3.5 edition

Is it just me or are there next to no resources for Dungeons and dragons 3.5 edition? There is no compendium and the character sheets just seem lack luster next to the pathfinder and 5e sheets? Are there any plans to develop resources for it?

Hi Tvyrus, I have moved this over to our  Specific Use Questions  forum. Thanks! 

As far as the sheet goes, you are probably comparing sheets that were made by Roll20 specifically so they would mesh with the in-game compendiums and charactermancers (Pathfinder and 5E), and a sheet that was made by the community to simply be able to play.  If you track down your sheet on GitHub, you should be able to find the author(s), and if you wish to help make the sheet more automated or whatever, that would be a place to start. As far as the compendium goes, I expect just the fact that it is an older version of a system that is already supported will probably keep it from being a focus of Roll20 or WotC.  In a similar way, I expect the current state of Pathfinder to not change much (if ever) after Pathfinder 2 releases in August. If you are interested in general ways to run 3.5 games on Roll20, there are probably people that run 3.5 that could give some tips on how they prep and run games.  I can give some general advice on running "unsupported" games, but wouldn't be specific to 3.5.

It is not just you. I have no inside info, but my guess would be that it comes down to money and licensing. 5e is where development and sales are for WotC. I would think  that they would be loath to develop anything for previous versions of the game. Not only would it dilute their brand, it would lead to consumer confusion, and cut into resources (talent, marketing, etc.) better directed toward their living product. As such, it's also unlikely they would license previous adventures. As for a Compendium, that's more difficult to speculate on. It could be something as complex as a licensing deal that forbids development of such (for reasons above), or just a general lack of interest in doing so in favor of developing newer directions. Again, all of this is wild speculation on my part. In any case, you aren't missing anything. The offerings of anything for previous editions of D&D are pretty sparse.

I run a 3.5 game here on roll 20 that has been going every week for just shy of a year. The largest challenge I have faced is the lack of a 'monster manual' that will let you drag creatures directly onto the tabletop. With some careful planning and a little work ahead of time you can create monsters for your game between sessions. I try to set up half a dozen monsters each week that I know the group is likely to encounter. I have a journal folder for my 'Monster Manual' and I add the new entries as I need them but keep the old to fall back on for random encounters.  You have a Pro account so use the API. The It's a trap script is great for traps but I also use it for secret/hidden doors and triggering dungeon sounds. There are several online 3.5 and D20 SRD wikis that you can use for references. Most of these are hyperlinked so you can copy and paste the category links into a journal entry for the players to access in a similar method to a roll20 native compendium, I have done this myself for spells.

I ran a 3.5 for 4 years (levels 1-18) and it was hard going at first, but once you get into a rhythm it becomes easier. I had a 'Bestiary' game where I kept all of the monsters I made (accessed using the transmogrifier to prevent game loading issues due to the volume of sheets!) and I had an 'atlas' game with all the maps/pages I'd made (agains using the transmogrifier). These storage games helped keep the main one free of clutter and loading issues due to size. As John mentioned, the API is your best friend as a 3.5e DM, It's A Trap! is a God send and again, as John states, is very versatile for overall dungeon management... get creative :) Other staples are TokenMod, Roll20AM, turnMarker and many many more, Blood and Honor is fun as is healthcolors. I personally also heavily used the original powerCards script and massively over-engineered macros for EVERYTHING... including ~3000 spells :/ Get in touch if you choose the powercards option and | likely have some that would ease the pain of the more common use cases (saves/skills etc). Another slight tweak I did was to edit the character sheet slightly. I revamped the inventory tab to suit my needs and removed the npc section entirely since I had no intention of using it. I made a few other minor changes but kept it essentially the same as Diana did a great job of keeping the sheet in line with the paper version while helping with the massive calculation load that 3.5e imposes on it's players. For monsters/NPCs I'd recommend just adding in the info that you'll need onto a PC sheet, it saves on macros when they are all able to operate from a universal option.

Tvyrus said: Is it just me or are there next to no resources for Dungeons and dragons 3.5 edition? There is no compendium and the character sheets just seem lack luster next to the pathfinder and 5e sheets? Are there any plans to develop resources for it? Tvyrus, I've been running a homebrew 3.5 campaign on roll20 ever since I joined up and became a subscriber. Roll20 has helped a ton to make my games easier. Mostly I've gotten used to hopping between 3.5's SRD and PCGen for character management and Roll20 to run my sessions. The thing I'd love most is automation to move character data back and forth between PCGen and Roll20's 3.5 character sheets .  PCGen is much more specific and mature in handling the numbers of 3.5 characters than Roll20 is. That's not a fault of Roll20. Roll20 is working hard to be system neutral and that flexibility requires sacrificing system specific tweaks and ease of use features. I'm cool with that. But I know people have wrote scripts for PCGen/Roll20 migration for Pathfinder . Just wish there was one for 3.5 as well.

Tvyrus, I've been running a homebrew 3.5 campaign on roll20 ever since I joined up and became a subscriber. Roll20 has helped a ton to make my games easier. Mostly I've gotten used to hopping between 3.5's SRD and PCGen for character management and Roll20 to run my sessions.  I didn't realise PCGen was still around. I am still using my copy of E-tools from the same publisher and the original PCgen. I agree with you, I would love the ability to import character and monster data directly from E-tools. 

Axecleft said: Tvyrus, I've been running a homebrew 3.5 campaign on roll20 ever since I joined up and became a subscriber. Roll20 has helped a ton to make my games easier. Mostly I've gotten used to hopping between 3.5's SRD and PCGen for character management and Roll20 to run my sessions.  I didn't realise PCGen was still around. I am still using my copy of E-tools from the same publisher and the original PCgen. I agree with you, I would love the ability to import character and monster data directly from E-tools.  This is possible with an API script, or changes to the sheet could allow it to be done directly in the sheet. I can't volunteer to do it as I already have too little time, but it is something you could look into.

Scott C. said: This is possible with an API script, or changes to the sheet could allow it to be done directly in the sheet. I can't volunteer to do it as I already have too little time, but it is something you could look into. Mr. Farlops said: But I know people have wrote scripts for PCGen/Roll20 migration for Pathfinder . Just wish there was one for 3.5 as well. There are third party tools like Justas Dabrila 's Firefox add-on, VTT Ehancement Suite , that let you import and export tables, macros and characters into JSON.  PCGen allows you to export characters to XML so, I naively assume, we just need some JSON2XML converter. Assuming we can give the converter the right DTDs and guides on translation--or something like that, I'm waving my hands here. And there is an years old thread suggesting that Roll20 add character import/export as a native feature , perhaps only available to subscribers. 

I was referring more to spells and macros for them for example I have a warlock in my party and no good way to implement her Eldritch blast and I'm not very good with writing macros.When I search for it google mainly kicks back 5e macros even I specifically search for 3.5. I don't have a problem making characters or even running my game its more along the lines of my players not all who are familiar with the system or have any idea how to make macros. The tutorials are also very basic and don't help very much, but thats a different thread.