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

[3catcircus]

So I'm not just collecting the votes in this survey poll; I am also listening to (and tracking) the comments and other "added nuance" in the comments. Like the votes, it has produced some rather interesting trends...

For example, here in the 3rd Edition survey, folks have posted 189 comments...well, 190, counting this one. Compared to another, ah, more recent survey, there has been a lot less arguing and moderation intervention than I expected. Grouping the comments into broad (very broad) categories, we find that this edition has sparked a lot more talk about the Days Gone By than any before it. Here's how they break down:

"I remember when..." = 124 comments (65.6%)
Questions or speculation about the survey itself = 23 comments (12.2%)
"The rules in this edition were..." = 13 comments (6.9%)
"Let's talk about this other edition..." = 12 comments (6.3%)
Unrelated posts = 11 comments (5.8%)
"You're wrong, I'm right, let's argue, etc." = 2 comments (1.1%)
Links to other pages = 2 comments (1.1%)
Moderator warnings = 1 comment (0.5%)
The introduction post = 1 comment (0.5%)

Data is awesome.

I would expect nothing less, given the demographics. Most on ENW may have first been exposed to D&D via 3.x rather than OD&D or 1e AD&D.

 

[masshysteria]

My introduction to D&D happened through the old SSI computer games and continued through Bioware's Baldur's Gate games. But I never actually played "real" Dungeons and Dragons until 3.5. It wasn't for a lack of wanting to play, but more where do I start and who am I going to play with.

When D&D 3 was finally released, I found myself with a Players Handbook, but not much to do with it. It wasn't until 3.5 was around that I found a group of people that I wanted to play with and they wanted to play with me.

I always had this strange tension with 3.5. I love the Forgotten Realms book, Eberron was amazing, and some of my best gaming memories come from this time period. But all the system mastery was never my thing. I wanted to let my imagination lead character creation and not plan out level 1 to 20 builds. So, I never felt like I got to be effective with what I really wanted to play. While I was having fun, I was always a little frustrated.

It lead to a lot of reading about alternate systems, like Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved. But, I never went so far as to buy into one of those system. Eventually, 3.5 seemed to collapse under its own crunch creep for me. Nowhere was this felt better than our last hurrah in 3.5, the storied Paizo Rise of the Runelords AP. We allowed whatever sources people had access to and it ended up a broken game. We eventually retired some character and built new ones, just to bring the game back in focus.

By the time 4e was released, I welcomed it with open arms. My gaming group, not so much. We moved on to Pathfinder, but real life responsibilities ended up splitting up the group and most of my gaming was put on hold.

Today, if someone wanted to run a 3.5 game, I'd gladly join, but I have no desire to DM one. I still want to try playing a Beguiler and have learned enough in my time not to worry if my character isn't perfect and just to enjoy what I have because of the flaws.

 

[Orius]

Well, it seems to me that even the people who like 3e are aware that it has flaws, and there's some broad agreement over what the flaws are. So there's less reason to pick fights over things.

 

[Garyda]

I think the move to 3.5 was a bad move.


3rd edition, any version, is the edition I am probably most frustrated by. It is, in a lot of ways, the most "complete" edition, with a mechanic for anything you want to do.. But it's fundamentally at war with itself, with built in flaws to encourage system mastery, and mastering the game involved moving further and further away from the assumptions of the genre.

Hey if all you care about is simplicity buy you a tub of d6 and play tunnels and trolls. Or tour glorantha via Basic roleplaying.

 

[Inanity]

I played it, and I remember liking it.

 

[collin]

D&D 3.0 is what got me back into playing D&D after a several year hiatus. And not just playing it, but going all in with purchasing all the books, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, although I now see how clunky and rule-overloaded it was. After 4E came out, after trying it, my friends and I went from v3.5 to Pathfinder and enjoyed that, as well.

 

[Don Durito]

Every time I look at 3.X I see that there are loads of problems.

But I also see that there are lots of fixes for them. I could simplify a lot of the combat rules by using 13th Age's abstract combat for example. I could address caster imbalance by using the variant magic rules from Thieves World.

But the big sticking point for me is the feats. God they are awful!

And it's not the concept so much as the implementation. If I tried to run it I would have to either completely rewrite all the feats and find rewrite the system to remove the need for them.

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.

Why did the magic system get rewritten so often but no one ever did anything worthwhile with the feats?

 

[Vael]

I started with 3.5, and I have a love/hate relationship with it. As a player, I like the system, there's some neat character builds. But my first attempt to DM it (and DM in general) was a disaster, and DMing 3.5 or Pathfinder is not what I call enjoyable.

So, to me, IMHO, 3.5 is a player's system. And I would play it, but I won't DM it.

I prefer 4e and 5e, in that I find I can enjoy both sides of the DM screen.

 

[3catcircus]

Every time I look at 3.X I see that there are loads of problems.

But I also see that there are lots of fixes for them. I could simplify a lot of the combat rules by using 13th Age's abstract combat for example. I could address caster imbalance by using the variant magic rules from Thieves World.

But the big sticking point for me is the feats. God they are awful!

And it's not the concept so much as the implementation. If I tried to run it I would have to either completely rewrite all the feats and find rewrite the system to remove the need for them.

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.

Why did the magic system get rewritten so often but no one ever did anything worthwhile with the feats?

This.

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.

 

[CleverNickName]

This.

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 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.