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

[Askaval30]

1. Psionics: Very good, especially when used with the various variants taht make it separate and disticnct from magic

2. Tome of Battle: Never used it

3. Fighter Sux: Fighters suck

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: very tiresome and the main reason creating encounters that factor them in is so time consuming

5. Your 3E games: houseruled just enough to add some spice

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? 80% optimizers

7. Eberron: blah... trains and droids are not my cuppa

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? 4e all the way!

 

[the Jester]

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)


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

1. Good.
2. Never owned it; my perception was, it overshadowed the fighter too much.
3. Fighters ROCK.
4. Not if you have a good group.
5. Lots of add ons, a few actual house rule changes, but only a few.
6. Both.
7. Yes, but not my campaign. I have shamelessly stolen a few Eberron elements, though.
8. 4e pretty nearly exclusively at the moment, though I sometimes coast in for a game of Alcar's heavily-modified 2e/3e/4e hybrid bastard game.

 

[13garth13]

1. Psionics: Neutral, but mostly good.

2. Tome of Battle: Not really too keen on it at all, now that you mention it....

3. Fighter Sux: There's nothing wrong with vanilla fighters.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: Nope

5. Your 3E games: A few very minor house rule...basically RAW?

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

7. Eberron: Nope.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? Even steven (I personally prefer 3E all the way, so all of the above statements can be thought to reflect my thoughts and not my group's)

Cheers,
Colin

 

[Irda Ranger]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Great for certain campaigns, but I don't like to just mix them in willy nilly. They need a "place" in the campaign world, as Dark Sun had.


2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
Awesome for one-off "We're all Jedi now!" campaigns; lousy as default.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
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?
No idea. I played Iron Heroes.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
One player did, and forced the rest of us to choose between the arms race and our character concepts. Blech. Hated it.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
Tried it. Was interesting. One player thought it was too Steampunk though.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)
Neither. See sig.

 

[John Cooper]

1. I generally dislike psionics; if I must deal with them, I use the "psionics = magic" option.

2. I dislike Tome of Battle, and we do not use it in our campaign.

3. We've never had a problem with fighters, although I don't think we've ever had a really high-level fighter.

4. Likewise, I've never seen wizards/clerics/druids getting too out of hand, to the point of game disruption.

5. We have very few house rules.

6. Our group tends to be more casual, rather than try to optimize each character build.

7. I've really enjoyed reading Eberron, and hope to have the time to run a campaign there eventually. It's a great setting.

8. We play 3.5 exclusively, and have never tried 4E. (Nor are we likely to, as we're having a good time with 3.5 and have plenty of material to keep us busy for years.) I'm the full-time DM.

 

[Center-of-All]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Good. Psionics has been a staple of fantasy since at least the 70s, and probably earlier if you class certain styles of mysticism in it.


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

Not quite the best thing that ever happened, but damn close


3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

As a full class, yes. It worked fine in conjunction with about 4 or 5 other classes


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

If played optimally, yes.


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

Generally RAW. Most of my gaming was with Living Greyhawk, and when my house game felt the need to houserule, we just switched systems.


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

We play casually in general. I optimize, though.


7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Oh hells yeah.


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

I play 4E currently.

 

[Psion]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Good.

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

Not so good.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Could be broader, but only sucks if you factor CoDzilla into the equation.

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

Wizard, no.
CoDzilla, yeah.

Problem being: CoDzilla intrudes on the fighter's niche.

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

Take charge of your game! Houserule at will, but only as much as needed. Every house rule you provide is something else the players have to track.

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

Somewhere in-between. Some optimize (but never to the level you see on the optimization boards), some are just happy to play their characters.

Nobody abuses, which to me is a level beyond optimizing.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Don't hate it, but don't use it, either. Homebrew is my mainstay, but were I to dip into settings, there are several third party settings I'd play first.

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

More 3e.

 

[wingsandsword]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Good. . .in moderation. Wild talents are good for giving an interesting extra bit of power and flavor to an otherwise nonmagical character, and it's an interesting "other" kind of magic to have show up occasionally for something out of the ordinary, but a little goes a long way (unless the setting is built from the ground up to use it a lot, like Dark Sun, but that's a very special case).

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

Well, let's just say we don't use it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

No, they are a stout backbone of fighting but maybe just a tad weak compared to some classes, when you add in all the extra feats from later books they become a lot more powerful.

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

No, they are strong classes, but not disruptively so. The theoretical power combos that come up on message boards never seem to really show up in actual play.

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

Pretty close to rules as written. A few spells house ruled with elements from earlier editions, and a few variants from Unearthed Arcana used sometimes, but definitely recognizable as 3.5 D&D.

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

Pretty casual, occasionally a player will optimize a character as a bit of an experiment, but most of the time they are more about making characters fun, unique and interesting than sick & twisted min/max combos.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

No. Forgotten Realms (post-Time of Troubles but pre-Spellplague) and Planescape (pre Faction War) are the preferred officially published settings.

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

3.5e all the way, no plans to ever go 4e.

 

[Filcher]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Bad.

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

Meh. Never bought it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Characters are more than their class.

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

See #3.

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

Oblivion.

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

Moderate. We promote intelligent choices, and everyone wants their character to do well.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

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)

4E.

 

[The Ghost]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Not a fan. Psionics act too much like magic.

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

I haven't used it yet as a PC. I don't disallow* my players from using it as a DM.

* I love the double negatives!

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

No. I have always enjoyed playing the fighter and have always found it necessary to have one* in the party.

* Of course a Paladin or Knight works just as good. They tend to be played in equal numbers.

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

No. In theory both are very broken, however, in practice neither has overpowered the game.

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

RAW with the added rule that Common Sense trumps RAW.

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

We optimize within the character's theme.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

I own the setting but have yet to run anything there. Generally, I stick with homemade campaign settings and milk WotC campaign settings for ideas.

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

3E with a little 4E experimentation.