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

[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.