D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 books

[Calico_Jack73]

I have yet to find any the "won't work". Some PrC's have become VERY unbalanced though due to the changes. Take the Forsaker for example from the Masters of the Wild Splatbook. All a Barbarian would need to qualify is 3 Feats that I usually take anyway, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes. Every Forsaker level (there are 10) grants a +1 bonus to a stat. Now, lets say that you got really lucky and rolled an 18, played a Half-Orc Barbarian, and assigned that stat to Str so your starting stat is 20. We'll also say that every normal stat bonus at your "4" levels is also put into Str so that will give you a Str of 25 by the time you are 20th level. You take the 10 levels of Forsaker so you now have a 35 Strength without raging. Last but not least you have 10 levels of Barbarian to go with your 10 levels of Forsaker so you still only get +4 to your Str when your rage but we are talking about a strength of 39!!!!! That is +14 to your BAB for a total of +34 without any feats and if you are using a Two Handed weapon you'll be doing weapon damage + 21. The only downside to the Forsaker is that they can't use magic items but who cares? They regenerate hit points on a round by round basis. They also get the ability to ignore damage reduction with non-magical weapons.

 

[MiB]

3.0 vs. 3.5

D&D Miniatures Handbook is also 3.5, and despite the name, about 50% of its content are really interesting for "normal" RPG-games.

I have yet to encounter any 3E rules that cause serious problems when used with 3.5 although you'd have to look at each thing separately to see whether it was affected by the balancing changes that are already published for 3.5

Specific example: Improved Invisibility has been changed to Greater Invisibility and the duration dropped from 1min/level to 1round/level, obviously because the former was to powerful. Ghostform, from Tome&Blood, is similar but still retains it's 1min/level duration if you take it from 3E to 3.5 without change. It's probably not going to ruin your day, but it's not "in line" with spirit of 3.5 changes.

 

[shilsen]

I have yet to encounter any 3E rules that cause serious problems when used with 3.5 although you'd have to look at each thing separately to see whether it was affected by the balancing changes that are already published for 3.5

One word: Haste

 

[Ottergame]

I think every book published -after- Arms and Equipment Guide and Ghostwalk is 3.5.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I find that pretty hard to believe, considering how different the spell lists are. No one was using ability buffs, light/darkness, fly, polymorph, scrying spells, etc., etc.?

Well, to be honest, I think I'm the only one from our group who had ever played a bard. The style of campaign was such that we rarely - if ever - faced more than one battle per day, so the spell durations on the buffs kind of went unnoticed. Also, he didn't pick a lot of spells that were noticibly different between the editions, and we only got up to 7th level before the campaign fizzled.

 

[dinsdale]

Since no one has mentioned the obvious ones yet, I will: the revised versions of the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual.

Also, wasn't Savage Species supposed to be pseudo-3.5?

 

[James McMurray]

I have yet to find any the "won't work". Some PrC's have become VERY unbalanced though due to the changes. Take the Forsaker for example from the Masters of the Wild Splatbook. All a Barbarian would need to qualify is 3 Feats that I usually take anyway, Iron Will, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes. Every Forsaker level (there are 10) grants a +1 bonus to a stat. Now, lets say that you got really lucky and rolled an 18, played a Half-Orc Barbarian, and assigned that stat to Str so your starting stat is 20. We'll also say that every normal stat bonus at your "4" levels is also put into Str so that will give you a Str of 25 by the time you are 20th level. You take the 10 levels of Forsaker so you now have a 35 Strength without raging. Last but not least you have 10 levels of Barbarian to go with your 10 levels of Forsaker so you still only get +4 to your Str when your rage but we are talking about a strength of 39!!!!! That is +14 to your BAB for a total of +34 without any feats and if you are using a Two Handed weapon you'll be doing weapon damage + 21. The only downside to the Forsaker is that they can't use magic items but who cares? They regenerate hit points on a round by round basis. They also get the ability to ignore damage reduction with non-magical weapons.

Inherent bonuses can't go above +5, and forsakers only ignore DR of x/magic. Forsakers can be nice, but having to make saves and SR checks whenever you're healed can end your career really quickly. Also, their DR converts to x/magic at early levels, which is laughably easy to overcome.

Dinsdale: Yep, Savage Species is ostly 3.5 compliant. Some of the LAs got adjusted in the revised MMI.

 

[Ranger REG]

What do you mean? It's been over 2 hours, and we're still on the first page. We're slow today.

Yeah, that's what you get for playing in the real world. Get a cyber life, dude!



Officially, Draconomicon, Miniatures Handbook, and Complete Warrior are 3.5e supplements by Wizards. Of course, whatever works for you in your own game is pretty much canon in your eyes. While you may accept a "Westernized" (IMHO, synonymous with "ignorant") version of the Samurai core class in Complete Warrior, I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot bamboo pole. Because of that, I've changed my mind about Oriental Adventures (3e supplement).

 

[Ottergame]

The Samurai in OA (And the better version in Rokugan) are quite a bit different than the one in the Complete Warrior.