D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Fanaelialae]

You keep bringing up corner cases, countering specific spells, as if that somehow shows that buffing which is generally a worse option somehow becomes good. Casting lots of buffs just makes things harder on the party, and I'm not talking about math for the players.

It's not a corner case. It's a response to the idea that Dispel/Disjunction should be used in every encounter. Which in fairness wasn't something you brought up, but it was the conversation you entered into.

If enemies can use debuffs every encounter, they can also use counter spells every encounter. I don't remember the exact details, but I'm fairly certain that Dispel could be used to counter any spell as it was being cast.

Admittedly, it might be superior for the DM to use one of those better spells you mentioned, but if the DM isn't trying to murder the party, countering might be a more even approach. I seem to recall that high level caster battles could easily become rocket tag, where whoever won initiative was likely to win.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Paleo-gaming? Does that mean activated almonds, beef jerky and low carb beer rather than potato chips, chocolate and wheat beer?

Same root: Paleo "ancient, long ago." The Paleo diet purports to be based on the available forage and necessary survival activities of the Stone Age. The 70s were the Stone Age of RPGs. Thus paleo-gaming.

 

[Blue]

You can objectively tell that one has a higher power level than the other, but not whether that equates to more or less broken. Broken is a subjective opinion unless it relates to mechanics that don't do what they are supposed to do, like the 4e issue and 3e CR.

I submit that since classes were supposed to be roughly balanced, that differenting class power levels was also objectively broken. Even if, as you've mentioned, your table did not have a problem with it.

 

[Blue]

If they were buffing that much, they were wasting resources better spent on just ending a fight in a few rounds.

I'm very confused by this. Many prebuffs lasted hours to all day. So they were spending resources to finish multiple battles in just a few rounds, and at a discount of both action economy and actual spell slots.

CoDzilla was a real thing.

 

[Blue]

No need of spread sheet for that. Base character sheet. Then a sheet to show all buffs common to all players. And a last one for personal buffs. (all were on plastified sheets which were easily erasable). It was only taking a few seconds to do.

Okay,let's give this a try, from an actual character of mine.

You have a Pale Green Ioun Stone and a Stone of Good Luck. The following spells are up: Shapechange (Storm Giant), Aid, Antidragon Aura, Elation, Heroes' Feast, and Haste.

What are all of the effects of these spells?

Recitation is now cast on you. What adjustments does it make?

I'd say it's a trick question, but it was actually a common case. But still tricky enough with different types of bonuses so that some spells stacked, partially stacked, or all overlapped based on the bonus types. And then there was ripple effects, like to figure our grapple needed modifiers from size as well as modifiers from STR. And oh my, trying to work out AC.

Once you got to a high enough level, it was more than "a few seconds from a sheet". Especially when you start with quickened for swift spells, contingeny, chain contingency, create magic tattoo, and all sorts of craziness that can adds spells in the middle of battle.

 

[Celebrim]

Recitation is now cast on you. What adjustments does it make?

Are you are devotee of the diety? I think off the top of my head you are going to get basically a +1 or +2 bonus to everything, unless there is some other luck bonus in that stack I'm not aware of.

I never played 3e at a level anyone could shapechange into a storm giant, but my general rule on all of these sort of buffs is that you can't even cast the spell if you don't already know how it will impact the table. You can't shapechange into anything unless you've worked up a buff card for it. You can't summon anything unless you have a stat block you can hand me. It's up to the player to know how the spell alters his character sheet and have it documented if he plans to ever cast the spell. If he plans to cast the spell on another PC, then he needs to be able to give a buff card to that player if it is anyway ambiguous or complicated as to what happens. Otherwise, you just don't get to cast the spell.

The point of that was to force the player to work out the math before the session, rather than slow the session to a crawl while he adds up the modifiers and works out exactly what happens.

 

[Blue]

Are you are devotee of the diety? I think off the top of my head you are going to get basically a +1 or +2 bonus to everything, unless there is some other luck bonus in that stack I'm not aware of.

I never played 3e at a level anyone could shapechange into a storm giant, but my general rule on all of these sort of buffs is that you can't even cast the spell if you don't already know how it will impact the table. You can't shapechange into anything unless you've worked up a buff card for it. You can't summon anything unless you have a stat block you can hand me. It's up to the player to know how the spell alters his character sheet and have it documented if he plans to ever cast the spell. If he plans to cast the spell on another PC, then he needs to be able to give a buff card to that player if it is anyway ambiguous or complicated as to what happens. Otherwise, you just don't get to cast the spell.

The point of that was to force the player to work out the math before the session, rather than slow the session to a crawl while he adds up the modifiers and works out exactly what happens.

That was my point - there were luck bonuses in there. Some of which overlapped, some of which added to different things. Actually, there was already overlapping (and non-overlapping) luck bonuses before Recitation between the Stone of Good Luck and the Antidragon Aura, but the aura only affected vs. dragons.

Basically, running this character I spent several hours creating a ridiculous spreadsheet so I could add or remove buffs (and conditions, power attack, and the like because why not) at the table. And it would calculate out things like Shapechange vs. Draconic Polymorph vs. Alter Self with different forms and all the other things then piled on.

I was responding to the person who claimed that with a sheet of common buffs and a sheet of personal buffs that all changes during play could be done "in a few seconds" at the table. That definitely wasn't true in the high level games I was in, which is why I made such a spreadsheet so I didn't slow down the game.

 

[Celebrim]

I was responding to the person who claimed that with a sheet of common buffs and a sheet of personal buffs that all changes during play could be done "in a few seconds" at the table. That definitely wasn't true in the high level games I was in, which is why I made such a spreadsheet so I didn't slow down the game.

One thing I will grant you is that the named buffs made 3e overly fiddly. There is a trade off in losing that fiddliness though. Not only do you lose granularity, but you lose motivation to seek advantage. One problem 5e has is that there is no such thing really as 'more advantaged', so if you have some relatively easy ways to achieve advantage you just do that all the time.

Still, the person you were responding to is probably mostly familiar with play below 9th level or so were the buffs tend to not be common, enduring, or pervasive. And they probably weren't abusing the broken 3.5 alter self and polymorph rules that brought the complexity of Shapechange down to the lower levels of play. If they had more experience at high levels, they'd probably understand more where you were coming from.

And the general need to speed up play by precalculating values is something I've been encountering since 1e AD&D. 5e did some brilliant things to avoid the necessity of that, but in doing so they lost some important things.

 

[Bacon Bits]

We'd have to have an 11-20 encounter day or something.

Given the current state of encounter difficulty, I can only imagine how the 20 encounter days might play out.

DM: You see a large, roughly hewn, wooden door at the end of the hallway. It looks as though it's been here for a very long time.
PC: Alright, I open it.
DM: As you try to open the door, you get a moderately uncomfortable splinter in your [*rolls die*] fourth finger. Take 1 damage.
PC: Ouch!
DM: Roll initiative!
PC: I get a 7.
DM: Okay, I rolled a 16. I go first. The mightly wooden door looms in front of you! You notice that it's positively covered in potential splinters. It's as though the door were literally made of splinters!
PC: Insidious!
DM: Okay it's your initiative.

 

[Salthorae]

Prepping for a high level encounter, especially involving NPCs, took hours and hours. Per encounter. Especially with the level of power creep that the large amount of books brought.

PLAYING a high-level encounter took hours. I remember single combats that took 4+ hours.