How to make 3.5 more interesting.

[YossarianLives]

Recently my group has not been enjoying our games as much. We want to keep playing but we are just not finding 3.5 terribly interesting. We want to find someway to bring back the wonder and fun of the old days when we didn't know the rules off by heart and the monsters were more mysterious and scary. Any advice?

[johnbragg]

Recently my group has not been enjoying our games as much. We want to keep playing but we are just not finding 3.5 terribly interesting. We want to find someway to bring back the wonder and fun of the old days when we didn't know the rules off by heart and the monsters were more mysterious and scary. Any advice?

Option 1: There are tons of splatbooks with monsters you haven't seen.

Option 2: Stick with the good old Monster Manual I monsters, but add class levels and obscure feats and templates. It's mysterious and scary as heck when the rogue gets into position to sneak attack the orc adept caster, and she turns out to have a couple of monk levels.

My favorite DM hit our mid-level (5ish) party with a half-fiendish Shambling Mound, and a sorcerer compainion who kept healing it with Shocking Grasp. There are half-elemental templates--I heard of a DM that stacked all four on the same ogre.

Try out Gnolls with Fast Healing 1. Hobgoblins with DR 1. Ogres with Two-Weapon Fighting.

[LudicSavant]

Recently my group has not been enjoying our games as much. We want to keep playing but we are just not finding 3.5 terribly interesting. We want to find someway to bring back the wonder and fun of the old days when we didn't know the rules off by heart and the monsters were more mysterious and scary. Any advice?

Dramatic questions, not foes. Set pieces, not rooms. Action and roleplaying dilemmas simultaneously.

It's not a dungeon full of monsters. It's a dungeon covered in tiny golems that act rather like the scarabs from The Mummy which only part to make way for the native drow priestess, who won't go with you willingly. Meanwhile, it's filled with puzzles that seem to require the party to split up or monsters that try to knock your party around with Awesome Blows. Oh, and there's an enemy army surrounding the dungeon outside, only kept at bay by the scarabs. How do you escape?

Or maybe you're not just on a boat that gets attacked by pirates. You are on a ship with a captain you don't trust, who you suspect has his own agenda, and you are attacked in the midst of a summoned swarm by sahuagin breaking through the hull with teams searching the ship for... something and others going for the helm, where the captain prevents the ship from running aground on the treacherous reefs of Shargon's Teeth. Enemies pop through the walls and pull players out into the ocean, the deck rocks, and the players are simultaneously interrogating and defending the captain so that they can intercept whatever the Sahuagin are looking for... and stay afloat.

Or maybe you're not just fighting a bunch of intelligent lightning apes. You're being stalked by them through the jungles of Xen'drik a la Congo, with them always hanging around out of sight, then they drag people away whenever the party lets their guard down... all while they're trying to deal with other obstacles in the jungle and outrace the other party that's trying to reach the lost ruins with the Macguffin in it.

Maybe you're not sure who your enemies and allies are. Maybe you're trying to resolve a social dispute even as three different factions are fighting each other, and you want to stay alive and stop them from killing each other. Maybe there's an encounter where the enemy isn't trying to defeat you, but are just scouts seeking to report your presence back to their superiors who you can't hope to defeat directly. The list goes on.

Heck, I did all of those those in just one adventure session.

The point is that the way to keep it fresh is to try new situations, strategies, and scenarios, rather than just new monsters.

[Bronk]

You could try adding in elements from Planescape and Spelljammer...

[YossarianLives]

snop
Thanks. This really inspired me and gave me some cool ideas. I'll try to add more creativity to the game.

Thanks a lot!

[LudicSavant]

Thanks. This really inspired me and gave me some cool ideas. I'll try to add more creativity to the game.

Thanks a lot!

No problem. Note that I added a few more details with my edit.

Also, check this out: http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/

[prufock]

Is it just the enemies that you're bored with, or the system in general, or the stories?

If the players aren't having fun with the stories, the specific monsters probably don't matter much. Flip up the story, and do something completely wacky or different (if your games are normally wacky, make a grim and gritty noir-type campaign instead).

Have a game with no enemies. Stick them in a big mazelike dungeon focused more on problem-solving, creative equipment use, skill checks, and picking up clues.

Take a break to play Paranoia! XP. The game where everything is made up and the points don't matter!

Make up some new monsters, or re-skin some monsters into things they don't recognize.

[Pex]

Problem is you know the rules too well. The roleplay is fine, but the game mechanics has become boring. Perhaps it's time to switch game systems. Let's say you still want to play a D&Dish type game. You now have two choices: Pathfinder or 5E.

Pathfinder: Retains the 3E framework but has changes you need to relearn. Warriors need to work with a new Power Attack and new maneuver system. Spellcasters have class features and some spells work differently. Splat books provide new feats and new base classes to explore. Archetypes are alternative class features of the classes you're familiar with, but may have just enough tweaks to be interesting. The first Bestiary book has the monsters you're familiar with with a few new ones, but further Beastiary books offer new monsters never fought before. Most of the rules are free online at Paizo's website. As a DM all you'll need to purchase are the Beastiaries and any modules you may want to run. No harm in purchasing the other books in game stores if players want them, but free access online helps to defray costs.

5E: It's D&D. The game is a complete overhaul. You'll recognize some elements from 3E, but you pretty much have to learn everything from scratch. Learning the new rules and how game mechanics interact is the fun. Perhaps an obstacle is everyone needs to get used to lower numbers. Having an AC of 18 even at 12th level is a good thing, for example. Only getting a +1 bonus is a Big Deal. D4s are useful dice to roll.

Let's say you really, really want to stay with 3E.

Change the monsters or pretend to. Party faces a white dragon that's immune to fire? What gives? Aha! It's really a red dragon in disguise and used a spell to alter its breath weapon. It pretended to be white to trick its enemies. Have trolls that are vulnerable to cold and electricity instead of fire and acid. That goblin? He's a 17th level wizard.

Change story tropes. The party needs to free a lich so he can unleash his deathless army against marauding elves bent on destroying the inferior mortal races. Beholders even hate each other for the slightest aberration, pun intended. The secret patron of the party, finally forced out into the open, is one such beholder aberration. He's a Beholder Paladin! The princess wasn't captured. She ran away and doesn't want to go back to the palace. Now what?

[LudicSavant]

Here are a few more examples of encounters I've used.

The party is in the middle of a high magic warzone, and their job is to air-drop into the enemy arcane fortress and open the main force-gates for their forces while artillery rains down around them, flame walls and other magic effects are popping up everywhere, and they get chased by a pair of Warforged Titans. I also set a time limit; how long it took them to accomplish their goal would determine which outcome I used for the war (I had several).

The party realizes that one of their allies is a foreign spy, and go to her room to ask her a few questions. As they approach, the door is blown open, bowling over the front party member, and the sorcerous spy darts out and makes a break for it. She drops control spells behind her and buffs up to flee, and sets off improvised traps on her way out, such as causing the airship scaffolding to collapse or opening up the beast cages. The party's goal is to catch and interrogate her, but she's using her knowledge of their secret base to create unbridled chaos.

The PCs encounter a drow bard who Charms one of their comrades and leads them off into another room deeper into the dungeon. They rush through the corridor hoping to get to their comrade before he comes to harm. As soon as one of the remaining party members comes into sight of the bard mounted on a monstrous scorpion, a great iron guillotine crashes down behind them (they were in such a hurry they didn't check for traps!), separating the party with an iron wall. The other party member is missing, and the mounted Bard is now wielding a lance and casts Rhino Rush from a scroll, looking as if she's going to charge the now isolated party member. He moves in with an ubercharge himself, only to move through a silent image... which was hiding six berserkers with readied actions for just such an occasion. As the PC lays dying, fading from consciousness, the bard antagonist reveals that she was changeling all along, and takes his form to rejoin his party when they break through the iron wall.

Let me tell you, those players weren't bored with the monsters, and I was playing with a group of hardcore CharOp handbook writers. :)

[Demidos]

Swap to sub-systems. Have the players make incarnum, TOB, and Binders (or warlocks), and stick them in a psionic setting where dragons are the dominant lifeform, and rule over the vast jungle that makes up most of the world. Humans have resorted to making pacts with powerful outsiders to maintain any semblance of coherence at all, despite the fact that those outsiders tend to take more than they give...

And of course, refluffing. Refluff those displacer beasts or ethereal filchers as highly trained human assassins and you'll have your players waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat as they remember how easily the assassins were passing through those walls earlier.

[Urpriest]

If your players feel comfortable with all the published systems out there, find a good homebrew one. Have the whole party use homebrewed ToB disciplines, or Gramarie (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?252794-She-Blinded-Me-with-Science!-%28Magitek-That-Doesn-t-Make-Me-Cry-Myself-To-Sleep%29), or Mythos classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323694-Mythos-Inspired-Homebrew-Discussion), or Monster Classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?192151-Community-Based-Monster-Classes-VII). Shake up the style of the campaign and its focus.

[OldTrees1]

A possible option is to add user created content. Bored by the imbalances of 3rd? Add new content. Bored by the predictable monsters? Add new content. Now you have engineers with golem suits going up against eldritch horrors.

[LudicSavant]

Swap to sub-systems. Have the players make incarnum, TOB, and Binders (or warlocks), and stick them in a psionic setting where dragons are the dominant lifeform, and rule over the vast jungle that makes up most of the world. Humans have resorted to making pacts with powerful outsiders to maintain any semblance of coherence at all, despite the fact that those outsiders tend to take more than they give...

And of course, refluffing. Refluff those displacer beasts or ethereal filchers as highly trained human assassins and you'll have your players waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat as they remember how easily the assassins were passing through those walls earlier.

I remember one DM I used to know using a niche optimized Monk build (Don't remember the details. Some variety of Tashalatora build maybe?) as shapeshifting mutants. Good times. Accepting flavor transparency into your life opens all kinds of doors.

Another idea is to start changing the skill and feat investments of monsters. One of the meaner things I threw at a low level party involved a good ol' Ethereal Filcher with Master Pickpocket and a +23 Sleight of Hand partnered with a Pseudodragon with Mindsight, and an Allip with Improved Turn Resistance and Ability Focus (Babble) hunting them through the walls then falling back to be healed by her cult. All while burrowing skeletal monsters were reshaping the maddening maze and the mad pseudodragon was whispering in their heads.

[big teej]

Recently my group has not been enjoying our games as much. We want to keep playing but we are just not finding 3.5 terribly interesting. We want to find someway to bring back the wonder and fun of the old days when we didn't know the rules off by heart and the monsters were more mysterious and scary. Any advice?

assuming you mean "keep playing tabletop games" as opposed to "keep playing dnd"


my advice is to system-hop for awhile.

my gaming group has existed in more or less an identical form for almost 5 years (huzzah college gaming)

I DM'd dnd 3.5 for..... 3 of them continously, 3 and a half if you count the spotty burn-out sequence that lead to my extended hiatus from GMing.

long story short, given the nature of the players of the group (many of our members had graduated, and we were expecting an influx of replacements)

I made the call that dnd 3.5 wasn't really a good fit for our group anymore, I had grown dissatisfied and dissillusioned with the clunky monstrostiy of the ruleset.

and so the group began to hop about a bit.

we have/had a Savage World: Necessary Evil Campaign running for almost as long as the group has existed. over time all of our group's GMs began to use Savage Worlds over any other ruleset, mostly for consistency and simplicity's sake. (not to mention timing)

In the interim period however, we, however briefly, tried out Shadowrun 4th edition, the old Serenity RPG system, Dragon Age RPG, and... I believe one or two others that we were planning to try but never got around to doing so.

recently, for some as of yet unidentified reason, I've felt a desire to return to dnd 3.5 and that's exactly what the group is doing, (in addition to our ongoing rotation of Savage World games)


so.... TL;DR

try out other systems for awhile, the spark will return.

[Honest Tiefling]

assuming you mean "keep playing tabletop games" as opposed to "keep playing dnd"

my advice is to system-hop for awhile.

Or you could try other flavors of DnD, such as the aforementioned Planescape, Spelljammer, or even...Third party materials or pathfinder if you haven't tried them out. I'm sure there's also DnD clones that could be tried out or ideas ripped from.

[Yahzi]

I think the game is less important than the story. Try Kingmaker, or give your characters parents and siblings. Play a campaign where all the characters are members of the same noble house, and the power of the house is more important that the power of any given character. Make the game about something other than the characters, their levels, and their items.

[atemu1234]

Widen the scope a bit. If you only play core, try adding in a few books of stuff. In the unlikely situation you do that, try to add in the balanced dragon magazine content, or even third party stuff. Introduce time travel!

[sideswipe]

attach electrode's to the pleasure part and the pain part in the brain.

have a button for each player for each electrode. when they take damage or have a negative effect press the pain button, whenever they do good things or things that would be pleasurable then push the pleasure button.

that would make it more interesting.

[atemu1234]

attach electrode's to the pleasure part and the pain part in the brain.

have a button for each player for each electrode. when they take damage or have a negative effect press the pain button, whenever they do good things or things that would be pleasurable then push the pleasure button.

that would make it more interesting.

"You fail to disable the trap."
"NO-WAIT I- AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!"

[Optimator]

Id say start back-porting Pathfinder stuff to keep things fresh. Have an Inquisitor and alchemist along side a Warblade with PF feats. Or even allow PF feat progression and favored class rules

[Honest Tiefling]

Heck, play an all dragon game. I think Pathfinder has 3pp material for it, but I couldn't tell you if it is any good. If dragons aren't your thing, time to rock the undead party thing. If you play heroes, play villains and vice versa.

[Coidzor]

Recently my group has not been enjoying our games as much. We want to keep playing but we are just not finding 3.5 terribly interesting. We want to find someway to bring back the wonder and fun of the old days when we didn't know the rules off by heart and the monsters were more mysterious and scary. Any advice?

What do you generally find interesting, both individually and as a group?

Is this solely an issue with rules familiarity? Monster familiarity? If the issue is just that they're used to all of the monsters you're using, you could go sourcebook trawling or go through some of the monster homebrew threads like the Critters! series of threads over on the Homebrew subforum or even make up some of your own that they have to discover more about in-game.

If the issue is that they feel they know the rules too well to have fun playing... I'd say take a break from playing D&D and play a game of Paranoia.

[(Un)Inspired]

Every time a player rolls under a 6 on a d20 the DM bites them on the hand. It's keeps 3.5 incredibly lively