Why doesn't 3.5 make SENSE?

[Jasperak]

In an nutshell, I don't think that the 3e design team approached the game believing that balance was the holy grail of fun game play, YMMV.

 

[Dice4Hire]

There is some insanity in the rules of every edition, particularly the higher level you go.

Don't worry about it and don't let it break the fun you are having with the game. Banning or modifying stuff is normal for the game, unlike some online folks would have you believe (especially the optimizing crowd) SO, if it does not work, then change it, and Shapechange is always at the top of my list to change in 3.x

 

[Plane Sailing]

Considering that the 9th level spell 'Shapechange' appeared back in supplement 1, Greyhawk for OD&D, I'm not sure what your grounds for having an issue is here.

I'm wondering at the moment whether there is any reason for this thread to continue, because it starts with what can only be described as a rant. If you want to discuss the design of 3e then you can, but you'll have to do it rationally or the thread closes.

Thanks

 

[Snoweel]

So really, 3.5 is the most consistent version of D&D there has ever been.

Was the most consistent version...

 

[megamania]

Regardless of the game or game edition my two rules are such-

1) DM has final say

2) What is good for the goose is good for the gander.



If you as a player want to Min / Max for crazy stats I can do the same as a DM and target your Mins.

STR 36 CON 25 insanely destructive Fighter .... okay.... psion telepath pixie.


Get the idea?

 

[Snoweel]

2) What is good for the goose is good for the gander.



If you as a player want to Min / Max for crazy stats I can do the same as a DM and target your Mins.

STR 36 CON 25 insanely destructive Fighter .... okay.... psion telepath pixie.


Get the idea?

I'm not a fan of this 'arms race' mentality, though I understand it's useful to reign in runaway optimisers.

However it can lead to non-optimising players being left behind. A better (IMO) approach is for everybody to agree to a play-style 'contract'.

As for what's-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander, that's a mentality I'm clearly at odds with, and I feel 3.x is entirely responsible for it; the idea that if NPCs can do something the PCs can't do then the DM is cheating.

One of my favourite things about 4e is that they've actively set out to break this mentality with streamlined NPC mechanics, yet probably the thing I hate most about 4e is that they've actively encouraged (ie. supported) a related mindset - player entitlement - by listing magic items in the Players Handbook.

 

[Noumenon]

Are you familiar with the long histories of Dragon and Dungeon magazine, where hundreds of authors contributed content which was then further changed and adapted?

Hey, that is helpful. I remember using OpenOffice and having the same feeling of "why would they do that?" Maybe it's a crowdsource thing for the system to be kind of inconsistent.

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

I think this would be a good exercise. For one thing, when I say "I think it's silly to have all kinds of rules and modifiers for grapple checks, and then make them completely useless at high levels because the monsters' checks are so high" -- I can come up with things that make the designers sound OK. ie, "Pathfinder didn't think that was a problem," "inescapable death is the norm at high levels, see implosion",

 

[Votan]

Considering that the 9th level spell 'Shapechange' appeared back in supplement 1, Greyhawk for OD&D, I'm not sure what your grounds for having an issue is here.

It is true that are some spells which grew stronger in 3.0/3.5 -- I seem to remember the duration (and thus the utility) of timestop increasing between 1E and 3.5E (I will not swear to where the change happened).

Shapechange is an odd example. In particular, a key issue with Shapechange and Polymorph (identified by the WotC design team) was the odd way that the spells increased in power as the number of published monsters/animals increased. But this was true of the AD&D version as well.

Generally speaking, the goal of balancing 100's of spells and removing key ambiguity from the language is not a task I envy. In my view, D&D 3.5 made a very heroic effort at this . . . After a decade or more of playtesting in thousands of groups, it's normal for a few cracks to appear.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, some of the more problematic things in 3.X were in the basic rulebook, though it is true later additions to the rules had lots of unintended consequences, The War Troll comes immediately to mind.

It was really thousands of people playing and looking for these kinds of things that brought them all out. People who just played with their friends probably noticed few of the problems, but those of us who spend a lot of time on boards like this, or the Charop areas, see a lot more problems.

 

[BryonD]

In an nutshell, I don't think that the 3e design team approached the game believing that balance was the holy grail of fun game play, YMMV.

I think this is right.

See my sig.
In 3E, the medusa is more about modeling the concept, then getting as close to balanced as possible with that idea constraint.

There are certainly plenty of examples in 3E of elements that could have been balanced better. But if you look at it from the perspective that balance is the foundation of everything, then you are going for a different gaming experience.