Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
thecasualoblivion said:
So what's all this about? Idle curiosity or practical interest?
TS
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Where 3E and 4E players stand in the great 3E disputes
- Thread starter thecasualoblivion
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So what's all this about? Idle curiosity or practical interest?
TS
firesnakearies
Explorer
I'm a die-hard 4E convert.
1. Psionics is one of my favorite things in D&D. Especially in Dark Sun, my favorite setting.
2. Never owned or read it, sorry.
3. Fighters are totally awesome, and my favorite class overall, in every edition.
4. High-level casters in 3.x were insanely overpowered in the hands of certain players, but not most players. If the DM wasn't the same kind of player, and could thus handle a totally-exploited high-level caster, then the game would massively break. I am very happy that this has seemingly been addressed in 4E.
5. Almost always pretty darn close to RAW in my 3.x games.
6. I've played with both, or even both styles with the same players. Optimized play in 3.x at high levels makes the game horrible, in my opinion. It becomes a giant math-fest and a contest to see who (DM or the two geniuses playing the wizard and cleric) can out-cheese the rules the most while still being able to claim that they're doing everything "by the book".
Non-optimized play at high levels works fine, and optimized play at low to mid levels also works great.
7. Eberron seems pretty sweet, but I never owned any of the books for it. I like what I've seen of it though. When it comes out for 4E, I'll buy it.
8. As I said above, I only play 4E now, and never really want to play 3.x/OGL games ever again.
The Human Target
Adventurer
1) Good in theory.
2) It had some flaws, but it was generally on the right track.
3) They did in all editions previous to 4E.
4) They were in all editions previous to 4E.
5) House ruled a lot, but not to oblivion.
6) Uhhhh somewhere in between. Everyone wants to be good, but not to the point of munchkin-ism. I see people make sub-optimal choices for flavor regularly. In a perfect game, you wouldn't have to make those choices.
7) Never ran a game of it or played in the setting, but I really like the source books a lot.
8) We play solely 4E by unanimous decision. We had gotten really bored with 4E 2 years ago, and stopped playing all together.
TessarrianDM
First Post
1. Psionics: Good or Bad? Not allowed since a player abused them in my first 1E campaign in 1982.
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? When I first opened the book to preview it and saw a maneuever that allowed a fighter to do fire damage to all opponents within a certain radius with a swing of his sword I closed it up and put it back on the store shelf. Not my thing.
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? No. Our group tends to be fighter-heavy.
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no? Frustrating for the DM (me) in certain situations (such as an invisible, flying wizard against earthbound, non-magic-using monsters), but not over-powered.
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? One house rule: spellcasters can fill bonus slots with lower level spells, even if they cannot cast spells of the appropriate level (so a first level wizard with an 18 Int can cast five 1st-level spells).
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? Some optimization.
7. Eberron: Yes or No? No. Homebrew only. Interesting setting (novel-wise, anyway), but warforged and dinosaurs don't do anything for me.
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? 3.5 only. Not even remotely interested in 4E. May buy some Pathfinder stuff in future, may not.
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? When I first opened the book to preview it and saw a maneuever that allowed a fighter to do fire damage to all opponents within a certain radius with a swing of his sword I closed it up and put it back on the store shelf. Not my thing.
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? No. Our group tends to be fighter-heavy.
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no? Frustrating for the DM (me) in certain situations (such as an invisible, flying wizard against earthbound, non-magic-using monsters), but not over-powered.
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? One house rule: spellcasters can fill bonus slots with lower level spells, even if they cannot cast spells of the appropriate level (so a first level wizard with an 18 Int can cast five 1st-level spells).
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? Some optimization.
7. Eberron: Yes or No? No. Homebrew only. Interesting setting (novel-wise, anyway), but warforged and dinosaurs don't do anything for me.
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E? 3.5 only. Not even remotely interested in 4E. May buy some Pathfinder stuff in future, may not.
Jack99
Adventurer
Last edited:
Even though we're on opposite sides of the 3e/4e debate, I agree with this. Personally, I'm not surprised since "Do fighters suck?" has been the defining question of 3.x
1. Psionics: Good or Bad? (I have no problem with psionics. In our campaigns we treat it as still a bit of a mystery for the local populace and that angle always works well. As far as the mechanics go, they work just fine for us.)
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? (Makes fighters etc too much like spellcasters in my opinion. So no, doesn't do a lot for me.)
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? (No. Not at all. Even with 3e we produced some awesome fighter characters that stood out and held their own. Rarely had characters who were clones of one another.)
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no? (Only when you introduced the myriad of supplemental material.)
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? (Rules as written with a smattering of house rules.)
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? (Casual. We roleplay, use a lot of narrative and story-driven plots, etc.)
7. Eberron: Yes or No? (When I first saw it - yes. But after reading more of the books it began to seem like any other setting to me. Sure, there's some differences, but to me even the splat books etc don't give it that noir feeling. So no - I think the setting has become stale quite quickly.)
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions) (3.0/3.5 - We've tried 4e and it's not for us.)
2. Tome of Battle: The antichrist or best thing that ever happened? (Makes fighters etc too much like spellcasters in my opinion. So no, doesn't do a lot for me.)
3. Fighter Sux: Yes or No? (No. Not at all. Even with 3e we produced some awesome fighter characters that stood out and held their own. Rarely had characters who were clones of one another.)
4. Wizard and CoDzilla overpowered to the point of game disruption: yes or no? (Only when you introduced the myriad of supplemental material.)
5. Your 3E games: Rules as written or houseruled into oblivion? (Rules as written with a smattering of house rules.)
6. Does your group optimize, or play more casually? (Casual. We roleplay, use a lot of narrative and story-driven plots, etc.)
7. Eberron: Yes or No? (When I first saw it - yes. But after reading more of the books it began to seem like any other setting to me. Sure, there's some differences, but to me even the splat books etc don't give it that noir feeling. So no - I think the setting has become stale quite quickly.)
8. Do you currently play more 3E, or 4E?(this question is to see where each group falls in terms of the previous questions) (3.0/3.5 - We've tried 4e and it's not for us.)
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Mostly good mechanics in the expanded psionics handbook. A few broken powers but quite usable. That said, I would ONLY use them in Arcanis or another setting with a solid reason to have psionics.
Not interested in it. At. All.
No. Especially not if multiclassed. (In our Age of Worms game, our Fighter 12/Ranger 9 is easily the most effective character in our group). A single class fighter could be quite competitive, especially with the PHB II material, but it was actually one of the more difficult characters to construct as it required that you select a relatively large number of feats, all of which had to be able to regularly work together. It could be done, but it required discipline and teamwork.
Wizard no, cleric no, druid close, but only overpowered to game disruption with the help of the Arcane Heirophant prestige class.
Mostly RAW with LG's banned list plus a few house rules (blasphemy/holy word, banning the spiked chain for aesthetic reasons).
No-one actually tried to play Pun Pun or anything but my groups were generally pretty optimal.
No. In fact, I rather dislike it.
Curiously, I currently play more 4e. If I hadn't just moved and had to leave one of my 3e groups since the commute became unsustainable, I'd be playing more 3e. And buying minis to get power cards and subscribing to dragon for the latest ridiculous monster PC still has the potential to sour me on LFR and 4th edition for good.
AndrewRogue
First Post
Answering without reading the topic.
1. Mechanically fine, flavor bad.
2. Awesome.
3. Yes.
4. Mechanically yes.
5. Houseruled.
7. No comment.
8. 4th.
Aus_Snow
First Post
1. Depends on the campaign. Psionics and no magic can be refreshing. To be honest, I find the two too similar, so I opted for 3rd party products and various other subsystems in the end.
2. Cute, and with a bit of modifying, fun and usable.
3. No. There are options for fixing what *was* a problem, in other words.
4. No.
5. Yeah, I like Oblivion. Uh, what? Sorry, too busy spamming that move. . . Um, house-ruled, dude. Totally. My house rules. I mean, my house, my rules. No, uh, my rules in da house. Ah whatever, back to Cyrodiil. . .
6. Casual.
7. Sure.
8. Around 50% 3e, 0% 4e.
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