3.5 and LJ etiquette
Jul. 29th, 2003 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenSomething I've sort-of been over before, but a recent comment in somebody else's journal brought this up again: LJ is not the same as email.
My two cents' worth: if I email something, I'm putting words in their ear (or eye) whether they want it or not. If they *don't* want to receive that communication, they have to go out of their way to avoid it.
OTOH, if you're reading somebody's LJ, you have sought it out. Especially if the post in question is friends-locked and LJ-cut with an appropriate content warning. Clicking on that LJ-cut is rather like going to the video store, seeing a video with a big 'R' and content warnings on the cover, and deciding to rent it anyway.
This is my blog. If you want to read it, you are very welcome to do so, but it is my blog and here for my benefit. I'll do my best to give you fair warning of posts that I think you might not want to read - usually via lj-cut. But beyond that, I am not inclined to self-censor for the sake of the any of the fifty-five real people, four fictional people, and one collective of plants who apparently read my LJ. The "will this be unpleasant for some people to read?" test does not take place when I post, it takes place when you decide to read.
This doesn't mean 'the blogger is always right'. If I say something that's misinformed, unfair, or outright wrong, or if I'm simply being an asshole, go ahead and tell me so. But I won't apologise for exposing you to my venting. This is, among other things, my Venting Place, and you knew that when you came in.
And for a Shiny Change of Topic... we bought D&D 3.5 last week.
Short version: On its merits, I like 3.5 better than 3.0, but the changeover is likely to be a nuisance.
Long version: For the most part, it's pretty much what the title suggests - a bugfix, clarifications, balance tweaks, and a bit of extra content here and there. I haven't read DMG in depth yet, so most comments are on the other two.
Monster Manual changes are pretty minor. Creature types and abilities have been made a little more uniform, so there are less 'special cases'. Dinosaurs are now considered 'animals', huzzah! (Which means Calair can now shapeshift into a velociraptor.) And the animals have been pruned to remove oddities like the ST 22 Large Owl that 3.0 permitted.
Player's Handbook changes are more substantial. Skills have been adjusted to deal with the problem of some being much less useful than others. 'Pick Pocket' is now Sleight of Hand. The rules for encumbered swimmers are now less broken than they were. Druids can now take Ride as a class skill, about bloody time. And there are no longer any 'restricted skills' - anybody can learn any skill, with the usual cross-class penalties.
Feats are pretty much as they were, with some new ones added - I guess Kewl Powers are the best known way to sell gaming books.
Classes have been tweaked. Animal companions for druids and rangers now work more like familiars, in that they gain power as their master gains levels. I think I like this, although the rules now forbid Awakened animal companions - a shame, I was about 1000 XP away from having a talking dire wolverine. Fortunately Calair is at a level where, under the new rules, she'd be entitled to a Perfectly Ordinary Dire Wolverine. So if we make that changeover soon there shouldn't be too much disruption. Druidic shapeshifting has been tidied up slightly, so rather than distinguishing between 'dire' and 'regular' animals it's now based on creature size and HD. Also, they can turn into plants at 12th level.
Rangers get more abilities as they go up levels, and get to choose between two-weapon style and archery style, making them more appealing. Sorcerers now get the option to 'swap out' a spell from their selection every couple of levels, meaning they can get rid of the ones that decline in usefulness. I think familiars have been tweaked very slightly.
Paladins have been adjusted so a lot of the powers they used to get at 1st level now come in a couple of levels later. This makes sense, unlike what they've done with paladins' warhorses. Instead of being an Actual Horse that the paladin had to carry around (well, not literally) and look after, inconvenient or not, the paladin can now dematerialise and rematerialise his horse as he sees fit. And it keeps whatever you put in its saddlebags. Picture it: stripped of his armour and weapons, Sir Gawain the Valorous languishes in a prison cell... until he whistles, and Trigger appears complete with the Emergency Paladin Rescue Package.
Yes, having to feed a horse and make sure it's safe while you go down holes in the ground is a pain, but paladins are supposed to have responsibilities and to take them seriously even when it's inconvenient. And if you really wanted something that could accompany you while potholing, you could angle for an alternate Holy Steed. Further, although the warhorse now comes from some celestial realm or other, it isn't a Celestial Warhorse, which makes no sense to yours truly. Ah well, at least this particular rule can be ignored without causing problems elsewhere.
Sleeping in medium or heavy armour leaves you fatigued the next day (I think this is new). As the player of a light-armoured Nancing Elf, all I have to say on this topic is: ha ha!
Equipment lists are a bit more explicit on the subject of halfling/gnome-sized gear. This is good.
Spells. A lot of changes. Some of my favourites have been nerfed, although I suspect the reason I liked them so much was because they were overpowered. Call Lightning has gone from a special-purpose spell to a much more typical combat spell, making it far less useful for the old Terminate Anything Outdoors Without Wings application. Endure Elements has gone from being a quite useful protection against elemental damage to a wussy little "deal with hot and cold weather" thing, which I guess means we'll no longer use half our first-level spell slots to guard everybody against fire, acid, and cold damage. It may make game-balance sense, but I wish they'd renamed the spell into the bargain, since it's hardly Endure Elements any more.
On the good side, the spell lists now indicate spells with unusual requirements (XP or expensive material components), which is a Good Thing.
Annoyances:
There are a few spots where the left hand apparently didn't know what the right hand was doing - for instance, one book makes reference to rules in another book that no longer exist.
I would like to bludgeon the person responsible for the redesign of the "class/cross-class" skill table. Here we have a large table, and all the entries are either 'C' or 'cc'. This does not make for instant readability. The old version worked much better. Come to that, the "three-rows grey, three-rows white" format of 1st Ed AD&D made tables much easier to read than they are now, why was it ever abandoned?
Succubi. In particular, the following combination of facts, from Monster Manual:
(a) Succubi are demonic temptresses. As such, they're supposed to be the Epitome of Female Loveliness.
(b) Succubi are, in appearance, basically humanish females, plus bat-wings (and optionally cute little horns/fangs/tails, depending on who you ask).
(b) The average succubus stands 6 feet tall and weighs 125 pounds. Take away the bat-wings, and you're left with a six-foot woman who weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 110 pounds (or 50 kilograms, for the metric-minded).
While I'm firmly of the opinion that female pulchritude covers a diverse range of body shapes, I prefer my Lust Demons a little less on the skeletal side, thank you.
My two cents' worth: if I email something, I'm putting words in their ear (or eye) whether they want it or not. If they *don't* want to receive that communication, they have to go out of their way to avoid it.
OTOH, if you're reading somebody's LJ, you have sought it out. Especially if the post in question is friends-locked and LJ-cut with an appropriate content warning. Clicking on that LJ-cut is rather like going to the video store, seeing a video with a big 'R' and content warnings on the cover, and deciding to rent it anyway.
This is my blog. If you want to read it, you are very welcome to do so, but it is my blog and here for my benefit. I'll do my best to give you fair warning of posts that I think you might not want to read - usually via lj-cut. But beyond that, I am not inclined to self-censor for the sake of the any of the fifty-five real people, four fictional people, and one collective of plants who apparently read my LJ. The "will this be unpleasant for some people to read?" test does not take place when I post, it takes place when you decide to read.
This doesn't mean 'the blogger is always right'. If I say something that's misinformed, unfair, or outright wrong, or if I'm simply being an asshole, go ahead and tell me so. But I won't apologise for exposing you to my venting. This is, among other things, my Venting Place, and you knew that when you came in.
And for a Shiny Change of Topic... we bought D&D 3.5 last week.
Short version: On its merits, I like 3.5 better than 3.0, but the changeover is likely to be a nuisance.
Long version: For the most part, it's pretty much what the title suggests - a bugfix, clarifications, balance tweaks, and a bit of extra content here and there. I haven't read DMG in depth yet, so most comments are on the other two.
Monster Manual changes are pretty minor. Creature types and abilities have been made a little more uniform, so there are less 'special cases'. Dinosaurs are now considered 'animals', huzzah! (Which means Calair can now shapeshift into a velociraptor.) And the animals have been pruned to remove oddities like the ST 22 Large Owl that 3.0 permitted.
Player's Handbook changes are more substantial. Skills have been adjusted to deal with the problem of some being much less useful than others. 'Pick Pocket' is now Sleight of Hand. The rules for encumbered swimmers are now less broken than they were. Druids can now take Ride as a class skill, about bloody time. And there are no longer any 'restricted skills' - anybody can learn any skill, with the usual cross-class penalties.
Feats are pretty much as they were, with some new ones added - I guess Kewl Powers are the best known way to sell gaming books.
Classes have been tweaked. Animal companions for druids and rangers now work more like familiars, in that they gain power as their master gains levels. I think I like this, although the rules now forbid Awakened animal companions - a shame, I was about 1000 XP away from having a talking dire wolverine. Fortunately Calair is at a level where, under the new rules, she'd be entitled to a Perfectly Ordinary Dire Wolverine. So if we make that changeover soon there shouldn't be too much disruption. Druidic shapeshifting has been tidied up slightly, so rather than distinguishing between 'dire' and 'regular' animals it's now based on creature size and HD. Also, they can turn into plants at 12th level.
Rangers get more abilities as they go up levels, and get to choose between two-weapon style and archery style, making them more appealing. Sorcerers now get the option to 'swap out' a spell from their selection every couple of levels, meaning they can get rid of the ones that decline in usefulness. I think familiars have been tweaked very slightly.
Paladins have been adjusted so a lot of the powers they used to get at 1st level now come in a couple of levels later. This makes sense, unlike what they've done with paladins' warhorses. Instead of being an Actual Horse that the paladin had to carry around (well, not literally) and look after, inconvenient or not, the paladin can now dematerialise and rematerialise his horse as he sees fit. And it keeps whatever you put in its saddlebags. Picture it: stripped of his armour and weapons, Sir Gawain the Valorous languishes in a prison cell... until he whistles, and Trigger appears complete with the Emergency Paladin Rescue Package.
Yes, having to feed a horse and make sure it's safe while you go down holes in the ground is a pain, but paladins are supposed to have responsibilities and to take them seriously even when it's inconvenient. And if you really wanted something that could accompany you while potholing, you could angle for an alternate Holy Steed. Further, although the warhorse now comes from some celestial realm or other, it isn't a Celestial Warhorse, which makes no sense to yours truly. Ah well, at least this particular rule can be ignored without causing problems elsewhere.
Sleeping in medium or heavy armour leaves you fatigued the next day (I think this is new). As the player of a light-armoured Nancing Elf, all I have to say on this topic is: ha ha!
Equipment lists are a bit more explicit on the subject of halfling/gnome-sized gear. This is good.
Spells. A lot of changes. Some of my favourites have been nerfed, although I suspect the reason I liked them so much was because they were overpowered. Call Lightning has gone from a special-purpose spell to a much more typical combat spell, making it far less useful for the old Terminate Anything Outdoors Without Wings application. Endure Elements has gone from being a quite useful protection against elemental damage to a wussy little "deal with hot and cold weather" thing, which I guess means we'll no longer use half our first-level spell slots to guard everybody against fire, acid, and cold damage. It may make game-balance sense, but I wish they'd renamed the spell into the bargain, since it's hardly Endure Elements any more.
On the good side, the spell lists now indicate spells with unusual requirements (XP or expensive material components), which is a Good Thing.
Annoyances:
There are a few spots where the left hand apparently didn't know what the right hand was doing - for instance, one book makes reference to rules in another book that no longer exist.
I would like to bludgeon the person responsible for the redesign of the "class/cross-class" skill table. Here we have a large table, and all the entries are either 'C' or 'cc'. This does not make for instant readability. The old version worked much better. Come to that, the "three-rows grey, three-rows white" format of 1st Ed AD&D made tables much easier to read than they are now, why was it ever abandoned?
Succubi. In particular, the following combination of facts, from Monster Manual:
(a) Succubi are demonic temptresses. As such, they're supposed to be the Epitome of Female Loveliness.
(b) Succubi are, in appearance, basically humanish females, plus bat-wings (and optionally cute little horns/fangs/tails, depending on who you ask).
(b) The average succubus stands 6 feet tall and weighs 125 pounds. Take away the bat-wings, and you're left with a six-foot woman who weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 110 pounds (or 50 kilograms, for the metric-minded).
While I'm firmly of the opinion that female pulchritude covers a diverse range of body shapes, I prefer my Lust Demons a little less on the skeletal side, thank you.
