Dnd 3.5e General /DD3/

Sorry shoulda linked your comment, not the OP

The problem with Truespeak isn't the skill checks, which are easy to optimize around, but the weak efforts, lack of versatility, and painfully short duration.

Yeah Frostburn is pretty awesome. Running a solo campaign for my dad using it as the main book, he's fighting a ton of snow shit with his druid/ranger/wizard/arcane hierophant, and his rogue/dragon shaman.

He's level 5 now (hasn't started on arcane hierophant quite yet) but I'm hoping to use the mini adventures in the book. Already had a fun little "help the neanderthals take back the ruined fortress they were living in from the orcs". And a snow goblin tribe has been an essential ally to the PCs and in fact was the one who taught the wizard his spells (he was ranger/druid originally).

This might be a weird question, but I've heard different accounts of a 3rd/3.5 ed supplement called Underdark. I know there's a Drow of the Underdark and a Forgotten Realms Underdark book, but is there just a straight up plain ol' Underdark book for 3rd/3.5? And if there is... are there scans?

It's in the 'forgotten realms setting' folder in OP's link.

Halfweight is fun when dealing with classes that have Armored Caster.

So there's no simple Underdark book, it's the Forgotten Realms Underdark? Ok, thanks.

I am working on a pretty huge dungeon (10+ fights plus puzzles, traps and other encounters) in which the players will be unable to restock on stuff (but they will be able to rest).
The Party is lvl 9, small, and doesn't have a mage. (I won't give more info because i am pretty sure at least one of my players is a fa/tg/uy and i don't want to give too much away, just in case)

I already have the areas mapped out, and encounter ideas for most of them, but maybe some of you have ideas, especially for Area 5 and 6 of them where i am stuck:

>1) Entrance
This is where the PCs enter. Fluff, the main puzzle of the dungeon that allows them to get what they want as well as one encounter per door that leads to areas 2-5. They will foreshadow the areas I am thinking 2 fights, one puzzle and one social encounter.
The later two are the problems, i am having a hard time coming up with something entertaining atm.
>2) The Labyrinth of closed Doors
Each passage in this labyrinth is made from slightly different stone and every door is different, with everything between heavy bronze ones and flimsy wooden ones, but each room is tilled in the same stones. In the rooms will be 'random' things, from spiders to a kitchen, from a friendly ghost to a deadly mist.
>3) The Bird Room
This will be pretty straight forward: A large, high room with a water basin in the middle. There will be flying enemies and the only way to avoid their attacks will be to hide underwater. (But if the players don't do that then there will be a second fight in the water)
I am thinking about using Harpies as the enemies atm, but i am not 100% on that yet.
>4) The Crystal Palace
A large, crystalline area, with crystalline enemies. Do you guys have any good ones for me?
>5) Four Rooms
Here i have honestly no idea. I have planned four large-ish rooms (5*9 squares at least) for big set-piece fights, but that's where i am stuck atm.
I don't even have a theme yet.
>6) Final Room
Cont. in the next post

>6) Final Room
This is where the PCs find what thei where looking for, after fighting the final, and most challenging, boss. I don't have a good grasp of the fight yet, but i want to do something epic with a good amount of tactics. I think i will do something in two stages, but yeah, no clue what exactly.

The Book of Vile Darkness has a lot of fun ideas, though you do need to exercise some caution when using them. Spells like Tongue Slash and Apocalypse from the Sky are good fun, but stuff like Soul's Treasure Lost or Love's Pain can end friendships.

Red Hand of Doom, probably one of the best 3.5 adventures ever made.

i find sandstorm and stormrack real nice but i can't seem to find people who want to play desert or pirates dnd

So, I've found myself helping a friend run a campaign of 3.5. Originally I was simply going to be a player, but the friend is new enough to GMing and to 3.5 that he had one of his friends helping.

Long story short, the 'assistant GM'- from here on out titled 'Ass' (For assistant, not anything else. Wink.) ended up dredging up the shittiest overpowered spells from various third-party books, ended up outrageously overpowered because he talked my naive friend into letting him use a custom prestige class, and ended up just stomping through all of the challenges. When my friend told him to stop doing that shit or get out, the Ass got out.

So now they're still new to running- we only had a handful of sessions- and they asked me to help. We decided on starting up a fresh slate, for the most part- people keep their XP and their magical items that we've gotten so far, but recreate everything with a new set of rules.

One of said rules being that we'll only whitelist certain books that people can use freely. Not that they can't take stuff from other books, only that the players have to bring mine or the GM's attention to the class/feature/race in question and get it okayed.

What's a good starting list of permitted books? I figured all of the Complete stuff, Unearthed Arcana, PHB 1&2 to start with, and my friend irrationally loves drow so I suppose we'll also be using the Underdark books. Do you guys have any suggestions?

There arent really any books that need to be outright baned just aspects of certain books.

I am tired right now and cannot remember the things in question though.

Your friend made the right choice.

My friend is running the Tomb of Horrors tonight. I have backup character sheets for myself and the other three players, but does anyone have any good advice for us to avoid a total wipe?

Treat it like a hardcore crawl. Be paranoid as fuck, have hirelings you can feed into traps, don't take deaths personally, don't I repeat DON'T go ethereal.

Check for taps constantly. Endlessly.

>don't I repeat DON'T go ethereal

Shit, really? I thought I was clever, tossing together a ghost warlock who could be our scout. How fucked is that player?

He's preeeetty dead.

I'm about to run my first session ever using DnD3.5, and it'll be my friends' RPG experience.

I got an adventure ready and know how the basics of DnD works. it'll be a simple dungeon exploration before we start getting into some more advanced stuff(namely before I start writing and/or stealing some more advanced stuff)

could you guys give me some tips and tricks?

The "DM's Best Friend" is literally your best friend.

Basically, you add a +2 for favorable circumstances, a -2 for unfavorable circumstances.

It's the easiest way to get players to be more involved in whatever it is that they're doing and to add more descriptions. Just something like giving a player a +2 to his attack roll against a drow if he drops his shield and uses his free hand to wildly brandish a torch is the kind of thing that makes players think within the world, and that helps a lot.

Don't be afraid to just make up a rule if you don't know. Keep the game flowing, don't get bogged down in rules just yet. Pacing is more critical to having a good time than anything else. Rule of thumb: if players do something that you don't know the rules for, it's a +2 or -2 to their roll. If it's REALLY great/terrible, it's a +/-4 instead. That handy trick has saved my bacon in the past.

To improve your rule mastery: read the rule books on your time and make note cards with important information (what skills do what, the combat maneuvers like charge/bull rush/trip/etc, anything you have difficulty remembering); run mock combats in your spare time so you learn how to move quickly on monster's turns so combats don't bog down; read up on spellcasting and common spells (if you'd take it as a player, expect them to so you should know what it does); read the DMG, especially chapter 2, it's super helpful for new DMs.

>read the DMG, especially chapter 2, it's super helpful for new DMs.

This. It's got genuinely good advice, the kind of stuff that even veteran DM's could stand to pay attention to more.

It's a damn shame that I skipped over most of the DM's guide back when I first started, going straight for the magical items. But, at the same time, I have a feeling that I may not have appreciated the advice as much if I hadn't gotten a few games under my belt first.

>This. It's got genuinely good advice, the kind of stuff that even veteran DM's could stand to pay attention to more.
I've been DMing since I was 9 (almost 20 years) and I still go back and re-read that chapter from time to time, just because it is so handy. DMG2 actually has a good advice chapter too, if I'm honest (rest of that book is iffy IMO).

I just finished reading and re-reading the adventure I'll play, and am now going through DMG

this adventure feels too simple. almost pointless. I guess I'll try tinkering the hobgoblin raiders into something bigger for the next sessions. my sweet delusions of grandeur

>DM's best friend
note taken

is it worth getting a couple images for the creatures? or should I just try to describe them? (I'm afraid I'll do it badly)

Show them the picture on your tablet/laptop (if you have one). If not, use the MM's illustration. Pictures and props make everything go smoothly.

>this adventure feels too simple. almost pointless
Don't worry about that, it'll be fun anyway. Better to have something nice and simple out of the gate than to get overwhelmed by complexity. Remember to KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

>this adventure feels too simple. almost pointless
it would have to be insanly bear bones to be to simple for new guys

>bear bones
fuck now i wanna adjust the legend of the silver skeleton to be about a bear instead of a sucubus

id advise backing up all of those files to a trove.

publishing http links like that is a good way to both get the oener of the site in shit and lise access to the files.

>frcs/players guide to faerun
>manual of the planes/planar handbook/book of vile darkness
>fiendish codex 1/2
>unearthed arcana
>magic item compendium/spell compendium

Problem is not certain books. Though PHB is problematic. It's combinations of abilities and some standalone abilities that can on their own fuck up your game or at least put a strain on inexperienced GM.

If you want to play a game up to high levels ban all casters with 9th level spells. It will be much easier for new GM.

I am thinking about house ruling that Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are not bound to a single weapon, but to the category they are in (combining light and one-handed weapons for simple weapons and folding the exotic into the martial ones) so one would have
Weapon Focus (Simple/One-Handed),
Weapon Focus (Simple/Two-Handed),
Weapon Focus (Simple/Ranged),
Weapon Focus (Martial/One-Handed),
Weapon Focus (Martial/Two-Handed),
Weapon Focus (Martial/Ranged)
and the same with Weapon Specialisation.
Still a lot, but it would allow Martials a little bit more flexibility, so they won't have to pass on a +3 Weapon if they already have a +2 with Weapon Focus and Specialisation.

probably would work at the very least it wont do much harm

if you want to give martials a bit more flexibility give fighters exotic weapon proficiency its a little silly that these masters of combat lack it

Hello guys, I come from the 5e thread and I just wanted to ask a single question.

Is there anything in 3/3.5e close to the Advantage/Disadvantage thing in 5e? The thing is whenever you're making a d20 check, you throw two dice, if you have Advantage then you take the higher, if you have Disadvantage, the lower. This applies to any d20 related check, be it skill, attack roll or saving throw.

Is there anything anywhere in official 3e material that works like this?

Thanks a lot.

Pretty sure there isn't, although I'm not a 3.5 archivist by all means.

I'm wanting to pick a fluffy prestige class for a druid got any recommendations? I'm far more concerned with fun and stuff so it doesn't have to be like super good or anything.

There is some abilities that allow you to have rerolls a couple of times a day. They are mostly luck themed and cost too much.

You could look into Loremaster from the DMG and the Race-Prestige Classes from Unearthed Arcana.

Shit, i am the guy from these posts I am almost as ready as i need to be, but i just realised that i didn't actually look up any crystalline enemies aside from the Stained Glass Golem. I only have a few minutes left until i have to start, do you guys know any ones with a CR between 4-10 ?

Monsters of Faerun has the Gem Golems, try those.

MM3 has the Gulgar, a crystalline themed humanoid. They may be handy too.

Could you tell me where to look?
Spell Compendium?
A "complete splatbook"?

There's nothing like this that I know of. There's the various luck rerolls, but nothing that lets you roll twice at once and pick the best/worst.

As for the various luck rerolls, I believe the feats are found mostly in Complete Scoundrel and a few spells are found in Spell Compendium.

Complete Scoundrel - Luck Feats. They are mostly shit.

Not sure this is the right thread, but I've been trying to amass a collection of the Eberron novels. I have maybe half of them, but the ones missing are:
The War-Torn 1-2, 4
1 The Crimson Talisman
2 The Orb of Xoriat
4 Blood and Honor
The Lanternlight Files 1-3
1 The Left Hand of Death
2 When Night Falls
3 Death Comes Easy
The Abraxis Wren Chronicles 1-2
1 Night of the Long Shadows
2 Taint of the Black Brigade
The Shard Axe 1
1 The Shard Axe
Tales of the Last War (Eberron anthology)
Dragons: Worlds Afire (anthology includes an Eberron story)
Untold Adventures (anthology includes Eberron stories)

Any or all would be appreciated.

Is Cleric still the best class for necromancy?

Dread Necromancer is probably the best necromancer available. Clerics are quite strong at it too. Can't go wrong with either choice.

Excellent, thanks.

See if you can get the DM to give you access to Libris Mortis, lots of good content in there for necromancers.

I've started a new campaign and a couple players at the table told me they wanted to fight against space marine-ish baddies. How should I make them? I've been stumped on it.

Well, that's complicated. What do they mean? Just big tanky dudes in armor? Dudes with guns? Psychic powers? What precisely do they seem to want?

D20 Modern supplement Cyberscape includes options for what they call "golemtech," might be a place to start.

Noted!

Whats a good alternative for the Bodaks Save-or-Die (Death Gaze)

I've done this before home, I got you. First of all make their dirty Zarus, he's basically The Big E in d&d. Need to be han so give them jutenbrod feat at kevel 1 to give them powerful build, higher weapon die, bonuses to lofting caoacity and combat manouvers. Next give them the blooded one template, it can only be applied to youths and will probably kill any adult trying to do it, it sets them in a tank with blood and gives them a few stat boost, +2 str +4 con -2 into and +2 natural armor with combat reflexes o top of all that. They will probably need a couple of levels in fighter depending on what type of marines you want and they're feat intensive, but use the resolve alternative class feature to replace the level 2 bonus feat with resolve which will up their will saves. Ferocious barbarian is a good starting class, str and dex boost without any hits to targeting people outside of 30 feet with ranged and no -2 to ac.

Equipment wise is where shit could get pricey, clockwork armor is basically light power armor, +4 str and dex, good ac, 5 foot speed increase. For a boltgun substitute use a heavy repeating crossbow with dragon fire bolts that deal another +2d6 damage to each bolt.

Really depends on what type of marine you're wanting to build fluff wise though but these are a few things that I've used.

Thanks for all the info! I'll use a bit of it.

As mentioned I wanted a psion or two mixed in with clericw for chaplains, I should be able to do what they've been looking for with this.

Thanks for the input m8s

I've found that 3.5e is the best edition if you want to play with undead. Libris Mortis was written for it, and there's a Lich prestige class template for high-level casters.

That actually looks pretty nasty on paper. I could see the rending weapon property used for chain weapons.

I'm working on a campaign right now and I was wondering, how do you handle LA+ races for character creation?
I personally allow LA+1 races with no negative to exp gain since I like running high power.

How would you guys improve 3.5? Because Pathfinder really didn't do much in my opinion.

I would:

> make 3/4ths the highest BAB
> better yet reorganize the save bonuses (1/2 level + 2 and 1/3rd level) to work for both save bonuses and attack bonuses
> balance AC more in general, lower attack bonuses so they are less fucking insane
> but not to 5e levels
> fewer autistic feat chains, characters automatically get feats but monsters don't
> thus preserving player options but making it so you dont have to pick 500 feats for a high level monster
> Deadly Agility from Pathfinder is a core feat

I like 5e in some ways but honestly it takes the bounded accuracy meme a little bit too far, and I like the feats themselves but not how they work. I also don't like the free weapon finesse / dex to damage. And that is coming from someone who likes playing Dex-based characters. I had a drizzt-esque ranger that had weapon finesse and deadly agility, but handing it out for free just seems too easy.... I dunno.

I would also like to keep the SoD spells but give them a risk of killing the caster as well: so like you have to do a DC 5 or DC 10 will save when casting slay living or the spell backfires and kills you instead. I loved the powerful spells in 3.5, 5e just feels neutered. I enjoy both editions but 3.5 is just so clearly my favorite.

Agree with this. LA+1 isn't even worth a full level, it's worth half a level at best. Hobs and Catfolk for example. Yeah they are superior but not worth an entire level in a class.

Personally I don't give much of a fuck about respective power level and I let people play what they want unless it has racial hit dice. Then you need to pirate Savage Species and learn their rules, which aren't actually that complex.

This misses the biggest thing that needs fixing: the entire skill system. In fact, repairing the skill system alone solves a lot of my issues with the game.

What I try to do sometimes is find a stat block of a half-whatever version of a race and turn that into the baseline stats for player characters to use. This leaves the monster stats for monsters and a simple fluff separation between the weaker civilized "monster" races and whatever corrupted, cursed, or god-forsaken outcasts roam the dungeons and wilderness.

So, play FantasyCraft?

Don't you die on me, /dd3/.

Late reply, but I always allow buy-off. Eventually, most people end up catching up. That said, I feel like most LA races aren't really that great, save stuff like Goliath for ubercharger builds.

>fix the way skill points are allocated.
I will write up some more details on this in a later post
>give fighters exotic weapon proficiently
>less feat chains
i dont mind a few but it gets a bit silly at times (although not as bad as they are in pathfinder at least)
>adjust the price of some mundane items to make a bit more sense
>remove component pouches

nah in 5e you will get bonuses to your roll instead or sometimes a reroll but in almost all cases if you choose to reroll you have to take the second result.

i think there are a few things that let you reroll and chose which to use but they are usualy very specific

unfortunantly the druid is probably the class with the least prestige options but you could talk to your dm about the stormlord from complete divine its not hard to adjust it to remove the talos worship the book gives some advice on the matter.

instead of dying instantly from the gaze then rising 24 hours later as a bodak have the gaze kill somebody after 24 hours with imedient raising unless they can get into sunlight before the 24 hours is up.

makes it a race against the clock

the system itself is mostly fine its the way points are earnt thats the probem

alright skill system.

As is the skill system has a problem of favoring wizards far to much with the amount of skill points they get and shafting everybody else especially fighters. The class skill system does a good job of keeping things from getting to out of hand (and then paizo decided to make the problem even worse in pathfinder by changing the system) but its not really ideal.

the obvious solution is to allocate points based on the primary stat however this still hurts MAD classes so its not ideal.

unfortunatly i do not really have a solution and i fear the whole thing may just be to baked in to the balance of the game to fix without fucking everything else up

>What books do you considrr essential for newbs?
manual of the planes
dieties and demigods
epic level handbook

Can you use Share Soulmeld to share Soulspark Familiar... with your Soulspark Familiar?
Then you can grab a level of druid for the animal companion, and a level of wizard for a familiar, then eventually a mount. Then you have five soulsparks, an animal, a familiar, and a celestial mount.

Is there a way you can 'graft' feats or abilities onto companions like that? Maybe a cohort with all three companions and Share Soulmeld too...

I was thinking about Stormlord being a possible one, that or Holt Warden from Complete Champion

I have an idea, but i will say upfront that it isn't anything final, more of a jumping off point:
Firstly, revamp the Skill list. Expand it a bit but also (for example) replace Spot, Search and Listen with Perception and Balance, Climb, Jump and Tumble with Acrobatics.
Increase the Average Skillpoints per level a bit, with less of a spread between Classes, say 3/4/5 plus Modifier, (or maybe more/less depending on the number of total skills).
And on Modifiers: I think it would help if it where highest mod. from the mental abilities (Int/Cha/Wis) as well as highest mod. from the physical abilities (Str/Dex/Con). This would help MAD characters as well as basically everybody aside from Mages.
I would also do away with the double cost for out of class skills, but impose something like a 3/4 max limit on those instead.

Also, and this is something a bit different, i would codify degrees of success and would give examples for the DM.

Lion of Talisid

The problem with Druid PrCs is that literally none of them except for the ultrabusted Planar Shepherd are more flavorful or powerful than raw Druid 20.

No, I don't like FantasyCraft much. It's okay but it just seems like a mess.

I'd honestly just delete the class skills list altogether. Make certain classes have reserved skills that you can only take ranks in if you have at least 1 level in that class (such as spellcraft, umd, disable device, open lock).

If you're going to stick with skill points I would rather go that way.

So guys I'm looking for some nice forest maps to run a adventure about hags, any suggestions?

bunch more maps here
archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/mw

>archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/mw
Thank you sir!

What's the point of having a morning star with an axe blade on one side? "Today the Worm Giant feels like crushing big skulls instead of chopping tiny people. This pleases the Worm Giant"

Well, the worm giant is made of worms. They're not very intelligent.

Or perhaps half of them voted on using an axe, half of them voted on using a morning star, and the one tiebreaker was like "I HAVE AN IDEA."

Does all three damage types: bludgeoning and piercing from the morning star, slashing from the axe head.

So, anyone running a 3e campaign in here, other than me? (and I'm ending it in like 3 sessions)

i have not had a game in years

but i think i might be able to run one soon

Damn, that's a shame man. No players? No interest?

I'm running my own campaign for half a year now. 3.5 edition in forgotten realms. I actually get decent RP even though I'm GMing for 6 players.

Where at in the Realms? It wouldn't happen to be Tethyr, would it?

Half orc monk. Backstory involves getting kicked out of their clan for being half breed. Generally lawfull good but lets the orc side go bezerek every now and then, usually ends up in trouble.

Suggestions for patron deity?

What pantheon? Greyhawk? Eberron? Faerun?

Grewhawk would be Kord.
Eberron would be who cares its eberron gods don't matter.
Faerun would be Tempus probably, maybe Tyr if you're into Justice.

Close guess. My campaign is set in Amn mostly concentrating around Shadow Thieves. They had to choose what is the lesser evil when party's paladin, needs help to rescue his love from her abusive noble family. The elven wizard has to reach the highest authorities of shadow thieves to find who may have killed his beloved mother while he only has clues. Every party member has some problem that is only easy to solve if made in a way againt their morality that is tested all the time. (Every party member is LG or NG)