If your friend has a strong preference for which system you use and you don't, why are you so determined to force him to play a system he doesn't like? Just play 3.5E.
You necro'd a thread from 2021 to say this? I am sure the issue has long since resolved and the friend had not played 5e at the time of the OP anyway.
I find 5e severely lacking, it is like elementary version of DND. You don't really feel like you're becoming better at things as you level, the whole concept of a proficiency bonus that very slowly scales with level instead of skill ranks leaves you feeling like you are making absolutely no progress at becoming better at attacks, skill checks, and saves. Omg saves, that is a real mess. Now you have 6 saves to cover instead of 3, and they do not scale up at all unless you're proficient in them, and getting proficient in them requires burning a feat, which you get such a paltry amount of. I detest 5e.
I find 5e severely lacking, it is like elementary version of DND. You don't really feel like you're becoming better at things as you level, the whole concept of a proficiency bonus that very slowly scales with level instead of skill ranks leaves you feeling like you are making absolutely no progress at becoming better at attacks, skill checks, and saves. Omg saves, that is a real mess. Now you have 6 saves to cover instead of 3, and they do not scale up at all unless you're proficient in them, and getting proficient in them requires burning a feat, which you get such a paltry amount of. I detest 5e.
All classes are automatically proficient in two types of saving throws and some classes and subclasses grant proficient in even more. Compare that to 3.5 where only Clerics and Druids got good advancement on two save types and only Monks got good advancement on all three- a 5E character is much more likely to succeed on a saving throw they're not proficient with than a 3.5 character is on one of their bad saves since save DCs advance much slower so you don't have to worry about your 11th level fighter having to face a DC 28 Will save with only a +5 on the roll. Speaking of fighters, you also no longer have the horror of iterative attacks that take a cumulative -5 penalty for each attack you make after the first so you actually have a reasonable chance of hitting with all three attacks. And you actually get new abilities as you level instead of "I now have a 5% better chance of hitting." I can count the number of dead levels across all classes in 5E on one hand with fingers left over. Compare that to 3.5 where fighters take a dead level literally every other level and most other classes are also pretty bad about it. And don't get me started on the number of times a feat or prestige class required something completely worthless as a prerequisite, like the Dodge feat or ranks in the Crafting or Profession skills.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
There is so much incorrect knowledge here about 3.5.
3.5 is hardly perfect, but 5e goes hard on "playing the mechanics" while 3.5 was designed for mechanics to be merely play aids for the actual game of roleplay (even if the majority of the community went with playing the mechanics anyway).
5e scales differently, basically taking only 3.5's levels 2-6 and turning that 5 level spread into 20 levels. 3.5 was designed to scale from ordinary people to demigods more powerful than Superman. 5e however goes from above average people to merely the beginnings of supernatural ability. This is why 5e characters are more likely to succeed with nonproficient saves, they literally have a smaller range of power to deal.
Many of the changes and complaints are of a similar nature, where the comparison or complaint has it's origin in the difference of basic assumptions both in the design of the mechanics and in the minds of the players.
Personally I dislike 5e, but that's because it got rid of the traits 3.5 had that are most important to me, first being casually simulationist, and second, scaling smoothly from basic farmboy commoner to literal godhood (yes, I played an actual god once, fighting the evil that destroyed the universe. My homebrew campaign setting is literally that character rebuilding the universe). I also dislike 5e because it is designed for "playing the mechanics" and "combat as sport" playstyles, both of which I highly dislike, and hate even more so because the popularity of those styles makes it difficult to find players more in line with the kind of play I prefer.
Lastly, I find that many things about 3.5 that are regarded as worthless, only seem so either because the mindset 3.5 was designed for is so rare and ill-understood, or because it usually feels like 3.5 was designed for 3d6 and had that swapped out for 1d20 at the last minute. Take the Dodge feat for example, a +1 is merely a +5% on a d20, but all other things being equal, is a +14% on 3d6, much stronger and more significant.
There is zero evidence that 3rd Edition was ever intended to be a 3d6 system instead of a D20 system, much less that it was a change made late in development. From the very first announcement of 3rd Edition, it was advertised as "the new rules system that was going to streamline gameplay by making all attacks, skills, and saving throws work the same: the D20 system," which WotC used for every other RPG they developed in the early 21st Century like D20 Modern and Star Wars D20. And it was very hard on "play on the mechanics." Considerably more so than 5E because it tried to have a mechanical rule for everything.
And finally, the Dodge feat was worthless. It didn't give +5% to AC. It gave +5% to AC vs one enemy. That was bad enough, but with the way that Attack Bonus went up much faster than AC did in the game, it meant that even if you were fighting a single enemy (not all that common), it was still largely a waste of a feat because you were often only looking at needing an 8+ to hit you instead of a 7+. The only reason to actually take it was because it was a prerequisite for much better feats like Spring Attack or Whirlwind Attack.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
First, I didn't say that it was the case, I said it often seemed like the case. To be more clear, the mechanical design often works significantly better under the assumption of 3d6 roll rather than a d20 roll.
Second, I hardly think 3.5 is flawless, but I personally would rather see 3.5 improved rather than dumped. Pathfinder made some good strides, such as making Dodge a flat +1, but it sadly also seemed to fail to recognize the scope of 3.5 and moved away from having normal people and also away from the smooth scaling up to godhood, with a focus on the second tier of play. Didn't eliminate these factors entirely but clearly moved away from them.
Third, having mechanics does NOT mean the game is about playing mechanics. Clearly that seems to be the natural inclination of people, but it is not actually true. I play in a fashion somewhere between old school play and new school play, where the mechanics are a form of communication and serve as play aids and most importantly make it easier to make rulings that are consistent and give reasonable results.
The big lesson however, is that 3.5 proves ghat player expectations trump designer intent and even the actual design (because a failure of design can lead to results stemming from the design itself that are contrary to intent). This is the biggest problem I face in designing my system. I want 3.5 but better, without losing the scalability from normal people up to godhood and the purely casual simulationism (no dissociated mechanics), but this is the problem, how do you get people to see the mechanics as a tool and not the game? Comments like yours about having so many mechanics being equated with being a focus on mechanical play suggests the issue is fundamental psychologically.
Simply the fact that you don't see how you can have lots of mechanics without being mechanics focused play, is a barrier between you and the point I'm making.
As a side note, there is one famous guy who mentioned that he didn't use a combat heavy ruleset to focus on combat, but rather for the opposite reason, using the ruleset to take the load of running combat so he did not need to expend so much focus ans attention on the combat, leaving more attention for other aspects of play. Consider the same concept applied to 3.5, using those mechanics to provide a consistent world interaction so the GM can focus less on maintaining consistency, and a form of communication so the GM can spend less time communicating important but dull details and focus more on the fun and interesting stuff.
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You necro'd a thread from 2021 to say this? I am sure the issue has long since resolved and the friend had not played 5e at the time of the OP anyway.
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I find 5e severely lacking, it is like elementary version of DND. You don't really feel like you're becoming better at things as you level, the whole concept of a proficiency bonus that very slowly scales with level instead of skill ranks leaves you feeling like you are making absolutely no progress at becoming better at attacks, skill checks, and saves. Omg saves, that is a real mess. Now you have 6 saves to cover instead of 3, and they do not scale up at all unless you're proficient in them, and getting proficient in them requires burning a feat, which you get such a paltry amount of. I detest 5e.
All classes are automatically proficient in two types of saving throws and some classes and subclasses grant proficient in even more. Compare that to 3.5 where only Clerics and Druids got good advancement on two save types and only Monks got good advancement on all three- a 5E character is much more likely to succeed on a saving throw they're not proficient with than a 3.5 character is on one of their bad saves since save DCs advance much slower so you don't have to worry about your 11th level fighter having to face a DC 28 Will save with only a +5 on the roll. Speaking of fighters, you also no longer have the horror of iterative attacks that take a cumulative -5 penalty for each attack you make after the first so you actually have a reasonable chance of hitting with all three attacks. And you actually get new abilities as you level instead of "I now have a 5% better chance of hitting." I can count the number of dead levels across all classes in 5E on one hand with fingers left over. Compare that to 3.5 where fighters take a dead level literally every other level and most other classes are also pretty bad about it. And don't get me started on the number of times a feat or prestige class required something completely worthless as a prerequisite, like the Dodge feat or ranks in the Crafting or Profession skills.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
There is so much incorrect knowledge here about 3.5.
3.5 is hardly perfect, but 5e goes hard on "playing the mechanics" while 3.5 was designed for mechanics to be merely play aids for the actual game of roleplay (even if the majority of the community went with playing the mechanics anyway).
5e scales differently, basically taking only 3.5's levels 2-6 and turning that 5 level spread into 20 levels. 3.5 was designed to scale from ordinary people to demigods more powerful than Superman. 5e however goes from above average people to merely the beginnings of supernatural ability. This is why 5e characters are more likely to succeed with nonproficient saves, they literally have a smaller range of power to deal.
Many of the changes and complaints are of a similar nature, where the comparison or complaint has it's origin in the difference of basic assumptions both in the design of the mechanics and in the minds of the players.
Personally I dislike 5e, but that's because it got rid of the traits 3.5 had that are most important to me, first being casually simulationist, and second, scaling smoothly from basic farmboy commoner to literal godhood (yes, I played an actual god once, fighting the evil that destroyed the universe. My homebrew campaign setting is literally that character rebuilding the universe). I also dislike 5e because it is designed for "playing the mechanics" and "combat as sport" playstyles, both of which I highly dislike, and hate even more so because the popularity of those styles makes it difficult to find players more in line with the kind of play I prefer.
Lastly, I find that many things about 3.5 that are regarded as worthless, only seem so either because the mindset 3.5 was designed for is so rare and ill-understood, or because it usually feels like 3.5 was designed for 3d6 and had that swapped out for 1d20 at the last minute. Take the Dodge feat for example, a +1 is merely a +5% on a d20, but all other things being equal, is a +14% on 3d6, much stronger and more significant.
There is zero evidence that 3rd Edition was ever intended to be a 3d6 system instead of a D20 system, much less that it was a change made late in development. From the very first announcement of 3rd Edition, it was advertised as "the new rules system that was going to streamline gameplay by making all attacks, skills, and saving throws work the same: the D20 system," which WotC used for every other RPG they developed in the early 21st Century like D20 Modern and Star Wars D20. And it was very hard on "play on the mechanics." Considerably more so than 5E because it tried to have a mechanical rule for everything.
And finally, the Dodge feat was worthless. It didn't give +5% to AC. It gave +5% to AC vs one enemy. That was bad enough, but with the way that Attack Bonus went up much faster than AC did in the game, it meant that even if you were fighting a single enemy (not all that common), it was still largely a waste of a feat because you were often only looking at needing an 8+ to hit you instead of a 7+. The only reason to actually take it was because it was a prerequisite for much better feats like Spring Attack or Whirlwind Attack.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
First, I didn't say that it was the case, I said it often seemed like the case. To be more clear, the mechanical design often works significantly better under the assumption of 3d6 roll rather than a d20 roll.
Second, I hardly think 3.5 is flawless, but I personally would rather see 3.5 improved rather than dumped. Pathfinder made some good strides, such as making Dodge a flat +1, but it sadly also seemed to fail to recognize the scope of 3.5 and moved away from having normal people and also away from the smooth scaling up to godhood, with a focus on the second tier of play. Didn't eliminate these factors entirely but clearly moved away from them.
Third, having mechanics does NOT mean the game is about playing mechanics. Clearly that seems to be the natural inclination of people, but it is not actually true. I play in a fashion somewhere between old school play and new school play, where the mechanics are a form of communication and serve as play aids and most importantly make it easier to make rulings that are consistent and give reasonable results.
The big lesson however, is that 3.5 proves ghat player expectations trump designer intent and even the actual design (because a failure of design can lead to results stemming from the design itself that are contrary to intent). This is the biggest problem I face in designing my system. I want 3.5 but better, without losing the scalability from normal people up to godhood and the purely casual simulationism (no dissociated mechanics), but this is the problem, how do you get people to see the mechanics as a tool and not the game? Comments like yours about having so many mechanics being equated with being a focus on mechanical play suggests the issue is fundamental psychologically.
Simply the fact that you don't see how you can have lots of mechanics without being mechanics focused play, is a barrier between you and the point I'm making.
As a side note, there is one famous guy who mentioned that he didn't use a combat heavy ruleset to focus on combat, but rather for the opposite reason, using the ruleset to take the load of running combat so he did not need to expend so much focus ans attention on the combat, leaving more attention for other aspects of play. Consider the same concept applied to 3.5, using those mechanics to provide a consistent world interaction so the GM can focus less on maintaining consistency, and a form of communication so the GM can spend less time communicating important but dull details and focus more on the fun and interesting stuff.