What did you never like in 3e?

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Frankly, many of the things people have disliked here were reasons I liked 3e (monsters with class levels, vancian magic, the abundance of classes and prestige classes, social skills, item creation with xp) and will probably never pick up 4e. But there were a few things that got to me in 3e:

-why is the Elf's favored class Wizard, rather than Sorcerer? Since elves "have magic in their blood", and tend to favor naturalistic and artistic approaches to things, it seems that Sorcerer would be a much more sensible fit.

-what in god's green hell did they do to the gnome? Gnome bards? Physical stat modifiers? I rejiggered the gnome in my campaign back into what I like- the mysterious tinker/wizards. Favored class: Wizard or Artificer. +2 Int, -2 Wis. Much better.

-the look/feel. I loved the rules- I hated the material that came with it. Dungeon Magazine and some of the third party publishers seemed to do a better job than WotC with this.

-raise dead/resurrection/true res/etc... still to easy to come back from the grave.

-we got the Barbarian in core in 2000.... but had to wait another six years before we finally got a core Cavalier... erm... Knight. I've never played a Barbarian, and probably never will... but a solid non-magical Knight (with skills that distinguish it from a non-noble fighter) has always been my thing.

-don't get me started on the Monk. I generally removed them from my settings, and seldom did my players complain, fortunately.

So, other than the look and feel of the books, the issues are pretty minor. (and Necromancer, Malhavoc, Paizo-era Dungeon, and Sword & Sorcery Press generally got the "flavor" I was looking for anyway.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Size Bonuses to Grapple and other combat maneuvers. I could have lived with just reversing the size bonus, or just giving the larger always a +4 bonus. But no, the bonus is +4 and stacks for each size category! Way to break a mechanic!

Elven aging. Wait, so you're 120 years old and 1st level? What did you do the past 119 years, and why are you 20th level 2 years later?

Elven are supposed to be Wizard, but neither their "chaotic" nature nor the idea of "inborn" magic fit that image. Of course, with their aging, Wizardry would be a lot more useful to them...

I didn't even know I hated Elves that much. (Well, I don't, just some of the mechanics)

Charisma as dump stat and no way to make it useful unless you have a class that actually has benefits based on it. Thematically, a charismatic Fighter (a leader like Roy from OotS) would make a lot of sense, mechanically, it's just a bad choice. Later feats appeared that gave some options for Charisma, but these options were weak (require standard action, don't use my precious Intimidate ranks for resolving the intimidation)...
Yes, that might be a self-inflicted problem for power-gamers, but - if you want to survive with 25 point buy characters in a campaign like Shackled City, it's your only option.

Energy Drain and ability damage/drain. Each of them is way too annoying, and level loss is a little to... metagamey for me. Levels shouldn't have an in-game explanation besides maybe a vague idea of "experience and training". If I lose levels, does this mean I forget stuff?

 

[Shadeydm]

The best thing about this thread is that 3E fans don't feel compelled to trample all over the thread attacking everyones dislikes or writing paragraphs of fluff to justify some stupid aspect of the game, if only 4E fans coud be more like this...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The best thing about this thread is that 3E fans don't feel compelled to trample all over the thread attacking everyones dislikes or writing paragraphs of fluff to justify some stupid aspect of the game, if only 4E fans coud be more like this...

This just means they have already given up!

 

[Aus_Snow]

The best thing about this thread is that 3E fans don't feel compelled to trample all over the thread attacking everyones dislikes or writing paragraphs of fluff to justify some stupid aspect of the game, if only 4E fans coud be more like this...

And here I was, trying so hard not to say that.

But yeah, QFMFT.

 

[Shades of Green]

For me:

1) Unbalanced skills. On one hand you have very narrow skills such as Listen, Spot, Search and Rope Use, and on the other hand you have very broad skills such as Profession (Sailor) which could theoretically include anything from swimming to ship repairs to navigation.

2) XP for magic items rather than needing exotic ingredients as in 2E.

3) Magic items readily available on the open market.

4) Unbalanced races. Dwarves and elves got the best traits, Half Orcs and Half Elves the worst ones.

 

[Nai_Calus]

Let's see...

Save or Die/Suck. Whoops, I failed my will save. See you next session, guys.

How much non-casters suck without fancy equipment. A party of 2 L7s and 2 L8s should not have to run from a CR 6 monster due to not having awesome equipment. We started at L7, with mundane gear and a single masterwork item each. Our DM apparently doesn't believe in treasure. We mostly fight goblins. I... Am not sure why the DM didn't just start us at L1 if he just wants us to have L1 equipment, no money and fight CR 1 monsters. >_> We generally own the hell out of the goblins, of course, because we've got good attack bonuses and HP compared to them, but give us something at our level and we're screwed. This is massively lame and really boring.

Class skills, and the ludicrous distribution of such. Is there ANYONE who doesn't need Spot/Listen/Search, since you can't, you know, just assume your character is capable of paying attention to things? Of course not, every class needs those. And yet, almost no classes have them. I want to take ranks in Perform because my character would keep up his singing skills. But oh snap, suddenly I'm too stupid to improve my singing without extra effort and must take it cross-class even though I already have 10 ranks in it. Same with a bunch of other useful skills that are only on my Bard list. I could take a level of Bard, sure, but that throws off my BAB progression and thus screws up my feats, since I need to have a BAB of 11 at L12 to take Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, but if I take another level of Bard before L13 I'll only have 10. Ugh. I hate class skills. Just let me take all skills damn it and if I want to be meh at a bunch of different things or make a Fighter who's the best singer in the world just sodding let me. Nothing is as flavour-killing as class skills. And of course you can't be GOOD at something without having ranks in the appropriate skill. This is why I'm glad Perform is gone in 4e, we can just assume that wow, hey, what do you know, my Bard can sing! My non-Bard can sing! Bleh. 4e still has class skills though, so it doesn't get a total pass.

Some classes just don't have enough skill points. This is why I'm a Swashbuckler in a game that doesn't allow feats or equipment from splatbooks. Fighter and 2+INT mod doesn't do it for my character concept. Swash and 4+INT mod and actually having social skills on the class list does it much better.

Etc etc etc.

I like 3.5 but it drives me crazy sometimes.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The best thing about this thread is that 3E fans don't feel compelled to trample all over the thread attacking everyones dislikes or writing paragraphs of fluff to justify some stupid aspect of the game, if only 4E fans coud be more like this...

Thats because 3E is basically dead or dying at this point. Crapping on 3E isn't an agenda, as it isn't really necessary to destroy 3E at this point. Without it being an agenda or campaign for the hearts and minds of the D&D community, it isn't really an argument. If its not an argument, there's no real reason to treat it as such. The edition war is now more OGL vs. 4E than 3E vs. 4E these days.

 

[Fifth Element]

The best thing about this thread is that 3E fans don't feel compelled to trample all over the thread attacking everyones dislikes or writing paragraphs of fluff to justify some stupid aspect of the game, if only 4E fans coud be more like this...

Ad hominem attacks are awesome!

Wait a minute. No, they suck. Sorry. Carry on.

 

[Fifth Element]

Thats because 3E is basically dead or dying at this point.

Sure, if you consider "dead" to mean "no longer supported by the original publisher". But I wouldn't call it dead, given the number of players it has.

Also, please don't feed the fire.