Dungeons & Dragons Through the Versions: Part 13

Well, that's ominous - the 13th posting on this topic.... As I mentioned in my previous posts, the 2nd edition playtest went very poorly and we opted to bail shortly after play began. I don't know if it was a failing of the system so much as an unwillingness to play in the Forgotten Realms or an Ed Greenwood module. In any case it bombed and we moved on after 2 sessions.

On to D&D 3.5! The players were semi-experienced in this system. Two of them had played it before for a few weeks before life cancelled that project. The other was introduced via the Basic Game Boxed Set one evening. None of them had played it very long and only had an inkling of what to expect. We spent 2 whole sessions making characters. The first was the basics and number crunching; the second was checking their numbers and finalizing choices as well as introducing them to the campaign setting, my own campaign world of Talasia.

The group formed well from the get go. We had a half-orc barbarian named Orsha whose 19 Strength was ridiculously high. The elven cleric Elania naturally had an 18 in Wisdom and some other nice stats. Lastly, the half-elven sorcerer Axel Pine maxed out his Dexterity and Charisma as best he could and opted for leather armor despite not having any proficiency with it. I explained the part about spell failure while wearing armor and he was OK with the 10%.

I started them in an alternate reality version of my campaign set about 5 years after the events in my campaign (which was based in 2nd then 3rd edition, ending sometime in 2008). The heroes were based in the town of Korbal, last bastion of hope in the beleaguered northeastern Sturmgard Forest. They would be accompanied by a 1st level human ranger named Morten, originally a forester whose family was slain by marauding orcs. He convinced the others to join him in seeking vengeance against the orcs and slaying those that remained in his former home. The party equipped itself then headed east.

I tested the waters with a few example combats including a couple of wolves, a goblin ambush, and the site of a recent battle where skeletons had been animated by a roaming hobgoblin necromancer. They found only little treasure but I was able to explain how skills are used, the idea behind attacks of opportunity, the concept of stacking bonuses, and how spells work in this edition for non-Vancian spell casters. The players had a good time and marvelled at the number of hit points they had to start. Even so, once the party made it to the ruined house in the woods, I was able to take the barbarian to zero hit points rather quickly and the archer ranger was also severely wounded. The sorcerer and cleric held their own and saved the other two before they wisely retreated to an old barn several hundred yards away. They spent the night in the old barn, sharing the space with a barn owl (who would have made a cool familiar, but the sorcerer was broke and could not afford the components). They defeated a small monstrous spider in the barn during the night (which failed to surprise the sorcerer on watch duty). In the morning they spent all their time healing before heading back to the town.

On their way back I rolled a random encounter with the hobgoblin necromancer and his 2 badly beaten zombie servants! They took the necromancer apart! He barely had a chance to cast some defensive spells before being overwhelmed. The zombies went down relatively easy as well. When they made it back to town I calculated XP and they ALL made 2nd level! That little confidence boost was what they needed to return to the home in the woods and slay the remaining 6 orcs hiding in the root cellar (with one guard up top during daylight hours). They easily defeated the orcs and took what they could back to town to sell. They made some good coin, had a fun time playing the game, and really were amazed at the complexity (yet simplicity) of the system. It helped that I know how to run this edition since I ran several 3.5 campaigns before giving it up and reverting back to 1st edition (my first love).

The only snag they found in the system was with the Heal skill which seemed rather useless for a cleric to take (and I agree). In order to use the long-term care feature, one must have a healer's kit which has only a limited number of uses and costs 50 gp! They assumed that it would be able to get them hit points back immediately instead of increasing their natural healing only slightly. I decided to end this test on a high note (especially since the last two edition runs went poorly at the end). All told we played 3.5 a total of 5 sessions (2 to make the characters, one to get the basics of combat down, one to get beaten by the orcs and bed down in the barn, and one to encounter the necromancer and return to slay the orcs).

I tried to explain how the higher levels worked and the addition of feats and skill points. I also gave them a long explanation of how multi-classing worked before they chose their 2nd level. No one opted to multi-class thankfully, which helped them out tremendously! Since most of the terms were the same as previous editions they were able to assimilate the new information much easier. I tried to explain how XP awards were based on the encounter now, not so much the individual monsters, although that did play into it, and that treasure counted for no XP. They questioned why they would even bother collecting treasure, so I had to let them know that magic items could be created by the characters now (whereas that was frowned upon in previous editions, but not totally out of the question).

All in all, D&D 3.5 went well and we may revisit this in the future. I would LOVE to run one of the adventure arcs for them so that they can get an idea of how the system holds up through level 20. We also were unable to get into character as much as in previous versions since their attention was focused more on the digital map, counter positions, and all their abilities they had to remember.