Going Back to 3.0

[Psion]

Though I am playing 3.5, I still use 3.0 cover/concealment rules (I prefer the idea of making the determination a function of DM image of the scene rather than tracing lines across a grid that only exists as part of the game), and face/reach (5' squares already exaggerates the size of things!)

 

[Aus_Snow]

I started (3e) with 3.5, but went 'back' to about 3.3-3.4 (though hella house-ruled as well) - somewhere around there, I suspect.

There are bits of each I like more, so I decided to combine them.

 

[Aus_Snow]

As for what is 3.0 or 3.5 I think the cut off is July 2003. Savage Species was the last 3.0 book IIRC.

I think Ghostwalk was the last one before 3.5, but it (and a few others of '03) were kinda 3.3-ish, IIRC.

 

[Drowbane]

I'd prefer to run something 3.25ish. Some of the improvements of 3.5 but with aspects of 3.0.

I prefer the longer buff durations of 3.0 for example.

 

[Arkhandus]

I've never stopped running and playing 3.0, but I have also played 3.5 with groups that I was already in before. I still play both at least occasionally.

I see nothing particularly advantageous to playing 3.5, since 3.0 only requires a few houserules on particular spells, items, and prestige classes. 3.5 requires adopting the wierd weapon-size rules, accepting the wierd changes to feats and class features that messes up the balance, houseruling a bunch of spells that were weakened or strengthened too drastically, accepting a bunch of spells changing schools due only to a wierd designer choice that wasn't even kept consistent in later 3.5 products, the blatant over-powering of certain feats and spells in 3.5, the bad change of conjurations ignoring SR in 3.5 for no good reason, and the wierd change in damage reduction that messes with the game's magic weapon balances and causes the golf-bag-of-magic-weapons problem.

Frankly, 3.5 is a mess. 3.0 was salvageable and a good start, but they just messed around with it in 3.5, rather than streamlining and smoothing it out like a proper revision would've.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

The differences are actually pretty minor: most 3.0 stuff can be ported into 3.5 and vice-versa without any real problems. We usually just use Eclipse, since it generates characters who are compatible with both. Overall, I think 3.0 was a bit cleaner. 3.5 did nerf some overpowered combinations, but it introduced a lot of new ones too. Just look at all the "optimized character builds" out there.

 

[Tharkun]

Why, specifically, is it better than 3.5?

Spells were nerfed a bit too much than they needed to be IMO. (I think the buffs could have been 10 min./lvl instead of a minute per level).

Unnecessary Rules Changes like Damage Resistance totally changed, opening the door to a multitude of special materials usable against only specific monsters. Spell Focus was made practically useless instead of properly fixing the splatbook Greater Focus. In 3.5 Ed., a wide range of spells had their effects radically changed (darkness, polymorph, fly, hold, disintegrate, bull’s strength, teleport, raise dead, etc.). No Playtester Credits.

 

[Kris]

While the games I have played in are usually 3.5 (I own the 3.5 PHB and PHB II at least), the games I run are 3.0.

This is simply because I have a shelf full of 3.0 books that I would like to get some use out of

I could probably use most of them in 3.5 with minor tinkering, and even use the SRD if I didn't want to buy more core books - but I really don't think it's worth my effort so long as I can still find people to play in the 3.0 games I run (perhaps I'm just too lazy/cheap ).

I'll admit that 3.5 might be a better game... but 3.0 worked well enough for me before 3.5 came out, and so I never saw any real reason to start my collection of books all over again.

But as someone who currently plays 3.5 and runs 3.0, both systems feel pretty much the same to me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When 3.5 came around, my group first created a few house rules incorporating 3.5 and 3.0 rules as we prefered them. Nowadays, we play purely 3.5, simply because we can look up everything we want to know in the books we bought.

Flaws of 3.5:

- Buff durations. I think the move to a fixed bonus was a good idea, but the change in the duration only served to promote the "Big Six" magical items concept, and also facilitate the 15 minute adventuring day, since the buffs were only useful for one (or maybe two) combats. This means spellcasters run out of spells even faster.

- Standing up provokes an AoO. Improved Trip as described in 3.5 is too strong with this, and tripping is slightly to effective as a whole (provided you can use it). It's now to easy to get an enemy into a "trip-lock", and this severely hampers humanoid foes.

- Splitting spells with multiple effects. I think this hurt the spontaneous casters with their limited spell selection too much. They were forced to use a few standard spells and couldn't really get creative with what they had.

- Swift and Immediate action spells: I like the basic idea and if I was currently playing a "normal" spellcaster, I'd use them too, but it just doesn't work that great in D&Ds Vancian magic system with limited spells per day. Spells slots go down to fast, and again, this serves a 15 minute adventuring day. The PHB II duskblade seems to take this into account and gave him a lot of spells per day.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

In addition, there are several good products that simply never got updated for 3.5- at least, not as a full product release. Oriental Adventures was updated only in Dragon #318 (as I recall), and Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous is still only available in 3.0 form AFAIK. The same could be said of several fine products from AEG and other 3rd party publishers...some no longer in business. Of course, that means you can probably assemble a nice 3.0 library via the used book market for not a lot of $$$$. Besides the ones mentioned above, I'd add FFE's Book of All Spells and AEG's Feats and Mercenaries to the list of quality 3.0 products, as well as some of the games like Arcana Unearthed or Swashbuckling Adventures.

Well, then we got Arcana Evolved, which is a whole lot like Unearthed. That Feats book, though? I have it personally, and I've never seen a product as hit or miss as that one. There is at least one feat in the book no-one can take (as one pre-req feat can only be taken by elves, and another pre-req feat can only be taken by dwarves), and there's another feat I'm pretty sure no-one can ever have; are there elf subraces without Con penalties in 3.0?

/jack

Personally, I prefer 3.0 with 3.5's classes. EDIT:...and no Ambidexterity feat. It's crippled against power attack anyway without SA dice.