So how many of you made the switch?

[Destil]

Like most people I mostly just house ruled back the parts I didn't like and ran with 3.5...

er... up until now I thought this was what most people did. The numbers above are a bit of a suprise!

In general, I haven't been running a long-term campaign over the time so backwards compatability isn't an issue. Many of the changes are good, and the good sbutle stuff that I really love are things like Cloudkill dealing Con damage, consistant with 3rd poison rules. Nice, I had house ruled green rays of prismatic spray to deal 10d6 con before I saw this...

They fixed the big 3. I don't like the solution entirely on harm and heal but I think this is a straw man arguement anyway: any DM or group with any sense that didn't like them allready had house rules.

The bad changes are truly bad, though. i.e. Infravision and Ultravision's change from AD&D's elegant two sentance or so description to 2nd Ed's huge blocks of pesuto science wasting valuable space in the book and screwing with perfectly plyable rules.

The worst is Enlarge Person. Enlarge / Reduce was such a simple, elegant spell with a great history in the game (I did miss the reversable version once 3E came out, but that was easy enugh to add back in). It had lots of non-combat applications and the actual rules in combat were fast and simple:
+2 enlargement bonus to strengh? Okay, that's +1 on my to hit and +1 on my damage. Let's roll!
Now you need to Resize your weapon. Figure your new Str. Change your size modifiers AND special size modifiers for grapple, trip etc. Oh, and you get reach.

No more reducing doors to get around them, or enlarging a boulder to seal off a passage. And that sort of magical McGuyvering was the stuff I really enjoyed about wizards. 3.5 is a very bad step towards a "if it dosn't blow things up real nice then we don't need it" in a lot of reguards.

2nd place goes to the weapon sizing rules. All that work to fix so many things that aren't broken but still have the EXACT same effect 90% of the time. Again, the weapon rules in 3E were so elegant and simple. This is an ugly, convluted 'fix' to address the travasty of halfling rogues wielding rapiers 2 handed and dealing 1d4 with their daggers. The weapon proficency rules the rogue and the bard were clearly the 'problem', heck the monk rules were done right here. They could have changed 2 sentances on weapon prof in the class section and not intruduced these horrid new weapon tables and cascading rules changes and fixes (and the best part, the 'Variant' rule in the DMG that fixes everythig again by getting rid of the stupid -2 bonus).

Plenty of good changes that are more noteable (MVP: Monk flurry of blows and BAB stacking rules. A thing of beauty in 3.5). But it's the little things that I find I spend the most time fixing.

Since I can easily pick up either book and play it I'm going with 3.5 just because most of my players have the books and it's easier to find online refrences for these days. Either way I'm using it as a refrence and making the changes I think it needs...

Edit: Spelling is hard.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I used to say that I ran 3.25, but it is really closer to 3.4. Some of the old spell durations, and the critter base sizes are all that I have kept from 3.0.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* And leaving out the damned Pokemounts!

 

[Buttercup]

My players are not about to buy new PHBs. Also, I didn't really have that many issues with 3.0. I have tweaked the few things that troubled me, so I'm content.

I even have extra copies of the 3.0 PHB so players who might join me in the future can have a book to refer to at the table. And I also have the 3.0 SRD burned to a CD.

See, this is why I won't be switching to 4E. My players would not stand for it. They're happy with the rule set we use.

 

[kengar]

We actually haven't played much 3.X in a while, though we may be firing up a new campaign. The main reason our group uses 3.5 now is because one of our members sometimes sells his modules for publication and we are his playtesters.

 

[Kalshane]

Anhar pretty much sums up how I feel about the changes between additions. I switched as soon as 3.5 came out, reading the various conversion articles and updates before deciding to buy the 3.5 PHB. Upon reading it, I bought the remaining books and switched my campaign over. As Alceste said, my number of House rules dropped significantly with the switch.

The only switches I didn't make was the weapon size rules (since I had a short-sword wielding gnome rogue I didn't want to convert his magic weapon into something else on him) though I've used them in later campaigns.

I was particularly impressed with the changes to the monk, and the existing monk in the campaign instantly became a much more useful member of the party. The dual-wielding paladin picked up a free feat with the removal of Ambidexterity. Though we didn't have a bard or a ranger, I liked the changes for both classes as well. It made them both more useful and attractive choices for players in later games and I was able to ditch the custom ranger I had developed for my games.

I actually like the reasoning behind the "pokemount" if not the execution, because paladin mounts always seemed like more a liability than a bonus in our games.

What I did instead was give the mount the ability to disappear and re-appear as dramatically appropriate. So paladins in my game don't "summon" their mounts, they just happen to be there when they need them, if it's appropriate. The party is ready to ride out in the morning and the mount is there, saddled and ready next to the other horses. The paladin gets separated from the party and is lost in the wilderness, he stumbles across his mount munching grass in the next clearing. A gargoyle snatches up a child and flies away, the paladin's mount trots around the corner, ready to give pursuit. It doesn't matter if the paladin left his mount outside of the last dungeon or in a stable three towns away because the party arrived via teleport, he's conviniently there when his master needs him. On the other hand, if the paladin is dueling someone on the castle wall and the mount would be helpful, it doesn't show up because mounted charges on the ramparts aren't really appropriate outside of Helm's Deep (and even there they're kind of silly.)

 

[DaveyJones]

i referee OD&D(1974)

but i'm a playa in 3.11ed for Workgroups.

ditto

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I gave my 3.0 DMG and MM to a friend after 3.5 came out. I held on to my 3.0 PHB just in case I ever found myself in a group that hadn't made the switch.

 

[Knight Otu]

I imagine you have to be exaggerating when you say they were 10x the cost, as that would put a lesser rod of maximizing at 140k, and a medium one well into the epic levels of cost. (590k) It would be interesting to know exactly how much the prices were dropped.

At your service:

[b]Metamagic Rod			New Price	Old Price (Tome and Blood)[/b]
Metamagic, Enlarge, lesser	  3,000 gp	  5,400 gp
Metamagic, Extend, lesser	  3,000 gp	  5,400 gp
Metamagic, Silent, lesser	  3,000 gp	  5,400 gp
Metamagic, Empower, lesser	  9,000 gp	 16,200 gp
Metamagic, Enlarge		 11,000 gp	 21,600 gp
Metamagic, Extend		 11,000 gp	 21,600 gp
Metamagic, Silent		 11,000 gp	 21,600 gp
Metamagic, Maximize, lesser	 14,000 gp	 27,200 gp
Metamagic, Enlarge, greater	 24,500 gp	 48,600 gp
Metamagic, Extend, greater	 24,500 gp	 48,600 gp
Metamagic, Silent, greater	 24,500 gp	 48,600 gp
Metamagic, Empower		 32,500 gp	 64,800 gp
Metamagic, Quicken, lesser	 35,000 gp	 37,800 gp
Metamagic, Maximize		 54,000 gp	108,000 gp
Metamagic, Empower, greater	 73,000 gp	145,800 gp
Metamagic, Quicken		 75,500 gp	151,800 gp
Metamagic, Maximize, greater	121,500 gp	243,000 gp
Metamagic, Quicken, greater	170,000 gp	340,200 gp

 

[anhar]

Well it looks like for the upper level rods it's almost exactly half the cost. As a further tribute to the splatbooks crappiness, the rods there break the rules for normal magic items. if it's more than 200k gp, it's supposed to be either an artifact, or an epic item, which is made with entirely different rules. Good to know. don't think I'll be letting them in my campaigns either way. I figure if I outlaw the "sudden X" feats I shouldn't allow an item that does the same thing.

beyond this discussion, has anyone had these items make a serious difference in their campaign? Are they as bad as I and DungeonMaster are thinking or are we exaggerating their usefulness?

 

[MarkB]

2nd place goes to the weapon sizing rules. All that work to fix so many things that aren't broken but still have the EXACT same effect 90% of the time. Again, the weapon rules in 3E were so elegant and simple. This is an ugly, convluted 'fix' to address the travasty of halfling rogues wielding rapiers 2 handed and dealing 1d4 with their daggers. The weapon proficency rules the rogue and the bard were clearly the 'problem', heck the monk rules were done right here. They could have changed 2 sentances on weapon prof in the class section and not intruduced these horrid new weapon tables and cascading rules changes and fixes (and the best part, the 'Variant' rule in the DMG that fixes everythig again by getting rid of the stupid -2 bonus).

On the other hand, I found the 3.0 weapon rules horribly clunky, and consider the 3.5 rules an elegant fix that provides consistent weapon rules that scale perfectly to any creature size, and allow creatures of any race to wield the particular weapon they want instead of looking for a larger or smaller 'equivalent'. And you don't get silly anomalies like wizards wielding giants' daggers as greatswords with no penalties anymore.