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

[Filcher]

I played 4E at the D&D Exp. It was a paradigm shift, but after a couple of games it made sense. I left only partially impressed.

Went to GAMA, played in a 3.5 game. Spent the entire game wishing it was as fun and easy as I remembered 4E to be.

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 ...

 

[Drunken Master]

Yep. me too. I was at D&D XP, and I have played 4 or 5 sessions of 3.5 since. Every one has been a chore. The ones I DMed, I kept telling my players (who have NOT played 4E), "Oh, man, in 4th Edition, this would be sooooo much easier..." every time it was applicable - which was A LOT.

I loved 3.5., I really did. But the thrill is gone, and I will soon be leaving it for a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

Even the thought of going back to an old system is kinda disgusting at this point. If I did I'd want to try to convince the DM/players to slowly adopt pieces of 4E.
Not to say I think 4E isn't seemingly skewed in some ways, but the sheer ease of making homebrewed rules to adapt for that is so much higher as well....

 

[3d6+15]

I haven't played it yet but man am I feeling it. Worse I am DM'ing The Savage Tide Adventure Path right now and am only on chapter 2.

Oh the agony and despair!!

 

[Novem5er]

I was running 3.5 using the Shattered Gates of Slaughterguard. My fiancee played about once every 2 or three weeks. After I learned about 4e back in January (?), I started implementing some 4e-ish stuff like converting our fighter to a crusader from Book of 9 Swords and being more lax on spell memorization requirements, etc.

However, since DDXP (I wasn't there, but read all the updates), I don't think we've played once. The problem is that our last session left the players at 5th level, but the module wants the players to be at 6th for the last dungeon. Thus, I started a homebrew adventure to get the group from 5th to 6th... and after reading everything from DDXP... OMG is 3.5 a CHORE to design for. I've always hated designing adventures for 3/x (which is why I bought the Slaughterguard module), but seeing the new 4e monster stat blocs and encounter design advice, etc... I just can't do it for 3.5 anymore.

So there we've sat, in between 5th and 6th... waiting for 4e. I could probably just bump the players up to 6 and finish Slaughterguard, as it's a decent adventure and it could close out the "campaign". Maybe this weekend.

 

[fnwc]

I haven't played it yet but man am I feeling it. Worse I am DM'ing The Savage Tide Adventure Path right now and am only on chapter 2.

Oh the agony and despair!!

I smell a TPK.

 

[vladbat]

Oh Gods yes!!
I played with Mearls as my DM at I-Con and have DMed 3 previews since for some of the guys in our regular group. Those that have played "4e-lite" are constantly wishing for a minor action or an action point!
I am playing an archer build right now in 3.5 who just dinged 15. While that is exciting I spend more time gleaning info of this board to get ready to DM in 4e.

 

[frankthedm]

The 3.5 ruleset has some merits, but the math is a huge issue. Not just bonuses, but also, how much damage is a PC expected to do? Shields, power attack, leap attack, polymorph and Lance charge multipliers all vary the damage of front line characters immensely. Arcanists have similar issues since Sudden Metamagic feats, Orb spells and Avoid energy resistance feats can also flux how much damage a caster does.

And of course then the Cleric / Druid issue rears it’s head. Taking them down to the level of the other classes is a chore that will cause some players to B&M like they were having teeth pulled, and if you try to bring the other classes up to the power level of CoDzilla, how much do they need added in?

 

[Wolfspider]

I will wait until I actually read and play the full version of 4e before I decided whether it has ruined anything regarding v3.5.

I am quite sure that the new system will have just as many quirks as the old, once it has been driven around the block a few times.

As an aside, I guess I'm an odd bird. Something being easy isn't as important to me as being able to do what I want to in a game.

When I want easy, I play Cinematic Unisystem. I can play a quite satisfying game of fantasy using the Dungeons and Zombies book tweaked for Cinematic Unisystem; the system is so easy that it makes what we've seen of D&D 4e look like an advanced calculus textbook.

When I think of D&D, though, I don't really think of an easy system. I think of one that is able to do all the things that I think are important in a game of D&D, and one that reflects a certain mindset.

 

[Klaus]

No, not really. There are several things that I love doing in 3.5 that I don't know (yet) how to do in 4E, like building a fighter/mage type, or a druid shifter.