General Question - 3.5 Rules

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I use to play D&D 2nd edition when I was in high school. I have not played D&D, expect the BG series, since I graduated. What are the major difference between the 2nd edition the 3.5 Rules for D&D.

Thanks

 

Blackthorne has the basics of it, but in broad terms:

AC still starts at 10, but it gets better as it gets higher, so an AC of 20 is about equivalent to a 2nd edition 0. You now get attack bonuses, instead of decreases in the roll necessary to hit.

Skills now work on a difficulty basis; you add a modifier from your stat, a modifier from your skill, and roll a d20. Higher is better. Skills are an integral part of the game, unlike proficiencies, which could be ignored.

Multiclassing is now easy, and expected to an extent. If you want your fighter to know a few skills like a rogue (the renamed thief), you take a level or two in rogue; you won't be as strong of a fighter as someone who had stuck just with fighter, but you'll have a bit more versatility.

Pretty much all of the details of the game have changed. Longswords still weigh too much and do a d8 damage, but they've redefined a lot of the game, and the tone is, IMO, closer to IWD than BG, if that makes any sense.

 

Two major things are new: skills and feats.

You have skill bonuses in the same way you have attack and saving throw bonuses. Higher is, of course, better, and there are dozens of skills. For example, your barbarian character could have Craft (weaponmaking) +5 and Swim +10, meaning he is pretty good at making weapons and even better at swimming. Depending on your classes, some skills will be easier or harder to advance in as you level up.

Feats are sort of like bonuses for your character. Unlike skills, you either have them or you don't. One feat - like Toughness - might give you extra hit points. Another might let you make magic weapons and armor, and yet another might make you deadlier with you longsword. Unlike skills, many feats have prerequisites.

 

This doesn't sound like Dungeon and Dragons. I liked D&D for it's simplicity. What happened?

Was there a major shift in rules from 2nd edition to 3rd edition?

 

No. There was a complete rewriting of the rules from 2nd to 3rd edition, with only a few terms and concepts retained.

 

Here's the System Reference Document divided into sections:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35

Hope this helps.

And yeah, I tend to think 2E's appeal has been lost in 3E and 3.5E, even if ease of use has indeed been gained and the system is more intuitional. Heck, it's more logical, even. But it's not really just another subsequent edition of D&D. It's something else.

 

For variety, I prefer the Hypertext SRD, here:

http://d20srd.org/

And I tend to agree. Even with the huge amount of options opened by the Player's Option books, 2nd edition felt a lot different from 3e.

 

I enjoyed 2nd Edition. In fact I evened enjoyed basic. I would like to get involved in a RPG again but would rather not if they are using the v3 or 3.5 rules.

Does anyone know where one could purchase the 2nd edition rules online.

 

Not off the top of my head, though you could try the usual suspects (E-bay and Amazon). You might also try looking for the Core Rules CD that came out at the very end... if you have the expansion, as well as the Core Rules 2.0, you'll have the PH, the DMG, the MM, the Player's Option stuff, and the Complete Handbooks on a couple CDs.

You can also try Half-Price books, or other used bookstores... they've often got copies of the old books around, after people sold them.

 

Core rules on CD? Is that the box that contained all the book for 2nd edition in a CD collection. If so that would be the item for me to purchase.

 

It didn't contain everything... just most of the important ones. If all you're interested in is the basic 3 books, it has those (plus, IIRC, Tome of Magic and the Player's Options books).

WotC also has some of the 2nd edition supplements (especially long out of print Forgotten Realms stuff) up on their website.

 

MrNexx or any one for that matter know where I could purchase this CD-ROM?

Edit

I found the program for $75+ through Amazon. I am not to thrilled with paying that much for what seems so little.

Maybe they should release the 3.5 rules on CD with a few extra manuals. That would be nice and if it was $50 or less I would probably buy it.

[ August 23, 2005, 21:58: Message edited by: Silver Knight ]

 

I found a place that is selling this CD and it only cost $35 and I may have to give them a call to see if they have the expansion just so I can have almost all of the 2E rules in one convient location. After that I might make some calls and see if I can get a group together some times this fall. Now all I have to do is convince the wife to let me spend $70+ on these CD's. I am hoping though I can find them cheaper on Ebay. I will be looking later today if I have time.

 

Uhm, i would recomend just getting the expantion cd then. the books are in RTF, windows HLP and .HTML format. and the expantionpack has some more books (races and classes iirc ?) and you can still open then without the core cd.

The main difference between 3.0/3.5 and the old 2E is that they rewrote alot of things. belive it or not but most things works exactlly similar. They just changed some numbers to all go the same way (you have no idea how much that anoyed me in 2E with all those weird systems for armorsaves, thac0, savingthrows and not to mention skills.... they drove me mad, and i was the DM.) If you dropped skills and feats the game would play almost exactlly like a 2E game, just that all the numbers and rolls went the same way and worked similar to eachother.

Skills and feats can seema bit daunting in the begining, and i know all my players despised skills becose it took so long time to set up (in the begining) and you never had any use for it in combat (aka no real powerplay stuff). However its great for adding alot of spice to a character.

Feats ... consider them weapon proficiences, they work very similar really (just play a fighter and you'll see what i mean.) They just added a bunch of other things that all characters could get, so not only fighter had all the fun.

After getting used to 3E and 3.5E i could not for the life of me go back to 2E, the entire system just anoys me so much after i realised how small changes 3E really did to make it simpler.

 

I grew up on 2E rules and how a foundness for them. I read through the 3e and their advantages and disadvantage, as any system has and I just prefer the advantages of 2e rules.

 

There is another thing about 3.5. The battles are now strategy based. In AD&D you say "I cast my spell, or I attack him. 3.5 is best played with miniatures on a battle grid. Things like flanking and shooting into battle make a difference. It is sort of like chess on Barry Bond's steroids. Once you get into it, it can be enjoyable.

If you can find a DM who knows the system, it will help you to enjoy it more.

 

quote: If you can find a DM who knows the system, it will help you to enjoy it more.

I agree with this...