D&D 3E/3.5 Edition Experience - Did/Do you Play 3rd Edtion D&D? How Was/Is it?

[Maggan]

3e is an Old Game now?

Geez, that crept up on me ...

 

[DammitVictor]

3e is an Old Game now?

Geez, that crept up on me ...

Published twenty years ago. Out of print for thirteen.

 

[delericho]

I played 3.x for many years, and absolutely loved it. It was, and is, my favourite edition of the game.

But...

Unfortunately, as time went on it became apparent that 3e had some fundamental issues. In hindsight, I'm also convinced that from the publication of "Sword & Fist" onward, almost every supplement for the game actually made it worse. And I'm further convinced that the less you dig into the maths behind the game, and especially the less the players dig into the maths behind the game, the better it is.

The upshot of all of that is that I very much doubt I would ever run 3e again, and very much doubt that I would enjoy the experience. Which is really quite unfortunate - 5e just doesn't sing to me the way 3e did, but when running it I can expend my effort on running it, rather than constantly tinkering in pursuit of an imaginary perfection.

If that makes any sense at all.

 

[Jester David]

I remember discovering 3e by accident. I went to a local comic shop and saw a display with the PHB. "OMFG WTF there's a 3rd Edition?!?"
I came back a week later after payday and bought the core rulebooks.

I loved it and was super happy with how it took the rules of 2e and made them consistent.
I played 3e for a couple years, running a couple lengthy homegames.

Then I started playing Living Greyhawk and I realized I only actually knew half the rules...
There were so very, very many rules I didn't know or only half knew.

After two years of playing LG I was sick of that edition. The flaws became glaring and the edition was deeply problematic. Play required numerous house rules to work. I was excited at the idea of 4th Edition and the fixes to a deeply flawed game.
Then 4e came out and it was completely not what I wanted...
So I moved to Pathfinder and kept effectively playing a hacked version of 3e for four more years.

 

[Lanefan]

The only feats that should be allowed are those that add flavor or open up new abilities. Feats that do nothing but provide a mechanical benefit, such as weapon focus, should have never been part of the rules.

I'm almost the other way around: things like weapon focus and weapon spec. should have been kept* and 95% of the rest scrapped.

* - ideally as baked-in benefits for certain martial classes rather than selectable feats.

 

[teitan]

I think that one of the dullest things about 3rd Edition was the feats. They were a cool idea, but nearly every feat in the game could be distilled to "here's a way to get a +X bonus to <thing>," usually an attack roll or armor class. Most feats otherwise contributed nothing to the character at all.

Sometimes, one of us would try to add nuance and flavor, but that would be completely forgotten after one gaming session because it just didn't matter a whole lot (and also because by 10th level, it was impossible to remember that "special unique flavor" for each of the two dozen or so feats that everyone in the group had selected.)

I think that 5E helped both of my issues with feats by making them a lot more interesting, and making them a lot more scarce.

5e helped my problem with feats by making them optional rules!

 

[teitan]

I played 3.x for many years, and absolutely loved it. It was, and is, my favourite edition of the game.

But...

Unfortunately, as time went on it became apparent that 3e had some fundamental issues. In hindsight, I'm also convinced that from the publication of "Sword & Fist" onward, almost every supplement for the game actually made it worse. And I'm further convinced that the less you dig into the maths behind the game, and especially the less the players dig into the maths behind the game, the better it is.

The upshot of all of that is that I very much doubt I would ever run 3e again, and very much doubt that I would enjoy the experience. Which is really quite unfortunate - 5e just doesn't sing to me the way 3e did, but when running it I can expend my effort on running it, rather than constantly tinkering in pursuit of an imaginary perfection.

If that makes any sense at all.

I agree 100% except I would play 3.0 again. With just the core rules it doesn't get as overwhelming as even 3.5 with all the feats in there. I would just make small tweaks to the ranger by allowing them to choose the archery feats or two weapon fighting feats.

 

[Zardnaar]

3e is an Old Game now?

Geez, that crept up on me ...

Put it this way. When 3E came out we were at a point closer in time to 1E than we are now when 3.5 went out of print.

The 3E sucks narrative is generally only pushed in online forums. It had continuous support via Paizo until 2019. 19 year run.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Put it this way. When 3E came out we were at a point close to time to 1E than we are tow to when 3.5 went out if print.

The 3E sucks narrative is generally only pushed in online forums. It had continuous support via Paizo until 2019. 19 year run.

Huh, yup.

AD&D 2e released 1989, 3e released 2000 - 11 years.
4e released 2008 (presumptive end of 3.5), today - 12 years. Ain't that a pip.

 

[teitan]

Put it this way. When 3E came out we were at a point close to time to 1E than we are tow to when 3.5 went out if print.

The 3E sucks narrative is generally only pushed in online forums. It had continuous support via Paizo until 2019. 19 year run.

Exactly. It’s a good game when you houserule and limit options... like every edition of D&D!

 

[Gladius Legis]

Exactly. It’s a good game when you houserule and limit options... like every edition of D&D!

But there's a difference between a game that's already good but is made even better by a few houserules, vs. a game that's functional only with a boatload of houserules.

 

[wingsandsword]

But there's a difference between a game that's already good but is made even better by a few houserules, vs. a game that's functional only with a boatload of houserules.

2e needed a boatload of houserules to be playable.

3e could benefit from a few houserules or being prudent with what supplements you allow. It was far, far more playable with the RAW than any prior edition.

 

[Gladius Legis]

2e needed a boatload of houserules to be playable.

3e could benefit from a few houserules or being prudent with what supplements you allow. It was far, far more playable with the RAW than any prior edition.

My experience with both editions is the exact opposite of what you describe, in both cases.

 

[wingsandsword]

My experience with both editions is the exact opposite of what you describe, in both cases.

In my years of playing AD&D 2e, I only knew of ONE group that even played it close to RAW. Every other group had to house-rule it extensively to make it even vaguely playable. It had WAY too many arbitrary, silly, nonsensical restrictions (why can't elves be druids, why can there only be one 15th level druid in the world, why can't my thief learn to be a fighter, if my fighter starts the game illiterate why does he have to wait until 6th level to learn to read and write, why can't my dwarf become a Paladin, why do you roll percentage to climb a wall but a d20 to swim, why do priest spells go to 7th level but wizard spells go to 9th, etc)
. . .

I knew a lot of gamers that outright refused to play AD&D, finding it to be an antiquated, obsolete game (can't even call it a "rule system", it had no system). Mocking D&D as some antiquated relic, practically a museum piece of gaming, was popular among a lot of gamers in the late 1990's.

. . .but 3rd edition was something people could play RAW without a problem, aside from inserting some homebrew feats and classes, almost every group played it close to RAW. The gamers I knew who refused to play 2e would at least play 3e (even if it wasn't their favorite game). It was stable, balanced, and consistent in ways that 2e could only dream of.

So, my experience was the exact opposite of yours.

 

[billd91]

Good grief. Both editions were entirely playable as they were. They only needed houseruling to change them from what they did to what you wanted them to do. That's not about playability in general - it's about palatability for you.

 

[collin]

Feats were VERY fun and cool from a player aspect. From a DM aspect, they were a constant pain, because after learning all the rules to the system, the feats broke the rules, so you had to keep aware of those circumstances, too.

 

[Gladius Legis]

It was stable, balanced, and consistent in ways that 2e could only dream of.

There is no way you can tell me with a straight face that 3e was more balanced than 2e.

For one, the martial-caster divide was by far the worst it ever was in 3e. All those mechanics that 2e spellcasters had to deal with, clunky as they were, helped rein them in at least a little bit. Removing those mechanics for 3e would've been all well and good, except 3e completely neglected to introduce some other mitigating factors in order to account for the insane boost it gave to spellcasters. And then on top of that, 2e martials were still able to move freely and make all of their attacks in a round, each with the same bonus. 3e martials had to restrict their movement to a single 5-foot step if they wanted to make their multiple attacks, and their bonuses declined with each attack unlike in 2e.

So in 2e you had martials who could move freely and make all their attacks, and casters who had to stay in place when they casted a spell. In 3e, this was the exact opposite; martials were stuck in place, making multiple attacks that unlike in 2e had diminishing returns, and casters were moving around the battlefield as much as they wanted. 2e high-level casters still outclassed martials despite this, but 3e exacerbated this divide 100 times over.

Also, 2e never had classes that were as utterly worthless on the table as the Ranger was in 3.0, or the Paladin was throughout 3e's entire lifespan.

 

[Eric V]

Started off liking it, then ended up not. I -loved- making characters with the Epic Level Handbook, though.

 

[DammitVictor]

So I moved to Pathfinder and kept effectively playing a hacked version of 3e for four more years.

Judicious use of Unearthed Arcana and Pathfinder Unchained and even more judicious use of 3pp can radically improve your 3.PF experience... depending on what your particular problems with the RAW are.

 

[teitan]

But there's a difference between a game that's already good but is made even better by a few houserules, vs. a game that's functional only with a boatload of houserules.

3e doesn’t need a boat load of house rules. It really doesn’t need any at all. By house rules I mean... core plus 1 for character creation not “this tweak or that tweak to fix this issue I have”. Literally every RPG I have ever played has required some house rules.