Be honest, how long would it really take you to notice all of this stuff...?

How much do you really scrutinize all these +1's and bonuses and this statistical makeup? Personally me? I STILL don't notice the 3.x brokenness, and probably wouldn't know about any of that if I didn't go on message boards. What about you? Not saying things are balanced or not, I'm just saying it escapes me or maybe our group doesn't really care about that stuff and it's usually completely unnoticeable. I'm sure its a big problem with some people though, just curious.

I'm on message boards, and I'm still not sure what your talking about. 3.x is broken? Didn't know that. Except maybe CoDzila, which I would not have had a name for without the internet, but I sure noticed in my 3.x games.

I scrutinize it a lot. When I play a character in a game, I look at all the numbers to give myself the best numbers. I notice when one option is clearly better than another.

As a DM, I can't help but notice it. When you go around the table and people yell out their damages and they are 8, 7, 8, 9, 37....you begin to wonder, why does one person have 37 while everyone else have less than 10. Especially when monsters have 30 hitpoints. You begin to wonder...why does it take 4 party members to take down one enemy and then another enemy goes down to one person. It seems a little unfair.

It's likely you don't notice it because your players don't either. I have players who don't know much about the numbers and don't care about them. They are the ones doing 8 damage. Then there are always one or two people who will spend a week making up a character in order to properly min-max them. They are the ones doing 37 damage.

Evenglare said:

How much do you really scrutinize all these +1's and bonuses and this statistical makeup? Personally me? I STILL don't notice the 3.x brokenness, and probably wouldn't know about any of that if I didn't go on message boards. What about you? Not saying things are balanced or not, I'm just saying it escapes me or maybe our group doesn't really care about that stuff and it's usually completely unnoticeable. I'm sure its a big problem with some people though, just curious.

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both 2e and 3e flaws where pointed out to me. Once I saw it, I could not unsee it. 4e I found them mostly on my own. I don't even agree with everyone online (I still don't think expertise was that bad in 4e, and really don't see power attack even with leap attack and a 2 handed weapon in 3.5)

In my experience you can totally even run into the flaw without seeing it.

Example: I watched and said nothing as a group with a half dragon fighter, a half celestial (half god fluff) paladin, Drow half dragon wizard/cleric and half elf Monk.... I loved that they thought the Monk was Over powered and never realized that he was 5 or 6 levels above everyone else because of ECL... but even they saw a problem when the paladin died (glorious and honorable death) and the player brought in a human wizard/loremaster and boom came in "lower level" and still had so much more power.

Evenglare said:

How much do you really scrutinize all these +1's and bonuses and this statistical makeup? Personally me? I STILL don't notice the 3.x brokenness, and probably wouldn't know about any of that if I didn't go on message boards. What about you? Not saying things are balanced or not, I'm just saying it escapes me or maybe our group doesn't really care about that stuff and it's usually completely unnoticeable. I'm sure its a big problem with some people though, just curious.

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The min/maxers in my group do notice and have made powerful characters - all within the rules. But, I run a published adventure (Slumbering Tsar), so if they have too easy at times, it's their own fault.

Still, they all seem to be having fun, so I allow it.

I don't know if it's a question of noticing. After all, as people get more experienced with a system, they'll begin to understand whatever flaws it has, and either accept them or develop workarounds for them. A significant part of that process probably isn't even conscious, it's just the natural proficiency you develop by playing the game.

Personally me? I STILL don't notice the 3.x brokenness, and probably wouldn't know about any of that if I didn't go on message boards.

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I wouldn't have either. I mean, if you think about it, it's clear that the saving throw bonuses are too good for the divine casters and not good enough for the straight martial types, or that there's no reason every element of spellcasting should be tied to the same ability score or that clerics should be able to cast their entire spell list, but these aren't things that have a tremendous impact on the typical play experience. By and large, it's a well-designed game, and particularly one that focuses on and achieves balance of this type to excess.

And then you read the outcries on the message boards. Still not a question of playing long enough to notice something, I think.

GMforPowergamers said:

both 2e and 3e flaws where pointed out to me. Once I saw it, I could not unsee it. 4e I found them mostly on my own. I don't even agree with everyone online (I still don't think expertise was that bad in 4e, and really don't see power attack even with leap attack and a 2 handed weapon in 3.5)

In my experience you can totally even run into the flaw without seeing it.

Example: I watched and said nothing as a group with a half dragon fighter, a half celestial (half god fluff) paladin, Drow half dragon wizard/cleric and half elf Monk.... I loved that they thought the Monk was Over powered and never realized that he was 5 or 6 levels above everyone else because of ECL... but even they saw a problem when the paladin died (glorious and honorable death) and the player brought in a human wizard/loremaster and boom came in "lower level" and still had so much more power.

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I think possibly that the biggest issue is levels played. I've been in several groups where the highest level character is around 10th level. They just don't play higher than that. Which, in 3e, hides most of the major issues. Nobody bitches about a 4th level wizard, really. Yes, you can break the game in single digit levels, but, by and large, you have to know what you're doing to do it. For those who don't really care, it's not going to come up.

Where I really got an eye opener is when I started playing (well DMing) double digit level games. Wow, that's where you see the issue, if it comes up, which isn't guaranteed. I remember the group had a halfilng paladin for the longest time, and no problem at all. Actually seriously underpowered to be honest (the player had multi classed to monk and then pious templar). The character was virtually unkillable, but, couldn't hurt anything. When the character did actually die (nothing is unkillable ) the player brought back a straight human cleric. The campaign by this time was 15th level or so.

Now that was a shock. The player went from being more or less invisible in combat with the paladin, to completely dominating every encounter. So, to answer the OP, yes, I did see the problems I complain about in play. But, I do agree that for a lot of groups and for a lot of time, the balance issues that people kvetch about are largely unseen in play.

To be honest, I got a pretty big head start in noticing the brokenness of 3.0 as DM because I decided to convert a 15th level 2nd edition game and let players fiddle with their characters for the first dozen sections. The Druid, Wizard and Cleric pretty much just opted in to 15th level conversion with some obvious feat choices and just dominated from the get-go. The Fighter seemed instantly disadvantaged even though we went through about a dozen permutations of that characters feat-choices and I worked with the player to min-max the best I could before I started houseruling as many rules as I could to help the suboptimal classes and add new class features (I basically gave the martial classes spell-like powers before 4E. It worked well for those players, but we were really playing a different game from 3E at that point.)

Had we started a fresh campaign with those players, it would have taken a couple of years before we encountered any issues. I haven't had the issues with 6th - 10th level characters that some had in that system, but given my preferred campaign styles that isn't too surprising.

Evenglare said:

How much do you really scrutinize all these +1's and bonuses and this statistical makeup? Personally me? I STILL don't notice the 3.x brokenness, and probably wouldn't know about any of that if I didn't go on message boards. What about you? Not saying things are balanced or not, I'm just saying it escapes me or maybe our group doesn't really care about that stuff and it's usually completely unnoticeable. I'm sure its a big problem with some people though, just curious.

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I notice. I have been a strategy gamer for a very long time; it is actually hard for me not to notice. However, I also approach RPGs a little differently than I approach other games. With a game like 1830: The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons I will absolutely work to maximize every dollar earned while minimizing every dollar spent. After all, that's point of the game. With RPGs, my primary agenda is character/world discovery. I care more about what the character would do rather than min/maxing.

Though there are some exceptions. For example, it has been over a decade since I played a 3.x character with a Constitution score below 14.

Hussar said:

I think possibly that the biggest issue is levels played.

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Levels certainly play a role; not only in terms of 'level caps' but also how a character achieves high levels: organic versus built. A character who grows organically from level one to level x is quite often less efficient than one who is built at level x.

That said, I firmly believe that DM style is the single largest contributor to whether a player notices power discrepancies.

I think for my group we roll 3d6 in order, cuts down on a lot of the min maxing BS. I suggest you guys try it if you have trouble with players. Actually for us it's

Pick race (you are born)
Roll 3d6 in order 2 times, pick one and apply in order (functions as 2 different paths in life during childhood/adolescence)
Pick class (your profession as an adult)

I guess that's why I have never had problems. hmmm. I'm sure someone people wouldn't like it but that's how we have played for what... going on 15 years now. Right before 3rd came out.