3.5 combined with 5th?

[tim01300]

So I've played 3.5 for the past 5 years and 5th edition for the past one. There are a few aspects of 5th I really enjoy but many other things I don't like, plus I have about 20 books for 3.5 :) SO I'm looking to combine the parts of both that I like.

One of the most important parts I like about 5th is that magic items become important and rare again. It gets tiresome to me from a story perspective that at higher levels my players can find a ancient magic item in a tomb or dungeon and never use it because they can buy something better in town, or they already have 5 magic swords.


What would happen if I took the money, treasure and items of 5th and put them in 3.5. Along with the monsters from 5th? The weaker items would account for the monsters weaker AC? How would this work balance-wise? Any thoughts?

[Bobby Baratheon]

I would think the big losers of less magic items would be mundanes, who tend to rely on them more heavily at higher levels. However, nerfing the monsters ACs would help a little to level the playing field. Without magic items, however, it becomes much harder for mundanes to contribute in the different vectors that casters can. Flight, for example, becomes much more precious, as do other forms of movement. Casters don't lose all that much, as they mostly don't need items to impose their will on their enemies. They might be mildly inconvenienced, but weaker monsters benefit them too.

EDIT: I think Grod the Giant has a pretty good homebrew system for reducing magic item frequencies in 3.5.

[Psyren]

What you would need for "rare items" to work in 3.5, is a way for the players' primary attributes, AC, enhancement bonuses to attack/damage and saving throws to continue to scale without magic items. That would allow you to keep actual magic items rare without getting the party insta-gibbed. Pathfinder has a system called Automatic Bonus Progression (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/automatic-bonus-progression) that you could backport to 3.5 for this, or make minor tweaks to.

[Coidzor]

BAB would eventually allow 3e characters to hit 5e monsters easily compared to the expectation, probably around level 5 or so is when you'd start to notice that without spreadsheeting it out.

Without armor and stuff, 3e characters might also be easier to hit.

[Necroticplague]

Not sure how 5e monsters are designed, but I know that rare magic items means that non-casters can end up in a frighteningly large amount of situations where they can do jack all against threats. Most notably, it means use of flying, incorporeal, ethereal, invisible, or BFCing enemies will need to be considerably cut back on if you want to maintain parity. A caster has magical solutions to these problems. Mundanes don't, and thus need items to get them, much as an anemic man needs iron supplements to stay healthy.

[Gnorman]

Implement a "Magic Item Progression" similar to spells, but in reverse. Fighters & Rogues get the most magic items, full spellcasters the least.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

I stole all of the Fighter's class features, the casting progression tables and spell updates, the feats, some condensed skills, and the Hit Die/Short Rest stuff. You basically have to implement automatic bonus progression and weaken/rein in healing magic though.

[Waazraath]

Not sure how 5e monsters are designed, but I know that rare magic items means that non-casters can end up in a frighteningly large amount of situations where they can do jack all against threats. Most notably, it means use of flying, incorporeal, ethereal, invisible, or BFCing enemies will need to be considerably cut back on if you want to maintain parity. A caster has magical solutions to these problems. Mundanes don't, and thus need items to get them, much as an anemic man needs iron supplements to stay healthy.

Not per se, there are plenty of races, feats and (prestige) classes that provide an outcome for this problem, without ever neeeding to cast a spell. I created a handbook especially to highlight this, a long time ago: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11381.0

You need to be aware of the problem though, and take it into account when deciding on your characters build, or elsee you have a problem, that's definitely correct.


I like the idea of using some aspects of classes; the fighter, like Dr_Dinosaur mentioned, would indeed become a lot nicer if it got some of 5e's features, instead of or next to bonus feats.