Also if I remember back in 2e(which means the rules might be a holdover from 1e) that Wizards had to find all of their spells after first level which meant that Wizards only ever had access to the spells that the DM specifically put into their campaign.
Clarifying, that was the 1e rule. In 2e most players played specialist wizards because specialist wizards got a free spell from their specialist school at each level. Huge power creep - even bigger than the extra spells you could cast.
It looks rough to a lot of us, but there were very obviously attempts made to balance classes against each other in D&D. The people who designed 3rd edition for some reason decided to throw all attempt to balance the classes out the window by giving all the nice stuff Fighters got to everyone(now even full casters could get multiple attacks and everyone could get followers with a feat) and throwing away all the attempts to balance Wizards by letting them pick spells each level, not completely fail if they wore armor, gave them a chance to concentrate on spells when they cast, let them fully benefit from constitution, and made magic item creation waaaaay easier to do for a Wizard.
3.0 was actually intended to be balanced and in the early days claimed to be more balanced than 2e. Which had issues with fighters kicking ass and taking names, (The 1e wizard was intended to be protected at low levels by two solid stone dungeon walls and half a dozen hirelings. None of these were part of the default playstyle in 2e). However they screwed up in a number of ways.
- They only playtested the game to level 6. Which is part of the reason why E6 is a thing - and the game doesn't fall apart until after that point.
- Compounding the mistake in 1 they decided to remove the level soft-cap. The highest level PC in Greyhawk was Sir Robilar at about level 13; higher levels were intended for the BBEG. But you were intended to stop adventuring at level 10 (hence the XP and HP progression).
- Their playtesters weren't trying to break the game. A huge failure in playtesting.
- Their playtesters were generally using good strategy for 2e without realising it had changed. If your wizards are evokers, your clerics are healbots, and your fighters tank and DPR your party is pretty balanced. It's obvious now that this is bad strategy but wasn't in 1999.
- They didn't realise what the saving throw rules were for - I don't think Gygax ever wrote down the explanation of the saving throw categories were. But they boil down to +5 to save vs lose outright (death, paralysation or poison), and +3 vs save or fail this fight (petrification or polymorph). With that sort of modifier flying around evocation/direct damage spells had a much better chance of actually doing something than save-or-suck, and monster HP were far lower. (In 3.X you are best picking a collection of Save or Suck spells and guessing at the monster's lowest save, of course).
- They also inflated hit points (con bonusses) and gave the wizards extra spells to compensate. Not realising they'd massively boosted save or suck spells again because they went right round the hit point defences.
- They also screwed up the saving throw rules a second time. Saving throws got better as you levelled up in pre-3.0 D&D. In 3.X the modifiers from increased spell level are equal to those from high saves, and casters are more focussed at raising their primary stat than non-casters.
- They playtested assuming a 2e world and screwed up the magic items. They assumed wizards wouldn't want to spend XP to craft. And they assumed a 2e like magic item distribution where swords were the most common items and had the highest modifiers despite taking away the tables that made this so.
3.X works much better if you undo the saving throw mistakes (and remove item crafting entirely from the hands of PCs).
To fix the saving throws:
1: Add a bonus of half the character's hit dice to all saving throws.
2: +3 to save vs suck. +5 to save vs death or paralysation.
(And watch for the rare save or suck spell like Evard's Black Tentacles that doesn't have orthodox saving throws).
And with Wands of CLW as gifts from the GM the cleric has to spend a lot of their spells healing. While the wizard goes for evocation or summoning for combat and is a utility monster who struggles in actual fights especially at higher levels. You probably also want to cut back on the spells known by the wizard to 1/level and restrict the cleric list. And you still cap at level 10 or 12.
(The fact the rogue is actually less skilled than the 2e thief (8 thief skills + NWPs -> 8 skill points/level as opposed to NWPs ->skill points/level) is counterbalanced by the Sneak Attack being massively more useful, so that one can be left alone).
3.X was the outlier in terms of unrestricted super powered casters
Yup. Much freer access to spells than any other edition, and Save-or-Suck moved from a longshot to utterly dominant. And rather than soft-capping at level 10, 3.X was supposed to have 20 working levels, allowing the PCs access to spells that were intended for NPCs only.
I can clearly see that Gary Gygax knew a hell of a lot more about balance than the people who did 3.X could. Did the people who made 3.X actually ever seriously sit down and think on the old rules for more than 2 seconds instead of just being like "that rules a bummer, let's get rid of it".
Yes they did. The thing was Gygax used to put in a lot of subsystems for balance and didn't explain why. These included the treasure tables, the weapon vs large creature damage modifiers, and the XP charts as well as the follower numbers and saving throws. Those tended to be what was cut.
But ultimately Gygax was the best developer the RPG hobby has ever had (he was a sucky designer as anyone who's read Mythus or
worse yet Cyborg Commando knows- fortunately the design of D&D was Arneson's.)
Gygax also had two massive advantages. The first is that oD&D was playtested more than any (tabletop) RPG since. The second is the nature of the playtesters. 3.0 was playtested by roleplayers trying to make sure everyone had a good time and not pushing the system that hard. oD&D was playtested by wargamers trying to win and to break the game however they could. Exploiting loopholes until Gygax closed them was just smart play rather than seen as anti-social behaviour, and the game itself was competitive.