Was 3.5 a mistake?

>>50110483
3e was a mistake, and 3.5 didn't fix what was wrong with it, so yes, it was a mistake.

>>50110483
From a financial standpoint, no.

From an every other way standpoint, yes.

>>50110483
Still my favorite edition, pathfinder is also tolerable
but boy I hated the 4th which turned the game to wow, and 2nd with its archaic restrictions.

d20 is good

>>50110539
I disagree. Not saying the move to a revision wasn't a mistake, it was.

But a lot of the later material? Psionics, binders, time of battle, Incarnum, limited sorcerer-type classes like dread necromancer and Beguiler?

Lots of amazing material in late 3.5. Pathfinder never borrowed any of it, and stuck with the half-assed parts, unfortunately.

>>50110539
>>50110520

but why

3e was a good product for its time. The only problem with it was refusing to die when it was time to go.

>>50110483
3rd had some of the most influential mechanics in all of gaming. Feats are a valuable way of explaining character options and they're basically everywhere now.

It has a whole lot of obvious problems, but it's also partly responsible for how some of those problems have become obvious. Expecting it to do better would be anachronistic.

It's a shame that the D&D world learned from 3.5's mistakes, fixed most of them, made 4E, and then panicked and made 3.5 again instead of learning from 4E's mistakes.

>>50110483
Nothing is a mistake as long as you learn something from it.

>>50110483
Nope, it's still the best D&D edition despite its flaws.

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>>50110717
>Feats are a valuable way of explaining character options and they're basically everywhere now.
Ahem.

>>50110483
I like the general structure. All the martial/caster disparity could be fixed by simply revising the spell list.

>>50110483
That depends on your definition of "mistake"

Do you mean making a DnD game at that point in time? If so, fuck no, it was perfectly placed, borderline impossible for it to be a financial failure.

Do you mean the Ivory Tower game design? If so, fuck yes, it turned a team roleplaying game into a single-player character building game. It still functions, but it isn't in any way what it's supposed to be, and poisoned many a viewpoint towards RPGs in general.

Or do you mean the OGL? If so... it depends on your viewpoint, the OGL opened up the market which is good, but it opened up the market solely for derivatives of a single-player charOP game, which isn't so good

>>50110848
Deadlands is not the reason feats are everywhere.

>>50110588
They managed to replicate most of 2e's mistakes, make them worse, and add their own on top of that.

>>50110483
I'm gonna take a stab at this and say this is probably Virt... then again Virt never was this subtle.

>>50110587
Pathfinder amazes me

hey had the entirety of 3.5 to look back upon, they had a grand viewpoint that let them see everything it did right and everything it did wrong

Then they replicated only what it did wrong

3.5 may or may not be a mistake, but Pathfinder absolutely, 100% was a mistake

>>50110531
>>50110483
Welp, these two are almost certainly the same guy, trying to get some sort of skubwar going.

>>50110932
Nah. Edition wars are babby's first trolling. Some high school kid looked at the archives and saw that /tg/ gets buttflustered when you bring up skub.
I expect a "was 4e a mistake" thread up within 48 hours. Literally an amateur.

>>50110483
OGL was a mistake

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>>50110949
>Trying THIS hard to differentiate 3.5 and PF

Really dude? They are so similar that most DM's I know just-plain use material from both at the same time, and there are basically never any rules-hiccups.

>>50111371
No, you see, that's my point

The PF devs had the opportunity to take the basic chassis of 3.5 and make it something good, they chose not to. They had to have known which ideas in 3.5 were good and bad, but they didn't seem to care, they just ported everything shit anyway, as if they wanted to make the game worse than it could be

>>50110908
World of Darkness was using it way before 3e was as well.

>>50110899
>Ivory Tower

But that's just a small part of the design philosophy, that wasn't strictly adhered to, and was only really conceived in hindsight. You could actually argue with Cook, that they didn't follow an Ivory Tower design approach for the majority of the system, especially when you have passages in the books like Song and Silence that describe how to build characters for certain ideas and which options are best left for if you're looking for a specific flavor.

The only book that could be argued to really have Ivory Tower design elements would have to be the Player's Handbook, with just about every other book taking many pains to explain ideas in a "behind-the-curtains" approach when they felt it was necessary. In fact, some books actually went quite in depth, with the Faerunian campaign setting including short essays that explained how and why the world was designed the way it was.

Also, I think it can be argued that simply providing the options and not providing commentary immediately in the PH actually diminished the idea that studying the game was more important than playing it. Rather than always calling attention to the strength of abilities, they kept that out to dissuade people from focusing too much on character builds, min-maxing, and worrying too much about balance between characters. You have to remember, this game was being written in a time where randomly rolled stats were not bizarre, unbalanced parties were not strictly avoided, and there was an encouraged idea that certain classes would start out relatively weak, but end up strong as a bit of a trial/reward scenario. Modern games tend to prefer more balanced parties, but fifteen years ago it was more important to make the classes feel unique and thematic than to have them all be equally powerful. I guess they just really liked many of the ideas from earlier editions.

Back to the central topic, I really think you're making a much bigger deal of Ivory Tower design than it was.

>>50111630
Your point is that you have different tastes. You talk about "good" and "bad". but that's largely just because you personally value balance above everything else apparently. While that's not a terrible outlook, that was one of the failings of 4e, where the classes were all built from the same skeleton and a common complaint was that they all felt too similar.

This might sound radical to you, but balance is one of those things that is not absolutely necessary for a system to have right from the start, especially because no matter how well you design a system, there will always be stronger and weaker options that enable a min-maxing player to take advantage of them. Yes, that includes your favorite system. While some games are better balanced, a GM should still keep an eye on his game and do some measure of tailoring for his group.

The PF devs recognized that the mantra of Balance could actually be harmful to a game, and instead first made sure to keep the divisions between the classes well established before they went ahead and tried to balance them. No one should argue that they did a particularly good job, but their major mantra was to take what people liked about 3.5, and try and expand upon those features. That means dynamic classes that could fit a variety of possible game and play styles, a wealth of lore and ideas that intermingled well due to being built around a simple unified core system, a clearly defined and enormous magic system, and thousands of potential enemies and environments to encounter.

Don't get me wrong. I don't particularly like Pathfinder, but I recognize that people who play it simply have different tastes than I do, rather than passing judgement over them preferring "bad" over "good." In fact, were it not for 5e, I would have very little issue with running a PF game, simply because the mechanics are extremely transparent and easily adapted to suit the needs of a group.

>>50112438
I think that Cook's article was a piece of hindsight that cast some actual issues of 3.5 in a light that missed the point. But, while that article is contentious to say the least, it's also undeniable that 3.5 was marred by a ton of emergent features that were not immediately apparent and very bad for actual play. Behind-the-curtain sidebars do nothing when classes like the truenamer got printed.

No, not really.

It is no more awful than any other game out there.

>>50112516
>Behind-the-curtain sidebars do nothing when classes like the truenamer got printed.
Isn't the truenamer's main problem just that, well, the math is irrevocably fucked? What with the DCs generally increasing faster than the skill check, unless you've got some relatively-significant charop going on.

Hell, they clearly KNEW this was a problem - why else give an item that gives +10 Truespeak, or have quicken by a fucking +20 to the DC?

Then again, the Truenamer has more problems than that - the editing is atrocious, for one, and even if you have +INF to the check it's still basically a worse Warlock. The Utterances just aren't very good, except for some small outliers - Fog from the Void, for instance, Repair Item, and that one that can UNdispel stuff.

And the capstone is godlike, of course, but not worth Truenamer 19.

>>50112516
Truenamer is a great class in every way except its mechanics. A bit of trolling statement, but please, let me clarify.

Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea and similar magic systems, it was an incredibly flavorful and unique caster. A truenamer being part of the game immediately adds an enormous amount of character to it.

The issue, of course, is that the designers cocked up the mechanics, but there are a number of ways to fix them if someone does feel inspired and wants to play a class built around the idea of names having power. The game is malleable enough that while as-published the class gets weaker as it levels up, a DM is more than capable of deciding on how to best improve the class if they decide to include it in their games.

>It's also undeniable that 3.5 was marred by a ton of emergent features that were not immediately apparent and very bad for actual play.

I will argue that these features being good or bad depend largely on preference, with some groups embracing ideas that seem to be dismissed by modern design. As an example, the game expects players to have lists of gear and magical items, and while most games these days prefer to slim down what a character carries, some groups may actually prefer the multitude of gear because it adds a lot of depth to customizing their character while also making treasure more modular.

It's by no means a perfect game, but its underlying system and a fair amount of its design philosophies were welcome next steps in the evolution of D&D, and I always want to encourage people not to simply dismiss what they don't like as flaws and mistakes in the game, but to consider why those choices were made and potentially seeing the value or intent of a design choice.

There are clear cock-ups in the game, but I tend to feel that some people who complain about 3.PF do so entirely with ideas that are a matter of preference, and it's a bit much to try and claim personal tastes as objective truths.

3.5 may or may not have been a mistake, but Full Attacks preventing you from moving was most definitely a mistake.

Combat before level 6 is mobile - you can move and attack, and have little reason not to dash around a bunch.

Combat after level 6 is static - you plant yourself adjacent to a dude, and then you don't move until he's dead.

5ft steps also had some design problems - especially the bit where a Wizard can just 5ft step out of the threat range to cast spells without needing to worry about concentration checks. (Which in turn have a problem with being too damn easy.)

Also, speaking of spells: fireball still doing the same 1d6/level damage it's done since OD&D is hilarious when the hit points per hit die have gone from 1d6 to 1d8 (post-LBB TSR D&D) to, in 3E, shit like 1d10+Con. Shit, WotC, you can't just port stuff over wholesale. You need to actually adjust it to the new system.

>>50112514
Is this pasta or you are legit this autistic?

>>50112713
>fireball still doing the same 1d6/level damage it's done since OD&D is hilarious when the hit points per hit die have gone from 1d6 to 1d8 (post-LBB TSR D&D) to, in 3E, shit like 1d10+Con
I've pointed this out multiple times in conjunction with the complete overhaul to the save system that makes it far easier to hit something where they're weak and idiots still don't understand why blasting is bad and save or lose is broken.

>>50110483
>I will argue that these features being good or bad depend largely on preference

No they don't.

>some groups embracing ideas that seem to be dismissed by modern design. As an example, the game expects players to have lists of gear and magical items, and while most games these days prefer to slim down what a character carries, some groups may actually prefer the multitude of gear because it adds a lot of depth to customizing their character while also making treasure more modular.

What you are saying is, the game is bad but I like it nonetheless. Which could be fine for your group, but you know, personal preference does not trump an objective analysis of something. No matter how much fun you have with 3.5, there are objectively a ton of things that do not work as intended, or at all. And we have played it long and deep enough to know them by experience. You should learn to be a bit more honest with yourself.

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>>50110717
>Feats are a valuable way of explaining character options and they're basically everywhere now.
he thinks D&D was a major factor in pushing advantages/disadvantages or edges/flaws

D&D at the time just picked up on the general trend of the times, trying to keep up with the state-of-the-art

>>50112668
>and it's a bit much to try and claim personal tastes as objective truths

The inverse, of course, is also true.

>>50112438
>I really think you're making a much bigger deal of Ivory Tower design than it was.
He's really not. It's far too easy to make a useless deadweight character while trying to do the opposite if you don't know which options are good or not ahead of time, which was in no way the case in AD&D.

>>50112713
Full Attacks are too powerful to allow the player character to move, its on the DM to create encounters where the players won't be locked into them forever, with displacement going on and ways to get characters shuffled around.

>>50112787
>Full Attacks are too powerful to allow the player character to move

Good hing it's a level 1 option for barbarians then.

>>50112787
>Full Attacks are too powerful to allow the player character to move
No, fuck off.

>>50112783
>which was in no way the case in AD&D.

Tell me more about playing low level magic users or high level fighters.
AD&D was incredibly unbalanced, perhaps intentionally so, and hoping to argue otherwise is just letting people witness you tighten your nostalgia goggles.

>>50112783
Having played useless character regularly in both editions, it all comes down to communication with the dm.

It is not a system flaw when you build for a 1st to 3rd level dungeon crawl and all of a sudden you are 6 levels in to a political campaign.

>>50112804
Low level magic users are not useless and neither are high level fighters. If you want to talk about shitty AD&D characters, talk about thieves, which have both of the problems you're implying the other classes have - they're shit early because low skill percents and useless late because a ton of monsters ignore their abilities and they're dead weight in combat because of it.

And yet they're STILL more effective than classes like 3.5 Monks and Fighters.

>>50112772
Where do they originate? I doubt it'd be with GURPS, that's probably too late.

>>50112812
>it all comes down to communication with the dm.
That implies that the DM knows the system inside and out. They usually don't.

>Was D&D a mistake?

Yes.

>>50112753
Not to mention how saving throw chances generally either get worse or stay at the same level as things go up in level/CR - because the saving throw DCs scale right alongside them.

Meanwhile, in the old system, saving throw chances just went up, up, up until they stabilized near the 95% mark. Including the ones for, say, saving against Finger of Death.

>>50112772
And even then it's not exactly hard to draw a line between feats and non-weapon proficiencies,

>>50112787
Yeah, it's more complicated than I made it sound.

Like, take the whole situation where the attacker needs to move and make a single attack vs. the defender making an entire full attack - this is clearly meant to encourage a defensive play-style for players.

That's clearly not how things turned out, though.

(Also, full attacks are less powerful than they might seem.)

>>50112804
>high level fighters
You mean the guys who are immune to magic, have a 10% chance of killing an opponent with every swing, and are generally in the unhittable range of ACs? In addition to the army of henchmen and men-at-arms?

>>50112821
>Low level magic users are not useless and neither are high level fighters.

They're carried by the rest of the group and would be dead in the water otherwise, the very definition of a dead weight.

You're right on thieves being shitty, but I still found them more fun than low level magic users or high level fighters.

>>50112824
That's a helluva good question, actually. I kind of want to wave in the direction of AD&D 1E's version of NWPs? Chances are there's something older, though - Oriental Adventures was in '85, and plenty of influential games were invented between '74 and '85.

Like, fuckin' Top Secret had points that you could spend to avoid a deadly hit. That's from 1980. Sometimes you find out that new mechanics are actually old as dirt.

>>50112798
Well they need something to carry them through the beginning. Barbarians are poorly balanced to begin with in 3.5 and have much better things to be doing with their turn even so

>>50112885
>Well they need something to carry them through the beginning.

At the beginning.

When you only have one attack anyway.

... Are you really this stupid, or do I need to draw you a picture?

> and have much better things to be doing with their turn even so

What could a barbarian possibly do that's better tan a full attack?

3e wasn't a mistake, OGL was a mistake

>>50112880
>Oriental Adventures was in '85
GURPS itself is '86. I can't find A/D in its predecessor system The Fantasy Trip, but there are a few advantages in the combat system preview Man to Man ('85).

Designers and Dragons might have that somewhere in it, but I wouldn't know where to look.

>>50112869
>the very definition of a dead weight
Nah. At low levels, wizards definitely were vulnerable, but they also had useful spells like armor, grease, sleep, charm person, unseen servant, and identify. I'd hardly call them "dead weight."

>>50112943
>sleep
It only affects 4 HD now, instead of 2d4. That's not even equal to the former average roll. Combined with the fact that the spell has a saving throw in 3e, you are basically wasting an action if you cast it, even at 3rd level.

>>50112979
I wasn't talking about 3e.

>>50110483
I am aware of its problems and I hate all of them guts but still I have to find a system for DnD that enthusiasms me more than 3.X/PF.

>>50112979
>wasting an action
Worse than that, in 3.5: it's a full-round action, meaning that you can't move and it only takes effect at the beginning of the next turn.

On the other hand, it handily beats Color Spray in range, and it's just straight up a win if it succeeds.

>>50112943
Those coming in from the WotC period might not be aware of this, but old-school Charm Person is bonkers. It has a duration in weeks, if the target is of average intelligence - and it basically gets you a henchman.

And this is a NERF! OD&D's Charm Person was basically Dominate Person except with a permanent duration.

>>50112943
Assuming they knew those spells, they still could only cast them a handful of times, if even that.

Playing a low level magic user was like an awful tax you had to pay before you were allowed to play a high level one.

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>>50112824
>>50112880
>>50112926
it does and i know where to look: Champions (Fantasy Trip was on the mark too though)

>>50113184
A handful of times was really all you needed.

Low level wizards were fine and useful.

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>>50110539
This. From an economic standpoint it made D&D more popular than it had ever been and introduced the game and roleplaying as a whole to an entirely new generation of players.

The problem is that it proceeded to ruin an entirely new generation of players by teaching them that ivory tower design and deeply-ingrained unfixable imbalance is normal. It gave rise to the crowd that these days refuses to play anything but 3.5 and Pathfinder, and to the homebrew morons who keep trying to make d20 homebrews out of everything they possible can.

>>50112821
You know, this is a bit of a tangent, but I think the Thief class is behind so much bad game design throughout RPG history. They're basically the first special snowflake class: Instead of having a role that supports the rest of the party, they have a niche they're useless out of, but are the only ones who can fill it. So they wind up making everyone sit around watching them play a single-player game when they're useful, and being dead weight when they're not.

Sometimes you can see the thief's influence directly, like in the Pre-5E Decker in Shadowrun. Sometimes it's more indirect, like D&D's increasing focus on narrow, hyper-specialized roles for classes. But their shadow is pretty much everywhere.

>>50113330
Not to mention a wizard with decent dex and str was on par with the fighter if he brought a sling

>>50113369
>being this retarded

>muh ivory tower
>unfixable
>oh no, people like what I don't like
>ruin a generation because they don't like my shiity game

Fuck off.

>>50113374
The thief's problem is that Gary couldn't explain shit to save his life. If you listen to Mike Mornard explain it, the thief was meant to have near supernatural abilities (the percentile skills) in things everybody could do (anybody can move quietly, but only a thief can be absolutely silent without magical aid). But Gygax's lack of explanation led to everybody assuming that only the thief can hide in shadows, pick pockets, etc.

Not to say you're wrong, but a little bit of explanation at the beginning could have significantly lessened the effect.

>>50113403
Your scifi d20 homebrew is trash, dude. Admit it.

>>50113470
Admit that you're just consumed by buttmad about people preferring an industry award-sweeping game over whatever one you prefer.

>>50113494
Well yes, that's part of what I'm mad about. But 3e really did have poor design decisions and it really did make some terrible mistakes.

>>50110781
This. Third edition had a lot of problems, but at the time it was a definite advancement over Player's Option 2e. 5e is a definite improvement over 3.5, but it couldn't have happened without learning the lessons of earlier editions.

>>50113502
But it also had plenty of good design decisions and its popularity isn't entirely undeserved.

>>50113391
I liked darts as a wizard personally, but a sling is also handy to have on you.

>>50113452
The OD&D Thief is also significantly dumbed down from what seems like the Warlock original - which is probably understandable, since IIRC they just explained the concept over the phone.

Like a lot of OD&D/AD&D classes, they weren't actually made by Gygax but just collected from elsewhere and then added to the whole with modifications.

>>50110539
The OGL did have the huge gaping issue of letting someone literally clone the game and then compete with the next edition by keeping the former one alive in a way that didn't give WotC any money, though.

>>50113470
While this is a bit incendiary, there's a grain (or truckload, depending on your opinion) of truth in it: the d20 system wasn't nearly as universally applicable as the people adapting the OGL seemed to think.

You know how some people like to say that GURPS (or [insert universal system here]) is alright at everything but inferior to games actually made for the specifications of the thing in question? The d20 system is like that, except it's even less universal since it was made for the specifications of D&D and then had the numbers filed off to make it "universal".

For example: the level-based zero-to-hero concept is core to the d20 system, and it's not really something that's universally applicable to all games.

It's noticeable how the d20 games that survived the best are the ones that either stuck to the D&D formula (e.g. Fantasycraft, Pathfinder) or warped the system to its own means (e.g. Mutants & Masterminds).

>>50113369
>crowd
so I'm not the only one?

>>50113574
You are definitely not the only one, and this shit is why I don't do pick-up games with strangers anymore. All these fuckers ever want to play is fucking d20.

>>50110932
Oh my God, stop building up his infamy. Virt was no Jim Profit come anew, he was a basic bitch of a shitposter whose tepid bait got more response than it warranted because /tg/ was hungry for a new board celebrity. More so than he was ever baiting us, he was providing a vehicle for us to bait ourselves, and every time you name-check him he keeps doing that. Quit it.

...I swear to God, if I had known he was going to become a board meme I would have simply done as the elder fa/tg/uys said and just ignored him. But no, I had to engage him in every thread he shit up and start playing the dozens with him. So far as I know, I was the one who started the trend of informally referring to him as 'Virt'. With the constant attention I paid him, I built that monster, and I'll be damned if I can kill it. I'm sorry /tg/, Virt wasn't the troll ruining the board, it was me the whole time.

>>50113565
>For example: the level-based zero-to-hero concept is core to the d20 system

That's news to me, because people have been chopping up the game into different tiers since the very beginning, with 1-20 campaigns a rarity, not the status quo.

Take for example the popularity and success of the EQ d20 variant, which basically just shits on your entire thesis.

d20, at it's core, is just based around a simple mechanical resolution method of d20+modifiers vs. Target number. Everything else is subject to change and can be easily adjusted and adapted, and pretending otherwise is hoping to apply constraints onto one system that you're not applying to others.

>warped the system to its own means

Oh, you mean adapted, but you preferred to use a word with negative connotations, because you're not incredibly biased or anything.

>>50113671
>d20, at it's core, is just based around a simple mechanical resolution method of d20+modifiers vs. Target number.
Just like GURPS is 3d6 vs. TN + modifiers, or FATE is 4d3-8 + modifiers vs. TN, or Shadowrun is d6 dicepool, or CTrav is 2d6 vs. TN.

>>50113671
>That's news to me, because people have been chopping up the game into different tiers since the very beginning, with 1-20 campaigns a rarity, not the status quo.
I mean that the very basic set-up of d20 - levels, feats, even experience - is not as universal as it may seem.

I mean, compare it to Classic Traveller. Some people say that it doesn't even HAVE an experience system, since your character is pretty much as strong as they'll ever be right out the gate.

This was a thing in earlier D&D as well, of course, but those earlier D&D's WEREN'T UNIVERSAL SYSTEMS - d20 has been used for everything from Call of Cthulhu to superheroes to ERP fuckfests.

The whole d20+modifiers vs. Difficulty Class thing is ALSO core to d20, but the assumption that you'll start weakish and work your way up to being powerful is also very much omnipresent within the OGL rules.

>>50113709
Now you're getting it.

People like d20 because the math is super easy and the results are transparent, with 5% increments that don't bottleneck results. Making something more or less consistent is as simple as adjusting the target number, and if there comes a situation where 5% increments are not precise enough, it even offers the opportunity to further finesse the results by asking for additional rolls, albeit with some slightly more difficult math.

It's got weaknesses and strengths, but as far as core mechanics go, it's extremely straightforward and intuitive to use, which is in part the reason it achieved so much popularity, especially among novice designers.

>>50113780
>I mean that the very basic set-up of d20 - levels, feats, even experience - is not as universal as it may seem.

It's not even universal within d20.
The idea of weakish-to-strong isn't omnipresent, and a popular variant is simply weakish-to-not-so-weakish, but there are games where character growth doesn't happen. However, those are rare because character growth is pretty popular.

You really shouldn't try to constrain the d20 system when it's clear that its core underlying system can be easily adapted to any genre, and it is essentially a universal system, with D&D being one use of it.

If you don't think levels are appropriate for the game you have in mind, you don't need to use them, alongside anything else that clashes with your vision. There are so many optional rules and variants for using the d20 system, and with the core philosophy being quite open and easy to understand, that it shouldn't be such a shock that people prefer to use it over other resolution mechanics.

The crux of this argument is that the d20 system is like any other large system, where it can be readily adapted to suit a variety of needs, often with simply just refluffing/renaming a few things. We can argue about the best way to do it, what rules are best kept and which variants we should employ and whether it's really worth the effort that might be involved, but we'd still be talking about using the d20 system.

>>50113540
Name a few.

>>50113789
I think his point is that these games have more to them than just the resolution mechanic that make them good or bad. Just like 3rd edition.

>>50113369
3.5 wasn't as big as TSR's peak and 5e has sold more.

3.5 brought D&D back from death, but it wasn't truly building off past accomplishments. I just wish it kept basic around - like 5e has with DMG options.

>>50114071
>3.5 wasn't as big as TSR's peak and 5e has sold more

TSR's peak was with about 3 million D&D player's worldwide. 3rd edition saw this number grow to 6 million, and 5e has increased this number even further.

In short, 3rd edition doubled the number of players. It didn't just revitalize the industry, it expanded it significantly.

>>50113977
So you can nitpick them, or are you genuinely curious?

Because, if you can't name a few yourself, I don't think you're the kind of person who I'd bother to have a discussion with.

>>50113369
>From an economic standpoint it made D&D more popular than it had ever been
due to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights

>>50113374
pretty sure designers can make hyperspecialized classes/archetypes without thief class at the back of their mind

>>50113494
nah, i am not consumed by it, but it doesnt mean that i have to like people who play popular games for their popularity. these are shallow people who are more abotut heir own image than gaming. the world is full of shallow people, including the gaming world. i ahve come to accept it.

doesn't mean i am not going to call it out whenever i feel like.

>>50113540
>But it also had plenty of good design decisions and its popularity isn't entirely undeserved.
yes, it is. it is a thoroughly mediocre game, even for its time and niche, saved by
a) its brand (pushed by Baldurs gate and NWN)
b) size of the community (available gamers)
c) relatedly, the rich amount of content that got published for it

>>50114200
You assume the worst in people too much, which is hardly fair.

Though, it's only too easy to assume the worst in you, so that might be the balancing point.

>>50114170
I just want to see you back up your assertion of "good design decisions" with some examples. The burden of proof is not on me.

But if you're immediately going to get defensive about your stance without answering the question, then I think we're already done here.

>>50114216
Baldur's Gate doesn't use 3rd edition, and was more popular than NWN, alongside Planescape. Your logic would have people preferring AD&D 2e over 3rd.

And, it's hard for a game to become as popular as 3rd edition did in the first place if it needed to rely on it popularity in order to do so.

You really got rid of your mind-numbing hate boner.

>>50114170
to wit, there is so much mediocre about D&D 3.X:
- HP bloat
- AC making no sense
- skills were focussed on adventuring mostly and didnt scale properly (compare bonded accuracy)
- magic item spam (compare 5E)
- feats with trap options, instead of useful advantages/disadvantages system (see GURPS or many other games)
- caster supremacy

the list goes on and on and on. in fact, if D&D 3.x didn't have its name, it would have never been more than a fantasy heartbreaker and little content would have ever been published for it.

this is a thought that is of course unacceptable for D&D fanboys. by praising the popularity of D&D, they actually seek to improve their own public perception, the way some people kiss the rear ends of celebrities to be part of their thunder.
>D&D is good, it's deservedly popular and so am I for playing and praising it
lel, no

>>50114238
If you're asking for proof of something that is essentially a matter of taste, and then trying to play a game of "you need to support a claim that's common knowledge" in hopes of gaining material to twist and complain about, I guess it's good that you're finished.

Call it being defensive, but if you actually want to try and say that there were no good design decisions made, then I am going to go ahead and call your claim radical to the point of instant dismissal.

Even just mentioning the use of modern dice notation is enough to say "Fuck you, you dumb troll."

>>50114283
no, it was more like this
>did you hear that there is a new edition of D&D coming out?
>oh really? never played TTRPGs.
>yeah youshould. and this new game, NWN, uses the new rules. and it has 3D graphics, man
>ah, yeah? cool, i liked Baldur's Gate, I'll check out NWN.
...and from there it's a small step towards trying the P&P.

>>50114335
So, you're saying you can't name one good design decision?

>>50114335
if people couldnt debate taste and make their case, you might as well shutdown /tg/

>>50114311
>my personal taste

Okay. I disagree.

In fact, all your points have, time and time again, been dismantled in previous threads as simply weak complaints from people who don't like things different than the games they're familiar with, alongside the obvious exaggerations and even flat out lies.

Demanding people to treat them as anything else doesn't really work, and no matter how much you rage about it, as long as people can easily disagree with you with even a passing knowledge of the game, you're just going to be stewing in misery while wondering why the game retains popularity despite you always repeating these same lukewarm complaints.

>>50110483
>Was 3.5 a mistake?

Indiscriminate multi-classing was a mistake. The system should have been all or nothing: No classes, or enforced class roles. Having characters bounce back and forth between a multitude of classes just encourages some really bizarre meta gaming.

What was wrong with 2E's restrictive dual-classing? Characters had the option of taking up a maximum of one other class, and had to forfeit gaining any new levels in their old class in the process. It gave players some flexibility, but didn't entirely encourage meta gaming.

>>50114367
The issue isn't whether it can or can't be done, but whether it should.

Debating about taste is one thing. Debating about taste with some guy who simply hates anything related to something is a futile effort.

>>50114383

You know, I wanted to write a poszt about how his list is not that great, but fuck you.

You are fucking cancer, hiding behind broad generalizations and projections to make your fucking argument for you.

Go eat a dick.

>>50111203
This

>>50114406
You must be new here.
The guy with those complaints spams those same ones all the time, and expects people to play the same game of explaining why he's wrong, only for him to ignore everything and begin again in a later thread.

It's really a waste of time to do anything except call him out.

>>50114430
I really want you to explain why shitty options and caster supremacy isn't mediocre, because I never saw a good argument about it except "ToB is core!"

Saying "it's a waste of time!" is just a way to avoid talking. If you have actual arguments, bring them.

>>50110483
Yes, but it had to be made so that they could learn from it and make 5e.

>>50114481
Will you accept that their importance is exaggerated?

>>50114553

Only people who haven't had any of their games ruined by a finesse fighter/monk/rogue and a bear druid in the same party think those are exaggerations.

>>50114553

No, because I've encountered caster supremacy, absolutely horrible feats, and skills becoming worthless in games I've both played and run in 3.5

>>50114592
Oh god, here you go again...

>>50114383
>it has been refuted successfully before
okay

>>50114397
since I don't hate D&D, you might want to check your vivid imagination, pal.

>>50114430
i havent made a single D&D hate thread though. you somehow seem to think that there cannot be more than one anon that critzicizes D&D.

anyway, any prior disagreements with my above lists have successfully disproven and it has been shown beyond a shadow of doubt that each complaint is valid, time and time again.
see, it cuts both ways

also compare with
>>50114533
WOTC made changes to fix flaws in 3.X that are part of my list. they cannot fix other flaws without D&D abandoning its heritage though.

>>50114622
Says the guy whose arguments essentially boil down to
>"LALALALA NOT IMPORTANT LALALALA!"

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3MB, 4160x2340px

>>50114383
>all your points have, time and time again, been dismantled in previous threads

>Ivory tower design

Can someone give me a quick explanation of what does that mean? I can understand the concept in other contexts, but I'm not sure if it means the same in tabletop rpgs.

>>50110483

It was a mistake to make a system this good, since it gave players unrealistic expectations that later edition and inferior systems can never live up to.

>>50115002
When they use it in the context of D&D they refer to this article originally written by Monte Cook:

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=13812.0

>>50111630
>hey had to have known which ideas in 3.5 were good and bad,
They didn't. If you ever go to their Dev QA threads and just observe their actions on the message board, you'd know for a fact that they knew absolutely nothing about the problems with the system they were aping, and that many of their devs even defended Monte Cooke's philosophy of game design.
Then it only got worse as they gave more creative control to Price and Frasier. Honestly, Mark Seifer and one of the nameless editors are some of the only sane people there

Seriously, these are the pople who made Dragon Magazine back in the 3.5 days. If that didn't spell trouble the first time, I don't know what did.

>>50115002
Its simple:
Some options are designed to be bad on purpose to punish people who can't build characters and optomize, while other options are made OP on purpose to make other classes and options superfluous.

Essentially, its DS2 game balance if you want a vidya equivalent.

>>50115048
>>50115076
Got it, thanks a lot anons

>>50110949
>only what 3.5 did wrong
Not trying to start shit, but what did 3.5 do right that PF should have kept?

>>50112834
Comparing high level fighters to high level monsters? Yeah, that shits not much.

>>50115139
Well, PF did a number of rogues for one.

They kinda redeemed it with URogue, admittedly.

>>50112943
And now that you used your spell, you are useless the rest of the dungeon. Or you save it and are useless until the boss.

>>50114553
I will accept that they have ruined some of my game and make me play other rpg.
You'll say "better to my personal taste" I will say "At least here I'm sure no one in the group will have a shit character even if we go blind and take what's fun"

>>50115002
Basically its what would be synonymous to just being "bad game design" today. Chock full of options that are intentionally weaker or more powerful than others, presumably built up under the assumption that your ability to filter trough horseshit somehow equates your "skill" at the game. Aka all the worst parts of RPGs that make them as impenetrable to newcomers as a brick wall that doesn't believe in sex before marriage.

Really, its no wonder that the generation of players that system ruined are all elitist grogs who refuse to learn any other system and get out of their comfort zone like a vampire is afraid of the sun since that's the only kind of mindset you can have in order to survive 3.5

>>50115265
>Basically its what would be synonymous to just being "bad game design" today
not so sure. plus, you have to realize that part of the appeal of 3.x is exactly the ability to play a spell-caster that can fuck up the plot in "fun" and "creative" ways... for the player of that spell-caster, that is. certain people dig the hillarity of 3.x spell-casting.

>>50115076
That's wrong. You're also confusing trap options with Ivory Tower, when they're two separate ideas. They're simply both discussed in that Monte Cook article, making it a common mistake on /tg/ because people like you keep making it without really thinking.

Ivory Tower is simply providing the rules without going in depth in explaining their best usage, which is only relevant to the Player's Handbook, as there are other D&D books and sources that do explain things from a "behind the curtain" perspective.

>>50112438

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186KB, 500x731px

>>50115265
This is silly. because what most people call "bad game design" is more like something like FATE, a game that has options that lack distinction and feel generic, like several different renamed versions of the same thing. While it does have its niche, the majority of players prefer games that are less like freeform, rather than more.

3rd edition retains popularity in part because the mechanics are tangible and impactful. The difference between a choice in options have a notable effect that the player can feel, and help create the idea that the system is more than just a game of Mother-May-I with the GM.

It's fine to disagree with some of the design decisions of 3.5, but it's foolish to not fully consider them to their fullest extent. That was the principle failing of 4e, a game that put its priorities in places that most people intuitively disagree with, and largely just as a result of hoping to "fix" the problems in 3.5 without fully understanding them.

Ultimately, 5e managed to avoid the knee-jerk reactions that seemed to be the design impetus of 4e, and its success in comparison should not be understated.

>>50110483
All d&d after ad&d were an mistake
This includes pathfinder

>>50111630
>They had to have known which ideas in 3.5 were good and bad,
What is good and what is bad is subjective thats why there are more than one rpg out there.

The problem is that there is this ultra amount of DIFFERENT people that wont leave d&d and play their own favorite rpg, whateaver the hell this will be after they research and find it

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>>50112514
>a clearly defined magic system
>3.PF

ahahahahaHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

>>50114383
Look, retard, you can try to hide behind "but but but TASTE" as many times as you want but when shit like >>50111431 happens very specifically because of flaws in the game's mechanics, it should be pretty fucking obvious that it's not a matter of 'taste'. 3E's designers very obviously had no fucking idea what they were doing and didn't intend for SoL spam or caster supremacy in the form it exists in right now, as noted by the fact that they balanced the game, insofar as you can call 3E balanced, around the assumption that your Wizards were throwing around magic missiles and Clerics were healing and Druids were doing what-the-fuck-ever aside from wildshape animal companion beatsticking while being a full caster.

Why? Because that's exactly what the playtesters of 3E did. Do you think that the Druid would have gone live like this if the playtesters hadn't been idiots who played *12 STR Weapon Finesse Scimitar* Druids who sat around trying to play pretend Fighter while ignoring their animal companion?

>>50117418
Actually, random anecdotes do very little to dissuade the notion of taste when the topic is taste in games.

Saying "LOOK! THIS GUY DOESN'T LIKE IT" really doesn't make it an objective truth. It just means he doesn't like it.

I fear for your mental health.

>>50117474
Yes, go on and pretend that unintentional flaws in the game fucking someone's day up isn't an issue, that'll make everyone see the light.

>>50117474

>Guy complains about how he can't contribute to the game and asks the fans of the game in their general thread for help
>Responses range from 'you picked the wrong class to play', 'your DM needs to redesign the entire game', 'the game doesn't function with its core book', and 'play a caster'.
>All suggestions and explanations of flaws the game has come from actual fans of the game
>"Lol it's just a matter of taste"

Are you serious here or just trolling? You can't 'taste in games' away 3.5's imbalance by liking it hard enough.

>>50117489
>fucking someone's day up

Wow, I was kind of worried about you, but now I'm really concerned about what you think we're discussing.

>>50117525
If your only method of argument is exaggeration, then the best response to you is simple dismissal.

>>50117546
That's not exaggeration, that's literally what happened.

>>50117546
>If your only method of argument is exaggeration

I didn't exaggerate a thing there, bucko. Did you read the thread that was linked?

>then the best response to you is simple dismissal.

I mean this seems to be your response rather than any argument at all so I can't say I'm surprised, but thanks for confirming you live under a bridge, I guess.

>>50117554
>>50117559
Can you guys put on trips? You seem to think people will argue with you when you say very dumb things and then confirm you believe them, and it would be good to warn people before they wasted their time with people like you.

>>50117605
(You)

>>50117605
Why don't you put on a trip instead?

>>50117605
>these multiple people disagree with my narrative of the masses of people not thinking 3.5 is well designed
>Am I wrong? Am I just loosing touch with what people actually like
>No, it is the anons who are wrong

>>50114383
>In fact, all your points have, time and time again, been dismantled in previous threads as simply weak complaints from people who don't like things different than the games they're familiar with, alongside the obvious exaggerations and even flat out lies.

Alright, I'm triggered. This is some made up bullshit right here.

>>50117681
Can you pull up numbers? A few bitter dudes on an anime website are kind of outnumbered by the thousands who still play the game even after sixteen years.

Go on. Say it's not a matter of taste and force me to believe you.
I bet all your frustrations come from that terrible realization, in that no matter how hard you complain, the people who play the 2nd most popular game don't really care and value things differently than you do.

And no amount of bitching will ever change that.

Go on. Let me see your tears of utter frustration at the mere thought of people having different tastes that you can't change.

>>50117726
Those refutations never existed. The guy's been saying that these refutations exist without actually saying them for about a year now.

>>50117836
Can we really argue with a creature so wrapped up in delusion that he makes up his own narrative of events?

>>50117866
No. No you cannot. You can only admire the story crafting of such an extensive roleplayer

>>50117866

No, just give him his (you)'s and move on.

>>50117836
Go in the last several D&D is garbage threads.

They're 50% people explaining how each of those points are wrong, 25% people just calling you dumb trolls, and the remainder is you whining about how you can't stand a game being popular.

>>50117866
>delusions

>from a guy who thinks his tastes are objective truth

Your silly hatred has really warped you this much?

>>50110483
I hate when people bitch about 3.5. Something too overpowered? Don't allow it in the game. Player tries to reach god like abilities? ''no''

>>50117899
Here is your (you). Now begone from my sight, foul monster!

>>50117879
Post them.

>>50111203
But OGL gave us retroclones and OSR

>>50117917
And what happens when a player ends up making a useless character?

Why should I trust your metric of what's overpowered or not when half of the time this is what results in retards banning Monks because 'dey're op'?

>>50110483
It somehow made combat the only important thing about D&D, no longer was there any value or purpose to exploring or avoiding combat systematically. What made 2e something more than just a shitty combat game was the fact that you could get as much, I not even more, XP from a treasures worth in gold. 3e, and by extension 3.5, made D&D exclusively about combat and it is something that we have not recovered from.

Because of this shift in focus it made a lot of class worthless out of the gate (Like why the hell would you ever play a wizard when you could play a sorcerer they're much better at combat?) it still borrowed the same class design philosophies from previous editions despite the fact that those philosophies are completely incomparable with the majority combat focus of the game.

It's also the only game I've seen that having all supplementary is not just a fun edition to the game, it's fucking required to make the terrible balancing issue come out okay in the wash.

>>50120289
>why the hell would you play a wizard when you could play a sorcerer

Are you literally fucking retarded? The base classes are the most op in all of 3.5 which only gets boosted by prestige classes.

Also wizard is infinitely better than sorceror you braindead mongoloid

Also the DMG straight up says to reward players the same experience for bypassing an encounter.

>>50120514
Oh yeah Prestige classes where also a terrible idea. Thanks for reminding me anon!

>>50120514
>Also the DMG straight up says to reward players the same experience for bypassing an encounter.

So still about combat? You really aren't helping your own case.