Everything went to shit when the creators wanted a "storytelling" game rather than a dungeon crawling fantasy game

Everything went to shit when the creators wanted a "storytelling" game rather than a dungeon crawling fantasy game.

5E is all about dungeon raiding so far though since it's shit for out of combat rules.
Every module has been FIGHT THESE now FIGHT THAT and FIGHT THOSE and you better FIGHT THE FUCK OUTTA THEM non-stop

But dungeon-crawls are garbage. Play a wargame if you want a tactical challenge, at least that way the other player is actively trying to wipe your forces out instead of doing everything they can to avoid a TPK.

1/2e, 3e/5e, and 4e are each different games.
Each is terrible at being either of the others.
Annoyance arises when you can't get players for your version of choice, but that can be handled by a clever DM.

blaming the module and not the players. Get better players because thats a personal problem.

>dungeon crawls
>garbage
>not the height of roleplaying mingled with tactical wargaming
pleb taste my friend

What else am I supposed to do? I'm playing a fighter.

2e was a mess. 3.5 master race.

There are SO many people that want to play D&D right now. People that I never would have thought would be interested in it. There's no shortage of players you just need to make some new friends.

Reeeeeeee all you want about normies but Stranger Things has done a lot to make people interested in D&D and this is an opportunity to take new players and shape them into the type of players you want them to be.

> realize 3rds "garbage"
> realize 4ths "garbage"
> realize gurp's "garbage"
> realize savage worlds is "garbage"
> realize dungeon world is "garbage"
> realize fate is "garbage"
> realize 5th is "garbage"
> realize that every system has it's strengths and weaknesses, but what's more important is that it's suited to the kind of game you want to play and that everyone participating agrees with the choice and understands the core rules.

This.
3.5 is shit, but it's good shit.
I prefer it to Pathfinder.

Every edition starts of as playable and becomes a mess over time, with the inclusion of new rules and splat books. Its always the boks that increase the options the players and DMs have that turn everything into a mess.

Play your cards right and you can make it through a huge portion of Horde of the Dragon Queen without drawing a sword, actually.

Greenest, yeah, someone's gotta fight to save those townsfolk. But it's entirely possible to infiltrator the bandit camp as bandits; and sneak through most of the cultist caves without tripping off anyone.

After that all you're really doing is following a caravan north for like three chapters. No need to draw a sword unless you have to, unless you count hunting a golden deer as combat.

Then you get to the lizardfolk/bullywug castle, which you can infiltrate disguised as cult members and get to where you need to go with some good wordplay.

The cabin and the village that follows will probably require some fighting. But then once you're in the cloud giant's castle, all you need to do is talk to Blagothkus and you can convince him to dump the Dragon Cultists. Meanwhile you can sneak around and steal the Black Dragon Mask if you know what you're doing.

E viola. It's not lacking combat entirely, but it can be essentially a game of diplomacy, intrigue, spying, and sneaking if you want it to be.

You're an idiot if you think 3.5 or PF were killed by splatbooks. It's the core that's rotten.

Well in a what you're right and wrong , 3.5 and PF are essentially splat books for 3E. So the core isn't rotten if the core is the original 3E, its the splat books and increased options that 3.5 and PF brought to 3E that turned the system into a mess.

Naw, they're all garbage, but 1) young people like everything because it is new, and 2) it only matters that the ruleset is known to everyone and that you can fix any problems arising.

>Try to persuade or think around the situation.
>"Be a Bard or a Wizard or GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE NON-FIGHTING ROLES"
>Be said bland boring Bard or bland boring Wizard
>Time to roll for it
>Rolls always fail unless it's time for a fight.
>IT'S LIKE THERE'S SOME TINY LITTLE GNOME IN MY DICE BOX THAT FIXES THEM TO BE SHIT FOR NON-FIGHTING, AND GODLY FOR FIGHTING

and thus I sucked it up and made some ungabunga fighter and had the time of my fucking life

3.0 was even worse than 3.5, holy shit how retarded are you? Virtually everything that shat up the game in 3.5 is still there in 3.0 except for automatically scaling Druid animal companions, which doesn't even fucking matter when they can get more powerful animal companions far earlier than they'd get them in 3.5, and on top of that you had Haste giving spellcasters instant action economy wins by letting them cast two spells a round and save or lose being more powerful because you only needed one feat to get +2 to your spell DCs.

3.PF is an odd case, becasue the core books and things that directly interface with CRB class options are terrible.

If you kill the sacred cow called Wizards, Clerics, Druids, etc and use Swordsages, Psions, Warmages, Dread Necros, etc 3.5 is much more pleasant.

Yeah 3.0 is the only edition of D&D that I can say is utterly without merit.

Except for the Bard, because as it turns out, a class that's a significantly weaker spellcaster than the core ones overall except they get loads of class features to help them out is how you're supposed to design spellcasters.

Only if you are a pleb non-spellcaster
>Cast suggestion
>Get big enemy to kill small shit for you
Though 5e went too far with almost every duration spell having concentration. Basically means your only choice of spells are the most generally effective ones.

>contrarian shitposter thread

Oh boy, another one.
Time to watch idiots complain about something they clearly don't understand.

Yeah, 6th level casters tend to be a pretty nice sweet spot in terms of balance. That an restricting spell lists to be more thematic and specialized. The issue with spellcasters in 3.PF isn't spells themselves for the most part, it's SPELL LISTS. Granted some spells/powers are fucking abominations and shouldn't exist for PC's. I'm talking about shit like Wish, Create Demiplane, etc.

Look, I've never been a 3E fan, but when it first came out, I played it a bit, and ti didn't seem like a mess. All I'm saying is that from my perspective increasing options in an edition creates a clusterfuck. Playing from a core rule set alone seems to alleviate most problems.

>Basically means your only choice of spells are the most generally effective ones.

Good?

It means instead of choosing some fun spells I'm going to choose the good ones and not the fun ones most of the time because concentration economy means I am only using 1 utility/debuff spell at a time and this is on top of spells known and spell slot restrictions. And spell attacks. And saving throws ( which often happen every turn too )
Concentration is a good idea, but not when you make every spell so dumb and restricted. Concentration belongs on buff spells, not debuff spells where the enemies get a free save to end the effect every turn anyways.

The debuff spells tend to be very powerful

Except for hex and hunter's mark, those two in particular should not be concentration spells, especially especially hunter's mark

agreed, full casters gain powerful spells too fast and have acces to completly overpowered spells at the end.

i have always found the max spell lvl 6 classes the most interesting and balanced. as much as the dnd-like games can be balanced of course.

>The debuff spells tend to be very powerful
Not in my experience.
It's either the spell fizzles because the target succeeded the save wasting the spell slot and turn or make the save the next turn.
Even on a success most of the earlier debuff spells are effectively "enemy misses their next turn, allies attack it with advantage"

Charm person removes an enemy from the fight until they make the save, suggestion lets you turn an enemy into an ally by "suggesting" that it's time for them to turn on their boss and take his place or something and most terrifyingly, the enemy does not automatically know they've been mind controlled

Just, you know, be careful who you cast what spells on, beware of high wisdom saves

Your perspective is wrong. The majority of broken caster bullshit is right there in core, the most broken feat in the game is right there in core, martials are at their worst in core because of the limited amount of good feats for them, Monks are core, Diplomancy is right there in core. Splatbooks at least give you caster alternatives that don't fuck the game in the ass, expand martial options so that the only useful build isn't someone toting around a two-handed weapon, and give you better martial classes period.

Since you seem to think I'm only wrong when it comes to 3E, and if you are the guy who has been calling me an idiot this entire time, than I can safely assume you are the idiot as you're obviously completely biased against 3E, that you won't even consider an opposing view you just resort to name calling because you have no other valid argument.

>The majority of broken caster bullshit is right there in core, the most broken feat in the game is right there in core, martials are at their worst in core because of the limited amount of good feats for them, Monks are core, Diplomancy is right there in core.
This is all opinion, claiming ist broken is opinion not fact.

>Splatbooks at least give you caster alternatives that don't fuck the game in the ass, expand martial options so that the only useful build isn't someone toting around a two-handed weapon, and give you better martial classes period.
Again opinion, not fact.

How is it that I can run a successful game in any edition, using only the core rule books, and it doesn't end up a broken piece of shit, but apparently you can't? I would say that says more about your ability as a DM or a player, rather that than the mechanics of the game. \

Only weak ass people with no real understanding of how to play a ttg would immediately claim a core rule set is broke. Try looking at your own ability to understand and fix that before shitting all over a workable rule set.

>Diplomancy is right there in core
what's wrong with diplomacy?

If you look at the rules in the PHB, diplomacy is basically mind control by RaW if you can roll high enough

Too many stackable bonuses, DCs are set in stone, the effects of the skill are far too powerful. If you know what you're doing, you can blaze right past the hardest DC you can get (rushed hostile to helpful) and there is fuck all you can do about it without changing the rules.

Oh, right.
My GM's never used the set-in-stone DC's. Only really used them as guidelines.

>This is all opinion, claiming ist broken is opinion not fact.
None of what I stated there is an opinion. Shapechange, Wish, and Miracle have only one non-core spell that competes with them and Ice Assassin is much harder to use than any of them. Leadership's only non-core competition is Craft Contingent Spell. Martials being at their worst in core is objectively correct. Diplomancy being broken is also objectively correct.
>Again opinion
No it's not. Warmage and Dread Necro are worse than a core Wizard - they have a worse spell list in every way and their features in no way make up for it. Warblade is an intentional Fighter replacement class that is better at everything than it.

>>>/bgg/

Okay now you're in full damage control mode, and it shows.

but we all have been through this. we have had these campaigns that were combat after combat, loot after loot and we have grown tired of it and looked for more variety in our games. we found it through widening the lense and including more story-telling.

learn to play a character

>The majority of broken caster bullshit is right there in core
This is opinion, you listed few examples, that hardly means casters are completely broken.

>the most broken feat in the game is right there in core.Leadership's only non-core competition is Craft Contingent Spell
One example, and how is this claim not opinion? I don't view leadership as broken.

>Diplomancy is right there in core
What exactly is you're issue with this one skill?

>Warmage and Dread Necro are worse than a core Wizard
Proves my point that, turns the game into a clusterfuck.

>Warblade is an intentional Fighter replacement class that is better at everything than it
But it doesn't replace the fighter, it sits along side it, as the fighter class still exists, and doesn't simply vanish due to Warblade's existence. Which again adds unnecessary clutter to the game.

Here pick your favorite edition and I'll point out all of its flaws, and argue its broke from the core and you can spend time defending it. Its fucking sad you want to shit all over an edition you don't like, while using opinion. I don't even like 3E, and I can still see merit in the system. You really are a sad lazy little boy with nothing better to do then cry about how you don't understand 3E.

How so?

So, tell me user, why do you like fighting on the internet so much?

the dumb thing was modding d&d to be the system for those things instead of playing other systems for other things

Where else can he fight, since he doesn't know anyone irl?

D&D is an action adventure game.

Sounds like you just wanted something different, but that doesn't make D&D bad,

If you want to accuse someone of not understanding a game, you might want to understand it to begin with.

Exasperated writing style, resorting to name calling, handwaving inconvenient facts as 'opinions', not defending your own arguments but attacking the other's.

Hey have you considered:

A. reading this thread. It would answer most of your questions.

B. disagreeing with a fact isn't an opinion, it's called being wrong. You're wrong.

C. You made me break lurk code by replying to this terrible post. I hope for your sake you're trolling.

Its a system and it works and can be run out of box. If its so broken why is it still playable?

>Exasperated writing style
Because I write a lot? I'm not really exasperated, just disagreeing with the other user.

>handwaving inconvenient facts
Casters are broken isn't a fact its an opinion. Leadership being broken, monks being broken, diplomacy being broken. These are not facts, they are subjective opinion.

Broken means it doesn't work at all. If these are all broken explain in detail how they completely do not work. Seriously I'm waiting.

Unless you and prove its a fact, being undeniable truth backed by evidence, its just subjective opinion.

>not defending your own arguments but attacking the other's
This is a strawman. I have only ever argued my opinion and pointed out how the other user's argument was also opinion and not fact. As for your statement, the other user attacked me and my opinion for three posts before even stating his opinion in argument form and then tried to pass it off as fact. If that's not intellectually dishonest I don't know what is.

Now you claim all did was attack, well my first few posts weren't even attacking the other user. So you're as intellectually dishonest as the other user is.

>Broken means it doesn't work at all.
That is not what broken means in the context of a game.

>A. reading this thread. It would answer most of your questions.
Responded to a pair of anons and yes I did read the thread.

>B. disagreeing with a fact isn't an opinion, it's called being wrong. You're wrong.
Its not fact with out evidence, saying something is true doesn't make it so.

>C. You made me break lurk code by replying to this terrible post. I hope for your sake you're trolling.
What do I care of your lurk code? I didn't make you do shit you broke whatever code you have on your own, don't dare try to lay that shit at my feet.

If you had read the thread, you would have seen the "evidence" you claim is lacking. On top of that, if you have spent any amount of time in any 3e community site, you'd know that these topics have been had and re-had for over a decade, and the amount of theorycrafting, evidence, playtesting etc is overwhelmingly in favor of these 'facts.'

And the lurk code thing was tongue in cheek, not sure why you're getting triggered over it.

>That is not what broken means in the context of a game
Yes it does, its referring to the idea that something is OPed or otherwise needs fixing. I disagree on this point, I say it works fine the way it is, non of what he has listed needs fixing, it works well the way it is. To try to pass an opinion of as fact is entirely dishonest, and shameful.

Right after they redefined garbage to mean "better than everything else."

I read the thread, and I said at the beginning that I didn't really like 3E, but the system works and is playable. As to my second point, splat books have always cluttered every edition turning them into clusterfucks.

>non of what he has listed needs fixing
Yeah, okay, just let casters spam infinite wishes, break the skill system, break action economy, and turn into forms with higher natural STR than any core noncaster can ever get as a free action every single round Shapechange is up.

You understand that this is what you are calling "not broken", right?

>utilize your background, roleplaying, and skill choices to gain non-combat competence
>or just you know, be an ungabunga fighter if that's your style

I wasn't addressing any of those points. If you don't like 3e, I'd assume you haven't spent extended time in any online communities dedicated to the game, so instead of demanding evidence for something that has been beaten into the ground over the last 15 years, do a quick google search about why things like Leadership, Diplomacy, and core casters are broken.

And again, none of that is "subjective opinion." These points have been proven and re-proven countless times. It sounds anecdotal but that's because at this point nobody wants to have the conversation anymore. You can only beat a lich horse so much.

since you can't seem to comprehend the thread you claim to have read, let me give it to you simple: Diplomacy, by RAW, gives you mind control if you roll high enough. The only features about a monk that are interesting can be done by a spell 5-10 levels earlier. Leadership can allow you to essentially have a second character for the cost of a feat, which can eventually take Leadership and have his own cohort, and army, and etc etc. theres more to it but I can't be bothered to explain any further to someone who can't do simple research on these topics themselves before arguing about them.

while infinite wishes is a game breaking exploit, its probably easily stopped in the bud by any DM a mile away
and its such a well-known exploit that its unlikely anyone will let you use it

moon druid is only truly devastating if you munchkin it up the ass, it is a strong but not overwhelming class if you arent WAAC

I can admit I was an error when I am in error, and it would appear I am in error. You are correct I do not spend much time in online communities, and was not aware of what was broken. I said in the beginning that I only played 3E when it first came out, and it seemed playable to me. I appreciate both of you for pointing out this error in my knowledge.

3.5, not 5E. 3.5 Shapechange makes Moon Druid look like a paragon of balance.

You're making the same mistake. A game can be both playable and broken, those two aspects are not mutually exclusive. No one's trying to invalidate your experience

Fair enough, I guess because I played it when it first came out, perhaps most of the issues weren't discovered, or rather it never came up in any of my games, so I never noticed it.

Thanks, and for the record, that's just the most obviously broken shit. You can ban every single bit of it, come out with completely balanced casters somehow, and still have a bad time because of other stupid shit in the system like combat style and class imbalance. My first experience with 3.0 was gradually becoming less and less useful as a sword and board Fighter until the Druid made me useless thanks to Animal Friendship getting him a brown bear companion.

For what it's worth, 3.5e is still by far my favorite edition, due to the amount of customization available. The point to be made here is that it's far from balanced, but that doesn't mean it can't still be fun. You just have to understand that, if you don't know these things about the system, someone else might, and they might introduce you to it by breaking your game. Granted, it sounds like your friends weren't the type to do so, but that puts them in the minority.

just as a final note though: imagine being new to 3.5e, and rolling a monk. you're looking over the player handbook, and you say to your friends, "whoa! look at the monk! at 20th level, I can fall any distance without taking damage, as long as I'm touching a wall!" To which your friend, who rolled a bard/wizard/sorcerer, says, "oh cool! My character can do that at level 1! and I don't need to be near a wall!" And they show you "Feather Fall."

I see, I suppose I either just didn't notice that, or it was so new at the time I played that system hadn't been exploited yet.

It's not impossible to avoid the pitfalls in 3.0/3.5 and at low level they're not as blindingly obvious as they are at high levels. You may not notice a Cleric basically being a Fighter at low level because 1 BAB, 2 HP, and a combat feat don't matter enough at level 1, or the Druid's riding dog having bullshit stats, and even if you do they don't instantly render a Fighter useless the way later options(and higher CR monster design) tend to.

The bigger problem is breaking the game accidentally

This is kind of hard as a wizard, but really easy as a cleric or druid

Also, it has been 16 years and I still can not for the life of me figure out why monks have 3/4 BAB

Because in 3.0 they used to get iterative attacks every 3 BAB. I don't know why they kept it around for 3.5 aside from Monk hate.

I think dungeon crawling is super boring

If you play the game "as intended", with healbitch clerics/druids and blaster wizards, a lot of faults disappear.

That's also how you run right into 3.5's HP bloat and five minute adventuring days.

Only if you play past 6th level, and something like 90% of the games didn't.

In my experience, the ones that did, ignored the rules anyway (and/or all played casters). People playing RAW+high system mastery at high levels just didn't happen without heavy houseruling/selective banning, probably because they knew how broken the system is.

Name me one D&D edition that is not about dungeon delve.

Past 6th? More like past 3 and in that context it's even worse if your Fighter isn't doing the smart thing and packing a greatsword and Power Attack. Average monster HP jumps 21 points from CR 3 to CR 4.

I was never interested in it but realized that it was shit the first time I played it (after years of actual rpg's, like WoD-games). Felt like trying to roleplay in an MMO game.

>actual RPGS
>like WoD

The power of marketing, gentlemen.

More like 'the power of having taste'. I've played six different systems (counting all WoD-games as one) made by five different companies, DnD was by far the worst one (Deathwatch is the second worst).

I'm happy for you having a found RPGs to your taste! That's great!

All you need to do now is realize that "a game not aligning with my subjective tastes is not an RPG" is a shit definition and you are a self absorbed asshole for using it.

I never said it was not an RPG, except for tounge-in-cheekily, I did however say that it is a really shitty RPG.

Are you kidding? There's some absolutely broken bullshit in WoD and the caster creep is even worse in a lot of respects.

That's what makes them "actual" RPGs. Only MMOs care about that shit.

Your post outs you as a DnD-fag immediately. Combat should not be the main focus of any RPG (unless you are a fucking pleb casual), so that is no issue. Also, how in the fuck is it caster-creep when WoD-mages are DESIGNED to be the most powerful, by far? WoD is not DnD, you are not supposed to have a fucking 'party' of Sneaky Vampire, Combat Werewolf, Caster Mage etc. What a laughable notion.

Note how never even fucking mentions combat, but you IMMEDIATELY jump to that point.

I guess they removed the "you have - 20 to roll if you try to diplomacy in less than 1 minute"

Why would 'caster creep' be an issue if there was no combat?

>Oh no, his roleplaying is out of control! REEL IT IN STEVE, REEL IT INNNNNNNNNN

Jesus christ you are a very narrow-minded individual aren't you?

Instead of getting defensive and making broad statements, just accept that you were wrong.

PF added a clause "there are some instances where this shit doesn't fucking work" to diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff.

2hu still doesn't fucking get that.

I mean, half the bullshit casters in D&D can do is their out-of-combat domination (fly and teleport for travel, invisibility for sneaking, charm person for social conflict, etc), and yet you associate all caster superiority to in-combat function

WoD is even worse with this, but as you say, you're not supposed to mix the main books in one party, so it's not really a problem there

That's just in PF, the conversation you link to is referring to 3e

The point of Mage is that mages are super powerful and that power leads to corruption (at least that is the thought behind it). Having mages be not-super-powerful then would defeat the point.

But as you said, you know this, I'm speaking to the audience.

Everything went to shit when RPGs got hijacked by math geeks, leftists, and other turquoise hair colored degenerates. And general public of course. Fantasy and RPGs in general were obscure underground hobby til early 2000s, when LOTR and WoW ruined absolutely everything.

While it was played by basement nerds, satanists, psychos, creeps, freaks, and other friendless, virgin scum, then it was good.

Yeah, I literally unironically just used "it was cool before it went mainstream" argument.

>Everything went to shit when RPGs got hijacked by math geeks, leftists, and other turquoise hair colored degenerates.
Hey! Math geekery was already part of it before there was D&D: the historic wargames (like the Prussian kriegsspiel) were heavily based on actual war statistics. Don't be a pleb.

>Fantasy and RPGs in general were obscure underground hobby til early 2000s, when LOTR and WoW ruined absolutely everything.
Topkek, he doesn't know how big D&D/DSA were in the 80s.

>While it was played by basement nerds, satanists, psychos, creeps, freaks, and other friendless, virgin scum, then it was good.
It was never just played by those at any point. Not even predominantly.

>Yeah, I literally unironically just used "it was cool before it went mainstream" argument.
(You)

You can have more tactical/competitive fun with your friends playing video games.

You can not have more narrative fun with your friends playing video games (or at least there are very few games that offer anything remotely similar).

Why did everything go to shit when a TRPG concentrates on its unique strengths?

This is accurate for D&D because it's only a dungeon crawl system, and not even a good one.

I would actually argue it was a little before the 2000's when things started to go down hill. In MHO its was sometime between 95 and 97 that's around the time that WotC got there hands on the rights to D&D.

>that's around the time that WotC got there hands on the rights to D&D.

I love how this is phrased like it was some kind of hostile takeover, when in fact Wizards of the Coast was saving the day as TSR had managed to mismanage itself basically to bankruptcy.