Why is the Vancian system still so popular?

[Neonchameleon]

Sure, there are quite a few mechanical differences between 1e and 3e and yet 3e plays a lot like 1e. We've played mostly 1e adventures for 3e and they play a lot like they did back when I ran them in the 1980s with 1e. 3e designers worked at designing new and more systematic rules structures but also worked to preserve most of the feel of earlier editions of D&D. I think they proved reasonably well this can be done, wedding different mechanics with earlier edition feel, so I have some hopes for 5e.

The above paragraph is extremely contentious. Yes, you can play 1e using 3e rules. But this isn't the same as saying 3e plays like 1e. If you either explicitely or implicitely agree to play 3e like 1e it actually works (and this is what happened in playtesting).

If you start out playing 3e as 3e rather than trying to use it to play 1e, the Cleric starts in on the damage prevention hard, the druid walks over everything, the wizard makes the enemies irrelevant and realises that XP is a river, and that he can craft items like a boss and you end up with the excesses of Scry and Fry and Lunar Lich Wars. And the fighters being utterly useless as the vast power disparity and their problems with will saves are exposed.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The above paragraph is extremely contentious. Yes, you can play 1e using 3e rules. But this isn't the same as saying 3e plays like 1e. If you either explicitely or implicitely agree to play 3e like 1e it actually works (and this is what happened in playtesting).

If you start out playing 3e as 3e rather than trying to use it to play 1e, the Cleric starts in on the damage prevention hard, the druid walks over everything, the wizard makes the enemies irrelevant and realises that XP is a river, and that he can craft items like a boss and you end up with the excesses of Scry and Fry and Lunar Lich Wars. And the fighters being utterly useless as the vast power disparity and their problems with will saves are exposed.

Seconded. There were multiple ways that people played 1E--at least three distinct ones, and possibly more. One of those ways maps very well to 3E. If you happened to play AD&D that way, then 3E seems like a better designed version of what you were already doing. However, if you were playing 1E one of those other ways, then low-level 3E sort of works, at times, if you keep your eye on it, and don't let it stray off into the back forty looking for some greener grass.

 

[billd91]

The above paragraph is extremely contentious. Yes, you can play 1e using 3e rules. But this isn't the same as saying 3e plays like 1e. If you either explicitely or implicitely agree to play 3e like 1e it actually works (and this is what happened in playtesting).

If you start out playing 3e as 3e rather than trying to use it to play 1e, the Cleric starts in on the damage prevention hard, the druid walks over everything, the wizard makes the enemies irrelevant and realises that XP is a river, and that he can craft items like a boss and you end up with the excesses of Scry and Fry and Lunar Lich Wars. And the fighters being utterly useless as the vast power disparity and their problems with will saves are exposed.

I'd say the latter paragraph is the extremely contentious one. It's not playing 3e like 3e. It's playing 3e to maximize certain of your character's potentials, one of many styles that can be used with 3e. It's not 3e itself.

If you're not all that concerned with maximum optimization, 3e works great. Works a lot like 1e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'd say the latter paragraph is the extremely contentious one. It's not playing 3e like 3e. It's playing 3e to maximize certain of your character's potentials, one of many styles that can be used with 3e. It's not 3e itself.

If you're not all that concerned with maximum optimization, 3e works great. Works a lot like 1e.

You have an inch there and you're claiming a mile.

First, in order to turn 3e into something that is very much not like 1e the easiest way is to allow magic item shops as recommended in 3.X. The second the Wand of Cure Light Wounds becomes readily accessible for something approaching the 750GP list price (a default 3.X assumption) the nature of clerical magic and of resting change drastically. You need to therefore either change the very nature of the 3.X gameworld to revert it to an older feel or have PCs not spend their money smartly. (Note that if there aren't magic item shops, it takes one day of downtime, and the combined resources of a 5th level wizard and a cleric to craft a wand of CLW - to keep wands from being accessible, the wizard needs to stay away from crafting feats).

The second thing you need to change is far more important because it is a class feature of the wizard from level 1. Scribe Scroll. The Vancian tradeoff of preparing spells you will probably want or spells you might really need just goes straight out of the window unless you cut out the downtime. Almost all wizards are smart. All wizards in 3.X have Scribe Scroll. The wizard should take less time to recover than a fighter. So a wizard has the spare time to scribe the scrolls that means he doesn't need to prepare the only occasionally useful spells, thus meaning they don't have to prepare them. For a wizard to not have memorised the obscure but occasionally really useful spells in 1e is therefore understandable. In 3.X it is simply sloppy not to have them on a scroll irrespective of world design and magic item shops. (Or you simply never give downtime which has issues all by itself).

And talking about maximum optimisation is a canard. You don't need to summon dire anthropomorphic half-illithid crocodile with your summon monster spells. Wolves, bears, and unicorns will do nicely for summons and companions. (Even if it wasn't a strong option, a wolf would be an obvious L1 animal companion). And even low level wildshape. This is where the druid is a seriously bad class. You don't have to be trying with a druid to smash the power curve. You just need to take naively sensible options. (The wizard needs effort to be played as Tier 1, and the cleric needs to be played slightly against the fluff to start breaking things).

And then there's the diplomacy skill...

Maximum optimisation isn't the problem with 3.X. No one claims that Pun-pun is the core flaw. The problem is that simple in character options will cause serious balance issues with 3.X. And to not take good options that are choosable in character means that you must play a player that doesn't prepare or recon that much.

 

[Janaxstrus]

You have an inch there and you're claiming a mile.

First, in order to turn 3e into something that is very much not like 1e the easiest way is to allow magic item shops as recommended in 3.X. The second the Wand of Cure Light Wounds becomes readily accessible for something approaching the 750GP list price (a default 3.X assumption) the nature of clerical magic and of resting change drastically. You need to therefore either change the very nature of the 3.X gameworld to revert it to an older feel or have PCs not spend their money smartly. (Note that if there aren't magic item shops, it takes one day of downtime, and the combined resources of a 5th level wizard and a cleric to craft a wand of CLW - to keep wands from being accessible, the wizard needs to stay away from crafting feats).

The second thing you need to change is far more important because it is a class feature of the wizard from level 1. Scribe Scroll. The Vancian tradeoff of preparing spells you will probably want or spells you might really need just goes straight out of the window unless you cut out the downtime. Almost all wizards are smart. All wizards in 3.X have Scribe Scroll. The wizard should take less time to recover than a fighter. So a wizard has the spare time to scribe the scrolls that means he doesn't need to prepare the only occasionally useful spells, thus meaning they don't have to prepare them. For a wizard to not have memorised the obscure but occasionally really useful spells in 1e is therefore understandable. In 3.X it is simply sloppy not to have them on a scroll irrespective of world design and magic item shops. (Or you simply never give downtime which has issues all by itself).

And talking about maximum optimisation is a canard. You don't need to summon dire anthropomorphic half-illithid crocodile with your summon monster spells. Wolves, bears, and unicorns will do nicely for summons and companions. (Even if it wasn't a strong option, a wolf would be an obvious L1 animal companion). And even low level wildshape. This is where the druid is a seriously bad class. You don't have to be trying with a druid to smash the power curve. You just need to take naively sensible options. (The wizard needs effort to be played as Tier 1, and the cleric needs to be played slightly against the fluff to start breaking things).

And then there's the diplomacy skill...

Maximum optimisation isn't the problem with 3.X. No one claims that Pun-pun is the core flaw. The problem is that simple in character options will cause serious balance issues with 3.X. And to not take good options that are choosable in character means that you must play a player that doesn't prepare or recon that much.

Real optimizers know CLW wands are a trap. Wands of Lesser Vigor are better. Magic item shops are a good idea, we've had them since 1e. Assuming that everything was available was the problem. We've always rolled X magic items (dependent on city size) randomly to determine what a shop has, reflecting what adventurers or whoever happened to find and sell off.

A big problem with wildshape was the fact a druid could dump dex and str and gain the stats of the creature they wildshaped into. This way they could have awesome mental stats and con, and make up for it with their wildshape stats.

Also, wildshaping into a wolf was a problem? At the level they could wildshape, they stuff they fight chews up a wolf. They can't trip anything large, they get one attack. The only wildshaping I had issues with (and we banned) were the dinosaurs. We also restricted wildshape to animals in your home territory/area OR that you had encountered and studied. (Similar to what we did with polymorph and alter shape, no MM diving for the top stuff)

We played (and still do play) 3.x since the release. None of the above have ever been issues for us, because we recognize the issues and as a group, we correct them. If only WotC could have taken the same path...

 

[MoonSong]

Now, is it possible to get this from other magic systems. If we went with an AEDU system, the stripped out the at-wills, would it work. Now, Galen isn't really a D&D wizard at all, so, using him as an archetype is a bit difficult. But, if we did drop the at-wills for wizards, but kept encounters, would that satisfy people? I don't know.

No, it wouldn't, the AEDU system still siloes spells by kind. In order for the AEDU to give the same experience we would need to get rid of Encounters and Utilities too and make it possible to use a Daily to cast any of the other spells, at which point it isn't AEDU anymore but Vancian with only two or three spells per day.

 

[Ranes]

You have an inch there and you're claiming a mile.

First, in order to turn 3e into something that is very much not like 1e the easiest way is to allow magic item shops as recommended in 3.X.

Ha! The very reason for that recommendation is because so many people had magic shops from right back in the days of 1e, as plenty of White Dwarf, Dragon, et al articles and letters illustrated.

The second thing you need to change is far more important because it is a class feature of the wizard from level 1. Scribe Scroll.

This I will grant. I love scribe scroll and always wanted something like it back in 1e days. Indeed, I played and ran games where there was something like it but it was not available to first level PCs and shouldn't have been in 3e. Not only should the ability to scribe scrolls be restricted to mid-level characters but there should be further constraints on the level of spell you can scribe at any given caster level.

The wizard should take less time to recover than a fighter.

I'm pretty sure there's an assumption inherent in this comment that I can't quite make out from the rest of your post.

And talking about maximum optimisation is a canard.

True. But remove the word 'maximum' and he still has a point.

You don't need to summon dire anthropomorphic half-illithid crocodile with your summon monster spells...

I have issues with the flexibility of low level summoning but it's a trivial fix. The druid is not a trivial fix. Agreed. You'll never see a by-the-book druid in my games. I didn't even need to play 3e before addressing that.

The problem is that simple in character options will cause serious balance issues with 3.X. And to not take good options that are choosable in character means that you must play a player that doesn't prepare or recon that much.

My only issue here is the degree to which your argument pivots on the word 'serious'.

 

[billd91]

You have an inch there and you're claiming a mile.

First, in order to turn 3e into something that is very much not like 1e the easiest way is to allow magic item shops as recommended in 3.X. The second the Wand of Cure Light Wounds becomes readily accessible for something approaching the 750GP list price (a default 3.X assumption) the nature of clerical magic and of resting change drastically. You need to therefore either change the very nature of the 3.X gameworld to revert it to an older feel or have PCs not spend their money smartly. (Note that if there aren't magic item shops, it takes one day of downtime, and the combined resources of a 5th level wizard and a cleric to craft a wand of CLW - to keep wands from being accessible, the wizard needs to stay away from crafting feats).

The second thing you need to change is far more important because it is a class feature of the wizard from level 1. Scribe Scroll. The Vancian tradeoff of preparing spells you will probably want or spells you might really need just goes straight out of the window unless you cut out the downtime. Almost all wizards are smart. All wizards in 3.X have Scribe Scroll. The wizard should take less time to recover than a fighter. So a wizard has the spare time to scribe the scrolls that means he doesn't need to prepare the only occasionally useful spells, thus meaning they don't have to prepare them. For a wizard to not have memorised the obscure but occasionally really useful spells in 1e is therefore understandable. In 3.X it is simply sloppy not to have them on a scroll irrespective of world design and magic item shops. (Or you simply never give downtime which has issues all by itself).

And talking about maximum optimisation is a canard. You don't need to summon dire anthropomorphic half-illithid crocodile with your summon monster spells. Wolves, bears, and unicorns will do nicely for summons and companions. (Even if it wasn't a strong option, a wolf would be an obvious L1 animal companion). And even low level wildshape. This is where the druid is a seriously bad class. You don't have to be trying with a druid to smash the power curve. You just need to take naively sensible options. (The wizard needs effort to be played as Tier 1, and the cleric needs to be played slightly against the fluff to start breaking things).

And then there's the diplomacy skill...

Maximum optimisation isn't the problem with 3.X. No one claims that Pun-pun is the core flaw. The problem is that simple in character options will cause serious balance issues with 3.X. And to not take good options that are choosable in character means that you must play a player that doesn't prepare or recon that much.

I think you're the one trying to take the mile here because of your assumptions of play. You're assuming that the ability to do all of these things you suggest must be done extensively or the player is sloppy. that's the real canard here because that's not really the case. Any and all of these things may be done (or not done) in moderation without a major balance hit on the system. That's determined by the players and DM at the individual game table.

3e's main flaw, as I see it, is it's highly responsive to player choices. Players who push the envelope can be much more powerful than those who don't. If players at a table aren't in general agreement on play styles with respect to optimization, conflict and trouble will occur.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ha! The very reason for that recommendation is because so many people had magic shops from right back in the days of 1e, as plenty of White Dwarf, Dragon, et al articles and letters illustrated.

Point. But could you buy e.g. a Wand of Cure Light Wounds at most of them? If the magic shop mostly sells items with a vanilla or continuous bonus (e.g. magic swords or armour) there isn't much problem. The problem is when you can spam certain spells (other spells don't mind being spammed).

I think the problem is the accessability of charged items - ultimately it doesn't matter whether you make or buy them (3e allowing both). Either are gamechanging with the wrong spell.

This I will grant. I love scribe scroll and always wanted something like it back in 1e days. Indeed, I played and ran games where there was something like it but it was not available to first level PCs and shouldn't have been in 3e. Not only should the ability to scribe scrolls be restricted to mid-level characters but there should be further constraints on the level of spell you can scribe at any given caster level.

Oh, agreed. Make it e.g. a 5th level class feature that will scribe a scroll of a spell level 3 lower than your highest or something and the problem really isn't a severe one.

I'm pretty sure there's an assumption inherent in this comment that I can't quite make out from the rest of your post.

Actually the implicit one is that you aren't using wands of CLW to simply heal the fighter. "With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level." If the fighter recovers by resting it's going to take a lot longer to recover than the wizard needs due to hit point totals. If you effectively have bottomless healing this doesn't hold.

My only issue here is the degree to which your argument pivots on the word 'serious'.

Fair enough.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

3e's main flaw, as I see it, is it's highly responsive to player choices. Players who push the envelope can be much more powerful than those who don't. If players at a table aren't in general agreement on play styles with respect to optimization, conflict and trouble will occur.

That 3E breaks when pushed is a flaw, but hardly killer. All game systems eventually break when pushed, unless cut down so simple that there are highly limited combinations. (And even some of those systems still break when pushed.) No, 3Es problem is that it breaks, readily, when not pushed, but by accident. That it breaks selectively and partially when not pushed only means that it is playable by people that are lucky.

Playing 3E without restrained system mastery (i.e. you know exactly where it breaks but choose not to go there) is akin to a bunch of folks tailgating each other at high speeds on the freeway. A lot of them, a lot of the time, will get where they want to go, because no one slammed on the breaks at the wrong moment. Some will be a little stressed at the close calls, but they might get over that. Eventually, someone has a massive wreck, though. Maybe someone should call Ralph Nader.