Good break down boss! Cut my ttrpg teeth on 3.5, so it warms my heart that there are people out there that still make quick and dirties for those that want to learn to play a system! Keep up the good work 😀
this is a nice break down of differing things to look at between the two generations, i wish i had this a few months back when i first started 3.5, it would have made the transition so much easier and i hope that others who start their swap can find this video
I'm introducing some 5e players to my 3.5 home setting. The other session, one was really surprised at how, in one session, he got more magic items than a 5e character could even use The scope and feel of 3.5 is... Different, in a way that is hard to articulate, but this is the main appeal of it over 5e for me. If I could say it roughly, it's all these various parts you have access to - How magic items are much more common and more available than in any other edition, how you have a seemingly endless amount of customization options, and how the game details a huge amount of niche things (Ie, the rules for falling damage account for terminal velocity.) The game is complex and unbalanced, but through that comes a potential for stories and player expression that is incredibly rich and scales in interesting ways. Over time, all these really specific and complex aspect gradually coalesce into something unique to you, and compound onto each other into something dynamic. While 5e attempts to balance classes, 3.5 allows you to get very strong... But it's interesting in that you are very seldom strong the same way twice. It's like a game where you can progress from a guy that can die to a particularly aggressive dog, to a Dark Souls boss who can challenge cosmic powers and win. To an extent, every edition has that, but I've never felt it more emphasized than here, nor more varied in it's scope.
Hell yeah. That's why I love 3.5. I'd love to be a 5e newbie experiencing 3.5 for the first time. That's my biggest reason I give players for playing 3.5. I always tell them, if you make 10 wizards in 5e, at least two of them will be nearly identical. In 3.5 you could make 1000 wizards and you'll probably have every last one of them unique.
Thank you for the great video! I'm a 5e DM and player who has been trying to get into 3.5e, and being able to see a comparison between the two is helpful. Very nice👍
I'm glad to know I'm not alone in seeing the vast superiority of 3.5. It allows for the crafting of character mechanics that fit your chosen roleplay for that character, no matter how insane or niche the concept, whereas 5e shapes roleplay through it's mechanics and thereby severely restricting everything by excluding anything that does not fit within the framework set forth. They're attempting to streamline the game and make it more approachable, but they've also unwittingly created what amounts to a pen and paper video game on the easiest conceivable setting while also limiting roleplay options to a claustrophobic degree.
There are also Racial substitution classes that are like prestige classes but you take them at level 1 and usually level 3 and 5 for 3 levels total, and certain specific class abilities are replaced ,like Elven Paladins having a Ranged Holy Strike as opposed to the regular melee based version is one example , Racial Paragon prestige classes are similar ( basically Making the most elfy elf of all elves with more innate magical abilities akin to the classic Basic D&D Elf class) Also to note ,many base class abilities continue to advanced as one takes levels in a prestige class depending on the specific one , like many wizard prestige classes continue normal spell advancement as per a normal wizard , while another might limit spell advancement replacing this loss with more powerful or class abilities Also 3.5 Psionics are pretty rad..
Try this. Instead of just getting to pick a skill and have it auto-level, you get a pool of points to choose how to spend, at every level. Some cost more, because they are not normally associated with your class. It is a 5E "no" vs a 3E "yes, but" situation. However, if you want simplicity, 3E has the option for that too, and just pick the appropriate number of skills and autopick those with each level, essentially.
Actually started in 3.X and it ranks down next to 2nd edition (with Lorraine Williams notorious "No Playtesting" policy...) in desert Island editions...mostly due to it not being the easiest edition to learn solo and thus we kinda had a lackluster experience when I tried introducing it to my friends as the only one who had any experience was more interested in exploiting the newbie DM like a munchkin... There's also my love of martial classes and this being an edition known for having a decently built cleric being a better fighter than a fantastically-built fighter (it's not just 3.X, same problem appears in Numenera...Monte Cook has a thing about the guy with a sword or gun just starting to get good at about the same time the magic user is throwing mountains with a thought...), but mostly it is the poor starting experience. That said, I have wanted to give 3.X/Pathfinder 1e another shot. So, despite not quite being the target audience of people who have only played 5e (a system I nonetheless understand), this video is helpful for me to try and wrap my head around 3.X. Liked and subscribed!
As a novice( due to lack of alot of experience playing.) I've studied the 3.5 system of books for years- (donated to me by the group that taught me- then never played again) as thinking it was what d and d was. I didn't get the editions, and was told when learning not to bother with other versions, as they were not so great. But I gotta say- I can't see much reason to bother - except it seems everyone else who's even heard of it who I know, only knows 5e. I can't bring myself to want to learn it :/ other than I need to find real humans to play with- that's been my only tempt. But I just love the raw gritty reality of 3.5, - I've spent years learning it's systems more thoroughly( bit by bit). And 5e just seems like a step down to want to bother
I agree with you, and can sympathize with your frustrations of trying to find a group and everyone playing 5E. I have the same issues when I try and play games in person. When it comes to online games, it's been fairly easy for me to find 3.5 games, but that has a lot to do with me running this channel. If you want to play online then I do have a section in my discord server to try and find groups. There are also a few other 3.5 discord servers that can probably help you find online groups too. In person groups for 3.5 can be difficult though, especially if you live in a smaller town. Best of luck to you.
@@MitchBurns Thank you! I actually may. I'm getting to that point of thinking online for 3.5 is the best place to go. Thanks for the pointer on where to check!
You can indeed. Mostly just with strong races, but yes. It's a way that lets you play as a race that is much stronger than normal, but still start play at level 1. You play a weaker version of the race, and then level it up.
As someone who has helped multiple 5e players try out 3.5, one of the biggest hurdles is often explaining skill points and skill ranks, imo spending double points on crossclass skills, max skill ranks are very confusing to new people imo.
From what I understand pf1e was a simplified version on 3.5, and I’m not that good at 1e but I know some. Flat footed ac was one of the wackiest things from PF1e, and it came out of nowhere and proceeded to barf on the couch when the gunslinger counted all attacks as flat footed and as a barbarian my ac was BETTER flat footed because of rage penalties. That armor penalty rule maybe should’ve been implemented in 5e to prevent wizards from dominating the tank role… The full round actions stopping standard actions and swift actions always bugged me after dnd where you get actions and bonus action with no opportunity cost (pathfinder didn’t tie swift and immediate actions together instead giving a normal reaction but that also sounds annoying). The overlong spell casting sounds interesting though. I run with negative hp in 5e, but man it’s brutal to outright die at -10, I stick with negative hp is outright death.
You have some things more or less correct. Flat footed AC is lower than normal AC in 3.5, but touch AC is usually what is the lowest, depending on what kind of character you are playing. Flat footed touch AC is also a thing, and something difficult to improve. So full round actions don't include swift or immediate actions, so you can do them even when you take a full round action. Immediate actions do take the swift action of your next turn however. There are also things like attacks of opportunity that are kind of a free reaction you get once, or possibly more than once per turn if you have the feat. It's pretty complicated. Also, I wouldn't exactly call pathfinder 1E simplified 3.5, but that isn't too far off. I look at it more of a fan made 3.5 expansion that a number of developers of 3.5 helped out with. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I personally love 3.5, and am on a mission to grow the game as much as I can.
If WotC was smart, they would make 6e in such a way that rules compatible with 5e are the new Basic and have rules that are generally compatible with 3.5 (and Pathfinder) branded as Expert. They could put all the whimsical art in the Basic content to be appeal to a broader market and let the art in the Expert material be more gritty for a more mature audience.
I had this exact same thought! A cross compatible system would be awesome and they could even sell the basic and advanced versions of the handbooks and modules separately if they want to be greedy. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they want to go in that direction.
Also a fun rule for skill ranks Usually you can only have the amount of ranks in a skill is your level plus 3 for class skills How I do it to add more challenge is as follows If I want to be a good magic user, I’m going to need the skill concentration If my intelligence is +5 I can only have 5 ranks in the skills that require intelligence
@@MitchBurns hmm good point I didn’t think of that I was going to implement this in my next campaign I’ll keep this in mind if it starts to go that way
So what do you do for characters that don't have a positive, or even 0, Int modifier? Do they not get skills? Can they only raise them to 1? What about PrC requirements, almost every single PrC has skill requirements, do you still have those?
I always played 3.5 with my kids and friends, and I would know what is exactly broken. How a lvl 2 can kill a god like you said. With the 3 basic books.
Exactly, but if your DM follows some basic commonsense rules on what to allow then things are pretty fun. Even allow Punpuns can be fun if all the players are doing it, and the DM planned for it. A game where all the players have the powers of gods and just do whatever they want with no checks can be fun. It can also work with the DM saying ok, but now you face the wrath of the ultimate deity of the game, me! So the DM actually trying as hard as he can to kill the party with whatever crazy stuff he can think of. Most games won't want Punpuns in them, but they can be fun in the right game like I said.
That's the first I've heard of this Pun Pun concept. It's somewhat mind blowing, but it is a good example of what happens if you let players bring any new rule to a 3.5 game. I do think 3.5 is one of the best editions of D&D, but there was a lot of rubbish produced using the open game licence which was neither balanced or play tested. Publishers didn't seem to care as long as it sold books, and players looking for more and more powerful characters lapped them up. My advice to anyone running 3.5 would be to stick with the core rules to start. Then, once you are familiar with those introduce new rules one at a time (or at least one book at a time). Give them a trial period to decide if they work or not and warn players that you are testing the rule and it may be subject to change. There is so much variety and customisation within core rules that you don't ever need to add anything more. If you have a player deliberately looking to break the game they will do so whatever edition you are playing, if you are not careful.
Your 5E knowledge will help you learn 3.5 faster. There will be a lot to learn still, but I actually think starting with 5E, and then learning 3.5 later is a good idea.
Just need to comment about a point just 1 minute in, i haven't played 3.5 but i did play Pathfinder and in my experince it's way easier to die in 5e than it is in Pathfinder, i'm not sure how simular 3.5 and Pathfinder is about death but they are near identical in all other ways
been playing 5e for years. and every year that goes by i grow to hate 5e more and more because its just to lacking. 5e without homebrew is like a puddle. it lacks depth. and Wizards with every new release is constantly uplifting the players, giving them constantly stronger options while dms running things RAW are unable to keep a proper challenge up because DMs have gained very little since the edition first launched. ive been looking at 3.5 for a while. mostly with plans to send 3.5 and other older edition monsters into 5e because 5e monster design philosophy is extremely simple. but ive come to think, it might just be better to get into 3.5 proper. and i looked online, saw a list of just the base classes and just how many there was and instantly decided i needed to learn 3.5.
That's awesome! The whole point of my channel is to try and help people learn all about 3.5. There is so much you can do in 3.5. The whole CR thing isn't great in 3.5 either, but you can always just make your own enemies to fight the players. There are just an insane number of tools out there to play with in 3.5.
@@MitchBurns oh i plan to homebrew lots of enemies. since i use a homebrew world i have a lot of homebrew monsters plus I like making faction based enemies. like my elves all have their own fighting style instead of just a reskinned "I bonk you one or two times" which.. now that i think about it is like 99% of 5e enemies. but from what ive seen of 3.5 enemies they actually have different things they can do. rather then just attack once or twice every turn with no room for strategy because it just does nothing.
Punpun is a character that people have made that is stupidly OP and breaks the game with how insanely strong he is at very low levels. He breaks the game because if a player were to play this build they would have unlimited power at level 1 and would be stronger than even the gods. It's why DMs have to put at least some limits on what players can do.
It isnt a build that can be taken, its a build that is technically possible but cant really be played. Pun-Pun is a TO Build. Theoretical Optimization is basically trying to use legalese to defeat or become god and has no place at an actual table. Actual builds youd play are called Practical Optimization and has sanity checks like 'no infinite loops increasing all your ability scores into the billions in a single round'
Not in the slightest. 5e is extremely forgiving compared to 3.5e. There are no Death Saves in 3.5, depending on the amount of damage taken. Also, critical hits are potentially much more damaging, and with the potential for much easier range (some weapons get 18-20 on a d20 roll count as a crit) so it’s much more possible that a player gets taken out by a stray critical hit in 3.5. In 3.5, all of the relevant hard bonuses to damage multiply as well as the damage dice. If a character has a high STR, makes a Power Attack, and crits? Dead.
As @jandrem said, not at all. 5E is way more forgiving. If you drop below 0hp and you don't have friends to save you in 3.5 you are probably just dead. Even if you do have friends around you still might just die if you get dropped to -10 hp which is very easy to happen. So it's way harder to die in 5E than it is in 3.5.
The one (non-planned*) player death I've seen in any D&D game that wasn't OSR was in 3.X, where a low-level cleric moved to the front lines to attack a Choker, got smacked by a critical hit, and went from max health to instantly dead. So 3.Xe is more lethal in my experience, yes. * a player really wanted their Druid to die in the final game session of a campaign, so I had to throw in a scripted death scene to make them happy.
we take death 3.5 and put in 5th ti improve gameplay. no attunement, and magic item from 3.5 and 5th monsters boosters from a 3.5 and surprise from ADD2. all DM in 3.5 th or 5th no one use opportunity attack. and me too. we found this attack stupid, if u use all your attack hjow can u do an attack if u have no more it s ridiculous.
If you are intelligent and an experienced gamer, you will want to go with 3.5 most likely. If you are a casual fan and just want to get together with friends, or you just don't want to invest the brain power, go with basic 5e. 3.5 is far better overall but you really do have to have some intelligence to play it so it's not for everyone like 5e can be.
My opinion, OD&D/Mystara and 3.5 are the best versions. All of the new players that I know play only 5e. Very sad as I have well over $3k in books and materials all 3.5. And not a single player will try it saying it’s too complicated! Looks like it’s Solo Time!!!!
imagine thinking 5e is a watered down 3.5e when 3.5e is holding your hand with 50% useless rules. it's not watered down. it's optimised. back when i played 3.5 i had to get rid of most of the rules entirely without any replacement because they were straight up dumb. now with 5e i have to homebrew some things, but i didn't get rid of anything. it's the far better edition. it's not even close. not saying i didn't have fun with 3.5, but compared to 5 it's utter garbage.
I strongly disagree with that. I've played both, and was extremely dissatisfied with the lack of options with 5E. A 3 item attunement rule, no set prices for magic items so your DM can just make up whatever they want and often just forget about it so nothing is consistent. Yeah, no thank you. I'll stick with 3.5 where there are actually rules for everything, and I'm not just left guessing for every other decision. That and I'll actually make unique characters, and not just pick from one of the few dozen character options they have in 5E.
never played anything but 5e and have years of experience in it. but 5e is honestly. a bad system. it is very much lacking in the customization field with the only real options mechanically being multiclassing to get anything even remotely unique. and roleplay wise Wizards has been simplifying even nonmechanical parts of the customization. and a lot of 5e rules coddle players and undermine the dm. not to mention the just general lack of depth that all sides of it has. Monsters especially. ive dmed for 4 years almost 5 and anymore the amount of RAW monsters i run is almost 0 because they just offer nothing outside a rare ability to play with or a spell list of shitty spells from the players hand book. from what ive seen sure, 3.5 is much more rule dense. but i feel its better that way, and the customization options greatly make up for it. every character will feel different from the last. hell from what ive seen and understood two people starting with the same base class could end up feeling leagues different through prestige classes by even the mid game. while in 5e its a taboo to have 2 people with the same class because they will be doing pretty much the exact same thing as the other no matter their subclass or even really any multiclassing. to even have a slight bit of fun with 5e i have to run 13 different homebrew rules, and hundreds of homebrew enemies ranging along all tiers of play. along with hundreds of items. ive tried even implementing things similar to prestige classes unknowingly because its something D&D really does need.
Turn and Round are interchangeable. There was never a term for 10 rounds/1 minute of time, outside of maybe using the term Encounter for that because a 10 round encounter is pretty long. Most combats are over in 5-6 turns/rounds.
That can be a bit of a challenge. I know of a few places to find an online ground, but in person can be tough. My discord does have a section for helping people find a game, which you could try and use if you wanted.
While 5e is definitely less complex than 3.5e I can say, as someone who played quite a lot of both, that it's in no way a watered down system, there are many things I believe 5e did better, mainly removing a lot of unnecessary headaches (for example movement feels much more dynamic in 5e combat and the skill system is much better as you're not gimped by prestige class requirements), for me the real selling point for 3.5 is the amount of build customization but that is also the reason of it's downfall, at some point it's just too much
I started on 3e and then 3.5e, skipped 4eand went to 5e and right back to 3.5e. I can honestly say I'm perplexed about your advantages of 5e to 3.5e. Movement is soooo much more dynamic in 3.5e. My warblade with a +19 jump check, anklets of translocation, and a cleric and bard who regularly haste and fly him would like a word as I use dervish dance to full round attack+move. And skills?! I've literally never heard someone praise the 5e skill system. The "not good/good/really good" system is just stale and boring when everyone scales the same, and definitely inhibits build customization.
I hear what you are saying about skills being a big part of prestige classes, but it's a choice you make, and a sacrifice for power. I agree with @tofu1608 that the skill system in 5E was pretty bland since it doesn't let you freely put points how you choose, and effectively just forces you to pick which skills you want to max out. I also am not a fan of how they combined so many skills together, and didn't adjust the ranks the classes get accordingly. Rogues don't even really get to pick which skills they want to be proficient in most of the time, and instead just get "all of the class skills." I don't find the options to be too much at all, and you can always just scale back the books allowed for your first game, and add more in later to ease people in. As for movement, it just feels too cheesy in 5E without the corner rule 3.5 has. It's way to easy to cheese extra movement by running on diagonals.
@@tofu1608 what I meant, regarding "dynamic movement" was not about PC's max mobility but about the lack of a movement action, basically in 5e you can get a full attack while moving, this is achievable in 3.5 too but usually it comes with a feat or a class (like the dervish dance) which kind of cuck you into some style of builds, this in terms of balance works well in 3.5 environment but I always felt it's stupid and tedious (the basics of real life fighting of any style is to keep moving while you do your thing and armored soldiers where much less clunky that people tends to assume)
@@MitchBurns i don't want to diss you or your content, I'm actually happy to see someone riding the d&d hype-train backwards introducing people to what, to me, is the original d&d experience yet I feel you, like me and some friends of mine did, just gave a fast read to 5e ruleset and shaun it away as "easy d&d", for example I'm pretty sure you're confusing the bard feature "jack of all trades" with the rogue actually getting more skill proficiencies than any other class on top of 2 instances of expertise at the earliest possible levels (solidifying the class as your go to specialist) Aside from that all the rest is mainly personal opinions and everyone is entitled to it's own, to me the skill system was a great improvement as when I create a PC I can say "Ok, this dude is good at this" and it will stay relevant in his skillset throughout his career thanks to the passive scaling (which is balanced by having access to far less proficiencies) In 3.5 if you start with a good stealth rank your rogue isn't going to reliably be able to keep it going (even if by lore and class it should) unless you keep pushing skill points into that which can cuck your build options for prestige classes requirements and the need of other skills (there is ofc a point in saying that's part of the build optimization system and that if your proficient with it you can work around the issue yet, to me, that's often a unrequired headache that I'm happy not to have to deal with) Another example of why I like it so much is that, differently from your opinion, I think they did a great job by packing some skills into one, best examples to me are stealth against move silently + hide and acrobatics/athletics against swim+climb+jump (I can give an argument to swim but honestly if you're a Dex or Str based adventurer it's fair game to assume you have basic skills like climbing and jumping, I'm not an athlete yet I'm fairly decent at both and my shape is definitely not suited for adventuring) Again, this is my personal opinion and I mean no disrespect to you and your content
What a convoluted mess. All the so called pros of 3.5 make me wanna stick to 5e even more. Just reading the class description while watching this video was painful.
3.5 may seem convoluted, but it's not for those who are really into DND as a main hobby. It's advanced, whereas 5e is basic. Ive always told new folks to start with 5e and move up to 3.5 if they can grasp more complexity and variety. 3.5 is far superior but it's not for the casual occasional player.
I always tell to the 5e players that all their house rules are core rules in 3.5 (flanking for example).
Lol, that's awesome! Yeah, 5E is just a watered down 3.5.
Flanking exist in 5e as an optional rule, it's just stupidly broken because of how they balance the math around the system
Good break down boss!
Cut my ttrpg teeth on 3.5, so it warms my heart that there are people out there that still make quick and dirties for those that want to learn to play a system!
Keep up the good work 😀
Thank you appreciate that.
this is a nice break down of differing things to look at between the two generations, i wish i had this a few months back when i first started 3.5, it would have made the transition so much easier and i hope that others who start their swap can find this video
I hope so too, and I appreciate the compliment.
I'm introducing some 5e players to my 3.5 home setting. The other session, one was really surprised at how, in one session, he got more magic items than a 5e character could even use
The scope and feel of 3.5 is... Different, in a way that is hard to articulate, but this is the main appeal of it over 5e for me. If I could say it roughly, it's all these various parts you have access to - How magic items are much more common and more available than in any other edition, how you have a seemingly endless amount of customization options, and how the game details a huge amount of niche things (Ie, the rules for falling damage account for terminal velocity.) The game is complex and unbalanced, but through that comes a potential for stories and player expression that is incredibly rich and scales in interesting ways.
Over time, all these really specific and complex aspect gradually coalesce into something unique to you, and compound onto each other into something dynamic. While 5e attempts to balance classes, 3.5 allows you to get very strong... But it's interesting in that you are very seldom strong the same way twice. It's like a game where you can progress from a guy that can die to a particularly aggressive dog, to a Dark Souls boss who can challenge cosmic powers and win. To an extent, every edition has that, but I've never felt it more emphasized than here, nor more varied in it's scope.
You are absolutely right! There is so much to this game! I just love it!
Hell yeah. That's why I love 3.5. I'd love to be a 5e newbie experiencing 3.5 for the first time. That's my biggest reason I give players for playing 3.5. I always tell them, if you make 10 wizards in 5e, at least two of them will be nearly identical. In 3.5 you could make 1000 wizards and you'll probably have every last one of them unique.
Thank you for the great video! I'm a 5e DM and player who has been trying to get into 3.5e, and being able to see a comparison between the two is helpful. Very nice👍
I'm glad that was helpful, and I hope you are able to get into 3.5.
Good stuff. Also, 3.5e is 98% similar to Pathfinder 1e. Huge amount of support for this game free and online.
Thank you for this video! I'm a 5e player converting to 3.5 for my husband. Your videos are so helpful!
I'm glad my videos were able to help you. Best of luck to you with 3.5. Hopefully you enjoy it as much as your husband does.
I've never played DnD of any edition.
But what I've heard so far makes 3.5 more appealing to me then 5e.
I'm glad to hear it. I hope you find a game you can enjoy. D&D is super fun.
I'm glad to know I'm not alone in seeing the vast superiority of 3.5.
It allows for the crafting of character mechanics that fit your chosen roleplay for that character, no matter how insane or niche the concept, whereas 5e shapes roleplay through it's mechanics and thereby severely restricting everything by excluding anything that does not fit within the framework set forth.
They're attempting to streamline the game and make it more approachable, but they've also unwittingly created what amounts to a pen and paper video game on the easiest conceivable setting while also limiting roleplay options to a claustrophobic degree.
There are also Racial substitution classes that are like prestige classes but you take them at level 1 and usually level 3 and 5 for 3 levels total, and certain specific class abilities are replaced ,like Elven Paladins having a Ranged Holy Strike as opposed to the regular melee based version is one example , Racial Paragon prestige classes are similar ( basically Making the most elfy elf of all elves with more innate magical abilities akin to the classic Basic D&D Elf class)
Also to note ,many base class abilities continue to advanced as one takes levels in a prestige class depending on the specific one , like many wizard prestige classes continue normal spell advancement as per a normal wizard , while another might limit spell advancement replacing this loss with more powerful or class abilities
Also 3.5 Psionics are pretty rad..
This is all very true. There are a lot of things in the game to be honest.
Try this. Instead of just getting to pick a skill and have it auto-level, you get a pool of points to choose how to spend, at every level. Some cost more, because they are not normally associated with your class.
It is a 5E "no" vs a 3E "yes, but" situation. However, if you want simplicity, 3E has the option for that too, and just pick the appropriate number of skills and autopick those with each level, essentially.
This is a great vid, more people should watch these videos.
Thank you.
I forgot about dndtools, the GOAT
I use it a lot.
Actually started in 3.X and it ranks down next to 2nd edition (with Lorraine Williams notorious "No Playtesting" policy...) in desert Island editions...mostly due to it not being the easiest edition to learn solo and thus we kinda had a lackluster experience when I tried introducing it to my friends as the only one who had any experience was more interested in exploiting the newbie DM like a munchkin...
There's also my love of martial classes and this being an edition known for having a decently built cleric being a better fighter than a fantastically-built fighter (it's not just 3.X, same problem appears in Numenera...Monte Cook has a thing about the guy with a sword or gun just starting to get good at about the same time the magic user is throwing mountains with a thought...), but mostly it is the poor starting experience.
That said, I have wanted to give 3.X/Pathfinder 1e another shot. So, despite not quite being the target audience of people who have only played 5e (a system I nonetheless understand), this video is helpful for me to try and wrap my head around 3.X.
Liked and subscribed!
I'm glad you enjoyed. I hope my video help you get into the game. I really appreciate the like, subscription, and comment as well.
As a novice( due to lack of alot of experience playing.) I've studied the 3.5 system of books for years- (donated to me by the group that taught me- then never played again) as thinking it was what d and d was. I didn't get the editions, and was told when learning not to bother with other versions, as they were not so great.
But I gotta say- I can't see much reason to bother - except it seems everyone else who's even heard of it who I know, only knows 5e.
I can't bring myself to want to learn it :/ other than I need to find real humans to play with- that's been my only tempt.
But I just love the raw gritty reality of 3.5, -
I've spent years learning it's systems more thoroughly( bit by bit).
And 5e just seems like a step down to want to bother
I agree with you, and can sympathize with your frustrations of trying to find a group and everyone playing 5E. I have the same issues when I try and play games in person. When it comes to online games, it's been fairly easy for me to find 3.5 games, but that has a lot to do with me running this channel. If you want to play online then I do have a section in my discord server to try and find groups. There are also a few other 3.5 discord servers that can probably help you find online groups too. In person groups for 3.5 can be difficult though, especially if you live in a smaller town. Best of luck to you.
@@MitchBurns Thank you! I actually may. I'm getting to that point of thinking online for 3.5 is the best place to go. Thanks for the pointer on where to check!
YOU CAN HAVE LEVELS IN A RACE THAT'S SO AWESOME
You can indeed. Mostly just with strong races, but yes. It's a way that lets you play as a race that is much stronger than normal, but still start play at level 1. You play a weaker version of the race, and then level it up.
Just found your channel. Cant wait to explore.
I hope you are enjoying it. Is good to have you here.
As someone who has helped multiple 5e players try out 3.5, one of the biggest hurdles is often explaining skill points and skill ranks, imo spending double points on crossclass skills, max skill ranks are very confusing to new people imo.
That's good to know. I will keep that in mind. Thank you.
From what I understand pf1e was a simplified version on 3.5, and I’m not that good at 1e but I know some.
Flat footed ac was one of the wackiest things from PF1e, and it came out of nowhere and proceeded to barf on the couch when the gunslinger counted all attacks as flat footed and as a barbarian my ac was BETTER flat footed because of rage penalties.
That armor penalty rule maybe should’ve been implemented in 5e to prevent wizards from dominating the tank role…
The full round actions stopping standard actions and swift actions always bugged me after dnd where you get actions and bonus action with no opportunity cost (pathfinder didn’t tie swift and immediate actions together instead giving a normal reaction but that also sounds annoying). The overlong spell casting sounds interesting though.
I run with negative hp in 5e, but man it’s brutal to outright die at -10, I stick with negative hp is outright death.
You have some things more or less correct. Flat footed AC is lower than normal AC in 3.5, but touch AC is usually what is the lowest, depending on what kind of character you are playing. Flat footed touch AC is also a thing, and something difficult to improve. So full round actions don't include swift or immediate actions, so you can do them even when you take a full round action. Immediate actions do take the swift action of your next turn however. There are also things like attacks of opportunity that are kind of a free reaction you get once, or possibly more than once per turn if you have the feat. It's pretty complicated. Also, I wouldn't exactly call pathfinder 1E simplified 3.5, but that isn't too far off. I look at it more of a fan made 3.5 expansion that a number of developers of 3.5 helped out with. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I personally love 3.5, and am on a mission to grow the game as much as I can.
If WotC was smart, they would make 6e in such a way that rules compatible with 5e are the new Basic and have rules that are generally compatible with 3.5 (and Pathfinder) branded as Expert.
They could put all the whimsical art in the Basic content to be appeal to a broader market and let the art in the Expert material be more gritty for a more mature audience.
I had this exact same thought! A cross compatible system would be awesome and they could even sell the basic and advanced versions of the handbooks and modules separately if they want to be greedy. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they want to go in that direction.
Also a fun rule for skill ranks
Usually you can only have the amount of ranks in a skill is your level plus 3 for class skills
How I do it to add more challenge is as follows
If I want to be a good magic user, I’m going to need the skill concentration
If my intelligence is +5 I can only have 5 ranks in the skills that require intelligence
That's interesting, although you would likely run out of skills to put ranks in after a while.
@@MitchBurns hmm good point
I didn’t think of that
I was going to implement this in my next campaign
I’ll keep this in mind if it starts to go that way
So what do you do for characters that don't have a positive, or even 0, Int modifier? Do they not get skills? Can they only raise them to 1? What about PrC requirements, almost every single PrC has skill requirements, do you still have those?
I always played 3.5 with my kids and friends, and I would know what is exactly broken. How a lvl 2 can kill a god like you said. With the 3 basic books.
Exactly, but if your DM follows some basic commonsense rules on what to allow then things are pretty fun. Even allow Punpuns can be fun if all the players are doing it, and the DM planned for it. A game where all the players have the powers of gods and just do whatever they want with no checks can be fun. It can also work with the DM saying ok, but now you face the wrath of the ultimate deity of the game, me! So the DM actually trying as hard as he can to kill the party with whatever crazy stuff he can think of. Most games won't want Punpuns in them, but they can be fun in the right game like I said.
Love the profile pic BTW. Chicks dig giant robots.
That's the first I've heard of this Pun Pun concept. It's somewhat mind blowing, but it is a good example of what happens if you let players bring any new rule to a 3.5 game.
I do think 3.5 is one of the best editions of D&D, but there was a lot of rubbish produced using the open game licence which was neither balanced or play tested. Publishers didn't seem to care as long as it sold books, and players looking for more and more powerful characters lapped them up.
My advice to anyone running 3.5 would be to stick with the core rules to start. Then, once you are familiar with those introduce new rules one at a time (or at least one book at a time). Give them a trial period to decide if they work or not and warn players that you are testing the rule and it may be subject to change.
There is so much variety and customisation within core rules that you don't ever need to add anything more. If you have a player deliberately looking to break the game they will do so whatever edition you are playing, if you are not careful.
As a new dm I started with 5e recently. Will it be possible to go into 3.5 with the 5e knowledge I'm accumulating?
Your 5E knowledge will help you learn 3.5 faster. There will be a lot to learn still, but I actually think starting with 5E, and then learning 3.5 later is a good idea.
Just need to comment about a point just 1 minute in, i haven't played 3.5 but i did play Pathfinder and in my experince it's way easier to die in 5e than it is in Pathfinder, i'm not sure how simular 3.5 and Pathfinder is about death but they are near identical in all other ways
Thank you!
Thank you for the support.
Good video!
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
been playing 5e for years. and every year that goes by i grow to hate 5e more and more because its just to lacking.
5e without homebrew is like a puddle. it lacks depth. and Wizards with every new release is constantly uplifting the players, giving them constantly stronger options while dms running things RAW are unable to keep a proper challenge up because DMs have gained very little since the edition first launched.
ive been looking at 3.5 for a while. mostly with plans to send 3.5 and other older edition monsters into 5e because 5e monster design philosophy is extremely simple. but ive come to think, it might just be better to get into 3.5 proper. and i looked online, saw a list of just the base classes and just how many there was and instantly decided i needed to learn 3.5.
That's awesome! The whole point of my channel is to try and help people learn all about 3.5. There is so much you can do in 3.5. The whole CR thing isn't great in 3.5 either, but you can always just make your own enemies to fight the players. There are just an insane number of tools out there to play with in 3.5.
@@MitchBurns oh i plan to homebrew lots of enemies. since i use a homebrew world i have a lot of homebrew monsters plus I like making faction based enemies. like my elves all have their own fighting style instead of just a reskinned "I bonk you one or two times" which.. now that i think about it is like 99% of 5e enemies.
but from what ive seen of 3.5 enemies they actually have different things they can do. rather then just attack once or twice every turn with no room for strategy because it just does nothing.
what is a Punpun and why does it break the game?
Punpun is a character that people have made that is stupidly OP and breaks the game with how insanely strong he is at very low levels. He breaks the game because if a player were to play this build they would have unlimited power at level 1 and would be stronger than even the gods. It's why DMs have to put at least some limits on what players can do.
@@MitchBurns So Punpun isn't a character perse, more a build that can be taken that is really strong?
It isnt a build that can be taken, its a build that is technically possible but cant really be played.
Pun-Pun is a TO Build. Theoretical Optimization is basically trying to use legalese to defeat or become god and has no place at an actual table. Actual builds youd play are called Practical Optimization and has sanity checks like 'no infinite loops increasing all your ability scores into the billions in a single round'
The equivalent of Linux users... if you know what you're doing... arguely better.
If you don't... stick with windows (5e homebrew)
I mean I guess.
Do you feel like 5E is more lethal compared than 3.5?
Not in the slightest. 5e is extremely forgiving compared to 3.5e. There are no Death Saves in 3.5, depending on the amount of damage taken.
Also, critical hits are potentially much more damaging, and with the potential for much easier range (some weapons get 18-20 on a d20 roll count as a crit) so it’s much more possible that a player gets taken out by a stray critical hit in 3.5. In 3.5, all of the relevant hard bonuses to damage multiply as well as the damage dice. If a character has a high STR, makes a Power Attack, and crits? Dead.
As @jandrem said, not at all. 5E is way more forgiving. If you drop below 0hp and you don't have friends to save you in 3.5 you are probably just dead. Even if you do have friends around you still might just die if you get dropped to -10 hp which is very easy to happen. So it's way harder to die in 5E than it is in 3.5.
The one (non-planned*) player death I've seen in any D&D game that wasn't OSR was in 3.X, where a low-level cleric moved to the front lines to attack a Choker, got smacked by a critical hit, and went from max health to instantly dead. So 3.Xe is more lethal in my experience, yes.
* a player really wanted their Druid to die in the final game session of a campaign, so I had to throw in a scripted death scene to make them happy.
we take death 3.5 and put in 5th ti improve gameplay. no attunement, and magic item from 3.5 and 5th monsters boosters from a 3.5 and surprise from ADD2. all DM in 3.5 th or 5th no one use opportunity attack. and me too. we found this attack stupid, if u use all your attack hjow can u do an attack if u have no more it s ridiculous.
As a player of 3.5 for over 18 years
Played 5e once, made me want to vomit went back to 3.5
Dang. I didn't think it was that bad, but I do prefer 3.5.
@@MitchBurns it’s just too simple I found it dull
But I must admit that spelljammer adventure seems fun
If you are intelligent and an experienced gamer, you will want to go with 3.5 most likely. If you are a casual fan and just want to get together with friends, or you just don't want to invest the brain power, go with basic 5e. 3.5 is far better overall but you really do have to have some intelligence to play it so it's not for everyone like 5e can be.
That is kind of true yeah. In my experience 3.5 has been a pretty welcoming community eager to help teach new players.
Ah 3.5 the best thing that happen to dnd
Agreed. That's why I make videos on it.
My opinion, OD&D/Mystara and 3.5 are the best versions. All of the new players that I know play only 5e. Very sad as I have well over $3k in books and materials all 3.5. And not a single player will try it saying it’s too complicated!
Looks like it’s Solo Time!!!!
3000$ of Books! That's about the same price as 2 of my warhammer 40k Armies!
Looks like the discord link expired
Thank you for letting me know. Discord changed how it does things. I should be able to use a new permanent link now.
imagine thinking 5e is a watered down 3.5e when 3.5e is holding your hand with 50% useless rules. it's not watered down. it's optimised. back when i played 3.5 i had to get rid of most of the rules entirely without any replacement because they were straight up dumb. now with 5e i have to homebrew some things, but i didn't get rid of anything. it's the far better edition. it's not even close. not saying i didn't have fun with 3.5, but compared to 5 it's utter garbage.
I strongly disagree with that. I've played both, and was extremely dissatisfied with the lack of options with 5E. A 3 item attunement rule, no set prices for magic items so your DM can just make up whatever they want and often just forget about it so nothing is consistent. Yeah, no thank you. I'll stick with 3.5 where there are actually rules for everything, and I'm not just left guessing for every other decision. That and I'll actually make unique characters, and not just pick from one of the few dozen character options they have in 5E.
never played anything but 5e and have years of experience in it.
but 5e is honestly. a bad system. it is very much lacking in the customization field with the only real options mechanically being multiclassing to get anything even remotely unique. and roleplay wise Wizards has been simplifying even nonmechanical parts of the customization.
and a lot of 5e rules coddle players and undermine the dm. not to mention the just general lack of depth that all sides of it has. Monsters especially. ive dmed for 4 years almost 5 and anymore the amount of RAW monsters i run is almost 0 because they just offer nothing outside a rare ability to play with or a spell list of shitty spells from the players hand book.
from what ive seen sure, 3.5 is much more rule dense. but i feel its better that way, and the customization options greatly make up for it. every character will feel different from the last. hell from what ive seen and understood two people starting with the same base class could end up feeling leagues different through prestige classes by even the mid game. while in 5e its a taboo to have 2 people with the same class because they will be doing pretty much the exact same thing as the other no matter their subclass or even really any multiclassing.
to even have a slight bit of fun with 5e i have to run 13 different homebrew rules, and hundreds of homebrew enemies ranging along all tiers of play. along with hundreds of items. ive tried even implementing things similar to prestige classes unknowingly because its something D&D really does need.
thanks, this video is like super awesome and useful ᕦʕ •ᴥ•ʔᕤ
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Don't you mean round not turn as a round is 6 seconds and a turn is 10 rounds or 1 minute. But I know what you meant
I've never heard a turn described as 10 rounds before. I've always used turn and round as interchangeable.
ive always played as 1 round is made of everyones turn during 1 round
@@michaelniemela6566 yes in that 6 seconds everyone gets there turn
Turn and Round are interchangeable. There was never a term for 10 rounds/1 minute of time, outside of maybe using the term Encounter for that because a 10 round encounter is pretty long. Most combats are over in 5-6 turns/rounds.
10 minute Turns are from older editions of D&D, not 3.5
The problem is where I can play 3.5e
That can be a bit of a challenge. I know of a few places to find an online ground, but in person can be tough. My discord does have a section for helping people find a game, which you could try and use if you wanted.
While 5e is definitely less complex than 3.5e I can say, as someone who played quite a lot of both, that it's in no way a watered down system, there are many things I believe 5e did better, mainly removing a lot of unnecessary headaches (for example movement feels much more dynamic in 5e combat and the skill system is much better as you're not gimped by prestige class requirements), for me the real selling point for 3.5 is the amount of build customization but that is also the reason of it's downfall, at some point it's just too much
I started on 3e and then 3.5e, skipped 4eand went to 5e and right back to 3.5e. I can honestly say I'm perplexed about your advantages of 5e to 3.5e. Movement is soooo much more dynamic in 3.5e. My warblade with a +19 jump check, anklets of translocation, and a cleric and bard who regularly haste and fly him would like a word as I use dervish dance to full round attack+move. And skills?! I've literally never heard someone praise the 5e skill system. The "not good/good/really good" system is just stale and boring when everyone scales the same, and definitely inhibits build customization.
I hear what you are saying about skills being a big part of prestige classes, but it's a choice you make, and a sacrifice for power. I agree with @tofu1608 that the skill system in 5E was pretty bland since it doesn't let you freely put points how you choose, and effectively just forces you to pick which skills you want to max out. I also am not a fan of how they combined so many skills together, and didn't adjust the ranks the classes get accordingly. Rogues don't even really get to pick which skills they want to be proficient in most of the time, and instead just get "all of the class skills." I don't find the options to be too much at all, and you can always just scale back the books allowed for your first game, and add more in later to ease people in. As for movement, it just feels too cheesy in 5E without the corner rule 3.5 has. It's way to easy to cheese extra movement by running on diagonals.
@@tofu1608 what I meant, regarding "dynamic movement" was not about PC's max mobility but about the lack of a movement action, basically in 5e you can get a full attack while moving, this is achievable in 3.5 too but usually it comes with a feat or a class (like the dervish dance) which kind of cuck you into some style of builds, this in terms of balance works well in 3.5 environment but I always felt it's stupid and tedious (the basics of real life fighting of any style is to keep moving while you do your thing and armored soldiers where much less clunky that people tends to assume)
@@alessandrotabanelli3262 ah yeah, I dislike that about 5e because it (and 50285 other things) make PCs deadly action economy machines from the start
@@MitchBurns i don't want to diss you or your content, I'm actually happy to see someone riding the d&d hype-train backwards introducing people to what, to me, is the original d&d experience yet I feel you, like me and some friends of mine did, just gave a fast read to 5e ruleset and shaun it away as "easy d&d", for example I'm pretty sure you're confusing the bard feature "jack of all trades" with the rogue actually getting more skill proficiencies than any other class on top of 2 instances of expertise at the earliest possible levels (solidifying the class as your go to specialist)
Aside from that all the rest is mainly personal opinions and everyone is entitled to it's own, to me the skill system was a great improvement as when I create a PC I can say "Ok, this dude is good at this" and it will stay relevant in his skillset throughout his career thanks to the passive scaling (which is balanced by having access to far less proficiencies)
In 3.5 if you start with a good stealth rank your rogue isn't going to reliably be able to keep it going (even if by lore and class it should) unless you keep pushing skill points into that which can cuck your build options for prestige classes requirements and the need of other skills (there is ofc a point in saying that's part of the build optimization system and that if your proficient with it you can work around the issue yet, to me, that's often a unrequired headache that I'm happy not to have to deal with)
Another example of why I like it so much is that, differently from your opinion, I think they did a great job by packing some skills into one, best examples to me are stealth against move silently + hide and acrobatics/athletics against swim+climb+jump (I can give an argument to swim but honestly if you're a Dex or Str based adventurer it's fair game to assume you have basic skills like climbing and jumping, I'm not an athlete yet I'm fairly decent at both and my shape is definitely not suited for adventuring)
Again, this is my personal opinion and I mean no disrespect to you and your content
What a convoluted mess. All the so called pros of 3.5 make me wanna stick to 5e even more. Just reading the class description while watching this video was painful.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I would love to make some more videos that could help you more.
3.5 may seem convoluted, but it's not for those who are really into DND as a main hobby. It's advanced, whereas 5e is basic. Ive always told new folks to start with 5e and move up to 3.5 if they can grasp more complexity and variety. 3.5 is far superior but it's not for the casual occasional player.
Only disadvantage with 3.5e is the books assume your character is a man.
gaa lee iz ths boring ( /\i mostly like videos tht r more or less predicated “pon neutral gudnessess[aeae)()
I'm sorry you feel that way.
@@MitchBurns n prbz :: || )
my man, pick up a book and learn grammar. this is painful to read and i still cant even understand 90% of what you said.