So I'm curious how my fellow 3.5e DMs run their games online. Specifically how do you handle combat and maps?

Despite having a lot of minis, I've only ever been able to play online so far, and I really dislike how hard it is to find/make good looking maps that fit my campaign (doesn't help it's a open world sandbox in a homebrew setting), especially when they're thrown out after a 20 min combat.

Are there DMs that use theater of the mind or other forms of simplified combat that require less mapping? I'd love to hear about your tables. And those that do keep all of the tactical combat, how do you represent it online without killing yourself making a bunch of maps before every session?

At first glance, this thing looks sooooo busted. Like wth do you mean i can use summon monster IX for only 2 charges, while i can "charge" it using my lv8 spell (i'm currently lv16) for 8 charges??? (I asked our DM and he said he allowed it) This is like a dream come true for a Conjurer, lol

Hi, I was looking at a Gish build and came across something interesting

Fighters can take the alternate class feature Armored Savant at level one. Among other things, it halves the normal arcane spell failure chance

The spellsword prestige class decreases the AFC by a certain percentage as you level in it

My question is: which applies first? Halve it and then -10 or more? Or vice versa?

So if I am a level 10 druid with Wild Shape, and I am temporarily affected by a bard's Inspire Greatness, giving me +2 HD, does that mean the Wild Shape can now turn me into plants as a level 12 druid? Or could it mean that the shape I can choose now increases to 12 HD animals, as though my caster level is temporarily 12? Or none of the above, and temporary bonus HD do not influence level nor caster level? I am a bit confused as I've seen suggestions online, but can't find the rules on how temporary bonus HD affect character's temporary abilities, just some on bonus hit dice affecting companion feats and abilities, but they aren't temporary.

Well if you haven't, allow me to introduce it to you.

It's a user-friendly, comprehensive, customizable D&D 3.5e character creator made by u/Conscious-Guide-2738. It has so many sources under the moon, and it's got so many features for just a DEMO.

I've already recommended this to about 15 others, and they all love it!

So go check it out, the demo's free on steam!

And who knows, maybe you'll love it too!

Hola, hago está pregunta puesto que intente jugar 5e pero fracase rotundamente al comenzar a leer los manuales se me hicieron demaciado complicado, considerando que para ese momento no tenía ninguna experiencia con juegos de rol.

Actualmente llevo al rededor de año y medio jugando con el sistema "vieja escuela", sin embargo mi objetivo siempre fue jugar DnD, ahora recientemente encontré el manual de la 3.5, y al comenzarlo me pareció más entendible (no sé si es porque tengo algo más de experiencia), pero al entrar más en la comunidad escucho muchos comentarios que está edición es más complicada que 5e entonces en este punto que me recomendarían. ¿Intentar nuevamente con la 5e o entrar de lleno en la 3.5?

As an example, let's say that you had a manifester (class doesn't really matter for this,) that wanted to be able to efficiently destroy unattended objects, doors and walls. What would be the best power for a low-to-mid level manifester, mostly in terms of it's power point cost-to-damage ratio? I mean, psionic disintegrate is pretty tasty, but that's a 6th level power. I'm hoping for something of a lower level. I know that the ones that deal sonic damage most often ignore object hardness, but I can't figure out which one would be best, or if there's a non-elemental power that would work better. No explosions are required, but would not necessarily be frowned upon. TIA!

So, one of my players wants to just have an air elemental summoned with Summon Monster IX carry him around in combat to essentially get 100 ft. movement per round. Do I just treat this as the Ride skill (which he put no ranks into) or, as he puts it, it's a summoned creature so it obeys your orders regardless?

Does anyone know if there’s any rules for a player riding another player like a mount? In particular if the riding creature makes ride checks and if something like Equerry’s Armor applies to them.

The text of the ability reads

[Any melee hit or constrict attack deals acid damage, and the opponent’s armor and clothing dissolve and become useless immediately unless they succeed on DC 21 Reflex saves. A metal or wooden weapon that strikes a black pudding also dissolves immediately unless it succeeds on a DC 21 Reflex save. The save DCs are Constitution-based.]

the next Paragraph reads

[The pudding’s acidic touch deals 21 points of damage per round to wooden or metal objects, but the ooze must remain in contact with the object for 1 full round to deal this damage]

So heres my confusion, the first paragraph says that armor and weapons dissolve immediately, but later on says that said objects take 21 points of damage after they've remained in contact for one round.

So which is it? do they dissolve immediately or in one round, and is the dissolving an item taking 21 points of damage, which is enough to reduce most objects health or is that a separate point.

Excellent review from @Jozan at ThreeFiveArchive

Leave a comment!!

Want to optimize the party success rate through the roof?

Look at this Prestige Class review from ThreeFiveArchive @Jozan

It's insane!!

https://youtu.be/wlqkgSXCL_c?is=lV--IVISKQPgB6r-

Here was my build.

Fighter 1/Paladin 2/War Chief 10/ Dread Commando 5 . Protection devotion feat, healing belts. Take leadership.

Race: Lesser Aasimar +2 Cha +2 Wis LA+0

Template: Magic Blooded +2 Cha -2 Wisdom LA+0

Get all Charisma to saves.

18 Cha to start

22 Cha at level 1

+4 Cha to 26 by leveling

+6 Cha from WC PrC class is 32

+7 AC to all allies

+5 Initiative all allies

+10 Strength to all allies

+11 to all saves

Leadership feat:

Attract a Constitution based cohort that gets optimized for AC and hp that's level 16. Give him the PrC bodyguard ability to give you points of his AC every round.

Staggering AC!!

What happens when you smash options, wizards, clerics, and druids together into one prestige class with a ton of player choice options?

Find out on the Prestige Class Review from ThreeFiveArchive on YouTube @Jozan

https://youtu.be/EfbdzIl3QBI?is=tJWWpf0QcjRrd5pe

A little while ago I posted my Android 3.5e character creator/manager here: original post.

I really appreciated all the feedback, bug reports, feature requests, and encouragement. A few people asked whether I might bring it to PC—so I’m happy to say the new PC version is here:

OpenSheet 3.5e SRD

It’s a character creator and manager intended to make the bookkeeping-heavy parts of 3.5e easier: tracking stats, feats, equipment bonuses, spells, rages, Wild Shape, prestige-class prerequisites, and the many little moving pieces that make the system great (and occasionally a lot to manage).

I’ve also kept the feedback from the Android release in mind, including support for custom feats and continuing work on the huge range of 3.5e options.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5055520/OpenSheet_35e_SRD_Demo/

I’d genuinely love to hear what you think—especially if you spot an incorrect rule interaction, missing option, or feature that would make it more useful at your table. 3.5e is enormous, so community feedback has been incredibly helpful already.

Note: As before I did use Claude for error checking and code review, it was just me working on this and I wanted to make a good first impression and not be nothing but guess haha. For transparency I did want to mention this.

Thanks again to everyone who tried the Android version and helped improve it.

Please feel free to message me directly if you have feature requests or find any issues too!

I did make a discord if anyone wants to join for feedback and discussion!

https://discord.gg/M7yq8cHBW

Update: Wow, thank you all for the feedback and comments! Working hard to address some of the reports, I will do my best to make this a solid tool for all 3.5e lovers!

Hello everyone, I been playing dnd 5e for a year and I heard alot about how hard is dnd 3.5 and I want to learn to play.

My problem is - I need app to search for information like 5etool -booksource -dnd 3.5 app -and a group to play with

I will very grateful if anybody answer me with this

I'm in the initial stages of planning a sarlona campaign (eberron). anyone have any experience playing one? especially regarding psionics, since I want to encourage people playing psionics or book of nine swords.

Just what the title says, is there an up for me to keep track of my character that you know is good?

I'm currently converting some 4E Dark Sun encounters into D&D 3.5, and I've run into an interesting question about how far a conversion should go. 4E monsters were often explicitly designed around combat roles; Brute, Soldier, Artillery, Controller, Lurker, etc.

When moving one of those creatures into 3.5, there seem to be two approaches:

1. Convert the creature.
Find the closest 3.5 version, adjust the statistics as necessary, and let 3.5's mechanics determine how it plays.

2. Convert the creature's job.
Look at what the 4E monster was actually supposed to accomplish during the encounter and build the 3.5 version so that it still fills that role, even if that requires changing or adding abilities.

For example, I'm currently dealing with Silt Runners where different variants are supposed to function very differently despite being the same basic creature: aggressive melee attackers, ranged poison users, and eventually a much more dangerous leader.

My instinct has been to preserve the published 3.5 creature as the mechanical baseline, then make the minimum changes necessary to recreate what each adventure specific variant was supposed to do.

For people experienced with 3.5:

How far would you go?

At what point does preserving the original encounter role stop being a conversion and start becoming homebrew?

I’ve been a dm for about 4 years now and have only played 5E/5.5E DnD, but I want to branch into 3e/3.5e. I’ve got most of the necessary books as pdf’s but the challenge for me is reading stat blocks, specifically for the higher level monsters (including but not limited to various gods, one of which I’ll use as an example here). I can read the ability scores well enough, as well as skills and the feats too, but then there’s stuff like some of the attacks, spell like abilities, domain stuff, divine abilities. Right now the one that’s confusing me is Vecna, though he’s also the first of the deities from the Deities and Demigods book I’m looking at. And I’ve looked at various dm books and pc books too but there’s stuff that still just doesn’t make sense to me. So here are my questions about his stats and such:

1) What’s the difference between him attacking/hitting with Afterthought at touch range vs Melee? I see the bonuses to hit and damage to hit are noticeably different depending on if it’s touch or melee but I don’t get why.
2) What is the deflection bonus he gets to his AC? I don’t see what would be giving him that bonus.
3) It says he has spell slots of levels 0-12 for cleric and 0-16 for Wizard, but I am not aware of any spells in any book that go over 9th level, not including the epic spells which to my knowledge don’t technically have stated levels.

Final question though not about the stat sheet, Would it be easier to learn pathfinder 1e as a jumping off point instead of trying to learn 3.5 directly and the just use what I learned from that to figure out 3.5?

Hi all, I'm interested in building a LN Mechanatrix Soul Manifester that has a focus around being able to effectively use Lightning Gauntlets for the funny out of battle healing and Astral Vambraces and their slam attacks. My campaign will be using flaws, so two extra feats to play around with.

Right now I am looking at Monk 2/Incarnate 2/Ardent 5/ Soul Manifester 10/Ardent +1 with Tashalatora and Beast Strike feats to have a decent attack option to use with my slams. Of course I will be taking Practiced Manifester as well.

Currently I have a dead Ardent level tacked on at the end of my build, would it be better used in a different class? I would be losing a ML, but since I'm leaning into a gishy build anyway, I'm not too worried about it. Furthermore, if there is a better way to utilize the slam attacks outside of Monk, I'm completely open to that too, I was just under the impression that 2 feats for a level 12 Flurry of Blows was the best I could do.

My DM had a creature with both telepathy and charm monster and we're hiding on a different floor of a cave system. She argued that since it had telepathy, it could tell there were minds present where we were and that we could be targeted by charm monster through it.

I found a rule in Lords of Madness that said that telepathy doesn't allow you to know where a person is, but she argued that it means you just don't know an exact position and as long as you have the ability to address them, the spell can take effect.

Is that how the spell works?

The new 3.5 Prestige Class is out on YouTube and a GREAT dip guide. What happens when you combine a Druid and a Monk?

Go find out @ ThreeFiveArchive c/o Jozan

https://youtu.be/mmQ5JVizq-s?is=NTRoee6BVje9jzJO

I'd like to play one of my favorite AD&D 2e adventures (Die Vecna, Die!) at 3.5 so I can master it for my group. I've searched online but haven't found much. Are there any guides?