D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Fanaelialae]

Ill never dm in 5e because i chafe at the restrictions as a player but i can feel the dm side of me actually being more chafed than the player side. Might just be the type of dm i am.

I hate homogeneity and simplicity. Two things 5e has truck loads of. For better or for worse.

That's funny, because for me it was the restrictions of 3.x that chafed (as a DM). Having to make certain that the PCs had the correct Wealth by Level, or going through the many step process that was building a monster, etc. It was exhausting. 5e by comparison is a breath of fresh air for me, and I don't really see any restrictions on what the DM can do.

Don't get me wrong, 3.x was revolutionary for the time and it's doubtful that 5e would look anything like what it does if 3e hadn't come first. The designers of 3rd did a lot of great work in systemizing and unifying disparate rules elements under a single core mechanic. When it first came out, and for years after, I loved it.

I played a lot of great and very memorable campaigns using 3.x. It's simply the edition I would never want to go back to, as I really burned out on it. For me, it ended up being too much work, irrespective of which side of the screen I was on.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Are u by any chance enjoying PF 2E?

Haven't tried pf2. Tried pf1. Decided i like 3/3.5 better. I would be delited to try pf2 but havent found a good plug into it. Probably will try it at some point though and see what i think. I have seen some material through a friend and liked what i saw. Still too early to say how i really feel about it over all though. And pf2 is still young so its probably just a question of how long it will take to penetrate my local player populatuon a bit more.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

That's funny, because for me it was the restrictions of 3.x that chafed (as a DM). Having to make certain that the PCs had the correct Wealth by Level, or going through the many step process that was building a monster, etc. It was exhausting. 5e by comparison is a breath of fresh air for me, and I don't really see any restrictions on what the DM can do.

Don't get me wrong, 3.x was revolutionary for the time and it's doubtful that 5e would look anything like what it does if 3e hadn't come first. The designers of 3rd did a lot of great work in systemizing and unifying disparate rules elements under a single core mechanic. When it first came out, and for years after, I loved it.

I played a lot of great and very memorable campaigns using 3.x. It's simply the edition I would never want to go back to, as I really burned out on it. For me, it ended up being too much work, irrespective of which side of the screen I was on.

Ive found that 3/3.5 is both the most and least restrictive the most and least free edition there is and it entirely depends on how your group handles rules. Its an edition whos rules due to how they are arranged are some of the easiest to customize. Its also very easy to create rules without throwing everything into chaos so long as you are careful and occasionally test things first. I find it best to have 3 books of table rules.

1 ideas

2 worked on and tested ideas (a lot of things end up being able to skip this one)

3 set rules

Do that and its actually an extremely modification friendly edition. It responds very well to modding. This edition is just so able to have things plugged into it and i think that it is one of the things the creators of that edition were going for. Imo there is no edition half as modable as this one.

If you arent organized about it chaos erupts and it can really run away from you and create a horrible workload for the dm. This doesnt happen if you are just careful and have a system for adding or removing rules though. But if you dont mod the edition and try to use every single rule you not only will feel restricted but in fact the edition wont even work sometimes because rules will actually conflict sometimes.

I can see why some dms might be chafed by this edition but imo it doesnt have to be that way. Imo 3/3.5 isnt just the players edition. It also can be the dm's edition because it thirsts for modding. And modding can in fact reduce work load depending on the modification.

I would just like to reiterate that imo this edition responds really well to modding. But you have to be willing to do that. I think this is the best way to use the rules structure of that edition. It just feels like an edition that actively wants that. It really is the superior edition generally speaking, in this way included as well.

 

[Anoth]

Not me, I'm a compulsive multi-classer, so that rule wouldn't suit me at all.

What was the reason for that rule? None of my multi-classed monstrosities are anywhere near as powerful as most single-classed characters would be, and if simplicity is the aim I'd ban prestige classes as well.

We played both ways. But we got tired of it and for RP reason wanted prestige classes to mean something in the game and not just be a bunch of stats and modifiers. It really improved the game for us.

 

[Umbran]

I hate homogeneity and simplicity. Two things 5e has truck loads of. For better or for worse.

Homogeneity... in what sense?

I'm four sessions in to a new 5e campaign. We have an air-genasi barbarian, an eladrin warlock, and a gnomish artificer. We all took standard array stats... there is no recognizable homogeneity in this group.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

As a DM 3.5 made me think of finding a new hobby. The core was fine but all the crap tacked on via splats and expansions made the game crazy unwieldy and honestly more like work than fun to run for me. When I bought a book written just to clarify all the rules in other books I realized this wasn't for me. Too many feats and round by round shifting mods and multi-page stat blocks at higher levels. Then again I'd rather have a loose framework to use than a tightly coupled interlocking system. Actually I hit this point in both my 3.0 and 3.5 games. I just figured I'd give it one more shot in 3.5 but it flopped about the time they went to the abyss in Savage Tide. I think having a group that is die hard rather than kind of beer and pretzels casual would help with this kind of system. My group is 50/50 and honestly half of them were having trouble keeping up with their own options. And I'd find myself running fights with 10+ opponents with all their own feats and stuff to take care of. Not my bag.

 

[Celebrim]

That's funny, because for me it was the restrictions of 3.x that chafed (as a DM). Having to make certain that the PCs had the correct Wealth by Level, or going through the many step process that was building a monster, etc.

Of the many complaints about 3.X that are made, often for very understandable reasons, this is one I understand the least.

You do not have to make certain that PC's have the correct "wealth by level". In 10+ years of DMing 3.X, I've never once calculated PC wealth or tried to calculate treasure based on expected wealth by level. Likewise, while I have on occasion gone through the step by step process of modifying a monster to achieve a custom result, no one is forced by the system to either modify monsters in the first place (as opposed to just playing them straight out of a Monster Manual or other resource) or use some system when creating a monster. Whatever you do as a DM is perfectly right and valid - assign hit points, skills, or whatever as you see fit. Or don't. Just write down the minimum you need to know to run an encounter, and fill in the details on the fly when and if you find you need them.

It was exhausting.

Sure, I can see that. But that is a burden you put on yourself, and not something imposed by the system. It's something of an open question if a system can actually impose anything on a GM, but what you are talking about is simply guidelines that exposed the underlying math, and not hard and fast rules that a GM has to abide by. (Seriously, is there such a thing as a hard and fast rule that GMs have to abide by?)

 

[Celebrim]

As a DM 3.5 made me think of finding a new hobby. The core was fine but all the crap tacked on via splats and expansions made the game crazy unwieldy and honestly more like work than fun to run for me.

Every time someone explains why they dropped 3.X, I feel validated in my decision to ban basically everything that wasn't core. I've "tacked on" a considerable amount of homebrew material, but only when I thought it wouldn't break the game, and it's vastly less than the "there are at least 6 ways to do the same thing" that was the rules bloat of official 3.5 with its endless PrCs, spells, feats, skill tricks, PC races, and what not.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Every time someone explains why they dropped 3.X, I feel validated in my decision to ban basically everything that wasn't core. I've "tacked on" a considerable amount of homebrew material, but only when I thought it wouldn't break the game, and it's vastly less than the "there are at least 6 ways to do the same thing" that was the rules bloat of official 3.5 with its endless PrCs, spells, feats, skill tricks, PC races, and what not.

I should say when I say core I mean the basic d20 system and mechanic. Even 3.5 with the 3 core books is more than I want, but yes, not allowing all the endless expansions does make it better.

 

[Gadget]

The big appeal of 3.x was the system mastery and outright bloat of classes, prestige classes, feats, spells and combinations that allowed tinkerers and tweakers a panacea of options to play with to get things just the way they wanted it.

That said, it was as broken as all get out, and is the one edition I would not want to play again: too many fiddly bits and process sim.