Evaluation of 3.5 Rule Changes.

[Darklone]

More than one of my groups had nearly every non-spellcaster multiclassing to rogue (and the main rogue multiclassed with three levels of wizard for nice utility) because of the same reason: being useful outside of combat.

Ah well, and ripping that large dragon to pieces at level 4 with greatsword sneak attacks from all sides.

 

[Psion]

In my opinion, power attack is not fine, and it is at the core of many exploits. I make it work like stength mod (though that only dampens, but not eliminates, most exploits.)

I don't like deflect arrows, either, but that's a simple fix.

Buff spells I didn't like at first, but it seems to work okay in practice.

I think the removal of frontloading on most classes is good.

Ranger combat styles is good, but doesn't go far enough. (Thank you Mearls for Wildscape!)

Paladin mount is a horrible change from a flavor perspective AFAIAC, and is horribly justified (I don't think it's the job of the rules to be a bulwark against mean DMs.)

Spell changes - at the time, the school changes and specialization changes were a big monkey wrench in my game. Now that I have moved on to a new campaign, it's not such a big deal. However, there are still two problems with it:

1. The sorcerer is brutalized by splitting up spells like symbol.
2. Conjuration having both attack powers and teleportation just made conjuration the super-school instead of transmutation.

The nerfing of DC boosting was needed, but the changes went to far. In particular, spell focus nerfing was excessive.

Special material DR proved to be much less of an issue than anticipated. The one that comes up most (and hoses you the most at low levels if you don't metagame it) is skeletal undead. I don't like DR x/magic because it's almost meaningless past low levels; I retain DR X/+Y in my game to keep it meaningful.

Adamantine bypassing hardness is another munchkin dream loophole that I reverted to 3.0 on.

Facing and reach changes always rubbed me the wrong way, especially considering creatures are oversized and already have a zone of control anyways.

Cover and Concealment were better before. Before, they recognized the GMs imagination of the situation as the source of what was going on. 3.5's version makes the battlemat the authority.

Don't understand why the first level multiclassing rules were excised from the DMG.

The stock NPC tables in the DMG became much less useful useless.

Just a few that occur.

 

[Someone]

Animated Shields are a big mistake. Regardless of whatever you do to two-handed weapons or power attack, a greatsword + animated shield always beats every other style.

Cheers!

Nope. Animated shield + twf with greatsword and armor spikes beat it.

 

[Mistwell]

We found 3.5 Darkness was silly. Dark should be dark, not shade.

I also think the weapon sizes was a backwards step, but it's not really detrimental just annoying.

 

[Harm]

Special material DR in 3.5 is silly. Seeing silver and adamantine and alignment and blunt all come up in one adventure makes you want to hit someone with a book.

People that think power attack is overpowered, please. Stop having your NPCs tied down and naked. Normal armour for the level of NPC makes power attack a risky maneuver and makes full attacks only hit on 5% after the first swing. Many single feats or magic items for mages double their damage or better and melee simply can't touch the damage mages do on multiple targets. And as others pointed out, mages can do things OTHER than damage, spider climb, invis, silence, find traps they outclass rogues in their main jobs too. Fighters and barbarians do one thing, damage, they should be BETTER than mages at it but as it stand mages far outclasses meleers. It makes NO sense that a cleric can outdamage a fighter AND heal AND have utility spells. Pure meleers need MORE feats on par with power attack to catch up with the massive power boosts that all the new complete cheese books have added to mages.

Assay Spell Resistance... please, why do they even add SR in the game then make it tottally obsolete. How about we give meleers the ability to completely ignore an opponent's AC for 1 round/level as a swift action once per day at 7th level and an additional time for every 2 levels after?

Metamagic wands... hey lets let meleers take a cheap item that will let them crit at will 3 times per day!

 

[Psion]

People that think power attack is overpowered, please.

Power attack as it was in 3.0 was good, but not great. Doubling power attack, on the other hand...

Stop having your NPCs tied down and naked.

Not necessary. See: true strike, wraith strike, deep impact. See also: attacking inanimate objects.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Or even just look at the AC scores of properly equipped NPCs. Monsters have it worse - you practically have to use one of a very few templates on them to boost their AC scores properly.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Nope. Animated shield + twf with greatsword and armor spikes beat it.

Get out of my head!

 

[VirgilCaine]

Special material DR proved to be much less of an issue than anticipated. The one that comes up most (and hoses you the most at low levels if you don't metagame it) is skeletal undead. I don't like DR x/magic because it's almost meaningless past low levels; I retain DR X/+Y in my game to keep it meaningful.

Adamantine bypassing hardness is another munchkin dream loophole that I reverted to 3.0 on.

-This is the weakness of the new monster info rules. Adventurers, heirs to long-established civilizations, might not know anything about "classic"/"common" monsters. Like vampires. Or skeletons.

-A player in a game I was in asked if he could use his adamantine arrow to destroy a stone door. I was shocked when the DM said yes.
Personally, the arrow is going to break before you dig very far.

 

[Elephant]

Er, I don't see how Power Attack, of all things, is "overpowering" in 3.5x, considering the relative power levels of spellcasters compared to martial classes.

The only change I don't like (which is also house ruled in my own game) is the change of teleportation type spells from transmutation to conjuration.

How does teleportation make sense as a transmutation?