what rules do you favor?

Why there are always going to be specific rules from each paticular versions that you favor on a whole that edition do you like best? (if this had been done before, stop complaining ;-) and just vote )

Whoo Hoo - 100% agree with me!!

(okay, okay, I was the only vote at the time)

In 3e there were 4 infinite power abuses possible in the Core Rules.

In 3.5, all of those infinite power abuses remain and they added two more.

3.5 was dissappointing, to say the least. It increased the needed house rules by 50%. Everything else was just flavor and rebalancing - things that I can do or not do as the dictates of my campaign style.

Haste was too powerful in some games, and just right for others. Power Attack was too weak in some games and just right for others. Neither needed tweaking in all games - but the ability to force your enemy to handroll tquitos on the negative energy plane while you hit him with a brick is unbalanced in all games and didn't get fixed.

3e is an easier place to rebalance from, because it starts with less things which need to be addressed.

-Frank

You forget the lazy answer... I don't care. No, really, I think some of my best games, I havn't even roll one dice (just think the Challenge of Champion). Personnally, the system, I don't really care. If there is one thing I must tell about systems, I prefer point buy system, which allow generally more flexibilty on the concept of the character, but still, I have seen no perfect system, only good system for some particular games, like Feng Shui and M&M who are two good systems for action movie RPG, but realistic games, not very good...

Anyway, if I consider only D&D, I never play 1st, so I can't compare it. As 3.0 and 3.5 is a bit more simple as it essentially regroup all the rolls in a d20, it makes things a bit more easier. Now, which one the best, the 3.5 have corrected many error, but it seems not al, and have added others, so I will tell 3.25 is the best!

I like 3.0/3.5. The concept is great, though unbalanced. All hail the mighty "house rules"!

DA

but the ability to force your enemy to handroll tquitos on the negative energy plane while you hit him with a brick is unbalanced in all games and didn't get fixed.

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OK I read that again and again and I still don't get it.

Could you explain?

Bauglir said:

OK I read that again and again and I still don't get it.

Could you explain?

Click to expand...

In third edition, you could gate in any named individual - like for example Lord Soth - and they had to do whatever you told them to do for 1 round per level. All you had to do was be on a plane that wasn't your home plane.

So you could go to the Negative Energy Plane (with a little NEP for your party), and then force the BBEG to do what you want for 17 rounds. You can substitute the Plane of Fire or any other unpleasant area.

So Lord Soth takes damage every round while he is hand rolling taquitos for you, and the entire party is clubbing him to death while he isn't able to defend himself.

Presto: the adventure ends and everyone gets free experience. When Andy Collins was asked if he had fixed that problem in 3.5 he said that he had not - and asked in return why anyone would bother to do a combo that large just to kill one creature.

And indeed, it's not fixed. It costs 1,000 XP now, but since you are using it on CR 17 creatures (each of which is worth 5,100 XP to "defeat") - you actually gain XP every time you do it.

Andy also made it easier to multiply Awaken player characters, opened the infinite shadow army to Arcane Casters, and shrank the hit dice of Planar Binding so that it isn't good for anything except getting unlimited wishes out of Efreet.

So none of the basic unlimited power loops have been fixed. Some have been expanded. And now Shades is 9th level (allowing it to mimic 8th level spells, which in turn allows you to put enemies in recursive pokeball loops by mimicing Trap the Soul without material component cost). And now Shapechange does Supernatural abilities (which in turn include "have 72,000 gold pieces in cash" and "create one epic level friendly monster"), which can be regained fresh every round - allowing you to generate the power and wealth of 1,700 Epic Creatures per casting.

Yeah, 3.5 didn't fix any actual problems and created more. Why would I be happy with it?

-Frank

Original D&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are poor imitations of the real thing.

Honestly, I have to ask; who in the world would do such a thing. To whom would it even occur to look at such a thing?

I think the game's we play must be so vastly different in theme and feel that we'd likely not enjoy playing together at all.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Honestly, I have to ask; who in the world would do such a thing. To whom would it even occur to look at such a thing?

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What difference does it make? And while I admit that of the six infinite power loops in 3.5, I am personally responsible for originally discovering three of them (and know the guy who invented the Free Vacation on the Negative Energy Plane: No Save), the point is that they exist.

Infinite Power is objectively game breaking. Large amounts of power can be subjectively game breaking, but will be balanced in other games.

For example, let's take the Wizard Archmage who throws spells at a DC of 34. He's very powerful, but is he too powerful? If the Fighter in your game has this +4 warhammer he's fond of - that Wizard is probably over the top. If the Fighter in your game has an Artifact grade vorpal scimitar of ruin - the Wizard probably isn't particularly noticable.

So when they do things to powerful feats, abilities, and classes - it doesn't help things over all. In some games, tweaking down the wizard is going to reign in an over-powered madman. In other games it's going to step on a balanced character and leave him asking why he's playing at all.

The only thing which can be done to game balance to make it better is to curb things which are objectively overpowered. That wasn't done in 3.5. In fact, quite the opposite.

We didn't used to be able to do Balor Mining and Phoenix Duplication and now we can. Or rather, we still can't because every DM has to house rule those in order to keep the campaign from going crazy-go-nuts.

And more required house rules = a worse rules set. Period. End of discussion.

-Frank