Your favorite 3.0 builds

deathdealingjawa · Post by **deathdealingjawa** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 11:49 pm

3.5 has had a lot of love on this board, but it's premature older brother 3.0 not so much. Brothers and sisters now is the time to show the world the best 3.0 had to offer!
I never played 3.0, I wanted to see what people enjoyed in 3.0 that they couldn't enjoy in 3.5.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:06 am

Builds in 3.0E that didn't exist in 3.5E D&D?

Well, the thing about 3.0E builds is that 3.5E D&D has more options. I mean, the Hospitaler Cleric was probably /the/ way to make a Cleric Archer in 3.0E but even though it got nerfed to oblivion 3.5E D&D came out with much better prestige classes.

Basically, almost all of the builds that existed in 3.0E but that didn't in 3.5E D&D relied on Prestige Classes that got nerfed in the change. Unsurprisingly, these were almost always Noncaster PrCs. In particular, you had:

Fighter Archer -- Some combination of Order of the Bow Initiate, Deepwood Sniper, and Peerless Archer. The OttbI was the backbone of the build and nerfs to that and haste made the build a non-starter.
Divine Fighter -- Some combination of Knight of the Circle, Templar, and Devoted Defender. All of these PrCs got nerfed.
Sacred Fist -- Despite the name, you didn't actually want to invest in Monk levels. Instead, you took whatever combination of Rogue and Full-BAB classes you wanted and then got a polymorph. Then you took 10 levels in Sacred Fist. Changes to polymorph and Sacred Fist made this build nonviable.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:09 am

I played a Straight cleric 20 of nerull (evil and trickery) who planeshifted to Faerun, and he was was more funner than a funny thing doing a funny thing. My favorite part of 3.0 is that you can hold a touch spell indefinitely. Making inflict spells and harm into retallitory threats should an enemy dare touch you, and it was absolutely hilarious when my brothers rogue tried to climb in my pack while I had airwalk up, as well as harm.

Planeshift, wall of stone, and slay living were my spells of choice, and lesser planer ally let me snag a nightmare mount.

Fun times.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:21 am

I have played all of one specifically 3.0 game. That was the one where I was learning the rules, played the Urak Guy, and somehow became the MVP of the game. The entire build was "make lots of attacks, any attack that hits will deal 10+ damage automatically, any time you hit and deal 10+ damage you get a free Trip attempt, you actually Trip above your weight class and nearly always succeed, at which point you hit them again. Standing up provokes an Attack of Opportunity (which admittedly can't chain into a trip, but gets the prone bonus). Hitting me also provokes, which I can guarantee results in you being face-down on the floor and hit twice."

That was the entirety of the build. You might notice a huge swathe of things that would be outright immune to it. Anyway, the Smackdown feat wasn't reprinted for 3.5 and I'm not sure about Karmic Strike either (actually, that one might have been a 3.5 feat that we let in anyway).

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:50 am

Further martial nerfs: 3.5 gave us Exotic Weapon Master, which was supposed to replace Master of Chains, Lasher, and Weapon Master.
(not that they were spectacular to begin with, which is why the nerf was so mind-numbing)
But you know what? Deepwood Sniper was left untouched, and still the best mundane archer PrC. Not that that is saying much; but it is what it is.

But that's okay - Incanintrix actually got an UPgrade from 3.0->3.5. WTF? Was that really necessary?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:08 am

They thought they were downgrading the Incantatrix, actually, since their primary goal was fixing the spell dancer shenanigans.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:48 am

Was Weapon Master the one that made its way into both NWN games, 5 levels where you pick the Scimitar and end up with a Threat Range of 10-20/x4 or something? I was just about convinced that they just made that for the video games, what with it being so generic/universal (specialise in one weapon, that weapon is generically better, call it a day) yet not being completely shit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:34 am

The weapon master was a thing that existed.

As for weird 3e builds, I rather liked the Master of Shrouds. Probably a typo, it hands out full casting and some minor shadow control. The 3.5 version makes you lose caster levels but can be entered crazy early, making the incorporeal summons wildly overpowered in exchange for being a whole level behind in cleric spells. The 3e version gets full casting and mook summons due to the higher level entry requirements.

Another odd one is the Thrall of Jubilex. There's probably supposed to be some sort of usage limits to their too summoning power, but as written it's just a standard action. You're not a full caster exactly, but you can win a lot of fights by filling rooms with ooze minions. Base save prereqs are weird, as the authors apparently never considered that people would obviously multi class to get them.

-Username17

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:39 am

I seem to recall that being a Troll with a spiked chain and the feats to drive it was stupidly effective at breaking the modules (still is, really, modules assume you have an NPC Fighter along). Everyone had boots of speed. Stupid stuff with Great Cleave and Whirlwind before they "clarified" it. Lance charge Paladins. Higher level casters topping everyone up with multi-empowered maximised stat buffs and immunity and movement stuff for tomorrow and then resting for more spells. Big buff suites, nightmare resolution phase if anyone cast a personal Dispel Magic on you.

Horrible and cheap things for raising save DCs for the casters. Scry, Buff, Teleport works slightly better. Ranged touch Harm and Magic Missile to one-round anything in the game. All up fairly tame casters because there's so little that reduces the metamagic cost in 3.0, and it was almost free to buff the non-casters up to being better than the monsters.

Druids have to use normal animals and buff them, and you can have a few smaller ones, so saw a couple spying and information-gathering Druids. Can't cast in bear form, so saw more immediate-utility animal forms.

Everyone dipped classes for this and that, everyone had prestige classes. Lots of multiclass casters at the start, by wide-eyed folk hoping it would all work out (hint: it didn't, full caster or GTFO).

Basically like 3.5, except you can have a pet PC BAB character for almost no cost which stacks with (and is often better) than your Planar Ally.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:07 am

Oh right, leaping rhino charge. Before all the weird 3.5 needs to charging, you could, as a 7th level character, corner charge a troll and hit it hard enough to make it drop and be in range to cleave the other troll and drop them too. A San Diego Supercharger (with or without a mount) could pull their weight next to some real casters until like 12th level.

Like a 3.5 flask rogue, basically. But you unironically have two levels of fighter.

-Username17[/i]

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:27 am

Oh, yeah, before they nerfed Whirlwind in 3.5E the TWFing + Whirlwind chain was a legit thing to specialize in and justified taking more than two levels of fighter.

That said, you can still recreate the basics of that build in 3.5E just by grabbing the Book of Nine Swords. And in fact do a better job because you can grab stuff like Elusive Target and Karmic Strike instead of tanking all of your feats. But that was seriously like a four years stretch of time.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:53 pm

I preferred 3.0 over 3.5 since I learned 3.0 first and 3.5 just muddied waters sans improvement.

I enjoyed fighter archers as Lago described (though didn't use Peerless Archers because FR can suck it). Or using casters as fighters. I played from 1-12 a Cleric archer of Boccob. My wizard archer was a hoot as well.

Hunh. I guess I really liked being an archer.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:31 pm

NineInchNall wrote: They thought they were downgrading the Incantatrix, actually, since their primary goal was fixing the spell dancer shenanigans.

It's been a while, but I remember that the updated version got more stuff. Sure, their ability to reduce MM costs got pushed back from 7 to 10, but then they just kept piling even more stuff.

Koumei wrote: Was Weapon Master the one that made its way into both NWN games, 5 levels where you pick the Scimitar and end up with a Threat Range of 10-20/x4 or something? I was just about convinced that they just made that for the video games, what with it being so generic/universal (specialise in one weapon, that weapon is generically better, call it a day) yet not being completely shit.

Sword&Fist, same book as Lasher and Master of Chains.

Post by **fbmf** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:30 pm

Why has nobody linked to the OG 3.0 cheese thread from Nifty?

http://www.niftymessageboard.com/viewto ... sc&start=0

Game On,
fbmf

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:48 pm

One of the things that depresses me about powergaming for 3.5E D&D is the amount of self-nerfs and gentlemen's agreements you have to invoke after a certain point.

Like, 3.0E powergaming only had a few non-Psionic/non-Epic pitfalls in it. You know, shit like the Maho Tsukai and Spelldancer and Ur-Priest and Beholder Mage and that BoVD bard spell and whatever. Line item vetoes that could seriously fit in a pre-2013 YouTube comment. PrCs like the Hospitaler were considered grossly overpowered in fact. But 3.5E D&D really, really raised the bar, roof, and ruckus. You go through certain PrCs and are all 'you know what, this shit is ridiculous, can't use it'.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:53 pm

@ 3.0 vs 3.5 breakage:
The degree to which 3..5 raised the bar is actually twofold,
(1) 3.5 had a longer production run and a metric fuckton more shovelware.
(1a) you eventually run out of conceptual design space for simply adding more utility with character options. in order for extra options to continue to be interesting/viable (i.e., justifying the use of ink and trees), eventually you're only left with out-and-out power-ups. Ceasing shovelware isn't even an option,
(1b) the more options you shovel out, the more likely it is that you are going to facilitate a Rube Goldberg Machine of Game Destruction™.

(2) Setting fappery. WoTC openly stated that a lot of setting-specific options were intentionally over-powered for the expressed purpose of encouraging setting buy-in - something along the lines of "the more setting-specific options you take, the more your character will be directly tied to the game world"

I think that it would have been good of WOTC to put a disclaimer/directive on the into page of every setting-specific book that said something to the effect of "thou shalt not use non-Core material that does not come from this setting" and "likewise, setting-specific material is only for use in this setting". It wouldn't have been a panacea, but it definitely would have helped a lot of groups.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:37 am

@vs 3.5

There's been setting fappery for all the settings since they had settings. That's just a thing they've always done, the Realms being the usual worst offender for dragging into homebrew campaigns because it's so normal.

The 3.5 core and splats set out to nerf everything their boards chattered about like it was broken (because players used it instead of not using it). Note that they didn't actually fix the broken things because no one used those, and so it got no chatter. But that gave 3.5 good chatter and people just assumed it was better. Fixing Harm helped, nerfing Haste-charging + Full Attack for Fighters is just insane. Made a bunch of the Monster Manual really hard to kill with weapons. Nerfed every martial PClass into uselessness, nerfed class dipping because casters didn't use it much. FFFFffff. uck.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:57 am

Oriental Adventures had some fun ones - I think possibly the most broken was Shapeshifter, which basically took all the insanity of wildshape and crammed it into a 10-level prestige class with a cherry on top.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 1:07 pm

tussock wrote:Note that they didn't actually fix the broken things because no one used those, and so it got no chatter.

This reminds me of a popular story about statistical analysis of bombers returning from their runs.

A snippet of the link above:

The military looked at the bombers that had returned from enemy territory. They recorded where those planes had taken the most damage. Over and over again, they saw the bullet holes tended to accumulate along the wings, around the tail gunner, and down the center of the body. Wings. Body. Tail gunner. Considering this information, where would you put the extra armor? Naturally, the commanders wanted to put the thicker protection where they could clearly see the most damage, where the holes clustered. But Wald said no, that would be precisely the wrong decision. Putting the armor there wouldn’t improve their chances at all.

Do you understand why it was a foolish idea? The mistake, which Wald saw instantly, was that the holes showed where the planes were strongest. The holes showed where a bomber could be shot and still survive the flight home, Wald explained. After all, here they were, holes and all. It was the planes that weren’t there that needed extra protection, and they had needed it in places that these planes had not. The holes in the surviving planes actually revealed the locations that needed the least additional armor. Look at where the survivors are unharmed, he said, and that’s where these bombers are most vulnerable; that’s where the planes that didn’t make it back were hit.

So the 3.x rules were the victim of 'survivorship bias' - they only 'fixed' the rules that were good enough to be used (make it back) but ignored the rules that were so bad nobody could use them (those that never returned).

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:08 pm

The funny thing is that the peak of 3.5 optimization was always unplayable, since the PHB and Monster Manual alone get you an infinite army of minions with unlimited gear from like, 9th level, and the already-existing Zodar means you can do it without any argument about Efreet wish-twisting.

But this fact was kind of ignored for quite a while. People complained about The Wish using a custom item, but you can do the same thing with a bunch of scrolls. Heck, 90% of Pun-Pun can be replicated with just the XPH. Which is not unique, it just puts it in the same ballpark as something like HERO - you have to agree not to break the game completely.

This is why it annoys me when people try to utilize any potentially infinite loop in class comparisons, or non-theoretical optimization. I'm going to call it the "Just The Tip" fallacy - that you can use infinite loops "just a little bit" and have the result still mean anything.

IMO - no you can't. Once infinite loops are on the table, every character beyond 5th level or so is arbitrarily powerful and has no reason not to replace every cubic inch of dirt in the plane with an arbitrarily powerful simulacrum minion. Which makes any kind of comparison pointless.