Reason to switch from 3.5

[ayvango]

There was a good question "what reasons do I have to switch?" asked here.

I could suggest one: inconsistency. D&D 3.5 contradicts itself and common sense too often. I could forgive innumerable game mechanics quirks and messed spell and magic items descriptions. I could rather perceive what was RAI and fix RAW to get some meaningful rules. That is all details and then could be revoked by the playing party on the fly.

But the conception itself is flawed, and I could not imagine other way to fix then switch from 3.5 totally. The design purposely made downtime activity tedious contrary to profitable combat. But them both are part of the same game, moreover they compete with each other. Magic Item creation consumes precious feat that could improve combat prowess significantly. What does it give? Good opportunity to spend entire month crafting single item. Alternatively you could engage combat with under-levelled CR and safely retrieve much more items then you could possibly craft for the same period of time. Crafting is strictly unoptimal and should be avoided.

However it is still part of the game. Designers took their time to rigorously describe crafting. Crafting should be fun to players since people like it and many other games granted them good times with it. And yet it is unplayable. The problem that it competes for character options investment. Crafting system should be orthogonal to combat options and combat experiences. You need third level to craft wondrous item. And where could you gain enough XP to become 3rd level caster? In the battlefield. So you could not just live on crafting, you should fight to craft. And if you could fight what would keep you in crafting?

The game is overly discriminating against NPC. They are forced to take suboptimal and absurd decisions to make world look like the lore describes it. No player character would like to walk same road. Why villains spent so much gold on building strongholds with protection which players penetrate easily? He spend gold to provide someone with XP. Shouldn't he use this gold on his own? Leveling is solid option comparing to building ineffective traps. Just be dozen levels above all adventurers and kill them without relying to your dungeon power.

There are monsters the monster manuals and they rarely supposed to live an adventuring life. Like the infamous dwarven ancestor with ridiculous natural armor and no mundane armor. Any reasonable individual in his place done some armor to increase his durability even more. Vulnerable to acid war trolls (sentiment creature) gives to effort to obtain protection against acid. But every player that get hands on the troll regeneration make it acid invulnerable right away.

The real economy pose many questions too. The most valuable things are magic items that require XP to cast, so economy all should be about XP, but there is no trace of it in the rules. Well, a game could not model entire world, it should focus on something. The D&D is focused on adventuring party, so it is possible to leave all external details loose. Sadly that breaks sandboxed games, but you still could adventure.

Unfortunately bad habit of building inconsistent rules stroke at adventuring as well. Wizard requires days to update his spellbook while cleric and druid are ready immediately after level up. Wizard are more flexible and powerful than other casters without doubt. It should be compensated somehow. But the compensation should not escape battlefield scope. Poor hit dice and attack bonus is good example. Making wizard spent numerous house on writing his book cripples entire party. Of course if there party consist solely from wizards they would enjoy their downtime. But what if other classes are present too? Should they wait until wizards would be ready or just went to some small adventure without him?

The skill system are horrible too. Good thing is that skills has ranks and progression through level. Incredible 20th level professional should perform much better then 1st level newbie. The bad things that there is no gradation in risk level. There are only two variants: where you could take 10 and where you roll d20. But d20 has too bad distribution. Something like rerolls or using multiple dices could fit better for some skills. Some skills are good with d20 which describes its randomnicity good. Other skills should be very stable for use and in practise player frequently take enough points in it to pass on any roll, e.g. the tumble skill. Making tumble highly random is like making moving distances random. I know some tactic systems with random move where big numbers compensate individual fails. But for a RPG it is a throttle.

Skills are unequal and could be easily separated to categories. Some like tumble require fixed effort. Some skills has zero failure cost, worth putting single point since it could not be used untrained. Language skills has no ranks and are skills only in name. Some skills like spot and hide, bluff and sense motive appears in pairs. That skills are competing and you should always put full points to remain relevant, since there is a little benefit in outperforming weaker opponents - you could just beat them straightforwardly. Weapon proficiency are not a skill while resembles it very much. Some skills are eliminated by magic alternatives that are much strongly, like fly options eliminates climb. Some skills require feats and class features to work like search and survival.

And as expected there are utterly useless skills: craft and profession. They are garbage for the same reason as magic item creation feats. Crafting requires enormous amount of time and it sets party off tempo. There are two obvious house rule solutions: either speed up drastically crafting (possibly to unrealistic pace) or split crafting from battle mechanics. E.g. character each level has two bonus points that he could spent for crafting skills. And he could get more crafting skill bonuses from crafting items without need for adventuring.

And as expected PC and NPC are not equal from skills perspective. Diplomacy is clearly anti-NPC skill.

Skills are primordial soup of different unstructured ideas. If designer could not grasp exact game mechanics of something he made it a skill.

Moreover skills embrace small number of users fields. There is skill for avoiding detection by sight (hide) and by hearing (move silently). But there is no similar skills for other senses. Could I introduce them with house rule? Sure. But that would not avoid the fact that skills per class level are limited and I could no just put anything into skill. I could not suggest any good solution in current paradigm. There is heal for humans but there is no mend skill for constructs.

[Zombimode]

The game is overly discriminating against NPC. They are forced to take suboptimal and absurd decisions to make world look like the lore describes it. No player character would like to walk same road. Why villains spent so much gold on building strongholds with protection which players penetrate easily? He spend gold to provide someone with XP. Shouldn't he use this gold on his own? Leveling is solid option comparing to building ineffective traps. Just be dozen levels above all adventurers and kill them without relying to your dungeon power.

If the challanges for the PCs are to easy, the PCs are to strong or the DM failed at their job.
Also, "leveling" exists for PCs. The rules remain silent on how NPCs aquire Levels. We know that the way PCs gain experience can not the universal rule since we know of at least one case of NPCs where the rules do not apply (cohorts).
Your problem is an imangined one.


There are monsters the monster manuals and they rarely supposed to live an adventuring life. Like the infamous dwarven ancestor with ridiculous natural armor and no mundane armor. Any reasonable individual in his place done some armor to increase his durability even more. Vulnerable to acid war trolls (sentiment creature) gives to effort to obtain protection against acid. But every player that get hands on the troll regeneration make it acid invulnerable right away.

You seem to be underselling the nature of these creature. And you are shortcutting the difficulties of those actions: so the War Troll wants to obtain protection vs. acid. How does he do this, exactly? Walk into a store?


The real economy pose many questions too. The most valuable things are magic items that require XP to cast, so economy all should be about XP, but there is no trace of it in the rules. Well, a game could not model entire world, it should focus on something. The D&D is focused on adventuring party, so it is possible to leave all external details loose. Sadly that breaks sandboxed games, but you still could adventure.

You've answered the question yourself. I don't see how this "breaks" sandbox games.


Unfortunately bad habit of building inconsistent rules stroke at adventuring as well. Wizard requires days to update his spellbook while cleric and druid are ready immediately after level up. Wizard are more flexible and powerful than other casters without doubt. It should be compensated somehow. But the compensation should not escape battlefield scope. Poor hit dice and attack bonus is good example. Making wizard spent numerous house on writing his book cripples entire party. Of course if there party consist solely from wizards they would enjoy their downtime. But what if other classes are present too? Should they wait until wizards would be ready or just went to some small adventure without him?

Like the first point, this seems to be a completely imagined problem that flies in the face of the actual gaming reality.
Also, your charakters have nothing better to do then "adventuring" so you have really no idea what to do else during "downtime"? Again, this seems to be an imagined problem that flies in the face of actual gaming reality.


The skill system are horrible too. Good thing is that skills has ranks and progression through level. Incredible 20th level professional should perform much better then 1st level newbie. The bad things that there is no gradation in risk level. There are only two variants: where you could take 10 and where you roll d20. But d20 has too bad distribution. Something like rerolls or using multiple dices could fit better for some skills. Some skills are good with d20 which describes its randomnicity good. Other skills should be very stable for use and in practise player frequently take enough points in it to pass on any roll, e.g. the tumble skill. Making tumble highly random is like making moving distances random. I know some tactic systems with random move where big numbers compensate individual fails. But for a RPG it is a throttle.

Seems like a perception problem: readjust what "being good" in a particular skill means. If you are "good" at tumbling, you should not fail easily at normal tumbling: so to be good at tumbling you need a tumbling score of +12 or so. If you only have +5 you are simply not "good".

[Khedrac]

There was a good question "what reasons do I have to switch?" asked here.
Switching would mean that I can sell my existing collection of 3.0/3.5 books and free up the nice bit of cash that they represent.
- Oh, no, then I would need to buy a new system which is likely to either cost more or not be fully published yet (or both) - perhaps this is not such a good idea.
(Seriously, I made this mistake when 2nd Ed came out, selling most of my 1st Ed books and then discovering that, of course, that I had to wait for different books to be published - I was a university student, so I felt poor.)

Given the nature of this sub-forum - 3.X, PF & D20 systems - anything other than a thread on why to switch to one of these is in the wrong sub-forum. (A thread on why, if new to RPGs, not to start with 3.X but to go to a different version might be on topic.)
A thread advocating Pathfinder over 3.X would have its uses (but I believe 'X is better than Y' threads are against the forum rules, so it would need to be very carefully written), but essentially nearly everyone reading this forum has already taken the decision not to stop playing D20 (some may play 3.5/PF and newer versions) as such a thread on why to switch is pretty close to being "trolling" (I give you the credit that it was not intended to be so).

More practical threads would be "Why play X" threads - 3.5, PF and other D20 in this forum, 4th Ed in the 4th Ed forum and 5th Ed in the 5th Ed forum

I have friends who play PF and I have heard very nice things about 5th Ed, however I already have a lot of 3.5 books, a few 3.0, a lot of early 2nd Ed (which never get used), the Traveller 1st Ed reprint (ditto), Traveller 4th Ed (ditto), pretty much all RuneQuest 3rd Ed (and some 2nd) (very rarely get used) plus bits and pieces of some other systems (C&S, MERP, Lost Souls, Vampire 1st Ed, T&T etc.) All in all this is quite a collection of gaming books (not huge, I know people with far more) but it does represent a good reason not to pick up a new game (though I expect to get RQ:G when it comes out) a thread telling me to abandon what I already know is going to get laughed at, howver if I ever do decide to pick up a new game then ones telling me what the strengths (and weaknesses) of available systems are would be useful.

[Pleh]

What I'm hearing is only 1 reason to switch and several different examples of that reason: "because it does not adequately support the kind of game you might like to play"

Or, more accurately, it hasn't done so for you in the past. Just remember that none of these limits of the system have all been considered problems for other people just because they bother you.

Otherwise, this is an excellent reason to switch. As others have pointed out, most people who feel as you do have already just made the switch independently and so probably no one reading here needs or wants further convincing. Your audience now is the pure, distilled remnants of those who already considered your proposal on their own and rejected it, while most who would agree with you are in the sister subforums next door.

But 3.5/PF holds a unique place on the TTRPG scene. It marks a powerful chapter in the history of the hobby, for better and worse.

[flappeercraft]

For myself, the reason I like 3.5 so much is that there is no consistency honestly. The game is so erratic that basically anything can be done in any way you want in ways not intended. That is part of what I love about this game, that it is so fundamentally broken from its core.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Frankly i think your main complaint (the erraticness) is a natural consequence of the reason i prefer 3.5: the abundance of options.
The newer editions just can't compete with that. I can accept a bit of a need for DM decisions in exchange. If you can't you should probably switch.

As for the rest of your reasons Pleh has it basically right. D&D is not a sandbox simulator. It's a game about adventurers going adventuring. And it does that well enough.
It doesn't need an internally consistent economy. It doesn't need monsters and NPCs to operate on the same rules as PCs. The PCs are explicitly exceptional people. They're heroes (or villains, or "powerful people", so nobody feels discriminated).

D&D is not some poli science project to emulate a fantasy world. The rules are a vehicle to form an adventuring group with a bunch of friends and go adventuring. And nothing else.
You can use it for different playstyles, but it's not designed for that and it shows.

[malloc]

Four words: I attempt to grapple.

[TotallyNotEvil]

None, you philistine!

But a 3.P game can be interesting.

[Jiece18]

No RPG system is perfect. Pathfinder and the other editions of D&D attempted to improve on the flaws of 3.5. While they did here and there, no system is without quirks. My group has stuck with 3.5 simple because we know the system and how to adjust or improve the flaws it has. Switching to a new system is going to have a learning curve and things you like in 3.5 might be gone.

Plus it can get pretty pricy accuiring everything a new system has to sell you. If you spent a large chunk already on a 3.5 library, most would prefer to adapt what you have rather than buy something new.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Plus it can get pretty pricy accuiring everything a new system has to sell you. If you spent a large chunk already on a 3.5 library, most would prefer to adapt what you have rather than buy something new.

Yeah, that's a pretty good reason too. "D&D, mostly as usual but with a few differences" doesn't really justify blowing the money on a new set of books.
If i'm going to do that i'd rather buy something completely different to get a little variety.

[Falontani]

Giant ol Snip
While I could argue each and every point one thing repeatedly showed up in my opinion.

It seems as though you have either read the books and never took part in an actual game, or your DMs weren't very good at their job. Each and every one of your problems is solved with a competent Dungeon Master.

[Zexionthefirst]

Unfortunately bad habit of building inconsistent rules stroke at adventuring as well. Wizard requires days to update his spellbook while cleric and druid are ready immediately after level up. Wizard are more flexible and powerful than other casters without doubt. It should be compensated somehow. But the compensation should not escape battlefield scope. Poor hit dice and attack bonus is good example. Making wizard spent numerous house on writing his book cripples entire party. Of course if there party consist solely from wizards they would enjoy their downtime. But what if other classes are present too? Should they wait until wizards would be ready or just went to some small adventure without him?

Way number One that this isn't a problem:
Wizard: I have enough gold to add some spells to my book. I only really need to add Protection from Arrows and Cat’s Grace, but I might pick up an extra 1st level spell too.
DM: Okay. That'll take you two to three days. While he's doing that, is there anything you two like to do?
Cleric & Druid: No, we're good.
DM: Okay, you successfully add the spells to your book, and are ready to set off.

Way number Two that this isn't a problem:
Wizard: I have enough gold to add some spells to my book. I only really need to add Protection from Arrows and Cat’s Grace, but I might pick up an extra 1st level spell too.
DM: Okay. That'll take you two to three days. While he's doing that, is there anything you two like to do?
Druid: Ya, I'll head over to the public park, sort of try and connect with it on a natural level. Make sure the flora is healthy, that it's being well taken care of and treated right.
DM: Okay. Towards the end of the first day, you happen upon a small botanical garden being tended to by a youngish Halfling.
The druid now has a potential plot line to peruse if she would like.

Way number Three that this isn't a problem:
It literately just isn't. This is a role playing game. If you get downtime, you can role play. Or you can skip it. Even a wizard can role play during the downtime.

I also don't agree with most of what you said. But I have no real reason to argue your other points. Falontani was mostly right. A good mesh of people in your group (including a competent DM) makes all of those problems not exist.

[Florian]

I think the OP actually has some good points.

In a game that is all about adventuring and dungeon-crawling (and uses an actual WBL chart), the whole slew of magic item crafting feats and the rules they use come over as extremely odd, a bit like whether the designers couldn't decide on it now being a good thing to have items or whether the bad powergamers should pay thru the nose to have their damned items.
It´s like: Ok, if you want that Holy Avenger, you should go questing for one, or you sit in the basement for a year crafting one. Option A will be exciting and give you XP, option B will lock up the character for a year and cost you XP.

The oddity with skills and feats is also true: Feat slots and skill ranks are a limited resource and everything costs the same, so you could expect that one rank in skill A gets you the same "worth" as a rank in skill B. Now contrasting that to, say, Dark Heresy, where I can by a "weak" Talent for 100XP and a "powerful" one for 500XP....

Looking at how Earthdawn handled those weave magic items or that one monster hunter video game that has you hunt powerful monsters to get the materials for crafting your equipment and items sure seems a lot more in tune with an adventuring game.

[Doctor Awkward]

If the only place your characters are gaining experience is immediately after killing monsters, that's fine... but you are definitely missing out.

There's also story completion XP awards (as recommended by the DMG), disarming or bypassing traps (they are called encounters and come with CR's for a reason), and just good old-fashioned roleplaying. Any time you encounter something, you can theoretically gain XP relative to that thing's CR if you resolve said encounter favorably. So when next you see the prince and that maiden arguing at the dinner party, maybe step in and help them settle it.


Plus I happen to think that 3rd Editions ability to cater to all kinds of different levels of power (with a little elbow grease), is not only a point in the editions favor but also one of the systems highlights.

[Ignimortis]

Almost everything listed either doesn't come up that often or can adjudicated properly by the DM. Writing up a few pages of houserules takes less than converting everything you can get in 3.5 to any other system. And there are things 3.5 does well, especially as a class system, and it's what I've come to love as "true D&D".

[Knaight]

Switching permanently is a bit of a high order, but switching temporarily has a lot of reasons. Two simple ones are just wanting to try something else that caught your notice, or wanting to play a genre that D&D doesn't support. If you're in the mood for some hard sci-fi the best move is clearly to ditch D&D entirely for that campaign, much like many other genres.

[Mordaedil]

Four words: I attempt to grapple.

I dunno why people have a problem with grapple. Turning undead is more complex than grappling.

[Fizban]

I dunno why people have a problem with grapple. Turning undead is more complex than grappling.
'Specially if you just write yourself some notes on the parts you mess up. Worst part of grappling is that I always forget pinning wears off every round.

[ayvango]

If the challanges for the PCs are to easy, the PCs are to strong or the DM failed at their job.
The power is always relative. What was tough challenge would become easy walk when you gain 3-4 levels. So you always could leave the stronghold where you feel pressured and return to it once you get enough power to clear it. DM could not do anything with it. Party is not his mind slaves to take actions that are ineffective just to make him feel good and keep story spanning as he predicted. The same goes for villains. Attaining personal power is much better strategy than loosing resources on subordinates.


Also, "leveling" exists for PCs. The rules remain silent on how NPCs aquire Levels.
Yes. And that is shame. Designers failed to describe living world that could evolve by itself. The world is idle scene where only players are allowed to advance. It is deadly boring. If I'd like to play dead world, I could just load some computer RPG, where NPC is repeating the same worlds regardless of your actions, where you could take detour from quest and still complete it because nothing happens without you. Life is stopped like if you switched TV off.


so the War Troll wants to obtain protection vs. acid. How does he do this, exactly? Walk into a store?
Exactly. Just go there and buy magic item. If there is no store in vicinity then there would be traveling salesmen. Since trolls have critical need in it and would pay enough to make such sales profitable. That is how economics works. If trolls are employed but some higher level villain then he would naturally arms them with acid immunity. And there would be no flammable materials in the outpost. Assuming the villain has at least 18 Int. Why deliberately make things easier for your enemies? I could not forget one DM that was afraid of TPK and considerately put lantern and oil supply in hands of orks patrolling area around stronghold where troll was the main fighting force. If I would organize such outpost I would buy continuous flames for it. They should be very cheap since you could summon lantern archon with continuous flame as at-will spell-like ability.


You've answered the question yourself. I don't see how this "breaks" sandbox games.
Could you be more deliberate. Either I've given you appropriate answer or you couldn't see it.


Like the first point, this seems to be a completely imagined problem that flies in the face of the actual gaming reality.
Not so imagined, we house rule to make all crafting/scribing/item creation take significantly less time to complete: from days to hours.


Also, your charakters have nothing better to do then "adventuring" so you have really no idea what to do else during "downtime"?
Games without time pressure is too boring. You could seat idly, prepare spells, fight for 1 minute and seat idly for days. There is no need in extra spell slots, in resource economy. "downtime" has cost of not "adventuring" so it should provide comparable benefits. Imagine two parties dropped in the wild. One of two wizards, one of cleric and druid. They have 20 days to spend and would be forced to fight after that. Who do you think wins that tournament? Cleric and druid would have significant higher level because they could avoid spending time for scribing books.


Seems like a perception problem: readjust what "being good" in a particular skill means. If you are "good" at tumbling, you should not fail easily at normal tumbling: so to be good at tumbling you need a tumbling score of +12 or so. If you only have +5 you are simply not "good".
You look at probabilities too narrow. Probability is not defined only by mean but by its variance too. There is large difference between d20, 10d2, or 10*d2. Let use the tumble example. You need to get DC=20 with 10*d2 roll and you have 2 skill points. You would have 50% success rate. If you get another skill point you would still get 50% success rate. You could take 7 skill points and still has 50% success rate. Because the roll has too large variance. Look at another example. You have to roll d20 and get DC 15 when having 2 skill points. You have 35% success rate. If you take single skill point your success rate would improve by 5%. Another example: roll 3d6 and get DC 15 when having 2 skill points. You have 26% success rate. Put single skill point and your success rate would improve by 12%. It is a large difference in the random variable distribution. And different processes are matched better with different probability distributions.

Guessing right distribution is essential for game design. And skill are just unsystematic staff that should be really treated differently and has different distributions depending on usage. In fact that means that skills should split up for half dozen of different concepts each having its own rules.


Given the nature of this sub-forum - 3.X, PF & D20 systems - anything other than a thread on why to switch to one of these is in the wrong sub-forum.
But there is still entire thread on why to stay. You could not give idea proper thought without considering the opposite.


essentially nearly everyone reading this forum has already taken the decision not to stop playing D20
Well, they could still play two games in a time, because their buddies are too lazy to switch.

I asked here because I generally like d20 system but it irritates me a lot. So I thought that somebody could advice me game that is almost D20, but without its nonsense. I'm forced to stay here just could not find better alternative. But that is not because I really like my gaming experience.


Frankly i think your main complaint (the erraticness) is a natural consequence of the reason i prefer 3.5: the abundance of options.
Options are good when their are organized and in good relation to each other. You could type on keyboard pretty fast at thousand characters per minute speed. But it is still useless if you could only produce gibberish with such speed. The more options is the better, the bigger world is the better. But only if they are not nullifying each other. You could introduce dozens of new skills, but if you character still has 2 skill point per level it is useless. You need some system to transfer competence from one skill to another. Or probably make higher skills costs more to encourage taking bunch of other skills (like point buy system encourage to distribute attributes evenly). I could suggest many ways, but I'm not a game designer, I have no clue if this purely theoretic schemes would be fun to play in practise.


As for the rest of your reasons Pleh has it basically right. D&D is not a sandbox simulator. It's a game about adventurers going adventuring. And it does that well enough.
But it still pretty hard to shut off your empathy and curiosity. If you found a villain you would naturally be curios why he is doing what he is doing, what are his goals? Why does he choose such way to achieve them?

I managed to swallow objective morality already. You should kill this elders and babies because orks are inherently evil and preventing them from further evil deads are a good doing. And refusing to kill is a treachery against light and good. Well, the logic is flawed, bu I taken as given that "good" and "evil" in D&D is not actually good and evil but method to dividing world between fractions. From that point of view it's perfectly normal for a high level cleric to walk occasionally into local market and cast holy world on crowd to clear the community from scummy merchants and thieving customers. Someone could point that detect evil is cheaper, but it only detects evil auras. Personal aura may be suppressed or shadowed by an item aura. Holy world is better detector.

But I still fail to imagine villains that are purposefully inefficient. I could not believe in them. It's a pain to playing a game you could not believe in the least.


Each and every one of your problems is solved with a competent Dungeon Master.
In a sense that seasoned master could rewrite all rules and create new game system from scratch. But if the main rules is still in play, DM could do little about its inherent corrosion. And the last world is always from player. I have met few railroading DM who likes to create unrealistic stories. They mistake hero for an idiot. We sent all knight to mysterious portal and not a single one returned. You are a hero you should explore the portal! Would normal people step into portal that send them to nowhere? And there is no way to know what is located in the other point. May be there is a couple of ancient dragons or just some sleeping gas. But master says "you should go, that is dungeon appropriate for your party level, so just go inside". Nonsense. I would rather hunt wolves or fight bandits who danger level I know beforehand.

And I hate plot development when you accept impossible task and miraculously get magic items and enough help to defeat the villain. How could person rely on such frail assumption when he agrees to take offer? He should plan precisely his path to completing the offer and he could rely only on his strength and well known social levers. Like "to defeat troll I need alchemical fire, which is freely accessible on the market, so I could spent half of my gold reward on it and surely win the fight". Contrary "I should engage unknown enemy and let the god send me his weapon to accomplish the task".

When I play I turn down unrealistic plot hooks. I decide whether it is good offer or bad on available information and any doubt as treated as "no". So, there is no way master would force me on improbable task.



Wizard: I have enough gold to add some spells to my book. I only really need to add Protection from Arrows and Cat’s Grace, but I might pick up an extra 1st level spell too.
DM: Okay. That'll take you two to three days. While he's doing that, is there anything you two like to do?
Cleric & Druid: No, we're good.
DM: Okay, you successfully add the spells to your book, and are ready to set off.

That would quickly become, something like "I prepare phantom steed and fireballs. Then get to the goblin outpost, kill some, and when spell slots would become empty, sit on the steed and go home". Than take a day and repeat the raid. Like the time not flows when character need to take some downtime.

Normal GM would always provide time conditions. Wizard: I'd like to spent a week researching spells. DM: Okay. DM is always okay whatever player would like to try. If you would like to launch suicide attack, DM would say "sure". But you should know that while you are idling, DM make secret rolls. There tomb you discovered recently may be raided by other party. Bandits severed supply of small town where you reside and first symptoms of famine had already emerged. Wolves are still overpopulated and continue to make hard times to remote hamlets (roll d20 to check if there is another victim each day). The dungeon you had half cleared previously is rebuild and monsters become harder. Or may be they use that time to rebase and took all the treasures to new location. Some NPC that could become great source of knowledge become false accused in crime and would be hung in two days. All that occur simultaneously, because time wait for now men. It's naturally that there different troubles in a city and you would like to clear most of them to gain exceptional reputation. But is you choice: you could wait for a week, you buddy is dead now, wolves killed two more people, starving child get caught trying to pick your pocket. Harpies relocated their treasure.

[Mordaedil]

'Specially if you just write yourself some notes on the parts you mess up. Worst part of grappling is that I always forget pinning wears off every round.

It also doesn't hurt that you can adlib most of the rules you forget, like if you forget that pin wears off, it doesn't ruin the game and might make sense unless the opponent makes an effort to push back. All you really need to not forget is attack of opportunity followed by "strength" (with applicable grapple bonuses) check.

[Zexionthefirst]

That would quickly become, something like "I prepare phantom steed and fireballs. Then get to the goblin outpost, kill some, and when spell slots would become empty, sit on the steed and go home". Than take a day and repeat the raid. Like the time not flows when character need to take some downtime.

No. No it would not. It would quickly stay exactly the same as it is. Downtime is not the same as gametime. If you have 10 days in a city, and your character doesn't have anything they want to do, you don't have to sit at the table for 10 real days.

You sit at the table while the other players spend their downtime doing what they want. If all the characters finish everything they want to do by day three, you don't worry about the other 7 days. You don't sit at the table for 3 out of game hours twiddling your thumbs. Your DM time skips to the next event, at which point you're not in Downtime anymore.

The wizard spends an hour preparing his "phantom steed and fireballs", the Cleric and Druid spend their time preparing spells. This takes maybe two minutes in real life. Then you set off on the adventure, and, you know, play the game?



But you should know that while you are idling, DM make secret rolls. There tomb you discovered recently may be raided by other party. Bandits severed supply of small town where you reside and first symptoms of famine had already emerged. Wolves are still overpopulated and continue to make hard times to remote hamlets (roll d20 to check if there is another victim each day). The dungeon you had half cleared previously is rebuild and monsters become harder. Or may be they use that time to rebase and took all the treasures to new location. Some NPC that could become great source of knowledge become false accused in crime and would be hung in two days. All that occur simultaneously, because time wait for now men. It's naturally that there different troubles in a city and you would like to clear most of them to gain exceptional reputation. But is you choice: you could wait for a week, you buddy is dead now, wolves killed two more people, starving child get caught trying to pick your pocket. Harpies relocated their treasure.

And? Okay, let's take the "dungeon you had half cleared previously is rebuild and monsters become harder." example. If my party and I cleared half of it already, why are we going back to town? Why didn't we finish clearing it? Did my party mates and I use all our spells for the day?

Okay. Then we rest for 8 hours. Get our spells back. Finish the dungeon, and then go back to town where I add a new spell or two to my spellbook. Heck, I could get away with only adding one spell to my book between each quest. After all, I get two FREE spells at each level, and I have a Cleric and Druid with me.

Time conditions exist in all tabletop games. So switching isn't going to make this any better. Right now, I'm running a game where my players are probably going to miss the cut off point to save a girl they met a few sessions ago. Oddly enough, not playing 3.5 hasn't made this any less of a thing that exists. If 3.5 is bad for having them, then every RPG is bad for the same reason.

[Mordaedil]

I also find it really strangely metagamey for the wizard to be like "I head to a goblin stronghold and clean it out" with no further motive and expect it to be repopulated every day.

Like, why is the wizard going down there? Just to clean the board so he can get xp? That doesn't seem like a case where I'd give the player any XP at all, as simply cleaning out a goblin stronghold with no further incentive is, well, pointless and non-challenging. It defeats the purpose of its own act. If he's heading there to kill the goblins, then he either has to actually clear it out and it'll be gone or the goblins are going to enact revenge in a way he won't be so happy about.

I usually offer xp for things besides just killing encounters, so if a certain player is that close to leveling where they want to head out to kill goblin camps for scraps of XP, I'd rather offer alternatives for them to get their level back in town.

[Khedrac]

But there is still entire thread on why to stay. You could not give idea proper thought without considering the opposite.There is? Honestly I do not recall seeing a thread on why to stick to 3.5 until seeing this one. Since your question is "stay v. not stay" I standby my position on suitability of threads as you need to decide where you are looking to go to before you can compare and evaluate and choose.
If you just don't like 3.5 then you should leave, but again the thread makes no sense and risks breaking forum rules (danger of it becoming an argument thread).

Well, they could still play two games in a time, because their buddies are too lazy to switch.
some may play 3.5/PF and newer versionsYes I just said that, and that is a good reason not to switch...


I asked here because I generally like d20 system but it irritates me a lot. So I thought that somebody could advice me game that is almost D20, but without its nonsense. I'm forced to stay here just could not find better alternative. But that is not because I really like my gaming experience.And now we finally get somewhere - you never "asked", you made a thread with a title that was a bald statement and then filled it with a list of statements, all negative about the topic of this sub-forum.

Now yes, there are a lot of problems with 3.5 (and in some ways I do want to switch - I want to go back to BECM D&D because it is much easier to DM), few here would disagree that there are problems, but as I said, people frequenting this forum are unlikely to see them as good enough reasons to switch - if we did we might still play but we probably would not be reading this sub-forum.

So, you have a question - what exactly is it?

If it is "what do I (ayvango) dislike about 3.5?" then that is not a question anyone other than you can answer so don't bother posting it.
If it is "here are my issues with 3.5, does anyone have suggestions on what can be done about them?" then ask that.
If it is "I don't like these things about 3.5, what do people suggest would be a better gaming system for me?" then go to the general RPG forum above this one and ask there (where people will be far more willing to make sugestions as to alternative systems).
What you actually posted came across as a load of flat statements, all negative, about something the readers of this sub-forum all like enough to read this forum - a very confrontational post.

I will be naughty and re-quote myself again:

a thread on why to switch is pretty close to being "trolling" (I give you the credit that it was not intended to be so).To me your comment on a "question" looks to confirm the lack of intention to "troll", but please, if you want positive discussion then try not to be so confrontational in your initial post.

[Fizban]

Well the thing with pinning is that if it doesn't end every round, they get to wail on you at full strength until you break it no matter what they are. If it ends every round then even a +6 BAB iterative is burning one of those attacks to pin, halving their damage output. So humanoid (PC) grapplers are a lot less dangerous, while monsters pack their special abilities to make them stay dangerous even when pinning (but would be more dangerous if they didn't have to re-pin). It came up when I had my PC bust out a grapple ability at lower BAB and I later realized I should have barely been holding them. So I've made extra note of it.

Mining goblins for loot and xp? Nope. Though I do like to consider the fact that with adventurers putting almost all their money into combat power, they actually can't live all that luxiously for very long. Which means that (NPC or PC) they probably poach all sorts of cakewalk jobs under their level in order to pay the bills.


There is? Honestly I do not recall seeing a thread on why to stick to 3.5 until seeing this one.
Was very recent, got up to 20 pages but its down on page 3 now. Easy to miss and stuff gets buried fast when a new wave shows up.

[ayvango]

No. No it would not. It would quickly stay exactly the same as it is. Downtime is not the same as gametime. If you have 10 days in a city, and your character doesn't have anything they want to do, you don't have to sit at the table for 10 real days.

That if you allow player to bend time to his wishes. That neglects spell pool and non-caster classes that have not pool limits. If your game doesn't set time limit then player could rely only on his top level slots, make easy victory and fall back, to made the same easy victory next day. You should add time pressure to make player spend slots effective. If not then party would has 1 minute adventure each day spending all other time dully. Game should discourage such time abuses.



Okay. Then we rest for 8 hours. Get our spells back. Finish the dungeon, and then go back to town.

And here comes my question. If the time is immaterial why you so hasty with clearing dungeon as soon as it possible? And if the time really matters then you could never spend it like it costs nothing.

You may clear one dungeon, but other events taking place too. The example I give you was concurrent: you should not only clear the dungeon, but fight bandits, wolves and many other dangers. You could let someone else to fight it and they would take the reward and fame. It is normal when you gain something significant for idling. But if you gain only trivial matters then you lose your time. Druid would never wait for wizard, he would step immediately in hunting wolves together with cleric. Because it is the way to save couple of lives. And wizard could write his book in the meantime.

[ayvango]

I also find it really strangely metagamey for the wizard to be like "I head to a goblin stronghold and clean it out" with no further motive and expect it to be repopulated every day.

I does not mean clean over and over again. Throw all fireballs you have, If you kill everyone, you win, could clear it and move further. If no fireballs remains, but some goblins left, then head back to the town and repeat attack until all of them are wiped out. Then you could find another stronghold and besiege it.



Like, why is the wizard going down there? Just to clean the board so he can get xp?
Why not? He need his XP to scribe scrolls.



That doesn't seem like a case where I'd give the player any XP at all

That is why I doesn't play with GM that violates rules. You could easily kill my character with stray elder wyrm, but I still would not do something that looks beneficial to you. I would choice only that which is beneficial to my character.

If you have your strange ideas on which monster gave XP and which not - take your time and write them down before the module. So I would act accordingly and choose that monsters and situations where I could get much benefit. If you need that someone give me quest to kill monster then I would brought some children in vicinity of goblins and take quest for revenge.

[Mordaedil]

I does not mean clean over and over again. Throw all fireballs you have, If you kill everyone, you win, could clear it and move further. If no fireballs remains, but some goblins left, then head back to the town and repeat attack until all of them are wiped out. Then you could find another stronghold and besiege it.
How video-gamey.


Why not? He need his XP to scribe scrolls.
If he needs XP to scribe scrolls, he can spend what XP he has, and if he needs more, we can discuss it further and I can give him a task he can roll for to accomplish to get the XP he needs. Or otherwise he can't get XP.


That is why I doesn't play with GM that violates rules. You could easily kill my character with stray elder wyrm, but I still would not do something that looks beneficial to you. I would choice only that which is beneficial to my character.

If you have your strange ideas on which monster gave XP and which not - take your time and write them down before the module. So I would act accordingly and choose that monsters and situations where I could get much benefit. If you need that someone give me quest to kill monster then I would brought some children in vicinity of goblins and take quest for revenge.
Monsters don't inherently "drop" xp, like it was part of their blood or something. It's an arbitrary number that I can manipulate as a reward mechanic. My point is that going out to devastate a goblin stronghold purely for the XP is extremely not in character and I'd actively punish it. You need XP, you bring it up with me and I can give you a reason for taking on that goblin stronghold with the rest of your party. You don't get to solo anything in this game meant for multiple people to have fun. You want to take a decision that benefits your character, stay behind in town and study, educate new students in the arcane arts or craft magical items to heighten the standards of living in the community you are a part of. I'll reward you with experience and gold for doing that.

Going "darn, I need 30xp. I'm gonna kill that commoner so that I can level" is what murderhobos are imitations of. Approach my world as if it was a place and not just math and a table of encounters and I'll give you the encounters or benefits you want with extra if you roleplay it properly.

[ayvango]

How video-gamey.
Add time pressure to make it less video gamey. If there is no real challenge, why someone would rack his brain? Take the simplest solution and repeat it until win.


going out to devastate a goblin stronghold purely for the XP is extremely not in character and I'd actively punish it.
But how could I plan some actions if I'm not sure about my resources? I need resources to adventure. So I would always weight any choice from such perspective: what resources should I spend, what resources would I gain, how much time (in-game) I would spent for it? And if I'd like to devise 3-step-plan, I should know precisely how resources flows between each step. I need scroll of something to complete some quest, so I need XP to scribe that scroll, I should look around and find opportunity for it. If there is no opportunity that the entire quest is unfeasible and I should pass it.

[Pleh]

I feel like all these objections to the game are really about how the game is RUN as opposed to how it is DESIGNED.

As such, they are more of a reason to switch GROUPS than GAMES.

I mean, if you want there to be a reason to have time constraints, that's the DM's job, not the game designer's.

How NPCs attain their power doesn't have to be transparent or identical to players and just because they don't gain power through XP doesn't mean that they are therefore static entities that only change when interacted with by the players. Isn't a classic trope the BBEG Wizard in his Tower is working to complete an artifact that will grant them the power to dominate/destroy the world? That is an example of an NPC gaining power through Plot (as opposed to XP).

I would argue that it's much more in the realm of Video Games if the Game Designers defined everything so exhaustively that the DM actually WASN'T at liberty to personally interpret how the NPCs act and gain power independent of the PCs. The natural drawback to NOT exhaustively defining things is that if the DM fails to fill in the blanks to this Mad-Lib system, it ends up with the scenario you describe: NPCs sitting around ready for combat, otherwise having no purpose, beginning, or end.

It only happens when the DM isn't doing their job. If the Game Designers tried to do the extra work of defining what happens in the game, it wouldn't be a TTRPG, but an Adventure Module.

Your complaints don't even apply to 3.5.

[TotallyNotEvil]

So, you D&D like an Isekai-in-an-RPG-word, and complain things don't make sense?

The rules are abstraction, yo. Yeah, there are many sharp limits and delineations, but the entire concept of level is an abstraction.

Funnily enough, I've never regretted taking or having someone take a crafting feat. Your gold goes way, way farther than normal, essentially doubling WBL with some time.

[ayvango]

I mean, if you want there to be a reason to have time constraints, that's the DM's job, not the game designer's.

My DM is okay. He understands how precious the time is. The problem is with rules, that doesn't. Rules suppose that you would spend hell amount of time for crafting or creating magic items. Our campaigns has always high dynamic where there is no time to craft equipment lazily. For now we have ugly house rule that speeds up crafting. I had couple of ideas to rewrite crafting subsystem from scratch.



How NPCs attain their power doesn't have to be transparent or identical to players

Why not? How could player plan anything if his opponent rejects every tiny bit of logic? We should consider opponent actions, but how can we do it, if the goal, way to achieve, needed resources are all chaotically interchanged? How can I trade with NPC if it doesn't follow own benefits?


So, you D&D like an Isekai-in-an-RPG-word, and complain things don't make sense?

The rules are abstraction, yo. Yeah, there are many sharp limits and delineations, but the entire concept of level is an abstraction.

My D&D is not like Isekai-in-an-RPG-world, my D&D is that how it is defined by rules. If rules allow something, than I tried it. If the game brokes after that - the problem is with rules. If there is one choice strictly more advantageous for character then others, then I would pick it. And I assume that NPC are rational agents too.

There is DM style which neglects player choice. Whatever you choose, wherever you go, anywhere you would match challenge perfectly rated for you character. If you managed to gain extra wealth, you would be robbed of it regardless of how much you invest in protection. If you find particular strong feat, the enemies would be selected such as it would be "poison" to your build. But if you would like to gain something, there is no need in clever planning - just ask DM and he would give it you with appropriate quest. I wont put any effort into such games. If you would like to neglect choices, conceal information to force players choose blindly (logic behind NPC is part of such information) than I would just took feats and spells with random generator.

[Zexionthefirst]

That if you allow player to bend time to his wishes.
The player isn't bending time at all. The group is. The GROUP of players deiced how long they're staying in an area. In the group decide they're going to stay in a place for a few days, because the Wizard needs to add some extra spells to his book, or because the Druid wants to change animal companions, or because the Fighter wants to commission a new sword, then that's what the party does. There is no time "bending".

If players don't want to take downtime, then they can immediately head out. The Wizard is still a powerful spell caster with 2 or 4 spells of his highest level already in his book.



That neglects spell pool and non-caster classes that have not pool limits.

If I'm reading this correctly, you're saying that downtime is of no benefit to non-caster classes? I may be misinterpreting what you're trying to say, but that's what I'm going to respond to.

No. Doing this doesn't neglect anyone. The Wizard wants to take a day to add a haste spell to his book. You know what that does. Helps the entire party. He isn't going to cast that haste spell on himself, he's going to use it to buff the party Fighter or Rouge, or maybe the Druid.

Moreover, it gives the Fighter time to search for that magic sword he wants to buy, and if the town doesn't have the one he wants, he can pay to have it commissioned. It gives the Cleric time to give last rites to a group of children who were killed by the goblins before the party arrived. It gives the Druid time to collect rare herbs to use in conjunction with his craft (alchemy skill).

Downtime, in no way, neglects any character. I can neglect players, but role playing through downtime does not have to take a large amount of time in real life.


If your game doesn't set time limit then player could rely only on his top level slots, make easy victory and fall back, to made the same easy victory next day.

So what? Hit and run tactics are sometime very smart. Other times, the creatures are just a smart as the PCs. Not every situation in a tabletop game is the same. There are even times when a spellcaster is going to be useless because of spell resistance. :smalleek:


You should add time pressure to make player spend slots effective.

Sometimes, yes. But if you really thing that every situation should have the same level of time pressure associated with it, then how can you, in real life, justify spending time playing a tabletop rpg?

Some wolves being extra active in the forest is not as important as a goblin fortress. Searching through the sewers for a missing Gnome may not be as important as telling a nearby wizard that his hometown is in danger. And, the characters get to decide if taking a day of downtime to recover (during which the Wizard can add a spell to his book), is more important then dealing with said wolves.


If not then party would has 1 minute adventure each day spending all other time dully.

That's hyperbole.


Game should discourage such time abuses.

If it is being abused, then yes. A DM should step in and stop the abuse. You have, at no point, described anything that would constitute abuse. Moreover, every "example" example you've given can be applied to nearly any other tabletop RPG


And here comes my question. If the time is immaterial why you so hasty with clearing dungeon as soon as it possible? And if the time really matters then you could never spend it like it costs nothing.

Because, oddly enough, there's this weird grayish area called middle-ground. If the dungeon is dangerous to a local area, or you're trying to rescue some kids from a troll cave, clear it then take your downtime.

If you go in, fight some shocker lizards, and can't quite clear it out, head back to town and rest. Because shocker lizards don't repopulate overnight. (I have a quote in my sig that proves this)

If you're just being asked to deal with some wolves, take the day of downtime first.


You may clear one dungeon, but other events taking place too.
What? Wow, I am just so surprised. Just, like, so surprised



The example I give you was concurrent: you should not only clear the dungeon, but fight bandits, wolves and many other dangers.

Why? Is there a narrative reason? If so, fun fact, the wizard DOESN'T have to take the downtime. The party can set out and deal with the threats. The, if he feels like he needs to add new spells, he can do so after the situation is finished.

And, again, not unique to 3.5/Pathfinder.



Druid would never wait for wizard, he would step immediately in hunting wolves together with cleric. Because it is the way to save couple of lives.

Okay. So what? The two other party members get a little extra XP. The Wizard gets to add a shiny new spell to his book, or craft a new wand, or get a new familiar.

Or, the wizard goes with them, they clear the wolves, and then take a day of rest (where the wizards gets to add his shiny new spell, or brew a potion)

Or, the Wizard and Cleric stay behind and work together to make a wand of cure light wounds.



And wizard could write his book in the meantime.
Ya, if that's what the wizard would rather do. Or, better yet, if the Wizard's player wasn't able to make it to game night, then this is absolutely a good way for the character to be spending time.


I does not mean clean over and over again. Throw all fireballs you have, If you kill everyone, you win, could clear it and move further. If no fireballs remains, but some goblins left, then head back to the town and repeat attack until all of them are wiped out. Then you could find another stronghold and besiege it.

Yes, you could do this. If the party wants to, so what? Like, really? SO WHAT? You're here to play a game. If you and the rest of the party want to solve this problem in this way, you can.

And if you're party Wizard doesn't want to do that, he doesn't have to. Because his player, like every other person at the table, is there to have fun.


Why not? How could player plan anything if his opponent rejects every tiny bit of logic?

How can the player's character plan anything? If you're going up against trolls, and you don't pass any of your knowledge checks, or other relevant skill checks, then your character doesn't know that these trolls have a small resistance to fire. So why would your players ever need to know that these trolls have a small resistance to fire?

Moreover, I find it very amusing that you try to bring up rejecting logic.


my D&D is that how it is defined by rules. If rules allow something, than I tried it. If the game brokes after that - the problem is with rules.

Thin I guess it's a good thing that the rules are guidelines. A framework that can be adjusted when needed.


If there is one choice strictly more advantageous for character then others, then I would pick it. And I assume that NPC are rational agents too.

What? Why are you playing a Role Playing game then? Go play chess, backgammon, or Go. Or better yet, take some classes on physiology and sociology.



There is DM style which neglects player choice. Whatever you choose, wherever you go, anywhere you would match challenge perfectly rated for you character. If you managed to gain extra wealth, you would be robbed of it regardless of how much you invest in protection. If you find particular strong feat, the enemies would be selected such as it would be "poison" to your build. But if you would like to gain something, there is no need in clever planning - just ask DM and he would give it you with appropriate quest.

Fun fact: You don't have to play with those DMs. You really shouldn't. And that problem stems from your group, not from the game. The same DM would do the same thing regardless of if you were playing Patherfinder, 5e, or the Pokemon TableTop game.


I wont put any effort into such games. If you would like to neglect choices, conceal information to force players choose blindly (logic behind NPC is part of such information) than I would just took feats and spells with random generator.[/QUOTE]

You, as a player, have no right or reason to know the stats or motivation or any information of any NPC or monster until after your Character learns that information, or until after that NPC is no longer relevant. A DM does not need to tell you that an NPC is has the improved counterspell feat until after that NPC has put it to use. A DM does not need to tell you that a Kobold is multicassed as a monk/druid unless you have some reason to know that.


All things aside, you arguments are not valid against 3.5 or Pathfinder. They are generalities that would, can, and do happen in any game system. The problems you listed stem from a problem player, a problem GM, or a group that doesn't mesh well.

You are free to play any tabletop game you want. If you don't like 3.5, that's perfectly fine. But if you're trying to say that if a group with these problems switched to 4e or GURPS... they'd still have the same "problem".

[Mordaedil]

Add time pressure to make it less video gamey. If there is no real challenge, why someone would rack his brain? Take the simplest solution and repeat it until win.
Right, that's my point though. If you assault a goblin stronghold and assume goblins are just going to stay put while you rest to regain your spells, you are going to get a real nasty surprise as the next day all the remaining goblins have gone on night-time raids on nearby villages, grabbing hostages. Suddenly, there's something to this and you have to overcome dealing with a situation where simply blasting the goblins from above with fire isn't going to work anymore. And so on.


But how could I plan some actions if I'm not sure about my resources? I need resources to adventure. So I would always weight any choice from such perspective: what resources should I spend, what resources would I gain, how much time (in-game) I would spent for it? And if I'd like to devise 3-step-plan, I should know precisely how resources flows between each step. I need scroll of something to complete some quest, so I need XP to scribe that scroll, I should look around and find opportunity for it. If there is no opportunity that the entire quest is unfeasible and I should pass it.
I have so many questions here, I'm not sure I can even get to the end of it. Like, the DM isn't going to ask you to always spend all of your XP to craft scrolls. If you recently leveled and really need that scroll, just tell your DM and he can give you a mini-quest where your overcoming it gives you the scroll at no cost to your resource pool. Quests aren't usually given in such a strict format that a certain NPC needs a scroll of barkskin and if you cannot get that, you cannot pass his quest in any way. For instance, you can quest for the scroll, purchase it from a merchant or spend resources you already have. I know this doesn't go for all DM's, but usually if you spend xp enough to push you down a level, I won't actually drag you down that level, but instead say you are too uninspired to do any more crafting until you land your XP in the positive realm again. Mostly because it is a pain to go up and down levels and redoing character sheets all of the time.

Simply having everything planned out for you ahead of time isn't how D&D is played, really.

[Pleh]

My DM is okay. He understands how precious the time is. The problem is with rules, that doesn't. Rules suppose that you would spend hell amount of time for crafting or creating magic items. Our campaigns has always high dynamic where there is no time to craft equipment lazily. For now we have ugly house rule that speeds up crafting. I had couple of ideas to rewrite crafting subsystem from scratch.

You are criticizing the game for making itself applicable to more games than just your own, though.

There is nothing in any RPG to require that EVERY RPG be time-sensitive. Some stories and scenarios just let heroes take all the time they need. I'm not even talking about rules, just the setting and the nature of the story being told.

Say for example I'm playing an Assassin and I'm hired to take down an important political figure. They do not know about the threat and they operate by a regular routine, so there's no hurry to take them out before they... do the same thing again tomorrow. My employer specified no particular need for the death to take place by any specific time. I can literally take as long as I want to prepare and make sure I do the job right.

Imagine how much it would suck if the game's rules made it arbitrarily impossible for me to take my time like this just because... well, no particular reason? Why should I pretend my assassin is racing against a room filling up with sand if that isn't in any way what is going on? Why do there need to be time constraints?

What I'm saying is that when there's a pressure to do something quickly, it's because the DM has placed NPCs or other actors into the story that are racing against your players. When you roll for initiative, it's a race to be the first to act in combat. When the BBEG is working on a McGuffin of All Power and will be finished by the end of the year, players can take their time up until that moment. There is no reason for the RULES to institute time constraints. It's only about giving the DM the tools to do so if time constraints are relevant.



Why not? How could player plan anything if his opponent rejects every tiny bit of logic? We should consider opponent actions, but how can we do it, if the goal, way to achieve, needed resources are all chaotically interchanged? How can I trade with NPC if it doesn't follow own benefits?

Your phrasing is a bit muddled. I'm guessing English isn't your first language? I said, "Doesn't have to be" and you said, "why not?" So you're asking why NPC progression doesn't need to be transparent or identical to how PC progression functions?

Well, perhaps its because the process to becoming a Troll is different than the process to becoming a Wizard. A Troll doesn't need to study or train to become a Troll, if they live long enough, they get there. But no one becomes a Wizard without careful study and learning (which is why you need eXPerience to gain levels in Wizard).

I really can't pretend to understand what you mean by "needed resources chaotically interchanged." I think you have the game totally confused.

If I'm playing a game where I know I need to hunt and kill a Troll, I'll do some knowledge checks to try to figure out its strengths and weaknesses (if any), some gather information checks to see if the locals know where I can find it, purchase some supplies for the journey and fight (optional), make some survival checks to hunt the creature if necessary, then attempt to set up an ambush and attack it as quickly as possible to minimize damage.

If I stumble upon a Troll without realizing it would be there (thus having no time), I'd just roll the Knowledge checks, Initiative, and start doing what I can to kill or escape the creature.

I really don't see what problem you have with these scenarios beyond just personally not liking them enough.


There is DM style which neglects player choice. Whatever you choose, wherever you go, anywhere you would match challenge perfectly rated for you character. If you managed to gain extra wealth, you would be robbed of it regardless of how much you invest in protection. If you find particular strong feat, the enemies would be selected such as it would be "poison" to your build. But if you would like to gain something, there is no need in clever planning - just ask DM and he would give it you with appropriate quest. I wont put any effort into such games. If you would like to neglect choices, conceal information to force players choose blindly (logic behind NPC is part of such information) than I would just took feats and spells with random generator.

Again, this is all criticisms of a bad DM, not of the rules or system design (not that your DM is bad, just that none of this has to do with the rules).

[Yahzi]

The most valuable things are magic items that require XP to cast, so economy all should be about XP, but there is no trace of it in the rules.
I fixed that: Heroes of Prime (www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222339/Heroes-of-Prime). Also, see Lords of Prime for running kingdoms, and Merchants of Prime for economics. You might want to look at Nobles of Prime for NPCs that aren't gimped.

[ayvango]

The player isn't bending time at all. The group is. The GROUP of players deiced how long they're staying in an area.
If player is in coherence with his group than there is little difference in group and personal time warping. If the module is of kind where each player looks for betrayal from others then in-party rivalry would made time valuable resource. No favourable condition for your competitor.


Fighter wants to commission a new sword
That doesn't require fighter to spent his time. He should present in ceratin space and time to pick it. So commissioning a sword sets time limit instead of spending time. And withing this time limit fighter would oppose any idea delaying post deadline time.


The Wizard is still a powerful spell caster with 2 or 4 spells of his highest level already in his book
In the same sense as sorcerer is a powerful spell caster. Why bother with spell book?



Downtime, in no way, neglects any character. I can neglect players, but role playing through downtime does not have to take a large amount of time in real life.

Downtime by itself neglects no character. Downtime fills part of characters role. The game is hurt with ability to take downtime at any point. Imagine that there is character of A class. And there is B class, that is identical to A with exception that it could hurt enemies twice as strong. Then character of B class made character of A class redundant. Since no one want to be weak and useless. D&D forms kind of balance where time is significant element. Red class could hit twice hard as Blue, but ten times less often. If you structure you world such that group could take downtime at any point then it neglects Blue since his strong point become irrelevant.



So what? Hit and run tactics are sometime very smart. Other times, the creatures are just a smart as the PCs. Not every situation in a tabletop game is the same. There are even times when a spellcaster is going to be useless because of spell resistance. :smalleek:

If you allow smart enough creatures that could deny players smart-and-run tactic effectiveness, then you by definition build a world where players could not take rest at whim.



Sometimes, yes. But if you really thing that every situation should have the same level of time pressure associated with it, then how can you, in real life, justify spending time playing a tabletop rpg?
There is big difference between playing tabletop rpg occasionally and making it your profession. I spend years to learn programming. There is no RPG that could still as much attention from me. But we are speaking about spending feats and skill points on invariably less efficient choices. There is difference between profession and hobby. I'm speaking exactly about that part. If crafting would not be competing with fighting, granted for free on the contrary then there would be no discrepancies in rules. Bur rules made crafting and fighting compete with obvious winner.



If it is being abused, then yes. A DM should step in and stop the abuse.
Nope. DM should never try to "stop the abuse". DM is need to keep rules and world going on. He should not bring his opinions in the game. He could suggest new rules, but the GROUP is who decides on rules. If DM and players want to play different games with different rules then it is easier to disband.


Moreover, every "example" example you've given can be applied to nearly any other tabletop RPG

That is the purpose of the examples. They shows that time is precious and it should be true for all RPG. But the rules of D&D had many flaws since they doesn't count time appropriately.



If you go in, fight some shocker lizards, and can't quite clear it out, head back to town and rest. Because shocker lizards don't repopulate overnight. (I have a quote in my sig that proves this)
If you have some shocker lizards available then killing them would grant you more resources then crafting. Fighting always grant you more resources.



What? Wow, I am just so surprised. Just, like, so surprised


As I had expected. Thought that time is going during downtime would astonish you first time you get it.



Why? Is there a narrative reason?

Yes. The world is large. It is effectively infinite: the more you know the the bigger world become. But you always could delegate tasks and rewards to other adventurers. You are not alone in that big world. But if you are greedy then you would like to perform more task yourself and get more fame.



Okay. So what? The two other party members get a little extra XP
Extra XP could easily expand to extra level. But that is not the biggest issue. Imagine how would it be fun for the wizard player to sit and listen to druids&cleric adventurers when he is effectively excluded from play.



Yes, you could do this. If the party wants to, so what? Like, really? SO WHAT? You're here to play a game. If you and the rest of the party want to solve this problem in this way, you can.

But it would be extremely stupid world where extremely stupid players could success with extremely stupid strategy. Normal world should present players with some challenges and tight choices. Clever enemies would triumph over silly players and kill the party inevitably.



How can the player's character plan anything? If you're going up against trolls, and you don't pass any of your knowledge checks, or other relevant skill checks, then your character doesn't know that these trolls have a small resistance to fire. So why would your players ever need to know that these trolls have a small resistance to fire?

Partial information doesn't prevent planning. It only bring more indeterminacy to your plans. And they should contain separate goal of obtaining needed information.




Moreover, I find it very amusing that you try to bring up rejecting logic.

When you said that creature should not care about covering his vulnerabilities, then the creature rejecting logic. If demand and supply are irrelevant for trading then customers with merchants reject logic.



Thin I guess it's a good thing that the rules are guidelines. A framework that can be adjusted when needed.

I performed ton of adjustments already. But some fields require total rewrite.



Fun fact: You don't have to play with those DMs. You really shouldn't. And that problem stems from your group, not from the game. The same DM would do the same thing regardless of if you were playing Patherfinder, 5e, or the Pokemon TableTop game.

I'm not a masochist. Once some DM starts telling me that he would provide appropriate challenge for all my actions, that he would care about weak players with weak character options and treat them with privileges, that I should be too efficient, then I immediately cancel any plans on gaming with him.



You, as a player, have no right or reason to know the stats or motivation or any information of any NPC or monster until after your Character learns that information, or until after that NPC is no longer relevant.

As a player I had all right and reasons to know game mechanics beforehand. And it would be nice, but not necessary to inform me that all NPC behaves like a random machine and I should not expect from them to rationally achieve their goals.



All things aside, you arguments are not valid against 3.5 or Pathfinder. They are generalities that would, can, and do happen in any game system. The problems you listed stem from a problem player, a problem GM, or a group that doesn't mesh well.

Well, I could easily provide your counter-example: World of Warcraft online RPG. Crafting in this game doesn't cripple other game activities. I'm not fan of MMORPG, but it provides good example how thoroughly designed game mechanics allows players make fun for each other even without DM volution. The world is still dead, events occur without connection to each other. Computer still couldn't outperform human in social emulation. But it would be perfect to combine thoroughly designed rules of computer RPG with socially rich worlds of tabletops.


Right, that's my point though. If you assault a goblin stronghold and assume goblins are just going to stay put while you rest to regain your spells, you are going to get a real nasty surprise as the next day all the remaining goblins have gone on night-time raids on nearby villages, grabbing hostages. Suddenly, there's something to this and you have to overcome dealing with a situation where simply blasting the goblins from above with fire isn't going to work anymore. And so on.

That's a nice world, I'd like to adventure in it. But that means precisely that there is no free downtime. World reacts to you and villains take precautions. I hope that this reactions are not a DM vengeance to sloppy players but a consistent behaviour.


If you recently leveled and really need that scroll, just tell your DM and he can give you a mini-quest

Why should I rely on DM discretion? I should just explore the world and find opportunities on my own. I'm not fan of solipsism conception, why should world follow needs of an individual?


You are criticizing the game for making itself applicable to more games than just your own, though.
Adding imbalanced choices doesn't make game richer, their are narrowing choices instead.



Say for example I'm playing an Assassin and I'm hired to take down an important political figure. They do not know about the threat and they operate by a regular routine, so there's no hurry to take them out before they... do the same thing again tomorrow. My employer specified no particular need for the death to take place by any specific time. I can literally take as long as I want to prepare and make sure I do the job right.

Imagine how much it would suck if the game's rules made it arbitrarily impossible for me to take my time like this just because... well, no particular reason? Why should I pretend my assassin is racing against a room filling up with sand if that isn't in any way what is going on? Why do there need to be time constraints?

Well, you could wait for a week. But the political figure would level up twice or thrice in the meantime. Since the best defence in the D&D world is active leveling. Powerful fraction could provide their key political figures with safe easy farm.

And there is little point in killing political figures when they have true resurrection at hand. It consumes 25k resources, so opposing party could not afford to pay their assassins more then 25k gold. Very cheap assassins. Those assassins who knows the value of time would prefer to clean some monster's nest.

What I'm saying is that when there's a pressure to do something quickly, it's because the DM has placed NPCs or other actors into the story that are racing against your players. When you roll for initiative, it's a race to be the first to act in combat. When the BBEG is working on a McGuffin of All Power and will be finished by the end of the year, players can take their time up until that moment. There is no reason for the RULES to institute time constraints. It's only about giving the DM the tools to do so if time constraints are relevant.



Your phrasing is a bit muddled. I'm guessing English isn't your first language?

Good guess. I have no skills in speaking, self-taught some reading and rely on dictionaries for writing. That is why it takes quite long for me to post proper answer



I really can't pretend to understand what you mean by "needed resources chaotically interchanged." I think you have the game totally confused.

I doesn't mean that resources themselves are interchanged. I had trying to say that goals, ways and resources are not forming proper sequence. You have goal, then you thought of ways and relies on resources you could get hold. NPC could start with some action it would be cool to perform, then it made up goal to justify action and get resources from heavens. If heavens doesn't send resources it could not consider making enough resources his next sub-goal.



If I'm playing a game where I know I need to hunt and kill a Troll, I'll do some knowledge checks to try to figure out its strengths and weaknesses (if any), some gather information checks to see if the locals know where I can find it, purchase some supplies for the journey and fight (optional), make some survival checks to hunt the creature if necessary, then attempt to set up an ambush and attack it as quickly as possible to minimize damage.

If I stumble upon a Troll without realizing it would be there (thus having no time), I'd just roll the Knowledge checks, Initiative, and start doing what I can to kill or escape the creature.

I really don't see what problem you have with these scenarios beyond just personally not liking them enough.

Imagine that I had already encountered trolls and know well how to fight it. So I'd like to plan perform some troll cleansing since I get expertise in it. Find community that suffer from trolls, suggest them your service for a good price. I would become upset if fire vulnerability would suddenly be swapped to cold in trolls statistics. Of if some transparent wall would prevent me to travel to places where trolls waits for being exterminated.

[Pleh]

Downtime by itself neglects no character. Downtime fills part of characters role. The game is hurt with ability to take downtime at any point. Imagine that there is character of A class. And there is B class, that is identical to A with exception that it could hurt enemies twice as strong. Then character of B class made character of A class redundant. Since no one want to be weak and useless. D&D forms kind of balance where time is significant element. Red class could hit twice hard as Blue, but ten times less often. If you structure you world such that group could take downtime at any point then it neglects Blue since his strong point become irrelevant.


If you allow smart enough creatures that could deny players smart-and-run tactic effectiveness, then you by definition build a world where players could not take rest at whim.

Ah, but D&D is not intended to necessarily allow players to take Downtime at any moment they choose (I suppose they may ATTEMPT to take downtime at any time). That is intended to be the discretion of the DM. If you are in a relatively safe town with no local enemies pursuing you and no time-sensitive quests, it is probably safe to assume that players can take as much downtime as they need.

If you are in the middle of delving deep into a dungeon, there are likely wandering monsters lurking about and finding a safe place to hole up and rest might not be so simple. Also, the DM is under no compulsion to tell you if resting at any given moment would be safe. The best players can hope for in that scenario is to use their character's skills to assess how easy an area might be to defend and thus pick a reasonable location to ATTEMPT to rest. After that, there is no guarantee that their Downtime will not be interrupted by an attack that they will have to rapidly respond to, possibly with minimal resources.


There is big difference between playing tabletop rpg occasionally and making it your profession. I spend years to learn programming. There is no RPG that could still as much attention from me. But we are speaking about spending feats and skill points on invariably less efficient choices. There is difference between profession and hobby. I'm speaking exactly about that part. If crafting would not be competing with fighting, granted for free on the contrary then there would be no discrepancies in rules. Bur rules made crafting and fighting compete with obvious winner.


Nope. DM should never try to "stop the abuse". DM is need to keep rules and world going on. He should not bring his opinions in the game. He could suggest new rules, but the GROUP is who decides on rules. If DM and players want to play different games with different rules then it is easier to disband.

I disagree. The DM is the referee. Stopping abuse is very much the DM's responsibility and prerogative. However, this does not mean that the DM even needs to make a change to the rules to stop abuse of Downtime. All a DM has to do to prevent abuse of Downtime is to begin actively limiting it. Start attacking the party after a certain amount of time. Start making quests that require resolution within a given amount of time. No change to the rules, just the game.

Even then, from time to time it is the DM's job to change the rules if necessary. It shouldn't have to happen very often, and yes, if you disagree with a DM's ruling, it's usually best to leave, but it's not wrong for them to change the rules when they start to grow sideways (which they often do).



When you said that creature should not care about covering his vulnerabilities, then the creature rejecting logic. If demand and supply are irrelevant for trading then customers with merchants reject logic.

You are assuming the creature has the ability to do anything about its vulnerabilities. For one thing, a Troll has Intelligence of 6, so they're already not the brightest bulb in the bunch. For another, you are proposing they go into town and buy something to cover their vulnerabilities. Isn't it obvious that a Troll walking into town would be instantly attacked by the people who live in the town? They are not going to sell a monster magic items to make the monster more powerful. The monster is probably eating people who try to cross the bridge nearby.

Maybe if the Troll visited a Troll Witchdoctor, we might have something more plausible. Trolls strolling into town and buying magic items is not usually something most settings would consider normal.



As a player I had all right and reasons to know game mechanics beforehand. And it would be nice, but not necessary to inform me that all NPC behaves like a random machine and I should not expect from them to rationally achieve their goals.

But you wouldn't necessarily know what the NPC's goals are. Even if you know about Trolls in general, this one particular Troll might have a secret dream to become a Bard. This other Troll might just like eating people. This other Troll might like knitting.

While you have a right to know the rules ahead of time, you don't have a right to know NPC motivations ahead of time. Some NPC goals do not require them to attain greater levels of power than their printed statblock grants.


Well, I could easily provide your counter-example: World of Warcraft online RPG. Crafting in this game doesn't cripple other game activities. I'm not fan of MMORPG, but it provides good example how thoroughly designed game mechanics allows players make fun for each other even without DM volution. The world is still dead, events occur without connection to each other. Computer still couldn't outperform human in social emulation. But it would be perfect to combine thoroughly designed rules of computer RPG with socially rich worlds of tabletops.


Adding imbalanced choices doesn't make game richer, their are narrowing choices instead.

They aren't imbalanced. They are balanced differently. They only seem imbalanced because you insist on playing the game in one very specific way.


Well, you could wait for a week. But the political figure would level up twice or thrice in the meantime. Since the best defence in the D&D world is active leveling. Powerful fraction could provide their key political figures with safe easy farm.

First of all, it is rather unbelievable to see a common NPC level 2 or 3 times in the span of a week. That is just not realistic. That would require some rather spectacular amount of ADVENTURE for what is supposed to be a Non Heroic Character.

Second, just because the best defense IS active leveling doesn't mean the political figure knows about that or how to do it. That would require a Meta Knowledge about the Rules, which the NPC has no reason to know about. So far as he's concerned, it's back to business as usual and why would he make things harder for himself than it needs to be? All he has to do is make his Profession check for the week, get paid, and enjoy having an easier life than most of the peasantry.

Third, why is he seeking an active defense? I already stated in my beginning scenario that he has no reason to believe anyone would be seeking to take his life. What is he protecting against?

Fourth, XP farms is bordering on the Tippyverse level of messing with the game rules. I don't think I'd even want to play a game that took the character motivations to such a silly place.


And there is little point in killing political figures when they have true resurrection at hand. It consumes 25k resources, so opposing party could not afford to pay their assassins more then 25k gold. Very cheap assassins. Those assassins who knows the value of time would prefer to clean some monster's nest.

By that same logic, if they are protected by the almighty dollar, then WHY are they wasting resources on an XP farm? Only more reason for them to never bother with that.

BUT this isn't foolproof, either. First, you assume that the assassin's employer can't afford to pay more than 25k. Why not? What if this is truly that important to them? You have no particular reason to be making this kind of assumption.

Also, this logic swings the other way as well. What if the political figure himself isn't worth 25k to bring back? What if he has made enemies with the clergy and they refuse to bring him back even if his allies come up with the money?

You're drawing misbegotten conclusions based on mere speculation that has no justification.


I doesn't mean that resources themselves are interchanged. I had trying to say that goals, ways and resources are not forming proper sequence. You have goal, then you thought of ways and relies on resources you could get hold. NPC could start with some action it would be cool to perform, then it made up goal to justify action and get resources from heavens. If heavens doesn't send resources it could not consider making enough resources his next sub-goal.

I'm having trouble following this bit. I suppose I would ask, "what's wrong with the NPC deciding to settle for a quiet profession that doesn't require further leveling or grant any additional XP?"


Imagine that I had already encountered trolls and know well how to fight it. So I'd like to plan perform some troll cleansing since I get expertise in it. Find community that suffer from trolls, suggest them your service for a good price. I would become upset if fire vulnerability would suddenly be swapped to cold in trolls statistics. Of if some transparent wall would prevent me to travel to places where trolls waits for being exterminated.

Sounds like you're talking about Raildroading. Yes, it's bad form for DMs. However, there are ways to do this that wouldn't be so problematic. If, in pursuing these new Trolls that have Cold vulnerability rather than Fire, you might find clues about this before you had to fight the Trolls. As long as the DM gives you sufficient justification for the rules change and the opportunity for your character to catch the change and adapt, it's still a fair play (and can even help keep the game from getting overly repetitive).

[Mordaedil]

That's a nice world, I'd like to adventure in it. But that means precisely that there is no free downtime. World reacts to you and villains take precautions. I hope that this reactions are not a DM vengeance to sloppy players but a consistent behaviour.

Why should I rely on DM discretion? I should just explore the world and find opportunities on my own. I'm not fan of solipsism conception, why should world follow needs of an individual?

Generally yes, you should aim to not be vindictive as a DM. You want the players to succeed, after all. I usually would resolve this by giving the villains downtime actions I'd suspect them to reasonably make and not be able to pull an army out of the ether, but also account for how sloppily they can accomplish their goals by what I'd deem fair. Heck, for my game, the villains have mostly a set of actions that play out until the players interfere and it sets in as a slow burn, depending on how they decide to tackle it.

Also at all the tables I've been at, the DM rules are law, because its their creation we play in and we can make some reasonable estimations at what is allowed, but most of my DM's go with "only books I have access to". I tend to just go with "anything you can reference". Also exploring the world on your own isn't really a luxury you have in most games I've been in. Usually that just leads to you being on the deep-end and needing to roll up a new character. Or I'll ask you to go and play a game on your own if you aren't going to be playing the game.

[ayvango]

If you are in a relatively safe town with no local enemies pursuing you and no time-sensitive quests, it is probably safe to assume that players can take as much downtime as they need.

Start attacking the party after a certain amount of time.

What a schizophrenic world. Normally there are a reason behind attacking a town. And it should be big enough to justify spending resources and making offences.



Maybe if the Troll visited a Troll Witchdoctor, we might have something more plausible. Trolls strolling into town and buying magic items is not usually something most settings would consider normal.

He could commission it. Since they has huge need in such items, travelling merchants should emerge to fill this profitable role.



First of all, it is rather unbelievable to see a common NPC level 2 or 3 times in the span of a week. That is just not realistic. That would require some rather spectacular amount of ADVENTURE for what is supposed to be a Non Heroic Character.

Send your scouts to find you an appropriate foe. Make your wizard teleport you here. Do the work and teleport out. Prestigitation make you clean and ready for executing your business further. If there is no spare XP in your kingdom left, then you could build XP training room in some basement and get monsters here with planar binding. You would teleporting here as usual, since that place would inevitably rise ire in outer planes.


That would require a Meta Knowledge about the Rules, which the NPC has no reason to know about.
They should know how they world do function. It could be observed directly and they have enough money to pay for gathering statistics. The same is with computer RPG: there is unexplainable practise of hiding actual rules from the players. Which is useless because they quickly gather statistics and exchange it. And become disappointed in game designer who wrote "70% chance to hit" on an item that actual hits 40%.



Third, why is he seeking an active defense?
Because those who have power had always targets drawn on them.



Fourth, XP farms is bordering on the Tippyverse level of messing with the game rules.
Just think of it as a method to become stronger from hard training.


By that same logic, if they are protected by the almighty dollar, then WHY are they wasting resources on an XP farm? Only more reason for them to never bother with that.

Because that is a capital investment that reduces operational expenses on resurrection.



First, you assume that the assassin's employer can't afford to pay more than 25k. Why not? What if this is truly that important to them? You have no particular reason to be making this kind of assumption.

Because they would lose struggle of attrition otherwise. But they could afford to spent more then 25k as one-time action.


What if he has made enemies with the clergy and they refuse to bring him back even if his allies come up with the money?

You could not hold your money without sufficient power. So every political force should have wizards and clerics and druids in their numbers. Without power you would be quickly stripped of your gold and killed.



Generally yes, you should aim to not be vindictive as a DM. You want the players to succeed, after all.
Generally yes, but I'd like to make players exploring game too. If they tends to overestimate their capabilities the characters would die. And it is normal since dying is fun too. Without dying you have no motivation to improve.

[Zexionthefirst]

Because that is a capital investment that reduces operational expenses on resurrection.


Everything else aside, I feel like you should look into EvE Online. It, if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, is right up your alley.

[Pleh]

What a schizophrenic world. Normally there are a reason behind attacking a town. And it should be big enough to justify spending resources and making offences.

I never said anything about attacking a town. Just killing one person who doesn't realize any threat exists.


He could commission it. Since they has huge need in such items, travelling merchants should emerge to fill this profitable role.

Only profitable if the troll has something to trade (treasure or services). Since all its hoard is likely stolen from people the troll has killed, such deals are likely illegal within standard humanoid civilizations (not to mention being morallly reprehensible).

The legal repercussions would likely outweigh any potential profit, not to mention trolls are bad business as they are likely to eat you and steal back whatever they paid you. Trolls aren't very smart, even if they had some out of game knowledge of system rules, I wouldn't expect them to devise clever plans based off that knowledge. I honestly don't think they'd be smart enough to bother trying to understand the nuances of how the world around them works. They'd probably just kill someone who couldn't protect themselves just out of opportunity without worrying about long term consequences. If they kill a merchant and find potions that makes fire not hurt them, they might not realize that the potion's effect is temporary and go leap into a fire, dying painfully in the shock of wondering why they weren't resistant anymore.

Any world that treats common trolls as savvy navigators of 3.5's system isn't one I'd enjoy playing. It's ridiculous.


Send your scouts to find you an appropriate foe. Make your wizard teleport you here. Do the work and teleport out. Prestigitation make you clean and ready for executing your business further. If there is no spare XP in your kingdom left, then you could build XP training room in some basement and get monsters here with planar binding. You would teleporting here as usual, since that place would inevitably rise ire in outer planes.

What kind of person does this?

"I'm an important political figure, so I need to become more powerful by experiencing life threatening combat, so I'll hire scouts to find a suitable threat, hire a mage to teleport me in and out, then to clean my clothes after."

This is not what any normal person thinks. A normal person says, "what am i going to eat for breakfast before I go to work today?"

The NPC you are proposing isn't an NPC, but an Enemy PC. You are insisting ALL encounters be made as tactically as possible, but that just makes no sense at all. These characters represent people, not just challenges to your character. They have no reason to structure their lives around an arms race.


They should know how they world do function.

I disagree. I don't see any reason at all that characters should be aware of game mechanics. They might have some idea of how the world works (like a troll might know that fire hurts more that cuts do) but they have no reason to realize how the game they don't know they're in can be exploited.


It could be observed directly and they have enough money to pay for gathering statistics.

Not really. Most of the rules in D&D are abstractions, not literal interpretations. Characters don't *literally* have HP or XP that THEY could in any way measure (if the DM is doing their job of adjudicating the rules).


Because those who have power had always targets drawn on them.

That does not justify the extreme measures you are proposing. It might justify hiring a bodyguard, but not power leveling. Only maybe a mighty evil wizard bent on world domination might need to exploit power leveling. It's just so insane that you need a mad genius to even think of it.


Just think of it as a method to become stronger from hard training.

No, because they could just do the normal thing and train with inanimate objects and simple sparring. Only psychopaths consciously seek out mortal combat to train harder.


Because that is a capital investment that reduces operational expenses on resurrection.

This is a pseudo-medieval, pre-industrial feudal state. Your argument is invalid.


You could not hold your money without sufficient power. So every political force should have wizards and clerics and druids in their numbers. Without power you would be quickly stripped of your gold and killed.

Wizards have mysteries, clerics have deities, and druids have their trees. What need do these individuals have for concerning themselves with the petty business of mortal politics and currency?

It makes no sense.


Without dying you have no motivation to improve.

The entire game is power fantasy. You can want to improve just because you get that cool new ability next level. You don't have to not want to die to have a reason to want to become better.

[ayvango]

I feel like you should look into EvE Online. It, if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, is right up your alley
It's a great game, but it eats your life. And if you are incapable to maintain barriers around the game, it will eat your life entirely. So I would pass on it.


Since all its hoard is likely stolen from people the troll has killed, such deals are likely illegal within standard humanoid civilizations (not to mention being morallly reprehensible).
Since when does it stops trade from running on? There are always persons that would like to risk illegal trade. Sometimes they are just evil, sometimes they are truly evil. I'm thinking that establishing human trafficking would be a great opportunity for trolls to earn their items.



What kind of person does this?
Had you ever taken a vaccine? Exposing to danger in controllable environment is what vaccination is. Same goes for earning XP to prevent death.



This is not what any normal person thinks. A normal person says, "what am i going to eat for breakfast before I go to work today?"
Normal persons could not establish prosperous political power. That is why he possess no interest to assassins.


Characters don't *literally* have HP that THEY could in any way measure (if the DM is doing their job of adjudicating the rules).

Think creatively. Find a stable source of damage (dragon aura give 1 elemental damage for example) and test it on person. Count how many hits are needed to drop his to 0 which cause observable change of his state. Now you know that person HP. To make sure he was in full HP prior to testing you could heal him. You could easily calculate weapon damage by hitting on object which HP is known beforehand and taking statistics. You could pay for a competent scholar to do all kinds of research if you couldn't afford spent time on it personally.




Because that is a capital investment that reduces operational expenses on resurrection.

This is a pseudo-medieval, pre-industrial feudal state. Your argument is invalid.
Because it is cheaper to pay once for becoming stronger then to keep paying bills for resurrecting. Do you think that math outcome depends on phrasing and would work differently for pseudo-medieval state? Economy is just very simple math. Wizards with 20 Int could easily reproduce modern math and 30 Int wizards could outperform all present mathematicians.



Wizards have mysteries, clerics have deities, and druids have their trees. What need do these individuals have for concerning themselves with the petty business of mortal politics and currency?
Protection from other wizards, clerics and druids. Since if some wizards, clerics and druids start working cooperatively to establish political power, they could easily defeat any single wizard, cleric or druid. There is no other choice for individual but to join existing power, cooperatively establish new power, or flight for eternity.



It makes no sense.
Just look at the action economy. 10 casters party could easily defend 10 opponents one-by-one.


You can want to improve just because you get that cool new ability next level.
Dying is not for improving characters but for improving players who plays them. Taking mistakes and analyzing them prevents them from repeating and this is how player improves.

[death390]

ok haven't read this yet but god d*&m it the number of these is riddiculous. please stop trying to get people to stop playing 3.5. we get it you might not like the 3.5 but other do. trying to get people to stop playing is obnoxious.

[2D8HP]

So you can play Pendragon instead.

So you can play Risk instead.

So you can play Stormbringer instead.

Bicycling?

Bowling?

Go Fish?

Parcheesi?

Pathfinder?

Or here's a SHOCKING! idea, also play 3.5 because one doesn't have to play only one game, or even have just one hobby.

[death390]

there is more than just adventuring to gain XP. an ENCOUNTER gives xp, there are combat encounters, skill encounters (cross that chasm CR 1: rope use, jump, ledge crawl using balance; make a difficult crafting order, ect), avoiding/ disabling traps, social encounter (political problems, haggling, talk your way out of a problem, ect)

social and skill encounters are the most likely way for NPC's to get better (though guards would have combat encounters as well, not to mention thieves stealing adventures)


also wouldn't be surprised to see a basic magic summon monster trap setup for a large garrisons, live training hall [rather than duels between guards with non-lethal versions of their weapons]

[Pleh]

Since when does it stops trade from running on? There are always persons that would like to risk illegal trade. Sometimes they are just evil, sometimes they are truly evil. I'm thinking that establishing human trafficking would be a great opportunity for trolls to earn their items.

Sure, there'd be some illegal trade going on, but you were talking about traveling merchants, not smugglers and black market fences. Those are two different things. Traveling merchants work to maintain credibility (even if they DO conduct illicit practices on the side), while Smugglers and Black Market Fences may or may not.

Such individuals probably STILL don't like Trolls and would probably sell them Snake Oil to get the money, then hope the Trolls don't survive to realize they had been swindled. Exactly why are they trying to help Trolls anyway? Keeping the Trolls alive is useful if the Trolls possess any potential to offer a consistent income, but by RAW, Trolls do not gain wealth over time. They have a randomly determined Treasure Value which, once rolled out in detail, does not change.

There is no Golden Goose to kill with a Troll. The only true profit you can have by duping a Troll into trade is to offer and exchange of Services. Hire the Troll as your thug. This isn't really going to earn you much money by itself so much as it might potentially save you some personal expense of doing the dirty work yourself.

At the end of the day there are NO intelligent, sane, civilized humanoids with access to magic resistance to a Troll's weaknesses that would willingly provide a Troll help in overcoming these weaknesses unless the Troll were in some way tricked or bewitched into slavery for the humanoid. That does not compute.


Had you ever taken a vaccine? Exposing to danger in controllable environment is what vaccination is. Same goes for earning XP to prevent death.

Sure, you can get experience at dodging bullets by practicing with body armor and rubber bullets. People don't generally do it.

The fact that Social Structures and Law exist are more or less the reason that every character in the game relies on division of labor rather than insisting on being each able to do everything themselves. This means that the Party Face focuses on social skills even at the dispense of combat power, while the Tank/Beatstick does the reverse.

A politician is most likely a Social Skill character, having stepped away from dealing with their problems through brute force. Their investment in protecting themselves is in their ability to lead others, so they likely depend on the security of the city guard force.

There is no particular reason to don fire-retardant attire and set yourself ablaze just to learn how to put yourself out. So far as you know, there is tremendously little danger of being in a fire to begin with, and even less reason to believe that you'll have the opportunity to put yourself out if it ever should happen.

It does not follow.


Normal persons could not establish prosperous political power. That is why he possess no interest to assassins.

Political figures typically ARE normal persons. They are VERY normal. Perhaps slightly better off financially, which afforded them superior education. There is no particular reason to expect them to be adventurers moreso than otherwise. In fact, it's actually more common for the requirements of managing politics to be conflicting with the requirements of adventure (one requires that you continually push deeper and deeper into social underpinnings while the other requires that you often leave civilized society for extended periods of time).

And assassins typically have no interest in their targets whatsoever. That's part of why they're paid to kill as opposed to serial killers who do it as a hobby. All an assassin needs is sufficient pay. The smaller the target, the easier the job.


Think creatively. Find a stable source of damage (dragon aura give 1 elemental damage for example) and test it on person. Count how many hits are needed to drop his to 0 which cause observable change of his state. Now you know that person HP. To make sure he was in full HP prior to testing you could heal him. You could easily calculate weapon damage by hitting on object which HP is known beforehand and taking statistics. You could pay for a competent scholar to do all kinds of research if you couldn't afford spent time on it personally.

To the characters in the story, they would have no measurement of how much damage 1 HP is. Even if you used Dragon Aura, all they would see is a person gradually dying. They couldn't be sure exactly how much longer it would take before they die. This is all Meta-knowledge. The characters have no context to understand the abstraction. They simply CAN'T know HP.

Also, conducting such experiments on living creatures certainly puts this practice fairly deep into the "crazy evil wizard" territory. No one else wants to torture other living creatures just to make a life of attaining greater levels of power more efficient. This is the mentality of a psychopath with access to magic.


Because it is cheaper to pay once for becoming stronger then to keep paying bills for resurrecting. Do you think that math outcome depends on phrasing and would work differently for pseudo-medieval state? Economy is just very simple math. Wizards with 20 Int could easily reproduce modern math and 30 Int wizards could outperform all present mathematicians.

Better yet, become a lich and then you never have to worry about death ever again!


Protection from other wizards, clerics and druids. Since if some wizards, clerics and druids start working cooperatively to establish political power, they could easily defeat any single wizard, cleric or druid. There is no other choice for individual but to join existing power, cooperatively establish new power, or flight for eternity.

This is not the case for most any real game I have ever played. This is just not an essential thing to be concerned about. If such a thing were going to happen, it probably would have already. Since it hasn't, there is likely some reason the team of Full Casters does not work.

Perhaps due to the conflicting interests of Wizards and their secrets, Clerics and their devoted faith, and Druids and their sacred duty. Or maybe some of the gods have decided not to allow mortals to take over and run the show and constantly undermine any Full Caster teamup so they are constantly fighting each other. Gods can do whatever the DM says they do, and if they say that they prevent world domination of this kind long before any mortal ever has the chance to reach Heroic level 1, who is to stop them?

The problem, again, isn't the system, but your insistence on allowing the Metagame to dictate the rules and setting. This is not how the game was ever intended to be played.


Dying is not for improving characters but for improving players who plays them. Taking mistakes and analyzing them prevents them from repeating and this is how player improves.

Also not necessary. Players can learn from failure without death. Maybe they built a character expecting the combination of abilities to be strong and they turned out to be ineffective. They never die, protected by party members, but they still failed at the task they set before themselves. This motivates a player to improve themselves by study and practice.

Death also doesn't always teach you anything meaningful. Sometimes you die to a set of unlucky dice rolls, sometimes Rock Fall and Everybody Dies. Sometimes death is just meaningless.

[RFLS]

While I could argue each and every point one thing repeatedly showed up in my opinion.

It seems as though you have either read the books and never took part in an actual game, or your DMs weren't very good at their job. Each and every one of your problems is solved with a competent Dungeon Master.


Almost everything listed either doesn't come up that often or can adjudicated properly by the DM. Writing up a few pages of houserules takes less than converting everything you can get in 3.5 to any other system. And there are things 3.5 does well, especially as a class system, and it's what I've come to love as "true D&D".

These are both part of a pretty common fallacy in the RPG world: Claiming that a broken game is not broken because you can fix it does not make the game not broken. Claiming that it's not broken because you can fix it admits that the game is, in fact, broken.

To clarify: this does not make the game a bad game. However, being clear in its faults and recognizing them makes it easier to either fix them or find a new system that does not have them.


...a schizophrenic world...

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/5e/5eef429efaa1d8e507bdee6f09093bb032f448c69c9f01b89c adc156f12f1823.jpg

[death390]

These are both part of a pretty common fallacy in the RPG world: Claiming that a broken game is not broken because you can fix it does not make the game not broken. Claiming that it's not broken because you can fix it admits that the game is, in fact, broken.

To clarify: this does not make the game a bad game. However, being clear in its faults and recognizing them makes it easier to either fix them or find a new system that does not have them.



http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/5e/5eef429efaa1d8e507bdee6f09093bb032f448c69c9f01b89c adc156f12f1823.jpg

admitting that nothing is flawless is a step in the direction of wisdom. take that step and understand that because things are flawed they are beautiful; for the only perfect thing is a true void, no energy, no matter, nothingness.

[Knaight]

admitting that nothing is flawless is a step in the direction of wisdom. take that step and understand that because things are flawed they are beautiful; for the only perfect thing is a true void, no energy, no matter, nothingness.

That nothing is flawless doesn't mean that nothing approximates flawlessness better than anything else. It can't be reached but it can be approached, and treating everything as equivalent is a dubious mental model.

[Andreaz]

These are both part of a pretty common fallacy in the RPG world: Claiming that a broken game is not broken because you can fix it does not make the game not broken. Claiming that it's not broken because you can fix it admits that the game is, in fact, broken.
90% of his complaints are that the game treats players and non-players differently.


Well, of course it does. Even simulationist games do that. The game is about you. What else do you want, an auxiliary god-mind to run everything else at the same time in a coherent fashion?

[death390]

That nothing is flawless doesn't mean that nothing approximates flawlessness better than anything else. It can't be reached but it can be approached, and treating everything as equivalent is a dubious mental model.

Ah but a true void of absolute nothingness in it is perfect nothingness. Perfect nothingness is not flawless anything else. There is no such thing as a flawless diamond but those that approach this ideal are truly beautiful. Each ideal of flawlessness is in of itself an ideal, a void is simply that the easiest to appreciate as a pure void would be a flawless void as nothing made of anything, energy or matter (condensed energy), is truly flawless.

[RFLS]

admitting that nothing is flawless is a step in the direction of wisdom. take that step and understand that because things are flawed they are beautiful; for the only perfect thing is a true void, no energy, no matter, nothingness.


That nothing is flawless doesn't mean that nothing approximates flawlessness better than anything else. It can't be reached but it can be approached, and treating everything as equivalent is a dubious mental model.


Ah but a true void of absolute nothingness in it is perfect nothingness. Perfect nothingness is not flawless anything else. There is no such thing as a flawless diamond but those that approach this ideal are truly beautiful. Each ideal of flawlessness is in of itself an ideal, a void is simply that the easiest to appreciate as a pure void would be a flawless void as nothing made of anything, energy or matter (condensed energy), is truly flawless.

I...what? I was talking about, you know. Game mechanics.

[death390]

I...what? I was talking about, you know. Game mechanics.

that is correct there are no flawless game mechanics, there will always be a better way to form rules. however rules themselves are flawed. thus every game with rules has its own beauty; alas no game has true perfection because it cannot truly represent reality.

yet what is reality, there are those that theorized that our reality is naught but a simulation. for we may just be a simulation like the sims, have we all not walked into a room and forgotten what we came in there for, speak unintelligibly, or set fire to our food and panicked?

[Cosi]

The problem is not finding a reason to switch away from 3e. The game has flaws, and I think most people are aware of where they lie.

The problem is finding something to switch to.

Pathfinder isn't really different from 3.5 to any meaningful degree, and the changes it does make do not solve the problems 3.5 has (hint: the problem 3.5 had was not that there are too few options).

Various editions of Shadowrun are fairly well done, but they're not really equipped for straight up fantasy (in particular, the melee combat system isn't good enough for a game where "stab them in the face" is supposed to be the default mode of combat).

Exalted has a premise that is probably better than D&D's on the face of it (because it solves the Fighter Problem natively by just accepting that everyone is superhuman), but the mechanics and flavor are as bad as is typical for White Wolf.

4e fails to deliver enough content to compete with 3e or enough balance improvements to compensate for that lack. 5e breaks the fundamental premise of heroic fantasy.

OSR games are premised on the idea of rejecting all the developments since AD&D. Since those developments are in fact good, they are mostly bad to the exact degree they succeed in achieving their goals.

There might be an obscure indie game that does what you want, but you are not going to be able to get a group together for whatever heartbreaker you happen to be infatuated with nearly as often as you will for D&D.

Fundamentally, until WotC releases an edition of D&D which is good (something that is profoundly unlikely to happen any time soon because none of their staff are terribly competent), there just isn't likely to be anything that does what 3e is trying to do better than 3e. That means there's no reason to switch away from 3e if you like the game's design goals, and if you don't like the game's design goals you probably aren't playing it in the first place.

[Knaight]

I...what? I was talking about, you know. Game mechanics.

So was I - specifically the idea that while no game mechanics are perfect some are still better than others, and that engaging in some sophistry about how all games are beautiful because flaws are beautiful is profoundly unhelpful.