I used to play AD&D way back when, but I never kept up with the game’s changes. How have the rules changed between AD&D and the 3rd Edition (that’s the current rules, right)? I am sure there are tons of changes, so what are the most fundamental or obvious?
well all classes level up at the same rate… most rolls are on the d20… and no Torm god of edged weapons!
The rules have been greatly streamlined. Most every type of roll you need to make is based on the principle that rolling higher is better – Armor Class goes up as it gets better. The nonweapon proficiency system, in which you start out as good at a proficiency as you’re ever going to be, has been replaced by a skill point system which is based on level. A system of feats not unlike the perks system in Fallout has been implemented, giving players a lot of options in advancing their characters and also serves the function that the weapon proficiency system used to fill. There is much better support now for combat with miniatures, based on a 5’ grid, as introduced in some of the later D&D Basic supplements. Arbitrary level limits and class restrictions imposed on demi-human races have been eliminated. Magic items no longer require a point of CON to create, and are listed with prices. Stat mods have been simplified – you can compute the mods easily in your head without having to look them up in a chart. The complicated system of saving throws have been reduced to three types – fortitude, reflex and will.
I mean, gosh, what else do you need to know?
Check out this corny flash program designed to orient you to the game:
Combat has been simplified. If you once had to look at individual charts to figure out hits, now every character or monster has his/he/its own attack bonus (based on level, STR, weapon proficiencies and magic bonuses). Roll d20, add the number, if it’s equal to the other guy’s AC or higher you hit. Very simple.
One major difference is the level system. Multiclassing is now open to everyone, and you can take as many classes as you want (with certain XP penalties). Instead of the old “splitting hit points in half” system, now every time yougo up a level you can choose what character class it will be in. In other words, a Fighter/ Magic User 1/1 is now a 2nd level character, with 1d10+1d4 hp. When the character goes up to 3rd level, he can choose which of the classes it will be, or he can take a level of, say, Ranger. Added to this are “Prestiege Classes” which can only be taken by characters above a certain level, and with certain abilities. The end result is a much greater variety of potential characters.
Crossbows and Bastard Swords now actually have a reason to exist.
The barriers between race, class and ability have been removed, so you can have dwarven wizards, halfling paladins, and Elves starting out with a DEX of 20… and the stats go up from there. They took a look at what everybody’s characters looked like in high-level games and engineered the game system so that it works that way, so people don’t have to home-brew the game system into something bizarre.
They’ve pretty much stopped publishing modules, and now they’re printing rule books, campaign settings, and accessory books for $30-$40 a pop. If I had to replace my library today, I’d probably spend about $500.
I think one of the largest changes about D&D today is that the backbone of the system, the d20 mechanic, has been made “open source” - so that a metric ton of third-party companies are producing piles of sourcebooks perfectly compatible with D&D.
It’s now up to 3.5. They’ve changed some of the 3.0 rules to weed out the exploits.
I dig the way you can customize monsters. They have advancement rules and templates for them. You can also give them character classes. Of course, this means taking a day or so to write up your monsters, instead of just coming up with their stats off the top of your head like you could do in version 1. The other day I wrote up some twin ogre brothers named Gog and Magog. One’s a Barbarian Half-Golem, and the other is a Barbarian Corrupted Insectoid. I had to write up a normal version, a rage version, and a greater rage version for each.
I know, I could just wing it, but I like to look somebody in the eye when I tell them their attack result of 40 missed.
As Candid said, you can go here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 and see many of the rules. Mostly the rules are more streamlined and consistent. You can see the influence that Magic: The Gathering had on the game.
There’s still plenty of room for the storytelling aspect of the game; it’s just that the core books try to make the rules as easy to use as possible so you can concentrate on the other stuff. Some people don’t like the numbers-oriented way the game is designed, but I love it. I still find myself with plenty of roleplaying opportunities.
Seems like people have covered most of the major points, so I’ll throw out a few less major but still notable ones:
Ability scores no longer have a maximum at 18 or 25 or anything. They give fixed bonuses for every 2 points, with every ability score scaling the same using a simple formula. 14 Wis? +2 to Wis-based skills, checks, and saves. 14 Dex? +2 to Dex-based skills, checks, and saves. As a side effect of this change, the quantum for an ability score bonus or penalty is now +2. So dwarves get +2 Con and -2 Cha, belts grant +4 or +6 Str, 2nd-level spells give +4 to an ability, and so on.
Similarly, both wizards and clerics get bonus spells, and they scale identically, just based off of different ability scores. Divine spells go up to 9th level at the same rate as arcane ones.
Every class gets extra attacks now. The martial classes get them every five levels, the average classes every seven levels, and the mystic classes every ten. Extra attacks take successive -5 penalties, so a full attack for a high-level warrior may be at +24/+19/+14.
Rounds last 6 seconds. Ten rounds to a minute, and thank Og they removed turns. Spell durations are measured in rounds, minutes, tens of minutes, and hours.
Weapons are differentiated by how difficult they are to use and how nasty and common critical hits are with them. Most classes, even clerics and sorcerors, start off knowing how to handle all simple weapons like crossbows and maces. The fighting-oriented classes start off knowing about all martial weapons like swords and axes. Generally no one starts knowing how to use exotic weapons like shuriken and whips, and one can always use a feat to learn how to use a weapon they can’t. Or you can fake it anyway at a -4, like before. Generally weapons in the same category are balanced with one another; longswords, battleaxes, and light flails are all martial and do 1d8 damage. Longswords crit twice as often, battleaxes crit twice as hard (3x damage instead of 2x damage), and light flails aid in disarming and tripping.
One big difference is a shift from tables to formulae. All of the formulae are still expressed in the books as tables, but there’s an obvious pattern. For example, to get from a character level (sum of all class levels, as mentioned with the new multiclass system) of 3 to a char level of 4, you need 3000 more experience points. To get from 10 to 11, you need 10000 more exp. To get from 19 to 20, you need 19000 more, and so on. The strength bonus (same bonus added to attack rolls, damage, and strength-based skill checks) for a character with 10 or 11 strength is +0, for 12 or 13 it’s +1, for 14 or 15 it’s +2, for 30 or 31 it’s +10, and so on. Likewise, the dex bonus (added to reflex saving throws, AC, ranged attack rolls, and dex-based skills) for a 10 or 11 dex is +0, and for 30 or 31 dex it’s +10. The upshot to this is that a DM with a moderate knack for numbers can effectively memorize all the tables, so you rarely need to look things up. The downside is that, as in anything else, “one size fits all” usually doesn’t.
For example, the way that ability score checks work now ends up depending a lot on luck. Every task has a difficulty class (DC) associated with it; your roll of d20 + bonuses must be greater than or equal to that DC to succeed. Almost every check has a bonus from some ability score or another, and may have other bonuses depending on class, level, or other circumstances.
So let’s say that we have three characters: A human of average strength (10 or 11), an exceedingly weak halfling (1), and an exceedingly strong half-orc (20). Take some task of strength at which the human would have a 50% chance of success: Since the human has a 0 strength modifier, that would be a task with DC of 11. The human then has to roll a natural 11 or higher on a d20 to succeed. The halfling has a -5 strength penalty, so for him to get an adjusted roll of 11 or higher, he needs to roll a natural 16 or higher, and thus has a 1 in 4 chance of succeeding. Meanwhile, the half-orc has a bonus of +5 from his strength, so he only needs to roll a natural 6 or higher for his adjusted roll to be enough. So a task of strength where a brutishly strong character only has a 75% chance to succeed, even a pathetically weak character still has a 25% chance.
This is partly mitigated by the concept of “taking 10” or “taking 20” on a roll. If a character is unstressed while making a skill check (not under attack, no avalance falling towards him, etc.), he can choose to take 10, which means that instead of rolling, it’s just assumed that he did an average job, and he effectively has a d20 roll of 10. Additionally, if there’s no penalty for failing a check, and time is no object, a character can take 20, which is an abstraction for repeatedly trying the check until a natural 20 is rolled. In this case, the check takes 20 times longer than normal, and it’s assumed that the die roll is 20. So if he’s not under attack, that brutish half-orc wouldn’t really have 1 chance in 4 of failing his strength check, since he’d just take 10, and his adjusted “roll” of 15 would be more than enough.
Overall, I think the biggest improvement in 3rd edition is the new multiclassing system. It’s both much simpler to use and understand than the 2nd system, and it makes sense. A multiclassed barbarian/fighter, for instance, has approximately the same level of power as a pure barbarian or pure fighter of the same number of experience points (in 2nd, a barbarian/fighter combination wouldn’t even be allowed, of course, but if it were, it’d be wildly different from a pure character). There’s also a greater tendancy now to have rules to cover more situations, leaving less to the judgement of the DM. This also, I think, is a good thing: A good DM will know when to simply ignore the rules, and a bad DM (or a computer: 3rd edition is well-suited to computer adaptations) needs the guidance of those rules to make decisions.
Corny? Corny?! How can you call that corny? It was fricking brilliant! The action! The well-scripted dialo…
…errr…never mind.
You can say that again. I thought in 2000 that MtG had ruined roleplaying, then 3E came along…
My description of 3E to people who haven’t tried it is: “It’s exactly what would have happened if a bunch of CCG munchkins got ahold of D&D… and they did.”
I bought the PHB out of curiosity, and so I could understand the mechanics behind games like Neverwinter Nights. Aside from that, Hasbro/TSR/WOTC is not getting another cent from me.
Now, I’m stocking up on Rolemaster and Hackmaster books, in hopes of getting our group moved over to a system that still has support from its publisher.
The detail that sold me on 3E was the change in the spell “Charm Person or Mammal.” It was a druid spell, and it worked on any of a long list of humans, demi-humans, humanoids, and mammals.
But what constitutes a “mammal” in earlier D&D editions is far from clear. A dog is a mammal, of course; is a human a mammal? What about a centaur? A hill giant? What about a hippogriff?
And if you invent a new type of creature, say, a goblin-type critter with inherent magical abilities, does the spell work on this creature? Apparently not, since it’s not on the list of humans, demi-humans, or humanoids.
In third edition, the spell was changed to “Charm Person or Animal.” It works on humanoids or on animals.
What constitutes a humanoid? Easy: any creature whose creature type is “humanoid.” What constitutes an animal? Easy: any creature whose creature type is “animal.” Every single creature description begins with its creature type. When you create a new creature, first thing you do is assign it a creature type.
A light went off in my head when I realized this. “It’s object-oriented gaming!” I told my brother. And indeed it is: Objects get classified, and then different abilities work on different classes of objects.
It’s a bit like M:tG, yes–but it also keeps the game running much more smoothly, IMO. I am a huge fan of the changes.
Daniel
Absolutely! I just mailed back a contract with a third-party d20 publisher for a couple of projects I’m working on right now (literally). I’ve also completed and turned in for editing a mega-adventure (probably 128 pages when it’s published) for another third-party publisher and a smaller adventure for a publisher of d20 Modern products. If Wizards of the Coast were the only producers of d20 work, I’d have almost no chance to get published.
It might be partly because I’m a big fan of both Magic and the d20 system, but this post makes absolutely no sense to me.
I realized after I posted that I left out an entire sentance that would have made the post make sense…
Before the last sentance, I meant to say “My group still plays 2nd ed, and we’re not upgrading.”
The reason I compare it to CCGs is because of crap like this and this (both from the recent “Powergaming” thread). Somehow, Hasbro/WotC has changed even D&D to suffer from the same kinds of faults that turned people off of MtG.
The “object oriented” nature that LHoD celebrates contributes to abuse like that, because it discourages GMs from intervening with common sense rulings and encourages rules lawyers.
There’s two sides to every coin. Some like 3E and d20. I don’t, and neither does the rest of my group.
This is a really naive question - I used to play D&D a million years ago.
Do DM’s use laptops these days? Can you get all the formulae etc as an off-the-shelf PC application? One would still use the dice of course.
Oh, I just read to the end of Chronos post. Looks like there third party computer adaptations around. What exactly do they and dont they do?
Btw I never imagined Chronos as a gamer.
And what does TSR stand for?
3rd edition…feh…give me my THAC0 or give me death! (I was a whiz at computing THAC0, AC, and the final attack roll number. What’s so confusing about a negative AC adding to a number that, in the end, you have to get lower than?)
Personally, I’ve always found this one to be more instructive:
Eh. That sort of crap happened ten times as often when I was playing 2nd edition than it ever does with 3rd or 3.5. I’ve yet to find any RPG system that wasn’t open to that sort of abuse, nor have I found one where the easy cure for such abuses was a good GM and a group of players who weren’t completely socially retarded. (We’re only mostly socially retarded: we’re gamers, after all.) I don’t see how, if your gaming group is generally opposed to power gaming, this could possibly be a problem: if you don’t like the rules exploits in 3rd ed, don’t use the rules exploits in 3rd ed.
The thing I like about d20 is that there is very little in the game that feels “gamey.” So many of the rules in 2nd ed. were so clearly created strictly as game balancers: level caps for non-human races, the bizarre multi-classing restrictions, etc. I mean, elves live for thousands of years, humans are lucky to live a full century. But no matter how many centuries an elf spends adventuring, slaying monsters, rescuing maidens, and so forth, he can never, ever be as powerful in whatever class he pursues as a human who has less than a tenth as much time to do the same things? It was little shit like that that killed my interest in D&D originally. Or, more specifically, it was having to carry around a bundle of computer printouts the thickness of the DM’s guide explaining every home-brew rule and reg we’d created to get around the various idiocies of the older edition. d20 was a dream come true for my group: it covered pretty near every situation we’d cooked up a house rule for, and almost uniformly did so in a manner superior to our half-baked ideas.
Never! You must conform! CONFORM!