Anybody else miss 3.5?

[Drizztrocks]

 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons. I was excited when 4E came out, thought powers were great, loved everything about it. Now...3.5 nostolgia. Anybody else feel like 4E just pulled too far away from what D&D is? I just really don't like 4E. I'm not trying to complain, I just want to discuss it and see what other people think.

Things I dislike the most:

-First of all, the books and the artwork. The art in general is too cartoony. It turns me off to the game.

-Defining simple team roles. Striker, Defender, Leader, Controller. Just feels wrong. This isn't WOW, you don't need a perfectly balanced group where everyone fits like puzzle peices. The focus should be on cool, creative characters. Sometimes conflicting characters could be fun. Obviously i'm not saying there shouldn't be team work, but the way they did classes...blah....

-Powers. Not that every class plays like a mage (some people said that about powers in the beginning) but the mage doesn't feel like a mage. Magic should work differently then other things. And whenever I ran a 4E game, the Wizard was the only one who ever used his powers anyway. WoTC said they wanted to give every character interesting things to do in a fight, and claimed that mages had all the fun choosing spells and doing cool things.
     Looking back, I completely disagree. If you run boring fights in boring enviroments, of course fighters and rogues are going to be bored. I never had that problem. My PCs were creative and strategic, and interacted with the enviroments. To me, powers detract from the game. Like the team roles, it just feels wrong.

-Above all, the oversimplification and streamlining of the game. In 3.5, it had different levels of complication. It could be super simple, with only the starter set, or you could own every book and know every rule by heart, and craft your own settings from scratch. 4E is all made on the same basic starter kit level for eight year old kids who play it when the power goes out and they can't play WOW. There's no depth, and all the books are written like uninspiring expansion packs.

-They turned the Forgotten Realms into a cheap rip-off of Eberron.

  None of it would bother me at all, except that now most hobby shops have switched to 4E along with RPGA. What do everyone here think? What don't you/do you like about 4E?

[Elemental_Elf]

- 4E art is fine, I just wish they had the diversity of styles they had back in 3.5. There was Computer Rendered Images, Sketches, Paintings, drawings, etc. I like diversity more than any one style alone.

-  Any group can have good flavor/characters but not every group has good mechanical dynamics. The roles are there to help people understand the underlying assumption of the game - that there are a diversity of characters that each have different ways to approach the game world. This is disheartening to some but, honestly, I played in a lot of groups in 3.5 that were basically all melee based characters fulfilling the role 4E would call Striker - its fun once in a while but not every time. Helping diversify the characters is a good thing.

Having said that, I think early 4E dropped the ball in this regard and made all of the powers feel too alike, regardless of role. Essentials really helped redefine role (and power source) but at the cost of mechanical options for classes like the Fighter (Slayer and Knight).

- One of the design principles with 4E was that Wizards DID have more fun in that they were able to choose spells that really defined their class every level, where as Fighters got feats and rogues got sneak attack. The latter two are fun but only if the DM allows them to be. By giving everyone power, it makes everyone feel special. The problem with it is that if everyone is special in the same way, then no one is special. The problem with the 4E power system is that it became a one size fits all box. I don't think Fighters and Wizards should approach their powers/spells in the same fashion, however I do feel Fighters deserve something special of their own. Now Essentials tried to fix this by giving Wizards lots of Dailies and Fighters lots of Stances. It fixed the feel but, ultimately, reverted to the 3.5 feeling of Wizards having more options (and therefore more diversity and fun) than a Fighter.

- I like the fact that 4E isn't as open to interpretation as 3.5 is (overall). I like the streamlined system because it cuts down on boring/needless rules debates, that really plagued 3.5.

- The Writers of FR wanted some kind of reboot to the setting so they wouldn't have to deal with continuity problems. In the process of doing so, they really gutted FR and killed the one thing that made the setting so special - 20 years of history and lore.

As an aside, all of 4E ripped off Eberron's feel.

[Kindling]

I don't miss it because it hasn't gone anywhere. Just as people still played 2E and even ODnD when 3.x was the current edition, there's nothing to stop you just ignoring 4E and playing the version you are happiest with - personally, I haven't even looked at a 4E book, let alone thought about buying one.

[LoA]

I am stalwart in my refusal to convert to fourth edition and i cherish my valiance. I dunno, it's not the system that bugs me, it's just that i just got into rpg's right into the third or second year of the final run of 3.5 before wizards switched to 4e. I spent a lot of energy trying to hunt down books and earning money, and so far i have the three core books (only the dm guide is 3.5), two eberron books (core setting, and magic of), a Draconomicon (awesome art), and races of the dragon. I also got a couple of Dragonmech books. Then I got pathfinder corebook for Christmas, and that filled the gap that my outdated players handbook left nicely. That's pretty much it on the rpg side. Sadly though, as i've said before, i haven't had anybody to play with in a while, and i've kinda fallen out of it for the time, but the eberron books in of themselves are very interesting reads, so i don't feel like i've wasted anything. I still find it fun to world build so these are all great resources.

But there's also something about the business model that bugs me. I mean all i really needed to play a game of eberron, was the three core books, and an eberron core book. Now you probably need three players handbooks, i dunno how many DM guides there are, maybe one or two monster manuals, an eberron setting book, and an eberron players guide, all priced around thirty too forty bucks retail.

[Kalontas]

I don't get the "WoW" argument. I mean, why does balancing roles invoke WoW in everyone? You always had healers in D&D (except 4e's leaders are less healers than the 3.5e ones), and your fighters and other plate-armored people always were trying to pull enemy's attention from wizards and other people. All 4e did was institutionalise those roles, and gave potential to create a lot of new, interesting classes to fill out those missing roles (like divine controller).

Other than that, no, I don't miss 3.5e. It had way too many rules, and definitely more than I could ever remember. I always claimed to have used 3.5e as a base framework for my campaign, but in the end all I used was class names and then I scratched even that and just went with my own class system (which didn't really work out too well). With 4e I can at least start to remember most modifiers and markers because there isn't 10,000 of them on one person.

The other thing 4e did better is, as mentioned, making everyone have fun at the table. In 3.5, I would have never played a fighter, because all attacks he could do was "I hit it with my sword" or "I hit it harder than before" (or, if you're lucky, "I hit him and his friend too"). And then repeat that every turn. 4e actually succeeded at making fighters at least somewhat interesting.

The only thing I can grasp being really objectivly different is whole feeling of the game, what with all the reincarnating Devas and psionic crystal-people and sparkly vampires-but-not-really and gnomes that are really halflings... but I actually like it - I like the fact we have many differing and original races as the core playable species.

[Ninja D!]

I don't like a lot of the art in 4E books but I like the uniform way the books are done, overall. At least pre-Essentials.

The biggest thing, and I think the root of a lot of what you don't like, is that 3E sort of included the flavor with the rules where 4E is more of just a game system and you have to add your own flavor to it. It's a pretty damn good system, mechanically.

[Weave]

I'll always miss 3.5 until I go back and attempt to DM something in it. Same with PF, for that matter. I love both of the systems very much, but the need to deck people with magic items, the blatant power that magic had over "mundane" classes (which I realize is considered a plus for some people, but to each their own), the reliance on stereotypes for classes that hamstrung players into certain, somewhat predefined roles as they played (this was sort of mitigated with prestige classes and, to greater effect, PF's archetypes), the amazingly abysmal balancing of certain feats, the over importance of some skills over others (ironically, PF worsened this by grouping crucial skills into things like Perception and Acrobatics), and the list goes on.

There wasn't anything really big that tipped the scales for me in 3.5/PF; it was just a lot of little things that eventually added up to too much, and I decided to stop. Mind you, I always DMed those games and rarely got to play, so if my players ever feel like stepping up to the plate, then by all means I'll gladly participate as a player.

At this point, 4E is just another step in the wrong direction for me. I want to get away from the D20 system in general. 4E, from what little I looked at, seemed fine, but not my cup of tea.

So yes, I do miss 3.5 and PF, but not for system reasons - I miss it for all the great times we had trudging through dungeons, climbing mountain peaks, building motley crews of characters and venturing out into vast worlds in the face of some great adversity that, in the end, you get to stick right in the face. But I don't need 3.5, PF, or 4E to have those memories - I just need some players, some dice, and several hours with whatever system we so stumble across.

[Lmns Crn]

Is this a thread about nostalgia for 3.5, or is this a thread for complaining about 4E? The way you're wording this makes it look like some sort of stealth-rant.

3.5 wasn't my first gaming experience of this type, but it was very close, and I spent a lot of time playing and running it. There's definitely a nostalgia factor in play, but I don't think that means I miss it. I had a lot of good times, but I wouldn't go back, because I've since found things I like better and have had good times with those.

[Hibou]

There are times when I do miss 3.5/PF. There's something about the way the system works that is appealing, but I have to agree with the statements about finding superior systems to use since then, however. PF is still great for when you want to run a fantasy game and want to get it going relatively quickly, because of all of the generators and other things that come ready-to-go with it. 3.5/PF seems like the P&P equivalent of the English language in that almost everybody seems to know at least a few fair-sized chunks of it and it often serves as the common ground from which people branch out into different playstyles and systems.

[LordVreeg]

You miss 3.5 like I miss OD&D and AD&D.
Good times.  Easy to run.  Hell, I created a whole simple d20 game (Accis) in homage to those.
But they are more like a girl I dated in High school; good memories...but I look for different things now.

[Ninja D!]

You don't have to miss anything, either. You can still play it. You can find the books used online without a lot of trouble. For the ones you can't (some more obscure third party stuff), there are other sources.

Moderator note: Post edited to remove advocacy of an activity that the CBG does not advocate

[Hibou]

You don't have to miss anything, either. You can still play it. You can find the books used online without a lot of trouble. For the ones you can't (some more obscure third party stuff), there are other sources.

Might be a little off-topic, but I actually did this with Alternity - found used copies of the core rulebooks online for cheap and bought 'em. Best $40-ish I ever spent. :)

You miss 3.5 like I miss OD&D and AD&D.
Good times.  Easy to run.  Hell, I created a whole simple d20 game (Accis) in homage to those.
But they are more like a girl I dated in High school; good memories...but I look for different things now.

Exactly, haha. I am quite fond of 2e as well and miss it a great deal... would love to see someone run it someday (perhaps myself).

[sparkletwist]

If it's a thread about ranting about 4th edition then I'll jump on board that bandwagon. :D

At one point, I was actually fairly excited about 4e, as it seems to promote an ethos of "awesomeness" that I am pretty down with... but then I started looking deeper and imagining how I'd actually try playing (or DMing) it and a lot of that enthusiasm kind of drained away when I realized how much was really wrong with it. I agree with Weave's "step in the wrong direction" feeling about 4e.

For whatever flaws Forgotten Realms had before, it also had this deep lore to it that made it feel compelling. I'm not saying it was my favorite D&D setting, but it was the setting that really got me into RPGing in the first place, so I guess I do feel a certain nostalgia for it because of that. I haven't looked at the 4e version but that description doesn't sound promising.

[Lmns Crn]

But they are more like a girl I dated in High school; good memories...but I look for different things now.

Hilarious analogy.

[Gamer Printshop]

I have no problems with 4e - I don't play it, so no problem.

And nostalgia for 3x?! Really? There's this game called Pathfinder that is the inheritor of 3x, and improved I think even over 3x - I prefer it. Its as complicated, but in many ways makes more sense, more structured. I have no problems building classes, feats, spells, monsters and new abilities using the PF system. It's like 3x, yet more clear.

Besides, I don't want a new girl, my girl is just fine.