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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DungeonMaster" data-source="post: 3128715" data-attributes="member: 27431">I don't call them "petty annoyances". Setting up encounters is perhaps the most important thing the DMG should do. Traps are integral to D&D in my opinion. Those are 2 big things messed up from the get go.One of the first experiences I had with a novice DM in 3.5 was the poor guy trying to figure out how neither us nor the orcs could see each other across a plain. He shifted the terrain to woods so that we could see each other better. No joke. The next thing we got was the prismatic spray trap that the rogue couldn't detect on anything but a 20 and couldn't disable at all. So half the party died. We were ok with that, until we learned the trap was an automatic reset - at which point most of the rest of the party died. Then the DM decided the rules were @#$# and waved the magic wand of DM to fix everything.  I'm bored tonight... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> I'll reply to your issues - but I don't want to turn this into another bickering thread, I'll just state my arguments and if the discussion gets too heated I'm gone. I don't have time anymore for long dead issues.  Neither haste nor time stop are game-breaking, no more so than metamagic rods. If anything the metamagic rods are way more broken. Time stop only freezes in place "effect" spells, such as rays (enervation), not every spell.Compare haste+timestop in 3rd edition vs. metamagic rod extended timestop in 3.5. Plus you can shapechange into a choker for even more spells. Anything you can do in core 3rd edition you can break even more with 3.5 core rules metamagic rods.  The epic rules are horrible horrible rules, the largest fraction written by Andy Collins who is the cheif architect of all 3.5's problems incidentally. Harm is a dragon killer in 3rd edition, no problem. Holy word & company in 3.5 are way, way more broken than harm ever was. Holy word can kill roomfulls of titans, balors and pitfiends without rolling a die. No rolls, all dead, by core rules. If you go non-core then shivering touch in 3.5 is even better than harm at killing dragons. It's a moot issue really, 3.5 has much more abusable magic. It's the single worst aspect of 3.5 .  Wish loopholes that were corrected in 1st edition re-opened by good old Andy to boot. I've actually seen only a single multiclass ranger ever. And he had 5 levels of it, not 1. I've seen many pure high level rangers. 3.5 rangers are wildrogues and they're terrible at it since the 3.5 druid outclass them in every way.  Bards suck in 3.5 even worse than before, not only does bardsong take up an action but they have worse armor, spell lists. They gained very little in the transition and rangers lost more than any other class.  I really don't care that 1 in 4 monks are different by a feat or two. Really it's pointless. The 3.5 combat system is worse than 3rd edition in every way, I don't know of a single thing 3.5 did better for combat. You can't ready a charge unless you're slowed for instance, this makes tons of sense of course. Attacks of opportunity rising from prone is broken, sorry, I've not even tried to abuse this mechanic in the few 3.5 games I've played and it was already clearly broken. I played a 1-armed 1-eyed fighter with mediocre strength and a bastard sword. I still managed to trip tons of things with improved trip. Everyone just crowds around the fallen enemy to get free attacks, it's ridiculous really. And it's about as clear as mud whether you can trip an opponent that's rising from prone. Or that lances gain 2-for-1 power attack despite being 1-handed. Why should I be better off dual weilding a bastard sword and halfling bastard sword but not a bastard sword and a longsword? The list goes on. I agree the stat blocks are easier to use in the 3.5 MM. That was clearly Skip's input, and it's one of the few things 3.5 did better than 3rd edition.  In 3.5 core it's "I cast maximized horrid wilting through my metamagic rod of maximize, then quickened horrid wilting through my quicken rod and then with my extra action from being shapechanged into a choker I'll toss another maximized horrid wilting, through my rod of course." Your combats should be worse, not better.  How do you cope with the garbage and nonsense in the complete books? As you said, a whole different can of worms but I'm amazed you're upset with the MM2 but not the downright disgusting "complete" series.</blockquote>

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