State your preference for 2nd or 3rd edition

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I've never played pnp, but for crpg's, 3e is much better. the rules make much more sense (ex. dual classing- so I stop using these skills while I learn a new class, and then presto!, I remember all my old skills again) and all the rolls and saves are much easier to calculate (who the hell thought thaco was a good idea)

 

Hooray for JSBB. Red box rules! An elf was a sort of a fighter / magic-user.

And each cleric level had a name. Something like Novice, Adept, Acolyte etc.

 

I think what Ilmater's Suffering was trying to say is that in 3/3.5E, players and DMs should pick and choose what supplementary material they want, but the core rules (the premises on which all material rests) are an improvement over the previous edition (in the eyes of many players).

I'd also like to add that I think that many (maybe most) opinions about editions are poorly informed by actual play.

 

I'm not at all filmiliar with 3e or 3.5e rules. Do these rules have level limits? If not than those system are definitely for power gaming.

In 2e there are level limits for demi-humans. This restricts the level they can achieve in certain classes, which made the multi-classing useful but not over powered. Also, when you multi-class it took you longer to level and that resulted in you being a level or two behind your comrades, which balanced out your extra abilities.

As for prefrence it is a matter of taste, and for me I like really the 2e rules when combined with the kits. And as someone else mentioned the prestige classes of the new systems are basically a kit, but you have to achieve certain requirements before you can become that prestigage class. In comparison in 2e you started off with the kit and as you gained levels you character would gain the special abilities of the kit.

One thing I don't like about the new systems is HP. In 2e after level 9 it becomes more a game of thought and not just hack and slash because you HP is limited. But in the new rules your HP goes the same amount each level.

But as with all systems they both have their flaws and strong points. I grew up playing 2e and that is why I am fond of it.

As for the new system I am willing to give them a try, but I won't pay for them. I will pay the money if I had it for all of the 2e player and dm books.

 

i really liked 2E (BG2), it was basic and easy to understand, none of this feats stuff.

but i suppose if i played more 3E (IWD2/NWN) i would enjoy it more.

i get there is more customization in 3E, but i make a fighter because i want a fighter, so i find it really annoying i have to click on fighter ever time he levels up.

but it is nice to have a char with 1 - 2 fighter levels in them.

 

I like 2e mostly because I am an old fart (I started playing PnP D&D in 1982) but I think if I had a steady group to play 3e with I could grow to like it.

 

Surely 2e didn't exist in 1982. It was all red box back then.

 

There are no level limits, but the DM has the same options so the power gaming is on both sides. The DM power games to challenge the players.

As for information overload or overflow, it is up to the DM to limit what will be allowed in the campaign. Multiple companies are putting out books, trying to accommodate the same styles of players (At least 4 or 5 different books for Rogues that I can think of). It is up to the players and DM's to pick and choose what they want to use/allow. The player is responsible for providing the DM with inofrmation on the Prestige Class/Feat in question and the DM has the right to refuse.

Further, just because a company can put out a rule book doesn't mean it will be worth buying/downloading the PDF. I bought a D20 superhero game once and regretted that they put more emphasis on the looks of the female Characters than the actual rules themselves...

 

@Harbourboy: Back in the day you could play advanced rules which consisted of 3 rule books, the Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Hand Book, and Monster Manual. These were supplemented by Deities & Demi-Gods and the Fiend Folio. Or you could play Basic set,the red box as you call it. Expert set was aded to Basic set a little later. I played Advanced Rules using the above mentioned 5 books. These books were later supplemented by Unearthed Archana, (which first introduced the Barbarian class and the Cavalier sub-class), the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. these books implamented Non-weapon proficiencies. These rule books were added to and eventually " intelligently designed " in to the 2e rules. There had to be a 1e before you get to 2e.

 

It certainly did HB as Bassil points out I moved from the 'Red Box' to advanced and then 2e and never looked back. As you can see the first edition was published in 1978, and was written by Gary himself I started AD&D in about 1979 while at Uni

 

One really redicilous thing about the 3ed is the bonus points on your stats every 4th level. Lets say you have a halfling barbarian, with 16 str on level 1. On level 8 (asuming you put the points to the str stat) he has 18. Now when enraged he then has 22, wich is the same as an average minotaur, a gorgon (big bull) and a shark.
This is all natural strength, nothing magical about it.
Wich makes it insufferably lame to say the least.

Of course he can aslo get more hitpoints than a dragon later on (if at really high level). Yeah it makes sense that a fly would have a tougher body than an elefant................

Also he gets imune to daggers. You can just stand there and stab him 44343432432 times, and he won\t get a scratch (damage reductiuon 5). thats one tough skinned halfling.

Its things like this that really puts me off 3ed. the sheer lameness of it all.

I hope they make pen and paper versions of the Elder Scrolls rules, they seem very very good.

 

D&D is heroically inspired. Your high-level characters -- analogues of Gandalf or Beowulf or Elric or whoever -- shouldn't have to worry about dinky little things like daggers at a certain point.

Just my take. There are better systems than D&D (in any form) for "realism" and non-"powergaming". But this doesn't somehow invalidate the game.

(And for the record, I think using words like realism and powergaming are facile ways to describe games you don't like.)

 

I don’t entirely disagree with this logic, but a Halfling with 18 strength is a true rarity among his/her kind. Even in the real world there are humans who can perform amazing feats of strength, way above and beyond what a typical human can do.

I see no reason why Halflings can’t be remarkable in this regard as well, and since we’re dealing with fantasy, I would expect some additional freedom to push these boundaries. By the time that Halfling reaches level 20 and is donning powerful magical items, his strength will seem to defy all reason and logic. Insufferably lame? Or a great premise for a memorable, heroic story?

Again, I’m not able to disagree with you outright, because I think the hitpoint concept has several inherent flaws. But the concern you cite is not likely to occur until that Halfling has become one of the most powerful Halflings alive. I like to think that it isn’t just the “toughness of the halfling’s body” that allows him to go toe to toe with a dragon, but is also the combination of the experience, skill, and super-Human abilities that this particular Halfling possesses.

That fly might be but a mere spec compared to the elephant, but if the fly has godlike powers it might just be able to hold its own. I mean, it’s fantasy man. Some things you just have to be prepared to roll with. Think about Gandalf taking out the Balrog. I'm betting you didn't march out of the theatre saying, "dude, that was lame!"

By the time a barbarian achieves damage reduction 5, he’s level 19. If an opponent coming against a level 19 barbarian is not able to dish out more than 5 damage per hit, then we can reasonably say that he chose his opponent poorly. This barbarian is one of the most powerful barbarians alive at this point, and has developed an extraordinary ability to avoid damage. Maybe that Halfling barbarian has become such a freak of nature after so many battles, that his skin has literally become hardened and calloused to the point that it’s just tougher to drive a blade into it.

And if you are able to get in 44343432432 attacks, it probably means that the Halfling is dead already. In most encounters the guy wielding the dagger would be dead long before he got more than a few chances to attack. Push any rule to a ridiculous extreme and it’s going to seem ridiculous. But that’s what DMs are for—to pull in the reigns before that happens.


2ED, 3ED, 3.5ED... give me a few good friends to play with, and I’ll be happy as a clam with any of these. I happen to be most familiar with 3ED+, and enjoy it immensely, but would gladly play in a 2ED game if I had access to the source books and a good group to game with.

 

Hmph. I had left this alone figuring there would be numerous 3e supporters jumping to its defense, but I guess all those people I've argued with are more concerned with dissing 2e than actually defending 3e. I suppose that would explain how those discussions went.

And saying "it's fantasy" or "the DM can fix that", the one pathetic attempt in a week, doesn't speak to the system itself. Source materials and supplements are the system, not what the DM can do. So I guess I'll take up the mantle myself, as ill-fitting as it is.

This is a problem, but not where you've put it. The problem resides not totally within the bonuses, but with the interaction of the bonuses and the ability scores' ranges. To put it simply, the ranges are too small. Seeing this kind of disparity even with a distribution up through 40 just means the range has to be extended or the bonuses have to be shrunk. Or perhaps they just have to fix the existing distribution.

Montresor actually started going in the right direction for this one, but took an abrupt turn when he started talking about "god-like powers". It has very much to do with experience and skill in avoiding blows. Severity of a wound isn't just HP of damage, it's the fraction of a character's health that is taken away.

Think about someone hitting for 10 damage. For a commoner, they're probably as good as dead; the attacker probably disemboweled the guy or something similar. But for a character with over 100 HP, that same hit would probably just be a non-fatal gash across their abdomen. Why? Because they were able to twist away from or partially block the blow. Not to the point where they totally avoided getting hit, but enough to lessen the severity. Same swing, different effect.

It's a bit different for a dragon or elephant, but still following the same idea. Being larger they wouldn't have the speed to move their bulk out of the way, but a gash that would pierce a humanoid's stomach and spill their guts upon the ground might not even be deep enough to get all the way through the stomach muscle of a dragon. In the end, it's still the same concept, of the wound being less severe for those with more hit points.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't like 3e's endless HPs either. But I dislike it because of the powergameyness of getting what amount to papercuts from the tip of a 20-foot-long sword wielded by a giant. I don't like a universe where there's nothing bigger than your PC.

In combat, yeah he could withstand that. But it's because of his skill and thick skin that he is able to turn away the blade, not just thick skin. But, and this should be detailed in the source books (it is in my 2e DMG, anyway), this doesn't extend to non-combat. Someone slips into your room in the middle of the night and plants a dagger in your heart, it doesn't just bounce off, regardless of damage reduction. In fact, you could have 50,000 HP and 100 points of damage reduction, and a dagger through the heart still means death.

(Of course, a DM actually using this to kill off your character is rather petty. An assassination attempt is okay, but only if the characters have a fair chance to detect or otherwise foil it; they are heroes after all. And then there's always Ressurection and such.)

I would hope so too, but it might have to be simplified to avoid endless point tabulating. You don't see that happening in the Elder Scrolls games because the computer does it for you, but in a PnP setting someone would have to do it.

[ August 19, 2006, 08:10: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

I'm assuming that I'm the "Montressor" you refer to in this case. Anyhow, the comparison of a fly with "god-like" powers was meant to be a separate point from the one above it. Rawgrim made a comment about a dragon vs. a halfling, so I addressed that. Then he made a comparison of a fly vs. an elephant, which I realize he intended as a kind of metaphor for the halfling and dragon, but I decided to address as a separate case. The idea of stating "what if that fly had godlike powers" was intended to illustrate that relative size does not always equate relative power. If we're talking a normal elephant vs. a deified fly, there might be reason for debate on where one should place his bets. The example was intended to further open Rawgrim's mind that a elephant vs. a fly might not be as ridiculous a match as it would appear on the surface--if you allow yourself to be creative enough.

I did make the statement "it's fantasy" in my post, but it wasn't made in defense of any specific D20 system. It was to remind people of the need to sometimes suspend disbelief. Things that would never happen in our day to day lives are going to happen regularly in D&D (in any of its incarnatations). If we're going to enjoy ourselves, we have to be willing and prepared to accept deviations from reality as we understand it.

And as for the DM acting as moderator to prevent gross abuses of the rules--I'm convinced that no rule system for any game will ever be perfect (2E, 3ED, 3.5...). It's not an excuse; just a harsh reality. So, at least in P&P we have the DM to step in and pick up some of the slack. In CRPGs these opportunities often become game exploits....

At least for how I used these "arguments," I don't think there was anything "pathetic" about them at all. They were valid points for what I was trying to get across. Not sure if the pathetic comment was specifically directed at me (though it seems to have been), but if it was, you clearly missed the point of my post.

 

I like 2e more.

It's just what I'm used to. I honestly believe that if you're really roleplaying, it doen't matter what system you're using though.

 

I found this article on the D&D homepage and i just thought of this thread.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20060818a

The article goes on to defend powergaming as well as suggest that to fix the issue you shouldn't remove or reduce the power gamer but instead everyone should follow his example.

"So make the power gamer a resource in the metagame. Ask him to conduct what amounts to a seminar on ways to build characters more effectively and efficiently so that they make maximum use of the rules and still fit the role playing concept and persona that you have in your mind for that character."

Its this concept that turns me off 3rd edition; every game i've played in any edition where someone, let alone the entire party, takes the mantle of a power gamer has led to bad ends, yet here are the creators of 3rd edition encouraging it as if thats how the game is meant to be played.

 

What I love about these threads are the total humility and rationality with which they're discussed.

Seriously, I have yet to hear from nearly anyone on this message to how a session of actual play with AD&D compared with a session of actual play with 3E. Arguing about the abstract mechanics of the game -- and I do dislike how much abstraction 3E goes into -- is not going to say much unless you can show how they're worked out in play.

 

I used to be a die-hard 2nd Ed fan and disliked 3rd edition when I first worked with it, but as I grew familiar with it, I began to like it better than 2nd ed. It's more flexible - 3rd ed allows you to do things that were impossible in 2nd ed.

Sorry, 2nd ed, but I'm leaving you for 3rd ed.

 

I agree. I won't get into a debate of 2ED vs. 3ED, because I don't feel that I'm qualified to make a fair assessment. I've been playing 3ED+ regularly for 4 - 5 years and own more than 25+ sourcebooks. I played 2ED a few times when I was kid (barely remember it) and know the Baldur's Gate series very well (which is somewhat based off 2ED), and own none of the sourcebooks.

I just don't have the depth of knowledge of 2ED to build a well thought out, well articulated comparison between the 2 versions. And unless I can find a group who wants to run some 2ED games at some point, and I can really get a feel for how this version plays, I'll just stick with the version that is still in print.