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

[teitan]

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.

Yes it was more balanced but still greatly unbalanced.

 

[CleverNickName]

If it helps, just mentally insert the words "...for my game anyway, although your experiences might be different" at the end of every single post in this thread.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I can't believe that out of all the variants of D20 that existed people just kept republishing the same garbage feats from the beginning of 3.0. Did it never occur to anyone that very few people used the hardness rules and so putting "improved sunder" in your book was a waste of time? Or that Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation are boring feats that do nothing but make numbers go up and box Fighters in to using the same weapon as often as they can get away with.

The hard part about writing a d20 game is that it doesn't invalidate the PHB. You can write a new spellcaster, and feature it alongside the wizard, but there's very little reason for someone to play it if it's just worse. And I guess it's easier for a DM to outright ban classes than it is for them to outright ban core feats.

Because as long as I have the option of gaining +stats with a feat, it doesn't matter what else you try to make me spend that slot on, because anything that doesn't make me better is just making me worse. (And honestly, the core math was broken enough that I absolutely needed those +stats if I wanted to maintain a reliable AC.)

 

[Don Durito]

The hard part about writing a d20 game is that it doesn't invalidate the PHB. You can write a new spellcaster, and feature it alongside the wizard, but there's very little reason for someone to play it if it's just worse. And I guess it's easier for a DM to outright ban classes than it is for them to outright ban core feats.

Because as long as I have the option of gaining +stats with a feat, it doesn't matter what else you try to make me spend that slot on, because anything that doesn't make me better is just making me worse. (And honestly, the core math was broken enough that I absolutely needed those +stats if I wanted to maintain a reliable AC.)

Yes but,

1) Why reprint the old feats given their boring and often too situational? Write better ones - especially aimed at Fighters - little danger of them ending up overpowered.

2) A lot of D20 variants didn't write new spellcasters to be featured alongside the wizard - they wrote new spellcasters to replace the wizard (Black Company, Thieves World, True 20 etc)

3) Even versions that completely rewrite the game from the ground up such as True 20 kept the garbage feats.

 

[wingsandsword]

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

3e was infinitely more balanced than 2e.

2e didn't even have the concept of balance. It literally didn't even TRY to balance anything. There was absolutely no balance in 2e, because nobody tried to balance anything. You had races that were far superior to others, mechanically, that the only "balancing" factor was level limits that wouldn't even come up in most games. You had spellcasters "I win" spells that meant that even a 1st level Wizard could execute a Total Party Kill on an entire party of NPC's of the same level. You had standard monsters that were practically a TPK waiting to happen if they were ever used as-written. You had literally no guidelines or framework for what kind of equipment or treasure a party above 1st level should have or what kind of challenges they should be facing.

That's not balance. That's barely a game.

3e, while flawed, was far, FAR more balanced and tried to make the various races and classes similar in power level.

3.5e fixed many of the balance flaws with 3e, although those balance flaws mostly came from powergamers that were actively trying to exploit the system, flaws that wouldn't show up in a typical group playing a typical game.

 

[Gladius Legis]

3e was infinitely more balanced than 2e.

Sure, ignore every single point I made showing how that is demonstrably not the case.

2e didn't even have the concept of balance. It literally didn't even TRY to balance anything.

Well, that sure doesn't speak well for 3e when an older edition of the game was less unbalanced without even trying to be.

You had races that were far superior to others, mechanically, that the only "balancing" factor was level limits that wouldn't even come up in most games.

Yes, 2e mechanics were clunky. I've long acknowledged that. But they also accidentally led to a better-balanced game than 3e.

You had spellcasters "I win" spells that meant that even a 1st level Wizard could execute a Total Party Kill on an entire party of NPC's of the same level.

Um, 3e Sleep killed an opposing low-level NPC party just as easily as the 2e version did.

You had standard monsters that were practically a TPK waiting to happen if they were ever used as-written.

There's a lot of players and DMs who consider this a good thing.

3e, while flawed, was far, FAR more balanced and tried to make the various races and classes similar in power level.

Almost seems to me 3e tried to do the exact opposite. It certainly accomplished the exact opposite. Martials and casters were magnitudes more unbalanced vs. each other than they were in 2e, as I demonstrated. And that was on a system level.

Martials were stationary (and for less reward for multiple attacks than 2e), while casters could move freely and cast. 3e didn't even try to address this until very late in the edition's lifespan with Tome of Battle.

And the 3.0 Ranger and the Paladin in both 3.0 and 3.5 were the weakest classes in the entire history of D&D. The 3.0 and 3.5 Monk wasn't much better. No 2e class compared to how weak those were.

3.5e fixed many of the balance flaws with 3e, although those balance flaws mostly came from powergamers that were actively trying to exploit the system, flaws that wouldn't show up in a typical group playing a typical game.

Funny, because the Druid was more game-wreckingly imbalanced in 3.5 than in 3.0.

 

[CleverNickName]

"...for my game anyway, although your experiences might be different."

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

My experience with 3rd edition was rough for reasons both in and out of the game.

Out of game, and entirely my fault for not putting myself at a high enough priority, I was running that system even though I didn't want to be. The players I had in my group wanted to be playing it, and I let it be a vote, so I ran 3rd and 3.5 for the entirety of their being the current edition even though I was not at all interested in the game for the in-game reasons I found it rough.

Compared to AD&D 2nd, many of the design choices made going into 3rd edition felt like a severe change in paradigm without a reason. Such as saving throws going from something with huge chances of success at high-level play to things which were a lot trickier to succeed at - but the other side of the equation, the effect of spells, wasn't altered. And then there were a lot of other limiters to spell effectiveness that were trimmed out of the game, and I'm not opposed to the idea of that but the execution came off as "just make magic, the already most powerful and versatile part of the game, unquestionably better - and also give casters more spells per day"

There were some aspects which were improved (like making race options feel balanced by a means other than class and level limitations), but the overall experience for me was that the game had been designed to fail anyone that hadn't achieved system mastery.

 

[teitan]

The 3e era and up sense of balance is very different from previous editions. Previously it was an amorphous concept and was handled by varying XP charts that had thieves and clerics leveling very quickly and Wizards and Paladins much more slowly to try to maintain an illusion of relative party power.

In 3e plus it was in relation to one another and to the monsters. Encounter design was built around a very gamist approach with challenge ratings vs party level creating expectations that didn’t exist in previous editions. A low level party encountering a monster beyond their means wasn’t necessarily considered bad adventure design because encounters were designed with what makes sense and combat was, in spite of people thinking otherwise, not the default assumption of either 1e or 2e as well as OD&D and Basic D&D.

When combat became more of a focus of the game, even though the 3e designers clearly state that its overcoming the encounter, not necessarily killing the monsters, that rewarded XP equally rather than collecting gold coins there was a sea change and people look back on older editions as having bad encounter design or poor balance. No they have different criteria and ideas of what that means.

Within their respective paradigms pre and post D&D work but when comparing 2e or earlier to 3e sense of balance and design the game falls apart the way Vampire the Masquerade or Shadowrun would fall apart. Different default assumptions.

Interestingly, what many forget about 2e design is that more powerful races come with suggested XP penalties that were codified in the FRCS as Level Adjustments or Effective Character Levels.

 

[teitan]

3.5e fixed many of the balance flaws with 3e, although those balance flaws mostly came from powergamers that were actively trying to exploit the system, flaws that wouldn't show up in a typical group playing a typical game.

Here I disagree. 3.0 was still designed with old school ideas about classes and races and not towards who gets what at each level and classes being equal while then boosting up other classes. The only class that suffered in 3.0 was the ranger. That class needed a boost. Bards were still largely in line with 2e bards. It was the shift to the idea of a bard as a skill monkey that it started to look poor. I think 3.5 changed too much for the sake of change rather than good design. As I’ve said in this thread, when what was touted as a minor revision and that everything would still be compatible translated to a 100 page conversion document for one adventure, there is a problem. On its own 3.5 was good, sure. But carrying over it was simply too much for the sake of change. 3.5 seemed to go wholesale into that idea of system mastery that the designers hinted at previously during 3.0 and leaned hardcore into it while 3.0 still played like classic editions of D&D without skill mastery and suboptimal characters.

 

[Lanefan]

3e was infinitely more balanced than 2e.

Dubious claim. The difference is that 3e was designed with balance in mind (sort of) and thus one can debate whether or not this intention was successful.

Balance wasn't much of a consideration pre-3e, except in the broadest of terms, so to complain thusly:

2e didn't even have the concept of balance. It literally didn't even TRY to balance anything.

... isn't really fair.

There was absolutely no balance in 2e, because nobody tried to balance anything. You had races that were far superior to others, mechanically, that the only "balancing" factor was level limits that wouldn't even come up in most games. You had spellcasters "I win" spells that meant that even a 1st level Wizard could execute a Total Party Kill on an entire party of NPC's of the same level. You had standard monsters that were practically a TPK waiting to happen if they were ever used as-written.

Sounds balanced to me - both the PCs and the monsters could wipe each other out much more easily.

All it means is that combat might not always be the best answer to a situation...

You had literally no guidelines or framework for what kind of equipment or treasure a party above 1st level should have or what kind of challenges they should be facing.

Feature, not bug.

Particularly when you throw in the fact that in 2e the power curve was much flatter than 3e, meaning that a) yes you could throw something really nasty at a party and they'd still have a chance of beating it and b) lower-level monsters remained a viable threat longer into the campaign.

That same power-curve issue also forced PCs in 3e parties to all be the same level, where in 2e you could viably have a party with a fairly wide level range (maybe plus-minus 2 from the party average) and still run just fine.

3e, while flawed, was far, FAR more balanced and tried to make the various races and classes similar in power level.

The operative word being 'tried'; with the end result being that the weaker classes from 2e (e.g. Cleric) got way overpowered in 3e, while good classes in 2e (e.g. Ranger) got hosed.

 

[haakon1]

That same power-curve issue also forced PCs in 3e parties to all be the same level, where in 2e you could viably have a party with a fairly wide level range (maybe plus-minus 2 from the party average) and still run just fine.

Forced? I’ve been DMing 3.5e for 17 years, and I was never “forced“ to do that. I recently had a party that was 5th-10th level, in the Temple of Elemental Evil. It worked, even when they picked up a 2nd & 3rd level NPC’s to help. Doesn’t feel that different from AD&D to me In that way.

The way the XP work - CR relative to Character Level - brings them together quickly. The 5th level Cleric is now 8th, while the 10th level Monk is still 10th. The Monk began as an AD&D character in 1996 ...

 

[haakon1]

Thinking about time as the current version & today’s Amazon price of a “Like New“ PHB, as a way to look at quality ...

I (of course) think Steven Colbert’s “the market has spoken” proves my favorite (3.5e) is the best, with my second favorite - AD&D - looking pretty good too, though edged out by 2e. But I’m sure there are others of interpreting the data. Sure looks bad for my least favorite (4e) though.

AD&D was active 1978-1989 $104.
2e AD&D 1989-2000. $124.
3e 2000-2003 $20, or -2008 with 3.5e $170, or -2019 with PF1 (no PHB)
4e 2008-2014 $9
5e 2014-? $38

 

[teitan]

Thinking about time as the current version & today’s Amazon price of a “Like New“ PHB, as a way to look at quality ...

I (of course) think Steven Colbert’s “the market has spoken” proves my favorite (3.5e) is the best, with my second favorite - AD&D - looking pretty good too, though edged out by 2e. But I’m sure there are others of interpreting the data. Sure looks bad for my least favorite (4e) though.

AD&D was active 1978-1989 $104.
2e AD&D 1989-2000. $124.
3e 2000-2003 $20, or -2008 with 3.5e $170, or -2019 with PF1 (no PHB)
4e 2008-2014 $9
5e 2014-? $38

Amazon secondary market prices aren’t a trustworthy indicator of trends. Many of those vendors’ products kinda sit there. 3e products are often priced as if they are rare when they’re fairly common. Price Essentials and you’ll see a spike in 4e prices when compared to core 4e. The DM kit has true market rarity along with the Monster Vault.

3.5 flattens out about 25-30 dollars, so cover price, per book.

Also comparing it to 5e, well 5e outsells 3e and every other edition and the secondary market that will inevitably crop up will be reflective of market rarity and no popularity.

 

[Gladius Legis]

The only class that suffered in 3.0 was the ranger.

The Paladin was just as worthless in 3.0, and unlike the Ranger didn't get any improvements worth mentioning for 3.5. The 3.0 Monk was also quite bad, problem was the 3.5 Monk's "fixes" didn't help much.

 

[Viking Bastard]

My RPGing started with BECMI but I was so young that I didn't really understand the rules. I got the 2e core books but I just found them impenetrable. At the same time I tried various other rpgs which all had simple to understand and straightforward mechanics, so that's where I gravitated.

But I loved D&D. I loved the feel of it. I loved the odd kitchen sink lore and gaminess. I spent a lot of time trying to recreate those D&D-isms with other systems but it never felt quite right.

When 3e was announced, I was very intrigued. Then I found Eric Noah's news page and I ate up every update. I loved what I saw: the streamlined mechanics, the lessening of restrictions, etc. And I loved reading the discussions back and forth about it all on these forums.

And then it came out and it was everything I ever wanted. It was perfect. Never been happier with a RPG.

Yknow, until I wasn't.

I grew frustrated with it over time. Kept running into things that I felt didn't work as advertised. There were too many things to keep track of — rules, modifiers, exceptions — during play. And everything felt so interconnected that if I tried to house rule/streamline things it would butterfly across the system, having too many unintended consequences or throwing things out of whack. Over time I also grew an intense dislike for multiclassing and became alienated from the ever increasing crunch focus of online discussion.

Its been so long that I don't really remember much what those things were specifically, but during the last stretch of 3e we had slimmed everything back down to the core books and we'd play a series of short campaigns through levels 5-10, where I found my personal sweet spot of PC power vs complexity in play. And then we eventually just stopped playing and moved onto other things. All together I played 3e mostly for 5-6 years, which is a record that seems like 5e is gonna be the first to break.

But I don't think it's a bad game. I think it's pretty good. It laid the foundation of modern D&D, for good or worse: I love the core mechanics it established but also feel we're, for example, stuck with feats and it's version of skills as base assumptions just because they were in 3e.

 

[teitan]

The Paladin was just as worthless in 3.0, and unlike the Ranger didn't get any improvements worth mentioning for 3.5. The 3.0 Monk was also quite bad, problem was the 3.5 Monk's "fixes" didn't help much.

That’s an opinion. My players and I had zero issues with the Pally and I don’t recall seeing many complaints about them or the monk. Just the Ranger. Even looking back on these forums to see there aren’t any. You’re just showing off edition warrior tendencies here.

 

[billd91]

That’s an opinion. My players and I had zero issues with the Pally and I don’t recall seeing many complaints about them or the monk. Just the Ranger. Even looking back on these forums to see there aren’t any. You’re just showing off edition warrior tendencies here.

I don't think I'd say there are edition warrior tendencies here. The monk really did have some weaknesses (flurry of misses) and the paladin's smite power wasn't exactly a lot to write home about (hence the number of revisions to smite powers since then, particularly in Pathfinder and D&D 5e). The addition of more swift action spells for both the paladin and ranger in later books was also a nice boost that was kind of lacking early on. The paladin was, in no way, as poorly developed as the ranger in 3.0 and so didn't need to change quite as much - but I do believe developments since have definitely improved on it.

 

[haakon1]

That’s an opinion. My players and I had zero issues with the Pally and I don’t recall seeing many complaints about them or the monk. Just the Ranger.

I agree. Ranger is the only class we tinker with. Present tense because I am still running 3.5e, 17 years in. I very much enjoyed playing a Paladin in AD&D and 3/3.5e. Do not recommend in 4e. No experience of that class in 2e or 5e.

I also have a player who loves his monk. Ranger is interesting because it’s so popular, but doesn’t give the people what they want. Favored Enemy is weird ... spellcasting some players like, some don’t. I stole rules from PF as alternatives - the only class I did that for.

I suspect Paladin hate (in any edition) is mostly from people who just aren’t interested in playing a Paladin, people who want to play CN/evil and don’t like anyone who might cramp their Joker style, and people who imagine mean DM will cramp their style.

 

[haakon1]

I loved D&D. I loved the feel of it. I loved the odd kitchen sink lore and gaminess. I spent a lot of time trying to recreate those D&D-isms with other systems but it never felt quite right.

When 3e was announced, I was very intrigued. ... I loved what I saw: the streamlined mechanics, the lessening of restrictions, etc.

And then it came out and it was everything I ever wanted. It was perfect. Never been happier with a RPG.

Same for me. 3e to me is perfect - 100% real D&D feel, but cleaned up and rational.

Yknow, until I wasn't.
....
during the last stretch of 3e we had slimmed everything back down to the core books and we'd play a series of short campaigns through levels 5-10, where I found my personal sweet spot of PC power vs complexity in play.
....
But I don't think it's a bad game. I think it's pretty good. It laid the foundation of modern D&D, for good or worse: I love the core mechanics it established but also feel we're, for example, stuck with feats and it's version of skills as base assumptions just because they were in 3e.

You found the secret! 3.5e Core Books is the platonic ideal of D&D, and works best in levels 1-about 10, maybe 12. That’s assuming you lIke low-level D&D, which I wholeheartedly do. Fireball is awesome, but when you get into 4th and 5th level spells, PC’s are a little too much for normal adventures, IMHO.

Just as pure 1e AD&D Core Books is awesome, if you can deal with the messiness and ignore a lot of it (weapon speed?) - 3e is the streamlined version.