D&D 3E/3.5 What was the original intended function of the 3rd edition phb classes?

[Greg K]

Iron Heroes? By Monte Cook.

by Mike Mearls and published by Monte Cook's Malhavoc Press (with the print copies through White Wolf's Sword and Sorcery Studios imprint)

 

[Ancalagon]

wasn't it Monte Cook who said that 3e intentionally had bad options to "reward skilled play" (ie good players would take the good options).

I don't know if it was intentional, but the resulting power gulf between optimized and casual PCs was immense...

 

[Lyxen]

I don't know if it was intentional, but the resulting power gulf between optimized and casual PCs was immense...

Yes, it's also what created so much problem at various tables, unfortunately.

 

[Mannahnin]

wasn't it Monte Cook who said that 3e intentionally had bad options to "reward skilled play" (ie good players would take the good options).

I don't know if it was intentional, but the resulting power gulf between optimized and casual PCs was immense...

I believe he did, but the impact of this has been exaggerated a bit. The immense power gap was more the result of the sheer volume of publications and plethora of options, which let folks dedicated to powergaming find and exploit a lot of synergies, including ones unforeseen by the designers. The pinnacle of powergaming often came from abusing Polymorph effects on oneself with relatively obscure race/monster combos.

 

[billd91]

wasn't it Monte Cook who said that 3e intentionally had bad options to "reward skilled play" (ie good players would take the good options).

I don't know if it was intentional, but the resulting power gulf between optimized and casual PCs was immense...

And a lot of people misunderstand Monte Cook's blog post about ivory tower design. It's not as much about taking 'good' options vs trap options as much as it is knowing when options are good and picking the right ones for the use intended - whether by the DM for NPCs, for PCs in one-shot games, for PCs in ongoing hack and slash games, or for PCs in ongoing investigative or courtly romance games.
So yeah, with a lot of play in the system and many choices, it was entirely possible to generate a widening gulf of imbalance between PCs for any particular situation. Exactly how that imbalance might play out would vary by situation.

 

[payn]

I believe he did, but the impact of this has been exaggerated a bit. The immense power gap was more the result of the sheer volume of publications and plethora of options, which let folks dedicated to powergaming find and exploit a lot of synergies, including ones unforeseen by the designers. The pinnacle of powergaming often came from abusing Polymorph effects on oneself with relatively obscure race/monster combos.

IDK, people often say this, and supplements did contribute to the issue, but some of the biggest offenders can easily be shown in PHB only games.

 

[HammerMan]

wasn't it Monte Cook who said that 3e intentionally had bad options to "reward skilled play" (ie good players would take the good options).

I don't know if it was intentional, but the resulting power gulf between optimized and casual PCs was immense...

it was Intentional FROM COOK but I don't know if everyone on the team shared his idea of 'trap' options

Mario Maker is a video game where you can make levels like a Super Mario game. SOme people use this to make what are called Kizo (super hard) other to make troll (bad tricks that reward playing the game wrong) others make puzzles... 3e (and 3.5 and pathfinder 1e) character creation and leveling feel to me like playing mario maker... some things are trolls (trap options...ha looked good but doesn't help) some things are puzzles (hey this and this work well together) and somethings are just hard... but when I learn (okay not me I suck at video games) the kiazo tricks I can one shot a lot of kiazo levels, once I know the troll traps I can work my way around them, once I solve the same type of puzzle a few times I can fly through them....
Now imagine 5 people sitting at Switches turning on mario maker, one has 2+ years of playing all of the above, someone else just got the game 3 months ago and just skips the hard (kiazo or troll or puzzle) levels to get to the fun ones that are like a regular mario game. another one is an 8 year old that has never played any mario game before and the last two haven't played mario maker but have played different amounts of super mario/nintendo products... this was what every 3e and 3e adjacent game felt like to me... the game was not able to keep everyone on an even level at Character creation alone.,

 

[payn]

And a lot of people misunderstand Monte Cook's blog post about ivory tower design. It's not as much about taking 'good' options vs trap options as much as it is knowing when options are good and picking the right ones for the use intended - whether by the DM for NPCs, for PCs in one-shot games, for PCs in ongoing hack and slash games, or for PCs in ongoing investigative or courtly romance games.
So yeah, with a lot of play in the system and many choices, it was entirely possible to generate a widening gulf of imbalance between PCs for any particular situation. Exactly how that imbalance might play out would vary by situation.

The problem is there is almost zero guidance on this. There is no political intrigue, hack 'n' slash, diplomacy sections letting people know when to use them. It's just a large list of wildly variable options for people to choose.

 

[HammerMan]

The problem is there is almost zero guidance on this. There is no political intrigue, hack 'n' slash, diplomacy sections letting people know when to use them. It's just a large list of wildly variable options for people to choose.

and again once you puzzle out what is best for each, you could go to the character op board post it and everyone would tell you how to make it better still... as such it wasn't just 1 set of eyes but an out sourced hundreds of minds working on it... then you went back to people who did NOT do that and you had such a HUGE gulf...

that is before accidents

 

[Voadam]

What was the original intended function of the core base classes? Honestly, to answer that question, we have to go way back to the mid 70s long before 3e since with the exception of the barbarian, bard, and sorcerer, all the classes go that far back.

The bard started in The Strategic Review (predecessor to Dragon Magazine) Vol. II, Issue 1 February 1976.

It was a full 0e class that got MU spells starting at 2nd level, thief skills at 1/2 level, attacking and saves as clerics, and Dwarves, Elves, and Hobbits can be them up to 8th level. I prefer it to the 1e PH version.

"A Bard is a jack-of-all-trades in Dungeons and Dragons, he is both an amateur thief and magic user as well as a good fighter."