Excuse me but there is any valid reason to play 3.5 nowadays?

It's 100% this for me.
I can't enjoy playing a martial unless they're an initiator.

Dreamscarred Press did a wonderful job of porting both of them to PF, but you can't exactly expect every DM to allow third-party content even if it is mostly just ports of 3.5 stuff.

It's great if you want to play epic fantasy with powerful characters since it's essentially fantasy super heroes.

You want to play Hercules or Kratos from God of War and take down giant enemies. Pick up the book of weeaboo fighting magic.

Want to play an all powerful wizard who can alter the fabric of reality itself or decimate entire legions of enemies? 3.5 is for you.

You wanna play a cleric and lay down the law of your god in righteous fury? Then 3.5 is for you.

Wanna go toe to toe against the demons of the apocalypse and slap the shit out of the devil himself? 3.5 is for you.

If you like to go big and take down titanic monsters and accomplish feats of legends, 3.5 is a power gamer's wet dream. But to do all that, like in all systems, you have to know how to play the game to get good.

I know I only focused on the combat aspect, but you can roleplay and make great stories in any system. But in 3.5, you can make the fights bigger and even more over the top than the other editions of D&D.

Inertia and ignorance are the two big ones.

That's impossible to answer without you defining what you consider a valid reason.

>Excuse me but there is any valid reason to play 3.5 nowadays
There's an absolute fuckton of 3.5 material out there, all of it free, much of it interesting, and very little of it carried over into pathfinder.

>is any valid reason to play 3.5

It's more balanced than PF if you're only using 1st-party, somehow.

Some will say a valid reason is that if you only know 3.5

I dont think that even that is a valid reason, ok maybe if you think that in the future he may discover other stuff exist and wouldnt discover that by not plyaing at least 3.5

I still prefer 3.5 over PF, even though I use a lot of PF's little tweaks. PF is more "easy mode" than 3.5, which I just don't like, and it gets rid of some of the aspects of 3.5 that I thought were pretty good, like the combat maneuver parts that PF turned into CMD bullshit.

>This fucking meme again.
DIE YOU MISERABLE MOTHERFUCKER, DIE. THERE IS NO NEED TO HAVE THIS THREAD ALL THE FUCKING TIME, WITH YOUR FORCE 'OH LOL SO FUNNY' AND STUPID ASS LORE-RAPING QUESTION BULLSHIT. JUST READ THE LEXICANUM RATHER THAN ASKING ANOTHER EXCUSE ME BULLSHIT QUESTION.

>lore-raping
>Lexicanum
>thread is about various editions of D&D

Dude you're so fucking butthurt you don't even know what you're mad about anymore.

Yes, its fun

I'm looking forward for when Pathfinder isn't a thing anymore and Veeky Forums reaches the point where they look back at 3.5 and can judge it objectively. As it is now, everyone is biassed; they either love it or hate it.

How does the existence of one affect the judgement of the other? I don't understand your reasoning here.

Because while pathfinder exists, people will have 3.5 on their minds. Pathfinder and 3.5 are so closely tied together in Veeky Forums's perception that an user's thoughts on one influence their thoughts on the other.
3.5 is almost 15 years old, but it'll never be old as long as pathfinder is a thing.

Nah, he was just triggered by the phrase "Excuse me"

As someone who hates child rape and will speak out on its flaws at length, you don't need a 'reason' to do it.

No amount of flaws means you have to justify raping a kid. We might question your choice and ask what benefits it brings you and your group, but at the end of the day it's a question of choice and what you find fun.

Some people sincerely, legitimately enjoy child rape, for a multitude of reasons. I might personally find them bizarre or see logical flaws, that the things they claim to enjoy about the rape are more to do with taboos, interpretations or the group itself than the actual rape, but at the end of the day if they're having fun I can't say they're wrong for doing it. That'd make me just another badwrongfun asshole.

Hey, faggot, something being "fun" doesn't make it right.

Are you seriously comparing a tabletop game you don't like to raping children? No one is viscerally being harmed by playing 3.5. And regardless of how bad you think it is, it's not leaving mental scars.

the child consented

But the point is that "hurrr badwrongfun" is a piss poor answer. Something being fun does not make it good. 3.5 IS bad and objectively inferior in many ways. Not opinion, but we can point to flaws that are just facts. Can people find it fun? Yes, but that doesn't make what they find fun good. You can have fun doing lots of bad shit and that wouldn't make it right. They would still be enjoying something that is bad and shit. But don't cop out and go "whatever is fun for you is cool brah" because that argument breaks down fast under the littlest scrutiny. Just say it's shit and move on. Maybe they like shit, but their enjoyment of it doesn't make it not objectively shit garbage.

>Something being fun does not make it good.
You know what, you fucking deserve to be told off by a namefag, because you're just that much of a shitty excuse for a person.

And I said fun doesn't make it not shit. And even he said bad and good can't be quantified. So by your logic if someone enjoyed raping kids, shooting heroin outside parks, or trying to give people HIV who are you to say they're wrong for having fun? You aren't one of those badwrongfun assholes are you, user?

And, just like those examples, yes, a game can be objectively bad. And like those examples, people can still find it fun. And like those examples, the game is still bad no matter how much they enjoy it.

Unless you think fun and pleasure are the arbiters of morality, but even most philosophical hedonists would say you're taking shit way too far.

Note: I am NOT saying 3.5 is as bad as any of those things. I'm just tired of "but i find it fun" and "badwrongfun" to be pretty shitty arguments as to why a game is good.

> a game can be objectively bad
I think this is true. I just don't think 3.5 is one of those games.

Hey user, can we talk?
Look I get that your group made you play 3.5 for a long time until you could convince them to move on to something else. Maybe had to take small steps like introducing pathfinder first to avoid total system shock. But it's not 3.5's fault man and you need to forgive it. You've come a long way bro and, I know you think you're helping in you're own way, but you're coming off as a real idiot right now. A huge asshole idiot. Everyone saw what you just did right now and they're all calling you a "fucking retard", I just think you got a little excited personally. Maybe you should just take the weekend off and avoid the internet to let things cool down.

>3.5 IS bad and objectively inferior in many ways.
nice opinion

Psions, Incarnates, Binders, Sword Magic, Truespeech.

I was with you until truespeech.

How fucking whipped do you have to be to want to play a fucking truespeaker?

The mechanics for Truespeech is pretty fucked up, but the fluff is awesome.

Though Incarnates are way better- both in fluff and in mechanics. I seriously love those mechanics.

The fluff is grade-fucking-a.

I once managed to talk a DM into unfucking the truespeech math and removing the Laws of Fuck You. Funnest game I played in.

3.5 late in its life started to turn out some pretty interesting books during its run.

Besides the character books user mentioned, there were some good fluff and monster books like Lords of Madness, Elder Evils, and the various environment based sourcebooks like Stormwrack.

Yeah. I'm running a campaign where someone's playing a variant bard that gets truespeech instead of arcane magic. I okayed it, and unfucked it (And gave them the ability to make perform instead of truespeech checks for truespeech, because Arcane Magic is outright superior and I didn't want to fuck them over for making an interesting choice) and they're having a ton of fun with it. They're singing poems and songs in truespeech to change the world around them.

While we're talking about truespeach fluff, can we talk about binder fluff, and how fucking awesome it is?

Binder fluff is fucking awesome. I love the binder checks, and the influence that happens when you fail them. I always wanted to allow players who took binder to undergo a 'greater binding' for more effective powers and abilities, at the cost of always being influenced... But nobody in any of my games have been a Binder.

Binder//Warlock gestalt best gestalt.
Fuck my soul, wasn't using it anyways, HEY EVERYBODY SOUL FOR TIMESHARE!

I always loved the little easter-eggs in it, like Karsus, Acererak, and Shax

That's the thing- You're not exactly messing much with your soul. You're just squeezing it into the side of your brain and getting a roommate. Then asking your roommate 'hey, you know how to use medium armor, right? Come help me with these muscle memories while you're here' for rent.

The 3.5 classes are also less well supported.

Pathfinder has new and improved versions of both.

Dreamscarred Press.

>PF is different than 3.5 in any appreciable way
All they changed was the Combat Maneuver thing, and tweaked a bunch of stuff for no reason- as well as crippled martials even more.

I just want a 5e version of Incarnates.

I started with 4e, and it got boring after a bit, so my group moved to pathfinder. That was a good time, but then I moved, and my new group played 3.5, which was an easy enough switch. I think pathfinder broke more than it fixed, so I've stuck with 3.5 when I've DM'd.

Yes I've tried 5e a substantial amount and prefer 3.5. 5e tried to simplify things too much and ended up taking out the crunch I like about 3.5: when a player tries to do almost anything, I can have rules or a table for it in 3.5.

What interesting 3.5 content is *free*?

Do you mean *pirated*? Because you can pirate Pathfinder stuff too.

Aside from specific spells and magic items, what of significance didn't transfer over?

I've got Path of War and Ultimate Psionics and Akashic Mysteries.

Whats left that I might actually miss?

Whatever it is, pretty sure it's not something I used when we played 3.5.

I mean, some of the obscure cleric domains don't have analogues I guess, but my players never missed them, and the couple I did want to use had conversions I could find online.

What? In what way?

Pun pun is first party 3.5

CMD was a good idea with shit implementation. They nerfed the feats when they should have buffed them, and they built the monsters with unbalanced CMB/CMD for their level.

You can "pirate" 3.5 stuff just by google searching it. Because it technically is free, under the OSR.

Initiators and Incarnum didn't translate over. Runescarred press tried to convert them, and failed badly. Especially with Incarnum. Pathfinder also made a lot of the extra base classes (like the warlock) a lot worse when they got ported over.

Basically every prestige class, along with the whole concept of prestige classes to begin with, were tossed out wholesale. Which is a shame, because 3.5 had a lot of fun prestige classes, like the unique Theurge classes.

Pathfinder also threw out everything about level adjustment and monster races, which really sucked because a lot of monster races were really neat, and the racebuilder guide that pathfinder has really doesn't compete.

Basically, all the cool and unusual options from 3.5 were cut out when they made pathfinder.

Yes, if you invested a ton of money into it. While I'll play, anything pre-3.X, 2E is the edition I invested the most money in, so it's the Edition I prefer.

>Yes, if you invested a ton of money into it.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy at its finest.
If you've wasted that much money on a bad product, you should cut your losses and try to get rid of it, rather than waste time and potentially even more money on it.

It's different in that it's classes are better supported, and they have a ton of content that's better than the 3.5 version.

>5e versions of the missing content.
Yeah, that would be great.

I could also *really* go for a bigass book of 5e ACFs.

And Id love a better 5e Mythic (a la Pathfinder Mythic -expanded character option breadth, without escalating the depth).

>the crunch I like about 3.5: when a player tries to do almost anything, I can have rules or a table for it in 3.5.

>It's free under OSR
>OSR
>Oldschool Revolution
You mean OGL? You're mistaken. Only the 3.5 SRD is OGL.

>Initiators didn't transfer over.
>Runescarred press
Dreamscarred Press could not do a direct conversion of ToB like they could Psionics, because ToB is *NOT* in the SRD and is not OGL. So they took the idea and made their own take on it.

Same with Incarnum.

I never used Incarnum much, but the Path of War game line is much better than ToB.

But if you *DO* prefer the 3.5 versions of either for whatever weird reason, it's trivial to pick it up and use it in Pathfinder, no effort required.

user, 4e is better than 3.5 for literally everything you described. 3.5 is a fucking nightmare at anything above 10th level.

>PRCs
Most of what I liked about them got done better by archetypes. On the rare occasion I do want to use one, I simply allow it from 3.5. only adjustment really needed to convert it: skill prereqs -3 ranks.

>LA
Was garbage. PFs method is not great, but it's better than LA. D20 WoW had the best version of that.

I'd much rather use Pathfinder with the occasional 3.5 option than the other way around.

Sorry, it's late. I never knew the other stuff wasn't covered under OGL; WotC sure was lax on pulling that shit down, though, cause it's all still up there.

>I never used incarnum much
Dreamscarred Press fucked up hard when they made it. It's unbalanced and boring, while original incarnum was interesting but sub-optimal.

Not all DMs allow 3rd party, and even fewer allow 3.5. Just like how old DMs of 3.5 didn't always allow 3.0 material.
Basically, just because a problem can be fixed doesn't mean that it's not a problem.

There's a ton of great books for 2e.

Mostly setting books, but some adventures as well, and complete book of villains is fantastic.

I play PF for the level 8-16 gameplay. We start at 7.

Ah. I was a 3.0 gm who allowed 3.5 abilities. Then a 3.5 gm who allowed 3.0. then a of gm who allowed (upon approval) 3.0 and 3.5 content. Then a gm who allowed DSP content, and then 3.5 or 3.0 content if it wasn't adequately covered by Paizo and DSP.

Most other GMs I've games with were the same. Though I've met a couple who allowed 3.5 and 3.0, but not DSP (and not ToB, or Psionics from 3.5). They're also generally the same shit GMs who decide WBL doesn't matter and give you fuck all for equipment. In those games I only ever played Summoners and Synthesists and Summoning Druids. They're shit GMs.

And playing 3.5 wouldn't have helped, because they'd have disallowed the good stuff anyways.

WOTC was big on pulling it down for a long time, if they could find it. Eventually they seemed to give up.

(And now I don't GM 3.x because it takes too much prep work to do well.)

Particularly because I like using NPCs most of the time instead of monsters.

It's dangerous to go alone.

Take this:

dropbox.com/s/jrz4i33jcpjqkqr/Fantasy_Craft_(2nd_printing).pdf?dl=0

>2e
>OSR
Pick one.

>IRL majority of people I know love 3.5 and prefer it to 5e
>Veeky Forums hates it

???

>because it's not as readily available online

I've actually found it's lpoads easier and cheaper to find 3.5 books on ebay now than it was about 7 years ago.

I've just got Complete Warrior in near perfect condition for £10.50. The core rulebooks are about £30 each, the rare ones going for more. I can't seem to find PHB 2 for a reasonable price mind you.

I think he's referring to Pathfinder's SRD and the unofficial SRD having wiki versions of pretty much the entire Pathfinder range. Independent of any gripes I have of the system, being able to just send someone a link instead of making them buy books, though there's a bit of a double edged sword where players want to be able to use material from the entire range for their characters.

>but 3.5? there is any valid reason to play it instead of just going PF?
PF devs are worse, and the only reason to pick it over 3.5 is if you like the 3pp material.

>improved
Debatable. DSP really shoved too much damage everywhere with PoW.

There was never a reason to play 3.pf in the first place. So no, there is no reason to play it now.

It's still significantly lower than 3.5 damage levels.

Unless you're talking about super-optimized stuff, PF damage is overall higher than 3.5 PoW goes WAY overboard, though, showing +damage stances and boost everywhere in addition to giving the classes themselves more things.

It really isn't. Even mid tier optimization in 3.5 can crank out very high damage numbers so long as your class wasn't cancerously shitty, and even then there was still stuff like DS Monk.

Most people who play RPGs don't care about them to the level that Veeky Forums does. Most people are comfortable just playing what they've always played

Only up to level 6. After 6 it's in line with normal martial damage.

An initiator using full-attacks will still does more damage, because most of the damage comes from stances and boosts, not strikes.

Huh. I guess that makes sense. But basically all martials have a damage boost. Paladin has smite. Barbarian has rage. Etc. Are stances and boosts that much better? My books are currently all in storage so I can't check. Annoying job/life stuff.

Paizo are a bunch of cucks. Thats plenty enough reason not to play their game.

something can still be objectively bad and still be enjoyable. Like SAO or sharknado. They are inherently bad movies. I'd go so far as to say sharknado tries to be bad.

>I'd go so far as to say sharknado tries to be bad.

It's really the biggest fault of Sharknado. I love me some terrible movies, but only if there's a "soul" behind it. A great bad movie feels like someone was genuinely trying to make a good to great movie but couldn't due to being a nutcase or having a budget of $5. Passion is a beautiful thing, and I'd say misplaced and futile passion is some of the sweetest you can get.

Then you have shit like Sharknado and Kung Fury that is steeped in irony. There's no soul there. It's painful because normalfag bad movie fans eat this shit up.

No kidding. There's a huge difference between Troll "Grandpa Ghost Wizard teleporting around and shooting fuckers with lightning and creating sandwiches out of thin air due to the writer having no fucking idea what they were doing" 2 and an intentionally shitty movie.

No reason to play PF or 3.5 when Fantasy Craft exists. Unless you want people to play it with.

>I avoid playing games made by people I don't like for reasons outside of the game, even if I didn't pay for them!
This position is idiotic.

People could try Radiance

Yeah you might want a player base, or also magic user options, or you might want to be able to use monsters straight out of hte book..

Every book is a pdf on Google. How is 3.5 material not readily available?

see

This. Especially Lords of madness, still my favorite book in the system.