Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e General

See a lot of general Dungeons and Dragons 5e threads out there but what about a general Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e and 3e thread? Homebrew welcome and encouraged, as well as any general discussions.

Is there any reason to play 3.5 instead of Pathfinder?

:DDD
monsder manuel
XDD

This pretty much.

I'd find it hard to believe that some one would play 3.X over Pathfinder.

You can always homebrew something from the older stuff in.

If you want even weaker martials for some reason

Tome of Battle

I was just in a planescape 3.5 game.

I liked it till I had to step out for classes. it was pretty good. though it has it's problems if people go in with the intent of powergaming.

I STILL have not picked up 5e yet. though I might if I end up staying in my current relationship, I've been told its easier to learn and her kids are pretty sharp.

There's a third-party company called Dreamscarred Press that did a better version of Tome of Battle for Pathfinder, they also did better versions of Psionics and Incarnum.

I still play 3.5, if for no other reason than the huge wealth of material for it.

this is the actual reason I have for not switching from 4e Shadowrun yet.

They did not do a better version, they did a more complicated but more polished version

It doesn't have an entire school dedicated solely to throwing people at other people

I was thinking of running this again sometime. I thought I'd limit each player to suing the PHB and one other book. They have to bring that physical book to the sessions. I'd like to see what hey'd choose and what they come up with.

Is this worth running for beginners to RPGs if I help them supervise their builds? I'm asking because I inherited like 6 books from ded uncle and I might as well use them for something.

Could use some character creation/help ideas for an upcoming 'casual' campaign with a couple newer players.

I want to create a fucking adorable small melee warriors. Halfling, Gnome, Goblin, something along those lines.

Fighter, Psychic Warrior, Warblade, Swordsage, whatever... it's all game. Game's starting at 4th level.

Any ideas?

I like FR, and 5e has no where near enough materials as 3rde does. And I dont want to convert all the material to pathfinder, so im sticking with 3rd-3.5e

I like how fr became the official setting but it would need far more sourcebooks for me to convert to 5e. FR still doesnt have have a proper comprehensive campaign book.

I think wizards is playing safe with less material being published

Gnome Cleric (+2 CON). Focused on tanking and buffing everyone. Main frontliner.
Halfling Fighter. Put him on a mount with a bow. Medium mounts fit in dungeons. Solid, mobile damage dealer. His riding dog or wolf or whatever is the mascot of the party. Can be a Ranger so that the mount is his animal companion or something. Can get Rogue levels for sneak attack damage and utility, but I'm not too well-versed on archer char-op. You could probably look into some classes from other splats like the Scout.
Gnome Wizard. Focused on illusions and control.
Gnome Bard for being the Face and everyone else's support.

Please don't do an archer that is not a Soulbow, a Cleric, or a Swift Hunter Ranger. Please. Archery sucks so hard in 3.5.

I said -melee- small character. I'm not going to play a caster or a ranged-primary character.

Party has a tank cleric, a ranged ranger, a melee rogue, and a blow shit up wizard.

Easiest way is to roll a Druid and shapeshift.

You can look up the Races of Stone splatbook for the Titan Fighting feat where the +4 bonus to AC for a few niche creatures can be applied to any creature larger than you instead.

Remember you are crippled for using weapons with reach (and you don't benefit much from Enlarge Person) and also for tripping and grappling.

>And I dont want to convert all the material to pathfinder

It's literally "you can use the stuff from the FR books".

They are almost 100% compatible, and if you are playing PF it's not like you care about whatever balance issues may arise anyway.

>There's a third-party company called Dreamscarred Press that did a better version of Tome of Battle for Pathfinder
Better is highly debatable. Path of War really encourages full attacking, which is basically the opposite of what ToB did.

>Is this worth running for beginners to RPGs if I help them supervise their builds?
No. 3.x is among the worst possible RPGs for beginners.

>implying ToB didn't encourage full attacking
Dancing Mongoose, Raging Mongoose, Time Stands Still were three of the best maneuvers in the entire game.

And there were a grand total of 2 damage increasing stances. Meanwhile, most of the damage in PoW comes from stances and boosts, not strikes.

Boosts in general promoted it in 3.5, it's not really new.

What would be better as a small person?

Giant Killing Stance which gives +2 hit/+4 damage against Medium+ enemies and saves a feat but forces you into the stance?

Or Shadow Blade Feat that makes you only able to use SS stances for +Dex damage and no +hit?

>And there were a grand total of 2 damage increasing stances.
>Leading the Charge
>Punishing Stance
>Assassin's Stance
>Giant's Stance

Shadow Blade by far, Dex to damage scales very well.

Honestly, the main reason to ever use strikes over boost + full attack was those skill-as-damage ones since getting skill boosting items was comically cheap.

Even those didn't have much of a point to them because full attacks outdamaged them. You used strikes when full attacks aren't used(1-5) or if the utility from using one outweighed the effect of the damage you would otherwise be doing, which necessitated taking stuff like White Raven Hammer.

I think I remember the authors saying they don't like this and are working on it around the end of PoW 1.

Pretty much, yeah. The starting point was 'Boosts apply to your first attack rather than all attacks' with exact damage numbers getting played with.

For a control melee fighter, what's best?

Psychic Warrior?
Warblade?
Swordsage?

Obviously Barbarian is the best for damage.

Crusader>PsyWar>Swordsage>Warblade. PsyWar's Expansion shenanigans are extremely good when it comes to lockdown.

Look for the 3.5 update, it improved a bit some thing, like the Sohei.

Starting a new game of 3.5, any goods tips for a Sorcerer? Starting at level 1, and I am not too sure what to do here. I have a lot of experience with casters from 5e, and I am not sure how well that translates to 3.5.

Ok. I just gave that book as an example you know?

What should I dip for 2 levels on my Psychic Warrior?

Barbarian?
Monk? (With the 2 feat tax to keep up unarmed progression)
Warblade?

Starting as a sorcerer at level 1 is tough as you only know 2 spells worth a damn.

What style of game will it be? You'll probably want 1 combat spell and one utility. Color spray and sleep are amazing at low levels for combat but don't scale well.

Illusions can be great but depend on your DM.

Dungeon crawls, a lot of raids on bandit camps, etc. Mostly combat and exploration focused.

Take Grease as one of your spells, cast it on enemies that are engaged or about to be by your melee bro(s). Bro gets a big bonus to hit prone targets and an Attack of Opportunity when the enemy gets up. Don't take Magic Missile but get a wand of it as soon as you can afford one.