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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1699254" data-attributes="member: 3146">I'm on the marginally positive side of neutral but still neutral.Though my home group has long-since converted to 3.5 (before I joined actually), I've been playing some 3.0 RPGA games recently and have been able to compare them side by side after a bit:The good:-Harm made more sensible-Ray of Enfeeblement turned into a GOOD spell. Actually, 3.5 Necromancy is a very very robust school of magic and I thoroughly like the change.-Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge, the core Arcane Trickster. Finally, mutliclassed spellcasters get a bone thrown to them.-More paladin smites.-The Pokemount. I didn't like it when I first heard of it but it's grown on me. I still think paladins should have more flexibility and should have options other than mounts but the pokemount is a workable and elegant solution. And it ties in fairly well with some legends and stories. I recently read a story about a Catholic Saint who found a massive dog nearby whenever he was in trouble. He didn't know where it came from or where it went when danger was past but it was there when he needed it. The pokemount seems to fit right in the genre.-More monk flexibility-The new ranger: more interesting and harder to cherrypick-hp and hardness increases for magic equipment.-For the first time in years, Spiritual Weapon is a good spell. Who'd have thunk it?The neutral:-I still don't like 3.5 haste. Going back to 3.0 haste made me realize I don't particularly like it either--two spells per round without quickening makes ambushes overly deadly but I don't like the new version.-The new druid. I thought druids were balanced in 3.0 The animal companion makes a huge contribution every time it hits the table. Still, I can understand why they wanted to make druids more interesting. Spontaneous Summon Nature's Ally was enough though. Everything else is utter overkill. And the ridiculous druid spells that keep coming into the supplements makes me wonder if anyone at WotC actually reads the stuff they write for druids or has seen one in action. Also, despite the niftiness of monster summoning, druids summoning huge flocks of hippogriffs tend to take as much time as everyone else put together. Finally, they really tend to crowd out conjurers focussed on summoning rather than battlefield control. All in all, my reaction is ambivalence.-The new charging rules. They're over-restrictive but the 3.0 rules were overly generous.-The new Improved Trip. The feat is great. It needed a bonus to the trip roll in order to be useful since the characters who have it often have less strength than others. However, the AoO for standing up puts it over the top. WotC can't just hammer a nail in until it's flush with the wood, they keep beating and scarring the wood with their hammers even after the nail is driven in.-The new Power Attack. There's a lot to be said for it. It makes power attack more useful at high levels. It helps balance the full attack disparity between melee characters and archers. It helps deal with DR. But it's really too much of a must-have feat.-The new DR. Some of its effects are good and some are bad. I don't mind having a couple weapons but the golf-bag is pretty nuts and DR/magic needs more variability.The bad:-Why, oh why, did they not rename Darkness when they utterly changed the effect?-The useless overrun rules. If you can't overrun as a part of a charge, what's the point? It's not as if it came up more than once or twice in 3 years of 3.0 play. Yet another example of WotC fixing something that wasn't broken and ruining perfectly good options while doing so.-Paladins' turning nerfed into uselessness. Turning is useless enough past level 6 at cleric level. Cleric level -3 is just an insult. All it's good for is Aid Other and Divine Feats.-Wizard specialization: Abjuration specialization is not as valuable as evocation or necromancy and losing enchantment just isn't the same as losing conjuration. 3.0 understood this. 3.5 doesn't.-Hold Person. This was an idiotic change.-Spell Focus/Greater Spell Focus: Sure, there were problems when you combined various prestige classes with Greater Spell Focus but once again, WotC "fixed" the problem from so many different angles that it's almost worse than when it started. Note to WotC: If one nail is good, 500 nails are not necessarily better.-The great buff spell nerf: There was nothing broken here and even what was, at times abusive didn't need to be made utterly useless as the 3.5 revision made it. Oh, and if we're including Greater Magic Weapon in this, WHY ON EARTH DID YOU NOT CHANGE THE INFINITELY MORE ABUSIVE SPIKES SPELL WHEN YOU MORONS REPRINTED IT WITHOUT THOUGHT OR CHANGES IN COMPLETE DIVINE? (Rant over).-The cleric spell list: On the one hand, clerics still have a great list. On the other hand, with the nerfs of Hold Person and Calm Emotions and the removal of of Random Action, Enchantment-focussed spellcasting clerics are no longer viable. And, since evocation focussed clerics don't become viable until 9th level, there's not a lot of room for the cleric who is focussed on using spells with saves to destroy his god's enemies.-3.5 Shield: It's like Mage Armor only it's got 1/60 the duration. Why would I bother again? (I usually don't--oh OK). The 3.0 version needed changing and maybe the bonus needed to go down. But it should have at least scaled with level.</blockquote>

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