D&D 3.x I miss 3.5 edition

[BrokenTwin]

Anyone play Fantasy Craft? I heard it was the "ultimate" 3.x game.
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Fantasy Craft was my D&D 3.5 heartbreaker. I have the books sitting on my shelves, I've spent hours reading them and gushing over them with friends about how my issues with 3.5 were all fixed by FC... and I have never gotten to play a game of it. We were all moving to simpler games at the time, and learning another game of that complexity was too high of a sell for my groups.

But yeah, despite all of my problems with D&D 3.5, it's still 100% my nostalgia bait game. So many concepts I could play in it I still haven't been able to recreate in other games. Especially in the end of the life cycle, where we were getting things like the Binder and Totemist. I would never play it again, but I will probably never stop fantasizing about doing so anyway.

Edit: Aaand now, despite knowing I will NEVER get to play it, I'm reading the Fantasy Craft books again.

 

[Staffan]

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.

I think it shows the difference between world-first and PCs-first game design. Some people prefer the verisimilitude that comes from creating (or buying) a world that is a certain way and has certain things in it, and expect players to respect that world's integrity and create characters that fit. Others make sure the world can accommodate the desires of the players and build those into the narrative of the setting. There's definitely merit in both approaches.

 

[CrysmalonDM]

I have nostalgia for the early days of 3.x where I was so excited and all of us were absolutely drowned in a sea of d20 products (good and bad). But I played 3.x and PF 1e, mostly as a DM, for 20 years and even played in an infrequent PF 1e game up until a month ago. And I'm just done. Never want to run it again. I don't want to see 5 page character sheets. Just, ugh. I've gone the other way and embraced OSR games. But I hear ya, the nostalgia is wonderful and some of the books were just awesome.

 

[Reynard]

4e felt too much like an mmo

Was it the emotes or the raiding?

 

[Reynard]

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)

Every once in a while, I consider trying to run 3.5 again because there is a lot about it I like. Then I see a post by this and I remember that it was players that ruined 3.5.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Every once in a while, I consider trying to run 3.5 again because there is a lot about it I like. Then I see a post by this and I remember that it was players that ruined 3.5.

Core +1 player side?

 

[BrokenTwin]

Core +1 player side?

Core alone contained some of the worst class disparity, so that wouldn't be viable for me. CoDzilla was a meme for a reason.

If I were to ever run 3.5 again, I would run it with the following houserules, minimum:

• Tier 3-4 base classes
• Max 1 prestige class

High on the potential list:

• Inherent bonuses
• Epic 8 rules

It would be so much work to run a version of the game I would be happy with, but it still calls to me...

 

[Celebrim]

Core alone contained some of the worst class disparity, so that wouldn't be viable for me. CoDzilla was a meme for a reason.

Druid in 3.0 is a lot less broken than in 3.5. "Natural Spell" and the ever-enhancing animal companion are the two big reasons for that. I don't even use Druid in my 3.0e homebrew, preferring a homebrew variant of the Green Ronin shaman, but it's not hard to keep Druid under control.

Cleric is a lot less broken in 3.0 than in 3.5. The big problem with the cleric as written is you automatically know every divine spell ever published. That means every published spell is a class feature. The best way to control this and get Cleric down to tier 2 is simply give them a limited spell list of known spells and then just avoid so many of the broken spells that solve every problem. I actually also reduced the Cleric's spell progression by giving them levels where the only spells of a given level they could cast was per day were one of the domain spells, "0+D". This brings Cleric down to low tier 2 on its own.

Generally speaking, you can control a lot of the problems by not adding spell level to the saving throw DC. This is double dipping and breaks the model established by 1e whereas characters leveled up, the consequences of a failed saving throw tended to increase and so the chances of passing a save had to tend to increase as well. This very much nerfs the 3e problem of spellcasters having full battlefield control and control of the action economy.

I have a lot of other minor tweaks to balance to bring the low tier classes like fighter up to higher tier, but I have found that through 11th level or so, it's possible to have a lot of parity, where out of the box the game starts breaking down as early as 7th.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I have a lot of other minor tweaks to balance to bring the low tier classes like fighter up to higher tier, but I have found that through 11th level or so, it's possible to have a lot of parity, where out of the box the game starts breaking down as early as 7th.

Have you tried giving Fighters all good saves? Or at least two good ones.

 

[Celebrim]

Have you tried giving Fighters all good saves? Or at least two good ones.

No, but saving throws are generally easier across the board because not only do you not add spell level to the DC of a save, but you don't add 1/2 the HD of the monster to the base DC of a save either. Again, that's double counting since larger monsters will already tend to have higher attributes, and it violates the 1e design of the saving throw. So the general problem of your saving throws not scaling up with the threats you are facing doesn't exist in my game.

The problem isn't with bad or good saves. That's patching the problem from the wrong end. The problem is that spellcasters survive the bad save problem by self-buffing, often in dysfunctional ways ("Mind Blank", "Heroes' Feast", "Freedom of Action", "Death Ward") to get blanket immunity to problems that realistically can't be saved against. And they have to do this because the math on saving throws in general is wrong.

Fighters get 5 skill points per level, access to new fighter specific skills that increase movement rate, carrying capacity, or give them the ability to aid others in battle, something like 17 bonus feats, plus 3 bonus feats that extend weapon specialization etc. to more weapons, plus a variety of other small benefits. Plus top end feats of the sort most classes couldn't get to because they have 3 or 4 prerequisite feats are really powerful. For example, "Secret Technique" allows the fighter to automatically threaten a critical on any hit when using one of their other chosen feats (say Cleave, but there is a long list), "Second Wind" lets you recover 20% of your hit points the first time each day you are reduced to 10% or less of your hit points, "Beat Down" causes your next attack in the same round to automatically threaten to crit when you score a critical, "Juggernaut" gives you hardness (DR + energy resistance) equal to your armor's base AC bonus, etc. Higher level fighters can easily match the feats of Beowulf, Hiawatha, and other legendary heroes.