D&D 3.x I miss 3.5 edition

[nevin]

I continued collecting 3.5 books after the edition ended; to date, I'm missing only a couple of the Fantastic Locations supplements, and one or two of the Dragonlance adventures.

Likewise, I'm personally of the opinion that its "downfalls" are overblown, particularly in online discourse which very often analyzes things at a theoretical level without looking at the actual course of play around the table. It's not a simple game by any measure, particularly at the higher levels, but it's not supposed to be. Complaints like "my 20th-level character was completely ruined by one mordenkainen's disjunction" are issues of people not properly engaging with the game far more than they are "evidence" that the system breaks down at that level.

I find where it breaks the hardest is the modern players that think the DM using PC style tactics against them is "uncool" or "unfair" or just "bad DM'ing". Just kill those players till they leave your table if your running high level games. If they can do it. It should be fair game for the DM as well.

It does require the DM to be knowledgeable about a lot more things than other editions at high level but I do find that if you simply let the bad guys do all the things players can do that players start getting a lot more cautious or die quickly. But that was a problem in 1st and 2nd ed as well. I had players bring me over the years several modules made for High level play. "Isle of the Ape" , "A Paladin in hell" "Castle Gygax" and when the players that had gotten away with high level Hijinxes played in a scenario where everything was geared to kill them they got just as scared and had just as much fun as lower level games. But at some point in any edition monsters just don't cut it anymore. You have to have NPC's with powers, spells and resources that even 15 or 20th level PC's can't wish away or insta kill with their DM special artifact +10 sword of doom. People who think 1e or 2e were any easier to run at high level probably didn't run any high level games. All the problem things are still there, artifacts, relics, teleport, wish, heal, and some of the spells that killed characters and NPC's were save or die not save or suck. I don't know about 4e and I haven't run anything in 5th, only played it, but I suspect if you run them up that high things break and get just as hinky . The one benefit they have is they don't have the years of supplements and books to feed the players imaginations on what to do in between games.

But the bottom line is if your mage can make a simalcrum army then every high level mage in your world can do the same thing. Read the Jack Vance short Morreion for a good snapshot of why high level mages probably don't want to mess with each other and how important luck and initiative order are with time stop. (these are the kinds of things you need to be focusing on at high level. The story arc will build itself).

And if you've allowed a High level game in a low magic world. Shame on you. Everything that happens after 8 level or so is on you for letting high level PC's run around in a low magic world.

 

[GMMichael]

I really miss 3.5. I bought enormous amount of books, and I have fond memories of it despite its downfalls. I know it's not perfect especially after level 10 or so. But I don't mind that. A high level character should be overwhelmingly strong in my opinion.

Those 3.5 books don't die just because some of their rules do. Convert!

Realistically, if you're playing 5/6e now, you're still playing 3.5, just with kid bonus gloves on and 4e healing thrown in.

I've not played a character very high in 5th ed yet, so i can't say how it feels, but it doesn't seem like it would be terrible powerful. Is it? Do you guys have experience with the level 15+ 5e characters?

No, but they say Baldur's Gate 3 runs on 5e rules. It might be a good taste test.

 

[Retreater]

What I miss about the 3.5 era is the adventures and generally good 3rd party content. (Yes, I know there was a lot of junk. But there were good review sources to check.)
Green Ronin, Goodman, Necromancer, Malhavoc, Paizo ... there's no one out there making 5e stuff today like those legends in the 3.5 era.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I find where it breaks the hardest is the modern players that think the DM using PC style tactics against them is "uncool" or "unfair" or just "bad DM'ing". Just kill those players till they leave your table if your running high level games. If they can do it. It should be fair game for the DM as well.

The DM using PC style tactics against them often is uncool and unfair, and even bad DMing. But that's because those tactics are exploits that the PCs shouldn't be allowed to use either.

That's been a touchstone of mine for a long time when I consider a rule interpretation or new house rule: Would it be unfair if used against the PCs? If yes, then I disallow it for the monsters/NPCs and the PCs alike.

And if no, then it will be a known & common practice in the game setting, rather than some sort of special secret PC sauce.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't miss playing 3e but I do miss being 26 years younger...

I hated 3.5 BTW, I played it and DMed intensely for one year, before making the decision to revert back to 3.0, which was more solidly designed as a whole. The only real two good things 3.5 did to me was taking all powergamers with it, and cutting off the published books at an amount that was still manageable (no bloat yet). By the time of 3.5, all the best books and ideas had already been published.

 

[Reynard]

I'm sure this will bring out the armchair CFOs, but what I really miss about 3.5 is the release schedule. I miss things like environment books, and monster books, and real specific niche products brought to.you by official D&D. Settings supported by actual lines. Even splat books could be super interesting.

I know, I know: support 3PPs. Yeah, we had those in 3.x era too. We can have both.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I used to play 3.5 but moved over to 5th after a long hiatus from D&D (playing FATE instead)

I never thought I'd go back to 3rd because it was a bit overwhelming when you take a gander at the rules but I recently joined a two of 3.5 pbp games.

I like it so much better than 5th. It has so much more flavour, IMO and I like the added crunch. Leveling a character in 3rd is fun. Levelling a character in 5th is boring. You have, like two or three choices - if you have any at all.

That said, the Character building in 3.5 is a headache because of all the 3rd party stuff. Trying to figure out the best comboes etc... I tend to stick to the PHB but when you see all the other players cherry picking feats and abilities from obscure books, you suddenly realize you're underpowered in comparison.

The second game I joined was better because the options were limited by the DM which made it easier.

The highest I've played in 5e was 13th
the highest I've played in 3.5 was 15th

 

[Xenolith234]

While I’ve only played a couple games of 3e, I have a lot of the books, and in reading the books several times over, the flavor seems so much closer to AD&D than anything after. I know there was lots of theorycrafting and power gaming, but I want to believe that’s not how everyone played - just like how many 5e players aren’t constantly engaging with the hobby like we ENWorlders are.

I wish that 3.0 had a singular fan-designed errata that fixed the glaring issues without introducing all the problems that 3.5 did.

5e just feels like it’s distilled D&D (and not necessarily positively), but without the wider breadth of inspiration that the earlier editions had. Original Star Wars was true Star Wars, where much of the more recent content is just inspired by Star Wars (with the exception of Andor, a masterpiece).

 

[billd91]

I have a fondness for 3e (both 3.0 and 3.5/PF1). The customization, the way rules fit together into a fairly wholistic structure - I found a lot to recommend it. I played 3.5->PF1 for quite a few years (though, given my drothers, I would steal some of 3.0 back into it).

But 5e really won me over. I've DMed a campaign up to 20th level in it and it's a lot easier to deal with than running 3.5/PF1 to the same level.

 

[nevin]

The DM using PC style tactics against them often is uncool and unfair, and even bad DMing. But that's because those tactics are exploits that the PCs shouldn't be allowed to use either.

That's been a touchstone of mine for a long time when I consider a rule interpretation or new house rule: Would it be unfair if used against the PCs? If yes, then I disallow it for the monsters/NPCs and the PCs alike.

And if no, then it will be a known & common practice in the game setting, rather than some sort of special secret PC sauce.

So you are doing the same thing in reverse. It works the same way. If the players can do it the npc's and monsters should be able to do it. Doesn't matter which way you run it as long as that rule is in place.

You can call it bad DM'ing but some tables like the High level Hijinx -"exploits" - whatever you want to call it. Pretty arrogant to tell those tables they are bad players/DM's. But I'm sure they'd call your DMing style crusty, antique and horrible. That's the beauty of D&D we can have 10 different ways to play it and no one is wrong. It's also the Dark side of the hobby. Arrogant jerks proclaiming every one who does it different from them as bad players or dm's.