Decline The good and bad of D&D 3.x

[DavidBVal]

It's not intuitive at all. THAC0 starts at an arbitrary number of 20 and goes down from that, AC starts at 10 and goes down from that. The lower your hitchance or AC the better you're off? It's not logical at all. Particularly when you want all the other numerical values to be highest possible. It's VERY counter-intuitive.

Sure, nerds who have played this system for the last 20 years will know it by heart and won't mind, but for a newcomer it's just mumbo-jumbo, it doesn't make any sense.

Absolutely right and I am one of those nerds. To me it is the same playing one system or another but probably I find the older more charming, getting into negative AC and all. But the consistence of "more is better" offered by 3ed+ system is much easier to understand to new players. AC? AB? Attack roll? More is better. Plus AC0 as a reference was entirely arbitrary, it was an very good armor class but how good exactly? hard to tell for someone new to the system. AC0 is much more logically positioned at "no protection", everybody understands that. There *IS* a reason they kept the same system but turned it around for 3ed and all subsequent eds.

 

[Neanderthal]

Con: Fucking art of 3rd edition rubbed me wrong way from beginning, gone were Easley, Elmore and Caldwell and the style they created for AD&D and instead we got boring crap. And don't start me on bloody shields that now featured spiky bits all over em for no fucking reason, yay lets make shields heavier and more cumbersome for no frigging reason. Numpty fucks.

Pro: At least it weren't 4th edition.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Pro: PCs and monsters followed exactly the same rules. If you wanted to play a monster as a PC, you could do that.

Con: Making an enemy for your party to fight involved as much effort as rolling a PC and leveling him to the party's level. A villain--or even a powerful monster from the MM--would have feats, spells, and abilities that you actually had to plan out and write down.

I'm a little torn about the change going from 3 to 4 in this regard.

 

[Cael]

... you just prove caster supremacy at low levels again (Sleep, Grease).

Actually, all I proved was that you have no clue as to what you are talking about and therefore can be safely ignored like the moron you are.

 

[Dayyālu]

Actually, all I proved was that you have no clue as to what you are talking about and therefore can be safely ignored like the moron you are.

Entire thread support my position and give additional examples;

Your own post proves my point;

No valid counterpoint to defend your position;

Desperate "ad hominem" attack NO YOU;

I didn't think it was even possible to lose an argument on the Internet this badly. You did prove me wrong. I gave examples about Caster Supremacy: now it's you turn to defend your position. I am waiting. If you manage to put up a good defense and change my mind, I'll admit it.

 

[Dzupakazul]

... you just prove caster supremacy at low levels again (Sleep, Grease).

Actually, all I proved was that you have no clue as to what you are talking about and therefore can be safely ignored like the moron you are.

You actually went off at him because Color Spray "will kill a 1d4 wizard"... but Color Spray takes a standard action to cast (and not 1 full round), sleeping victims can be simply woken up by their allies with another standard action, Color Spray can affect a larger total HD of creatures than Sleep and never comes wtih a hard cap on effectiveness (thus staying more relevant at later levels where you still want to use your level 1 spells as backup against, for instance, high HD low Will enemies).

Of course it's a good spell. It's a great spell. It's widely considered as such. Not as great in certain situations (but neither is Sleep nor Grease), such as a group of enemies in cover or an overwhelmed party member, but you still haven't refuted the simple, basic fact that a level 1 wizard has at least three different ways to simply ending an encounter. Worried that your 1HD wizard will find using Color Spray too risky? Not a problem, 3-or-5HD Wizard will still be using all his spellslots and Color Spray generally stays useful at that level, and will also have a bigger bank of useful spells to protect his life; he'll definitely be able to get Mage Armor, for instance, without having to sacrifice most of his offense. All have their downsides, but are, nevertheless, really powerful.

 

[Cael]

You actually went off at him because Color Spray "will kill a 1d4 wizard"... but Color Spray takes a standard action to cast (and not 1 full round), sleeping victims can be simply woken up by their allies with another standard action, Color Spray can affect a larger total HD of creatures than Sleep and never comes wtih a hard cap on effectiveness (thus staying more relevant at later levels where you still want to use your level 1 spells as backup against, for instance, high HD low Will enemies).

Of course it's a good spell. It's a great spell. It's widely considered as such. Not as great in certain situations (but neither is Sleep nor Grease), such as a group of enemies in cover or an overwhelmed party member, but you still haven't refuted the simple, basic fact that a level 1 wizard has at least three different ways to simply ending an encounter. Worried that your 1HD wizard will find using Color Spray too risky? Not a problem, 3-or-5HD Wizard will still be using all his spellslots and Color Spray generally stays useful at that level, and will also have a bigger bank of useful spells to protect his life; he'll definitely be able to get Mage Armor, for instance, without having to sacrifice most of his offense. All have their downsides, but are, nevertheless, really powerful.

I went off at him because he is another know nothing trying to pass off as if he knew something. You don't use Colour Spray at low levels, especially if you want to survive. Grease is far better in combat if you have melee types in your team and has a ton of utility uses as well. That is the kind of spell you want to keep on hand at all times, not just combat exclusive spells.

That is the thing about the game. It is not about the wizard, but the TEAM. The wizard makes it easier for the rest of the team to get rid of the enemy and doing so would maximise the effectiveness of the spells slots used. That is why the God Wizard is considered one of the best out there and, ironically, the flaming retards pick up on that as if that is the proof they need to prove once and for all that wizards are the be all and end all of the game. What they missed is that the God Wizard very rarely do any killing themselves. They rely on others to do the killing and encounter ending. They simply shape the battlefield and tie down enemies. In fact, evocation is one of the first spell school dropped by any serious God Wizard.

If you actually do a count of the spells that the retards spew out in their claims that the wizard can do anything, you will find that they far exceed the spell slot limit of any level 1 wizard.

Even more ironically, you will also note that these so-called anti-powergamers are focused exclusively on the combat aspect of the game.

It is a disingenuous form of argument that relies on lies of omission and a lot of smoke and mirrors. Deceit, in other words.

 

[Dayyālu]

Cael , back for another round? Ohh boy you are persistent. Let's see if you have good points instead of ad hominems and easily disproved "BUT I KNEW D&D FOR TWENTY YEARS" spiels.

I went off at him because he is another know nothing trying to pass off as if he knew something. You don't use Colour Spray at low levels, especially if you want to survive. Grease is far better in combat if you have melee types in your team and has a ton of utility uses as well. That is the kind of spell you want to keep on hand at all times, not just combat exclusive spells.

You do use Colour Spray at lower levels, Sleep and Grease are also great spells. Repetita iuvant. A caster can shutdown most encounters with a single ability: Druids and Clerics quickly overshadow melee classes. The Druid with the companion animal can do everything a fighter can do just better. It's a sad fact of life in 3.x derivatives.

That is the thing about the game. It is not about the wizard, but the TEAM. The wizard makes it easier for the rest of the team to get rid of the enemy and doing so would maximise the effectiveness of the spells slots used. That is why the God Wizard is considered one of the best out there and, ironically, the flaming retards pick up on that as if that is the proof they need to prove once and for all that wizards are the be all and end all of the game. What they missed is that the God Wizard very rarely do any killing themselves. They rely on others to do the killing and encounter ending. They simply shape the battlefield and tie down enemies. In fact, evocation is one of the first spell school dropped by any serious God Wizard.

I am happy that you had good parties and good DMs. D&D can be enjoyable if well managed. Your points are still weak: I am not referring to wizards, I am referring to casters. Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, Druids, etc.

Even more ironically, you will also note that these so-called anti-powergamers are focused exclusively on the combat aspect of the game.

It is a disingenuous form of argument that relies on lies of omission and a lot of smoke and mirrors. Deceit, in other words.

Again, nothing to say, you are right. But if we have to consider the true weak points of D&D 3.X, it's not AC or HP or Skills. It's, from a basic perspective:

1) Caster Supremacy
2) Feat Bloat\Feat "traps"
3) Atrocious Class Balance (even if we avoid Caster Supremacy, some classes like Monk aren't simply good enough to work properly)
4) Without DM intervention, excessive focus on murdehoboing and not enough on "expanded play"

Thanks for agreeing with me. See, we DO share the same positions! 3.x isn't the best system for non-combat play, and in some regards it's even boring ("I roll Perception" instead of roleplaying the search smartly). If you want to play something that isn't combat-focused, you don't play 3.x.

(And even in non-combat aspects of the game casters floor everyone and everything, making rogues and rangers redundant)

3.x is a fun system if used with restraints. It is WIDELY recognized that the caster balance and the focus on murdehoboing are huge weak points (4th edition tried to solve the caster problem but not the murderhoboing). Is that hard to accept the obvious?

 

[Max Damage]

Casting Animate Dead!

One thing I always see being understated about 3.X is just how bad feat taxes and feats in general are if you want to play mundane martial/archer. Without multiclassing (so, humans only in core) you'll be doing piss poor DPR, you need to have good/decent ability scores before you even take some vital feats, feats that improve attack bonus/DPR do so in tiny numbers and basically require you to climb the full feat chain over several levels for crappy gains. Basically everything in core besides Combat Reflexes and Power Attack doesn't scale, which is disaster in HP bloat edition. Meanwhile, casters have lvl1 spells that scale to the infinity and beyond, combat or general adventuring. Monte Cook tried to do some damage control with his talk about rewarding system mastery and Timmy cards, which is equivalent of "I was merely pretending to be retarded" when talking about edition where over half of classes is trap option and doesn't do what it promises. And this is coming from guy who wanted to make casters even better, and mundanes even worse than they are already.

The worst thing about 3.X is incurable brain damage it inflicted upon its fanbase, finding genuine discussion/solution of its flaws without fanboys agressively jumping in with their fallacies is practically impossible, most used keywords are "White Room Theorycrafting", "Pathfinder fixed it", "Dial it down", "Magic is supposed to rule" and "5 minute adventure day". Never try to tell anyone about Scribe Scroll (and how Wizards have it for free), you won't get anything but incomprehensible screeching in return. In a nutshell:

 

[Dayyālu]

There are still 3.5 apologists around? The mechanical problems are widely recognized. You know what you get in 3.x. You have a billion options not to play 3.x if you don't want to.

I've never found a majority of people that goes "3.x is perfectly balanced", and with 5th ed it's even more difficult because new blood (and new players) approach the matter differently. I had quite a few "new" players that approached PF from 5th ed and quickly realized the """differences""" and weirdo balance.


One thing I'd like to see is a re-evaluation of 4th edition after so many years. The worst thing about 4th ed was some iffy enemy balance and the fact that it was called D&D, give it another name and probably it would have managed better. It's mechanically interesting, at least.

 

[DavidBVal]

I still don't even get what "balanced" means in all this context, and if what people complain about is "a Wizard would always defeat a Fighter in an hypothetical arena fight" I don't see the problem. Just play a wizard if such factor is a priority for you.

There's legitimate criticism to be done on 3.x, plenty of it, but "balance" is a MMORPG concept that should have never left the guild chat.

 

[Falksi]

I've never actually played table-top D&D, me & my mates werwe all about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

How does D&D compare to Warhammer overall?

 

[Dayyālu]

There's legitimate criticism to be done on 3.x, plenty of it, but "balance" is a MMORPG concept that should have never left the guild chat.

4th ed was amusingly enough "D&D the MMORPG" and it's less criticized than 3.x in that sense.

Traditionally the position is not about mere combat: the traditional critique is "there isn't anything that a martial class can do that a caster can't do better, in combat or in non-combat stuations".

The typical problem is "taking two players with the same experience and the same roleplaying capabilities the caster will always will be more powerful and have far more toys to approach any situation". With "balance" it's often intended how in theory casters are so better that they can act and shine in roleplay, requiring the DM to purposefully plan how to make martials relevant.

Combat design is simply one of the problems, and 3.x is a combat heavy system after all.

But I'm sorta beyond the problem now, it's simply how 3.x is. It's beating a dead horse. It's like noticing how a billion classes and prestige classes are barely playtested crap, it's simply how it is.

 

[Max Damage]

I still don't even get what "balanced" means in all this context, and if what people complain about is "a Wizard would always defeat a Fighter in an hypothetical arena fight" I don't see the problem. Just play a wizard if such factor is a priority for you.

There's legitimate criticism to be done on 3.x, plenty of it, but "balance" is a MMORPG concept that should have never left the guild chat.

Dude, you've got 8 INT. Also, like clockwork

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I've never actually played table-top D&D, me & my mates werwe all about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

How does D&D compare to Warhammer overall?

Never played WFRP. Couldn't say. Played lots of D&D though. If you say what WFRP is like, I could tell you how D&D (and specific editions) are different.

I still don't even get what "balanced" means in all this context, and if what people complain about is "a Wizard would always defeat a Fighter in an hypothetical arena fight" I don't see the problem. Just play a wizard if such factor is a priority for you.

There's legitimate criticism to be done on 3.x, plenty of it, but "balance" is a MMORPG concept that should have never left the guild chat.

I get the feeling that D&D 4e must have been created when a bunch of WotC dudes got together and said, "Everyone is playing World of Warcraft, but no one is playing D&D. How can we make D&D more accessible to the Warcraft crowd?" And then 4e was what it was.

There are still 3.5 apologists around? The mechanical problems are widely recognized. You know what you get in 3.x. You have a billion options not to play 3.x if you don't want to....

Yes! I love 3.x, and the mechanical problems are just part of what I love about it. At this point, I don't think anyone actually cares about balance in 3.x. People play 3.x because they want to have fun, not caring that the system has quirks. I'm going to call them quirks instead of flaws. If you have fun exploiting the metagame, then have fun with it! It's a feature, not a bug.

...
3.x is a fun system if used with restraints. It is WIDELY recognized that the caster balance and the focus on murdehoboing are huge weak points (4th edition tried to solve the caster problem but not the murderhoboing). Is that hard to accept the obvious?

3.x is a fun system even if you let your players go nuts. The unlimited cheese in the system is part of what makes it fun, to me at least. If someone wants restraints, 4e gives you restraints.

I love CODzilla, Wildshaping into a dire bear, using the natural spell feat to cast Call Lightning, and then keeping himself and the party alive with a Mass Cure Moderate Wounds. And that's all totally intended usage within the bounds of the system. Even better is the mage who spends XP to make a fireball wand, then gets to cast fireball 20 times in a single day, nuking an entire bugbear cave, getting more XP than his party members because he's lower level, and then using the bonus XP to create more wands. And that's also within both the letter and the spirit of the rules.

 

[Falksi]

I've never actually played table-top D&D, me & my mates werwe all about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

How does D&D compare to Warhammer overall?

Never played WFRP. Couldn't say. Played lots of D&D though. If you say what WFRP is like, I could tell you how D&D (and specific editions) are different.

Prob best just to give me your opinion on the D&D editions then.

I've heard you can get OP'd & wipe out armies no sweat? That true or bollocks?

 

[DavidBVal]

How does D&D compare to Warhammer overall?

WFRP was designed to be a fun system, deadly, chaotic, humorous. It has almost zero learning curve for players (seriously). 1st edition was a blast, with some rules requiring fixing, for sure, but still very playable and everything you needed was in one book: rules, complete setting, bestiary, spellbook... and even a quite decent adventure, The OldenHaller Contract. 2nd edition fixed some of the mechanics problems, but took away part of the wild fun and broke the setting. I don't know 3rd edition, 4th I have only partially read and... well, hard to say without really playing an actual game but I'm not looking forward to try it out.

Best part of WFRP? the adventures. Just amazing, adventures and campaigns tend to be crap in fantasy RPGs, classic warhammer adventures are easily the best "purchased ones" I've DM'ed. The Enemy Within Campaign first half is just too good (just make it end at Middenheim, where it was meant to). Lichemaster is probably the *perfect* adventure for people that has never played an RPG before.

 

[DavidBVal]

I still don't even get what "balanced" means in all this context, and if what people complain about is "a Wizard would always defeat a Fighter in an hypothetical arena fight" I don't see the problem. Just play a wizard if such factor is a priority for you.

There's legitimate criticism to be done on 3.x, plenty of it, but "balance" is a MMORPG concept that should have never left the guild chat.

Dude, you've got 8 INT. Also, like clockwork

Maybe if you post that shit collage a third time it'll make sense or be funny. Go ahead and try.

 

[Dayyālu]

I get the feeling that D&D 4e must have been created when a bunch of WotC dudes got together and said, "Everyone is playing World of Warcraft, but no one is playing D&D. How can we make D&D more accessible to the Warcraft crowd?" And then 4e was what it was.

Yes, everyone thought that. But as a system, bar a couple of design wrinkles (mostly enemy design and some weirdo powers) it's at least interesting.

Yes! I love 3.x, and the mechanical problems are just part of what I love about it.

I play PF. Two ongoing campaigns even. I expressed myself badly: with "apologists" I clumsily meant "people who deny caster supremacy". The system is the system, with all its good and bad things, but it's fun. For me at least.

Maybe if you post that shit collage a third time it'll make sense or be funny. Go ahead and try.

Discussing it is senseless! It's simply how it is. Theoretically, depending on the specific setting/adventure, etc...etc... also seriously only people with too much free time care about it strongly.

I'm more curious, you said that 3.x has several problems. What do you mean exactly?

 

[DavidBVal]

I'm more curious, you said that 3.x has several problems. What do you mean exactly?

Nothing new:

-Slog-fest combat. Buffs with convulted stacking rules, small bonuses everywhere, special powers, too many things to keep track of. At mid levels when there's tons of attacks it can easily make a large battle last hours, and not in a fun way.
-Feat chaos. Design full with traps that requires players to become experts in a maze-like requisite hell. Most feats are complete crap, with some builds you don't even care what you take.
-Dated combat mechanics that make the long battles even more boring. Despite the enormous ability to stack bonuses on top of your attacks, there's little tactics involved nor interesting choices to make. And the scaling of attack bonus and AC is just crazy.
-Magic system of a "superheroes" game, reminds me more of Dragonball than medieval fantasy.
-Beginning of the stupid CR system. No sane DM needs that, it just doesn't work.
-Redundancy in design. If you have a multiclass system as one of the pillars of your mechanics, and feats as a way to customize characters, why make also hybrid classes instead of having the players use the system for that?
-Skill points end up as a false development choice, you just max your skills most of the time.

Then there's the chronical issues derived from D&D, like HP inflation which I abhor, or the fact that your skills mean shit for low-mid levels, who cares if you have a -2 or a +4 when you are rolling a fucking d20 for everything, it'll be mostly luck.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Prob best just to give me your opinion on the D&D editions then.

I've heard you can get OP'd & wipe out armies no sweat? That true or bollocks?

The short answer is yes, you can get OP'ed. The exact route to overpoweredness depends. But for a brief primer,

• First edition regular Dungeons & Dragons, most popular in the 70's and 80's, was at the same time too simple in some ways and too complicated in others. Looking back on it now, it's pretty obviously the amateur result of a first-time game publisher. Elf and dwarf were character classes. And you had specific rules and charts for everything. Playing by the rules as written, it should also have been super deadly. A level-1 wizard or rogue should have 1d4 hit points, and an average whack from a sword does 1d8 damage.
• Second edition, known as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, popular in the 90's, added a bunch of stuff: separate races and character classes, non-weapon proficiencies (a.k.a. skills), and a bunch of other stuff. But it was still generally the same game.
• Third edition (3 and 3.5 known together as 3.x), released in 2000, was for me when the system tried to simplify and unify the rules. This time period is when a lot of the D&D-based modern CRPG classics were released, and this is the system those games are based on. This edition, with all of its official supplements, allows for some absolutely bonkers character builds, including the infamous Pun-Pun who can have infinite ability scores and all special abilities by level 5. This is usually the edition being discussed when people bring up caster supremacy.
• D&D 4e, from 2008-2014, was a complete change. The rules for everything were completely different. It's more of a tactical board game, where each player on your team plays a specific role. And the enemies have unique descriptions, but under the hood they are generic and fungible within their roles. It wasn't bad and it wasn't good. It was just very different, and an obvious attempt to MMO-ify D&D.
• D&D 5e is a return to the free-form play of 3e, but more simplified and streamlined. I've heard more than one person say that this is their favorite edition.

The edition we're discussing here is 3.x, where the "Martial/Caster Disparity" BINGO chart above seems to show the various responses one might have when someone says "Wizards are OP." It's a mess and I won't try to explain everything, but in general it seems like excuses for why martials (fighters, barbarians, rogues) aren't worse off than casters (wizards, clerics, druids).

Everyone who knows D&D and is being honest with himself recognizes that 3.x casters have ridiculously overpowered abilities. In my previous post, I mentioned two features of 3.x: CODzilla (a mashup of Cleric-or-Druid and Godzilla), which is a reference to the nigh-invulnerability of clerics and druids once they reach a certain level; and the "river of XP," which is D&D's way of giving lower-level characters more XP so that they can keep up with higher-level party members. But so long as you keep spending your XP on enchanting magical items, you stay at least one level below your friends, so you keep getting more XP, and the extra firepower afforded by your magical items is vastly more useful than being one level higher.

There is plenty of other evidence for caster superiority in 3.x, but I'll leave it to others to explain if they care to bring it up.

Yes, everyone thought that. But as a system, bar a couple of design wrinkles (mostly enemy design and some weirdo powers) it's at least interesting.

Yes. I agree. 4e is different, and it's interesting.

 

[Falksi]

Nathaniel3W Lovely job, ta muchly for the explanation. From what you're saying, the WHFR world sounds a lot better balanced tbf. It's been a long time since I played it though.

DavidBVal We played The Enemy Within campaign and I absolutely fucking thrived on it. It was a slog at times staying focussed on it, but that was more due to us being giddy teens, always wanting to piss about, rather than the campaign itself.

Our DM was good, but it also used to seem to take him ages to get his head round a few things too.

I tried writing a few adventures myself, but usually got bored after about 3 pages.

 

[DavidBVal]

• D&D 5e is a return to the free-form play of 3e, but more simplified and streamlined. I've heard more than one person say that this is their favorite edition.

It is pretty good. It is a strong choice for a system if your group has a strong D&D background but you are fed up with 3.x, since it deals with some of the issues mentioned. Buff-madness is gone, bonuses madness is gone, combat flows like a breeze, even if your players are newbies. Spellcasters have fewer daily slots and spells are, overall, weaker. However it introduces some new (smaller, IMHO) problems, and doesn't deal with some traditional D&D limitations, but there's already a 5e thread about that.

DavidBVal We played The Enemy Within campaign and I absolutely fucking thrived on it. It was a slog at times staying focussed on it, but that was more due to us being giddy teens, always wanting to piss about, rather than the campaign itself.

Our DM was good, but it also used to seem to take him ages to get his head round a few things too.

It takes some dedication to DM the Enemy Within, for sure, but damn, so many memories flowing. Unforgettable scenes, the humor, the twists. And it invented the "modern" concept of sandbox campaigns so popular now, and did it far better than any other I've read.

 

[TigerKnee]

I don't know why people are still holding the "4e = MMO" thing over its head. The developers did say they were inspired by WoW and wanted to add that audience but in practice I don't think 4E actually plays like WoW - for example, Defenders (the "Tank" role in 4E) don't magically force the enemy to attack them but instead Mark enemies which usually impose penalties on marked enemies to heavily discourage them from attacking anyone other than the character that marked them but you probably don't want to tempt fate by putting your Wizard in front of those enemies even under those circumstances - the specific class you're playing determines exactly how you mark and what said marks do so there's actually quite a bit of explorable design space despite the very formalized roles. And I think it's a really huge stretch to view At-Wills/Per Encounter/Dailies as "Cooldowns" when those were concepts that existed in the previous versions.

D&D is supposed to be fun. Period. It is not balanced, was never balanced and will never be balanced. Trying to make it balanced it making it not D&D.

The irony is that pre-3x edition, intentionally or otherwise, was more balanced than it (it's not really a binary switch). Casters being more powerful than Martials was always the general belief but the gap wasn't as wide as it was before - 3e took out a lot of the factors that was supposed to limit casters because "they were annoying" without realizing those limits were there for a reason.

 

[Falksi]

It takes some dedication to DM the Enemy Within, for sure, but damn, so many memories flowing. Unforgettable scenes, the humor, the twists. And it invented the "modern" concept of sandbox campaigns so popular now, and did it far better than any other I've read.

My memory's a bit foggy, but wasn't it The Enemy Within campaign where they

Spoiler

baited you with the promise of riches, for it all just to be bullshit? Whichever campaign it was, I remember playing it and, long after the rest of us had sussed out it was all rubbish, one of the players was still wanting to push on in search of these riches . Sometime stupidly late in the game when we'd slayed a greater demon or something he was like "right, let's go get that coin!"