D&D 3E/3.5 4E Ruined My Love For 3.5

[Khuxan]

It upsets me a little when I read through Pathfinder or read about the Book of Experimental Might because six months ago I would have loved those books. I would have pre-ordered Pathfinder, I would have duked it out on the Paizo forums with other fans, read every thread on montecook.com about the BOXM.

And now all I can think about when I read Pathfinder is how it doesn't compare (for me) to Fourth Edition. My ambition to tinker 3.5 into perfection (and unrecognisability) has gone.

 

[malraux]

My love of dming 3.5 died about halfway through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Almost all the monsters had "cheap" ways of winning. Level drains out the wazoo, ability drains, etc. There just wasn't a good way to deal with all the attacks that bypassed the HP system.

I can't say that I hate playing 3.5, though the onerous task of picking gear for a high level character makes me really reluctant to go for anything high level. Nothing like spending more time doing the homework for the game than actually playing the game. Everything I've seen of 4e fixes my objections to the 3.5 system.

 

[katahn]

3.5 itself has done such a thorough job of making me hate it that 4e really isn't an issue at all.

QFT

 

[Kzach]

Is this just me, or has anyone else discovered that, after playing 4E (and letting it sink in a bit) you become a convert? I wasn't convinced initially, but after my 3.5 experience, I'm left counting the days ...

Yeah, pretty much.

I come from the crowd that gave up on 3.x awhile ago. After spending hours upon hours upon hours lovingly crafting adventures only to have the players ignore my plot-hooks and go elsewhere, or have them destroy my precious NPC's in a matter of moments, I knew 3.x just wasn't my game.

I DM'd about... maybe, collectively over four years of the system being out, about three years worth of games using 3.x and yet still I'd get hung up on grappling rules and confused by supplement changes, etc. My players would always reference rules faster than I could and would insist on doing so 'cause, dammit, rules are rules. And when your players have more control over the game than you do, why would you want to DM?

After realising I hadn't enjoyed DM'ing even one single session of 3.x and didn't enjoy even playing in four years, that was it for me. After my last group disbanded 'cause of life-issues, I didn't bother trying again.

When I heard 4e was announced I thought it was a prank. Then I looked into it and was tentatively interested. The more I heard, the more I liked. Then I got to run a game for a friend and he was adamant that he'd never play D&D again as he thought it was a waste of time. He played this one session as a favour 'cause I wanted to see how the rules worked.

We both had so much fun that now he's even asking me for updates on 4e. I ran a couple more games for other people and played in some others as well and had a ball. It may not be full 4e yet, so ultimately I'm reserving judgement, but so far, so good

I've had the chance to be in several 3.5 games since involving myself in the community again but each time I went to make a character or tried playing, I kept wishing it was 4e and all the angst of my time playing and DM'ing 3.x came rushing back. So I didn't play and now patiently await the rulebooks release, still hunting for illegal copies online (damn, you'd think NDA's wouldn't prevent people from spilling, grr to all those law-abiding citizens ).

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

My situation may be odd/rare.

I'm not completely convinced 4E is the game for me.

But - for some illogical reason - I now have zero desire to play or DM 3E.

My two groups are going to give 4E a fair shake. If it doesn't work, we won't be going back to 3E or any of its 452 derivatives. We'll be doing a whole new system or doing a complete homebrew.

Which is really, really hard for me to understand...because until all the 4E stuff started coming in, I wasn't completely "done" with 3E (though my frustrations as a DM had grown close to the breaking point, esp. with higher level play).

Weird.

Wis

 

[drjones]

Well kinda, I was not playing 3.5 pnp regularly before but I did play NWN2 now and then and liked it a lot. Now I look at it occasionally but I can't even bring myself to click on it. All the fun of making interesting class combos and such is gone.

i kinda feel the same way about DDM, I don't want to be limited to a few powers on a card, I want to do all sorts of crazy stuff!

 

[pukunui]

I'm very much done with 3.5. I never really liked it but I stuck with it while I thought it was the only real option ... but once 4e was announced and I got more and more excited about the new edition (which appeared to be fixing everything I didn't like about 3.5, particularly the amount of math involved), my interest in 3.5 waned. When I finally got a chance to play 4e using the preview materials from DDXP, that was the final nail in 3.5's coffin for me. I think it's safe to say that I will never play that edition of D&D ever again.

 

[SSquirrel]

I've been pretty well done w/3E for awhile. I haven't even gotten to try 4E yet, but everything I've seen has been going along rather well w/my sensibilities. I've told my friends locally that if I'm going to play any 3E variant at this point it would be AE/Ptolus and that is about it. Several of the freedoms I feel in AE are rolled into the core game now, so that one is probably the closest in feel for me. I think I actually have my wife conned into running AE if I pick up a coupla modules for her. She knows she can count on me to rules lawyer any DM questions she can't handle off the cuff, plus I love making characters so I'll pre-gen a bunch of guys and off we go.

 

[Saitou]

3.5 ruined my love for 3.5 a long, long time ago. I've been eagerly awaiting 4E about a year before it was announced.

 

[Gundark]

3.5 itself has done such a thorough job of making me hate it that 4e really isn't an issue at all.

I really really hate 3.5. It was fully in bloom before the 4e announcement. I was ready for a new edition.