Is 3e/3.5e actually as complicated as some say?

[Jon talks a lot]

Hey all

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare. Taking a look at the 3rd edition players handbook, it doesn't seem all that much more complicated than 5e, albeit containing quite a few more different floating modifiers.

Could someone please explain what makes 3/3.5e so complex?

[47948201]

It's definitely got more specific rules than 5e, which is what most people are used to these days. Probably the thing with 3.x is the absolutely enormous number of 1st-party, kinda-1st-party, and 3rd-party materials there are for it, which means optimizers have a ton of choices when coming up with builds. Sometimes things get messy with late 3.0 and early 3.5 stuff, too. As long as you're not going too far off the rails with your optimization, though, it doesn't play super differently from PF1e, I don't think.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Eh, 3.5's no worse for roleplay than any other edition.

As for complexity, that comes down to the sheer number of options available... and the fact that so many of them interact with each other. That makes it fantastic for optimizing, whether you're going for power, pure cool, a specific character concept, or all of the above. But often that requires at least a basic understanding of a whole lot of rules, and there's a danger of winding up stronger or weaker than the rest of the party simply due to not knowing what the powerful options are.

[Zanos]

It's a "roleplayers nightmare" in the sense that the system has restrictions. In a lot of more modern system if you ask a DM if your character can scale a sheer cliff, they'll give you a reasonable chance to make the check with the stats that you have or simply allow it. 3.5 will hard stop you from making the climb if your character doesn't have the equipment or skill to do so, since climbing a natural wall unaided is DC 25, and hence impossible for even a strong character with no climbing skills and no equipment. I've seen a lot of "roleplayers" get salty that there character had no chance to succeed at tasks their characters had absolutely no competence in, but I wouldn't call that roleplaying, hence the quotes.

As for complexity, it's mostly breadth of materials and strange edge case rules that trip people up. The basic combat rules are not really that complicated, but there are a lot of fiddly little bonuses you can add up with intelligent play and system mastery. If you play casters it gets a lot more complicated because then you have potentially thousands of spells to pick from, some of which are just completely awful. 5e isn't extremely different in that regard, but the difference between a bad and good character option in 3.5 is a lot wider, and there's a lot more of them.

[gijoemike]

It isn't a role players nightmare at all. I agree with Zanos on his points.



The complexity comes from the character building process. Lets do a high level comparison of 5th, PF1,and 3.X.

5th
Class progression into a specialist happens naturally at lvl 3. The first feat could be picked up at lvl 4. No multi class restrictions to speak of. Spells scale with character level and anyone can bump up a spell to the next slot to make it more powerful.

PF
Dozens of Archetypes are built into a give class and trade out options as you level. No special restrictions, no skill requirements. Special bonuses can occur if you are in your race's favored class. Feats happen every odd level starting at 1. This is far more options than 5th ed. Some feats are passive bonuses that may not come into play every session.

3.X
Over 30 lvl 1 to 20 base classes exist that are viable to play. Most of them have alternative class features spread out over 20 different splat books. But you mix and match them instead of committing to an archetype. Feats are every 3rd level making them the single most precious item on your character sheet. The Prestige class system is a complex system in which you obtain certain feats and skills to qualify and class abilities for entry into one of the HUNDREDS of separate classes that grant special abilities, connections, and powers. Many of which require you to multiclass into 2 different base classes to get the skills and class abilities required. Alignment restrictions, race restrictions, and deity restrictions exist all over everywhere. Meaning that to qualify to level into the class you want you have to spend the most limited currency you have. And you have to start doing this levels ahead because that one skill is only going to be a class skill for this level until you multiclass and you need 2 feat over the next 4 full levels so you can enter at lvl 7. Unless it is a prestige class you enter at level 6 or 11. Spells are fixed at certain levels tied to the class not character level (go read the multiclassing requirement), unless you spend even more feats for metamagic. Dipping just 1 or 2 classes is very common and for some prestige classes it is flat out required.

On Top of that some of the feats just plain SUCK, or are minor passive bonuses. These are feat taxes that require you to practically waste a feat just to get a cool ability LATER on.


In 3.5 it would take me hours to figure out how to build a lvl 3 character to do what I want. That is because you are never building a level 1, 3, or 6 character. You are always building for a character 4 or 5 levels further ahead than where you start play. It is very possible to screw yourself HARD by not having taken the correct skill or feat 2 levels ago. And that will delay you from entering your prestige class by 1 or 2 levels. Perhaps making it so you cannot every reach the capstone power you were aiming for. 3.5 is a pay up front game. PF 1 is a take it at level with the archetypes, and 5e is simple growth handed to you via the subtype choice at level 3.

[AvatarVecna]

Hey all

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare. Taking a look at the 3rd edition players handbook, it doesn't seem all that much more complicated than 5e, albeit containing quite a few more different floating modifiers.

Could someone please explain what makes 3/3.5e so complex?

Building a character in 3.5 is not all that different from building a character in 5e. The actual process is identical to the process in Pathfinder 1e, and even a number of the mechanics will be identical (having been lifted directly from 3.5). The difference winds up being in the sheer scope of things:

In 5e, there are at most 14 base classes, each of which gets to select up to one subclass from a list of up to a dozen options. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 51 base classes (at least without getting into 3pp material), each of which has up to a few dozen archetypes that can potentially be combined together and taken in whatever ways are viable. In 3.5, there are 74 base classes (without getting into Dragon Mag material), many of which have at least one ACF (archetype equivalent that tends to focus on replacing a single ability), with many of the more popular ones having a few dozen ACFs - and because ACFs tend to replace less material than archetypes do, ACF-stacking is much more diverse.

In 5e, Prestige Classes do not exist. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 118 Prestige Classes (and while I've yet to check, I'm fairly certain the vast majority of them if not all of them are 10 levels long). In 3.5, there are 718 Prestige Classes ranging from 5 to 15 levels long (or indefinitely long, if we count epic progressions), and I'm not entirely sure the list I was looking at was complete. Among these is at least one prestige class explicitly intended for commoners. For some context, there is a long-running contest here ITP called "Iron Chef" where roughly every month, forumites have to make a 1-20 build centered around a different bad 3.5 prestige class. It is currently in round 111. This time next year, there will have been more 3.5 PrCs given a highlight than PrCs in Pathfinder 1e without diving into 3pp material.

In 5e, there are 55 skill/tool proficiencies to be found, and at least 22 languages. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 41 skills that cover skill/tool use (not counting however many variations there are of Craft and Profession checks), and at least 35 languages. In 3.5, there are 67 skills that cover skill/tool use (not counting however many variations there are of Craft, Perform, and Profession checks), and at least 88 languages. But wait there's more! In 5e, proficiency has four possible states: no proficiency, half-proficiency, proficiency, and double proficiency; for most characters, it is a binary between having proficiency and not having it. In Pathfinder, a character has from 0 to 20 ranks in a given skill, and all skills cost 1 skill point per rank all the time no matter what, with class skills merely giving a bonus to skill use. In 3.5, a character has from 0 to 23 ranks in a given skill (at least without getting into epic and some weird edge cases, where the upper limit is "infinite"), your maximum ranks in a given skill are determined by if that skill has ever been a class skill for you, and whether it takes 1 or 2 skill points to buy a rank depends on whether it is currently a class skill for you...and also you get 4 times as many skill points at level 1.

In 5e, when you receive an ASI/Feat option, you have ~100 options to pick from (including various ASI combos instead of taking a feat). In Pathfinder 1e, there are ~1500 feats to choose from, and many classes/PrCs gain some measure of bonus feat progression. In 3.5, there are ~3600 feats to choose from, and many classes/PrCs gain some measure of bonus feat progression.

In 5e, there are ~500 spells, a solid portion of which can be upcast to a higher level to have a greater effect. In Pathfinder 1e, there are ~2900 spells, and there are ~80 metamagic feats available for you to play around with customizing spells in some fashion up to a maximum of 9th lvl (however you can manage to squeeze them in). In 3.5, there are ~4500 spells, and ~130 metamagic feats available for you to play around with customizing spells in some fashion, with no maximum level thanks to epic rules. Additionally, there is the 3.5 epic subsystem, "Epic Spellcasting", which allows you to design your own larger-than-life spells that are theoretically capable of literally anything you can care to dream up. If we were to create a random infinitely-big wizard spellbook in each edition, where every spell on the wizard list has an equal chance of being in the book or not, you would need approximately a table of 1.27 x 10^89 spellbooks to roll on. For Pathfinder 1e, you would need a table of 1.13 x 10^571 spellbooks to roll on. For 3.5, you would need a table of 2.73 x 10^741 spellsbooks to roll on. All three of these numbers are really incomprehensible, but the latter two are far worse in that regard.

Additionally, if we want to get into the nitty gritty of that casting, 5e has one casting system, Pathfinder 1e has one casting system (at least, without delving into the 3pp material), and 3.5 has nine: magic, psionics, maneuvers, incarnum, truenaming, shadowcasting, binding, invocations, and infusions. If one wanted to get technical about the differences between prepared and spontaneous casting of various flavors, these numbers go up, but frankly 3.5 has more kinds of weird magic than PF does in that regard too.

In 5e, there are hundreds of magic items, and up to three attunement slots (with IIRC the majority of magic items being attuned). In Pathfinder 1e and 3.5, there are thousands of items, and a couple dozen item slots each. In Pathfinder 1e, items are limited to 200k gp at maximum market value; in 3.5, this is the nonepic limit, with epic items having no upper limit. In 5e, items cannot be crafted except by specific class features allowing it, while in 3.5, magic item crafting is open to all casters with the right feats, and in Pathfinder 1e it is (mostly) open to anybody with the right feats. Custom magic items allow you to build skill bonuses and spell effects into items in both PF and 3.5, but 3.5 also has rules for building feats into items.

You're familiar with 5e and Pathfinder 1e, and you probably already understand how the litany of options available in Pathfinder just make building a character a more complex process. Part of that complexity is that, with so many options, the distance between the power floor and the power ceiling for any given character path is pretty vast depending on what options you take, whereas in 5e, there's characters that are less optimal than others, but it's kinda difficult to build somebody who can't contribute, and also kinda difficult to build somebody who will absolutely dominate encounters. It's easier to break the game being overpowered or underpowered in PF compared to 5e, and that's a result of not just the design philosophy behind how powerful abilities should be, but also a result of just how many options there are to begin with.

Viewed from that angle, it shouldn't be very difficult for you to see how 3.5 is the same problem, but even worse - not only can levels and resources scale literally to infinite while remaining within the rules, but there gap between floor and ceiling is infinitely big - it's possible to build a 1st lvl character who can cheat the system to give themselves infinite everything, including writing their own abilities. As your levels increase, your ability to achieve a given level of power doesn't increase per se, but rather the level of rules-lawyering needed to reach that level of power is lessened. The result of this: in 5e, you have to really work to make a character underpowered/overpowered; in PF, you have to work to make a character competent for their level, and it's really easy to make them underpowered and much more difficult to make them overpowered. The more options there are that can interact with each other, the more likely that powerful combos are just going to naturally pop up. The more options there are, the less likely that somebody working on the game is going to be looking at every possible combo to find the ones that are overpowered. Thus, the more options there are, the less likely it is that a given powerful combo will have a specific rule made to shut it down.

In 3.5, power simply fluctuates wildly. You can accidentally build a character who would objectively be more useful dead, and you can accidentally stumble your way into one of the more powerful spell uses in the game (Polymorph --> Hydra, a pure core combo that basically lets your wizard outperform the frontliners in their party without much effort in most every fight from 7th level onward). At higher levels, you can stumble into an even dumber combo just trying to do the kind of "cheating the system" thing that cartoon characters do. In 3.5, you can bind a genie to your service and force it to grant you wishes; you can't use wishes to wish for more wishes...but you can use wishes to wish for more genies that are bound to your service. Infinite free wishes capable of basically anything is a pure-core combo you can accidentally stumble onto. Oh yeah, and 3.5 wishes can make magic items, and the particular way this interacts with genies, genie wishes can create magic items of theoretically infinite power - including magic items capable of granting you any number of wishes. Oops.

One of the results of the massive, infinite gap between the power floor and power ceiling in 3.5, is that "the power level you should be at" is basically going to wildly vary from game to game - on what combos the DM will approve, on how strictly they'll cleave to RAW vs reasonable interpretations with an eye towards balance, on how much they're going to just shut down blatantly overpowered spells and support less-optimal playstyles. For example, depending on just how many item crafting shenanigans a given DM is willing to let you combine, making a dedicated crafter character could mean anything from having 2x the normal amount of money in items to 1000x the normal amount of money in items. And you can push it even further than that - theoretically infinitely further - if you're willing to turn to human sacrifice (human sacrifice makes a lot of things way easier to pull off).

Indeed, while core PF is in most regards "3.5 with the serial numbers filed off", a number of the changes that got made are expressly to make certain things (typically spells that are particularly problematic in 3.5) more manageable in PF, and PF's design philosophy tended towards "when in doubt, make it underpowered; better that it's weak than it's accidentally too strong". For 1st party material at least - in 3pp, anything goes. In fact, many PF 3pp subsystems are, in fact, the work of various people to create a PF version of a given 3.5 subsystem. It would not be entirely inaccurate to say that 3.5 is like if PF 1e has all 3pp content suddenly become 1st party.

One final thing making 3.5 more problematic than PF and 5e is that it isn't in active development - where PF and 5e are receiving errata and the SRDs will be edited to account for new rulings and erratas, where 5e in particular treats the FAQ answers as relevant as the book text, 3.5 errata tends to be more about fixing errors than covering up combos, and 3.5 FAQ is frequently so contradictory with existing rules that it makes more sense to ignore it than incorporate it.

EDIT: Some people up thread have mentioned feat taxes and trap options, and that's certainly true - 90% of everything is crap, as the saying goes. But I'll also point out that the Iron Chef competition I mentioned is about squeezing every ounce of useful shenanigans you can out of a given bad prestige class - a trap option may be bad overall, but sometimes it has an abusable little nugget in it that can be exploited to great effect, if combined with the right mechanics.

[Biggus]

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare.

I've been playing 3.5 for 15+ years and I've never heard it described as a roleplayer's nightmare before. Where did you hear this?


In 3.5, there are 718 Prestige Classes ranging from 5 to 15 levels long (or indefinitely long, if we count epic progressions), and I'm not entirely sure the list I was looking at was complete.

It's even more varied than that, there are a few which are just 3 levels long, Ruathar and Fist of the Forest for example.

[Batcathat]

It's worth noting that D&D in general – (almost) regardless of edition – is a lot more complex than a lot of RPGs (through sheer amount of published material, if nothing else). Not that there aren't games out there as complicated as D&D or more but I'd guess they're a minority.

[AvatarVecna]

I've been playing 3.5 for 15+ years and I've never heard it described as a roleplayer's nightmare before. Where did you hear this?



It's even more varied than that, there are a few which are just 3 levels long, Ruathar and Fist of the Forest for example.

I can't believe I forgot aboit my Con to AC baby. :smalleek:

[Fizban]

Zanos has already covered the primary example of how 3.x skills and skill DCs mean you can't just arbitrarily declare you can do something, and there are multiple posts listing the differences in sheer number of options.


In 3.5, power simply fluctuates wildly. You can accidentally build a character who would objectively be more useful dead, and you can accidentally stumble your way into one of the more powerful spell uses in the game (Polymorph --> Hydra, a pure core combo that basically lets your wizard outperform the frontliners in their party without much effort in most every fight from 7th level onward).
This is a common exaggeration, I find. While it is technically possible to "accidentally" build a character who is "objectively useless," in practice and combined with the fact that the standard game really does not expect anywhere near as much char-op as most forum optimizers think: anyone who's trying to make a good character is not going to be useless. If you assign Elite array ability scores to obvious stats for your class and don't do intentionally obtuse things like fighting with nothing but a single dagger for no reason, or deliberately taking only feats and spells with no combat use, it's fine. A party with all the standard roles can get by on good gameplay even if they're only using half their feats and spells known effectively*

The problem is not that people accidentally make bad characters, but that if you hand a group of four different people a hundred books (written by dozens of authors over the course of a decade) and tell them to "make something good," you open up the chance for four completely incompatible results. One person starts with the PHB and makes a perfectly usable PHB Fighter, another reads about some char-op build online and writes it down without even knowing where any of the stuff came from, another simply decides to play a wizard and learn and exploit the most powerful spells they discover at their leisure. Shockingly enough the first two don't belong in the same game and the third only becomes broken when they find that spell that pushes them over the edge.

*Well, followed by the second problem that the Monster Manuals and published modules are at wildly different power levels and often blatantly ignore their own Encounter guidelines, which makes it so zero-op parties which should be usable with skill, can't actually keep up with later material. But at the beginning, it was true.


At higher levels, you can stumble into an even dumber combo just trying to do the kind of "cheating the system" thing that cartoon characters do. In 3.5, you can bind a genie to your service and force it to grant you wishes; you can't use wishes to wish for more wishes...but you can use wishes to wish for more genies that are bound to your service. Infinite free wishes capable of basically anything is a pure-core combo you can accidentally stumble onto. Oh yeah, and 3.5 wishes can make magic items, and the particular way this interacts with genies, genie wishes can create magic items of theoretically infinite power - including magic items capable of granting you any number of wishes. Oops.
Again, this "problem" is grossly exaggerated, because the DM has the explict job of handling obvious problems. Loopholes are only a problem in the sense that they provide opportunities for a certain type of player to make a fuss and argue with the DM. You may address this somewhat in the next paragraph, but it bears a more explicit refutation.

In online multi-player video games, particularly competitive ones, the game designers/developers usually provide continuous updates in an attempt to keep things "balanced." That is literally part of the DM's job for book-based tabletop roleplaying games. In single-player video games, sure, there are often broken combos, loopholes, or even outright glitches that the player can find, and may be encouraged to exploit for the pursuit of difficult optional objectives, or just because it's fun. DnD is not a single-player video game which never updates. DnD is a multi-player game, where one person has been explicitly assigned the role of managing content updates and patches, in no small part because the books cannot magically update themselves or account for the infinite combinations of mechanics and level design and open-ended action.

It is also co-op and role-based between the PC's, rather than a direct combat PvP, which means that some combos/exploits/bugs/etc may be more (or less) acceptable than first glance.

Obvious problems are barely even problems, because once they are noticed they are easily dealt with. There are some less obvious problems in 3.x which are far harder to deal with because they're difficult to notice and endemic to the underlying system- but they haven't been mentioned yet, and can also be phrased as simply quirks of what makes DnD DnD that you accept as part of the game and play around rather than fighting (or simply plow through and ignore).



The true measure of 3.x is in what your group is actually using. Not in a question of number of books, for there are plenty of innocuous elements scatttered all over and single books with enough cheese to break a "zero-DM" game easily- but in what the players are actually building. It is the DM's job, implicitly and I'm pretty sure explicitly in a few places, to understand what the PCs are capable of. There is no reason to fear them using any particular thing from any particular book (or homebrew), so long as you've looked it up and are okay with what it does, what how it combines with what the rest of their character does. If you can't tell what their character is supposed to do, it's not like it's hard to find out: the player built it for a reason, so you ask them what the end result is. If it turns out something has become an unexpected problem, deal with it- and if you expect a problem before something actually sees play, deal with it.

The biggest antidote to the vaunted broken-ness of 3.x is just. . . a DM who does the DM's job.

[Remuko]

Hey all

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare. Taking a look at the 3rd edition players handbook, it doesn't seem all that much more complicated than 5e, albeit containing quite a few more different floating modifiers.

Could someone please explain what makes 3/3.5e so complex?

youve played Pathfinder 1e? Its basically 3.5e. If you had no issues with that then you should be fine. Theyre mostly the same beast. Small things are different but I'd say 3.5 is not really much more complicated or a "roleplayers nightmare" than P1. so if P1 was fine for you, 3.5 would be too.

[Fouredged Sword]

I quite find 3.5 is great for a roleplayer who isn't afraid to get into the weeds and actually build something playable that fills whatever role they want to play.

Want to play a gunslinging cowboy wizard? This was one of the creator's favorite characters.
Want to play a rockem sockem robot? This is one of my favorite characters.

What 3.5 offers is options. Tons and tons of options. It offers far too many options and not all of them good.

It's non-combat systems outside of magic are not very deep.

But besides that it's a great game if you want to create interesting characters.

[Darg]

It's a "roleplayers nightmare" in the sense that the system has restrictions. In a lot of more modern system if you ask a DM if your character can scale a sheer cliff, they'll give you a reasonable chance to make the check with the stats that you have or simply allow it. 3.5 will hard stop you from making the climb if your character doesn't have the equipment or skill to do so, since climbing a natural wall unaided is DC 25, and hence impossible for even a strong character with no climbing skills and no equipment. I've seen a lot of "roleplayers" get salty that there character had no chance to succeed at tasks their characters had absolutely no competence in, but I wouldn't call that roleplaying, hence the quotes.

If there are handholds/footholds the DC is 15. If there is a corner the DC is reduced by 5. DC 25 is a check on something as sheer as a brick wall which is already getting into super human territory. If there is a corner like a chimney stack the DC is reduced by 5. Not to mention you can use pitons to make even unscalable walls scalable with a DC of 15. Dont forget one can take 10 on the check if not in combat and it's also possible to use the aid another action at further expense of speed.

Skill checks are a lot more reasonable than a lot of people tend to believe. It's also unnecessary to maximize every skill you take to accomplish the more mundane tasks regularly. It's also possible to remove armor and shields to reduce the ACP to carry weight levels.

I personally think that is a roleplayers haven. I can't comment on how 5e does skills though.

[Twurps]

If there are handholds/footholds the DC is 15. If there is a corner the DC is reduced by 5. DC 25 is a check on something as sheer as a brick wall which is already getting into super human territory. If there is a corner like a chimney stack the DC is reduced by 5. Not to mention you can use pitons to make even unscalable walls scalable with a DC of 15. Dont forget one can take 10 on the check if not in combat and it's also possible to use the aid another action at further expense of speed.

This is the amount of little things one needs to remember/look up, JUST to climb a vertical cliff. (And I'm sure there's a few options missing, ranging from masterwork tools to magic, to further change the DC). Then there's an equal/larger amount of options and/or modifiers for getting down from said cliff later, and for just about anything else in the game.

I don't think I've ever played or DM-ed a session in which we didn't mess up at least 1 rule/DC.

[Telonius]

To the OP - what makes it more complex? The sheer amount of material available. Between dozens of official books, Dragon Magazine, and the Open Gaming License, there is an absolute ton of sources around.

If all sources available for character creation, somebody with a large amount of system mastery can build just about any mechanical concept to fit what you want the character to be able to do. This can be a very good thing (as in, allowing a player to realize a non-intuitive concept not typically covered by the rules) or a very bad thing (as in, building something that's extremely over- or under-powered compared to the rest of the table).

As for the "Roleplayer's Nightmare," I'd introduce anyone who's saying that to the Stormwind Fallacy. Optimization and roleplaying are not opposites.

[JNAProductions]

To the OP - what makes it more complex? The sheer amount of material available. Between dozens of official books, Dragon Magazine, and the Open Gaming License, there is an absolute ton of sources around.

If all sources available for character creation, somebody with a large amount of system mastery can build just about any mechanical concept to fit what you want the character to be able to do. This can be a very good thing (as in, allowing a player to realize a non-intuitive concept not typically covered by the rules) or a very bad thing (as in, building something that's extremely over- or under-powered compared to the rest of the table).

As for the "Roleplayer's Nightmare," I'd introduce anyone who's saying that to the Stormwind Fallacy. Optimization and roleplaying are not opposites.

I'd consider it less "Optimal PCs aren't good for roleplay," and more "There's so many rules for everything, when you try to do something slightly esoteric there's a good chance that there IS a rule for it, and now you have to spend ten minutes or more looking it up instead of the DM just declaring 'This is how we'll do it,' and being done with that."

Not to say you can't enjoy roleplaying in 3rd, just that the rules sometimes work against it.

[King of Nowhere]

3.5 is only as complex as you want it to be. there are lots of obscure rules and obscure sources, but you don't actually need them. in fact, the 5e approach "the dm wings it" is perfectly valid also in 3.5. just because there are obscure rules somewhere, and they interact in even more obscure ways, it does not mean you always have to do it.



As for the "Roleplayer's Nightmare," I'd introduce anyone who's saying that to the Stormwind Fallacy. Optimization and roleplaying are not opposites.

i came in just to say that

[Efrate]

Biggest change over 5e for 3.5 is hard set dcs. If you have a total modifier of +24 to a skill, you always succeed that dc 25 and can do it no matter the circumstances. No crit success or fail on skills just the total. If you meet the dc you do it. If you cannot, you cannot. Hard stop. Roll a million 20s does not matter, or if you check is high enough roll a millions ones and be okay. It is entirely conceivable to be able to point to hard definitive proof that yes i can do XYZ at this dc no matter what the dm says. And those who do not cleave to rules as written can cone accross qs bad or unfun.

Might not come up often but the agency of what your character can do is often in the hands of the player NOT the dm, which can make a DMs job a headache or ruin storytelling. Yes my wizard can kill that entire army, and the king and his guards, what DMs says does not have a bearing on that. I am capable, they cannot touch me, etc etc.

Also a significant amount of magical gear is built into the system. You are expected to have certain items or abilities at certain levels, and if you do not you cannot reasonably contribute. This matters for your martial types more and there is not a lot to bridge the gap except magic, and virtually nothing in class immediately available to deal with problems.

[Darg]

This is the amount of little things one needs to remember/look up, JUST to climb a vertical cliff. (And I'm sure there's a few options missing, ranging from masterwork tools to magic, to further change the DC). Then there's an equal/larger amount of options and/or modifiers for getting down from said cliff later, and for just about anything else in the game.

I don't think I've ever played or DM-ed a session in which we didn't mess up at least 1 rule/DC.

It's not really complex, at least to me. You get a single DC, roll and add all the modifiers. As I said, you can even cut out the roll itself by taking 10. Carry weight should already be factored and ACP doesn't stack with encumbrance. With a light load and being armorless, any character with 5 ranks in climb without a strength penalty can climb nearly anything. With long enough rope, one can haul equipment up after making the climb. It's easy enough to write down the total/unarmored modifier off to the side. Shouldn't need much calculation other than can it be done, yes or no? If not, add assistance as needed or it's impossible. The DC rules are there for the expectations of the player so that the DM can't say that a step ladder is unclimbable just because. Or that 5 foot fence can't be jumped over because the DM forgot that players can actually high jump.


Biggest change over 5e for 3.5 is hard set dcs. If you have a total modifier of +24 to a skill, you always succeed that dc 25 and can do it no matter the circumstances. No crit success or fail on skills just the total. If you meet the dc you do it. If you cannot, you cannot. Hard stop. Roll a million 20s does not matter, or if you check is high enough roll a millions ones and be okay. It is entirely conceivable to be able to point to hard definitive proof that yes i can do XYZ at this dc no matter what the dm says. And those who do not cleave to rules as written can cone accross qs bad or unfun.

Is this true? With any skill check there is always a chance at success? So if I try to jump over the moon I have a chance of actual success?

3e was designed for more player agency so taking some of that agency away as a DM is like going against what a lot of players enjoy about 3e. As a DM, I always try to get the go ahead prior to doing something that takes away player agency so that when it eventually comes up the players aren't shocked by it. If I want it to be a surprise, I generally ask the group if it is alright if I do some wonky stuff. I already fudge other things, I don't think it's fair or fun to fudge things that take away player agency without getting consent if it isn't something the players can look up.

[Quertus]

I'd consider it less "Optimal PCs aren't good for roleplay," and more "There's so many rules for everything, when you try to do something slightly esoteric there's a good chance that there IS a rule for it, and now you have to spend ten minutes or more looking it up instead of the DM just declaring 'This is how we'll do it,' and being done with that."

Not to say you can't enjoy roleplaying in 3rd, just that the rules sometimes work against it.

"Why doesn't everything just float off into space?"

"Hmmm… let's say that everything has inate suction, and subconsciously keeps itself connected to the planet."

"OK."

---next day---

"Hey, I looked it up, and this system has this thing called 'gravity', that works kinda like magnets, but for all matter, and *that's* what keeps everything from flying off into space."

"Gah! This system has rules for everything! It's impossible to roleplay or for characters to have a personality in such a system!"

[Efrate]

Jumping the moon? With a high enough check yes. Totally doable. High jump is 4x the distance in feet assuming 30 ft speed and a running start. So if the moon is lets say 1,000,000 feet away, a jump check of 4,000,000 would have you clear it. If my check can reach that, Yes I can. That is 3.5. Everything is possible by RAW. Usually requires magic but it is doable and is supported in rules.

[Tzardok]

Is this true? With any skill check there is always a chance at success? So if I try to jump over the moon I have a chance of actual success?
.

To me it sounded like Efrate said the opposite of that. Because with skills there's no automatic success on a natural 20, nor an automatic failure on natural 1, you simply can not jump over the moon by pure luck. A chance only exists if your modifier is high enough.

[Gnaeus]

This conversation:
Can I drive a Ferrari? I’ve driven a Porsche and an 18 wheeler.
Conversation about how Ferrari differs from big rig.....

If you have played PF1 the 3.5 skills will not be confusing to you, other than having multiple skills for things that consolidate into 1. If you played PF 1 and didn’t hit a wall when the wizard got planar binding, no reason you will in 3.5. If you didn’t like PF1, don’t play 3.5. (If you did like it, why convert? It’s basically a lateral move, where you will have to look up every skill and power to check for what are usually minor changes.) But if there is some outside pressure, like a rotating DM where the other DM insists on 3.5 and owns all the books, think of it as PF1 with houserules and aside from the fact that it’s more the other way around you won’t be far off. The biggest difference IMO is the lack of searchable references docs like pfsrd or aonprd.

[Darg]

To me it sounded like Efrate said the opposite of that. Because with skills there's no automatic success on a natural 20, nor an automatic failure on natural 1, you simply can not jump over the moon by pure luck. A chance only exists if your modifier is high enough.

I understand the mechanics of 3e, i was questioning the mechanic for 5e.

[JNAProductions]

I understand the mechanics of 3e, i was questioning the mechanic for 5e.

In 5E, natural 1s and 20s are only auto failure or success on attack tolls.
Not saves or ability checks.

[Clistenes]

3.5 isn't that complex if you don't care optimization too much. It is easy to build almost any concept using prestige classes and multiclassing and feats..

But if you do care about optimization and minmaxing, it can become incredibly complex.

[Fizban]

This is the amount of little things one needs to remember/look up, JUST to climb a vertical cliff. (And I'm sure there's a few options missing, ranging from masterwork tools to magic, to further change the DC). Then there's an equal/larger amount of options and/or modifiers for getting down from said cliff later, and for just about anything else in the game.
Except they're not separate things to look up, because it's all in the climb skill, in one place (though there are other skills with small expansions across multiple books, not all of which are compiled in Rules Compendium). Climb really is the perfect example of a 3.5 skill: all the information is available to the player, they can choose to invest as much or as little as they want, and the DM can (and should) have any needed DCs prepared in advance.

The part where you might need to look things up, is where the players go and change the rules/DC by reshaping the wall, or if you rule that they can dry out a previously wet and slippery surface with a Fireball, say. The border in interaction between what has rules and what does not can slow things down, particularly if the DM does not know all the rules but is not comfortable proceeding without them, and thus spends time searching for rules that don't exist.


I don't think I've ever played or DM-ed a session in which we didn't mess up at least 1 rule/DC.
That will happen in any game with a bunch of rules run by humans.


In 5E, natural 1s and 20s are only auto failure or success on attack tolls.
Not saves or ability checks.
But it's also extremely common for DMs to simply look at a natural 20 and say whatever you're doing works, because the system provides no real DCs and there's generally big social pressure for nat 20's to be a great and rewarded success at all times.

[Zanos]

If there are handholds/footholds the DC is 15. If there is a corner the DC is reduced by 5. DC 25 is a check on something as sheer as a brick wall which is already getting into super human territory. If there is a corner like a chimney stack the DC is reduced by 5. Not to mention you can use pitons to make even unscalable walls scalable with a DC of 15. Dont forget one can take 10 on the check if not in combat and it's also possible to use the aid another action at further expense of speed.

Skill checks are a lot more reasonable than a lot of people tend to believe. It's also unnecessary to maximize every skill you take to accomplish the more mundane tasks regularly. It's also possible to remove armor and shields to reduce the ACP to carry weight levels.
I wasn't saying it was unreasonable, I was saying that 3.5 will prevent you from doing things by nearly guaranteeing failure if you don't have the character investment or equipment to accomplish it. Mundane tasks being beyond the ability of the unskilled and unequipped is a roleplay feature, in my opinion. But I've played with people who derided it as the opposite. I told them to buy some rope.

[RexDart]

The true measure of 3.x is in what your group is actually using. Not in a question of number of books, for there are plenty of innocuous elements scatttered all over and single books with enough cheese to break a "zero-DM" game easily- but in what the players are actually building. It is the DM's job, implicitly and I'm pretty sure explicitly in a few places, to understand what the PCs are capable of. There is no reason to fear them using any particular thing from any particular book (or homebrew), so long as you've looked it up and are okay with what it does, what how it combines with what the rest of their character does. If you can't tell what their character is supposed to do, it's not like it's hard to find out: the player built it for a reason, so you ask them what the end result is. If it turns out something has become an unexpected problem, deal with it- and if you expect a problem before something actually sees play, deal with it.

The biggest antidote to the vaunted broken-ness of 3.x is just. . . a DM who does the DM's job.

I totally agree. Part of the DM's job is to talk about character creation with the players - e.g., help the newer players figure out what they want from the game and how to achieve it AND how characters are supposed to fit into the game world (so perhaps the high-op concept that involves some outlandish multiclassing with classes or races that don't even exist in the game area will be ruled out early.)

I do think 3.5 is unusually tough/complicated in the way that decisions made at early levels can have huge nigh-irrevocable implications for later, which isn't seen much in other RPGs.

[Particle_Man]

3.5 will have various modifiers, many of which stack (but usually not with themselves).

3.5 also can have "Cascade effects", like a barbarian going out of rage leads to fatigue which leads to lower str, which can affect carrying capacity, which can affect movement rate (just as an example).

But Pathfinder 1e has those too.

[D+1]

Hey all

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare. Taking a look at the 3rd edition players handbook, it doesn't seem all that much more complicated than 5e, albeit containing quite a few more different floating modifiers.

Could someone please explain what makes 3/3.5e so complex?It ain't what you play, it's how you play it.

[Godofallu]

Well I could make a 6th lvl character in 10 minutes and it would be ok.

Or I could take hours and hours and make a great 6th lvl character with a game plan for the later levels.

In 3.5 there are hundreds and hundreds of feats. Feat choice is super important. But the majority of feats suck. Plus feats have prerequisites and chains. So if you find a feat that looks good after that character is made you probably won't be able to get it. You have to build the character around getting that feat. A new player won't know what feats are good or what the prereqs are and will miss out on the best feats.

For spells there are thousands. A new player won't know which spells are the best. It would be overwhelming to sit there and read and read for hours and hours to try to learn the spells. But once you know the spells man you have a ton of options and variety and cool things to do. Things you can combo and build off of.

So 3.5 adds a lot of content. So much content that it's overwhelming. But for people who take the hundreds of hours to master and learn the content.. it just provides so many fun combos and builds.

There are other things to talk about like the stupid prestige class entry requirements and the optimization of stacking buffs. But the depth of feats and spells and classes is what makes it complicated. It's a double edged sword though since variety is the spice of life. If everyone in a group is new things will probably go fine. If you have 3-4 new players and one old veteran the guy with tons of knowledge will probably have a much stronger character than the rest. But maybe the vet helps the group make their characters and everyone ends up strong. Or maybe the DM just nerfs the OP character some to keep things in line. You can work around it.

[Jon talks a lot]

In regards to the whole "roleplayer's nightmare" statement.

I'm active on a site called Quora (Not to be confused with QANON) which has a lot of members who are very vehemently opposed to players doing anything powerful ever. The whole "story is more important than rules always" types.

They generally believe that if you make a powerful build, you are playing DND wrong. This is where I've heard the sentiment that 3.5 is bad for roleplay.

Other than that, thanks for all the help explaining to me. I really appreciate you all taking the time to explain these things in detail.

[Zanos]

In regards to the whole "roleplayer's nightmare" statement.

I'm active on a site called Quora (Not to be confused with QANON) which has a lot of members who are very vehemently opposed to players doing anything powerful ever. The whole "story is more important than rules always" types.

They generally believe that if you make a powerful build, you are playing DND wrong. This is where I've heard the sentiment that 3.5 is bad for roleplay.
Yeah, I'm familiar with both that website and that type of person. This happens with DMs that believe that the Player Character are the DMs characters. When they do something the DM doesn't expect, it breaks his pre-planned narrative, and he gets upset. Of course I would reverse this statement and say that if you are playing D&D in a way that has a sketched out narrative 20 levels that doesn't account for player agency, you're playing D&D wrong.

Both methods of play can be valid although I'd argue you're missing out on one of the best features of tabletop gaming if you have low player agency. But you require player buy in if you want to run a game with little player agency, or eventually players are going to do something you hadn't accounted for and things are gonna break down.

You can also simply make a character that's too powerful for a given tables level of balance. But this has more to do with players being jerks with their builds and purposely outshining other characters or the DMs ability to build challenges, rather than any kind of roleplay problem.

[King of Nowhere]

In regards to the whole "roleplayer's nightmare" statement.

I'm active on a site called Quora (Not to be confused with QANON) which has a lot of members who are very vehemently opposed to players doing anything powerful ever. The whole "story is more important than rules always" types.

They generally believe that if you make a powerful build, you are playing DND wrong. This is where I've heard the sentiment that 3.5 is bad for roleplay.



as a rule of thumb, if someone is saying that other people are doing an rpg wrong, he's the one doing it wrong. it's a closeminded attitude.there is not really a way to do things right or wrong.

also, story has little to do with power. supermen is proof that you can have a good story with a powerful character.

[Quertus]

In regards to the whole "roleplayer's nightmare" statement.

I'm active on a site called Quora (Not to be confused with QANON) which has a lot of members who are very vehemently opposed to players doing anything powerful ever. The whole "story is more important than rules always" types.

They generally believe that if you make a powerful build, you are playing DND wrong. This is where I've heard the sentiment that 3.5 is bad for roleplay.

Other than that, thanks for all the help explaining to me. I really appreciate you all taking the time to explain these things in detail.

Wow. How in <insert random plane of choice here> does one confuse "story" and "role-playing"? That's just… wow. The statements of such individuals should not be copied, except as an example of, "here's a problem that needs fixing” or some such.

Speaking of, Playground, if this is actually a common flaw, with a whole website echo chamber, should we start a thread for "how to educate people on the difference between 'role-playing' and '(railroaded) story'"? Because, should I encounter such a mindset, I, personally, would be too baffled to know where to begin.

[Melcar]

Building a character in 3.5 is not all that different from building a character in 5e. The actual process is identical to the process in Pathfinder 1e, and even a number of the mechanics will be identical (having been lifted directly from 3.5). The difference winds up being in the sheer scope of things:

In 5e, there are at most 14 base classes, each of which gets to select up to one subclass from a list of up to a dozen options. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 51 base classes (at least without getting into 3pp material), each of which has up to a few dozen archetypes that can potentially be combined together and taken in whatever ways are viable. In 3.5, there are 74 base classes (without getting into Dragon Mag material), many of which have at least one ACF (archetype equivalent that tends to focus on replacing a single ability), with many of the more popular ones having a few dozen ACFs - and because ACFs tend to replace less material than archetypes do, ACF-stacking is much more diverse.

In 5e, Prestige Classes do not exist. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 118 Prestige Classes (and while I've yet to check, I'm fairly certain the vast majority of them if not all of them are 10 levels long). In 3.5, there are 718 Prestige Classes ranging from 5 to 15 levels long (or indefinitely long, if we count epic progressions), and I'm not entirely sure the list I was looking at was complete. Among these is at least one prestige class explicitly intended for commoners. For some context, there is a long-running contest here ITP called "Iron Chef" where roughly every month, forumites have to make a 1-20 build centered around a different bad 3.5 prestige class. It is currently in round 111. This time next year, there will have been more 3.5 PrCs given a highlight than PrCs in Pathfinder 1e without diving into 3pp material.

In 5e, there are 55 skill/tool proficiencies to be found, and at least 22 languages. In Pathfinder 1e, there are 41 skills that cover skill/tool use (not counting however many variations there are of Craft and Profession checks), and at least 35 languages. In 3.5, there are 67 skills that cover skill/tool use (not counting however many variations there are of Craft, Perform, and Profession checks), and at least 88 languages. But wait there's more! In 5e, proficiency has four possible states: no proficiency, half-proficiency, proficiency, and double proficiency; for most characters, it is a binary between having proficiency and not having it. In Pathfinder, a character has from 0 to 20 ranks in a given skill, and all skills cost 1 skill point per rank all the time no matter what, with class skills merely giving a bonus to skill use. In 3.5, a character has from 0 to 23 ranks in a given skill (at least without getting into epic and some weird edge cases, where the upper limit is "infinite"), your maximum ranks in a given skill are determined by if that skill has ever been a class skill for you, and whether it takes 1 or 2 skill points to buy a rank depends on whether it is currently a class skill for you...and also you get 4 times as many skill points at level 1.

In 5e, when you receive an ASI/Feat option, you have ~100 options to pick from (including various ASI combos instead of taking a feat). In Pathfinder 1e, there are ~1500 feats to choose from, and many classes/PrCs gain some measure of bonus feat progression. In 3.5, there are ~3600 feats to choose from, and many classes/PrCs gain some measure of bonus feat progression.

In 5e, there are ~500 spells, a solid portion of which can be upcast to a higher level to have a greater effect. In Pathfinder 1e, there are ~2900 spells, and there are ~80 metamagic feats available for you to play around with customizing spells in some fashion up to a maximum of 9th lvl (however you can manage to squeeze them in). In 3.5, there are ~4500 spells, and ~130 metamagic feats available for you to play around with customizing spells in some fashion, with no maximum level thanks to epic rules. Additionally, there is the 3.5 epic subsystem, "Epic Spellcasting", which allows you to design your own larger-than-life spells that are theoretically capable of literally anything you can care to dream up. If we were to create a random infinitely-big wizard spellbook in each edition, where every spell on the wizard list has an equal chance of being in the book or not, you would need approximately a table of 1.27 x 10^89 spellbooks to roll on. For Pathfinder 1e, you would need a table of 1.13 x 10^571 spellbooks to roll on. For 3.5, you would need a table of 2.73 x 10^741 spellsbooks to roll on. All three of these numbers are really incomprehensible, but the latter two are far worse in that regard.

Additionally, if we want to get into the nitty gritty of that casting, 5e has one casting system, Pathfinder 1e has one casting system (at least, without delving into the 3pp material), and 3.5 has nine: magic, psionics, maneuvers, incarnum, truenaming, shadowcasting, binding, invocations, and infusions. If one wanted to get technical about the differences between prepared and spontaneous casting of various flavors, these numbers go up, but frankly 3.5 has more kinds of weird magic than PF does in that regard too.

In 5e, there are hundreds of magic items, and up to three attunement slots (with IIRC the majority of magic items being attuned). In Pathfinder 1e and 3.5, there are thousands of items, and a couple dozen item slots each. In Pathfinder 1e, items are limited to 200k gp at maximum market value; in 3.5, this is the nonepic limit, with epic items having no upper limit. In 5e, items cannot be crafted except by specific class features allowing it, while in 3.5, magic item crafting is open to all casters with the right feats, and in Pathfinder 1e it is (mostly) open to anybody with the right feats. Custom magic items allow you to build skill bonuses and spell effects into items in both PF and 3.5, but 3.5 also has rules for building feats into items.

You're familiar with 5e and Pathfinder 1e, and you probably already understand how the litany of options available in Pathfinder just make building a character a more complex process. Part of that complexity is that, with so many options, the distance between the power floor and the power ceiling for any given character path is pretty vast depending on what options you take, whereas in 5e, there's characters that are less optimal than others, but it's kinda difficult to build somebody who can't contribute, and also kinda difficult to build somebody who will absolutely dominate encounters. It's easier to break the game being overpowered or underpowered in PF compared to 5e, and that's a result of not just the design philosophy behind how powerful abilities should be, but also a result of just how many options there are to begin with.

Viewed from that angle, it shouldn't be very difficult for you to see how 3.5 is the same problem, but even worse - not only can levels and resources scale literally to infinite while remaining within the rules, but there gap between floor and ceiling is infinitely big - it's possible to build a 1st lvl character who can cheat the system to give themselves infinite everything, including writing their own abilities. As your levels increase, your ability to achieve a given level of power doesn't increase per se, but rather the level of rules-lawyering needed to reach that level of power is lessened. The result of this: in 5e, you have to really work to make a character underpowered/overpowered; in PF, you have to work to make a character competent for their level, and it's really easy to make them underpowered and much more difficult to make them overpowered. The more options there are that can interact with each other, the more likely that powerful combos are just going to naturally pop up. The more options there are, the less likely that somebody working on the game is going to be looking at every possible combo to find the ones that are overpowered. Thus, the more options there are, the less likely it is that a given powerful combo will have a specific rule made to shut it down.

In 3.5, power simply fluctuates wildly. You can accidentally build a character who would objectively be more useful dead, and you can accidentally stumble your way into one of the more powerful spell uses in the game (Polymorph --> Hydra, a pure core combo that basically lets your wizard outperform the frontliners in their party without much effort in most every fight from 7th level onward). At higher levels, you can stumble into an even dumber combo just trying to do the kind of "cheating the system" thing that cartoon characters do. In 3.5, you can bind a genie to your service and force it to grant you wishes; you can't use wishes to wish for more wishes...but you can use wishes to wish for more genies that are bound to your service. Infinite free wishes capable of basically anything is a pure-core combo you can accidentally stumble onto. Oh yeah, and 3.5 wishes can make magic items, and the particular way this interacts with genies, genie wishes can create magic items of theoretically infinite power - including magic items capable of granting you any number of wishes. Oops.

One of the results of the massive, infinite gap between the power floor and power ceiling in 3.5, is that "the power level you should be at" is basically going to wildly vary from game to game - on what combos the DM will approve, on how strictly they'll cleave to RAW vs reasonable interpretations with an eye towards balance, on how much they're going to just shut down blatantly overpowered spells and support less-optimal playstyles. For example, depending on just how many item crafting shenanigans a given DM is willing to let you combine, making a dedicated crafter character could mean anything from having 2x the normal amount of money in items to 1000x the normal amount of money in items. And you can push it even further than that - theoretically infinitely further - if you're willing to turn to human sacrifice (human sacrifice makes a lot of things way easier to pull off).

Indeed, while core PF is in most regards "3.5 with the serial numbers filed off", a number of the changes that got made are expressly to make certain things (typically spells that are particularly problematic in 3.5) more manageable in PF, and PF's design philosophy tended towards "when in doubt, make it underpowered; better that it's weak than it's accidentally too strong". For 1st party material at least - in 3pp, anything goes. In fact, many PF 3pp subsystems are, in fact, the work of various people to create a PF version of a given 3.5 subsystem. It would not be entirely inaccurate to say that 3.5 is like if PF 1e has all 3pp content suddenly become 1st party.

One final thing making 3.5 more problematic than PF and 5e is that it isn't in active development - where PF and 5e are receiving errata and the SRDs will be edited to account for new rulings and erratas, where 5e in particular treats the FAQ answers as relevant as the book text, 3.5 errata tends to be more about fixing errors than covering up combos, and 3.5 FAQ is frequently so contradictory with existing rules that it makes more sense to ignore it than incorporate it.

EDIT: Some people up thread have mentioned feat taxes and trap options, and that's certainly true - 90% of everything is crap, as the saying goes. But I'll also point out that the Iron Chef competition I mentioned is about squeezing every ounce of useful shenanigans you can out of a given bad prestige class - a trap option may be bad overall, but sometimes it has an abusable little nugget in it that can be exploited to great effect, if combined with the right mechanics.

5th sounds boring, from a min/max’s point of view!!!



In regards to the whole "roleplayer's nightmare" statement.

I'm active on a site called Quora (Not to be confused with QANON) which has a lot of members who are very vehemently opposed to players doing anything powerful ever. The whole "story is more important than rules always" types.

They generally believe that if you make a powerful build, you are playing DND wrong. This is where I've heard the sentiment that 3.5 is bad for roleplay.

Other than that, thanks for all the help explaining to me. I really appreciate you all taking the time to explain these things in detail.

Ok, this is super wierd. I play D&D to (besided have fun with my friends) feell powerful. If you can't make a powerful character in D&D where can you?

[King of Nowhere]

Speaking of, Playground, if this is actually a common flaw, with a whole website echo chamber, should we start a thread for "how to educate people on the difference between 'role-playing' and '(railroaded) story'"? Because, should I encounter such a mindset, I, personally, would be too baffled to know where to begin.

Good question. I myself found one such dm once, and i also was too baffled to figure out how to break it up for him. the campaign died in half a dozen sessions anyway.

anyway, i believe we can't do much from this forum because those bad dm who think they should control the player's actions generally do not hang out in internet forums. or they hand out in forums of alike-minded folks. it's one of the big problems of the internet and, in general, the modern information society: people could use all the free information to learn new stuff, but many of them instead use it to find a place where they can be told exactly what they wanted to hear

[Ramza00]

Hey all

I have played Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I have been told many times that 3.5 D&D is an optimizer's dream and a roleplayers nightmare. Taking a look at the 3rd edition players handbook, it doesn't seem all that much more complicated than 5e, albeit containing quite a few more different floating modifiers.

Could someone please explain what makes 3/3.5e so complex?

There is no consistency floor of how bad you can make a character. With the type of design philosophy 3.5 espouseswe should have lots of prebuilt characters for PCs and NPCs to create a consistent floor for people who do not know what they are doing and for ease of use. This is a failure of WOTC as the designer when they picked this design philosophy for their game.

Likewise we should be having tables of expectations on save dcs, ac, and so on per level and cr for characters and monsters. There is too many choices with 3.5 and thus you get the paralysis of choice, and most of the choices are meaningless / bad.

[Quertus]

Good question. I myself found one such dm once, and i also was too baffled to figure out how to break it up for him. the campaign died in half a dozen sessions anyway.

anyway, i believe we can't do much from this forum because those bad dm who think they should control the player's actions generally do not hang out in internet forums. or they hand out in forums of alike-minded folks. it's one of the big problems of the internet and, in general, the modern information society: people could use all the free information to learn new stuff, but many of them instead use it to find a place where they can be told exactly what they wanted to hear

Ah. I think that the bit I bolded… uh… is kinda an important stepping stone that i was overlooking.

Right. So, first step (obviously) is to understand just what it is that they believe. And why. Otherwise, it's *really hard* to tailor the message to them. Got it.

Thanks for that kick in the pants :smallbiggrin: - sometimes, I miss things I shouldn't.

Once you look at it from their PoV, it's easy to see that they have a belief, and will fail in standard human ways, will suffer standard human failings of accepting other beliefs that support their initial belief, rather than evaluating these components on their own merits. If things don't work the way that they think that they should, something must be *wrong*; if they believed that a PC should do X, and, instead, they did Y, then the player must be role-playing their PC wrong.

Yeah, I'm… not versed in this bit of human psychology / not used to trying to word these ideas. But at least I (think I) understand the problem better now.

Thanks!

[Fizban]

There is no consistency floor of how bad you can make a character. With the type of design philosophy 3.5 espouseswe should have lots of prebuilt characters for PCs and NPCs to create a consistent floor for people who do not know what they are doing and for ease of use. This is a failure of WOTC as the designer when they picked this design philosophy for their game.
But, there are? The 3.0 book Enemies and Allies has a pile of statblocks at the back which the book explicitly says are characters that were used in playtesting, in addition to the rest of the book which is example NPCs. Every book that talks about "city life" or war, of which there are several, will have example stats for town NPCs and soldiers. The PHB has example picks for starting gear/feats/spells/skills that might as well be example 1st level characters, in addition to the 1st level characters found in starter sets. 3.5 splatbooks have example NPCs for almost every prestige class, and I'm pretty sure no published adventure ever manages to go the whole length without at least one PC-classed NPC. PHB2 has more "quick character creation" tables that are effectively three different 1-20 builds for almost every class in the PHB, PHB2, CW, and CD.

And none of that is even required, because the way you actually measure power is by pitting a party against the pre-written monsters, which again have multiple entire books of examples, just pick a book and go (since the MMs do vary in power level dramatically). You don't need a "consistent floor" when it's a team game which explicitly leaves wiggle room and the only question is how well the party succeeds against foes which are consistent.

I don't know how you can come to the conclusion that there aren't lots of examples. There are tons of examples.

Unless the problem is that they're just not as powerful as char-op wants them to be, so they're ignored. . . because they aren't, and they are. It would probably be fair to say that the point at which someone becomes an "optimizer," is when they start consistently building their characters more powerful than the examples given in the books. The people who complain about published NPC builds and monsters, are usually those who char-op their characters to the point that the published material doesn't work at the listed CRs anymore. That's not a problem with a lack of example, that a problem with blatantly ignoring the example, where the only allowed fix the the DM char-oping the monsters in return.


Likewise we should be having tables of expectations on save dcs, ac, and so on per level and cr for characters and monsters. There is too many choices with 3.5 and thus you get the paralysis of choice, and most of the choices are meaningless / bad.
It's not hard to figure out the expected DC, AC, or attack bonus of a PC at a given level. You just make conservative item picks from the DMG and total up the numbers.

Meanwhile, making a giant table of "recommended" numbers is what 4e and 5e do. Remove the unique and chaotic differences that exist from monster and monster and character to character, until everything fits within the ranges on a given table. The main feature, the whole reason to use 3.x, is that it doesn't do that, and playing in that realm means accepting the responsibility of evaluating the end results yourself rather than expecting things to just work.

Even if you wrote out a whole table of expected numbers, that wouldn't solve the char-op and complexity problems. It would just make people complain that your numbers are too low. Or too high to reach with normal characters. Or have people justifying anything that just barely falls under the given numbers by saying "well it's not higher than the table says" or "it's only higher for a few rounds" or "the table doesn't say anything about this miscellaneous effect being overpowered."

[Ramza00]

But, there are? The 3.0 book Enemies and Allies has a pile of statblocks at the back which the book explicitly says are characters that were used in playtesting, in addition to the rest of the book which is example NPCs. Every book that talks about "city life" or war, of which there are several, will have example stats for town NPCs and soldiers. The PHB has example picks for starting gear/feats/spells/skills that might as well be example 1st level characters, in addition to the 1st level characters found in starter sets. 3.5 splatbooks have example NPCs for almost every prestige class, and I'm pretty sure no published adventure ever manages to go the whole length without at least one PC-classed NPC. PHB2 has more "quick character creation" tables that are effectively three different 1-20 builds for almost every class in the PHB, PHB2, CW, and CD.

[MORE STUFF, I AM STOPPING IT HERE FOR SIMPLICITY]

Yes but it was both not enough, and also it was not easily accessible in a way that was easy for players and DMs. Now this 3.0 started in 2000 and we have both better understanding of how to make the game flow, but also technology aids to help the player and DM. The world changes.

I am explaining the history you do not have to like it, but it happened :smalltongue:



It's not hard to figure out the expected DC, AC, or attack bonus of a PC at a given level. You just make conservative item picks from the DMG and total up the numbers.

It may be easy for you, but people are different and it can be intimidating. Some people feel like making a 3.5 character or figuring out I should know a CR 8 monster on average has a reflex save of Y not by looking at a table (which other people have assembled, but it was never published by 3.0 or 3.5)

This is mental work, mental work is time and can be cognitively draining. The right type of game feels Liberatory since it triggers the "flow state" (psychology concept) and you feel energy rewards that reduce stress, anxiety, depression, etc. Playing a game that triggers flow is FUN :smallsmile:

[Fizban]

Yes but it was both not enough, and also it was not easily accessible in a way that was easy for players and DMs. Now this 3.0 started in 2000 and we have both better understanding of how to make the game flow, but also technology aids to help the player and DM. The world changes.
So, are you saying the game should have released with a huge amount of books space in one of the core books being examples? Or that over time and with the internet the expected balance changed and thus all the examples in the books don't matter? 'Cause you can't have it both ways.


figuring out I should know a CR 8 monster on average has a reflex save of Y not by looking at a table (which other people have assembled, but it was never published by 3.0 or 3.5)
You should not know that a CR 8 monster has an average reflex save of Y. If you're using monsters from the books, which is kinda the point, you will find out the reflex save when you read the monster. If you're a player, you aren't supposed to know your enemies' strengths and weaknesses in detail. And knowing the "average" doesn't mean anything when there are probably plenty of monsters that are much higher or much lower.


This is mental work, mental work is time and can be cognitively draining. The right type of game feels Liberatory since it triggers the "flow state" (psychology concept) and you feel energy rewards that reduce stress, anxiety, depression, etc. Playing a game that triggers flow is FUN :smallsmile:
It sounds like you're just saying you want a less complex game, in which case there are plenty of less complex games. Including the aforementioned 4e, and 5e, and all sorts of other games that are set up for greater "flow." If you don't want a game with lots of fiddly simulationist details including the allowance of large variances between individuals, then 3.x is not the right game for you. If you're not playing the right game, it's not the game's fault.

Also- why would you be needing to calculate expected player statistic values while playing the game?

[Darg]

This is mental work, mental work is time and can be cognitively draining. The right type of game feels Liberatory since it triggers the "flow state" (psychology concept) and you feel energy rewards that reduce stress, anxiety, depression, etc. Playing a game that triggers flow is FUN :smallsmile:

Mental work IS fun. Mind games and puzzles are popular pastimes. Not everyone has to enjoy different aspects of the game. Fun can also be had by working hard and finally accomplishing a goal.

[Ramza00]

So, are you saying the game should have released with a huge amount of books space in one of the core books being examples? Or that over time and with the internet the expected balance changed and thus all the examples in the books don't matter? 'Cause you can't have it both ways.

Yes I can have it both ways, and the only one who says I can't have it both ways is you. I reject your false binary, a false choice, and substitute my own opinions.

3.0 was made with the SRD / OpenGL format so we already accept even in the age of dial up that text could be still provided for free or put in core books.

Likewise what I said earlier about give sample blocks could have been a separate book much like a modern company (paizo) who makes its money not by new feats, prestige classes, archetype books but by selling pre-made adventures.

There are dozens of ways to make a dice role playing game. There are dozens of ways to make money. Not a false binary or false choice of only one way to do a thing.


Mental work IS fun. Mind games and puzzles are popular pastimes. Not everyone has to enjoy different aspects of the game. Fun can also be had by working hard and finally accomplishing a goal.

Everyone is different and that is my point. The horrible floor that is not consistent is not fun for many players. Fun is subjective isn't that obvious :smalltongue:

[Calthropstu]

3.5 isn't much more complicated than pathfinder, but there's a lot more wonkiness and many more broken abilities.

Take a look at wish in both. Notice the difference? Take a look at polymorph in both. Take a look at shapechange.

The wording for some 3.5 spells and abilities are so badly writen that we still argue about them a dozen years after the edition died.

[SirNibbles]

This is the amount of little things one needs to remember/look up, JUST to climb a vertical cliff. (And I'm sure there's a few options missing, ranging from masterwork tools to magic, to further change the DC). Then there's an equal/larger amount of options and/or modifiers for getting down from said cliff later, and for just about anything else in the game.

I don't think I've ever played or DM-ed a session in which we didn't mess up at least 1 rule/DC.

Good preparation helps out with not having to look it up. I always have DCs like this in my DM's notes. If the players have equipment or other bonuses to a check, it's their job to remember that.


3.5 isn't much more complicated than pathfinder, but there's a lot more wonkiness and many more broken abilities.

Take a look at wish in both. Notice the difference? Take a look at polymorph in both. Take a look at shapechange.

The wording for some 3.5 spells and abilities are so badly writen that we still argue about them a dozen years after the edition died.

That's a fair point. It's not too hard to remember rules. It's hard to know how 5 different people at a table may interpret the same rule due to bad wording.

[Kitsuneymg]

So. I dunno about 3.X, but Pathfinder has a simple monster creator that shows save dc ranges per cr and other stuff like that. If you don’t like that this blog post (https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/bench-pressing-character-creation-by-the-numbers) shows expected values per cr. It has been updated several times. Once, to account for boss fights, which I find is kinda missing the point, and once to account for all the monsters published (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1QjKxDiZW-8U8N-nNPYTuB3-TAgtd3Rttt6znxucdCaM/htmlview#gid=0) after the game was ended.

It’s a very good tool to use to evaluated where your party is and what your effect is going to be. If everyone is barely green on their primary function, and your buffer bard pushes them near blue, then you know what to expect from the party when fighting standard monsters.

It’s definitely good to see if you’re overshooting a particular benchmark and can stand to invest elsewhere too.

[Mordante]

IMHO the biggest reason why 3.5 can be a nightmare for role playing is that combat can take forever, especially on lvl10+. That is why I don't do a lot of combat when I DM.

[Darg]

IMHO the biggest reason why 3.5 can be a nightmare for role playing is that combat can take forever, especially on lvl10+. That is why I don't do a lot of combat when I DM.

I tell every one to use a dice roll app on their phone when damage starts needing 4+ die. Cuts a lot of time out. I also allow them to roll prior to their turn. Combat flows pretty smoothly for us. We go through a lot of combat because we like playing where we don't sleep every 4 encounters and it keeps the casters on their toes and making decisions to save spells instead of cast everything with the expectation they'll get it back right away.

[Gnaeus]

I don’t actually find 3.5 combat horrifically slow in the great scheme of things. There are builds and play styles that lead to faster (charge builds, SODs) or slower (summons, debuffs) combats. And absolutely there are faster games out there. But there are slower ones also.

[Batcathat]

I'd say combat in D&D do take quite a lot of time, compared to many other games, but I also think that's kinda justified considering D&Ds overall focus on combat. It doesn't mean it can't be used for scenarios with little or no combat, of course, but I think it's fair to say the system is rather geared towards combat.

[Gnaeus]

It depends on what you are used to. Again, there are faster systems, no question. There are also systems where every attack is
1. My attack roll
2. Your defense roll
3. Determine hit location
4. Roll damage
5. Subtract armor
6. Possibly roll for critical hits (cross referencing with chart as needed)
7. Possibly roll for knockdown and/or unconsciousness
8. Resolve any specials from the attack.

Saying 3.5 is a slow combat system is like saying Warblade is overpowered. It’s an opinion which is only relevant to what you are comparing it to. S&B fighter with Toughness? Yes. Wizard with 80 HD of minions? No.

[Xervous]

Good question. I myself found one such dm once, and i also was too baffled to figure out how to break it up for him. the campaign died in half a dozen sessions anyway.

anyway, i believe we can't do much from this forum because those bad dm who think they should control the player's actions generally do not hang out in internet forums. or they hand out in forums of alike-minded folks. it's one of the big problems of the internet and, in general, the modern information society: people could use all the free information to learn new stuff, but many of them instead use it to find a place where they can be told exactly what they wanted to hear

I have an analogy for this that I will not post, lest I get scrubbed. I will substitute the SFW version.

1980: 10yo kid loves putting socks in the toaster. Eventually grows out of it.

2010: 10yo kid loves putting socks in the toaster, joins an online group of 1000 other people who also like it.

This stems from two innate human desires and drives. The first is to be right, because understanding how the world works as it pertains to your daily actions is the most basic form of ‘right’. The second is an aversion to wasted effort. Combined, people are more likely to turn to things that confirm their beliefs rather than dig themselves out of a pit of ignorance.

[Feldar]

I have an analogy for this that I will not post, lest I get scrubbed. I will substitute the SFW version.

1980: 10yo kid loves putting socks in the toaster. Eventually grows out of it.

2010: 10yo kid loves putting socks in the toaster, joins an online group of 1000 other people who also like it.


Who does not love warm socks?

You're totally on point though -- the internet is just a tool for finding people just the same crazy as you.

[Gruftzwerg]

Likewise we should be having tables of expectations on save dcs, ac, and so on per level and cr for characters and monsters. There is too many choices with 3.5 and thus you get the paralysis of choice, and most of the choices are meaningless / bad.

Have a look here for the start:
Average Monser Stats (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623578-3-5-Average-Monster-Stats-UPDATED-TABLE)

_____________________________________

3.5 is all about System Mastery imho. It's like chess. Sure you can have fun with some basic knowledge about the rules and the game, but without an interest in System Mastery you won't last long in the higher lvls/rankings/professional play.

In 3.5, if you don't have an interest into System Mastery, you will just abuse the 3.5 rule skeleton and just houserule anything and everything to your desire. And I have seen many people just doing that. Making up rules instead of looking for rules (made up grappling rules where just the tip of the iceberg here..). And the higher the lvl gets, the more DM fiat will be needed to compensate for the lack of system mastery to beat regular high lvl challenges.
3.5 punishes you for the lack of System Mastery and preparation you could have done. It will right out kill the entire party if they are careless on higher levels. And "careless" includes the way you build your character. You need to plan ahead to get access to most stuff (due to requirements/prerequisites) and need to know what is worth the investment and what is just a good looking trap that gets overshadowed / redundant due to other stuff.
On the other hand, 3.5 is also the system where you need to learn when to "STOP" abusing your System Mastery. No other system offers so many game-breaking rule legal exploits as 3.5 does. Pun-Pun and BoBaFeat are prime examples of that problem. But that can still be a good thing for having fun with Theoretical Optimization builds in forums or to adapt such ability monsters like Orochimaru into a build.
Reminds me that I still need to write up the Itachi build that I did made ...