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

[Steverooo]

Hardness

Sheesh! You take arguements to the nutty extreeme, don'tcha?!?

The Mohs scale, IIRC, goes from Chalk to Diamond. You take a piece of material that you want to test, and see if it will "mark" (or leave a scratch on) a piece of chalk... If it does, you proceed UP the scale to the next hader material. When you find something that your test material won't "mark", then you see if that material will mark it.

In this way, you get a "Moh's Number". That number is the material's hardness.

Now in D&D terms, you would have enchanted materials (probably above diamond), and adamanti(ne/te), and then its magical variations.

By using a weight (let's say twenty pounds), you remove variables (how much pressure was applied) from the equation. Nothing there that would break the sword. At worst, there would be another "sharpening scratch" along the edge of the blade. Etching the blade would do more damage than that.

 

[Steverooo]

Yeah, but DnD hardness seems a bit different than say Brinell hardness since it protects against almost all types of damage. So it includes corrosion resistance too, among other things.

Actually, no... "Acid" includes ALL forms of corrosion (acids, alkalis, caustics of all forms). Both "Acid" and "Sonic" damage ignore hardness... See the DMG...

 

[Carpe DM]

I suppose posting in a thread this contentious borders on the Quixotic, but I can't resist.

The biggest problem I have with 3.5 was the Paladin nerf. The class is dependent on force multipliers to make the pathetic smite useful. The following abilities were all nerfed, and acting in conjunction, reduced the utility of the Paladin far more than any other class:

1. Crit stacking nerf (force multipliers for smites now much rarer);

2. Holy Sword nerf; (they left Hunter's Mercy intact, of course);

3. Divine Might nerf;

4. Lances errata'ed (ok, fine, they're pathetic 2-handed weapons that do 1d8 damage, but we'll treat them as having none of the benefits of being 2-handed, of course);

5. Turning nerf (paladins now couldn't turn yogurt);

6. Spellcasting nerf (the change in spell durations didn't hurt clerics; they destroyed spell utility for paladins because of the 1/2 caster requirement);

Those are just a few of the problems. Paladins received summon mount in return, which I think a lot of people have pointed out was a pretty poor exchange.

Flavor-text aside, I do think the paladin mount ability permits paladins to focus a lot more on their mounts, since they can get them deep down in the dungeons on occasion (otherwise, as in many campaigns I've observed, the Paladin gets to use her horse once every other month or so).

But it's no exchange for the across-the-board nerfing of a class that was already so far behind clerics as to be laughable.

best,

Carpe

 

[VirgilCaine]

A lot of gun owners in the US are hobbyists. Hunters and target shooters. My dad is such a one. He makes his own bullets. He takes apart his guns to clean and service them, himself.

I sure hope people don't pay someone else to clean their guns (Simply because it is a pretty trival thing).

Making your own bullets or for that matter, cartridges isn't terribly uncommon, though unless you shoot a certain miniumum amount of ammunition, it isn't cost-effective.

Anyway...

 

[Victim]

I suppose posting in a thread this contentious borders on the Quixotic, but I can't resist.

The biggest problem I have with 3.5 was the Paladin nerf. The class is dependent on force multipliers to make the pathetic smite useful. The following abilities were all nerfed, and acting in conjunction, reduced the utility of the Paladin far more than any other class:

1. Crit stacking nerf (force multipliers for smites now much rarer);

2. Holy Sword nerf; (they left Hunter's Mercy intact, of course);

3. Divine Might nerf;

4. Lances errata'ed (ok, fine, they're pathetic 2-handed weapons that do 1d8 damage, but we'll treat them as having none of the benefits of being 2-handed, of course);

5. Turning nerf (paladins now couldn't turn yogurt);

6. Spellcasting nerf (the change in spell durations didn't hurt clerics; they destroyed spell utility for paladins because of the 1/2 caster requirement);

Those are just a few of the problems. Paladins received summon mount in return, which I think a lot of people have pointed out was a pretty poor exchange.

Flavor-text aside, I do think the paladin mount ability permits paladins to focus a lot more on their mounts, since they can get them deep down in the dungeons on occasion (otherwise, as in many campaigns I've observed, the Paladin gets to use her horse once every other month or so).

But it's no exchange for the across-the-board nerfing of a class that was already so far behind clerics as to be laughable.

best,

Carpe

Paladins already turned at level -3. Turning at -4 isn't a huge drop in their ability.

Holy Sword needed the nerf. I've seen in play attacks for over 400 damage. Granted, Hunter's Mercy could use a gang beating with nerf bats as well. I too was surprised when it was put into the ranger spell list in PGtF without a new version of the spell.

Divine Might was probably too good before. The free action plus one fight duration, combined with the paladin's large number of turning attempts essentially gave the paladin more damage than specialized fighters. Now it's still good enough to take and use, but it's not a given for each round of combat.

Paladin's now get extra smites from levels, which they didn't have before. Smiting 4 times instead of once at higher levels is a great improvement.

By the time paladins had access to stat buffing spells, they could easily have items for those abilities anyway. I don't recall seeing too many paladins using those spells before.
----------------
Dang it, I keep forgetting that Acid damage got changed to be like sonics. Dnd Hardness would probably related largely to Impact Toughness.

 

[Particle_Man]

re: finding out magical properties of items (like +1 or +2)

Wouldn't it be easier to just cast an identify spell? In 3.5 you find out all magical properties of any one non-artifact.

(But cast Detect Magic first...I got burned when I paid a mage to cast identify on what turned out to be a vial of antitoxin)

 

[Mouseferatu]

I suppose posting in a thread this contentious borders on the Quixotic, but I can't resist.

The biggest problem I have with 3.5 was the Paladin nerf. The class is dependent on force multipliers to make the pathetic smite useful. The following abilities were all nerfed, and acting in conjunction, reduced the utility of the Paladin far more than any other class:

1. Crit stacking nerf (force multipliers for smites now much rarer);

2. Holy Sword nerf; (they left Hunter's Mercy intact, of course);

3. Divine Might nerf;

4. Lances errata'ed (ok, fine, they're pathetic 2-handed weapons that do 1d8 damage, but we'll treat them as having none of the benefits of being 2-handed, of course);

5. Turning nerf (paladins now couldn't turn yogurt);

6. Spellcasting nerf (the change in spell durations didn't hurt clerics; they destroyed spell utility for paladins because of the 1/2 caster requirement);

Those are just a few of the problems. Paladins received summon mount in return, which I think a lot of people have pointed out was a pretty poor exchange.

Flavor-text aside, I do think the paladin mount ability permits paladins to focus a lot more on their mounts, since they can get them deep down in the dungeons on occasion (otherwise, as in many campaigns I've observed, the Paladin gets to use her horse once every other month or so).

But it's no exchange for the across-the-board nerfing of a class that was already so far behind clerics as to be laughable.

best,

Carpe

I couldn't disagree more. I'm playing a paladin right now, and I'm loving it. Those multiple smites really pay off at higher levels, and I've always felt that holy sword and the buff spells needed tweaking. And frankly, lances were never meant to be useful, except from horseback--where they're absolutely devastating.

But frankly, if you're playing a paladin expecting to be the equal of the fighter or barbarian in combat, that's a mistake. The paladin is a warrior class, but with broader focus and spell-using ability. It's not supposed to be quite the fighter of, well, the fighter, because that's what smite and the spell list are intended to compensate for. And IMO, they do so quite effectively.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I sure hope people don't pay someone else to clean their guns (Simply because it is a pretty trival thing).

Gun cleaning is about $30 round these parts, and isn't an uncommon service...

Anyway...

Right.

On Topic: For the crit change, I pretty much just turned Keen Weapon to affect the multiplier instead. Same end effect but now you can limit the other bonuses that were the real problem IMO.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I couldn't disagree more. I'm playing a paladin right now, and I'm loving it. Those multiple smites really pay off at higher levels, and I've always felt that holy sword and the buff spells needed tweaking. And frankly, lances were never meant to be useful, except from horseback--where they're absolutely devastating.

But frankly, if you're playing a paladin expecting to be the equal of the fighter or barbarian in combat, that's a mistake. The paladin is a warrior class, but with broader focus and spell-using ability. It's not supposed to be quite the fighter of, well, the fighter, because that's what smite and the spell list are intended to compensate for. And IMO, they do so quite effectively.

I have fun playing an 11th level paladin who can smite evil 5 times a day.... (with a feat, of course... ) Never used the buffing spells other than Resist Energy, which hasn't been worth it but was a precaution mostly except for being inside a volcano, standing on a shelf. To keep from roasting to death, the paladin cast the spell so the heat would bother her much more (she was cold-based, being a half silver dragon...) while the party figured out how to get from the shelf out of the "dungeon" (which this was the end of...).

 

[Saeviomagy]

I won't disagree that many people who own guns, particularly for self-defense, know very little about them. However I'm not sure I'd go with "most." A lot of gun owners in the US are hobbyists. Hunters and target shooters. My dad is such a one. He makes his own bullets. He takes apart his guns to clean and service them, himself. At the firing range he goes to, several of the regulars are also gunsmiths. These people's understanding of firearms is excellent, to say the least. And I'm not sure I'm ready to say that they are the minority by a large margin.

He may well be a genuine expert. I think he's a rare breed, judging by the general level of firearms information to be found around the place. Ask the average gun owner why he uses X gun or Y bullets, and chances are most of the information making up that decision is unfounded, misinformed, or downright disproven.

In a fantasy world this translates over to warrior-types, who may also have ranks in Craft (Weaponsmithing).

I'd agree entirely. I'd also say there's going to be a lot of people out there that consider themselves experts who have not a single rank in the skill.