Woke up this morning, and smiled. I'd been dreaming that I was playing D&D with my brother and a couple other dream people. We were running 3E characters, I was playing a Monk. But my brother, who was DMing, was apparently using Classic D&D rules on his side. We were fighting some Rock Baboons. The male dream person disappeared, and the female dream person, who was playing a Dwarf Fighter was doing alright, but my poor Human Monk couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and I was slowly getting pounded to death by the baboons.
I looked at my character sheet for something to save me, and I had something called a scroll of cavarous (?), which I thought would somehow turn the baboons on each other, but I woke up before my initiative came up again.
I've read about some people doing that (mixing 3E characters with a Classic world, not inserting scrolls of cannibalism, although that's a good idea too) before to good effect. It keeps the DM from having to worry about all the fiddly crap of the d20 system, while players get to customize and twink their characters as they see fit.
Saving throws would be the only hard part, I'd think. If you just used the 1st level Save values for the players, and let them roll d20+whichever of the three bonuses is appropriate vs. the DC of whichever of the five classic categories is used might work for the players. But for the monsters, you'd need to calculate bonuses for saves against the DCs of the players' effects.
Otherwise, the combination could work really well.
Maybe I could try it with my group. Alex, who hates Classic would jump at the chance, and Pat has said he really prefers 3E/3.5E. But who am I kidding, I don't really have the time to DM right now. As I said before, if we get back to gaming, I should just really shut up and be a player.
Bundle of Holding - Palladium Fantasy 2e
5 hours ago
I think you're obligated to include, in any future campaign, a Scroll of Cavarous. Sounds like a Mass Suggestion, with the only possible suggestion being "Y'all should, you know, eat each other."
ReplyDelete(And for the record, I don't think there's a damned thing wrong with using later editions of D&D. Even if they're not my first choice, I think you can run a cool campaign with them as well as with anything else.)
Scott, you're right. I do bash on d20 quite a bit, and 4E really turns me off with the way it plays. But yeah, you can run fun games with them.
ReplyDeleteI like d20 as a PLAYER, but as a DM I can't stand it any more.
I'm already planning to drop some Scrolls of Cavarous here and there in the megadungeon.
I have written MyD20 Lite for myself with that goal of a 0E/3E combination in mind. Characters are a mix of 0E with 3E customization elements, but the rest of it runs essentially on a 0E engine. I don't know if you'd be interested in checking it out, but if you think it might help meet your needs, please feel free to let me know.
ReplyDeleteWith Regards,
Flynn
Thanks, Flynn! Following your blog, and I like the numbers you have for the monsters. Looks like a good, simple progression to follow for DCs/Save bonuses.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever do decide to do a 3E characters/Classic engine game, I'll likely use this!