D&D 3.x "Just the Good Stuff" 3.x Ruleset Deckbuilding

[VHawkwinter]

This One's for Other 3.x GMs.​

Thread Context:
So, over in the 3.5 splatbook powercreep thread, some complaints / gripes with 3.x I've seen before came up. Some in response to my comments, some not. They came up by the same person, but that part's not important. They're not uncommon gripes about the system, and they're issues which I like 3.x in spite of, rather than not recognising them as a problem at all.

Anyway, relevant quotes:

---

this requires me to have extensive knowledge of the system to know about all of them, which requires much deeper knowledge of the rules and/or association with community that does this research. Which leads to one of my personal gripes with 3.5 - how the game is unplayable unless you know every nook and cranny of the rules. It less rewards system master and more punishes lack of it.

It means having to throughfully research every book for problem items, which vastly increases my work as a DM in a system that already expects DM to do a lot of work.

Then I have now to go through every book and ban all things that could lead to broken combos like this one, tedious and unfun job.

---

But it made me think: These are problems I'm sure many of us have worked out solutions to, not just me.

So with that context out of the way - here are the thread challenges, for fun. Specify which challenge your post is about just so everyone is aware. Challenge 1 is definitely a larger undertaking than Challenge 2.

1. Your Best Wild 3.x Collage ​

Across all 3.x games that you've played, with whatever content you're familiar with, What is your best "All the Good Stuff, none of the bad stuff" version of 3.x. You can include essential houserules as well, but it should be a "Recipe" someone else could follow to get your best 3.x. Don't include things other people cannot access, that would miss the point. No price limits. Everything that exists is fair game.
The idea here is much like designing a Magic the Gathering draft cube. One person might build a game around Ravnica Block, while maybe another wants Gameplay primarily centred on Tempest block, and another wants gameplay centred on some newer meta and mechanics, many years after I stopped playing. What would YOUR idealised 3.5 look like?
What is included. Just as Importantly: What is excluded? Why? And what manner of gameplay do you want from it? How should your curated experience differ from common all-in approaches?

2. For a New GM ​

This is a slimmed "Best" Core Rules fix. You could base it off your 3.x Collage, or not. Keep the good, toss the bad, houserule fix problem spots, but try to keep it easy enough that someone who has never played 3.x before (but has played other TTRPGs) could understand. The goal here is to try to keep the price tag under ~$50USD tops if PDF purchases are required (you can of course pull from free SRDs to lower the cost rather than requiring PDFs, where possible), building a compact "deck" of your preferred "3.x core rules" which could be made into one book if a madman got the appropriate sources, printed out the segments you choose, and stapled them together (or copy pasted those segments into a big Joplin markdown document or Word Document or something). But this is the budget, simplified, and fat-trimmed version for a new GM.
As above: What is included. What is excluded? Why? And what manner of gameplay do you want from it? How does that gameplay differ from a stock published PHB?

I imagine there will be at least a few different idealised varieties of what "the game" looks like that would come out of this, and I'm curious to see what they are.

So, what would you assemble as your 3.x?

 

[Deset Gled]

I've posted this before, but I have one specific "ruleset" mod for 3.x that I use to answer all of the above issues in one fell swoop:

Let each player pick one splatbook. They may use all material from that one book and the core rules.

That's it. It prevents all of the worst combos that come from combining obscure materials in unexpected ways. It cuts down on needing extensive knowledge, makes things easier for new DMs, and keeps costs low, because you only need to deal with one book per player.

What's really nice is that it doesn't limit players too much, and let's them feel like they're still in control. And it doesn't give any character type a notable advantage. I find it even works well with most third party materials.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Let each player pick one splatbook. They may use all material from that one book and the core rules.

One of the last 3.5Ed campaigns I was in used that rule, but with 2 added books instead of 1.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It occurred to me some time ago that one of the solutions that might have been useful is to have some of those long, convoluted Feat trees changed into Feats that improved as the character leveled up- kind of like how some spells did.

IOW, a PC who starts with Combat Reflexes wouldn’t necessarily have to burn more feats to build on it- some of those benefits from what are currently the feats CR is a prerequisite for. See also something like Power Attack or Toughness.

Obviously, as a balance issue, this altered Feat mechanic would be better applied to things like martial and general feats, not those aimed at casters.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Let each player pick one splatbook. They may use all material from that one book and the core rules.

Interesting. That is one I had not considered. You'll get different rulesets every campaign, obviously. You don't think it's necessary or worth it to fix any problems in the core rules?

 

[VHawkwinter]

It occurred to me some time ago that one of the solutions that might have been useful is to have some of those long, convoluted Feat trees changed into Feats that improved as the character leveled up- kind of like how some spells did.

I definitely think the feat trees in 3.x are a pain point, in general. I know flattening them is a key houserule of mine, and Pathfinder had that "Elephant in the Room" document with a similar focus, and IIRC "Frank and K's Tomes" (never used them, but I have read them a long time ago) did something similar as well.

 

[delericho]

I've posted this before, but I have one specific "ruleset" mod for 3.x that I use to answer all of the above issues in one fell swoop:

Let each player pick one splatbook. They may use all material from that one book and the core rules.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a cure-all, but it certainly helps a lot.

Were I ever to run 3.x again, I'd also put a much tighter limit on multiclassing: each character can have a maximum of three classes: their races' favoured class, one other base class of their choice, and one prestige class.