D&D 3E/3.5 Differance beteen 3E & 3.5E?

[Chupacabra]

As the campaign I am playing in made the switch to 3.5, I found out that my Rogue "lost" Uncanny Dodge. In 3.0 you got it at level 3, but in 3.5 it got moved to 4th level. No explanation given.

Oh, and BTW, I thought "refocusing" was kinda cheesy to begin with. Not that that stopped me from (ab)using it. I shed no tears at its disappearance.

 

[Li Shenron]

That would work, but the way I read the delay action is that it must be done in the same round and you don't get to reset your intiative to higher than what it was only lower. For example to go first in the round, starting with the next round.

"When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally."

Now they might have meant to make it work the way you described it, and that makes sense to me, but they sure didn't write it to parley that intent.

Why stopping at that sentence? Go on! Look what the SRD says after the part you quoted:

If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.

It could have been written better, but it's quite simple after all .

 

[billd91]

Overall, 3.5 is a worthwhile update on most counts. The revisions to character classes, particularly the Ranger and Bard, are good. The fixes to various spells are pretty good. I like the new damage reduction rules and regularlization of monster building.
The problem with 3.5 is the feature creep in the system. There are bunches of spells changed for no clearly discernable reason. I agree that the buff spells needed some change because they were a dominating strategy. But I can't explain most changes at all. Spider Climb, after numerous revisions of the game, suddenly shifts to 2nd level from first? Invisibility reduced from 10 min/level to 1 min/level? And there are numerous other changes that will just leave you scratching your head.
I have the serious impression that the project just grew beyond it's original and really useful scope of fixing certain major problems in the ruleset (harm spell, buff dominance, weak classes) because there wasn't a decent manager trying to keep the project on track and focus.

 

[Janx]

So how about a slightly different question:
What features from 3.5 should I add in my 3.0 game without a lot of work (and without just switching to 3.5)?

For instance, the racial weapons change is good.
The simpler skill/feat changes (ie this bonus is now +2)
Perform being split up like Knowledge is

The 3H spells (Haste, Harm, Heal)

Those are nice and easy to incorporate.
I do not want to do any of the renaming or releveling or deleting of spells, feats or skills

I do not want hordes of new spell descriptions (say I'll take the top 10 spells that SHOULD be changed)

How about class changes? Since I am not renaming anything or adding any feats from 3.5, has someone done a 3.0 repair job on the worst classes that approximates what happened in 3.5?

Most people consider the Bard and Ranger to be the worst classes in 3.0. Has someone done a revamp on those that is close enough to 3.5, but remains in the 3.0 format?

Do the other classes really need changing, or are they good enough as is?


Did I miss anything?
Janx

 

[Thanee]

Switch to 3.5 - it's simply a better set of rules (even tho some small issues still remain).

There are way too many changes (especially spells and magic items) to list them.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I'm on the oposite side, just stick with 3e its simply a better set of rules.


I like some of the changes like monks are less sucky now, they still suck just not as hard, rangers got a big boost and no longer suck maybe they are too good now even, but overall better. I like the bard better now it feels more focussed. The druid is way better now, and quite frankly way too good.

Spells hasyte, harm, heal, meteor swarm, gate, and simularicum are good fixes. Poly other/self well not bad though I'd bump the beneficial polymorph spell up in duration, and the baneful I drop the +4 to save if the area wont support the lifeform. I just don't see a big enough difference in someone turning somebody into a sloth or a turtle and someone turning someone into a fishy. Oh and I guess I'd add in that firebolt spell at 2nd level, its at least 1 alternative to melfs.

And hey they did a better job at describing grapple as I said earlier. I don't think the rules have actually changed just that they are easier to understand. Virtually everything else gets the big ol thumbs down form me. Actually I shouldn't say that, I think the DMG is more helpful for campaign design in 3.5. And the layout is a bit better.

 

[Ssyleia]

In programming you'd call 3.5 a "bugfix" of 3.0

A lot of things work better now - though some issues in demand of revision have not been touched and other things now work in ways nobody really predicted...

 

[schnee]

As a new DM, I'd say the books in 3.5 have lots of subtle touches that make it a lot easier to look things up.

For example, in the MM, monsters now have their Touch and Flat-Footed AC broken out explicitly. Before, you had to calculate it from information throughout the description (if it was even there).

Magic items in the DMG also have the school of magic and strength of aura listed in their descriptions. Very handy for Detect Magic or Arcane Sight users.

There are more, but those are off the top of my head.