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

[Treebore]

So here is the questionaire:

1. Psionics: Good or Bad? I am a freak. I only liked psionics in 1E, I haven't wanted to use them since.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
Never sued it, just own it. I too thought it was too "magical".

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? No. In fact my Samurai was FEARED!

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

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? Played as written. Except at Epic levels, The Epic level rules sucked, and so did Epic level wizards.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? Most played casually. Only one really optimized.

7. Eberron: Yes or No? Nope. Not my thing.

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 currently play neither. Played 3E for almost 5 years and played 4E for a couple of months. No game of either is on my horizon at this time.

 

[Serendipity]

1. Psionics: Actually I really dig 3s take on psionics. I don't think they fit with all settings but I dig them, usually without the = magic option. (Also very VERY fond of the Dreamscarred Press materials.)

2. Tome of Battle: *Shrug* Didn't impress me all that much really. Hasn't come to the table.

3. Fighter Sux: Hardly.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: No, and I really don't know where this comes from.

5. Your 3E games: RAW for the most part - the Eberron game I'm playing in is straight up 3.5, my homebrew is 3.5 with lots of 3.0 houseruled and bits from lots of different 3pp books.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? We're not fans of min/maxers 'round here.

7. Eberron: Love it. Playing in my second Eberron game now.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? Haven't actually played 4e yet. That requires players willing to try.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Psionics - I like 'em, myself. Gives more fun options.

Tome of Battle - It's good if house-ruled. Furthermore, I find it very flavorful in a good way, but I strongly expect players to either use the flavor or find a way to present their own. If you're just going to Random Joe that trained for no apparent reason, you're going to reroll.

Fighter Sux - I wouldn't say so, but they do rely on PrCs more then other archtypes.

Wizard and CoDZilla overpowered - Nope. RAW is cancerous and the CharOps forums are experts on how to craft situations that never happen in game.

3e: RAW or houseruled? - Houseruled. But that's hardly limited to 3e. Everything is houseruled sooner or later.


Optimize, or casual - Both/neither/or. I see no difference between the two.

Eberron: yes/no? - Yes, overwhelmingly. I adore Eberron.

3e or 4e - 3e by a very large margin.

 

[FireLance]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Good overall. There are some problematic powers, but 3e psionics introduced some game concepts that I liked such as the ability to augment lower-level powers to keep them competitive at higher levels.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
I liked it a lot.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
The fighter class seemed rather bland to me. Not necessarily underpowered, but bland.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
Overcomplicated at higher levels, largely due to the need to juggle 20+ spells per day, but not necessarily overpowered.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
We pretty much kept to the rules as written as far as gameplay was concerned. Our houserules were aimed more at reducing bookkeeping, e.g. gaining levels on a per session basis instead of tracking XP, and using the wealth by level tables to determine character equipment instead of tracking treasure.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
We have a mix of optimizers and casual players, but since the optimizers help the casual players to manage their characters, the group is fairly well optimized overall.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
Yes.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?
Exclusively 4E.

 

[Arkhandus]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Good. I'm not playing historical recreation, or pure medieval European fantasy. D&D hasn't either since at least 1E or a little earlier maybe.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
The latter is at least closer to my opinion. A positive thing but still in need of houseruling, as WotC editing/overseeing has been sloppy since early M:TG.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
No. They're sub-par but still viable.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
Overall I'd have to say yes, but only in an imbalanced game; the default assumptions would put PCs in multiple kinds of environments and situations over time that would even things out somewhat.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
Houserules are important and fun, but only within reason; I rarely play in or DM any game that's heavily houseruled. I've played and DMed with the RAW as well, it's just not my preference, because WotC is sloppy.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
Overall I'd have to guess it's closer to the latter, but I've played in many different groups in different places and online so I've seen both a lot. Really it's more individual than that; individual players will always try to optimize while the rest of the group tries to play casually.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
No. It's interesting and might be fun to play in once in a while, but no. Eberron is not D&D to me, it is a different genre that just uses some of the D&D rules while focusing on a different kind of world.

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 only play 3E. Both 3.0 and 3.5, but preferentially 3.0. I know enough about 4E to rationally hate it, without playing it.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

3E and pathfinder player here



1. Psionics: I enjoy them even if I don't like some of the changes made to the system. Over all it is a good system

2. Tome of Battle: Will not use this book. It does not fit the flavor of a fighter to me, If I wasnt a magic using fighter I'll multiclass

3. Fighter Sux: I find fighters fine and the pathfinder changes even better Lack of movement does hinder the class a bit but there still fun

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: I have never in 8 years had this issue in any game I have ran

5. Your 3E games:I houserules some things, min of 4 skills per class and such mostly I leave em as written and houserules things to fit my worlds

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?Eh not sure how to say on this one, they dont plan out builds 10 levels a head of time using 40 books, but have an ideal normlly what they want to do

7. Eberron: Fun game , nice setting...I tend to make it more steam punk then default

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? 3E and pathfinder. 4e is just not my type of game at all


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

 

[Grimstaff]

Before this gets started, this isn't an attempt at yet another edition wars thread. I'm just wondering where fans of the different games stand in regards to the classic disputes between 3E players. This isn't a knock on 3E, as these were issues that were discussed to no end between 3E players before 4E was ever announced. I'm curious to see where people playing either edition fall in terms of the old 3E discussions

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)


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

1. Psionics: Good or Bad? Bad.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? Never used it, I was militantly "Core only" by the time this came out, due to power/rules creep from so many previous supplements.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? No.

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

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? Closer to RAW, the occasional house rule.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? They were a mix, more casual now with 4E, more optimization with 3.5

7. Eberron: Yes or No? God, 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.

 

[corncob]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Never used 'em. Never seen anyone use 'em.

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

I like it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Yes. The class requires a fair bit of mastery to make effective. By the time a player has reached that point, he or she has learned better means to build their characters through multiclassing. Ftr2 is nifty, though.

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

Druids are bonkers. Clerics are bonkers if you can fight the urge to be a healbot. Wizards are bonkers with lots of downtime.

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

Not so much "houserules" as "the DM couldn't be bother to learn the rules"

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

Most of the players are CharOp denizens. One fancies himself an optimizer, but he's a philosophy major.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Never played 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)

All 4E, all the time.

 

[Remathilis]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad? As it stands, pretty good, but its taken a lot of tries to get right

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? Good idea, but not really balanced enough to work in 3.5 because it trashes fighter

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? Sux. See #2

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?Very easily overpowering, due to extreme vesatility

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? Until Recently, RAW. Now, more HRed

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? Middle of the road; some are more optimized than others, but none are obsessive/munchkin about it

7. Eberron: Yes or No? Love it. Running 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) Play 3.5, Play 4e, DM 4e, will be returning to DMing 3.5, then back to 4e

 

[Quantarum]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
One of those things that read good, but my players on dabbled in it.
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
My players turned their noses up at it. I did use it to create a few villanous NPCS
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
Yes, no fighter or anything with fighter levels survived past level 12. (with one exception)
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
No criticism of 3E is more solid than this. At 1st level my group was Monk/Fighter/Paladin/Cleric/Thief/Barbarian, at 23rd level when the campaign ended at 23rd it was Monk-Ninja/Wizard-Archmage-Elementalist/Cleric/Wizard-Archmage/Favored Soul/Fighter-Rogue-Ronin (A last cycle replacement). The monk-ninja was the only character to make it the full length of the campaign. The rest got bored or frustrated and switched characters. The Ronin was brought in to replace the paladin who didn't like playing casters but wanted to try something new.
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
72 pages of house rules and I used a high lighter on books like The Spell Compendium to ban some of the awful and poorly thought out spells. I tried very hard to keep the game balanced, but I wish I had ended it around 16th-17th level.
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
A mix.
7. Eberron: Yes or No?
No, but I respect it as a campaign world. I bought some of it for inspiration.
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions)
100% 4E, I will never DM 3E again, though I could see myself playing it under the right circumstances. If not 4E I'd rather try somethig different.

-Q.