Well, here it comes. Naturally. I just finally take the time and trouble to
write up many of my house rules and get my Core Rules Expansion hopping just the
way I like it and here comes the Third Edition. By all rights I should probably
be annoyed to see it come, rendering moot so much time and effort. I admit,
though, that I'm kind of excited about it. The next edition of D&D looks to
have a number of things going for it:
- Clarity. I love to run D&D, but I'm tired of interpreting ambiguous
rules every game (or perhaps it just feels that way). I know it can't just
be me, since the Sage Advice column of the Dragon never lacks for entries.
While I have not seen enough text to feel certain of this, what I have read
seems to me to have been written with an eye to clarity.
- Stats for monsters. It's nice to see ballpark statistics for each
monster, to give you a feel for an average member of the race. I never liked
the idea of using a saving throw to reflect a system shock check.
- Weapon reach. Suddenly polearms become much more useful. . . .
- Regulated spell parameters. Now spells have, for example, range
categories that should streamline new spell design.
- Higher rolls are always better. At least on a d20. It gets old to listen
to players grumbling about training their dice to roll high, then getting
screwed on proficiency checks for it.
- Multiclassing. I like the look of the new multi-classing system. It
provides a strong flexibility that allows for more diverse character
concepts. In my last campaign, one player had a paladin who was a reformed
thief. He still sometimes used Find/Remove Traps to help the party. Doesn't
it make sense that if he uses it regularly he should be able to get better
at it?
- No more race restrictions! I don't know anyone who applied level limits,
but most people impose the class restrictions of 2D to give the humans
something. Now, humans get their own benefits, so we can all finally play
dwarven invokers, halfling barbarians and half-orcish paladins.
- Fewer alignment restrictions. Rogues, druids and rangers all have more
options. Again, this expands the types of available concepts.
- Feats. Feats seem to me to be an update of the Player's Option rules
expanding class abilities. I always liked those. I'm very much in favor of
providing a means of personalizing the abilities of a given character.
- Skills. Let's face it, the non-weapon proficiency system, while better
than the secondary skill system, was very clearly a patch slapped over a
hole in the mechanics. It's okay if you treat it gently, but if you push it
at all it tears away leaving an ugly scar. Okay, I think I'm done abusing
that metaphor.
- Better weapon proficiency system. Catagorizing most weapons as either
simple or martial opens up the options for fighter classes. Classifying
some, though, as exotic gives them more of a special feel. It also allows
for the design of weird and wild weapons such as the orcish double
axe.
Okay, I've gone on about this long enough. I could give more reasons, but I
think I make myself clear. The key to these improvements, as far as I'm
concerned, is their flexibility. Who knows, it may even be possible to write-up
such characters as Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri without breaking
too many rules. Well, that might be asking a bit much, but one can
hope.
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