Nothing wrong with a skill based system; where D&D lept over the selachimorph was trying to use a skill system and a level system at the same time.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008514The later editions of D&D incorporated "skill points," which supposedly represented slowly learning things, and "feats" which represented who the hell knows what.  Some sort of "goodie," I guess.  And somebody apparently decided that rather than saying "Magic users can't wear armor" they had this whole economy of how some "feats" and "skills" cost more if they were somehow "inappropriate" to your class.  And instead of saying "at this level you are experienced enough to wear plate armor well," they said "you have to buy the Heavy Armor feat which becomes available at this level."

And they still kept the damn level system.

Or so it seems to me.  The games just became muddled masses of rules, trying to be a level based system and a skill based system at the same time.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008627Nothing wrong with a skill based system; where D&D lept over the selachimorph was trying to use a skill system and a level system at the same time.

I totally agree it wasn't a good solution. Admittedly, it might have worked, if it had gone completely skill-based and kept levels. Fates Worse Than Death RPG works exactly like that and it's fun, and Warhammer 1e was similar.
But keeping combat and magic as class-based, while adding a skill system that interacted with that, and then a feats system that interacted with both. Putting it mildly, that wasn't the best option.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008627Nothing wrong with a skill based system; where D&D lept over the selachimorph was trying to use a skill system and a level system at the same time.

A level is just a package of abilities. An ability can be a skill or an increase in a skill.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008514Or so it seems to me.  The games just became muddled masses of rules, trying to be a level based system and a skill based system at the same time.

It became a muddled mess because they released more two dozens source books of classes and feats and people expected them to just all work together. The core book only D&D 3.0 was elegant in its own way.

Was it perfect? No, high level combat of 9th level or beyond got bogged down at the number of things a character can do and or status effects spiraled way out of hand. D&D 5e solved that by toning down the choices and limited the ongoing status effect to one at a time per character.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1008514The games just became muddled masses of rules, trying to be a level based system and a skill based system at the same time.

And a card game. Having a given feat on your character sheet seems like having a given card in your hand in some version of a specialty card game.

When they referred to bonuses "stacking" rather than being "cumulative," the end was nigh.

Quote from: Bren;1008796And a card game. Having a given feat on your character sheet seems like having a given card in your hand in some version of a specialty card game.

Are you even surprised, given who owns WotC:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;1008810Are you even surprised, given who owns WotC:D?

I don't think the parent company is responsible. It's possible I'm incorrect in that thought, but WotC was a successful collectible card game company when it bought TSR, and with it D&D, in April 1997. It was a successful collectible card game company when it started work on what became 3E. And it was a successful collectible card game company when Hasbro decided to buy and eventually, in September 1999, succeeded in buying WotC. The successful collectible card game company part is a large part, quite possibly the main reason, why Hasbro decided to buy WotC. Card game company was in WotC's DNA so I don't think we need to attribute those sorts of mechanics appearing in the first WotC version of D&D in 2000 to decisions made by the parent company.