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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5427921" data-attributes="member: 1210">Try running epic 3.5 without playing fast & loose with the rules and you should see what folks are talking about when they say these things. Heck, I remember spending six or eight hours on a single epic villain more than once, between advancing/leveling/prestige classing and custom spells, items, epic spells, etc. Not to mention having a couple of versions of alternative stat blocks available for the page's worth of spell buffs being fully active, (mostly) inactive (except for constant or permanent effects) and completely disjoined. (In an epic game, if you don't have this ready, things grind to a halt after the first spellcaster takes his turn.) I would routinely spend far more time in prep than in actual game play during my epic campaign. Don't get me wrong, it was worth it- I really enjoyed it- but it was a ton of work, especially as the bad guys often died without having a chance to act. Wince. So the reduction in prep time that 4e offers is fantastic. That said, it's easy to get around the superlong prep times in high-level 3e by simply not slavishly following the rules; estimate skill points without worrying about cross-class costs, wing the feat selection past a certain point, only worry about the top three levels of spells, etc.What I find interesting about the way that 4e did it is that it basically takes all those shortcuts and makes them RAW. What skills does this monster have? Well, what does it need? What feats does it have? Don't worry about it. Here, give it enough cool stuff to do and call it good. Oh, it's supposed to be a villainous fighter? Let's throw in some powers based on cool fighter powers but make up the actual details to suit. And so on. I love the tinkery, toolkity nature of 3.5 creature design (pc or monster). Remember when templates were actually cool and worth using? Remember when you could have a gargoyle binder/blackguard that dripped complexity on the page? But the trade off is time and effort and complexity. Instead of "Okay, my damage should be 2d8+10 because of my level", it's "Okay, my base damage is 1d6... but I have Improved Natural Attack, so it's 1d8... my strength bonus is +4, but it's my only natural attack, so I get strength and a half... so that's +6... now, if I have bull's strength and guidance of Galador up, that increases by strength bonus to +6, so +9... and I get an additional +2 vs. chaotic or evil, or +5 vs. Chaotic Evil..." Fiddle fiddle fiddle. As usual when discussing the differences between different editions, it's all a matter of taste. I think I might actually enjoy the monster design process of 3e more, but it's a hassle to have to use it for a game at high levels.</blockquote>

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