D&D 3E/3.5 Are You Still Playing D&D 3.0?

[wingsandsword]

I'm going to ignore things like Sudden and Immediate Actions which WotC seemed to think were terribly important to add to the game but which just look like an unnecessary complication.

Yeah, one thing I didn't like about how WotC treated 3.5 was the zillion variants of action types they added and kept adding (swift actions, for example).

I love how granular the character creation is, how immensely customizable characters are with a zillion different feats and classes and skills and various options for building EXACTLY the character you are looking for, on a level I've never seen from any other D&D edition. It's a lot of why I like 3.5e so much. It's the only edition where I didn't have to settle for "aw, close enough, I guess" when building my character.

They seemed to think the entire game though was played out on a combat grid all session, every session, with players who were legal experts on the intricacies of action types.

It makes me wonder if they were watching RPGA games and their own forums as their major feedback in designing the game, because that WOULD explain the super-heavy focus on combat and a combat grid in 4e though.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

Yeah, one thing I didn't like about how WotC treated 3.5 was the zillion variants of action types they added and kept adding (swift actions, for example).

I love how granular the character creation is, how immensely customizable characters are with a zillion different feats and classes and skills and various options for building EXACTLY the character you are looking for, on a level I've never seen from any other D&D edition. It's a lot of why I like 3.5e so much. It's the only edition where I didn't have to settle for "aw, close enough, I guess" when building my character.

They seemed to think the entire game though was played out on a combat grid all session, every session, with players who were legal experts on the intricacies of action types.

It makes me wonder if they were watching RPGA games and their own forums as their major feedback in designing the game, because that WOULD explain the super-heavy focus on combat and a combat grid in 4e though.

The customization can be sadly underutilized. Some players will gravitate towards particularly advantageous options which narrows the flexibility that could be had. That the same players IME also tend to want session-long combats or mostly combat sessions and are pretty vocal of this ("when are we going to fight X?" being a recurring offhanded statement in quite a few campaigns) doesn't surprise me at all why 4E turned out the way it did.

 

[GSHamster]

I think 3.5 was influenced by the Magic-side of WotC. I think they saw it more like releasing a new core set, where people would still use their 3.0 books (with the fixed rules) and upgrade as they pleased, mixing and matching books.

Instead the community treated 3.0 and 3.5 as quasi-separate editions, and saw WotC as forcing them to rebuy all the books. And the changes weren't extensive enough to warrant that.

 

[billd91]

I think 3.5 was influenced by the Magic-side of WotC. I think they saw it more like releasing a new core set, where people would still use their 3.0 books (with the fixed rules) and upgrade as they pleased, mixing and matching books.

Instead the community treated 3.0 and 3.5 as quasi-separate editions, and saw WotC as forcing them to rebuy all the books. And the changes weren't extensive enough to warrant that.

Well, that's the question, isn't it? Were the changes extensive enough to warrant rebuying the books? I'd submit they were - because they ended up being so extensive, not just the stuff that was obviously problematic or emerged as problematic. If you tried to mix 3.0 and 3.5, you'd have a fair amount of inconsistency between the rulebooks.

 

[Orius]

No matter how much WotC was portraying things otherwise, they were close enough to being separate editions. It was more than just errata. 3.0 was a big enough change that more changes with 3.5 caused enough edition fatigue to end up harming 4e.

Errata really should be to fix printing errors than actual rule changes. Maybe they do that with MtG, but TCGs have a different dynamic than RPGs.

 

[Melkor]

My gaming group and I have played two short-lived games of 3.0 over the last few years, and are considering trying a long-term 3.0 campaign over Zoom in the next couple of weeks.

We have been playing together since AD&D2E came out, and never experienced all of the issues that some did with 3.0 at our table. We mostly played in the AD&D 2E style, and don't have any players who really try and optimize or loophole.

We did have a lot of issues with the changes in 3.5, and the change in tone. We tried, but were never able to get a successful campaign off the ground.

 

[Erekose]

Always in two minds about 3.5E and 3.0E - yes it was too early but when people talk about it not being different enough to warrant a new edition I always think about the core rule books for 1E and 2E. While there were lots of add ons to 2E ... we moved seamlessly from 1E to 2E and I’d be hard pressed to point out any major rule changes in the core rule books ... so maybe I’m arguing for 3.5E to have been 4.0E

 

[Marc_C]

I played d20 Modern far more often than D&D 3.5. The d20 multi-classing rules was perfect for modern games. We also played Star Wars d20 and Star Wars SAGA.

Today, I would only play a d20 Modern one-shot out of nostalgia. Now, I prefer the Modern AGE system, as it is less crunchy but still allows a lot of variability of characters.

 

[teitan]

Always in two minds about 3.5E and 3.0E - yes it was too early but when people talk about it not being different enough to warrant a new edition I always think about the core rule books for 1E and 2E. While there were lots of add ons to 2E ... we moved seamlessly from 1E to 2E and I’d be hard pressed to point out any major rule changes in the core rule books ... so maybe I’m arguing for 3.5E to have been 4.0E

Thief skills. Ranger. Priests. Wizard Specializations. Fireball got nerfed to max 10D6 damage. Initiative off a d10 instead of a D6. I can list more but the way most were handled it was pretty seamless.