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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greg K" data-source="post: 1844663" data-attributes="member: 5038">My problem with 3.X is not the core rules or lack of fluff. It is WOTCMy disappointment with 3.X is not the mechanics themselves, but until now I really couldn't put my finger on the problem.  Thanks to the people over on Andy's boards, I think I figured out my dislike for the majority of WOTC's non-setting 3e supplements in comparison to 2e.  3e, imo, has better core mechanics, but 1e and 2e non-setting supplements as was pointed out were really about helping DMs and players tailor their campaigns and creating campaigns that capture the feeling of novels they read.3.x class supplements just throw lots of Prc's, feats, and spells.  2e supplements gave you lots of rules options to tailor the game itself (e.g., kits, specialty wizards, optional combat rules, optional spell casting systems.)  Granted, the kits in the majority of the 2e handbooks were problems either do to power creep that began to show up in later supplements or just had lame special abilities (e.g., the savage fighter acted as if he had an alarm spell when asleep). but there were some books with well written kits (the Complete thieves  and Complete Druid's handbooks come to mind).  More importantly, the kits at least gave an example of how to tweak the existing classes, we don't see really see this until Unearthed Arcana.  Until Unearthed Arcana, everything is pretty much prestige classes despite customizing characters (i.e., class variants) actually being in the PHB (p.94/3.0 and p.110/3.5) and PrC's being listed in the DMG as completely optional.However, kits aside  I generally found much more useful material in the 2e Handbooks on the same topics of their 3e counterpoints.  I look at The Complete Thieves handbook and The Complete Bard's Handbook and each had much more useful material than Song and Silence.    Same for The Complete Handbook Druid's and Ranger's Handbook in comparison to Masters of the Wild.While Tome and Blood was on par with 2e's Complete Wizard's Handbook, it, imo, does not come close to matching PO: Spells and Magic.  PO: Spells and Magic not only gave several new wizard specialists (e.g.,  alchemist, artificer, song mage, elementalist, force mage) based primarily on creating unique spell lists based either on effect or a non-standard casting method and playable at 1st level, it also gave a point based magic systems (not to mention it gave several variations on the spell point system. Both, the new specialist wizards and the spell systems really gave DM's options for thinking about magic their campaigns. Even Complete Arcane, based on the previews, looks as if it will fall short of PO: Spells and Magic in this regard.The only 3.x class book that I really felt was better than its counterpart was Complete Warrior.  Despite cool things like the tight and broad weapon groups, combat styles and new equipment, Complete Fighter kits were often ruined by the special abilities as was the case of many kits in the the complete series.  Furthermore, Complete Fighte still had that stupid table to resolve unarmed combat.Looking at what I like about the 2e supplements, it was no surprise that people on Andy's boards realized that I enjoyed Unearthed Arcana, because it gave the campaign altering options that were found in the 2e book, but lacking in thier 3.x counterparts.  As they pointed out, WOTC appears to not be really interested in giving DMs and players things in the splat books  to really alter the game in the sense that 2e was-- the exception being a book like UA.  To me this is the real problem of 3.X at least as far as Wizards is concerned.  WOTC appears to not really be interested in helping DMs tailor the rules to create truly unique campaigns. So, until things change, I will continue supporting third party companies.</blockquote>

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