After some years of bland, boring, not-particularly-balanced 5e, I've been beginning to feel a sort of nostalgia for 3.5

I wish.

Oh, was that incorrect?

Very.

Shame.

3.5 was great despite its issues. I still play / run it. I run 5e too, and 5e is fun, but I don't think it can ever beat 3.5. I mean, look at pic related. That was the first D&D book besides the core books that i purchased. Just seeing that cover and thinking "damn, THAT'S what my dad and his friends do twice a month." It instilled a sense of wonder that slowly faded over the years. The prestige classes were great, the extra classes were cool. I loved hexblade. The 5e version... just didn't do it for me. I ran a hexblade with power attack and greatsword for damage, who could do hexes to debuff people. Who cares if it's only -10% or 20% chance of hitting, it still was fun. Power-attacking for huge amounts of damage was fun. Was PvP broken? Yes, and this was a problem for NPCs. But really, SoD spells were most of the issue. And out-of-control attack bonuses. No one really gave a fuck that the wizard was the only one capable of making golems, or polymorphing. The only people who care about that are stupid anime faggots who want to play Goku or whatever, where they can unleash a bestial scream for 4d6 damage or some dumb weeb shit. I swear, the 3.5 haters on Veeky Forums have gone from making sense to sounding like absolute retards in the time I've been here.

Yes that is incorrect. 8th level spells only come in at 15th level. Most games never last that long and the system doesn't work long before that.

In my experience it's a complete non issue if your DM has any idea what he's doing and the players aren't intentionally trying to break the campaign.

I don't see what's wrong with enjoying something. Even if the wizard characters are horribly broken, doesn't that just make them more suitable for higher level campaigns? Wouldn't a pure party of fighters, thieves, and a single cleric do well for a more "balanced" experience?

Just play Barbarians of Lemuria, ya pussy.

Both are bad games

This. 3.5 just had that "whoa, that's so cool" factor that 5e just doesn't have. I remember reading through supplements as a teenager just thinking of all the awesome shit you could do. Though the system is a bit clunky and patently unbalanced (the former is a much bigger problem than the latter for me personally).

Nope because then the cleric murders everything. Clerics and druids are better than wizards. A balanced campaign is either no casters, no martials, or feed the martials (and the martials only) so many magic items and dudes to lead as well as design encounters to fuck with casters but not so much that they can't do anything.

For me the main problem was how bland or outright lacking a bunch of the classes were in terms of class features. I would rather play Pathfinder simply because even the later 3.5 classes like beguiler and knight didn't give you as much stuff to play around with. And yeah, multiclassing and prestige classing and creating retarded builds was half the fun of 3.5, but that suffered because the raw materials you had to work with to make your builds were kind of shit.

>But really, SoD spells were most of the issue.
And SoLs.
And buff stacking.
And monster design tailor made to shit on Fighters while anti-caster enemies were few and far between and usually easily defeated by picking the right spells.
And a skill system that fucked half of the classes in the game over.

Beguiler gives you a ridiculous amount of things to work with, are you insane?

So that's how you would balance it.

>Martials, no magic items.
>Martials, Magic items.
>Less powerful casters.
>Wizard, Clerics, Druids, etc.

Only relative to the other things in 3.5. Relative to Pathfinder classes it gives an average amount of features. The full casters get the better treatment in both games and the oracle outshines the beguiler in its goodies, while the knight is comparable to the Pathfinder fighter. Meanwhile the Pathfinder monk still isn't that strong, but by god does it have an asston of shit to use.

Features don't imply a fun or interesting class. Beguiler is still an INT primary class with 6+INT skills and a great list, has one of the best, most well rounded spell lists in the game outside of T1/T2, and most importantly, casts their full list spontaneously.

That's more or less how the tier system breaks down except tiers have more granularity.

You could also do "no core classes or anything from Forgotten Realms splats" and also get something that works better.

3.5 will invigorate your spirit for home-brewing. It spawned a whole generation's worth of D20 related books for a reason.

The OGL and retards insisting that you could use d20 to run anything?

There's nothing that wrong with it as long as you're not playing with assholes. It's still the best edition of D&D.

So don't play a fighter. If you want to be a martial Tome of Battle gives you fun and cool things to do, then in 5e they went back to martials who don't do anything but basic attacks every round.

Yes, and they did.

Or did you forget that that was not only a thing, but a successful thing?

>There's nothing that wrong with it as long as you're not playing with assholes.
>Literally suggests not playing one of the classes in the core rulebook
Does picking a fighter mean you're an asshole?

Can you, like, not be a bitter cunt? Fuck.

>can you not be angry over going through 6 years of only getting to play shitty d20 games because of the not d20 not interested crowd
No.

Mean you are a retarded. Fighters sucks ass outside a very specific build.

3.5 being bad is a meme. Enjoy playing your awesome game.

>implying d20 modern and SWd20 were good

>two different replies to two different people about two different things
>assumes they're related
Are you retarded or something?

>6 years of great games
>wah, I'm too much of a cunt to enjoy what most role players enjoy wah

Man, get over your cunt self.

>dude I'm tired of playing this shit, I want to play Shadowrun just so we're playing something fucking different
>GM :okay, I'll see what I can do
>halfway through the week I get an email linking me to this abortion danzig138.tripod.com/d20modern.html

Don't forget Call of Cthulhu d20! That was a thing that happened!

>great games

Biggest problem of 3.5 was that Clerics were better at fighting than Fighters.

Yeah, BESM d20 sure was great.

>Why is 3.5e bad?
>There is nothing wrong with it.
>The balance is terrible and fighters suck
>Don't play fighters lol.
No, there's really no reason to think that these two statements would be related.

Wow, that's some bitter cunt.
I wonder if he really thinks that just acting like a cunt with his cunt opinions does anything except make him look like a cunt?

This and Pathfinders path of War are why that Edition is superior. I don't know how anyone finds the non casting classes in 5th edition fun at all.

I'd rather be a 'cunt' by some idiot's standards than a full on retard. OGL = shit quality isn't a minority opinion, either, games like CoC d20 and BESM d20 are infamously bad and every RPG board on the internet will tell you that.

I still find the Battlemaster insultingly bad.

You really like to say cunt. I like 3.5 but the system is made for high fantasy heroics and I don't think it's ever worked for anything else.

They went back because people REE'd about martials having unrealistic weaboo abilities.

In a world with dragons.
And creatures that kill you with a stare.
And mages that can teleport 100 miles.
And Wish granting rings.
And mind flayers which straight-up mindrape you and eat your brain.
And crystal dragons.
And beholders, which need no further explanation.

But a martial being anything other than a man with a halberd is apparently "too far".

There are good, or at least alright, d20 games.

Mutants & Masterminds is fun and is a good alternate to Champions and BESM.
SWSE is one of the better Star Wars systems out there. Not as good as EotE or d6 at running closer to earth games, but it's very good at playing at least something like the movies.
Spycraft 2.0 is a decent modern game and is way better than d20 Modern.
Conan d20 is alright and is better than 3.5 at doing lower fantasy by a mile.

But those games were a small minority in a tidal wave of raw sewage.

Nah, the guy cunting about someone not liking d20 is way more of a cunt.

It's fine not to like d20.
But holy fuck are you a bitter cunt about it.

And you're a flat out retard for insisting that BESM d20 was a great game. I know which one of those I would rather be.

Wish is a 9th level spell, and thus unallowed in the mentioned house rules.

That was bad and you should feel bad.

It's funny how "not being a cunt" isn't an option in your worldview unless you profess something silly that no one said.

>no one said

Yeah, the games are great, even if the system isn't my favorite. Hanging out with friends, using a system everyone basically already knows and not being autistic about it. If you're not nitpicking and being a bitter cunt, great games.

You sound like you are bitching about six years of parties all because you don't like chocolate cake. Or are you a retard who actually can't have fun with d20 systems?
Toddlers can use d20. Are you dumber than a toddler?

If a system is bad it will ruin my ability to have fun with it. Stop projecting your lack of standards as a moral failing.

You can have fun with it, yeah, but it takes so much fucking work to make an idea you have come to life and work on the table, especially if you don't have magic backing you up.
I'm in a 3.5 campaign right now, probably the strongest pc I've ever run with, but it took so much work to make the idea actually be effective, I realize I could have done the same in another system, same kind of pc, without the headache or the crunching just for effectiveness.
Maybe if numbers gets you off, or you enjoy chargen crunch, but I have a limit when I'm poring over 10+ different books looking for the thing that will give me what I want, and absurd number crunching constantly.

Because we aren't retarded faggots like yourself?

Ah, you're dumber than a toddler if you let such easy systems "ruin" your fun.
Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering about why you were so bitter towards a system, and it's because you'd hate to put any blame on yourself.

What a fucking cunt.

They're not the best games, but you've got to be one fucking doddard to think a game even babies can play is such a difficulty to navigate. What'd you do? Making every dumb decision just to spite your group, you daft cunt?

Keep claiming that BESM d20 is a great game, that'll definitely make you look intelligent to the rest of the thread and not at all retarded.

>first round: "I swing my sword at it"
>second round: "I swing my sword at it"
>third round: "I swing my sword at it"
Yeah bro what kind of retard wouldn't think that's the height of fun

3.5 is god awful because of retarded ivory design.

If you ban everything except for Psionics and Tome of Battle it becomes passable.

Keep putting words in my mouth. BESM isn't a great system in ANY of its forms, but you can still use it to run great games if you're not a dumb cunt.

So, quit being so bitter, and turn it down a notch. These games didn't fucking kill your dog or some shit.

Stop saying "bitter" and "cunt" so much. Take a look at The Saurus.

user, you are being a cunt, stop earning the moniker.
Yeah, 3.5 works if you keep a mind to establish limits for yourself. Right now my game consist of my paladin super mishmash and a war wizard.

I had to optimize to my limit to even be able to hold a candle to what he can do, and that is in melee and social situations. Weird shit goes on in the game due to how it is designed and works in practice, due to dumb devs who didn't know what they were doing for 3 years.

You've got low PH, you vagina. Quit it.

>but you can still use it to run great games
I disagree. Freeforming with random people is better than running that trainwreck.

So, here's the deal.
Even with To9S, even with only curated books and spells. Even with all the latest errata and all the cool sourcebooks, and a DM that knows the game... 3.5 was "great" only in the 5-9 level band.
At these levels, the game is crazy fun. There's so many options, every character feels powerful and every enemy - weird and deadly. You just need to curate sourcesbooks and throw out the shit-tier classes.

See
A system with about 3/4ths of the base game options for players being abject fucking garbage, over-specialized, and under-powered isn't a good system at all. And that's before you get into the unbalanced splatbook spam and whatnot.

It was a system where your base stats and abilities barely mattered, you weren't given much to work with, and the classes that did have something to work with weren't that way because the others were broken, it was because they were broken and everything else was just poorly designed.

At least the Saga edition wasn't too bad. Honestly it's where I was hoping that it would be the model for 4e when they were talking about a new edition.

You also forgot Monte Cook's d20 World of Darkness if you're listing bad d20 conversions.

>not including Magic of Incarnum

>the only thing that matters in roleplaying games is how many abilities you get in combat
Go play world of warcraft

Its quite dreadful.

They're roleplaying games. Having engaging mechanics doesn't detract from the narrative.

Shit man initiators still make for more interesting characters because they're incentive for them to have high mental stats so they can have more personalities and rolls than various shades of "gruff warrior" and "AM BARBARIAN".

Star Wars Saga may not be perfect but it the best of the "official" systems released.

D6 and FFG star wars are both abominations.

They're roleplaying games. If your problem with characters is that "there's nothing to do but swing your sword" you are not roleplaying.

If you have a hundred options for character creation, but 90% of them are awful self-harming traps, you ten options.
Though I miss the crunch and scaffolding mechanical rules could lend a character too, user.

>They're roleplaying games. If your problem with characters is that "there's nothing to do but swing your sword" you are not roleplaying.
That's an utter non-sequitor. "These mechanics are shit/boring" has nothing to do with wheter or not people are roleplaying. I have no fucking idea where this notion that pretending mechanics do not exist and will not impact the enjoyment of a game, and saying otherwise makes you a filthy power gamer comes from. Are you trolling right now? If you aren't please tell me why you think this. Why do you think these ideas are mutually exclusive?

How is restricting a fighter to "just roll a 1d20+bullshit" enhance roleplay more than a series of flavorful abilities that can be used to spice up combat in a way that doesn't devolve into one big game of "mother may I" with the GM that allows players to customize their fighting style to better show off their characters personality in combat while also providing tools for a character to contribute more in roleplaying situations out of combat?

Fuck that shit, 3.0 is the one true edition

Star Wars Saga Edition (I think, the one with the weird square books) was fine so long as you didn't bite the Force Unleashed bait. It wasn't great but having fun was possible.

It's the same shit but the book isn't very well formatted and it's all black and white.

>shittier Fighters
>haste gives casters 2 spells a round
>shapechange is somehow even more broken

SWSE was great, SWd20 was cancer.

CoC d100 is fun

>people are entitled to like the games I want to play because my taste is superior
Fucking kill yourself.

It is fun, though.

You first, you're the one getting butthurt because someone doesn't like d20 games.

>SWSE is one of the better Star Wars systems out there
>proceeds to describe the only 2 other licensed systems (d6 and EotE) as being better

Saga did a lot of decent things by 3.5 standards to fit ranged/"""modern""" stuff, but it was still not the best Star Wars rpg.

the lack of anti-mage monsters other than golems and tarrasques really made caster supremacy much worse. If for every anti-martial enemy (fire elementals that hurt you if you get near them, incorporeal monsters you can't hit, undead that are immune to crits, etc) there was an anti-mage monster it would have been perfectly fine.

I played d20 modern as a fallout-style post-apoc game. I actually liked being able to take Monster Manual critters and make them "mutants" in the wasteland. That was pretty neat.

>what are outsiders
>Outsider Type, MM1 p313
>Full BAB, all good saves
>most have teleport and/or planeshift, multiple mobility abilities. all have 8+int skill points
the monster manuals are full of creatures which are fully capable of killing mages.
example. Cornugon Horned Devil. Fly speed 50, high touch AC, decent saves, hide +21, Move Silently +23, SR 28, multiple elemental resistances and immunities, 20ft reach on top of its good fly speed. high DC fort save vs stun each time it hits, Greater Teleport as an SLA at will, assorted good SLAs such as persistent image.
That's fairly average. trying to kill that thing is a nightmare for a caster, since if you don't manage it in the opening round, it will greater teleport next to you and lock you down with stunning AoOs, and that's if it doesn't have the surprise round.

This just in: You're allowed to enjoy things that have subjective flaws.

That said, the complain about the balance in 3.Xe is misunderstood. The ideal outcome isn't all classes being the same. The ideal outcome is giving a damn about how much power a wizard has access to relative to their level, and giving every class great tools to do what they are supposed to be good at.

What AoOs? Casting defensively is a joke by the time you're fighting horned devils. If they seriously teleported right into range of the Wizard under the assumption that they'd stop the Wizard from casting, they're a fucking idiot that deserves the ass beating they're about to get.