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

[Von Ether]

There have been many discussions about how to make certain characters -- archtypes, specific novel/movie characters, and just new and unusual characters. For instance, there's a thread on this forum right now talking about how to make a Legolas-like character, using two base classes and two prestige classes. Some folks are even suggesting non-core base classes.

I remember when Legolas would have been called a "Fighter 12", or some such. A "war priest" was just a straight cleric, an "abby priest" was just a straight cleric, a "traveling pilgrim" was just a straight cleric.

What did we do to make our archtypes, specific novel/movie characters, and new and usual characters before having feats, skills, and prestige classes? Back before we even had kits.

Quasqueton

My DM's called them "NPCs" since we weren't allowed to make floating castles in the sky or go beyond demi-human multi-class racial limits. (And I was the only human guy, a theif no less. So there was pretty solid caps on how "epic" I could get)

I called them "GURPS" and "White Wolf" because dugeon delving wasn't my style of storytelling. If your DMs used D&D for epic, true stories beyond the rules, God bless you. You lucky fellow.

 

[Akrasia]

When I played 1e AD&D and Basic/Expert D&D back in the day, there was no expectation that characters were meant to 'emulate' fictional heroes. D&D was its own genre, and didn't do a good job of 'emulating' any great fantasy fiction (despite some hamfisted attempts in the 'special printing' of D&DG, and the Lankhmar material).

This is still true. The D&D 3e magic system doesn't resemble anything in fiction, and the characters created in a standard D&D campaign do not resemble traditional fictional heroes at all (D&D PCs have way too much magic on average, for one thing).

Back in the day, if we wanted to emulate certain fictional worlds, we turned to other games -- games specifically designed for the fictional world in question. So for Elric's Young Kingdoms, we played Stormbringer, for Middle-earth we played Middle-earth Roleplaying, for 'mythical history' games we used GURPS + appropriate supplement, and so forth.

Same thing today. I wouldn't use D&D 3e for Middle-earth -- it is a horrible system for trying to emulate Tolkien. Likewise, for Conan I would use the Mongoose game (or, if I had time, a modified version of Eden's Cinematic Unisystem).

Many standard D&D archetypes do not even exist in fiction -- e.g. the cleric class. D&D is its own genre. Trying to bend it to reflect some other genre, or an established fantasy setting, without radical changes (essentially creating a new game, e.g. Conan or Lonewolf OGL), you're likely to simply break it and end up with a mess.

 

[shilsen]

D&D is its own genre. Trying to bend it to reflect some other genre, or an established fantasy setting, without radical changes (essentially creating a new game, e.g. Conan or Lonewolf OGL), you're likely to simply break it and end up with a mess.

Word.

 

[fuindordm]

Actually, back in the 1e days, I remember shunting off a fair bit of the character differentiation onto the magic items the characters carried... want your fighter trained in kung fu? Give him slippers of kicking! A master duellist? Has a +5 defending longsword! How will I make this player's thief special? Arrange for him to find a cloak of arachnida... That, the attributes, weapon specialization, magic-user's spell lists (which were limited), the nonweapon proficiencies...

Yep, that's what I was about to post. I remember distinguishing characters in terms of their equipment, not in terms of their abilities. There was the dwarf fighter with a frost brank axe and a crossbow with "lightning bolts", the wizard who had the slippers of spider climbing and came up with several of his own spells, etc. Because, well, that was the only way characters of a given class could have different interesting abilities.

But in all fairness, this was in high school. And we all know what *that* was like. By the time I was itching for more meaningful ways to differentiate my characters mechanically, 2nd edition had come out and I was in college.

During 2nd edition, I played and DMed mostly in the HERO system, and experimented with Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and various small press games.

Ben

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm sorry but a character should be able to be Errol Flynn without having to use all his feat slots to get that high of a jump and tumbling score to pull it off but again, while it isn't the RAW, many players and even DM's look at the Charsheet and say "nope, can't do that, you need these three feats and you have toughness, blind fighting and the anal swelling feats (cuz you just got screwed out of fun)". Uhhh, yeah I can, -4 penalty or even then a Dex check would do just fine.

I'm not sure I understand.

If you want to swing on the chandalier, and the DM says "Okay, call it a DC 20 Jump check... what's your Jump modifier?"...

If your answer is "Uh... +1", then he's not saying you can't do it... he's just saying your chances are not as good as the swashbuckler who's got a +16.

Likewise the Uzi - if your d20 Modern character doesn't have the Personal Firearms Proficiency feat, he can still shoot with a -4. If he doesn't have the Advanced Firearms Proficiency feat, he can even fire on automatic... it just won't help him much.

You say "yeah I can, -4 penalty"... but you also say that people forget they can use some abilities untrained. If the system supports untrained use (whether it be at a penalty, or simply lacking some bonuses), is it the system's fault people don't avail themselves of the option?

-Hyp.

 

[teitan]

Yo smurf,

See the thing is that I have experienced in a LOT of games lately, 3.5 and D20 Modern games, that at least in my area DM's and Players aren't doing that. Things have to be quanitified. That is why I said I know it isn't the rules as written (RAW) but they are taking it to mean the RAW. They aren't remembering untrained skill use. I have a guy who joined my group just after we set the D&D game aside to play Mutants & Masterminds and then finish an AD&D2e campaign that he and another guy were in. Now this guy was invited to play with another group with some guys at work. They were playing D20 Modern and he HATED IT because he wanted to shoot an Uzi and the DM said he couldn't use it because he didn't have the feats to use automatic weapons. Now he knows D20 Modern is a variation on D&D3 and he swore of D&D because he was told that was how the rules are now. I played with another group, a Gnomish Artificer, and I was told I couldn't swim cause I didn't have ranks in swim... an UNTRAINED skill. I should have been able to make a strength check (+1) to see if I could swim across the river but no, I had to be carried by the half-orc... on a DC 10.

I don't fault 3.5 the core for it, just the mentality that if it isn't on yer charsheet ye can't do it.

Jason

 

[Baron Opal]

What did we do to make our archtypes, specific novel/movie characters, and new and usual characters before having feats, skills, and prestige classes? Back before we even had kits.

We made stuff up that made the characters model what we wanted. And, we gave out powers and capabilities as we felt was appropriate. Rather than wondering if an ability costs a feat or a level of a prestige class you just adjusted for the power by the creatures you sent after the characters.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yo smurf,

See the thing is that I have experienced in a LOT of games lately, 3.5 and D20 Modern games, that at least in my area DM's and Players aren't doing that.

But that's the DMs and players not knowing the rules. The mentality isn't connected to the system, because the system contradicts the mentality.

-Hyp.

 

[Seeten]

But that's the DMs and players not knowing the rules. The mentality isn't connected to the system, because the system contradicts the mentality.

-Hyp.

We had lots of people who did not know the rules when I played 1e and 2e also. So lets not even begin the "Back in the old days, everyone knew the rules, and we never made mistakes" angle. I remember stuff so foolish happening it made me want to cry.

People have tried to have wrongbadfun in every version of the rules.

 

[Greylock]

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.

W3rd.