Version 3.5

[Schafflyne]

I began my D&D career with version 3.5, so I am most familiar with it, as well as D20 Modern (almost the same thing) and Leaping Literature. If my GRPs have a system, they're usually 3.5 compatible, or just incredibly simple.

Any other people here use version 3.5?

[jinkagai]

3.5 is by far my favorite of the D20 systems. Though if you don't mind the complexities I very much enjoy the Rifts system which is heavily percentile based.

[Lucifer]

I will always prefer AD&D 2nd Edition.  I will always miss my monks from original D&D.  I will forever hate 3.0 and 3.5 and I am "meh" about 4.0.

I've also been playing D&D for well over 25 years.

[DRAMA]

3.x is what I learned on. Over the years, I've come to adapt and use the bits I like while discarding all the garbage I don't. I've adapted 3.x to my whims and have made it easier for people to play without all the boring bullshit that was written for law lawyers.

Compared to other table top systems I've tried, 3.x is by far my favorite. There is tons of material, both from WotC and other publishers. You can go online and utilize the d20 SRD to nearly play a game (sans a google search or two for DM reference charts that aren't OGL). 4th edition will never have an SRD because WotC want their money and that no part of 4th edition is in any way part of the OGL. 2nd edition was difficult for me to grasp compared to 3.x as the numbers seemed backwards, so rolls were always way too emotionally upsetting when I thought I had done something terrible/awesome. And don't get me fucking starting on THAC0. Fuck. That. Shit. Also, no 2nd edition SRD.

The other systems I've tried were Shadowrun's d6 system (I think it was in 2nd or 3rd edition with I played, it's now in 4th). That wasn't so bad, but when you ended up needing a bucket of d6s so everyone could play... blergh. Same thing with White Wolf's d10 system. For me, it was weird and more difficult to read loads of the same dice constantly than having a few different dice occasionally.

Character creation in 3.x is fantastically time consuming if you accept everything as available. If you've played it enough, rolling up an easy awesome character is about 15 minutes worth of double checking the BAB of your class at your level and pricing out your gear. Especially if you enjoy playing the same race over and over again. It becomes a hassle when you have someone new and/or unfamiliar with the 3.x character creation process, in which 15 minutes can turn into 15 hours. Oh man, that's happened so many fucking times. XD

I can say, without a doubt, that 3.x is my favorite version of D&D. My only gripe is how locked down a lot of the goodies in the books are. I know it's all the copyrighting and what not, which sucks, but understandable. I just wish there was a way to make the goodies more accessible without pissing off WotC's legal team.