Ultimate Showdown: 3.0 vs. 3.5

[RobbyPants]

There's an easy 3-step solution to this problem.

1) Shadzar ignores everyone.
2) Everyone ignores shadzar.
3) Everyone goes home happy.

Seriously. It works.

Priceless.

Editions prior to third were the bastions of the DM vs player mindset. It was all over the place in first, and very common in second. Such that I would estimate at least two chapters of the 2nd edition DM book were devoted to ways he could screw over the players for the lulz, ranging from items or other things that look useful but are actually DNS and there is no way to tell the difference without being subjected to that unavoidable Death, No Save, to writing several pages devoted to ripping the PCs off on a horse, to the classic 'Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies'.

I never played 1E, so I can't say anything one way or the other. As for 2E, I agree that a lot of the mechanics still supported DMs killing players, but I do remember reading sections of the DMG discouraging no-save-insta-death situations. Although, you could get some really weird results in the several pages they had on adjudicating illusions (I don't think any edition has figured out how to handle it).

In 2E, you could die of fright if an illusion "killed" you. You had to roll a system shock check (based on your Con) if you "lost all your HP" from an illusion (later disbelieving would give you your HP back, IIRC). The DMG specifically mentioned something like illusions of people trapped in a steel box filled with acid. So it seemed like that was a bit of a no-no.

Although, it seemed perfectly legitimate to make an illusionary bridge over a freaking chasm, and I fail to see how that's any different, other than that players will learn to prod everything with a fucking staff before stepping on it! Of course, prodding things with staves tends to set of traps too...

[Roy]

Even if they did supposedly discourage it, they were lying, as there is no less than several dozen monsters who can DNS you, and some more that do it indirectly. Then you consider all the items that appear to be useful thing x but are actually DNS, and you can't tell the difference without trying them...

[erik]

Ha ha, aahhhh, I remember attempting to disbelieve an illusion whenever anything bad happened. It was a meme for my group.

[Wyzzard]

Oh yeah, the retarded illusion thing is infamous.

"I disbelive the floor, the walls, the ceiling..."

[RobbyPants]

Even if they did supposedly discourage it, they were lying, as there is no less than several dozen monsters who can DNS you, and some more that do it indirectly. Then you consider all the items that appear to be useful thing x but are actually DNS, and you can't tell the difference without trying them...

DNS? Death No Save?

Ha ha, aahhhh, I remember attempting to disbelieve an illusion whenever anything bad happened. It was a meme for my group.

Yeah, IIRC, there was no action or save associated with disbelieving. I do remember something about auto-failing a save if you attempt to disbelieve though, because you weren't supposed to be trying to avoid the effect. The auto-fail on the save would discourage players from spamming disbeliefs, but if there was no save associated, there was nothing preventing it.

[Roy]

Yeah, Death, No Save. Though they also like making use of Damned if ya Do, Damned if ya Don't. What would that be, D4?

[shadzar]

In 2E, you could die of fright if an illusion "killed" you. You had to roll a system shock check (based on your Con) if you "lost all your HP" from an illusion (later disbelieving would give you your HP back, IIRC). The DMG specifically mentioned something like illusions of people trapped in a steel box filled with acid. So it seemed like that was a bit of a no-no.

System Shock states the percentage chance a character has to survive magical effects that reshape or age his body: petrification (and reversing petrification), polymorph, magical aging, etc. It can also be used to see if the character retains consciousness in particularly difficult situations. For example, an evil wizard polymorphs his dim-witted hireling into a crow. The hireling, whose Constitution score is 13, has an 85% chance to survive the change. Assuming he survives, he must successfully roll for system shock again when he is changed back to his original form or else he will die.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

Box with acid? Are you talking about this in the DMG?

Inescapable Death

There are occasions when death is unavoidable, no matter how many hit points a character has.
A character could be locked in a room with no exits], with a 50-ton ceiling descending to crush him. He could be trapped in an escape-proof box filled with acid. These examples are extreme (and extremely grisly), but they could happen in a fantasy world.
As a general guideline, inescapable deaths should be avoided--characters always should have some chance to escape a hopeless situation, preferably by using common sense and intelligence. This maintains the interest of the players and helps them retain their trust in the DM.

However, if a situation of inescapable death occurs, the character dies, and there is no need to play such a situation out round-by-round. Allow the player to attempt reasonable (and perhaps even truly heroic) methods of escape. If these fail, simply inform the player of the demise of his character. The doomed character is assumed to have lost all hit points.



Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

This had nothing to do with illusions. Just nefarious traps. Note the other bolded part which you also mention along the lines of "don't be a dick" aka "discouraging no-save-insta-death situations"

Neither of these had to do with illusions.

[RobbyPants]

Now that you say that, I do remember inescapable death situations being separate. I was misremembering and thinking they lumped it under "inescapable" illusions or something.

You'll have to forgive my 2E knowledge being all from memory at this point. I don't have my books anymore, and I haven't played 2E in about eight or nine years.


Edit:
Although, I am pretty sure you rolled a System Shock if you lost all your HP to an illusion. If you failed, you died of fright. If not, you woke up some time later either with all of your HP lost to the illusion healed, or 3/4 of them healed (I don't remember the specifics anymore).

[shadzar]

Now that you say that, I do remember inescapable death situations being separate. I was misremembering and thinking they lumped it under "inescapable" illusions or something.

You'll have to forgive my 2E knowledge being all from memory at this point. I don't have my books anymore, and I haven't played 2E in about eight or nine years.


Edit:
Although, I am pretty sure you rolled a System Shock if you lost all your HP to an illusion. If you failed, you died of fright. If not, you woke up some time later either with all of your HP lost to the illusion healed, or 3/4 of them healed (I don't remember the specifics anymore).

System shock was all right there in its entirety.

Maybe some monster that I don't use often has a special attack or defense that caused fright that had a special save for it that used SS as if it was pretification.

All my 2nd edition is form memory as well, I just have the CD-ROM with the Window's help file to quickly pull section to look up. The PHB only had the first paragraph in inescapalbe death.

Just wanted to clear up there is nothing to do with illusions in those things, so others didn't go off wrong yet again about an edition they don't know about due to a mistaken memory. Which sadly seems many people complaining/comparing things about 2nd~3.5 seem to go on incorrect or misremembered hearsay.

A reason I have been reading this thread to figure out EXACTLY what did change from 3.0 to 3.5 cause one girl in our group played 3.0 and used those books, and we never knew until I have to look up flurry of blows, and it wasn't on the page written on my character sheet because she had the 3.0 books!

So, it is hard for me to know if anything changed since none of us knew we have a 3.0 in the group of 3.5s.

While I am learning, might as well help share knowledge myself, ya know?

Illusions do not enable characters to defy normal physical laws. An illusionary bridge cannot support a character who steps on it, even if he believes the bridge is real. An illusionary wall does not actually cause a rock thrown at it to bounce off.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

Illusions could not physically affect you or do damage. The displacer beast was hitting you with the tentacles from 3-feet to the left of where you saw the illusion.

[RobbyPants]

Illusions do not enable characters to defy normal physical laws. An illusionary bridge cannot support a character who steps on it, even if he believes the bridge is real. An illusionary wall does not actually cause a rock thrown at it to bounce off.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

Illusions could not physically affect you or do damage. The displacer beast was hitting you with the tentacles from 3-feet to the left of where you saw the illusion.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading something in the DMG about illusionary sources of damage dealing "illusionary damage". You weren't taking real damage, but you still tracked it because your character believed they were taking damage.

Sadly, I don't have my books anymore to cite this, but this weekend I'm going to see someone who still has his. I'm going to have to read through this now, and I'll give you a page number if I'm able to find it.

[shadzar]

I'll be damned!

Intrinsically Deadly Illusions: "Instant kill" illusions that are automatically fatal regardless of level, Hit Dice, or saving throws: collapsing ceilings, inescapable lava pits, etc. The absolute maximum effect of these is to force a system shock check. Surviving characters are not further affected by that illusion.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

Must have been one of those too stupid I just ignored it ever existed. I would rather have someone throw real rocks that some cheesy ass fake ceiling falling.

But it is in the PHB not DMG... Must be a red herring in the PHB trying to re-enforce illusions and trying to get you to believe in them more...maybe just a leftover from 1st edition that forgot to get removed from the PHB.

Then again the phrase "system shock" isn't in the DMG other than the "wand of size alteration" as far as the search index is concerned....probably why I forgot that deadly illusion thing.

But the acid box wasn't illusions.

Why would there be nothing in the DMG, since it was the info the DM needed? Just in the Appendix in the PHB.

Yup, probably the reason it got throw out. PCs couldn't use it, and neither did I. That way any trap that found could be lethal, but disabled.

Not in the wizards book about deadly illusions. That is just strange for it to be in one hidden place like that if it really have meaning.

[RobbyPants]

That doesn't surprise me that it's in the PHB. I do remember about a two or three page section just on illusions. And I think that quoted passage you just listed is what I was thinking about with instantly fatal illusions. I just mixed up that acid box reference and combined them together.

Also, that's one of those things I never put much thought into, because I didn't like the idea of instantly fatal illusions. I never saw the fun in that as a player or a DM.

[Roy]

Phantasmal Killer.

Though most of it is the usual DM vs Player wanking inherent to the earlier editions yes.

[RandomCasualty2]

Illusions in 2E were amazingly powerful. Though note that unlike in 3E, you didn't have to interact with them to get a save. You always got a save immediately when you saw them, which made them god awful as actual illusions.

For instance, lets say you have a basic illusionary wall. PCs enter the room and all 4-5 of them get a save against it. Chances are at least one guy is going to save and identify the wall as an illusion. Hiding stuff behind illusions was terrible.

Of course you could create crazy illusionary giants or whatever that dished out illusionary damage to people who failed that initial save. And even if your party members saved and told you it was an illusion, it only gave them another +4 on their save. But if you failed that second save you were boned. The illusionist could literally create basically any creature, even a low level wizard conjuring an ancient red dragon. And if you didn't disbelieve it, that dragon basically fought like the real thing. Sure, it couldn't really kill you, and the damage went away after a short period, but you could totally knock someone out with that illusion.

[shadzar]

Also, that's one of those things I never put much thought into, because I didn't like the idea of instantly fatal illusions. I never saw the fun in that as a player or a DM.

Maybe people reading that thought the DMG had some list of deadly illusions to throw at people, or that DMs actually all used that and created some backing for the "DM v player" concept.

Sorry, I had truly removed it form memory because it was so stupid, and no such illusion was in the books, and I never wanted to create one either. I got Tucker's Kobolds if I want an annoying death for my players' characters. Fuck some death by illusion shit.

[Red_Rob]

Illusions in 2E were amazingly powerful. Though note that unlike in 3E, you didn't have to interact with them to get a save. You always got a save immediately when you saw them, which made them god awful as actual illusions.

For instance, lets say you have a basic illusionary wall. PCs enter the room and all 4-5 of them get a save against it. Chances are at least one guy is going to save and identify the wall as an illusion. Hiding stuff behind illusions was terrible.

Of course you could create crazy illusionary giants or whatever that dished out illusionary damage to people who failed that initial save. And even if your party members saved and told you it was an illusion, it only gave them another +4 on their save. But if you failed that second save you were boned. The illusionist could literally create basically any creature, even a low level wizard conjuring an ancient red dragon. And if you didn't disbelieve it, that dragon basically fought like the real thing. Sure, it couldn't really kill you, and the damage went away after a short period, but you could totally knock someone out with that illusion.

Actually, this is incorrect. From the PHB 2nd Ed: "Under normal circumstances, those observing the illusion are allowed a saving throw vs. spell if they actively disbelieve the illusion. For player characters, disbelieving is an action in itself and takes a round"

Later it says: "Illusions are spells of trickery and deceit, not damage and destruction. Thus, illusions cannot be used to cause real damage. When
a creature is caught in the blast of an illusionary fireball or struck by the claws of an illusionary troll, he thinks he takes damage. The DM should record the illusionary damage (but tell the player his character has taken
real damage). If the character takes enough damage to ”die,” he collapses in a faint. A system shock roll should be made for the character. (His mind, believing the damage to be real, may cause his body to.
cease functioning!) If the character survives, he regains consciousness after 1d3 turns with his illusionary damage healed. In most cases, the character quickly realizes that it was all an illusion. When an illusion creates a situation of inescapable death, such as a giant block dropping from the ceiling, all those believing the illusion must roll for system shock. If they fail, they die--killed by the sheer terror of the situation. If they pass, they are allowed a new saving throw with a +4 bonus. Those who pass recognize the illusion for what it is. Those who fail faint for
1d3 turns."

So making an illusionary giant block of stone fall on any character doesn't give him the full round he needs to disbelieve it and makes him pass 2 saving throws or auto faint and possibly die. Improved Phantasmal Force is a 2nd level spell.

Who said 2nd edition wasn't a game for munchkins

[Leress]

Hell, the only real reason "munchkinism" didn't have as much was because the Internet was as accessible back then so ideas were not as wide spread. This limited their reach in the DnD populace. There were a shit ton of ways of breaking the system.

[shadzar]

Hell, the only real reason "munchkinism" didn't have as much was because the Internet was as accessible back then so ideas were not as wide spread. This limited their reach in the DnD populace. There were a shit ton of ways of breaking the system.

With optimization you do have much more chance of munchkism in 3rd and then 3.5 because the excessive material the players felt they deserved like PrCs that were a DM mechanic. With the internet the munchkins grew like weeds and sprang up everywhere under the guise of "optimizers" on CO boards.

There really wasn't that much you could do to try to be a munchkin in previous games save for try to get the best items, or make them yourselves, and the DM prevented that as was/is his job.

[koz]

You know what, shadzar, you're a Paragon Troll of Legend.

Seriously, I have never, in my entire existence, seen or read anyone who was as capable of spouting retarded drivel as you are indicating yourself as capable of. I honestly think that whoever is handling the computers at the mental institution you are clearly interred at is slacking off, or you're sucking his cock, or whatever, because I have no idea how anyone with any measure of sanity could honestly advocate half the stuff you do.

You also are clearly a verbal masochist, because the universal message to you from the Den has been 'Fuck you, suck a barrel of cocks, and go die alone from eating broken glass'. We don't want you here, and frankly, if you died tomorrow, I would buy your killer a bottle of Cristal. Seriously, I can afford to.

If you are going to continue shovelling shit all over a community, do it to some other people. Seriously, fuck you, suck a barrel of cocks and go die alone from eating broken glass.

[RandomCasualty2]

Actually, this is incorrect. From the PHB 2nd Ed: "Under normal circumstances, those observing the illusion are allowed a saving throw vs. spell if they actively disbelieve the illusion. For player characters, disbelieving is an action in itself and takes a round"

Hmm... I was almost certain that various adventures gave you a save instantly upon entering any room with an illusion, even if you didn't disbelieve. I always got the impression that active disbelief was the thing that gave you a +4 to your save when your friends told you it wasn't real.

[shadzar]

Actually, this is incorrect. From the PHB 2nd Ed: "Under normal circumstances, those observing the illusion are allowed a saving throw vs. spell if they actively disbelieve the illusion. For player characters, disbelieving is an action in itself and takes a round"

Hmm... I was almost certain that various adventures gave you a save instantly upon entering any room with an illusion, even if you didn't disbelieve. I always got the impression that active disbelief was the thing that gave you a +4 to your save when your friends told you it wasn't real.

Modules were set in their own world, and were not the core world of D&D. They could have any number of rules changes. Many modules contained traps that you would see no other place in the game that were specific to those modules only.

Barrier Peaks for example had laser guns, robots and space ships.

Modules cannot be used to define the game, as they are optional and not really something that every person uses to play the game with, and each module is not bound by the rules in another unless they are part of a series.

[Username17]

Actually, this is incorrect. From the PHB 2nd Ed: "Under normal circumstances, those observing the illusion are allowed a saving throw vs. spell if they actively disbelieve the illusion. For player characters, disbelieving is an action in itself and takes a round"

Hmm... I was almost certain that various adventures gave you a save instantly upon entering any room with an illusion, even if you didn't disbelieve. I always got the impression that active disbelief was the thing that gave you a +4 to your save when your friends told you it wasn't real.

Active disbelief is what gives you a save in the first place. Some people and some places in the rules treated it as if interacting physically with an illusion allowed you to disbelieve as a free action, while others thought you had to spend an entire round practicing your solipsism to get the first save.

That someone else making their save gave you a +4 on your save was clear. But what was not clear was whether that applied to your first save if you hadn't taken one yet. In any case, if you failed two saves in a row you were unconscious for 10-30 rounds (remember that a "turn" is 10 rounds), and you had a small percentage chance of just dying outright - not that it mattered because in ten rounds the illusionist could wipe out any group of enemies with a dagger.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

1- you are on ignore
2- when you learn my name, i will again address your questions. Even if you no speaka da english you can copy and paste.

So, my mistyping a non-english name means "somehow" that I can't speak English?

You're serious?

A non-English word mistyped allows you to pull the "can't spell" card?

Seriously, you're a class of person that I have never even met before.

Honestly, "shadzar" is a bs word, and pronouncing it in English calls for some sort of vowel break between the "shad" and "zar" phonemes that are used in your name. I made the mistake of correcting your name for English pronunciation and conversation.

If you knew a scrap of linguistics, you could talk, but you obviously fucking don't, since you used a bullshit word like "shadzar" as your name; then expected no problems when it is used by people who speak English as their first language.

The onus isn't on me to correctly spell a non-word that I have never seen before. The onus is on you to make a word that fits into English phonemic structure. Especially if it is you who makes up a word, that you expect others to understand and vocalize, or type.

Also, don't feel special, I fuck up people's names here a ton. The fact that you got your panties in a fucking knot shows how .... you know, I won't even use the word hysterical, because I know girls and women who are probably younger than you, and who are decidedly much more mature. I won't even call you a little bitch, because I actually like bitches, I like all dogs really.

You're acting like a cowardly shit when you make a "deal" out of a mistyped non-english name.

The fact that people like Kaelik (with whom I've had major disagreements with in the past) don't pull this shit when I've mistyped their name just shows how unprofessional your argumentative style really is. Kaelik, and honestly everyone else who is a long-term member on these boards, will address what I talked about, and not act like a coward, dodging a question for "any reason possible".

Your "dodge and bullshit" style really is unsuited here. Stop doing it, and face the issues head on, and try to find a resolution.

In any case, you're being a coward, again, which is no surprise.

Answer my question: did you ever kick someone from your group; why, when, who, where, and how.

You spout a non-stop torrent of shit about "kick people from groups". However you have not ever given a single case of someone who did something that warranted such an action.

Seriously, a single case of this happening is what I want to hear about.

I know that I've done it. I won't tell anyone that I've cut a player out of my group, but I will simply stop telling them that we're getting together, or will cancel the campaign, and invite the players that aren't shits or assholes or disruptive to a new one.

It's not a good thing to do, but it's often less directly hurtful to the non-reforming player. After telling a person at sessions to stop doing something, as well as why I want them to stop doing it, I'm not going to put up with it anymore. I have neither the patience, nor do I want to have someone feel like they're threatened with being kicked out. I will tell them what needs to change, and if they won't do it, then fuck them I don't need the continued aggravation.