D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 changes now that we've had time, a rambling, babaling comentary

[Shard O'Glase]

I was just reminded by a post about the persistent being +6 spell levels now and that reminded me of the general trend to low duration spells in 3.5. Now that it has been in play for a while, my opinion is the same as is was back when it first came out. Most of the duration changes suck. For exmaple the buff spells are almost never cast, they are there purely to enchaant items now in my games. Oher 3.5 changes though did not get always get a negative review.

Though the class changes to the monk and ranger are positive(monk needs more work though).

I like animate dead being 4th level for arcane casters.

Prestige classes seem beter designed overall.

Some weak feats got some needed boosts.

Some feat exploits were removed, to some extent I lie this in other ways I don't. The whirlwind attack, great cleave exploit for exmaple sure its fixed now, but um I think getting a cleave off it is legitimate in many cases. Using it against a bucket of slugs ins't legitimate though. I'd rather of gotton a warning and tell the DM's not to let there players abuse this.

Reducing the effect of save or die spells I like the concept but maybe not the delivery. Hold person works for me as a fix, maybe not perfect but its ok. Sleep the static HD and the 1 round duration make it a sucky spell IMO. I never really had a problem with the wizard having acouple times a day big boom at low levels. I guess now its color spray.

Enlarge spell no longer increasing the area of cones and lines is a bad choice IMO. It turned a decent feat into a craptastic feat.

eschew materials being a general feat is a good choice.

Improved crit and keen not stacking a bad choice.

In the end now after playing 3.5 for a bit over a year, for me there are almost as many bad changes as good ones. Some of the good ones are key, but so are some of the bad ones. I'm a lazy DM so I rarely house rule things but a nice combo of 3.0 and 3.5 I might motivate myself to write house rules for. Though I really want to jus tplay so we'll see.

 

[Thanee]

Most of the duration changes suck. For exmaple the buff spells are almost never cast, they are there purely to enchaant items now in my games.

Yeah, we were quite sure about this from the beginning (they are used at really low levels only, as combat buffs, that's it), therefore we house ruled it even before playing with the actual 3.5 durations for even a single session. Along with Invisibility, Fly and some more, like Polymorph.

10 min/level is perfect. Not long enough to last all the time, unless you are really high level and have Extent Spell, but long enough to have a longer effective duration than 1 round/level beyond 3rd level or so (that is, more than a single encounter, if they are not too far stretched out over the day).

Enlarge spell no longer increasing the area of cones and lines is a bad choice IMO. It turned a decent feat into a craptastic feat.

Cones have an area, technically, so Widen is the right feat to increase it. Enlarging them is more like an abuse, since that feat clearly is not made for that purpose.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hypersmurf]

Cones have an area, technically, so Widen is the right feat to increase it. Enlarging them is more like an abuse, since that feat clearly is not made for that purpose.

Widen doesn't work, though. It increases the area, but doesn't increase the range... and cones just expand out to the range. They don't have a numerical designation of area to double... unless it's 'quarter circle'.

Conceivably, a widened cone might expand out in a half circle instead of a quarter circle...?

-Hyp.

 

[Thanee]

Yeah, I meant Widen should be the feat for it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Shard O'Glase]

even if widen worked I wouldn't think it was the feat for it because it isn't the feat for anything beyond sucking. +3 levels makes this feat a world of suck. enlarge without the cone/line area increasing shouldn't be a +1 feat it should be +0. Yeah sure you'd meta every spell then, but so what you spent a feat it should get you something other than making your spell worse than spells of its new level.

Widen at most should be +2 and should probably be just +1.

I may be worng, and remembering things how I want to remember them but I think some of the designers basically said yeah metamagic sucks, but were not getting aorund to fixing it in 3.5.

 

[Voadam]

One feat and skill formula for all characters and monsters was the best change from 3.0 IMO (given that I did freelance d20 writing new creature stats became much easier to write up and get right).

 

[Zimbel]

Most of the duration changes suck. For exmaple the buff spells are almost never cast, they are there purely to enchaant items now in my games. Oher 3.5 changes though did not get always get a negative review.

I agree that the stat pumps in particular were weakened enough that they probably should have just removed them (or made them a single spell - choose the ability at casting time). Most of the other duration changes haven't bothered me.
Personally, I'd change all durations to:
Instant
short (1 minute),
medium (1 hour),
long (1 day), or
Permanant

Short spells would typically be stronger because they would typically require an action. Long spells would presumably be the weakest, since they would likely afect all combats, all the time. Simuarly, a short spell made into a continual effect via magic item would be more expensive than doing the same with an equivalently-leveled long duration spell.

Reducing the effect of save or die spells I like the concept but maybe not the delivery. Hold person works for me as a fix, maybe not perfect but its ok. Sleep the static HD and the 1 round duration make it a sucky spell IMO. I never really had a problem with the wizard having acouple times a day big boom at low levels. I guess now its color spray.

My main problem is that there are still too many of them. If they want to keep them, I'd probably start them around the first level you get the counter (raise dead for the classic save or die cases).

Enlarge spell no longer increasing the area of cones and lines is a bad choice IMO. It turned a decent feat into a craptastic feat.

I think that in general, they didn't do enough for metamagic in core. Last time I DMed, I offered the party members Modify spell (From Arcana Evolved), which grants (IIRC):
1) Empower OR
2) Extend OR
3) Enlarge OR
4) Silent OR
5) Still
For the cost of 1 extra slot of the same level (for prepared casters, this was 1 extra spell or the same or higher level). You choose which one at each casting, and the mechanics are such that you can't stack the effects.

Improved crit and keen not stacking a bad choice.

I'm up in the air on this one. In general, I agree, but some of the effects that were given off of crits in 3.0 could make nice crit ranges lethal. I think the better thing was to attack those effects (like vorpal), rather than the range. On the other hand, not having them stack reduces rolling slightly (a good thing in my book).

Other dislikes:
1) Changes to the weapon size rules. I prefer the 3.0 version.
2) Haste. They took a spell that was overpowered for spellcasters and changed it to one that is overpowered for large melee/ranged parties.
3) Removing GMW/MW from the bardic spell list.
4) Weakening (Greater) Spell Focus. Frankly, I don't mind that they changed it to +1, but I'd then broaden what it effects (all spells, or 2 schools, or all spells except your highest spell level).
5) Writting up a raft of +2/+2 skill feats. Why not just make a single feat do this?
6) Change to Perform. I mean, is it really overpowered to have a bard be able to Dance and play the Violin off of only 1 skill?
7) The NPC stats in the DMG. Frankly, I use the 3.0 one simply because the 3.5 one takes more than a few seconds to use. If I want a detailed NPC, I'll write her/him up in advance.

Other likes:
1) Standardizing monsters.
2) DR. I love 3.5's DR.
3) Intelligent magic item rules
4) Weakening GMW (although I would also cut the duration).
5) Strenthening & Simplifying Meteor Swarm.
6) Better, more useful animal companion rules.
7) The changes to Wizard specialization.
8) Pumping up Skill Focus.
9) Changes to most of the skills (Jump, Handle Animal, Knowledge come to mind).
10) Usage descriptions in the MM.
11) ECL numbers in the MM.
12) increasing the cost of +skill items.
13) removing the stacking between the bow and the arrows for enhancement bonuses.
14) The partial (though incomplete) pump that the Bard got.

 

[Zimbel]

even if widen worked I wouldn't think it was the feat for it because it isn't the feat for anything beyond sucking. +3 levels makes this feat a world of suck. enlarge without the cone/line area increasing shouldn't be a +1 feat it should be +0. Yeah sure you'd meta every spell then, but so what you spent a feat it should get you something other than making your spell worse than spells of its new level.

Widen at most should be +2 and should probably be just +1.

I may be worng, and remembering things how I want to remember them but I think some of the designers basically said yeah metamagic sucks, but were not getting aorund to fixing it in 3.5.

Using the base metamagic from core:
Enlarge - I'd change this so that close spells become medium, medium become long, and long merely doubles. In effect, for the first two, it's a quadrupling of the range (instead of a doubling).
Heighten - with the feat, I'd allow the effect for free. Essentially, if you cast a Widened Enlarged Empowered Fireball (LV 3+3+1+2 = costed as a 9th level spell) having the Heighten feat would make this a 9th level spell (no additional cost).
Silent/Still - I'd combine these into 1 feat, but otherwise not change them. +1 for silent, +1 for still, +2 for silent/still.

Widen, on the other hand, can be pretty nice against large groups of weak creatures. I think a better approach would be to split it up, allowing any 1 of the below options/spell:
+100% to burst/emanation/spread: +3 levels
+50% to burst/emanation/spread: +2 levels
+100% to Line: +2 levels
+50% to Line: +1 level
I'd probably also allow cones, costed the same as bursts, although the wording would have to be cleaned up (since both the area and the range need increasing).

 

[dcollins]

I still play 3.0. My standard rant on 3.5: http://home.earthlink.net/~danielrcollins1/down3-5.html (highlights: weapon sizes, mini facing, DR, CR bumps, XP calculation, crits, cover, spell changes, etc.)

Here's the list of 3.5 things I like enough to House-Rule into my 3.0 game:
1) [3.5SRD] Action Types: Partial actions do not exist.
2) [3.5SRD] Withdraw: Withdrawing from melee combat is a full-round action.
3) [3.5SRD] Swim Skill: Holding breath lasts rounds up to Constitution, halved for more than move actions.
4) [3.5SRD] Underwater Combat: Penalties are applied for attacks and fire effects underwater.
5) [3.5SRD] Spells: The spells haste, heal, and harm have somewhat reduced effects.
6) [3.5SRD] Druids: Druids are not oath-prohibited from using any weapon.
7) [3.5SRD] Knowledge Skill: Monster types are included in each knowledge area.
8) [3.5SRD] Equipment: Lance sizes increase by one category when not used from a mount.

 

[irdeggman]

I still play 3.0. My standard rant on 3.5: http://home.earthlink.net/~danielrcollins1/down3-5.html (highlights: weapon sizes, mini facing, DR, CR bumps, XP calculation, crits, cover, spell changes, etc.)

Here's the list of 3.5 things I like enough to House-Rule into my 3.0 game:
6) [3.5SRD] Druids: Druids are not oath-prohibited from using any weapon.

Hey we found another rule change made by the FAQ. It clearly still states that druids have oath prohibitions on using weapons in the PHB (3.5) but was changed via FAQ (Sage Advice) and later incorporated into the SRD, again with no errata put out. And regardless what anyone wants to say this was clearly not a rule clarification since the PHB specifically states something that was subsequently reversed via FAQ.