Agreed, but with caveat you said yourself: keep to the core rules that you have listed. Although I do maintain that at higher levels it feels a bit too-much even when keeping to the core. Out of curiosity, have you tried Epic6? It takes almost all I do like from 3.x while keeping the power level that I personally enjoy the most.What I love about 3.5 is that it's complex enough to allow flexibility and "realism" while still straight forward enough to keep track of. Size modifiers, ability modifiers, etc. all really seem to help.
I haven't even heard of Epic6. I'll have to check it out. As for keeping things straight at higher levels, the thing is, you don't have to let your players level quickly. I can honestly say most campaigns I've been a part of, both as a player and DM, have rarely gotten above Player Level 10. If the story is good and the players are engaged, it doesn't really make a difference what level you're playing at and the DM isn't really limited. See an awesome monster in the MM you want to use but it's way too high of a challenge rating? Fuck it. Scale it down a bit to make it easier for the players to take on. As long as everybody is having fun and the story is moving along, levels aren't that important.
keifermiller - please read this post, I do think that it might be a solution that you need. Yeah, it might have been a mistake on our part to use campaign modules :/. I took two or three of them to have something going while I was strengthening my grip on the rules and suddenly I had a party around level 9. Don't take me wrong, I do not blame it on the system. However that first situation two years ago or so (my first system was, as it is fairly normal in Poland, Warhammer FRP as opposed to any type of D&D) made me look for something that scales significantly slower while invoking more role play and fluffy bits. That' a play style, not the fault of the system itself. Although I must say that there are no published settings for it that I can say that really do what I expect from them. And my world building skills boil down to "I'm an Ancient Rome geek and it shows" even when I'm attempting sci-fi ;). That's where Epic6 comes into play. You advance up to and including level 6… and that is it! You can gain extra feats later on and generally improve skills. But you will stay around that level of competence. Main bonus that comes from it is the fact that 5-7th level is around the place where linear fighter, quadratic wizard intersect so neither hogs the scene by power domination :D. I believe that in original article where Epic6 was first shown to the world author spend some time explaining a rather intriguing statement: Gandalf was a 5th level Wizard. Then the system was made around the idea of "how to make 6th level characters seem epic aside of reminding players non-stop that most of the world is lvl 0?". I do think that while it could still be improved a bit, it solved almost all of the progression problems and resulting amount of options that grind some players into a halt. In the end, I do wholeheartedly recommend giving it at least a solid try. My group had a blast with it, although personally I still feel compelled more toward Basic/Expert Set, I find it as a solid compromise and a type of game where you can really master your character and learn it swiftly.… have rarely gotten above Player Level 10.
Epic6 seems like it would hit that sweet spot of how I want my players to feel powerful without getting complacent or bogged down. I think I'm looking at either Epic6, the Basic set you linked above, or Microlite74 Swords and Sorcery. They all seem like good systems, I just need to figure out which fits my setting best now.
One of my buds, I've been trying to get him to join Hubski for forever, would probably have some good insight for this whole thread. I'm gonna poke him with it again and say "Bro! This conversation was made for you!" Campaign modules have their place, as they can make it easier for the DM to do their job. That said, I don't have any personal experience with them. In my near 20 years of gaming, both as a player and as a DM, I have yet to be in a campaign that uses any modules. Everybody seems to just really enjoy world building, whether we're playing D&D, D20 Modern (you wanna talk about a game that scales poorly, whoo-boy), Shadowrun, or some weird homebrew rule set. We all love to different amounts comics, television and movies, novels, history, what have you and we all love to create stories. It takes a little more work, sure, but it's also so fun to both build the world and play with it. I really like the idea of Epic6 for D&D's rule set for a few reasons. By the time you hit that level, your character is on par with a lot of heroes, whether we're talking about historical classic heroes like Beowulf and Hercules or more modern heroes like Captain America and The Punisher. We're not talking about Superman levels of power though and I think that's actually a good thing. Part of the fun of games like D&D is being creative and creative problem solving is a huge appeal. Some of the coolest scenes in comics and movies are when heroes solve problems with ingenuity. If you can punch your way out of any dilemma, that's no fun. Trying to figure out how you and three of your friends can take on two hydras at level 6 though? That's exciting. Next time I DM? I'm totally using the Epic6 philosophy, even if I'm not using a D&D rule set (I really, really wanna do a western setting). Your world building skills sound awesome. If there is something you know well and are passionate about, that's a huge strength for you as a DM. Personally, I'd say forget about modules for a bit, no matter what rule set you're working with, and spend a couple of nights a week for a month or so building your own really developed world. Even if you never use it, the exercise of world building can be a kick ass experience. Hell, take it one step further, share your ideas on Hubski. I'd love to hear them.And my world building skills boil down to "I'm an Ancient Rome geek and it shows" even when I'm attempting sci-fi ;).
I'm looking forward to talking more with your friend as well as you :D. Plus, damn. Twenty years of experience sound positively dwarfing and exciting since I'm alive for less than that; my 18th birthday is in roughly two weeks :P. What's so bad about this game? I never did more than just cursory reading in my LFGS but never met anyone who actually tried it. You'll get no counter-arguments from me on that, it's pretty much my own mindset as well, but put in your words. Oh, I think you misunderstood me a bit: I love world building and do exercise it, as I wrote in this comment (I link it because in my experience Hubski notifications fuck up when discussion goes past 4-5 responses). The reason I have used modules steamed from the fact that I had to yet go through the DMG and generally learn D&D back then. As I have said, most people in Poland discover D&D after some other system. Usually Warhammer or something like Cyberpunk 2020 or one of many Polish RPGs. The two or three I have used back then were the only ones I own and played with. I'll try to do some translation in my spare time and share it, the setting mentioned in the comment linked above is my most developed one.D20 Modern
Part of the fun of games like D&D is being creative and creative problem solving is a huge appeal. Some of the coolest scenes in comics and movies are when heroes solve problems with ingenuity. If you can punch your way out of any dilemma, that's no fun.
I'd say forget about modules for a bit, no matter what rule set you're working with
There's some scaling issues at higher levels and in various extra rule books that affect game balance. At the same time, because the d20 system was something that could be licensed out to various companies, if you tried to use books from various publishers there could be conflicting rules and mexhanics. It's definitely one of those systems where just sticking to the core books help a lot. I'd love to see you share more on world building some time. I find it kind of interesting that D&D wasn't your first pen and paper RPG and that that's true for most people in Poland. Here in the states, D&D is like a gateway drug.What's so bad about this game? I never did more than just cursory reading in my LFGS but never met anyone who actually tried it.
I have started with hand-me-down Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 1st edition from my brother (the oldest RPG here, first one that was translated to Polish in late '80s o around that time) and in the meantime I was playing: - Cyberpunk 2020 - Neuroshima - Wolsung: The Steam Pulp Fantasy (original title was way better though; Wolsung: The Magic of the Age of Steam) - Monastyr D&D was probably my third or fourth system overall :). It's not because of popularity, although it's not the most played one here, but because D&D books are fucking expensive when compared to some of the other RPGs. Admittedly, they have some of the best production quality out there, but for a price of 3.5 PHB alone, back when it was new, you could buy Neuroshima core rulebook and one flavor book (literally, very low on mechanics but about 70 page worth of scenario inspirations in stories and rumors you can find during your adventures). These are not the only games I know, but it's a good selection of ones really popular here aside of recent surge of Dark Heresy and similar 40k games. I'll try working on the English version of the setting and start sharing it here, but after reading it last night myself I have to say that it is more likely to be a major rewrite than just translation. Let's say that idea started when I was about 13-14 and you can likely guess how that might look. While I pride myself to have no Mary Sues in the setting, I have a hard time finding a page where there is nothing for which I don't want to travel back in time and slap my younger self :P.I find it kind of interesting that D&D wasn't your first pen and paper RPG and that that's true for most people in Poland. Here in the states, D&D is like a gateway drug.
Most people here start hobby around high school or university, but before publishers started to recognize that most people can't really drop 1/3 of their scholarship on one book and made some steps to reduce the cost… people had two options. Don't play or make their own setting. According to my father and brother, in the '90s you could bet that most groups had one or two books and at least one collaborative home-brew setting or system. After all, you can pinpoint a fantasy or sci-fi book that your group likes and make a setting together for a cost of few nights worth of coffee… significantly less than hardcover RPG ;). Hell, there were at least six versions of Witcher RPG before even the Polish book series was completed (around 1997 IIRC). A lot of the modern Polish authors started by getting recognized as particularly prolific people on Polish parts of Usenet, IRC or fora. There is still a magazine called "Tawerna RPG" ("RPG Inn" would be the best translation) that started their distribution around 1996 via one CD-ROM gaming magazine. They had a part of their CDs dedicated to readers creations. Games, magazines, long-form blogs etc. I'm not even sure if that magazine still exists, but Tawerna prevailed ;). It's actually a bit sad that many people choose to buy books instead of making their own materials. It seemed almost like a honed tradition until less than a decade ago. But it's not exclusive to Poland. Germany had similar if somewhat less prolific scene. Sweden almost relishes in gaming exclusively the Swedish RPGs. Reasons were similar to Polish: a lot of the books were insultingly expensive while having a simply pathetic amount of printed copies. Right now D&D is not the most popular game, or even considered as the gateway drug, in any of the countries that I have mentioned.
No problem, I'm happy to discuss Epic6 further or share some notes/house rules that, at least in my group, seemed to make sense. If you are interested I can do some rough translation of my setting notes, I was trying to keep it close to the concept of "let's imagine how ~100BC Rome would look if I would drop some Goblins, Orks, Elves, Greek/Spartan polis and whatnot in this system with gladiators, Consul rule and legions". Obviously, everything outside of the Imperium Romanum is considered as 'barbarian', not necessarily in class terms ;). Not very original, but at least my elves are not hippies who hide in forests but were based on warring clans of Mongols from before Genghis Khan era, so I think I deserve some slack :P. In the meantime, here and here are more complete versions of the original document that introduced Epic6.