D&D General D&D 3.5 - splatbook power creep or no?

Not a Decepticon said:

Just a reminder 3.5 was so bad a single book could power creep all on itself, without interacting with others. The Muscle Wizard exploit to get Infinite Strength is entierly within Book of Vile Darkness - 1 level of cancer mage, followed by contracting Festering Anger disease.

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3e is certainly not without problems, but it's still the best edition of D&D I've encountered overall, even if it has problems in need of fixing and the GM shouldn't include all published content.

VHawkwinter said:

Yes, it does give them more in combat variety than the usual charge; grapple; full-attack. My objection is the encounter powers framework, not the existence of variety. But my many of my friends who really liked fighters didn't like the often supernatural focus of ToB, they wanted their fighters to get variety through like, a realistic HEMA technique system. They complained the encounter powers made them too much like Wizards.

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I can see that, but realism goes away fast in D&D. Best things about disciplines, specially ones that Warblade has (and Crusader or Swordsage) is that manouvers are extraordinary type of ability, only few are supernatural. Silence and Antimagic Field are bane of casters and classes with Supernatural or Spell like abilities (and magic in general), but maneuvers still work.

VHawkwinter said:

I always took that problem to be that the martials approach uselessness outside of solving problems with murder. Which ToB IIRC mostly doesn't change. It's not like it's a big book that gives martials options to solve problems without combat, which seems to be the big thing people complain Wizards can do that Fighters cannot.

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It remedies that also, to some degree. First off, trough skills. Warblade and Crusader get 4+int, Swordsage is 6+int. Also, there is good stat+ class abilities synergy, so it makes sense to pump Int on Warblade (while int is usually dump stat for martials). They also expanded skill list. Swordsage can dab into spells and has unlimited identify option when it comes to weapons and armors.

And then, there are maneuvers themselves. Used out of combat, some can be very good at solving other problems. Like Mountain Hammer which ignores hardness of objects. Pair it with maul or war-hammer and you have universal door opener. Swordsage can teleport, become incorporeal, invisible, create obscurment. All that trough maneuvers which are quick and easy to recover. And then there are stances that give you ex powers like scent, blindsense, climb speed, vertical jumping, bonus move speed. It's all about being creative with stance/maneuver usage out of combat, and best of all, it's unlimited, unlike spell slots.

It's not on par with Wizard, but WIzard had other problems. 3.5 was still using Vancian casting, where you need to prepare each copy of the spell in it's own slot, so it became guessing game which spells you would need that day and how many of them.

VHawkwinter said:

3e is certainly not without problems, but it's still the best edition of D&D I've encountered overall, even if it has problems in nerd of fixing and the GM shouldn't include all published content.

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I partially agree.

Despite all its warts, 3rd Edition had a lot of good ideas, and it is the edition that managed the task of transitioning from TSR to WotC, and doing so in a mostly successful way.

A lot of the Prestige Classes were cool concepts (even if the mechanics varied wildly between "this completely sucks" and "this is ridiculously broken"). Even today, there are a lot of ideas and concepts that have stuck with me, and I've tried to recreate them when playing other games.

I say that I "partially" agree because I was also in a different place in my ttrpg journey at that time. Some things that I see as problems now (with the wisdom of time and experience,) are things that I did not notice as much then. So, looking back on it today, there are aspects of the game that I would not want to go back to. Even so, 3rd Edition created a lot of the foundation for contemporary gaming. For both good and bad reasons, the edition shaped many of my opinions, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Fragments of 3rd Edition can still be seen in a range of products from D&D 5E to Pathfinder to Dungeon Crawl Classics, as well as many products in between.

Argyle King said:

Despite all its warts, 3rd Edition had a lot of good ideas, and it is the edition that managed the task of transitioning from TSR to WotC, and doing so in a mostly successful way.

A lot of the Prestige Classes were cool concepts (even if the mechanics varied wildly between "this completely sucks" and "this is ridiculously broken"). Even today, there are a lot of ideas and concepts that have stuck with me, and I've tried up recreate them when playing other games.

I say that I "partially" agree because I was also in a different place in my ttrpg journey at that time. Some things that I see as problems now (with the wisdom of time and experience,) are things that I did not notice as much then. So, looking back on it today, there are aspects of the game that I would not want to go back to. Even so, 3rd Edition created a lot of the foundation for contemporary gaming. For both good and bad reasons, the edition shaped many of my opinions, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Fragments of 3rd Edition can still be seen in a range of products from D&D 5E to Pathfinder to Dungeon Crawl Classics, as well as many products in between.

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Yeah, I think of 3E like a fondly remembered ex-girlfriend. I would never go back now, but I also would never deny there were good times or that it was a foundational relationship for me.

I had my first publications during the 3E era, thanks to the great toolkit it provided DMs and the explicit encouragement to make new things with it.

Maxperson said:

So don't put that disease into the game with a Cancer Mage.

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Then I have now to go through every book and ban all things t hat could lead to broken combos like this one, tedious and unfun job.

VHawkwinter said:

3e is certainly not without problems, but it's still the best edition of D&D I've encountered overall, even if it has problems in nerd of fixing and the GM shouldn't include all published content.

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agree to disagree, I dislike that edition with a passion.

Tigris said:

There is a difference for me between power creep and "characters become more powerfull with more options".


Powercreep = new released material is stronger.


Even if all material released is exactly as strong as one another, with mire options (due to synergie and better choices for specific situations), the powerlevel of classes does increase naturally due to the more choice.


3.5 had the power level of its options all oevr the place and never options were in average not more powerfull than PHB material.


So it was not (unnatural) powercreep, but power does increase (naturally) with more total options.


So for me yout thread title and your poll are 2 different questions.


Power creep is when old options become unplayable /need to be buffed becauae of new released material. Not thst new material is used in combination with old.

Like in trading card games when new cards have 2 times the number of hp.

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Curious, does your answer to the poll vary across those two interpretations?

In other words, was there both power creep due to some options being more powerful than the core books, as well as significant optimization improvement for whatever reason, including more flexibility like Druids getting new forms to wild shape into.

GrimCo said:

realism goes away fast in D&D.

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It does. I think no version of D&D is a good option if you want realistic knights. I don't share that particular objection, and think after level 4 or 5 at latest, everyone needs some kind of magic powers.

GrimCo said:

remedies that also, to some degree through skills. Warblade and Crusader get 4+int, Swordsage is 6+int. Also, there is good stat+ class abilities synergy, so it makes sense to pump Int on Warblade (while int is usually dump stat for martials). They also expanded skill list.

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Sure. Those are good but modest improvement. No question. This one is one of the ways Pathfinder Martials are buffed over their 3.5 counterparts too. I generally favour swapping 3.5 Fighter for PF1 Slayer, but a pre-Archetyped PF1 fighter variety or two could work as well.

GrimCo said:

Swordsage can dab into spells and has unlimited identify option when it comes to weapons and armors.

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Also fine. I kind-of prefer something like Duskblade or Magus here, but I don't object to this in principle.

GrimCo said:

maneuvers themselves. Used out of combat, some can be very good at solving other problems. Like Mountain Hammer which ignores hardness of objects. Pair it with maul or war-hammer and you have universal door opener. Swordsage can teleport, become incorporeal, invisible, create obscurment. All that trough maneuvers which are quick and easy to recover. And then there are stances that give you ex powers like scent, blindsense, climb speed, vertical jumping, bonus move speed. It's all about being creative with stance/maneuver usage out of combat, and best of all, it's unlimited, unlike spell slots.

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I did not remember those Ex powers. But most of the rest of what you mention is limited to swordsage, right? Mostly my objection to ToB is just a universal dislike of abstract meta encounter powers. I don't care for factotum or the encounter powers in complete... Scoundrel? Adventurer? One of those, or 4e's AEDU. It's a worse version of X/Day Rages, which is also a sort of nonsense resource I just don't enjoy. If they all just ran on some kind of quickly recharging stamina pool or something, without per-ability cooldowns, I'd probably kind-of like it instead of strongly dislike.

GrimCo said:

WIzard had other problems. 3.5 was still using Vancian casting, where you need to prepare each copy of the spell in it's own slot, so it became guessing game which spells you would need that day and how many of them.

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I actually quite like that. I like it better than 5e's approach that mirrors the Pathfinder arcanist. It helps keep them in check a bit. But in 3e it's too easy to recharge and switch them all out every day, which I think is part of what makes spellcasters too good in 3.x.

I created my favorite 3.5Ed healer when we lost 2 players in a row to IRL moves out of town. Each had been playing single class divine casters as we went through RttToEE. With those players’ departure, we were down to a FtrX/Clc1.

So I retired my “Indiana Jones”-inspired Diviner/Rgr/Spellsword and created a “Swamp-thing”-inspired Geomancer.

Between the feats Extra Turning and the original Sacred Healing, he could give every living thing in a 60’ radius Fast Healing 3 by using a Turn Undead attempt. It may not sound like much, but automatically healing 45HP over a 5 rounds plus automatic stabilization turned out to be pretty effective. Between that and Elemental protection spells, I almost never had to cast or spontaneously cast a real healing spell.

Not a Decepticon said:

Then I have now to go through every book and ban all things t hat could lead to broken combos like this one, tedious and unfun job.

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Or just pick the books that you like, and remove one or two problem items within them.

Not a Decepticon said:

agree to disagree, I dislike that edition with a passion.

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If it's to be a D&Dlike, a 3.x D&Dlike is the main one I would have interest in playing. I might also consider 2.5 Forgotten Realms, just because I've never tried 2e with all the splat books and I like Forgotten Realms, out of curiosity. But plain AD&D and B/X and OSE didn't really do it for me any more than the other ones. Better than 4e and 5e I suppose.

Otherwise though, give me something like a nice GURPS, Mythras, Rolemaster 4e, or Shadowrun 4e.

But I suspect we probably have little if any overlap in games we enjoy.

Our group saw a fair amount of Tome of Battle in play, and everyone who used it loved it. I ran games that had both a swordsage and a warblade, and played a Crusader through whatever the big Strahd adventure was for 3.5e. That character was one of the most fun characters I played in 3.5e.

I get that the ToB maneuver system isn't the most realistic or logical, but I actually love encounter-based powers. Near the end of 3.5e I thought a lot about creating a system that was the spellcasting counterpart to ToB. That was a big lift, and I never got around to it.

I moved on to 4e, and really enjoyed it, but sometimes I really miss the variety found in the optional power systems of 3.5e. Along with ToB our group fully embraced the psionic system.