Silliest Material in 3.5e?

[Harrow]

Feats have already been brought up in a general sense, but I'd like to bring special attention to Power Attack. Being able to put a little more "oomph" in an attack, but sacrificing control in doing so makes sense and doesn't seem silly at all to me. But, being a feat, a special technique that you need to dedicate training to in order to pull off, that's just wacky in my book.

While that's one of the biggest offenders to me, so many of the Fighter feats in the Player's Handbook just feel like they took something every fighter should be able to do, like fire an arrow into melee or bull rush someone, then gated them behind feats. It just all feels like padding. And there still aren't enough feats in core for a 20th level Fighter to have anything to be excited over picking for his "capstone".

[Endarire]

Trying to balance (including the relevant assumptions about its doability or intentionality) the game over 20+ levels between those who can't meaningfully cast and those who can.

[Ottriman]

The fact that the Epic Level Handbook mostly just presents "epic" threats and creatures as the same as normal but with bigger numbers. All around the expectation that people have a small tactical fight match in a dungeon even when the players are creating and travelling between planes with epic magics.

[noob]

The fact that the Epic Level Handbook mostly just presents "epic" threats and creatures as the same as normal but with bigger numbers. All around the expectation that people have a small tactical fight match in a dungeon even when the players are creating and travelling between planes with epic magics.

Then you get an epic creature or two with epic spells that just devastate a huge section of a country on casting.

[danielxcutter]

I made a thread precisely about this subject a few years ago.

For starters, this is what I opened the thread with:

In settlements where rilkans are the majority, other races are welcomed with open arms. This extends even to bugbears, orcs, gnolls, and other “monstrous” races, as long as they keep the peace. In one famous rilkan city, the head of the Sewer Workers Guild is an intelligent gelatinous cube.

That should probably give you the idea of what's in there.

[Rater202]

The Monk's capstone ability seems to be written with the assumption that at level 20 you're only ever going to be fighting ordinary low-level monsters and people with non-magical weaponry.

Also, the alignment and multiclass restrictions on Monk are all kind of stupid.

[danielxcutter]

The Monk's capstone ability seems to be written with the assumption that at level 20 you're only ever going to be fighting ordinary low-level monsters and people with non-magical weaponry.

Also, the alignment and multiclass restrictions on Monk are all kind of stupid.

Aside from maybe Flurry of Blows, it feels like they stretched out six levels' worth of abilities across twenty.

You know, I'm not sure how much of the imbalance of some classes was incompetence and how much was intentional.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The Monk's capstone ability seems to be written with the assumption that at level 20 you're only ever going to be fighting ordinary low-level monsters and people with non-magical weaponry.

Rogues don't get a capstone at all. In fact, there's almost no reason at all to take rogue 20 that wouldn't be better served in some other class.

And taking wizard or sorcerer 1 is more powerful than monk 20. At least they can "slow fall" (feather fall) without being next to a wall. They can also make their weapons magical via magic weapon. They can also be the recipients of enlarge person (if humanoid), which is more than monk 20s can do. Which is just sad.

[RexDart]

How about class skills? It's never made much sense to me why, for example, a fighter who wants to learn Use Rope or Diplomacy can only do so at a severe penalty.

My DM uses a house rule called "skills by character," which gives each character 20 skill slots to choose as personal "class skills," and can be whatever the character wants. So effectively it does away with the "class skill" concept for all but the most extreme players taking the "jack of all trades, master of none" approach to character progression. (The 20 skill slots are supposed to be chosen at character creation, but in practice, the DM doesn't really enforce this.)

I can't really see any downside to this approach. Is there anything game-breaking about letting characters take whatever the hell they want to put skill points in?

[Efrate]

UMD abuse mostly. But its a tax for martials often enough, and definately for skill monkies, but it lets you remain relevant by being your own primary buff supplier. Or wizards taking skill monkey spotlight time but beguiler does that already. Pushes your tiers further apart because your int based caster classes can even more obliviate the need for a skill monkey, and cha based casters do an ecen better job of being a face. All the SAD classes get better, and it adds more MAD to already MAD classes.

[Sam K]

Multi-class penalties?

[Wildstag]

In my eyes, the Special prerequisites for Swiftblade is one of the silliest things written for that edition.

It makes sense, but they stopped just short of saying "you have an addiction, a need for speed" in that prestige class' description.

[Nifft]

How about class skills? It's never made much sense to me why, for example, a fighter who wants to learn Use Rope or Diplomacy can only do so at a severe penalty.

My DM uses a house rule called "skills by character," which gives each character 20 skill slots to choose as personal "class skills," and can be whatever the character wants. So effectively it does away with the "class skill" concept for all but the most extreme players taking the "jack of all trades, master of none" approach to character progression. (The 20 skill slots are supposed to be chosen at character creation, but in practice, the DM doesn't really enforce this.)

I can't really see any downside to this approach. Is there anything game-breaking about letting characters take whatever the hell they want to put skill points in?

Most such things are there for niche protection, like Trapfinding existing at all -- would it really hurt the game to let a Monk or Ranger find the traps?

In my eyes, the Special prerequisites for Swiftblade is one of the silliest things written for that edition.

It makes sense, but they stopped just short of saying "you have an addiction, a need for speed" in that prestige class' description.

... a sickness for quickness, a taste for haste ...

[One Step Two]

Most such things are there for niche protection, like Trapfinding existing at all -- would it really hurt the game to let a Monk or Ranger find the traps?

That's another aspect that bugged me, Track is a feat that anyone can take, but trapfinding is far more niche.

... a sickness for quickness, a taste for haste ...

A particularity towards alacrity, an agreeability towards agility?

[Ottriman]

Can I simply nominate the entire design of the Monk class?

MAD as heck, cannot use a lot of gear all that well, flurry of blows is more flurry of misses and class features in general mostly just seem to compensate for not using equipment without pushing any past that.

Meaning that a fighter can get most of this stuff through gear... But also have bonus feats on top....

It's sad that even core fighter is better than Monk, but Monk was still believed to be strong because its abilities were flashier than fighter ones.

[danielxcutter]

Can I simply nominate the entire design of the Monk class?

MAD as heck, cannot use a lot of gear all that well, flurry of blows is more flurry of misses and class features in general mostly just seem to compensate for not using equipment without pushing any past that.

Meaning that a fighter can get most of this stuff through gear... But also have bonus feats on top....

It's sad that even core fighter is better than Monk, but Monk was still believed to be strong because its abilities were flashier than fighter ones.

Among other things they vastly underestimated everything that wasn't damage; I hear the playtesters were horrible at optimization. The druid did nothing but use their returning throwing scimitar and the wizard didn't do much besides Fireball.

Sometimes I wonder if they intentionally hosed martials, but that's probably not it.

[Ottriman]

Among other things they vastly underestimated everything that wasn't damage; I hear the playtesters were horrible at optimization. The druid did nothing but use their returning throwing scimitar and the wizard didn't do much besides Fireball.

Sometimes I wonder if they intentionally hosed martials, but that's probably not it.

Yeah, lack of playtesting was a huge problem with 3,5 edition in general.

[noob]

Also the testing team fought a balor with the wizard using only magic weapon, a bow and a quiver full of arrows(like Why???) and somehow for some reason the wizard did more damage than the others.(I believe mostly through luck with critical strikes)

[Rater202]

Can I simply nominate the entire design of the Monk class?

MAD as heck, cannot use a lot of gear all that well, flurry of blows is more flurry of misses and class features in general mostly just seem to compensate for not using equipment without pushing any past that.

Meaning that a fighter can get most of this stuff through gear... But also have bonus feats on top....

It's sad that even core fighter is better than Monk, but Monk was still believed to be strong because its abilities were flashier than fighter ones.

One of the reasons I see people liking gestalt so much is that a gestalt monk/fighter is actually semi-capable of what base monk is supposed to be.

[noob]

One of the reasons I see people liking gestalt so much is that a gestalt monk/fighter is actually semi-capable of what base monk is supposed to be.

Gestalting monk barbarian probably makes life easier than monk fighter.

[Rater202]

Gestalting monk barbarian probably makes life easier than monk fighter.

Only if you ignore alignment restrictions: Barbarians must be non-Lawful while Monks can only be Lawful.

[danielxcutter]

Also the testing team fought a balor with the wizard using only magic weapon, a bow and a quiver full of arrows(like Why???) and somehow for some reason the wizard did more damage than the others.(I believe mostly through luck with critical strikes)

This is one of the things that fuel my probably-irrational conspiracy theory that they intentionally tanked martial options to make "jock" type characters suck.

[noob]

Only if you ignore alignment restrictions: Barbarians must be non-Lawful while Monks can only be Lawful.

use ordered chaos?

Your alignment is not affected by the Abyssal heritor feats you possess. Spells and effects that are keyed to alignment affect you as if you were chaotic, as well as your actual alignment. For example, you become immune to spells such as chaos hammer and word of chaos, you could wield an anarchic weapon without fear of gaining a negative level, and you could take the Primordial Scion feat despite its chaotic alignment prerequisite

It says spells and effects counts you as if you were both loyal and chaotic but then mentions filling the requirements of a feat needing chaotic alignment as a possibility(so it means it is probably legitimate to use that to fill prerequisites)

I am not sure if that feat should enter the silly category or not.(but it is one more data point toward effect being extremely vague and encompassing)

[Calthropstu]

Only if you ignore alignment restrictions: Barbarians must be non-Lawful while Monks can only be Lawful.

Let us meditate on the truths of life in peace and solitude... AFTER I RIP YOUR FACE OFF.

[Ottriman]

One of the reasons I see people liking gestalt so much is that a gestalt monk/fighter is actually semi-capable of what base monk is supposed to be.

Gestalt is actually a very good way to make less viable concepts better in general.

Let us meditate on the truths of life in peace and solitude... AFTER I RIP YOUR FACE OFF.

Now that's something a murderhobo can get behind!

[Rater202]

The Mountebank class in Dragon Compendium's capstone gives you the half-fiend template for free... but also takes away control of the character.

There's no other class I can think of that actively punishes you for taking it to 20.

[Zombulian]

The fact that longer lived races age slowly rather than just spending more time in their prime so elves take over a century to become an adult.

Right? This was bothering me recently. If time to adulthood really is retarded, then all long-lived races should have wisdom bonuses and extra skill points, right?

[H_H_F_F]

I've worked succesfully with D&D races, and seen others have - but the book expects you to approach them in a way that doesn't make any ****ing sense. They can all gain EXP at the same rate, they all think just as quickly on their feat, but elves have centuries to gather their experiences. Yet they just mingle with humans like it's nothing, and level 1 elves are just walking all over the place instead of being treated by their parents as junior-high students who need to grow up and have basic capabilities before facing the outside world.

The lifespans of Elves and Dwarves are influenced by Tolkien, except his world treated those things as significant, and made sense.


Other than that, another aspect I find silly is the way intimidation works in combat, especially with imperious command. "Oh god, I'm really scared of that guy. I'm going to drop my wepaon, go down to my knees and surrender for 6 seconds before getting back up and fighting like nothing ever happened." Works nothing close to any real world fear reaction I've seen or experienced.

[Zombulian]

Feats have already been brought up in a general sense, but I'd like to bring special attention to Power Attack. Being able to put a little more "oomph" in an attack, but sacrificing control in doing so makes sense and doesn't seem silly at all to me. But, being a feat, a special technique that you need to dedicate training to in order to pull off, that's just wacky in my book.

While that's one of the biggest offenders to me, so many of the Fighter feats in the Player's Handbook just feel like they took something every fighter should be able to do, like fire an arrow into melee or bull rush someone, then gated them behind feats. It just all feels like padding. And there still aren't enough feats in core for a 20th level Fighter to have anything to be excited over picking for his "capstone".

Yeah a houserule I currently run in my games is that every full BAB class gets PA for free. Even that may be too restrictive honestly, it should probably just be a choice you can make on melee attacks no matter your class.

[Wildstag]

Yeah, lack of playtesting was a huge problem with 3,5 edition in general.

The druid example was from the 3.0 playtest, and their build appeared in "Enemies and Allies", which was released in 2001. Also it was a +2 KEEN throwing returning scimitar! Also they took Improved Critical (Scimitar) and Scribe Scroll. At least, that's what was in their level 15 build.

Also the testing team fought a balor with the wizard using only magic weapon, a bow and a quiver full of arrows(like Why???) and somehow for some reason the wizard did more damage than the others.(I believe mostly through luck with critical strikes)

As near as I can tell, that wasn't part of the 3.5 playtest, that was an entirely separate story. It is featured in the article "Tactics in Action" on the WotC archives, specifically in the "Tactics and Tips" line of articles. It is dated to August 2005, which would put it a couple years AFTER 3.5 was released.