3.0 vs 3.5

[Biggus]

Were these PRCs in the 3.0 DMG or in expansions? If the former are they on the internet anywhere besides downloading the 3.0 DMG? Those do sound cool.

The ones I'm thinking of were in 3.0 splatbooks, the ones in the 3.0 DMG were much the same as in the 3.5 DMG.

To be fair, a lot of the 3.0 PRCs were updated to 3.5 but quite a few of the quirky/ flavourful ones weren't.

I assume the d20 SRD did that to spell names for copyright reasons; hadn't realized later 3.5 books published spells that used to have creator's names in them. That does make it a lot blander.

You might be right about the SRD, but it did become deliberate policy later in 3.5, the Spell Compendium has a list at the start where all the spells with someone's name in them are given generic names instead.

[SimonMoon6]

3.0 haste allowed two partial actions instead of one extra attack. This meant casting two spells in one round.

Pretty powerful stuff if you had time to buff pre battle

You didn't need time to buff pre-battle. You might as well cast haste as your first spell since you then immediately get to cast a second spell that round. I liked this a lot (in theory) as it meant that haste was a spell that a wizard could make good use of, as opposed to going "An extra attack? Why would I ever want to attack?" Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to cast it on someone else, but... no thanks. The only problem is 3.0's failure to make "what a wizard does with a partial action" equal to "what a fighter does with a partial action". Spells are always just better.

I only played 3.0 and never 3.5 (because there was no way in Hades that I was going to buy ALL those dozens of books all over again, just for some minor tweaks here and there).

But I do seem to recall major changes with spells like harm (used to take you down to just d4 hp) and the polymorph range of spells, though to be fair, polymorph was in constant flux during the reign of 3.0 anyway. They didn't seem to realize that someone might want to polymorph themselves (or their friends) into outsiders, so they made it (still in 3.0) so you couldn't become an outsider unless you were an outsider already. Okay, thank goodness for genasi, tieflings, and aasimars. So then 3.5, I think, said, yeah, no, you can't do that. Polymorph other becomes merely baleful polymorph into little animals, not friendly cosmic beings, and polymorph self was also changed into something far less long-lasting and useful.

My 3.0 character's whole schtick was using polymorph other on himself (as well as other spells) to have huge AC bonuses that lasted all day long. He took one level of monk for the wis to AC, used all the hours-long (extended sometimes) buffs to ability scores, used persistent spell on Shield for a day-long +7 to AC, and so forth. I think most of that is completely impossible in 3.5.

[Psychoalpha]

It's a victim of the granularity 3.0 had that was simplified out of 3.5. Of all the 3.0 rules I miss this the most though; it definitely made for more immersive encounters as opposed to cubic horses.

Conversely, I miss it the least. ;D 3.x more or less got rid of facing, so a creature's size reflects not just the space it physically takes up while motionless but the space it takes up turning 360 degrees. Otherwise you end up with super granular movement rules where a horse can't turn around if there's a horse to either side of it. In 3.5 you'd put them side by side (in a 10x10 square) by saying that one was squeezing into another's space, which should cause some movement problems, instead of it being the default.

[Willie the Duck]

I know that 3.5 cleaned up a lot of things from 3.0; but I still hear a number of people claim that 3.0 was better, that it was a lot more like 2.0, etc. Is there any truth to this? In what ways was 3.0 better and/or more like 2.0?

Better is subjective. More like 2.0 is fairly subjective as well, but I'll take a stab an say, 'a little tiny bit' -- Little things like rangers having d10 hp are clearly more like 2.0, but also not exactly gameplay-defining things. Certain skills were split out more like 2.0 (such as all the different wilderness exploration skills, which were split out in 2.0 because they were taken wholesale from 1e's Wilderness Survival Guide, where differentiating types of wilderness experts was kind of the point) and got consolidated in 3.5 once people realized that there were a bunch of things no one would not take together.

For issues of being better, let's just start with what I'll call the big money issues:

• In 3.0, like 3.5, there was not a whole lot of reason to take fighter past a certain point.
• In 3.0, like 3.5, monks abilities did not self-synergize, and only really could outperform other classes if the DM ran 'you've been captured and your armor/weapons/spellbooks confiscated' scenarios a lot
• In 3.0, like 3.5, clerics could readily buff themselves to be as good in combat as fighters, and still have spells left over. However, a lot of the ways to make quickened/persisting versions of those buffs were not yet established. However however, a lot more of those buffs were 1 hour/level
• In 3.0, like 3.5, Druids could wildshape into, and have as a companion, animal forms that approximated fighters in combat strength. Natural Spell was not core, but it was in the first wilderness themed splat put out (which was something like the 3rd or 4th splatbook published). Some of the 'can keep in animal form' magic items were easier/cheaper, and some were harder/rarer, but overall it was the same situation.
• In 3.0, like 3.5, a straight up core wizard focusing on battlefield control, basic utility, and 'save or ____' spells could have oversized impact on the game, compared to most other potential builds (and actually there were a few more ways that you could boost up the save DC vs your spells that didn't carry through to 3.5).

So, while there were definitely different things (perhaps significant, depending on what you wanted to do), I don't feel that it was specifically different enough to say that one was better than the other. Certainly the alternate history where they just kept going with 3.0 I expect all the late-game developments we got for 3.5 would have gone to 3.0 and we'd see a very similar total edition.

As well as what's already been mentioned, I preferred 3.0 damage reduction, where more powerful creatures required a +2 or +3 weapon to overcome it for example, rather than just "magic". It never made sense to me that a +5 weapon overcomes DR no better than a +1 weapon does.

I agree, although I understand why they did it -- with DR #/+X, no one ever took a flaming or keen or icy burst or whatever weapon, because that magical rider was purchased with value which could have gone towards getting your basic +X one higher instead (and you'd really kick yourself if you ran into a monster with DR 15/+3 and you were ineffectually stabbing at it with your +2 keen longsword, etc.)

Also, how they handled weapons sizes/weapon equivalencies. Like a medium (human) dagger was a small (halfling) shortsword, in essence.

This too, I really liked, but understand the change (for example, there were no non-whip reach weapons for small races, and the like).

You didn't need time to buff pre-battle. You might as well cast haste as your first spell since you then immediately get to cast a second spell that round.

I remember on the WotC boards at the time a great big long discussion (I mean, like 50+ pages) over whether you got an extra spell the round you cast it. I do not recall if there was ever a solidly agreed upon outcome (and no, I do not want to relitigate it here).

[Biggus]

I agree, although I understand why they did it -- with DR #/+X, no one ever took a flaming or keen or icy burst or whatever weapon, because that magical rider was purchased with value which could have gone towards getting your basic +X one higher instead (and you'd really kick yourself if you ran into a monster with DR 15/+3 and you were ineffectually stabbing at it with your +2 keen longsword, etc.)

Didn't Greater Magic Weapon allow you to overcome DR?

[Willie the Duck]

Didn't Greater Magic Weapon allow you to overcome DR?

Yeah, and that was certainly a potential exploit (get a +1 flaming keen vorpal undead-bane weapon and then GMW it up to +5 as well), but I think the problem people had was, 'if you need to cast GMW on your 100k magic weapon to get it to be effective against a creature with DR 20/+2 (not at all that uncommon) perhaps this is a problem with the rule setup.'

[Celestia]

Intrinsically, there's nothing wrong with a DR/+X setup. Done well, it can both enhance the challenge and create a sense of growth among the players. The problem (like many things in D&D) is poor implementation. The way the D&D game economy works is restrictive. Equipment is limited, and better equipment is obtained either as a specific end-quest reward or by expending a significant amount of limited wealth. This just doesn't jive with monsters that can only be harmed by certain types of weapons. If equipment was more plentiful, then the fighter could carry around twelve different weapons for advantages in different scenarios and edge cases. However, the system strongly incentives players pick one (and only one) weapon and stick with it.

Honestly, I think if D&D were to adopt a game economy more similar to video games, a lot of problems could be solved, most notably, the fighter/wizard imbalance. If weapons and armor were cheap and easy to acquire (while being grouped into level-based categories to restrict access until certain benchmarks), then combat could lean much more heavily into a gameist system where monsters are all but immune to specific weaknesses. The martial classes could be built around using and interchanging numerous weapons, allowing them to more easily fight against these limits. The casters, meanwhile, would have spells that are (typically) generally useful but possess no easy way to strike these specific weaknesses. Thus, the martial classes will have in combat versatility while the casters have out of combat versatility. Plus, this would also help solve D&D's issue of samey monsters that are just bags of HP with different flavor text and maybe an SLA or two. Different monsters could truly be unique challenges.

[Bphill561]

I have to second the comments about clerics and buffs. I preferred the longer buffs and Persistent Spell being a +4 adjustment without the pile of add metamagic for free effects that came later. Don't get me wrong, I use those new adjusters but it seems that every buff character has to work in those mechanics into a build or not be able to buff all that well. It was stated somewhere the creators of the game did not like Divine power cast as a Persistent spell spell so they set the adjustment to +6 to prevent that from happening. Someone failed to communicate to whoever put out the free metamagic later.

In the old FAQ, Skip Williams (The Sage) specifically stated you could apply the same metamagic feat to a spell more than once. I am pretty certain that is why the ability bonus spells got changed to a straight +4 instead of 1d4+1, because they were not happy with the 2x empowered, maximized Bull's Strength. Also kind of defeated the purpose of the epic feat Intensify spell. Got to love Sage Rulings, but I would love to Persistent, extend, extend, extend...

Psionics were a bit of a mess with each discipline using a different ability score for manifesting.

Mysticism domain was pretty good, Cha to saves all the time like a Paladin instead of 1/Day.

Defenders of the Faith had the Command Enchantment for armor and shields that gave a +4 Comp. bonus to Charisma. The book still has the Arm of Nyr which is a artificial limb that grants an unlisted +2 Strength, Dexterity, and +2 deflection bonus to good characters. I always thought it would make a good warforged component because I would not want to chop off a limb even if it was lost in a characters backstory.

[soullos]

So was 3.0 as wedded to mats and minis as 3.5?

That's one thing I've appreciated about 5e.. minis are really optional!

No, 3.0 had less emphasis on mats and minis than 3.5. It didn't even list squares as movement speed and sizes of monsters can be rectangular. In many of the combat examples they didn't even have grids. The flanking and reach example was a picture of tokens on the battlefield and a radial range around one tokens to represent "5ft" of reach. Spell areas also had the radius examples. How you determined that either by a mat, string, or theater of mind was up to you and your group. The PHB even refers you to the DMG if you want more rules for precise movement and positioning using minis and a mat. All in all, 3.0 recommends to use minis and a map, at least to keep track of things, but it wasn't required.

It wasn't until 3.5 when the map and minis became the defacto thing and baked into the system (because WotC was now selling a minis line), where you got speed in squares in addition to feet, square horses, and very exacting details to determine flanking, cover, reach and so on (i.e. draw a line from your square to his to determine flanking or cover blah blah blah).

[DrMotives]

One thing from 3.0 I wonder why wasn't reprinted in a 3.5 book is the whip-dagger. Take a whip, remove the restriction on being useless against armored opponents or things with a natural armor above +3. It also does regular damage instead of non-lethal, and does 1d6 with a 19+ threat range. Same weapon for proficiency & feat purposes as a normal whip, so for classes like bard that get whip proficiency, it's a reasonable option.

[Thurbane]

One thing from 3.0 I wonder why wasn't reprinted in a 3.5 book is the whip-dagger. Take a whip, remove the restriction on being useless against armored opponents or things with a natural armor above +3. It also does regular damage instead of non-lethal, and does 1d6 with a 19+ threat range. Same weapon for proficiency & feat purposes as a normal whip, so for classes like bard that get whip proficiency, it's a reasonable option.

I recently was made aware that a 3.5 re-print of the Whip Dagger does exist:

It did get a reprint in Dragon #353 on page 26 for what it is worth. Says it is treated as a standard whip save that its ability to deal damage is unhindered by ac and natural ac.

[Kitsuneymg]

Another thing I liked: buffs like Bull's Strength etc. were 1 hour/level. Also, Enlarge wasn't restricted to humanoids: in 3.5, you have to jump through hoops if you want to Enlarge your Fey or Monstrous Humanoid character etc.



Yeah, forgot about that. I did prefer the 3.0 cover/concealment rules. We ported them into our 3.5 games for a bit.

Speaking of bulls strength. It was 1d4+1 and this could be empowered. And I think metamagic could stack with itself initially. So a double empowered maximized bulls strength as a 8th level spell was doable for +15 iirc. It’s been a while though.

[Kitsuneymg]

Another thing I liked: buffs like Bull's Strength etc. were 1 hour/level. Also, Enlarge wasn't restricted to humanoids: in 3.5, you have to jump through hoops if you want to Enlarge your Fey or Monstrous Humanoid character etc.



Yeah, forgot about that. I did prefer the 3.0 cover/concealment rules. We ported them into our 3.5 games for a bit.

Were these PRCs in the 3.0 DMG or in expansions? If the former are they on the internet anywhere besides downloading the 3.0 DMG? Those do sound cool.

I assume the d20 SRD did that to spell names for copyright reasons; hadn't realized later 3.5 books published spells that used to have creator's names in them. That does make it a lot blander.





This does sound cool and doesn't actually seem that much more complex than the current way. Were there any more complicated rules about how to implement this? I guess the main issue for a DM who just wanted to stick it back in is it requires mechanics for what direction creatures are facing, which 3.5 totally removed. And realistically for something like a giant worm you'd have to simulate where each part of its' body is as it moves- it's not going to be just stretched out 80 feet long and 5 feet wide the whole combat and then suddenly rotate 90 degrees, so much eaiser to assume it usually coils up when fighting.

The problem of 1x2 horses is facing. D&D didn’t/wasn’t meant to have facing, but every non square token had facing.

[Biggus]

Speaking of bulls strength. It was 1d4+1 and this could be empowered. And I think metamagic could stack with itself initially. So a double empowered maximized bulls strength as a 8th level spell was doable for +15 iirc. It’s been a while though.

It was doable, but it would have been a 9th-level spell slot, and I think would have given a bonus of d4+6 (you could apply Empower Spell more than once, but I'm pretty sure it applied separately to Maximise; even if they interacted, the bonus would be +10, as Empower only increases the bonus by +50% each time).

[ShurikVch]

In 3.0, anybody could craft alchemical items, not just spellcasters

[ZamielVanWeber]

3.5 removing all exclusive skills and then making Alchemy into an exclusive skill was bizarre. I just ignore that rule.