D&D 3E/3.5 Edition Experience - Did/Do you Play 3rd Edtion D&D? How Was/Is it?

[rabindranath72]

5) I use standard rules for magic item creation. My players never have enough money. With two domains to run that need investments in building buildings, recruiting, and gearing the recruits, and another PC building a monastery, money goes fast. Time is the other big investment for magic item creation.

Wealth by Level is a totally foreign concept to me. They get what they find and spend what they feel is necessary.

New PC's don't get Wealth by Level and their choice of stuff either. 5 PC's I've added above 1st level since 2021, they get whatever mundane gear makes sense, and basically 1-2 items special items of their choosing, or I'll give them something if they don't. It's an Earn-As-You-Go campaign. This is probably the one place I'm "tougher" than you.



6) Hmm, not sure what you mean, but yes, spells like Leomund's Secure Shelter, Sending, and Create Food & Water were considered game changers for my PC's.

Looks like we have a very similar approach.
As for your comments:
5) I didn't use WBL when I started running 3e, I pretty much went with the "gut feeling" approach of BECMI/2e, but ex-post, looking at the games I ran, I realised that (barring some spikes), the average wealth I tended to distribute hewed pretty close to roughly half of the standard WBL (i.e. a "low magic" setting in the DMG.) I find WBL useful to have an overall "feel" for the power distribution, but I don't feel bound to follow it blindly.
6) I mean giving the players the opportunity to use diverse spells by providing a range of challenges which are not all necessarily combat-oriented.

 

[rabindranath72]

I don't like the class and I'll take all the reasons I can get to ban it.

But in any case, they look different in 3.5 and 5e; 3.5 has one of the many magic systems the edition had, where 5e seems to act like a typical casting class with its own spell list.

And like I said, the 3e DMG at least in 3.0 already suggested flavor for the sorcerer as options that made the warlock unnecessary. But 3e never bothered to move past the blood of dragons explanation for sorcerers, and 3.5 bloat included many unnecessary base classes.

Check out the Feb 2001 issue of Dragon; the article "Magic in the blood" outlines different sorcerer "backgrounds," with suggested skills, feats, spells, races, and roleplaying tips. It's a wonderful example of the flexibility of the core rules.
Some examples:

• Experimentation
• Fey-touched
• Magical pacts (choices of supernatural patrons: celestial, demon, devil, djinni, efreeti, slaad, elementals)
• Dragon ancestry
• Forgotten crafts

Fey-touched and Magical pacts are most similar to the Warlock concept.
There's also an error in the headers; Experimentation describes Dragon ancestry, and vice versa.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I started on 3.0 and then moved to 3.5 once it came out. Looking back on it my group ignored A LOT of rules. There were also some "rules" that crept in from video games and such. Overall 3.X still feels the most like D&D to me, especially the artstyle. I still have the basics of the ruleset internalized all these years later.

Most of the playing I did was low level and in the "sweet spot" of 5-8. If I ever ran 3.X again I would definitely do something like E8 to rein in the power levels.

 

[haakon1]

From Forgotten Realms wiki and Wikipedia, it appears Warlock and Eldritch Blast were first introduced in Complete Arcane, a 2004 splatbook.

Easily prevented in 3x if you do Core only as the default … just saying.

It’s first time in Core Rules is the 4e PHB (2008). So I blame it on 4e.

Sorry Wyll. My current Wyll is Warlock 6/Bard 1 in Act 2 of BG3. He probably has the least time in my active party, but he likes me anyway for some reason.

 

[Mecheon]

Easily prevented in 3x if you do Core only as the default … just saying.

Core only 3.5E is asking for trouble though as that's three of the biggest problem classes in the whole game are just core. You want to start off banning Cleric, Druid and Wizard for anything remotely resembling balance in that game, after all

I'd actually argue Warlocks are far more balanced for most play than those three, its just if you don't like the one thing they can do (eldritch blast spam) you won't like 'em. But I def think they stand on their own as a seperate Thing from sorcerers

Ironically I think the latest class tiers suggets warlock is probably where a class wants to be, with core classes either being way too powerful (C/D/W) or too weak (fighter/rogue/monk/ranger). Its basically at the same level as a bard is

 

[Orius]

Check out the Feb 2001 issue of Dragon; the article "Magic in the blood" outlines different sorcerer "backgrounds," with suggested skills, feats, spells, races, and roleplaying tips. It's a wonderful example of the flexibility of the core rules.

I had a subscription to Dragon at the time, so I'm well aware of that issue. It's the sort of thing WotC should have tried doing with the class but really didn't follow up on.

 

[haakon1]

Core only 3.5E is asking for trouble though as that's three of the biggest problem classes in the whole game are just core. You want to start off banning Cleric, Druid and Wizard for anything remotely resembling balance in that game, after all

Cleric, Druid, and Wizard (AKA Magic User) are from “real” AD&D (1e), so I would never ban them.

Balance is not something I care about. To me, it’s an Internet complaint, not something that matters in actual play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Cleric, Druid, and Wizard (AKA Magic User) are from “real” AD&D (1e), so I would never ban them.

Balance is not something I care about. To me, it’s an Internet complaint, not something that matters in actual play.

So, blowing off everyone else who might care about it. That's certainly a take.

 

[haakon1]

So, blowing off everyone else who might care about it. That's certainly a take.

Yup. Think of all the Martials v. Casters threads; they’ve been going on since BMX Bandit days.

It’s so played out a complaint, it’s become “broken“ and lacks “balance”.

”If trees could scream, I wonder, would we still cut them down?
Maybe, if they screamed all the time for no reason” - Jack Handey

 

[GrimCo]

Martials are fine. If you swap figher and use Warblade as default "stick them with the pointy end" class. I will always praise Bo9S as one of, if not the best splat books in 3x. I would argue that Fighter Battlemaster from 5e is just inferior version of Warblade. If i ever run 3e again, i'm nixing fighter and paladin from my game. Warblade and crusader are default in my game.

3.5 warlocks are at best Tier 3 class, probably tier 4. Blast is subpar damage wise, since you can use one per round, and unlike sneak attack, it doesn't go up d6 per 2 levels, it goes 2d6 per 4 levels, so if you play at levels most people play, you might just get to 5d6 blast at very end of campaign (5d6 is at lv 9). For most of the game you are stuck with 3d6/1 round. Only saving grace for blast is that is range touch no save (but subject to SR). Unlike sorcerers, they are not versatile, they have very little options, but what they can do, they can do all day long.