Returning to 3.5 from 5E. Advice?

[Freelance GM]

Story time:

My experience with D&D started with a few months of 4E. Then I discovered 3.5, played that for a year, migrated over to Pathfinder, and played that for another year or two. Then I signed up for the D&D: Next playtest, and I've been playing 5E ever since. 5E is by far my favorite edition, but after 3 or 4 years of it (plus 2 years of playtesting), it's getting a little tired. I found myself nostalgically flipping through my old Pathfinder books, and the next thing I knew I was planning a 2-month long 3.5 mini-campaign. (No, you read that right, 3.5, not Pathfinder. It's complicated.)

Then I realized that in my 2 or 3 years of running it, I never learned to properly plan a 3.P game. Which is probably why my players had such an easy time in those campaigns. The rookie DM version of myself thought he could just eyeball everything. He couldn't.

I was wondering if any of the 3.5 vets on the forum had advice about their processes for planning their games?


Is designing NPCs with class levels always just a slog, or are there some good (preferably free) tools out there to help? A list of useful premade NPCs (bandits, guards, scribes, priests, etc.) would also be extremely helpful.

Encounter building in 3.5 seems a bit less sophisticated than 5E's approach, but 3.5 characters were also way more powerful. Does anyone have any useful do's and don'ts about balancing encounters with large (8+) numbers of enemies, or good strategies for making bosses who can survive more than a round?

How closely do you stick to the Wealth by Level tables? Tragically, I didn't learn how critical magic items were to 3.5's balance until after I started running 5E. How closely should I stick to the "Treasure values per Encounter" tables, and how can I keep magic items feeling special and unique in an edition where they're actually for sale?

What tricks do you use to speed up combat, or at least keep it moving in this edition? Would it be heresy to use some lessons from 5E like "average damage" for monsters?

Also, if you're wondering...

So, I really thought about running Pathfinder. For starters, I actually have the physical books (I just ran 3.5 off the SRD). Things like Sorcerers with more than one class feature, feats every other level, and half-orcs that weren't garbage were all major plusses, and that's before I even dusted off my Advanced Players's Guide.

What changed my mind was another look at the 3.5 SRD, specifically some of the Variant Rules from Unearthed Arcana. I really wanted to play with some of those. Particularly, the Battle Sorcerer, spontaneously-casting Clerics, and the "Undead Minion" option for a Necromancer's familiar. Additionally, Pathfinder seemed really cluttered coming from 5E. Too many features all over the place. By comparison, vanilla 3.5 seemed like a happy middle ground between the two.

Also, some of my current group of players have played 3.5 before, while I am the only one to have ever played Pathfinder. That ultimately wound up being the final decision maker.

[Venger]

Story time:

My experience with D&D started with a few months of 4E. Then I discovered 3.5, played that for a year, migrated over to Pathfinder, and played that for another year or two. Then I signed up for the D&D: Next playtest, and I've been playing 5E ever since. 5E is by far my favorite edition, but after 3 or 4 years of it (plus 2 years of playtesting), it's getting a little tired. I found myself nostalgically flipping through my old Pathfinder books, and the next thing I knew I was planning a 2-month long 3.5 mini-campaign. (No, you read that right, 3.5, not Pathfinder. It's complicated.)

Then I realized that in my 2 or 3 years of running it, I never learned to properly plan a 3.P game. Which is probably why my players had such an easy time in those campaigns. The rookie DM version of myself thought he could just eyeball everything. He couldn't.

I was wondering if any of the 3.5 vets on the forum had advice about their processes for planning their games?


Is designing NPCs with class levels always just a slog, or are there some good (preferably free) tools out there to help? A list of useful premade NPCs (bandits, guards, scribes, priests, etc.) would also be extremely helpful.

Encounter building in 3.5 seems a bit less sophisticated than 5E's approach, but 3.5 characters were also way more powerful. Does anyone have any useful do's and don'ts about balancing encounters with large (8+) numbers of enemies, or good strategies for making bosses who can survive more than a round?

How closely do you stick to the Wealth by Level tables? Tragically, I didn't learn how critical magic items were to 3.5's balance until after I started running 5E. How closely should I stick to the "Treasure values per Encounter" tables, and how can I keep magic items feeling special and unique in an edition where they're actually for sale?

What tricks do you use to speed up combat, or at least keep it moving in this edition? Would it be heresy to use some lessons from 5E like "average damage" for monsters?

Also, if you're wondering...

So, I really thought about running Pathfinder. For starters, I actually have the physical books (I just ran 3.5 off the SRD). Things like Sorcerers with more than one class feature, feats every other level, and half-orcs that weren't garbage were all major plusses, and that's before I even dusted off my Advanced Players's Guide.

What changed my mind was another look at the 3.5 SRD, specifically some of the Variant Rules from Unearthed Arcana. I really wanted to play with some of those. Particularly, the Battle Sorcerer, spontaneously-casting Clerics, and the "Undead Minion" option for a Necromancer's familiar. Additionally, Pathfinder seemed really cluttered coming from 5E. Too many features all over the place. By comparison, vanilla 3.5 seemed like a happy middle ground between the two.

Also, some of my current group of players have played 3.5 before, while I am the only one to have ever played Pathfinder. That ultimately wound up being the final decision maker.

it depends on the needs of your party and how much time you want to invest in the game.

enemies and allies is an ok resource for a lot of guys to throw in so you don't have to stat stuff out yourself.

don't have too many enemies, or combat drags. if you want one boss type character, don't have him face the party alone or he'll be outactioned. surround him with a couple of henchmen or summons or something.

if your bosses aren't surrounding a round and you want them to for whatever reason, look at how your pcs are killing them. don't just give them immunity to everything your pcs are slinging, but think about some other types of defenses or think about how to bypass some of them. without specifics it's hard to give a lot of advice on this specifically, but once you answer it, we'll have some more helpful feedback.

which are you referring to? are you referring to the "how much money should pcs have at xyz level" table? if so, don't worry about it. it's about when you rule a new character who isn't first level. if your guys are a little over or under, don't worry too much about it.

if you're talking about how the table or how much treasure they're supposed to get for a cr such and such encounter, then yes, that's really important. magic items are assumed as part of every character's survival for them to take on appropriately cr-ed enemies, so if you're not giving them money, your pcs will not survive, especially your mundanes.

combat by its nature takes a long time in any dice game. what is it that's giving you trouble? if you can find an online roller you and your friends agree is fair, that takes some of the wait time out of rolling dice. don't use average damage.

one trick I use to speed up combat is "fast forwarding." if we get to a place where it's clear that playing out the rest of the combat turn by turn sill likely not result in significant losses to the pcs and they're just doing busy work like waddling around the battlefield bayoneting the wounded and smashing the 1 or 2 human commoner skeletons left after killing the bad guys, I can just say "okay so you mop up here and then we can move to the next part of the game. "

[Fizban]

Is designing NPCs with class levels always just a slog, or are there some good (preferably free) tools out there to help? A list of useful premade NPCs (bandits, guards, scribes, priests, etc.) would also be extremely helpful.
Depends on how designed you need them to be. There are books of pre-made NPCs, but that doesn't actually mean they'll be any good- or more importantly, that they'll match your game. More importantly than that, 3.5 is not designed for classed humanoid NPCs as enemies. Oh it gives them a "standard" CR, but that doesn't actually mean anything, and if you're using them frequently enough to need a pre-made list then you're effectively on your own when it comes to encounter balance. Cityscape is the 1st party book with guards/whatevers, but I take issue with almost everything about them.

It also rather crushes any sense of verisimilitude when the supposedly unique elite PCs are faced with dozens of people who are apparently the same level despite not having done any adventuring. The DMG has rules for determining how many high level NPCs a population center has, and they don't support dozens and dozens of 5th+ level guys bumming around in caves or standing around in armies, nor do the tribal groupings in humanoid monster entries. It doesn't make sense, it's not balanced: DnD is about fighting monsters, not people. At least once you're high enough level that 1st level people aren't a threat anymore.

Encounter building in 3.5 seems a bit less sophisticated than 5E's approach, but 3.5 characters were also way more powerful. Does anyone have any useful do's and don'ts about balancing encounters with large (8+) numbers of enemies, or good strategies for making bosses who can survive more than a round?
5e's encounter budget is still built on the same general principles, it just has more granular calculation. The best rule of encounter balance is to just do the math. You have your PC's data, you have the monster data, you can predict the probable outcomes.

The main strategy for bosses surviving more than one round is not having solo bosses, but that tends to ignore the first problem: having PCs that can one-round bosses. Characters in 3.5 aren't inherently "more powerful," it's pitting standard monsters against over-optimized PCs- allowed to combine dozens of disparate books into a single build vs a monster that was designed to challenge builds of approximately core or core+the book the monster's in. You are the DM, you are allowed to put limits on your PCs. If you insist on allowing your players free reign, expect inter and extra-party imbalance, which will require more work to compensate.

How closely do you stick to the Wealth by Level tables? Tragically, I didn't learn how critical magic items were to 3.5's balance until after I started running 5E. How closely should I stick to the "Treasure values per Encounter" tables, and how can I keep magic items feeling special and unique in an edition where they're actually for sale?
Depends on your game. If you intend to allow magic-mart a la carte, then keeping a strict inventory ensuring they aren't over WBL is a good idea. The less control the players have over their magic items, the more freedom you have to do what you want and try to make magic special, but if they're being given free reign over everything else they'll expect it in magic items too. As before, what actually matters is how your encounters are going to play out. If your players are perfectly pumping up their numbers and piling on ablative defenses (all those short duration immunity buffs people suggest), then they're going to be significantly stronger than if all they get is vanilla stuff dropped at your discretion. Either way you can plan accordingly.

Note that it's Wealth by Level, not Cash by Level. Crafted gear is still an increase in wealth, and if the players are crafting a bunch you are perfectly within your "rights" to reduce treasure to make sure they don't get out of hand. Spending a feat on crafting already gives you the ability to effectively turn a piece of gear you don't want into one that you do (since crafting costs 1/2 the full price, and you normally sell for 1/2 the full price), which is huge when the only "guarantee" you have on treasure is cash and random item rolls.

For a verisimilitude focused approach to shopping, there is no shopping. You can sell an item in town for 1/2 price without jumping through any hoops, but if you want to buy something you either need to find someone who has one and get them to sell it to you (unlikely since if they have a magic item it's because they want a magic item), or more likely find someone who can craft it. There are few people who will have powerful magic items (remember that NPC wealth is a fraction of PC wealth at the same level, and much of it is likely not magic items). The higher level casting NPCs in town will probably have at least one crafting feat since they live in town and it's the most profitable skill to have when it comes up, and you can make the item a bit more interesting by making them interact with an interesting NPC instead of just poofing out of nowhere. Maybe there's some wizard willing to spend a month upgrading everyone's baubles, or maybe the only person who can make what you want is someone you don't want to hand a huge wad of cash.

Following that, you can give out commissions as quest rewards. Send them on a mission that produces little loot, and their patron/patron's affiliated caster will make them each an item, which may be dedicated to the mission or otherwise aesthetically customized to their liking. In contrast to mismatched stuff dredged from a dungeon. You can also have them occasionally approached by another adventurer who's selling a magic item, at the usual 1/2 price- giving them the option of picking up a random, or "random" (something you picked out) item that's better than the rest of their gear, which they might decide they like. And could drag them into a plot regarding the previous owners.

Scarcity and natural growth are what make things seem special. Starting at 1st level is a pain, but it forces people to build characters that can actually survive every level from 1st even if they have some perfect build they're aiming for. Instead of starting with thousands of gold in perfectly chosen items- having to actually make each choice between keep or sell at a loss, having that incentive to get use out of something because it's one of your few options, those make it more likely they'll look at an item and say "this is cooler than another +1." Randomness does not make for a balanced game, but if you want the old-school feeling of "holy crap we just got something awesome (instead of the usual crap)," then you can't be letting them just convert whatever they have into whatever they want.

What tricks do you use to speed up combat, or at least keep it moving in this edition? Would it be heresy to use some lessons from 5E like "average damage" for monsters?
The most important component of fast combat rounds is a group of players that will actually play fast combat rounds. Paying attention, knowing how their characters work, etc. Aside from that I don't really know of any tricks. You could forgo rolling damage if you want, but I don't see how it's much worse than rolling for attacks. It's the old "Why are you playing DnD if you don't want to roll dice? There are plenty of games with less dice rolling" point. 3.5 doesn't make as much use of the wide-range d10's and d12's as 5e does, so it might actually make less of a difference. Not using stuff that bogs down combat obviously helps- not stacking half a dozen piddly +1's here and there or using undead or summoned monsters, the usual.

Additionally, Pathfinder seemed really cluttered. . . Too many features all over the place.
Forsooth.

[Freelance GM]

That's actually a ton of useful feedback!



if your bosses aren't surrounding a round and you want them to for whatever reason, look at how your pcs are killing them. don't just give them immunity to everything your pcs are slinging, but think about some other types of defenses or think about how to bypass some of them. without specifics it's hard to give a lot of advice on this specifically, but once you answer it, we'll have some more helpful feedback.


Back when I ran 3.5 regularly, my bosses got out-actioned by over-optimized players who knew what they were doing. However, that was years ago, and I'd like to think I've learned to build more balanced encounters since then. We'll see...

As for specifics: in this campaign, one of the major antagonists is a Hobgoblin warlord who's earned some class levels (Battle Sorcerer 6/Fighter 2/Eldritch Knight 3). He's got the leadership feat, and a CR8 cohort (Minotaur barbarian 6). His low-level minions are an "honor guard" of 1st-level fighters built to harass the party with spiked chains. I'm not expecting great things from the mooks, but I suspect the minotaur will be a big enough distraction for the warlord to get a few good spells off before his inevitable defeat.


It also rather crushes any sense of verisimilitude when the supposedly unique elite PCs are faced with dozens of people who are apparently the same level despite not having done any adventuring. The DMG has rules for determining how many high level NPCs a population center has, and they don't support dozens and dozens of 5th+ level guys bumming around in caves or standing around in armies, nor do the tribal groupings in humanoid monster entries. It doesn't make sense, it's not balanced: DnD is about fighting monsters, not people. At least once you're high enough level that 1st level people aren't a threat anymore.

Yeah, as a personal rule for writing NPCs, I make sure anyone who gets actual levels has enough of a backstory/reputation to have earned them. The NPCs I was slogging through were notable antagonists - characters like that hobgoblin warlord, his cohort, and some other secondary villains. Most of the rank-and-file enemies are going to be standard, unmodified monsters.

I'm genuinely curious about your opinion on this, though - what's the issue with the leveled monsters in the tribal groupings? I totally understand how throwing a few 10th-level shadowdancers at the party can shatter their immersion. What did those Shadowdancers do to get to 10th level? Shouldn't the party have heard of them? However, couldn't it be assumed that an orc chieftain and his chosen champions have raided enough settlements and dueled enough rivals in their lifetimes to genuinely earn a few class levels?



The main strategy for bosses surviving more than one round is not having solo bosses, but that tends to ignore the first problem: having PCs that can one-round bosses. Characters in 3.5 aren't inherently "more powerful," it's pitting standard monsters against over-optimized PCs- allowed to combine dozens of disparate books into a single build vs a monster that was designed to challenge builds of approximately core or core+the book the monster's in. You are the DM, you are allowed to put limits on your PCs. If you insist on allowing your players free reign, expect inter and extra-party imbalance, which will require more work to compensate.


There are only 3 people (myself included) in my current group with access to any physical 3.5 books, so I'm limiting them to the stuff that's freely available online in the SRD. I'm leaving out Psionics, because I just don't really like them, so it's really just the core stuff with a few variant options. I'm not too worried about over-optimized characters. Yet.



Following that, you can give out commissions as quest rewards. Send them on a mission that produces little loot, and their patron/patron's affiliated caster will make them each an item, which may be dedicated to the mission or otherwise aesthetically customized to their liking.


Ok, this, actually, is an awesome idea. Mechanically, it's not any different from letting players buy/pick their own magic items, but it has a much better sense of verisimilitude than the assumed "magic shop."



You could forgo rolling damage if you want, but I don't see how it's much worse than rolling for attacks. It's the old "Why are you playing DnD if you don't want to roll dice? There are plenty of games with less dice rolling" point. 3.5 doesn't make as much use of the wide-range d10's and d12's as 5e does, so it might actually make less of a difference.


As a player, it's a blast to roll a dozen or more damage dice and total it all up. As a DM, it gets in the way of my narration. True enough, there are other games with less rolling, but my motivations here are pure nostalgia. Once I've gotten this 3.5 bug out of my system, I will probably go back to systems with less rolling. I'm gauging my group's interest in a one-shot of Lasers and Feelings.

[Venger]

That's actually a ton of useful feedback!

Back when I ran 3.5 regularly, my bosses got out-actioned by over-optimized players who knew what they were doing. However, that was years ago, and I'd like to think I've learned to build more balanced encounters since then. We'll see...

As for specifics: in this campaign, one of the major antagonists is a Hobgoblin warlord who's earned some class levels (Battle Sorcerer 6/Fighter 2/Eldritch Knight 3). He's got the leadership feat, and a CR8 cohort (Minotaur barbarian 6). His low-level minions are an "honor guard" of 1st-level fighters built to harass the party with spiked chains. I'm not expecting great things from the mooks, but I suspect the minotaur will be a big enough distraction for the warlord to get a few good spells off before his inevitable defeat.
If it's just a boss vs a party, then of course he's gonna get out-actioned, which is why no matter what your boss is, he should basically never fight the pcs alone, even if it just means giving him a couple skeletons or something.

that assortment sounds pretty good. what's your party breakdown? how many people are there? what level are they? what are their classes? sounds like you've got the right general idea.



There are only 3 people (myself included) in my current group with access to any physical 3.5 books, so I'm limiting them to the stuff that's freely available online in the SRD. I'm leaving out Psionics, because I just don't really like them, so it's really just the core stuff with a few variant options. I'm not too worried about over-optimized characters. Yet.
If you want to limit player access to material, that's your prerogative, but you must know core only ≠*balanced. some of the most unbalanced content in the game is in core, so just keep an eye on things. a druid and a monk in the same party will give you a headache.


As a player, it's a blast to roll a dozen or more damage dice and total it all up. As a DM, it gets in the way of my narration. True enough, there are other games with less rolling, but my motivations here are pure nostalgia. Once I've gotten this 3.5 bug out of my system, I will probably go back to systems with less rolling. I'm gauging my group's interest in a one-shot of Lasers and Feelings.
Again, you might use an online roller, since it adds for you, which is where most of the dead time comes from.

[Freelance GM]

If it's just a boss vs a party, then of course he's gonna get out-actioned, which is why no matter what your boss is, he should basically never fight the pcs alone, even if it just means giving him a couple skeletons or something.

that assortment sounds pretty good. what's your party breakdown? how many people are there? what level are they? what are their classes? sounds like you've got the right general idea.


Right now, I'm only expecting 3 or 4 players, and I'm starting them out at APL 5. By the time they get to that boss, they'll be APL 9. So far, only one player has made a character: an Aasimar Cleric 4 with the Air and Travel domains, using the variant rules for spontaneous-casting divine classes. I'll know at least 2 more by Thursday.


If you want to limit player access to material, that's your prerogative, but you must know core only ≠*balanced. some of the most unbalanced content in the game is in core, so just keep an eye on things. a druid and a monk in the same party will give you a headache.


One of my two players with 3.5 experience vividly remembers how crazy a well-built monk could get. I actually don't think any of my old 3.5 players ever played a monk or druid, so I'll watch out for those. I do remember animal companions - even a Ranger's - being pretty troublesome.


Again, you might use an online roller, since it adds for you, which is where most of the dead time comes from.

I'll give it a shot.

[Fizban]

I'm genuinely curious about your opinion on this, though - what's the issue with the leveled monsters in the tribal groupings?
No issue. Both cities and tribes support a very small number of guys above 1st compared to their total population, and no population should be without some higher level guys. The tribal rules are the same in that they don't support a ton of high level guys, thus neither the city nor the tribal grops have a problem. Every adventure I've read with an army in it however, has called for hundreds or thousands of "regular" soldiers that are 2nd+ level (Red Hand of Doom, Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land, and War of the Burning Sky all do), and then there's the dungeon with a "cult" that outnumbers the clergy of whole city. And everything with a drow in it.

There are only 3 people (myself included) in my current group with access to any physical 3.5 books, so I'm limiting them to the stuff that's freely available online in the SRD. I'm leaving out Psionics, because I just don't really like them, so it's really just the core stuff with a few variant options. I'm not too worried about over-optimized characters. Yet.
Well alrighty then. Within core, there are still some monsters that can screw the action economy: anything with a gaze attack or an "aura" effect. Mummies have a gaze attack+, their fear rolling for a save as soon as you see it rather than waiting until the start of the victim's turn. The Hezrou's stench makes teleporting into position an attack of it's own. Anything with SLAs of a high enough caster level can take Quicken SLA, some already have it but others don't.

Lasers and Feelings.
An RPG for every occasion :smallcool:

[Venger]

One of my two players with 3.5 experience vividly remembers how crazy a well-built monk could get. I actually don't think any of my old 3.5 players ever played a monk or druid, so I'll watch out for those. I do remember animal companions - even a Ranger's - being pretty troublesome.


That is just not true. monk is one of the worst if not the worst classes in the game, no matter how many splats you use. contrary to popular opinion, characters don't get more powerful simply by virtue of having more options. the low tier classes (wizard, cleric, druid, etc) are already very powerful even when limited to core only, so adding a few spells from complete mage or whatever does little to change their overall power level. high tier classes (fighter, barbarian, monk) have very few options in core, and letting them pick goodies from other books helps them kind of do something.

druid and monk aren't a specific baking soda and vinegar example. there's no weird interaction between the two classes specifically. what I mean is having a discrepancy of some players using very strong classes and others using very weak classes (assuming all players have a similar level of competence and familiarity with optimization) will create difficulties for you and your party.

[Freelance GM]

Every adventure I've read with an army in it however, has called for hundreds or thousands of "regular" soldiers that are 2nd+ level (Red Hand of Doom, Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land, and War of the Burning Sky all do), and then there's the dungeon with a "cult" that outnumbers the clergy of whole city. And everything with a drow in it.

Ah, ok. Yeah, that annoys me, too.



Well alrighty then. Within core, there are still some monsters that can screw the action economy: anything with a gaze attack or an "aura" effect. Mummies have a gaze attack+, their fear rolling for a save as soon as you see it rather than waiting until the start of the victim's turn. The Hezrou's stench makes teleporting into position an attack of it's own. Anything with SLAs of a high enough caster level can take Quicken SLA, some already have it but others don't.


I don't think I've used a Hezrou before in any edition - but it would make a perfect final boss for one of the other questlines I have planned. I really like that their greater teleport is at-will. That's going to lead to some fun shenanigans. I might drag the boss fight out over the course of an in-play day, or a week. The Hezrou appears, fights until its below 50 HP, then teleports out. It takes a long rest, and returns in exactly 8 hours. I think there was a Battlestar Galactica episode with a similar problem. The players have to use something like dimensional anchor, or track the demon to its lair using scrying.


That is just not true. monk is one of the worst if not the worst classes in the game, no matter how many splats you use.

Hmm. I'll ask the player if he remembers the specifics of the build. There might have been house ruling or a misread rule involved somewhere.



what I mean is having a discrepancy of some players using very strong classes and others using very weak classes (assuming all players have a similar level of competence and familiarity with optimization) will create difficulties for you and your party.

Ok, this I get, and I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for it. My players are actually pretty poor optimizers; they tend to prefer flavor over function (which is usually fine). Are there any especially strong/weak combos in core I should worry about?

[Venger]

Hmm. I'll ask the player if he remembers the specifics of the build. There might have been house ruling or a misread rule involved somewhere.



Ok, this I get, and I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for it. My players are actually pretty poor optimizers; they tend to prefer flavor over function (which is usually fine). Are there any especially strong/weak combos in core I should worry about?

it's not really important what the specifics were, just that you need to not lump monk in as one of the strong classes.

okay good, then I can save myself a link to angel summoner and bmx bandit.

it's not really about specific combos so much as huge discrepancies in power. even if all your players are terrible at optimization, even a poorly played druid or wizard will quickly make a monk or fighter irrelevant, so it's something to keep an eye on or think about when designing encounters. familiarize yourself with the tier list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?266559-Tier-System-for-Classes-(Rescued-from-MinMax)) as a basic guideline

[Freelance GM]

it's not really about specific combos so much as huge discrepancies in power. even if all your players are terrible at optimization, even a poorly played druid or wizard will quickly make a monk or fighter irrelevant, so it's something to keep an eye on or think about when designing encounters. familiarize yourself with the tier list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?266559-Tier-System-for-Classes-(Rescued-from-MinMax)) as a basic guideline

Ah, I remember those. Right now, the one player who's made a character has a cleric, but she's using the spontaneously casting variant and picked some unusual spells. I think I could make a convincing argument for placing the character at the low end of Tier 2. I'll explain Tiers to the group, and see if I can convince the other players to make their characters in the Tier 2/Tier 3 range.

I might also whip up a few pregenerated characters for them to consider. We'll see.

[Fizban]

Tiers are overrated, especially if you already know your players aren't serious optimizers. I wouldn't worry about it unless you see an actual problem, like a character who doesn't have enough of the ability score their class needs, or a Druid talking about what they're gonna do with Natural Spell (Druid can suddently go from zero to OP, but it's really the only core class that can do so without warning). Before optimization, tactics/strategy and party composition. The game is built assuming the standard party of cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard, working as a team rather than individuals. As long as you have all four parts, the party works together, and no one is trying to be a showoff, things should be fine.

On the contrary, telling people to all play the same tier makes for overpowered parties. The game expects cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard, and no more. Two full casters, one arcane and one divine, who ration and share out their spells as needed to keep the whole party going. A whole party of "tier 2's" inevitably means a whole party of full casters, which is twice as many as the game expects, and suddenly everything dies way too easy as it's hit by 3-4 spells per round instead of 1-2.

I'm more worried about the spontaneous cleric: cleric is the class upon which the rest of the game rests, all the status removal/prevention and defensive/utility spells a monster might expect the party to have access to are found on the cleric's spell list. Many monsters are allowed to have crippling status effects or other abilities (such as teleportation or tons of energy damage) that require a specific spell to beat, specifically because the cleric can prepare those spells no matter what other choices they've made.

Doesn't mean they can't play it of course, it's just goes back to making sure you compare your encounters to the party. A Mummy will be much more dangerous for a party that doesn't have Remove Disease, Dragons expect you have have resist/protection from energy, mind control is meant to be blocked by Magic Circle against Evil, and the teleporting Hezrou boss plan can't be solved by Dimensional Anchor if no one in the party took it (and without serious monster knowledge, most wouldn't). And so on.

[Freelance GM]

I'm more worried about the spontaneous cleric: cleric is the class upon which the rest of the game rests, all the status removal/prevention and defensive/utility spells a monster might expect the party to have access to are found on the cleric's spell list. Doesn't mean they can't play it of course, it's just goes back to making sure you compare your encounters to the party.

That's another good point. If I notice the group is missing a spell they're likely to need - like that dimensional anchor, or a protection from energy - I'll make sure a scroll or two shows up in the treasure a few sessions before they'll actually need it.

[edathompson2]

95% of DMs focus on combat and it sounds like that's the route you're going as well. I've been there, done that a thousand times.

If you want my advice. Focus on things that will challenge all their skills. Make the combat encounters weaker and just use a pathfinder rule that you level after 3 games.

Also focus on puzzles and mystery. Take the time to build the backstory of each character. Then find ways to integrate that into the story.

The biggest complaint I hear from DMs is that players don't roleplay, they just beef up their combat ability. If combat is never really the threat, it doesn't become a focus.

Food for thought.

[Kitsuneymg]

Story time:
Is designing NPCs with class levels always just a slog, or are there some good (preferably free) tools out there to help? A list of useful premade NPCs (bandits, guards, scribes, priests, etc.) would also be extremely helpful.


Depending on optimization level, the NPC codex (Pathfinder) has a decent collection of premade NPCs. If you're hi-op though, it will be terrible. And yes, custom ones are often slogs.

I'll pimp out 3rd party solutions to these problems. While WBL doesn't change, both Path of War and Spheres of Power make it far easier to make good characters quickly. Take X levels of the class that fits your theme, choose the ~N-2N abilities you get, and you're done.


Encounter building in 3.5 seems a bit less sophisticated than 5E's approach, but 3.5 characters were also way more powerful. Does anyone have any useful do's and don'ts about balancing encounters with large (8+) numbers of enemies, or good strategies for making bosses who can survive more than a round?

8+ creatures need buffing to be combat threats. After 3rd level, subtract 1 from any "combat brute" CR. After 12th, subtract 2. For bosses, they need mooks. Or steal from 5E: http://theangrygm.com/two-headed-two-tailed-bifurcated-snake-stats/. Action economy will kill the solo boss. Low to-hit and low saves will kill the hoardlings.



How closely do you stick to the Wealth by Level tables? Tragically, I didn't learn how critical magic items were to 3.5's balance until after I started running 5E. How closely should I stick to the "Treasure values per Encounter" tables, and how can I keep magic items feeling special and unique in an edition where they're actually for sale?

3.5 WBL is broken, even if you stick exactly to the tables. PF WBL is more close to "correct" if sticking to tables, as they redid the XP/level table to make average treasure gained per level line up with what's on the table.

I don't track it took closely and am always looking for good ways to implement inherent bonus progression or compensate for eliminating magic christams tree syndrome. E6 is the best way I've found and that is not too fun.


What tricks do you use to speed up combat, or at least keep it moving in this edition? Would it be heresy to use some lessons from 5E like "average damage" for monsters?

It would not be heresy, IMO. I also encourage use of ToB/PoW and other standard-action type systems to let people do their turn more quickly.


Also, if you're wondering...

IMO, the best way to overcome this is to use the PF rules (skill system, CMB,CMD,) but port any options you miss from 3.5 over as teh system are mostly rules compatible.


Ok, this may not help at all, but it's my personal opinion as a person who has run and played in 3.X and PF games for a while, and who shepherded a die-hard 3.5 group into PF.

You really, really want to look at Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) and Path of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/). PoW is a PF version of Tome of Battle. If you want to stick to 3.5, you could make convert some disciplines over. For one, it gives two ranged weapon disciplines. However, the real winner here is Spheres of Power.

SoP replaces the casting in PF with a talent-based system that is much easier to master, much easier to build, and has much less game-breaking potential when compared to vancian casting. It could also be rolled back to 3.5, but you'd have to do some real work ensuring the base-classes presented were not too good, and you'd have to convert the skill lists. You could just use the magic system, I guess. That would accomplish much of the same thing.

SoP gives you the ability to have your character defining magic at level 1. Necromancer? No need to wait to start animating dead. Want to be a Chronomancer? Time (haste and slow-like effects) at level 1. Blaster? Destruction makes damage spells viable. It provides scaling magic talents that allow you to build the character you want, not the character your level allows. Forget having just an undead familiar. A Conjurer can have an undead bird that can use Dark talents whose eyes he can see out of.

So if you're willing to put in some work, SoP greatly enriches the game from a narrative and character building PoV, while cutting off the traditional T1/T2 game breaking abilities. It brings casters to high T4/T3 level (some advanced talents bump into T2), while PoW brings martials into solid T3 area, with some certain builds potentially reaching T2. PoW also has a very high floor. Even a bad player will be effective with a Warlord. SoP has a lower floor: it's easy to become unfocused in spheres and just accomplish nothing, but even if you go all-in on Nature or Weather, you're going to rule in your domain.

[Elder_Basilisk]

A few observations on running combat in 3.5 and Pathfinder.

1. Combats with multiple enemies are more interesting. The whole party vs a huge elemental with class levels is ok once in a while but it's usually more interesting if there is the elemenal's summoner, some of his acolytes, and a guard or two on the table as well. This helps with the action economy problem and gives an opportunity for a lot of the things that optimizers frequently ignore to shine. 12 2nd level hobgoblins? Fireball doesn't sound so bad now does it?

2. A few suggestions to speed up play. A. Use miniatures and try to make your miniatures' equipment match the monster. Its ok to plop down a group of orcs with leather armor and greataxes and say that they have chainmail and falchions but if you are able to say what you see is what you get, it will save a lot of description time and quite a bit of memory/thought time when your players can see where the orcs with longspears are. B. designate the miniatures visually. For example, if you have those 12 hobgoblins (probably using wotc or paizo minis) tag your initiative entry and hit point tracker as (for example) red hobgoblin Marshall, yellow hobgoblin Marshall, green hobgoblin Marshall, red alt paint Marshall, etc. You can add little colored stickers to the bases to quickly differentiate between them. C. Use a tool to help you track initiative. There are a lot of helpful initiative tracker apps for smartphones and tablets and paizo makes a magnetic board to do it physically. Using one of these can really help speed play. D. Just using average damage for monsters is not heresy and offers notable time-saving. If you don't do that, roll attack and damage at the same time. E. Roll in the open. If you don't hide behind a screen, you don't need to think about "do I fudge this or not." It's just there. Embrace that.

[Fizban]

That's another good point. If I notice the group is missing a spell they're likely to need - like that dimensional anchor, or a protection from energy - I'll make sure a scroll or two shows up in the treasure a few sessions before they'll actually need it.
Thinking on it, well when was the last time you ever say anybody actually have to work to overcome a special ability? The Cleric has all that stuff to keep things fair, but it also means the party rarely if ever has to actually hunt down a magic item to beat a thing. It's one of the oldest tropes in the book (including as a suggestion in the DMG), but it only comes up when something's got a fiat power that requires another fiat power to counter. If the party doesn't have anyone who can cast Dimensional Anchor, they can quest to beat a monster without needing a bunch of fiat involved- working to overcome their personal limitations and secure victory over a foe that they can't otherwise defeat. As long as they can't just nip down to the shop for it anyway.

Nothing says the Hezrou has to actually keep on them constantly- it has things to see to and if they can run it off it shouldn't want to risk them getting lucky, just harry them enough to make them go away. If they can just nip down to the shop, surviving long enough to get there would be the challenge.