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

[GrimCo]

It's not insult. If i wanted to insult you, i would called you pretentious prick. Which i didn't.

First off, you don't know about setting or game style our group had not do you know any of house rules we used. Oh, and look at this tidbit

Round 1: Fire storm or implosion and quickened telekinesis, or summon additional demons. If the balor does not deem itself seriously threatened, it conserves abilities usable only once per day and uses blasphemy instead.

So DM literally used first round entry from srd.

Let me give you analogy. You are prime Mike Tyson. 3 dudes come to your house for some business negotiation. You look them over and see they look like wimps. In the middle of talking, one of them cheap shots you with gut punch. It hurt you, but not seriously. Guy probably used his best shot and didn't do much. You are more insulted than hurt. Your ego just got bruised. What? You gonna run? And let those punks talk around they scared big bad champ in running away like little biatch? Or you are gonna use your strongest punches and beat those punks to pulp? (and Blasphemy is one of the best AoEs he has).

You run your games how you want it. It's like, there isn't one true way to play this game.

And yes, high level play is hard to keep grounded. PCs have abilities to raise hordes of undead, summon all kinds of nasty creatures, can jump from plane to plane. High level casters can decimate armies with one or two spells, banish outsiders, and all kinds of nasty stuff. At high level, you play super hero game.

 

[CleverNickName]

We've already had one of these surveys get locked because of arguments and insults; let's not have another.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not insult. If i wanted to insult you, i would called you pretentious prick. Which i didn't.

First off, you don't know about setting or game style our group had not do you know any of house rules we used. Oh, and look at this tidbit

Round 1: Fire storm or implosion and quickened telekinesis, or summon additional demons. If the balor does not deem itself seriously threatened, it conserves abilities usable only once per day and uses blasphemy instead.

So DM literally used first round entry from srd.

You got off a 100 hit point harm reducing 1/3 of its hit points before it could even act. If it didn't feel threatened...

Let me give you analogy. You are prime Mike Tyson. 3 dudes come to your house for some business negotiation. You look them over and see they look like wimps. In the middle of talking, one of them cheap shots you with gut punch. It hurt you, but not seriously. Guy probably used his best shot and didn't do much. You are more insulted than hurt. Your ego just got bruised. What? You gonna run? And let those punks talk around they scared big bad champ in running away like little biatch? Or you are gonna use your strongest punches and beat those punks to pulp? (and Blasphemy is one of the best AoEs he has).

1/3 of Tyson's hit points with a single punch is a headshot with a knockdown. It's not something minor that he ignores.

And yes, high level play is hard to keep grounded. PCs have abilities to raise hordes of undead, summon all kinds of nasty creatures, can jump from plane to plane. High level casters can decimate armies with one or two spells, banish outsiders, and all kinds of nasty stuff. At high level, you play super hero game.

I never found it so. I guess I'm just that good as a DM and you're right about 3e as a general way it plays at high level.

 

[GrimCo]

60, so around 1/5. Thats sucker punch to the gut. Hurts, but you are still up and ready to fight. First round after initiative was one he failed, but at that point, he is down from both sucker punch harm, wizards spell and warblades hit.

Let's just agree to disagree, we have different experience playing game, so no point arguing. You might be excellent DM, don't know. If you and your players are enojing your games, then you are. I enjoyed playing with that DM and i enjoy particular style of games more than others. How crazy it can get, depends on DM, players, their play style. I'we seen some crazy things ( but that game was played more like wargame than rpg) with some OP builds with hyper optimization and dm using double max hp on monsters.

Oh, and it depends on what optional books are allowed. There was some wacky stuff out there, but there were some real nice combos.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's not insult. If i wanted to insult you, i would called you pretentious prick. Which i didn't.

Mod Note:

And now you did.

 

[rgard]

Minor digression, but my favorite take on the 3.X sorcerer was in Octavirate Expansions: Feared and Hated (affiliate link), which was a short third-party supplement that played up the idea of sorcerers being outcasts that was present in WotC's 3.X material, but never really played up.

In this case, the book pushes that angle by introducing some new flaws and spelltouched feats (both from Unearthed Arcana) that highlight the bodily nature of the sorcerer's magic, such as them having a freakish appearance and potential random discharges of magic, but also being able to use certain minor magical effects without actually casting a spell.

It also introduced a variant sorcerer class, the bloodbound sorcerer, that had a spell list which was curated around a particular theme, such as plants, lightning, speed, etc. These were the only spells a bloodbound sorcerer could pick their "spells known" from, making them much more focused than wizards. Overall, I really liked how it pushed the flavor of the class forward (i.e. sorcerers as freaks, similar to mutants in Marvel Comics) compared to WotC's presentation.

Ok, I was sold. Bought Octavirate Expansions: Feared and Hated based on your comment.

 

[Alzrius]

Ok, I was sold. Bought Octavirate Expansions: Feared and Hated based on your comment.

Awesome! I hope you're as inspired by it as I am!

 

[rgard]

Awesome! I hope you're as inspired by it as I am!

Read some of it last night. It looks fun. Thank you.

 

[Ron]

I didn’t enjoy this edition much. While there were some clear improvements, such as ascending AC, new rules for multi-classing, and the concept of prestige classes (if not the execution), monsters became overly complicated as they followed the same rules as PCs. Buff spells turned combat preparation into a tedious logistics game. The addition of hundreds of feats helped some characterization but was too complex. Finally, the idea promoted by some designers that players should master character creation made it clear that this wasn’t a game for me. In the end, I found no enjoyment in playing this edition.

 

[VHawkwinter]

I ran a lot of 3.0 up until like 2007. It was not "all books are clear" in my campaigns for content.

I liked it, but I feel like the official content largely got worse and bloated over time, and my favourite books outside the core set are all Planar and FR setting books, plus maybe CityScape and Unearthed Arcana. I was (and am even more now) rather inclined to generally skip most of the non-setting WotC expansion books. If a player wants an option from one, they can sell me on it. I also deeply appreciate the high degree of playability for monster types, though it's not perfect. If a player wants to play an awakened squirrel wizard, that's not too hard for me to work out and have them be very clearly a squirrel. Or if they want to play as a Beholder, no problem. If something weird fits my campaign, I don't have to reinvent the wheel to allow it, it's relatively easy. Oslecamo's monster classes and the GitP LA Reassignment project makes it better - but many games don't even come close to this degree of playable creature variety, and I really appreciate it.

The 3pp books were mixed bag, with a lot of junk - but also some of what I would consider to be the best D&D books that aren't setting books as well are third party D&D books from before ~2005.

If I'm going to D&D it's my D&D of choice, but that's for best core rules while still supporting the 2e Settings quite well through the 3e setting books for TSR settings, and for some 3rd party expansions, not for the trillion character options bloat in WotC splats over time.