D&D 3E/3.5 Issue with "Core" 3.5?

[halfling rogue]

I cut my teeth on 3.5 (D&D) so maybe I'm nostalgic or maybe I'm just not seeing a real blind spot, but I'm curious to hear other opinions.

The view from the air looks like this:
1) 3e needed updating so...
2) 3.5
3) splat...splat...splat...splat...more splat...etc
4) 4e announced
5) Pathfinder introduced
6) Pathfinder considered a 'fix' to 3.5 and thought of as 3.75

I came into D&D right in between #2 & 3. In my group, only the DM bought any extra splatbooks. He basically bought everything. I don't know how often he used them as reference, etc or in our campaigns, but as players, the only thing we used was the 3.5 PHB. Seriously. Nothing else.

Now it's been conveyed (or the impression I get is) that 3.5 needed fixed. WotC moved on to 4e and Pathfinder took up the helm. Folks call Pathfinder 3.75 because they 'fixed' it. Before I move on, let me be clear, this isn't a knock on Pathfinder or 4e. It's just a question about 3.5

Now maybe it's because we didn't dive into the splatbooks, maybe it's because we stuck with the core classes/races, but I never saw how 3.5 needed to be fixed. I'm not saying there aren't flaws or that there were rules that we needed to change up or houserule, but on the whole, using the 3 core books I just didn't see the issue.

Obviously there was an issue and I'm not saying there wasn't. Folks saw that something wasn't working right and obviously think Pathfinder adequately fixed it, fantastic. 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?

Currently we're playing 5e and frankly I like it better than other versions, but if a group was playing 3.5 I'd still join in. Problem is, I don't know if anyone is playing "core" 3.5 (core meaning 3 core books only) anymore. Seems most migrated to Pathfinder.

I guess I'm just wondering if 3.5 is/was considered 'broken' from the get go, or was it something that eventually grew to big for it's britches?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

3.5Ed is still our group's preferred edition, though nobody's gotten 5Ed yet- I suspect I'll be first, post-Christmas.

I don't know that there were more than a couple problems that needed fixing beyond, say, the Polymorph rules, but there was a bit of a backlash against the splats (not that 4Ed was really any better) and there were some heated playstyle issues with the game.

So we got 4Ed. There were playstyle issues with THAT, so now there is 5Ed.

One thing is true of 3.5Ed though: if you really found balance to be important, it was quite obvious that each successive splatbook improved the power- thus, diminishing the balance- of the core full caster classes...which started off as the most powerful classes in the game. Almost every one boosted the power of Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards, but most other classes got crumbs or nothing. There are some gems for the others out there, but they were rare.

 

[Celebrim]

If you stick to the core, and stay below 13th level, and your players aren't super optimizers with a desire to break the game, then 3.5 by and large plays really really well IMO.

Pathfinder didn't fix 3.5. They made a few innovations that are worth while, but by and large its just 3.5 with a sticker on it that says, "New and improved."

On the whole, I'd say that 3.5 is breakable out of the box because it handles high level play rather poorly and a smart spellcaster can simply outshine non-spellcasters at every level. But its more the case that it grew to big for its britches, because as the options for spellcasters proliferated and the oppurtunities to break the balance increased, it got to a point that you had to be deliberately trying not to break it rather than the reverse.

Personally, in most ways I feel 3.0 plays better than 3.5. Even core 3.5 broke more than it fixed.

My experience was more like:

Early 1e: This rocks.
Late 1e: You know, I think I'm outgrowing this. I'm getting tired of putting up with the problems with the rules.
2e: Err... that didn't fix things at all. I'm going to dip here and there for ideas, but I think I'll stick with what I got.
3e (1st impression): This rocks!!
3e (after some play time): Hmmm... this could use some tweaking.
3.5: Wait.... you made almost everything worse. Did you even play test these changes?!?!? I guess I'm going to have to house rule this....
500+ pages of house rules later: Ok, this rocks!

 

[halfling rogue]

Thanks for the input. What both of you put actually makes a lot of sense. I didn't want to automatically chalk it up to being a "playstyle" issue, but I kind of felt that that might have been the case. I heard a lot of folks complaining that the players had all the say and the DM took backseat...but I didn't think 3.5 did that. I think lots of tables did that and then placed the blame on 3.5. Maybe 3.5 lent itself to some of that, but i don't think it encouraged it.

Another thing is that my group didn't get into high level play. Maybe we just didn't notice the cracks because we hadn't stretched it that far yet?

We also went to 4e, not because of anything wrong with 3.5, but I think because we were all just curious. 4e (and everyone having kids) nearly stopped us from playing though. I think everyone got bored with it. I was lobbying for a return to 3.5 just before 5e came out. It never happened though. But when we played 5e I think we were all really excited. One of the best things I can say about 3.5 and 5e is that 5e reminds me of everything we wanted 3.5 to be and more. In that, we got the same fun from 5e that we had from 3.5, only better. I liked 3.5 rules, but I didn't like that they were always in my face (not a flaw on 3.5 at all, and to be honest...the rules that were always coming up were related to the grid, which 5e has moved away with a bit).

All that just to say that I think 3.5 core was/is pretty solid and I wasn't sure why exactly it doesn't get the credit I think it deserves.

 

[Celebrim]

All that just to say that I think 3.5 core was/is pretty solid and I wasn't sure why exactly it doesn't get the credit I think it deserves.

I think in hind sight 3e will be seen as one of the single most influential RPG rules sets in the history of the hobby. The number of really solid and important games that came out of D20 is just amazing, and 3e D&D represented a real golden era for the brand that we may never see again.

5e is also solid. If I hadn't took the time to 'fix' 3.X to my standards, I'd probably be playing 5e. Superficially, the core system seems rock solid. I'm not saying I wouldn't tweak it here or there, or that I wouldn't end up with 500+ pages of house rules for it, but the basic ideas are solid and well (for lack of a better word) humble despite its high ambition. It's well written. I don't get bored nearly as quickly reading it as I did the 4e books, and a lot of attention to killing off the vermin without slaying the sacred cows seems to have been made.

4e went wrong in a lot of ways, but the main way it went wrong is that it paid too much attention to how the 3e game could go bad and not nearly enough attention to how much fun most people were having with it and why. I think for most players, 4e represented a fix to problems that they didn't have. It was almost like the edition of the game for people who hated the game. For them, it was probably a great thing and I'm happy for them, but, yeah, I'll be really surprised if 4e retains a large number of players in the long run or if there is a rebirth of nostalgia for the 4e game the way we've seen with OSRIC games.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Another thing is that my group didn't get into high level play. Maybe we just didn't notice the cracks because we hadn't stretched it that far yet?

Honestly, that's a big part of it. High-level spellcasters gain access to a lot of save-or-die effects which make non-spellcasters kind of obsolete. One of the major changes in Pathfinder is that 95% of those were removed, converted to just dealing damage, or otherwise nerfed. (The only spell I know of that can actually kill someone in Pathfinder is Phantasmal Killer, which is a mind-affecting illusion that only kills if the target fails two different saves.)

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

 

[Ranes]

I agree entirely with Celebrim and Dannyalcatraz but I also suspect that the reasons for the emergence of 4e and 5e, just as with editions beforehand, were business issues as much as anything else. New editions reinvigorate sales of the core game. Like Celebrim, I'm happy for those who get what they want out of edition X. In my case, 3e is currently the edition sweet spot, even though there is much in its supplements that I don't care for.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, as previously mentioned above 3x had a few problems - polymorph being one of them, but for the most part it wasn't really broken. Being "broken" was not the reason for the edition change, that was completely a way for WotC to begin a new marketing cycle to sell people a bunch of new books all over again.

Pathfinder on the other hand also didn't come into existence as a means of fixing 3x either, Paizo would have been perfectly happy with continuing to create APs and products for 3x, however, when WotC announced they'd begin designing D&D 4e, they pulled all 3x products out of the game stores, followed by creating a new license that was not OGL. Paizo could not sell 3x based content at game stores, since there were no WotC 3x books being sold (an issue imposed by distributors - if you want to sell a supplemental product, there has to be Core products available also). Also Paizo was not willing to create products under the GSL - WotC's new 3PP license

All Paizo wanted to do was to continue to write adventure content and supplements for a given game. In order to do so, they had to create their own Core product, and that is the only reason that Pathfinder came into existence. Rather than reprinting the PH/DMG as is from 3x, since they had to endure the cost of reprinting, they opted to make some "fixes" so they could put their own name on it, and call it their product - hence the differences between 3x and Pathfinder.

5e is just WotC starting a new marketing cycle once again, though thoughts of improving the game is always a WotC goal, so 5e is a new and improved D&D.

None of this came about with the need to "fix" anything.

 

[Celebrim]

I agree entirely with Celebrim and Dannyalcatraz but I also suspect that the reasons for the emergence of 4e and 5e, just as with editions beforehand, were business issues as much as anything else. New editions reinvigorate sales of the core game. Like Celebrim, I'm happy for those who get what they want out of edition X. In my case, 3e is currently the edition sweet spot, even though there is much in its supplements that I don't care for.

It was business decisions which killed 3.5 and made 4e necessary. Chief of those was that the astounding success of 3e ended up creating a high revenue stream that they decided to try to retain year after year. WotC was trying to follow business models that they'd learned by selling MtG. Keeping the revenue stream level required increasingly high numbers of splatbooks be released every year, which meant that less and less revenue was being spent on design and testing. Further, to market those splatbooks they made two decisions. First, that each splatbook would contain both a player and a DM focus in order to ensure the widest interest in the product. Secondly, that each splatbook would have player options that would be attractive - in essence, power creep. In MtG terms, it was as if they were releasing an Urza's Saga style expansion every year. They were killing their own game. In MtG, they'd figured that out years ago. But in MtG, they are able to 'reboot' by phasing out sets. RPGs don't really allow you to phase out rules in stages, so they came up with the idea that they could phase out a whole set of rules and replace them with another one. At the same time, that - they thought - would let them kill the SRD.

But RPGs aren't CCGs. They don't monetize in nearly the same ways. There is no such things as 'fake rules' for RPGs. Making up your own rules is part of the process. With CCG's, the danger is always that players decide to take 3x5 index cards and make their own cards. With CCG's, if players do that then your market dries up, but with CCG's generally players do not do that because there is a value in owning the 'real' pieces. With RPG's, the 'real' pieces are actually in players heads. You make your money by selling aids that support the real game, and if your trying to make a living as an RPG publisher and you forget that, well, then you're screwed.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

My experience was more like:

Early 1e: This rocks.
Late 1e: You know, I think I'm outgrowing this. I'm getting tired of putting up with the problems with the rules.
2e: Err... that didn't fix things at all. I'm going to dip here and there for ideas, but I think I'll stick with what I got.
3e (1st impression): This rocks!!
3e (after some play time): Hmmm... this could use some tweaking.
3.5: Wait.... you made almost everything worse. Did you even play test these changes?!?!? I guess I'm going to have to house rule this....
500+ pages of house rules later: Ok, this rocks!

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.