Unlike the players, people in the world have no idea what happens when they pump mana into a sword while boiling it in basilisk tears. The players don't actually know what happens either, but they are given a cost/output equation to work with. People in the world don't have that, and are actually doing magical stuff in some sort of weird quasi-engineering sense to make these things.Mechalich wrote:One of the problems with randomly generated treasure is that is generates items that should not exist. Particularly, when dealing with combinations of weapon and armor types and abilities, rolling randomly leads to the production of large numbers of items that are so inefficient and inferior compared more common variants that it is difficult to generate a fluff reason for why someone expended the resources necessary to produce the darned things. This problem becomes worse and worse with rulebook bloat and you start generating things that are only of any use to some class variant that isn't being used in the campaign world at all.
Outside an established formula, all magic items should be crazy inefficient things that do weird shit. When player characters make new items an aren't copying something they have explicit instructions on how to make, the things they create should have semi-randomized abilities. Why and how does an enchanter make a specific unique enchantment that is ruthlessly efficient from a cost/benefit standpoint? How is that even supposed to work? We're talking about a magical object that is also a prototype, of course it shouldn't be streamlined!
Just to name a couple, let's talk about skill systems. 2nd Edition AD&D had several skill systems that were all half assed and explicitly optional (although the assumption that you were going to be using Non-Weapon Proficiencies and Thief skills became more and more explicit as more books were written and rules bloat needed something to hang its hat on). Now I wouldn't say any of them worked particularly well, but compared to how immediately and severely the ranks system of 3e goes off the rails, they are a breath of fresh air.Antariuk wrote:Would you mind elaborating on the elements that were better in older forms?
Simply put: if skills are supposed to be mundane bullshit that low level people can do with the kind of "has thumbs and knowhow" that mortal humans possess in the real world, then there's no reason to worry ourselves what high level skill numbers should do. High level abilities can be abilities, and we can stop trying to have a discussion about what a "high level" output on a swim check or a use rope check is supposed to look like. And Secondary Skills and Personal Ability and Non-Weapon Proficiencies of 2nd edition all delivered on that premise in a way that 3rd edition's level scaling skills failed to deliver on its premise.
Or let's take diplomancy. In AD&D, you meet a new creature and there's a reaction roll to determine whether combat music starts. In 2nd edition, the Etiquette NWP can give you a bonus on that roll to make fighting less likely to happen. That's much better than the cluster fuck we have in 3e. Under 3rd edition rules, the Diplomacy bonuses are so off the charts that it's trivial to turn everyone you're allowed to talk to into your fanatical followers - but the act of talking to people literally takes three times as long as the battle it's intended to prevent - so there's actually nothing you can do to stop fights from happening, and what non-combat encounters you're allowed to have by DM fiat all give broken outcomes. AD&D 2nd Edition has simplistic diplomacy rules, but the outcomes aren't broken and they cover more of what needs to be covered than 3e's do.
Or lets take stronghold ownership. People do it in AD&D. It has a specific positive effect (attracting troops), and the GP cost is not otherwise something you need to constantly spend all of on improving your pants and shoes. Because higher tier equipment can't be purchased for gold, you can spend your gold on kingdom management instead of personal gear upgrades.
I wouldn't go back to playing AD&D, because overall it's a poorly edited mess full of bad ideas. Just thinking about racial level limits, class XP charts, and secret to-hit tables makes me shudder. But 3e's skill and gear systems were not good and we could probably do better with a partial roll-back.
Fuck. Off. Name an instance in any book, story, or movie where anyone ever found a "weapon essence" and chose to spec it to a lucerne hammer. Name one. It never fucking happens, because that kind of computer gamey nonsense is 99.5% less cool than finding a magical weapon that has a name and a story.Prak wrote:I'd be perfectly fine with people looting "Weapon Essences" rather than full enchanted weapons.
It only happens in computer games because programming different weapon swing animations for different characters is a lot of work and people don't want to do it. Table Top RPGs are not computer games and run on "imagination" which can produce animations for absolutely any combination on the fly. There is no reason to accept shitty video game shortcuts.
-Username17
