3rd Edition Rules,, suck
#1 --Bereth Darkides--
Posted 14 April 2007 - 11:17 AM
The didn't do anything to earn the years and years of backing the millions of fans gave to TSR, so they then revamped something that was not broken at all,, Even Gary Gigax decided enough was enough! ( He was in the middle of coming back,,*PS.. He Created Dungeons and Dragons folks,,todays history lesson*)
The Biggest problem I have with 3rd Ed. is what they did to magic users, and (already at low levels at a dissadvantage) gave them a severe chance of failure to casting spells.. (not only do they have to deal with Saving throws and the lack of number of spells memorizable)..
Makes it completely unballanced IMHO..!
But the worst part is,, to find out my entire library of Modules and rule books are no longer good says to me ( after spending hundreds of dollars over the years) to F*** myself!
NAH... is all I can say!
I'll just keep on with AD&D, and purchse used for the next long while until someone comes to their senses and realizes that their numbers (fans and dollars) are nothing compared to what it used to be!
Consider this folks..........AD&D was once the highest played game in the entire world,, including vs video games!!!
#2
Posted 14 April 2007 - 11:54 AM
What ... ? IIRC, you have arcane spell failure if you are wearing armour without the still spell feat. Without armour, there is no spell failure, like in 2nd edition. When a magic user is hit, she does not automatically fail her casting like in 2nd, she must make a Concentration check. Moreover, INT bonus now give spell bonus to mages, unlike 2nd edition. The XP table is more advantageous. Overall, mages are more powerful in 3rd than in 2nd.The Biggest problem I have with 3rd Ed. is what they did to magic users, and (already at low levels at a dissadvantage) gave them a severe chance of failure to casting spells.. (not only do they have to deal with Saving throws and the lack of number of spells memorizable)..
3rd edition is a great improvement over the 2nd edition. It takes time to get used to it, but once the new habits are taken, it is really difficult to go back.
#3
Posted 14 April 2007 - 12:53 PM
3E is more complicated, and there is a learning curve, but there is a lot that's good about it, too. I like the multiclass rules in particular, and the fact that no race is barred from any class. When 2E came out, everyone thought it was horrible compared to 1E. Too much to remember, and what's with this THACO business? If there is ever a 4E, it will draw criticism for not being 3E. That's the way it goes.
As for the decline in popularity, you'll have this. (shrugs) It isn't 1983 anymore. I just got back from the hobby shop, and it was just as crowded as ever, so someone must still be playing.
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#4
Posted 15 April 2007 - 07:22 PM
Not that 2e is that great either, but it has slightly less of a toy company feel to it.Yes indeed, the heretical AD&D rules are the ones that were put out by WotC [a card company] and Hasbro [a toy company]! The non-heretical rules are those that were put out by TSR - a fantasy role playing [for the most part] company. If E. Gary Gygax had intended Clerics to get multiple attacks, or for people to routinely create Ftr/Th/Ftr/Mage/Ftr/Th/Cl/etc characters, he would have allowed such in AD&D.... but he didn't.... Slapping together some hellish mix of the d20 system with ridiculous numbers of feats and skills and calling it by a name you bought for it's marketability hardly counts as designing an AD&D game.
Personally I wouldn't even dignify 3.yech with the name AD&D - it is simply the powergamer's spawn of Hasbro.... but ...ummmm. I digress <sheepish grin>
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#5
Posted 15 April 2007 - 07:49 PM
Long reminising way (fun for me, boring for you ) of saying "new things can be fun and challenge you, if you let them".
#6
Posted 15 April 2007 - 07:50 PM
In the end, I prefer 3E simply because it's so easy to adapt and use, especially if you're fond of increasingly bizarre settings, campaigns, and creatures like my group of DnD friends are-we've had parties include everything from lycanthropic nymph bard/druids (+10 level adjustment *really* hurt on that one, though), to stone giant paladins and half-dragon centaurs, and campaigns that plunged into inter-planar wars and even a rather silly trip into a distant section of the Prime via spelljamming where we determined that a shot from a heavy laser rifle did 3d6 points of damage and that a powered combat exoskeleton was merely the equivalent of a suit of full plate mail in most cases, though it did an excellent job of defeating spells. And the party's druid ended up taking one of those rifles home with her, the mage having invented a spell for the occasion to recharge its power source.
Simply put: you couldn't do things like that in 2E without a whole lot of work.
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#7
Posted 15 April 2007 - 07:58 PM
Eh... why not? You'd have to make up new rules either way to cover most of that stuff. Even though the last part of your post sounds less like xD&D than Traveller (something else I messed around with briefly in the 80s).Simply put: you couldn't do things like that in 2E without a whole lot of work.
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#8
Posted 15 April 2007 - 08:14 PM
Eh, sorry for going off on the tangent, but you get my point-we were able to go into all sorts of wierd and unexpected situations and not have to spend days coming up with new rules for everything.
"The righteous need not cower before the drumbeat of human progress. Though the song of yesterday fades into the challenge of tomorrow, God still watches and judges us. Evil lurks in the datalinks as it lurked in the streets of yesterday, but it was never the streets that were evil." - Sister Miriam Godwinson, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
#9
Posted 15 April 2007 - 08:33 PM
[Alas, I think one of my 5-1/4" diskettes for this game got scratched or something and the game is now abandonware, so I guess I'll have to resist the urge to fire it up and see if it's still as fun as I recall it was .]
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"Infinity turns out to be the opposite of what people say it is. It is not 'that which has nothing beyond itself' that is infinite, but 'that which always has something beyond itself'." -Aristotle
#10
Posted 16 April 2007 - 05:12 AM
In my opinion the actual core mechanic of 3rd edition, the D20 roll, is superior to it's equivalents in older editions. There's a great consistency in rules mechanics which simply wasn't there in older editions where die rolls to-hit, for thief skills, and for NWPs all used different mechanics. When it comes to teaching someone to play it's much easier with the new rules for them to grasp this, and the idea that I would have to explain THAC0 again makes me shudder. I don't dispute that there are increased options which have increased the complexity of the system, but the basic mechanic the rules work by is simple to understand and I find that it's easier to make a rules judgement than in older editions that will satisfy both the players and myself as a DM.
To address a few specific points, there's no reason to dispose of all your old modules and other supplementary material. The modules will need converting, and unless you're familiar with 3rd edition you'll find that hard, but it can be done. Examples on the WotC web site include conversions of Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain. Background lore remains as useful, though some has been updated with new supplements - that also happened between 1st and 2nd edition, and even within those editions.
I can also point out that in the earliest versions of the rules even fighters only had one attack per round, so the idea that clerics shouldn't strikes me as being unnecessary.
I'll also point out that EGG allowed players to multiclass in his original games, so it's not a new phenomenon. He was much more concerned with a fun game than with playing strictly by the rules, and it wasn't uncommon for them to add new material at the table.
I'll also suggest that while earlier editions did sell extremely well, they are now competing with a broader range of alternatives. Consoles have become cheaper and more accessible in relative terms, while having increased capablities. There are many more television channels than used to be available in the heyday of AD&D, which also attract potential players. While I don't believe that this applies elsewhere, in England at least D&D is in competition with Warhammer, and many people who might have been D&D players in the 1980s now play Warhammer. Part of me is surprised that there's still so many D&D players at all, considering how some other hobbies of the late 1970s/early 1980s have fared.
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#11
Posted 28 April 2007 - 08:19 AM
Edited by NiGHTMARE, 28 April 2007 - 08:22 AM.
#12
Posted 28 April 2007 - 12:25 PM
I personally prefer 2E because it's less prone to power inflation, balance is less forced, the art work (in general) is more plausible, DMs are encouraged to adjucate more and rely on the rules less, and psionics do not come off as just another type of magic.
Some people dislike AD&D for exactly the reasons I like it.
#13
Posted 28 April 2007 - 01:05 PM
#14
Posted 09 May 2007 - 06:02 AM
I've played D&D in all its incarnations since the late 70s. Each edition is nearly different enough to be a separate game altogether, deserving different titles. Each succeeds in different ways at different things. Whether one is better than another is largely subjective, but 1st edition will always have a warm, soft spot in my heart, born of nostalgia. Most of the best times of my teen years involved 1st edition (2E came out when I was a senior in HS), and role-playing in general... I will always associate good, clean and safe fun with weekend long, sleepless, pizza-and-mountain-dew stuffing, marathon gaming sessions in a friend's basement with 6-8 other people.
Anyway, I forgot the point I was trying to make.
Oh yeah... they're all good in one way or another. 1E just happens to be the "goodest".
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#15
Posted 27 May 2007 - 10:50 AM
With regards D&D 2nd Edn (AD&D) it had one major flaw - it's out grew itself and had so many little addons, rule ammendment etc that from a DMing point of view it was an absolute nightmare to run any campaign as you had people constantly quoting their favorite little rule at you. 3rd Edn for all that did wrong was consistent enough that the DM was put back in charge.
#16
Posted 04 June 2007 - 07:28 AM
With regards D&D 2nd Edn (AD&D) it had one major flaw - it's out grew itself and had so many little addons, rule ammendment etc that from a DMing point of view it was an absolute nightmare to run any campaign as you had people constantly quoting their favorite little rule at you. 3rd Edn for all that did wrong was consistent enough that the DM was put back in charge.
The DM has always been in charge of his or her game, unless the DM allowed things to get out of hand.
All editions of D&D and AD&D have a massive case of rules bloat. So what? The DM picks what works for his/her game, then lets the players know.
I currently DM primarily 2nd edition game, with several 1E and "2.5"E influences (as well as some house rules). There are dozens, if not hundreds of rules I have ignored or replaced. If a player has a suggestion, or a problem, that player is free to argue their case out side of the game. However I am under no obligation to change anything, regardless of what rules they quote. It's my game first, the player's game second, and the original author's game last. All editions have encouraged this.