What has been the best edition of the game and why?
I think 3.5 is superior to all the previous editions of the game, but are their people who disagree with me? Also, if you disagree with me is it just nostalgia talking or do you have a good reason?
Plus, is there anything from a previous edition that should be in 3.5? E.g. In 1st Edition monsters XP used to be partly based on their hit points. Should this be represented in some form in 3.5? Should a bulette with maximum hit points be worth more XP than a bulette with average hit points. What about a bulette with only minimum hit points? Should it be worth less?
The above is only an example of something from another edition. You are free to mention it or anything else you deem important. The central question is whether these editions have anything to add to 3.5 and/or are they better?
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I would say v3.5 is the best all the way around. (Though you might want to pick up the new Star Wars Saga Edition rulebook--it has some awesome mechanics that I might try to work into my v3.5 game)
Until very recently I ran a mixed rules system that was mostly 1E, but my players...convinced...me that we needed to do a complete upgrade. I still run 1E adventures on occasion, with 1E NPCs and PCs, but it's 50% nostalgia and 50% we want to play Desert of Desolation without taking the time to convert the whole adventure to v3.5.
I also fell in with Eberron--I love that campaign setting, but there's no way you'd want to try and devolve it to follow 1E rules--it's a true v3.5 setting.
As far as awarding XP, I don't follow a regimented system of awarding beyond the written rules, but I do award extra for role-playing, story-telling and killing larger-than-life villains; extra credit XP, which I give out in a way to make it worthwhile but maintain balance.
I think on balance 3.5 is superior to the prevous editions. Generally each edition has been better then the prevous ones in my opinion. Things are learned with each incarnation and I suppose 4th edition will be superior to 3.5. Though I kind of dread the advent of 4th edition when it finally comes out. It'll be wonderful if they incorperate all the things they have learned over the last four years or so but it will be a major pain to replace all the damn spalt books.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Nothing on t.v. tonight, Phil? First a thread regarding splatbooks (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once some idiot makes the "WotC doesn't playtest" assertion and I have to go kick ass and take names), and now this (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once someone slams 1e/2e, thus causing a grognard like Blackdragon or Lawgiver to come out of the woodwork an stand up for 1e/2e and fire off the old chestnut of "3e is for munchkins/powergamers")
Will the next thread be "Will you switch to 4e and what do you think will be in it?"
Sigh. I guess I'm just becoming jaded on this place. There are only so many times I can make the same arguments in the face of the same deficient reasoning.
Nothing on t.v. tonight, Phil? First a thread regarding splatbooks (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once some idiot makes the "WotC doesn't playtest" assertion and I have to go kick ass and take names), and now this (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once someone slams 1e/2e, thus causing a grognard like Blackdragon or Lawgiver to come out of the woodwork an stand up for 1e/2e and fire off the old chestnut of "3e is for munchkins/powergamers")
Will the next thread be "Will you switch to 4e and what do you think will be in it?"** spoiler omitted **
Sigh. I guess I'm just becoming jaded on this place. There are only so many times I can make the same arguments in the face of the same deficient reasoning.
3e is for munchkins. And I won't be switching to 4e.
Sorry. I couldn't resist. I'll leave now.
Sigh. I guess I'm just becoming jaded on this place. There are only so many times I can make the same arguments in the face of the same deficient reasoning.
Maybe he started the threads because watching you go off on a rant is more entertaining then whatever crap is on TV and you don't have to watch dumb commercials?
Maybe he started the threads because watching you go off on a rant is more entertaining then whatever crap is on TV and you don't have to watch dumb commercials?
Sigh. I guess I'm just becoming jaded on this place. There are only so many times I can make the same arguments in the face of the same deficient reasoning.
You read my mind Jeremy. I'm just a trouble stirrer. ;-)
I'm also somewhat interested that Sebastion claims to be the one whose arguments are sound. Maybe the reasoning's fine but his arguments are deficient?
I love toying with people!
In my opinion, D&D has (overall) improved with every new edition.
In my opinion, D&D has (overall) improved with every new edition.
I concur, and that goes for both rules and scenarios.
However, my preference in rules is for point buy, like GURPS or Hero system.
D&D produces the best scenarios, from my limited experience, and that especially goes for the work done here at Paizo. One of my favorite games ever was a GURPS horror adaptation of Ravenloft.
Well none of the edition changes seem to have been pointless for the game. I like 3.5 and find it to be superior in many ways to older editions. The inclusion of the battle map and the core integration of it in the rules has made combat much more detailed. I do hate that they choose squares for the map but that is the by far the largest of my complaints. The less specific problem is that the map has changed the game into being closer to a miniature game that uses the 'you go, I go' model. They included things like attacks of opportunity and held actions to try to prevent this from seeming overly wrong but it is really just a patch on the problem. The system works great for keeping things inside a strict rule set that is pretty simple but it also creates oddities as will always happen with actions being carried out in discrete sections which at times poorly simulates a continuous series of actions. This can be done away with with the occasional DM rulings but if you add those your back to the older system with the inclusion of the battle map and a violation of what the players often feel they deserve, as you would be violating the rules as written. I don't think there is a good solution, it is just a trade off of games and if you find the current system not to your liking there are any number of less miniature game like RPGs out there and easy access to old books on Ebay or as PDFs.
If you do want to see one more complaint with this edition, it is that it is difficult to convert OD&D and 1E AD&D modules to it. The older modules had so many more encounters in them that they would represent 4 or 5 levels which makes them pretty much impossible to convert directly, unless they are broken into zones in such a way that they can have areas prepared for all of those levels. This tends to leave you trying to strip those old modules down to their core and for some of them, The Lost City for instance, I just can never figure that out.
Nothing on t.v. tonight, Phil? First a thread regarding splatbooks (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once some idiot makes the "WotC doesn't playtest" assertion and I have to go kick ass and take names), and now this (which will almost certainly devolve into a flamewar once someone slams 1e/2e, thus causing a grognard like Blackdragon or Lawgiver to come out of the woodwork an stand up for 1e/2e and fire off the old chestnut of "3e is for munchkins/powergamers")
Will the next thread be "Will you switch to 4e and what do you think will be in it?"** spoiler omitted **
Sigh. I guess I'm just becoming jaded on this place. There are only so many times I can make the same arguments in the face of the same deficient reasoning.
I don't see how name calling (some idiot) (deficient reasoning) or self promotion (I have to go kick ass and take names) are elements of good arguements.
I have always seen your arguements to break down to "WotC are experts and they make the product, so they are right." To me this is not a better arguement than "WotC doesn't playtest". Sigh. Maybe I have become jaded.
To the original OP, I am going to weigh in and say 3.5. First edition had the difficulty of players wanting to challenge dragons, archdevils and demonlords. Second edition had the evolution of the uber magic items to counter deficiencies like saving throws and non-magic using characters. Third edition attempted to tone things back yet convert to a new system. Often trying to keep things the same did not work with the new system. 3.5 tried to correct these problems, but has spun out of control again with a need to cater to (make money off of) players (with product after product of new classes and prestige classes). I am very hopeful of 4th edition once again reigning things in. Really how many fighter/mage classes do we need?
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...Third edition attempted to tone things back yet convert to a new system. Often trying to keep things the same did not work with the new system. 3.5 tried to correct these problems, but has spun out of control again with a need to cater to (make money off of) players (with product after product of new classes and prestige classes)...
I can't count the number of times I've looked at my v3/3.5 bookshelf and been honestly amazed at how far modern D&D has pushed the envelope: TSR could not have published The Book of Vile Darkness or Magic of Incarnum (actually using the essence of someone else's soul to cast magic spells!) back in the 80s and early 90s. As it is, I'm still trying to figure out how games and comics, but especially D&D, don't pull more hellfire attention from the righteous right. Then again, there's no-one telling me what I can and can't read anymore, so maybe I'm just out-of-touch...
Then again, maybe I misunderstand what you mean by 3E trying to 'tone back' from 2nd Edition?
I agree, v3.5 is fast approaching the glut of mostly useless and often contradictory, unplayable (my opinion, though it didn't stop me opening my wallet) products 2E fell into along 1996...
I'll have to go with the opinion that D&D gets better with each edition. I do think the glut of products that has been put out by WotC as of late have not impressed me. If it comes to a point-buy system...well, GURPS has done that longer and better than most. And I do like GURPS. :)
In my opinion, 1st Edition had the best adventures, 2nd Edition the best settings, and 3rd Edition the best rules.
On balance, therefore, I think the best edition to play is 3rd, on the grounds that one can easily convert the adventures and settings to the new edition if desired.
well, 3.0 and 3.5 really only codified what my group had been doing already anyway. To me 3.5, just added a whole lot of money soak and now there are such a huge number of rules and variations that we spend way to much time waiting for someone to look something up than we should be spending. In 2e, we got together, we played; we all knew the rules; all had the same material, we just played. Now I have ever so many this rule vs that rule or this class vs that class; 3.5 has turned the game away from gaming and more into a game of the next best thing. People are so much more worried about nerfing their characters now by playing the wrong pretige class or taking the wrong feat; many peeps complain all the 3.5 spells have been nerfed, ect, ect. Geez, it is all crap; game used be about...hmm...playing the game. These constant discussions of pretige classes and "best fit" and making sure they take the "right feats" is all very annoying.
When you say 3.5 is superior; I am curious what you mean; is their more stuff; sure; are their more rules, sure; is their any balance between classes, no, but I dont care about that much anyway; does the new rules provide a better gaming experience, no, not at all, we actually get less playing done. The only thing I see in 3.5 is setting a difficulty number for rolls that can be applied to player activities. Sure, it is nice to have a few more spell lists, but many changes are only cosmetic; AC goes up instead of down; stuff like that. My players all agree that 3.5 is a much more munchkin game and though I am running it; many of them are staying at 2e+.
I've been playing since 1978 - so I'm just loaded with nostalgia - but I think the 3.5 rules are better in terms of pure game mechanics. There are several key differences worth pointing out, between 3.5 and, say, 1st Ed. The adventure modules published for 1st ed. were little more than outlines compared to adventures published today. There was very little background information given, very little in the way of plot hooks or motivation. This made them much harder to run "out of the box" - it took the DM lots of preparation time. The benefit here was that each DM was forced to personalize the game for his players, and if you played the same module more than once, with different DMs, it was often hard to even recognize it as being the same adventure!
Today, DM's can still personalize their games, but more published material is designed to be played "as is". Where before it was required that a DM do this, now it's like extra (unnecessary) work. As a result, I think the odds are much greater now of playing an adventure twice (with difference DMs) and having almost he exact same experience each time.
What does this mean? Less prep time = less replay value? I'm not sure.
Another point: back in, say, 1980, a player could buy the 3 core rule books and a dozen or so modules and have pretty much everything TSR published. Now days, WoTC is putting out multiple hardcover rulebooks ever month! It's not required to own all these to play, but if you're a completist, and want to "collect them all" you need serious cash!
I almost think they're making a mistake by putting out more rules than anyone can ever realistically use in their games. It's like "too much of a good thing". I kind of feel the same way about Pathfinder. While I indend to buy it, the prospect of 2 complete adventure paths every 12 months is a little intimidating (considering I've been running Age of Worms for going on 2 years and am only half way through...) I have no doubt that I have more gaming material right now than I can ever possibly use, if I never bought another thing. Of course, I like keeping up with the new stuff, so I will continue to buy new products, but long term I worry that market oversaturation will become bad for the hobby, and drive many people away from it. I can't imagine how intimidating it must be for new players walking into a bookstore and seeing how many rulesbooks are sitting on the shelves. Sure, you only need the core books, but you'll *want* the others too...
The last big difference - the internet. Players of 1st ed. were pretty much on their own. Dragon Mag was the only connection to other gamers, except for the occasional pilgrimage to a local Con. But today, there are tons of online resources and community forums. If I have a rules question, or a question about an adventure, I can quickly find advice from dozens of people in the same situation. For each installment of AoW, I check these boards for notes on errors, typos, inconsistencies, and general advice. This is awesome!
It's human nature to resist change and fear the unknown, but you can't go back... So my vote goes to 3.5 (until 4th ed comes out).
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I don't see how name calling (some idiot) (deficient reasoning) or self promotion (I have to go kick ass and take names) are elements of good arguements.
They make it more entertaining to read.
I have always seen your arguements to break down to "WotC are experts and they make the product, so they are right." To me this is not a better arguement than "WotC doesn't playtest". Sigh. Maybe I have become jaded.
Which basically proves my point about people not being able to understand the argument.
Coming soon: commercials in my posts. If my entertainment value exceeds that of tv, I should be tapping that revenue stream.
Phil - I'm willing to admit that deficient logic may not be the problem. I think reading comprehension might be a culprit too.
Perhaps Sebastian would enjoy another TS house rule thread for him to practice his debate strategy and ultimately end with "Jeez, you guys need to grow up and smell the logic!"?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
PS: What does 'taking names' mean anyway? Is that like a truenamer's way of beating me up and taking my lunch money? Or is that like a wizard instructing his quill to write down all the names of the villains for documentation purposes?
What does 'taking names' mean anyway? Is that like a truenamer's way of beating me up and taking my lunch money? Or is that like a wizard instructing his quill to write down all the names of the villains for documentation purposes?
No, he's actually a form of shapeshifter that steals the names of innocents and then assumes their identities, leaving the original person all but unkown and forgotten to the rest of the world.
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1e was a great and enthralling write up stacked on top of some poorly written and often patched mechanics. Rolling high is good for this this and that, but low is good for this other stuff... You character can hit things with a weapon, oh and buy book 7 and you can do some other stuff... book 11 and there is more (the evolution of non-weapon proficienies) My first book ever was my brother's dungeoneer's survival guide, and it was damn cool to see not only what space someone could fit through but how much more space their armor needed.
2e seemed like an attampt to rein in the rules and get them back in a presentable order, that is putting non-weapon proficiencies in the PHB and the like. Clear away some of the useless bits, and tighten down some of the mechanics still based on proto-D&D systems... then they finished those 3 books, scratched their collective heads and said, I like money, lets make more books, cycle repeats.
3e took a fresh look at the rules, and tried to make them more cohesive, a d20 most of the time (speaking of which, why is cover expressed as a percentage instead of a d20 DC value? 20% miss chance, -DC 5 Miss check... shrug) and add a lot of flexibility in using feats and better multiclassing... then they finished those three books and...
BLOAT
3.5 clean house again, fix some mistakes...
Lather
Rinse
Repeat
Now we are staring down Bob knows how many "Races of" books and "Complete..." books and "<doodad> compendiums" and it is impossible to see every possible combination of the over 2000 feats and how they might interact with the umpteen prestige classes casting the thousands of spells
So yeah, you get the munchkin possibilities, and the "never play tested this crap" arguments, but fundamentally, at the core 3.5 is a better game, easier to teach, easier to play, more balanced though not perfect.
As for 4th edition, don't you realize that is their big digital initiative? This november, get the 4th edition expansion for DDO and go paperless...
In my opinion, 1st Edition had the best adventures, 2nd Edition the best settings, and 3rd Edition the best rules.
On balance, therefore, I think the best edition to play is 3rd, on the grounds that one can easily convert the adventures and settings to the new edition if desired.
Agreed, 3.5 is the edition I like to play most but the fluff was better in earlier editions.
The majority of my earlier play was with 2nd Edition. Once you got the rules (cough*THAC0*cough)it wasn't bad. Plus with Dragon clarifying and expanding rules it was great. The drawback being that everyone had house rules to the point where each DM almost ran a different game.
Having started running 3.5 in the past year. I like the easier to follow rules and the changes to the game. My only complaint would be the features that are in the game because they always have been. Seems to me that if you do such an overhaul of the rules, some of the classes should be looked into as well.
I'll still stick to 3.5 because all around it is just better IMHO.
What does 'taking names' mean anyway? Is that like a truenamer's way of beating me up and taking my lunch money? Or is that like a wizard instructing his quill to write down all the names of the villains for documentation purposes?No, he's actually a form of shapeshifter that steals the names of innocents and then assumes their identities, leaving the original person all but unkown and forgotten to the rest of the world.
Fantasy identity theft. Damn, that sucks. I'm really afraid of Sebastian now...I don't want to lose my name, people will assume that I'm senile 'cause I'm old.
I think “best” would be determined by what one wants from the system. Having played and DM’d everything from 1E to 3.5, I can say that the later portion of 2E (player’s option rules and all) provides me with the most of what my regular play group and I want. The others are still entertaining, and I might play some 3x occasionally, maybe even retro to some 1E just for the nostalgia, but taking into account 1) my DM style, 2) my player’s expectations from me and the system, 2E is “the best”.
As to “…a grognard like Blackdragon or Lawgiver to come out of the woodwork an stand up for 1e/2e and fire off the old chestnut of "3e is for munchkins/powergamers"…”, I’ve made more specific argument in another thread on that account and won’t get into again here. I will take the reference to the Napoleonic Old Guard as a complement though...
I'll say that I was very hesitant to convert to 3.5. I had a long established homebrew that would have to be massively overhauled to make it work in 3.5 and I was pretty reluctant to do that.
What won me over was the realization, at some early stage in looking at this, that I really liked how classes worked in 3.5. In 1st and 2nd Edition I wanted to DM exclusively. Playing was by far second best as far as I was concerned. When I realized that in 3.5 I was pretty much as keen to play as I was to DM I knew this system really had potential and leapt in with both feet. I mean if I was excited by all the possibilities and I hated being a player then my players must be pumped up on the possabilities as well.
3ed introduced this idea that you can buy magic items on demand at any sufficiently large settlement. It also made magic item creation a lot more straightforward, set prices on every item, set standard rates for hiring spellcasters, and gave each character level a recommended amount of gold.
It's awful.
Magic items aren't worth as much any more. They're just another aspect of min-maxing. Players aren't interested in any treasure unless it fits their character build. Treasure you can't use isn't worthless now that you can ebay it for half value in gold; it becomes a game of players noting down worthless vendor trash as party loot that nobody actually carries to trade in for magic items they want in an after-adventure shopping spree.
Players complain when their character is underequipped, as if getting their gold is a right, not a reward. If you give too little or don't let them buy wondrous items out of thin air between adventures they become angry that you're nerfing their character; if you give too much, they become either dismayed when later encounters don't give proportionally more, or become rapidly overpowered when they do.
Noting down vendor trash isn't heroic - it's a chore! Players get stuck writing down gear nobody wants, and DMs get handed at bill to itemize at the end of the game. Neither is it heroic to go shopping for equipment as if the legendary sword you just risked your life for can be cloned for a bagful of money!
3ed introduced this idea that you can buy magic items on demand at any sufficiently large settlement. It also made magic item creation a lot more straightforward, set prices on every item, set standard rates for hiring spellcasters, and gave each character level a recommended amount of gold.
It's awful.
Magic items aren't worth as much any more. They're just another aspect of min-maxing. Players aren't interested in any treasure unless it fits their character build. Treasure you can't use isn't worthless now that you can ebay it for half value in gold; it becomes a game of players noting down worthless vendor trash as party loot that nobody actually carries to trade in for magic items they want in an after-adventure shopping spree.
Players complain when their character is underequipped, as if getting their gold is a right, not a reward. If you give too little or don't let them buy wondrous items out of thin air between adventures they become angry that you're nerfing their character; if you give too much, they become either dismayed when later encounters don't give proportionally more, or become rapidly overpowered when they do.
Noting down vendor trash isn't heroic - it's a chore! Players get stuck writing down gear nobody wants, and DMs get handed at bill to itemize at the end of the game. Neither is it heroic to go shopping for equipment as if the legendary sword you just risked your life for can be cloned for a bagful of money!
I started a rather lengthy reply, but I'm going to put it in another thread to avoid a threadjacking.
ok i'll be fair. we had a dm that was not experienced but "familiar" with 2nd edition and tried to run a game for us about 10 yrs ago. it obviously went horribly. so a friend and i went out and baught the starter box. it came with a set of dice, pregenerated characters (regdar, lidda, melei, tordek, all those guys) 2 or 3 adventures, a combat map, and little disks to rep the chars and mons. it was awsome. we loved it. not even understanding we had just adopted the 3rd edition rules we went out and baught some phb's and found out another of our freinds was vastly more familiar with the game and wanted to run a dragonlance campaig (again not understanding there there was no 3e dragonlance at the time). it was rediculous. he played a 9 lvl drow sorcerer/rogue/shadow dancer thing npc with a stileto that critted on 5 and did on average about 50 damage. we were first level. he never used a combat map, just a dry erase board and we guessed about where we were on the dang thing. there were six of us players and we had fun i guess, but he went away to college and we baught some pregens and a DMG's began to evolve 3 of us as DM's 2 worked out. long story unnecesarily longer 2e and i have bad roots and i cant possibly see what anyone see's in it, how you exist with out a combat map i will never know, and how you keep from hanging each other from the rafters to let the blood drain from the bodies of the endless rule debate wars is beyond my infantile brains capacity (as is spelling, grammer, and puctuation) this isnt meant to be an insult to those of you who love your classic editions, just my opinion. i will say i agree with the post about magic items and between game shopping taking some of the heroics out of it but as a power game i just cant help meself. theres too much cool stuff to use out there i just cant wait for it to fall into my lap. was this rant sufficiently long enough?
Yes.
I played them all and I prefer 3.5 edition.'
But who else can't wait until D&D 4.0?
I can't wait this game just seems to get better with each new editions.
I'm hoping for all online content that I can pay a monthly fee for, access. I can pay for content I only use, and forget the rest. That with an online subscription to a DM tool set and PC/ campaign traker function, with a monthly subscription fee, that just sounds so convenient. When I am done playing and real life intervenes I can cancel my suybscription so I don't have to pay while I don't play.
Feats, spells, classes, races can all be purchased seperatly so you only have to pay for what you want. When you start a new campaign, you cancel your old subscription, renew with the items you wish, renew your D&D 4.0 subscription (small resubscription fee of course).