THIS
I think even WOTC realized this when it saw how well the dread necromancer, beguiler and warmage played with other classes compared to the core wizard.
What did you never like in 3e?
- Thread starter Andor
- Start date
THIS
I think even WOTC realized this when it saw how well the dread necromancer, beguiler and warmage played with other classes compared to the core wizard.
I'm curious why you took away my favorite two issues? Too obvious?
Here's my 'huh'? list:
XP for magic item creation
Familiar survival
Multi-class spellcasting
ECL racial "class level" modifiers
Perma-buffs
Adding more than one stat mod to an attack/damage roll (ie, STR+WIS)
Reasons to play a fighter above 2nd level
Silvercat Moonpaw
Adventurer
Since I've never played any edition other than 3.5e, and never got to play much of that either, I can only comment directly on a few features of the game:
—Attacks of Opportunity: They were supposed to be about encouraging tactical movement. In my experience they simply discouraged any movement that provoked risk.
—Memorizing spells: I played a wizard as my first ever character. Most of my spells ended up wasted at the end of the day despite as much use-predicting as I could put in. Also spontaneous magic fit my idea of a spellcaster better.
—Skills points and class skills: Never enough points, and I just don't buy the "classes only train in certain skills so it costs more to go outside your area" idea.
—Narrow skills: Not just the usual "what's the point of Use Rope" argument, but Appraise, Decipher Script, Forgery, Gather Information, and Survival all just don't have enough going for them mechanically to be skills of their own. I think Concentration should be replaced by a Will save. I don't think we need Profession, Perform should be just one skill (if included at all), and Craft shouldn't have as many specialties. And toss in the usual "combine Spot/Listen, Hide/Move Silently, Disable Device/Open Lock, etc.".
—Too much space taken up by repeating the same thing: If you have to have 15 individually named "+2 to two skills" feats in core you've gone too far. In fact, a lot of the feats presented in core could be pared down by realizing that they are describing the same mechanical effect and eliminating the extraneous parts.
—Too generic in core: One reason I don't like D&D is I feel restricted in my choices of what character I can have. But a lot of that comes from the fact that the core offerings for D&D 3e are bland. If there was any excitement in the core races it's long gone. And I don't think the classes were ever exciting. If I'm going to play a game with restricted choices at least let them be interesting ones.
—Attacks of Opportunity: They were supposed to be about encouraging tactical movement. In my experience they simply discouraged any movement that provoked risk.
—Memorizing spells: I played a wizard as my first ever character. Most of my spells ended up wasted at the end of the day despite as much use-predicting as I could put in. Also spontaneous magic fit my idea of a spellcaster better.
—Skills points and class skills: Never enough points, and I just don't buy the "classes only train in certain skills so it costs more to go outside your area" idea.
—Narrow skills: Not just the usual "what's the point of Use Rope" argument, but Appraise, Decipher Script, Forgery, Gather Information, and Survival all just don't have enough going for them mechanically to be skills of their own. I think Concentration should be replaced by a Will save. I don't think we need Profession, Perform should be just one skill (if included at all), and Craft shouldn't have as many specialties. And toss in the usual "combine Spot/Listen, Hide/Move Silently, Disable Device/Open Lock, etc.".
—Too much space taken up by repeating the same thing: If you have to have 15 individually named "+2 to two skills" feats in core you've gone too far. In fact, a lot of the feats presented in core could be pared down by realizing that they are describing the same mechanical effect and eliminating the extraneous parts.
—Too generic in core: One reason I don't like D&D is I feel restricted in my choices of what character I can have. But a lot of that comes from the fact that the core offerings for D&D 3e are bland. If there was any excitement in the core races it's long gone. And I don't think the classes were ever exciting. If I'm going to play a game with restricted choices at least let them be interesting ones.
That is why the PHB gave you customizing a character (3.0/p.94 and 3.5/p.110).
Remathilis
Legend
That's pretty much what 4e did (cleric: buff/radiant/healing, wizard: area/elemental/debuff, etc) but I think (and have thought for a while) that clerics, druids and wizards need to go and be replaced by mystics, spirit shamans*, and sorcerers; small customized list of spells with lots of uses per day.
It would fix swiss-army wizards having "just the spell" for everything.
It would fix "24 hours later, Bob is no longer diseased, cursed, and missing a limb" healing.
It would go a long way to correct 15 minute workdays (esp when you have 7-8 spells per spell level per day).
It would go a long way toward item creation-bots who have wands and scrolls of utility magic for nearly any problem and can make any magic item in the game.
It would make caster spell choice come at level up (where every other class makes its choices), not at point of rest where they can rebuild themselves to "properly handle" (read dominate) the challenges. (All fire spells in the Ice Temple)
It would make for more thematic casters (healers, illusionists, necromancers, fire-mages)
In short, I think it would fix 90% of 3.X's problem with casters.
* Though the spirit shaman doesn't work like the other spontaneous casters. Perhaps a different spontaneous druid-spell caster class would work better.
Silvercat Moonpaw
Adventurer
I don't see what that has to do with this thread.
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I just wasn't sure if you overlooked it as I know many people that I have.
Silvercat Moonpaw
Adventurer
I had forgotten it. But it wouldn't entirely negate my grevience: in exchange for more class skills and skill points it has the class giving up something else. Whereas I believe that the game could benefit from a free grant of more skill points to low-point classes.
Plus I just think that people should be allowed to spend their skill points however they feel and not even have to pick class skills.
Yes, but there is nothing stopping a player from switching class skills w/DM permission. My group and others were doing wildernes rogues long before Unearthed Arcana.
I can understand that. Personally, I think a character's starting skills should be based influenced by setting and background and sometimes that means limiting a player's choice if it is inappropriate (however, that's for a different thread).
when i see these complaints about wizards, i think to myself, how is this any different than wizards were in 1 ed? or 2 ed? if anything wizards got screwed out of damage dealing from the old no max on fireball damage from 1 ed, to a max of 10 hd damage. all the rest is the same as it used to be, other than the ease of making magic items in 3rd ed. why is this all of a sudden a problem with wizards? no matter how you look at it, one or two good swings from a fighter of equal level and the wizard is dead. that's the give and take.
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