D&D General D&D 3.5 - splatbook power creep or no?

[VHawkwinter]

Which leads to one of my personal gripes with 3.5 - how the game is unplayable unless you know every nook and cranny of the rules. It less rewards system master and more punishes lack of it.

Even with it as one of my favourite systems, I don't disagree with this criticism. Though that can be constrained by not piling on more and more content, you will still need to understand whatever content you do include.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

this requires me to have extensive knowledge of the system to know about all of them, which requires much deeper knowledge of the rules and/or association with community that does this research. Which leads to one of my personal gripes with 3.5 - how the game is unplayable unless you know every nook and cranny of the rules. It less rewards system master and more punishes lack of it.

You’re not wrong. At a surface level, 3.5e should not punish a DM for lacking encyclopedic rules knowledge. But there is a certain segment of its fanbase that makes the edition actively less attractive to DM. The game can be curated, yes, but that only works if players accept curation and understand why a DM would do it. Too often, the DM wants to run a straightforward fantasy game where the dragon breathes fire and class roles mostly mean what they say, while a player wants to import some optimization-board combo with little regard for the campaign around it. At that point, the burden is no longer just “learn the rules.” It becomes “constantly defend the game from people treating it as a loophole-mining exercise.” That is a very good way to make DMing 3.5 feel less appealing than spending a Saturday afternoon modding Skyrim.

 

[Greg K]

. Frankly I wouldn't include most 3.5 content, and would default to 3.0/3.5 FR books (removing problem options) + core + select UA options + psionics + manual of the planes + Arms & Equipment + maybe the 3.0 Class Books like Song & Silence or Tome & Blood. If I were running Dragonlance or Ravenloft or Eberron, the FR books get swapped for their campaign books instead.

Yeah, I followed a similar approach. I used the core 3.0 books* + select UA material + select material from other specific 3.0 and 3.5 WOTC products + select material from various third parties (including some new classes).

* I used the DMG tailored spell variant for clerics and also removed various spells from some other class spell lists.

For prestige classes, I also kept to the philosophy from the DMG and some 3.0 designer articles in Dragon about PrCs being about specific cultures and/ or organizations found in the campaign world. I only allowed those which I determined fit the setting I was running. Almost all were tied to specific national, cultural, or religious organizations. If a player character was from the appropriate culture or region where a PrC was found, I would allow the character to take the Prc, but, often, the character had to start with either a class variant or use the DMG variant 0/0 multi-classing at first level (in that order)) and take the PrC when they qualified. Otherwise, player's had to be in the right place (e.g. region or city) and find a trainer to take an available Prc, but once play began, there was never a guarantee that the party would be in the correct place at a specific level (or ever at all) for the character to aquire a specific PrC. Also, I never allowed characters to have more than one PrC (the same went for base classes).

 

[GrimCo]

I just remeberd one of the best power creeps i liked a lot. Dawnforge: Crucible of legends by Fantasy Flight Games. All the races had racial feats and racial transformations which you gained as you leveled up. There were some cool options there.

Even official WoTC catalogue is massive, but when one adds all the 3pp stuff, it gets even more overwhelming.

For new GMs, best way to get into 3.5 is starting with core only then slowly introducing splatbook options. And while 3.5 had some absolute bonkers combos and rewarded system mastery, for me and my groups, real fun was playing with bunch of tier 3-4-5 classes. They were weaker, had situational abilities or were very niche, but they were fun. Also, game was much more balanced and actually playable at levels above 10. Classes like Warlock, Swashbuckler, Shaman, Shugenja, Marshall, Ninja, Scout etc. None of them are on par with those tier 1-2 classes, but when you make party of those classes, DM can breathe more easily.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Yeah, I followed a similar approach. I used the core 3.0 books* + select UA material + select material from other specific 3.0 and 3.5 WOTC products + select material from various third parties (including some new classes).

Also, I never allowed characters to have more than one PrC (the same went for base classes).

I didn't have this one, but when I wanted 3.0, I ran it as you had to find a trainer or similar to pick up a new class of any kind. I tried the free for all variety in Pathfinder. It was fine, but nobody was cheesing out a 5-class build.

 

[CreamCloud0]

3e was before my time but as a rule of thumb i have to agree with what I’ve seen stated: even if they’re individually of about equal power more splats means more options and enough options will always result in unintended synergies and combinations that are more powerful than what any of the individual components were intended or could be by themselves.

 

[Silam]

But, to be fair. Bo9S is one supplement that made martials finally almost on par with casters. I will forever stand on my opinion that Warblade is best version of Fighter class in any edition.

This was an amazing book, and really suffused 3.5e with a new life. It was basically 3.75e, along with Complete Scoundrel (which gave us skill tricks) and Complete Arcane (which, IIRC, gave us reserve spells, an early version of at will cantrips, but with cooler mechanics IMHO).

Too bad they trashed all that pinacle stuff when the 4e demon drank every soul at WotC …

 

[Greg K]

I can see that, but realism goes away fast in D&D. Best things about disciplines, specially ones that Warblade has (and Crusader or
It remedies that also, to some degree. First off, trough skills. Warblade and Crusader get 4+int, Swordsage is 6+int. Also, there is good stat+ class abilities synergy, so it makes sense to pump Int on Warblade (while int is usually dump stat for martials). They also expanded skill list. Swordsage can dab into spells and has unlimited identify option when it comes to weapons and armors.

The skill points and expanded skill lists of those classes was never a pro for me. I had already both house ruled the Fighter's skill points and modified the class skill list using some of the Unearthed Arcana class variants as examples (I did this for all of the 2+int PHB classes.

And then, there are maneuvers themselves. Used out of combat, some can be very good at solving other problems. Like Mountain Hammer which ignores hardness of objects. Pair it with maul or war-hammer and you have universal door opener. Swordsage can teleport, become incorporeal, invisible, create obscurment. All that trough maneuvers which are quick and easy to recover. And then there are stances that give you ex powers like scent, blindsense, climb speed, vertical jumping, bonus move speed. It's all about being creative with stance/maneuver usage out of combat, and best of all, it's unlimited, unlike spell slots..

Now, i completely acknowledge that Bo9S is heavily inspired by anime and wuxia. But, as fan of both, have zero issues with it. It's one thing that 5e martials lack. They went lazy way and just added subclasses with spells, instead of abilities that are borderline supernatural but aren't outright spells.

I am glad the book existed for those that wanted this stuff in their D&D game. However, while I enjoy my anime and wuxia*, I preferred the Book of Iron Might by Malhavoc Press as it gave the fighting types more options, but felt "grounded" in the fantasy I prefer when playing D&D specifically . Then again, I was/am more about wanting the full casters to be nerfed not drawing from anime/wuxia to raise the martials.
*Currently watching Frieren, Jujitsu Kaisen, Cleavatess, and the first episodes of the live action One Piece Season 2 and was thinking of how it would be to run these in a few other systems.

 

[VHawkwinter]

You’re not wrong. At a surface level, 3.5e should not punish a DM for lacking encyclopedic rules knowledge.

But there is a certain segment of its fanbase that makes the edition actively less attractive to DM. [Who want] to import some optimization-board combo with little regard for the campaign around it. At that point, the burden is no longer just “learn the rules.” It becomes “constantly defend the game from people treating it as a loophole-mining exercise.” That is a very good way to make DMing 3.5 feel less appealing than spending a Saturday afternoon modding Skyrim.

No question, those players are a problem. They're not normally very happy when you tell them the limited pool of content available in the campaign. Though often they will just go find another group that caters to "extreme build optimisation!"

The game can be curated, yes, but that only works if players accept curation and understand why a DM would do it.

The ones who will not abide that, IMO, you do not want to GM for at all.

 

[VHawkwinter]

As an aside, since we are on the topic of 3e for newbies, Justin Alexander made that like a decade ago. It failed to crowdfund for art and printing so he released the text without art on his site for free. A new GM could do worse than to use that free book and the 3e DMG to get used to things.