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.
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