D&D 3E/3.5 Things from 3e (inc PF) not done well

[Nemesis Destiny]

Most of what I think they could improve was already covered, but I'll add my list to the pile. What I remember of it, that is.

The Game
- nightmarish to DM past the single-digit levels
- monster design complexity
- quadratic casters / linear warriors
- save-or-die / save-or-suck
- horribly broken multiclassing
- fiddly skill system does a better job defining what you can't do than what you can
- prestige class power creep
- too many feats
- character design complexity
- lots of "trap" options & dead-ends
- clerics as healbots
- wands of CLW abuse
- annoying buff spells
- scry-buff-teleport cheese
- MADness / every stat mattered too much
- CoDzilla
- sneak attack being ineffective on most enemy types
- nothing for warriors (esp. fighters) to do but swing away, round after round
- combat abilities compete with non-combat abilities for PC resources
- christmas tree effect / wealth-by-level rules
- saving throw numberss break down in low double-digit levels
- BAB scaling and too much disparity in melee classes
- full attack nonsense
- spellcasters (esp wizards) that ran out of spells were useless
- spellcasters having to resort to thrown weapons or crossbows is bad design
- alignment mechanics (XP penalties for changing, spells keyed to alignment, etc)
- building a character became ridiculous near the end, hunting through all the books
- paladins in general
- monks in general

Other (PF improved on most of these)
- presentation
- tone
- most of the art
- iconics
- "feel" - contrary to what a lot of people say, 3.x did not maintain the "classic" feel of D&D for me or my gaming group. This mystifies me when people complain about 4e lacking the "feel" of D&D. It doesn't feel like 3.x, just like 3.x didn't feel like AD&D. So when they say they like PF because if "feels" like D&D, what that really says to me is that they like it because it feels like 3.x. Not a selling point IMO.

There are probably more things, but this is all I care to invest in thinking about it for now. I'd rather discuss what 5e should include among its options, than discuss what it shouldn't. In order to please everyone, as they say, they're going to have to include a lot of things, and make them optional, and what they do include by default will have to be replaceable, or provide the ability to "switch off."

 

[Nagol]

• Hit point inflation (continuing to receive dice past ~10th level, plus much larger and more easily gained Con bonuses = Wizards with 100+ hp)
• Attributes scaling infinitely (+1/2 points above 10 with some character's abilities reaching the 30-40s)
• Removal of restrictions on arcane casters (no maximum # of spells known, almost no ability to interfere with spell casting in combat, "spell component cases" allow ignoring of most material requirements)
• Multiclassing BAB and saving throw additions
• Massive class bloat -- a class system really works well to guide player choice into an archtype quickly. Completely destroys the value if there are dozens of classes that need comparison. Might as well present rule for custom creation at that point.
• Prestige classes as advanced classes -- the original placement of prestige classes as campaign specific power-balanced, but maybe more specific versions of the class with attendent reknown sat better with me.
• Tacked on epic rules that bear little resemblance to the base system.

 

[Wormwood]

Monsters following the same rules as PC's, rendering the "i'll whip up a mechanically sound yet interesting monster in a few minutes" frustratingly difficult.

Juggling a dozen bonus types from class, spells and items. Kill *that* with fire.

The 'build' mentality which turned high-level 3e into an arms race (although that rough beast was spawned during late-era 2e)

DM-unfriendly. Full stop.

3e well and truly killed the pick-up game---playing with nothing but dice, note-paper and pencil. Even during 2e it was possible to have everything necessary to play your character on an index card.

 

[AsmodeusDM]

• Iterative attacks led to stagnant fights where no one wanted to move...
• And your second/third/fourth attacks rarely hit anyways
• Certain feats are almost required to have to function (Power Attack, Spell Focus)
• Skills: You either auto-win all rolls or you don't have a chance
• Traps: Despite what they TRIED to do in Dungeonscape. I still feel the existence of a trap finding sub-system leads to a lot of pointless rolling
• Search: Same as above. Lots of pointless rolling, or take 20 and why did I even take this skill to begin with.
• CLW wand abuse
• Inconsistent spell durations. I'm find with the concept of long-duration strategic buff spells (I prefer 3.0 bull's strength to 3.5's), but some spells lasted WAY too long, or other's far too short
• CoDzillas
• Prestige classes after PrC after PrC after PrC
• Too many feats!
• Exploration "rules" were very light and not detailed enough
• Save-or-die are fun.... until it happens to you (or your important NPC).
• Most monsters weren't much of a threat for 10th level+ PCs (except via Save or Die)
• Saves very quickly became "don't roll a 1"
• Magic Item Creation = Extremely boring meta-game process and led to power abuse and DMG as a recipe book.
• I like Vancian magic (I enjoy the strategic elements of the game...) but choosing spells could often take too long... and be a bit of a crap shoot as to what spells to prepare. (slight tangent... but this is why I love the strategic element of the game. Wiz/Clr using divinations or rogues/rangers doing recon and scouting to get a better idea of what to prepare and come up with a "plan" and then implementing that plan and crushing the foe..... that's always a great time. It's when PCs can do that, without ANY pre-knowledge or effort, that it becomes a problem.)

 

[Plane Sailing]

In the D&D 3.5e setting of the Order of the Stick comic, the PC's aren't even sure if there are ANY 17th level Clerics on the planet, and the High Priest of an entire pantheon, based out of one of the more powerful nations on the planet, was 11th or 12th level (the High Priest of the 12 Gods vs. Redcloak in the Battle of Azure City, the highest-level spell he used was Hold Monster).

redcloak is now 17th - he just got Implosion.

 

[Spatula]

1. Too many fiddly rule bits.

2. Requires too much system mastery to build characters.

3. Introduced "feats" to D&D.

4. A chore to DM.

 

[mlund]

Building Monsters Like PCs is Bad Business

It keeps monsters from being unique and makes a ton of extra work for the DM. You wound up with overly complicated abilities and effects designed for long-lived PCs that weren't appropriate for 1-and-done monsters.

Daily Class Powers / Spells Need to Go

These create artificial stopping points in adventures and create single-encounter balance issues due to players "going nova" and burning through a ton of daily resources in a single encounter. Healing Surges from 4E are viable enough as an expendable resource that you don't need to have more built-in stop-lights.

Don't Violate the Economy of Actions

Summoners, "pet" classes, specialty full-round actions, and a broad variety of magics all caused a variety of time/spotlight hogging issues. In the optional modules we could have rules replacing expanded damage at higher levels with "chains" of attacks or other standard actions in a round. If everyone has the same feature available due to including a Rules Module then it isn't hogging anymore.

- Marty Lund

 

[Aldarc]

I'm sure there's more, but here's what I've got off the top of my head.

MAGICIANS
9) Healing being used instead of damage prevention. Bringing characters back to life is much too easy.
13) Preparing or choosing spells for spell slots.
14) You cannot continue to cast spells once you're out, even if they're very low level.
15) Spells don't scale well.

WARRIORS

SKILL MONKEYS
1) Skills taking too many character resources most of the time.

GENERAL
7) Number of and power of feats got out of control.

For the most part, I agreed with most of it, especially those here.

 

[Greg K]

As someone that prefers 3e to other editions, these are the things that I think 3e did wrong. I made a separate note for Pathfinder which I have not looked at since its Beta version (Others mileage may vary) :

1 General
a. Keeping Level Drain
b. XP costs for magic item creation
c. XP costs for casting certain spells
d. No action Points/Hero Points in core
e. The game after levels 10-12 (never liked it in any edition)
f. The focus on prestige classes which were supposed to be optional
g. default setting throughout many of the generic books


2. Races
a. Keeping the non-biological aspects of race as part of the racial write-up.

3. Classes (General)
a. Too few skill points for the 2+int classes that do not use Int for their main ability score.
b. allowing multi-classing to grant the classes armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, and good save bonuses and, thereby, bypass feats with a one level dip
c. allowing non-martial characters access to multiple attacks based on BAB

4. Barbarian:
a. Building the class focused on rage- especially, a wilderness warrior based on rage. It is not like there are not examples of "urban"/ "civilized" warriors prone to rage.
b. not tying in the home environment and home culture as was done in 1e Unearthed Arcana version

5. Bard:
a. The class as a Jack of all trades

6. Cleric
a. keeping the armored warrior priest as the default
b. Dropping 2e spheres
c. allowing the class access to all spells rather than those based on their deity's domains.
d. allowing clerics that do not worship deity
e. Boosting the power of the cleric to encourage players to play it.
f. forcing the class into role of healer regardless the deity's domains.

7. Druid
a. not placing more limits on the type of animal companion
b. not placing more limits on the ability to wild shape (especially, with some of the PrCs that expanded the options)
c. Natural Spell

8. Fighter:
a. two few skills points per level.
b. should have had more abilities to reflect mastery- increased threat ratings and crit multipliers
c. needed better save bonuses like they had in previous editions

9. Monk
a. should have been more open to customization like the fighter
b. the upper levels abilities felt more appropriate for a PRc rather than a generic monk class

10. Paladin
a. abilities should have been more reflective of the deity
b. spell list should have been based upon the deity's domains
c. should have had a bard's spell progression with 0-level spells at first level. The delay, in my opinion, feels like a prc
d. needed more skill points per level

11. Ranger
a. should have had a bard's spell progression with 0-level spells at first level. The delay, in my opinion, feels more like a PrC.
b. should have had more weapon style choices
c. Favored enemy was, in my opinion a bad choice for a set ability. Should have been something that could be taken as a feat.

12. Rogue
a. Basing the class around sneak attack and trapfinding
b. UMD as a class skill. The rogue should not be able to "trick" magic items. It is more appropriate skill for sorcerers.

13. Sorcerer
a. needed more skill points per level
b. should have had more class skills that used Charisma
c. being inherently magical they should have had UMD as a class skill
d. familiar should have been an option rather than mandatory class feature
e. as innately magical, they should have got the common house rules of eschew materials at first level and a bonus meta magic feat at 5th level and every five additional levels (and allow substitution of Heritage Feats after they were later introduced))

14. Wizard
a. personally with the sorcerer, I would have preferred the wizard as a Prc. In most fiction I read, the use of arcane magic requires an inborn ability or magical heritage (i.e., D&D sorcerer) rather than being something anyone could learn.
b. removing the restrictions that kept them in check and making something of them optional in the DMG. Restrictions should have been the default
c. Too much breadth on access to spells
d. familiar as a class ability rather than option.
e. scribe scroll as a class ability rather than option
f. for a class that is supposed to be scholarly, why is speak language not on the class list of skills.

15. Specialist Wizards
a. Bonus spells were a lousy idea in 2e and not better in 3e.
b. should have gone with a Unearthed Arcana version from the start. The ideas was introduced back in a 2e supplement

16. Class Customization:
a. Not truly supported prior to Unearthed Arcana. A lot of jumping though hoops via multiclassing and PrCs to play a viable starting concept could have been avoided

17. Multiclassing
a. Not requiring access to a trainer and time to train as the default
b. allowing characters to dip 1 level and pick up access to a class's armor and weapon proficiencies to by pass appropriate feats. Makes the initial choice of some classes less important.
c. allowing characters to dip 1 level and pick up access to a class's good save bonus(es). Makes the initial choice of some classes less important.

18. Skills
a. some of the classes need more skill points per level
b. Hide and Move Silent could be combined into Stealth
c. Listen and Spot could be combined into Notice
d. Craft and Profession could have used a little tweaking. (Experts 3.5 did a good job in distinguishing.)

19. Feats
a. way too many feats.
b. some feats should have been something anyone could attempt

20. Equipment
a. Tanglefoot bags, sunrods etc. in the core book
b. Spiked chains, spikey armor, etc. in the core
c. Halfling riding dogs.

21. Combat
a. Fighter types needed more interesting things to do (personally, I like the Book of Iron Might approach).
b. Full Attack severely limiting Fighter's movement.

22. Poison
a. should have looked more like Poisoncraft (Blue Devil Games)

23. Spells.
a. Too many spells
b. too many spells that are just variants of bonus to hit and bonus to ac
c. Too many spells that are similar to other spells, but look different and placed in other schools
d. Spells that allowed the caster to automatically succeed at tasks of other classes rather than giving a bonus based on caster level or spell level
e. spells detecting, protecting, targeting Law/Chaos based sp (Blech!)
f. Rope Trick

24. Magic Item Creation
a. Too easy to create magic items
b. XP Costs.
(Note: Thankfully, there was the Artificer's Handbook (Mystic Eye Games))

25. Supplements
a. The Races of X series
b. 3.0 [X]&[Y] Class Splats: format and prestige classes. Defenders of the Faith was just garbage
c. The Complete [Y] series: format and prestige classes. Complete Divine was just horrible. Complete Mage wasn't bad, but not what I wanted and I prefer the specialist wizards in Unearthed Arcana.
c. Book of Exalted Deeds
d. Savage Species: Monster Classes
e. Frostburn
f. Psionics Handbook and XPH
g. Tome of Battle
h. Tome of Magic
i. Magic of Incarnum
j. Weapons of Legacy

26. Pathfinder
a. bringing up the non-spellcasting classes rather than toning down the spellcasters
b. many of the changes to various classes
c. the handling of Sorcerer bloodlines. Sorcerer bloodline idea good.
d. Feat names like Gorgon's Fist and Medusa's Wrath. Leave the monster name's off the feats.

 

[FireLance]

My biggest problem with 3e can be summed up as follows:

Linear warriors, quadratic wizards.