Love of 3.5E

I love 3.5E.

Sorry, I just had to say it. I like it more than I did 3E... and that was a really good edition.

I get a wonderful feeling when I open up the revised DMG and find material on the planes there, and the new material on wilderness adventuring.

Then I turn to the revised PH and see the revised Bard and Ranger and think, "I like those".

I'm sure that one of the reasons I'm not annoyed at many of the changes is because they really don't apply to my campaigns much. Changed durations of bull's strength - didn't use it much anyway. Nerfed sleep? Well, my PCs were past 1st level anyway. Pokemount? Hmm, no paladin.

I find that my DMing style involves knowing the core mechanics very well - such as how combat worked, basic skill uses and very common feats - and leaving the rest to be referenced when the time comes.

I don't spend hours looking through the spell lists. I haven't got the effects of them down in my memory. When a spell comes up in a game, I either look it up or, as is more common, get a player to look it up.

Then there are the books coming out later this year. Mmm. More warm tingly feelings. Why I'm feeling warm and tingly about a book called Frostburn is probably a little weird, but there you have it.

Are there things that I wish they hadn't changed or that I still don't like? Absolutely. But they don't distract me from everything that's right with the game.

Cheers!

I like 3.5 as well. I think the books are of a higher quality and it seems like 3.0 was the practice run through and 3.5 most of the publishers are getting it right. No9t to say 3.0 was a waste, it had its gems. But it seemed to have more duds then I'm seeing now.

Merric, I completely agree with you. There are some things that feel changed for silly reasons, but for the most part, I love the new books. I get a little flustered when I turn to a page in the DMG that should have a frequently viewed chart, i.e. experience rewards, and its not where it used to be , but this happens so infrequently, it really is easily overlooked. It is nice to hear that someone else really likes the books as well.

Crothian said:

I like 3.5 as well. I think the books are of a higher quality and it seems like 3.0 was the practice run through and 3.5 most of the publishers are getting it right. No9t to say 3.0 was a waste, it had its gems. But it seemed to have more duds then I'm seeing now.

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3E had a lot of playtesters, but there's nothing like actually releasing the game and having millions of them.

You learn a lot about how to design for the game. You might want to examine the history of Magic: the Gathering as well - the last few years have shown that the designers have a really good handle on the game. Much better than they did in the early years. (Remember Fallen Empires and Homelands?)

Cheers!

Merric, count me as another one. I remember being so happy about the revised bard and ranger in the PHB. Also, the nerfing of haste, harm, and heal was so badly needed. The XPH is another book, I was very happy to get.

-Psiblade

Hey Merric - I'm a fan of yours, let me just say this, I am really awed about how much time and devotion you spend contributing to the game scene including your miniatures web page on 3rdEdition.org...

On the topic I totally agree with you, however I see the reasoning somewhat different. In programming we'd say 3.5 is a bugfix of 3.0... 3.0 worked well on our server (i.e. while we playtested it in-house) but since gamers are as heterogenous as it gets, in addition to being highly creative, oftentimes mathematically gifted and oftentimes strongly opinionated (is that a word - excuse my english), 3.0 started to become corrupt after a number of (WotC) sourcebooks came out and the general public tended to interpret new rules differently than the development team...

Since I prefer long running campaingns to short adventure, I only played 1 3/4 campaigns using the 3.0 rules. On the last 3.0 session (I already knew most of the changes to 3.5 *thanks to EN World*) we had a really really tough (PC's = 12th level) fight against yuan-ti who exploited the weaknesses of 3.0 as much as possible (haste, buff, etc...) After the session, yuan-ti time manipulating accidentally created a reality feedback that "elevated the rules to 3.5". I don't think I ever saw my players that glad...

The WotC staff does a great job in revisioning past mistakes. Since Internet newsgroups often resolve about unconstructive criticism I am glad to post to a threat now where I can say:

What they did was good!

Thanks for reading - excuse my spelling

I too am in absolute agreement.

I loved Basic- the boxed set is as far back as I go.

I loved 1e. It was, imho, far superior to the Basic set alone (maybe if there'd been the Rules Cyclopedia in earlier years... but there wasn't).

I loved 2e after I twisted it to suit my needs. Buckets of house rules, homebrewed specialty priests, etc.

2.8 (the Option books) I was lukewarm on, and only used a little of; but what I used, I loved.

I loved 3e. Every last bit of it, except the re-genericizing of clerics.

And I love 3.5. Best edition yet, in my opinion. It fixes a lot of the breaks in 3.0- and looked at as a whole, almost all of them were breaks. Love it, love it, love it.

MerricB said:

(Remember Fallen Empires and Homelands?)

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Those are two great sets!!

My love of 5.3e know no limit.