Third Edition era appreciation

I'm feeling a little conflicted. The Third Edition (in its various forms) existed officially from 2000-2008, and then unofficially in the form of the Pathfinder 1e RPG until 2019. I never really played Pathfinder per se, I picked up Third Edition when it was new, thought it was pretty cool compared to what I knew of AD&D of the past, and played it until probably about 2016. We did use some Pathfinder product, but mostly the early adventure paths that were written specifically to be compatible with 3.5, not with the Pathfinder update. I did kind of pay some attention to developments within Pathfinder, to the extent that they were compatible or useful with 3.5. When I was done with Third Edition, I was definitely done; I was tired of very long combats, I was tired of obligatory gridded combats, I was tired of very long and involved character generation, and I was tired of higher level play that wasn't very fun and was quite tedious in general. I was also over the D&Disms of the game; all of the Vancian magic and magically kitted up characters. I discovered Microlite in 2013, and although I still played 3.5 until probably halfway through 2016—I think; maybe we were playing Call of Cthulhu by then instead of D&D though—but I went hard into rules lite games. I always liked them better anyway, but I had been satisfied enough playing Third Edition, in its various iterations for at least fifteen-sixteen years and mostly enjoyed it. Until I got too frustrated with some of the stuff associated with it and figured that my new m20 house rule notion of adopting Third Edition into a rules lite playing style was superior for my tastes in almost every single way. At about that time, I kind of shelved most of my Third Edition books (stuck them in a bin in a closet, actually) and didn't really move forward with using them for quite some time.

As I've rediscovered them, sorta, and started re-reading some of them, I remember why I liked them in the first place. Although I also remember why I stopped using them. But that doesn't mean that a lot of it isn't still useful to me, especially since although super rules lite in comparison, my game still retains a great deal of compatibility with Third Edition material. Fluff stuff, of course, is always compatible with almost any system, regardless, but even the mechanics, the "crunch" is mostly compatible. If I need more spells, I can just turn to Third Edition spells from my books or the SRD. If I need more monsters, same thing; just reduce the hit points some and otherwise ignore much of the material in the stat block as irrelevant, but I can use them as written even so. I don't know what else I could borrow from the mechanics that would be worth the trouble, but those are the two things that there are big lists of anyway. I guess I could turn some feats or class features into alternative class feats for my a la carte "build your own class" buffet, but I don’t really see the need, most likely. But if I do ever want to; well that material's there.

I also find that the prestige classes, something I got weary of after a while, are actually kind of cool, at least in terms of an NPC character concept, even if I don't have a ton of interest in the actual mechanics of the prestige class. Maybe that's the best way to use the mechanics; NPCs that are created kind of like monsters; they have an AC, a To Hit and Damage, and hit points, created monster-style rather than like a player character, and then throw a few class-like special abilities that make them unique.

So, I'm enjoying going through my Third Edition stuff, and I'm thinking that I can get more use out of it than I expected. If nothing else, it’s been fun to reread some of these books; I just recently read the official book Drow of the Underdark and the unofficial Green Ronin book Advanced Race Codex: Drow. I’m also currently rereading Cityscape, and Dungeonscape (actually, I never read the latter the first time) and I intend to pull out and reread Manual of the Planes, Fiendish Codex 1: Hordes of the Abyss, Elder Evils and Exemplars of Evil. After that… maybe more. Stormwrack, Frostburn, Sandstorm, and the Complete Psionic book, which I also think that I never actually got around to reading are all kind of on the table right now. And I haven't read the d20 Call of Cthulhu book in a long time, and it's worth an occasional re-read. The idea that this stuff could potentially be useful to me even as someone who isn't going to be running that system again is kind of intriguing. And Privateer Press's two Monsternomicon books are among the best Third Edition books I own; every single entry is a whole adventure waiting to happen (not that some aren't, of course, better than others. But, y'know.)

I did finally get my belated copies of the DMG and PHB 3.5 in the mail today. Both were around $20-22 and shipped for free from Amazon, and both are in like new condition. They look as good on my little shelf as the MM 3.5 that they're next too, which I bought when it was new.

Of course, I do still have all three of those in the regular 3e state too. I'm a little hesitant to toss them, but they're completely irrelevant. I'll almost certainly never even use the 3.5 ones, but if I do, the 3.5 ones will certainly supersede the 3e ones. Sigh. Like I said; I'm still kind of salty about that, more than fifteen years later.

Anyway, this is a long rambly post, even by my standards, and I'm not even sure what it's about, other than some some backhanded Third Edition appreciation, I guess. I'll go ahead and throw some random art from a third party Third Edition era product at the post, and then quit while I'm ahead.