Monte Cook reviews 3.5

[Krug]

Didn't he say he wasn't at all involved in 3.5's revisions?

Yeap, not in the rules revisions. But in his article he said that a Revised was supposed to come out in 2004/2005, not so soon, and with all new artwork.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

The one change that bugs me is the dependence on minis. I will be fine. Younger players in cramped college dorm rooms or in the back of the library during lunch will be boned.

 

[Jody Butt]

What's that sound?



That's the sound of all the D&D conspiracy theorists having a party

I knew it all along. It certainly is satisfying when your conspiracy theories turn out to be exactly true. Vindicated, at last.

Party at my place, tonight. Bring your AD&D2E rulebooks.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Didn't he say he wasn't at all involved in 3.5's revisions?

He said he was involved in the decision that there was going to be a set of revised rulebooks, but he wasn't involved in the actual design process.

Of all the problems he complains about, I agree with a few:

The weapon sizes thing. I'd have much rather they changed the rules so that weapon sizes were on the same scale as character sizes, just to make it easier to work out the AC of a longsword lying on the ground (for instance). I can't imagine why they went with the system they did - it seems to suffer from all the problems he suggests, and doesn't actually seem to be superior to the old system in any way...

The caster level prereq for magic items (although I could swear that I read somewhere it had been abandoned...)

NPC tables. Mind you, they pretty much always sucked - obviously people forgot they were supposed to be making generic NPCS, and attempted to give them some 'character' (they gave them some really odd gear for the class, made some very suboptimal choices - like the crossbow for the bard etc)

Things I totally disagree with him on:
Facings - odd-shaped monsters just didn't work in a game with no facing.

Focus on miniatures - personally, I can't see playing D&D without some form of map. Inevitably mapless combat has led to confusion and boring boring combats "I attack" "Now I attack" "I flank for a sneak attack" etc. And that's if the DM is being reasonable - it doesn't take much for the DM's differening take on a solution to end up with characters dying to truly stupid decisions, and then everything having to unwind as people explain what they REALLY meant to do...

Along with that goes measurement units. It's possible that in the US, measurements in feet mean more than squares. It's certainly not the case in most of the rest of the world. One is just as abstract as the other. Furthermore, whether you write the game in terms of squares or feet, someone has to do converting (either the mapless players convert from squares to feet, or players with a map have to convert from feet to squares). Having both is probably best.

 

[Emiricol]

I agree, the "squares" vs. "feet" decision was stupid. How often have you done 1 sq = 10' or some other scale, until you closed combat?

That will be difficult now!

I'd like to hear WotC's reasoning behind the weapons size chages. It may be a good reason I just can't think of

 

[Gargoyle]

I can agree or at least understand many of his points. But there are a couple of things on his list of Bad Things I can't help but disagree with:

* Lots of the "new" material in the DMG is just pulled in from other products -- prestige classes from the various 3.0 supplements, a big chunk of the Manual of the Planes, and the traps from Song and Silence. Lots of D&D fans already own this material.

What's wrong with taking good material from earlier products and making it core material? Even if I own all that stuff, which I do, it's nice to have the best of those products consolidated and made more official. I'd be extremely upset if core-worthy material from the MotP and the Epic Level Handbook didn't make it into the new books. I suppose this goes back to "is this a new edition or a revision". If you see this as a revision only, then I might agree, but as he said 3.5 is clearly labeled as a hybrid of the two. Given that definition of the product, even if you disagree with the wisdom of making it that way, they clearly did the right thing by including good material from earlier non-core products.

* The duration for ability score enhancing spells has been drastically shortened. Talk about changing the way the game is played. Cat's grace used to last an hour per level, mostly so you could cast it, adjust your stats, and not have to worry about it until you rested (again, it was that way to make game play easier and more fun). Now it lasts one minute per level, which means it sees you through one encounter, or two if you rush in between them. These spells have been rendered nearly worthless -- in particular a spell like endurance, now bear's endurance, for extra hit points are far more useful over the long term than just for one encounter, particularly for those who really need it, like wizards.

I'm glad the "breakfast" spells are a thing of the past in my campaign. I feel the fixed bonus on the buff spells makes adjusting your ability scores easier, since it's the same every time, and makes the spells more useful more often. Players simply have to think and plan a bit more to get the use out of them, instead of handing the DM a list of spells they intend to cast each day at dawn. But I'll stop beating this horse right now and just agree to disagree.

Stuff I agreed with:

Anyway, I found myself agreeing with most of his article (Although it read like a bittersweet rant/rave, rather than an objective and informative review). His best point is about the new books being "halfway" between a revision and a new edition. The biggest problem with 3.5 is that it's in-between a revision and a new edition. If you look at it as a revision, there were too many changes. If you look at it as a new edition, there were not enough changes, and some changes come off as band-aids to see you through till 4th edition. I think I agree that the product's definition was a strategic mistake, and that they should have just started working on 4th edition for a release at a later date, or just release a revision with no actual rule changes.

His second best point is about mastery of the game. The revision has indeed slowed us down a bit so that we are second guessing some things. That's probably the worst part of the new books. The silver lining for my group, and one that Monte with his mastery of the rules wouldn't notice, is that my group knows the rules better than we ever did. I don't know how many times I've read some obscure "new" little rule in 3.5, and flipping open my 3.0 books discovered that nothing had changed. I just didn't know the rule that well to begin with.

Good work Monte, it was a good read.

 

[Wolf72]

me thinks the SRD will become my friend ... cheaper to print out sections that I like and will use rather than buy all new books.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I'm not surprised that Wizards planned 3.5 from the beginning. Indeed, I expected it once it overhauled the Star Wars game again.

It could be more silly. Remember those 1996-or-so reprintings of the core books, just to drive up the cost? Those were worthless.

Hasbro is a corporation. Its interest is making money. It doesn't give a damn about the game. It needs upgrade costs. As much as one of those adventures Monte extolled would be nice, it doesn't have the sales expectation of a new edition.

This is about quantity, not quality. Though I like most of what I have seen about the revision (save the arcane weapon size rules, the nerfed Spell Focus and a few other things), there will be a 4.0 sooner rather than later.

 

[Gargoyle]

Eloquent, maybe. I just would have truly preferred that was written by someone other than Monte. I just can't get past the conflict of interest(s).

But it's his unique viewpoint as a 3.0 insider that makes it interesting. You can't have that and perfect objectivity at the same time.

 

[Emiricol]

But it's his unique viewpoint as a 3.0 insider that makes it interesting. You can't have that and perfect objectivity at the same time.

True. And I didn't say he wasn't qualified to have an opinion (as if any of us are!). Just that he has conflicts of interest. More than just hurt pride that 3.0 was changed, I mean. He has a current and ongoing financial stake that is threatened by 3.5.

So is his opinion off base? I don't know, DMs can decide that for themselves and their campaigns. I just wish it hasn't come from him.

(When 20% of the article was justifying why he isn't just whining and why it isn't because he has a conflict of interest, I think it disproves both points. EDIT: That does NOT make him wrong, but does make his opinions suspect imho.)