'Poly D&D?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Solver
No. Paper RPGs are different.

But the PC games can be great learning tools for newbies for learning the basic mechanics and atmosphere of the game.

They are like foreign language tapes. A good, firm grounding in the basics and concepts, but by no means a way of achieving fluency.

[SlowwHand]

Sounds interesting to me.
I don't imagine I'd slow anyone down or anything.

[Victor Galis]

NWN gets many things wrong though. The sad thing is, I know 3rd ed. rules well enough to be irritated by this (yes, this is sad). Sometimes these tweaks work in my favor (it uses a very liberal interpretation of what constitutes flanking, and it allows a halfling to use weapon finesse on a short sword, and weapon finesse is not specific to a weapon type (though 3.5 rules also make this change)) othertimes they suck (why is it that only plate armor and padded armor are good in terms of max dex bonus and ac bonus? In PnP AD&D most armor types have the same +dex cap + AC bonus, prices are all funky, no item seems to be masterwork, etc.) Still NWN does a pretty good job of 3rd edition rules considering it's real time and llacks an explicit grid of 5 ft. by 5 ft. squares.

That being said 3.5 improves a lot of the classes that were front-loaded. (The ranger in 3.5 really is a class you'd take more than a level of).

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Japher
My wife would kill me if I broke out the D&D stuff again...

I have the PHB, DMG, and Psionics Handbook for the 3rd edition, not a big fan of it. I also hated the 2nd edition Player's Option books (Skills and Powers stuff).

Are you kidding? 3rd edition rules, while not flawless, are vastly superior to 2nd edition rules, especially in Psionics.

[Japher]

My first character was a mage/cleric... That was a nightmare, keeping track of all the spells and such, as well as the multi-class skill progressions and weapon/armor restrictions.

An easy first character would be a fighter, a lot of fun and a lot less easier to kill. Just play a human, that way you will have the opportunity to switch to another class if you desire.

I have played two pure fighters in all the games I have played one was a dwarven fighter (LN) who rocked and an albino half-orc with a nasty mouth (LE), loads of fun.

Sloww should have no problem picking up the game.

[Japher]

3rd edition rules, while not flawless, are vastly superior to 2nd edition rules, especially in Psionics.

I do like the specialty/prestige classes (or whatever they call them). I liked the old method of psionics, but taking the Dark Sun version into Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance did overpower the character.

Anyway, no use arguing I'd play either one.

[Velociryx]

Ahhh....just thought of an even better analogy....imagine a "choose your own adventure" book, but rather than having a menu of choices to select from, each player in the game can invent his/her own choices on the spur of the moment....now imagine the synthesis OF those choices all happening at once, in the story backdrop provided by the GM....its definitely one of those games that you get back what you put into it....if it's not really your thing and you're less than excited about it, you prolly won't enjoy it much, but if you get into the spirit of things, you'll have a blast!

Another thing to consider....sometimes you need more information to make an informed choice. Going back to the example I mentioned earlier, perhaps you don't yet know what you want to do, so you'd ask questions for clarification "Out of Character" (OOC for short), and that might be something like this (we'll assume your warrior's name is Braal).

Braal shakes the sand and cobwebs out of his head and moves first to see if any of the people on the beach still live (OOC: Do any of them appear to be crew members? If so, I will attend to them first....also, do the drums sound...."threatening" in any way?)

Stuff like that....

-=Vel=-

[MattH]

It might be easier to start something in phpBB, there will be a lot of information.

If anyone wants to voulnteer to GM, feel free to do so. I don't know if I have enough experience to actually run the game... Maybe it could even be Apolyton-themed .

[Solver]

Fighters fun? Maybe, but wizards are always the funniest .

I remember having a half-orc with extreme strength, a huge axe and abysmal intelligence of 3.

[Victor Galis]

3rd Edition multiclassing is much, much easier, and racial restrictions on classes are largely non-existant. (Yay for Halfing paladins of Yondalla.)

In 3rd Edition, when you gain a level you chose which class that level is in fairly freely. What amount of exp it takes to gain said level is the same regardless of class. (Though if you end up taking too many classes there's some exp penalties for having vastly different levels in your classes, and some classes (like paladin) don't allow you to both take a level in another class and continue gaining levels in that class. (Lawful Good characters retain their paladin powers, but can't ever gain another level of paladin if they decide to take a level of something else after becomming a paladin. And yes it is possible to be a paladin/rogue, though I can't really imagine how you would roleplay that.)

[Japher]

Fighters fun? Maybe, but wizards are always the funniest

It's all how you play them.

I played with a guy who had an npc that was a feces-mancer...

[Japher]

I did like the lifting of racial restrictions. Yet, in one of my 2nd edition games we lifted class restrictions anyway... Yet still had humans de the only ones to Dual class, and not be able to multi-class...

Like I said. I have the PHB and DMG for 3rd edition (and have played a couple of games in it), I just prefered 2nd edition.

Another game I played allowed one to play intelligent creatures from the Monster Manual.

One of the guys played a ghost that evolved into other forms of undead. It was lame, but fun, and sometimes funny... Especially for the guy who played an intelligent slime mold.

[Victor Galis]

I always wanted to play in a Ravenloft campaign, but FR is nice too.

[Japher]

Planescape?... Though Ravenloft is still pretty much unreachable...

[Victor Galis]

Yeah, playing intelligent things from the MM can be fun... I once had a halfdragon halfing. There was this one fight where a white dragon dropped in on us and hit me with it's breath weapon for something wimpy like 13 points of damage, to which I responded by breathing back for like 70 points of damage... unfortunately, half dragons only get to do that once per day, and the white dragon kicked my ass pretty badly in melee. Still, the 26 STR halfling was kind of fun. Generally though, my characters tend to be rogues (or rather have mostly rogue levels with some other stuff thrown in).