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Issue with "Core" 3.5?
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<blockquote data-quote="TerraDave" data-source="post: 6490924" data-attributes="member: 22260"><p>3.0 was a big advance at the time, and a difficult compromise between keeping a lot of the details of past editions, not just the broad strokes, and bringing in what was then considered good practice in RPGs (most of which was, and some of which maybe wasn't). It had cleaner mechanics then older editions, and gave players and DMs a lot of options, even in the core. It was a little complicated and fiddly. At higher levels, this complexity became a much bigger problem, and long standing issues of balance (and just general wackiness) at higher levels seemed to be worse due to the kindness of the game to full casters. Not that fun to DM after a certain point. Though it did have lots of adventures, some of which where pretty good. </p><p></p><p>3.5 fixed....the ranger? description of action types? orc hp? This remains the great money grab that burned a lot of goodwill and put the makers of 4E in an awkward spot. Also opened the door to lots of splats, DDM (which was OK), and crashed the d20 bubble. As a game, again fine up to high levels, but not fantastic to DM.</p><p></p><p>4E was easier to DM, and had the promise of greater balance and "stretching the sweet spot". This promise was not actually realized until a flood of patches helped fix it a few years later...Execution, a narrowing of play style, poor support, a mechanistic tone, disregard for fan-preferences--on lots of things, and in general drawing many of the wrong lessons from 3.5 undermined it. </p><p></p><p>PF, again, fixed...some spells? Whatever wrong lessons that didn't go into 4E from 3.5 seemed to go into this very complicated and not very balanced game.</p><p></p><p>5E, breath of fresh air. Cleaner and more free-wheeling then 3E or 4E, but with relatively balanced character options. Figured out how to keep the feel of D&D without getting hung up on certain legacy details. Great to DM, curious to see how it works at high levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TerraDave, post: 6490924, member: 22260"] 3.0 was a big advance at the time, and a difficult compromise between keeping a lot of the details of past editions, not just the broad strokes, and bringing in what was then considered good practice in RPGs (most of which was, and some of which maybe wasn't). It had cleaner mechanics then older editions, and gave players and DMs a lot of options, even in the core. It was a little complicated and fiddly. At higher levels, this complexity became a much bigger problem, and long standing issues of balance (and just general wackiness) at higher levels seemed to be worse due to the kindness of the game to full casters. Not that fun to DM after a certain point. Though it did have lots of adventures, some of which where pretty good. 3.5 fixed....the ranger? description of action types? orc hp? This remains the great money grab that burned a lot of goodwill and put the makers of 4E in an awkward spot. Also opened the door to lots of splats, DDM (which was OK), and crashed the d20 bubble. As a game, again fine up to high levels, but not fantastic to DM. 4E was easier to DM, and had the promise of greater balance and "stretching the sweet spot". This promise was not actually realized until a flood of patches helped fix it a few years later...Execution, a narrowing of play style, poor support, a mechanistic tone, disregard for fan-preferences--on lots of things, and in general drawing many of the wrong lessons from 3.5 undermined it. PF, again, fixed...some spells? Whatever wrong lessons that didn't go into 4E from 3.5 seemed to go into this very complicated and not very balanced game. 5E, breath of fresh air. Cleaner and more free-wheeling then 3E or 4E, but with relatively balanced character options. Figured out how to keep the feel of D&D without getting hung up on certain legacy details. Great to DM, curious to see how it works at high levels. [/QUOTE]
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