What changes from 3.0 to 3.5 should *not* have been made?

[Vanye]

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned it yet, but what about Haste.

I just took a gander at the SRD and it seems the new Haste spell is now only useful to warriors making a full attack.

No longer do you get a free partial action. Fullstop. You now only get it with a melee weapon while making a full attack action.

How's this gone for people?

It's gone over quite well in the game I run, not quite so well in the game I played in.

The game I run, the wizard took the spell so he could cast it on others. He didn't want to run out of his spells, so the ability to throw an extra spell per round was wasted for him.

The 3.5 change, however, was much more useful for him. Now his entire party ended up with:
enhanced movment
a bonus to armor class
a bonus to Reflex saves
and everyone got an extra attack, if all they did was attack.

However, in the game I played in, the two party wizards both liked to haste themselves and burn through all their spells in the first fight of the day, and then insist on resting for the rest of the day. It caused some player conflicts when the rest of us said "The heck with that. You didn't need to blow through 15 spells in one fight. You could have saved a few..."

 

[Vanye]

Haste should have been given some additional costs, not mangled beyond recognition. Ability damage, subdual damage, high material component cost, maybe XP cost, or some combination of these, NOT a paradigm shift in the spells effect.

Ahh, but the paradigm shift came in with 3.0, NOT 3.5. In previous editions, the spell was capable of affecting multiple allies, not just one target. This was more true to the past than their original version.

 

[Spatula]

And it couldn't be used to cast more than 1 spell a round as well. The 3.5 version is much truer to its roots than the 3.0.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I'm still trying to work out how anyone could NOT like the new Ranger.


JRR, what is wrong with Animal Companions now? They're no longer as disposable, and the encounter stopper that was "Animal Friendship" is gone.

Unlearning spells is a good thing purely for utility.

On the above:

1: I don't like the new ranger because it's NOT a ranger as I define the term. Someone else said it's INFINITELY better than the 3.0 ranger. I'd clarify that a bit and say it's infinitely MORE POWERFUL, not necessarily better. It's been said before, the ranger is now a wilderness rogue instead of wilderness warrior. C'mon, evasion? Bleh. Combat styles suck. The ranger is the ONLY class forced into either wasting class abilities or using a pre-defined fighting style. Even the wizard can use a two-handed sword by "wasting" a feat. The ranger "wastes" 3.

2. Animal companions. Yeah, they're much better now, but before, an animal was just an animal. Now suddenly, it's a mystical creature who can cast spells, evade fireballs, talk, etc. It should be an animal, not a familiar. I don't mind the extra hit dice, and stuff that makes it a better combatant (natural armor, base attack, hit dice, etc), but the familaresque stuff is just lame.

3. Unlearning spells - I know they did this for spells like sleep, and it helps boost the sorceror a bit, but it just doesn't make sense, though I could argue I've unlearned most of what I learned in my college mathematics classes.....

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

On the above:

1: I don't like the new ranger because it's NOT a ranger as I define the term. Someone else said it's INFINITELY better than the 3.0 ranger. I'd clarify that a bit and say it's infinitely MORE POWERFUL, not necessarily better. It's been said before, the ranger is now a wilderness rogue instead of wilderness warrior. C'mon, evasion? Bleh. Combat styles suck.

The TWF style is exactly what the 2e and 3.0 ranger got. So yeah, I guess the 3.0 ranger sucked because of the combat styles

The ranger is the ONLY class forced into either wasting class abilities or using a pre-defined fighting style. Even the wizard can use a two-handed sword by "wasting" a feat. The ranger "wastes" 3.

It was worse in 3.0.

2. Animal companions. Yeah, they're much better now, but before, an animal was just an animal. Now suddenly, it's a mystical creature who can cast spells, evade fireballs, talk, etc. It should be an animal, not a familiar. I don't mind the extra hit dice, and stuff that makes it a better combatant (natural armor, base attack, hit dice, etc), but the familaresque stuff is just lame.

Yeah, that does kind of suck, although the animal doesn't cast any spells or gain Intelligence.

3. Unlearning spells - I know they did this for spells like sleep, and it helps boost the sorceror a bit, but it just doesn't make sense, though I could argue I've unlearned most of what I learned in my college mathematics classes.....

You do know that sleep sucks by the time a ranger could get it? Why bother? Besides, I don't see Aragorn casting any sleep spells or pseudo-mystical equivalent in LotR, nor anything that could even be interpreted that way. Then again, you could say the same thing for the vast majority of ranger spells - longstrider and commune with nature are the only possible exceptions I'd noted.

 

[Grayhawk]

1: I don't like the new ranger because it's NOT a ranger as I define the term. Someone else said it's INFINITELY better than the 3.0 ranger. I'd clarify that a bit and say it's infinitely MORE POWERFUL, not necessarily better. It's been said before, the ranger is now a wilderness rogue instead of wilderness warrior.

I tend to agree with this - which Ranger do you use instead? A house ruled or an 'official' variant?

(And isn't there someplace I can check out the spell-less Ranger from Complete Warrior, short of buying the book?)

 

[Spatula]

IIRC, the Complete Warrior "spell-less" ranger variant loses spellcasting but gets a number of fixed spell-like abilities. Like speak with animals 3/day at level X, summon nature's ally IV 1/day at level Y, etc. (just examples, I don't recall the specific spells that are granted).

 

[Jeff Wilder]

IIRC, the Complete Warrior "spell-less" ranger variant loses spellcasting but gets a number of fixed spell-like abilities. Like speak with animals 3/day at level X, summon nature's ally IV 1/day at level Y, etc. (just examples, I don't recall the specific spells that are granted).

I took a look at it today, intending to try to remember, but I'm really not sure how well I succeeded. I had about 15 seconds to look it over on my way out the door. It's something like:

(1) 6th level: +10' to movement.
(2) 11th level: +4 bonus to Constitution, Dexterity, or Wisdom once per day, for a few minutes' duration.
(3) 13th level: Neutralize poison or remove disease, once per day.
(4) 16th level: Freedom of movement, once per day.

The clear intent is to mimic one or two of the most oft-chosen spells at each spell-break. Aside from the fact that giving the ranger supernatural and spell-like abilities kinda defeats the whole idea of a non-mystical ranger, there are other mildly odd things about the way they did it.

First, only the first power (+10' to movement) is achieved when the ranger would normally have gotten a new spell-level (1st). The others lag one level behind. (E.g., the buff-power is achieved at 11th level, but a ranger with spells would get a 2nd-level spell at 10th level.)

Second, there's no obvious balance for (a) the lack of flexibility that the ranger would have with spells, or (b) the additional spells of each level a ranger would have gotten.

The inobvious balance lies in a few areas: (a) the movement increase is EX, so not subject to whole bunch of limitations longstrider might be; it's also always-on, (b) the buffing (and possibly the freedom of movement, I can't remember) is SU, and thus doesn't provoke AoOs in use, (c) the other abilities are spell-like, and thus don't require components, (d) none of the abilities require the ranger to have a good Wisdom.

I don't think that the balance is quite right, but it's close enough.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

1: I don't like the new ranger because it's NOT a ranger as I define the term. Someone else said it's INFINITELY better than the 3.0 ranger. I'd clarify that a bit and say it's infinitely MORE POWERFUL, not necessarily better. It's been said before, the ranger is now a wilderness rogue instead of wilderness warrior.

I'll grant that the ranger is closer in 3.5 to a rogue than he was in 3.0, but why is that a problem? A wilderness warrior, almost by definition, is a guerilla fighter. The 3.5 ranger is incredibly well-suited for that role.

The 3.5 ranger has the HP of a fighter/rogue, the BAB of a fighter, the weapons knowledge of a fighter, the shields proficiency of a fighter, the saves of both ... looks like a wilderness warrior to me.

C'mon, evasion? Bleh.

Why is evasion a problem? The ranger is more lightly armored than a fighter, and usually quicker. He relies more on avoiding damage than absorbing it.

Combat styles suck. The ranger is the ONLY class forced into either wasting class abilities or using a pre-defined fighting style. Even the wizard can use a two-handed sword by "wasting" a feat. The ranger "wastes" 3.

Well, compared to the 2E and 3.0 ranger, the 3.5 ranger has double the choices. How in the world you can count that as a negative is beyond me.

2. Animal companions. Yeah, they're much better now, but before, an animal was just an animal. Now suddenly, it's a mystical creature who can cast spells, evade fireballs, talk, etc.

Talk? Say what?

The animal companion is a tougher, more experienced version of an animal, just as an adventurer is a tougher, more experienced version of a normal person.

I don't mind the extra hit dice, and stuff that makes it a better combatant (natural armor, base attack, hit dice, etc), but the familaresque stuff is just lame.

If you think the animal companion can talk, or shares a telepathic link with the ranger, or anything that can't be justified as a natural -- albeit maybe extraordinary -- ability, you just don't seem to know the rules.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

If you think the animal companion can talk, or shares a telepathic link with the ranger, or anything that can't be justified as a natural -- albeit maybe extraordinary -- ability, you just don't seem to know the rules.

It may be that he's mixing up the animal companion and the paladin's mount. The paladin's mount does gain incremental intelligence and an empathic link with its rider. Though even the mount can't actually talk...