Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2022, 02:23:56 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 03, 2022, 10:27:55 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 02, 2022, 07:37:38 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 02, 2022, 04:52:10 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 02, 2022, 03:25:26 PM
I'm kinda partial to 3.0 with the core splatbooks.  One PHB with the equivalent of the old brown-cover 2e splatbooks.  Either Greyhawk (pick any flavor) or Kalamar. The 3.0 FRCS is nice, but then it leads to wanting all of the FR supplements which drives into 3.5 territory.

I'm not as much of a fan of 3.5 because it "cleaned things up" but made ìt soulless in the process. That, and the 3.5 supplements just became masturbatory material.

3.0 with a smaller list of prestige classes and feats.

What you describe sounds interesting, but i would insist on ASI's only.  I'd avoid Feats, altogether.

You really can't strip the feats out of 3.0 or 3.5, at least not unless you're willing to totally redesign the Fighter (and to a lesser extent the Wizard). Bonus feats are literally their only class feature.

Give the Fighter extra attacks earlier, better weapon damage, a magic weapon; and watch them enjoy plowing through their enemies, and chasing the barmaids at the local tavern, as bards sing about their exploits.

Could not disagree more. The third edition fighter really doesn't need to be any more of an "I hit it with my sword" class. What I would do, if I was stripping out feats, is fold together the fighter and the ranger (a famously underwhelming class in 3e) I'd give them the ranger's skill ranks, fighting style etc, but let animal companions just be a druid thing. Hell, I might even roll some of the barbarian features in and just have a warrior class. You would almost have to, in order to have a class that can remotely compete with CODzilla.

The Fighter archetype, isn't the problem.

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 03, 2022, 03:49:29 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 03, 2022, 02:23:56 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 03, 2022, 10:27:55 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 02, 2022, 07:37:38 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 02, 2022, 04:52:10 PM

Give the Fighter extra attacks earlier, better weapon damage, a magic weapon; and watch them enjoy plowing through their enemies, and chasing the barmaids at the local tavern, as bards sing about their exploits.

Could not disagree more. The third edition fighter really doesn't need to be any more of an "I hit it with my sword" class. What I would do, if I was stripping out feats, is fold together the fighter and the ranger (a famously underwhelming class in 3e) I'd give them the ranger's skill ranks, fighting style etc, but let animal companions just be a druid thing. Hell, I might even roll some of the barbarian features in and just have a warrior class. You would almost have to, in order to have a class that can remotely compete with CODzilla.

The Fighter archetype, isn't the problem.

That really depends on the context, and what we think the Fighter archetype is. If the fighter is "the guy who is good at hitting things, and bad at everything else", that's a problem in anything other than the most basic style of dungeon crawling. If (as I think it should be) the Fighter is the class you choose if you want to play a classic swords & sorcery hero like Conan or the Grey Mouser, then the problem is that they let the other classes steal all of his features. Fighters should be able to climb, track, hide, avoid traps, etc., because those are the core skills of an adventurer.

If I had my druthers, D&D would have two classes: "Swordsman" and "Sorcerer". Thief, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, and Assassin would all be subclasses or customization options for the "Swordsman". Wizard, Priest, Druid, and Bard would all be subclasses or customization options for "Sorcerer".

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 03, 2022, 10:27:55 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 02, 2022, 07:37:38 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 02, 2022, 04:52:10 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 02, 2022, 03:25:26 PM
I'm kinda partial to 3.0 with the core splatbooks.  One PHB with the equivalent of the old brown-cover 2e splatbooks.  Either Greyhawk (pick any flavor) or Kalamar. The 3.0 FRCS is nice, but then it leads to wanting all of the FR supplements which drives into 3.5 territory.

I'm not as much of a fan of 3.5 because it "cleaned things up" but made ìt soulless in the process. That, and the 3.5 supplements just became masturbatory material.

3.0 with a smaller list of prestige classes and feats.

What you describe sounds interesting, but i would insist on ASI's only.  I'd avoid Feats, altogether.

You really can't strip the feats out of 3.0 or 3.5, at least not unless you're willing to totally redesign the Fighter (and to a lesser extent the Wizard). Bonus feats are literally their only class feature.

Give the Fighter extra attacks earlier, better weapon damage, a magic weapon; and watch them enjoy plowing through their enemies, and chasing the barmaids at the local tavern, as bards sing about their exploits.

Extra attacks don't help when the system doesn't allow you to both move and use more than one in a turn and the iterative attacks are made at significant penalties.

Better weapon damage would need to be massive (as in "make every hit a critical" level) to begin to be anything that would be meaningful.

The 3e fighter is, quite frankly, the second most badly designed class in terms of working with the system mechanics in 3.x (the king of fail is the Monk... whose own abilities fail to synergize with each other on top of a ridiculous level of multi-attribute dependency; you need Strength to hit, Dex and Wisdom for AC, Reflex saves and Con to have enough hit points to not be a joke when your AC is still lower than a fighter's despite maxed out Dex and Wisdom).

You would need to rework the action economy and saving throw math from the ground up to keep the fighter out of garbage tier classes. Hell, there is an NPC class (the Adept) that scores above it in nearly every tier list of 3.x classes.

The best fix for the fighter (and monk and paladin... another underperformed) is drop them entirely and replace them with the Warblade and other classes from "The Tome of Battle" where WotC actually made the effort to fix them with a ground up rebuild. It was late in 3.5e's run when most of the known issues were understood and dealt with.

One of the MOST annoying things about 3e is the people who think the problem is with all the splats and if they go "core only" they'll fix things when, in truth, the opposite is true. The most broken classes (op and weak sauce) and most problematic spells are found in the core 3.5e PHB. The later material where they'd figured out the problems was actually built to much more consistent standards and mainly looked down upon for being weak relative to the god-tier (wizard, cleric and druid) and demigod-tier (sorcerer, psion) classes.

If you want an incredibly solid game of 3.5e go look up one of the class tier lists and just limit player classes to tiers 3 and 4... good at one thing and capable of doing other things while not being able to break the game over their knees or proving utterly useless in the late game. You'll find a excellent and thematic classes in that range.

The biggest problem I have with 3.X isn't that one class is stronger than another. That's expected, and frankly it isn't a problem if the DM understands the relative strengths and has the DM-skill to to make every player feel like they're contributing to the game.

I'd argue the problem with 3.X is that it's hard to understand the core system math & assumptions in a way that you can improvise as a DM without consulting rulebooks and getting caught up in minutiae. Even pre-published adventures feel unpredictable. Something as simple as getting ambushed by a CR-appropriate flying enemy can reasonably turn into a TPK if your party doesn't have anyone with ranged attacks and your Wizard doesn't have the right spells/enough spells to blast them. This isn't even considering the stuff like DR/Magic-Silver-Adamantium, Regeneration, Undead, Ethereal, Grappling, SaveOrDie, etc that every party generally has to have to deal with.

I think Chris24601 basically nailed it, and I disagree with Zelen.

The rules and math aren't hard.  A CR-appropriate foe can be Party Level -4 to Party Level +4, but I think the general assumption is that an appropriate challenge is CR = Party Level.  Generally, a CR 4 monster is more powerful than a PC of 4th level; they represent a good challenge for a group, and yes, that means that if you're always facing enemies with a CR equal to your level (especially Dragons) you're in for a very difficult fight and risking a TPK.

1st edition had enemies that couldn't be damaged except with a +3 or better weapon, and they show up on the random encounter charts.  3.x was BETTER in that while an enemy might have significant DR, you could still beat them to death with a basic club if you were strong enough. 

One person being weaker then another can be fine.....To a point.

If another player can do more then you, and your own niche better then you, you start to feel like a chearleader.

Just for completion's sake, here's the actual tier 3 and 4 lists for 3.5e with an explanation of what the tier represents;

Tier 3
Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.
Examples: Bard, beguiler, binder, crusader, dread necromancer, duskblade, factotum, psychic warrior, ranger (wild shape variant), swordsage, warblade

Tier 4
Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.
Examples: Adept, barbarian, hexblade, marshal, ranger, rogue, scout, spellthief, warlock, warmage

As you can see, there's a pretty decent range of class concepts in there to work with for a campaign.

Of the majority of the PHB classes not found within this range;

- wizards, clerics and druids are considered tier 1 (Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party)

- sorcerers are considered tier 2 (Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes).

- fighters, monks and paladins are considered tier 5 (Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 04, 2022, 12:19:27 PM
Just for completion's sake, here's the actual tier 3 and 4 lists for 3.5e with an explanation of what the tier represents;

Tier 3
Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.
Examples: Bard, beguiler, binder, crusader, dread necromancer, duskblade, factotum, psychic warrior, ranger (wild shape variant), swordsage, warblade

Tier 4
Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competence without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.
Examples: Adept, barbarian, hexblade, marshal, ranger, rogue, scout, spellthief, warlock, warmage

As you can see, there's a pretty decent range of class concepts in there to work with for a campaign.

Of the majority of the PHB classes not found within this range;

- wizards, clerics and druids are considered tier 1 (Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played with skill, can easily break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat or plenty of house rules, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party)

- sorcerers are considered tier 2 (Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes).

- fighters, monks and paladins are considered tier 5 (Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly).

One of my most abiding memories of 3.5 is from a friend of mine's ill-fated attempt to run a 15th level campaign. I rolled a druid, and accidentally bypassed his entire campaign by using the "tree walk" spell (or whatever it was called) to cross an entire continent in seconds. As I recall, every high level campaign we tried to do collapsed within one session, and it was usually a druid's fault.

I have to say though, every version of D&D that I've played, including OSR games, falls apart at higher levels for one reason or another.

And these responses are all the reasons why 3.5+ are terrible design goals.

The classes *shouldn't* have equal power. The PCs *should* have the possibility of encountering something else only response is to run away.  I don't want a game on rails with training wheels.

There are *so many* things wrong with the progression from 3.0 onward in trying to make everything equal and fair. Bring back save or die spells. Bring back save or helpless spells. Get rid of feat and ability stacking (whether it's a competence bonus to AC or a deflection bonus to AC, you only get one of them).

I didn't mind 3.0 so much since it was mostly a cleanup of late-era 2e with cleaner math.

5e, hands down.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 04, 2022, 03:51:22 PM
And these responses are all the reasons why 3.5+ are terrible design goals.

The classes *shouldn't* have equal power. The PCs *should* have the possibility of encountering something else only response is to run away.  I don't want a game on rails with training wheels.

I'm on board with games where stuff dramatic stuff can happen on the whim of the dice, where the hard edges haven't been filed off. I'd say I'm more willing to accept that when the game is quick and light. IMO 3.X is rules-heavy enough that campaign-breaking events should be rare, not common.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 04, 2022, 03:51:22 PM
And these responses are all the reasons why 3.5+ are terrible design goals.

The classes *shouldn't* have equal power. The PCs *should* have the possibility of encountering something else only response is to run away.  I don't want a game on rails with training wheels.

There are *so many* things wrong with the progression from 3.0 onward in trying to make everything equal and fair. Bring back save or die spells. Bring back save or helpless spells. Get rid of feat and ability stacking (whether it's a competence bonus to AC or a deflection bonus to AC, you only get one of them).

I didn't mind 3.0 so much since it was mostly a cleanup of late-era 2e with cleaner math.

My take on 3.0 and 3.5 D&D; is that 3.0 was a very cool game, but it wasn't perfect.  Then just 3 years later they released larger more complex versions of all 3 core rulebooks, to supposedly fix 3.0; but they didn't fix it, they just changed it.  Extra money spent on the same books all over again, with more complexity introduced.  Rules, and rules, and more rules; to play the same game.  Between those two, give me 3.0

Quote from: Zelen on September 04, 2022, 05:39:23 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 04, 2022, 03:51:22 PM
And these responses are all the reasons why 3.5+ are terrible design goals.

The classes *shouldn't* have equal power. The PCs *should* have the possibility of encountering something else only response is to run away.  I don't want a game on rails with training wheels.

I'm on board with games where stuff dramatic stuff can happen on the whim of the dice, where the hard edges haven't been filed off. I'd say I'm more willing to accept that when the game is quick and light. IMO 3.X is rules-heavy enough that campaign-breaking events should be rare, not common.

All other things being equal, sure. But stupid choices like "hey, we're 3rd level, we can take that warband of a dozen hill giants. The DM wouldn't have them out here to encounter if they were too tough." or "We don't need to check for traps - we're 20th level" deserve deadly consequences - whether it's being beaten into goo by a mob of giants armed with clubs or being incapacitated as a "mister soon to be living the rest of his short-ass life in agonizing pain" by a deadly demonic spider poison trap.

It doesn't matter how tough they are, there is always someone tougher - if they're demigods, they can still always piss off a greater god, or an archdevil or an elder evil...

I'm not suggesting a "pink-eye" campaign where everyone dies of tetanus three minutes into the first session, but 3.x+ seemed to promote a style of gameplay where bad things *shouldn't* happen to the players.  Try running a young(er) group of players through the Slavers modules and see how much they whine when they're captured at the end of A3 and thrown into the grinder at the beginning of A4... I've done it several times and there was always some variation of "THAT'S NOT FAIR! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO WIN!!!"  It seemed to be the case starting when they revised 3.0 to 3.5 and carries through to 5e.

Quote from: Zelen on September 04, 2022, 05:39:23 PM
I'm on board with games where stuff dramatic stuff can happen on the whim of the dice, where the hard edges haven't been filed off. I'd say I'm more willing to accept that when the game is quick and light. IMO 3.X is rules-heavy enough that campaign-breaking events should be rare, not common.

This is where I end up mushy middle again.  I don't much like "bit by snake, save or die".  It's a little too much.  But I also don't like the "after multiple screw ups to get to this stage, you still get at least 3 rounds of death saves to magic your way out of it," either.  There's an awful lot of design space between the two extremes. Probably not an accident that I want a game more complicated than B/X but less complicated than WotC versions, given that preference.

Quote from: 3catcircus on September 04, 2022, 09:18:50 PM
All other things being equal, sure. But stupid choices like "hey, we're 3rd level, we can take that warband of a dozen hill giants. The DM wouldn't have them out here to encounter if they were too tough." or "We don't need to check for traps - we're 20th level" deserve deadly consequences - whether it's being beaten into goo by a mob of giants armed with clubs or being incapacitated as a "mister soon to be living the rest of his short-ass life in agonizing pain" by a deadly demonic spider poison trap.

What you're talking about is a a cultural shift and change in expectations-of-play that occurred (in a large way) as a result of players growing up on computer games. Seems unfair to pin that on 3E.

I guess there's some argument to be made that the more developed the system is, the more your unconscious expectation is that engaging with the system itself is the right move. i.e If 90% of your character sheet talks about things you can do in a fight, the other ways of engaging with the fictional world are less prominent inherently.