[3.5] A system broken by complexity?

[Torvon]

I've recently started playing d&d 3.5

I have quite some experience with other roleplayinggames, also rather complex one's like SR or the black eye 4th edition. I studied statistics. I'm good with maths. I like rules, and numbers. But I found something disturbing.

I took a couple of hours to browse through all the "PvP" threads available. Apart from the fact that the ability to kill someone in 1 vs. 1 doesn't say anything at all about the power or usefulnes of a character in a game, one thing stood out above all:

95% of the threads were rule discussions, often without agreement.

I may have read 40 or 50 threads, not a single one without extensive rule discussions. I imagine people who do level 20+ PvP in forums to be gamers who are really, really good with rules.

A starting point for a discussion:
The sheer amount of books, and thereby rules and mechanics, has made the system very complex. With complexity I mean that things and more things were designed, opening up more and more degrees of freedom, making more and more combinations possible.
I would say that with 20 mechanics, it's possible to say what will happen if something [x] gets introduced into the system (think about starcraft, and adding a new unit to one of the three races). But with several 1000 rules up (look at the insane feat lists out there), it's basically impossible to have all the possible combinations in mind. I can't imagine a game designed browsing a couple of weeks through all classes and PrC to check if the thing he is about to implement could be abused when combined with something else ...

So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

I'd love to read your opinions.

ta-ta
Torvon

[Fax Celestis]

Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

[Greenish]

Apart from the fact that the ability to kill someone in 1 vs. 1 doesn't say anything at all about the power or usefulnes of a character in a game

Yes it does, when you're playing arenas.

Arenas have extensive rules discussion because everyone has vested interests in their interpretation being correct. In other types of games, DM will be giving the final interpretation, end of story.

The multitude of options is D&D 3.5's strong point.

[Oslecamo]

So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

It's more of a love-hate relationship.

Yes the amount of variety of rules open up the doors to plenty of problems, but on the good side it also offers plenty of options and it's extremely satisfying to dig trough the books and think about all the possible cool combinations.

That's pretty much why 3.X is still played as much if not more than 4e, wich offers better balance at the cost of rules variety.

[RelentlessImp]

I'm not going to add my opinion here, because it'd be a post that took up half the page when all was said and done... but the complexity of the rules system is pretty much just established in core. Extra rulebooks typically just bring a new mechanic specific to one class or another, though it's all been derivations of something introduced in the core books - exceptions being Truenamer, Binder, and Incarnum. (Initiators don't count - their maneuvers are just spells with a different recharge mechanic.)

If you're truly worried about having to pore through so many books to figure something out, invest in the Rules Compendium instead. It's neat, condensed, and typically solves most of the complexity after a couple of reads - save for the grappling rules, which I think are the only thing that take up more than half a page.

tl;dr version: The extra books don't make it complex. Its complexity all stems from Core.

[Cheesy74]

Well, yeah. 3.5 does have a hell of a lot of books out there. And yeah, a lot of books opens up a lot of abuses.

However, the thing a lot of people miss when they discuss this sort of thing is that there is a human being standing between players and the steaming pile of limburger that is a pile of sourcebooks. DMs make sure that rule abuses don't happen and provide a solid judge for this sort of thing (assuming they're good at their job).

As for a potential for abuse, that's all about the skill of the designer. WotC-official books tend to have professionals behind it, and they don't really need to read over the myriad sourcebooks out there to make sure their new abilities aren't abusable. There are quite a few key phrases they can toss in to cover up exploits, like "does not stack".

I agree with you that D&D 3.5, being a complex game, is going to have some problems. However, there are several layers of safeguards that prevent those problems from affecting a game. In reality, the problems with the complexity of D&D (at least related to its misuse) are a non-issue.

It's a different story on here, where characters are made in a magical land where everything is permitted and the DM is the most lenient being on the face of the earth (or nonexistent altogether, in the case of thought experiments like Pun-pun). That's where rule discussions happen, because the rules go straight to the players instead of being filtered by a DM.

So yeah, D&D does have some problems with complexity. But they're all easily fixed with a judge.

tl;dr: You forgot the DM.

[Reinboom]

Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

I must argue that. ( =P )

Though, that depends on what you call "the system itself".
I would say that the skill system is very much not sound. The class arrangement / increasing causes issues...

So yeah, D&D does have some problems with complexity. But they're all easily fixed with a judge.

tl;dr: You forgot the DM.

In my experiences, the vast majority of DMs have no idea on how to be a proper judge of rules.

[Greenish]

the complexity of the rules system is pretty much just established in core. Extra rulebooks typically just bring a new mechanic specific to one class or another, though it's all been derivations of something introduced in the core books - exceptions being Truenamer, Binder, and Incarnum. (Initiators don't count - their maneuvers are just spells with a different recharge mechanic.)

Well, if you count psionics in the core.

[Edit]:

As for a potential for abuse, that's all about the skill of the designer. WotC-official books tend to have professionals behind it, and they don't really need to read over the myriad sourcebooks out there to make sure their new abilities aren't abusable.

Hehe, that cracked me up.

[Indon]

Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

Sheer volume of mechanics progressively increase the chances of unintended interactions, however, and 3.5 has that in spades.

[Fax Celestis]

I must argue that. ( =P )

Though, that depends on what you call "the system itself".
I would say that the skill system is very much not sound. The class arrangement / increasing causes issues...

When I say "system" I mean the fundamental underlying basis of the game. The entire 3.5 game can be condensed to "roll 1d20, add modifiers, compare to target score". There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The issues in 3.5 stem from the classes advancing at different power-rates, and the skill system--while remaining true to the core mechanic--fails to accurately deal with numbers that appear regularly in real games. Feats are too few and too static, there's no reward for not multiclassing, swift actions are by-and-large only useful for spellcasters (meaning that by virtue of being a spellcaster, you immediately gain benefit over nonspellcasters even before you cast a spell), and special combat actions are too complex. I have tried to repair most of these in my homebrew (investing feats, grapple skill, increased swift-action uses for noncasters, lowering of power curve for casters while increasing the curve for noncasters, etc), but it is not very easy.

[Reinboom]

When I say "system" I mean the fundamental underlying basis of the game. The entire 3.5 game can be condensed to "roll 1d20, add modifiers, compare to target score". There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Which is just the core mechanic.
Not the system and the core mechanic, spoken separately.
I wouldn't of bugged you if you said one or the other.

[Seatbelt]

That's pretty much why 3.X is still played as much if not more than 4e, wich offers better balance at the cost of rules variety.

This is why I've not played 4E. I've rolled a character who never saw play but the one impression I got was that the classes, while all different and fulfill different roles, were fundamentally the same. They behaved the same essential rules in attack power and daily's and at wills and such. In 3.5 I know the fighter works mechanically different from the wizard, who works similarly to the cleric or druid, but are completely different from the monk. Each time I roll up a 3.5 character gameplay changes because the rules for that character change, which keeps things fresh and interesting.

[Binks]

I would say that with 20 mechanics, it's possible to say what will happen if something [x] gets introduced into the system (think about starcraft, and adding a new unit to one of the three races). But with several 1000 rules up (look at the insane feat lists out there), it's basically impossible to have all the possible combinations in mind.

20 mechanics is still too much, to use your same example there have been plenty of units/powers that were going to be in starcraft 2 that were later found to have broken combos and removed or modified. No examples off the top of my head but if you just hop on the boards over there and look at the patch notes it's easy to see that even limited mechanics can have broken new rules introduced.

So, did the sheer amount of rules break the system? Without being an expert of D&D 3.5, I get the impression, browsing through all these posts.

No, the distilling of a complex series of interactions into a limited series of simple rules broke the game. It's also the point of the game. You can't distill complexity down without introducing some holes, and those holes are always problematic. The fact that D&D is trying to represent a very very complex series of interactions in a very simple format broke the system, it's just about impossible to not have something broken when you do that.

[Fax Celestis]

This is why I've not played 4E. I've rolled a character who never saw play but the one impression I got was that the classes, while all different and fulfill different roles, were fundamentally the same. They behaved the same essential rules in attack power and daily's and at wills and such. In 3.5 I know the fighter works mechanically different from the wizard, who works similarly to the cleric or druid, but are completely different from the monk. Each time I roll up a 3.5 character gameplay changes because the rules for that character change, which keeps things fresh and interesting.

This is, honestly, my biggest issue with 4e: not the actual gameplay (because it is fun), but that every class uses the same damn system. You get x powers at y level, z feats at a level, and enter Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies at 11 and 21 (respectively). They didn't even start messing with that basic, fundamental system on any sort of level until PHB3, far too long, IMO, to wait for something that basic.

I feel like the designers of 4e are terrified of being a bull in a china shop and so are instead a mouse in an HEv suit in a cleanroom. For a game about imagination, well...you kind of need to be adventurous to have an adventure.

[Zeful]

The multitude of options is D&D 3.5's strong point.

It's also one of 3.5's weakest points.

Options are not distributed and supported equally. Many of the options are for casters, a subset of classes that not everyone plays. Further a significant number of those options invalidate many of the the class' innate restrictions (Baccob's Blessed Book, Pearls of Power, Knowstones, Mordenkain's Lubricant, most of the Conjuration (creation) subschool, Metamagic) which would be roughly equivalent to a sword that gave infinite hit-points and the ability to resist all spells.

How many options are there to enhance or change a Paladin's Smite? Why can't a fighter's sword stun his victims (or for that matter a freaking hammer)? How is a 20+ level Rogue still detectable at all?

As Fax said: The underlying mechanic of the game (roll 1d20+modifiers Vs. Target number+modifiers) is solid, the rest of the game isn't.

[Morty]

Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

I'm inclined to agree. The issues of 3rd edition come from bad playtesting and several mistaken assumptions. The designers greatly underestimated the effects magic has on the game but overestimated the deterring effect having to prepare spells has on spellcasters. As well as a bunch of other stuff that'd take too long to list. The system itself and the number of options aren't that important here.

[Kaiyanwang]

It's not a simpel answer. 3.5 is big. Very, very big. It's really impossible to avoid loopholes.

In other instances, desingers clearly overlooked the potential brokennes of something, or did not put enough limitations in a certain mechaninc.

Sometimes, a loophole is simply a silly interpretation of a rule by a munchkin.

[oxybe]

some of 3rd ed's most broken spells is found strait out of the PHB, spells like Gate, Alter Self/Polymorph line, Timestop, ect... are all core spells. the "construct/mindless undead" buster called grease is core. glitterdust (a low level mass blind+invisibility disabler) is core. enervation, black tentacles, ect... all core.

some of the mechanics, like grapple/disarm/trip/turn undead can be either overpowered or entirely useless and are generally more complex then they need to be.

the classes were tested using certain archetypes (i vaguely remember the playtest wizard being a blaster rather then utility/debuff machine and the cleric a "healbot") over the course of the 20 levels, but the going outside of those archetypes allows some classes to do dual roles: the wizard can summon his own fighters, the cleric can self-buff to be a better fighter, the druid has a pet he can buff... all while doing their jobs as casters (area control, utility, debuff, ect...). the classes themselves are unbalanced.

the addition of the extra sourcebooks adds to the issue, but it already existed before the sourcebooks came out. saying "a good GM can fix it" is ignoring the fact that the issues exist.

i don't mind playing 3rd ed, but i acknowledge it's problems and refuse to GM it because of them.

[Greenish]

It's also one of 3.5's weakest points.

True enough.

How many options are there to enhance or change a Paladin's Smite?

Is that rhetorical, or shall I make a list?

Why can't a fighter's sword stun his victims (or for that matter a freaking hammer)?

It can, with proper enhancement.

(or for that matter a freaking hammer)?

Three Mountains Style for Nauseated, which is pretty strong debuff.

How is a 20+ level Rogue still detectable at all?

With the right spells/powers.

[Zeful]

Is that rhetorical, or shall I make a list?

Please, I like Paladins, but find the lack of core support frustrating.

It can, with proper enhancement.

Which requires one of the many caster options to be available, why can't a Fighter do this on his own?

Three Mountains Style for Nauseated, which is pretty strong debuff.

Not a Fighter though.

With the right spells/powers.

And not a Rogue.

Which was my point, many options "for" a class are options for every class but happen to synergize well with one. A level 20 Fighter's weapons can't stun or push people away because no one allowed him to. A Level 20 Rogue can be detected by a lucky shot by someone half his level.

[Kaiyanwang]

Three mountains is a style feat. viable for meleers and viable for fighters. BTW, shares prerequisites with charge feats.

Other condition can be stunned (Staggering Blow, Dragon Compenidum) Staggered (Staggering Critical, DotU) Dazed (Dire Flail Smash, CoR).

Barring the evergreen knockback, if you want to push away someone, bull rush him.

Spoiler

Show

BTW, take a look in the Pathfinder PRD: you could find useful at this regard:

Critical Feats, adding condition on target on a critical

Shield Slam feat, bullrushing for free on a shield bash

Knockback barbarian rage power. Barbarian rocks in combat maneuvers!

Moreover, consider that being invisible in front of a balor worths nothing. An high rank in some skill can always be something useful.

[Greenish]

Not a Fighter though.

What, why not?

And not a Rogue.

Well, assumedly the rogue can detect himself.

A level 20 Fighter's weapons can't stun or push people away because no one allowed him to.

Yes they can. Knockback pushes people away, Three Mountains Style, well, doesn't stun but Nauseates.

A Level 20 Rogue can be detected by a lucky shot by someone half his level.

Not really. (Skill checks won't autosucceed or autofail.)

[Zeful]

What, why not?

Cause I thought you were reffering to a ToB style.

Well, assumedly the rogue can detect himself.

But a Rogue can't become undetectable by virtue of being a Rogue.

Not really. (Skill checks won't autosucceed or autofail.)

Not what I was referring to

[Dragosai]

To the OP, short answer; yes to your question “is 3.5 broken by its complexity”.
Long answer; Yes with a but; the but being that it is not so much all extra books that make it complex and thus easy to break, it is broken after about level 8 or so. After level 8ish even a core PHB wizard/cleric/druid/sorcerer are so powerful that playing any other class makes no sense.
The problem you run into is exactly what the OP said that “broken” stuff is judged by player vs. player, and the problem with that is well everyone will have their own opinion.
I am wondering why the OP went from playing 4th to 3.5? I am guessing maybe you joined a group that still plays 3.5, just play something with regular spell progression and you will be fine. If the game is going to start at low level and end before 8 well play what you want, if high level play is expected yeah a caster or don’t bother.
All the extra books/stuff/things/junk in 3.5 doesn’t really break the system, the basic rules just send it down the hole of madness after level 8ish. All the extra books just make the madness have more forms of destruction.

[Kaiyanwang]

Not what I was referring to

Scry has save and 1 hour casting time. Sometimes couldn't matter, sometimes could.

[Torvon]

(just to be polite: I'm reading eaglerly. Keep going. Thanks so far, there seems to be some general line of agreement)

[Optimystik]

Sometimes, a loophole is simply a silly interpretation of a rule by a munchkin.

And sometimes, rules used as intended are just as bad. Natural Spell is a mechanic that never needed to exist, especially not without drawbacks.

[Greenish]

Cause I thought you were reffering to a ToB style.

No, I was referring to the feat. There's no martial school by the name.

But a Rogue can't become undetectable by virtue of being a Rogue.

Shadowdancer dip and Darkstalker is pretty close.

Not what I was referring to

Yeah, magic always wins. At least that offers a save.


Look, I'm not saying 3.5 is balanced. I'm saying it has huge amounts of options, and that it's the strength of the system. Balance is the weakness of the system, and is a direct result of the amount of options, but that's a different thing.

[Kaiyanwang]

And sometimes, rules used as intended are just as bad. Natural Spell is a mechanic that never needed to exist, especially not without drawbacks.

Of course.. I already said that designers simply overlooked benefits and drawbacks of a specific thing. And yeah, Natural Spell is a very good example of this.

Look, I'm not saying 3.5 is balanced. I'm saying it has huge amounts of options, and that it's the strength of the system. Balance is the weakness of the system, and is a direct result of the amount of options, but that's a different thing.

Agree 100% here. I love 3.5 for this: I imagine a PC, NPC, creature, place, world, and take the tool to make it.

I'm not forced at all to include everything at the same moment. This, of course, does not means that the system (and its evolution) is fine as is, but, at least for my tastes, is the best I have seen.

Even if, sometimes I have nostalgia for BECMI BUt there are things that came in my mind or my player asked, that I simply couldn't do with that.

[TheThan]

Nah, poor editing, little-to-no playtesting, and vague rules are what cause arguments and brokenness. The system itself--and the core mechanic--is sound: it's merely the actual implementations within that system that fail.

Very true

In a most dnd games, the system is actually fairly easy to manage. Unless you have an unlimited open-ended game that allows for all Wotc books, 3rd party and dragon magazine. Then thing can start to get out of hand. If that becomes a problem, simply don’t use all those extra rules, they’re just that extra.