D&D 3.x What 3.5'isms do you use you swore you wouldn't?

[Halivar]

I still haven't shucked out the money for 3.5. My question is this:

What did you swear before the release you wouldn't be implementing, but now do?

OR what did you think was a reasonable change before that you've now decided to "revert" on?

I'm interested to hear what people's experiences with 3.5 are before I upgrade. In particular I was concerned about improved PA and nerfed crit. range stacking.

 

[Thanee]

Actually I think it's really good and the books are well worth the money!

Only very few things that I do not like (i.e. the new Spell Focus feat, which seems too weak now), 99% of the changes (of those I have found yet ) are very good!

IMHO of course.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dreaddisease]

The things I'm most upset or 'nerfed off' about is the stat bonus spells reduction (1 hour/level all the way down to 1 minute), the reduction of Fly speed and duration to be more to the liking of DMs who feel that combats are suddenly out of balance because players can fly fast. I really think most of the nerfed stuff is to make it easier to plan out combats for the DM by limiting the players options.

On the plus side the 3.5 things I do use and am most excited about are things they changed and added to the character classes making each one so useful as to make it hard to choose... hmm now I want to play a bard or a ranger or a wizard or even a paladin (well not often but sometimes).

The most appreciated thing of all is the magic aura given off by average magic items.

 

[Thanee]

The things I'm most upset or 'nerfed off' about is the stat bonus spells reduction (1 hour/level all the way down to 1 minute).

Oh, c'mon... these spells were completely broken for being only 2nd level (especially with multiple empowerings )!

Now they are reasonable. Still good, but not so uber, that everyone is running around with 3-6 of them up 24/7 (or 24/10 if you are on Faerûn)!

Bye
Thanee

 

[isoChron]

I for myself dislike the new wildshape rules (sticking to polymorph again) and the many errors left in or newly created.
The stat buffs ... well, we still use 10 min/level (house rule).
They failed to upgrade the boring sorcerer. The new fly isn't what I thought fly should be.
On the other hand they corrected many errors, fixed haste (very important in my book!) and some other spells.
The new DR is a bit ... uninteresting. It doesn't add anything to the game (remember, just my point of view) but made penetrating DR most times a lot easier. No more enchanted arrows. Protection from arrows doesn't help anymore in most of the cases and is now worth a first level slot maximum. Two handed weapons are now more important than ever. (PA and DR).
Armor is only useful to negate power attack at higher levels. They could have fixed that to make armor a bit more useful.
All in all it's an improvement to D&D 3rd Edition and if you get used to the changed spells it's ok.

Just IMHO.
BYE

 

[The Souljourner]

I thought the new power attack would be ok, but it's not. Double the damage with a two handed weapon? This was supposed to fix the imbalance between two weapon fighting and two handed styles, right? Except there was no imbalance. Two handed style requires NO feats, and two weapon fighting imposes a -2 to hit on all attacks. So far, it looks like TWF is way underpowered. Plus, you can't use power attack with light weapon anymore, which means the whole 2x for two handed weapons is even more idiotic.. they fixed the feat twice, and made it useless for TWF guys, and a no-brainer for two handed guys.

And about the buff spells - they're terrible. 1 minute per level might as well be 1 round per level. You're never going to have them for more than one fight, which means you have to compare them against what else you could be using those spell slots for in that fight. Not to mention that since they're enhancement bonuses, they don't stack with items on the same stat, so once you even get a +2 item to a stat, casting the spell on you is pretty much a waste.

At 1 minute per level I think they should be 1st level. If they were 10 minutes per level, I could see it being a 2nd level spell. Then at least if you're dungeon crawling, they'll last a few fights.

In the 10 or so sessions I've played using 3.5, we have never cast the buff spells, compared to casting them all the time in 3.0. Now I'll grant you they were probably too good in 3.0, but 1 min per level is just crap.

I *love* the new ranger. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's also the only base class other than monk that I would seriously want to take straight to 20th. Two good saves, 6 skillpoints, fighter BAB, very cool and appropriate special abilities... what's not to like?

I have to disagree with isoChron, I can't believe you can call 3.5 DR uninteresting compared to 3.0. "I have a +3 weapon, so I ignore all damage reduction" Talk about uninteresting. Now you actually need special and interesting materials/abilities to be able to damage stuff. How is magic & good less interesting than "+3"?

And I don't understand what you mean about armor not being useful.... AC is very important at high levels... my paladin, who is the only member of the party who uses a shield, is almost always doing the tanking, even though he has like 2/3 the hitpoints of the dwarven barbarian, simply because enemies have hard time hitting him.

-The Souljourner

 

[jasamcarl]

I thought the new power attack would be ok, but it's not. Double the damage with a two handed weapon? This was supposed to fix the imbalance between two weapon fighting and two handed styles, right? Except there was no imbalance. Two handed style requires NO feats, and two weapon fighting imposes a -2 to hit on all attacks. So far, it looks like TWF is way underpowered. Plus, you can't use power attack with light weapon anymore, which means the whole 2x for two handed weapons is even more idiotic.. they fixed the feat twice, and made it useless for TWF guys, and a no-brainer for two handed guys.

And about the buff spells - they're terrible. 1 minute per level might as well be 1 round per level. You're never going to have them for more than one fight, which means you have to compare them against what else you could be using those spell slots for in that fight. Not to mention that since they're enhancement bonuses, they don't stack with items on the same stat, so once you even get a +2 item to a stat, casting the spell on you is pretty much a waste.

At 1 minute per level I think they should be 1st level. If they were 10 minutes per level, I could see it being a 2nd level spell. Then at least if you're dungeon crawling, they'll last a few fights.

In the 10 or so sessions I've played using 3.5, we have never cast the buff spells, compared to casting them all the time in 3.0. Now I'll grant you they were probably too good in 3.0, but 1 min per level is just crap.

I *love* the new ranger. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's also the only base class other than monk that I would seriously want to take straight to 20th. Two good saves, 6 skillpoints, fighter BAB, very cool and appropriate special abilities... what's not to like?

I have to disagree with isoChron, I can't believe you can call 3.5 DR uninteresting compared to 3.0. "I have a +3 weapon, so I ignore all damage reduction" Talk about uninteresting. Now you actually need special and interesting materials/abilities to be able to damage stuff. How is magic & good less interesting than "+3"?

And I don't understand what you mean about armor not being useful.... AC is very important at high levels... my paladin, who is the only member of the party who uses a shield, is almost always doing the tanking, even though he has like 2/3 the hitpoints of the dwarven barbarian, simply because enemies have hard time hitting him.

-The Souljourner

Uh, you realize very little has changed as to the utility of power attack? It's better than it used to be, but before, it was never worth using. I believe others have borne this out with the numbers. But most two-handed fighters will still use power attack only some of the time. Its more a utility thing that a 'power' element, since it is usually only usefull for low AC, high hp opponents.

TWF, on the other hand, has been given a rather considerable improvment, with the need to only purchase one feat and the additional later feats that provide extra attacks with the offhand weapon. The problem with probability to hit is the same as for power attack, but twf is a great option for rogues.

And you don't really know what a minute means in combat turns if you think that the buffs will only do for 'one fight, maximum'....

 

[Halivar]

Uh, you realize very little has changed as to the utility of power attack? It's better than it used to be, but before, it was never worth using. I believe others have borne this out with the numbers. But most two-handed fighters will still use power attack only some of the time. Its more a utility thing that a 'power' element, since it is usually only usefull for low AC, high hp opponents.

I believe there were several threads to this effect earlier. I wrote a program that ran thousands of combat scenario's and computed the averages. The new PA almost averages out with non-PA attacks in terms of damage dealt against high-AC opponents, while the old PA was at a severe detriment. Mathematically, at least.

 

[jasamcarl]

I believe there were several threads to this effect earlier. I wrote a program that ran thousands of combat scenario's and computed the averages. The new PA almost averages out with non-PA attacks in terms of damage dealt against high-AC opponents, while the old PA was at a severe detriment. Mathematically, at least.

Yeah, but then its effect is still minimal..the change in power attack has little overall effect on the damage output for single-weapon fighters...

 

[FrankTrollman]

Power Attack was never for high-AC opponents. It was for low AC opponents - and it was awesome. If you were using against BBEGs in plate you were severely handicapping yourself - but no more so than trying to use Sunder on an enemy's thrown weapons. Using a feat when it is at a disadvantage doesn't prove anything. Power Attack at high level translates to about +5 damage against Zombies and Oozes - not to mention the fact that it simply allows you to add your BAB to all coup de grace or door bashing manuvers.

Power Attack has its element - it is a situational bonus to damage against low-AC enemies. It's a really big damage bonus, and well-worth the feat.

3.5 Power Attack breaks even or pulls ahead against High AC Opponents - the people against whom Power Attack is supposed to suck. It is comparitively more powerful against the low AC opponents that PA already shined against.

3rd ed PA was something that you used when appropriate - like Sunder or Improved Disarm. 3.5 Power Attack is so good you might as well use it all the time - and did you notice that you can chop down castles as a pre-epic character with the new PA and Adamantine rules? Seriously - we are talking going through about ten feet of stone per minute. You might just be able to beat the steam drill at that point.

---

So far, the only thing I've been really happy with is the squeezing rules (which I had house ruled anyway in 3rd ed), and the crawling rules (which again, I had house ruled in 3rd ed).

The Improved Sunder feat giving a +4 bonus to opposed rolls is a nice touch, but the Improved Grapple feat doing the same thing is overpowered. So I can't really say that I've accepted that whole rule.

Shadow Magic no longer being able to mimic calling spells is a step towards making sense, but allowing them to mimic 8th level spells is overpowered - I don't agree with that change either.

Having form changing magic change your type is horrible - and allowing Shapechange to snag (Su) abilities is obscene. Meanwhile, limiting forms by hit dice is still a stupid way to do it because the correlation between power and hit dice is nearly nonexistent (compare the hit dice and power of a Leopard and a Bison, for example). The new form changing rules are more broken and more confusing than the old broken and confusing rules.

Endurance at 1 minute a level may as well not exist. Why you would spend a 2nd level spell during a battle to have extra hit points until the end of the battle (at which point you would either have never needed them, or die) I just cannot fathom. The others are better - but now really only useful for the attackers in a teleport ambush - a tactic I hate and don't want to encourage. Having no less than six spells in one school at one level which are all exclusively for that tactic is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to happen.

The new Nerf-Tastic TWF rules are a kick in the crotch. TWF was already a marginal fighting style, justified only by static damage bonuses. By limiting its access to static damage bonuses they rendered it less than useless. At this point I would happliy pay a feat to not have to dual-wield.

Savage Species was a crappy book - and adopting its Level Adjustment mentality into the Core Rules was a bad idea. If you are going to charge people 3 levels to play a CR 1 Gnoll - you may as well just not let them play. Similarly, the Epic Level Rules have a number of conceptual problems and are not balanced (and encourage really weird builds as it creates a whole new paradigms of ways in which two characters with exactly the same class make-up can be at radically different power levels). Including those in the Core books was dumb - especially as they only included the basic Epic Level Advancement system (that didn't work) and left all the cool Epic monsters out.

The changes to the Action rules have almost universally been terrible. Making "standing up from prone" provoke attacks of opportunity has overpowered trip to a degree that is difficult to comprehend. The "only on your turn" restriction for Free actions has left Feather Fall out in the cold with no meaningful gain.

-Frank