What did we do before feats, skills, and prestige classes?

[Whimsical]

Back then I didn't try to model my characters on other kinds of characters. My druid was based on the D&D druid, and my enchantress was based on the D&D wizard(enchanter).

Well, I did have a space elf cleric/m-u of Celestian named Trillian. But I just used the name.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, at first we made characters that fit the archetypes presented in the rules...and even with Basic D&D we got "feats" for some classes (fighter abilities), and "prestige classes" (druid, paladin, etc), and later we got proficiencies, some of which doubled as feats as well, and weapon mastery...so there was well enough stuff to flesh out existing characters. Apart from new regional classes presented in the Gazetteer series to spice up the region.

Apart from the mechanistic side, we simply played the character every which way we imagined him to be, and probably gave our DMs more than enough rope to hang us with every time we brought up one of our made-up weaknesses...which promptly was turned into some kind of check or save we had to pass if the situation came up ("Hey, YOU keep mentioning your magic-user is afraid of heights, don't complain to me he has to roll a Wisdom check to cross that very narrow rope bridge across the chasm!" )

And if push came to shove, and the right DM, we simply bent the rules until they either broke or gave us the character we wanted out of them. I think we wasted as much time back then arguing about HOW to rule a certain situation in the first place as we waste today arguing about WHICH rule should be applied, and if there are errata for it.

 

[Drowbane]

Back in 2e it was all about Kits, Multiclassing or Dual-classing (multi was far better, IMO), Weapon Profiencies and Non-Weapon Profiencies (now both split into either feats or skills).

Weapon Spec? That was two more points into your weapon of choice, giving you +1 to hit and +2 Dmg. Sound alot like what you can get now for two feats? Yep, sure does!

3e was in large part a huge redesign that brought everything back into balance. 2e was way out of whack towards the end.

With the Arms Race back on... some people are saying that Balance is again becoming an issue. However, its nothing like it used to be. 3.X is still pretty nicely balanced.

...Back before we even had kits...

Err, missed that line. :/

Before all the stuff I mentioned above... we faked it.

As to that elitist BS about having imagination back then... speak for yourself berk! Every min/maxed and powergamed character I make even now is rich with imagination. The day Imagination goes out the window (whether Imagination is borken or not ) is the day I lay down my dice and pick up shuffle-board.

Some combos, like swashbucklers or unarmed combatants, sucked. DMs would either have to make up new rules or dredge through 2e kits until they found something cool, similar to the PC's concept and hopefully with a modicum of balance. One of my DMs did manage to come up with a decent "unarmed fighter kit" but I never did see a decent swashbuckler in 2e.

You're either...

1) A Crazy man with fuzzy memory

or

2) one of those who just never subscribed to the 2e Arms Races )

Dex-fighters owned in 2e. Back before the stats were made equal, Dex was king (now that title goes to Str). I can still make a 1st level 2e Fighter with an AC around -2 without wearing armor. Kits and whatnot.

 

[Sejs]

What did we do before feats, skills, and prestige classes?

Mostly we crabbed about how everything was better back in the day with basic D&D, Chainmail, etc. When, by god, Elf was a class or every weapon did 1d6 damage regardless of what it was!

 

[arntof]

I strongly dislike most prestige classes, just as I did with the vast majority of kits in 2e

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I strongly dislike most prestige classes, just as I did with the vast majority of kits in 2e

I think prestige classes are okay in their original role (i.e. DM-defined bennies that fit organizations/etc in his campaign world). However, I think they're abused a lot.

I never liked kits. Actually, I didn't like 2E much. If you stuck to the core books it was okay, but the kits, skills & powers, et cetera went too far, IMO.

 

[Whisper72]

I totally agree that the original idea behind the PrC concept is nice. Already back in the 1st edition era, we houseruled that clerics worshipping specific deities received deity-related powers and drawbacks.

 

[Hussar]

*snip*

So count me in with the 'we were waiting for a sign, and lo, on that fateful year, it did come.. and its name was 3e!' crowd.

One of the faithful.

Really, the biggest reason I like 3e is that it took 99% of my house rules, made them 100% better and included them in the game. Kits, which I liked, became PrC's. Insane abilities became feats. Classes became playable at all levels and the game didn't assume that you were only going to use about 1/3 of the rules since no one played over 9th level.

Made me happy.

Really, in all honesty, what imagination before then? I was 12 years old playing AD&D. Change the rules? Are you kidding? If it was written, so wrote it be. Who was I to start second guessing EGG? The books said one thing, the modules I played said something completely different. Confused? Yup.

 

[JoeGKushner]

We read Dragon and Mayfair's Role Aids!

Let's see... classes

Duelist
Death Master
Psionicist
Bounty Hunter
Archer
Archer Ranger
Plethora of Paladins (one paladin for each alignment)
Savant
Cloistered Cleric
Battle Dancer
Samurai
Ninja

etc... Of course most of these were overpowered and almost every Dragon with them in it noted that they should be reserved for GM's use only.

 

[Melan]

In our games, character differentiation occured through in game actions. So Joe the fighter and Jack the fighter could have the same stats, but John was foolhardy and vain, whereas Jack was careful and manipulative. Originally cookie cutter characters evolved into complex personalities with quirks (and rarely special abilities) by participating in adventures.

We also adopted the proficiency system after a while, but the original way of doing things remained the more common method.