D&D 3E/3.5 Twenty Years On. Modern 3E?

[Imaculata]

A modern 3.5e could rationalise encumbrance rules - they are too fiddly.

I think the easiest way to handle encumbrance, would be to simply have a limited number of heavy item slots based on your strength score.

 

[Cadence]

I think the easiest way to handle encumbrance, would be to simply have a limited number of heavy item slots based on your strength score.

I'm picturing an enterprising 3.5 experienced player planning to get rich by making a line of modular light and medium (aka encumbrance free) items that Voltron together into heavy items. And looking sad when the DM unjustly quashes their creative solution and entrepreneurship.

 

[wingsandsword]

Trimmed down feats (i seem to recall that 3e feats were much tighter than the inclusion of unnecessary feats in 3.5e - investigator, acrobatics, nimble fingers come to mind)

Maintaining skills and ranks was good IMO, but a little rationalisation would not have hurt. I can’t see why jump and tumble needed to be their own seperate thing, for instance.

The equipment list and weapons was excellent in 3.x and the nerfed version in 5e is plain disappointing. Indeed, the fact that money was useful for players (as opposed to 5e) was great.

Oh, and give me masterwork items! They were great and the current 5e system almost suggests that there are shops like Costco or wal-mart or target or Kmart selling mass produced items that have been made in FR or Eberron or greyhawk’s equivalent of our developing country.

I pretty much agree with all these things.

The reason for the little fiddly feats like investigator, nimble fingers etc. was that the "+2 to two related skills, with a thematic name" feats got to be VERY popular in 3.0 supplements, both WotC and third party, so they were made core in 3.5.

The loss of skill ranks and that level of customization is one thing I don't like about 5e, but I'll definitely agree that there could be some consolidation of 3.x skills.
Open Lock and Disable Device could be consolidated. Spot and Search could be consolidated. I'd consolidate the functions of Spellcraft into the caster knowledge skills (Arcana, Nature, and Religion), and probably consolidate Concentration into those too. Jump and Tumble could be consolidated.

I've complained before that 5e (and 4e) getting rid of Craft and Profession skills was bad, that it offered a way to customize your character and make it more than a pure combat machine. For all of 3.x's focus on combat, the character generation rules had more options for non-combat roleplaying-focused characters than most editions.

Masterwork weapons and armor was a HUGE innovation in 3.x, since it finally acknowledged that not all nonmagical gear was equal and made actual quality of the item a thing. This helped with verisimilitude and could actually factor into gameplay during low-level games.

. . .and yes, 3.x has a far superior weapons and equipment list, each weapon in that variety has a niche, even if unspoken, and they all do slightly different things. There's an actual reason to have a scimitar as opposed to a longsword, for example.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think PF2 could be the closest equivalent to a new sleeker take on 3.5. It’s got more mechanical heft than 5e, but it’s still streamlined and keeps the spellcasting system separate from other abilities. To me, 4e is the sweet spot between 3.5 complexity and 5e simplicity (in terms of PCs and monsters), but if 4e is not an option, PF2 looks to be between 3.5 and 5e too.

When my main group cannot get together because of life, I play a streamlined version of 4e with those who can make it to game night:

• 4e with PHB 1-2-3 (I remove runepriest and seeker from PHB3) OR, for a more casual group, Essentials only.
• If we have access to the offline builder, we may try to add 1 power source book per source (Martial Powers 1, Arcane powers 1 etc)
• No feats: in the end, they are the main source of fiddliness and conditional +1s you'll forget anyway.
• Use Inherent bonus to avoid the magic item threadmill. It also help with the lost of ''fix'' feats likes +1/2/3 to hit or NADs feats.
• Focus on the MM3 and Monster vault with their fixed maths.

It works well: just the right amount of buttons to push, no need to add 150 +1s to your roll and its feels quite heroic.

 

[Imaculata]

I'm picturing an enterprising 3.5 experienced player planning to get rich by making a line of modular light and medium (aka encumbrance free) items that Voltron together into heavy items. And looking sad when the DM unjustly quashes their creative solution and entrepreneurship.

Now I picture it in my mind as well, whahaha. I guess you'd have to put a limit on items of all weight classes.

 

[Cadence]

Now I picture it in my mind as well, whahaha. I guess you'd have to put a limit on items of all weight classes.

The senior book keeper for the firm couldn't believe at first that they could possibly still be profitable after the huge drop in price from 4 sp down to 3 and 2 (sp and cp). But the junior partner, the one who babbled on about some alchemy called "marketing", was right. The vast increase in customers flocking in from their competitors due to the ridiculously low price worked perfectly with the fact that almost none could be bothered to manage a whole 8 new coins and refused them when offered as change. Profits were soaring!. He wasn't sure if he should worry about the printer who was rumored to be paying people to quarter and halve every coin they could in order to help them push some idea called "bank notes".

 

[Catolias]

The loss of skill ranks and that level of customization is one thing I don't like about 5e, but I'll definitely agree that there could be some consolidation of 3.x skills.
Open Lock and Disable Device could be consolidated. Spot and Search could be consolidated. I'd consolidate the functions of Spellcraft into the caster knowledge skills (Arcana, Nature, and Religion), and probably consolidate Concentration into those too. Jump and Tumble could be consolidated.

I think concentration really was another arm of Spellcraft. For those who had to use concentrate in non-spell capacity, it would sort of make sense to make that a fortitude save.

Also, I think some tidying up of sunder, trip, charge, bull rush,and revised AoO would be good. Those mechanics made for some interesting fights.