'Old School' Experiences with D&D 3.5

[Aris Dragonborn]

Melan, that was simply brilliant, awesome, and heartwarming at the same time. It's good to see that there are others out there who still enjoy the 'Old School' approach to gaming - not that there's anything wrong with the other styles, of course.

Just one thing:

9. Simple opponents: you do not have to – indeed, you should not – create highly specific opponents for your PCs. A half-fiend necromancer is superfluous and even silly. A 7th level human Wizard who can cast fireballs is enough.

Given that Iuz himself was a half-fiend (cambion), I would think that a half-fiend necromancer would be a perfectly viable option, if used sparingly. With such templates, I think the key here is to avoid a large number of them in your campaign, probably no more than 10, at the most. I would want to give them the same feel as the Nazgul, in that there are only nine of them, and very powerful. You saw them only very rarely, yet when you did, you knew you were in trouble.

Add the Illusionist and Assassin PC classes.

Oh, yes, yes!. Please do. Take out the Sorcerer, turn the Paladin and Bard into PrC's, and then add in the Illusionist, Assassin, and Cavalier as core classess.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Taking out the AoOs is no biggie, there's precious little that needs to go with it, if you work with the Core books alone. One thing to watch out for is that a spellcaster is only interrupted by either a) attacks readied against him casting spells or b) AoO in response to him casting. If you want to keep the risk of spells being interrupted, I'd rule that casting a spell can be interrupted by damage that is taken between the start of the round and the finishing of the spell, regardless if the attack was readied or not.

Another bit I'm going to change for my game is the Sneak Attack. A rogue has to surprise an opponent before he can use his sneak attack bonus, not just flank him or take away his Dex bonus. Which means he usually has to pass a Move Silently and a Hide check to successfully surprise an opponent in the middle of combat. Maybe even a Bluff check to distract him in the round before that.

Pondering on going back to specialty priests with Spheres (check out Mouseferatu's Priest of the Celestial Spheres for that), while making the cleric the "holy warrior" he was in earlier days, with a limited list of supportive, protective and divinative spells and some blessings depending on the church he belongs to.

Feats, Skills and Prestige Classes are definitely going to stay, they are a nice addition and help giving a character some individuality and some mechanical bonus for good character development. Some "career" choices for classes could help getting the Basic D&D flavour back, where you attracted followers from level 9 on. Go down hard on multiclassing. Charge 10% XP penalty for the first additional class and 20% on top of that for each new one. Charge the 20% for classes too far apart in levels, too. Keep Prestige Classes free, though...they have their own prerequsites.

Keep opponents simple, don't try to stat out every monster with additional class levels. If your high-level group wants to fight orcs, give them hundreds of them. Stat out the chieftain and the high shaman, and that's it. Use templates sparingly, too, to keep the sense of wonder. Everyday NPCs are low-level commoners or experts, and don't really need to be statted out either. Only VIPs need class levels and stats.

Oh, and I'm trying to work the classes up to level 36 with standard progression, not that silly Epic Level Handbook stuff.

 

[BWP]

I often hear it argued that if you want 'Old School', you shouldn't play D&D 3.5, but should play Basic, 1st Edition, Hackmaster, or Castles & Crusades.

Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. "Old school" is a style of gaming, not a rules set.

With all of the people who say it just can't be done, I am looking for stories of 3rd Edition/3.5 games that you guys have actually played that fealt 'Old School'. Obviously, the caveat here is that you have actually experienced 'old school' by playing some of the earlier editions of the D&D game.

My experience is that I did my time playing AD&D and while I enjoyed the gaming I hated the rules. So I sought out other games with rules that I preferred (which, for me, means "they mostly make sense and can be extrapolated to cover other things not covered in the rules relatively easily"); I've spent many happy years playing games with those other systems. I forgot about D&D (in its various incarnations) altogether and never expected to look at it again.

Then 3rd edition came along and it presented pretty much what I'd been looking for: rules that are internally consistent (well, mostly) and that can be extrapolated pretty easily to cover other things as required. And the fighters still get to swing swords at big ugly monsters and thieves pick locks and stuff and the magic users chuck fireballs at the swarm of bad guys and the characters pick up lots of loot and go home happy. Or at least that's the idea. The game remains the same, but now the rules support that in a way that previous editions of D&D didn't (IMO).

For me, 3rd ed. was a step back into "old school" in exactly the right way and suits me very well. I don't need to modify the character generation system, I don't need to refuse characters their choice of character classes or races (although I do ask players not to get into "half-dragon/pixies with extraplanar orc heritage" or any of that convoluted nonsense), I don't need to eliminate AoO rules or do any of that other stuff that has been suggested in this thread. We just play the game that we want to play.

 

[Grazzt]

We just play the game that we want to play.

Very well said.

And exactly the reason edition wars threads (of which this is not one) are pretty much stupid and pointless. Everyone plays the game they wanna play whether its 3E, 3.5, 2e, 1e, OD&D, or some mix of all of the above. Each edition had its pluses and minuses over the others. Each was fun and wasnt fun sometimes.