Why 2nd ed is better than 3.5

[Elton Robb]

The Sword of Roele was written for OA.

[Dcolby]

That would explain the "Monkey King"....yuck

[Elton Robb]

Yeah, Monkey would have never fit in Birthright. I wondered why the Wisest and most Mischeivous of all Chinese Bhuddist icons was doing in Birthright when I figured out it was originally done for Kara-tur.

[AndrewTall]

If you work on the basis that the temple undead were made by El Mimar (the corrupt architect using the orders funds to build his future palace) or El Huffas, the vampire mentioned but then mysteriously undefined in the mod, then the undead can be explained as their doing - although you might need one or both to monologue at the PC's. The giant is then guarding from external threats - not internal corruption.

But the adventure still needs a lot of work.

Please put your mods on the wiki - there's already a tag waiting for a Sword of Roele re-work... http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Adventures
(Jack, like Fred elsewhere is simply an example of how to name such a page).

I tried to think about how to remove the monkey-king - he was somewhat out of place. I decided to have the sword stolen by a thief who wanted to use the Mirrored Gate to summon a champion to use it against the gorgon - the thief's body could be found (complete of course with archaeologists journal and bullwhip) by the PC's as they explored.

[irdeggman]

Yup The Sword of Roele was by far the worst thing TSR put out for BR.

I always felt it was a FR adventure that was transposed into BR just to make a sale.

I mean gates to the planes, the monkey king - really. How much of that really felt like BR? Pretty much none to me.

Now there were some very good adventures for BR that were published and were BR specific, just not enough. BR came out at the wrong time for a financially troubled TSR.

Legend of the Hero Kings had a whole bunch of real good adventures for BR, not all of them but quite a few. I especially loved Blood Hunger - yeah that was tasty one.

[prince_dios]

I was one of those awful nostalgic GMs. I houseruled Kits into 3.0 at the campaign I started after snagging the 3.0 book when it was released at Gencon. :P Truth be told, I'm considering making the jump back.

Firstly, because it feels weird to have Ruins of the Empire out on the table with the 3.X PHB with its grotesque art and Da Vinci style diagrams(in case you didn't know what a 30 year old human looks like).

2E has its advantages. First off, it scares off the kiddies and people who waste their time obsessing over good "builds". :P Second, the lack of reach makes it easier to run without a battle mat and minis.

[Elton Robb]

A good BR adventure set up around the Sword of Roele would be something like an invasion of the Gorgon's Crown and Markazor. In 3.x, everything now is stacked in the Players' favor against the Gorgon -- especially if they catch him off guard. If the PCs used their spells that deal damage from afar correctly and they are high enough level.

In 2e, the PCs would have to design new Wizardly battle magic that would provide them with the advantage (like changing existing weather phenomenae: i.e. altering a hail storm to hail ice daggers, or hail that burned like fire on the ground. Or summoning a plague of locusts [okay, that's a realm spell]).

Getting the Sword of Roele is a dangerous prospect for anyone. The adventure ruined all the fun of retrieving the Sword of Roele from the Gorgon. Monkey stole it and hid it someplace. What?

[irdeggman]

2E has its advantages. First off, it scares off the kiddies and people who waste their time obsessing over good "builds". :P Second, the lack of reach makes it easier to run without a battle mat and minis.

Ahh but 2nd ed had "facing" which was required for things, like say "back stab".

So this is not really that important a distinction IMO.

3.5 did expand (a lot) on the use of battle maps, but they were all over 2nd ed (especially if using Player's Option: Combat and Tactics) just inserted in very awkward ways.

[kgauck]

And weapons did have reach, they were recorded as length in feet, so that a guy with an 11 foot spear had 1 foot on the guy with the 10 foot spear. Like all things 2nd edition a little too much detail .

[ShadowMoon]

And Weapon Speed... ^^;

Which I still use...