Agent Sorchus wrote:Level one and two are more for people who are just getting into the game and have not really 1) read the rules 2) decided that they actually want to play the game. However once you pass this threshold then it is almost worthless to start at lvl 1 or 2. You bore out of the simplicity of the low level to fast to actually get into the game or world.
I would argue that the low levels in previous versions of D&D were absolutely shit. Damage does not scale at the same rate as hitpoints, and at no other point in the game will one good shot kill even a tough fighter in one go, barring massive damage rules, which are still rarely, if ever invoked.
Skills in general do not have to have high DCs. I know that it seems wrong but even at high level if the DM is not being a sadistic fuck you should be able to pass any check, even if barely. If your DM is simply requiring that you max your skills to pass even if you do not want to, s/*he should realize that and set the difficulty so that while tough it is not actually impossible, so that the game remains fun and does not turn into do exactly as the DM wants you to or die. And yes this happens all to often because the DMs are simply bad.
* who am i kidding this is a thread on dnd
Oh please, read the sections on what DCs should be given and when and you'll see that high DCs are common. Never mind that you have to adjust for the fact that a D20's huge range means that even if you have a +20 modifier in a skill, you still can fail a DC 25 check....25% of the time. Let's also remember that at first level, at most you can possibly have a +9 modifier to a given skill, and that's assuming a massive +5 bonus from the appropriate attribute. Unless your GM allows constant "take 20's", this is only good enough to ensure a reasonable rate of success against DC 15 checks or so. By the way, if you're a rogue, DC 20 locks are "simple", so you can shove "low DC values" somewhere anatomically unsound. At first level, a good rogue might have a grand total of +10 if they've got masterwork thieves' tools, which are not cheap. That's a 50% chance of success, which doesn't go up to 75% until...oh around level 5. That's for the EASY locks. You know, the ones you really shouldn't have a problem with. That's not bad GMing, that's going by the basic rules. Unless you're saying going by the basic rules is bad GMing.
Crafting skills are one of my favored things but they handled it in 3e badly. They could be used to simulate an economy, but it was one of the things most players completely ignored due to its lack of use in the dungeon. D20 modern had a better setup for craft and profession but still was less than satisfying. Why do I like it? Because I do not plan upon my PCs to just freely ransack a dungeon and carry back all the wealth, over the month long trip back to town. Yes I am an ass and will use the weight of a gold coin and actually penalize my players from having too much. As such I am hoping to repeatedly run them down to the last scraps of wealth, where the craft or profession skills can actually matter.
Craft skills only matter if and when you give PCs enough downtime to use them, something 90% of GMs don't do, especially in D&D. Hell, I remember most of the games I've played where anyone who took any sort of crafting feats for scrolls, potions, or whatnot was penalized because we never slowed down for the days it takes to make that shit. Granted, that's a GM thing, but still.
Knowledge is horrible to deal with in DnD, because most DMs do not realize that the base knowledge checks are just guidelines for creating their own in universe checks. You do not need to include any skill that you do not plan on including in your universe, this is basic world building that most DMs refuse to do. Once again it is necessary to give your players the ability to roleplay with out having to use the 20 sided dice. So for Knowledge checks I have my players make a single check that is the basis for the IC knowledge that I reveal to them before the game starts and that they have to roleplay with.
For example, I have decided that knowledge of all the gods is not actually free, as such I can either check the base modifier of the player to determine what they know about religion or I can have them check to see how much they have learned. Since this is a one time check they have to find a new source of knowledge to make a new check.
Knowledge is a way for GMs to control what a player knows about the in game universe, since most players read all the material anyway, a GM can say, "Oh, don't have Knowledge: Colons? You can't say anything about the Sphincter of Asmodeus, even though you know out of game."
Useful, but better controlled by players having a better idea of what their characters would or wouldn't know simply by, you know, TALKING with the GM.
As to the consolidation of skills I cannot disagree more. Why would a nearsighted character be able to see out as far in a spot situation as when inspecting an object in front of him. I can understand how it makes it easier, but not how it makes sense.
Well hey, while we're on that subject, why don't we get into all the other meaningless minutiae that makes games more "realistic"? Like how a character might have astigmatism and can only see well out of one eye, so when the good eye is closed, they get a penalty, and when the bad eye is closed, they see just fine.
Seriously, nearsightness? That's the metric you're using? You're talking about a skill that you can improve with use. The skill, in this case, is being observant. It can be improved upon. Does this mean that if your "nearsighted" character multiclasses to Rogue and dumps a bunch of skill points into spot and listen, they stop being blind and deaf? Because by using a rather permanent defect such as nearsightedness, that's what you're implying. Not that the character is generally clueless and unobservant, which low skill ratings should imply, but that there's a genuine defect that can't be corrected.
Asinine apologistic bullshit like this pisses me off. You're trying to defend a laughable broken system by any means necessary. Let's put it this way. In a number of other systems, if you were to make a character who was nearsighted, here's how you'd do it:
Put points into Notice skill
Put points into Perception attribute
Take Flaw: Poor Vision for a number of points equal to the negative you want to take. Boom, you take a negative when making any Notice check that relies on your vision.
And there you go. Simple and easy. Of course most skill-based systems like the ones I'm used to make all such customizations easy, including doing things like making characters not utterly defined and limited by their classes. Not only can I make a soldier with a damn decent Notice skill, so he can see trouble coming, a lot of times that's rather the POINT of a combat character, to be able to see trouble before it hits you.
I know that cross classed skills seem so very stupid, but if you are looking to make guards better and are only looking at the base characters you are ignoring one of the basic tenants of being a DM, to change it if you want to. Ie make a new feat for guards or just replace ride with listen and spot since most guards are not going to be mounted anyway. But no that requires the DM to not just open the book in the last hour before the game starts. The 3e DMs guide had explicit guild lines for adjusting classes that were easy to understand and use. I am not to certain about the 3.5 guild though (I only borrow it when I actually need it) and I have not gotten to check the 4e book, but it was there and most DMs were to lazy to try to use it in 3e.
So no the Character customization is not better in 4e, it was simple underutilized in 3e.
Ah, so basically the make shit up clause to make character that make an ounce of sense. Never mind that in 4E, the "take a skill not in your normal set" is a standard feat, in the basic rules, while what you're suggesting, which is making entire new rules on the fly, is not. Sure, they say "do what you want", but that's true of all RPGs. When there's an existing structure for customization that works, it's better than having to come up with one that may break the game. After all, if we're swapping out skills, can I take "Use Magic Device" instead of "Knowledge: Stonecrafting"? (That's another example of skills with massive differences in utility, of course).
See, in the skill-based systems I'm used to playing in these days, I don't have to jump through hoops to make characters that do what I want them to do, because there aren't these stupid class limitations in my way. The by the book ways of getting around them in 4E, however, are infinite more simple and less painful than the ways to do them in 3.x. See, in 3.x, the PROPER way to do it is to multiclass to the class with the skills you want, then pump up those skills. This means stopping your progression in your primary class and potentially giving up things like extra feats, spell slots, etc. Nobody fears a 10 Rogue/10 Wizard like they do a 20 Wizard in 3.x, period. Prestige classes with multiclassing in mind helped to ease the pain, but it was a slipshod patch on a basically broken system.
This is what a lot of 3.5 adherents don't seem to get. There's a big difference between adding to an existing dynamic that's already fairly open and re-writing the rules as you see fit. If I were to re-write the 3.x system to my specifications, I might as well just make my own system from scratch, or use a different system from the get-go, because I am not satisfied by the way it works. 4E is much closer to my tastes, though even it falls dreadfully short.
Baseline 3.x does not have a way for a fighter to notice things, and even if it did mimic the "take a non-class skill as a class skill" feat, you'd need THREE of those feats to achieve what one feat does in 4E with many skills. Take into account that feats are much harder to come by and worth a lot more individually in 3.x than in 4E, and you have a very serious problem.
I would like to say that the world I have created has been heavily influenced by the Heroes of horror book and that I am going to attempt to frustrate and cajole my players at the same time. For this to be possible I have homebrewed the world as much as possible, to keep my players in the dark about as much as possible for as long as possible; have reveiwed as many ways as possible of denying them resources, or eliminating resources that are going to get in the way; and will have to make sure that it does not end up to frustrating for those who are under prepared.
You know, I've run plenty of games where my players have been given plenty of resources, and oddly enough, I've never had a problem with keeping them under control, because other factors will limit what they run around with and/or try to buy. Still, that's mostly a style thing, and if people like it, cool. I know that I've not really enjoyed it, but hey.
PS- House rules refer to rules modifications or interpretations that better suit the group/play style you play with, nothing to do with the setting, really. Making a setting is reasonably easy, depending on how you do it. Making a game system that's not essentially broken isn't even that hard if you set down to it and have a good knowledge of game theory. What matters most in a game is that the players want to play and the GM wants to run. This means, to me, you ideally want to make a system that allows players to achieve their goals and is conducive to a GM managing the whole thing. Make any one aspect difficult, and, well, there you go. I like to customize characters well outside of the limits of the D20 system, which as a player makes the game less than ideal for me. As a GM, I find 3.x especially difficult in terms of constructing a game session and campaign, to say nothing of running it. Far too many other systems run more smoothly in combat, handle out of combat situations better, and even allow for far grander scales of combat.