Thumbs Down to 3.5 Edition

[maddman75]

That's not fair to the players, who have to get their numbers exactly right or they're called for cheating. Remember, +1 to hit is a whole feat, a magical upgrade, or +2 to a stat. Those kinds of things don't come cheap to a PC, and NPCs should play by the same rules.

Of course it's not fair. Nothing in D&D is fair. Everything is weighted in favor of the PCs. The game assumes that they will go in, outnumbered, kick ass, and take names. I have no concept of fairness or equity betweent the PCs and whatever foes they may face. Just reasonableness. After all, if I need to I could always reverse engineer the character to give him the stats that I need to make it all come out right. And as pointed out, you'll tend to aim low rather than high. Again, this is not my standard way of doing things, normally I stat out all the bad guys ahead of time. But if they go astray and I need an NPC right now, I'd much rather BS it than stop the game to generate a character. Since I don't use the CR system it doesn't really matter what level they are even.

Oh, and that reminds me of another reason that my hat of 5.3 know no limit. They took out the pregened character charts! How am I supposed to run a game without them, when I may need stats for a 5th level rogue at the drop of a hat? No, the generation aids they replaced them with will NOT do. And the 3.0 ones would be incompatible, so to have the same functionality I'd need to redo them myself.

 

[JeffB]

I have to put myself into the camp of “had more fun DMing previous versions of the game”

The older editions may require more rules adjudication by the DM, but common sense seems to take care of the vast majority of issues as long as the players have some degree of common sense too.

3.X makes rules adjudication easier when a problem arises for sure. There’s probably an answer somewhere in one of those books.

Unfortunately I also find it encourages players to worry more about getting the situation adjudicated “by the book” rather than making them worry more about getting on with the adventure.

As a DM I find myself less creative using 3.X. While the standardization of so many things is nice, one can only create within the “hard” parameters the rule-set allows for: it’s much harder to create beyond those parameters. I have to make everything fit into those little boxes.

The 3.X rules are so intertwined in so many areas that if one makes a snap/house ruling about X, it likely affects other things down the road and cause problems. If I for example, limit item-creation or the commonality (is that a word?) of magic, it totally messes up other crucial subsystems like the CR/EL/XP system. 3.X assume PC’s will all have so much treasure, so much magic, etc. Earlier versions of the game made the DM do more work to figure out what he wanted for his particular campaign, but at the same time, the systems were so abstract that it adapted easily to whatever he ended up choosing. There is too much assumption in 3.X that the rules will be adhered to as a whole. Used in part, the 3.X systems break down. The older editions may have not had the stable framework from the get-go but could be tailored as each DM sees fit. In that way the DM would have some more work. However, the DM would also have the final results he was looking for.

I think it may well be a “left/right side of the brain” thing. I also think the D&D community has changed very much in 20 years. Players especially. There is much more focus on the intricacies of the game system as opposed to the story, the adventure and the excitement, IME at least. Players are more concerned w/ getting that new feat or qualifying for a new PrClass or having a spell no-one else uses instead of taking on that next quest, the sense of wonder of finding new places and things to explore, villains to vanquish, or plots to foil. The vehicle is the focus as opposed to the trip itself

That said, there are many things 3.X does well, and I will continue to try and find that happy medium as a DM using the system. I have high hopes for the Troll Lords and C&C

 

[Null Boundry]

Um .. pardon me, but if the rounds were 1 min long in 2E, there would've been little point in leaving the sword leaning against the wall in that edition too.

Pretty sure that once in comabt they suddenly shortened to 10 secord rounds with turns lasting 1 minute.

Been awhile since I played so I might be wrong.

 

[Victim]

Combat and Tactics switched to 10 sec combat rounds, but I don't think vanilla 2e did.

 

[Aaron2]

I think it may well be a “left/right side of the brain” thing. I also think the D&D community has changed very much in 20 years. Players especially. There is much more focus on the intricacies of the game system as opposed to the story, the adventure and the excitement, IME at least. Players are more concerned w/ getting that new feat or qualifying for a new PrClass or having a spell no-one else uses instead of taking on that next quest, the sense of wonder of finding new places and things to explore, villains to vanquish, or plots to foil. The vehicle is the focus as opposed to the trip itself

I think there is an expectation among 3e players (self included) that they should be able to defeat any opponent they meet or the module is unfair (forex the Roper in Forge of Fury). Likewise, there is an expectation that their characters possess X amount of gear. There may be a built in problem that recommendations are given to the DM in the DMG, all the players soon learn of them and expect their DM to follow them.

That being said, I've been playing 3e for over two years and it was just a few months ago that my players and I really started feeling comfortable with the way the rules worked. If I went back to 1e I'd probably have months of awkwardness awaiting me. I've said this before that familiarity to the rules is often more important is smooth gameplay that the rules themselves. I've played Fantasy Hero often and it runs quickly; far from what you'd think from reading the rules.


Aaron (rambling)

 

[seankreynolds]

Sean, I've seen it asserted several times that the one BIG flaw in 3E is the preparation required of the DM or game designer in getting the stat blocks of classed monsters and high-level characters exactly right.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
Cheers!

Well, I haven't seen the assertion that they need to be _exactly_ right. I mean, a barbazu ftr10 is still a choice opponent whether you list his glaive attack correctly at +19 or make a small goof and list it at +20.

Anyway, I think "precision" involved just a concern of high-level play, not something specific to 3E or 3.5. When the game reaches the point where creatures have save-or-die effects that are hard to resist, and some characters have abilities that can ignore those abilities, knowing exactly what the enemies can and can't do is very important. When coupled with how more powerful creatures/characters have so many options, knowing all parameters of the creature's abilities becomes more important ... otherwise the fight is over in three rounds and then the DM says, "Oh, I forgot he had SR 25...."

 

[Kershek]

When coupled with how more powerful creatures/characters have so many options, knowing all parameters of the creature's abilities becomes more important ... otherwise the fight is over in three rounds and then the DM says, "Oh, I forgot he had SR 25...."

Ha! I did that with a Mind Flayer in the finale of a certain module once. Doh!

 

[Luddite]

I think there is an expectation among 3e players (self included) that they should be able to defeat any opponent they meet or the module is unfair (forex the Roper in Forge of Fury). Likewise, there is an expectation that their characters possess X amount of gear. There may be a built in problem that recommendations are given to the DM in the DMG, all the players soon learn of them and expect their DM to follow them.

That being said, I've been playing 3e for over two years and it was just a few months ago that my players and I really started feeling comfortable with the way the rules worked. If I went back to 1e I'd probably have months of awkwardness awaiting me. I've said this before that familiarity to the rules is often more important is smooth gameplay that the rules themselves. I've played Fantasy Hero often and it runs quickly; far from what you'd think from reading the rules.


Aaron (rambling)

Well, for a published adventure, I expect that the module itself can be completed "successfully" by the players. However, this does not mean that the players of the stated level will be able to kill/destroy everything in the module. Personaly I am unfamiliar with your specific example of Forge of Fury.

Now back towards the original topic. I have yet to play 3.5, but realy there are only two things that I don't like. The updated Power Attack, and Weapon Size.

But then, I (and my group) had no problem with the "absolute" weapon size approach. If blade is of a particular lenght, then it is a dagger/shortsword/longsword/... So there isn't a "Large Dagger." Now I see you can get into a problem if you had a Large Size PC Wizard. Where a Shortsword is the "Dagger" for him. My group accepted this a valid Rule 0. However, after seeing the above arguments, I can see that what is a "Simple" weapon to a Large PC is an issue for "offical" games. Just not in mine.

IMO, Power Attack is now too useful to the GreatAxe Wielder. To me Power Attack was a simple conversion of Character Skill (BAB) to Damage. It was independent of the One/Two/Light weapon status.

My issue with 3.5 is that it is a "different" game then 3.0. Sure I can convert, but they are different enough that I have to think about which version I am playing. I am in the camp "3.5 was too much change too soon." And Issues with 3.5 only stem from the fact that we have 3.0 to compare with. If we had started with 3.5, would we realy notice this much difference?

-The Luddite

 

[Mercule]

I think there is an expectation among 3e players (self included) that they should be able to defeat any opponent they meet or the module is unfair (forex the Roper in Forge of Fury). Likewise, there is an expectation that their characters possess X amount of gear. There may be a built in problem that recommendations are given to the DM in the DMG, all the players soon learn of them and expect their DM to follow them.

The monster thing isn't new to 3E. It's been there forever. I think it's more a playstyle issue than a system issue.

Treasure has also always been subject to expectations. Now, at least we have a guideline. The DM can say "This campaign won't necessarily follow the treasure tables listed," and everything is fine. IME, the tables are more a restraining factor for the player's demands than fuel for the fire. I still remember the guy in high school whose 10th level fighter had 2,000,000 gpv in weapons and armor alone.

It's also handy to know if some adjustments need to be made for standard modules. When my group in RtToEE had roughly half the treasure value for our levels, we knew we were screwed because the module assumed the standard.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I have much more fun DMing 3.x than I ever had DMing previous versions of the game. I think that's because 3.x has incorporated a lot of the things that the previous versions of the game needed (and my friends and I had endless discussions about how to implement)--like a workable skill system and non-broken multiclassing mechanics for instance.

The 3.X rules are so intertwined in so many areas that if one makes a snap/house ruling about X, it likely affects other things down the road and cause problems. If I for example, limit item-creation or the commonality (is that a word?) of magic, it totally messes up other crucial subsystems like the CR/EL/XP system. 3.X assume PC’s will all have so much treasure, so much magic, etc. Earlier versions of the game made the DM do more work to figure out what he wanted for his particular campaign, but at the same time, the systems were so abstract that it adapted easily to whatever he ended up choosing. There is too much assumption in 3.X that the rules will be adhered to as a whole. Used in part, the 3.X systems break down. The older editions may have not had the stable framework from the get-go but could be tailored as each DM sees fit. In that way the DM would have some more work. However, the DM would also have the final results he was looking for.

This seems like a rather inaccurate complaint to me. Yes, if you change one aspect of the system (the availability and frequencey of magic items, for instance), it makes throws other aspects of the system (the CR system and the value of armor class--in particular heavy armor, shields, Dodge, and Combat Expertise--for instance) out of whack. But that's no different from 1e or 2e. A 2e 12th level 2e character with plate mail and a battle axe wasn't capable of taking on the same creatures as a character with +3 platemail, a +2 shield and a sword of life stealing. Similarly a wizard with a staff of power or a wand of fireballs was far more powerful than a wizard with his spellbook and a dagger.

1 and 2e had no guides for how much equipment a character was supposed to have and much less precise guides for what an x-level character was supposed to be capable of. If you were a 1e or a 2e DM, you had to eyeball things. Kobolds are an appropriate threat to a level 1 party. Etc etc. If your particular campaign choices throw your 3e game out of whack, you're no worse off than you were in 1e or 2e because it's no harder to eyeball 3e capabilities than it was to eyeball 1e and 2e capabilities. Know your party, know your players, know your monsters and if you've got a non-standard setup, it shouldn't be any more work to set up encounters than it was in 1e or 2e.

If you're having more difficulty eyeballing a nonstandard 3.x game, I would guess it's because you're more familiar with 1e and 2e than 3.x--not because of any inherent difference.

I think it may well be a “left/right side of the brain” thing. I also think the D&D community has changed very much in 20 years. Players especially. There is much more focus on the intricacies of the game system as opposed to the story, the adventure and the excitement, IME at least. Players are more concerned w/ getting that new feat or qualifying for a new PrClass or having a spell no-one else uses instead of taking on that next quest, the sense of wonder of finding new places and things to explore, villains to vanquish, or plots to foil. The vehicle is the focus as opposed to the trip itself

That's entirely a player thing. When I was in high school and played D&D 2e with my friends, we were focussed on kits and specializations and wierd spells and maximizing things. When I got back into the game with 3e, I've played with groups that focus on the story and groups that focus on combat mechanics. (Of course mechanics can be a part of the story--is the character whose dream since conversion has been to join the Knights Templar focussing on mechanics or story when he shouts for joy upon reaching level 7 and becoming Ftr 4/Pal 2/Templar 1? If the game integrates mechanics and story properly, I would say that the two things are inseperable).