Starting from scratch

Many years ago, a group of people including myself started to play our first game of 3e D&D, I have loved fantasy since I was a small person and relished the idea of bringing my strange imagination to the table. Cut forward three(?) sessions later and it was all over, not really sure why, I guess everyone else was not quite into it as I was, plus being grown ups, probably real life got in the way. cut forward to today and I still want to play, I still want to explore my crazy imagination so I started my hunt to D&D, however I quickly got over my head with all the new systems and rule sets that are now available, I have looked through the looking for group and am still none the wiser. So help needed, I started to learn 3e, but I am curious, is 3/3.5 still a played rule set or do rules "fade out" once newer rules are released. In terms of rules, I am looking for something that has the capacity for story telling, but I can't escape my min/max nature and love of stats. My next question, is there anywhere that compares rule sets, or would I need to explore and read up on them to see which I would like the best? so any and all help appreciated to clear the fog in my old man brain

Every version of D&D is still played to this day, to one degree or another. The older version have much more of a niche following but we're around, even here on Roll20. D&D 3.5 is still very popular on Roll20 and elsewhere but of course the new hotness is 5th edition. I've only just begun looking at it myself but it might have the balance of role-playing vs crunch that you're looking for. If you want to check it out for yourself, the basic rules can be downloaded for free here: <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrule" rel="nofollow">http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrule</a>...

Can I also suggest this fine contender? <a href="http://www.dungeon-world.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dungeon-world.com/</a> All the core fantasy goodness but a little 'lighter' on rules (I would argue faster, slicker...). It's easy to play using Roll20 and you should find many groups here.

Brett E. said: Every version of D&D is still played to this day, to one degree or another. The older version have much more of a niche following but we're around, even here on Roll20. D&D 3.5 is still very popular on Roll20 and elsewhere but of course the new hotness is 5th edition. I've only just begun looking at it myself but it might have the balance of role-playing vs crunch that you're looking for. If you want to check it out for yourself, the basic rules can be downloaded for free here: <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrule" rel="nofollow">http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrule</a>... I have to say that I guess I am a little starry eyed nostalgia to play 3/3.5 because that was my first foray into D&D, but maybe its good to move with the times, will have to download and check out the rules to see what they are like and try to avoid impulse buying all the rulebooks like I normally would. Alan H. said: Can I also suggest this fine contender? <a href="http://www.dungeon-world.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dungeon-world.com/</a> All the core fantasy goodness but a little 'lighter' on rules (I would argue faster, slicker...). It's easy to play using Roll20 and you should find many groups here. Will have a look at this one as well, although that would be stepping out of the comfort zone for me, from what I see its far more role based and less stats and rolling, not sure if my brain could manage not crunching numbers for doing anything, will have a see thou

I started playing with 3.0 as well and, having played many different systems since, I'd recommend highly against it. 3.5 is better, but both are not nearly as good as Pathfinder. You can find all the Pathfinder rules at the Pathfinder PRD for free so it's easy to look into if you don't want to spend a lot of money on sourcebooks (although I would argue that the Pathfinder core rulebook is easily one of the best values for what you get out there). Pathfinder will be immediately familiar if you've played 3.5 since it's pretty much the next logical update to 3.5. They significantly upgraded all the classes, though, and made them way more fun to play and customize. The problem with 3.0/3.5 (especially 3.0) is significant balance issues along with a huge amount of feature creep from all the myriad sourcebooks out there. Even if you only allow the original 3.0 sourcebooks you still have some major balance issues (*cough* Haste and Polymorph *cough*) that make it really easy to powergame to irrelevance. If your group is willing to ignore the overpowered stuff it still works, but if you have to houserule it that much, you may as well be playing a different system IMO. I would also recommend against 4e DnD now since it's a significant departure from 3.5. There will be some recognizable elements but it's almost an entirely different game. It's also much more tactical than previous iterations and plays a bit more like a strategy game than a roleplaying game. There are a lot of rules to worry about and characters quickly ramp up in both power and options to the point where it can take a while for each player to decide what they're going to do on each turn. It isn't a bad system, and I still think it's a blast to play with experienced players, but so far my attempts to get new players into 4e have mostly fallen flat. If Pathfinder isn't your thing for some reason I'd take a look at DnD 5e (formally called DnD Next). It feels a lot more like 3.5 than 4e did and cuts out a LOT of rules bloat. It's probably one of the simplest DnD systems I've dealt with. It has some quirks, like six different save types, out-of-place cover rules, and obscenely random wild magic sorcerers, but combat moves fast and it's easy to grasp. The biggest disadvantage right now is that it's brand new (the first book, the Player's Handbook, was released August 21, and none of the other books are out yet...). It will be hard to run campaigns with it until November when the DMG and Monster Manual are both out. I stuck with DnD variants because that's what you are used to, but there are a lot of other great systems out there. If you're interested in setting, I highly recommend Shadowrun or World of Darkness. If you like roleplaying, any FATE based system works well (I personally enjoy the Dresden Files RPG, but I'm also a big fan of the books). If you're interested in making complex or freeform characters both Mutants and Masterminds and GURPS are great options (the first for a more action-oriented game, the latter for more of a simulation-based gameplay). I'm sure others will recommend their favorite systems...those are all ones I've played and enjoyed. I'll always have a soft spot for 3.5/3.0...I probably designed over a hundred different characters for my various campaigns. After playing some more modern systems, though, I can't really go back to the "two-encounters-per-five-hour-game-session" games I used to play. Heck, in my playtest of 5e I did a whole dungeon (9 encounters) in the time it took me to do three encounters in DnD 4e. Good luck!

Jacquesne J. said: *snip* Some good info in there, and another link to my slowly growing collection of things to look at. From reading up about things I was slightly aware of the overpoweredness that could happen in 3/3.5, but as much as I would like a world ending magic user of supreme power and amazingness, I never actually enjoy roleplaying that way, I much more prefer the "broken" sort of character, while they might be good, they wont be blowing up the world at any time soon. Plus I have a hankering to play rogue anyways now, I keep my op magic user in Baldur's gate. I have to admit the idea of complex characters does intrigue me, I still have my old Warhammer inquisitor book on my shelf and remember fondly spending ages just making up characters and teams and back stories and then never really gaming with them.

You want an (arguably) overpowered rogue in 3.5? I made a guy that, at 20th level, has 74 AC, can deal 13d6 sneak attack damage per attack (with feint as a free action and always taking 10), has a +30 reflex save, DC 24 death attack, hide in plain sight, spell steal for 1st level spells, and caster level 9 spellcasting (4th level spells). Some of my math may be slightly off since it's been a long time since I looked at this guy: Dagon Male Strongheart Halfling LE Rog3/Sptf1/Nin1/InvB5/Asn9/Shtf1(Sptf=Spellthief, Shtf=Shadow thief of Amn) Str 12 +1 Dex 28 +9 Con 12 +1 Int 20 +5 Wis 26 +8 Cha 12 +1 HD: 20d6+20 (102 hp) AC: 74 (+9 dex, +5 int, +8 wis, +9 armor, +6 shield, +5 deflection, +5 natural, +10 dagger, +1 haste, +1 size, +1 insight +5 expertise) Init: +8 Spd: 30ft. BA: +13 Atk: +5 dagger +17 (1d4+1 plus 12d6 sneak attack plus 1d6 sudden strike) Full Atk: +5 dagger +15/+15/+10/+5 (1d4+1 plus 12d6 sneak attack plus 1d6 sudden strike) F: +12 (+5) R: +30 (+17) W: +21 (+7) Class features: Sneak attack +12d6, sudden strike +1d6, evasion, ki power (6/day), trapfinding, trap sense +1, steal spell (0th or 1st), unfettered defense, bleeding wound, uncanny feint (free action), feint mastery, death attack (DC 24), poison use, improved uncanny dodge, +4 save vs. poison, hide in plain sight, doublespeak (+2 bluff/diplomacy) Feats: 1-Weapon focus (dagger), point-blank shot 3-Far shot 6-Persuasive 9-Dodge 12-Combat Expertise 15-Two-weapon fighting 18-Weapon finesse Skills: Spellcasting: CL 9, DC 15+spell level (5/4/4/3) Known: 1st-True strike, obscuring mist, feather fall, ghost sound 2nd-Alter self, invisibility, spider climb, undetectable alignment 3rd-Deeper darkness, false life, magic circle against good, nondetection 4th-Dimension door, greater invisibility, locate creature Equipment: +5 Defending Dagger x2 Belt of Magnificence +6 Dyrr's Impervious Vestment Mithril Buckler +5 Amulet of Natural Armor +5 Vestment of Resistence +5 Boots of Haste Dusty Rose Ioun Stone So yeah, 3.5 had some issues. And in 3.0 haste gave you an extra standard action per turn rather than an extra attack, making a 3rd level spell let you cast two spell per turn...sort of like have quicken spell but 1 round per level and without any spell slot or cast time adjustment. [Edit] P.S. is there a way to mark something as a spoiler or code block so I don't take up half the forum with the stat block? HTML tags don't seem to be working.

(Reply to P.S: Nope. It has been requested as a feature a few times, but really, I'd rather have table top improvements than forum improvements so I can't really get behind it. =D )

Aaron said: (Reply to P.S: Nope. It has been requested as a feature a few times, but really, I'd rather have table top improvements than forum improvements so I can't really get behind it. =D ) Fair enough, figured it would be an easy fix since you aren't really adding any code (HTML already does this). I agree...would rather have the table top improvements =)

Jacquesne J. said: *snip* All I can say is ouch, that does look just a shade on the powerful side, I especially like the 13xd6 sneak attacks. One benifit of playing digital, I don't need to buy a metric tonne of dice