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This is a recent post from a thread on how raksashas have changed over time. Brian, i'm not disagreeing with anything. Rather, I'm providing some commentary in support of an idea. (Edit: although it might be a different idea than the one you were talking about... :) )
..but clearly design decisions have been made over the years changing a variety of rules. One intent of those rule changes was to make a mechanically cleaner, simpler game, and they arguably succeeded at that (and then promptly made it more complex again with all the feat and skill options). I do suspect that another design intent was to get rid of things a lot of players complained about - and most of those things made the game harder/more deadly. A brief, and by no means comprehensive list of things that have been changed that you could argue make the game "easier".
I'd suggest that a lot of these changes are things that have to removing the Gygaxian love of random consequence and risk. For all of Gary's background in wargaming, he did love his random tables and risk. Reducing random outcomes results in a game with a more strategic scope to its design. Paradoxically, changes to the monster that lead to this post, the change from spell immunity to SR for our tiger-headed friend, introduces tactical options instead of "Ixnay on the Agicmay."
Numbered lines are OP's; I didn't bother quoting and unquoting everything.
1. Much more powerful characters - monsters also more powerful, but not as much as characters
This may be. I've never played the game at high levels in over 30 years of playing. In the sweet zone, I'm not sure this is so true. For examples, I can remember dragons being a walk-over in 1st edition, but they can be brutish in the hands of a good GM in current gaming.
2. Now can fire into melee without chance of hitting friend
3. No chance to die from teleport
4. No chance to fry friends with miscalculated fireball
All of these are in the category of removing the "Are you really, REALLY, sure you wanna do that?" action that seemed so common back in the day.
5. Traps have been nerfed hard
Largely because it's boring as hell to play a game where the entire party moves like a snail behind the rogue or thief. :)
6. Far fewer save or die effects
That's a conscious change in PF from SRD/D&D. It reduces the swingy encounters and gives more tactical scope to encounters.
7. Raising characters from the dead costs only money now
This fits into the RPG on airbags suggestion OP made. This is largely a gamist and social gaming matter. But, it does take the scythe out of Mr. Death's hands and gives him a cash register instead.
8. Assumption of Magic Mart and ease of magic item creation
I would say that PF reduces the Magic Mart assumption. The MIC system, in my opinion, is horrid in design. I'm not sure this is so much RPG with airbags as much as giving everyone a chance to drive, tho.
9. Take 10 and Take 20 rules removing chance of failure
Covered in another thread, this is also in the "Are you really, REALLY sure" category at one end on also is designed to keep the game on focus rather than on trivial details. However, for gamers who love working out the intense detail of how they prepare against every contingency to get the Eye of Doom from the Statue of Evil Incarnate, I can see how it can sometimes be a let down.
10. Can now swim in platemail and fall hundreds of feet without dying
Maybe sometimes. This is more removal of the Insta-death stuff. Does seem a bit like airbags. From a gaming standpoint, a non-heroic death by drowning after a misstep isn't so heroic. I think that gaming back in the day made it a lot easier to bring in new PCs. The PC creation process is more of an investment now.
11. Are now alive until you reach negative HP = Constitution
One of my first characters was a 1st level wizard with a single hit point. Bad roll on that flaky (literally...) d4. Back when zero HP was death. He fell off a horse and died. The current death at -Con makes more sense than a flat -10 to me. How many times did I read about Tarzan waking up with yet another bonk on the head and left for dead at the end of the prior chapter. In essence, the -Con thing is a continuation of a trend that goes back to -10 in 1979's DMG. Investment in characters is greater. Let's remember that Melf was short for Male-Elf, because one of the Gygax kid was short on time.
12. Wounds, barring colossally bad luck, almost always stabilize - no bleeding out
More of the above.
Taken individually, each of these rule changes is popular and probably easily justifiable. Taken as a package (and if I were to take more than 15 minutes, I could probably double the length of this list), it's not hard to see why geezers like me think that the game has had airbags installed in it to make it easier/safer for those who play it.
I'm a geezer, too. I agree that characters have better chances of survival today. Gygaxian D&D was almost a matter of evolution in practice. Bad rolls...unlikely to survive... In general, I think it is MUCH better game design.
All that said, any GM worth his salt can still use the existing rules and adjust things pretty easily to still provide enough challenge and danger to make for an enjoyable gaming experience.
Agreed.
Number 12, you are applying the Negative hp penalty onto the stabilization checks right?
If you are at -3 hp, you take -3 to stabilization checks.
I kind of miss level drain being a real threat. I can see that too many monsters in 1st Edition had this dreaded ability, but I would like to be able to reserve the option for really, really scary monsters.
After all, being able to breathe out acidic fumes of poison gas is not scary to high level characters. Being killed isn't that scary, even. But having to risk losing some of those hard earned levels would restore the feeling that this is a very, very scary dude you're going up against.
On the other hand, if a risk like that were present, and I would say it would have to be very very rare if it were, the game would also need to be structured so that characters who lost those levels did not have to be retired. Maybe have catch-up adventures or something.
As for resurrection, I never liked the way 3rd Edition or Pathfinder handled it. It shouldn't be a case of "hand over money, get resurrected." Coming back from the dead should be a harrowing experience. But so far, I've never run a game where resurrection was a realistic possibility, anyway.
My thought on this matter is to remove the raise dead and other spells from the spell lists, but introduce a feat that puts those spells onto your own spell list. To make up for the feat tax, PCs who would have access to that spell under normal rules gain a bonus feat instead, which may be used to gain this feat, and have these spells restored to their list.
Most NPCs won't have this feat, which means that unless someone is playing a character who has this feat, finding an NPC capable of resurrection will be difficult.
My current DMs are definitely old school and the bulk of my experiences is with their games (1E/2E/homebrew) hybrid. I affectionately refer to it as D&D boot camp. The paradigm definitely shifted to a player-centric game when 3.0 premiered. Many aspects of the game which had been left in the DMs' hands gained much needed (in my mind) quantification (e.g. skills). The dire consequences of spells were reduced (haste no longer aged characters, lightning bolts stopped bouncing, summoned elementals could no longer turn against their summoner, etc.). Clerics received a power boost, the ramifications of which may not have been readily apparent to some seasoned players because of our own preconceived notions about the class (support, healer).
So yeah, lots of changes. The buffs definitely surpass the nerfs and it is far easier for a player to turn a game on its ear now than it was years ago.
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If you are at -3 hp, you take -3 to stabilization checks.
Where did you get that?
This may be. I've never played the game at high levels in over 30 years of playing. In the sweet zone, I'm not sure this is so true. For examples, I can remember dragons being a walk-over in 1st edition, but they can be brutish in the hands of a good GM in current gaming.
You've never played at high levels? Man you are missing out on SO MUCH!
Dragons were never a walk over as far as i can remember...I agree with most of the rest though...
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You've never played at high levels? Man you are missing out on SO MUCH!
Dragons were never a walk over as far as i can remember...
Nope, never played at high level. In first edition, I played a paladin to 9 (last paladin I have played), and a bard to 14 (last bard I played, maybe, too). In 3e+ days, I haven't played beyond about 12th level.
My only dragon experiences in 1st ed were the early-teen-creativity versions... Along the lines of "Hmmm...there is a big room on this dungeon map, what should go there. Hmmm. How about a dragon..." And, while a failed save could take out a character most of the time it was just "surround the dragon and hit it yet again until it dies." I guess, without harping on it too much, that my vision of how much threat there was for these creatures back in early editions might be a bit colored by this type of experience. :)
As for high level play in 3e+ era gaming, I don't think I'm missing out. I prefer a lower fantasy style of game world, where magic has some wonder to it instead of being just a different form of technology. Different people like different things, and that's cool, too. My preference is merely my own, not a yard-stick to see how others measure up to my ideal.
If you are at -3 hp, you take -3 to stabilization checks.Where did you get that?
Dying: A dying creature is unconscious and near death. Creatures that have negative hit points and have not stabilized are dying. A dying creature can take no actions. On the character's next turn, after being reduced to negative hit points (but not dead), and on all subsequent turns, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check to become stable. The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total. A character that is stable does not need to make this check. A natural 20 on this check is an automatic success. If the character fails this check, he loses 1 hit point. If a dying creature has an amount of negative hit points equal to its Constitution score, it dies.
Note the bolded sentence. It's also under Stable Characters and Recovery in the Combat section.
You say moving away from Gygaxian style, I say increasing the gamist quality. I don't know how much making it easier was ever a design goal as much an inadvertent result of that strategic scope.
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You say moving away from Gygaxian style, I say increasing the gamist quality. I don't know how much making it easier was ever a design goal as much an inadvertent result of that strategic scope.
JS, I appreciate the idea of putting in an affirmative light rather than a description by what is is gone. And, for what it's worth, the Gygaxian elements that I'm talking about, such as a fetish for random tables and low-likelihood, high risk outcomes (teleportation death), I see these as being good things to move away from.
As a musing on that side note, it seems that Pathfinder's cursed magic item as the result of failed Spellcraft checks during creation is a return to that low-likelihood, high risk outcome.
I think Gygax was trying to capture the old speculative literature tropes along the lines of "there are some things man is not meant to know," and "great power comes at great cost." These are old ideas in western literature, but they don't have the same resonance now as they did in the past.
In first edition, I played a paladin to 9 (last paladin I have played), and a bard to 14...
If that was first edition, your 14th level bard was definitely high level, considering the entry requirements for the class, and the fact that published adventures never went any higher than 14th level.
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In first edition, I played a paladin to 9 (last paladin I have played), and a bard to 14...If that was first edition, your 14th level bard was definitely high level, considering the entry requirements for the class, and the fact that published adventures never went any higher than 14th level.
Bard in 1st edition involved changing classes twice, from rogue to fighter to druid...at which point you were bard. (It might be fighter then rogue then druid...whichever). 14th level here was the total level, not 14 levels of bard after the fighter and rogue levels. (at least I think so...30 years ago...)
What bearing does published adventures have on anything?
In response to the OP:
The risk is what makes RPGing fun for me and most people I know. I love surviving and encounter by the skin of my teeth; it's just more exciting.
All those changes you listed, are most of them in 4e?
What bearing does published adventures have on anything?
I've just always thought of that as the intended limit for character growth. Not that it can't be -- "Have you heard of my 83rd level M-U who killed Zeus?" -- but that the system designers didn't foresee many exceeding that limit.
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In response to the OP:
The risk is what makes RPGing fun for me and most people I know. I love surviving and encounter by the skin of my teeth; it's just more exciting.
All those changes you listed, are most of them in 4e?
Bryan's listed points are changes that exist in SRD3.5 and/or Pathfinder. I don't know if they are in 4e or not. (And, I'm not sure if you're referring to Bryan as the OP or me.) For the most part, we're both commenting on the changes from editions from long ago, whether 1st edition AD&D, the D&D versions that preceded and followed it, or 2nd edition AD&D. I personally didn't play 2e AD&D.
I agree that risk is needed. Risk needs to be there, if nothing else, to provide the foil to make success that much greater.
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What bearing does published adventures have on anything?I've just always thought of that as the intended limit for character growth. Not that it can't be -- "Have you heard of my 83rd level M-U who killed Zeus?" -- but that the system designers didn't foresee many exceeding that limit.
Ah. I've never had that perspective. I don't know of any published WotC adventures for epic play, for example, but it is clear from the Epic Handbook that they expected folks to play at that level. Back in the day, play of non-published material was a lot more common, if nothing else because there was less of it.
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the fact that published adventures never went any higher than 14th level.
Most published adventures (or modules) did only go as high as 14th level. However, there were 4 (1st edition) modules that broke with that tradition...
The Bloodstone Sage
H1 - Bloodstone Pass (13th-17th level): 1985 (required Battlesystem)
H2 - The Mines of Bloodstone (16th-18th level): 1986 (Battlesystem NOT required)
H3 - The Bloodstone Wars (17th-20th level): 1987 (required Battlesystem)
H4 - The Throne of Bloodstone (18th-100th level): 1988 (Battlesystem NOT required)
Granted, 100th level is just insane (especially by 1st edition standards), but it was in fact a published adventure...
The Bloodstone Saga
I had always thought The Bloodstone Saga was 2e. If it was 1e, I stand corrected. You're right, though, 100th level sounds like one of the designers went "let's see if we can pull this off..."
Taken individually, each of these rule changes is popular and probably easily justifiable. Taken as a package (and if I were to take more than 15 minutes, I could probably double the length of this list), it's not hard to see why geezers like me think that the game has had airbags installed in it to make it easier/safer for those who play it.
I believe the assumption here is that these are desired to make the game easier and therefore are wrong. For me, the reason they are desired is to move the focus from game to narrative which, for me, is more fun. So it is my turn to have BadWrongFun.