D&D 3E/3.5 Anyone lose their enthusiasm with 3E or purchasing 3E products?

[Sara_G]

The current 3.5 stuff won't be outdated in 7 months.

Elder Evils and Exemplars of evil are going to be updated on DDI. So is Anauroch.

 

[Minicol]

I know I have...

Why buy the newest 3E book, knowing it will be outdated in 7 months? Why would WotC even bother making more 3E books at this point? I think they advertised 4E too soon.


(Patiently waiting for 4E )

No still buying, except no more WOTC. need a complete collection, to do my next 3.5 campaign the right way.

On some other post, I saw the idea of the Great gnome genocide. looks like a good idea for a campaign.

 

[RigaMortus2]

In terms of relations with the retailers and 3rd party publishers, waiting that long would have been a disaster. These folks need time to make business plans (especially the publishers).

Most of these 3rd party publishers didn't even exist before 3E. 3E came out, THEN people began publishing, not the other way around.

(I hope that doesn't sound callous, I'm not trying to be)

 

[Hawken]

I lost my enthusiasm for 3.X a long time ago. The concept of feats is a great idea, but with the explosion of 3rd party products there quickly became a glut of stuff that made it impossible to incorporate all the new stuff as a PC and as a DM, turned D&D into a buffet of options that left you feeling like no matter how much you incorporated into your game you just didn't have enough--and afterwards you felt like whatever you got was too much!

That said, nothing so far has even created any enthusiasm in me for 4E. I like the Saga rules for SW and have tried adapting that to my D&D games and have had a modicum of success in some areas. 4E in some ways seems as different from the Saga stuff as it is from the 3.X and while some things seem interesting--if not actually fun--there are just too many other things that, at this point, are turning me off to the game.

Being a Warlock would actually fit his back-story a lot better than being a wizard. It's clear (from the books) that he made an Infernal Pact.

If you really knew about Strahd and Ravenloft, you couldn't even type that statement with any sense of honesty about it. Strahd has never been even a "blasting" type of wizard, muchless a "walking, medieval laser gun" that warlocks are. Just because he made a bargain with "Death" doesn't make him a warlock, and all his "pact" got him was the vampire template when he was killed and a few centuries of mental anguish.

 

[Arnwyn]

I've started purchasing even more 3e books than ever before.

Mostly they've been all the Goodman DCCs that I wasn't all that interested in before (they're pretty hit and miss, AFAIC), and I'll even be buying all of Paizo's Gamemastery modules (which I also wasn't going to purchase).

Also looking forward to getting Elder Evils, as that's sort of my thing.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Wow just think of the fan storm there would have been, it's been bad enough with almost a year's notice.

That said I was thru with 3e long before the annoucement of 4e. I MIGHT of played...but DM? Forget it.

Well, it seems like they are damned no matter what they do. Announce too soon, you get booed and lose 3E sales. Announce too late, you get booed and people feel like they wasted money on that last 3E book they bought.

 

[The_Gneech]

I just bought a ton of third party 3.X books that I've been wanting for ages, because they went on sale. (Mmm, Freeeport...) I'm also a subscriber to Paizo's Pathfinder series.

With the death of E-Tools, Dragon magazine, and Dungeon magazine, it's entirely possible that I've bought my last ever WotC product. (1)

So I don't really know how to answer your question. What I'm buying, I'm still buying enthusiastically. But none of it's from Wizards.

-The Gneech

(1) The Star Wars Saga Edition line may be an exception to this, depending on how good it is.

 

[Satori]

If you really knew about Strahd and Ravenloft, you couldn't even type that statement with any sense of honesty about it. Strahd has never been even a "blasting" type of wizard, muchless a "walking, medieval laser gun" that warlocks are. Just because he made a bargain with "Death" doesn't make him a warlock, and all his "pact" got him was the vampire template when he was killed and a few centuries of mental anguish.

I am in full and utter agreement with you.

Except that from what the rumors say, Warlocks aren't "Medieval Laser Guns" in 4E (they most certainly are in 3.5E, though). They're supposed to have a slew of abilities aside from just blasting, with entire "Trees" of "Curses" for different functions.

I believe the key word for Warlocks is "Consistent", rather than "Nova". Hence, a Strahd Warlock may not fling "Eldritch Lasers" willy nilly from his fingers...but may instead CONSISTENTLY summon swarms, drain stats, control the weather, bestow curses, cause fear, etc...

Making him a Warlock should (in my rudimentary understanding) simply mean that he can't "Blow his wad" after a few rounds of combat, but is consistently unleashing whatever powers he has.

I think it works, but we won't know for another year, will we?

 

[Midknightsun]

In truth, my enthusiansm was drying up well before the 4e announcement, as 3.5 was becoming more and more of a chore for me to DM. The announcement of 4e did put the final nail in the coffin, though, as I was thinking of buying the Rules Compendium, but havent been able to work up the motivation to bother.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Anyway, just curious what others think/feel.

Three factors affect how I feel about Third Edition products:

1) They're not really publishing anything I want to buy right now. That's not strictly true - there's Dragons of Eberron, City of Stormreach, and the Eberron Survival Guide, which I do want to complete my Eberron collection, plus I'm mildly interested in the Wizards Presents preview books - but on the whole they've solved the "problem" for me by not putting out desirable product.

2) The few books I do want to buy are recent enough to be part of the crop which will be receiving Fourth Edition update material in D&D Insider.

3) Much as I'm looking forward to Fourth Edition, I can't play it yet - so I'm still trying to get my Pathfinder campaign set up to begin in January. I'll have the final adventures before Fourth Edition launches by a good few months, so even if the campaign doesn't finish before June it won't be far off (fingers crossed). I'm not sure if I will maintain my Pathfinder subscription for a second Third Edition campaign, though, because it's honestly not likely to be played - and I'm not so fond of Golarion that I would want it just for the setting information. That said, I don't consider the subscription expensive, so why not?