Does anyone still play D&D 3.5 E in 2016?
Probably.
>>44531839
I do sometimes.
>>44531839
I still run 3.5 game with some friends.
A lot, actually.
>>44531839
I'm sure their are some, and that the number will continue to increase as it comes to be increasingly more than two full days into 2016
>>44531988
is 5E better than 3.5E?
>>44532062
No, not even close. 5e is 3.5-lite in terms of rules which can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your group's tastes. But 5e has literally 100 times less content and it is boring and generic.
>>44531988
A lot of 3.5 players have regular groups for ttrpgs. And do not use roll20.
Before Christmas, I went to several game stores. They were all almost out of 3.5 shit. Only one still bothered with 5e. They sold 3.5 stuff as fast as it came in (used of course). And the limited 5e stuff didn't really sell.
And pf stuff. Tons and tons of pf. Which didn't sell well, but the reps were great at keeping new stuff stocked.
Based on that, I'd wager that 3.5 is #1 or #2 for RPGs being played.
>>44532062
Largely? Yes. 3.5 has much more material being an older system that also existed in the heydey of custom content creation, but since most of the best material can just be ported over to 5e rather easily, 5e's strengths of ease of use and more modern design considerations really push it well ahead.
>>44532154
I had played a few games of 3.5E when I was in high school but didn't touch anything after it.
>>44532154
>boring and generic
It's like you've never even played the game.
Have you considered, maybe, perhaps, it is you yourself who is boring and generic?
>>44532255
Well, 3.5 has much more in the way of flavor, just based on the amount of shit released for 3.5, as compared to 5e.
>>44532223
Used copy of 3.5cityscape. I remember paying like 23$ for it new.
Now they're asking 35$ used.
Wtf?
Would it be easy to play a 3.5Ed game set in Gran Soren?
>>44532430
Sure. Need to fluff the city up a bit.
1 armorer for a town that size?
If you have the dd map of the city, its usable.
>>44532223
You're relying on essentially anecdotal evidence based around an incredibly small sample size.
Aside from Roll20, 5e is also the top seller on Amazon and is the highest in volume for Google searches.
>>44531839
Definitely. Wizards are fools not to just go back and start supporting it again.
>>44532514
I said " based on that". I can't speak of amazon sales.
IMO, its probably regional as hell. Pockets of some areas are heavy 3.5, others are 5e.
>>44532514
Also, 3.5 is much older. Comparing sales of 5e (that is being printed), and 3.5 ( that is not being printed), isn't giving an accurate count.
Compare total 3.5 sales vs 5e sales.
IMO, older gamers like 3.5 because 1) they already have all the books 2) they know tthose books 3) they already have an established group.
Younger gamers play 5e because 1) easier 2) online is more comfortable for them 3) its new
Totally just my opinion tho.
>>44532536
They are supporting it. They're putting all the 3.x shit up on dndclassics.com.
>>44532684
>Compare total 3.5 sales vs 5e sales.
That's also not accurate, because 5e hasn't finished being released.
>>44532514
Played.
Not "sold".
>>44532062
If you like good RPGs, then yes.
>>44531839
Madeline had some really good breasts.
>>44531839
I do
>>44532715
Agreed. There is not a perfect metric for comparison.
5e would get more sales if they released more " stuff".
>>44532514
>Aside from Roll20, 5e is also the top seller on Amazon and is the highest in volume for Google searches.
It's ahead on google trends, but not that far ahead. 4th Edition also managed to surpass 3.5 (briefly) in google searches, back in 2008, so I wouldn't get too excited.
(Fun facts: "D&D 4E" has never been a more popular search term than "AD&D".)
>>44532299
You know you can just work with your gm to make shit up right. The whole 3.5 flood of content was pretty much almost entirely unnecessary cash grabs built around mildly tweaked mechanics and half attempted fluff.
>>44532685
They're not supporting it. Go onto Wizards.com and try to find their old free content for 3.5. I don't mean anything new, I mean the stuff they put out ten years ago.
You can dig for it with a search engine, but the internal links are all broken. Wizards' general opinion of the 3.5 enthusiast is that they can go play Pathfinder.
It's idiotic.
>>44532062
Some things (like martials not being useless) are better, some things (like amount of content) are worse.
>>44532875
Martials aren't useless in 3.5. That's been fixed for 9 years.
>>44532830
>try to find their old free content for 3.5
This? http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/we
Or this? http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/dnd
>>44532875
This is why I still play 2e.
>>44532901
Agreed.
Fighters are fine in 3.5.
Fuck this "casters are superior in every way" shit.
>>44532901
>>44532917
Which don't link to the most important form of supporting content - their adventures. I mean, you can dig them out:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20040731a
But try clicking on the "more" tab to find the rest of the series.
>>44532998
>Fighters
If you're one of those folks who decided to just use that name for Warblades, OK. Otherwise, way to miss the 9 years clue.
>>44533029
Those are all there. Go into the '3.5 D&D Archive', then the 'Yearly Archives'.
Example: The first entry in the 2004 archive is 'Shrine of the Feathered Serpent', a level 12 adventure.
>>44533122
>Those are all there. Go into the '3.5 D&D Archive'
Doing that (the link given is http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archives) drops me back to their homepage.
>>44531839
Yes. They call it Pathfinder now.
>>44531988
What exactly do Games and Players mean on this infographic?
I'm assuming:
Games ~ How many games out of the 39,969 sample were that type.
Players ~ How many players out of the 35,544 sample have played that game before.
... but some of those statistics are incredibly skewed.
Burning Wheel -> 92 Games / 150 Players (avg. ~1.63 players per games)
Card Games -> 38 Games / 1248 Players (avg. ~32.8 players per game)
>>44532062
Yes. Anyone who complains that 5e has less content than 3.5 is ignoring the fact that 90% of 3.5's content was shit and the reason it's derided as being a broken system.
>>44531839
>Does anyone still play D&D 4E in 2016?
>>44533197
The players statistic is just people who set up their profile to say they actively play the given system.
Games includes individual Roll20 games that are labeled as playing the given system.
At least, as far as I've read.
>>44531839
What do you all think of OSRIC? My group has been running an ADnD campaign for a while and I would like to DM something similar but without the stuff some platters-read, one, bitch about. I figured a very sleightly altered OSRIC would be better than a franken-brewed Advanced
>>44533175
This one: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/dnd
Just bookmark it and the WE page.
>>44533122
>>44533175
Ah, right, I see where you mean. Yes, you can manually search the yearly archives to dig out the adventures, which is worse than using a search engine.
There are broken links all through the archive. They just don't care about it.
>>44533178
Only because Wizards have determinedly pushed people towards Paizo. Pathfinder's independent results are hard to disentangle because of Nissan's car, but "D&D 3.5" still trends relatively high on Google.
>>44533278
What edition of AD&D? What complaints?
>>44531839
Yes, but I prefer 5e when I can get it(as a player).
>>44533288
You can just Ctrl+F Adventure in the YA, and it'll bring up all of them.
>They just don't care about it.
It's 8-9 years old now, and WotC doesn't really do extended support.
>>44532782
Because you've got an army of 40 year old grognards who are still playing 1E/2E, and probably will still be playing it in the retirement home 30 years from now.
I'm agrognardbtw
>>44533343
Wotc banked a lot by keeping Salvatore and those guys writing about FR. And keeping it close-ish to 3.5 and supplements.
Then they fucked it all up and went nuts. Killing gods, adding new races; etc.
Book sales dropped. And thus game merchandise slowed on sales as well.
They had a good gimik. Shouldn't have fucked it up.
>>44531839
>Does anyone still play D&D 3.5 E in 2016?
Are there really people that still differentiate between Pathfinder and 3.5 e
Even if you don't mix the books with one another, do you REALLY need to consider them different systems?
>>44533401
>No. Appearing: 40d10
Well.
>>44533306
Complaints mainly about the restrictiveness of the class system, but since we historically homebrew a little and I've said we're going to streamline and diversify magic use specifically it is a little unwarranted imo.
As for the edition it's pic related
>>44533799
>the restrictiveness of the class system
Is that complaints about how the class system limits what your character can do, in which case 2e AD&D has non-weapon proficiencies and the (kinda janky) Player's Option series, or complaints about the fact that only humans can be any class?
If it's the former, you might want to look into something classless like GURPS, or RQ6, or something.
>>44532062
Mechanically? Yes
But it hasn't had time to catch up in terms of content, and there's a worrying trend towards repeating the mistakes of 3.5
>>44532684
>and 3.5 ( that is not being printed)
They've been printing new 3.5 core books for a few years now. AD&D and 2e books are back in print, too.
Careful with 3.5 reprints, I recall hearing a few runs didn't include the errata as they should.
Plus they're putting new stuff up all the time on D&D Classics (but often digital sales aren't included in book sales figures).
>>44534666
Thx m8.
I did not know that.
>>44532062
5E is a better core game than 3.5.
3.5 has a lot more content than 5E.
So, for players who really like the mechanical nitty-gritty, 3.5 is going to be more enjoyable. It has more mechanical replay value, more nuance and complexity in builds, and so on.
5E, by comparison, will appeal more to a group for which the system is a set of guidelines used as the underpinning for storytelling. Combat is faster, classes are more balanced, and there's significantly less need to weigh everyone down with random magical items.
Thing is, though, this gap will theoretically close over time, as 5E receives more content. In fact, if a group has players with enough of a sense for numbers and grasp of system mastery that they're competent homebrewers, 5E can be an objectively better choice than 3.5, with homebrew making up for the absent material. The class archetype setup lends itself beautifully to homebrewing, as you no longer need to make a prestige class to do X version of Y, and the reliance on proficiency and advantage means that you're much less likely to run into bullshit with numerical modifiers.
My group recently made the switch from 3.5 to 5E, and we've never looked back. On the other hand, we also have these two chucklefucks in our stable:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=64.0
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?board=136.0
So, we're not exactly feeling burned by the lack of content.
>>44532223
>literally only a 3% difference between 3.5 and 5E players
>image was posted specifically to support the claim that a lot of people still play 3.5
>still feels the need to go into damage control mode
Ease off the trigger there, buddy.
>>44533288
>They just don't care about it.
To be fair, the links on the Magic site archive are just as broken, and they sure as hell care about Magic.
They completely redid their websites like a year or two ago, and completely fucked the dog on it. Didn't bring forward any of the old articles, just stuck archive. at the beginning of the old URLs. It's an absolute mess, and they have done absolutely nothing to fix it.
Because Wizards is absolute dogshit at anything involving technology.
>>44534928
I think you missed the point anon.
Not defending or attacking anything. Just tossing an opinion out there. So choke down your implying bullshit a bit.
>>44535117
>gets upset when people call him out on it
>>44535170
>imply
>imply
>miss
>imply more
>>44531839
Not 2016. I've only had 3 days.
>>44535307
Slacker detected
Just ran a game tonight.
>>44531839
Nigga I still haven't left AD&D, what the fuck is 3.5?
>20XX
>judging people by their harmless pastime and not their stands
What a bitch.
>>44533987
>>44534864
I'm not really up to speed with 5E, but I haven't seen people really substantiate the "better mechanics" claim. Let me just lay out a couple of points so that 5E advocates don't have to shout into a vacuum:
Advantage/Disadvantage doesn't strike me as particularly well thought-out. Just in pure numbers of operations, it's not very helpful to add an extra die and comparison to getting the result. What does it do that the simpler +2/-2 couldn't?
Although I'll grant that 5th's class balance is better than it was in 3.5's core, 3.5 players who were taking class imbalance seriously had the tools to play a range of different archetypes at any point on 3.5's class power curve - in other words, the old weakness of imbalance had become a strength of variable difficulty settings. (Note: I'm not accusing the 3.5 design team of any particular genius. This is more of a X monkey on Y typewriters for Z years thing.) Although you can add more content to 5th, it doesn't seem like the initial conditions are there to get 3.5's variable difficulty.
>>44533460
>Even if you don't mix the books with one another, do you REALLY need to consider them different systems?
Yes, pathfinder is hugely different to 3.5, it massively buffs casters (and paladins) and massively nerfs martials compared to 3.5e, as well as making a lot of things worse.
>>44537253
>Nigga I still haven't left AD&D
That's cute, kid. Slap "advanced" in front of the name and you think that makes it special. Well mark my words, this newfangled AD&D thing will never catch on.
>>44537692
But it also has a few gems like Alchemist.
>>44531839
I still do. I run both 5e and 3.5. Right now I'm doing 3.5 cause the source material I had was more useful then just the phb and mm of 5e. There were specific things I was trying to do with magic and planar beings, so I stuck it with 3.5. A year or so later and they've released more stuff, I still will keep running the campaign in 3.5 and use 5e for something different.
>>44537926
I don't hate the Alchemist, but it's really just a rework of the Artificer.
>>44538561
It's really not at all like an artificer other than it can make alchemy stuff.
>>44537631
>What does it do that the simpler +2/-2 couldn't?
Not stack. Which is a big one. If you played 3.5 at all, you had to have run into the pure insanity of tracking all the active buffs. Sometimes, we had something like +10 on various different things from buffing alone. Double-checking that kind of thing and tracking it added a significant time investment compared to just "do I have advantage?"
Not to mention the fact that, no matter how fast you are, addition takes more time than rolling two dice simultaneously and then comparing two numbers.
In terms of other strengths, the consolidation of effects into a set of conditions is actually a pretty damn good one, since having advantage on saves against being charmed now also covers shit like dominate person.
The fact that spell's can now be scaled with higher-level slots is a good quality of life improvement for casters, as is at-will cantrips.
5E also has less numerical bloat at higher levels--no +20 BAB, and a sharply reduced reliance on magic items. You can basically run an entire game without ever having magic items crop up at all, which means they can actually be something special.
As for your last point, the main issue with class imbalance was never the people who knew what they were doing, it was that a Druid that selected their spells literally at random could easily outclass a fighter. Saying that it's a strength and not a weakness is pretty disingenuous, as is trying to pretend that "difficulty settings" has any real meaning in a game in which the challenges that you face are determined by a thinking human being that knows what you're playing. No matter what build you play in any system, the difficulty is predicated entirely on what the DM throws at you.
>>44535117
>>44535222
Calm your tits, dude. What are you so mad about?
>>44538756
Same "not arcane, not divine, not a spellcaster" routine. The alchemist description even says that they "infuse" their extracts (while the artificer has infusions).
>>44538782
>Doesn't stack
Circumstance doesn't stack, though? I mean, I get that there's a consolidation of temporary modifiers into advantage and I tend to agree that reducing the number of temporary modifiers was a good thing. Where I part ways is the idea that the extra die for advantage is simpler or faster than a fixed bonus for advantage would have been. You can insist that comparison and pick highest is faster, but there's still an addition step to be done after that. (And to forestall the move that +2 for advantage has two addition steps, you can write one of them on the character sheet.)
>no +20 BAB
That sounds like fixing something that isn't broken. The OSR guys beat the bounded accuracy drum, too, but their games have what amount to huge BAB bonuses.
>spell scaling
Sorry, as I said I hardly know 5E. Could you give an example of this mechanic?
>You can basically run an entire game without ever having magic items crop up at all, which means they can actually be something special.
Although Trailblazer's maths were sometimes batshit crazy, they did show that magic items were not integral to the 3.5 until fairly high levels.
>class imbalance
I'm aware of the basic problem. But look: I know what I'm doing, why should I care that 5E has better class balance? In fact, from the point of view of making new 3.5 stuff for new players, it wouldn't be that hard to put out a starter kit that had a good range of classes with equivalent ability.
>difficulty settings are no help
They really are, because your point about the DM setting the difficulty is only true as it's applied to the group. But what if your group has uneven player ability? 3.5 lets CharOp people still enjoy doing their thing without screwing around with the group by taking a weaker starting position.
>>44532062
no
5e is worst edition of d&d of all.
>>44532326
you know you can buy pdfs of most of the books right
i wouldent be suprised if you dident auctualy the link on wizards website is pretty out of the way
http://www.dndclassics.com/
>>44532917
theres all kinds of missing shit there though.
>>44533460
yes you do they are in no way the same thing
they alter several core game systems such as skill points.
>>44535000
>Because Wizards is absolute dogshit at anything involving technology.
that does seem to be the case yeah
oh speaking of d&d clasics it looks like they finaly added the core books for 3e
why the fuck those werent the first to be added i dont know
i think they also fixed the shitty scan of the guide to greyhawk (that might have been the 2e one though)
>>44531839
I would be, but my group recently broke up. It was my first time DMing, but I enjoyed it.
>>44532154
That's because 5e is only 2 years old, what you think the hacks over at WOTC can just shit out all of the content by now?
>>44532830
i quite like these 2
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060407a
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20070401a
>>44540141
they at least need a manual of the planes and deities and demigods
>>44533029
it is a shame that you pretty much have to know what adventure you want to be able to find any.
legend of the silver skeleton is pretty good.
>>44537253
Am I the only one who enjoys the simplicity behind character race and class design in AD&D 2E?
>>44540729
No. My group still plays AD&D. But then again we play because our DM can craft amazing stories and campaigns and so we just use the system we are most familiar with.
In my experience, 3.5 is the only RPG people play, except for Rogue Trader sometimes, and the occasional one-shot of some random crap.
In other words, yes, loads of people play D&D 3.5 in 2016.
>>44540151
There are six people on the D&D team. Six.
>>44532062
Yes, by far.
>>44532154
5e has better combat and less needless restrictions, has background abilities that make huge differences in campaigns, and greatly improved spellcasting. It also has better math, can be home brewed easier, and monster stat blocks are legible.
5e is superior in every way to core 3.5, and once hasbro loosens the reigns and they can make it OGL there will be a lot of content.
>>44531839
Pretty sure the only thing that will kill 3.5 is a massive die off of all the people who exclusively play it.
And there are thousands of the fuckers.
>>44532062
Mechanically, very much yes, but there is so much more stuff out there for 3.5 that there's a lot of catching up to do in terms of splatbooks, worldbooks, adventures etc.
>>44539079
>spell scaling
You can cast spells from a higher spell slot to increase their effects. There's no longer "Cure Light Wounds", "Cure Medium Wounds", and all that, for example. You have Cure Wounds as a 1st level spell, but can cast it as from a higher spell slot to increase its effects, usually by adding another dice.
>>44531839
>Actually thinks anyone plays anything other than DnD best edition aka 3.5e
>>44545080
I thought people hated 3.5E, that's why I wonder if there were people still playing that edition in this current year.
>>44545305
people, as in the public, loves 3.5e
anons on 4chan hate it, there is a difference
>>44531839
Some people just don't want to let go.
Also 3.5e is great if you just want to dick around and blow shit up with broken combos all day.
This thread makes me wonder why we don't have a 3.5 general up most of the time. Was it just that 3.5 players thought nobody else was interested?
>>44531988
GURPS confirmed objectively better than Fate
>>44546783
/pfg/ is a permanent general, and close enough. Having a 3.5 general on top is like having a separate 3.0 gen.
>>44547147
Look upthread. People keep saying, "It's just Pathfinder" and keep drawing scornful replies. I don't think the two communities are as close as you'd like to believe.
>>44538782
>Not stack. Which is a big one. If you played 3.5 at all, you had to have run into the pure insanity of tracking all the active buffs. Sometimes, we had something like +10 on various different things from buffing alone. Double-checking that kind of thing and tracking it added a significant time investment compared to just "do I have advantage?"
No, are wrong. Adding +3 (what advantage effectively work out for) is faster than rolling 2 dice and comparing. Especially given that you can have to add modifiers anyways in 5e.
The real problem with advantage/disadvantage is that it leads to some really fucking stupid situations for no gain. An no, 'too many stacking bonuses' could have been fixed by the writers having the fucking balls and common sense to write bonuses correctly rather than use them as the slap all fix for characters leveling.
Advantage/disadvantage in 5e leads to situations where you have something like 5+ sources of disadvantage, and 1 source of advantage and so you make a normal roll... because game design and testing is hard.
>>44540141
4e had a hell of a lot of content in its first two years.
Of course, I think the design team was also larger.
>>44546783
There's really just not much left to talk about at this point. I don't really see how 4e isn't in the same boat
>>44547264
4e and 3.x were made on a different design paradigm than 5e. Now they're just interested in keeping the brand alive for licensing since splats aren't profitable enough.
>>44543171
Jesus, really? And I thought I didn't get enough sleep...
>>44532062
>is 5E better than 3.5E?
depends on what you think about what d&d should be
>>44547360
People are still talking about 0D&D from the 70s. Off the top of my head, 3.5 general could discuss campaigns, homebrews, restricted formats (E6, tier play, handicapped tier play, gestalt as rebalance, etc.), modules new and old, and various "fix 3.5" projects (e.g. Trailblazer).
That's more than enough for a general.
>>44547831
Agreed.
Start a general up.
>>44547922
General at >>44548090
>>44531839
Only because I'm mid-campaign and can't update. I want to get out, but I can't.
