3.5e One Year Later

[shadow]

Okay, 3.5e has been out for about a year more or less. After a year of playing with the new rules, what is everyone's opinion? Have the revised rules vastly improved the game? Are you disapointed by them? One year later, what do you think?

 

[haiiro]

Wow! I hadn't realized it'd been a year already.

Overall, I'm happy with the 3.5e rules. Except for the ones that don't come up often (yet) IMC, I feel familiar with them -- and by and large, the lack of truly sweeping changes means I'm not noticing a huge overall difference. Playing 3.5e is every bit as fun as playing 3.0.

...and again: wow, a year (!).

 

[Alzrius]

Okay, 3.5e has been out for about a year more or less. After a year of playing with the new rules, what is everyone's opinion? Have the revised rules vastly improved the game? Are you disapointed by them? One year later, what do you think?

I'm still not sold on the idea of square spaces for every monster. I don't use minis, nor buy them, so that part just doesn't work for me.

That said, I'm warming up to the idea of the new weapon sizes. They seem to make more sense now, since its easier to calculate the damage that you'd get for a longsword for any creature's size. Likewise, the table in the FAQ makes creatures using off-sized weapons much easier to deal with.

 

[Henry]

I'm STILL not playing under the new rules.

 

[BryonD]

3E was a great evolution of the game.

3.5 was an overall positive refinement of that. Completely worthwhile in my view.

 

[Eye Tyrant]

The changes in the revision make sense to me, I like them. My only beef is that I don't have near enough time to put into the game as I'd like (who does?) so having finally grasped 3.0, the revision kinda irked me. Me and my group are finally getting a good grasp on everything from the revision. Differentiating 3.0 from 3.5 is our only gripe, as we often get things confused.

Is there a list of all the changes to reference?

 

[francisca]

Okay, 3.5e has been out for about a year more or less. After a year of playing with the new rules, what is everyone's opinion? Have the revised rules vastly improved the game? Are you disapointed by them? One year later, what do you think?

I'm still mad about weapon sizes. I've seen arguments on both sides, and concluded that it was not really that broken, especially when common sense was applied. However, common sense is not the 3E way, so more rules were added.

Bard being the Gnome's favored class. Come on! I've been playing D&D too long to like that.

I dislike the "squares" orientation of the movement rules, but understand in hindsight when looking at the miniatures game. It hasn't affected gameplay too much, as my group was already counting squares for everything already, so I'm pretty neutral on it.

I like the 3.5 DR rules, but was already playing it that way anyway.

I kept the missle fire cover rules from 3.0.

I can't discern if removing partial actions makes any difference.

I've actually played more 3.5 D&D in the past year than I played 3.0 in the previous years. So I'm much more familiar with 3.5 than I am with 3.0, as I have gotten way more in depth with it. So except for the relativley minor things listed above, I really *can't* form an quantitative opinion of the change in mechanics. I simply didn't gain an equal amount of experience with 3.0 (particulalry at higher levels) to make what I call a well-founded judgement.

Vast improvement? No.

Disappointed? Well, I could have used the $90 for something else.

I would have liked to have gotten some more mileage out of 3.0. I don't think my gaming experience is any better or worse now that we play 3.5, just slightly different. So in that respect, I wish I would have kept the $90 and kept playing 3.0, as I really don't think I am getting anything for that $90 besides "being current". As a guy who stills plays 1E AD&D and basic/expert, being current doesn't really matter much.

Overall opinion: slightly negative.

 

[Wombat]

I have not bought it, nor do I intend to.

Since it veers more strongly in the direction of minis and I am trying my best to stay away from minis, it would be a bad fit, to say the least. I saw no real need for most of the changes in the durations of spells. I do think, however, that the Ranger is greatly improved. I downloaded the revised SRD so I could get that, but otherwise the rules do not seem to be worth my personal investment.

Talking to several friends who have played it, it sounds like an amusing set of House Rules and nothing much more. OTOH they enjoy it, so it is fairly good for them, although three of them (about 1/4 of those I talked to) regret making the switch, strictly for financial considerations.

 

[Dark Jezter]

3.0 was a fantastic game system.

3.5 improves on it even more.

I don't regret purchasing the 3.5e rulebooks. I especially love the new DMG, with its inclusion of planar info and rules for wilderness and urban adventuring.

 

[Wormwood]

As far as my group is concerned, 3.5e is simply called "D&D".