What went wrong?

Nothing beyond some wasted pages and ink. The existence of bad optional material does not lesson the quality of good optional material.

Pact Magic is an absolute delight and has provided me more than enough characters to justify the book for me.

Well, not much.
Pact magic was the best subsystem in dnd.
Shadow Magic was good, and barring some spells, it was more than on-par with normal spellcasting.
Truenaming suffered a bit from the 'higher the level, the more difficult it becomes' syndrome, but was nonetheless a good idea.

>all this binding love
Aww yeah. What was with only 8 spirit levels though? I remember some guy sold a book with up to level 9

That also struck me as odd to have 8th level vestiges but I wonder if it worked with whatever method the designers were using to gauge the vestiges' power. Secrets of Pact Magic was the third-party expansion on pact magic with up to 9th level vestiges. Although he calls them spirits and has them be more like ascended beings than the zero-summed ego fragments that vestiges are.

It's 2016 and you still play 3.5

>2016
>Not playing the best edition DnD

anyone got a link for the uninitiated?

google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://choisey.free.fr/3.5/Help/Tome%20of%20Magic.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwituOmxhbrNAhXGVT4KHalWBCEQFggeMAE&usg=AFQjCNGPNtYekYvLgwm9VENOaB8wODjzcQ&sig2=IfBz7FFmkHxdp9Ar0qU28g

It's 2016 and you don't play pathfinder?

I was sceptical at first, but now i could never go back to 3.5.

Right? 5e's playerbase is already pretty big but it could be bigger.

Nice shitpost.
3.5 edition is best edition.

I'm interested in this.

I'm trying to imagine how that would look. Might do a homebrew if I can set aside time for it.
I can see three different pact-magic classes:
A cleric expy
A rogue expy with kind of a faceless men ala Game of Thrones flavor
A barbarian expy that uses vestiges to fuel berserk rages
A 'cultist' NPC class, because I really feel that MoI, XPH, and ToB really needed some new NPC classes so DM's could make more use of their subsystems for mooks.

Some vestiges I would add:
Martial vestiges each tied to one of the nine disciplines from Tome of Battle.
A few essentia-using vestiges to bridge the book together with Magic of Incarnum.
A bunch of tarot card based vestiges so we can get our JoJo references in there.

Pathfinder breaks as much as it fixes.

The binder is probably THE most fun, unique and flavorful class 3.5 while still being useful mechanically.

Frankly it is criminally underexposed and the fact that it had it's rep ruined by sharing page space with the Truenamer is a tragedy.

If 5e was doing as well as 5anboys think it is, they wouldn't feel such a need to shill.

There actually is a pretty great 3rd party material for both 3.5 and Pathfinder that's been around for a while for Pact Magic specifically.
There's a companion book called 'Villains of Pact Magic' too.
Check 'em out. They're the only 3rd party books I've ever purchased, and I felt like they were worth it.

psh we all know truenamer is the best class.

Fuck off Trent

They only bothered working on the first third of the book. they didn't bother playtesting the other two, leading to massive mechanical flaws. They completely phoned-in the fluff on the second and third chapters as well, rendering useful and flavorful ideas dull and uninteresting.

So I want to grapple the town guard.

If you grapple a guard in any setting/edition, you're fucked.

Shadow magic does, in fact, work fine as printed. If you're after more options, this is by far the best:

giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74519-Descent-of-Shadows-Project-Shadow-Returns

I don't think those are necessary. I once ran a game that replaced PHB Martials with the ToB, replaced wizards with Psions and Incarnates, replaced Sorcerers with Wilders. Replaced Clerics with Warlocks and Divine Minds and Binders, Replaced Druids with Totemists, and removed all spells, magic items, and special abilities not replicated by those power sets. I created my own Truenamer class that was just an expanded Dracolexi who automatically got the Words of Creation and Dark Speech feats.

The effort actually balanced out most of the flaws in the 3.5 system. Not all, but the majority of exploits and rules pitfalls evaporated.

More, in my experience. It adds bloat to an already bloated system.

>2016
>Not tearing up in joy and amazement playing FATAL
>enjoy your poorly written unrealistic shitgame

What about psychic warriors? Did you have them too?

Left them in as paladin-analogs. There's little overlap between their power list and Psions, though.

>totemists
where are those from

>replace all magic with psionics
the problem I have with that is that there is actually a big difference in the feel of a lot of psionic powers vs magic.
I think a setting like that could work, but I'm not sure if I like it.

Which is why I was going with the 'no generic magic' idea. Also, stuff like paladins, rangers, and bards aren't exactly a problem, each had unique specialty and feel.
Binders, Shadow magic, and other unique and specialized magic classes felt good.
And replacing martials with ToB.

The problem I was having was dealing with divine magic. I new I was going to have the bigger miracles tied to needing places/times/items of power to the god, but was still working on the healing problem.

>where are those from

Magic of Incarnum

I can't begin to imagine Totemists and Incarnates being even remotely able to compete with the likes of Psions, or even with Tome of Battle classes.

> You
Quit being.

never read that, it came out when I was moving away from dnd for a bit.

this is another problem, Psions are almost at the power of wizards. And don't feel like magic, and at the same time are too broad for my idea of having a system about schools and types of power. ToB fit well there.

I was considering having Divine Souls, but with very restricted spell lists depending heavily on diety.
Clerics and druids were non-adventuring classes. Tied to places, items, times and rituals, and had 'expert' level combat progression. Certain big wizard/sorceror spells could also be one, but took a lot more prep work.

>PHB Martials with the ToB
Sure.

>replaced wizards with Psions and Incarnates
>Psions
Should have used Ardents.

>replaced Sorcerers with Wilders
Sure.

>Replaced Clerics with Warlocks and Divine Minds and Binders
>Divine Minds
kys

>Replaced Druids with Totemists
Sure.

>I created my own Truenamer class
...sure?
>that was just an expanded Dracolexi
Good taste.

Incarnum prepare buffs that use magic item slots.

Psionics not feeling like magic is just failing at re-fluffing.
>Psions are almost at the power of wizards.
Hah, hah, no. They're noticeably weaker than sorcerers.

>Magic item slots
I might include them as a different 'school'.

>failure of refluffing.
no, refluffing has limits. The effects at the end are both to general to fit my idea, and having a distinct psykic feel.
Or at least that how it felt those years ago when I last read it.

>weaker than sorcerors.
debatable, and that's still way stronger than ToB options.

D&D magic has really fucking weird fluff. D&D psionics is closer to how magic works in most other settings.

Eh, not really. Are you just counting nonsense like planar binding efreets as far as "weaker than sorcerers?" Because if not, psions are top notch.

Their buffs are amazing, and they have a variety of stuff that wizards only wish they could have. Mindsight and Touchsight alone are a Godsend, as wizards have very VERY weak anti ambush protection (about all they have is Prying Eyes) while a psion can probably scout out the next room before he even goes in, reliably.

>the problem I have with that is that there is actually a big difference in the feel of a lot of psionic powers vs magic.
Mumblemumbleblast of fire.
handwave handwave the party can see in the dark
humming and holding your temples, heavy object floats into the air.
twiddles fingers and bolts of electricity shoot out.

They literally 'feel' exactly the same. Rename the Telekineticist an 'Evoker' and the Clairsentient to a 'Diviner' and the 'Metacreative' to a 'Conjuror'. And you're done.

>roll for anal circumference

Now, did you just refluff everything to look like a bog standard D&D campaign? Or did you do anything interesting with the setting?

I did a couple of one-shots with XPH, MoI, and ToB with all the PHB classes banned, but I did it as kind of a Dark Sun + Oriental Adventures fusion with Buddhist flavored psionics and meldshaping fluffed as past-life-regression magic.

like I said, it's been a while,
but you did actually point out the big difference
>mumble mumble
>handwave
things you don't need to do as a psion. There are no components to their actions, it just comes into being from pure though.

The guy who did the Secrets of Pact Magic supplement has put out several updated versions that are PF compatible and have several pact magic classes and archetypes, if you're interested. Some of it's on the SRD, under Radiance House press.

Still, though, I would definitely contribute to a homebrew expansion on the 3.5 version of pact magic. I like its flavor a lot better than SoPM.

You know, I don't really see much stuff having magic use gesticulations and verbal components compared to those that don't. Sometimes there's evil cults chanting and so forth but more often do I see magic as a silent act of will.

setting dependent and feel.

Not necessarily always true, and to an extent a matter of preference, but if you want magic to not just be the effect, but tied to different styles of accompanying aesthetic touches, this does undercut the 'magical' nature of those powers.

Given that I was also trying to focus on having the powerful magic tied to rituals, props, etc etc. Psions would be a bad fit for a type of magic for my purposes.
The wide scope of power choices making it even worse.

>setting dependent and feel.

Well no shit, that's covered by... the first sentence in my post.

I have always been in love with the Binder. It has more flavor than any other class I've ever seen. I even ran a quest thread about it for a while. But I have yet to ever play one being forever a DM. And now that my groups have all moved on to new games I doubt that I ever will.

>3.5
>being so devoid of creativity that you need rules for roleplaying

my sides

I guess, the other post you linked rejected there being any difference in 'feel', and I read it as a rejection of the idea that gestures and magic words could be seen (in the sense of understood rather than observed), as an important part of the feel of magic.

Especially as we are talking about D&D, which is a setting where those components are a part of it.

I suppose it was a defensive reading, but I was getting attacked for trying to say that psionics didn't feel like magic, and that this was tied to the rules not something that could just be fluffed away.

Nothing you pleb. This book was great.

I was just responding to both, but yeah.

Personally I only like verbal components when a higher (or lower) being is being invoked, or when its some sort of true name/words of Creation type dealy. The Malleus Maleficarum has the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable practices be some sort of utterance or audible component.

I'll check this off, thanks.

You know what I'm thinking?
Plug all those into the city generation rules from the DMG (plus the web-expansion) and stat out a city of manifesters, meldshapers, initiates, and binders.

Gotta have immigrant districts for githyanki and githzerai in there. If githyanki are living in the city then there's got to be a slave quarter district as well. And if you are going to have a slave quarter, you may as well have a coliseum district as well. Thri-kreen and other nomadic races are going to need a caravan district. Duergar are going to want an undercity district.
Maybe stick in an ancient mishtai remnant neighborhood now populated with relict skarn and rilkan. Hmmm... What else?

It was about average quality for a 3e supplement. Nothing horrifically wrong besides the Truenamer, which proves they didn't playtest, the ultimate RPG crime.

Different DnD editions are good for different things.
3.PF is for when you want gonzo character-building spellslinging fun that you can dial up or down in power. 'Everything and the kitchen sink'.

4e is for when you want a well thought-out, cinematic action fantasy game that gives you more freedom in character building than other editions, thanks to the ease of reskinning and making it hard to shoot yourself in the foot like in 3e.

And 5e is for... I'm not sure. Everything you can do with it is either handled better by an older edition, or a different game. There's not much point to it.