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D&D 3E/3.5 Are You Still Playing D&D 3.0?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Bacon Bits
Hero
This isn't correct. The multiclass rules for favored classes did not change between 3e and 3.5. They're identical. 3.0 PHB p56 basically matches 3.5 PHB p60.
The only change was that by the time 3.5 came out there were dozens of prestige classes, all of which were basically direct upgrades of regular classes, and prestige classes were always considered favored. That was true in 3e and 3.5.
Enrico Poli1
Adventurer
Sometimes I or one of my friends want to play an old module. And to have the full experience, you have to play with the original rules (exception: BECMI and AD&D1e modules work best with 5e, IMO).
For example, you want to experience Age of Worms or Savage Tide? Go with 3.5. Want to feel the original Dark Sun vibe with Merchant House of Amketch or with Dragon's Crown? Go with 2e.
For example, you want to experience Age of Worms or Savage Tide? Go with 3.5. Want to feel the original Dark Sun vibe with Merchant House of Amketch or with Dragon's Crown? Go with 2e.
wingsandsword
Legend
I'll pretty much agree with all this.
I think they definitely rushed 3.5 out way early. 3.5 seemed like two things smushed together:
1. Bugfixes to fix problems that emerged when many people were playing it in a way that was very unlike how it was playtested or how 2e was played. . .a powergame mentality of absurdly optimized "builds" and ridiculous nitpicking of wording that I never saw before 3e, and I didn't see much at actual game tables but read a lot about online.
2. Various small incremental fixes and improvements in ways they thought the game could be improved.
Ultimately, the problem was that 3.5 was different enough you really needed to buy all the core books over again (I didn't buy them until 2005, I waited 2 years because I was grumpy on that point). There was enough similarity that you could re-use a decent amount of classes/feats/spells etc. often with only minimal if any changes, but there was still the learning curve of having to re-learn the whole game over again because of so many little technical changes.
. . .and coming around and announcing a completely incompatible and radically different 4e only 4 years after the released of 3.5e is why I walked away from anything to do with WotC for over a decade, when it seemed they couldn't go more than 3 or 4 years without completely rewriting the rules of D&D to sell more core books. While it didn't affect me personally, I'd expect that revoking the d20 STL and basically destroying the entire 3rd party D&D support ecosystem that had been built up over the preceding 7 years burned a lot of people too.
D&D 3.x is commercially "dead", in that it's been discontinued for over a decade, but it's still quite viable as a game. I hate it when people here try to talk about how D&D has "evolved past" 3.x or that 3.x was somehow unplayable. . .I certainly remember many years on this website where people certainly didn't say those things. I also like that there's so much raw material out there for 3.x in the OGL. Between 3e, 3.5e, Unearthed Arcana, and d20 Modern (and Urban Arcana and Menace Manual, both of which had a LOT of SRD material released), there's raw material there to make pretty much any game you'd want. I know there's little to no new 3.x 3rd party material being made either, but again, there's enough already released to last lifetimes, and if someone wanted to commercially release new material based on 3.x, then they certainly could.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Yeah, those "small incremental fixes and improvements" are what bothered me most about the 3.5 update. I think it was an element of project creep at best, though I think it probably has more to do with a developing sense of OCDness around D&D's development, probably tied to a particular person's (or set of people) views. If you look at a lot of those incremental changes, a lot involve regularizing durations, areas of effect, named bonuses, etc. It's like a push to improve the "aesthetics" of the rules, their tidiness, possibly with an eye toward more automation/computerization friendliness.
I agree that people who like 3.0 (or 3.5/PF1) have plenty of material to play with. However, as far as D&D as a product line/brand goes, it really has diverged in its evolution - a bit more toward some of its earlier iterations. And I hope it stays that way. I think people learned a lot from the 3e branch, I even think they learned a lot from the 4e branch (particularly about how NOT to replicate that particular experience), and have developed a better and more fun gaming experience for D&D, the 400 lb gorilla in the industry and the primary gateway tabletop RPG.
Orius
Legend
I think there were three pushes behind 3.5, though they may not be equal and I'm not sure what was more important.
First, after the initial sales of the 3.0 core books, book sales tapered off. So some "genius" likely thought the best course of action would be to sell new core books all over again, thinking that would recapture the enthusiasm of the 3.0 release. Unfortunately, 3e as a whole ended up falling into the splat trap as a way of making money, and from what I've been reading of the whole business side of things, that's not where the real money is in D&D. D&D's real money comes from licensing fees and the like. But back in the 3e days, WotC and Hasbro didn't have full control over licenses, partially from TSR selling the rights all over the place as the fell into bankruptcy. 5e's able to avoid the splat trap because Hasbro has stronger control over the IP and its licensing.
Second, there was probably a reaction against the d20 glut from 3pp. There was a lot of trash released under the d20 name, but not all was bad. Some of it may have been cutting into WotC's sales, and some of WotC's 3.0 splats were considered subpar even before 3.5. I wouldn't be surprised if there were corporate lawyers or some such at Hasbro who hated the idea too. But I think the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back here was the infamous Book of Erotic Fantasy. That may have been technically 3rd party, but a number of people who worked on it had been WotC employees, and WotC and Hasbro were probably paranoid about controversy over it. So the whole community standards clause or whatever it was in the updated OGL/SRD/whatever may have necessitated a reissue of core books or some other nonsense.
There was the new miniatures line for D&D. The Chainmail game didn't work out so they went with a new minis game that was more compatible with D&D. And someone perhaps felt the combat rules needed some tweaks to pull it off.
Employee turnover at WotC probably didn't help either. Many of the people who worked on 3.0 moved on, and a number of the people who worked on 3.5 were different. So this might have contributed to project creep.
Looking at some of the material I'm getting a feel for how I want to approach things overall. I'm going to go with 3.5's skills over 3.0. That is more or less an improvement, and there's not a lot of serious change there that bothers me. Some of the class and race changes I'll go with, but other stuff will be dropped. No gnome bards or pokemounts. Ranger will largely be updated, but keep 3.0's d10 HD. Things like that.
I'm divided on weapon sizes and damage reduction. The 3.5 changes here do make some sense, but add complications and breaks with AD&D tradition.
I'm going to ignore things like Sudden and Immediate Actions which WotC seemed to think were terribly important to add to the game but which just look like an unnecessary complication. A lot of the new races and base classes I'll pass on as well. Charopers seem to like those, but I don't see them as filling an important niche in the game. And the base classes make class imbalances worse rather than fixing them, IMO.
Most of the rest of the material tends to be feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items and monsters. I want to keep prestige classes somewhat rare, and they're supposed to be under the control of the DM in the first place. I see the published ones as helpful shortcuts for the DM. Charopers seem to think unlimited access to prestige classes should be a thing, but they're not reading the rules (a traditional sign of munchkinism!). Also, while the earlier prestige classes tended to be a little more archetypical, the later ones tend to have too much flavor baked into them. I'd like to tighten up the prestige classes by going with 5 level rather than 10 level ones, and tweak them to avoid dipping problems. Taking a prestige class should represent some level of commitment on the PC's part, so I want to avoid 1 or 2 level dips, and also restrict things to 1 prestige class per PC. On a more positive note for the player, I'd like to get rid of the really stupid feat and skill taxes as well.
Feats, spells, magic items, monsters and the like can be handled case by case. I can always test things with opponents before letting PCs have unrestricted access anyway.
First, after the initial sales of the 3.0 core books, book sales tapered off. So some "genius" likely thought the best course of action would be to sell new core books all over again, thinking that would recapture the enthusiasm of the 3.0 release. Unfortunately, 3e as a whole ended up falling into the splat trap as a way of making money, and from what I've been reading of the whole business side of things, that's not where the real money is in D&D. D&D's real money comes from licensing fees and the like. But back in the 3e days, WotC and Hasbro didn't have full control over licenses, partially from TSR selling the rights all over the place as the fell into bankruptcy. 5e's able to avoid the splat trap because Hasbro has stronger control over the IP and its licensing.
Second, there was probably a reaction against the d20 glut from 3pp. There was a lot of trash released under the d20 name, but not all was bad. Some of it may have been cutting into WotC's sales, and some of WotC's 3.0 splats were considered subpar even before 3.5. I wouldn't be surprised if there were corporate lawyers or some such at Hasbro who hated the idea too. But I think the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back here was the infamous Book of Erotic Fantasy. That may have been technically 3rd party, but a number of people who worked on it had been WotC employees, and WotC and Hasbro were probably paranoid about controversy over it. So the whole community standards clause or whatever it was in the updated OGL/SRD/whatever may have necessitated a reissue of core books or some other nonsense.
There was the new miniatures line for D&D. The Chainmail game didn't work out so they went with a new minis game that was more compatible with D&D. And someone perhaps felt the combat rules needed some tweaks to pull it off.
Employee turnover at WotC probably didn't help either. Many of the people who worked on 3.0 moved on, and a number of the people who worked on 3.5 were different. So this might have contributed to project creep.
Looking at some of the material I'm getting a feel for how I want to approach things overall. I'm going to go with 3.5's skills over 3.0. That is more or less an improvement, and there's not a lot of serious change there that bothers me. Some of the class and race changes I'll go with, but other stuff will be dropped. No gnome bards or pokemounts. Ranger will largely be updated, but keep 3.0's d10 HD. Things like that.
I'm divided on weapon sizes and damage reduction. The 3.5 changes here do make some sense, but add complications and breaks with AD&D tradition.
I'm going to ignore things like Sudden and Immediate Actions which WotC seemed to think were terribly important to add to the game but which just look like an unnecessary complication. A lot of the new races and base classes I'll pass on as well. Charopers seem to like those, but I don't see them as filling an important niche in the game. And the base classes make class imbalances worse rather than fixing them, IMO.
Most of the rest of the material tends to be feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items and monsters. I want to keep prestige classes somewhat rare, and they're supposed to be under the control of the DM in the first place. I see the published ones as helpful shortcuts for the DM. Charopers seem to think unlimited access to prestige classes should be a thing, but they're not reading the rules (a traditional sign of munchkinism!). Also, while the earlier prestige classes tended to be a little more archetypical, the later ones tend to have too much flavor baked into them. I'd like to tighten up the prestige classes by going with 5 level rather than 10 level ones, and tweak them to avoid dipping problems. Taking a prestige class should represent some level of commitment on the PC's part, so I want to avoid 1 or 2 level dips, and also restrict things to 1 prestige class per PC. On a more positive note for the player, I'd like to get rid of the really stupid feat and skill taxes as well.
Feats, spells, magic items, monsters and the like can be handled case by case. I can always test things with opponents before letting PCs have unrestricted access anyway.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
No. But probably if I go 3rd edition again I might go back to 3.0...
In hindsight, 3.0 was a lot better than 3.5 in some regards and after playing 3.x for 7 years and even later I understand some design decisions and assumptions of 3.0 better.
Bonus points for 3.0 over 3.5.
In hindsight, 3.5 patched things away that were good and added things that seemed good (more power to players), but increased the imbalance between fighters and spellcasters even further.
Pathfinder doubled down on 3.5 design decisions, probably making it a better 3.5, but even more went away from my 3.0 that I started DMing with and loved.
So after all: 3.0 with maybe a splash of 3.5 would be my preferred system (after 5e).
In hindsight, 3.0 was a lot better than 3.5 in some regards and after playing 3.x for 7 years and even later I understand some design decisions and assumptions of 3.0 better.
Bonus points for 3.0 over 3.5.
- Concealment and cover was much more DM friendly
- Spells were a lot less coded
- classes were a bit more frontloaded, so multiclass dipping was easier
- the weight of multiclassing didn't rest on thousends of prestige classes and feats
- Enemy AC was more reasonable, as in everone could more easily hit monsters at medium level, so a fighters first attack connected most of the time and the second attack was on par with the other classes
- There was less of an assumption of magic items, certain materials to overcome resistances were useful (instead of being easily overcome with magic).
In hindsight, 3.5 patched things away that were good and added things that seemed good (more power to players), but increased the imbalance between fighters and spellcasters even further.
Pathfinder doubled down on 3.5 design decisions, probably making it a better 3.5, but even more went away from my 3.0 that I started DMing with and loved.
So after all: 3.0 with maybe a splash of 3.5 would be my preferred system (after 5e).
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Do you know where can I find the 3.0 SRD?
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
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