After 12 years of 3.x and a recent return to playing TSR era D&D I have reached the following conclusion.
The 3.x system is fundamentally borked and needs a rewrite. I have been playing some retroclones as well and have been rereading the BECMi rules cyclopedia and my AD&D books mostly 2nd ed but the 1st ed PHB as well.
One solution is to go back to TSR/retroclones the one I chose to do was a homebrew d20 system roughly based on PF but using parts of 4th ed that made sense and a return to several ideas ffrom TSR era D&D.
The basics of my homebrew.
1. d20 system sing fort/ref/will and Pathfinders skill system. Might even go a bit further and strip the skill system out.
2. Classes level up at the same rate. I am kind of liking TSRs approach in this regard so it is not set in concrete.
3. A simpler combat section. ATM using 4th eds/SWSE round structure. Once again not set in concrete.
4. BAB being revised into AD&D style/SWSE multiattacks.No more +11/+6/+1 just 3 attacks at +11.
5. Ability scores being capped at 20 for players, 30 for monsters.
6. Spells mostly return to AD&D levels of power along with saving throws being boosted to AD&D/BECMI levels. Fighters for example get +5/+5/+4 saves at level 1. Lifting my spells from Pathfinder atm but using old school versions of some of the broken ones. Might go as far as BECMI trimming of the spell lists as well.
7. Feats being turned into options with very little mechanical bloat. Most feats do not grant a bonus to hit and damage although they may let a fighter pick up healing spells or whatever. Weapon focus for example doesn't exist as a +1 bonus to hit.
8. Less focus on builds. Weapon specialization for fighters grants a +1 bonis to hit and damage on all weapons and is available from level 1 as a single talent instead of two feats.
9. Class rewrites. Clerics and Druids for example are back to no level 8 and 9 spells. Martial types are similar to SWSE characters.
10. Some 4th ed innovations are used. Encounter powers do exist but are optional via feats and talents for example. Healing can be used as a minor action buit you do not get it for free requiring feat investment.
Those are a few of my main ideas atm. Not 100% married to all of them and I could just thinki screw it and play a retroclone but I'm intersted in some ideas peoiple have here in regards to the 3.x system and if it is even worth trying to fix/save or play.
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I think you will not fix upper level play unless you divorce yourself from a d20 based system. Things like saves, skills, etc become all or nothing-meaning if you are good at it you almost never fail and if you are bad at it you almost never succeed.
Also the vast power disparity between martial and full caster classes is also a broken aspect of the game that there seems to be no answer for. Cutting clerics and druids off at the knees is a waste of time unless sorcerers and wizards get similar treatment.
If you can fix these two issues, you have 95% of the broken parts fixed imo.
1. d20 system sing fort/ref/will and Pathfinders skill system. Might even go a bit further and strip the skill system out.
What would you replace skills with? They serve a very important role.
4. BAB being revised into AD&D style/SWSE multiattacks.No more +11/+6/+1 just 3 attacks at +11.
Before you muck around with multiple attacks, you should make sure you understand why they progress the way they do. The progressive -5 penalty has a number of positive effects - the most important of which is that it allows immense variability in target AC without making the math fall apart. If I attack at +20/+15/+10, the target AC be anywhere from 38 to 12 and I will still have a chance to hit and miss independently from the autohit/automiss rules. That means that an extra +2 to attack or an extra +2 AC matters throughout that entire range (with falloff in signifiance at the extremes, of course). The multiple attack system has a lot of benefits. Don't change it unless you know what you're doing.
5. Ability scores being capped at 20 for players, 30 for monsters.
I actually did a slightly modified version of this for players. But why cap monsters? Eventually you're going to want to design an uber-monster that can surpass that limit. Naturally, he'll need a special ability to surpass the cap. So what's the point? Caps on monsters don't really serve a purpose.
6. Spells mostly return to AD&D levels of power along with saving throws being boosted to AD&D/BECMI levels. Fighters for example get +5/+5/+4 saves at level 1. Lifting my spells from Pathfinder atm but using old school versions of some of the broken ones. Might go as far as BECMI trimming of the spell lists as well.
+5/+5/+4 just from class? I agree that saves are too low, but that seems... excessive.
The +5/+5/+4 ting came from a retroclone of 2nd ed that used fort/ref/will. I kind of want it to be excessive TBH as I want to hit the spellcaster power creep of 3.x hard while still having it in the game unlike 4th ed.
It would not bother me if a high level character made their save 75%-95% of the time. It jst means blasting spells get that much better and save or dies/suck that much worse. I also capped spell DCs at 20 as well. In playtesting sleep and hold person are still useful at lower levels but the wizard player is comlaining a little buit he sucks so I may tweak the class at lower levels or add feat support to the class.
As I said I have been playing retroclones and TSR era D&D and that is how it works in those systems and it is how I actually prefer things. Wizards still rocked back then except at lower levels perhaps but I'll be using cantrips and reserve feats in the homebrew so one can have at wills in effect if you want them. I'll be using 3.5 0 level spells as even something like detect magic at will annoys me.
I think something like the 3.5 Beguiler and Warmage are really going to be the only way to ultimately have spell caster who do not wreck the game at least from a 3.x PoV.
If I do not use skill or have them optional I will replace them with attribute checks. In effect all skill checks would be DC 20 and you roll d20 and add the relevant ability score to it. 16 dex for example would be 1d20+16 vs DC 20. harder tasks would have a penalty to the roll probably -1,-2, -5 depending on the difficulty.
Attribute checks were more or less what old versions of D&D had. I'll probably use skills though and I like PF the best out of 3.0/3.5 and 4th eds skill system. Also my monsters I'm rewriting have skills so it would be a pain to redo them all as I have around 150 odd pages of classes/spells/monsters etc done already.