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

[Angel Tarragon]

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. Good; I use the Psionics is different approach.

2. I am avoiding this book like the plague. Assuming I buy everything else for 3.5 this will be the last book I buy to complete my collection.

3. Yes; it has been reworked for the Tale, meshing the Weapon Master and Armiger classes from Iron Heroes. Also, more [new] feats to increase their combat effectiveness.

4. I understand that the Druid is the most powerful class in the 'Core 3'. I have reworked other classes in the Tale to be able to match them in a one on one fight.

5. Tale of the Twin Suns icorporates a hell of a lot from many different sytems, sourcebooks and draws inspiration from just about anything in literature, documentaries, tv shows, movies and any other media format known to humankind. It is its own RPG, however it does use the D20 System and is OGL compliant (although a lot would need to be shaved off for publication's sake).

6. When I do have a group to GM, it is an even mix.

7. Yes; I broke down earlier this year and got my hands on a majority of the Eberron products.

8. Tale of the Twin Suns is a system that uses the base of 3.5 and is reworked from there. 3E/Pathfinder.

 

[Vegepygmy]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

Bad.

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

Antichrist.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

No.

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

No. (Actually, can be, but only in the hands of people I wouldn't play with.)

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

More RAW than house rules.

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

Depends on the campaign.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

Meh.

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.

 

[RichGreen]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
- Never really liked them in any edition.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
- loved it! I recently played a swordsage and it was great fun.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
- they're not one of my favourite classes

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
- no & no. However, I've always disliked the way clerics get access to ALL spells

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

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

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
- I like the setting but have 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)
- still winding up two 3.x campaigns, but we're playing more 4e currently.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Phaezen]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
Psionics - 3.5 is a deent system, and if the flavour fits the campaign then go for it.


2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
I think it gave martial classes the boost they needed, and I have seen some interesting characters come out of it.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
Unfortunately after level 3 or so they start falling behind the other classes, mostly only see a few fighter levels as part of a build, for the feets and proficiencies.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no?
They can be, when a lv 17 druid built from the core phb can take out an optimised lv 20 barbarian one on one, there is a problem. The main problem though is casters burning through thier spells in one or two encounters, forcing the party to rest. I am actively trying to manage my spells better in the 3.5 game I am playing.

The way I am looking at it at the moment is like playing in a band. The lead guitarist or keyboard player can easily dominate the sound making it look like they are the only ones of consequence playing. However, aif that player learns to cut back slightly and leave space for the other musicians to be heard they can still have the lead spot, but every get thier moment to shine.

I hope this make sense.

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion?
Houseruled to various extents. Usualy more houserules as a campaign progresses.6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
A mix, we have some players that min-max without trying and one who tries his hardest, but just never seems to get it right.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
No too interested in the setting, but it is a solid concept with some nice ideas to pilfer.

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 Dm'ing a 3.5 game and playing in a nother 3.5 game. I am taking stress in the dming (The game is at level 11) and when that game ends I will be dming a 4e campaign.

I am fairly open to game systems and will play anything the group wants to, when it comes to dming, 4e suits my style more than 3. I will also gladly dm Iron Heroes, Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu.

Phaezen

 

[delericho]

So here is the questionaire:

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

I'm ambivalent. The XPH represents the first D&D psionics system I consider well-balanced, and it fits a particular style of game (it fits an Oriental Adventures campaign very well, for example). However, i probably doesn't fit the majority of campaigns, for style reasons.

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

Love the idea, but the execution is massively overpowered. In fact, I'm not at all a fan of the blatant power-creep that is found in a lot of the 3.5e books of the last two years of that run (some elements of PHB2 also have that problem).

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

No.

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

Can be. I've never personally had a problem with it, but if my players were better min-maxers then I probably would have.

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

Mostly RAW. House rules mostly consist of "this book is allowed; that one is not."

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

On balance, casually.

I have one player who is definately a casual gamer, one who builds mechanically solid but non-optimal characters, and one with a knack of finding the 'easy' optimisations and using those exclusively. However, he isn't truly dedicated to his art, so hasn't ever produced a Pun-Pun or similar.

Anyway, I have truly woeful luck with dice, so they don't actually need to optimise.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

As an option, yes. As the default, no. Personally, I like it, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

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. We're yet to try 4e, although that is scheduled for our next game. I'm determined to give it a fair shot, but I must admit I have grave doubts about the game. My players seem to be rather less keen on the system even than I am.

Regardless, we won't be abandoning 3e entirely for 4e - at the very least I still want to run the "Curse of the Crimson Throne" AP. It's also likely we'll be picking up the Pathfinder RPG as an additional option, purely so we can run the newer APs without worrying about conversion.

 

[Khuxan]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?

In terms of balance, very good. In terms of flavour and setting, I'm not a huge fan.

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

Brilliant. Great book, although it had its share of problems. Probably my favourite 3E book.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?

Yes. One of my favourite D&D quotes is: "A fighter is not the same value as a commoner! Commoners get Spot and Listen as class skills!"

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

Yep.

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

Definitely house-ruled into oblivion. One of my friends coined the term "Dungeons and Bill".

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

Casually.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?

I think it's a very well designed setting, though I never realliy got into 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)

I refuse to run 3E anymore. We only play 4E now.

 

[Mad Mac]

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. I went back and forth. I liked the PP system better than Vancian, but sometimes the flavor irked me. I do like the style, sometimes, but I wouldn't want it in every game.

2. Never picked it up. Sounded pretty cool though.

3. Pretty much sucked. You had to do a lot of multiclassing/prestige classing to do anything with it after low levels.

4. Not in every game, but definately had that potential. I had a bigger problem with tracking buffs, managing spell lists, ect. More annoyance with the spellcasting system in general.

5. Mostly RAW, but as a DM I'm not very tied to the rulebook.

6. I mostly DM for people who aren't experienced players, so they were about as optimized as I encourged them to be.

7. I like Eberron

8. I drifted away from 3rd in the last year or 2. 4th edition has me wanting to play again.

 

[Stormtower]

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. Conditionally good, based on flavor/story/setting for a particular campaign. Slightly more versatile, and therefore more powerful, than classes that cannot boost/overchannel their spell-like effects.

2. Somewhere in between. Completely overwhelms Core options in terms of power creep, but very cool and flavorful mechanically. I like Bo9S but it's got potential for powergaming abuse in the wrong hands.

3. Fighter sux = no... qualified by inclusion of splatbook feats. Core fighter lags behind other Core classes most of the time though.

4. Wizard/CoDzilla overpowered = no question, definitely overpowered. Is this even up for debate? Seems intended by design (whether that's a good thing or not... I personally think it's poor design that caters to sacred cows, but YMMV).

5. Mostly RAW with a few house rules, mostly centered around XP loss for PC death and XP penalties for multiclassing (both houseruled out).

6. We optimize, but we draw the line at ridiculous stuff like Polymorph subschool abuse and broken stuff like wraithstrike.

7. I own the Eberron supplements for 3.5 but we haven't played a campaign there yet. The general consensus is that it's a cool world, but not cool enough to draw us away from my homebrew for extended periods of time.

8. We play more 3.5E than 4E, but are currently playing both. 3.5 for home games, 4E exclusively for RPGA events.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Coming into this a bit late, but wanted to answer without being biased by precious answers.

1. Psionics: Great. Absolutly wonderful

2. Tome of Battle: It was a big Meh. I disliked having a daily/enounter bases abilities mixed in with the Vancian. If everything was one way or the other I'm ok.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes - in 3rd

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

5. Your 3E games: Houseruled into oblivion - I used Gestalt, and stuff from lots of 3rd party products, plus my own stuff.

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

7. Eberron: Yes. It was a cool new setting. Didn't actually play in it, but I liked reading it.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? Moved completely to 4E

 

[Campbell]

1. Psionics: Good or Bad?
I'm a fan, but not a superfan.

2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened?
I liked the Warblade and Swordsage, thematically and mechanically. I really didn't like the Crusader's recharge mechanic and they didn't mesh well with the thematic elements seen in the rest of the book.

3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No?
It was on the weak side, but mostly suffered from a horrendous slate of available feats until the PHB II. Could have also used a bit more skill mojo.

4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no? Not neccesarrily overpowered. They were balanced based on conceits I did not always deem to follow and often found unsatisfying (~4 encounters per day, the abundance of spell resistance at higher levels, and extended campaign play).

5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion ?
Generally houseruled into oblivion, but largely for thematic reasons.

6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually?
We tend to be tactically minded, but not obsessive over character builds.

7. Eberron: Yes or No?
It's better than the other WotC published settings, but still not my preferred milieu.

8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?
I'm a 4e superfan.