D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Bacon Bits]

Out of all the editions 3.5 is one I don't have a lot of nostalgia for 3.5.

However 3.5 is still one if the bigger out of print editions played online.

And it lived on another 10 years via Pathfinder.

But 3.5 is a broken hot mess right?

It's really simple. At the time it was produced, 3.5e was the best version of the game available.

Yes, 3.5e has many flaws.

• It was very complicated in that there were a ton of rules and stacking modifiers. The designers attempted to create a rule for everything, which I think is now plainly clear that attempting that is a fool's errand.
• Spellcasters were too powerful. I don't think that is particularly debatable.
• Prestige classes eroded the sense of class identity, while simultaneously giving players false hope of abilities they would likely never reach. Players created "builds" to go to level 20, but still never really got beyond level 10. This meant the game started at level 1, but the characters didn't feel complete until level 8.
• It was really obnoxious as a DM to create NPCs or to adjust monsters. Even if you had digital tools, this took much longer than it should.
• ECL did not work.
• Stacking bonuses, especially skill bonuses, resulted in absurdity. Doubly so when that skill had a combat result (this is one of the reasons that both d20 Star Wars and Star Wars SAGA are horrible games).
• Magic item creation rules were super abusive.
• Multiclassing was super abusive because of how abilities were gained from new classes.
• Descending BAB made the math needlessly complicated. I suspect the game would have been much better balanced if BAB was the same for all attacks.

However, 3.5e was better than 3.0e, because it was both 100% compatible with 3.0e and it improved some of the more glaring flaws from 3.0e, like Ranger and Bard being pretty unplayable, certain spells and feats being completely overpowered, etc.

3.5e was better than 1e/2e, too:

• The individual rules in AD&D were simpler, but everything was one of a myriad of arcane microsystems that bore no relation to anything else. There was no holistic system of resolution. Everything required you to turn to page XYZ and read a handful of paragraphs and roll some arbitrary dice on some random table. 1e/2e felt like it was a combination of mechanics from a dozen individuals created over the course of a decade. Which is basically exactly what it was. This meant that if you ever wanted to fudge anything, you had no frame of reference for what you should do because every system for every mechanic was basically unique. It was impossible to tell a house of cards from great pyramid. You had no idea what would make the game collapse, so you just blindly followed the books.
• Multiclassing was complete nonsense. I still can't get over the fact that a 1e Paladin 9 had the same experience as a 1e Magic-User 10/Thief 11. In no way should that ever make sense. The introduction of racial level limits simply highlights that the designers knew they had no balance between anything. I never saw anybody actually enforce level limits once players hit them, because how lame is it to continue playing when you can't progress? Some DMs applied XP penalties, but IMX most just ignored them because what the game told you to do (stop character progression permanently) was stupid and not fun.
• Ability score balance is messed up. Percentile strength? 8-14 often having identical in-game effects?
• Class balance was all over the place. Thieves and clerics were both at once essential to have, and fairly miserable to play at the table. No surprise they were the classes that little brothers got stuck with. Wizards began play unable to participate in most encounters. The game revolves around Fighters and their equipment draw. That's why Rangers were so good. The only "balancing" factor was the ability requirements. Gee, you mean if I roll well I also get to play a class that's inherently superior, too?
• Descending armor class/THAC0 is an abomination of game design. It was deliberately written to make it difficult for the PCs to determine how competent they are at attacking. It is designed to take the most common die roll in the game and make it more difficult to use in play. It's like telling your players to use coin flips to generate binary numbers which, when converted to decimal, give you the actual random result you're looking for.
• Infravision was miserable in actual play. Thinking about how environmental heat works for half your players is really awful.
• Weapon speed, casting speed, fractional numbers of attacks, and weapon attack adjustments vs armor types were all mind-numbingly fiddley.

Finally, 3.5e was better than Basic D&D, which was exactly like AD&D, except the game just had fewer rules. Essentially all the problems were identical -- particularly with class balance -- but the game just had fewer rules to keep track of. In that sense, Basic D&D is probably a better game than AD&D, but in practice it felt very limiting to play when you knew about the wider player options in AD&D.

When 4e came out and it didn't live up to what a lot of players wanted, they stuck with the "best" version of the game they had. Some moved to Pathfinder, but that's basically just extended 3.5e.

 

[Anoth]

And I had players lined up to play the thief in 2E. No shortage of experienced players want to play the their. I’m not defending the 2E thief. That’s just a matter of fact. I really love what later editions did for the thief. I think we looked at the thief as playing on hard mode back then.

 

[Celebrim]

It's really simple...

And yet it's amazing how much of what you write in the details I disagree with. You throw out enough controversial assertions in that one post to wreck the board with flame wars for the next six months. I suspect that we'd find maybe a half-dozen things everyone broadly agrees with, and everything else would be an argument.

 

[TheSword]

My last post kinda turned into things I didn’t like, so to redress the balance...

3e/3.5e’s publishing schedule was one of the things I loved. As an avid consumer of the books I bought most and certainly every Forgotten Realms book. They were well designed, beautiful products, with a straight forward generic scheme that was easy to follow. They really added crunch to large parts of the game... elven high mages, wards, spell fire, drugs, divine rituals. It was the heyday. I remember Lords of Darkness and Magic of the Realms being two of the most packed supplements I have ever read, choc full of goodies.

I somewhat disagree that there was no brand continuity. I think they very carefully worked their brand IP in terms of setting to lay the foundations that we are now seeing the benefits of now. Forgotten realms and Eberron were looked after very very well because of some talented writers and really coherent products. Ironically Greyhawk which was the default setting felt fairly unloved. The twelve or so Eberron hardbacks and the twenty three Forgotten Realms hardbacks looked flipping amazing on my shelf. Having moved to pdf I have sold most of them on eBay, and was pleasantly surprised to find most going for more than I paid for them originally, which is amazing for second hand books.

I respect 5e’s release schedule. I don’t think it’s worse, just different. Probably one of the reasons I accept it though is because of what came before. They stood on the shoulders of giants, and like John Hammond they slapped it on a lunchbox. However I do think they are being very respectful and conscious of what came before. 5eTreating their core setting much better than 3e did Greyhawk.

 

[Bacon Bits]

You throw out enough controversial assertions in that one post to wreck the board with flame wars for the next six months.

Because that's really tough to do. I can do it with a single word: Warlord.

 

[Bacon Bits]

And I had players lined up to play the thief in 2E. No shortage of experienced players want to play the their. I’m not defending the 2E thief. That’s just a matter of fact. I really love what later editions did for the thief. I think we looked at the thief as playing on hard mode back then.

That doesn't really undermine the assertion that Thief wasn't balanced. It kind of reinforces it.

 

[Anoth]

Every edition has things that need banned. Sorlock build.

That doesn't really undermine the assertion that Thief wasn't balanced. It kind of reinforces it.

i kinda agreed with that after the first few sentences when I praised how later editions did the thief better.

 

[Anoth]

I have this theory that many (not all) that play the thief class don’t want to be more powerful. They want to think and beat the opponent through wit and non-mechanical methods. They may have been my best role players because of that.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's really simple. At the time it was produced, 3.5e was the best version of the game available.

Yes, 3.5e has many flaws.

• It was very complicated in that there were a ton of rules and stacking modifiers. The designers attempted to create a rule for everything, which I think is now plainly clear that attempting that is a fool's errand.
• Spellcasters were too powerful. I don't think that is particularly debatable.
• Prestige classes eroded the sense of class identity, while simultaneously giving players false hope of abilities they would likely never reach. Players created "builds" to go to level 20, but still never really got beyond level 10. This meant the game started at level 1, but the characters didn't feel complete until level 8.
• It was really obnoxious as a DM to create NPCs or to adjust monsters. Even if you had digital tools, this took much longer than it should.
• ECL did not work.
• Stacking bonuses, especially skill bonuses, resulted in absurdity. Doubly so when that skill had a combat result (this is one of the reasons that both d20 Star Wars and Star Wars SAGA are horrible games).
• Magic item creation rules were super abusive.
• Multiclassing was super abusive because of how abilities were gained from new classes.
• Descending BAB made the math needlessly complicated. I suspect the game would have been much better balanced if BAB was the same for all attacks.

However, 3.5e was better than 3.0e, because it was both 100% compatible with 3.0e and it improved some of the more glaring flaws from 3.0e, like Ranger and Bard being pretty unplayable, certain spells and feats being completely overpowered, etc.

3.5e was better than 1e/2e, too:

• The individual rules in AD&D were simpler, but everything was one of a myriad of arcane microsystems that bore no relation to anything else. There was no holistic system of resolution. Everything required you to turn to page XYZ and read a handful of paragraphs and roll some arbitrary dice on some random table. 1e/2e felt like it was a combination of mechanics from a dozen individuals created over the course of a decade. Which is basically exactly what it was. This meant that if you ever wanted to fudge anything, you had no frame of reference for what you should do because every system for every mechanic was basically unique. It was impossible to tell a house of cards from great pyramid. You had no idea what would make the game collapse, so you just blindly followed the books.
• Multiclassing was complete nonsense. I still can't get over the fact that a 1e Paladin 9 had the same experience as a 1e Magic-User 10/Thief 11. In no way should that ever make sense. The introduction of racial level limits simply highlights that the designers knew they had no balance between anything. I never saw anybody actually enforce level limits once players hit them, because how lame is it to continue playing when you can't progress? Some DMs applied XP penalties, but IMX most just ignored them because what the game told you to do (stop character progression permanently) was stupid and not fun.
• Ability score balance is messed up. Percentile strength? 8-14 often having identical in-game effects?
• Class balance was all over the place. Thieves and clerics were both at once essential to have, and fairly miserable to play at the table. No surprise they were the classes that little brothers got stuck with. Wizards began play unable to participate in most encounters. The game revolves around Fighters and their equipment draw. That's why Rangers were so good. The only "balancing" factor was the ability requirements. Gee, you mean if I roll well I also get to play a class that's inherently superior, too?
• Descending armor class/THAC0 is an abomination of game design. It was deliberately written to make it difficult for the PCs to determine how competent they are at attacking. It is designed to take the most common die roll in the game and make it more difficult to use in play. It's like telling your players to use coin flips to generate binary numbers which, when converted to decimal, give you the actual random result you're looking for.
• Infravision was miserable in actual play. Thinking about how environmental heat works for half your players is really awful.
• Weapon speed, casting speed, fractional numbers of attacks, and weapon attack adjustments vs armor types were all mind-numbingly fiddley.

Finally, 3.5e was better than Basic D&D, which was exactly like AD&D, except the game just had fewer rules. Essentially all the problems were identical -- particularly with class balance -- but the game just had fewer rules to keep track of. In that sense, Basic D&D is probably a better game than AD&D, but in practice it felt very limiting to play when you knew about the wider player options in AD&D.

When 4e came out and it didn't live up to what a lot of players wanted, they stuck with the "best" version of the game they had. Some moved to Pathfinder, but that's basically just extended 3.5e.

You mentioned all the good bits of AD&D.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Maybe some DMs don't think of themselves as God?

Jesus had so much self restraint. Dms are not like jesus though. They should not humbly deny their power.