What is 3.0 & 3.5 missing that previous editions had?

[hong]

I miss the 'weapon mastery' option, where a player could become 'Grand Master'. There was a nice feeling to this.

Well, 3.E has Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Improved Crit, Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Spec, so you can fake it somewhat. And there's the weapon master prestige class if you want to go down that route.

 

[Desdichado]

i think some of those ADnD/D&D releases in the 64 you are using from 1993 also include things like...

the AD&D Collector card sets...3 of them to be exact. and the novels and other games.

if you want to lie with statistics you should at least post the complete lists

Apparently you missed the last time we did this diaglo -- those numbers do not include collector card sets and novels, or at least they didn't when I saw them earlier.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

No, they can't. They don't know the encounter's CR, and they cannot calculate it from what they see either, because (unlike 2E where all monsters of a given race were identical), now any monster has as much variability as a PC.

I disagree, it is fairly easy to calculate. I'm runnning my new group through Sunless Citadel and the Kobold Queen is a 3rd level Sorcerer with Magic Missile as one of her spells. Everytime she casts it two missiles fly out to strike the party. She's not 1st or 2nd level because she'd only get one missile and she isn't 5th or higher because she'd have more missiles. The party easily deduced that she was either 3rd or 4th from the number of missiles she produced when she cast the spell and any Wizard or Sorcerer with the Magic Missile spell would easily deduce that and not have to resort to out of game knowledge.
Fireball is the easiest spell of all to figure out a NPC's level. It does 1d6 per caster level to a maximum of 10d6 so as long as the NPC isn't higher than 10th level they can figure out the exact level by noting the number of dice the DM throws (if he rolls dice in front of the party).

 

[WizarDru]

I disagree, it is fairly easy to calculate. I'm runnning my new group through Sunless Citadel and the Kobold Queen is a 3rd level Sorcerer with Magic Missile as one of her spells. Everytime she casts it two missiles fly out to strike the party. She's not 1st or 2nd level because she'd only get one missile and she isn't 5th or higher because she'd have more missiles.

Of course, you and your players are ignoring the possibility of both advancement and multiclassing here....which was, I think, avoided in Sunless Citadel for the sake of it being the first 3e adventure path module, and that it came out before the Monster Manual (and possibly the DMG, my memory is foggy). Either way, classed monsters were enough of a departure at that point, let alone multiclassed or templated ones (remembering templates hadn't appeared, yet). Modules written 3 years later have a much different character, and use the rules in more sophisticated ways. Sunless Citadel was meant, I think, to be a gradual easing into the system for new and returning players.

I think Urbannen's point is incredibly insightful, personally, and summarizes a major difference between older versions and new. I also think Buzz's point earlier about system mastery is also an important one. I recently cracked open the 1e DMG and PHB, and discovered that I had misunderstood or just plain not used many of the rules listed therein. I don't think we EVER used the system as written, and that was true with every DM I ever played with, including myself.

Nostalgia aside, I think Basic D&D had an approachability that both AD&D and even 3e, to some extent, lack. AD&D had the flavor of EGG's writing, which while dense but was also a singular voice. 3e, having been written by a team, spoke with a much less distinct voice. I happen to like the 3e ruleset far more, but holding AD&D to the same standard as a game created three RPG-generations later is hardly fair, per se. However, AD&D's idiosyncracies led to my conversion to GURPS for 15 years. It took 3e to bring me and my players back.

Our situation is far from unique.

 

[Numion]

I haven't read all of these, so maybe someone has mentioned it already - Fighters with 18/xx strength clearly being the strongest in the party. That extra percentage only available to the fighter class set them apart. Now a first level wizard can be as strong as someone who has supposedly spent his early life training with weapons and wearing armor.

Sounds like a serious problem. I'm a little unfamiliar with this phenomenon, so could you perhaps say how many times in 3E the Wizard has been the strongest in a 1st level party?

For me that number is zero.

 

[Numion]

Fireball is the easiest spell of all to figure out a NPC's level. It does 1d6 per caster level to a maximum of 10d6 so as long as the NPC isn't higher than 10th level they can figure out the exact level by noting the number of dice the DM throws (if he rolls dice in front of the party).

Come on. Your players really count the dice? Besides, how is this different from the previous editions? The difference is that in 3E monsters looks can be decieving. They can have class levels, extra HD, templates.

Of course I find this whole argument that players can deduce from CRs in how much trouble they are a bit ludicrious, since even DMs shouldn't completely and blindly trust that system. Players doing that .. uh oh

 

[kenjib]

EDIT: nevermind, I think I misread the post.

 

[Janx]

when you consider that KoDT made a lot of money mocking 1e and 2e rules and rules lawyers...I don't see how you can say they were better. Just different.

Rules Lawyers are dice counters, and will always decode the power level of the critter you use based on any clue they get their hands one. The problem is not limited to 3e, so therefore it isn't really a 3e problem.

 

[RFisher]

My own experience is that 3e's CR system or no more or less accurate then the way I did it in 1e. I've been more surprised by encounters being more or less of a challenge than I suspected that I ever was in 1e. This is accounted for by many years of playing other systems between the two coupled with the fact that I expected the CR system to be more accurate.

But then, the CR system is basically what I used to do in 1e. Consider the monster's HD+special abilites+guess+playtest.

As for changing the rate of awarding XP to address my power curve issue: That doesn't really do it. It is more than the XP/level that's involved. It's the modifiers from ability scores. It's the lack of name level and the associated change in the power curve. It's ability score increases. It's feats. Lots of things would need to be tweaked to get 3e's power curve to resemble 1e's. Yes, I could make such changes to 3e, but why? I'm not one to always play strictly by the book, but when I play 3e, I'm not going to try to tweak it into 1e. I could just play 1e instead.

And I'm not saying that 3e is bad. Just different. You ask me what is missing from 3e compared to 1e, I say: A shallower power curve.

Is 3e harder to DM than 1e? I don't know. All I know is that while I still play and enjoy 3e, I don't think I'm going to DM it again. For whatever reason, I enjoy running other systems more when I'm behind the screen.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Sounds like a serious problem. I'm a little unfamiliar with this phenomenon, so could you perhaps say how many times in 3E the Wizard has been the strongest in a 1st level party?

For me that number is zero.

Actually, I played in one game where this did happen, the wizard had an 18 Strength. I'm not saying it is a serious problem, I'm just saying the ability to set the fighters above any other class (if they had an 18 strength) was a nice touch that is missing from 3e.

In the end I think 3e is much, much better than previous editions, other than the nostalgia factor and the scenic artwork.