3.5 Problems

It doesn't matter what HP represent, it's the fact that most mid to late game monsters and characters have so many that combat takes forever unless you focus on ability damage, which non-casters rarely have access to.

This has been explained to you probably a hundred times now, and you're still clinging to this bizarre "It's meat points except when it's clearly not" bullshit that's essentially "My argument is just me dancing around all the times I've been proven wrong."

How do you not get tired of this? Everyone is just about tired of having to explain it to you, just for you to go through a new set of mental gymnastics to prove that yes, if you do your best to work against the system, it's not going to work well with you. Something that could be said about any system, you dumbfuck.

I don't know who shit in your conrflakes, and I'm not apologizing for them either.
I'm not here to blindly fling around hate, I'm hear to pick apart a classic and see how it could be improved, and/or if it has any legitimately broken features. It has nothing to do with trolling or shilling. I have no idea why you're so upset.

I'm not sure who you think I am, but ain't me

Not him but we have this fucking thread EVERY SINGLE DAY.

We get it. You don't like 3.5. Just don't play it and move on with your life.

Oops, meant to

No, you're not, because you started off with bullshit, and continued with further bullshit.

You really need to stop trying to get all your information about a game from trolls, because it's clear that most of the "issues" you've initially decided to bring up are just the lukewarm collection that the same idiots try to exaggerate as being far more dramatic than they actually are.

Like, at what point are you even caring about low-light vision? That's practically a racial ribbon, and that's fine.

These threads are a bizarre circlejerk for a small group of fags, and you're pretending that they're anything but, for reasons I can only assume are that you're tired of people seeing these threads for what they are, and now want to try and lure some fresh idiots in to try and discuss the game with a group of trolls who are more interested in complaining than "analysis.

1.We don't.
2. Why do you keep going into threads you don't enjoy?
3. No.

> and continued with further bullshit.
Thus far my only posts have been the ones to ask people like you to calm their tits.

Where's your nine good things.
If your answers are as half-assed as your nine complaints, then it's going to be very hard for anyone to take you seriously.

The argument is that low-light vision simply doesn't need to exist at all. Darkvision does everything it does and more, only two races have low-light vision at all, and it barely comes into play specifically. Why did the designers keep it at all instead of replacing it wholesale with Darkvision?

I'm not participating in his/your little farce, mate. Whether or not I can name 9 good things about is irrelevant, and even if I did you'd likely pick out 1-3 that you personally disagreed with and claim the entire list moot from that point.
It would be an exercise in arbitrary futility.

What do you care if people badmouth 3.5, just don't read the thread. No one is forcing you to contribute.

>I'm not a troll
>okay, don't be a troll
>fuck you, let me just troll for fuck's sake

Okay. Go on and troll, I won't bother with even pretending to take you seriously anymore.

There had been a "D&D/d20 sucks" troll for the past month or so.

I assume he's also the one spamming the martials vs casters threads.

Considering the ubiquity of those threads, I (and probably the other posters) wonder if you are just not a regular, or pretending or something.

I say Lowlight should be kept, and Darkvsion made more rare. The ability to see clearly in pitch-black darkness is a fantastic boon that gets thrown around way too haphazardly.

Another acceptable solution that the designers didn't consider.

The prior. I cruse through Veeky Forums semi-regularly, but generally jump out of any thread that devolves into edition wanking. Since just 2(?) days ago a guy had a thread asking about pathfinder that derailed into 3.5 analyzation I'd hoped to continue it. Which, save for that one guy calling me a troll, is actually going pretty well.

My buddy and I are trying to get into table top stuff. Should we start with 3.5 or 4? We've heard so many different opinions.

5e if you're dead set on D&D.

Alright, quick list:

Mostly objective (I mean, liking balance is a subjective thing, so you may not consider these problems... anyway):
- Numbers scaling is out of whack on defenses. AC doesn't really scale, while attack bonus does. This leads to AC just not really functioning after a while, and weird stats for enemies where giant eagles have natural armor that's harder than actual armor for some reason to have level appropriate AC. The difference between your best and worst saves goes from about +2-ish to 6; making it so that saves that can be saved by one character easily are near impossible for another character.
- Scaling on combat maneuvers is worse, especially since they just stop functioning after a while
- Scaling on stat checks is just nonexistant, while the difficulties do scale.
- Scaling on skills is weird. Some skills "max out", some skills have no cap.
- Damage difference between fighting styles (two handed/sword and board TWF, finesse) is not even in the same ballpark.
- All scaling assumes level appropriate magic items, but forgets to tell this in the CRB.
- CR is entirely broken and useless for its intended purpose, intentionally so at parts (i.e. making Dragons overpowered for their CR).
- the uneven powerlevel of core only classes makes levels also a shitty form of gauging the strength of the character, again, making it useless for its intended purpose
- multiclass XP fuckery

Subjective:
- Too many spells, too few feats. Both the content in the book, but also balance-wise, feats are massively overvalued while spell access is under.
- The spell list is large, but is often shared, making the casting classes less unique, but still more unique than...
- Non-caster, 4/9 caster classes get very, very little options, and are incredibly samey in play (although they tend to be mechanically different, what they achieve with that difference is the same). This is more obvious in PF.

I don't even know what that is. We aren't necessarily going D&D but probably something sword and sorcery. Pathfinder I guess? Are there threads for new players around here very often?

Consider 5e instead. Although 4e is not a bad beginner game, 5e is more supported at the moment, and simpler to boot.

I honestly prefer 4e, but only with a group who know what they are getting into.

5e is the 5th edition of D&D. It is the current edition in print/being supported/most popular.

There's basically always a 5eg (5th edition general) up on Veeky Forums who are eager to help. Or call you shit.

Thanks anons. I actually thought 4th was the latest edition. I'll keep an eye out for that.

5e is common shorthand for the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. It is the most recent publishing of the rules and the one that is currently in print. It fixes a lot of problems that the older editions had and also streamlines play and mechanics to make it easier for new players to understand. You also won't need to go hunting online or in used bookstores for the rulebooks, and you will have little trouble finding a group.

I would have recommended 4e to those who want a lot of tactical combat and 5e if the group wants a lighter game with more focus on exploration.

I would recommend Dungeon Crawl Classics if you're looking for something retro, or Fantasy Craft if you're looking for something crunchy.

I wouldn't really recommend DCC to a newbie. Most of the old-school flare will be lost on someone just getting into the hobby, and it has a few odd conventions even by grognard standards.

> Scaling on skills is weird. Some skills "max out", some skills have no cap.
Elaborate.

Fair points, but idk what else to recommend that's relatively easy to pick up. Old School Hack is solid, but almost too simple, and so different that it doesn't introduce many transitive conventions. FC is good, but mega-crunchy. Anything D&D-like is either very crunchy or very abstracted; there's no real middle ground.
GURPS is solid too, but like FC it's so crunchy I second-guess suggesting it to a newbie.

>cont
- Skill points are needlessly complex, skill list is too long (fucking use rope, really?), skills are obsoleted by spells too easily.
- BAB scaling is pointless, when the difference between 3/4th and full are made up with a few self-only buffs anyway, and 1/2 BAB classes won't even attack.
- Full casters being able to reorganize their spells on a whim (except sorcerer). In fact, I have grown to quite dislike vancian casting.
- Linear fighter, quadratic wizard in full force
- Encourage multiclassing, but then punish it with EXP penalty
- Crafting rules
- Magic item treadmill
- Feat chains with elements that don't build on each other and other feat taxes.
- Modifiers from stats. Sacred cow that could easily be sidestepped. It's not that bad, but stats are also more important in this edition (since the bonus scales with every 2 points instead of maxing out at 18 at +3) which means...
- Rolling for stats. Even if its optional, it fucks with the already pretty shitty balance.
- On that note, rolling for health, another sacred cow.
- Dead levels
- Methods that fuck the action economy easily available.
- Too many stacking bonuses.
- Too many situational modifiers (you have like, 3 kinds of AC).
- All this combines into a really overcrowded character sheet and a lot of (admittedly small) calculations per roll.
- Full attacks make fights un-dynamic.
...

Fuck, I could go on all night.

There's no point to put more into Use Rope than what is the highest DC possible with it (15, I think).

By the same token, Climb maxes out at 30, everything over that is straight impossible.

Hide/Move silently/Spot/Acrobatics and other contested skills however you need to keep up because it scales with your enemies.

>Mostly objective
>proceeds to list mostly subjective complaints

Damn son. Learn what words mean before you try using them.

I did preface it that considering them faults is subjective, but they are still objectively true and lead to consequences that, if intended, are very weird, to say the least.

he did preface that shit

ty.

The preface is bullshit though, because there's other considerations beyond "liking balance" that are ignored, alongside subjective judgement calls pretending to be treated as objective calculations.

I'll give you multiclass XP fuckery.

How's the rest subjective though? It's literally math.

3.5 takes a completionist approach to rules. It tries to have specific, detailed rules to cover just about everything. This makes it overly-complicated and cumbersome. It also makes the task of balancing everything that much harder, and that's a task it badly failed. So you have complicated, interlocking rules that are fucked up, which is a terrible state of affairs.

If a rules-light system misbalances something, it's no big deal. More rests on loose GM judgment calls and improvisation, and you can probably tweak something without setting off a chain reaction or having unforeseen consequences. Since it's rules-light, it's easy to build on top of. And with the rules-light game, maybe they sacrificed some quality in order to keep things simple. No game can do everything well, and there will always be trade-offs. But if your rules-heavy game is significantly flawed, what excuse does it have? What is the point of all those extra rules?

The majority of your "objective" complaints are largely just you failing to understand the system and its intentions. Even the ones I agree with I at least understand that for some of them there are fair reasons behind them, and I think part of your issues come from not reading the DM's guide well enough, particularly the guidelines for constructing an encounter.

And, above all else, you like to exaggerate like a drama queen.

>The majority of your "objective" complaints are largely just you failing to understand the system and its intentions.

Go ahead then. This thread is one for education.

I just came back to Veeky Forums after several months and I keep seeing this excuse to defend 3.5 which is already mindboggling for me that Veeky Forums is doing that.
>your (...) complaints are largely just you failing to understand the system and its intentions

What exactly is people failing to understand? the only thing this says to me is "It is supposed to be an Ivory Tower type of game".

>inb4: I won't explain things to an obvious troll.
>inb4: It's been explained before so I won't explain it again. No, I won't link any sources either.
>inb4: You don't know? Wow, you must be stupid!

I think that about covers everything the defense force might bring up.

Calm down ladies, you're all beautiful.

My complains about 3.5 are mostly the unbalanced choices between classes. I don't even mind the fact that wizards get to be more killy than fighters, the fact that they get a lot more options on HOW to do killy stuff is what annoys me.

A fighter can't jump more than his height, a wizard have so many flavors on how to cross that gap is not funny. A fighter attacks a guy? Reduce his HP, a wizard? he gets a ful list on how to deal with that guy.

A nice thing I can say about 3.5 is that I loved the customization and always had more fun playing it that playing GURPS, yes, even when my DMs gf was playing a wizard and I was playing a fighter. My favorite class of all time is Artificer.

Don't forget he just suddenly goes utterly silent.

Oh, silly me, I forgot
>disregards arguments, responds with memes

There really needs to be a bingo card for this sort of thing.

if you're new to tabletop rpgs then please DON'T start with something like pathfinder. at least thats my opinion. 5e DnD is a great gateway game that is forgiving and simple for new players, but has enough depth to be fun and interesting to almost all.

> false-samefagging
BINGO!

user, please, we can all see the post counter. You aren't fooling anyone.

5e is your best modern option. Moldvay Basic (B/X) or a clone of it (like Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry*) if you want to go for a retro-feel. Old school D&D isn't going to give you many mechanical options when it comes to character-building (more stress is put on improvising checks and adjustments based off character backgrounds), and the rules can be rather ad hoc (instead of a unified resolution system, you have different subsystems using different dice for different tasks), but Moldvay Basic is much shorter and easier to learn than even 5e (which made some effort to simplify things compared to its modern predecessors). Moldvay Basic is comprised of two sets, each with a single 64-page booklet, and you only need the first set to start playing (it takes you up to level 3). Compare this to 5e, where the core books (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) total almost 1000 pages.

*Technically S&W is based on Original D&D, but S&W Core is based on core OD&D + the Greyhawk Supplement, which is the same thing Basic D&D was based on, so they're very similar. Check out S&W White Box if you want a brass-tacks game (more classes are in the White Box Heroes supplement).

Of course, D&D isn't your only option, especially if you are getting together your own group rather than trying to join already existing ones. You might want to check out something like Barbarians of Lemuria (see pick).

>Barbarians of Lemuria,Mythic Edition (current edition) -- mediafire.com/folder/7llc83r2xf8bg/Barbarians_of_Lemuria_-_Mythic_Edition

>Barbarians of Lemuria, Legendary Edition (earlier edition, shorter but not as refined) --mediafire.com/download/p5w885sa9a869ma/Barbarians Of Lemuria - Legendary Edition.pdf

>Barbarians of Lemuria, House Rules / Patches for Legendary Edition (if you want minimalism of Legendary, but with the rules tightened up) -- mega.co.nz/#F!CtQR2bST!y_awB-GHCiL3CdK4iLCV7A

you don't have to fool a fool

> BoL
I redact my previous suggestions and change them to BoL

Heavy insistence on powergaming from the community rather than group play.

Seriously, 3.5 is fun when your group shows their collective Wisdom/Charisma scores are better than their Intelligence scores. Play to enjoy it rather than push the limit, same with a number of older systems that've fallen by the wayside.

Heck, AD&D was fun and had the same flaws - caster supremacy, infuriating rules, HP bloat, etc. But stiffing the game design for failure has as much to do with the players pushing beyond enjoying the game and treating it like a min-maxing MMO.

Then again, my group has been fun in nearly every setting and system for about 20 years now. Your mileage may vary.

The multi classing EXP penalty is really easy to game... though it means splashing instead of really splitting between two classes. As long as you are maining your races favored class(any for humans), as long as you keep your splashes within a couple levels of each other you will never be penalized.

> hp bloat
Not as bad as 4e or 5e.

> Combat maneuver impracticality
"a bloo bloo I can't wrestle a dragon!"

> AC is mostly determined by your worn armor
This is every D&D edition. In fact 5e is worse at this because there are fewer options to increase AC in a dex-based build.

I always hear this defense and wonder why people would play D&D if not to mess with the system. There are tons of games with less cumbersome rules sets and easier story telling. The only point 3.5 wins on is the really modular rule set and the massive amount of content templating how to make more.

Barbarians of Lemuria is a fucking terrible game. Your character's effectiveness is based entirely on how much you can bully the DM into thinking your careers are relevant.

lmaoing at 5e where wearing armor makes it harder for an electricity spell to touch you. I suppose there could be a Faraday cage effect...

Later editions have bigger issues, so the fact 3.5 has issues is irrelevant?

> can't carry banter w/out it turning into a shit show
No user, you are that guy.

3.5 > 4 > 5e > moldvay > AD&D 2e > AD&D 1e > OD&D white box

What the fuck does banter have to do with it? Did you even read / understand my fucking post?

I rest my case.

That's just mean man.

It isn't, but you keep starting threads about 3.5 so clearly you think it has bigger issues.

tl;dr: I don't like 5E because HP explodes relative to damage and a lot of other reasons, I posted as much, Autism Supreme up there pretends that that's not a valid reason to dislike a game and thinks HP bloat is an uncommon term that wasn't used nonstop during 4E or anything, then some troll starts spamming my complaint in every D&D troll thread on the board until we get where we are right now.

He's not me bro.
The amount of false samefaging in this thread is incredible.

It's true.

> Not as bad as 4e or 5e.
-but still really bad.

> "a bloo bloo I can't wrestle a dragon!"
Try, "I provoke an attack of oprotunity and suffer a disadvantage to my attack checks if I do anything other than roll-to-damage, unless I dedicate 3+ feats to improving a single alternative action.

> This is every D&D edition

OSR D&D

"HP bloat" was something dramatic in early 4e, but with a very simple fix. It's no longer an issue worth mentioning except for in a "Well this was an early problem" sort of way.

It's hardly worth mentioning in any other edition, and it's now largely just a meme used by people upset about the bare idea of HP and try to come up with bizarre reasons to dislike it.

no we don't
it leads to my issue
nobody talks about 3.5, the generals segregate by edition and nobody does 3e/3.5e....

If you have to fix it at all, it's broken.

>It's hardly worth mentioning in any other edition
It halved the power of blasting spells and sword and board in the transition from 2E to 3E. That's not 'hardly worth mentioning'.

That's a feature, not an issue. If you want fragile, disposable characters, play at low levels.

>broken
That's a strong word for a relatively minor fix.
Call it marred, call it flawed, but if you can play with a toy, you can't really call it broken.

No, it was an issue caused by the fact that playtesting never went above 6th level.

You might want to come back when you actually want to discuss the game honestly.

I already was. You can't claim that lowered damage is a feature when it wasn't applied evenly.

Ah, I see the issue. You're looking at the modular rules as a way to get as many advantages as possible.

Instead, look at 3.5's many rules and options as ways to tweak a game to reflect the character you want to play. Pull in the optional rules from stuff like Unearthed Arcana (or d20 Modern, if you're really looking for it), and you can run something as gritty realistic as a Dark Heresy 1E game, or something as overpowered as say, Exalted.

But, with all of those in mind, you've still got access to all the campaign settings and the extremely deep worlds already around for some time. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc. All exist, and can be played through in any number of ways.

tl;dr the many rules exist to allow different options; it's what allows a ninja, barbarian, Red Wizard, and Bard to all die in the Tomb of Horrors in hilarious fashions.

You know that's what systems like GURPS and M&M are for, right?

It's a real shame GURPS is trash though, isn't it?

When the point of comparison is specifically 3.5-derived d20...

Magic doesn't feel very magical. I find the Vancian magic system generally unappealing. It's not even a balance issue for me so much as it's sort of bland. I mean I can understand while they just keep using it as it's had to make a functional magic system much less a balanced and/or interesting one. I kinda liked the concept of designing your own spell the epic handbook put forth and would really like to see something like brought into the core game. Also I like spell point systems like they jacked from the psionics book better than spell slots.

But the most fun thing about 3.5 is the charOP

If I wanted to play D&D, rather than the charOP game, I'd play literally any other edition, even 4e does it better thanks to class roles making a team that is greater than the sum of it's parts so easy to make

> "It's a feature!"

My issue is not with the mediocre system. There are lots of mediocre systems. My issue is the ubiquity with which such a mediocre system took over the entire gaming-o-sphere in the early 2000's to the point that when many people think of role-playing at all, they are specifically thinking of the OGLD20 genre. It got to the point where every game out there was basically 3e/3.5, but with a different genre-insert or "we're totally different" minor quirk.

It's sort of like if McDoubles became so incredibly popular that part-time-foodies started complaining about food for not tasting like McDoubles, and therefore not really being food. And then, every restaurant served minor variataions on the McDouble, that only register as different to people who've eaten so many McDoubles that a slight change in the mass-produced meat-seasonings becomes noticeable. Like, don't get me wrong, I actually kind of like McDoubles, but jesus-h-christ, I don't want the food-industry to be dominated by McDoubles.

....aaaaand before you go off saying "D&D was always top dog" that really wasn't the case for a while before 3e came out in the late 90's and EARLY 00's.

>3.5
>HP bloat

...what? I agree with everything you said and more but that. How does 3.5 have "HP bloat?"

In 3.5, being able to kill an enemy of the same CR as you a round isn't just unimpressive, its the bare minimum.

Nah. If there's one thing martials are good at, its inflicting gigantic piles of damage and absolutely overkilling everything.

Its just that its much easier and requires less minmaxing to render enemies into a "virtually defeate" state where they are blind, confused, etcetera.