RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to Community Chat

06:55, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Posted by Dr. Mindermast
GamerHandle
member, 828 posts
Umm.. yep.
So, there's this door...
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 03:01
  • msg #11

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

I agree with that bit Dr. Mindermast.  2E and 3E are nothing alike.  It's D&D in name and using names like "beholder".  Oh, and the adherence to "inflict" and "sustain" damage.

However, D20 is a single core mechanic (as you alluded). 3-18+.  1d20+bonus vs TN, is a lot easier and more simplistic to understand than THAC0 ever was.

Not saying one is better - one is definitely more 'single mechanic' though.
willvr
member, 792 posts
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 03:05
  • msg #12

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

PF to 3.5 is more akin to 1st to 2nd, than 2nd to third.

Don't get me wrong, I love (nearly) all versions of DnD; but the only actual editions that were basically the same was first to 2nd. Everything else has been drastically different; to the point that you couldn't use your old rules with the new edition. THus the '3.5' naming.
swordchucks
member, 1019 posts
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 04:02
  • msg #13

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Eh, if you're looking PHB to PHB, that's true, but 2e had a very long run with a whole lot of rules advances along the way.  If you look at 2e with Skills & Power and all the other stuff, 3e is a whole lot less radical of a shift.  A lot of the big changes (THAC0 to the 3.5 +modifier system) are more cosmetic shifts than real changes to underlying game mechanics.  Even feats had their roots in the character point creation system.

That's all beside the point, though.  My primary point is that the reason people don't change editions is that they've taken the edition they like and piled house rules on top of it to the point that the system is "fixed".  New editions are, to them, the same thing as tossing out all of their existing house rules and replacing them with a different set.
facemaker329
member, 6683 posts
Gaming for over 30
years, and counting!
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 06:15
  • msg #14

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

People still play it for the same reason they play any other out-of-print game...it works for them.  Even if the changes are minor, if the rules are giving them what they want out of their gaming experience, then there's no incentive to update.  All the material for newer editions is online?  Well, why spend the time to look it up and learn it all over again when I already know the old rules well enough that I don't even need to look at a book anymore?

I don't even play D&D anymore...and the last time I played and really enjoyed it was back in the glory days of AD&D.  But back then, I had a GM who was willing to play things fast and loose and make up off-the-cuff rulings about all the skills and feats and other garbage (to me) that got added when they did 2E.  I've tried it since then...2E didn't appeal, 3E just felt burdensome...so I stopped trying, altogether.

That said, my favorite game system is the D6 system from West End Games, which has been OOP for...oh...a decade or more, now?  My favorite games (the system-based ones, at least) still use those rules.  Because they work for us.

Yes, new editions address a lot of potential issues, and try to 'fix problems' with the old issues...but for some people, there weren't any problems to be fixed, and new editions feel like the publisher's attempt to convince you to buy all the stuff all over again.  I know people who feel that way about D&D.  I feel that way about Shadowrun (I still miss 3E, and I never even bought any of the books for that...the only reason I moved to 3E for Shadowrun was because the GM decided he couldn't get enough of the 2E books to keep running the game effectively once they discontinued it).

TL;DR--if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
truemane
member, 2004 posts
Firing magic missles at
the darkness!
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 12:20
  • msg #15

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Dr. Mindermast:
Because my (admittedly limited) experience with PF has been "oh, it's everything I enjoyed about 3e, plus they cleaned up some of the things that I didn't."  And while I understand the financial argument (the main reason I haven't gotten into 5e myself yet), the SRD has all of the core rules and more expansions then I'm ever going to use, all for free, so that's not an issue.


People say that a lot about PF, but I've never found it to be particularly true. To me it's more like they made a few (mostly cosmetic) changes that shifted the balance on a few things that didn't really need it while keeping most of the core imbalances (underpowered monks, overpowered wizards) almost entirely unchanged.

BUT. That aside, it's not even about money for me, it's time. I'm too busy to devote the time and effort necessary to learn a new system, especially when it's so close to one I already know. I only learned PF because my SO really really wanted to try PFS Organized Play. So I sucked it up and got the book.
Mrrshann618
member, 62 posts
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 12:21
  • msg #16

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

GamerHandle:
However, D20 is a single core mechanic (as you alluded). 3-18+.  1d20+bonus vs TN, is a lot easier and more simplistic to understand than THAC0 ever was.



See, now this is strange. I went from 1st ed AD&D to 2nd. THAC0 Made sense and was easy to use. My groups and one shots all felt the same. When it went to 3rd (and above) many of us simply quit as it was not easier to understand compared to THAC0.

I've attempted at the D20/AD&D game at least once with every edition. They have all failed IMHO. I went on to an entirely other game system and sold all my books ages ago.

Yeah sometimes 2nd felt like TSR was simply trying to fleece me for money with all the expansions and "Complete" books. But then, what company doesn't fleece their customers, the job is to make money.
srgrosse
member, 2289 posts
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 13:06
  • msg #17

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Fair warning, these are my personal opinions, not any kind of universal truth.

Starting off, I'll say that I've never actually played Pathfinder. My local game is 3.5, and between 3.5, Shadowrun, M&M, and HERO, I've got plenty of gaming options here, without having to pick up and learn a new system.

From what I've heard, however, Pathfinder does enough differently from 3.X that it is more than just a reskinned D&D, which means I'd have to take the time to learn the system, and see how to make it work for me.

Which leads into one of the main reasons I play 3.5. I'm a customizer. I go through chargen for fun, just to see what kinds of new and crazy things I can make. Anthropomorphic cat swashbuckler? Done that. CE Half-Celestial Cleric? Done that too. LG Half-Fiend Paladin? You bet. Even restricting it to just human spellcasters, I love playing with new and interesting combinations of feats, skills, and spells. Sure, most of these characters are nigh unplayable in a real game, but just being able to play with it makes me happy.

Also, creating new magic items! Sure, a Hat of Disguise or Headband of Intellect +4 might not be that amazing to you, but the Frozen Crown, possessing the power of both (at the price of combined magic items, natch), the personal possession of a cruel monarch in the icy north? That's pure win! I'm sure there's something in Pathfinder that lets you do that, but I'd have to really know the system to go under the hood like that, y'know?

Basically, I still play 3.5 for the same reasons I'm NOT playing 5e. I have a certain preferred playstyle, and 3.5 more easily swings towards that style, while 5e works against it.
truemane
member, 2005 posts
Firing magic missles at
the darkness!
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 13:15
  • msg #18

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

In reply to Mrrshann618 (msg # 16):

I've heard this before, a few times, from more than a few 2e hold-outs.

Which is funny because I remember, very clearly, the hue and cry when the combat matrices of 1e were replaced by THAC0. So many people found THAC0 so confusing. Something about the idea of adding a negative really bothered them.

And it strikes me funny because, while THAC0 makes way more sense than the unholy abomination that was Combat Matrices, it's far less intuitive than d20 + modifiers, compare to DC.
swordchucks
member, 1020 posts
Fri 23 Oct 2015
at 13:20
  • msg #19

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

truemane:
while keeping most of the core imbalances (underpowered monks, overpowered wizards) almost entirely unchanged.

I get where you're coming from with this, but the first is impacted by a number of factors, including realism, and the second is a genre conceit.  The only games that tend to put a monk on an even footing with an armed fighter for straight-up fighting are Eastern oriented games where the mythical kung-fu monk is a thing.  The typical Western slant of D&D-ish games makes that unrealistic, and the rules tend to reflect it.  That's not to say that you can't pull off some interesting things with a PF monk that put them on par with a regular fighter in terms of overall power, they're just not going to be straightforward.

As for wizards being the most powerful, PF continued the trend that 2e->3e->3.5 started and flattened out the wizard power curve a good bit.  2e had wizards that went from "cast, cast, useless" at low level to "you are all now my hirelings" at high level.  3e and later 3.5 toned down a lot of the top end as well as shoring up the bottom end, but PF took it even farther with the way they handled schools and tweaked a number of the spells.  The full casters are still the top end of the power curve at high level, but that's a genre conceit.  No matter how hard a guy can hit something, that's just never going to compare to the guy who makes reality twist with a few words.  What PF has done, mostly, is make everyone else more interesting to play.  They may not be as powerful, but they certainly have options and niches that the pure-caster does not.




PF classes are, on the whole, better designed than 3.5e classes.  They're also stronger, but the biggest gain is in being more interesting.  In PF, there are actual reasons to play a fighter past second level, just as there are reasons not to exit your cleric/wizard class as soon as possible for a PRC.

One of the biggest things that D&D has struggled with post 3.5 is figuring out how to have healing without turning characters into mindless healbots (which was an issue from 2e through 3.5).  PF's channel energy is, probably, the best solution I've seen.  4e used healing and hit dice and now 5e is using hit dice (though the in-combat healing is back to semi-healbot status where a caster that can cast Cure Wounds has to think carefully about every spell they cast - because that's a heal they won't have later).




Not to digress too much, but the reason I don't like 5e is actually very much to do with the aforementioned power curve - but in a different way.  In this week's game, my learned scholar character, with all sorts of knowledge and linguistic skills, had to have a ritual explained to him by the party's fighter due to bad dice rolls.  The difference between "good" at something and "terrible" at something is so small that it's easy for the worst person to overshadow the best person in a situation just due to the dice.  This wasn't an issue in previous editions.
srgrosse
member, 2290 posts
Sat 24 Oct 2015
at 03:21
  • msg #20

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

And I, for one, never understood the people who say that there's no reason to take Fighter past 2nd level. Sure, if you want to be a lightly armored dual-wielder, Ranger or Swashbuckler is better for you. Sure, if you're going for a certain style of warrior, a Barbarian or Samurai will suit you better. But a pure Fighter has something none of those classes does, and that's feats. Oodles of feats! There are so many options that even if you limit yourself to a 'sword and board' fighter, you can have ten different characters with easily ten different builds. In my home game, I'm playing a level 15 Warforged Fighter. Sword and board, adamantine body. I don't do the ungodly damage of the rogue or warlock, but I offer consistent damage, am tied with the swashbuckler for the highest AC in the party (even though I only have a 12 Dex), damage reduction, 20% miss chance (from a cloak), a slew of immunities, and I consistently hit whatever I aim at. I think I have something like a +30 to hit with my longsword, and a +12 to damage with it as well. I hit often, I hit hard, and I'm a fragging WALL in combat with my 34 AC.
willvr
member, 793 posts
Sat 24 Oct 2015
at 03:25
  • msg #21

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

The problem is, you can usually get all you need from feats as a fighter by level 6-8. What then? There was no reason -not- to prestige out by about level 6-7. All that you're describing, could be done by a level 6 fighter who then took a prestige class appropriate to what he wanted.

Pathfinder has better high-level feats (that's an issue with 3.5 in general - there aren't really a lot of feats that you need to be high-level for; a class feature which gives bonus feats, pales compared to the class features which were unique to the class).
swordchucks
member, 1021 posts
Sat 24 Oct 2015
at 14:42
  • msg #22

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

I think willvr hits most of the high points.  In general, the issue isn't that feats aren't nice, it's that by the time you pass level 4 or so, fighters get very few unique things.  Fighters can follow multiple paths with their feats, which can be nice, but just usually doesn't compare to what other classes get.

If you want to look at a single class that is the worst offender, the 3.5 cleric is absolutely terrible.  You get some abilities at first level, one of them (when in only its normal fashion) depends on cleric level, and even that can be shored up by some PrCs.  A level 20 cleric vs. a level 5 cleric/5 PRC/10 PRC is almost always going to be inferior by any mechanical measure.  That's just bad game design.
GamerHandle
member, 831 posts
Umm.. yep.
So, there's this door...
Sat 24 Oct 2015
at 22:09
  • msg #23

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Interesting that the conversation moved into such a specific realm.

The funny thing with Pathfinder: PF is downright punishing towards multi-classing and Prestige Classes in particular.

Thanks to the numerous feats, traits, and archetypes - you can replicate most prestige classes within the base class.  Prestige Classes to me.. were always meant to feel... prestigious... In 3.5 they actually did!  A Straight 'Fighter 20' always felt like the super-bad-guy boss build.  You didn't want them being 'omahgursh' beyond the PCs, but, you wanted them to have the same HD/BAB/Feats.

Whereas a PrC in 3.5 felt like, "yeah, I'm still a Fighter, but, I have this cool thing here."
willvr
member, 794 posts
Sat 24 Oct 2015
at 22:56
  • msg #24

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

I've always preferred the PF feel of archetypes compared to prestige classes.

Having said that, I'm playing a druid 5/Master of Many Forms - which is pretty much impossible to replicate in Pathfinder. There are good reasons the druid got nerfed; but it does make that concept hard to do. It's hard to replicate a lot of the druid-based prestige classes.

What's particularly frustrating about the cleric in 3.5 - is that yes, they gain nothing at higher levels except spells. Sure, they get Turn Undead, but there are some prestige classes out there which increase spellcasting -and- turn undead ability. That's if you're even fussed about Turn Undead - the amount of times it crops up unless you're playing an undead-heavy game is minimal.
GammaBear
member, 515 posts
Gaymer
Sun 25 Oct 2015
at 05:27
  • msg #25

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

The same reason people play 1st ed D&D, or 2nd ed D&D, or any of the dozen editions of Shadowrun, or any of the hundred editions of GURPS.

Because they like it.

Yes, as I've seen many say, the investment is a major key. I can understand that. To counterpoint, though, 3.X material can be easily converted to Pathfinder. It pretty much is the same game. PF, IMO, fixed a lot of the broken stuff that was wrong with 3rd. In my Skull & Shackles game I run here, I'm going to be using the Weapons of Legacy book. Yeah, some tweaks need to be made, but all in all, all 3rd stuff is very much still viable for Pathfinder. You just need a convincing argument and a DM willing to hear you out. But, that's all just my 2 cp.
Brianna
member, 2016 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 00:09
  • msg #26

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Most of my 3.5 characters have been from the Forgotten Realms, something that can never be included in PF because of copyright.
willvr
member, 795 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 00:16
  • msg #27

Re: People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

That doesn't really effect a game. You can include whatever you like in a game - you just can't publish it.
V_V
member, 491 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 07:48
  • [deleted]
  • msg #28

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

This message was deleted by the user at 08:10, Mon 26 Oct 2015.
swordchucks
member, 1022 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 13:03
  • msg #29

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

That's true on copyright, though it does somewhat affect availability of books and information online, which can, in turn, make a person that wants to be strictly legal with their stuff have a very hard time with some editions of some games.  If Pathfinder has done one thing to earn me as a convert, it's the way they maintain their own material online and allow a rather wide swath of it to be put up by fans.  Their pricing structure for the important PDFs (making them $10) is also very different from what most publishers do, and very welcome.

The 3.0 and 3.5 material is mostly available from drivethrurpg now, but that's been a relatively recent development (and the price is kind of high for books that are that old, to be honest) and, one might argue, a bit too late.

On the other hand, there's no current, legal pdf of the 5e rules, which is highly annoying for me.
willvr
member, 796 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 13:16
  • msg #30

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

That's true; but I was thinking that if their characters were -already- made according to FR; it's not a huge deterrent. (Or at least it wouldn't be for me). But then, I didn't tend to like a lot of the FR-specific rules.

I have never bought any of the 3.5 PDFs. I have bought some of the even older editions though; because the pricing of those bought second-hand from Amazon or the like is astronomical.

But yes, the Pathfinder SRD, which ever version - the one with everything, or the one with just the hardcovers - is very useful. I tend to buy most of the hardcovers anyway; for home gaming anyway, but if I can point out to my players the SRD containing all they need, it makes it a lot more likely they'll go for the ruleset.
Brianna
member, 2017 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 17:40
  • msg #31

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

I've never seen a GM run a game allowing FR characters in PF.  Unless someone went out to do a wholesale conversion of FR stuff, I don't even see how it would work.  That would take a dedicated FR person, and why wouldn't they just use 3.5?
willvr
member, 797 posts
Mon 26 Oct 2015
at 21:31
  • msg #32

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Because it shouldn't be about the rules? I have seen FR games run using PF rules; there's not really much, ruleswise, which you -have- to have to run FR.
Brianna
member, 2019 posts
Thu 29 Oct 2015
at 03:46
  • msg #33

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

Flavourwise though, there's a lot about the Realms.  I just haven't run across a GM who knows the Realms, and intends to use PF.  And though I agree playing isn't so much about the rules, character creation is more likely to be, just for the sake of balance.
neochivalry
member, 151 posts
DM / GM / ST
Dominion of Storytelling
Sun 1 Nov 2015
at 16:04
  • msg #34

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

To the OP: My table stayed true to 3.x over Pathfinder for one reason: familiarity. After the dufflebag of books and more books that players memorized: it was too much effort to relearn a whole new system to that degree. With time though, hearing about certain mechanics being fixed, adjusted, or nixed: times have changed. SRDs also made it easier to look to Path or 5th ed D&D.

Speaking only for myself: I play whatever is on the table or in the computer. I have preferences for certain systems or campaign settings: but I've never felt any more attached to 3.x (even if 3.5 was my first tabletop RPG) than I do to the various systems I've played over the years.
bottleface
member, 5 posts
Sun 15 Nov 2015
at 23:56
  • msg #35

People who still play D&D 3.x - why?

These days my group is spread across my province and we only get to play a few times a year.  I started back in '03 with them playing 3.5.  However, most of the group had started with 2nd ed (I was the late bloomer).  When 4th hit we gave it a whirl but one of the main gm's was the only one to really play a lot with it (with other groups).  He has also done some 5th ed and is always interested in trying out new things.  We typically play PF now as it's been likened to 3.75 in that it refines so much of 3.5 and solves many of the issues we had with it.

I'm sure if one of us decided we really wanted to do a 3.5 campaign the rest of the group would be all for it as we spent years in that system.  However, we've found the transition to PF to be pretty easy and many of the bits we didn't like so much about 3.5 are gone.  We love the archetypes of the various classes and I have seen ridiculously awesome monks, paladins, rogues, wizards, clerics, fighters, basically any class.  Each class has so many flavours that my entire group could play one class and not have a duplicate character.  PF is my first time playing Cleric and I love it.

There aren't as many classes technically as 3.5 but that's partly what the archetypes are for.  Many of the 20 level extra classes in 3.5 became archetypes and they've done a lot to make the more martially inclined far more viable and interesting at later levels.

Sorry OP, this is more response to some of the posters than you.  That said, I'd still be down for a game of 3.5 any day of the week but I'm loving PF.
Sign In