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

[Alzrius]

I expect to do that in my next campaign too. In my current Brotherhood of Rangers game, all the PCs have at least 6+Int per level because they're all ranger-gestalts. This also fixes the issue of those 2+Int classes having such short class-skill lists. Overall, this works for the Brotherhood of Rangers game, but it isn't a general solution.

This reminds me of a post that game designer Owen K. C. Stephens made over on his Patreon page for what he calls "minor gestalts." It's essentially the same as the normal gestalt rules, but you can only gestalt with an NPC class.

In practice, this means having your gestalt class be either the warrior (for the BAB and HD upgrade), adept (for spellcasting), or expert (for the skills). It essentially lets you patch up an area where your standard class is weak, without getting all of the class features that a PC-class gestalt would give you.

 

[CrysmalonDM]

I voted, "I remember liking it," because I honestly did. So much so that we played 3e/3.5 through 2009, before switching to PF 1e which was really just a 3.75. And I ran PF 1e through 2020. And now I can't stand it, lol. I no longer want grid combat, tons of tactical options, etc. It's exhausting. I'll still play in PF 1e or 3.5 games on occasion, but not really my jam. I prefer OSE, Shadowdark, really any OSR-style game.

 

[VHawkwinter]

I voted, "I remember liking it," because I honestly did. So much so that we played 3e/3.5 through 2009, before switching to PF 1e which was really just a 3.75. And I ran PF 1e through 2020. And now I can't stand it, lol. I no longer want grid combat, tons of tactical options, etc. It's exhausting. I'll still play in PF 1e or 3.5 games on occasion, but not really my jam. I prefer OSE, Shadowdark, really any OSR-style game.

Thats a big shift in tastes after so long.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My biggest attachment to the D&D franchise is FR Novels. To a lesser extent Planescape and Spelljammer, and an even lesser extent than that Ravenloft.


Yes, Hit Points have always grated on me for D&D for that reason. It's not describing a setting where training involves making yourself supernaturally durable. I haven't come up with a good houserule for that that doesn't break the rest of the game - I would definitely prefer some kind of "GURPS Forgotten Realms" with 2e style spellcasting and an indepth magic item building system, but that doesn't really exist.

There have been some attempts at it in the d20 Sphere of games.

The one I remember was the wounds/vitality point system that I think originated in the d20 Star Wars games (but not Saga Edition). You had wounds equal to your hit points and vitality points like hit points, critical hits would go directly to wounds. That, IMO, was a neat idea that didn't work. Crits are still too common and the damage values (especially in Star Wars, where blasters would deal something like 3d6 to 3d10 points of damage) it was way too lethal for player characters, especially for a game that invites lots of combat.
I think 4Es approach to Bloodied was a better idea, though it was basically just a condition that someone needed to exploit, it didn't do anything on its own, and 4E had no ambition to be "exact" about what being bloodied meant. It was really just a useful mechanic.

You can have vitality describing luck and skill at parrying/deflecting/dodging, and wounds as your actual physical health.
But crits (and maybe getting bloodied or reduced to 0 vitality) would just inflict 1 wound, not outright weapon damage, (and maybe there is a limit of wounds or there isn't), and then you would need some rule-set for what kind of wounds you could suffer and what they would do. What does it mean to have a broken limb or a concussion or a pierced lung or whatever? I think that's the kinda annoying part... Maybe you might just handwave it and have it as something like "-1 penalty to all checks, saves and attacks" or something elaborate.

 

[SteveC]

I played a ton of it back in the day and loved it, right until you got to higher levels (say 13+) where I hated it. There is nothing you could do to get me to play high level 3E again. But low to medium levels? Definitely!

 

[VHawkwinter]

There have been some attempts at it in the d20 Sphere of games.

The one I remember was the wounds/vitality point system that I think originated in the d20 Star Wars games (but not Saga Edition). You had wounds equal to your hit points and vitality points like hit points, critical hits would go directly to wounds. That, IMO, was a neat idea that didn't work. Crits are still too common and the damage values (especially in Star Wars, where blasters would deal something like 3d6 to 3d10 points of damage) it was way too lethal for player characters, especially for a game that invites lots of combat.
I think 4Es approach to Bloodied was a better idea, though it was basically just a condition that someone needed to exploit, it didn't do anything on its own, and 4E had no ambition to be "exact" about what being bloodied meant. It was really just a useful mechanic.

You can have vitality describing luck and skill at parrying/deflecting/dodging, and wounds as your actual physical health.
But crits (and maybe getting bloodied or reduced to 0 vitality) would just inflict 1 wound, not outright weapon damage, (and maybe there is a limit of wounds or there isn't), and then you would need some rule-set for what kind of wounds you could suffer and what they would do. What does it mean to have a broken limb or a concussion or a pierced lung or whatever? I think that's the kinda annoying part... Maybe you might just handwave it and have it as something like "-1 penalty to all checks, saves and attacks" or something elaborate.

I have been using the PF1 Unchained wound levels for a while, but maybe there's something to be said about reworking the d20 Star Wars system.

I gave a bunch of thought to how to fix it for other games. GURPS and RQ both have better HP and wound setups IMO. Or Perhaps draw inspiration from Rolemaster if you want to have randomised injuries and track your general level of being injured without tracking hit locations? But it would be a huge job to rescale all the damage to compensate, and big monsters will of course become much harder to kill.

In Realm of Stars (my d20 game I've been building) raising your HD has similar benefits to in 3e, but it doesn't just go up through fighting, it's a whole transhumanist alchemical or magical augmentation thing, and 100% represents superhuman durability. I don't have separate injuries / dismemberment as a subsystem yet.

 

[payn]

I played a ton of it back in the day and loved it, right until you got to higher levels (say 13+) where I hated it. There is nothing you could do to get me to play high level 3E again. But low to medium levels? Definitely!

Yeap, thats me too. I usually call it quits around level 12,if im not doing something like E6-8.