Joshua Randall
Legend
I googled “3.0 srd” and the second result is probably helpful to you.
D&D 3E/3.5 Retro-cloning D&D 3.0
- Thread starter Yora
- Start date
Li Shenron
Legend
I am glad I kept all my 3.0 books. Well in honesty, that was because I didn't switch to 3.5 so didn't buy anything from the 3.5 era (except Unearthed Arcana because it was a semi-editition-agnostic collection of variants). I played 3.5 for about a year using only the SRD, mainly because I was waiting for the errata-heavy period to be over before buying books with at least the most important corrections, but then we realized 3.5 didn't offer us any real improvement, and on average had as many benefits as drawbacks compared to 3.0, in addition to being designed a series of unrelated 'patches' instead of one cohesive whole, so we went back to 3.0. Either way, as I said I am glad I still have all my 3.0 books 
Nowadays, I am more of a fan of taking a RPG or edition as a whole, and not make modifications as much as possible. But at the same time, I tend to see each ruleset as a toolset, thanks to "rule 0", so if something in the gameplay rules doesn't yield satisfaction around the table, I generally just ignore it and make my own adjudications or "dial" something to make it work more satisfactorily, but I don't really establish a house rule, it's more like good referee work. For example, in 5e I don't need to pedantically follow DMG examples on exploring by passive checks if I feel it ends up forcing me to script in advance which hidden things will be found and which not; to me those are just possible rulings that the "rule 0" anyway always has precedent to. Similarly, I tend not to house rule character abilities but instead I adjust adventures in such a way as to make certain abilities more frequently useful (if we feel they are weaker than average) or more frequently hampered (if we feel they are stronger than average). House ruling means to establish a new basis, which then can prove equally unsatisfactory if next adventure is different.
That said, I had a many-years phase in 3.0 (while everybody else was playing 3.5) when me and others in the group (rotating DMs) had lots of fun heavily modifying the ruleset. Some of my own works included for example greatly expanding the skill system with new skills and lots of new uses for the less common skills (note: no merging or removing skills from the PHB) or making domains a lot more at the center of cleric spellcasting. So I certainly have experience in tinkering with the system, but the motivation was just to have fun pretending to be game designers, NOT to allegedly fix something broken.
Nowadays, I am more of a fan of taking a RPG or edition as a whole, and not make modifications as much as possible. But at the same time, I tend to see each ruleset as a toolset, thanks to "rule 0", so if something in the gameplay rules doesn't yield satisfaction around the table, I generally just ignore it and make my own adjudications or "dial" something to make it work more satisfactorily, but I don't really establish a house rule, it's more like good referee work. For example, in 5e I don't need to pedantically follow DMG examples on exploring by passive checks if I feel it ends up forcing me to script in advance which hidden things will be found and which not; to me those are just possible rulings that the "rule 0" anyway always has precedent to. Similarly, I tend not to house rule character abilities but instead I adjust adventures in such a way as to make certain abilities more frequently useful (if we feel they are weaker than average) or more frequently hampered (if we feel they are stronger than average). House ruling means to establish a new basis, which then can prove equally unsatisfactory if next adventure is different.
That said, I had a many-years phase in 3.0 (while everybody else was playing 3.5) when me and others in the group (rotating DMs) had lots of fun heavily modifying the ruleset. Some of my own works included for example greatly expanding the skill system with new skills and lots of new uses for the less common skills (note: no merging or removing skills from the PHB) or making domains a lot more at the center of cleric spellcasting. So I certainly have experience in tinkering with the system, but the motivation was just to have fun pretending to be game designers, NOT to allegedly fix something broken.
I agree, the one and only problem I had with 3e was the unwieldy amount of character material which allowed powergamers to get too much advantage over casual players, and made DM's balancing spotlights too difficult. Ironically, "system mastery" was one of the design goal of 3.0 according to Monte Cook, so finding winning combos was meant to be part of the 3e game experience; but at the same time Monte Cook explained that the original 3e designers NEVER meant for character material such as feats and prestige classes to be mass-published, in fact he said the original idea was for the DMG to show a few example of prestige classes that each DM would use as a basis to create their own small bunch tied to their setting's narrative. Instead it became a money grab and made the edition collapse. That's another reason why I was glad to move back to 3.0 because at least the amount of character material "froze" to a limited amount (it still wasn't small, but more or less I had no major issue playing with PHB + 5 base splatbooks and/or one single setting 's material).
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Everything I ultimately complained about with 3.5 as a whole vanished when I looked at E6. I still have never run or played in an E6 game - but I very much want to.I think running an E6 game is pretty much mandatory.
payn
Glory to Marik
E6 is awesome at keeping the sweet spot going.
DeadlyUematsu
Explorer
I too am a fan of 3.0e and I found the changes in attitude that erupted in 3.5e to be negative in the long run. A more conservative approach to introducing additional game components would have done great service to 3.X's reputation as a whole and right now, I only see very devoted powergamers sticking with 3.X and though the amount of work they've done in sifting through mass of options produced over the edition's life is commendable, players working with their DMs would have been a much more robust experience than enduring the (EXTREME) winners and losers by dart toss approach that all of the supplement production actually produced.
DeadlyUematsu
Explorer
As for my own tweaks to 3.0e, besides taking a lot of cues from Blacky the Blackball's 3.Y rules, I would do the following:
In general, there are numbers (AC, to-hit, etc.) that should have been capped (soft or hard, doesn't matter) by character level. I know the real culprit were all of the bonus types introduced but a safety net would have done wonders.
For races, half-elves could use a bonus feat. Half-orcs definitely need a lot more. I would much prefer the Simplified Races variant written up on the D&D Wiki though.
For classes, this is a toughie. There are some base 3.5e classes that I like but they would need to be leaned up quite a bit. Prestige classes would go strongly back to being a DM tool.
For skills, I would encourage more of a spread by capping skill totals at (ability mod + level + 3).
For feats, I would implement the flexible slot system described in Five Moons RPG.
For combat, I would switch back to a declare first side-based initiative system. Each side roll one d20 at the start of the combat round after declaring actions. Each participant would modify the result by their initiative modifier and ties would be broken in order of missile, magic, movement, and melee. Depending on how magic is ultimately handled, casting time might be reintroduced.
For magic items and spells, there needed to be a second round of review but spot fixing or removing the most obvious offenders isn't out of questions. I would also cordon off a significant portion of the magic item economy from gold.
Ultimately, I would be very much happy with the above.
In general, there are numbers (AC, to-hit, etc.) that should have been capped (soft or hard, doesn't matter) by character level. I know the real culprit were all of the bonus types introduced but a safety net would have done wonders.
For races, half-elves could use a bonus feat. Half-orcs definitely need a lot more. I would much prefer the Simplified Races variant written up on the D&D Wiki though.
For classes, this is a toughie. There are some base 3.5e classes that I like but they would need to be leaned up quite a bit. Prestige classes would go strongly back to being a DM tool.
For skills, I would encourage more of a spread by capping skill totals at (ability mod + level + 3).
For feats, I would implement the flexible slot system described in Five Moons RPG.
For combat, I would switch back to a declare first side-based initiative system. Each side roll one d20 at the start of the combat round after declaring actions. Each participant would modify the result by their initiative modifier and ties would be broken in order of missile, magic, movement, and melee. Depending on how magic is ultimately handled, casting time might be reintroduced.
For magic items and spells, there needed to be a second round of review but spot fixing or removing the most obvious offenders isn't out of questions. I would also cordon off a significant portion of the magic item economy from gold.
Ultimately, I would be very much happy with the above.
Yora
Legend
Side based combat turns are such a great way to speed up play in a number of ways. But I am somewhat hesitant because of how prominent Initiative modifiers are in the game. Lots of creatures and NPCs have the Improved Initiative feat. Replacing the feat with something else that fits the creature would be a lot of work, and just ignoring initiative with no replacement feels very inelegant.
You could have the character with the highest initiative bonus in each group make an initiative roll for all the members of the group. This would make the Improved Initiative feat still relevant for monsters and NPCs.
It would mean that it would be pointless for the players to have more than one party member who has Improved Initiative. But it's not that awesome of a feat anyway, and if that's something known to the players from the start, then they can make their characters accordingly. Unlike monsters and generic NPCs that already exist outside of the campaign, the PCs are all always tailor made for the specific campaign that is played.
You could have the character with the highest initiative bonus in each group make an initiative roll for all the members of the group. This would make the Improved Initiative feat still relevant for monsters and NPCs.
It would mean that it would be pointless for the players to have more than one party member who has Improved Initiative. But it's not that awesome of a feat anyway, and if that's something known to the players from the start, then they can make their characters accordingly. Unlike monsters and generic NPCs that already exist outside of the campaign, the PCs are all always tailor made for the specific campaign that is played.
Edgar Ironpelt
Adventurer
It depends on where one considers the sweet spot to be. E6 is too low-level for my tastes.
I'm considering running a "2E6" or "E6 x 2" game, with character levels up to 12, most classes limited to 6th, and spells thus limited to 3rd. Multiclassing is expected, and rules that hamper multiclassing get modified with a chain saw.
Edgar Ironpelt
Adventurer
I was happy to see the then-new skill systems in 3.0 and 3.5. "At last!" I applauded, "D&D has a skill system that's at least half-way decent!"
Now the implementation was over-fussy. I didn't like the large gap between class and cross-class skills, and I really didn't like the way multiclass characters had to deal with their skill points from each class as separate pools. But fixing that was just a matter of applying a few house rules.
At times I've been tempted to ditch the whole class/cross-class/non-class skill distinctions entirely, and I would have done so for any game that I felt called for a massively simplified version of the skill system. As it is, my standard house rule gives a +3 gap between class and cross-class skills, similar to Pathfinder 1e - except that I claim to have done it before them.
Now the implementation was over-fussy. I didn't like the large gap between class and cross-class skills, and I really didn't like the way multiclass characters had to deal with their skill points from each class as separate pools. But fixing that was just a matter of applying a few house rules.
At times I've been tempted to ditch the whole class/cross-class/non-class skill distinctions entirely, and I would have done so for any game that I felt called for a massively simplified version of the skill system. As it is, my standard house rule gives a +3 gap between class and cross-class skills, similar to Pathfinder 1e - except that I claim to have done it before them.
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DeadlyUematsu
Explorer
Fussy is a great word. For me, I've upped the number of skill points per class and ditched the class/cross-class/non-class skill distinctions. The weirdest result has been spellcasters with Escape Artist and fighters with Tumble but nothing that was overly off-putting.
My real issue has been the range of totals. Do we need an ever-escalating arms race with Listen/Spot and Hide/Move Silently? Do we really need Diplomacy totals of +38? I know I propose a more backward compatible cap above but I've mulled slowing the range of progression by half or simply capping ranks at 13 or so.
My real issue has been the range of totals. Do we need an ever-escalating arms race with Listen/Spot and Hide/Move Silently? Do we really need Diplomacy totals of +38? I know I propose a more backward compatible cap above but I've mulled slowing the range of progression by half or simply capping ranks at 13 or so.
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