D&D 3E/3.5 3rd Edition Revisited - Better play with the power of hindsight?

[Yora]

I've been mulling over doing an E12 variant these past few months but banning 6th level spells to curb the power of casters (spell slots of that level still obtainable making it best to fuel metamagic or using lower level spells to fill them). I've always found E6 too low level for my tastes. So, level 12 seems like a nice level to cap off progression right before the unmanageable high level craziness starts lol.

I think E6 is a really cool idea that could make for really great campaigns I enjoy much.
But there's still a lot of classic D&D material in level 7 to 12 that is also a lot of fun to have in a campaign.
But personally, I feel that level 13 an onward just don't introduce any new things to the game that seem that interesting, or that I would be looking forward to when being excited to get into a new D&D campaign.

That's one I saw used all the time and that I used all the time.

You get a name, you try and find out more information about them. This person who attacked you works for the Vladaams, who are the Vladaams? Spend some downtime and a few gold to canvass and network and learn the Vladaams are a rich powerful dangerous noble family. Knowing that follow up with more downtime and another check and learn who the big shakers in the family are and things they are into, or the big rumors about the family and their current activities.

I guess it's largely on me. I don't recall any situations where players had any meaningful options to use Gather Information. It's something that the GM has to set up. But I also don't recall anything in the books that recommends setting such circumstances up, or any adventures in which it felt like a natural thing for the players to do.

 

[Voadam]

I guess it's largely on me. I don't recall any situations where players had any meaningful options to use Gather Information. It's something that the GM has to set up. But I also don't recall anything in the books that recommends setting such circumstances up, or any adventures in which it felt like a natural thing for the players to do.

If you are in a dungeon or the wilderness you can't really use it.

The first 3e module I played in was the Banewarrens which has a big part of it being city adventuring and getting introduced to names and factions as you go with possible allies and enemies at different points, so there were bunches of opportunity for that to be used naturally. The Freeport trilogy has a bunch of urban occult investigation so gathering info to learn more about things you find out is useful there too.

 

[billd91]

I guess it's largely on me. I don't recall any situations where players had any meaningful options to use Gather Information. It's something that the GM has to set up. But I also don't recall anything in the books that recommends setting such circumstances up, or any adventures in which it felt like a natural thing for the players to do.

[emphasis mine]
Ultimately, there are a TON of things that are available in character generation and advancement that are potentially campaign dependent and thus DM dependent. This is true of D&D and many other RPGs. And that contributes to the impression that some options are under-powered, over-powered, useless, OP, etc. Disarm is great if you're fighting things with held weaponry, it's useless if everything you fight is monstrous and doesn't use anything out side of natural weaponry. Gather Information is great if you're able to use it to work the tavern and find adventure hooks or capers to check out. It's not great if you're doing nothing but crawling through dungeons full of oozes and slime molds.

 

[Alzrius]

[emphasis mine]
Ultimately, there are a TON of things that are available in character generation and advancement that are potentially campaign dependent and thus DM dependent. This is true of D&D and many other RPGs. And that contributes to the impression that some options are under-powered, over-powered, useless, OP, etc. Disarm is great if you're fighting things with held weaponry, it's useless if everything you fight is monstrous and doesn't use anything out side of natural weaponry. Gather Information is great if you're able to use it to work the tavern and find adventure hooks or capers to check out. It's not great if you're doing nothing but crawling through dungeons full of oozes and slime molds.

This is, I'll point out, a classic example of "Ivory Tower Design."

Thought of the Day: Ivory Tower Design

A few years ago Monte Cook posted an essay on his website called "Ivory Tower Game Design". It raises some very important points, but over the years I'm afraid I've come to find it deeply annoying bec

thealexandrian.net

 

[payn]

Yeap, ill reiterate that 3E is a good specialization system, and not a good general system.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Nothing is quite so OP as 1e/2e characters in the teen levels with high attribute scores, generous treasure, and all the optional rules and a bit of Dragon Magazine thrown in. Not only are you scaling out to godlike power like 3e, but unlike 3e it's not explicit in the rules how you challenge such nigh omnipotent characters the way it is in 3e with its explicit monster scaling. If you think that only 3e introduced superpowered characters, then you haven't seen 1e with the Gygaxian "never give players an inch" relaxed even slightly.

Again, I'm not talking about OP PCs here, but the unmanagability of opposition.

 

[Celebrim]

Again, I'm not talking about OP PCs here, but the unmanagability of opposition.

Have you ever read "Isle of the Ape"? I think round one of combat the DM is supposed to roll like 300 d20's.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Have you ever read "Isle of the Ape"? I think round one of combat the DM is supposed to roll like 300 d20's.

I haven't, so I'm missing context, but I'd rather roll an incredible number of resolution dice than try to remember all the options that wizard and fighters I gave as an example well enough to run them competently. And I was comfortable running whole Champions villain teams.

 

[Schmoe]

So glad to see this thread! I have some of my own thoughts on 3/3.5. But in the meantime:

I guess it's largely on me. I don't recall any situations where players had any meaningful options to use Gather Information. It's something that the GM has to set up. But I also don't recall anything in the books that recommends setting such circumstances up, or any adventures in which it felt like a natural thing for the players to do.

Gather Information is tremendously useful. Why would you need to set something up as a DM in order to make it useful? Have you ever given out rumors to the party? A few GI checks can give them more details. New to a city? A couple GI checks can help get you started with power brokers and the political lay of the land. It's not going to be useful in a dungeon, of course, but it's helpful even at a roadside inn.

 

[Schmoe]

Sorry i'm late to this thread, but I just came across it yesterday and wanted to add my own thoughts.

I love 3.5e above all other D&D editions, and to this day it’s my go-to. I’m not a purist; I enjoy B/X at times, and have many fond memories of 1e, and I’m currently playing in a 5e game. I’ve played a lot of other games, too, like TMNT (fun!), Gamma World, GURPS, Fate (fun in small doses), Deadlands, PF (via Kingmaker), and more. However, 3.5e hit my sweet spot, and nothing has had the same staying power. To me, I think that the character customization and flexibility of the system are two of the main draws. I find that I really enjoy games that allow me to think deeply about how to construct a character (or vehicle, or squad, or something) and then take that something to engage with the game and see how it plays out. In 3.5e, character building is part of the game. If you don’t enjoy character building, you’re likely not going to enjoy 3.5e as much. But the flexibility of the system is also great, and I find I can run a wide variety of games using the system.

Having said that, there are definitely some weak points for the game, and when I DM have some house-rule changes to ease them.

CR system. The CR system conceptually is a useful tool, but in application is incredibly inconsistent. To make it more useful, I’ve found myself doing the following:

• Class levels are discounted. Generally CR = 75-80% of class level, but I do eyeball things. Sometimes I’ll place it higher, sometimes lower.
• Some stock monsters are completely imbalanced, either too high or too low. If I want to use these I’ll generally re-work the monster.
• On a related note, monster designers were too rigidly confined to the rules for things like attack damage (based on size), or basing special abilities off of existing spells, and missed out on a lot of interesting design space. This can lead to ludicrous results like a CR 19 creature with attacks that do 1d8+2. I will sometimes take more liberties to make more interesting opponents.

Rogue Sneak Attack

• Rogue Sneak Attack is much too restrictive and unworkable most of the time. It’s soooo easy to neutralize this ability, and it’s really the biggest thing Rogues have going for them. Just go the 5e route.

Magic Items

• Assuming characters have universal access to buy/sell/craft any item they want to creates the problem where every player is incentivized to build out the same boring inventory of +x armor/+x resistance/+x deflection/+x stat item. It both discourages interesting magic items and encourages boring char-op. I house-ruled a magic item economy system that I’m pretty happy with for now, but this is an area a DM has to consider carefully.

Skills

• These are way too restrictive, especially as a lot of classes have “required” skills, which means that no one will ever take interesting skill choices that improve the quality of the game. In my current game I give everyone 1 SP/level that they must spend on “background” skill, with the caveat that they can never exceed 1 rank/2 levels by spending a background skill point, and the list of eligible skills is limited (knowledge, languages, craft, profession, etc). This helps, but it’s not perfect. I like the PF approach of the first rank giving a +3 bonus, and I’m also open to increasing the number of background SP or something similar.

Feats

• I don’t think the designers realized how few feats PCs get, or how restrictive some of the feat pre-requisites are for 25 point buy. I reduced stat prerequisites for feats by 2 across the board, and I’ve considered giving every PC more feats. I like the PF approach. That being said, I haven’t changed the number of feats yet, and it’s more a quality-of-life thing than a “this is broken” thing.
• Quite a few feats overly value minor bonuses. I’ve tweaked some to make them less fiddly and more attractive. For example, Dodge gives a flat +1 Dodge AC bonus against all opponents. Greater Weapon Focus stacks with Weapon Focus. Toughness is replaced with Improved Toughness. etc.

There are a number of other things about how I run my games that prevent shenanigans that might make the game less enjoyable:

• I control access to prestige classes, and they are tied to the setting. A prestige class plays an actual role in the setting, only a few are available, and pursuing the class comes with in-game expectations.
• Multi-class XP penalties - yes, of course. Although it’s only ever once been an issue.
• Core-only by default. Everything else needs to be approved by me, and is subject to modification. I’m pretty easy-going and only change or reject things rarely, but it avoids the worst of the cheese.
• I’m more permissive about increasing the abilities and power of martial characters, and more restrictive about increasing the abilities and power of magical characters.

As far as high level play goes, I admit I don’t have vast experience. I had previous campaigns reach 14th (we had to quit when I moved away), and then 9th, and my current campaign has just reached 12th. I’ve heard about issues with scry-buff-teleport, but have yet to really run into any problems in any of my games that made the game less fun. The 12th level barbarian and 12th level ranger are having just as much fun as the 12th level sorcerer, and are just as vital to the group’s success. The game changes as you get to higher levels, but that’s pretty true for any game, isn’t it?