D&D 3E/3.5 Issue with "Core" 3.5?

A lot of it is emergent issues: the problems were there all along, but they weren't noticed right away. And they tended to be noticed at the same time as supplements were introduced - often, as those same supplements made the issues worse.

It's also true that the biggest issues in the core were things that you could very well miss entirely: if your group tended to avoid multiclassing, if you played at the low-mid levels (up to the teens), and if most magic items in your campaign were found (rather than bought or crafted), you might very well not hit the biggest issues.

(Oh, I suppose you should add "and they avoided polymorph" to that list.)

There was also a big question of how much you really cared about the issues. There's a really old "Design & Development" column that talks about "proud nails" - things in the game that aren't quite right, but that aren't game-destroying. If you let such things get to you, though, they can quickly suck the enjoyment from the game. 3.5e, including the core, had a lot of proud nails... but if such things don't really bother you, it's not really a problem.

Kiraya_TiDrekan said:

Where as mine was...

BECMI: This rocks!
1E: Advanced? The older kids say I can't play this so I guess I'll stick with BECMI.
2E: Ooh, this rocks more!
Late 2E: Oh hi other games, sorry 2E.
3E: This rocks!
3.5: Ooh, this rocks more!
Late 3.5: Eh, I'm getting worn out by all this math.
4E First Impression: Wait what?
4E After playing a few times: This is ok, I guess.
4E Essentials: Hey, now this is pretty groovy. But, still worn out by math.
Pathfinder: Hey, cool. But...come on guys, math.
5E: This rocks all the rocks that were rocking!

Ahem, on topic - 3.5 in early to mid level is pretty ok, but there's a reason someone came up with E6 - the math just gets too cumbersome at higher levels. Pathfinder and 4E really didn't address that at all.

Click to expand...

I think you kind of hit on what might be the reason I'm digging 5e. I loved 3.5 and I even found 4e to be pretty okay, but it was the math that kept snagging. I don't know if I will ever DM a 3.5 game, but as I was preparing to do so (in hopes my group would return to 3.5 from 4) I soon realized that our DM had to be pretty much a math wizard. I really couldn't get the concept of designing an encounter, much less remembering the plus this and plus that in each situation. As a player, easy peasy. As a DM (who didn't even DM), it looked daunting.

4e is where I felt the math as a player. Every move in combat was something complicated even from the get go. It took me a while to understand the 2[W]+Whathaveyou formula. And even when I figured it out it looked too much like algebra. After a few sessions it made me groan. I remember during one combat encounter, after pouring over all of my Power options. I looked at the DM and said, "Can I just...uh...hit him with my greataxe?" That's when I realized I didn't like 4e anymore.

So that's I think where 5e hit just right with me. The math is so simple and out of the way. It gives me the same feeling as when I first started playing with 3.5 and more.

halfling rogue said:

4e is where I felt the math as a player.

Click to expand...

Which was its biggest draw for me back in 2008. Having run a 3.5 camapign in the double digit levels before, the distribution of rules to the power cards and of bookkeeping to the players was so refreshing!

halfling rogue said:

Every move in combat was something complicated even from the get go. ... I remember during one combat encounter, after pouring over all of my Power options. I looked at the DM and said, "Can I just...uh...hit him with my greataxe?"

Click to expand...

That's what MBAs are for! Today I sort of understand your frustration. The 4e combat system is nice for what it's intended to do, but there seems to be a great market for five minutes long small combats where you just whack some kobolds.

halfling rogue said:

That's when I realized I didn't like 4e anymore.

So that's I think where 5e hit just right with me. The math is so simple and out of the way. It gives me the same feeling as when I first started playing with 3.5 and more.

Click to expand...

I haven't played 5e yet and probably won't for quite some time. But if I'd start a new campaign today, I'd take one of the leaner versions - probably 2e in my case.

On the other hand ... if I'd do such a campaign and continue until the PCs encounter one of the main enemies, I'll probably want the 4e combat system back for just this occasion. Oh well...

The most complete dissection I've ever seen anyone do of 3e and 3.5 was a very long running topic on another forum. It was purged a long long time ago but I did save a copy of it with minor edits for spelling, grammar, and coherence and chapterized it for readability as it's more a series of extended rants about specific topics. You can find the full thing here (warning: lots of uncensored profanity).

To break it down in a nutshell the d20 system that really collapses under its own weight. There's simply too many rules for too many things. 1e and 2e started out with a basic system and then cobbled on a bunch of random unrelated mechanics born from various house rules and half baked solutions to common problems. It held together because the various subsystems didn't interact with or contradict each other much. d20 took those systems and instead of throwing them out completely and building something new and coherent decided to build on top of and around them and there clearly wasn't much consideration as to whether the final product was really a good game system that achieved the overall goals it wanted to. You can't really blame them. At the time the idea of an RPG with a unified rolling mechanic like the d20 was pretty novel by itself. That's just where game design was at.

Also, lest you think I'm being a biased fanboy there was another rant about 4e (much longer and even more profanity) that you can read here.

Saelorn said:

If you stay under level 13, and keep away from the supplements, the game really isn't that bad.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say it's a question of avoiding all supplements. Some offered some good additions to martial character power and flexibility. If I were to cherry pick things to add, I'd focus on adding those rather than ones to increase spellcaster power and flexibility - which is already considerable with the core.

billd91 said:

I wouldn't say it's a question of avoiding all supplements. Some offered some good additions to martial character power and flexibility. If I were to cherry pick things to add, I'd focus on adding those rather than ones to increase spellcaster power and flexibility - which is already considerable with the core.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of things, in many of the supplements, that are just fine. You could probably add the Scout and Swashbuckler, and they wouldn't hurt anything. Entire swaths of feats that are situationally useful and won't break anything.

Actually going through and flagging each item as pass or fail would require a lot of work, though, and risks coming off as arbitrary. Just drawing the line on the safe side, and banning all supplements, is less likely to go terribly wrong.

halfling rogue said:

But what really was the problem? Was it all of the rules/options that the splatbooks provided? I heard wizards were too powerful, and that the game balance was all out of whack, but they never seemed too powerful in our games played by the 3 core books. Maybe we played the wizard wrong?

Click to expand...

D&D 3.0 had flaws that neither 3.5 nor Pathfinder fixed. Flaws include poorly-designed math (just look at the gaps in saving throws, or the save DC vs saving throw race, or how boosting AC without spending a lot of money on magic items worked and then notice how many stacking AC-boosting items there are to "fix" that flaw, how weak wizards start out and how powerful they end up compared to martial PCs). There were issues with treasure, and with NPCs, and some DMs had issues with the "15 minute work day". There were hideously broken spells like Simulacrum, plus spell combos. And others that don't occur to me right at the moment. That's before getting into splatbooks.

Every editions of D&D has flaws, of course. Going from 3.0 to 3.5 fixed a few flaws, and going from 3.5 to Pathfinder fixes a few more (one of the biggest was the uselessness of the 1st-level wizard, which if "fixed" in Pathfinder, in that you have options to not suck at that level, but still have the choice to make weak choices). While Pathfinder has more of the 3.0 core flaws, it probably fixed more problems than it introduced, so is a bit more popular. Also, DMs get a vote. Paizo has been amazing on the DM side of things. There are loads and loads of adventure paths and fully-statted NPCs for emergency use, as an example.

Pathfinder, much like 3e, is getting bloated. The last long-term Pathfinder game my group played was Kingmaker, and during that time I was a pretty active participant on the Paizo boards. I didn't recognize most threads though, as they tended to be about building a PC using some class I've never heard of to crush its core equivalent (usually using loads of non-core stuff), or building a PC using some class I've never heard of to barely match the power of its core equivalent (usually using loads of non-core stuff). The bloat was all over the place in terms of power level, but usually players only gravitate to the uber-powerful stuff, or latch onto the most powerful part of a subpar class (eg the witch, yes it's weaker than a wizard, but Sleep Hex is very nearly as powerful as what a wizard could use, so it's not that much weaker if you spam that hex).

3.5 is NOT dead! 3.5 is LIFE!

That's all I have to say on the matter.

low - mid levels with only one splat book per player

"If you stay under level 13, and keep away from the supplements, the game really isn't that bad."

I run my 3.5E campaign so the PCs max out at level 12. The players are allowed to use one optional book each.

I've found that although a single book may have some power creep over the PHB, the problems really come in when players pick and choose feats/PRCs/Spells/etc from multiple books.

Between controlling levels and limiting splat books to one each, I have not encountered any major issues.

Sure, there are PRCs and alternative combos that are particularly effective against certain monsters, but each of those classes/combos have their own weaknesses. Beguilers are great with charms, but don't do much vs. undead. etc.

I think 3.5E solved some of the 3E problems, so I don't think there is much difference between 3E and 3.5E from a problem perspective.

MATH is a problem for both editions. Keeping the levels down helps to reduce the MATH problem, but even mid level characters can have math challenges (+ for str + for BAB + for weapon + for feat + specialization + friendly buff spells + TIme of the Month = TOO MANY MODIFIERS TO ADD UP

If a period of play is 4 or 5 hours, I try to have only one or two combats because of the math problem. We spend more time adding up bonsues than rolling dice.

3.0 was a big advance at the time, and a difficult compromise between keeping a lot of the details of past editions, not just the broad strokes, and bringing in what was then considered good practice in RPGs (most of which was, and some of which maybe wasn't). It had cleaner mechanics then older editions, and gave players and DMs a lot of options, even in the core. It was a little complicated and fiddly. At higher levels, this complexity became a much bigger problem, and long standing issues of balance (and just general wackiness) at higher levels seemed to be worse due to the kindness of the game to full casters. Not that fun to DM after a certain point. Though it did have lots of adventures, some of which where pretty good.

3.5 fixed....the ranger? description of action types? orc hp? This remains the great money grab that burned a lot of goodwill and put the makers of 4E in an awkward spot. Also opened the door to lots of splats, DDM (which was OK), and crashed the d20 bubble. As a game, again fine up to high levels, but not fantastic to DM.

4E was easier to DM, and had the promise of greater balance and "stretching the sweet spot". This promise was not actually realized until a flood of patches helped fix it a few years later...Execution, a narrowing of play style, poor support, a mechanistic tone, disregard for fan-preferences--on lots of things, and in general drawing many of the wrong lessons from 3.5 undermined it.

PF, again, fixed...some spells? Whatever wrong lessons that didn't go into 4E from 3.5 seemed to go into this very complicated and not very balanced game.

5E, breath of fresh air. Cleaner and more free-wheeling then 3E or 4E, but with relatively balanced character options. Figured out how to keep the feel of D&D without getting hung up on certain legacy details. Great to DM, curious to see how it works at high levels.