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

[rabindranath72]

A few things, though:
1- Animate Dead is not cheap: 50gp black onyx gems for each corpse. The DM is in total control of whether these are easy to find, and if he doesn't want the spell cast/deems it unbalancing, he simply limits access to the gems.
2- Animate Dead has the "Evil" descriptor. Evil characters are not very common in my experience, though it can be a fun challenge for the DM (I did once run a Dragonlance campaign for evil characters; the PCs were officers in the Dragonarmies.)
3- Desecrate is not Evil, but for a non-evil character its utility is limited to the desecration of an enemy temple/altar.

 

[GrimCo]

We are talking about edition with magic market where it's implied that you have couple of thousand gold worth of magic items. Wealth by level table puts lv 5 PC at around 9000 gp. Spending couple of grand on black onyx gets you better ROI than spending it on magic weapon. By the end of Tier 2, that goes to 49000 GP. At that point, you are baller. Money stops being an issue. You throw away +1 swords in "junk to sell" pile.

Evil characters were fairly common in my experience. Also, neutral clerics can cast evil spells and have inflict instead of cure. So neutral cleric of Evil deity or Neutral deity with Death domain is also viable options. So long as you don't have Paladin in your party, you are good to go.

Desecrate is there to buff your undead minions.

 

[rabindranath72]

Well magic markets are just an option. See the "Power components" variant, which I started using from day 0. If the DM says that black onyxes don't exist (or are very rare), then black onyxes don't exist (or are very rare.)
The Wealth by Level table is built on an assumption of averages; one could roll on the Treasure Tables and go well below average, or the DM can actually act as the DM and choose the amount of treasure to dole out, again like I have done from day 0. The game allows by design (see DMG p.164) low magic and high magic campaigns by explicit tweaking the amount of magic doled out (e.g. half or twice the WBL table entries.) In my games there have never been, nor there will ever be "junk piles" of magic items. I also use training rules to drain the PCs' coffers: they must always be kept hungry for more.

Sure neutral clerics could cast evil spells if the DM allowed appropriate deities, but again the DM is in control if he doesn't want some things at the table. Desecrate can still be useful even without undead minions.

If the DM wants, all the tools are there in the books to exert as much or as little control. The books tell us what's possible (which is near limitless), not what must happen at the table.

 

[GrimCo]

I'm going by basic rules as presented in PHB. Initial presumption was that there aren't really any broken combos in PHB. Cleric with animate dead and create undead is from PHB. And it's broken enough.

You can do in your games as you wish, remove things, add things. You can just ban necromancy spells and case closed. But, RAW, black onyx is in the same boat as bat guano and diamond dust and all material components needed for casting spells.

Low magic campaigns gimp mostly pure martials more than casters. Especially in late Tier 2 and above. Tier 4 characters glow like a Christmas tree with all the magic bling they need to be efficient against monsters of appropriate CR.

 

[rabindranath72]

Well, the "basic rules" are represented by PHB, DMG, and MM. The rules in the DMG apparently tell us that not everything in the PHB need be available or must be used as-is (amongst other things, race/class combinations.)
The point is not just doing as we wish in our games (which is always a given), it's the fact that the books themselves are chock full of knobs and levers to adjust the gaming experiences to one's own tastes and still play "by the book". A cleric that can't cast Animate Dead is as much "by the book" as a cleric that can. A wizard with 20 wands is as much "by the book" as a wizard with just one.

 

[GrimCo]

Well, we agree. You pick and choose what you want or don't want in your games.

TBH i skipped 3ed, started with 3.5 and ever since SRD became available, ditched physical books altogether. Most people i knew would buy PHB and maybe MM, few people I know bought or actually read DMG (skimmed it lightly myself, most of rules were in PHB anyway). I legit know people that played 3.5 without ever buying any of the books since everything needed was online anyway.

 

[rabindranath72]

I bet few people ever read the DMG, considering the arguments and discussions I have seen online! Like I jokingly tell my friends "the best never read book in gaming history." Yet it's such a fundamental part of the game not only for the extra rules, but for the "knobs and levers" which pretty much guarantee that no two 3e games need be the same, and possibly at the extreme boundaries of a spectrum of styles.
3.5 changed so many things, some blatant, others subtle, w.r.t. 3e that it can actually feel a different game at the table (and made some of the borderline aspects of 3e worse and more difficult to control; e.g. 3.5 druids vs 3e druids.)

 

[payn]

3E DMG II is one of the best GM books D&D has ever had.

 

[Voadam]

A cleric that can't cast Animate Dead is as much "by the book" as a cleric that can. A wizard with 20 wands is as much "by the book" as a wizard with just one.

Are you arguing that restrictions of core stuff is as by the book as access to core stuff so that really powerful core caster options are not problems in 3e because they can be restricted by a DM choosing to do so?

I would say that restrictions of core stuff is not the default baseline.

Arguing that a core option can be restricted by a DM is different than arguing that the core option is not overpowered/very powerful.

Cleric necromancers are very powerful core options at mid to high levels.

So are druids.

A druid with natural spellcasting and maxxing out their wisdom score is a basic simple core build, that allows a SAD full caster who can shapechange into physical combat beasts capable of full caster spellcasting. A large size dire bear with improved grab and a good grapple is a very effective melee shut down of a single BBEG. With full casting on top of that. Also they have animal companions and spontaneous animal summoning to mess with action economy like a bunch of animated dead from a cleric necromancer.

CoDzilla is a 3e core thing.

Wizards also have lots of very strong core options, cloudkill con damage with save for still taking half con damage each round, will save targeting spells from suggestion to dominate to Tasha's hideous laughter, the best area of effect direct damage spells, battlefield control spells like web and wall spells, and super useful utility spells like fly, knock, invisibility 10' radius, etc.

 

[rabindranath72]

I exclusively run 3.0 core, which has no natural spellcasting (and call lightning requires a storm, can't be cast in a dungeon like in 3.5). As I said, 3e druids and 3.5 druids are two different objects. I don't care about 3.5 in general.
[edited] Don't care about discussing CoDzilla or other amenities 23 years after the fact, nor justifying the use of variants at my table.