D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[Blue]

I'm going to try to shorten this up. You seem to have some misconceptions about my position so it feels you are talking past me, not addressing my point.

Again, nothing about the guidelines for adjusting monsters was unworkable.

I said they were broken. In that trying to create high level foes from scratch took an far too much time. Could you do it? Sure. But it's like in 4e where combats started taking more than a session - You could do it, but that doesn't mean that you should.

As for the rest of this block, quoting the easy cases does not mean that it handled the hard cases. Except for the part about single foes - if I implied that, that was my mistake. I thought I had been clear when I called out doing 4-5 NPCs for an encounter how long it took that I wasn't talking about a single foe.

Finally, you seem to be making this logical fallacy that if I didn't exactly follow the guidelines all the time, that this must mean that they are bad guidelines.

Actually, my position is that they didn't work under particular cases, such as creating high level foes or creating NPCs of near-PC-level that were reasonable challenges for those PCs considering the effort the players put into picking PrCs and the like. But that is scattered across multiple posts, I can understand that if it hasn't been particularly clear.

As you can see from the responses on this very thread, time and time again others who are defending 3.x are the ones urging to just ignore the rules -- as if that shows that they are not broken. It's the people who like 3.5 who are bigger advocates of never using it. That should give an indication that it was not a easy and well loved subsystem.

...the system for modifying monsters is a really good one that empowered a lot of creativity.

If the point is drunk driving, saying that some people are very creative under the influence may be true but doesn't address the point. The point is how much details, and therefore effort, the rules required was outrageous in a lot of circumstances when you wanted to use them. And when part of those circumstances happen fairly regularly, like getting to higher levels, that's not

It's not like 3e invented the process of making novel monsters or adjusting the HD of monsters in the monster manual. I mean I had 18HD manticores way back in 1989. All 3e did was call it out and empower it and provide really flexible tools for achieving all sorts of novelty.

The topic at hand is overly complex and time consuming rules for creation of foes. Which didn't exist in the the earlier editions. Pointing out that earlier editions you could do such a thing without the incredibly unwieldy system does not support the incredibly unwieldy system.

This literally has no bearing on the point at hand. I have never been against modifying monsters.

You brought that on yourself. You could have just used the monster manual and created complexity through novel combinations of monsters. You didn't have to adjust the HD of every monster, add a template, and throw on 6 PC class levels for every single encounter. That's on you.

Let me get this straight: the system that you have been defending as not hard to use you are admitting isn't usable regularly? Thank you, that was entirely my point. I think I can be done now.

 

[Fanaelialae]

One of the great fallacies of RPG design is that if you just write good enough rules you can make great GMs as if the rules were 100% or even 50% of play. The rules of a game system are actually pretty small portion of the totality of what happens at a gaming table. Yes, can get in the way if they were poorly thought out (but these weren't), but no matter how good the rules you can't make a great RPG. Table top RPGs aren't like board gaming or video games.

I would say that 3.x fell prey to that fallacy. Rule Zero notwithstanding, it was a very player facing edition with (seemingly) a rule for everything. I knew quite a few DMs who came from 2e (where DM rules improvisation was basically a necessity) who struggled with 3.x as a result.

As for only prepping what you need, that's the trick, isn't it? Will I need to use any low level spells for the high level caster I plan to use? Will I need any skills?

Unless you railroad, you don't necessarily know exactly the minimum of what you will need. If the PCs try to trick the necromancer instead of killing him, suddenly knowing whether he has points in sense motive becomes very important. Particularly for an inexperienced DM, the answers aren't obvious.

However, guideline or no, 3.x did imply (particularly to less experienced DMs) that the "guidelines" were the intended way to play. I know that for myself, it didn't occur until years later that I might leave off parts of the stat block. I hadn't read Lazy DM, nor was I on ENWorld at the time. I did what it said in the book, because I hadn't thought to do otherwise. And, to reiterate, it was exhausting.

I have to disagree with you. If the advice in the DMG pushes DMs towards burnout, it isn't good advice, even if you are ultimately free to ignore it.

Despite all that I loved the edition for years. I simply burned out on it hard. It sounds like you probably didn't, and if so good for you. I had a lot of fun with 3e, but I simply can't see myself ever going back.

 

[Maxperson]

However, guideline or no, 3.x did imply (particularly to less experienced DMs) that the "guidelines" were the intended way to play.

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

Page 6 of the DMG: "Good players will recognize that you have the final authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook. Good DMs know not to change or overturn a published rule without a good, logical justification..."

Nothing changed from 2e to 3e, other than more rules being made to help the DM and players out.

I know that for myself, it didn't occur until years later that I might leave off parts of the stat block. I hadn't read Lazy DM, nor was I on ENWorld at the time. I did what it said in the book, because I hadn't thought to do otherwise.

Nor, apparently, page 6 of the DMG.

Or page 6 of the PHB, which says: "Your DM may have house rules or campaign standards that vary
from these rules."

3e made sure to let both players and DMs know that the rules were not only guidelines, but that the players shouldn't assume that rules would be followed exactly.

 

[Greg K]

Maxperson,
There is also the following from the 3.0 DMG

"You get to decide how the rules work, which rules to use, and how strictly to adhere to them"
Monte Cook, Introduction (3.0 DMG, p.6)

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

Page 6 of the DMG: "Good players will recognize that you have the final authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook. Good DMs know not to change or overturn a published rule without a good, logical justification..."

Nothing changed from 2e to 3e, other than more rules being made to help the DM and players out.



Nor, apparently, page 6 of the DMG.

Or page 6 of the PHB, which says: "Your DM may have house rules or campaign standards that vary
from these rules."

3e made sure to let both players and DMs know that the rules were not only guidelines, but that the players shouldn't assume that rules would be followed exactly.

 

[Fanaelialae]

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

Page 6 of the DMG: "Good players will recognize that you have the final authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook. Good DMs know not to change or overturn a published rule without a good, logical justification..."

Nothing changed from 2e to 3e, other than more rules being made to help the DM and players out.



Nor, apparently, page 6 of the DMG.

Or page 6 of the PHB, which says: "Your DM may have house rules or campaign standards that vary
from these rules."

3e made sure to let both players and DMs know that the rules were not only guidelines, but that the players shouldn't assume that rules would be followed exactly.

Yes, I was aware of rule zero.

Being allowed to change the rules and knowing how to change things in a manner that is actually beneficial are two very different things. Particularly for an inexperienced DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, I was aware of rule zero.

Being allowed to change the rules and knowing how to change things in a manner that is actually beneficial are two very different things. Particularly for an inexperienced DM.

That's not rule 0 any longer. Those are now actual rules in the various core books.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I can still recall the feeling of breathing fresh air for the first time in a decade when I first read the 3.0 PHB...

Oh, what a naive little boy I was at the time.

Except that at the time, I was entirely right: just core of any version of DnD is actually pretty simple, streamlined, and balanced through level 9-ish. A new edition is always refreshing. And the more you play, the more you learn to work with, around, or against its quirks and flaws and other peccadilloes, so that the nominally PF game I've joined that started sometime before 1992 (that's the date on the oldest notes) now doesn't really resemble anything aside form being vaguely DnD. And it's great, because we all know how it works even if I couldn't explain it to you in less than 2 hours - 4 with all the houserules you need to know.

Anyway: 3.5 was great, but it did favor a system-mastery based playstyle, in the sense that if a player liked that style they would dominate the game compared to other players at the same table who didn't. And sometimes if the player had no intention of dominating the table but happened to pick an overpowered build (PF Barbarians come to mind here). It actually got to the point where the best thing for a system-mastery-favoring player to do was deliberately handicap themselves, but even that gets old pretty fast.

If that clash (varying levels of interest in system mastery) doesn't exist, no problem will exist because of this. I would guess that most of the people who have no complaints about the system are blessed with a group of players who all have the same opinions on how much effort to put into system mastery.

 

[Celebrim]

I would say that 3.x fell prey to that fallacy.

I wouldn't. I've already outlined what I think the underlying problem with 3.X ended up being. I could get into a lot of nit picks about what actually was wrong with the rules as they evolved into late 3.5, but fundamentally what went wrong with individual rules is less interesting than why the design process went wrong. We agree that it was a very player facing edition.

with (seemingly) a rule for everything.

That I don't agree to at all. The rules of 3.X began very incomplete and remained very incomplete even as the rules text continued to bloat. There never was any vision of having a complete rules set and never really any vision to plug the gaps in the rules in any systematic manner, at least not with WotC. Almost all the attempts to plug the games in the 3.X system were undertaken by third parties - to cite one famous example, Admant's 'Hot Pursuit: The Definitive D20 Guide to Chases' is an actual attempt to make the D20 rules more complete and plug a hole in what the D20 rules are able to cover. WotC made almost no attempt to do anything of the sort, because - as I've emphasized before - WotC made the decision that the money of the game was to be made in marketing to players and not to DMs. So rules sets that actually tried to make the game more complete were basically nowhere to be found.

In fact, the lack of focus on making the basic processes of play more complete was a big reason we ended up with so much rules bloat.

Instead, what we got was an endless array of CharGen options. And since the basic game was so incomplete, way too many things which should have been treated as a specific process play useful for whatever scenarios or conflicts weren't well covered by the base rules, came up as a hodge podge of silo'd character options unique to the class, prestige class, or sometimes feat. The other thing that we got in absence of any unified rules set, was a variety of designs and character options that covered the same conceptual ground as previously printed chargen options, so that there were always 5 or 6 ways to do something, many of which could be stacked by leveraging the front ended nature of the concepts.

All that bloat had nothing really to do with providing better or broader process resolution, which is the real meat of "having a rule for everything". And furthermore, it ended up replicating much of the problem with NWP's as a kludge fix to not having a rule for everything.

As for only prepping what you need, that's the trick, isn't it? Will I need to use any low level spells for the high level caster I plan to use? Will I need any skills?

Unless you railroad, you don't necessarily know exactly the minimum of what you will need. If the PCs try to trick the necromancer instead of killing him, suddenly knowing whether he has points in sense motive becomes very important. Particularly for an inexperienced DM, the answers aren't obvious.

I don't want to get side tracked on a discussion of railroading and when you should or shouldn't do it. I will say that while you are right that this is particularly tough for an inexperienced DM, I think as a DM you know when you are unreasonably meta gaming. "Sense Motive" isn't a class skill for Wizards. Leaving aside the problems with the implementation of class skills in 3e that I think both Pathfinder and 5e have improved on somewhat, it is I think obvious that it would be metagaming to decide that a Necromancer has invested CharGen resources heavily in "Sense Motive" in response to it being discovered that it would be useful for the NPC to have done so in this situation. On the other hand, it's not at all unreasonable to think that a Necromancer whose spell list you haven't prepared has common buffs like Arcane Armor and False Life prepared, and would have cast them if he had the opportunity.

However, guideline or no, 3.x did imply (particularly to less experienced DMs) that the "guidelines" were the intended way to play. I know that for myself, it didn't occur until years later that I might leave off parts of the stat block. I hadn't read Lazy DM, nor was I on ENWorld at the time. I did what it said in the book, because I hadn't thought to do otherwise. And, to reiterate, it was exhausting.

I have to disagree with you. If the advice in the DMG pushes DMs towards burnout, it isn't good advice, even if you are ultimately free to ignore it.

This isn't a problem particular to 3e IMO, but one which probably every DMG has gotten wrong. Simply put, the DMG just doesn't do enough to tell you how to be a good DM, and even the 1e DMG - which is in my opinion the best of them - unfortunately has too much of its advice geared to the particular situation that applied to Gygax's own campaigns and isn't very good advice for the typical audience he is writing to.

 

[Fanaelialae]

On the other hand, it's not at all unreasonable to think that a Necromancer whose spell list you haven't prepared has common buffs like Arcane Armor and False Life prepared, and would have cast them if he had the opportunity.

But this here is exactly one of the big issues.

As mentioned there's an element of fairness (would you honestly allow a PC wizard to skip memorizing low level spells and just using "common" spells as they see fit). Some groups will of course be fine with this, or will never know, so for them it is arguably a non-issue.

Primarily though, you now are preparing a complicated stat block. You need buffed and unbuffed notations. Maybe the wizard notices the PCs coming and has time to pre-buff. Maybe he doesn't. And you need to be prepared if he does pre-buff and then the PCs open the fight with Dispel Magic.

Heck, it didn't occur to me until now, but I always picked all his spells in case the party wizard captured his spellbook (admittedly not an issue if the party didn't have a wizard). You can only hand wave so much before you're just pushing the work down the road for yourself.

It wasn't just wizards either. If you made a relatively simple fighter "boss monster", you needed to pick out feats or you were hobbling him, since that was their primary feature. You needed to give him relevant gear, or he'd be ineffective. Plus, the players would typically want to know what they got off of him anyway.

 

[Celebrim]

@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.