Your biggest problem with 3rd Ed at beggining ?

[SableWyvern]

My group had little difficulty woth AoO's thanks to having 3 ex-Blood Bowl players in it

'threat zone' is identical to 'tackle zone' in Blood Bowl so we picked up on it right away and explained it to the other players.

I have a friend I have occasionally played counter wargames with. He's an inexperienced wargamer but experienced Bloodbowler; he kept forgetting about Zones of Control and how they worked, until I started calling them tackle zones.

On topic: I found the combat rules in general a little difficult to come to terms with, especially partial actions.

Things like the "begin full round action action", an action being different things in different circumstances (someone posted a thread on the old boards defining four or five discrete definitions of "action" used in the PHB, or partial charages not actually being defined anywhere.

I'm guessing that if I had sat and read the entire PHB from cover to cover it would have been a lot easier to follow.

 

[Tzarevitch]

When you first started 3rd Ed D&D what wasted the most game time or made you think you would never get the rules right ? What baffled you most on the new D&D ?

Multiple choices

Vote for Reach = Grappling

Before I go any further, let me makit it clear that I love 3e overall. It is a vast improvement over 2e (words don't describe how much better it is than 1e) and it has made my DMing life much easier and significantly cut down on the preparation time required to set up an adventure simply by rules standardization. That being said, as far as I am concerned 3e does have some problems.

1.) CR and ECL. Why they gave up the flat and easy xp values from 2e in favor of CR and ECL is beyond me. I went two sessions as DM then tossed the CR nonsense out the window. The fact that CR is a "guesstimate" means that it is as accurate as any other number I pull out of thin air.

2.) The xp table is also an incredible waste of time. I hate it in ways that words can't describe. I don't know why the playtesters felt that a floating xp table was easier than the old fixed one. Unless you rely on spreadsheets xp calculation is a pain in the a$$ now.

3.) As for Turning Undead, I think 3e allows you to turn WAY too many undead WAY too often, but the mechanics of the system are no worse than they were before. In fact I think they are easier to understand. At least they are using numbers now instead of symbols like T, D, and D*. The only problem with the Turn rules that I have is that they are not logically located in the book. The start of the Turn Undead rules section is hard to see and find on short notice. You need a screen or notes to use them quickly.

3.) Lastly I have my list of 3e spells that I think the designers were on crack to allow as they are.

Haste: 2 spells in a round for no additional cost. Not in my campaign.

Greater Magic Weapon: lasts far to long for such a powerful spell, and grants too high a + at too low levels. This spell needs a shorter duration or a higher level.

True Seeing: Will they EVER fix this spell? It is the uber divination that defeats the ENTIRE Illusion school of magic and any form of spell or supernatural ability to hide or disguise yourself. All this in a 5th level spell.

Delay Poison: Another one that is WAY too powerful for its level. It also lasts far too long. More accurately this spell should be called Immunity to Poison since it makes ALL poisons useless.
(On the subject of poisons, the 3e poison mechanics are AWFUL.)

Time Stop: Did anyone actually playtest this? I know it is fun for the PCs when they use it but did anyone think about what happens when the NPC bad guy teleports in, casts timestop and hoses the PCs? As an extreme example that is possible (although expensive) under the rules: 5 rounds of 2 Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings per round and a mazimized cone of cold per round - 1 hasted Abi-Dalzim, 1 normal action Abi-Dalzim, 1 Cone of Cold (use scrolls to supplement your spells). Assuming 4.5 points of damage per die from the Horrid Wilting, all of the PCs would be looking at about five hundred points of damage assuming you actually succeeded in ALL of your saves. Unless someone has some VERY good SR and/or can evade most of the spells, the entire party can be wiped out before they can even move. It is possible that some PCs might have protections vs. the Cone of Cold, but there is no protection spell that helps against Horrid Wilting. As I recall, the old Timestop only basically allowed defensive spells and spells cast onl yourself to work. That was a much more reasonable idea.

Shadow Magic: This entire group of spells has problems. Someone on this board posted the exact same set of problems that I ran into with these spells in 2e. Does a shadow magic fure actually burn something which has no ability to believe in it like a piece of wood? Does a shadow magic missile have the force descriptor. (I say no, but not everyone agrees.) The spell description does not say. Also, what does it mean to be 20% real? What happens when it is not real for 80% of the time?

Tzarevitch

 

[Holy Bovine]

Yes reading the manual usually does help

I can't say I'm surprised at the number of people who had trouble with AoO's though. The wording in the PHB is not very clear.

As far as action/partial action stuff goes it really hasn't been a problem in my campaign. Although i do like having my DMs screen for the listing of all actions and whether they are full or partial ones - I would never be able to remmeber them all otherwise.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Re: Re: Your biggest problem with 3rd Ed at beggining ?

Delay Poison: Another one that is WAY too powerful for its level. It also lasts far too long. More accurately this spell should be called Immunity to Poison since it makes ALL poisons useless.
(On the subject of poisons, the 3e poison mechanics are AWFUL.)

Really? I thought 3E's treatment of poisons to be its best improvement. the old 'save or die' thing really grated on me and it just never occured to me to use ability damage instead. That, I feel, was one of the best things they could have done.

Now I am not afraid to throw poison using creatures at low-level parties (yes i know I could do this before but given the awful saves every class had at low levels in 2E one poison using spider usually meant death for at least one PC/encounter - now its a few points off of Dex or Str etc...)

You are also the first person i have ever seen have a problem with the delay poison spell. 1hr/level is not much especially since it doesn't counter the effects of ability damage already inflicted, and unless the PC gets to a higher level cleric soon he'll still take full damage from the poison.

As for the rest of your list of spells, IMC Timestop has never been used (and neither has Wish - I don't know if I will outright ban them or not - still have several months before I have to make that decision). No one uses Shadow Magic (which I have always felt was pretty lame anyway). Haste works both ways (and the PC wizards NEED to have it if they expect to survive my encounters ). Greater Magic Weapon is useful only until the PC's find decent magic weapons (or make them themselves). True Seeing is a pain but I plan on altering this one since as written it wipes out any chance of illusions working (maybe a 'dispel' check for the one person to see through the illusion? Don't know yet).

All in all though I can see your points but I would really like to know what you don't like about the poison rules in 3E.

 

[Christian]

I voted for AoO's, it did take a while to get that straight. But I can see some of the other points after reading the other responses ...

Turning undead we haven't had a problem with in our group. Our cleric has Cha 8, you see, and seems to have a problem getting good rolls on the turning check, so we don't generally have to even look it up. "I try to turn the undead!" [rolls a 2] "You fail!"

The only time I can recall that anyone tried to grapple is when my monk swam after a captive who decided to take his chances diving into shark-infested waters than stay on the ship with our party. I don't think the DM expected me to be dumb enough to go after him. But he handled the attempted grappling-while-swimming situation quite well. I couldn't tell you if it was right, but it worked fine ...

 

[Conaill]

Re: grappling

I found that just by reshuffling some paragraphs of the grapple section, things become much clearer:

Modified from the SRD section on grappling:

Step 1: Grab:
To start a grapple, a combatant first needs to grab and hold a combatant's target. The combatant makes a melee touch attack to grab the target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from the target the combatant is trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals the combatant damage, the combatant fails to start the grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals no damage combatant, but the combatant fails to hit the target with the melee touch attack, the combatant also fails to start the grapple.

If a combatant gets multiple attacks in a round, a combatant can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses). A monk can use his unarmed attack rate of attacks per round while grappling.

Step 2: Hold:
Make an opposed grapple check. A combatant's attack bonus on a grapple check is: Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier

Special Size Modifier: The special size modifier for a grapple check is as follows: Colossal +16, Gargantuan +12, Huge +8, Large +4, Medium-size +0, Small -4, Tiny - 8, Diminutive -12, Fine -16. Use this number in place of the normal size modifier a combatant uses when making an attack roll.

If the combatant succeeds, the combatant has started the grapple, and the combatant deals damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.

If the combatant loses, the combatant fails to start the grapple. The combatant automatically loses an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than the combatant is (but the combatant can still make an attempt to grab such a target, if that's all the combatant wants to do).

Step 3: Move In:
To maintain the grapple, the combatant must move into the target's space. Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening enemies, but not from the combatant's target.

Step 4: Grappling:
The combatant and the target are now grappling.

How's that?

 

[Tzarevitch]

Re: Re: Re: Your biggest problem with 3rd Ed at beggining ?

Really? I thought 3E's treatment of poisons to be its best improvement. the old 'save or die' thing really grated on me and it just never occured to me to use ability damage instead. That, I feel, was one of the best things they could have done.

Now I am not afraid to throw poison using creatures at low-level parties (yes i know I could do this before but given the awful saves every class had at low levels in 2E one poison using spider usually meant death for at least one PC/encounter - now its a few points off of Dex or Str etc...)

You are also the first person i have ever seen have a problem with the delay poison spell. 1hr/level is not much especially since it doesn't counter the effects of ability damage already inflicted, and unless the PC gets to a higher level cleric soon he'll still take full damage from the poison.

As for the rest of your list of spells, IMC Timestop has never been used (and neither has Wish - I don't know if I will outright ban them or not - still have several months before I have to make that decision). No one uses Shadow Magic (which I have always felt was pretty lame anyway). Haste works both ways (and the PC wizards NEED to have it if they expect to survive my encounters ). Greater Magic Weapon is useful only until the PC's find decent magic weapons (or make them themselves). True Seeing is a pain but I plan on altering this one since as written it wipes out any chance of illusions working (maybe a 'dispel' check for the one person to see through the illusion? Don't know yet).

All in all though I can see your points but I would really like to know what you don't like about the poison rules in 3E.

I think I may have been unclear with my previous statement about poison. My problem with the poison rules is that the poisons are not lethal. I think the rules pretty well reflect the majority of household cleaners and substances which when injested will make you slightly sick. But you need to get up to the level of the hyper expensive supernatural creature poisons to actually kill someone. The bulk of the poisons can't even disable the average lvl1 commoner much less an adventurer. Poison is one of the classic ways to assassinate people, but in 3e poisons simply aren't lethal. I think they went from the hyper lethal Death/20 poisons in 2e to piddly 1d6Str/1d6 Str poisons which won't even knock out a farmhand on average. Couple this with 3e Delay Poison and poisons are totally useless against a priest who can cast a Delay Poison spell that lasts long enough to last a significant portion of the day. (The DMG poisons also cost FAR too much although I think Songs and Silence might have remedied that somewhat.)

Real world creatures which are massively poisonous can't actually disable ordinary people in 3e. The solution I am considering is to add an extra die of whatever type the poison already has, to the initial or secondary damage.

Speaking of the Delay Poison spell. Priests in every game I have played in or run simply cast Delay Poison every morning and/or make a wand to supplement the number of castings. You then cast again to extend most of the rest of the waking day. (I do this too in the campaign I play in because it is so easy and effective. My 12th level priest simple devotes 2x 2nd lvl slots anc casts delay poison to cover himself for 24 hours. He also has a wand with it cast at 8th level for additional uses if necessary.)

This makes the PC immune to poison for most of the day, and there is only so often that you can attack the players right before they pray for spells before it stretches credibility. There is also only so many times that you run into an enemy spellcaster with Dispel Magic who also wants to poison you. The spell is probably the most effective 2nd level spell there is because it renders you totally immune to an entire class of common effects (poisons) for as long as the spell lasts.

As for Shadow Magic, I have a player who uses those spells regularly. They are massively easy to abuse because the description is so vague as to what they do.

With regard to Time Stop. You'll see what I mean when your PCs get to that level.

Tzarevitch

 

[Urbanmech]

I had to vote for Grappling. This is the most confusing thing out there, and it gets even worse when they add the improved grab rules from the Monster Manual. I joke with my friends that they need a book just dedicated to grappling examples with various creatures of different sizes and grab abilities. Even when the WotC Gamebusters took on grappling they did a poor job and still left many questions. I think adding a grappling section to the Black Pages would be great, but who underestands the rules well enought to write the examples correctly?

Everything else has been pretty smooth, the AoO examples on Erics original pages were lifesavers and very well done. Some of the different things took awhile to pick up because low lv characters don't have all the options that higher lv players have open to them. Great poll topic!