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A couple more advantages of 3.0 come to mind.
One is price. Originally, the 3 core 3.0 books retailed for only $20 each, and many players could get away with buying only the Player's Handbook. And the default campaign setting was $10, or $28 for the more complete book, and a fine setting book it was. Even today, browsing through Amazon, I see that the 3.0 core books are being sold more cheaply by third party sellers than the core books of other editions.
Another advantage was the Monster Manual. For the aforementioned humble price, you got, as the back cover proclaimed, over 500 fearsome foes, which pretty much covered everything you needed. You didn't have to apply a template to a ghoul to get stats for ghasts, or to a horse to get a heavy horse. You didn't have to wait around for the Monster Manual 2 to get camels. The really essential stats were all there. WotC crammed lots of information in there by not insisting that every entry get its own page. It didn't have to fill up each page with a picture, as if we needed a picture of a horse or a dog or a cheetah to know what one looked like. That book was good stuff.
Oh yes, the price! We were astounded as to how they could sell such nice books at so low a price (we now know they were essentially a loss leader for WotC.) In fact, I gifted two of my players with PHBs, which they still use to this day (the prints were also high quality.) Luckily now the hardbacks can be found for a dime and a song; I bought a full set of core books for less than £10, including shipping!
I also wholeheartedly agree with your assessment; the MM is excellent; it was a happy medium between the terse AD&D 1e entries, and the verbose AD&D 2e ones. The thing I liked most is that it covered essentially everything one could want, and then some. The entries for humanoids, specifying which gods they worshiped, and the domains for those gods, were fantastic; in 2e we would need an additional book to get those info. The only thing missing were the two or three pages about monster design which appeared in MM2.
And I like 3.0 monster design, since monsters DON'T follow the same rules as PCs. Recently I had a chat with Richard Baker, who was complaining about how he didn't know how to spend "legally" skill points on the stat blocks for a Mammoth in Pathfinder. I told him he wouldn't have had this problem if WotC and PF had stuck with the 3.0 guidelines :)
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I don't own the core rules for 3.0 myself, though...maybe I'll get them once WotC releases PDF versions and try playing 3.0 then (AFAIK, 3.0 is the only pre-5e version of D&D for which WotC is not selling the core rules in PDF form.)I wouldn't hold my breath on that. I doubt WotC will put out pdfs of those 3 books, as they are part of an unsupported version and is already updated completely with the supported version (3.5 being the "supported version"). Yes, they have pdfs of 3.0 books, but they weren't converted up to 3.5 wholesale like the 3 core books. Your best bet is to either somehow get a hardcopy of them, or find them elsewhere. I am lucky enough that my bro-in-law bought them when they came out, and gave them to me when he moved away and had a kid.I'm not holding my breath, but I'm pretty sure that they will release them eventually. They sent out an e-mail recently to anyone who had purchased WotC pre-5e products from OBS, saying that they eventually want to release their entire back-catalogue of "classic" products as PDFs. They said in that e-mail that there are some products they don't have copies of, and asked for help from anyone who still had print copies of certain old books to scan them so WotC could sell the scans. The 3.0 core rulebooks were listed as products that they did have, but hadn't release yet.
They've only been releasing 3 or 4 pre-5e PDFs per week, so as not to flood the market. If they keep doing what they are doing now, eventually they'll get all of their pre-5e products onto OBS, but it will take a long time.Also, they have released PDFs of a couple 3.0 products that are almost entirely subsumed by 3.5 supplements, such as Tome and Blood and...
I knew about the list, but I honestly didn't realize the 3.0 core books were even mentioned on there. And good news indeed that they have Tome and Blood as well as Defenders of the Faith up there. That's some good news indeed, for those looking for them.
And while I thank you for the link to the 3.0 SRD, Alzrius, that has to be the most atrocious thing I have ever seen. But thank you nonetheless. But if you are looking for a more readable one, this one looks better. I guess I should have done a little bit of looking before I said anything about a 3.0 srd existing or not, eh? :) Glad that one does exist.
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One more thing: That website I mentioned earlier, where someone said they preferred 3.0 to 3.5 and gave his opinions on various changes? I found it. It even has a zip file of the various spell changes someone else came up with. The website is here and the zip file is under the heading "Major Spell Alterations".
Thanks to an old thread on ENWorld, I found the website again. In case anyone was interested.
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And I like 3.0 monster design, since monsters DON'T follow the same rules as PCs. Recently I had a chat with Richard Baker, who was complaining about how he didn't know how to spend "legally" skill points on the stat blocks for a Mammoth in Pathfinder. I told him he wouldn't have had this problem if WotC and PF had stuck with the 3.0 guidelines :)
I couldn't disagree with this sentiment more if I wanted, and while it may be difficult to determine where to spend things in 3.5, PF, at least, is easily covered (due to the only differences between trained and untrained skills a +3).
Of course, one of the things that drew me into 3.X in the first place was the internal consistency and readily-made comprehensibility. The greater similarity to people and monsters made 3rd instantly fascinating, and the identical rules of the two in 3.5 easily blinded me to the other problems, because it finally made a self-consistent world where everyone and everything functioned the same way. It finally felt like a world where stories made sense within themselves.
But again, I've been tinkering with the idea of going back to 3rd.
Some of the design principles were superior (in my eyes) to 3.5 (), so I've no problem believing people prefer it.
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Is there a 3.0 SRD out there somewhere?Yes, there is.That... may be one of the ugliest SRDs I've ever seen.
Thank you for linking it! :D
You know, although I've been hesitating to say this, I was going to list the SRD as one of the ADVANTAGES of 3.0 (and 3.5) over Pathfinder. You say "ugly". (EDIT: And after I posted this, Alzrius said "cumbersome".) I say... "practical", at least in certain respects.
I no longer remember the website from which I downloaded the 3.0 SRD all those years ago. I no longer remember it, because I never had to go there again. The site just let me download the zip files, and I can just open that stuff in a text editor whenever I want, even at times when I don't have internet access, as sometimes happens to me even these days.
And another advantage of having that text file - and this is the part that made me hesitate - is discretion. Let's say - just hypothetically, of course - that you're at work, and referring to the SRD while typing up statblocks into an MS-Word file or something. Your supervisor may come passing by at any moment, and if you've got this browser open with a colorful display and a "Pathfinder" logo, it will be immediately obvious at the most fleeting glance that you're not working. It just doesn't make you look professional. But if all you have open on your PC is plain text documents, you look like you're working industriously!
(I once considered, for that reason, copying the PFSRD into text files, but it seemed like too much work, what with every spell and every monster entry having its own page.)
But I will agree with Tacticslion about the other matter: PCs and monsters ought to be built on the same rules. Why shouldn't they? It makes for a consistent game world. That's one advantage of 3.0 over AD&D, and 3.5 just took the principle to the next logical step.
You know, although I've been hesitating to say this, I was going to list the SRD as one of the ADVANTAGES of 3.0 (and 3.5) over Pathfinder. You say "ugly". (EDIT: And after I posted this, Alzrius said "cumbersome".) I say... "practical", at least in certain respects.
I no longer remember the website from which I downloaded the 3.0 SRD all those years ago. I no longer remember it, because I never had to go there again. The site just let me download the zip files, and I can just open that stuff in a text editor whenever I want, even at times when I don't have internet access, as sometimes happens to me even these days.
I have used the SRD so much these years. It's excellent to copy-paste only the stuff you need (I tend to compress stat blocks.) Something which a copy-paste from html pages can't achieve as easily.
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Is there a 3.0 SRD out there somewhere?Yes, there is.That... may be one of the ugliest SRDs I've ever seen.
Thank you for linking it! :D
It's been around for MANY years.
I liked some things about 3e, and some things about 3.5, but overall I think PF helped to improve some things from both (skills, incentive to stay in one class, prestige class overdrive, CR/Xp thing...etc) that really helped convert me over to PF.
3e did have it's charm though, I liked the multiclass idea from 1st level.
Hated how CR worked. Like PF's way better.
I still have the core three books along with a set of Oriental Adventure Rokugan books (there were many) and the 3.0 Forgotten Realms. I also have a few modules from that.
If I want to play the modules I normally simply convert them to PF or 5e these days.
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There are many things I prefer in Pathfinder over 3rd edition (the no dead levels, druid's animal companion rework, sorcerer bloodlines, cmd/cmb being some that pop to mind).
I also have the 3 core books (thanks to my bro-in-law. Thanks bro!), FRCS, Defenders of the Faith, Masters of the Wild, Psionics Handbook, Savage Species (made in the inbetween of 3.0 and 3.5), Monster Manual 2 from 3.0. I like to look through them and remember back on those days.
One of these days, I will attempt to make my mash-up of 3.0, 3.5, PFRPG, and 5th Edition. Will it be good? Who knows, probably won't. But I can try.
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Anyway, just wanted to see if I am the last one playing and enjoying D&D 3.0 :)
I've been running 3.0 for the last few years. I love it, it is my favorite version of D&D.
Many of the reasons have already been mentioned, lack of grid, monster design, better dmg, etc.
Our group didn't transition to 3.5 till around 2005 or so. Once Pathfinder came out we started playing it. Along the way it all stopped being fun. I wasn't sure why, until I started flipping through the 3.0 core books again. Even if you run core only, 3.5 and especially PF are very complex (bloated) compared to 3.0.
When playing 3.0 you make a character and play the game. In 3.5/PF you build a character and look for ways to do the stuff you built your character to do. The games may look similar at a glance, especially 3.0 to 3.5, but at the table the games play out very differently.
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I didn't think I was going to write this post.
I mean... earlier in this thread, I mentioned a possibility of my running 3.0 again, but I meant it kind of hypothetically.
And yet, here I am, for the first time since I switched to PFRPG in 2009, preparing a 3.0 campaign as my players learn 3.0 and create their characters in that edition.
I just started to feel like 3.0 made it easier to do what I wanted to do. 3.5 would have worked OK for my purposes too, but I always preferred 3.0. (Indeed, except for a few solo adventures I ran myself to learn 3.5, I never played that version.)
You know, I remember back in 2005...
2005! Has it really been over a decade now?!? Good lord!
Uh... anyway, it was in 2005 when I decided that 3.X was THE fantasy tabletop RPG for me, despite my use of 2e material and my plans to continue using that material heavily. To mark that resolution to my newfound commitment to 3.X, I wrote what was then my biggest, most ambitious conversion project: a 3.0 conversion of The Shattered Circle. It seems laughable now that I should have worked to try to make that document as compact as possible, as it had seemed lengthy to me at a whopping... 4 pages. (If you don't remember, earlier in this thread, I posted my 28-page conversion of Night's Dark Terror.) I just expanded that Shattered Circle conversion to 7 pages, making it clearer and somewhat more complete, and I feel ready to start running it.
It's kind of exciting, in a way. I ran Circle solo, to test it, but this is the first time I'll be running it in a REAL campaign, with actual players.
One of the reasons I hesitated switching from PFRPG is that... well, I love hanging around on these forums so much, I want to promote Paizo products as much as possible. And I still am promoting them, to a degree. I'm running this campaign in Golarion, teaching my players about that setting using the Inner Sea World Guide, the 3.5 Pathfinder Campaign Setting book, and various sources like those. I'm still using Pathfinder pawns, including two sets of the Bestiary Box, the NPC Codex Box, and some other stuff. I figure I'll still use the PFRPG GM screen, which is, after all, the highest quality GM screen I have. And my main goal of the campaign - the reason I started it in southeastern Varisia - is to lead, eventually, into Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale, which I've wanted to run so badly, for so long.
It does kind of stink, though, to feel like I wasted all that time converting all those modules from 3.0 to PFRPG. I felt like I was accomplishing something at the time, giving myself some great material for PFRPG. Now I've started converting Dark Waters Rising from PFRPG to 3.0! <sigh> Well, I suppose that since Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale is in 3.5, it shouldn't be harder to convert it to 3.0 than it would have been to convert it to PFRPG (unless a PFRPG conversion is already out there on the web...)
And PFRPG isn't completely out of the picture. Just yesterday, my son was creating his 3.0 Bard PC, and asked me "Could I take the Extra Performance feat from Pathfinder?" I said "Sure" and he did. Earlier than that, when he had been considering creating a sorcerer instead, he asked if he could get a different bloodline. Well, the 3.0 version basically just had the 1st-level "familiar" power of the Arcane bloodline, so I said he could take the 1st-level power of some other bloodline instead. And I wouldn't have said no to the "bonded object" option either. He later decided not to go with those options, but someone might, one day.
And today, as I polished up my Shattered Circle conversion a bit, I saw my notes on 3.0 rules for...
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When playing 3.0 you make a character and play the game. In 3.5/PF you build a character and look for ways to do the stuff you built your character to do. The games may look similar at a glance, especially 3.0 to 3.5, but at the table the games play out very differently.
It boggles my mind to hear that the games are both so different but still both d20. I'm inclined to believe it is just the way you play it, but if someone can explain the differences that make it happen I would be happy to listen.
I didn't think I was going to write this post.
I mean... earlier in this thread, I mentioned a possibility of my running 3.0 again, but I meant it kind of hypothetically.
And yet, here I am, for the first time since I switched to PFRPG in 2009, preparing a 3.0 campaign as my players learn 3.0 and create their characters in that edition.
I just started to feel like 3.0 made it easier to do what I wanted to do. 3.5 would have worked OK for my purposes too, but I always preferred 3.0. (Indeed, except for a few solo adventures I ran myself to learn 3.5, I never played that version.)
You know, I remember back in 2005...
2005! Has it really been over a decade now?!? Good lord!
Uh... anyway, it was in 2005 when I decided that 3.X was THE fantasy tabletop RPG for me, despite my use of 2e material and my plans to continue using that material heavily. To mark that resolution to my newfound commitment to 3.X, I wrote what was then my biggest, most ambitious conversion project: a 3.0 conversion of The Shattered Circle. It seems laughable now that I should have worked to try to make that document as compact as possible, as it had seemed lengthy to me at a whopping... 4 pages. (If you don't remember, earlier in this thread, I posted my 28-page conversion of Night's Dark Terror.) I just expanded that Shattered Circle conversion to 7 pages, making it clearer and somewhat more complete, and I feel ready to start running it.
It's kind of exciting, in a way. I ran Circle solo, to test it, but this is the first time I'll be running it in a REAL campaign, with actual players.
One of the reasons I hesitated switching from PFRPG is that... well, I love hanging around on these forums so much, I want to promote Paizo products as much as possible. And I still am promoting them, to a degree. I'm running this campaign in Golarion, teaching my players about that setting using the Inner Sea World Guide, the 3.5 Pathfinder Campaign Setting book, and various sources like...
That's excellent news! Did you actually play a session? Please do tell :)
And thanks for the conversion notes!
When playing 3.0 you make a character and play the game. In 3.5/PF you build a character and look for ways to do the stuff you built your character to do. The games may look similar at a glance, especially 3.0 to 3.5, but at the table the games play out very differently.It boggles my mind to hear that the games are both so different but still both d20. I'm inclined to believe it is just the way you play it, but if someone can explain the differences that make it happen I would be happy to listen.
There are quite a lot of things, some big, some small, as mentioned up thread; some of these may be good or bad, depending on taste; some others are objectively relevant (e.g. game prep time.)
Some of the most relevant points for me (as a DM) and my group:1) Character creation is fast; if you want to save time, each class contains a package which allows creating a character of whatever race in a few minutes. I think something similar was done for 3.5 as well in a web enhancement, but in 3.0 it's straight in the PHB.
2) Little or no decision paralysis, both at character creation and when advancing: there are very few feats, and their design is very tight (as a bonus, if you come from AD&D, you recognise some of those feats as previously fixed class features.) Many feats are designed as clear exceptions to very specific rules. For example, Alertness is designed to provide a bonus in surprise situations, and it's the only feat providing a bonus to two skills. If you want to get better in a skill in general, there's Skill Focus. Furthermore some of the feats in 3.0 were split into two or more feats in 3.5, with the result that each feat becomes less relevant. In general, when you take a feat in 3.0, it's a significant boost (this is important since, except for the fighter, there aren't many occasions to get feats.)
3) The game is not strongly wedded to the grid; there are some references in the DMG, but that's all. You won't find things like diagonal movement costing differently than horizontal/vertical movement (which technically doesn't even make much sense as it imposes an Euclidean concept of distance, whereas in fact when we use the grid, we are implicitly assuming a non-Euclidean metric.) This relies on DM fiat being more important, and in our experience, it also typically results in way faster combats.
4) NPC prep time is small, thanks to the full NPC tables in the DMG. I can create an NPC of whatever level, of most monster/PC races, already equipped, in a handful of minutes. The tables were drastically reduced in utility in the 3.5 DMG.
5) Lots of monsters are easier to adjudicate in play, since monsters don't follow the same rules as PCs when it comes to skills and feats. Again, faster combats (and faster prep.)
6) Lots of monsters are scarier, as you will need specific bonuses; a weapon being generically "magic" is not enough.
7) A Paladin's mount is not a pokemon ;) If your mount dies, you must wait one year and a day to get another one (resource management is important!)
8) Gnomes favour being illusionists (as traditional in AD&D.)
9) Some skills are class specific, and can't be acquired by other classes as cross-class skills AT ALL: Animal Empathy, Decipher Script, Read Lips, Scry, Use Magic Device. This is a sort of "throwback" to AD&D, and in general it helps with "niche protection".
10) Weapon stats are simpler, they don't depend on size (but there are simple guidelines in the DMG.)
11) In general, classes are simpler, and have less "stuff" going on and/or fewer/simpler features; in general, they are less "powerful (e.g. the clerics don't have Auras; paladins don't have Auras and can only smite once per day; sorcerers can't change their spells; rangers don't get an animal companion etc.) The overall "feel" is definitely grittier (and ease of play.)
Did you actually play a session?
Yeah. For over seven years - ever since I read this post - I've been wanting to play a gnoll with a backstory that my character got reincarnated as one. Now, I've finally gotten around to it!
So we played a couple of short sessions, and we were doing fine...
...and suddenly, real life reared its ugly head, forcing us to put the game on hold for many weeks. Maybe even months. Indeed, this problem has affected many aspects of our lives, such that the campaign looks quite insignificant in comparison.
Well, at least we got to play a LITTLE of it.
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There are quite a lot of things, some big, some small, as mentioned up thread; some of these may be good or bad, depending on taste; some others are objectively relevant (e.g. game prep time.)
Thanks for the response! Having started with 3.5, I certainly have no basis to agree or disagree with your assessment. I'll have to pick up my wife's 3.0 PHB and do some studying. I can say off the bat that I think 3.5 gnomes are just as favored to be illusionists, barring something specific in the 3.0 version that makes them really awesome.
We played a session of "Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde" last weekend, which is a 3.5 adventure, but we played with 3.0 characters. I don't think I appreciated the power of Sneak Attack and a Fighter using a two-handed weapon before.
This thread has been a wonderful trek down memory lane. I'll be pulling out my 3.0 books this evening to read through some history.
I can say off the bat that I think 3.5 gnomes are just as favored to be illusionists, barring something specific in the 3.0 version that makes them really awesome.
In 3.0, their favored class was "illusionist", whereas in 3.5 it was "bard", so I think that's what he was referring to.
As I recall, multiclass characters had to keep their non-favored class levels within 2 of each other (of the highest non-favored class?) or suffer a cumulative 10% reduction in experience for each class whose levels were not within 2.
While I hated this at the time, I think I now see this as one of the vestiges of the 2nd Ed/AD&D era.
As I recall, multiclass characters had to keep their non-favored class levels within 2 of each other (of the highest non-favored class?) or suffer a cumulative 10% reduction in experience for each class whose levels were not within 2.
While I hated this at the time, I think I now see this as one of the vestiges of the 2nd Ed/AD&D era.
Indeed it was meant to simulate the AD&D mechanics in a more flexible framework; due to how the XP tables worked in AD&D, in a multiclass character one class was never more than one level behind another; you couldn't "dip". I think the designers did a very good job.
The maximum level difference is 1, and the reduction is 20% for each class. So, we can have a gnome illusionist 10/rogue 1 with no problems (as illusionist is favoured), but a fighter 10/rogue 1 would incur a 20% penalty on XP. And a fighter 10/cleric 5/rogue 1 would incur a 40% penalty (as both cleric and rogue are more than one level apart from fighter.) This discourages excesses in multiclassing, again probably to retain the flavour of AD&D (niche protection.)
I think I never had a multiclass character at my table, except for my sister who loved playing the Red Box Elf, which I converted to a Ranger/Wizard. Unless you started as multiclass at 1st level (the 3.0 DMG allows multiclass characters from the get go) I used the optional training rules in DMG, so getting a level in another class just to "dip" wasn't a cheap option.
RE: the gnome favouring the illusionist class, again that's a legacy thing.
A lot of the limitations that look arbitrary, have actually a specific reason to exist, and most of the time the reason seems to retain the "flavour" of AD&D (something that people like me who still plays AD&D and BECMI appreciate.)
Did you actually play a session?Yeah. For over seven years - ever since I read this post - I've been wanting to play a gnoll with a backstory that my character got reincarnated as one. Now, I've finally gotten around to it!
So we played a couple of short sessions, and we were doing fine...
...and suddenly, real life reared its ugly head, forcing us to put the game on hold for many weeks. Maybe even months. Indeed, this problem has affected many aspects of our lives, such that the campaign looks quite insignificant in comparison.
Well, at least we got to play a LITTLE of it.
Sorry for the Real Life problems; I have had plenty, so I know how it feels :(
Hope you got enjoyment out of the little you played; that character concept is AWESOME! Care to post the stats of your character? Did you use the MM gnoll as a baseline?
I agree, though it's worth noting that this was counterbalanced by the fact that multiclassing was strictly reserved for demihumans (with a few very rare exceptions), and they had to abide by the level limits for each class they took. Humans, on the other hand, could only dual-class.
Indeed. On the other hand, one could see the 3e system as more abstract, so 3e multiclassing can effectively emulate both AD&D multiclassing and dual classing. The DMG also suggests for example to limit some classes to some races, and it wouldn't be a stretch in the same vein to rule (as I do in my games) that multiclassing from level 1, say, is only a demihuman thing. All other things being equal (balance of classes, say), this doesn't pose any problems, and actually these kind of restrictions (as also argued in the DMG) give flavour to the game.
In the case of a fighter 10/cleric 5/rogue 1 - where none of those were favored classes - wouldn't that have been a -60% penalty? That is, you'd be whacked for the disparity between fighter and cleric levels, whacked a second time for the disparity between fighter and rogue levels, and whacked a third time for the disparity between cleric and rogue levels.
As far as I can tell from reading the rules, and how I used the rule in the past, it seems it's only the highest class level that counts.
Your multiclass character suffers a –20% XP penalty for each class that is not within one level of his most experienced class.
It's also worth noting that part of what made prestige classes special was that they never counted towards XP penalties. This was a hidden benefit to them that was ironically reversed in Pathfinder, since the nature of a favored class bonus changed into something you gained for sticking with your original base class, rather than a penalty that could be avoided with your favored class or a prestige class.
It was something that wasn't specified in the 3.5 revision, as observed my Monte Cook (and was later in the errata IIRC) so it looked like you paid XP penalty for PrC as well.
I didn't know about this aspect of Pathfinder; so effectively the role of the PrC is different.In my games I tend not to use PrC, unless they have strong ties to the setting. For example, I use the ones in the Dragonlance Setting (Knights of Solamnia and Wizards of High Sorcery.)
To be fair, I'd like to think that those reasons were clear to people who had a fair amount of AD&D under their belts when they started with 3.0. Certainly, it was clear to me from the get-go that that's what they were trying to do.
They were hopefully clear for people coming from AD&D; but in my experience lots of people started with 3e, or even with 3.5, so the raison d'etre of a lot of stuff is at least nebulous.
Did anyone publish complete games under the original 3.0 SRD? I'd certainly be intrigued to see what behind the Wheel of Time RPG had been printed.
The SRD was updated with 3.5E, but the original document (though apparently impossible to find in any complete form) can still be referenced as a source text, correct?
Did anyone publish complete games under the original 3.0 SRD? I'd certainly be intrigued to see what behind the Wheel of Time RPG had been printed.
The SRD was updated with 3.5E, but the original document (though apparently impossible to find in any complete form) can still be referenced as a source text, correct?
There's Wheel of Time (which is a hell of a game in itself!)
There's the Slaine RPG (though it required the PHB.)d20 Call of Cthulhu was 3.0 as well.
The first Star Wars d20.
Rokugan and Oriental Adventures.
Not sure about other stuff.
As for the 3.0 SRD, a few links have been posted above; you can find the complete SRD.
I'll be looking into each Star Wars, Saline, and the CoC books. I do have a special place in my heart for the WoT game: everything on the book screams how the system was new and dripping with source material flavor. It's a little daunting, though, that every weave is useful and over-channeling becomes rather easy pretty quickly.
I did see the links earlier, and ultimately downloaded the entire OGF .rtf files. In case anyone wants them, let me know. That Dragon.ee SRD is pretty slick, too.
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Months ago, on this thread, I mentioned starting a 3.0 campaign, with my father and my son as players. We started my 3.0 conversion of the 2E adventure, The Shattered Circle. Here are some excerpts from my earlier posts:
One of the reasons I hesitated switching from PFRPG is that... well, I love hanging around on these forums so much, I want to promote Paizo products as much as possible. And I still am promoting them, to a degree. I'm running this campaign in Golarion, teaching my players about that setting using the Inner Sea World Guide, the 3.5 Pathfinder Campaign Setting book, and various sources like those. I'm still using Pathfinder pawns, including two sets of the Bestiary Box, the NPC Codex Box, and some other stuff. I figure I'll still use the PFRPG GM screen, which is, after all, the highest quality GM screen I have. And my main goal of the campaign - the reason I started it in southeastern Varisia - is to lead, eventually, into Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale, which I've wanted to run so badly, for so long.
It does kind of stink, though, to feel like I wasted all that time converting all those modules from 3.0 to PFRPG. I felt like I was accomplishing something at the time, giving myself some great material for PFRPG. Now I've started converting Dark Waters Rising from PFRPG to 3.0! <sigh> Well, I suppose that since Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale is in 3.5, it shouldn't be harder to convert it to 3.0 than it would have been to convert it to PFRPG (unless a PFRPG conversion is already out there on the web...)
So we played a couple of short sessions, and we were doing fine...
...and suddenly, real life reared its ugly head, forcing us to put the game on hold for many weeks. Maybe even months. Indeed, this problem has affected many aspects of our lives, such that the campaign looks quite insignificant in comparison.
Just in case anyone was wondering about it, I thought I'd give a little update.
When we as a family were looking to get our lives back to normal, it was suggested that we arrange some fun activity for my son (who was eleven years old by that time). My son, still depressed about the matter, was rejecting every activity that anyone suggested. I must have been awfully tired that night, not to have thought of the obvious solution. It wasn't until the next day when it hit me. I said "What about D&D?" My son instantly brightened up, and approved the suggestion with great enthusiasm.
So we called my father over and picked up The Shattered Circle from where we had left off. I expanded my 3.0 conversion to 8 pages and the dungeon-delving resumed. For various reasons, my father hasn't been staying for as long as he used to, so our sessions have been short, but we persisted, week after week.
This may be a spoiler for The Shattered Circle... but only a minor one. After all, lots of dungeons have a tunnel that leads deeper into the Underdark. It explains where the monsters come from. And a module with such a dungeon would have an entry for that tunnel saying that it leads to areas out of the scope of the module. Never in my life before have I seen PCs choosing to delve down such a tunnel, generally taking the hint that the dangers down there were beyond their level.
But this time threatened to be different. When the party encountered the...
I was thrown into a bit of a panic. I prepared the beginning of a big delve with some very tough encounters (looking to Descent into the Depths of the Earth for inspiration). There was the distinct possibility that the encounters could wipe out the PCs. Even if the party survived, there was the possibility that the party would fail to take the hint and keep going. In other words, the party might descend into the depths of Golarion... and never come back.
One reason for my panic was that my preparation for Dark Waters Rising might be for nothing. So the next time the party came back to the village, a sudden crisis demanded their immediate attention.
When the party went back to the Shattered Circle adventure, I found that my panic was for nothing. The party made peaceful contact with the...
Another interesting point was that when the party couldn't figure out how to get to the third level, my son came up with a simple solution: his cleric character cast Divination a few times to provide clues, which he eventually figured out. It seems odd that in all my years of playing, it never once occurred to me that Divination could be used that way. Yet it seems painfully obvious now. How many times have I thought "I don't want tough puzzles in my adventures! Those things just grind an adventure to a crawl or halt!" Well... there's Divination!
So by now, we've explored about 85% of that dungeon. My son made a comment that he was growing tired of dungeon delving. Well, how can I blame him? I, too, find that exploring one dungeon gets old. So now there's the distinct possibility that the party might never make it to the room with the final boss. I mean, they do still need to solve another puzzle to do it, and my son may now be too bored with it to bother.
So I started working on converting Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale to 3.0. I typed up stats for...
There's Wheel of Time (which is a hell of a game in itself!)
There's the Slaine RPG (though it required the PHB.)
d20 Call of Cthulhu was 3.0 as well.
The first Star Wars d20.
Rokugan and Oriental Adventures.
Not sure about other stuff.
This is probably too late to be helpful, but d20 Modern is based on 3.0 I believe.
My son is home from school for Christmas break, so we went back to "Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde." At our current rate of progress we will finish the adventure in about 2019. ;)
This is probably too late to be helpful, but d20 Modern is based on 3.0 I believe.
There's Wheel of Time (which is a hell of a game in itself!)
There's the Slaine RPG (though it required the PHB.)
d20 Call of Cthulhu was 3.0 as well.
The first Star Wars d20.
Rokugan and Oriental Adventures.
Not sure about other stuff.
I wasn't able to find a copy of Slaine, or CoC for a decent price, but I did find a few of the others: WoT is a beautiful mess and I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to play it. What an enjoyable read they've been...
I've been on a retro kick for a few days now. If you haven't looked into it, the Myth & Magic rules are a great OGL write up of 2e AD&D. There isn't a boat load of support now (two horrendously run KS campaigns that are a few years behind schedule), but I think it can easily handle 0e-2e module and maybe even 3.0 ones. I don't think it really bled out to anywhere other than OBS, but I would highly recommend everyone find the starter guides.
This is probably too late to be helpful, but d20 Modern is based on 3.0 I believe.
There's Wheel of Time (which is a hell of a game in itself!)
There's the Slaine RPG (though it required the PHB.)
d20 Call of Cthulhu was 3.0 as well.
The first Star Wars d20.
Rokugan and Oriental Adventures.
Not sure about other stuff.
Sort of; it lives in a weird space of 3e and (bits of) 3.5e. Never bought the books, as I used d20 CoC when I wanted a modern d20 game.
Glad to see my post is still read!
Months ago, on this thread, I mentioned starting a 3.0 campaign, with my father and my son as players. We started my 3.0 conversion of the 2E adventure, The Shattered Circle. Here are some excerpts from my earlier posts:
Just in case anyone was wondering about it, I thought I'd give a little update....
Looks like it was a fun game!
Did you complete Shattered Circle?
What about Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale?
What's your opinion on 3.0 after running it again?
I too had a stab at a short campaign; I converted a group of BECMI characters to 3.0 (a Thief, a Magic-user and an Elf; the latter converted to a Ranger/Wizard) and ran a few sessions. It was fun, and the players liked the change (the Magic-user player in particular as he is very experienced with D&D 3.0).
Cheers,
Antonio
Did you complete Shattered Circle?
Yep.
What about Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale?
I finished my first draft of the conversion document, which, at a measly 2 pages, seemed like a laughable nothing after some of these other conversions I did recently. After finishing The Shattered Circle, I gave the players the hook for Bloodsworn Vale, and we discussed a few matters relating to it (e.g. "What with one of the PCs having a speed of 15', maybe a pony would be a good idea. What kind? Where can we get one? What other PCs might want a mount?" etc) but we didn't quite get off the ground with playing it yet.
What's your opinion on 3.0 after running it again?
The grass is often greener on the other side, and I often feel conscious of the relative merits of 3.5 and PF, but all in all, I still feel I like 3.0 the best. My son made it clear he prefers Pathfinder, and he once made arguments about why we should switch back to it by pointing out some of its merits at some length. I responded "I know that PF has some advantages, but I'm sticking with 3.0." He wasn't terribly happy with me for a while after that, but we continued playing all the same.
The grass is often greener on the other side, and I often feel conscious of the relative merits of 3.5 and PF, but all in all, I still feel I like 3.0 the best. My son made it clear he prefers Pathfinder, and he once made arguments about why we should switch back to it by pointing out some of its merits at some length. I responded "I know that PF has some advantages, but I'm sticking with 3.0." He wasn't terribly happy with me for a while after that, but we continued playing all the same.
This seems correct. I certainly enjoy being a BIG DAMN HERO once in a while, and there are so many ways to just become better at basically everything that are just gratuitous additions at every level. Any chance I have had to GM, I normally run PF: combat maneuvers are a bit cleaner, and everyone knows the system better than they know 3.0. Also, Psionics. I know it works, but it's such a disjointed (unhinged?) addition to the base 3.0 game. The Psionics book has certainly been a fun read though.
Many a time has come that I just want a small story about rescuing a couple of hogs from ghouls in the valley. There wasn't a need for a sledge hammer of bonuses when goldsmith's hammer of well laid plans would have sufficed.
Also,the soft covers of the time are awesome. The complete class series (Tome & Blood, et al) turned out to be a great way to focus a base class into a prestige role, and the licensed IP books are highly entertaining (Prophecies of the Dragon book is a great read and I'm sure a good play through; Diablo 2 might be a bit of a slog, though there is some exclusive in-game lore and mechanics that are pretty innovative).
Hello, 3 friends and myself play 3.5, we like it and have fun playing. And since you are talking about D&D 3.5, I would like to ask if you have any 3.5 conversions?
Please let me know, I am specifically looking for the H series module conversions to 3.5
Larry
I'm sorry, I don't have these. You might be able to find some conversion notes by sending a private message to the forum members. I think I saw you looking on another thread about this.
Also, I think Legendary Games has some rules for mass combat. Check in with them (they are extremely friendly people), their storefront here or their website www.makeyourgamelegendary.com. Otherwise let's keep this thread 3.0 focused.
Hi all!
just re-reading my trusty 3.0 books, and I wondered about printings. I know the PHB as had at least two printings (I have the 2nd one), has there been a third (or higher) printing? What about the MM and DMG? I penciled the known errata in the latter two (the MM in particular has a few annoying errors), whereas it seems that as of the 2nd printing the PHB is essentially errata free (well, at least the errata that was issued.) All in all, I must say I am pretty surprised at how little errata the three have overall.
Hi all!
just re-reading my trusty 3.0 books, and I wondered about printings. I know the PHB as had at least two printings (I have the 2nd one), has there been a third (or higher) printing? What about the MM and DMG? I penciled the known errata in the latter two (the MM in particular has a few annoying errors), whereas it seems that as of the 2nd printing the PHB is essentially errata free (well, at least the errata that was issued.) All in all, I must say I am pretty surprised at how little errata the three have overall.
I'm curious as well. I can't find anything outside of the obvious PHB 2nd printing update. Too bad the The Acaeum stops with AD&D 1e.
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In case anyone's been wondering, we're still at it - playing Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale in 3.0... at a glacial pace. It's been over 8 months now! Never in my life have I taken so long on such a short adventure.
A few unexpected developments came up lately. For instance...
Another unexpected development involved timing. The party decided to guard the trailblazing crew, simply because they got tired of searching for - and failing to find - natural resources. After many days - five, I think - they got convinced that they were doing no good, and returned to Fort Thorn... just in time before the flame drakes attacked it! This was sheer coincidence; I even rolled to determine randomly what time of day the flame drakes would attack, and it happened to be just a few hours after the PCs arrived. The module suggests glossing over the flame drakes' attack, but no way could I do that! The PCs were RIGHT FRIGGIN' THERE! It was just too perfect! So I drew a tactical map of the eastern part of the fort (because the whole fort was too big) and the PCs managed to kill 2 of the 4 drakes that day.
And on top of that, they misinterpreted a clue about where to find the BBEG... but the place they chose happened to be the flame drakes' lair!
Unfortunately, on the way there, the party had a random encounter with a shambling mound. You know, I have to rant now. That Improved Grab ability is far too powerful! It makes monsters way, way deadlier than their CRs would imply. After all these years, I should learn my lesson and stop using monsters with Improved Grab! It's too complicated anyway!
You know, my son keeps playing the characters who stay behind and cast spells, while my father and I have been playing characters who fight and get killed. That partly explains why none of my son's characters have died in over 4 years... until now. Taking the rear is usually safer - except, of course, when you get attacked from behind. That's how the shambling mound attacked us yesterday, and my son's characters got hit the worst. His gnome cleric died.
He's been working on a replacement - a halfling druid. I haven't worked with a PC druid in over 7 years!
In case anyone's been wondering, we're still at it - playing Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale in 3.0... at a glacial pace. It's been over 8 months now! Never in my life have I taken so long on such a short adventure.
A few unexpected developments came up lately. For instance...** spoiler omitted **
Unfortunately, on the way there, the party had a random encounter with a shambling mound. You know, I have to rant now. That Improved Grab ability is far too powerful! It makes monsters way, way deadlier than their CRs would imply. After all these years, I should learn my lesson and stop using monsters with Improved Grab! It's too complicated anyway!
You know, my son keeps...
Ah, I am used to glacial paces! Not unusual for me (unfortunately...)
I have been planning a short 3.0 campaign, but unfortunately Real Life got in the way :/
Speaking of Halfling Druids, do you restrict access to classes by race? For example, in AD&D 1e (pre-UA) only Humans, Half-elves and Halflings could become Druids. I love these "change through limitations" (to use the words in the DMG) because they help make the races special.
No, I'm not a fan of restricting players in that kind of way. One thing I liked about 3.0 when it first came out was that it got rid of sacred cows like that. Sorry.
Oh yes I too liked that there were no limitations a priori. But in my experience, constraints can give an interesting flavour to a campaign.
For example, in the campaign I am (slowly) working on, only Dwarves have Clerics, and their spells come from devotion to philosophies rather than gods (so one of their domains must always be tied to alignment). Barbaric humans can become Druids (they embrace a sort of shamanism), and civilised Humans can be Wizards (learning wizardry by scavenging spells from ancient pre-human sources; serpent people/yuan-ti in particular; also, they must specialise). Elves only can be Sorcerers, and they get their spells by striking bargains (per DMG suggestions) with otherworldly fey creatures.
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I'd rather give flavor to a campaign by giving the players MORE options, not fewer. New classes, races, or feats can do that.
For instance, what convinced me to go all the way to 3.0 - and never play AD&D again - was an Al-Qadim conversion document. (You can find it here next to where it says "Al-Qadim Conversion Manual, v1.00".) The Hakima and Sha'ir classes gave interesting new options for PCs. But if a player really wanted to play a character prohibited by the campaign, I would hate to forbid it.
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I suppose I am definitely in the "if everyone is special, no one is special" school of thought.
Thanks for the Al-Qadim links! They look very interesting.