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Update: "What edition of D&D did you play at the end of 2009?". The answer for our group is still AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2010!Question.... have you guys come up with skill rules for AD&D that don't-- well actually, have you come up with skill rules at all? That's the main thing 2nd ed was severely lacking in imo. If you've houseruled in some good skill rules I'd love to hear them. Well, first I must say that generally we make use of dices only moderately. There are whole sessions without throwing a single dice, because we are more of a “tale tell” than “hack & slash” RPG-group (on the other hand, there are sessions which can only be described as bloody massacres). Therefore, we also do not use skill checks very often. It is more like “The mages and priests can read, they check the libraries, the ranger is experienced with animals, he takes care of the horses.” And for reading a plain book, one does not need a skill check. While seldom using the skill system, the following was changed: There are no additional skill points gained from intelligence, but one can exchange a language point with a skill point and vice versa. (Not sure whether intelligence granted additional skill points in the original AD&D 2.0, but the localized Schulz/Körner version does, although this can be due to an unclear translation.) Second, for all skills a teacher is needed to gain the first as well as any following skill point. And this teacher must have the double amount of skill points for the specific skill, which the PC wants to learn, e.g. to get a third skill point in something, the teacher must have 6 skill points spend for the same something skill (which required some other teacher with 12 skill points, and so on, which quickly leads to skill point values higher than one to be especially rare). Only if a character would make extraordinary frequent, successful use of some skill she could get a bonus skill point from the DM. (Which has not happened in the last about 16 years, but is the obvious way NPCs gain their second skill point allowing to teach those with zero points – and taking a lot of money for it, of course.) We use neither the skills of the players as PC skills (“I offer to program a really nice web site for it, in xhtml, with CSS, JavaScript, nice images, according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and with an RSS feed to the dragon, if he/she/it doesn’t eat me. OK?”) nor previous knowledge. Instead, according to their class(es), the PCs have initial skills: For example, members of the clergy know religion (obviously, isn’t it?) and reading and writing, and mages know about reading and writing, too. In contrast to AD&D 2.0 also ranger can learn priest-skills (hey, they even get priest spells at higher levels, so it seemed natural to also grant them the skills) and priests of god(desse)s connected to warfare can learn several skills of fighters. But on the other hand, rangers cannot learn skills specific to magicians (where would be the connection there?). In contrast to “skills of other classes cost one extra point” it is “skills of other classes cannot be learned” (but one can more easily multi-class). Additionally all characters can do simple (!) calculations, such as to get the right amount of change at the market place. (Hm, well, our now deceased druid never understood the concept of money and our ranger just is not very bright, while the mages would give their last cooper for any kind of book, therefore sending any of them to the market without the rogue is out of question.) Further the number of skill points needed for some skills has been changed, and some skills added or deleted, the attribute or the modification changed, or the description of the skill changed. So, we wanted to keep it simple on purpose, and therefore voluntarily introduced neither a more complicated skill system nor any (!) feat system.
Update: "What edition of D&D did you play at the end of 2009?". The answer for our group is still AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2010!
Well, it probably should be "What edition of D&D DID you play at the end of 2008?". The answer for our group is AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2009.
Playtest Beta
What I miss is an index. One always needs to find something, and of course in play one needs to find it fast, and not everybody is going to use a pdf reader with "find" option but also printed version will be used. What I further miss is a table converting those archaic units (nice for a "historic" game) such as ft., lb., and °F into m, kg, and K - ok, you got me, °C instead of Kelvin. Place this table at a prominent and easy to find location, please, maybe last page of (missing ;-) ) index. p. 398: Well, if I remember the book of E. Cunningham: "Evermeet" right, than elfes are quite "flat" except when they nurse a baby. (But than again I remembered elfes as being smaller than humans, and the drawing at p. 8 and table 8-3 at p. 124 state the contrary.) Nevertheless the creature at p. 398 with elf-like ears is, eh, too well bestowed for an Elf, in my opinion. I wanted to post my comments about rules in the Design forum of Playtest Beta but did not find it, so here you go: Playtest Beta
p. 393: Lose a level/negative level: good idea, keep it so! p. 205: XP costs: Yes, one should not lose XP by performing something! I did not find anything about an alignment penalty. (OK, did not read the whole text. Did I miss the rule? Where?) Maybe instead of losing XP, when acting out of one's alignment or when changing one's alignment, either negative levels could be bestowed, or the necessary XP value to reach the next (and only the next) level could be increased instead? p. 194: Find the path. Downsizing the original spell is OK (it *was* oversized), but I have a problem with "as long as it is large". I would like to see a spell which allows to find "mundane" locations like a "shop" of a horse-dealer or the next town gate (would "outside" work here?) etc. (Is it only us always leaving settlements in a hurry?), or a place with water in the desert (a large oasis somewhere at the same plane would be found, but a small spring nearer to the adventurers could be more usefull): anything a local person would know of (if one could be asked and would be willing to tell - well, all are willing to tell, but somtimes it would take our inquisitor more time than we have got) or a usual street map would show (if there would be any street maps). Something like "Find the road". A "lost city" or the "hidden treasure vault" would neither be generally known nor depicted on a map (a street map, not a treasure map!), thence could not be found by this spell.
Finally, at Free RPG-Day, I got my hands at the 4th edition PHB. No, it was not for free, and no, I did not buy it but laid it back into the shelf after skimming through. So, what did I find? First, the races: The gnomes where removed from the PC races really. Instead we find dragonborn, something like feyborn and – tieflings. Yes, tieflings are a PC race in 4th ed.! Of course one always could play every race one wanted (and the GM approved, even assapanoi). Of course this is part of the fun, that one’s imagination is the only limit. But if one plays a chaste succubus on her quest to become a paladin, she would be a single, very special character, and you would not find ten of her in the next tavern. Now tieflings are common (N)PCs. Just seems wrong to me, same with the dragonborn and the fey-type. In contrast to this, halflings are not mentioned with the other races, too, but at least appear later on. But are they thus still a PC race? – The alignments: I do not know, but the new description of the (chaotic) evil alignment fits our current (righteous) good characters. Weird. – The line of effect rule again has not been changed: The heavy ballista bolt fired at a person behind a glass window will only destroy the glass, but the person will stay unharmed. The giant throwing a boulder at a character behind a pane of glass destroys only the pane and the PC is not affected, but if he throws the same large rock against the house, it could collapse and kill the character. So, the exact same action of the giant will have two opposite effects (unharmed vs. dead), depending on the denomination the giant uses? Come on! – The “take 10” rule: I do not like it. When a task is easy or difficult, a bonus or a malus could be applied, or the number to reach could be modified, but foregoing to throw the dice? I always thought throwing the dices was an integral part of the game. – The pantheons have been mixed up: Corellon (elf) and Moradin (dwarf) appear together with human gods, but the classical Forgotten Realms gods are missing. – The description of the priests reads like one of a fighter. What about the healing, guiding, blessing and so on work? Eldath priest do not fit the description at all. So, all priests are war-priests now: Fighters with magic abilities. Instead of a wizard now different classes of magicians exist. - I further do not like the black and orange paintings, which appear in a jumble to me. – The box of PHB, DMG and MM is sold out and out of production, according to the game store. But, as a special offer, it could maybe be possible to get the three books without box for the same price as with it. Yes, less for the same money is a special offer. Do they really want to sell them, I wonder? Comparing the price to the one I paid for my current PHB, it was more than doubled. (It seems to be made from paper yet, no gold visible.) Furthermore no translation of the PHB was available.
Well, now I did read the "WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 4TH EDITION AT D&D EXPERIENCE 2008": "Healing gets an overhaul." Hey, they robbed the priests of their XP!
So, we will stay with our beloved 2nd edition of AD&D.
Considering the fact that one of our games is still running in Second Edition and most of the players are resistant to changing to 3rd I don't think that we'll even look at 4th edition for while. Yes, same with our group. We have house rules, but otherwise: Why change a running system? BTW: No gnomes in 4th ed.? Did they get crazy at WotC?
May, June, July, August… - yes! Start of Darkness arrived yesterday! OK, it had to go via San Francisco to Good Old Europe. And it was worth the wait: "judged not by the pointiness of their teeth nor the color of their eyes, but by the contents of their character sheets"... and the black and white colour (or not-colour) suites the dark theme very well. Go get it! |