D&D 3E/3.5 Why 3.5 Worked

[CleverNickName]

I know that my experiences aren't necessarily the rule, but I don't quite know what to think of the whole "nobody plays high level characters" thing. Because my current gaming group has been playing D&D for almost a decade, and we've played some pretty high-level characters in that time.

We started in 2011 with a Viking-themed campaign based loosely on "The Northern Reaches," a gazetteer from the Mystara campaign setting. We used the 3rd Edition rules at first, but soon converted to the 3.5 Edition. That campaign ran for 5 years, and when it ended, the PCs were all 18th level.

After 3.5E, we ran a short-lived Pathfinder campaign. It didn't last a year because it was too cumbersome and rules-heavy for our group. We stopped that campaign when everyone was barely 5th level. Reasons for ending it vary depending on who you ask: our DM was frustrated with the amount of prep time and the length of battles, the players were frustrated with decision paralysis and the amount of math tracking.

We played a couple of one-shot games using the 4E rules, but it never really caught on with our group. When our new DM was ready to start the new campaign (we take turns being the DM), we decided to go with 5th Edition.

We have been running a 5E campaign for two and a half years now, using the 5th Edition rules. We are all 11th level at the moment, and our DM expects us to be about 16th or 17th level by the time we finish the campaign later this year.

 

[CapnZapp]

5e trades fixing fundamental flaws of 3e(fundamental to some people) and introduced fundamental flaws of its own.

For example, it was good to lower the excessive plusses of 3e, but bounded accuracy went too far and over bounded. +10 over 20 levels, rather than +6 would have been much better.

3e had too much choice(again for some people) and that made it overly complex, but 5e has removed almost character all choice from the game, and that's a bad thing. Beyond picking class, race and subclass, there's very little choice to be made and most of it is what spells you learn. More feats, subclasses and such would be much better. Not to 3e levels, but certainly more than 5e has given.

This goes along with the above, but the release rate for new content is way too low for 5e. 3e was way too high, but beyond monster books there has been very little actual content released for 5e and that makes for a more boring game. I'm not saying 5e is boring, but it's a lot less fun than it could be.

I'm arguing 5E is objectively less broken than 3E. Its improvements and upgrades on the magic framework impresses me. I'm arguing it should impress you too - from a rules design angle.

Which edition you find more fun is up to you.

I'm certainly not defending 5E and I don't like every design decision myself. I do think it is the better more evolved game. (Rules design generally does improve each decade, anything else would be a tragedy, so that's not a surprise to me.)

Cheers

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

OK, then. I'd be surprised to see anyone make such a comparison without it being called both subjective and apples & oranges, though.

I'm arguing 5E is objectively less broken than 3E.

A highly defensible position. It'd be pretty easy to argue that 3e, the only version of the game intentionally designed to reward system mastery, is the most-broken version of D&D, period. For that matter, few TTRPGs of any sort could challenge it for sheer brokenness. RIFTS, for instance, would be a strong contender.

Its improvements and upgrades on the magic framework impresses me. I'm arguing it should impress you too - from a rules design angle.

Only if we pointedly ignore that 5e was not developed from 3.5, alone, but incorporated other, significantly less-broken editions, as well. It's much less impressive in terms of less-brokeness as a compromise among the 5 or 6 or 8 (depending on how you count 'em) prior editions, than as an heir of 3.5 alone.

Compare to PF1, for instance, which was a direct upgrade of 3.5

 

[Bacon Bits]

I know that my experiences aren't necessarily the rule, but I don't quite know what to think of the whole "nobody plays high level characters" thing. Because my current gaming group has been playing D&D for almost a decade, and we've played some pretty high-level characters in that time.

We started in 2011 with a Viking-themed campaign based loosely on "The Northern Reaches," a gazetteer from the Mystara campaign setting. We used the 3rd Edition rules at first, but soon converted to the 3.5 Edition. That campaign ran for 5 years, and when it ended, the PCs were all 18th level.

After 3.5E, we ran a short-lived Pathfinder campaign. It didn't last a year because it was too cumbersome and rules-heavy for our group. We stopped that campaign when everyone was barely 5th level. Reasons for ending it vary depending on who you ask: our DM was frustrated with the amount of prep time and the length of battles, the players were frustrated with decision paralysis and the amount of math tracking.

We played a couple of one-shot games using the 4E rules, but it never really caught on with our group. When our new DM was ready to start the new campaign (we take turns being the DM), we decided to go with 5th Edition.

We have been running a 5E campaign for two and a half years now, using the 5th Edition rules. We are all 11th level at the moment, and our DM expects us to be about 16th or 17th level by the time we finish the campaign later this year.

Look at your campaigns, though. You had one campaign that ran to 18th level but took 5 years. You had a second that went to 5th. Then you had a series of one-shots. You had another campaign that's gotten to 11th level and it's taken over two years to do it. You've played for 10 years and not lost a DM or a significant number of players. Nobody has had family become a major responsibility, or taken a job hours away, or had players want to play other games entirely, etc. Do you know how rare it is to do the same thing with the same people every week for 1 year, let alone 10? And one of your campaigns fizzled, while the other was just a series of one-shots.

My group is set up the same way with rotating DMs and it's run for about 20 years. Nobody else we used to know who played is still playing weekly. We've lost and gained members, switched games, switched editions, etc. And most of us have had periods of months where we couldn't attend. The older we get the more we cancel and the shorter our sessions, too.

 

[ccs]

Do you know how rare it is to do the same thing with the same people every week for 1 year, let alone 10?

Not terribly uncommon. Millions of people the world over have been doing it for ages.
Going to work each day comes to mind.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Not terribly uncommon. Millions of people the world over have been doing it for ages.
Going to work each day comes to mind.

Playing D&D is your livelihood?

 

[GreyLord]

First, I'm biased (as probably many of the gamers here are). I am NOT a fan of 3.x overall. I am not a fan of Pathfinder either.

It should be no surprise then that I agree that 3.5 is FAR more broken than 5e. There are things I dislike about how 5e went about doing things (for example, several things related to how restrictive bounded accuracy is, I think they could have doubled the proficiency bonus just fine, they already do it on a per class bases [for example, expertise] so extending it and not giving the exceptions would probably work out.

That said, 5e is probably the least broken of many of the D&D systems. It IS very bland in some ways as well, but it is not very broken in my opinion.

3.X had classes out the wazoo, feats out the wazoo, and everything else taken to 11. It's various campaign worlds had spunk, and you could dive deep into many of them with multiple sourcebooks for many of them (I have a ton of 3.X Forgotten Realms campaign setting books, and I still don't have everything that WotC put out for FR, I think I have all, if not almost all, of the dragonlance campaign, setting, and adventures that came out for 3.5, though most of that was NOT by WotC...etc...etc..etc.).

It was broken in many ways all over the place. but I think it had spirit. It also was much more like a boardgame (well, 3.5 was) than 5e, and much more restrictive in appearance of the rules (even if it proclaimed rule 0), making it more player centric and less DM friendly.

I'd say that I prefer 5e any day over 3.X, but 3e did have some very interesting Campaign settings and adventures to read, and if you can convert them, interesting adventures to play, even with 5e.

 

[CleverNickName]

Look at your campaigns, though. You had one campaign that ran to 18th level but took 5 years. You had a second that went to 5th. Then you had a series of one-shots. You had another campaign that's gotten to 11th level and it's taken over two years to do it. You've played for 10 years and not lost a DM or a significant number of players. Nobody has had family become a major responsibility, or taken a job hours away, or had players want to play other games entirely, etc. Do you know how rare it is to do the same thing with the same people every week for 1 year, let alone 10? And one of your campaigns fizzled, while the other was just a series of one-shots.

My group is set up the same way with rotating DMs and it's run for about 20 years. Nobody else we used to know who played is still playing weekly. We've lost and gained members, switched games, switched editions, etc. And most of us have had periods of months where we couldn't attend. The older we get the more we cancel and the shorter our sessions, too.

Yeah, we've been pretty fortunate to be able to play together for as long as we have. I mean, we've seen most of the things you describe on your list, but we've managed to stick together through them and sometimes it's just not easy. We've had players take jobs in other cities, another moved out of state, and my wife left due to friction with other members of the group. We've had five babies, three weddings, two divorces, one funeral, and a round of chemotherapy. One of us runs a Call of Cthulhu game on the side with a different group, and I play in my wife's D&D group on the side. It's rare for us to play every week, we usually play every 3 weeks on average.

We've had a lot of changes over the last decade (and who hasn't?) but we always plan for the characters to go from 1st level all the way to 20th level. It hasn't happened yet, but we're always trying.

When we start a new campaign, we usually hit 5th or 6th level in the first six or seven months but then stuff slows down quickly. It could take us two years to hit 10th or 11th level, then another two years to reach 15th level. Reaching 20th level, even with our solid group of dedicated players who meet on a regular basis, could take 10 years or more. This was true with 3.5E, and seems to be true with 5E.

Maybe the statement "nobody is playing high level characters" has less to do with desire and motivation, and more to do with the amount of time it takes the average gaming group to advance their characters to high level.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Maybe the statement "nobody is playing high level characters" has less to do with desire and motivation, and more to do with the amount of time it takes the average gaming group to advance their characters to high level.

I think that's exactly what it is, because playing at high level isn't very fun when you don't build up to it. Either it feels like you didn't earn it, or it makes the characters feel too artificial, or whatever. That's why campaigns always start at level 1 or 3 or so. It gives the characters a chance to grow and develop from independent characters into a party. If you just start at high level, you still have the wonkiness that comes with beginning play together even when the players are familiar.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm arguing 5E is objectively less broken than 3E.

As brokenness in this case is completely subjective, it can't be less broken objectively. For something to be objectively broken, it has to be like the broken math in 4e that required the expertise feats to fix.

Its improvements and upgrades on the magic framework impresses me. I'm arguing it should impress you too - from a rules design angle.

I'm enjoying 5e. I enjoy it less than 3e, but that ship has sailed with my group so for better or worse, 5e it is. A game that is less enjoyable does not impress me more than one that is more enjoyable.

I'm certainly not defending 5E and I don't like every design decision myself. I do think it is the better more evolved game. (Rules design generally does improve each decade, anything else would be a tragedy, so that's not a surprise to me.)

You are certainly entitled to your opinion on 5e and its design, but there isn't an objective measure here. Whether design is more or less "evolved" depends on whether the game is more or less enjoyable to those who play it. If the next edition of a game is more enjoyable to a majority those who play it, it has evolved. It is is less enjoyable to a majority of those who play it, it has devolved.