D&D 3.x I miss 3.5 edition

[Greg K]

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.

I still remember Andy Collins penning a Dragon article In which he tells DMs to determine which PrCs are appropriate for their campaign and helping them to make that determination. Then, during 3.5 or very late 3.0, he penned another article for his Sibling Rivalry web column in which he contradicts his earlier advice and tells DMs to fit in whatever concept/PrC the player wants to play. Personally, I considered the latter good advice for selling books, but bad for campaigns at the table.

 

[neceros]

I love Prestige classes. I like the maxing. I'd be great if it WAS a point buy system somehow. D&D: point buy everything. Actually that's kind of what D20 Modern was like, a little bit.

i really think D20 Modern could have run almost any genre including fantasy. One system i wish I played more.

 

[Greg K]

i really think D20 Modern could have run almost any genre including fantasy. One system i wish I played more.

If I recall correctly, Grim Tales by Bad Axe Games was a fantasy RPG built on the d20 Modern chassis.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

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

Answering for myself, as a DM, the build straight up has several points of contention.

1) (Personally) contentious multi-classing involving BOTH monk and paladin (it's not the legality but the intent of dipping several front-loaded classes for optimization purposes; at this point, narrative justification, for me, doesn't even excuse it).
2) Several prestige classes (requiring the DM to acquiesce not once but twice, especially if those classes were not previously a part of their setting).
3) Role creep (hard to hit, hard to affect, fights like a fighter, casts like a spellcaster; too many hats for one PC).
4) AC, saves, and action economy inflated compared to the baseline game (the character asks to be counter-built in ways that might not naturally happen in the setting so either the character wipes the floor with everything or the optimization forum metagame is now governing the in-setting logic).

The character warps what kind of encounters are allowed to exist and indirectly asks the DM (and the other players) to participate in an arms race without consent. The fact you did not play it because you felt bad for your DM is the tell that you already understand why it would be a problem.

 

[Jahydin]

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.

Yeah, same here. I ran some flavor of 3.x with dozens of groups for over 10 years with just about zero issues. I say just about, because there was one guy who wanted to run his quarter Genie, half Orc, quarter Dragon with 4 classes that gave him a +22 to trip or whatever. It was an easy solution though: I just told him no.

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.

Same here. Some of it too was that the DM had absolute power no matter how much someone min/maxes. So if someone comes to the table with sole intention of "breaking the game", it's not going to go well for them. For instance, show me you get a +13 to hit while the rest of the group is +6, I'm going to say, "No, respec into something that sensical". Refuse, I'll let you keep +13 on your sheet, but you're secretly only hitting at +7. Usually the snickering from the other players each time they missed was enough to clue them in to just pick something else.

Also, throwing fits got you banned from the campaign. Not being angry, but throwing a real temper tantrum. I have zero patience for adult toddlers in my life. Thankfully, only had to do it a few times in my life and always when playing with new people.

 

[Jahydin]

Anyone play Fantasy Craft? I heard it was the "ultimate" 3.x game.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

You can call it bad DM'ing but some tables like the High level Hijinx -"exploits" - whatever you want to call it. Pretty arrogant to tell those tables they are bad players/DM's.

Fair enough. A given game can have an agreement (probably unspoken), a "game contract" that certain 'hijinx' are PC-only; that the NPCs will avoid them or act as if they don't exist, and if it works for that game, it works for that game.

I will call it bad if there is such an agreement in place and the GM breaks it, having the NPCs/monsters start using those PC only tactic against the PCs.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

To answer the thread topic, I don't miss 3.5e as I am actively playing in a campaign. I even finished a 5 year campaign of 247 sessions last year. What I do miss, as a DM, is not having to second-guess and remove players at a drop at a hat. The pool of players is thin and a lot of those who are available are just poor fits for the table I want to run.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, same here. I ran some flavor of 3.x with dozens of groups for over 10 years with just about zero issues. I say just about, because there was one guy who wanted to run his quarter Genie, half Orc, quarter Dragon with 4 classes that gave him a +22 to trip or whatever. It was an easy solution though: I just told him no.


Same here. Some of it too was that the DM had absolute power no matter how much someone min/maxes. So if someone comes to the table with sole intention of "breaking the game", it's not going to go well for them. For instance, show me you get a +13 to hit while the rest of the group is +6, I'm going to say, "No, respec into something that sensical". Refuse, I'll let you keep +13 on your sheet, but you're secretly only hitting at +7. Usually the snickering from the other players each time they missed was enough to clue them in to just pick something else.

Also, throwing fits got you banned from the campaign. Not being angry, but throwing a real temper tantrum. I have zero patience for adult toddlers in my life. Thankfully, only had to do it a few times in my life and always when playing with new people.

In our case, it was a complete non-issue, no GMs pulling rank required. Seriously. None of the people who ran campaigns even bothered checking character sheets…in ANY system.

Which isn’t to say that the GMs didn’t exert controls. Several of them had campaign rules excluding certain races and/or classes, or other restrictions. For example, the last 3.5Ed campaign had a PHB + 2 Books rule. IOW, you could design your PC as you wanted, but you could only use the PHB and 2 other books to do so. The one exception was that anything the GM introduced into the campaign was fair game.