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

[Philotomy Jurament]

I certainly agree with your main points here.

Well, I'm glad somebody read it (and it's a bonus that you agree). I thought my post had been lost in storm...

 

[Silver Moon]

Adding action points might help, too, especially if you specify that you have to describe something really cool when you spend one.

[Homer Simpson Voice] Ah, Action Points! [/Homer Simpson Voice]

 

[Gentlegamer]

We role-played and *played* the game rather than play *at* the game by making a game out of "character building" in mechanical terms.

 

[teitan]

It sounds obvious, but have you tried explicitly telling your players that they can use skills untrained and try stuff not in the rules?

Adding action points might help, too, especially if you specify that you have to describe something really cool when you spend one.

I actually do not play with them anymore. One of the players was so much of an 4$$ that I couldn't take it anymore and the rest were taking cues from him. I wasn't ostracized from the group or anything, it just seemed that the only way to get anything done was if 4$$hat wanted to do it. He sort of became the center of attention for not just the D&D games but also the WOD games and it was getting sickening. The group was about 8 people and 3 of us quit because of this and the way the other DM was interpretting the rules. Man, these kids used to get mad when I banned a PrC, but they don't blink at the stuff I was talking about. One guy in the group understands my complaint and agrees but he likes playing too much and the only time he can play is when these guys get together. I have a new group to play with. Anybody in the Logan, OH area (Lancaster/Nelsonville) drop me an email, we need two more players for our D&D game... frater.uranus@gmail.com

When I start my new campaign I am adding Hero points. The players will start with a number of Hero Points equal to their Will Save and from then on it follows the Arcana Evolved/Unearthed rules... it may be an AU game anyway. After that I hope to run a Ptolus game!!! WOOT!

J

 

[harmyn]

Seriously, I don't think it's a 3e problem. I think it's a holdover from previous edition where there were absolute restrictions. A wizard couldn't use a longsword, ever*. Even with a -4 penalty. A wizard couldn't cast spells in armor. Even leather armor effectively had a 100% chance of arcane spell failure.

3e no longer has these restictions, but it looks like these players are still stuck in 2e's absolute no mindset.

* Gandalf's ability to wield Glamdring was often cited as "proof" that he was a dual-classed Fighter/Wizard.

Or you could be wrong.

In Rules Cyclopedia any character could use a weapon untrained at a -2 to the skill roll. In 1st ed AD&D Magic-Users could use other weapons, but at a -5 penalty.

Now in 3.5 the Wizard can snatch up a sword and use it at a -4 penalty. In the newest rules it is possible for a wizard to spend a feat and become proficient with a longsword or longbow, but it requires 1 of their general feats (of which they only get 7 over their 20 levels of advancement) and it will give them only that single weapon not a whole class of weapons. Hardly a good choice in the new rules, so while it is allowed, the rules are designed to discourage it.

In the new rules wizards can cast spells in armor, with a chance of failure and a penalty to everything they are attempting unless they have again spent some of their feats on it. And even only having a 15% to 30% chance of failure is too big a risk for most characters to take that as an option.

Am I saying the new rules aren't good? No, I'm not but the extreme codification is annoying at times. And its not as balanced as everyone believes. That is an illusion. And don't forget that in the RAW the CR of a 15th level commoner is a 14 and a 14th level Summoner Wizard Specialistis also a 14. Fighters can take Power Attack or Lightning Reflexes, gee which is really going to be more useful over the character's career. Clerics are overpowered to make people want to play them, while monks are underpowered for a front-line fighter but looks good in theory. A specialist evoker who takes Spell Mastery with their bonus feats can cast only 1 fewer spells than a sorcerer generally, but gets faster access to higher level spells.

I actually do like the new rules, but they aren't perfect. Are they the best version of D&D? No, but then the best version is always the one you like the best personally. Much like what is the best movie or best food.

And given the billion+1 choices now available lets face it folks, aren't most fighters brawny Power-Attacker/Cleave types, Archers, or 2 dual-wield specialists? Aren't most sorcerers walking mortar batteries blended with the magic missile machine gun effect? Barbarians as a rule are more typically portrayed to resemble Conan than Sitting Bull or Genghis Khan.

You can use the modern rules to do some amazing things, and I have seen it done too. But its the players that ultimately make the difference much more than the rules. If you doubt it then I suggest you read a few of the *Help Me Build A Whatamahoosit* threads to see the common patterns emerge.

Now my beloved classic definitely had some major flaws of its own (halfling class anyone?) but it also offered many things to those who did a bit of digging. Skills that could act as both feats and specialized training that you could choose, Weapon Mastery (a truly great system that has yet to be equalled in any other incarnation of D&D IMHO), the proto-prestige classes of Paladin, Knight, Avenger, Druid, Hin Master, Merchant Prince, Sea Prince, and Shadow Elf-Shaman. Provided variants for Dwarf-Clerics, expanding a few halfling abilities, elf-Priests, Secret Crafts for magic-users, and clerical boons given by immortals to their priests. Variant classes included shamans, rakes, and foresters; and you could play humanoids if you wanted to under another optional supplement. And it was still rules lite enough that you could do some major tweaking and blending of abilities to create new and variant classes and come out just fine. Also it provided a well designed, but easy to use system for running PC land holdings (called dominions in those rules), had handy rules for running tournaments, and even provided a Mass Combat system that allowed you to quickly resolve battles and get back to the personal glory and adventure of the PCs (called the War Machine rules and expanded with the additions of the Siege Machine and the Sea Machine).

Those old rules were flawed and had problems too. But they were fun and offered a great many more options than it is given credit for.

But the real question is why was a thread started with the obvious purpose of creating a thinly disguised editions war?

 

[Rothe]

Way back to the original posts...what did we do in 1978-1979? One approach was to add modifiers to distinguish say between the Mongol Warrior Fighter (+1 to bow and no penalty to fire from horseback say) and the Roman Legionaire (+1 to short sword, seige engineering), but the Romans really triumphed in organized warfare and logistics, two things that adventurers rarely seem to require. Akin to the idea of weapon specialization later, or cotemporaneously, in AD&D.

A handy skill based game called Traveller came out around 1977 so we slowly began to import ideas from that. I guess you'd call it home brewing and house ruling.

 

[Rothe]

"If it's not in the rules, you can't do it" isn't new, or even on the rise.
....

I haven't met those DMs who won't let players take actions allowed by the rules because it's not on the character sheet, but I very much doubt that those DMs were more willing to make up house rules on the spot for 1E or 2E than for the more streamlined rules we have today.

Now having made my way through the thread....

So true, while my personal experience was that house ruling was common if the late 70s, I've discovered in my old age sites where that is consider very wrong to do.

I wouldn't call 3e+ more streamlined. 1e was bascially rules for level progression, melee and missile combat, and magic. All the other "rules" felt like house-notes. Although you might call them incomplete, they were nothing if not streamlined.

 

[Hussar]

Just to repeat what I said earlier. Essentially, we never played without kits or PrC's or whatever you want to call them. We didn't have them, so we tweaked the rules and made them.

In other words, we changed the game mechanics to the point where characters were distinguishable mechanically from eachother.

 

[Shade]

What did my gaming group do before feats, skills, and prestige classes?

We wished for feats, skills, and prestige classes, or something similar.

 

[teitan]

Now my beloved classic definitely had some major flaws of its own (halfling class anyone?) but it also offered many things to those who did a bit of digging. Skills that could act as both feats and specialized training that you could choose, Weapon Mastery (a truly great system that has yet to be equalled in any other incarnation of D&D IMHO), the proto-prestige classes of Paladin, Knight, Avenger, Druid, Hin Master, Merchant Prince, Sea Prince, and Shadow Elf-Shaman. Provided variants for Dwarf-Clerics, expanding a few halfling abilities, elf-Priests, Secret Crafts for magic-users, and clerical boons given by immortals to their priests. Variant classes included shamans, rakes, and foresters; and you could play humanoids if you wanted to under another optional supplement.

I love me some Basic D&D but I always had issues with the fact that you had to have umpteen supplements in order to have variety of classes or access to things like Elf Priests or Dwarven Clerics etc. I remember Tall Tales of the Wee FOlk. Man that was a fun little book. I played in a campaign where me and this other guy played characters very similar to the brownies in Willow. It was a lot of fun. It is too bad they never did a big book of classes to bring all those things together. It really would have helped Basic with that race as class stygma.

Jason