DCC + OSRIC = Ultimate Sandbox Gaming

Dungeon Crawl Classics tells you to "borrow" a magic item and treasure system from any other old-school game. Oh? I can? From the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook, page 393:

Consequently, this work does not include detailed rules for assigning treasure to monsters or encounters. The existing volume of D&D work includes several such systems which are robust and well defined, and which can be easily adapted here. The author suggests you adapt an existing treasure system of your choice, but carefully and deliberately evaluate the randomized results. Always ask yourself: “Where did the monster acquire such wealth? And what happened to the local economy in the process?”

Oh! I can! Well then, this game is as good as any:

OSRIC is a fantastic game and reference guide combined into one unforgettable book. This is worth playing as a stand-alone game, but this book is designed to do the "reference and compilation" work as an old-school reference book. So let's use it that way!

This is an excellent choice for a supplemental source of treasures, charts, magic items, and other dungeon-focused stuff. You can even use the monsters mostly as-is; just adjust hit-die size based on size (d6 up to a d12) and set the Fort/Ref/Will saves equal to half-hit dice (plus ability modifiers, if needed). AC is a simple calculation. Attack Bonus will start as hit dice, and could go 1-8 points higher depending on combat skill and abilities.

DCC AC = 20 - ORSIC AC

DCC Saves = (OSRIC HD / 2) + Ability Mods

DCC Hit Die Size = OSRIC HD, d6 to d12 (based on size)

DCC Attack Bonus = OSRIC HD (as a base)

There are your DCC conversion formulas. Now you have a complete bestiary, too. Oh, and an equipment list. The only things you won't use are classes and spells. You could use those classes for NPCs and limit the DCC classes to heroes only. You could "mod" the game, do away with the DCC race-as-classes, and use OSRIC races for a "race plus class" mod for DCC classes.

Another good choice, which is OGL-free, is the Revised Edition of Swords & Wizardry. You have 100% compatible ascending AC here, but you must convert the saves as in OSRIC (same formula). The hit die size will also be size-based, as above. S&W is so good it deserves to be played as a stand-alone, but it is excellent as a reference, too.

OSRIC has more in-depth magic items and treasure tables, so if you want those classic "what does this necklace do" moments, this book will give you those results. S&W is more straightforward and faithful to zero-edition, which fits better with the DCC era. OSRIC just has more stuff and gives an AD&D vibe.

OSRIC, p124

What I love about OSRIC is that it includes many tables and other stuff, and the entire book feels like a revised AD&D. It also gives your DCC game the AD&D feeling, which has this "grounded" feeling like the world is sane and realistic. Still, your characters will end up completely being the opposite. You even have a random dungeon generation system in OSRIC and ways to stock this with monsters and treasures in the book, so you have a complete minigame built into the resource.

You get hirelings, wilderness rules, random parties, town encounters, random NPCs, dungeon dressings, trap tables, trick generation, and the infamous "red light professions" table that no AD&D reference guide would be complete without (with representation of both sides of the coin). AD&D was made for college students, so OSRIC also captures the "seedy side" of these fantasy worlds, which is a welcome thing to see in this age of hyper-censorship.

OSRIC feels like the "missing half" of DCC to me. Yes, the monster stats will be different when you convert them in, and you may need to tweak them as you play with them and make them your own. You may want a more challenging or leisurely game, which is up to you.

OSRIC, p299

But the idea of DCC characters trying to survive in an old-school OSRIC world, with that authentic AD&D feeling of an ordinary world with dangers lurking underneath, the medieval world trying to live and survive as usual, plus magic being feared and unknown, is a compelling game world. You could do the whole world with random generation and just hex-crawl.

The Adventures Dark and Deep Book of Lost Tables has everything you need, random wilderness hexes, random settlements, random dungeons, random towns, and everything else you need to build a hex-crawl world one die roll at a time. The new ADND books are directly OSRIC and first-edition compatible, so you won't have table results that won't make sense if you use OSRIC.

This book's random wilderness terrain system relies on a referee to lay out coastlines, cities, mountains, rivers, and other features, but you can randomly generate everything. I suggest doing this semi-random; if a feature makes sense, like encountering a lake and feeling a river should feed and flow from it, put it in! If you have a settlement, set in a few logical roads connecting it to "something" out there. If you feel a coastline should be here, add and extend it. Feel like you want a major river blocking your way? Add one and make it extend out. Lakes that should meander a couple hexes should do that. If this is a significant mountain range, make that happen. If you want a city, add a city. Major elevation change? That happens here! Want some ruins? Add some ruins. Really want a unique feature? Add it! Feel a dungeon or cave should be here? Then, it should!

The world should be 50% of your input, and the tables should just fill in the blanks.

Also, even if you add something, like a city, you still need to learn precisely what it is and its state. This could be an elven fortress, dwarven stronghold, halfling hovels, human trading port, ruins, war-ravaged settlement, or a significant orc encampment.

OSRIC, DCC, and the Book of Lost Tables are a random campaign generation powerhouse, plus an old-school sourcebook and reference guide that will keep you busy seeing what is around the next corner, in the next hex, or in the next town for a very long time. With DCC, you won't be sure what is next for your character since the randomness in that game goes well with a procedurally generated campaign like this.

The 3.5E Era

The D&D 3.5E era inspired many fantastic games. In addition to D&D's "last best" version, we have a collection from that era and are still keeping tables playing some incredible games.

The most obvious is up first, Pathfinder 1e. This is still an S-Tier game, but I have learned to appreciate the original D&D 3.5E rules. The two are the same game, but their focus is entirely different. D&D 3.5E is purely a dungeon-crawler, whereas Pathfinder 1e is a fantasy story path game. This seems like splitting hairs, but once you look at the skill list of each game, plus the GM guides, you will see the differences clearly.

D&D 3.5E is still the best version Wizards of the Coast has released. The fully supported campaign guides seal the deal for me. If I want to play in Eberron, with Eberron-specific character options, 3.5E is the only way to go. The same applies to the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and the other settings supported during this era. In comparison, 5E is a generic fantasy game. At best, it does rules-light emulation of these settings, though rules-light seems arguable these days.

I can't play the original TSR settings with Pathfinder 1e; the game feels too Golarion-focused, and the unique character setting-specific options are manual imports and unsupported in Hero Lab. I would rather play the OG settings with the OG 3.5E books.

OG Golarion, as it existed in 2010, was still awesome before the PC changes came in. However, the world has been on a downhill path ever since, becoming more steampunk, cute, and too modern for my tastes.

If there were any setting I would play, it would be D&D 3.5E Eberron. I can't get all the special classes, toys, tech, options, and flavor as the original game running the original sourcebooks.

Another game from this era is Castles & Crusades, which is still going strong. This is my 5E-style "simplified emulation" game, but it feels throwback and retro in its style and vibe. C&C feels like old-school AD&D, but it is far easier with near-zero charts to reference during play. This game can be hacked to feel like 5E or an AD&D-style game. The characters are balanced, and you must play with old-school sensibilities.

This was the last game Gary Gygax played and was involved with, so it has his approval. It makes sense, especially for older players who have little time. C&C lets you have a full dungeon-crawl and character-building experience without needing online character sheets, complex rules, action types, or books full of charts. It just "does what it says" without too much fuss.

Any game where I can run characters off 4x6 index cards is a winner. The above is my current design, and I laser print these and have hundreds in a file box, ready to go. If I wanted to emulate a classic setting, such as Forgotten Realms, Castles & Crusades would be my go-to game. The characters are d20, while the rules emphasize simplicity and pulp-action.

Why take all the scaffolding of 5E, the action types, the heavy characters, the strange resting mechanics, the invincible characters, and all these MMO-inspired rules?

C&C does all the d20 I need.

Also, Amazing Adventures is built off this game engine, and it is an entertaining pulp-style modern d20 adventure game. This game needs more attention; it could play any TSR boxed set games (Top Secret, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill) from back then and still feel like an authentic d20-type game in those genres.

AA is a new game that was published this year, too. So, the 3.5E Era games are still alive and well, and a new version of C&C is on the way, too, devoid of the OGL. AA seems like the beta test for C&C minus the OGL, and the next version looks promising.

OGL-free 3.5E Era games are incredible.

Mutants & Masterminds (3rd Edition) is another game from this era. A d20-based superhero game? This works well and is supported by an excellent line of books and Hero Lab support. M&M is the superhero game everyone forgets. Did you hear about that new Marvel game? The latest DC game? Every few years, the license for "licensed IP" heroes jumps again, and we still have Champions and M&M to use for super-powered gaming.

The superhero genre as a pop-culture phenomenon is stuck in a vast rut these days, as the IP is farmed, and 90% of what Hollywood makes for movies and TV is worthless as a source of inspiration. I suggest buying a few graphic novel collections from your favorite superhero eras, using those as your "team books," and creating the characters yourself. 

Don't look for other people's interpretations of heroes; start small. Choose street-level heroes to start, make them just starting out, pick your favorite two or three characters, choose one villain, and begin there. Also, you don't need to follow a comic story or quickly assemble an entire team. Let them pick the powers they want, and don't follow the official character guides for their builds.

Perhaps in your world, Batman and Captain America reluctantly team up, and the Justice League, Shield, the X-Men, or the Avengers will never be groups. Ban existing groups, factions, and teams, but use the characters and let them find each other, fight, team up, or never meet. Treat the characters as "players who log into a superhero MMO" and let them develop characters and form teams organically. Bad guys may not be bad guys; the books have yet to be written here.

You can write your own stories and comic books with a "new world and cold start," you will have more fun being creative with hero pairings and villains. Use your own heroes, licensed IP ones, or an entertaining mix. Drop everyone into "today's world" a few at a time, with nobody knowing what is going on, and begin the game fresh.

I pick up any "superhero encyclopedia" and instantly get overwhelmed. I am lucky to have the pre-Disney Marvel one, the last one they did as Marvel before the sale in 2009. While these are a good source of heroes' powers, the amount of plots, groups, and stories will overwhelm you.

Another fun 3.5E-aligned game is Dungeon Crawl Classics. This game leaned more towards the B/X and zero-edition style of play, but the Fort/Ref/Will saves give this game away. This is a 3.5E derivative game and goes hard on the gonzo, unpredictable, crazy, and mind-blowing style of fantasy where nothing is familiar, the world is on its head, and characters are larger than life.

DCC feels more like classic Greyhawk than any of these other games, especially the S-series modules, in which characters navigate deadly deathtraps built by liches, a mad wizard's volcano labyrinth, or the inside of an alien spaceship. Many of today's fantasy games have gotten too stale and predictable, with characters feeling set in stone and the same old product-identity monsters occupying differently shaped rooms. Magic has become MMO DPS in 5E, which is also far too predictable and reliable.

DCC is strange; the dice are bizarre, the game is a collection of random charts, and you have no clue what comes next. Even using this to play through 3.5E modules is a fun experience, and the entire "zero to hero" path for a collection of random no-names is like nothing in gaming. No "pet characters" exist here; this is chaos and emergent storytelling.

Mutant Crawl Classics and several other sister games fill out the line and give you a bunch of settings and base characters to choose from, all compatible. You have post-apocalyptic, science fiction, combat sports, superheroes, westerns, and many other "zine games" supported by this system that gives you near-infinite options.

And there are many other 3.5E games out there, including the Conan-inspired Hyperborea, a Traveller 20 clone, and others. You don't need to leave the 3.5E era to have a fantastic library of D&D classics, Pathfinder 1e, Gonzo Fantasy, Traditional Fantasy, Pulp Adventure, Science Fiction, and many others.

The 3.5E Era, and all the games derived from it, are the heart of gaming. There is a sphere of B/X-aligned games in the OSR, but when you just look at 3.5E, there is a lifetime of fun to be had here, both with classic and new systems, all having their roots in that early 2000s era of gaming, and the last, best-supported version of D&D ever published.

D&D 3.5E: Eberron

"You were the chosen one!"

Here is another thing D&D 4E killed. We never got into Eberron, but it did feature some in our 4E games. By the time 4E came around, everyone had left for Pathfinder 1e, and Eberron sort of fell away from the gaming consciousness.

Everything has this attitude and style, a graphic novel style, pulp adventure, and youthful energy. It feels inspired by World of Warcraft, a dynamic world with history, strong factions, power, and mystery. Some JRPG elements were here, too, like airships. It went big, with drama and style, emphasizing grand, sweeping, almost matte-painting grandeur. It embraced Steampunk without the top hats and corsets and went entirely into an "iron-fantasy-punk" world style without guns and modern technology.

It also has a solid Final Fantasy feel, with those airships, warforged, magic trains, castles, armies fighting with swords and steel, and magic bolts sailing overhead. This is what defined fantastic settings were before we got Harry Potter, and we ended up with the mess we have today.

Wizards tried to transplant the look and feel of Eberron into all of D&D 4E and made every setting into an Eberron-like reboot.

Which destroyed all the other campaign worlds. The Eberron style doesn't fit the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, or Ravenloft. It just doesn't, and it feels dumb. You can't rewrite these worlds for "punk attitude," and you will take away their strengths (lore, history, feeling) for some fake identity.

Eberron should be left as-is.

That place players say is "awesome."

A world that mixes Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, and D&D into a beautiful mess.

The gaming community embraced Pathfinder 1e and Golarion and fled back into the cave. Eberron died on the vine. The OSR pulled us deeper into the cave, and Harry Potter warped the view of fantasy gaming for a generation.

Fantasy gaming was "modern, identity-aligned, pop-culture, bucket list experiences - the "us" in other-worlds. Everyone became the wisecracking anime protagonist, overly smarmy and cocky, with a permanent smirk, one raised brow, and a know-better look chiseled on everyone's faces. The typical 3D movie poster, with its 'tude look, ' is a cancer on modern gaming.

Eberron was down and gritty, dirty, and sweat-covered, which made it cool. This felt more like a Heavy Metal graphic novel than it did anything D&D, and then that style became the genesis of the modern fantasy look.

These books also contain a lot of Wayne Reynolds artwork, pre-Pathfinder. Eberron was D&D's Golarion before there was one. Paizo was where all the mojo ended up. In some ways, Eberron feels like the "beta test" for Golarion. Unlike Golarion, the artwork in Eberron is balanced with some excellent comic panels. It wasn't predominantly one style and had this fantastic mix of artists.

By comparison, Greyhawk and the Realms were fuddy-duddy, thee-thou places of cone-hatted princesses and jousting knights carrying flowing banners. This was modern and cool without being Harry Potter braindead barista nonsense. Evil was evil here, and while the war between the dragons and demons ended (aka Dragonbane), the world was shattered, and evil remained - and could return in a big way to finish the job.

And you could still be your favorite human bard in this world. The traditional things still worked. Like World of Warcraft, your heroic identity fits into that world, too; you just have a lot of cool new stuff to interact with. You can ride a magic train but still depend on that character sheet filled with 3.5E statistics.

And don't start me on a 5E conversion, either. D&D 3.5E combines settings and rules far better than 5E's generic "be anything" fantasy game ever does. Yes, 5E is more accessible, but if you want me to point at a character that could live in Eberron and fit in, I will point to a 3.5E character designed with the 3.5E sourcebooks every time.

A 5E paladin-warlock multiclass abomination is a 5E character, not an Eberron character. This is the massive problem of 5E; you try to play the Forgotten Realms and get generic fantasy McCharacters.

At least today, we have the D&D 3.5E PDFs and the Eberron sourcebooks. Game preservation keeps the memories of the past alive. We can still play in this world, like it was, without modern rules and assumptions turning the experience into over-processed food.

Wizards of the Coast, that silly content warning aside, deserves thanks for these preservation efforts. I may be walking away from 5E, but I can still turn back the clock and play in these worlds as they were. The company and the team there have made many mistakes, and they have a severe lack of writing talent, but preservation is the one thing they do that deserves praise.

D&D 3.5E: Fully Supported Campaign Settings?

Is there a version of D&D that has fully supported campaign settings, character options, adventures, and detailed world books, and no conversion is needed?

Yes, and it is called D&D 3.5E.

And I sit here, wondering what Wizards has been doing for the last twenty years? Oh, that's right: rebooting the rules (three times), abandoning 3.5E, getting suckered in by Hollywood, angering the community with the GSL and OGL, and sitting on a treasure trove of IP. They have done three things right: D&D Beyond, Baldur's Gate 3, and supporting the legacy books via PDF and POD.

The company keeps thinking, "A new set of rules will solve all our problems," and it keeps getting stuck in the same reboot trap. Wizards has some of the best IP in fantasy and cannot do anything with it. Hollywood won't let them. Trust me, when a Dragonlance movie gets greenlit, it will come out the other side of the production as a science fiction superhero comedy movie.

Nobody in Hollywood lets you spend "their money" how "you want."

Books will be the best we will ever get.

Currently, the only supported campaign settings are "The Planes" and "Magic: The Gathering crossover content." Yes, a sample Greyhawk is setting in the new DMG, but look back at the 3.5E releases and tell me this is "full campaign support." If you want any of the older settings, you are porting them into 5E, not getting any of the incredible custom content in the old books, and you might as well be playing the Forgotten Realms with Savage Worlds or some other rules-light game.

And this isn't "using Pathfinder 1e," either. The original D&D 3.5E game has an excellent supported character creation suite in Hero Lab. You get all of what's in these books, which are community-supported and ready to use.

Seriously, the 3.5E books are far better than 5E's offerings. Custom feats, prestige classes, and many character options are specific to the world. In 5E? Forget all that; it doesn't work anymore - toss out half the book and use the town names, I guess. Everything is the monolithic, generic fantasy, rules-light 5E. There is no content specific to one setting anymore. Everything feels too gentrified and homogenized. Sure, 5E was popular, but 5E is still emulation and not the authentic experience.

What happened to the early 2000s Wizards? They were on top of this game.

And if you want, Eberron and Dragonlance are very well supported in 3.5E. So you have three fully-supported campaign settings, four if you count the excellent amount of Greyhawk content available. Ravenloft is there, too.

D&D 4E killed this company. Gaming had moved on, and the fully supported campaign settings became Golarion and Pathfinder, where you can find many of these setting-specific ideas and excellent support.

Then again, why would I want the current Wizards team to remake these settings? Today's writers are flat-out not up to the job, and given the track record, I wonder if there are writers out there willing to take this on. They have proven this with 5E Spelljammer and Dragonlance, where they ended up angering more than starting a new product line.

If writers come in and complain about "having to learn volumes of lore and backstory," - you fire them. The company is not hiring you to go into the office and write fan fiction with your self-insert characters all day. The company is hiring you to learn the IP and ensure it keeps its value by curating and carefully growing the product, which means understanding and respecting all prior contributions. This is not a creative job; it is a brand management job. These are anti-creative endeavors, but you enable the dreamers - your customers - to dream in this world. You support the customer's creativity. Not yours.

So we are at an impasse. I don't believe the new creative team could write the next "Tomb of Horrors" or create a decent gazetteer for these worlds. The best talent has left the room. We are asked to buy legacy products and convert them to 5E.

Why convert? Why emulate this with 5E? I can emulate this with Savage Worlds, GURPS, Castles & Crusades, OSE, Pathfinder 1e, DCC, FATE, or any other game. It is just as much work.

I have D&D 3.5E. The rules are in the setting books to make this all work together. Why not play that?

D&D 5E is easier and more streamlined!

There are still 30-minute turns in high-level play in 5E, and the complexity of min-maxing a turn remains. At the low levels? Yes. At the high? Is there much difference?

I will play and find out.

Oh, and I know that Wizards can't make a game that works past the 10th level; from 3.0 to 5.5, they have always blown it at the high levels. This argument favors AD&D 1e and 2e massively, along with Pathfinder 2.

Mail Room: Mutants and Masterminds (3rd Edition)

We had Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition but never played it. The 3rd Edition of M&M is out, and they made steps to move away from the SRD-isms that plague gaming and upgraded the system to play better.

I like this game; the "Basic" book simplifies it with just the core options. It lets a group design archetype heroes quickly and get playing fast. One problem with many games is that the complete rulebook is considered the basic game, and having a single "basic game" hardcover book just serves as the introduction and gets players playing "comic-like" heroes almost immediately. It is a fun experience that is tailored to succeed.

If someone wanted to be an original "dark vigilante" character like Batman, you could get them started in about five minutes. Also, if that player wanted to "be Batman," that archetype could create a "beginning Batman" character at a lower power level and quickly put them into action. I like the "archetypes plus options" generation system in M&M, and it covered all the popular options while keeping character creation from being an hours-long slog through power lists and rules.

Champions, GURPS Supers, and many other superhero games force you to sort through hundreds of powers and options before you get going, and you always need to remember a few powers you really need.

With just the Basic book, I can create a "party" of Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Iron Man and have them all at the same power level and playing on par. Note, the starting power level is more like "TV Superman" than it is "cosmic comic book Superman," so all your heroes will be the "TV versions," which is just fine with me. Sometimes, ultra-power levels are too hard to roleplay, and having everyone on a realistic level means, "Let's not get carried away with CGI."

The power level of Batman and Superman TV shows makes the game much more playable. We had a DC Heroes game with a Flash character, and Joker took a VIP hostage. The Flash character said, "I search every room in the city."

And I don't care about having "comic-accurate power levels" since nobody can define those; they change with every writer, and for many heroes, powers never stay the same. You are fine if you have "some" powers like your favorite hero and your most potent abilities are higher than the rest. Under the full rules, you can play at higher power levels, but I feel a lot of fun can be had at the low-end power levels.

And the entire game is 1d20 vs. a CR. No other dice are needed. Every five points is a level of effect. All the abilities and skills are modifiers of the die roll. The system is so simple it is easy, and this feels like a 3.5E Era superhero game, but it is much more than that now. It is a simplified version of Champions but with a lot of flexibility. I also saw charts for rolling powers in the archetypes in the core player book, which makes things a little unpredictable and fun if you want to use them.

The Basic Book alone is an excellent value for months of play. This is one of the best if you want a simple superhero game with depth and archetype heroes that are fast and easy to design without the game getting bogged down in reference and math.

The 3.5E Era had some excellent games that still continue today.

D&D 3.5E: Characters

In the core book of D&D 3.5E, the way you create characters is 4d6 and drop the lowest. There were options to reroll if they were too low. Point buy was an optional system presented in the DMG. Races modified ability scores, as they should.

The original 3.5E game was very traditional in ability scores, and you rolled them by default. This game did not mess around, or present point-buy as a default method. And the default point-buy was 25 points, a lower amount than most modern games, with scores starting at 8. RPGA characters in conventions started with 28 points. Ability scores were never super-high in D&D 3.5E.

You get five ability score points, one every four levels, starting at fourth level.

In addition, permanent adjustments due to wishes, gifts from gods, or magic items can change ability scores with an inherent bonus, and this is limited to a total of +5 for each score. If your DEX as 10, you could only get it to a 15, no matter how many potions of dexterity you drunk. Level increases are separate, so you could push it higher with those, but there is still a limit.

Age can change ability scores.

At level 20, skills were capped to a 23 ranks (+23) for class skills, and 11.5 (+11) for cross-class skills.

And you only got 7 feats total at level 20, unless your starting race gave you an extra. Pathfinder gives you 10 feats at level 20, plus that extra one if your race grants it. As a result, feats are not as important to the game in 3.5E, and your overall character power is closer to old-school games. Pathfinder 1e has a minimum of CR+1 power creep, plus many classes have pools of repeatable attacks.

The Book of Vile Darkness (which showed artistic nudity, yes, Wizards printed this) introduced vile feats. These are granted by elder evil powers, and they do not count against character feats. These are for evil characters only. The Book of Exalted Deeds (which had artistic nudity too, yes, Wizards in the 2000s was cool) introduced exalted feats, which were granted by good beings of power, were for good characters only, and worked the same way.

We sort of ignored D&D 3.5E, stuck with our 3.0 books, and skipped right to D&D 4E. I wish we would not have passed on 3.5, as this was the better game. These days, I am getting the feeling that 3.5E was better than Pathfinder 1e, too. Don't get me wrong, the art in PF 1e is flat-out amazing, and I still have this as an S-Tier game.

Not AI Art, my MS Paint work!

D&D 4E was a fun B-tier dungeon combat game below level 10, but not D&D. It was never play tested all that well, and the monster designs were trash, bags of hit points that never died. One level 18 fight we got bored rolling the dice and tracking conditions, and we quit the game for good. It was this dumb "plant creature" monster, and the party kept knocking it down, hitting it for a little damage, and it got back up to get knocked down again. No amount of minions running in the room, special squares, traps, or map doo-dads would liven the fight up, and the entire fight just felt stupid.

But I am slowly feeling D&D 3.5E is another S-Tier game we should have paid more attention to. This was also a dungeon combat game, a bit more complicated than D&D 4E, but still, grab the 3.5E SORD off Drive-Thru and you will be playing this game like the masters back in the day, and quickly up to speed. This PDF makes it simple.

If I played D&D 3.5E today, SORD would be a requirement before joining my session, no question. The game is complex, almost on the level of a GURPS, but this ensures your choices matter.

For its focus squarely on dungeons, if that is why you play, D&D 3.5E is better than Pathfinder 1e. Pathfinder 1e is more focused on the adventure path and story gaming, and it is a higher-powered game. D&D 3.5E is more like old-school gaming, where characters aren't superheroes to start, and slowly grow into those power levels - but they aren't overpowered.

Pathfinder 1e can emulate D&D 3.5E well, and you can have the same feel to your game. There are fixes and improvements worth playing for. The art is amazing.

D&D 3.5E has that classic feeling. Clerics turn undead in D&D, in Pathfinder they channel energy. It is a minor difference, but in every class, you begin to notice these and the weight of the changes add up. Some of these were for the better, but if you love the OSR, you know that the classic way of doing things is sometimes what you really want.

But there is something to D&D 3.5E that just feels right. The 3.5E DMG is an S-Tier DMG, equally up there with AD&D 1e. The skills in 3.5E are more dungeon-focused, and the entire game shares that design goal. There are less choices as you level, and you build towards prestige classes. The power level is more "on the metal" and closer to AD&D 2e.

And yes, there are balance issues and cheese builds. These exist in Pathfinder 1e, too.

I get the feeling people default towards Pathfinder 1e because of loyalty, the 4E betrayal, "more stuff," art, the high-quality books, the amount of content, the story-game design, mature content, the power level, gimmies, adventure paths, and the iconic world.

However, stepping back to 2003 to 2008 in the time machine, and just focusing on the state of D&D as we knew it, is eye-opening. It is such a shock that 3.5E only lasted five years, the same as D&D 4E. The game never had a chance to grow into what it could have been. Pathfinder 1e felt like it had a full life, and D&D 3.5E felt like its life was cut short.

D&D 5E and Pathfinder 1e had ten years!

I get that people still played 3.5E games, but using Pathfinder as the engine, with their existing books used as supporting material. That situation eventually faded away as new games came along. You could say 3.5E had 15 years, with the Pathfinder 1e game supporting it, but I wonder what a fully supported 3.5E would look like, with a Wizards-produced "3.75E" patch edition, if 4E had never been developed.

That said, for those five years, and the three years we had with D&D 3.0, this was an amazing game that deserved a chance. This game was the rebirth of the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, the original Baldur's Gate videogames, and the last time we had proper setting material released.

The classic feeling and simpler characters appeal to me. Despite the mountain of material for Pathfinder 1e, D&D 3.5E still fascinates me for those five years we had with it. This was "the game to play" back in an amazing time.

D&D 3.5E vs. Pathfinder 1e

I read a few posts comparing the games, and the overall feeling is Pathfinder 1e is a more streamlined version of D&D 3.5E, with a higher power level, smoothed out leveling, no dead levels, higher hit dice (no more d4 hit die classes), and enhanced low-end power.

A lot of people say both games aren't worth playing these days, since they take too much to learn, too much attention to detail, and players these days aren't patient enough to work through them to get enjoyment from the complex system. Other say skills are horribly unbalanced, with modifiers that can go up into the +50 range.

Some say the Pathfinder monsters are easier, and others say some of the 3.5E monsters are horribly broken and overly deadly.

Most have just given up and play Pathfinder 2E and 5E.

It is strange to see D&D 3.5E have the GURPS problem. We saw this as a simple game back in the day, and something like Rolemaster was challenging.

What I like specifically about D&D 3.5E is the prestige class system. In Pathfinder, they moved away from this concept, and either added prestige classes as subclass powers or invented entirely new classes that filled those subclass roles. It is easier to balance a class in isolation than it is a prestige class where you need to work into it, taking it anywhere from level 4 to 20, and potentially causing all sorts of unintended consequences.

But I really like the idea of starting off a fighter, and then working your way up into a prestige class, such as a divine crusader. Once you have 20-40 base classes, the only way you can create a "prestige class" is to multiclass and come up with a freakish combination. It doesn't even have a name or role in the world, just another "warlock-rogue-paladin" that can use eldritch whip, smite and backstab with it all in one attack. What even is that? I don't know, it just does something cool.

That level of character customization, where you are free to buy feats, put points into skills, and collect prerequisite powers and classes to get to a prestige class is cool. Ultimately, the system breaks apart when skills reach the +30 level, with a DC 40 of "near impossible" that is happening on a 50-50 chance. I remember DC escalation in this version, and seeing DCs from 30 to 50 was not uncommon in the D&D 3.5E rulebook.

Getting a "hostile" monster to the "helpful" attitude level, basically, an ally of the party, was a DC 50 diplomacy check. Given a +40 diplomacy skill, getting them indifferent (DC 25) or friendly (DC 35) was a given.

You can hate this as complete idiocy, or love this as ultra-high fantasy.

The D&D 3.5E Epic Level Handbook leans into this notion very hard. A bard can use performance skill, pass a DC 170 skill check, and turn a crowd of hostile monsters into fanatical supporters, willing to die for the character for any reason. That fort full of stone giants? Let's rock, and I will have them headbanging and causing a small earthquake. You do NOT get this level of hijinks and insanity in Pathfinder 1e, but you could see this in a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Yes, this book was horribly broken. Modifiers over +100 mean nothing on a d20 roll. You begin to lose your mind and wonder, what the heck am I playing? This is the sort of game that makes you crave low fantasy again.

Personally, I think it is cool. For all the myths of "high level characters being more powerful than gods" - this book delivers on the promise. This was our version of Greyhawk back in the day. NPCs hanging out in Greyhawk city were literal gods, bored with the universe and spending their time in bars as they sought out things which could challenge them. They were the "bored superheroes" and always fun for my players to pick on and steal things from.

But name me a game that does zero to infinite power like this? Outside a superhero game that infinitely scales, I can't really name one.