Monte Cook reviews 3.5

[Dr_Rictus]

A) I already have everything I will ever need to play more game time than I possibly can.

Then you'll be fine. That doesn't mean everybody else will be. The problem with your reasoning is the three uses of the first person pronoun.

B) Monte says AU is both 3E and 3.5 compatible. I 100% believe that. Because 99% of the time the revision does not matter.

Or because AU is a variant player's handbook, meaning it doesn't matter nearly as much what WotC's player's handbook says (yes, there are other core books, but the PH is central to most players' experience).

3.5 is now the D&D. So? People still play 1e. People will likewise still be able to play 3E.

Sure, people will. That's different from saying all people will be able to, or that nobody's experience will be harmed by the lack of support. The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" mantra remains untrue. Not literally, of course, in that one is of course free not to buy it. But the mantra is presented as a facile refutation of people's complaints about 3.5, when in fact it does nothing to refute them. If someone's complaining in the first place, then they obviously do not see themselves as being in the class of people who can choose to either convert or not without hardship. The fact that such a luckier class of people (which clearly includes you) exists does nothing to address their problem. To dismissively claim otherwise merely shows either lack of awareness (in the best case) or contempt for the needs of people other than oneself.

I'm not trying to claim that many people won't be able to convert over just fine, or decide not to and also be just fine. What I'm trying to do is to get people to stop and think, when someone comes along who does not believe they'll be able to do one of these things, "hey, I guess maybe you do have a problem there, even if I don't." I think that would be much better than saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it."

 

[Dr_Rictus]

So stop it.

Nice one. I know that might not sound geniune, but I'm serious. I couldn't help being satirical for a moment, so I'm glad you took it in like spirit.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I dunno...

I think a lot of posters have focussed strongly on the rules revisions Monte dislikes - and remember, he has stated that he now dislikes some of his own rule decisions - and not on what I felt was his real point.

Namely, that the marketing decision WotC made resulted in the release of a poor product.

He was content with the idea of a revised edition - but later, and with more bang for the customer's buck. (Think about how you feel when you create a plan of action, and the person who executes it does it wrong.)

Instead, he got a new version two years earlier than he thought was appropriate, without the new art he thought would help sell the book, and with more rules changes than he thought needed.

It's not just a matter of "does he like the rules / does he think WotC is ripping us off" - it's a matter of "I thought we had a well-thought-out plan of action here; why did you guys screw it up?"

Make sense?

 

[Eldragon]

Sure WotC is a company, and needs to make profits. Profits are generated by selling books. WotC decides it needs more profits, so it comes up with more books to sell. whoop-de-doo. Quite the revelation.

There are 2 ways that WotC can proceed with making books:
A) High quality books
B) Low quality books.

Low quality books are cheap to make. Dont have to pay as many writers, artists, or game testers. By printing low quality books, WotC can stand to make more money than high quality books. I would rather have a high quality product, but thats sometimes asking too much.

At some point over the next 2 weeks, most people here will buy 3.5, and decide for themselves if 3.5e falls under column A, or column B.

Personally, I have not seen enough new art, content, or fixes to prompt me to buy the new books. Perhaps if I liked every change in 3.5 I would overlook the lack of new content or artwork. But I don't even like some of the changes. How major or minor these changes are is subject to personal opinion. But the fact is, when I went from 2e to 3e, I was happy with 99.9% of the changes. Now, going from 3.0 to 3.5, I am only happy with *most* of them.

How many people are going to have a few house rules that revert to 3.0? I have my house rules already drawn up. I call it Version 3.25.13453e Why the extra 5 digits? because I am probably the 13,453th person to splinter away from the core 3.5e rules and using a few 3.0 core rules.

 

[Kai Lord]

My response to Monte's criticisms (and those who agree with him):

Facing (now called space) is now always square.

Couldn't care less. The combats of my games have always been fast, chaotic, and cinematic. The DM describes where the bad guys are, the Players say what they want to do, combat ensues. Who's facing what has been predominantly an exercise in common sense.

The game has an even stronger focus on miniatures.

See above.

Now weapons are organized by handedness rather than by size. Perhaps the worst change...

So this is it, possibly the WORST CHANGE. Let's see, when you create a character, you buy a weapon that fits him. When you adventure, any DM worth his salt provides an ample percentage of weapons that fit the characters, with a couple of odd fits to enhance "verisimilitude." GOOD. LORD. Oh wait, that doesn't come remotely close to being a problem. Next.

The NPC tables in the DMG are now more open ended, and thus less useful.

Considering in the three years of D&D I've used the 3.0 NPC tables oh about twice...can't say I'll shed a tear over this one.

The duration for ability score enhancing spells has been drastically shortened.

Now there's a Sacred Cow that just got turned into roast beef. Oh wait, casting a spell to make your muscles bigger and reflexes quicker every day with your morning porridge has never been a staple of fantasy high adventure. Or D&D before the year 2000.

Lots of the new feats are the kind that just add a +2 bonus to two skills.

And there needed to be more of these. Okay not as elegant as a catch-all +2 to 2 skills feat, but more flavorful.

Inevitables are now in the Monster Manual.

Never heard of 'em.

Taking levels of a prestige class now apparently forces you to pay multiclassing XP costs.

So the 3.5 books will have a typo or two. I assume the PHB will still have the correct ruling under the section "Multiclassing?"

Some of the new prestige classes are uninteresting (eldritch knight, mystic theurge) and poorly designed.

Let's see, a fully armored warrior blasting lightning bolts out the end of his sword or a dwarf who specializes in standing in one place. Yeah the new PrC's suck. They could have picked up the ball from 3.0 and given us the Halfling Deep Sleeper, complete with bonuses to mind affecting saves when utilizing Defensive Slumber.

Lots of the "new" material in the DMG is just pulled in from other products.

If done in moderation, not a problem.

There are no playtester credits. At all.

Won't affect my game. At all.

I do wish more of the art was changed, at the very least Sovellis and the Paladin chick, but I'm happy that every critter in the MM will now have its own pic. I know Monte's opinion carries a lot of wait on these boards, but I just don't see the things he criticizes as being problems. In fact if those were the harshest complaints he could muster I'd say that bodes extremely favorably for 3.5.

 

[BryonD]

Then you'll be fine. That doesn't mean everybody else will be. The problem with your reasoning is the three uses of the first person pronoun.

Are you saying I have things that are not available to other people? If *I* have, other people can also have it. Your "first person" reasoning is a meaningless red herring to the issue.

Or because AU is a variant player's handbook, meaning it doesn't matter nearly as much what WotC's player's handbook says (yes, there are other core books, but the PH is central to most players' experience).

Nope. I already use 3.5. I also use a wide variety of 3rd party supplements. I have had no problems at all. Again, over 90% of the time I do not even need to think in terms of 3E/3.5. It is a non-issue. AU was simply a specific example. The point is true nearly universally. (Fantasy Flight Games Counter Collection is about the only product I can think of that is trully reduced in utility.)

Sure, people will. That's different from saying all people will be able to, or that nobody's experience will be harmed by the lack of support. The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" mantra remains untrue. Not literally, of course, in that one is of course free not to buy it. But the mantra is presented as a facile refutation of people's complaints about 3.5, when in fact it does nothing to refute them. If someone's complaining in the first place, then they obviously do not see themselves as being in the class of people who can choose to either convert or not without hardship. The fact that such a luckier class of people (which clearly includes you) exists does nothing to address their problem. To dismissively claim otherwise merely shows either lack of awareness (in the best case) or contempt for the needs of people other than oneself.

I'm not trying to claim that many people won't be able to convert over just fine, or decide not to and also be just fine. What I'm trying to do is to get people to stop and think, when someone comes along who does not believe they'll be able to do one of these things, "hey, I guess maybe you do have a problem there, even if I don't." I think that would be much better than saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it."

Sorry but that is simply not correct. I mean, you have people like Jody Butt talking about 2e in on e post and then agreeing with you on this issue in the next.

Please explain the "luck" that I have that others do not.

"Contempt for the needs"?? Needs?

Are you saying that there are people whose games are dependant upon constantly buying new material? If not, then they face zero burden. If so, then they are already spending a steady supply of money, so again, no burden.

But even that overstates the issue. I own a lot of 3rd party stuff. I have yet to find a single item that I could not convert to 3.5 compatible in under 1 minute (for the small fraction that requires any change at all). I assure you that the inverse is equally true. Wait for 3.5 3rd party stuff to start coming out. I will be able to take anything and convert to 3E in moments. And again, only rarely will that even be needed.

There simply is no issue here.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'm staying out of this discussion. Grrrrrr.... Staying out of this discussion.

[Meta]Plugs ears[/Meta]. Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Graph paper!! Heck, I already treat the combat board as a reference map more than a "game environment", so I'd easily survive off graph paper if I needed to for a pickup game.

Yes! That's what's been nagging at the back of my mind for a while now, but I couldn't quite figure out what was bugging me. Graph paper! Good lord, I used it for more than a decade when playing 1e, to keep track of where everyone was at in combat. I didn't need miniatures at all, and almost never used 'em until recently. Back then, a sheet or two of graph paper and a pencil was all I needed. Small and convenient, perfect for games in small environments, where minis aren't a good option. Heck, laminate a few sheets of graph paper, and get some dry-erase markers, and you're set. Sure, the small size of most squares in normal graph paper could make it a bit tough, but one could always create their own graph paper of various scales, or use a small battlemat. For a game in a cramped room, I'd probably stick to regular graph paper, marking in pencil where everyone and everything was at, using initials or symbols to differentiate them. OK, so either the players or DM may be incovenienced, but it'll help solve the problem of "having" to use minis and battlemats.

I know I'm stating the obvious here, but remembering how I used graph paper years ago just gave me a firk-ding-blasted epiphany!

 

[Storminator]

I don't see what this has to do with the issue of mastery, so I suspect you may be misunderstanding it. It doesn't have anything to do with the ability of gurus to plumb the game. There will certainly be "masters" of 3.5 very quickly, but that's not what we're talking about.

One of the play values that ordinary people get out of a game is the feeling of expertise they get from learning the rules. Changing just enough rules to call all knowledge into question seriously undermines that play value. This is one of the things that turned an awful lot of people off of Magic: The Gathering. The frequency of minor revisions left them confused and irritated, because they could never feel comfortable in their ability to acquire rewarding rules knowledge.

I don't misunderstand the mastery issue. If the "masters" have whipped the game into shape in a pair of weeks, others will follow shortly, and most anyone that plays regularly will have the new system down pat in a couple months. A far shorter timeline than the 3 years it took to create this revision, and surely shorter than the time to the next revision.

Which naturally ties into your second point, on calling knowledge into question. That point didn't fly for me when Monte made it either. I guess I have a different perspective on the game.

PS

 

[ajanders]

Then you'll be fine. That doesn't mean everybody else will be. The problem with your reasoning is the three uses of the first person pronoun.

Well, in fairness, he's probably not entitled to speak for the universe. Whose opinion is he supposed to express but his own?.

I'm not trying to claim that many people won't be able to convert over just fine, or decide not to and also be just fine. What I'm trying to do is to get people to stop and think, when someone comes along who does not believe they'll be able to do one of these things, "hey, I guess maybe you do have a problem there, even if I don't." I think that would be much better than saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it."

That's a fair point, but many people had numerous problems with version 3.0 and were told, "Hey, if you don't like it, Rule 0 it/get a third party product/make up your own."
Which they did, in large numbers.
Some of those people may find those problems were solved in 3.5. Other people are going to find they now have problems with 3.5 they did not have in 3.0.
I find it hard to believe your problems are more worthy of "official" support than theirs were. And unfortunately, many times solutions to the 3.0 set of problems and the 3.5 set of problems are going to be mutually exclusive, so someone's going to be unhappy.

You certainly deserve happiness, but if you think I'm going to sympathize with your problems over, say, those of Henry-the-Moderator, you're asking a lot. I mean, that's like annoying Elminster in the Realms: you're just asking to wake up with your underwear Polymorphed into poison ivy or fiendish fire ants
(Now, my understanding is that would be the unchanged Polymorph Other, not the extremely odd Baneful Polymorph/Non-Baneful Polymorph...hey, I'm not happy with all the changes either.)