D&D 3.5 vs 4.0

[Hawgh]

I gotta say that I really like the fact that spellcasters aren't the only ones with options in 4ed. However, it's a tad too combat-centric for my tastes. May be more a failing of the material that I've read than the system in its entirety. Still prefer 3.5, the nostalgia helps as well.

Recent games have been WoD (Mage) and W40k (Rogue Trader). They're getting to be more interesting than DnD.

 

[mirasiel]

The rules system you use wont matter worth a damn if your DM (or DMing) sucks, frankly that sounds like a lot of the problems people have had with 4E, their DM couldn't (or wouldn't)actually use/understand the differences from 3/3.5E .

Currently playing in a homebrew 4e grayhawk/spelljammer campaign (or at least that seems to be where its going) and (for the first time) running my own Eberron 4e campaign.

Gotta say, anyone who is moaning that they cant modify or create their own monsters in 4e, you are flat out lying or you just didnt actually try. That said the UI on the Character builder (off-line and on-line) and the monster builder need a lot of work but they work pretty damned well for me and all my players.

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

Edit again: I've heard Pathfinder mentioned before. Are 3.5 sourcebooks compatible with it -- Monster Manual, etc?

For the most part, yes. There's some conversion involved with 3.5 monsters and different abilities with character classes, different skill rank rules and other minor things, but all in all switching between them is pretty easy. Hell, I've actually used 3.0 Oriental Adventures characters in Pathfinder and it's not caused any trouble.

Also, it should be noted that the DM's guide isn't needed in Pathfinder, which make things quite a bit cheaper. As long as you have the Core Rulebook and Bestiary, you're ready to play. All of the other books are just more icing on the delicious RPG cake.

 

[deathstalker982]

i think 3.5 and pathfinder are better than 4.0 mostly

by the way, am i aloud to ask for a group in my area here, or is it not allowed by forum rules?

 

[Hungry Donner]

Extremely low level content sucks in all dnd systems I've played. Level 1 in 4.0 is boring. Level 1-2 in 3.5 is completely abysmal. Once everyone in your group has a campaign under their belts and understands leveling I recommend starting every adventure at level 3/4/5. Some people might enjoy the feeling of helplessness that comes from extremely low levels, but it's hard to plan interesting encounters when your players have basically no options (4.0) or can die in 1 hit if they're unlucky. (3.5)

I agree 100%. When I DMed I usually had people roll up characters with a few levels under their belt - it gave them more variety and removed the dreaded "dead in one hit" problem, particularly for spell casters and rogues.

One of my friends ran our first 3rdE campaign and we went with level one characters since we were all new to the ruleset. In retrospect this wasn't a good idea - or at least we should have used accelerated leveling up to six or something.

 

[Versuvius]

Question. Since when is "Simply structured, accessibility and balanced" the reasons to make something superior? With those three things you also have BLAND unless your DM is absolutely magnificent at his job. Another irk with 4ed is some pandering to the fanbase. Tieflings are red draenei, dragonborn were put in to please the OMG I LUERV DRAGONS crowd and all racial penalties were removed. A Warforged is a living construct with no real facial expressions or body language being a sentient golem (with differences, i wont get into that debate so dont bring it up) but they had a -2 charisma to compensate. Because yanno. Its hard to be a soulful, empathic being without understanding squishy fleshbags or having those organs. 4ed just cops out and calls it a metally human thats a bit stronger. And removed their immunities. Apparently a being of magical metal and wood fibres can contract influenza. Fucking ludicrous.

 

[quantum mechanic]

As a lot of people have said, they play very differently. Personally, I wouldn't go so far as to say one is really better than the other, as they both have their fair share of problems (or elements that could be seen as cumbersome or unnecessary or something like that; I'm aware that one person's useless skill is another's priceless tactic).

I was torn initially about the changes in the skill system, but on the whole I like 4e's system a little better. It feels more streamlined, and it never made a lot of sense in most campaigns for there to be so many different skills. Sure, Concentration was an interesting mechanic, and there were some skills I was sorry to see go, but...Use Rope was annoying, as was Use Magic Device ("You mean I fought those dragons to get the MacGuffin and now I can't even use it!") and, well, I never thought it was particularly necessary for Hide and Move Silently to be two different skills. I mean, yes, they're two different skills in the most literal sense, but two different checks made being stealthy cumbersome.

4th edition also does a better job of balancing the classes (as others have said), which is sort of good and sort of not. On one hand, it sucked to be a 1st level wizard in 3.5; while your fighter and ranger buddies were on the front lines, hacking away every turn, you and your 4 hit points could cast four spells per day, and the most powerful one was probably Color Spray. But at higher levels, wizardly types quickly became more powerful than their "same level" martial comrades. So, yes, it's nice having some more balance that comes with the "powers" system. Everyone certainly feels like they're contributing in the campaign I'm in. On the other hand...does it really make sense for a 20th level fighter to have the same destructive power as a 20th level wizard? The fighter is just really, really good at shooting/stabbing/hacking/smashing things, while the wizard is a master of time and space, capable of doing almost literally whatever he wants (for a price).

I guess what the long wall of text is trying to get to is that 4th ed. feels more like a videogame in some ways, while 3.5 was more like an actual world. The rules and powers in particular seem less conducive to the crazy-awesome problem solving you might hear about from 3.5. Rituals are all well and good, but they don't fit well into the flow of the game, and I can't see anyone taking some of the old utilitarian spells (like Wood to Stone) from 3.5 as powers. In a group with newbies in it, plaing 4th ed. is fun because they can generally learn it on the fly, but I would prefer to stick with 3.5 for experienced players.

 

[Cyberjester]

D&D 4.0 is more like Warhammer Online. No mana, just.. Actually even that's wrong..

Yea, WoW works. It's insanely boring imo. Spam your spells, no limits. Imagine a 3.5 Wizard who racked up the Reserve feats and you've got 4.0.

3.5 is much, much more diverse. The worlds, the classes, the lore, the ideas contained within is surpassed only by 2.0 if you happen to like Dark Sun. But there's a few 3.5 conversions so stick with that. Pathfinder wasn't bad, although I do prefer 3.5 with all the "official" books that go with it, simply because some Pathfinder people can get real snooty about including 3.5.

There is a bit of a class imbalance in core classes. Namely that in lower levels the wizard sucks, and at higher levels the fighter sucks. Thanks to the splat books though, that's addressed quite nicely. To the point where fighters are immune to spells and absorb the few that get past as healing, the wizards are firing off spells like sorcerers and rogues are carving their way through armies. Fun times ^ ^

You'll still have differences in class balance once people start paying attention to the feats they're picking, but not as much as core does by itself.



.>

On no accounts should you let your players roll Druid. And if you do, you should really keep them away from a little planar example.

 

[Deadyawn]

I suppose the biggest difference I know of between the two editions is the class systems. In 4th edition once you choose a class that's your class. You can create a hybrid of two classes which is pretty cool but apart from that you have a lot less choice at level up. Thats not to say you have to follow a linear path. Each class has two basic archetypes when its first release and each source book adds two or three more for them. And even then you can still select from between around five different abilitties where apropriate. In addition to paragon paths and epic destinies which are a set of abilities you get to choose once you reach certain levels that have quite loose requirements I never felt like I couldn't take my character where I wanted to. All things considered it's simplified but not so much that it becomes an issue. There's also the deal with the specific roles certain classes have which you've probably heard about. It pretty much limits your options to make it easier to decide what to do. It's difficult to break your character one way or the other.

 

[Lullabye]

Pff, 3.5.
3.0 is the way we roll!
Make a game reference they'll understand about nerfing. Cus 4th ed is a nerfed 3.5 ed.

 

[lostlambda]

I've been playing D&D for almost 15 years now and i think 4 is the best im tried of losing more game to looking stuff up in like 12 volumes of information for what ever format were playing in then horsing around

PS i know D&D 4 is still young and their might be those 12 volumes come out for it but still

 

[UFOROMANTIC]

Most of you see the numbers 3.5 and 4.0, whereas I see "nearly unplayable unless you have the book memorized" and "good Christ I can finally have fun with this hot mess". And yes, the new spellcasting system rocks. All of you out there who basically insist on holding onto 3.5 because it is the last bastion of gaming elitism that you have (like some people I know, who basically like it BECAUSE it is complex and difficult to understand unless you spend countless nights studying it by pale candlelight) can eat a giant bowl of my dick.
EDIT: I love Dark Sun. It's just...good.

 

[MadCapMunchkin]

3.5 needed no tweaking. I know it hurts Wizards of the Coast that they didn't come up with World of Warcraft before Blizzard did, but they need to suck it up. 4.0 wants to be World of Warcraft and that really isn't how the evolution should be working. World of Warcraft (even though it would completely run the point, I'm sure) try to be more like D&D (was), not the other way around.

Just my two cents...

 

[IzisviAziria]

When you learn to ride motorcycles, you don't start out with a Honda CBR1000. You start out with like, a 250 or a little KLR or something simple so that you can comfortably learn how a motorcycle handles, and become comfortable moving around in traffic with one.

Eventually though, you get good at riding. Then, when you roll on the throttle, that little 250 ninja you bought just doesn't cut it for you any more. You want something more. You want your training wheels taken off.

4E is the training bike for D&D. It's easy to pick up, it won't overwhelm you with customization and rules. But eventually, you're going to want more. When you hit that point, it's time for 3.5 (or Pathfinder, now that I hear about this I'm going to have to look into it)

This is coming from someone who started playing last year, played 4.0 all summer, and then realized that campaign after campaign and character after character were all just sort of blending together.

 

[eternal-chaplain]

I've played version 3.5, and really didn't like it, and instead of seeing if version 4 was better, I just said "Forget this!" and now I play version 2 again! ^_^

 

[baddog117]

I cut my teeth on Red Book, then moved into 2nd Edition and did a bit in 3rd Edition, though I much preferred the EverQuest d20 over D&D, as a good number of cool things were added in (namely the canning of bloody asinine spell slots). I have only played one game of 4th, and found it pretty cool (for that one game, I couldn't say how it would play out over the long term). I do however play in a weekly Pathfinder game, and enjoy it (but only as a player).

However, my biggest beef with 3.5 and its variants, including Pathfinder, is how needlessly complex it is, and higher level fights just seem to turn into hit points grinds where all you do is try to wear down your foe's hit point totals before they just suddenly fall over dead since they actually ever weaken from wounding. Hit locations are meaningless and non-existent, and the chart for Attacks of Opportunities is practically an entire page! Combat, which what D&D and the variants surround themselves around, is quite unfriendly to new people who don't know all the tricks and maneuvers - like cast your touch combat spell first then step into combat, rather than step into combat and cast your spell... because for some reason casting a COMBAT spell provokes an AoO.

Personally, I like the Pathfinder system despite its over-complexity, but I would never run it as a GM. For people just getting into gaming, I'd suggest Savage Worlds, it is quick, easy, and generic - one system for any genre, though it does have some balance issues and can be easily broken by knowledgeable players, nor is it a good choice for grit or realism.

However, my personal favourite, and the only game system I will run on a consistent basis is GURPS 4e (3e was badly broken). Again, generic and usable with any genre - I run 3 games a week, one is sci-fi space opera, the other low to mid fantasy, and the last a modern world sorcery game. Not to mention combat is very fast, and no character has to worry about more than 2 modifiers when making an attack.

 

[Corjha]

4th edition is a stable, sterile system with equality amongst classes, but there's seams in the game, walls that seem quite tangible to 3.5 players. 3.5 has balance issues but you can do hilarious things with it like enchanting a battering ram so you can ride it through the air at 18m/s, but it's tough to DM because calculating XP is highly unintuitive.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

Pathfinder, AKA 3.75, is set up so the weaker classes in it are around the level of the Bo9S classes from 3.5.

Damage is a very poor replacement for mobility, defence and battlefield control.

Pathfinder is very very retro in class design for the most part ... and unfortunately also in item design. That they didn't follow in the footsteps of Bo9S is perfectly understandable, that they didn't follow in the footsteps of the Magic Item Compendium is outrageous.

 

[Con Carne]

4.0 essentially is WoW on paper. The best way to give your players a feel for 4.0 is to have them play DDO.

3.5 is a good system, but honestly, I have come to prefer Pathfinder. It's (3.5 v.2.0) they took 3.5 and refined it even more. 3.5 and Pathfinder are even compatible after making a couple of minor tweaks here and there.

OT: 4.0 is a system that is meant to make you feel like a badass hero from the get go.
3.5 is aimed at the players who want to feel like an average (or slightly above average) character and have them make their way through the world and its hardships.

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

I've actually used 3.0 Oriental Adventures characters in Pathfinder and it's not caused any trouble.

Really? because Iaijutsu focus(OA) + gnomish quick-razor(RoS) + sneak-attack heavy character. Is cheesy without any further optimization. Eggshell grenades are pretty crazy too.