When did you enjoy 3.x?

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

I enjoyed 2nd Edition more than 1st.
I enjoyed 3rd Edition more than 2nd.
I enjoyed 3.5E more than 3E (especially since I was playing a Ranger at the time of conversion!).
I (so far) enjoy 4E over 3.5E.

For me each has been better than the last, I never felt the desire to go back and play a previous version.

Both 2E and 3.0/3.5E I got tired with a for a while before the end of the line. Maybe it is due to familiarity, that I see too many holes or too much add-on "power creep"/"mudflation" I dunno.

(One anomoly though, I think I liked "Basic" D&D (OD&D?) than 1st or 2nd, for whatever that is worth)

 

[malraux]

I've really got to agree with the still fun to play 3.5, but no desire to DM. In our game yesterday (rise of the runelords), the party had to run from some boss monster and jumped down the center of this really tall tower to get away, then realized the nasty was going to be waiting for us at the bottom and opened up a rope trick window so the party just fell in to hide and heal. Insanely fun times! So I still like playing in the system, especially since we decided to ditch the accounting game associated with treasure and just let everyone get wealth by level.

But as a DM, creating challenges while still giving the party a way to retreat or to at least asses the situation are difficult. The attrition method of combat design just isn't fun, while long running multi monster combats are fun. But that design means you have to plan on more often rests. Way to many monsters/spells are just unfun for players. And building up monsters feels roughly like doing taxes.

I think most of the benefits for 4e will be for DMs rather than players. For the players, it'll be more like learning new rules. For dms, its more like learning better rules.

 

[SpydersWebbing]

I'll admit that I wanted to hear it from the game designers that 3rd sucked.. 3rd didn't fit my style of play until Tome of Battle, so I'll admit that I wanted to hear it from someone besides myself.

There, that wasn't too hard.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I enjoyed 2nd Edition more than 1st.
I enjoyed 3rd Edition more than 2nd.
I enjoyed 3.5E more than 3E (especially since I was playing a Ranger at the time of conversion!).

I have to agree here. For me every edition has added to the game, and madethe game more flavorful and added more options to play. In no case have I wanted to go back.

I (so far) enjoy 4E over 3.5E.

I am simply amazed at how many people say this. The gmae is not out but people post like it has been out a year, and people know the gmae inside and out.

But for me, I do not know, if this will be true, but I suspect it is not going to be. I might like 4E IN ADDITION to 3.5, but I do not think i will wswitch over wholesale. 4E is more of a new game to me, not a continuation on what I have played for 25 years.

 

[gribble]

They said that some aspects of the game weren't fun, in their opinion, or that they weren't fun enough.
This doesn't mean "the game sucks", it means "we feel that the game is/was lackluster in some areas".

Like someone else posted above, it hasn't so much been what they've said as how they've said/presented it. Certainly "3.x sucks" is the impression I've taken away from posts/talks/articles/etc from the WotC staff (whether that was their intention or not). How many threads have you seen which open with "I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but...". The words used don't necessarily reflect the meaning/intent behind them.

And in 3.x some things were broken ( see polymorph, for example ), and they were aware of this even during the last years of 3.x ( see the PH2 for this specific matter ).

Getting quite off topic here, but something that just occurred to me: WotC have been aware that 3.x has been "broken" for a number of years now and have released "fixes" for this brokenness in dribs and drabs (i.e.: PHB2, MIC, Complete series, Bo9S, etc). What if a lot of the "fundamental" problems in 3.x aren't so much a problem with the system as it was but rather problems with their "fixes"?
Doesn't bode too well for 4e now, does it? Of course, having said that, in isolation I like the look of a lot of the 4e rules, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll all play well once we have the full rules in our hot little hands. I guess we'll have to wait another 6-12 months (possibly) longer until it's really clear whether the issues have been fixed or not...

 

[Fifth Element]

I am simply amazed at how many people say this. The gmae is not out but people post like it has been out a year, and people know the gmae inside and out.

We have the quickstart rules, we have several pregen characters, we have all kinds of preview material and pics of MM pages. We have a lot of information about 4E. If you've been using it all you have more than enough to know whether you'll enjoy it.

 

[malraux]

Getting quite off topic here, but something that just occurred to me: WotC have been aware that 3.x has been "broken" for a number of years now and have released "fixes" for this brokenness in dribs and drabs (i.e.: PHB2, MIC, Complete series, Bo9S, etc). What if a lot of the "fundamental" problems in 3.x aren't so much a problem with the system as it was but rather problems with their "fixes"?
Doesn't bode too well for 4e now, does it? Of course, having said that, in isolation I like the look of a lot of the 4e rules, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll all play well once we have the full rules in our hot little hands. I guess we'll have to wait another 6-12 months (possibly) longer until it's really clear whether the issues have been fixed or not...

Yeah, if the really broken elements of 3e were the later splats and variant systems, then we'd be right to be concerned. But for most people's lists of fundamental problems, MIC and Bo9S aren't the big ones.

 

[gribble]

Yeah, if the really broken elements of 3e were the later splats and variant systems, then we'd be right to be concerned. But for most people's lists of fundamental problems, MIC and Bo9S aren't the big ones.

One of the things frequently listed as "most-broken" in 3.x is sudden metamagic... isn't that a fairly recent addition to the game, seen as a "fix" for the "problems" with core meta magic?

 

[Moon_Goddess]

When did I enjoy 3.5e?

Last night from about 3pm till 10pm.

 

[Fiendish Dire Weasel]

I am simply amazed at how many people say this. The gmae is not out but people post like it has been out a year, and people know the gmae inside and out.

Pretty easy for me to say. Fantasy is my favorite setting, so D&D is often my game of choice. I got tired of 3.5E and stopped playing about a year ago, for a variety of factors that can be summed up with me not enjoying the game anymore. 4E has completly renewed my interest in D&D and for the first time in over a year I am now excited and looking forward to play.

Aside from a few small areas of concern, 4E looks great to me. Will it be the best game ever and will I play it for the rest of my life? Probably not, but I'd rather play it than 3.5 (or any other edition).