D&D 3.x I miss 3.5 edition

[neceros]

@nevin
I too have a soft spot for 3x. I've always played D&D, but that edition was the one my friends and I really went in on. 8 hours a day, just about every day (PF ruleset).

I still have my books (they're just too memorable to get rid of), but not sure I'd go back to it. Your assumptions are correct about high level games: they are a lot of effort to run, especially magic-user NPCs! I'm currently playing PF2 and really enjoying it.

I'd like to play pf2

 

[Maxperson]

While I played several iconic legacy builds from past editions in 3.5Ed, it let me try characters that simply weren’t possible before, doing things that weren’t possible before. After a certain point, I barely played a PC that would be easily retrofitted into one of the older iterations.

And aren't possible now. When I think of my favorite characters from 3e, none of them are buildable in 5e.

 

[Jahydin]

I'd like to play pf2

Rules are free!: PF2 SRD

Also, another great reference: Home - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database

 

[Maxperson]

Just kill those players till they leave your table if your running high level games. If they can do it. It should be fair game for the DM as well.

I mean, you only have to kill them once. If they get up after that, you're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and your DMing days are over.

 

[Celebrim]

Like what?

Prestige Classes, for example. Particularly, when you started getting two or three front loaded classes that allowed you to play what was already a viable concept, but better, and then you started seeing charop's from players just assuming they could enter into two or three prestige classes.

Increased spell lists for another, particularly because there was nothing balancing divine casters. Every single spell published became an available class feature.

Indeed, just about everything introduced in 3.5 actively harmed the game. Playtesting was non-existent. The publishing schedule was everything. Every book had to offer new chargen options because they were wanting to drive sales by making sure the book would appeal to both players and GMs. So every book was just lousy with new chargen options. No game requires 600 prestige classes, and if yours does, something is wrong with the game. What's worse, aside from the Pun-Pun problem and needing table agreements as to how much you were going to break the game, is that with all those chargen options, tons of archetypal characters still weren't really playable. Because invariably, to meet deadlines everyone would just go after the easiest concepts and the lowest hanging fruit.

Complete mess. 3.5e was too compatible with 3.0e to actually fix any of its problems, so instead it just buried the problems under a mountain of other problems.

 

[neceros]

Prestige Classes, for example. Particularly, when you started getting two or three front loaded classes that allowed you to play what was already a viable concept, but better, and then you started people charop's by just assuming they could enter into two or three prestige classes.

Increased spell lists for another, particularly because there was nothing balancing divine casters. Every single spell published became an available class feature.

Indeed, just about everything introduced in 3.5 actively harmed the game. Playtesting was non-existent. The publishing schedule was everything. Every book had to offer new chargen options because they were wanting to drive sales by making sure the book would appeal to both players and GMs. So every book was just lousy with new chargen options. No game requires 600 prestige classes, and if yours does, something is wrong with the game. What's worse, aside from the Pun-Pun problem and needing table agreements as to how much you were going to break the game, is that with all those chargen options, tons of archetypal characters still weren't really playable. Because invariably, to meet deadlines everyone would just go after the easiest concepts and the lowest hanging fruit.

Complete mess. 3.5e was too compatible with 3.0e to actually fix any of its problems, so instead it just buried the problems under a mountain of other problems.

why do you hate my sorcerer paladin monk abjurant mage with 54 AC, maximum saves, 7th level spells, and near full BAB?

never played it because i felt bad for my gm

level	class	bab	caster level	F R W	other
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	paladin paladin monk monk sorcerer sorcerer sorcerer sorcerer abjurant champion abjurant champion spell sword abjurant champion abjurant champion abjurant champion eldritch knight eldritch knight eldritch knight eldritch knight eldritch knight eldritch knight	+1 +1 0 +1 0 +1 0 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1	0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 + 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1	2 0 0 1 0 0 2 2 2 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1	combat casting, power attack - force of personality - - leap attack - - ascetic mage - - practiced spellcaster (sorc) - - leap of the ehavens - - ? - -
		17	20	15 7 15

BAB: 17
Sorc CL: 20
Sorc Spell Level: 15
7th level spells
Monk AC with CHA instead of Wis
CHA to Saves via Divine Grace (27, 19, 27)
CHA to WIS again via Force of Personality (W 39)
Abjurant Champion goodies
All abjuration spells extended Free
All abjuration spells 3rd or under swifted Free
AC: 54 = 10 + 9(dex) + 12(cha) + 1(monk) + 5(protection) + 9(shield spell) + 8(bracer of armor)

 

[Celebrim]

never played it because i felt bad for my gm

Mid to late 3.5e required a session minus one where the participants worked out to what degree they were going to not break the game so that they'd be all on the same page.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mid to late 3.5e required a session minus one where the participants worked out to what degree they were going to not break the game so that they'd be all on the same page.

I have seen many people posting about stuff like this and I have to wonder if this was more prevalent in groups that were new or had a lot of participation churn & membership fluctuations. Because the group I was in for 20+ years- covering the entire publication history of 3Ed & 3.5Ed- simply didn’t have that problem.

To be clear: we had people in the group who were perfectly ABLE to design game-breaking builds- myself included. All but one player was a longtime participant in the hobby before we wound up gaming together. The guy I knew best, I’d been gaming with for a decade before, and his Wizards from AD&D on all had essentially the same optimized spell list. Another was a CRPG programmer for a major company.

But nobody was willing. Nobody wanted to be “that dude” who was spoiling the game for everyone else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I really miss 3.5. I bought enormous amount of books, and I have fond memories of it despite its downfalls. I know it's not perfect especially after level 10 or so. But I don't mind that. A high level character should be overwhelmingly strong in my opinion.

I've not played a character very high in 5th ed yet, so i can't say how it feels, but it doesn't seem like it would be terrible powerful. Is it? Do you guys have experience with the level 15+ 5e characters?

High level 5e characters can a solutely be very very powerful, but they do not break the game like 3.5.

That said, everyone has a competwnt character at every level, rather than some being near useless after or before a certain level.

 

[Keldryn]

Prestige Classes, for example. Particularly, when you started getting two or three front loaded classes that allowed you to play what was already a viable concept, but better, and then you started seeing charop's from players just assuming they could enter into two or three prestige classes.

When classes just become more building blocks to mix and match, we essentially have a point-based system pretending it's still a class-based system. Except a point-based system would be a lot simpler and cleaner.

I liked the concept of prestige classes as originally presented in the 3.0 DMG. They were a DM's tool for world-building, and while they had mechanical requirements, the intent was that there were also in-fiction requirements. I never got the impression that it ever intended for characters to take a couple of levels in multiple PrCs. Of course, that concept started falling apart as soon as the first class splatbook arrived.