Where 3E and 4E players stand in the great 3E disputes

[Tiberius]

Just so we know where I stand from the outset, I'm staunchly 3.5 and hate 4e with the burning passion of ten thousand fiery suns.

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Terrible. Get your mental wackiness and spell points out of my game! [Exception: Dark Sun, where I wholeheartedly embrace them]

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
Terrible. Thug classes get enough in that they can use their class abilities and feats (generally) all day. They do not need spells. They should not have spells.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
No.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
No; in a given hypothetical situation, a wizard, cleric, or druid can do amazing things, but these situations rely on many assumptions about available resources and the like that rarely pan out.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
Closer to RAW; I usually use a variant or two from Unearthed Arcana (which, being a Wizards product, I consider RAW) and can count my houserules on one hand.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
Optimize.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
Yes.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)
4e drove me away, as my group has embraced it and I found it intolerable. As such, I haven't played in months but, if I did, I would play 3e.

 

[Mort]

So here is the questionaire:

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

I don't like them personally (they have the wrong "feel" for me) but won't complain if they are in a game.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?

Love the tome of battle, best thing that ever happened to warriors. Though if you use it, you should replace PC fighters with the ToB classes not have them along side.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Sux. Very difficult for a fighter to keep up, especially out of combat (but sometimes even in combat. Plus the fighter is completely and totally dependent on gear - more and more as levels increase.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?

Absolute yes, when used by someone with good system mastery. The versatility of a well played wizard is mind boggling compared to any of the non-spellcasting classes.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?

Mostly Rules as Written.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

Fairly casual with a bit of optimization here and there. The last campaign, optimization was heavily encouraged by the DM. This really brought out the caster, non-caster disparity.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Yes, personally I like it, though I like Greyhawk more.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)

4e lately, though I would have no problem in a 3e/3.5 game.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
So here is the questionaire:

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Not a big fan of it. Never used it.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?

Very cool. Bit of a surprise when it first hit the table, but, after that, liked it a lot.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

After about 8th level, fighters blow chunks.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?

I was lucky in my games that no one ever really took clerics or wizards to that level. But, in my current game, I'm playing the NPC healbot cleric and I've found it difficult to scale back without blowing the rest of the group out of the water.

We'll see how the druid comes along.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?

Mostly RAW. Chargen sees a bit of houseruling, and I added Action Points.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

They've begun optimizing a lot more since I've started using Savage Tide.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Eberron is cool.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)


If I missed any of these, let me know an I can add them later.

Only 3.5 currently.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Originally Posted by thecasualoblivion View Post
So here is the questionaire:
1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
7. Eberron: Yes or No?
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)

1: BAD.
2. Antichrist.
3. No.
4. Wizard, no, I have no idea what a Codzilla is.
5. Mostly, as written. Some house rules.
6. Some do, some don't.
7. Not no, but HELL, no.
8. 1e.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

1. Mostly bad. It's just a poor system that exacerbates everything bad about the Vancian magic system. Either you're blowing your PP like crazy and doing slightly better than a wizard, or conserving it and barely contributing, with little room in between. Especially with direct damage, something not strong for normal arcanists who upgrade it for free already, having to funnel in more PP each level to keep up is just plain punitive.
2. I love ToB! The more I see it in action, the more I start to think it's overpowered, though. Enemy hp seems unable to keep up with Greater Insightful Strike, Divine Surge, etc...
3. Fighter is pretty bad. Not the worst base class (*looks at Samurai*), but down there. That said, it was easy to houserule them better.
4. No. They're definitely more powerful, but it's only disruptive if they start treating the non-casters like extra baggage instead of useful allies to work with.
5. If I were to print out all my houserules on paper and drop it on your head...I'd be in jail for many years.
6. Optimizing is fun! And really, it's only proper RPing. You're risking your lives, dang it. You'd better go into battle as prepared as can be!
7. I liked campaigns in Eberron. Far from my favorite setting, though, and I despise Warforged with every bone in my body.
8. Only play 3E, basically always 3.5 houseruled to our liking.

 

[Starfox]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Bad. Not worth the additional rules overhead. Also seems a bit underpowered.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?

Tome of what?

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

No. Our groups tend to be very fighter-heavy.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?

Wizard; not really. CoDZilla; yes, but boring to play and quite situational. Thus the mang fighters.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?

Houserules, but using a wiki which allows structure.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

As a DM I help the few sods who don't optimize enough to follow the power curve. But this varies from player group to player group.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Never tried it, but it does have a point.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)

Currently play only 3E, but definitely planning to shift to 4E once current running campaigns finish.

 

[CleverNickName]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Psionics has always given me too much of a sci-fi vibe. It seemed like something that would be better suited to Star Trek.

2. Tome of Battle:
I bought it, I showed it to my players, and it has sat on the shelf ever since. (shrug) Some of the stuff is pretty cool, I guess, but we like the game just fine without it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
Not at my table. We always have at least one in every party. It is one of the most popular classes, in fact...my players actually argue over who "gets to be the fighter."

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption?
Overpowered, yes. Overpowered to the point of disrupting the game, no. It is just a little more work for me in the game, to make sure that all of the other characters can shine just as well.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
Well, "houseruled into oblivion" seems a bit harsh, but we do use a few houserules. Most of the houserules are designed to make the game less complicated, like (a) Con loss instead of level loss, (b) positive energy burst instead of turning damage, (c) Dodge grants a flat +1 bonus to AC with no need to designate a foe, and so forth.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
Depends on the player, I guess. We have a couple of players who are really focused on their characters and build spreadsheets to map out their advancement all the way to 25th level. And we have a couple of players who focus more on the story and how their character ties into it, who have three-page essays of character background but couldn't tell you what feats they took at 1st level. (shrug) It takes all kinds to make the game fun.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
Nah. I didn't like the "everything but the kitchen sink" feel to it. It seems to be a pretty good product; it just has too much going on at once.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?
Well "currently" I am playing the Basic and Expert rules...we are running The Isle of Dread again, and having a blast. But for the purpose of answering your question, you should put me in the 3E camp. I don't think I will ever play 4E again.

 

[Spatula]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Good concept; mechanically there were serious issues in 1e & 2e. 3e is the best version to-date but has some of its own quirks that I don't agree with (like psions being better blasters than sorcerers or wizards, or the obsessive crystal focus). I look forward to 4e psionics as a version that hopefully takes the 1e & 2e flavor and implements it in a balanced fashion.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?

Never read it, but I'm not a fan of power creep.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Presuming that you're talking about the 3e fighter, which is good for dipping and not so great as a primary class. Has no real flavor of its own and its effectiveness entirely depends on the player's ability to optimize bonus feat selection (and having splats with worthwhile bonus feats). I guess overall I'd have to say Yes it Sux.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?

Never had a game disrupted, but casters are definitely a lot more useful than other classes, in just about any situation.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?

Mostly RAW.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

Mostly casual.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Yes! Love it.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)

Currently 3e, would like to play 4e at some point.

 

[Samuel Leming]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Good in concept. So so in execution.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
More mystical warriors are an interesting path to take, but not so good as a default.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
No. Not a problem is you have creative players and none of them are munchkins. See #3 & #6

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
No. Powerful but not overpowered. Again, only a problem if you let people push it. See #6.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
Modified as needed for the campaign being run.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
Casual. Optimization can be a good discipline for learning the rules, but if you bring one of those edge case wonders to the table it will not be welcome.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
Take it or leave it.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?
Pathfinder, C&C or M&M. Tried 4e. It's ok, but lacks flumph. No reason to switch and nobody plays it around here.

Sam

 

[Jhaelen]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Good. Without psionics I wouldn't have started playing 3E. Now I'm waiting for 4E psionics...

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?

I like it. This is purely from a DM's view, though. None of my players have yet adopted it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Not in my experience. The party's fighter dishes out an amazing amount of damage with high reliability. Though, admittedly that's because of the added prestige classes rather than because of the fighter class itself.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?

Not really. Psions are a lot more overpowered, imho. I only had a wizard char in my player's group for a single session, then player gave up on the experiment. The druid char was fine after using PHB2 rules for shapechange and encouraging the player to NOT summon a beastie every round. The cleric player always had his hands full trying to keep everyone alive, so he never gets a chance to try broken stuff.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?

As written.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

A little bit of both but the casual players are in the majority.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

I think it's a great setting but I never used it.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)

Strictly 3E for now. I'd love to switch to 4E but the stars aren't right, yet (s.a.).