D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Fanaelialae]

@Fanaelialae: Yeah, but none of the issues you describe is particularly new to 3e. If you were running a 1e AD&D module and there was a wizard in it, they'd probably have a list of his prepared spells, but if the issue of a spell book came up, it would still be up to you to decide if that was all the spells in the spellbook or not. And if you weren't running a module, you'd need to work with the spells which is the single biggest part of prepping a spellcaster. Spell lists are not an issue particular to 3e chargen.

And neither is picking out relevant gear to ensure minimal effectiveness in an NPC "boss monster".

And while 5e has somewhat simplified this, everything you talk about is still relevant particularly if you are playing a game with feats and magic items and thus complicating your balance issues. And to the extent that you can take short cuts, those short cut techniques have been around since 1e days. Probably the absolutely best short cut in both cases is simply having a stock character of appropriate level to serve as a template for any character minor enough you don't want to stat them out.

I mean think about this, in AD&D it wasn't that unusual to be using a random encounter table and for the random encounter table to have the result "NPC party". The expectation there is that you can just wing and entire other party of adventurers after a minute or two of dice rolling.

There were a confluence of issues specific to 3e that made these things particularly problematic for that edition.

In 2e, there was no expectation of magical gear by and large. You could make an effective high level fighter to challenge the party in a few minutes. He didn't need magic weapons or armor to be effective. Your biggest decision point was picking out a weapon for him to be specialized in. Very different from 3e.

Casters were also far easier to prep because they got significantly less spells in 2e. In 3e it was not uncommon for a high level caster to be pre-buffed with a half dozen or more spells if they had time before combat. In 2e, it was rare to see more than 2 or 3 spells precast, IME.

As for the party issue, I always just assumed that DMs wrote up the NPC party during prep, although I never actually ran any of those modules and therefore never had to deal with it myself.

 

[Umbran]

For you, is that broken as a game?

"The character I played as balanced in one game became unbalanced in a new game when I picked and chose among options not found in the original game."

I don't think comparing across rule sets is an appropriate approach. Characters from a given rule set are not separate from their rules or the expectations of challenges in their respective games. While they share a name, some genre tropes, and such, they are different games.

I mean, in 1e, Lolth has 66 hit points. in 5e she's got on the order of ten times that, right? These are apples and oranges.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

"The character I played as balanced in one game became unbalanced in a new game when I picked and chose among options not found in the original game."

I don't think comparing across rule sets is an appropriate approach. Characters from a given rule set are not separate from their rules or the expectations of challenges in their respective games. While they share a name, some genre tropes, and such, they are different games.

I mean, in 1e, Lolth has 66 hit points. in 5e she's got on the order of ten times that, right? These are apples and oranges.

She also was mostly just a very unique demon in 1e for the most part. I dont know if i agree its incomparable though.

 

[Umbran]

She also was mostly just a very unique demon in 1e for the most part. I dont know if i agree its incomparable though.

You could compare in the sense of, "an 18th level character took on a level-appropriate challenge with their own editions rules, and this is how they fared," and discuss the differences in play between the two editions.

There should be no expectations that, in converting/rebuilding from one edition to another, that the statistics and abilities will look the same. We are led to a false sense of equivalence because the names and basic concepts appear across editions, but he scaling is not the same.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

You could compare in the sense of, "an 18th level character took on a level-appropriate challenge with their own editions rules, and this is how they fared," and discuss the differences in play between the two editions.

There should be no expectations that, in converting/rebuilding from one edition to another, that the statistics and abilities will look the same. We are led to a false sense of equivalence because the names and basic concepts appear across editions, but he scaling is not the same.

Ok. When you made the apples to oranges comment i thought you were saying they were "incomparable". I now see that you werent going so far as to say that.

Thankyou for clearing up what you meant.

 

[Blue]

"The character I played as balanced in one game became unbalanced in a new game when I picked and chose among options not found in the original game."

I don't think comparing across rule sets is an appropriate approach. Characters from a given rule set are not separate from their rules or the expectations of challenges in their respective games. While they share a name, some genre tropes, and such, they are different games.

I mean, in 1e, Lolth has 66 hit points. in 5e she's got on the order of ten times that, right? These are apples and oranges.

That wasn't the point at all. This was a legal high level character.

The point was that a 3.5 character required a multi-tab spreadsheet in order to be run at a reasonable table speed. Because of spell effects whihc may or may not be on, some that stacked and some that overlapped with other spell effects that may or may not be one, as well as more free-form spells like Shapechange. Trying to run that character without hours of prep with a spreadsheet (and good Excel-fu to work it all out), a high level caster with variable buffs would not have been playable in a reasonable time frame during a session.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Except that the rules explicitly told you that the DM can change the rules and is in charge of them.

They paid lip service to the idea, then did nothing to promote or encourage it, presenting a wildly complex, option-rich game to which player options were constantly being added. The resulting zeitgeist was utterly dismissive of house rules and enshrined community-consensus RaW.

If there's one thing 5e did right, it's promoting - through natural language & the play loop - the need for the DM as interpreter & arbiter of the rules. Heck, even if it's just one of many things 5e did wrong, it's the one that keeps the others from getting too badly out of line.

You could compare in the sense of, "an 18th level character took on a level-appropriate challenge with their own editions rules, and this is how they fared," and discuss the differences in play between the two editions.

Prior to 3e, there were no guidelines for "level appropriate challenge," so that lets the entire TSR era off the hook.

 

[Umbran]

Prior to 3e, there were no guidelines for "level appropriate challenge," so that lets the entire TSR era off the hook.

You seem to forget that modules had suggested levels.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You seem to forget that modules had suggested levels.

I didn't forget it, but it doesn't seem strictly comparable to a level-appropriate challenge like you could get from CR or EL or skill challenges. A level range for a whole adventure, and a specific level for a single encounter seem quite different claims of appropriateness.

 

[Umbran]

I didn't forget it, but it doesn't seem strictly comparable to a level-appropriate challenge like you could get from CR or EL or skill challenges. A level range for a whole adventure, and a specific level for a single encounter seem quite different claims of appropriateness.

Not really. CR guidelines are merely guidelines anyway. Especially at the upper end of the level spectrum, I suspect that a reasonable person could make them serve.