D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Acolyte of Zothique]

It doesn't. It took extreme levels to break it.

Level 11 is

I don't have my 3.0 books anymore so I pulled out my 3.5 books.

NPCs are in DMG pg 107 to 127, including NPC classes for when PC classes aren't appropriate. Plenty of examples include level-by-level breakouts of NPCs using PC classes, discussions of NPC wealth-by-level, and the rest.

MM pg 296-302. Down to skill points per HD by monster type and monster-only feats.

The fact that you could then add on additional exceptions does not in any way invalidate that you put the exceptions onto creations that were already built with rules.

Heck, monster errata came out because some creatures had the wrong number of skill points for their type and HD. Showing they were built with the rules.

Sorry, your entire post is not correct. There were specific rules for building NPCs and monsters, including advancing monsters with class levels that you were expected to follow. They were rules, not just guidelines, unless you consider everything in the core books guidelines.

And that's before getting back to the original point I was making, that when players where spending hours optimizing their characters (or going on the internet), you couldn't even just throw together something of appropriate level otherwise it wouldn't be challenging. You needed to spend time to work ut those NPCs to match the bar the PCs created. If you just wanted straight classes to provide a reasonable challenge you'd be so many levels up - using (single class, unoptimized) archmages and grand druids as run-of-the-mill opponents to fight mid level characters. Which breaks the verisimilitude that the highly-simulationist rules worked hard to achieve.

I don't have my 3.5 books anymore but I distinctly recall this. The rules for modifying monsters included all this stuff - how many skill points to add; how many feats they should have etc. It was detailed in the books. That was the expectation. And it was damned hard work.

Yes, you could ignore all that and just write down the essential stuff on the back of an index card - but that was not what you were expected to do in 3.x which tried to unify PC and monster creation rules.

If you were new to D&D back in 3.x you would try to use the rules as written; I had one or two friends who were new to DMing and complained that prepping a game was too much hard work because of this.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

You seem to be proceeding from the assumption that everyone was seeking to hyper-optimize their characters. I think a lot of people just kicked back, played some modules, and everything worked out just fine.

There was a lot of bloat. The game was never designed to give the kind of latitude to players which many seized: in terms of race and prestige class combinations, magic item selection, spell choices; insane synergies can be leveraged. But if you're trying to break a thing, you'll probably break it.

I still think the core 3.5 engine is pretty tight. I think 3.0 is probably better, precisely because it's a bit looser - it doesn't try too hard.

3.0 doesn't try to be a tight ruleset. It also allowed the hilariously broken Haste spell which - as written - allows casting two spells in one round because the designers did not understand their own ruleset.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Why D&D 3e/3.5/Pathfinder worked?

• d20 system resolved many inconsistencies and absurdities. Both BECMI and AD&D 2e were full of loopholes, the game was baroque, arbitrary, unbalanced.
• Managed to keep the feel of the original game, as well as the settings (at least the most popular ones).
• The character building and optimization was alluring.

Those features made 3rd edition overall (slightly?) better then AD&D 1 and 2, IMO. But then...

Why D&D 3e/3.5/Pathfinder failed?

• Rollplay over roleplay (yes, the system encouraged that).
• System bloat caused by splatbooks, with too many classes, prestige classes, feats and spells. Optimizers dominated the game.
• High numbers and multiple bonuses eventually made combat way too complex to keep track of.
• Did not solve but aggravated the caster supremacy problem.
• Magic item proliferation & magic item market.
• Too much effort for the DM to prepare NPCs.

To sum it up, the strive to rationalise every aspect of the game had the unexpected side effect of too much complexity.

Enters 5e:

• Roleplay over rollplay
• Rulings over Rules
• Bounded Accuracy makes game simpler and enjoyable.
• Mitigates caster supremacy
• Magic Item attunement / no magic item market
• Retrocompatible.

IMO, 5e managed to capture the best of all the previous editions AND solve many old problems.

 

[CapnZapp]

3.5 wasn’t broke. It just ran its course and was time for a new edition. The same thing that will happen with 5E. And then people will say 5E was broken. They were all good games. But once so many copy sales and/or people want to try something with new bells and whistles then it will stop selling and it will be time for 6E.

I disagree entirely, since this suggests there is no such thing as progress: better rules design.

In reality 5E fixes several fundamental flaws with 3E and is decidedly a better, much less broken, game.

 

[Maxperson]

Level 11 is

So we were talking about what level of optimization breaks the game. As far as I know, optimization didn't have levels like that.

That said, level 11 only broke for some people, not everyone. It wasn't the game that broke down at higher levels. It was that some people's tolerance for the power level the game reached that broke down. Level 11 was no problem for me and my group. The game was not broken for us at any level under epic.

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree entirely, since this suggests there is no such thing as progress: better rules design.

In reality 5E fixes several fundamental flaws with 3E and is decidedly a better, much less broken, game.

5e trades fixing fundamental flaws of 3e(fundamental to some people) and introduced fundamental flaws of its own.

For example, it was good to lower the excessive plusses of 3e, but bounded accuracy went too far and over bounded. +10 over 20 levels, rather than +6 would have been much better.

3e had too much choice(again for some people) and that made it overly complex, but 5e has removed almost character all choice from the game, and that's a bad thing. Beyond picking class, race and subclass, there's very little choice to be made and most of it is what spells you learn. More feats, subclasses and such would be much better. Not to 3e levels, but certainly more than 5e has given.

This goes along with the above, but the release rate for new content is way too low for 5e. 3e was way too high, but beyond monster books there has been very little actual content released for 5e and that makes for a more boring game. I'm not saying 5e is boring, but it's a lot less fun than it could be.

 

[Anoth]

You pick your ability scores, skills, feats, and archetype. At certain levels you can Increase ability scores or take feats and skills. That sounds like plenty of choice to me.

 

[Umbran]

I disagree entirely...

Let us consider the differences between two sentences:

"This game is broken."

"This game has some flaws, and a game better for my particular desires could be made."

Anyone who cannot tell the difference, or who willfully uses the former when they mean the latter, will get very little from this thread.

 

[Anoth]

Let us consider the differences between two sentences:

"This game is broken."

"This game has some flaws, and a game better for my particular desires could be made."

Anyone who cannot tell the difference, or who willfully uses the former when they mean the latter, will get very little from this thread.

that is a more polite way to discuss this when different people love different editions.

amazing how we always end up in edition war threads.

 

[Nagol]

I disagree entirely, since this suggests there is no such thing as progress: better rules design.

In reality 5E fixes several fundamental flaws with 3E and is decidedly a better, much less broken, game.

And introduces a bunch of new ones whilst simultaneously returning a bunch of previous ones because 3.5 ignored the previously published errata and published the previous broken rules again and introduces rule changes that were not repairs, but felt more like someone's house rules tacked on to an update.

3.5 was a different game: better, in some respects, but was very frustrating to migrate to.