Version Thread

[carrdrivesyou]

So Playgrounders...3.5 came out 15 years ago, and for some odd reason, it is STILL one of the most popular versions despite two new editions, plus Pathfinder. What is it about 3.5 that has given it its longevity? Why is it your favorite version? What are its best and worst qualities?

[weckar]

I invested about $1000 buying books. Not looking to do that again. Not saying it is better, but I see no reason to replace it.

[Zexionthefirst]

It's a mix of the amount of material, the quality of some of that material, and the community of people willing to discuss that material.

I find that 3.5 is the easiest to adjust for the type of world I want to run for a campaign- I can house rule it with pieces I like from pathfinder, 5E, and even 4th edition, but it's still predominantly 3.5. It lets me tell the stories I want, it lets my group play the way we want, and it let's us customize the way each of us want.

And it's what I know. That's a big one. While I would be happy to play in a 5E game, I would not want to run one, and if I'm not running the game there's no game, so my group handles 3.5 too. :smallcool:

[Bronk]

When 3.5 came out, it got rid of THAC0, immediately improving the game, and made a lot of other changes that made the game easier to play as well. Later versions were either not better, or a downgrade.

3.5 may have made some changes to the preexisting settings, or didn't specifically support them anymore, but didn't set out to actually destroy them... the lore is still there for the taking, and teasing hints from Planescape and Spelljammer are sprinkled around the rulebooks and adventures. However, destroying the existing settings was the first thing 4E did, and of course Pathfinder is it's own thing altogether.

3.5 offers more player options, and supports higher level play, which I appreciate. There's a wide variety of possible combinations of races, classes, and equipment that 4E and 5E can't match.

The switch to 4th edition also screwed up Salvatore's Drizz't novels. Up until then, the books were self contained and didn't rely heavily on a particular rule set. However, in the lead up to 4E, he had to time jump his story into the future, write a trilogy or two of catch up novels, then kill off his main characters and bring them back to life a century or so later in different bodies. He then switched everyone to very obviously using 4E abilities and magic, just in time to switch them over again to 5E. (That's in addition to the overall tone of the books, which can only be described as 'rapey'... I think it's for the best that he ended the series.)

[johnbragg]

1. There's a ton of material, a lot of which isn't supported by 5E.

Pathfinder, the living version of 3X, has 33 (I think) classes on the PFSRD. There are at least a dozen base classes and 3 or 4 major subsystems (maneuvers, psionics, incarnum, maybe binding vestiges) that don't exist (yet) in official 5E material. Pathfinder also supports Spheres of Power as a magic system, which has a lot of fans. Plus Eberron has 3-4 PC races and a unique setting that 5E doesn't do (or at least doesn't do without a lot of homebrewing.)

If you enjoy the mid- to high-op character creation minigame, then you're doing 3X.

2. 4E was such a different experience than 3X, and was received so negatively, that it taught an entire generation of players that upgrading editions was optional.

I started as a player (1) with 2nd edition. I suspect that the 1st edition players had a similar experience, but there was no internet then where mass opinion could form and be heard. I know there's a LOT of BX and BECMI and AD&D based OSR material, 2E not as much. So I don't know how many 1E tables just kept playing 1E because books are expensive.

3E was a massive, obvious upgrade over 2E. 1e/2e fans will argue about what was lost, and they may be right, but the advantages of Feats and Skills and level-by-level multiclassing and the unified d20 mechanic and BAB/ascending AC over THAC0/descending AC from 10 to -10 were huge upgrades worth spending the money for new books on. So much so, that WOTC earned enough goodwill to pump out 3.5 three years later without a customer revolt.

Then 4E came along, and we didn't like it, our friends didn't like it, and we realized we didn't have to move from the old game to the new game. The OGL made Pathfinder possible, so there was a continuing corporate infrastructure and a flow of new material. If you were a married couple with 2 PHB/DMG/MMI, and at least a half-dozen other 3.0 and 3.5 splatbooks.

(1) Not counting wildly houseruled Red Box in middle school, which may have actually been free-form roleplaying inspired by Red Box Basic with a d20 tacked on? Time passes, memory fades--I think I brought my d20 to school to play with my friend, I'm pretty sure I didn't bring the rest? OR maybe it was just diceless? )

[Albions_Angel]

Unlike a lot of playgrounders, I didnt start at the beginning. For me, 3.5 was my first real D&D experience, with a wonderful group of experienced players. For 3 years, I basically lived for the game. This was only a few years ago and 4th was already out and about when I started. They never moved over, so I never tried it.

When 5th came out, several things coincided. For my own part, I hit a level of mastery where I was beginning to dabble in weird multiclass combos, optimizing this thing or that, or trying new systems (incarnum, binding, etc). I went from simple builds (straight ninja, scout, duskblade, knight, druid) to suddenly having 100 ideas for new characters. I also began to DM and constructed a world I fell in love with.

Ill be straight here. I was a student with no money when I started. And 3.5e had been out of print for ages. I got PDF versions of all the books for... shall we say... a bardic song? So that didnt tie me down. And while I had my nice 3.5e world, I was really looking forward to 5th.

Then I played it. NOPE. Not for me.

I have now tried to play 5th a bunch of times across 3 different groups, as DM and player. I cannot get into it. I dont just dislike it. I HATE it. There is no choice, the options are limited, RAW makes no sense and so much of it is left to the DM to add not just flavour but rules. "Uh, ok, well I guess you should get advantage for that. Oh, you already have advantage. Well I guess that does nothing. Sorry." As someone who played on a battlemat and LOVED trying to eak out that extra +2 to hit (flank here, deny dex, higher ground, aid another), I quickly realised that 5th didnt just not have many options in that regard, it seems to be actively built around NOT doing that. And the only thing I can think of as to why, is that its designed for a casual player who wants to play with everything in their head. No minis, no battle mat, no tactics, just a fantasy RP session with some rules around combat occasionally. All my depth, my builds, my ideas and world building and planning and synergy, gone.

And what makes that worse? I have since moved away from that wonderful 3.5e group, to a new area, where all my new friends play 5th. And I keep trying. I want to play with them. But out of the 20 friends that want to play, or do play, D&D, not a single one is even willing to TRY a d20 game. Not pathfinder, not 3.5e, nothing. They see the books, they see the rules, they see the bonuses to hit, and they all say its too complicated. And I just dont get it.

So here I am, truly in love with 3.5e, and unable to play. If I want to play, I have to play 5th. If I want to DM, I have to DM 5th. And I hate it. And even if I can overlook the system, my play style and their play styles do not mix. I want to sit down for a minimum 4 hours and play a game. The game would generally be serious, but in my old group, out of character banter happened all the time. It just didnt slow the game down. All my new friends want 2 hour sessions which are primarily for socializing. Turn up, chat, make fun of the character names, talk over the DM, over combat, over turn order, over eachother, constantly backtrack and ask what just happened, etc. And if anything, 5th makes that easier to do, because they DONT have to care about where they stand, or what spell to cast in what order, or what just happened. And if I am a player, I struggle to enjoy the 3 rounds of combat and 10 minutes of actual roleplay that I get to experience while my character name is made fun of, and if I am a DM, I get to watch my plots not get played out while the group sniggers at a name that looks a little like a swear word.

So yeah, I enjoy 3.5e partly because its so deep and so varied, partly because it scratches my tactical itch, and partly because, in my experience, its far harder to mess around and still play d20, and when I make time to play D&D, thats what I want to do.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wasn't there literally just a huge edition war thread, like, a week ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546796-Why-didn-t-we-switch-to-4e-5e)?

(Short answer: starting with 3e D&D, the editions are all kind of their own separate beasts, rather than iterative improvements. Pathfinder, meanwhile, is identical enough that there's no reason to switch from one to the other besides wanting more material)

[johnbragg]

Wasn't there literally just a huge edition war thread, like, a week ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546796-Why-didn-t-we-switch-to-4e-5e)?

To be fair, this is true pretty much all the time.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Options.

I can do more then I think I can do in 3.5e.

This is very simple.

[johnbragg]

3X is flexible.

I'm working on a E6 campaign / campaign world with a traditional fantasy setting, where one kingdom has unlocked a ritual that summons heroes from other times and places. (Or maybe creates them, complete with memories and backstories--since easy planar travel is not a thing, nobody can reliably check.) That allows players to take advantage of the entire kitchen-sink menu of PAthfinder and 3.5 classes. Given everything googleable, if players want to play a Jedi Knight, or a My Little Pony OC, or a soldier from whatever time period, I expect that we could homebrew something that works, as long as the abilities are predictable--sorry Potterverse--and can be modeled as scaling over levels 1-6--so your superhero may not work.

It's hard to imagine building that in any edition but 3rd.

(GURPS maybe, FATE maybe but then you lose a lot of combat complexity.)

[Kurald Galain]

3E is primarily a world simulator, and many players care about that.

And sure, many players don't. But there's plenty of RPGs that aren't a world simulator, so players that don't want one could be playing pretty much anything. Players what do want a world simulator don't have a lot of choices, and certainly not a lot of widely-played choices. Somebody will surely now point out that 3E isn't a perfect simulator. But nobody claims it is, so that's not the point. It's accurate enough and consistent enough, most of the time, for a lot of people. Crazy corner cases are a lot more common in forum discussions than in actual gameplay.
Wasn't there literally just a huge edition war thread, like, a week ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546796-Why-didn-t-we-switch-to-4e-5e)?
Yes, but "why do people play 3E" is not quite the same as "why do people prefer 3E over 4E/5E".

[johnbragg]

3X is flexible.

I'm working on a E6 campaign / campaign world with a traditional fantasy setting, where one kingdom has unlocked a ritual that summons heroes from other times and places. (Or maybe creates them, complete with memories and backstories--since easy planar travel is not a thing, nobody can reliably check.) That allows players to take advantage of the entire kitchen-sink menu of PAthfinder and 3.5 classes. Given everything googleable, if players want to play a Jedi Knight, or a My Little Pony OC, or a soldier from whatever time period, I expect that we could homebrew something that works, as long as the abilities are predictable--sorry Potterverse--and can be modeled as scaling over levels 1-6--so your superhero may not work.

It's hard to imagine building that in any edition but 3rd.

(GURPS maybe, FATE maybe but then you lose a lot of combat complexity.)

Yes, I have been reading Mage The Awakening and TORG splatbooks, why?

[Jiece18]

I invested about $1000 buying books. Not looking to do that again. Not saying it is better, but I see no reason to replace it.

Same with me and all the D&D players in my area.

[martixy]

If you enjoy the mid- to high-op character creation minigame, then you're doing 3X.

Minigame... hah. Jokester.


~snikt~

I'd like to express my deepest sympathies...

You are my darkest timeline.
In my version I play in a heavily-homebrewed 3.P gestalt session with tons of customization even beyond regular 3.5.

Those are the best qualities.

As for worst. That falls to all the imperfections you accumulate in allowing that much customization. I don't intend to start listing them all, we who are here all know of them.

[atemu1234]

Wasn't there literally just a huge edition war thread, like, a week ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546796-Why-didn-t-we-switch-to-4e-5e)?

Yes, there was. I started it, in fact.

[Bronk]

You know, I think the only thing I miss from older editions were the indestructible items, doors and dungeons. It might not have quite been the case, because I didn't play all that much before 3E came out, but it seemed like there would be times when you'd get to a door, it would be locked, you were told it was magic, and that would be it. In 3.5, everything's destructible and nothing is safe from adventurers. I like it as a player, but I do miss that feeling as a DM.

On the other hand, where would we be without all the fun discussions about how tough it is to use voidstone, where best to hide a phylactery, or whether or not there's a way to block wish base teleports?

Anyway, I'm not sure how that worked out in 4th, but in 5th, it seems like they were trying to get around it by just making players weak. That seems to sap the fun out of things a bit.

[carrdrivesyou]

Yes, there was. I started it, in fact.

Although I did not see your thread, my line of questions were quite different. You were asking why people did not switch to 4th or 5th. I am wondering why 3.P is still going despite its age. What gives it so much popularity? I was an avid 3.5 player until PF came out. I saw 4th and recoiled in shame at WotC. When 5th came out, I was quite satisfied.

As a DM for 3.5, when I still played it, my group were all veteran DND players that knew the system better than I did, and whose characters were absolutely ungodly. I recall several times where I statted out dragons that were designed to TPK or eliminate at least one party member, and they handled it in a round or two. The worst was when they were 13th level and eliminated a CR 18 Fang Dragon that was statted out for combat (plus feats), that had back up in the form of sorcerers, favored souls of Tiamat, AND dragon shamans. That combat took five rounds and resulted in one party member death, where they should have TPK'd or fled. These guys seriously would never run. Kinda killed it for my 3.5 DMing.

As a player of 3.5, I enjoyed the versatility of character options, and being able to flesh out EXACTLY the character I wanted to play. Regretably, I was almost exclusively a DM, only ever able to play in a handful of games in 3.5.

This was all mitigated by PF, by slightly limiting player options, and removing Pun-Pun options. There are still the options of archetypes and a wide variety of classes, plus traits and drawbacks. I rather think that PF is how 3.5 SHOULD have been, but that's just me complaining.

Overall, I just think that even with severe limitations, 3.5 characters can become the most broken and overpowered things ever. As a DM, it kinda kills it for me. There is literally nothing without stats that the players can rules lawyer their way around. And making something indestructible just makes them whine about how their character ought to be able to do something, or say that I'm breaking the rules. So yea. Rant over haha.

I was curious if anyone else had these same issues with this particular version?