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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scottius" data-source="post: 7617294" data-attributes="member: 6782008">3rd Ed's true problem comes down to math. The sheer variety of bonuses and how much you can stack upon each other to build up increasingly ridiculous numbers. It was extremely easy for players to come up with wildly disparate characters as far as power level when they were supposedly the same character level. Having run dozens of campaigns in the 3e years I've seen so many characters where they were woefully ineffective in combat because they hadn't tweaked their character for optimization the way one or more of their fellow party members had. I came to the same realization that D&D's current batch of creators did, that a flatter system of numbers and bonuses is far superior to the chaotic assortment of bonuses and stacking that went on in 3e. This is something that 5e, DCC, and Mutants and Masterminds all seem to understand. Beyond that, my other main issues with 3e are the system of magic item economy which set the expectation of magic items per level. This really killed the wonderous nature of magic removing all the fun as instead of something cool magic items just became a series of bland character features you could expect as you leveled. And lastly, the fact that game preparation as a GM took forever in 3e (and 4e) in my experience. 5e and DCC are comparatively quick and easy.Clearly some people still enjoy the 3e style of play. The continued success of Pathfinder shows that. But in my opinion it is a deeply flawed system that I do not enjoy and would not run or play again.It doesn't matter if it's easy to obtain miniatures or chits or the like. You can play with pennies and graph paper or whatever you have on hand. The point is that it practically requires it. ToTM play is far more difficult than in any other edition, even moreso than 3e which would be the runner up. The sleep spell isn't going to do you much good if your GM has a thing for constructs, undead, or even elven foes. So it's situational at best. And I'd much rather have that choice versus an at will attack that moved my for a square and an at will attack that moves me a square. I've never been that concerned about following encounter building and pacing guidelines. After GMing enough games you should be able to get a sense for what the players can handle and you can use that wonderful GM skill of winging it when necessary to up or downscale an encounter that isn't going well.I feel that boiling things down to just spells and attacks is a bit reductive. For one thing there are other class abilities which help make them feel distinct. Even within a class the subclasses make them stand out more from one to another. A Shadow Monk feels different than the more traditional Monk even though they're built upon the same chassis.Lastly, thanks for the lengthy and well thought out response!</blockquote>

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