D&D 3E/3.5 3rd Edition Revisited - Better play with the power of hindsight?

[Charlaquin]

Strangely, most of the time the concept came up, people on that forum were posting about how such a setting couldn't possibly work or exist, as if somehow the very concept offended them.

Not too surprising, since the premise is that it’s the logical outcome of taking the 3e rules at face value. Anyone who both has a significant emotional investment in the idea of verisimilitude (which was a lot of the 3e fanbase) and wants to run a game in any other kind of setting would be strongly incentivized to formulate a verisimilitude-based argument for why their world doesn’t follow those setting conceits.

 

[Greg K]

I never really viewed prestige classes as optional any more than I did multiclassing. Sure, I know technically rules as written they were optional, but I feel as though most DMs who would say no to such things would be pilloried. (With except to some prestige classes that were just ridiculous.) I liked the idea of prestige classes, but quickly grew to disfavor them as players often had to map out their plans for advancement many levels in advanced.

As a DM, I always treated PrCs as optional. I determined which (if any) fit the cultures and/or organizations of the campaign I was running. However, first I would try to find new classes and/or UA style class variants before resorting to prestige classes.

 

[MGibster]

Like, imagine you’re just playing a ranger, leveling organically, and you happen to come across an Arcane Archer NPC, who’s like “I can teach you to do what I do, but not until you’ve mastered the mundane use of a bow.” Now you’ve got the long-term goal of learning the prerequisite feats in order to qualify for it.

And then you had the other problem, you come across that Arcane Archer NPC who saysd he can teach you, but you skipped out on the Endurance Feat (or whatever it might be) and it's going to take you more levels to get that before you can even go into Arcane Archer.

 

[MGibster]

The rest of the world would be a wasteland full of horrible monsters and likely an active "wight-pocalypse" as the world would be overrun with undead that have the Create Spawn ability and don't need any sustenance.

I'd play that campaign. It's always nice to see the ramifications of magic abuse.

 

[Greg K]

The very first thing I would do to greatly improve the game and (mostly) everyone's experience with it immediately conflicts with the whole initial premise of taking the game as it actually is and working with that. Which is to lower the level cap from 20th level to 12th level.

My first campaign rule for 3e was capping the level at 12. I also would slow leveling at levels 6th-10th and further at levels 11 and 12.

 

[AMP]

Strangely, most of the time the concept came up, people on that forum were posting about how such a setting couldn't possibly work or exist, as if somehow the very concept offended them.

They must have boring imaginations.

 

[James Gasik]

They must have boring imaginations.

You're going to find people who have a very traditional view of things in any fandom. "They changed it, now it sucks" is the rallying cry of many flame wars. It may be forgotten now, but in late 3.5, there was as serious debate raging against the very concept of "Char Op", saying that it was the death of the game, and other such hysterics.

And from an outside perspective, people who say "3.5 sucks because [insert Theory Op build here] is a thing", completely ignoring the fact that only a DM who is asleep at the wheel would let any such shenanigans occur in an actual game.

In light of this, the idea that someone is going to reject a setting based on "Char Op" thinking isn't really unbelievable, I suppose. The idea that someone would fire off post after post trying to discredit it as a thought experiment* was what I found a bit extreme.

*Well, Tippy himself claimed this was exactly the setting his play group used. So take that with a grain of salt.

I mean, it's like people who hated Eberron because it was "too gonzo" and had "too much magic and busted stuff" in it, despite the fact it was designed to work with 3.5, where other settings kept trying to make it conform to their worlds instead of the other way around.

They didn't want this "anime stuff" to be a part of "their" game. You saw that with psionics. You saw that with the 3e Warlock. You saw that with the Tome of Battle. There's always going to be those people who think D&D can only be played one way, and hate the idea that some other table is not only doing something different, but having (gasp!) fun while doing it!

Stop having fun! D&D is serious business!

 

[AMP]

You're going to find people who have a very traditional view of things in any fandom. "They changed it, now it sucks" is the rallying cry of many flame wars. It may be forgotten now, but in late 3.5, there was as serious debate raging against the very concept of "Char Op", saying that it was the death of the game, and other such hysterics.

And from an outside perspective, people who say "3.5 sucks because [insert Theory Op build here] is a thing", completely ignoring the fact that only a DM who is asleep at the wheel would let any such shenanigans occur in an actual game.

In light of this, the idea that someone is going to reject a setting based on "Char Op" thinking isn't really unbelievable, I suppose. The idea that someone would fire off post after post trying to discredit it as a thought experiment* was what I found a bit extreme.

*Well, Tippy himself claimed this was exactly the setting his play group used. So take that with a grain of salt.

I mean, it's like people who hated Eberron because it was "too gonzo" and had "too much magic and busted stuff" in it, despite the fact it was designed to work with 3.5, where other settings kept trying to make it conform to their worlds instead of the other way around.

They didn't want this "anime stuff" to be a part of "their" game. You saw that with psionics. You saw that with the 3e Warlock. You saw that with the Tome of Battle. There's always going to be those people who think D&D can only be played one way, and hate the idea that some other table is not only doing something different, but having (gasp!) fun while doing it!

Stop having fun! D&D is serious business!

Oh yeah, I remember the Edition Wars. I was there for all of it. It all went from Fandom to Fandumb fast.

I played with a group that, when Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics hit 2nd Edition, it was yhe end of the world as they knew it, and they just weren't gonna have it. But, when I decided to run using some of those rules they played anyway, and enjoyed it, soon buying a book or two themselves.

That's another one of my table rules: This is a game. Have fun. Stop arguing. Do not make it a life and death endeavor (unless it's your character's life).

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

Not gonna lie, that actually sounds like a pretty sick campaign setting though.

I thought the exact same thing.

Strangely, most of the time the concept came up, people on that forum were posting about how such a setting couldn't possibly work or exist, as if somehow the very concept offended them.

The problem with a Tippyverse campaign is that it's like a Nyambe campaign. Sounds fun, no one genuinely wants to play it for long.

 

[Voadam]

What I am wondering now is, what kind of adventures, campaigns, and play style is D&D 3rd edition actually best at? What part of the rules seem to have been widely misunderstood or misapplied? And what small tweaks might make a major positive difference?

Looking at the rules for characters, you generally are good at one niche and are rewarded for specializing. You can be OK at a couple things by spreading some resources around, which can be decent, but big power is really at specializing.

Take skills.

First the mechanics provide opposed checks and some set DC things with tougher more useful things having higher DCs, but a lot of failure if you are not good at them generally through skill ranks and stat.

Also there is class skill versus non-class skill skill rank caps and skill point cost, a 10th level character has a 5 lower bonus in a non-class skill than a class skill for the same number of skill points spent on them.

Compounding this are classes with fewer skill points per level and possible skill point penalties if you dump int (fighter, rogue, cleric).

It is real easy for a character to have very few skill areas they are character level decent competitive at, and a lot of areas they are terrible at.

Maxxing out hide and move silent or spot and listen is fairly key to success with these skills as these are opposed checks and the opposition gets more resources as their CR goes up.

Spending a few skill points to up something a bit can be OK, nobody is a specialist in everything so if you hit an opposed check against somebody in an area not their specialization you can do decently. But usually you have to sneak past observant guards/guard beasts or you are trying to spot sneaky ambushers.

A few things are ok for low level skills, the linguistics one gives you a full spoken and written language for each point spent.

But mostly it really pays to do your niche thing and focus on that.

If you are a fighter with one or two skill points per level it pays to get intimidate and be decent at it and generally leave most everything else to others.