Why won't you switch?

[AllisterH]

Not sure exactly what you are referring to, but his nits about Infravision and Drow Weapons are just the sort of "personal nit" and "player entitlement" sort of rants/changes that I am seeing now that I fundamentally disagreed with then.

But those two seems minor compared to the changes I see coming in 4e. Putting disintegrating drow weapons back in seems a much more trivial a house rule to me than removal of death effects, shift to per encounter ability accounting, shift in the basic core races, and the like.

SKR was never subtle about what he thought was wrong, was he?

The thing is, I can see reasonable interpretations for basically all of these things. One of 2E's failing and to a lesser extent 3E's was the insistence on keeping things because that's how they had always be done.

Take for example, the loss of the gnome. You'd be hardpressed to find non-Tinker gnomes in D&D literature/rulebooks and while I do know of gnome fans, given the fact that multiple game worlds killed them off and others linked them with the decidely non-fantasy steampunk/technological culture (which is nowhere hinted at in their core writeup), I'd consider WOTC lying through their teeth if they said "Gnomes are a core race", because they certainly weren't treated as such by WOTC OR TSR.

 

[Celebrim]

There are some changes that sound really positive to me (no more full attacks! Touch AC = reflex DC!)

Yeah... but the thing about even the positive things is that while they are addressing a problem with the game (too much dice throwing to resolve an attack action, for example), when you start thinking about the implemented 'fix' you realize that for the most part it's going to be just as wonky or clunky of a situation as we have already. I still have yet to hear a single suggestion that sounds like a strict improvement.

Take 'Touch AC = reflex DC'. Ok, fine. But unless AC scales with level too, that's going to create a problem in that alot of times, you're touch AC might be better than your non-touch AC. Why should it be easier to hit someone hard enough to hurt them than it is to touch them? So is AC going to be 'your AC or your reflex DC' which ever is higher? Or is reflex DC going to be the same as AC, in which case wearing armor makes you less likely to be caught in snares or fall into pits? And supposing that I'm a naked rogue with a 28 reflex DC, and I put on a ring of protection? Is it reasonable that my AC doesn't change? Sorry, improving your AC doesn't help?

But suppose that AC does scale with level. That solves the above problems nicely, but creates another one that's potentially just as bad. If the primary impetus of the edition is to 'fix the math', AC that scales with level increases the gap between a higher level and lower level target so that actually a more narrow range of foes is playable than before. You can't fix that by ramping up lower level creatures to hit modifiers, because that wonks the math up in another way.

I've got similar problems with removing itterative attacks. On the surface, doing away with them sounds great. Faster combats! More action! Better ratio of hit points to damage so that you have fewer glass cannons! In theory, I'm for all those things but when you start looking at how the game works without them all sorts of little annoyances start cropping up.

Just as you started worrying when you heard about the 'kinder, gentler, rust monster', I started worrying when I heard them claim to have 'fixed the math'. Math is one of those things that just doesn't get fixed. Math has a tendency to be what it is whether you like it or not. There are going to be inherent limitations with a d20 as a randomizer, or for that matter with any fortune mechanic that we could name. The fortune mechanic dictates things about the game that are unavoidable. When you start claiming to have 'fixed the math' and you are being really tight lipped about the specifics, little alarm bells go off in my head the way that they would if someone claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine.

 

[AllisterH]

But suppose that AC does scale with level. That solves the above problems nicely, but creates another one that's potentially just as bad. If the primary impetus of the edition is to 'fix the math', AC that scales with level increases the gap between a higher level and lower level target so that actually a more narrow range of foes is playable than before. You can't fix that by ramping up lower level creatures to hit modifiers, because that wonks the math up in another way.

Wouldn't this be a problem ALREADY in 3.x since BAB scales but AC doesn't. Meaning that ALREADY, a lower level monster is screwed in 3.x since its defense isn't going to be a problem ("you hit AC 42 with a 2? HOW!!!!")

As well, wouldn't the real problem be how fast it scales and not whether or not it scales? For example, in no edition do I think a level 15 creature should have a problem with hitting a level 1 creature and conversely be in the fight of its life when trying to hit a level 14 creature. So what would you consider the breakpoint for using a lower level monster versus a higher level party?

Which personally, I'm curious as to see what Mearls has decided (No more than a level 5 difference is what I suspect)

 

[Lackhand]

But suppose that AC does scale with level. That solves the above problems nicely, but creates another one that's potentially just as bad. If the primary impetus of the edition is to 'fix the math', AC that scales with level increases the gap between a higher level and lower level target so that actually a more narrow range of foes is playable than before. You can't fix that by ramping up lower level creatures to hit modifiers, because that wonks the math up in another way.

None of this is inevitable -- or did you think that hill giants had a +20 natural armor bonus because they had skin several meters thick?
It's definitely true that a 30th level naked epic-peasant would have a (base) AC of (picking a random number... base 10 plus half level 15 = 25) 25, while a naked (regular-type) commoner would have an AC of (ditto) 10, oh noes, &c &c. But right now, most everybody at that level winds up with an AC of 40 or more, that I've seen.
Besides, this is for characters. Monsters have different rules, defined such that their statistics are the complement of the expected values of the players.

The new math is really intended to just get those expected values to not be too hairy.

Just as you started worrying when you heard about the 'kinder, gentler, rust monster', I started worrying when I heard them claim to have 'fixed the math'. Math is one of those things that just doesn't get fixed. Math has a tendency to be what it is whether you like it or not. There are going to be inherent limitations with a d20 as a randomizer, or for that matter with any fortune mechanic that we could name. The fortune mechanic dictates things about the game that are unavoidable. When you start claiming to have 'fixed the math' and you are being really tight lipped about the specifics, little alarm bells go off in my head the way that they would if someone claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine.

"Security by obscurity" is my touchstone concept here, but yeah, I know how you feel. A few more months and all shall be laid bare.

 

[Scarbonac]

There are no Warforged in Full Metal Alchemist. They do have Auto-Mail which is sort of the fantasy equivalent of cybernetic prosthetics. The walking suit of armor is actually a unique character in the story. I[snip]

Not so unique; there were characters other than Alphonse Elric who were souls bloodsealed to suits of armor (Barry the Chopper and the Slicer Brothers).

 

[Celebrim]

Query: Why weren't people as offended by SKR when he went on his spiels talking about the badwrongfun from 2E? Why were people not as offended when 3E basically invalidated their 2E books (they're basically useful only for fluff in 3.5)?

I suspect at least some people were. I don't think anyone is lying when they say there were people who thought 3E was going to ruin the game making posts on the forums back when 3E was being previewed.

But I also suspect that there was more general agreement with the warts of 1E/2E, even from the fans of the game, and more general disatisfaction with the game at the time of 2E than there is now. In particular, you could have heard 'badwrongfun' rants from me about 2E back when the edition first came out (I never really moved from 1E), and by the time 3E came out I was no longer playing D&D because I'd been frustrated by various limitations in the 1E/2E shared mechanics. I certainly didn't think of D&D as an industry leader back when 3E was coming out. Virtually noone I knew was playing it. I knew alot of people playing WW games. The bookstores gaming sections were whole rows of green backed WoD books. I knew of alot of people playing Dead Lands, and a guy getting together a CoC: Delta Green game. Heck, I knew about more RIFTS groups than D&D groups at the time. If D&D wasn't dead, it was certainly dying. There had been some hopeful glimmers near the end of 2E, mostly from the designers that would later be responcible for 3E, but for the most part D&D was a has been game that people associated with noobs, kids, and greyhaired folks. Serious gamers who weren't playing the game since the '70's were playing something else. Steve Jackson basically dismissed D20's relevance and it didn't even sound arrogant, because it was pretty much easy to dismiss D&D as something that had unappealing mechanics that you'd outgrow when you saw the alternatives. (I wonder how he feels about it now.)

 

[Psion]

I certainly didn't think of D&D as an industry leader back when 3E was coming out. Virtually noone I knew was playing it. I knew alot of people playing WW games.

This matches my experience. On the local gaming mailing list, 2e was hated. I had a lot of problems finding players for a new 2e group.

Now, on the same mailing list, even in the last year, I still saw people advertising for new 3e games.

On the internet, you can find people bitching about anything. But the reality of the depth of dissatisfaction in the game seems much different to me now than it did then.

 

[scruffygrognard]

Query: Why weren't people as offended by SKR when he went on his spiels talking about the badwrongfun from 2E? Why were people not as offended when 3E basically invalidated their 2E books (they're basically useful only for fluff in 3.5)?

First off, my reason for not switching:
1] I've invested way too much money in 3rd edition to just walk away from it.
2] There's plenty of life left in 3rd edition and plenty I'm still interested in running (i.e. Ptolus, The City of Brass, Pathfinder adventures, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Rappan Athuk Reloaded).
3] 4th edition is too different from previous incarnations for my tastes and throws out too many iconic elements of D&D.
4] The digital initiative and split of core materials into more and more books seems to be designed to unnecessarily fleece customers of their $$$$... more so than ever before.
5] The GSL is far too limited and, if I stick with 3.X, I'm hoping more OGL materials will still be published.
6] Greyhawk is dead.
7] Dungeon and Dragon magazines are no longer available in print. I liked being able to pick up an odd issues every now and then.

As for SKR's rants against 2nd edition, I guess the reason why I wasn't annoyed was that I agreed with his assertions. The infravision/ultravision split always had me scratching my head and the self-destructing drow equipment just seemed like a screw-bot to me... you fought drow who were equipped to the gills and, when you managed to defeat them, the loot that helped them to beat the crap out of your party went "poof".

 

[Celebrim]

Wouldn't this be a problem ALREADY in 3.x since BAB scales but AC doesn't. Meaning that ALREADY, a lower level monster is screwed in 3.x since its defense isn't going to be a problem ("you hit AC 42 with a 2? HOW!!!!")

Don't mistake my claiming 'X is a problem' for the claim that 'Existing Y isn't a problem'. Yes, there are existing problems.

In particular, 3.x has a problem with 'glass cannons' partially due to just what you describe. My biggest problem with this is that it makes the initiative roll too important to the combat (in a close fight, the deciding factor in how tough it was will be who went first, which effectively has the same problem as 'save or die').

But scaling AC with level doesn't really fix the problem (although some other changes in the game do address this problem like reducing the damage from individual attacks and the number of attacks in a round), because the party is still likely to be able to overwhelm the AC of any lower level monster. However, since BAB scales but not AC, at least in 3.X any lower level brute that survived the first round at least had a decent chance of doing some damage. If AC scales with BAB, then the monster is likely to be in the same boat as monsters near the bottom end of the CR scale (orcs, gnolls, etc.) - unable to effect a foe of much higher level at all.

 

[Falstaff]

Because Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is still a kick ass game. cheers