D&D 3E/3.5 3.X Retrospective 19 Years in Production.

[EzekielRaiden]

I dunno, if you looked at the multiplicity of supplements for AD&D 2nd Edition, you could draw from a large number of them to create a truly broken character.

I think the issue is more that 3rd edition started with a hell of a lot more options than 2e did. Arguably orders of magnitude more. And it just went up from there. It might not have initially been as many options as you had with absolutely every 2e supplement, but it pretty quickly met and then surpassed that line. And, regardless of whether it was a lot of options in raw numbers, I'm pretty sure it felt like an enormous number of options to people who'd been used to the old-leather comfort of previous editions.

It really does seem to be that when people see new things, unfamiliar things, in an RPG ruleset, they seize up. They feel trapped, hemmed in by rules they don't understand and jargon that conceals rather than illuminates. And that may truly be the "benefit" of open playtesting: it does diddily-squat-all for, y'know, playtesting anything in a design sense, but it exposes people to the ideas and jargon before the game is out. That exposure softens the blow. It allows the players to skip over some of the early-discomfort-weirdness. Pair that with 5e's efforts (both active and passive, explicit, implicit, or tacit) to feel as "traditional" as possible (and, as most have noted, that meant doing things 3e's way, just less broken), and you may get a big reason for 5e's success that has literally nothing to do with the content of the rules whatsoever. It doubly eroded the usual opposition to new rules via a looooooong "get to know me!" period and styled itself incredibly closely to the still-pretty-popular 3rd edition.

(This may also go a long way toward explaining why it's not as popular among 4e fans, in addition to all the other well-known reasons, now that I think about it. Note the emphasis on "as" here; I have no idea what the statistics are, but my experience has shown that people who liked 4e at least had some meaningful beef with 5e even if they'd still play it.)

 

[Voadam]

Most of the Basic/AD&D character optimization choices were at character creation and defined by your race and class combination. Stats mattered hugely and most generation methods were rolling though there were some options for adjustments and eventually point buys to optimize stats. The range of specialty priest options in 2e and the power differentials between them was fairly staggering. You could optimize and go with different builds but most of the choices were set once initial choices at character creation were done.

3e had a lot more points that impacted character optimization, point buy stats as the default to start, whether to multiclass and in what combinations, feats chosen, spells learned at level ups, what magic items to buy or craft. For true optimization you wanted to plan from level 1 on, but there were choices throughout levelling that mattered.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think the issue is more that 3rd edition started with a hell of a lot more options than 2e did. Arguably orders of magnitude more. And it just went up from there. It might not have initially been as many options as you had with absolutely every 2e supplement, but it pretty quickly met and then surpassed that line. And, regardless of whether it was a lot of options in raw numbers, I'm pretty sure it felt like an enormous number of options to people who'd been used to the old-leather comfort of previous editions.

What people maybe forget too is the INSANE rate at which 3E pumped out content.

List of Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Go to "Supplement books" and order by date:

Title Author(s) Date Pages ISBN
Hero Builder's Guidebook Ryan Dancey, David Noonan, John Rateliff December 1, 2000 64 ISBN 978-0-7869-1647-4
Both players and Dungeon Masters benefit from the detailed character backgrounds in this book.
Sword and Fist Jason Carl January 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1829-4
Psionics Handbook Bruce R. Cordell March 1, 2001 160 ISBN 978-0-7869-1835-5
Defenders of the Faith Rich Redman, James Wyatt May 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1840-9
This book spotlights the champions of deities in the D&D game: clerics and paladins.
Tome and Blood Bruce R. Cordell, Skip Williams July 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1845-4
Manual of the Planes Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, David Noonan September 1, 2001 224 ISBN 978-0-7869-1850-8
This supplement for the D&D game provides everything you need to know before you visit other planes of existence.
Enemies and Allies Jeff Grubb, David Noonan, Skip Williams, Bruce R. Cordell October 1, 2001 64 ISBN 978-0-7869-1852-2
This invaluable resource manual contains information, statistics, and tables that any Dungeon Master can use to quickly and easily flesh out a campaign.
Oriental Adventures James Wyatt October 1, 2001 256 ISBN 978-0-7869-2015-0
Legend of the Five Rings campaign setting.
Song and Silence David Noonan, John D. Rateliff December 1, 2001 96

That's just 2001...

And it just keeps going. 2002 is a bit slower but then it picks up again, certainly in terms of page count in following years, and 3.5E is out in 2003!

 

[Garmorn]

What people maybe forget too is the INSANE rate at which 3E pumped out content.

List of Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Go to "Supplement books" and order by date:

Title Author(s) Date Pages ISBN
Hero Builder's Guidebook Ryan Dancey, David Noonan, John Rateliff December 1, 2000 64 ISBN 978-0-7869-1647-4
Both players and Dungeon Masters benefit from the detailed character backgrounds in this book.
Sword and Fist Jason Carl January 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1829-4
Psionics Handbook Bruce R. Cordell March 1, 2001 160 ISBN 978-0-7869-1835-5
Defenders of the Faith Rich Redman, James Wyatt May 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1840-9
This book spotlights the champions of deities in the D&D game: clerics and paladins.
Tome and Blood Bruce R. Cordell, Skip Williams July 1, 2001 96 ISBN 978-0-7869-1845-4
Manual of the Planes Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, David Noonan September 1, 2001 224 ISBN 978-0-7869-1850-8
This supplement for the D&D game provides everything you need to know before you visit other planes of existence.
Enemies and Allies Jeff Grubb, David Noonan, Skip Williams, Bruce R. Cordell October 1, 2001 64 ISBN 978-0-7869-1852-2
This invaluable resource manual contains information, statistics, and tables that any Dungeon Master can use to quickly and easily flesh out a campaign.
Oriental Adventures James Wyatt October 1, 2001 256 ISBN 978-0-7869-2015-0
Legend of the Five Rings campaign setting.
Song and Silence David Noonan, John D. Rateliff December 1, 2001 96

That's just 2001...

And it just keeps going. 2002 is a bit slower but then it picks up again, certainly in terms of page count in following years, and 3.5E is out in 2003!

And here is another point. 2e did not have legal third party books/items in any number what so ever, but 3.x (thanks to the SRD) had far more 3rd party books then Wizard products.

 

[Alzrius]

for example he's taking classes from two hard-incompatible settings, Dark Sun and the Forgotten Realms.

I don't know what you mean by "hard-incompatible," but both settings exist in the same multiverse in the context of AD&D 2E. Heck, there was even a crossover adventure in the Living Jungle RPGA campaign (titled, appropriately enough, "Dark Suns"), where characters from Malatra (the jungle country in southern Kara-Tur, which is part of the Realms) briefly visit Athas. And of course, elements from both worlds turned up in Planescape repeatedly.

He later takes other stuff from other incompatible settings like Lankhmar.

Cutthroats of Lankhmar says (page 15) that you can get elven wine imported from Toril at the Carved Idol wine bar, run by a fellow named Yannus, who is "Nehwon's most knowledgeable expert in wines imported from other worlds, mostly because the Carved Idol is one of the few places where such delicacies can be obtained."

That's not genuine charop, that's just lazy cheating. Genuine charop sticks within what is actually doable.

I'm not sure I'd call Pun-Pun "actually doable."

 

[Alzrius]

The range of specialty priest options in 2e and the power differentials between them was fairly staggering.

Some of them egregiously so.

 

[Alzrius]

What people maybe forget too is the INSANE rate at which 3E pumped out content.

I'm not sure if I'd call eight books over the course of 2001 an insane rate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know what you mean by "hard-incompatible," but both settings exist in the same multiverse in the context of AD&D 2E. Heck, there was even a crossover adventure in the Living Jungle RPGA campaign (titled, appropriately enough, "Dark Suns"), where characters from Malatra (the jungle country in southern Kara-Tur, which is part of the Realms) briefly visit Athas. And of course, elements from both worlds turned up in Planescape repeatedly.

Cutthroats of Lankhmar says (page 15) that you can get elven wine imported from Toril at the Carved Idol wine bar, run by a fellow named Yannus, who is "Nehwon's most knowledgeable expert in wines imported from other worlds, mostly because the Carved Idol is one of the few places where such delicacies can be obtained."

I'm not sure I'd call Pun-Pun "actually doable

I don't know what you mean by "hard-incompatible," but both settings exist in the same multiverse in the context of AD&D 2E. Heck, there was even a crossover adventure in the Living Jungle RPGA campaign (titled, appropriately enough, "Dark Suns"), where characters from Malatra (the jungle country in southern Kara-Tur, which is part of the Realms) briefly visit Athas. And of course, elements from both worlds turned up in Planescape repeatedly.

Cutthroats of Lankhmar says (page 15) that you can get elven wine imported from Toril at the Carved Idol wine bar, run by a fellow named Yannus, who is "Nehwon's most knowledgeable expert in wines imported from other worlds, mostly because the Carved Idol is one of the few places where such delicacies can be obtained."

I'm not sure I'd call Pun-Pun "actually doable."

Your examples hardly support what he's doing though, and that a terrible writer decided to break Dark Suns setting and have people from the FR pop in for a cup of tea sucks but it remains nonsensical.

Also, no Dark Sun did not turn up frequently in Planescape. It was pretty damn rare and generally one way.

Pun-pun is closer to genuine charop than this but the problem with 3E wasn't Pun-pun, it was vastly more straightforward stuff.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not sure if I'd call eight books over the course of 2001 an insane rate.

I would, given the avalanche or apparently untested and definitely unbalanced player-facing material they contained.

 

[Alzrius]

Your examples hardly support what he's doing though, and that a terrible writer decided to break Dark Suns setting and have people from the FR pop in for a cup of tea sucks but it remains nonsensical.

No, I think they do support that particular point, which is that so long as a pretext can be established - and those crossovers do exactly that, regardless of whether you find the writing terrible or not - then the charop is justifiable, regardless of how flimsy it is.

Also, no Dark Sun did not turn up frequently in Planescape. It was pretty damn rare and generally one way.

I didn't say "frequently," I said repeatedly. While I suspect that you'll look at any number of examples and call them "rare," Dark Sun was referenced in Planescape multiple times, and planar references likewise came up in Dark Sun more often than you might think. Consider the following:

• "New Tyr" was a neighborhood of refugees from Tyr (several hundred of them) living in the Lady's Ward of Sigil (source: Faction War).
• Jemorille the Exile is a rilmani who claims (dubiously) to have been the one to teach Rajaat arcane magic (source: Uncaged: Faces of Sigil).
• Tenebrous, the guise that Orcus assumed during his brief pseudo-resurrection, went to Athas and retrieved a rhul-thaun life-shaped creation from there in a (failed) attempt to recreate an avatar for himself (source: Dead Gods).
• Dregoth, the undead sorcerer-king of Giustenal, spent centuries traveling the Great Wheel thanks to an artifact known as the Planar Gate, in an attempt to find out how to become a true god (source: City By the Silt Sea).
• Reaching Athas via planar travel was difficult, but not impossible, with varying percentage chances of success depending on whether you were traveling to/from the Inner Planes or Outer Planes (source: Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas).
• At one point, the githyanki actually attempted to invade Athas, with local PCs fighting them off (source: DSE2 Black Spine).

There are plenty of other references to other planes in Dark Sun books, and references to Dark Sun in planar books, as well; those are just off the top of my head.

I would, given the avalanche or apparently untested and definitely unbalanced player-facing material they contained.

They should have done more play-testing, to be sure, but releasing eight books in one year isn't a ridiculous output of material in and of itself.

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