopedia-type books with pictures of real-world medieval European weapons and armor.

Probably getting a little off track here, but I've noticed a general theme running through this thread that a lot of people wish that D&D artwork and races were more "Medieval" and "Tolkien-like". That's only one particular style of play. A lot of people are looking for something different that's more general so that it supports a lot of different styles of play.

If you want Tolkiensian halfings, then perhaps check out the LOTR RPG for inspiration and adopt some of that stuff to your D20 game.

 

[James Heard]

What are the rules and little tidbits from the pre-3.0 incarnations of D&D that make you nostalgic?

I miss being young and having all my hair. Being able to play D&D all Saturday long after watching cartoons was nice too.

 

[jmucchiello]

I miss lobbing fireballs with my bards. Haven't played one in 3.x since they messed up his spell list.

And I miss multiclass spellcasters who can hold their own. My favorite 2e character was a druid/bard. No chance of porting that to 3.x meaningfully.

 

[Swiftbrook]

Rangers! 3.5 Ranger is ok. In 3.0 they stripped the Ranger of the animal companions and gave them to the Druid. Rangers got a whole heap of animal, monster and demihuman followers at like 10th level.

Specialty Priests Armor restrictions, special weapons lists, different spell lists for different priests. All in all, uniqueness. Sure you choose different Domains, but that's it. In 2e, priests of Iuz didn't have access to healing spells, but had other nasty abilities/benifits.

Magic Items were special. Very few characters made them. Now there as common as dirty socks. I think this is one of the really bad aspects of 3/3.5e.

-Swiftbrook

[edit: had Bard, meant Druid]

 

[Belegbeth]

Sure, it's good if you're playing a MEDIEVAL-type game. What if you're not playing that kind of game, though? What if you're playing Dark Sun? Or Spelljammer? Or a homebrew that's not based on medieval Europe?

What if, since this is a fantasy game, you'd rather have a completely different "fantasy" style look to your weapons and armor? ...

Well, Medieval Europe IS the default cultural basis for DnD, so using it in SOME of the illustrations in DnD books would be nice.

Also, the existing punk/goth/cartoon style adopted by most WotC artists hardly caters to the diversity of different games/campaigns out there. This is why I wish there were a VARIETY of different artistic styles in WotC books.

Getting rid of those annoying "iconic characters" would also be a step in the right direction. I am so sick of Mialee, Lidda, et al. There was none of that nonesense in the old school DnD books.

 

[Swiftbrook]

I miss:
- 2 ed priests. The spheres/powers concept was cool and all priests felt unique.

Priest spell spheres.

Priests that were different from each other before getting a Prestige Class.

-Priests with different powers based on their area of influence. Domains are a nice idea, but clerics turn out identical except for 2 spells per level! That is really lame. This one really bugs me, and I'm working on cooking up a Domains list that is much more like the old Spheres in design.

Things I miss from earlier editions ...
- Priests of different deities who actually seemed different from one another.

Seems I'm not alone in my opinion. Someone like Monte Cooke could make a lot of money writing an option book for Specialty Priests.

I've worked on some house rules for a specialty priest. Bascially it includes:

• Armor restrictions
• Unique weapon lists
• "Major" Domain access = Domain as written
• "Minor" Domain access = No domain granted power and 1st to 5th level spells only.

-Swiftbrook

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Slower character progression. Though I like the simplicity of the current experience mechanic, I don't like the effects of it. Characters gain levels too quickly for players to master them. And by using a one-size-fits-all xp advancement chart, many classes are stretched/limited to keep them "balanced".

Named demons/devils. Asmodeus, Baalzebul, Demogorgon, Dispater, Jubiilex, etc. Had many great adventures based around these guys.

Artifacts. Artifacts in 1E had certain base abilities, then a ton of random abilities - just rolling those abilities would give me so many plot ideas. Also, there were a lot more of them, with some interesting back-stories.

Magic items not limited to spells. "Protection from..." scrolls. Potions of Giant Strength (rather than bull's strength), Dragon Control (vs. charm monster), Invulnerability (vs. ??). Staff of Striking. Staff of Withering. Staff of the Serpent. You get the idea...items designed around a theme, not a spell.

Flavor. I know, this doesn't fit the original question, but it's still a valid response, IMO.

Size. PHB was 128 pages. DMG was 240. MM was 112. Total: 480 pages, roughly half the 3.x total.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Getting rid of those annoying "iconic characters" would also be a step in the right direction. I am so sick of Mialee, Lidda, et al. There was none of that nonesense in the old school DnD books.

You know, I never even noticed the iconic characters in the core books until (contact) did such a hilarious job inserting them into his Liberation of Tenh story hour.

This, to me, says that the iconic characters are being used correctly. They appear only in illustrations or are mentioned as an example to illustrate a game rule, or they get one paragraph of flavor text at the start of a chapter, and that's all. It's about on the same level as saying Barry the Barbarian, Bartholomew the Bard, Carl the Cleric, etc., when they're fishing for an unimportant character name to attach to "Generic Character Used For This Example."

Compare that to the god-awful signature characters White Wolf pushes into their sourcebooks, complete with metaplot and the horribly written and excruciatingly long stories about them shoehorned into the beginnings of each rulebook.

So I have no complaints at all about the D&D iconics, because they are kept appropriately insignificant in the rulebooks. I wish more developers would exercise the same kind of restraint, to be honest.

--
if they want to write more about those characters, they can go publish crappy novels
ryan

 

[Brother MacLaren]

1) Kits for bards. Yes, 2E kits had their problems, but the bards' book was pretty neat and added a lot of breadth to the class.
2) Dragons that weren't gods. BD&D (and Expert, etc.) had some unintelligent dragons that couldn't speak or cast spells (not sure about 1E) and didn't live in perfectly-designed trap-ridden lairs. In other words, beasts like the dragons in Dragonslayer, Reign of Fire, Dragonstorm, and the legend of St. George. Successive editions seem to operate on the premise "If PCs can challenge your dragons, you aren't playing the dragons right."
Not that I mind having some uber-tough genius-level foes... I just don't think that every dragon needs to live up to that standard. I've never seen a DM use a dragon in 3E or 3.5E, because each DM seems to believe that a properly played dragon is always a TPK. (And, when I was a DM, one of the players who was also a good friend had such a fondness for dragons that she would have quit the game had I made one a villain)