What's wrong with my precious 3.5E?

[nodwyck]

This is the deal: I've heard it so many times: "3.5E is a legal robbery!" Here, you can gripe about the actual rules.

Besides that, what are the things that were changed for worse from 3.0 to 3.5?

My 2cp:
The weapon size thingy - it was all fine and dandy before, and it has some inconsistencies. Why change it now? (I know, the rule itself makes sense.)

Feats: Spell penetration should have been nerfed to +1, and Leadership should be explained in PHB.

Prestige classes:
Red wizard shoulda stayed in FR books.

[Hussar]

ONe thing that I don't like is the new Summon Monster Spells. They have completely removed any LN creatures, and any of the creatures that had non-combat abilities. I loved the fact that you could summon Formian Workers to cast make whole spells. Or Unicorns to do minor healing. That was the main reason I loved playing conjurers, because of the versatility.

[Kreegsbrok]

[glow=teal,5,555]The only big problem I've had with 3.5 is getting my players to purchase their own copies of the books... Only having one copy (two, sometimes) of the rules to pass around when someone wants to look at something gets annoying fast, but that's no system flaw. [/glow]

[glow=teal,5,555]As far as actual system gripes, I was just disappointed with how a good portion of the classes saw some changes to them (be it minor, or great), but others, like the Fighters, received nothing 'new'. Sure, hordes of feats are great, but I'd have liked a little extra spice aside from what they already had. [/glow]

[AtlanteanAscendant]

whats wrong with 3.5? 29.95 per book...

seriously though, a lot of what they changed was nice. the Ranger class alone has made it a worthwhile class to follow through with. And the monk, while still F.O.P, isnt nearly as bad as it used to be.

beefs: Spell save DCs.. the spell focus and greater spell focus getting slapped to +1 and +1 (for a total of +2). um, why? were people really getting slapped so bad with a total of +4 to the save DC for a single school? and the rewording of some spells, Polymorphing for instance, makes them seem less powerful or potent than they should. Though Scorching Ray is now officially the first spell any Sorcerer should have when they get 2nd level. 4d6 fire damage every 4 levels, no save. muahahahaha

more beefs: Sorcerer, hamstrung Wizard, or frustrated bard? you decide

The Bard. understand the need to make him more of a RPing class. but the bard has changed from 1st editions power gaming type class to the wussiest class of the system.

and it would still be nice if other classes got feat selections at some point during their class progression in the same way the wizards and fighters do. Something to more resemble the way d20 modern does it.

okay, those were beefs... good enough, or do you want more?

[nodwyck]

one thing about the "feat selection"...
monk, ranger and rogue get to select some bonuses, right?

[ShonenSenshiDave]

they totally played with the monk's feat progression. iirc, the monk now gets to choose from a list of feats where s/he would have normally been given one. for example, the monk can take deflect arrows or feat "x" at 2nd level, whereas in 3.0 s/he would have been assigned deflect arrows as a class feature. the ranger and the rogue are in the same situation. where they would normall have been assigned a feat in 3.0, now they get to choose from 2 feats, presumably to help "personalize" each different PC.

I'm not sure I like it for Rogues and Monks. They had a good amount of power already. Rangers aren't a class I play often, so I'll reserve my comments, but what I've read has been relatively positive in terms of the changes to that class.

other 3.5 gripes:

a lot of the PrC have already been published, as were a lot of the "new" skills and feats, so I don't plan on buying 3.5 any time soon. I have like 90% of them already...

I know they changed several skills. Pick Pockets and something else are now "Prestidigitation", and I know that Wilderness Lore has been changed as well. They add in all of those feats that enhance some such skill or another and it gets too messy, imo. Do we really need all these extra points and whatnot? certainly isn't helping 3.5's status as a "roll" playing game!

and now I hear that they're redoing the psionics handbook too. <grumble>

and what about the druid? spontaneous casting? totally unnecessary, IMHO. that was there for the cleric so that he wouldn't be a walking band-aid. he could prepare his combat/scrying/protection spells, not constantly have to prepare healing spells, but still had them in a pinch. it has to do with religion and the cleric's role. i cannot fathom a good reason why a druid needs spontaneous casting. they took a really cool and thoughtful character trait of the cleric and twisted it to no end for no reason. druids are powerful enough, and it helped separate clerics from all the other spellcasters.

On the positive side:

man, some of the arcane spells were outrageous in duration. Bull's Strength was what, 7 hours? Same with cat's grace, mage armour (iirc) and shield gave a +7 bonus? they've been taken down a few notches, which is good. they were lasting far too long.

Scorching Ray? 4d6/4 levels? are they insane? that's awful powerful for a 2nd level spell...

from what I've read, I like the bard and the sorceror better, actually. what i like best about the new sorceror is the fact that he can swap spells as he gets higher in level. who the hell needs sleep at 15th level anyway?!?

that's my initial take after reading everything i have thus far. 2 of my PCs have the 3.5 handbook, while I'm running a 3.0 campaign. maybe I'll have to borrow it next session so i can look at it more in-depth. fortunately i run an oriental adventures/l5r/rokugan tabletop, so 3.5 hasn't has a huger impact yet as most of my PCs feats come from the oa/l5r/rokugan books anyway

[AtlanteanAscendant]

they have nerfed a lot of the magic durations and lessened the bonuses given out by the spells we all knew and love. most of them have been reduced to either 1 minute/level or 10 minutes/level.

with druids the changes have been minor and ones i can find a way to agree with. They do get the ability to swap spells, but the swaps are for Summon Nature's Ally, not cure light wounds. I like this, its not too big a change, but enough to make it a bit more interesting.

The biggest class change WAS the ranger. Went from being a top heavy, twink class (i.e. grab one level for all the goodies and get out), to something i could see players following all the way to 20th level.

the 3.5 does make a lot of changes from 3.0, many more good than bad IMO. but id say this is more for people who didnt heavily buy into 3.0 from day one, or for newer players. if you picked up 3.0 and are happy with it, good for you. in fact, great. but after having run through 3.5 in two seperate campaigns, 3.5 cleans up a lot of the mess 3.0 left over.

and i hope they get the psionics handbook redeux out quickly. im seriously hoping for a big time revision as all psionics are right now is watered down magic spells. psions = hamstrung sorcerors. only advantage they have is more skill points (which they shouldve done for the wizards in 3.5 IMO, thats another beef)., but thats it really.

and ive never liked the monk. even in 3.5 its the most broken arsed class in the game. by 20th he's the only class other than the wizard who could go toe to toe with virtually any class in the book and come out on top. but, thats just my gripe.

[Hussar]

Meh, by twentieth level I couldn't really care who is more powerful. My campaigns rarely climb over 12th or 13th level, so it is really not an issue. If you play in that range, from 1st to say 14th, then all the classes are very well balanced. What happens after that, I don't know, nor do I care.

Nerfing the spells was a very good thing. No more waking up in the morning, casting your bunch of spells from wands or scrolls and being a walking tank all day. Hmm, wand of Bull's strength and the other buff spells after extending their duration with the feat, lasted pretty much all day. Who needs buff items, simply whack out the spells and yer good to go.

I kinda like the Druid thing actually. Druids are a nature priest, so it does make some sense that they would have similar abilities to clerics. Also, since it's summoning spells, I'm not sure how often it will be used. Some people really jam on the summonings, other's never bother. At least they now have the option.

[AtlanteanAscendant]

considering one of the newer items in 3.5 is the metamagic rods and the persistant or extend duration feats are still on the list, anyone of a decent enough level could still max everything out at the beginning of the day and be a walking tank.

and while anything above 14th may not be an issue for some, there is a reason they had to put out the epic level items and levels in the books. Even so, there's a good chance of monks being pretty heinous.

the fixes were good, but not perfect. but then again, what game system is?

[ShonenSenshiDave]

My beef with the Druid being able to spontaneously cast is this:

The Cleric gets Turn/Rebuke undead, Spells, and better arnour/weapons than the Druid, but that's it (unless 3.5 gave the a feat progression like Wizards and Fighters). Spontaneous casting made them a bit different from the other divine spellcasters. and by 20th level, the spell table is 6, 5+1/4+1.

The Druid has a very steady progression of abilities at each level: nature sense, animal companion, woodland stride, trackless step, resist nature's lure, wild shape, venom immunity, more wild shape, a thousand faces, more wild shape, timelss body, more wild shape, and a spell progression very similar to that of the cleric: 6/5+1/4+1. There's about 3 levels where the Druid gets no "new" ability.

Now 3.5 has added ADDITIONAL abilities to the Druid. What did it do for the Cleric? My understanding is some pretty minor changes? Did they balance out the character with more feats? New spells? What?

Many of the core classes got a change of some sort in 3.5, but I don't know how many, if any changes the Cleric got. I just feel as though the Druid was powerful enough as is, and the ability for Druids to do spontaneous casting was not necessary. They have enough abilities as it is, why do they need more?

Monks were also a pretty powerful class. Now they can use thier ki stikes as serious magic weapons, correct? 3.5 made the monk character even less likely to fit into a DnD game, and I'm a huge proponent of the Monk! With the way they changed it, it seems as though it got even more powerful instead of less. And a well-played Monk was dangerous enough to begin with!

Psionics <sigh>. I never really saw the psion as a hamstrung Sorceror. Having played one, I liked the mechanics of the class, and the abilities were pretty evenly distributed (and anything was better than the horrid mechanics of the 1E psionics, IMHO.) I'm almost afraid to see what they plan to do with the 3.5 psi... <shudder> I mean Vampire Touch, Polymorph Self, Disintegrate, Acid Touch; there are some seriously heavy duty powers as is, how are they gonna change the class?!? What do you think is wrong with it as I'm not 100% certain what you mean by a "hamstrung sorceror". My psion for example, with no armour, was up to an AC of 20, IIRC? Inertial Amour gives a +4 to AC, and the only requirement is that you have 1 power point to spare. Any sane psion would have a lot more than that in reserve at any given time anyway. Add bracers of Natural Armour, Rings of Protection, etc, and AC isn't a concern. If you want to be a front-line fighter, take the Psychometabolic path, and not only will you increase your AC, but you'll have a ridiculous number of combat-related powers. I always felt that Psionics were pretty well-balanced and varied....

[Hussar]

One thing they did take away from Monks however is the improved unarmed base attack bonus. Instead, they now have flurry at various bonuses. In 3.0, a monk got two attacks per round (unarmed) at 6th level. Now, unless he flurries, he doesn't get it until 8th when his bab gets high enough. So, while his full attack flurry option is pretty good, his single attack option went way down. To compare BAB at level 4 3.0=+3 3.5=+2: at level 8 3.0=+6/+3 3.5=+6/+1 at level 16 3.0=+12/+9/+6/+3 and 3.5 +12/+7/+2. Comparing flurries at that level 3.0=+10/+10/+7/+4/+1 and 3.5=+12/+12+/12/+7+2 . Ok, the flurries are better, but his base attack certainly isn't.

The ki strikes, IMO, mean that the monk can actually use his unarmed attacks at pretty much any given level. I don't know how they work DR in 3.5 yet since I don't have my DMG yet. But it seems to me, that the progression follows the typical magic weapon progression of say a fighter. Besides, an amulet of natural weapons isn't that expensive and was pretty much a must for any monk in 3.0

One more point, Druid's do not gain Domain spells. Their spell progression is always one less than a cleric's. I think Cleric's didn't get any new toys because cleric's are pretty powerful as they are. Any armor, good weapon selection (at least FAR better than a druid's), turning (along with feats that focus on the turn ability) make them pretty powerful. Fighters and cleric's didn't get changed, because no changes were needed.

[AtlanteanAscendant]

see, id love to know the mechanics behind how you got to the 20 AC with a psion, say at first level. inertial armor, IIRC does not stack with armor or shield bonuses. natural armor, yes. but the bracers provide armor bonuses not natural unless you get someone to make them differently, and rings are incredibly expensive, even for a simple +1 or +2 bonus.

also, a lot of the powers are either capped as you get them, with no variance. psions get 3 0-lvl powers and 1 1-lvl power, you could add the psion combat modes on top of it, but they are only truly effective against other psychics because of the psionic buffer. sorcerors can choose powers such as shocking grasp, or magic missile, both of which do 1d8+1/lvl and (1d4+1)/2 levels, whereas the nastiest psion power does a total of 1d8, and none are auto hit powers like those of the wizard/sorceror. also, where the wiz/sorceror increases in damage at different levels, the psion powers are static.

disintigrate, is devastating, but is a 6th level power that they do not access until 12th level, like the sorceror, but ONLY if that is their primary discipline, otherwise, cant be chosen till 13th level. Sorcerors also know more spells than the psions, and unlike sorcerors, most of the powers of the psion are dependant on touch attacks, with a bae attack bonus that matches the wiz/sorcerors. oh yeah, real balanced. Dissolving touch is a 4th level power, 7d6 damage, never changes. where sor/wiz by that level 8th or 9th, have spells capable of doing 8 or 9d6, sometimes more.

what benefit psions have? a 1d20 roll for their save DCs plus appropriate modifiers. but wait, the sor/wiz have a similar variant rule in the DMG, so that could negate that possible advantage (of course, if the psion has a decent roll, otherwise, the save could be worse).

what advantage they get? oh yes, an extra 2 skill points a level. big whoop.

its nowhere near as broken as the 2e(AD/D) psionics were, but they went too far in he other direction. im hoping for a good fix here.

[nodwyck]

metamagic rods: look at the caster level - it's 17 (and well beyond the reach of any hedge wizard or crafter) so you can't just purchase one.

monks are still too powerful, but it's a single class.

Druids' spontaneous casting is just a quirk - if it results in more druids in my games, all the better.

Bard's class abilities are correct now. the level requirement for songs is good (in 3E a high lvl rogue could take a single level of bard, (and take "Extra Song) and have all bard songs available instantly.

The skills thingy: I like it - no more exclusive skills that forced a character to max it out if it was going to be of any use. Folding some very narrow skills into others was a good thing too - as was adding some class skills to certain low-skillpoint classes.

I never liked psionics much.

[ShonenSenshiDave]

You need to understand that my psion was a high level character. At earlier levels, it was difficult, but what can you do? All the classes have issues at early levels. I just lucked out with good STR and Dex, which actually make the psion a very effective fighter. And that's the point of the disciplines. If you don't want to have to roll to hits, then you don't take Psychometabolism or Psychokenisis, you focus on Telepathy or Metacreativity, possibly Psychoportation. Clairsentience is cool if you want to play an oracle, but not many attack powers.

Remeber that the Wizard and Sorceror get spells that don't need to hits to make up for the crappy Strength and mediocre DEX. A psion focusing on Psychometabolic powers will be dumping his points into STR, DEX, and CON to make up for that. Add Inertial Armour, some claw powers, lesser natural armour, verve, etc, and you can do ok long enough to get the flashy powers... Dissolving Touch. AHHH... on a full grapple, does something like 11d6, IIRC? It's the same deal that all chars have... you have to play smart and work hard. And if you wnt to do combat, then be prepared to focus on the physical stuff. If you wanna play like a wizzie or sorc, then be prepared to focus on different powers.

It's all in the skills, feats, and powers you choose... and by the way, in your powwer count, did you take into account the bonus powers for high ability scores? I don't think so...

As for your assesment of Dissolving Touch... reread the handbook. A full grapple brings it up to about 11d6? Possibly more? And IIRC, isn't Dissolving Touch a touch attack? Which means you get to ignore many types of armour? That's pretty powerful, IMO. Take a char who's focus is STR, and you're doing a heck of a lot of damage.

Just curious, have you ever played a psion or just looked at it on paper? 'Cuz with the char I just retired, he carried the party a lot, especially at beginning levels, aided only by inertial armour and his dex bonus. <shrug>

[AtlanteanAscendant]

12d6 for the dissolving touch actually, however, by the time the character is capable of using this power, a good many monsters are more than capable of taking it for the one round that the power is active and returning a world of hurt upon the character who's hit point are dependant on 1d4/level + Con. Also note that in order to access a great deal of these powers, the character must have high scores in ALL their attributes, whereas other spellcasters ONLY have to worry about one attribute in order to be able to cast high level spells.

and yes, power points, even extra ones are impressive. but you only get bonus poin ts based on your primary discipline. and unles you happen to be lucky enough to be able roll 16s or better on whatever disciplines youre preparing to focus on, that means those future point you get as you increase in level are going toward making sure youre even able to use the potent high level psi-powers to begin with. again, if they do not have a score of 10+the level of the power, they cannot access it. whereas other spellccasters only need ONE score. forcing the psion to bounce all over the place, or essentially become a specialist psion without the benefits of being ,say, a specialist wizard (extra spells cost per day, ability to learn school spells more quickly, et al).

and you do not get bonus powers for high ability scores. i double checked my copy and you get bonus points, but not powers. much in the same way a sorceror does not learn more spells (something of a mistake IMHO, but thats me) but gains more to cast per day. advantage? still the sorceror.

ive played a psion a couple times before, a psychoportive specialist back in AD&D (whoooo boy were the psionics broken arsed there), and a few times in 3.0, and currently im playing a 3.5 Bard/Psionicist, no revision to the Psion class though, so im kinda taking it in the shorts.

CAN the psion class particpate on an equal level with other characters? yes, most character classes can, hell, tweaked properly, NPC classes can be on equal par with oher character classes. for example i did run a character to six level of Expert before hopping over to the Rogue class, and i more than held my own with the rest of the gaming crew. That, however, does not mean the characters are underpowered or unbalanced. (which, is amusing considering how much i cringe whenever someone harps about total game balance and how this character isnt balanced with that one and so on and so forth).

Can the psion be played to a premium point? yup. requires some tweaks (not to the class, but rather a tad of min-maxing and a good deal of forward thinking on the part of the player). not to mention half decent stats or at least 12 or better across the board, or you wont even be able to access even the most basic powers. doesnt mean im not happy how they got hosed compared to the other classes.

and just to shoot back, touch attacks do ignore shields and armor, and natural armor, but you still have to get close enough to use it. meaning you have to get on the frontlines, 1d4/level is not something that promises a long and healthy life if your a frontline.

also, why is the psychic warrior the only warrior class that DOES NOT use the fighter base attack bonus? WTF? without the enhanced BAB its a vastly underpowered and heavily hampered class. with the BAB its equal to a paladin or even a 3.0 ranger without being too overbalancing. come on, its a fighter class, shouldnt it at least have a fighter BAB if not the fighter hp (psyWar gets d8, btw). but thats more a 3.0 gripe and i hope they fix it when the new one comes out.