Why doesn't 3.5 make SENSE?

[I'm A Banana]

The game is fun, like a lifetime of fun, and totally customizable if you don't like parts of it, and I have players who don't abuse any of this min-max stuff. I just feel offended -- kind of like you feel when, politically, someone does something totally alien to you, like voting to give [Group X] even more power or having a first-grader arrested for carrying nailclippers. It means everything about their worldview must be totally opposite from yours.

I dunno, can you get specific? Cuz then you can maybe get some specific advice. Generally railing against a mentality isn't going to get at your problems and help repair them. Narrow the focus. Look at specific problems.

I guess if you aren't looking to fix the problem, and just want to commiserate about some of 3e's insanities, I can't object. 3e has some really odd choices, most of which, for me, I just sort of shrug about, maybe change, and move on.

The fixes for Shapechange and the word about Shield of Law are solid advice. I know late 3.5e books introduced "change into this specific creature" type spells, which seemed to me to be a good idea, too. But if the players aren't abusing it, there's probably not a huge problem, right?

I mean, at the table, when you play the game, this isn't ruining your fun, is it?

 

[Umbran]

What I hate isn't the game, it's feeling like the people who made it think so differently from me.

Dude, with respect, most of the planet thinks differently than you about *something*.

It means everything about their worldview must be totally opposite from yours.

This isn't politics, or crime, or something. It is a game. The worldview of the designers isn't something for which personal offense or moral outrage seems appropriate or constructive, to me.

As many teachers have told me over the years - separate the art from the artist. What the artist thinks and feels may be somewhere in there, but really, what matters isn't what they put in, but in what you get out of the work.

To take as non-political approach to this as I can think of - whether Amy Winehouse is personally an alcoholic and drug abuser is really not my business. What matters to me is whether I like her music (I don't, particularly - she has skill, but wastes it, IMHO).

What's more, for the game, there isn't just one person you can point to and say, "There! That person is opposite of me!" The game was designed, built, tested, and revised by a team. At worst, what you see is an average, collective will of the group. For any particular thought or feeling you think "The Designers" have, the truth may be that only one or two of them think that way, or even none - what you see may well be an artifact of the process, rather than some specific design intent.

 

[Crothian]

What I hate isn't the game, it's feeling like the people who made it think so differently from me.

Explain this please. What do you think and what do they think (and show some basis for what you think they are thinking.)

 

[ShadowDenizen]

I'm not a troll, I'm in a deep love-hate relationship with the game. I delve down to the littlest minutiae of Beholder saving throws and hit dice, and then I find that the big over-arching concepts don't fit together with that at all. I've been playing for a year and a half and I intend to continue -- it's my first high-level adventure coming up. But I can't play the game when it wasn't designed as a game, that is, with spells that were supposed to be cast by DMs and not fictional wizards in books.

If you find that things aren't working for you, use your DM fiat to adjust things as you want them to be. So, change those spells to be more in line with each other if you feel the need. The rules are just guidelines, and the canon police won't be coming to judge you. (Or try even mix-and matching systems, or try Pathfinder.)

Personally, though, rules are secondary to me. I don't care if the Beholders AB or SR is off by 1, or whatever.

For me, Role-Playing is all about the story. Not everything (rules-wise)NEEDS to be 100% internally consistent for me to have fun. As a matter of fact, I have long since realized that, even with extensive playtesting, things WILL slip through the cracks.

And, when you get into high-level magic, you're talking about manipulating te forces of the Universe to do your bidding. Why SHOULD spells be in line with each other? That's why there's such a variety to choose from! FNnd a list of spells that suits your needs and tastes, and run with it!

 

[Remathilis]

Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast listened and created a game that has (attempted) to fix many of the perceived imbalances in "the math" underlying D&D and thus created a much better balanced alternative to clunky old 3.5.

Read about it here: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - New to DnD

 

[Turtlejay]

I like 3.5 a lot, even though I think I see what you are saying.

Yes, it can turn into an arms race, where DM's rush to pit their players against more and more deadly opponents and players abuse the more broken bits of the game, but it doesn't have to. My group, before we stopped playing, had two pretty hardcore gamers with a high degree of system mastery. Almost every week one of them would show off some monstrosity of a character they had dreamed up (this guy sneak attacks with a ballista from 60 feet away, lol) but in game they never tweaked to that degree.

You have to have some trust and some confidence that your game will be great despite any flaws you percieve in the rules. If any do crop up in game, address them. If not, bend your efforts to making their characters shine in a fantastic world. 3.5 is a ton of fun, and I wish you and your group luck.

Jay

 

[Remathilis]

Burp

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

(Or try even mix-and matching systems, or try Pathfinder.)

Mix and matching is good. Trailblazer is explicitly design fixes for some of 3.5's biggest perceived problems in a way that it still looks and plays like 3.5.

The Trailblazer guys are now taking a swipe at a 3.5 monster book as a patronage project.

 

[WayneLigon]

If it doesn't make sense, that's because it isn't a monolithic work by a single author, or even a small group.

That's about the best answer you're going to get. Even back when D&D was the product of a smaller number of people, little or no thought was given to long-range balance or planning - instead, multiple authors just added what they thought was cool or interesting, and let the math take care of itself. Or not.

3.0 was the first version of D&D where anyone at all ever looked at the underlying mathematics and probabilities, and even then I think it was only Monte Cook doing that. So really, 3.5 is the most consistent version of D&D there has ever been. Give that some thought.

 

[sellars]

Even back when D&D was the product of a smaller number of people, little or no thought was given to long-range balance or planning - instead, multiple authors just added what they thought was cool or interesting, and let the math take care of itself. Or not.

Exactly, and back then DnD was hugely popular (within certain cohorts ). Back then people also could do math, as they can now, only the perception and perhaps expectations were different than the mentality that you seem to outline. I find the cliche it's more art than science applicable.

In the end, the system is trying to model a complete world in such a way that it is still playable. A complete system (including it's quantum mechanics) would appear undesireable to me.

Sure there are issues in any version. But a good group and a good DM will be able to use these as (as had been said before) features instead as bugs.

I would say: Lighten up and enjoy the game