1 year of 3.5e...How has the conversion gone?

[demiurge1138]

Like BOZ said, people who make monsters love 3.5. So much more streamlined. But as a player and as a "working DM", there have been a few minor changes I dislike, but 3.5 is an overall positive in my view.

Demiurge out.

 

[GlassJaw]

I find it interesting that the overwhelming majority think 3.5 is superior yet most of the actual posts are negative in nature. :\

I voted for #2. 3.5 rocks!

 

[Wombat]

My next D20 game is based on AU.

The last three were based on 3.0 rules, with heavy modifications.

I have checked out the 3.5 SRD, realized that most of the rules changes were 1) something we didn't want, 2) something we had already modified in our own way, or 3) mildly interesting, but unnecessary for our style of campaigning.

So 3.5 is the current standard, just like 3.0 was before (and 2nd ed before that, etc.). I have never, ever left a set of rules for a rpg unmodified. The problem for me and mine is that 3.5 simply appears to be a single set of house rules to modify 3.0, but not in the direction we were interested. Ergo, it is of no practical use to us.

edit point: the switch from 2nd ed AD&D to D&D 3 was a huge change; the change from 3.0 to 3.5 was minor tweaking, like one of those car recalls that involves changing out a seat belt or some lights, but the engine works just fine. While there are differences, it is not as if 3.5 is some massive change to a system. It is a matter of style, fine tuning, etc. And in most cases the game, just like the car, works just as well without the tweaking.

 

[Greyson]

I Love It!

I think v.3.5 is fantastic. I embraced it as soon as it was released last July and bought most v.3.5 items since.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

In general, I've found 3.5 to be a large improvement over 3.0. While I agree with some of the points mentioned here-- pokemount and keen stacking in particular-- I think most of the changes were major improvements.++

And as someone else pointed out earlier, Wizards' 3.5 products have been vastly superior to their 3.0 counterparts, both in design and in production value.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I find 3.0 vastly superior to 3.5. I can think of only a handful of the litterally hundreds of changes big and small that I liked. We converted mid campaign to about 3.4 so I have tried the new rules. I am now actualy looking forward to moving to a Champions game soon so I don't have to play 3.5 any more.

Knowing as the poll showed that the vast majority like 3.5 better here is one of the reasons I have stopped hanging out here as much as I used to.

Now that WotC has re-released most everthing for 3.5 I suspect that sometime in the next 6 months it will be announced that 4E will be released next year at Gen Con.

 

[La Bete]

2. its not the best thing since sliced bread, but its a better game than 3.0.

 

[Testament]

I voted Neutral.

There were good changes. Harm/Heal was fixed, a lot more and better spells. A lot of ambiguities in wordings were cleared up. Folding seldom-used skills like Intuit Direction and Innuendo into more useful skills. The 3.5 Monk is vastly better, and Sorcerers are more useful too.

There were some changes I abhorred. The Paladin's summonable PokeMount: Horse, I choose you! Eliminating Polymorph Other in favor of "Baleful Polymorph", those weapon size rules, silvered weapons are now "alchemical silver" and just metallic silver won't hurt creatures.

I voted 'good', and I'll explain why, using wingsandsword's post as a structure, as well as a way to respond to his comments.

The class tweaks were urgently needed, Bards were beyond useless, Monks were a headache, and well, Ranger was a one level class.

The skills shifts were appropriate, as were the spell tweaks. I really can't see what your complaint was on Polymorph Other, its just a name, and what else was it used for? And there's no difference between alchemical and normal silver as far as DR goes, Alchemical Silver is in there as an excuse for people to get existing weapons silvered.

And as for PokeMounts (Love that name, hadn't heard it 'till today), just have the Paladin set what it is when the get access.

The weapon size rules have bugs, but it means that Halflings can use a quaterstaff if they want, something that always seemed odd to me. I'm just annoyed that there's no percentage set in the DMG for weapon sizes in loot.

Some changes I was neutral on, like Damage Reduction changes, and making all creatures take up a square space (seemed like it was put there just for ease of making tie-in video games).

The problem is, that I think the change came way too fast, and was in some ways too subtle. I have a lot of friends who aren't "dedicated" gamers, they might play a game every so often, and aren't strangers to gaming, but they don't play every week or read internet message boards or memorize a lot of rules. They still have their 3e PHB, and have run into frustration when they go to play in a 3.5 game and their book is wrong.

No argument here. Although I love the DR changes (hallelujah, some flavour!), I don't like the size changes (why does a horse have to squeeze down a corridor? And what about Nagas or other snakish critters?).

Some of the changes are very subtle, I'm still getting caught out sometimes (frickin' rules lawyer in my group!)

I fear WotC will try and force a 4e on us in another year or two, and hopelessly fragment the gaming public between 3 popular editions of D&D, and a lot of players will just stick with 3.x (or some house-rule hybrid of 3.0, 3.5, and their favorite house rules and variants). The uniformity that was a selling point of 3e, putting everyone back on the same page, will be completely lost. Every 3 or 4 years is just too soon for a complete new version of the core books, they had a nice cycle going of once every decade, which was working well.

I think it'll be a while before 4E, I'm tipping 2007 at the earliest. This close to 3.5, it'll be an obvious cash grab. 3.5 was an update, altough somewhat large. There's no way in hell we'll fall for them calling another edition so soon another 'update'

At least when 3e came along, just about everybody admitted 2e's day had come and gone. It was clunky and outdated compared to other games of the time, with nonsensical, arbitrary rules that drove more people away then they attracted "Why can't my Dwarf be a Wizard, and why can't he give up magic later in life to become a cleric?". 3e was still chugging along happily when 3.5 came out, it had it's flaws and bugs, but nowhere near as bad as 2e. 3.0 seemed like a long-needed natural evolution, 3.5 seemed more like a bug-fix that was used as a chance to put in a lot of arbitrary changes.

I can't comment on the first part of this, having never played 2E, but I will agree with you to some extent on the rest. There were some changes (like sizing) that seemed really arbitrary. And even though I collect the minis, the combat section read way too much like a miniatures game ruleset, and the references to squares was frustrating. At least they included a mat with the DMG though.

WHEW! That's enough for now.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I've left one gaming group and started up another, and in the process gone from 3.0 to 3.5. So I didn't have to deal with changing the rules on a long-established group.

I'm pretty neutral, personally. The main reason I switched is that I couldn't justify requiring brand-new players to get an out-of-print book in order to play. It was easier just to require everybody get the new book, or have easy access to the SRD (and be able to understand it).

I still can't get used to the new Darkness, though.

 

[fanboy2000]

3e Revised

The only thing I hate about 3.5 is the name. Why couldn't they called 3rd Edition Revised? Ugh.

I like the tweeks. Some classes needed an overhaul, and the combat chapter sorely needed to be re-written in English.

Actually, I think that Eberron will slow the march to 4th Edtion. The last thing WotC would want to do is re-write the highly sucessful campaign setting for a new edition. One of Eberron's main selling points is that it was written for the current edition (I think that's why Eberron came after 3.5, indeed, it may be why 3.5 came as soon as it did), if you release a new edition, you eliminate that selling point and Eberron joins the ranks of Grehawk and Forgotten Realms, good, but not as great as it was in the "old days."