expirience awards

[cccpxepoj]

The price is right too for the entire set up...if you care to download it. $5 vs $30+ for 3.??

The system has its good and bad points, but with a number of reviews on Amazon, (and my own), for the 3.?? materials.....it seems that 3.?? isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

I have most of the 2nd ed stuff++, but at $5 per any type of release digitally I think that some more frugal gamers might just like it a little better than trying to find that NON FLUFF 3.?? material.

Later


Irreg...........

i have most of 2.ed. books in hardcopy or pdf , i just haven't used it in the last 7 years (i think:confused: ) but thanks anyway

[MatanThunder]

Each to their own......

For me I refuse to buy their over priced so called New material. Since most of the ideas in the game were just converted in the d20/3.?? era...it is really just reselling everyone the same material with the new (and not very improved) system.

I vote with my wallet and don't buy the new stuff....I have read it (one of my sons play that version), but they are offering nothing new....just reworked to be sold to the new generations.

I'll save an average of $25 per purchase....and now whatever anyone else posts is pretty much official since W****** of the C*** have given up on that edition.

They did do a fine job with Experience in 2nd ed though. Third has offered very little to improve that part of the game.

Later

[RaspK_FOG]

Allow me to remind you that bashing D&D 3rd Edition is hardly any aspect expected of any forum; I don't mind your opinion, I mind it being stated over quite about anything (it's getting a little like the old Mountain Dew jokes)...

On the other hand, I do agree that AD&D 2nd Edition was a fine system if you cared to curb somes issues it had; the Player's Options series is particularly important to that goal, and I am almost certain I'll be using it for my next campaign (a Masque of the Red Death one; I initially had that grand desire to convert it to Alternity, but I realised that the feel of the setting would be turned into a more pulpish one, something that I may want to do in the future, if my players all want to play normal, gun-totting humans, but is awful in this case otherwise).

[irdeggman]

I have to agree with RaspK_FOG here. The almost constant backhanded "bashing" of 3.5 serves no purpose. Most people are using it now and almost every new member is, since those who have started gaming within the past 7 years or so have most probably not seen 2nd except on the "discount shelf", which is sad because there is a lot to learn from "history".

I am not bashing 2nd ed - which I liked, especially the Player's Option stuff (except for the split ability scores - which I felt led directly to the min/max/powergamer/munkinism that I really don't like).

[cccpxepoj]

i started to play RPG with older players than me, so i learned 2nd edition and it was great, but in time we started to use 3rd,and after some time 3.5 edition, there is maybe a one party of "veterans" still using 2ed in my town .
and yes the newer generations never seen books for 2nd edition not even in discount shelf. sad but that is the way of life.

[irdeggman]

They did do a fine job with Experience in 2nd ed though. Third has offered very little to improve that part of the game.

To each his own. . . .

But I disagree with this one though.

xp and the challenge system is the one area that 3.5 drastically improved, by design, the system used in 2nd ed.

3.5 has the CR system which gives a relatively easy way to judge what is an appropriate encounter level for a party of PCs. 2nd required extensive "eye-balling" and quite often "dice fudging" in order to keep things from getting out of hand (either way too easy or way too difficult).

3.5 has much improved way of handling "balance".

In 2nd ed the xp tables for each class were not the same, and if using the optional "class-based" awards (which from my experience almost everyone used in some manner or another) things got even more out of whack. This system (class-based awards combined with differeing xp tables) encouraged PCs playing for themselves by competing for xp. How many times has this situation come up - a fighter keeps on whacking at the BBEG for round after round, all by himself, and the thief gets in one final hit and gets the "klil" and thus robs the fighter of his class-based award? - in our Dark Sun game is was quite often and the reason why our DM added a house rule to award xp based on damaged dealt in addition to the "kill" award.

3.5 has all classes advance in the same way, with xp awards based on team play and cooperation. There are no individual awards (except for role-playing) awarded in 3.5 period. This in itself encourages a group to act more like a team instead of plotting to get one up on the other PCs. Heck the PHB II pg 157+ has an optional rule for "teamwork benefits" that goes even further.

In 2nd ed a 1st level human fighter was not the same, xp wise, as was a 1st level elf wizard. The elf was worth more xp due to "special" abilities. In 3.5 they are both CR 1 and have the same xp advancement requirements.


But to each his own. . . . .

[MatanThunder]

(it's getting a little like the old Mountain Dew jokes)...

And I like my Mountain Dew.....

I hate to point it out, but you said I should lay off the edition material then our local pundant came out with his response.

Let me respond please.

But I disagree with this one though.

xp and the challenge system is the one area that 3.5 drastically improved, by design, the system used in 2nd ed.

2nd ed exp worked just fine for 20 years and illicted much less negative feedback than many other things like THACO for those unable to wrap their minds around the whole positive/negative number line issue.

At the advent of the 3.?? era the Experience issues didn't even make it on the radar.

Its really all the same thing set up for resale.

It is a point system that will allow the achieving of level advancements. Thats it for either system.

3.5 has the CR system which gives a relatively easy way to judge what is an appropriate encounter level for a party of PCs. 2nd required extensive "eye-balling" and quite often "dice fudging" in order to keep things from getting out of hand (either way too easy or way too difficult).

That not really an issue. It isn't the DM's problem if the PC's cross paths with a monster above their skill level. If they tempt fate by trying to cross blades with something that will kill them then they DESERVE to die.....period!!

I never fudged the dice and my players, and I as a PC ,were smart enough to spot the NO win situation when we saw it.

I let the dice decide the encounters randomly.....It is a dice game afterall.

If my pet creature was killed by a lucky roll then the fates were lucky to the PC's that day, and if my monster pounded the head of the lead PC in a wide arc then the party learned that even an orc can get lucky from time to time.

No CR is and continues to be a crutch for DM's who want to control their PC's lives as much as the game they are running. I like free will and randomness.

3.5 has much improved way of handling "balance".

Balanced smalnced....if the dice are lucky your PC or gamers grow. If the dice suck then it is time to roll up a new PC or monster no problem at all.

3.5 has all classes advance in the same way, with xp awards based on team play and cooperation.

Which is another reason that 3.?? is not that good.

Nothing in life is fair ever!!!

In this game (the young espcially) should find that there are consequences in their actions even in games. Do something dumb and you die.

The classes are like the social classes in our society. To try to equalize one at the expense of the others is exactly the same as the old communist block ideas of forced equality and eventually doomed to failure just like that system.

At 1st level the classes are staggered like this basically in regards to class strength and survivablity. Fighter, Thief, Cleric, & Mage.

Now when you reach the mid levels the classes each have a more balanced aspect, but I would rate the progression as Cleric, Fighter, Thief, & Mage.

It is only when you reach the higher levels that the progression goes to Mage, Cleric, Fighter, & Thief.

No matter how 3.?? tries to play the communist "Fair & Equal" will it ever truely be that way. And nor should it be.

Reflect the real world in you fantasy gaming, or don't each to their own, but I always come back to the realism of the real world to reflect the hard life lessons that we as people or the PC's in our games should learn.

A laborer, lawyer, doctor, or political person are not equal either....but that is the real world social class we live in. Some learn more than others and this lends them power.....like the role playing game we all play!

Later

[ShadowMoon]

Communism was not doomed because it "forced" equality among classes, it was doomed more because it forced people period. And their error was based on the idea that if all people are equal should have equal needs...

Sorry, I know it is off-topic, but still, this anti-communism 40-ties propaganda just screams for a reaction.

><;

[RaspK_FOG]

I'd advise people to stay OFF the political chit-chat too while on these boards; if you please?

On the matter of XP, the benefits of a uniform scale is that, now, levels make more sense in a way, since pre-3rd-edition D&D suffered from a common error in design: multi-layered overcompensation.

Your mage is supposed to be weak, right? So he gets a lower THAC0, cannot wear armour or use some weapons, gets fewer hit points, and so on; but it does not stop there, does it? Your wizard takes a great leap forward initially, but suddenly remains far behind! He not only is weaker in almost any other aspect apart from spellcasting when compared to other characters, he also progresses even SLOWER than the rest in that already weak progression!

[Thelandrin]

Now that Irdeggman has started his handy "I'm better than you etc." thread, any such edition-bashing posts not directly connected with the post title will get summarily banished there.