[grimaldi]

[font=Century Gothic] Greetings. I am new to the forum and am just restarting the game after many years of hiatus. I have skimmed earlier posts in this section and would like to throw in my two cents. I started with basic and quickly moved into AD&D. A much better and more colorful sytem. I didn't go into 2E, because of money. AD&D was just fine with my group for years. But eventually 2E crept in. As I refused to spend for it, I was constantly borrowing books, when possible to learn the new rules and such, but eventually work interfered and I just stopped playing except for CONs.

Six months ago some friends said they would like to start again. I went out and bought the core books and after a few false starts we are finally up and playing. From the perspective of an older player, who is slightly paranoid of larger companies, here are some of my viewpoints:

1. WotC Sucks! the core books were designed with the bean-counters clearly in firm control. (I hope 4E is MUCH better. I will be checking them most carefully before I buy into another heavily flawed and poorly designed system.) The number of supplements necessary to make the game a diverse, exciting, playbale system is mind-boggling.

Yeah, I bought the books. Yeah I am playing with them, but if 4E isn't x times better(where x equals a number greater than the dollar amount of the 3.5E core books) I am probably going back to AD&D with our old house rules.

2. Don't get me wrong, there are some improvements, but each one seems to be infused with enough stupidity to practically cancel out their benefits. (I would love to see a compendium of that list, but my observations alone would go on for several pages at least!)AC and saves are much improved, though we got rid of THACO and save tables back in '84. I like the skills and feats, the less restrictive class, race and alignment restrictions are nice too. The codifying of additional attacks is nice too(bull rush etc.).


3. The spell lists by alphabetical order of all classes just to save pages makes them more unwieldy than I thought possible. (Can you say price point?)Reference tables are incomplete in some bizarre and incongruous ways. On first read throughs I found so many holes in the rules my head began to throb. ONe beginning player asked me what the difference between a hand crossbow and a light crossbow was. I told him to look up the description of the weapon(go ahead, try it yourself).

4. The new experience point system is weaker than a cup of instant decaf americano. I mean, CR and ECL are great for a DM trying to set up encounters, but why does a fighter and a mage need the same experience points to level up? And the system for doling out treasure and experience would stop a new DM dead in his tracks, I think. If I had my books in front of me right now I would cite more examples of this.

5. The tables and charts are placed in some nonsensical order that requires a knowledge check (DC 25) just to find where they are listed sometimes. (quick, where are the turn undead tables? If you don't know, try and look them up without scanning through at least half of the table-of-charts pages). Why does an enlarged or reduced person have the EXACT SAME jump height and distance as his/her normal size. Why is his movement base the same? These are the basic rules of movement, without which combat is impossible.

I constantly pray to the elder gods that none of my player's ever utter the word "grapple".

Well, that's my rant. With a system like this, it is just too difficult to mention even half of the problems, yet here I am getting ready to take some first levels through their first adventure ever. Wish me luck.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome, but please use your netiquitte peoples!

Grimaldi

[chrisoliver74]

Why wouldn't a fighter and mage need the same XP to lvl?

Grappling isn't so hard. Just make opposed Str checks, or Str vs. Escape Artist (or Dex). This also works for bull rushes.

My point is, you can make things as complicated or simple as you choose.

As an aside, you may wanna also check out some of these products and how they deal with various stunts etc., The Book of Iron Might (which I recomend), and Iron Heroes.