Why 3rd Edition Players Think They're Superior
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- WHY do D&D 3rd and 3.5 edition players think they're better than everyone??
We take a dive into their beloved character creation method to see if it really is what it's cracked up to be...
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My main problem with 5E is that is vague in a lot of areas that I had to go back to 3.5 to get my answer.
It's not just super vague, it's also still too complex to be a proper rules-lite system. Basically it doesn't do rules-lite well enough to be an actually good introduction to TTRPGs, and it's not deep enough to hold the attention of veterans.
5E is very clear that in areas where the rules are vague, it's in the hands of the DM to decide what to do.....
@@trevorhanson6295 that's why it's so frustrating for new DMs because it puts a severe burden on the DM to essentially finish all the half baked elements of the game for WotC.
"Think" As a 5e player, I miss 3.5e every time we play. Don't get me wrong it's easier to play 5e and that's nice we all agree; that's why we switched.. But 3.5e is just loaded with options and content in a way 5e hasn't come close to approaching.
recently been playing pf2e and it's the best, feels like 3.5 in a lot of ways with CC but encourages team work mechanically and is pretty easy to play
The prestige classes alone outnumber the options of 5e
EVEN MORE FEATS.
In 3 every fighter felt and played different! In 5 every fighter is basically the same..
@thisjust10 I went through and tried counting everything recently. There were over sixty base classes, over two hundred prestige classes, I lost count of races in the mid three hundreds, and I don't even want to think about the number of feats.
I really miss the sheer amount of options and amazing concepts they had
Savage Species and Epic levels are only scratching the surface of all the subsystems 3.5 had. Any battlemaster fan in 5e would probably just look at Tome of Battle, and wonder why the battlemaster wasn’t 1/10th as cool as those classes.
I don't think I am superior. I think 3.5 is superior. There is a difference.
It is still not D&D.
@@anon-yw4wd it's more D&D than the garbage that came after.
@michaelcosta7235
It is a totally different syatem than D&D.
If rules matter then it is a different game.
That is all I am saying.
Monte Cook took most of the improvements with him from his time with MERP (unified action resolution, Saving Throw Categories, skill ranks).
3E is the biggest step since OD&D and we should eternally thank Monte for this (and the folks at MERP).
3E is not D&D.
@@anon-yw4wd funny how most OSR systems keep Cookian design improvements like ascending armor class and saving throw categories…
Think, you say?! We are superior! Bow before your ancient ones, 5e players.
I KNEW IT 🤣🤣
In the long-term groups I've DM'd for the last 8-9 years (maybe 30-35 players), we've started on 5e as that'd the one that people have heard of and seen on UA-cam, Twitch, and the like. It's a decent set of rules to get started on - it makes compromises for ease-of-play but falls short in some areas because of that - but I've then had maybe two-thirds of people want to move to something else after a year or two.
Half of them wanted something more crunchy with more tactical combat and a greater degree of character customisation. These people have moved to 3.5e or PF1 (and PF2 now but I don't run that at the moment) accepting the greater complexity of the system over 5e.
The other half, being more interested in role-play rather than rules, have shifted over to 2e (or an even lighter OSR clone) with its more abstract combat system and fewer codified options for characters (we don't use all the "splat books") which they enjoy for more narrative play and they don't mind the "rulings over rules" approach. They're all good systems - it just depends on what you want to play.
5e can certainly be tweaked in either direction from its middle ground, and we did, bringing in elements of 3.5e, or dropping aspects of 5e, but we eventually figured why not just play the other systems?
Yeppers! 3.5e still the best. 5e (6e likely too) is a pain to DM. Thus, I have only DM'd 3.5e and Shadowdark.
I believe skills ruined the Ranger by taking something that should be special about the class and made it universally available. Peak D&D my back.
*cough* 5e Ranger *cough cough*
lol, then you're DEFINITELY not gonna have a fun time with rangers in 5e, bud.
@@robinmohamedally7587 Yeah but just because 5E rangers suck even harder, doesn't mean that playing a 3E ranger is a good experience.
I think 4E has the most fun ranger out of any D&D version.
@@lightworker2956 Castles & Crusades has a really good Ranger.
They have been having problems with Ranger ever since they decided to make it it's own class vs a subclass of the warrior. It should have just stayed as a subclass.
But what about Pathfinder? Pf is often referenced as the spiritual successor to 3.5 (3.75, anyone?). Would you say that Pf further refines the 3.5 system, or does it take 3.5 in an less than optimal direction? Perhaps you are already planning your Pathfinder video - that will be great!
We definitely have that in the pipeline! This series is just for every edition of D&D for the 50th anniversary. Keep your eyes peeled 👀
pathfinder good
Pathfinder might be a better game than 3.5. But it replaces all the fun jank of 3.5 with bland balance. I'd play 3.5 over pathfinder any day of the week.
@@nicklarocco4178 Disagreed; Pathfinder cleaned up a lot of scuff and streamlined a few mechanics, but introduced a LOT of optional rules that provided jank of its own - like the Wordcasting system, for example, sadly abandoned - and provided consistent mechanics that naturally expanded on a lot of stuff 3.5 handwaved away. The Combat Maneuver Bonus/Defense mechanic is a lot better and more manageable than searching for all the modifiers of 3.5 when you just want to wrestle someone to the ground, and Pf1's Armor as DR system is better than 3.5's, and the guns, oh the GUNS! And the alchemists, and the class archetypes! 😅
@@BrazenBard this
Prestige classes made the D&D build problem even worse. If you wanted to multiclass into "wizard but better" then you needed to aim for those pre requisites as fast as possible. That's why everyone was mapping out their character to level 15 before they even roll up a character.
I think 5e had a better skeleton, 3.5e is more complicated than it needs to be. But 3/3.5e was so much more fleshed out. Much better lore, many more options, more interesting classes, feats, spells, magic items. So much better written books. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Settong 3.0 is still one of the books I use the most. Nothing in 5e even comes close.
That’s a fair take!
3.5e can be as complicated as the DM allows it. Just because it's official, doesn't mean you HAVE to use it.
I would disagree with the better bones. 5e is fundamentally flawed, meaning it's skeletal structure is missing some pieces.
I played all DnD editions except 4e. Although I have the best memories playing 1e and 2e, I like 3.5e most, because of its infinite possibilities to create PCs and NPCs, particularly for the world of Greyhawk, for which you can create PCs and NPCs for many organisations or regions with prestige classes, bringing great fluff to this world and making it more alive than any other edition could.
3/3.5 was the best version of D&D for players. It was however the end of in-world focused gameplay and instead character sheet focused gameplay. Far inferior in my opinion.
“I roll perception” is the worst phrase in modern D&D.
I agree.
3.5 is king IF the DM gets vice-like control over the madness.
3.5 also had "feat prerequisites" where, in order to take the feat you wanted, you had to take other (often crappy) feats you didn't want. So, it wasn't all good. I do miss prestige classes though.
Yeah - another influence from video game skill trees
I too wish Dodge wasn't tacked onto everything fun.
@@poisonerknight Yes, that is what I was mostly thinking of
One thing I've grown to despise that came from 3e and is still in newer systems, is difficulty class. Back in the day 99% of the time you just rolled against your own ability score (lower is better, which means bigger stat = better! intuitive!) or rolled against your own saving throw stat (e.g. higher is better, and the DM asks you to roll a save vs paralysis or breath weapons etc). The categories or unusual, but it also is WAY more streamlined when you look at the entire system. Trying to turn everything into a number-go-up game forced 3e to assign DC target numbers to hundreds of different things, most of which are arbitrary or were poorly playtested. Fixed Saving Throws that are tied to classes was a great idea that shouldn't have been thrown away just because some people dont like seeing some numbers get smaller on their character sheets. 3e could've kept its three saves, while also sticking with the class-specific saving throw growth rates.
Skill ranks were a great way to clean up the NWP's of 2e. but when this is part of a system that universalized all the check rolls, skills sort of just become attack rolls. And 20 years of turning towns into a combat by another name resulted in a terrible RP culture of players all rolling fistfuls of d20s at every NPC encounter until someone rolls high enough to get the information they needed. It was the ttrpg equivalent of exploring in a video game by running your character against every inch of a room's walls and smashing the A button until a secret was found. And with charisma essentially being turned into an attack stat this way (made worse by the "i roll to seduce every single NPC I ever meet" crowd), it just makes me want to run back to pre-3e systems all the more.
Feats turned d&d into a game less about what players do in the game, and more about what they do at character creation/level-up. It feels downright strange for the most important decisions a player could make be what they write on their sheet rather than what choices they make in the campaign.
Having said that... yeah 3e multiclassing was an epic improvement. And 3e was still the *best* step in the right direction. I think they shouldve just made it way less build-centric. only 5% of the feats were good anyway, and the rest were never used
Imma have to point out that criticizing DCs for being arbitrary or untested opens the door to a similar criticism of merely rolling under your ability score. Explicit DCs, even if arbitrary, at least provide numerical context for comparing tasks. And those DCs can be changed in response to statistical analysis to make them better conform to genre expectations, at both table and developer levels. Roll-under-ability can't really do that. Purely as a design principle, actual implementation that we got notwithstanding, having discrete DCs separate from your ability score is probably superior to previous editions. And I say that as someone who still plays BECMI.
The other thing I'd like to say is that making the game less "build-centric" is a harder problem than you might think. When you get down to it, build decisions in earlier editions were just as important and just as much a focal point as they were in 3.x. It's not like people didn't spend time optimizing their choices, either. Just think back on 2e's horde of class kits and racial packages and all their variants, as well as the various optional rules and "player's option" material.
It's just that almost all of those decisions _could_ only happen during character creation in 2e, while many of those decisions _could_ happen at any level in 3.x. Given the way that prerequisites in 3.x could lock you out of things, however, it was wise to make those decisions during character creation. And that, of course, leaves us right where we were back in 2e, deciding at first level what we'll get at 20th.
And if we're designing a game in which such choices matter, then some choices will be better for certain goals than others. We would want there to be a significant difference between making all the best possible choices for your goal and making all the worst possible choices for your goal, otherwise the difference is insignificant _and why bother?_ If the difference is insignificant, there's no reason to engage with the system choices as a player, and there's no reason to implement it as a designer. That some combinations of options will be awesome and others terribad just is what it means for decisions to be significant.
Where 3.x went wrong was pulling from Magic the Gathering the idea that it's at all a good thing for *_individual_* options to be either always good or always bad. It isn't, even in Magic. You want a small subset of options to be good most of the time, because that helps people learn the game and reduces cognitive load. The value of other options should be dependent upon character and campaign. If a feat is basically worthless in every situation except in some wacky build, then the player who figures that out gets to feel a sense of accomplishment, and playing that character is going to feel amazing. Options that are always useless don't allow for that or anything else. They're just a waste of ink.
@@PedanticTwit both DC's and rolling under your Strength score could both be argued to be arbitrary. But one method is deciding how difficult a task is based on numbers that aren't inherently connected to anything - i.e. 5 for easy tasks, 10 for average tasks, etc - vs something always being "hey if it's a dexterity challenge. Just roll your Dex or lower." And I can't think of anything more intuitive than that. How easy is any task? Depends on the person doing the task. How can we possibly determine how easy it is? The person's ability score. Done and done.
Saving throws tied to class, get better as they level up. Boom, done. 3e could've done that but they REALLY wanted to make more work for themselves by assigning hundreds of DCs to checks, saves, spells, etc (and I can't remember if 3e did this or if later editions did, but that DC formula of 8 + prof+ stat mod + etc was way more work than necessary. NOT intuitive.)
@@Knightfall8 Eh ... It's simple, yes, but it isn't fit for purpose, because the game world stops making sense.
Suppose we hear that an NPC did a thing. Was doing that thing an impressive feat, or is it something my kid sister can do? Well, since she'd just have to roll under some stat, it's absolutely something she can do, and we're unimpressed. The game world no longer has feats of legend.
Suppose the Fighter wants to bash in a door. Just roll under Strength! Cool, but that was a wooden door. The dungeon maker put a steel door in the next room. Just roll under Strength! Okay, but the dungeon keeper was really serious in the next room and made an adamantine door reinforced with drag- Just roll under Strength! Dungeons and obstacles can't progress in the expected, intuitive ways.
It's the same basic problem with 5e's advantage/disadvantage "system". By rule, you have advantage, disadvantage, or neither, and a single instance of either advantage or disadvantage cancels out all instances of the other. So there's no difference between attempting a task as normal and attempting it in a situation that imposes one source of advantage and 100 sources of disadvantage. Once you're taking the penalty for trying to win the archery tournament drunk, you might as well attempt it while also blindfolded, standing on one leg, hopping, and spinning with your bow and arrows covered in oil. And if you can find even one source of advantage-you can-then you're ignoring all of it.
@@PedanticTwit @PedanticTwit so your middle paragraph example tells me you may not understand the original conceit behind ability scores vs checks. Let's say a trained muscle man can bench press 400 lbs. If he's challenged with 50 lbs, 150 lbs, or 250 lbs, all of those are well within his abilities.
Likewise, a hero who can consistently make a 15ft jump can use his same ability to easily make a 5ft jump.
Likewise, a character with an 5 strength is going to have just as much trouble against all those doors... but still has a chance that maybe he ran juuust right, or some other stroke of good fortune.
The only time the DM has to make a call is whether the action even needs a roll. A DM was always free to apply a modifier based on difficulty; it was much easier ( and more intuitive) to test the PC's ability directly and not assign DCs to all of existence (which is what the d20 system essentially does).
The d20 system also does something, it invalidates ability scores altogether. With everything being dumbed down to bonuses vs target numbers, having ability scores that range for 3-18 is sort of meaningless. In 3e no one has a 15 strength, they have a +2 strength mod. In pre 3e systems, the ability scores had meaning. Now this could be fixed easily if 6e just did away with stats and made ability scores just bonuses, but as is the 3e system made more things intuitive by trying to cherry-pick what it wanted to throw out. The stuff it kept, like ability scores, only made sense in the old system.
The world still makes plenty of sense the old way. The players see a bar-reinforced door, the players can look at who is the strongest and has the best chance to force it open. It takes an active resistance of the idea to accuse that of being unintuitive or nonsensical. The alternative is having to decide how difficult each and every task in your universe is.
Modifiers can be applied no matter what system you use. In a majority of scenarios however, one will not be necessary. Both b/x and ad&d have simple straightforward rules on when and how to apply modifiers to ability score checks. A competent DM doesn't apply these modifiers too often, as really easy checks shouldn't require a roll. And immensely difficult checks should *not* be allowed a roll; the PCs should explore alternatives when something in their way is that difficult.
@@Knightfall8
I'm totally with you about odd-numbered ability scores in 3e, even though I understand the reason the designers went the way they did. Many people thought ability scores were _too_ important, making chargen too "swingy". A missed attack roll punishes me once, but my Strength roll affects every attack for the whole campaign. The 3e devs tried to mitigate that feeling by both reducing the numerical magnitude of 3s and 18s and building stat advancement right into character progression. Probably rightly, they expected that people would pitch a fit if ability scores diverged from the 3-18 scale, so all they could do was make an 18 give a smaller effective bonus than in 2e, B/X, or BECMI.
Your initial criticism, however, was about the fact that 3e assigned DCs to everything. As an alternative, you offered rolling against the PC's ability score. This would be mathematically equivalent to having the same DC for every task in 3e. Let's go ahead and _do_ that, just to be explicit.
In 2e, we roll 1d20 and succeed if we roll less-than-or-equal-to the relevant ability score. (With natural 20 always failing.) Thus a 10-Strength character has a 50% chance of success on any Strength-related task, while an 18-Strength character has a 90% chance. That's the difference between a +10 and a +18 vs. DC 21. Let's put aside what the 3e design team did with ability scaling and just say that you roll 1d20 and add your raw ability score, with natural 1 having no special significance. So you'd roll 1d20+10 with a 10 Strength and 1d20+18 with an 18. Now there's no "lower is better" component; it's _all_ "bigger is better". (It's the same process with converting descending AC and THAC0 to ascending AC and BAB, btw.)
It was to _this_ proposal, that rolling against ability score is _all_ there is, that I responded. The point of my criticism was not whether one character has a 5% chance of success, another a 75% chance, and still another a 95% chance. The party can _obviously_ realize that the 18-Strength character built for door-bashing has the best chance to bash in the reinforced door. They're all faced with the same task, and that PC's relevant stats are biggest.
My point was that *_in the mechanic as you portrayed it_* the nature of the task has no bearing on chance of success. So yes, the party realizes that strongest character has the best chance to bash in the DC 21 reinforced door, because it's the same chance he has at bashing in a DC21 rickety wooden door or a DC21 planar diamond door. Every intruder who could break through the rickety door at DC21 can break through the adamantine-reinforced one at DC21, so a reinforced door therefore affords _no more security_ than one that's falling off its hinges. There's no reason for the dungeon builder to bother with the adamantine one.
"But muh modifiers," you protest!
Ah, respond I, the presence of modifiers fundamentally changes what we're talking about. If the DM is introducing modifiers to the check based on the details of the situation, then that is _mathematically identical_ to having different DCs for different tasks. The main difference is that forcing the DM to assign modifiers _ad hoc_ is by definition arbitrary and untested, whereas standardizing those modifiers would be precisely the same thing as defining DCs. If a rickety door in 2e gets no modifier, that's DC 21. If a reinforced door imposes a -10 penalty, that's DC 31, respectively. This gives a _reason_ to use the costlier door: intruders of merely average strength can't break it down. The door keeps out everyone below a certain threshold, just as would a monster that can only be damaged by +1 weapons.
Earlier editions have to throw up their hands and say "use your judgement" about what rolls are so easy they shouldn't require a roll, but in 3e it's all answered by the numbers without need to wave our hands and gesture vaguely in the direction of "a competent DM". DCs were standardized, a natural 1 didn't auto-fail, and PCs could "take 10" in non-stressful situations, all of which meant that there were situations where you simply _could not fail_ at a task and others where you couldn't succeed. If we think that a 20th level master thief should be so skilled that he always succeeds at picking a basic lock, then there's something wrong with the math if it has him failing 30% of the time. If the math were actually working right, we'd skip the roll because he _actually_ can't fail, not because we don't think he should.
5e: Homogenous and easy to grasp, but lacking the fun of finding complex combos to drive your DM crazy.
3.5e: Be Sorcerer/Incantatrix, Locate City, Snowcasting, Flash Frost, Energy Admixture, Born of Three Thunders, Explosive Spell. 120 mile radius explosive cold electric sonic nova spell from a Locate, non-damaging base that can blow everyone in a city into walls or send the most unfortunate the entire 120 miles instantly if unobstructed and they fail their save.
Sure, there are some good multiclasses in 5e, and some great synergistic spell combos, but can you explode an entire capital city with a nondamage-dealing spell you cast from the comfort of your inn guest room? Not that I know of.
That’s wild 😂😂
Nah, 80s D&D is D&D at its peak. maybe not the most popular. 3e was good when it first came out, but it VERY quickly became power creep.
Some aspects of 3e were better, but id say as a whole it didnt make the game better, but worse.
That's why the style of play called *Epic6* became popular with 3e. Caps out the powers at levels that are interesting but not game breaking. It's not for everyone but its great for more "gritty" games.
It's a great system overall, but the power creep is fucking nuts, lol.
I play Pathfinder, which definitely has power creep, but it is *much* more manageable, lol.
@@DerAptrgangr 3e when it first came out was a pretty good system. But as you said, the powercreep became insane. It started with the "splat books", and it got worse in 3.5. Prestige classes when they came out were a great thing. As written in 3e. They were supposed to be tied to campaigns. But VERY quickly they just became making PCs more powerful, and never making monsters more powerful. I dont know if it STARTED this type of play, but it was less prevalent during the 20+ years before 3e.
I currently play pf2e. Its got power creep, but it also is balanced, so that challenges are still challenges. 3.5 games and 5e games almost REQUIRE homebrew and experienced DMs to run the games to keep things challenging for players.
To this day i still believe that 3e did more harm to the hobby than it did good. And I liked it a lot when it first came out.
Basic, AD&D and 0e have something to say about that.
The core concepts of 3rd editon are timeless and their versatility can been seen in that every single other genre / company at the time made d20 games (which is the core of 3rd edition). You pick a race, you pick a class, you pick feats, skills, backgrounds (added earlyish in 3e as I recall), and you eventually can choose prestige classes, all while collecting gear. You can play nearly any game with this setup including "skill based" games if you just do away with classes and add more skills. The ability to tinker with the d20 system nearly limitless.
I like classless games that focus on skill building
Backgrounds were added in the "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" (page 28) as Character Region, and gave one regional feat, one language, language choices and bonus equipment. "Race of Faerûn" and "Player's Guide to Faerûn" expanded it.
@@taliavaryn4393 Yes I remember now, i never played "forgotten realms" but a lot of their content was juicy and totally usable in any campaign.
I thought it odd when you said everyone gets a free feat at level 1. I understand how a 5e player would interpret it that way but as someone playing 3.0/.5/PF for over 20 years, the feat at first level seems the standard to me. I consider bonus feats free. None of that was a complaint, I thought people might like to hear how people that played that edition would think of it. I look forward to the Pathfinder continuation video.
Love 3.5e. I still run a PF1e game, but still utilize my 3e/3.5e supplements and adventures on occasion, since conversion takes little work.
Expanded Psionics Handbook and Draconomicon are still my favorite supplements and the Sunless Citadel adventure path series (for lack of a better term) was one of my favorites to run.
I'll give 3rd edition the respect of creating the d20 system and the original OGL. The d20 system had a significant impact on the hobby.
I was really excited when it first came out. However, in practice, it was difficult to include my casual gamer friends. Overall I found it far more difficult to maintain a consistent gaming group. We never (never) finished a 3.5 campaign.
In contrast I played in an AD&D campaign that lasted over 10 years. With 5e I DMed and completed three different year long campaigns and completed seven more short campaigns that lasted 3 to 6 months each.
Overall, 3.5 is unnecessarily fiddly, and not conducive to sustainable game play. I understand it's appeal to certain players but it doesn't have mass appeal. That doesn't help sustain a viable community or player base.
D20 was a huge shift for TTRPGs in general
Yeah. I'm receptive to arguments that AD&D was secretly the best D&D version. 3.5 is really fun in some ways, but 3.5 with just the player's handbook isn't that good, and if you allow splatbooks then one PC will be dramatically more powerful than the other, unless you navigate that really carefully. Plus 3.5 breaks down at higher levels and arguably even at the mid level.
3.5 was clearly the best. I look at 5e as some kind of introdictory system for kids.
On top of all of this, Greyhawk is the superior D&D setting.
1000% agreed. Hope current D&D doesn't touch and ruin it.
I was introduced to DnD about twenty/twenty-five years ago with 3.5. I miss it for the near infinite possibilities. I do not, however, miss the near infinite books I had to own just to have my character be their best self.
Hahaha this is so accurate
it sounds like a YOU problem. Your character can be their best self with the basic rules. The DM can allow or disallow any books, and your ingenuity and skill will help you better than any new feat that just came out.
@@robinmohamedally7587 No, it's definitely a 3.5 problem. If you just use the 3.5 player's handbook, then class balance is wildly off. Try playing a player's handbook only 3.5 ranger at high level and see how useless you feel in comparison to competently played spellcasters (even ones restricted to the player's handbook).
So I disagree that "your character can be their best self with the basic rules."
Now, is 3E great if you and buddies have tons of time and tons of splatbooks and you all agree what to allow and disallow, and no one tries to powergame and break the game? Sure, in that case 3E is great. But that only means that 3E is great for the most hardcore (and quite vocal) minority of players.
@@robinmohamedally7587 If I am remembering right, a druid could 1v1 anything else up until mid levels, then a wizard could just 1v all other classes at the same time if it had the initiative nearing the higher end of 20. In 3.5, the PHB was a list of feats that everyone had access to, but the spells felt like more feats that only spellcasters got. Classes didn't have too much built-in compared to later editions.
Prestige classes are where it's at, baybee! Gotta splash a little extra from those books in. As a treat.
3.x was actually one of my favorite editions. There was a lot going on, but it was still fun. The problems arose (IMO) with having to navigate through so much 3rd party material of varying levels of quality and clarity.
I think this was everyone’s issue with it!
@@NorseFoundry for sure
That part was always optional though, to be fair. People talk about the bloat in the system but it was only ever as bloated as the DM allowed it to be.
@@Ichthyodactyl Yeah but if you play 3.5 with just the player's handbook, then 3.5's primary selling point (all these options, all this customization) suddenly falls away. Not to mention that playing a 3.5 Ranger when your buddy is playing a 3.5 spellcaster isn't going to be a good time for you if you can't use splatbooks.
So 3.5 is only great if you and your buddies own and have read tons of splatbooks. And you have made a good decision on which ones to allow and which ones to exclude, and furthermore you all agree on that decision. But that's really not very player-friendly, and you need a good group that you click with to facilitate that.
It's quite easy for players to create PCs of wildly different power levels in 3.5. And yes, if everyone wants everyone to have a good time, then that can be navigated. But a power gamer in 5th edition really won't cause as many hurt feelings as a power gamer in 3rd edition.
@@lightworker2956 There's a pretty wide chasm between 'just the handbook' and 'tons of splatbooks'. At my tables, we had maybe 3 books outside of core (we had a couple others that were in rotation) that people could play from and it worked perfectly fine. You don't need to navigate the entire system to pick the 'right' books to allow. I think the biggest criticism of the system was that it was a trap for perfectionists because they couldn't just let 'good enough' be. It was actually really easy to find a good balance of options in the system with a little bit of restraint.
As for power levels, sure, but inconsistent power levels were a thing in all of the prior versions too. It used to just be a given part of the system that not everybody at the table could trade blows as effectively as eachother, that didn't really start to change until 4e. It wasn't like 3e was an outlier in that regard, it just became unmanageable from a rules perspective that, again, was entirely on the DM to restrict.
I started with pf2e, then tried dnd 5e next (hated it), then tried dnd 3.5e. Currently pf2e is easily my favourite but dnd 3.5e has been a very fun experience (if not a little bit tedius trying to make my character actually function) and it makes me dislike 5e even further seeing as there was such a good foundation to build off of but instead they tried to over simplify to their detriment (imo)
PF2e is essentially just a refinement of PF1e, which itself is essentially just a refinement of 3/3.5e, so that makes a lot of sense. Paizo chose to do what Wotc already committed to not doing and they've benefitted greatly from it.
Yeah WOTC needed it to be simplified to reach the greater audience… which worked in their favor!
We’ll be covering PF as well!
D&D is pretty great, but it's crazy how all the fans of different editions fight about which is the most open and customizable while still being stuck in a level based system.
Now, bring back Top Secret. 😅
Yeah. Imagine if today all roleplaying systems were released for the first time, and no system has the benefit of being the recognizable one (D&D).
I wonder which system would float to the top. I imagine it wouldn't be D&D, but I have no idea which one it would be.
@@lightworker2956 Eclipse Phase. /s
Skill-based vs class-based both have their strengths (and weaknesses). I think class-based appeals more if you're new to the system, or teaching it, and-or if you're trying to evoke a well-known archetype (at least known by designers & players).
Skills-based, or more granular class-based, appeals more to ppl who have more familiarity with the system, or TTRPGs in general. Also it's the best option for creating a character that is not a recognizable archetype. It's harder to teach though, because players are more likely to get analysis paralysis.
I like both flavors 😊 Came up on D&D, GURPS, and FUDGE (which begat FATE), so I've seen the pros & cons. Choice falls to what kind of experience you want the players (and GM) to have.
Savage Species!! It is my favorite 3E book as a DM. It helped me learn how to balance Dragons and Centaur PCs can playing alongside Halfling PCs.
I started playing DnD when 3e came out. Looking back I’m extremely grateful for the core elegant mechanics. It made everything so easy to conceptualize. I also loved all the great flavorful sourcebooks like vile darkness, exalted deeds, heroes of horror, etc. Otherwise I have no desire whatsoever to go back to it. 3e/3.5 pretty much became synonymous with power gamers over the years in my experience.
These days I’m down with the OSR. I got Shadowdark recently and that’s the game I’m going to be sticking too. I’m done with WOTC’s corporate DnD nonsense.
I just went back to 3.5 and I’m glad I did. It is the best edition.
For me personally it was the E6 3.5 variant that really hit the sweet spot. Of mild interest is that it had BAB max out at +6 on the best progression, which also happens to be the limit in bounded accuracy, not a coincidence I suspect :)
Yeah... No. I started from 3e and I ended up despising it. The scaling with level is outrageous and I could never play that again.
The fact that unfavourable skill had half the cap is also unusable.
The balance was the worst of every version I tried between classes and with prestige classes. The scaling between magic and martials was just nonesense. Some playstyles required a ton of feats, others none, just to be viable.
And it had so many dumb things... Like that to do a full attack you had to stand still???
And so many complex rules... That did nothing until you got the right feat... Come on...
Already i see some cap in your comment. You can take a 5 foot step before or after a full attack
@robinmohamedally7587 If you are using the word "cap" unironically, you are not old enough to have played 3rd edition. Nice troll. Now sit down, sir.
@@robinmohamedally7587 To argue in good faith: if someone presents multiple arguments, don't just dunk on their weakest one but address their stronger ones too.
So in this situation, Manweor makes a good point that magic users scaled way better than martials, and that martials were basically just unimpressive auto-attack spammers with little options or utility or mobility. And even if martials could just stand toe to toe with their enemy and spam full attacks, even that wasn't as powerful as what competently played spellcasters can do.
No Moldvay Basic/Expert is the best edition.
I learned to DM during 3/3.5, and I also got to play a bunch. I think my most powerful characters were my elf Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 5 and my Telepath Psion from the Expanded Psionics Handbook (level 29). I highly enjoyed the system even though it could get a little crazy at times.
3rd edition was great in a lot of ways but one of the key issues it introduced with the skill system was that DC's had to be adapted to your level. Same problem PF1e and PF2e have. The basic concept is that leveling up actually has no value, your numbers go up but all the other numbers for DC's monster AC's etc.. also all go up infinitely. By the time your 20th level an Easy DC is 35.
This is at the root of the horrific balance issues of the system.
1e and 2e skills didn't have this problem because it was a roll under system and 5e doesn't have it either thanks to way proficiency bonuses work, what is commonly called bound accuracy.
Rules Lawyer has an entire video that breaks down the many ways bounded accuracy ruins the game. I recommend you watch it.
@@robinmohamedally7587 I watched as requested and it was quite intriguing, but I also think its a bit of a stretch to claim it ruins the game and I don't think that was his message.
What he basically said is that bound accuracy was designed to do "this", but because of the ways it can be manipulated through optimization, it doesn't succeed.
A fair point, but then again, gamers are clever, if there is a way to break a mechanic.. and there always is... people will find it and break it.
To which my answer is always the same.. just because you can doesn't mean you should and if you do break it on purpose, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Was bound accuracy perfect? Certainly not, but its not broken out of the box, it can BE broken through manipulation. 3e, is/was broken right out of the box. Use it as its designed and the game is a complete ly broken. You can literally break the mechanic by randomly choosing race/class and feats using dice.
I think that is the difference between 3e and 5e. Sure, 5e CAN be broken, but 3e IS by default broken.
I have a shelf full of 3e/3.5 books, and I regularly tell people that some of those books are incredibly useful for every edition of D&D as well as most TTRPGs.
But I'd never go back to 3e or try to get a 3e game going. The game was dominated by over detailed niche subsystems and optional rules, stacking a lot of small bonuses with each action taken in combat, the caster martial divide being infinitely greater than what it is in 5e, and new splatbooks full of feats and prestige classes coming out each month leading to a nightmarish level of feature bloat.
It was a good game at the time, but it suffered from all the big problems 5e suffers from, makes most of those problems worse, and has its own list of problems that can't be ignored.
If you're looking to leave 5e and you think you might try out 3e, I have one suggestion for you. Try Cypher System instead.
AD&D and the pretty similar 2nd edition were peak.. 3rd was simply created to sell books and ended up extremely bloated. 4th was only D&D in name and was the biggest outlier created to attach more accessories to increase WotC profits.. it failed, and 5th was created to peddle nostalgia and turned back towards core old school concepts in an attempt to salvage the game as it was hemorrhaging the player base in favor of alternatives like Pathfinder. The only real Dungeons and Dragons was written by Gygax, Arneson.. It's not really the same game anymore. I vastly prefer AD&D 2nd myself, mostly due to my love for Dark Sun otherwise.. I'm playing an OSR game like Old School Essentials or Dungeon Crawl Classics. I was over WotC even before the Hasbro acquisition.. I bought a few 4th and 5th ed rulebooks to play ages ago (used because even then, I hated handing them money. I'm never going back. They can go kick rocks.
It was definitely the best system. Still is. It might be nice to start a 3.5e campaign, but restrict the books a little. And you need player buy-in
Enjoying this miniseries :) 3rd is where "players should have the power" really gained steam. WotC saw that players were the larger market, so they leaned hard into player-serving books & design, vs 2e's setting boxes and campaign guides.
I'd argue Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards was at its worst in 3.5e as well. 4e elegantly addressed that, as well as making DMs happier on multiple fronts (goodbye CR!).
Between the core content, the splatbooks, the supplementary magazines, the fanworks, and the complete works of Pathfinder 1 which might as well be 3.75e, there was actually no concept that couldn't be built to a satisfying degree. I didn't keep up with editions past that, so I actually got shellshocked when I played BG3 and there physically weren't enough Necromancy spells to make a "Pure" Necromancer. I was so used to there being enough spells in each school to fill literal physical tomes it kind of offended me to take Magic Missile and Fireball like a common mage.
I play Pathfinder... Because 3.5 was the best edition of D&D. 😂
While i love hearing about others playing DnD and and listening to podcasts etc... i just cant play it. After having played point buy (Have X points to buy everything that you character is and can do from a catalog of thousands of items) everything else feels so restrictive. Its just multiple dimensions more versatile. If i want to develop my character a specific way, i don't have to wait 3 more levels because that's when the next feat option comes along. And i dont have to pay any mind to feats OR attributes if what i want is actually more Skills right now.
The most important change for me though is that it ALLOWS for feats/traits/advantages/whatever to be variable strength. A big annoyance when designing powers such as feats is... they all need to be perfectly equally powerful. If I have to decide between a stat increase or a feat, then if one feat is more usefull than the other. One of the feats is never going to get picked because you feel it's not worth the limited "slot" for a feat. Meanwhile if everything has a point value, the developers of the game are allowed to make a very weak feat and price it at [5] points, while a stronger one costs [15]. And if i want to have to a very strong borderline game changing ability... i can make it [50] point. Im not forced to add 3 arbitrary "side benefits" to a feat just because "holding my breath longer" needs to be on the same power scale as "not loosing concentration while being injured while casting spells"
So.... as someone who has played every version of D&D since Second Edition, I can say through experience that this video only briefly, as a side comment, comments on some of the issues with 3/3.5. For starters, one of the reasons why they switched over from 3.0 to 3,5 in 2 years is that many of the mechanics were more problematic than they realized, and many people were making broken builds, which ruined gameplay for many players. 3.5 repaired this somewhat, but still had power balance issues (Bards were basically a dead class and if you had someone with psionics in the group, the rest of the party was redundant). This was also the reason why they took 2 years doing the open playtest for 5E, because they learned from both 3E and 4E (which also got a rework after two years) that it took two years of active playtesting to get the kinks out to make a solid core. This is just one example of an issue there are more. So basically, this video is a nice promo video for why the 3E fans enjoy that edition, but that is about it......
The problem is that people are more concerned with playing the game fast than having a good battle simulator. I don't think 5e players realize how much stuff broke because of the advantage system replacing nearly every modifier. All because they didn't want to take the time to do math on their turns.
You know how everyone complains about the 5e ranger sucking? That's partially because all of its good mechanics use advantage now. They don't stack with other bonuses that the ranger could get and some of them are made redundant because of it. Also, the animal companion used to have proper levels that, thanks to modifiers, made it become far more durable than what 5e allows.
The similar npc levels in general allowed monsters to be more challenging as well without the weird things that come with character levels. A wolf having barbarian abilities doesn't feel right in 5e.
Another thing that broke was player character size. Nobody likes small pcs being slower in 5e because it's just a straight nerf. But it used to have a tradeoff that made you harder to hit. This scaled depending on the size of your opponent. This was true of all sizes. You could even play a large character that could wield large weapons without penalties but the tradeoff was that you were easier to hit and couldn't move through smaller spaces. This was made possible to balance because of the size modifiers.
Nobody used to complain about light sensitivity either because it used a -1 modifier and was far more balanced than the disadvantage it uses in 5e which can result in essentially a -3 one turn and a -19 on the next, which makes no sense.
Several statuses like dazed, dazzled, shaken, panicked, and fatigued are just missing because they relied on modifiers. Also some were excluded for seemingly no reason like nauseated and staggered.
Advantage could have worked better if they allowed it to stack. For example if you had a point of disadvantage and two points of advantage from different abilities or buffs then together that would give you one advantage for your roll. This still comes with problems though because it means that a character who has sunlight sensitivity has to create their build around that if they want to hit consistently.
I don't blame WotC for getting rid of 25ft movement and sunlight sensitivity in the 2024 rules. They are toys that Wizards broke so why play with it any more?
Too many stacking bonuses and penalties was one of the most prominent complains about 3e. The game itself was designed around system mastery (something Monte apologized for a long time ago), which rewarded players who "did the math" as you said. If you did the math too well, you could end up with OP characters like Pum Pum or a sentient psionic sandwich immune to every type of damage that returned 75% of the attempted damage to them back to the attacker. and that was just without looking into the epic tier stuff.
I feel like there’s a gap in the market for AD&D5e
This is what I was referring to by broken character creation. Power gamers could make insane builds!
@@VictorJulioHurtado This is true but that's also a problem caused by nobody really communicating what they expect from the game. If you shut munchkins down right out of the gate it tends to be less of an issue. That kind of thing still happens in 5e but it has more to do with feat and trait stacking.
Having a homebrew limit for things like number of allowed resistances is a lot easier on a dm than fixing all the things that 5e broke. 5e has a culture around modding the game more extreme than any edition before it and there is a reason for that.
@@NorseFoundry 4e = 5e Advanced 😅
From a purely comparative perspective, having DM'd OSR and hybrid simple systems, assorted OGL based games, Beyond and 5e, as well as short runs of Burning Wheel, Genesys, and the Dark Eye, 5e is one of the most distinctly convenient systems to teach, run, and play. The primary strength of D&D when compared to many other systems is its intuitive mathematics and simple combat/action resolution. 5e vanilla made a huge effort to leverage that simplicity.
D&D's biggest weakness is it's inconsistency in maintaining it's intuitiveness and simplicity in it's magic system and expansions, awkwardly tacking on rule after rule for each new spell or power creep-balancing melee feat/skill.
This inconsistency driven by the core strength of the simple resolution system and demand for spells and expansions inevitably introducing complications of and system-weakening power creep has always been D&D's systemic problem. The inconsistency in it's "each spell a rule" departure from the base resolution mechanics also explains why creep is most aggressive in casting classes. No one argue for bringing magic in line with the base resolution mechanics of the d20 system, because to most players, power creep and cheating the fair resolution of simple d20 attack rolls is their unconscious goal in the game.
Don't take this as baking any version of D&D. I've DM'd or played all of them, D&D is awesome. I love it. I loved the expansive resources available in 3.5 and the ease of introducing players to 5e. But every version carries flaws along with it's benefits. None demand a single type of story or gameplay. They are all filled with pros and cons and our favorites are entirely subjective. Over the past few years, debates over which versions are better or worse are largely pressed by people who enjoy different modes of play talking past each other, often belittling each other's tastes and goals in playing ttrpg's, more than discussing any systems' merits. After all, a simplicity focused player who enjoyed AD&D and returned to 5e and plays entirely on paper might not see the expansive options in 3.5 as a benefit, while an OGL Pathfinder die hard with crates of painted minis would be bored senseless without a chance to debate tactics on the board around the table as they look for a visible edge running recon on a Vampire Lord's lair. After a while, debates between people looking for entirely different games just seem pointless and contrived.
Prestige classes were so much more fun than the 5e sub class system.... And it is less broken than 5e multi classing.
Nonsense. You obviously are not good enough at 3.5 if you believe that.
@@EricWalkerswildride nah, he's right.
Depends how deep you dove! There are power gamers that create insane 3.5 builds.
More than in any other edition before or since, non-casters are water-carriers for casters in 3/3.5.
That's exactly why the ones who love it love it, and the ones who hate it hate it.
Not true at all. My favorite build is a non caster in 3.5 and let me tell you, they can become beasts.
Do tell.
Then tell me what you do when a cleric casts Harm on that character and reduces them to 1d4 hit points with no saving throw.
@joanmoriarity8738 A casting of death ward or shroud of unleash would be sufficient to stop that. Or a ring of death ward is another option. Another equipment option is armor or shield enchanted with soulfire.
@@axel8406 But you're not a caster so you can't cast that spell or create those enchantments, so...
@joanmoriarity8738 oh your right. I forgot that 3.5 is a solo game. All joking aside, fighters can use scrolls with the use of magic device scroll. They also can find scrolls and equipment in the dungeon. This is all subjective and up to the DM and how the campaign is set up.
Also find it funny that ppl now hold up the OGL as populist or anti-corporate. D20 was intended to be "one system to rule them all", and helped D&D win mindshare back from White Wolf WoD which was regarded as more "mature" and selling like hotcakes then.
FLGS went from carrying multiple publishers & systems, to effectively carrying one system - "D20 Compatible" was the only way to get on shelves.
All without WotC having to risk their money or their brand, should the 3rd-party stuff lose money or catch ire. Pure corporate maneuvering.
I would type something about how goofy 3E is but I gotta check a massive chart to see if it provokes an attack of opportunity or not.
The main problem with 3.5 is that the game is won or lost at character creation. The number of completely crazy combos made DMing knowledgeable players almost impossible. Players could 1-shot almost anything if they combined the right feats and classes (prestige classes). Of course players loved this. They could spend hours honing their characters to unleash devastating combos while the DM had very little to challenge them with. IMO, PF2e is a superior “game” because it limits the crazy. It’s less fun for players to research and try to “win” by their feat selection and often not easy to walk through any scenarios. PF2e is just more challenging. But I think most players don’t want to play a “game.” They want to show off and strut through encounters. And if this is all you want to do, 5e does this with a lot less effort because almost every class out of the box can do this.
I started with 2nd Edition, and yes the skill list was just insanely long. Thank God it got streamlined later.
I hate the fact that barbarians (and also almost everyone else) get more skill points than wizards. "Wizard" literally means "too wise", but apparently not in 3rd or 5th Edition DND, because in this game wizards are some of the most ignorant fools in the game. Because DND is garbage
In practice this wasn't true, simply because wizards had more intelligence, which gave more skill points. Nobody made the 18 int barbarian.
I hope no one forced you to play. I enjoyed my adventure with 3.5 Ed.
“Why do you act so superior.” Asks the 5e player
“Because I am.” Says the 3.5 player. I seriously have gone back to 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e over continuing to play 5e because I think 3.5 is the better system for your characters progression and with a bit of homebrew it can be balanced out very nicely unlike 5e.
...languages, languages, languages, and languages... 3rd edition is only optimized by conversion of 1st and 2nd to 3rd, it isn't optimized by conversion of 3rd to 4th or even 5th, though. 1st edition conversion to 3rd is awesome, especially for the savage-species creatures of demonkind, the 1st edition D&D immortals set makes the immortal demons awesome.
I miss prestige class. A lot.
Its the level of customization that 5e needs.
I will go to my grave with DnD3.5 as the greatest medieval fantasy RPG ever made.
The most important thing to understand is that the DM can not be all-empowering of his players. The reputation as "broken" is overblown. It's not more broken than 5th edition, it's just that in 5th edition it's built into the core rules. In 3.5, it's a natural outgrowth of a very solid core rules.
I'll try to explain: 5th edition did not bring back prestige classes primarily because they have the potential to break the game. And they did in 3.5. However, they did in 3.5 not because the rules themselves were bad, but because the prestige classes were myriad. There were thousands of them, from dozens of publishers, and the balance of the class was not always great. Understand, I'm not a big fan of worrying much about balance in an RPG, however, it isn't that hard to create a class that just outstrips everything else if there's little to no quality control in place.
D&D 3rd and 3.5 were tight, well designed rules with a great deal of customizability... and customizability naturally leads to imbalances if the DM is too permissive.
That’s a deep opinion! Thanks for explaining.
AD&D 1e and 2e were far more concerned with medieval realism than any of the subsequent editions.
I hope this means you'll go over BECMI eventually.
It is a better one the Character size but running was a headache and people didn't want to run
3e was really known for epic level play? Huh? I mean, it had the epic level handbook.... Which as near as I can tell nobody liked it, nobody used it, and nobody talked about it.
There's a rarely seen and used aspect of 3.5 the ability to create YOUR OWN CREATURES AND FOR THEM TO BE FAIR!
You want a goblin spellcaster but don't want a full on wizard? Give it two levels in Adept. It's about a CR2. You want a orc barbarian that is going to be a tough fight for your third level party? Give it three levels in barbarian and then one in fighter. It's a CR5 but a less dangerous CR5 you know how many hit points it has, 8 from being an Orc, 6 from each level of barbarian, and 5 from the level of fighter, plus it's constitutional modifier times 5. Let's say that it's constitution score is 15, so it's a +2 , that gives it 41 hit points. A base attack bonus of 5 with a strength score of 16,( +3 ) it has +8 to hit and weapon +3 damage, dangerous yes but no special attacks, and it will die to anything that hits it. I have seen a party wrecked by a creature that was immune to non magical attacks. This is a fair way to make creatures.
Because... (lowkey) we are superior indeed xD
I KNEW IT 😂😂
Before I watch this, I'll comment: Lets be fair all editions have players and dm's that believe thier ed is "Peak".
In reality all this did was remove thaco and center on the d20, while it is great, it can also be a drawback. the sorcerer lol
Love the video well thought out and well researched. Personally 3.x ruined d&d for me tried it for 2 years quit. Eventually I got back to 2e and now enjoy 5e.
I won't hate on anyone's preferred edition I'm just saying I play a huge list of ttrpgs and rank 3.x about the same as shadowrun. Tries too hard in my opinion.
Of course it's superior... it had the coolest art!
I don’t miss 3/3.5 at all. As a player 5e is 10x as fun as so many class features are front ended. In 3e you had to obtain such a high level before you really felt you were getting any fun or thematic class features. It was a slog until levels 6 or 7.
Maybe you weren't building characters right. 3.5 rewards system mastery. At level 5 you should be well on your way.
sounds like you weren't playing 3.5 right at all.
@@robinmohamedally7587 nah the math was way different. Look at low level-wizards and sorcerers. Cantrips didn’t do hardly any damage so when you ran out of your spells you could do anything significant but use a crossbow. 5e cantrips scale like weapon damage. Prestige classes didn’t come until levels 5 through 10 but in 5e your subclass comes at 3rd level. Pathfinder 1e however,was fun with its archetypes.
There is no D&D past 2E. Once TSR died the possibility for new D&D died with it. 3.X is a new game with a new system with the Dungeons and Dragons name slapped on. Only games that are directly descended from OD&D are real D&D. 3.X is not. It has more in common with Role Master than any form of D&D.
Please. We KNOW we're better :)
Ah yes, the excellent 3.5 character creation system. So much fun... until the gm has to do it. 80 times per adventure. Because every monster is treated as a character for building. I don't miss that shit. 4e did monster so much better than 3.5. There's about 8,000 feats in 3.5, only about 20 of which are any good. You've gotta increase skills every level up, when monsters get a certain amount of HD they size up which changes all their stats. It's just so cumbersome. 4e is superior to 3.x, it has better character creation too.
Bah. Earlier D&D did it even better. Monster stat blocks could be written in 1 or 2 lines.
I miss the 4e Encounter [Monster] Builder so, so much 😢
Still think 2nd edition is the peak.
Feat trees are often too long with no real decent gains along the growth of the tree. The idea is the sweet stuff is only waiting out the long game. Boring.
Skills are good but they can be much less in number like in 5e. The switch to d20 (no THACO) was awesome.
The positive and negative modifier ad nauseam can make one dizzy for sure. Boring. I still like 3.5 but it is not the best system just like the others.
Indeed. It’s a pity that paizo did that shit called 2ed
Eh, I'm ok playing a homebrew version of 5e.
5e is dnd for dummies.
So basically pathfinder 1e is better?
3.5 IS the best.
I think 4e took 3e and made it even better. Even if you don’t agree you can’t deny that the designers put a lot of thought into improving the experience they wanted 3e to be. Unfortunately they forgot this when making 5e, which was designed by community poll, the worst way to make a coherent vision
Yeah, 4e was actually a perfectly sensible response to where 3e had got to by the end of its run and I wish that almost all of its innovations hadn't been totally ditched. I still prefer 5e to 3e purely because it plays so much easier, but 4e has always felt like the best designed version of D&D to me
4e is next!
That’s a good take, honestly!
@rabidfurify Ironically, they did keep some of 4e's awesome innovations - they just pretended they were "new in 5e". You also get weirdness like ppl coming up with "tricks to spice up 5e" that amount to reinventing 4e. I'll save my more spicy takes for the 4e video, but yeah, it's still my favorite D&D to run.
We know we are are 😋😜😋
4e was the most fun edition hands down.
Shh 😅 Save it for our video - there are dozens of us!
@@mandisaw "DO-ZENNNS!!"
I've played everything from Basic to 5th ed, except 4th ed. 3.0 and 3.5 are the best.
Common opinion!
One name: Monte Cook.
🤌🤌
I'm not going to act like I dont like 3rd, its what I started on after all. But that shit got so cumbersome, idk how anyone could stick with it in 2024. Like I am not saying go right to 5E, but there are soooo many options now, I don't get the appeal.
5e fucking sucks. For the love of GOd, people, play another game.
Race. It's race in 3.x (and all D&D prior to 2024), not species. It's an intentional evocation of Tolkien, using the sense of race as "a group of people who share the same language, history, characteristics, etc." As in:
- _"The British are an island race."_
- _"The Nordic races revere the Aesir."
- _"Americans are a race of immigrants. "_
3rd edition players have brain damage.
3.5 players... well not my dungeon... I can see why they like it. They are wrong and have bad taste. But I won't judge them.
3rd ed players just have damage. No judgement. But get a hockey helmet you just keep hurting yourself. Okay okay we can compromise... I will stop judging you if you upgrade to 3.5....
I am still playing the crunchy grognard swill known as Ad&d... with a massive collection of ad&d 2e books in use as reference.... guess what i have bad taste too and i like my bad taste extra crunchy... you don't want to see the pages of house rules we have the ammount of stuff we just ignore. But that is the joy of ad&d... they want you to tailor your players experince... it is not a ridged set of rules... they are just guidelines
It is peak DnD. The developers effectively said as much in that recent table top video they put out recently with all the old devs doing a round-table discussion. Their only mandate was "to make the best game possible". No other edition under wotc can say the same. 4e was a disaster attempt to be an MMO and 5e is just a modified 3e that is "easier" to understand at a glance, but an overall worse game. Currently being designed into an MMO again with their digital only and "profit maximizing" approach they have taken.
3.5e drifted into some bad directions during the last stretch of it's print run, and the 3.5e "update" was confusing and without clear goals, as stated by the developers themselves. But the majority of the 3e and 3.5e era was peak. The downward spiral started the last year or 2 of 3.5e and never stopped.
edit- I don't think pf1e did anything good for 3e and don't really consider it part of why 3e was peak. They went to "video game" with points that constantly go up and down meaning my character forgot how to perform a physical maneuver simple because he is out of "points". Tried it, ultimately hated 90% of the changes pf1e introduced. I kept the feat progression because feats are awesome and getting a couple more isn't game breaking. But pf1e just took from 3e, I don't think they added much value other than people playing that version of it for some extra years to come.
When 3e came out, people coming from older editions used to complain that it played like a video game. I still have the link of a forum from back in the day with people going at it because of this.
I’ve yet to play PF1!
Haha oh yes; it’s why I mentioned it in the video
I went back to try 4e after I started to thibk 5e was boring. And going back really helped. You realise inn4e there is some real glimmer of gold in it. I can understand why it failed with them trying to make all classes balanced but it's not as terrible as I remembered at the time.
Nowadays I mainly play pf2
I didn't like PF1 too. What they added on their core rules, I already had in additional books. For me, it was a downgrade. (I don't remember specifics)
Ah yes neckbeards thinking they're geniuses by claiming what they played as a child is better than what they played as an adult.
Them glasses be rosey.
Woah now; let’s keep away from name calling. Opinions are welcomed.
I played 2nd edition as a child, played 3.x as an adult. Like 3.x better. You're strawmanning pretty hard, there, bud. Probably because this hurts you right in the feeeelz? Also, not a neckbeard, and nobody claimed they were a genius, that's another strawman logical fallacy. You're probably not being logical because you are being emotional. That's sad. Here, let me give you some of your own medicine. I will strawman you. I know nothing about you. You might not have ever played 5e, but since you are in your feelings, i will be, too, just for the fun of it, the beautiful well-deserved reciprocation. You're just buttmad because you have a sunk cost fallacious relationship with 5e. You recognize that it's bad, but you've already put too much into it, and so you're lashing out.
That butt be hurt.
3rd edition was bloated mess.