More House Rules.

[Username17]

I think Google docs was a better solution since if they were posted here the posts would be ginormous.

Fun fact. The boards have a character limit on spoilered text. I learned that trying to post all the feats. So yeah, the classes weren't working any better. Also, I didn't want to fuck with those class tables. Would have looked like ass any way I did it.

OK, now that we're just sitting around talking, let's get down to brass tacks:

What is the fucking point in any of these house rules? They are really long. Someone put a great deal of effort into coming up with new ways to make nonfunctional D&D rules. I mean, the thing where you can "automatically fail" on an open-ended test that sets the DC for someone to hear you on the other side of a wall is not something that just happens. That kind of failure takes effort.

Is this some sort of Poe's Law thing, where the author is trying to figure out how many shitty rules he can put into a set of house rules before people disbelieve that he is serious? Is this created by some sort of malignant computer program, collating suggested rule revisions ranked by how much discussion they provoke?

-Username17

[TOZ]

Kirth is an old-school player (yes I'm aware of the red flags that puts up for you) who, as I understand it, was playing 1E/homebrew rules (not that there is much difference between the two) up until his group wanted to play Age of Worms. Deciding they wanted to play it as-is instead of converting it backwards to 1E (that would have been interesting I'm sure) they went ahead and upgraded to 3.5.

So it was through that playthrough that he figured out how badly melee got hosed and casters got buffed. He's completely on the same page with you about how swordguys turn into bellhops to casters in the later stages. He completely agrees that Pathfinder didn't do enough (although probably in different ways than you do). So this is his rewriting of the Pathfinder rules to be closer to what he wants.

I posted these up here because you guys run numbers really well. We haven't progressed far enough in a game to test out the high level changes. So it has been interesting to see them get pulled apart. I can't really speak for his goals, so I won't try.

I don't know if this really helps you understand anything beyond "fucking grognard with no math skills making arbitrary rules for his own amusement" but there you have it.

[For Valor]

so he wants melee to be useful, and he wants it to happen through combat options. may I suggest races of war combat?

[erik]

What is the fucking point in any of these house rules? They are really long. Someone put a great deal of effort into coming up with new ways to make nonfunctional D&D rules. I mean, the thing where you can "automatically fail" on an open-ended test that sets the DC for someone to hear you on the other side of a wall is not something that just happens. That kind of failure takes effort.

I think the rules tinkering is largely just a mark of inexperienced game design, and a lower level of familiarity with the rules of 3.x in general. He isn't doing a good job of matching up "what do I want?" with "does this change get me what I want?" Like in the skill bidding he wanted to make opposed checks more involved, for some reason, but could not seal the deal.

Is this created by some sort of malignant computer program, collating suggested rule revisions ranked by how much discussion they provoke?

For the classes, I am pretty certain that the design process was "give them all the crap that is available in all the books, packed into their base classes". Sadly most of that stuff is crap trap options.

I skimmed the monk, and noticed he gave it +1 BAB/level. Good. He gave it an enhancement bonus to damage and attack. Good. But he kept in the stupid wording from ki strike about their attacks being treated as "X" for the purpose of damaging creatures with DR. That's totally unnecessary for the magic DR since they have a full-blown enhancement bonus as written. Unless he wants to go back to them not having a real enhancement bonus and thus not being able to ever hit incorporeal creatures.

Page counts:

Barbarian: 15
Bard: 19
Cleric: 34
Druid: 27
Favored Soul: 24
Fighter: 20
Monk: 10
Inquisitor: 11
Ranger: 17
Rogue: 12
Runeblade: 8
Sorcerer: 30
Spellthief: 11
Wizard: 27

So that is 277 pages, averaging around 20 apiece.

That's a lot of copying. It's like someone tried to cram the feat bible into core classes.

[Ice9]

That reminds me of a project on the WotC boards (pre-4E, pre-redesign) where someone was making "Ultimate" versions of the classes, where pretty much every level had not only multiple class features, but most of those features had several different options. End result - the classes were just gigantic, dozens of pages each. I have no idea whether all those options were actually useful or traps.

[Sashi]

Sometimes it feels like "Trap option" is getting devalued as a term. The "stealthy" feat isn't a trap just because +2 to hide and move silently is underwhelming. The feat explicitly achieves the goal of making you more effective at hiding and moving silently.

Traps are things that achieve the exact opposite of their stated goal. The standard barbarian having +4 CON while raging isn't a "trap" option despite the fact that ragedeath isn't a very good ability. On the other hand giving the barbarian the option to choose between any two out of the three physical ability scores is a trap because if you're playing a Barbarian you're going to take STR as one of the options, so the choice is between an actual increase in durability (more DEX = More AC) and a fake increase in durability (more CON = ragedeath).

[erik]

Sometimes it feels like "Trap option" is getting devalued as a term. The "stealthy" feat isn't a trap just because +2 to hide and move silently is underwhelming. The feat explicitly achieves the goal of making you more effective at hiding and moving silently.

No, I'm pretty sure I wipe my ass with a +2 to two skills. It's a trap because it sucks.

You get 7 feats. Some of them enable you to create magic items, add a bunch of spells to your spell list, power attack, power attack without an attack penalty, become immune to power attack versus an opponent, gain +4 to a frequently rolled combat mechanic, or do double damage on a mounted charge attack. That is stuff that I can use. Tiny skill bonuses... no, that's a waste of a feat.

Trap options suck in relation to their alternatives. If you have the options of +2 bonus to a very situational roll or a +3 bonus to a general roll which also covers that very situational roll, one is clearly better than the other. Offering a shitty option in lieu of a good option is inviting a player to make a relatively bad decision. A trap.

[Sashi]

Combat Casting is a trap because there exists Skill Focus: concentration. The +1 difference is absolutely blown away by the fact that you can almost always get out of having to cast defensively, but if you fight in a storm or on horseback you'll get totally hosed.

Stealthy would be a trap option compared to a feat that gave +2 to all dex-based skills. But if you objectively want to be better at sneaking to the point you're willing to spend a feat on it, Stealthy will actually bring you there. Since the opportunity cost is Weapon Finesse or Power Attack or something that means that Stealthy costs way too much and is a crap feat, but not a trap feat.

Stealthy would be a trap if taking it actively made you worse at sneaking instead of doing what it says on the tin.

[Avoraciopoctules]

If someone's looking for a new "revise 3.x" project to critique, I found a link to one a few weeks ago that caught my interest.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=2096.0

This patch has a version of the Tome Fighter that got repeatedly hit with the nerf bat, clerics and wizards with heavily reduced spell lists (though Wizards at least still get to cherry-pick spells with an Advanced Learning class feature), and a version of Weapon Focus that at level 14 is slightly better than Tome Combat School at level 1. Oh, and +2/+2 feats like Alertness are still there. Their big selling point is that they now add to your Class Skills list. Dodge gives a +1 to AC against all opponents. Oh boy.

I've only skimmed things, but one rule change that looked interesting made it so that all save-or-die type effects took one full round to cast. So when the Evil Wizard starts chanting and pointing his Finger of Death at you, if you hide behind a pillar, it won't go off. Also, the way it's written, the spell slot won't get expended until the spell actually goes off, no matter how many times one starts casting and gets interrupted or loses line of effect.

---------

Based on my limited perusal, I don't think people are going to be balanced against high-end monsters, but I am interested in seeing whether they are vaguely balanced with each other.

[CatharzGodfoot]

If someone's looking for a new "revise 3.x" project to critique, I found a link to one a few weeks ago that caught my interest.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=2096.0

Neat.

[Edit] My biggest problem is that a lot of the changes seem to make thing significantly more complicated for no good reason. Saving throw feats and two weapon parry, I'm looking at you. [/edit]

[Username17]

I am sympathetic to people who want to nerf the more powerful classes and buff the weaker ones and have some sort of "in between" power level. It sounds like a lot of work, and I am not going to do it. But I sympathize. Those are reasonable life goals to have.

What I object to is when people don't actually produce a reasonable level reward for every level. For fuck's sake that Barbarian gets Mettle while Raging at 4th level. The Fighter gets +1 to his special combat maneuver of choice at third. Plus fucking one.

Yes, I see some of my own and K's work being neutered beyond belief in that work, but that's just it. It's neutered beyond belief. That guy's version of Foil Action isn't a waste of space because it requires an opposed attack roll, it's a waste of space because it only works on adjacent enemies (not even "enemies within reach") so your enemy can always just take a 5' step back and cast defensively and make fun of you. A neutere version of the basic Foil Action is available as a 15th level ability, but that is seriously too little too late. Your enemies can use "short range" effects on you from 60' away.

Furthermore, while using Planar Binding to call in Efreeti and bum wishes off of them is certainly comedy gold, the reality is that this sort of thing is merely a parlor trick. The actual way the game breaks from Lesser Planar Binding is that you call in a six hit die outsider or five and then your demon army is better at fighting than the entire rest of the party. That is why those spells are broken, and I distrust any set of spell nerfs written by someone who does not understand that.

However, a cursory run through appears to have removed all of the decent combat spells from the Wizard List. So... the class is dead. Color Spray isn't worth anything as a 2nd level spell, and neither is Grease. I don't understand how a Wizard is supposed to survive until 3rd level or how they are supposed to make much of an impact if they do. Life isn't so bad casting Glitterdust or Web at 5th level, but you have to survive those first four levels, which with that turd bowl of a spell list, you will not. In short, the spell "fixes" do exactly the opposite of what any sane person would want - at the very low levels when Wizards were glass cannons able to crush small groups of enemies a few times a day but lived in fear of retaliation from short bows or long spears, they have been nerfed to uselessness (but they are still super fragile), but at higher levels when Wizards woodshedded everyone and owned the world with their doom magic, the nerfs are only mildly annoying. By the time you get to the star attraction game breakers like Charm Monster and Fear, you get them on schedule and the nerfs aren't felt at all.

-Username17

[koz]

I was part of this project for a while, and actually attempted to convince people to implement, you know, real changes, but as Frank found with Pathfailure, people are logic-impervious.

As far as the nerfed RoW fighter goes, this is because it came from JaronK. You know, the same guy who fellates his stupid tier system like it actually means something, and when called out on plagiarism, basically screams at you that it's his own original work until you can't be bothered arguing with him anymore.

So the fact that this project didn't work out in the end doesn't at all surprise me, honestly. Likewise, I know how Frank must have felt about Pathfailure, since I also encountered the fact that my opinions weren't wanted or needed, and the fact that they wanted to 'fix' the system was just a cover for the fact that they wanted to make some miniscule changes that look like they fix things rather than, you know, actually fix things.

[erik]

However, a cursory run through appears to have removed all of the decent combat spells from the Wizard List. So... the class is dead.

Wow. I just skimmed through there and ... wow.

What the fuck are you supposed to do as a Sorcerer or Wizard starting out?

If you cannot use Silent Image as the hammer for every nail (and that requires a competent and very cooperative DM- good luck) then you're pretty much fucked. Enlarge Person looks like your runner-up. Hope you have a brute in your party to Enlarge him at the start of each combat and then miss with your crossbow for the rest of an encounter. Gee, what fun.

I'm struggling to think of a reason I'd even want a wizard or sorcerer in my party with those changes. It's not really coming. I really think I'd prefer an Adept off the NPC rolls. No seriously. Adept is better than Wizard, at least up til 5th level when the neutered spell list starts getting back to normal. But I refuse to play a gimped class for 5 levels on the promise that I might survive in a campaign long enough to actually make an impact upon party encounters.

[Roy]

This is what happens when someone realizes and understands only casters can play the game past the first few levels but instead of making everyone else stop sucking a barrel of cocks they drag the casters into the clusterfuck orgy of fail.

[Username17]

So the Barbarian in that guy's writeup is over-the-top nuts. At first level. He gets to rage every encounter, and gets temporary hit points that recover every round. And then after that... nothing. So it's seriously the best class ever, but thereafter everyone is just going to multiclass out. It's one level long.

-Username17

[erik]

So the Barbarian in that guy's writeup is over-the-top nuts. At first level. He gets to rage every encounter, and gets temporary hit points that recover every round. And then after that... nothing. So it's seriously the best class ever, but thereafter everyone is just going to multiclass out. It's one level long.

Ehhh, depending upon the other classes it may well be worthwhile to stick out barbarian since the temp HP per round are based upon his level.

+2 Temp HP/round is nice, but +4 tempHP/rnd is nicer. And at level 9 they ratchet up to 3x level instead of 2x level for +27tempHP/rnd.

At 6th level they get pounce. So yeah, I could see the barbarian class lasting more than just 1 level. It certainly blows the nuts off of arcane spell casters.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, that was really poorly conceived on my part. I never got a chance to playtest the stuff, and eventually let the project fall flat.

The rage once/encounter idea was from when I had a hardon for per encounter stuff (cuz it's better than dailies!), and the per round stuff was me listening to a bad suggestion. The original idea was to grant temp HP instead of a Con boost, because once your Con boost goes away, so do your HP, which can lead to death.

I'd take anything in that project with a huge grain of salt.

[RobbyPants]

If someone's looking for a new "revise 3.x" project to critique, I found a link to one a few weeks ago that caught my interest.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=2096.0

I wouldn't call it "new". I dropped it over a year ago when I realized it wasn't going to work, and that we'd gone in the wrong direction.

[virgil]

PROFESSION: SAILING (WIS)
...
Tropical storm 30
Hurricane 40

Hands up kids! Who knows why this is directly comparable to using a handcrank pencil sharpener to perform a briss?

The key feature that the author appears to have overlooked is these numbers are insulting, and this skill is a trap option that appears to have been designed by a Looney Tunes character. Are you fucking kidding? DC 30 for sailing in a storm? Do you have any idea of what DC of 30 or 40 means? It means that low level people cannot do it, and that it is a challenge for higher level characters exclusively.

Disturbingly, the rules from Stormwrack are quite close to what he made. It's a DC 20 for severe winds, DC 30 for a windstorm/gale, and doesn't even give you the option to attempt to sail in a hurricane or gale. The rest of the Sailing DCs seem to coincide fairly close to what Stormwrack wrote.

This is in no way saying his stuff is good, just that the screwup with Sailing is 'technically' WotC's fault.

[JonSetanta]

These diatribes were amazingly caustic yet accurate.

[Bihlbo]

Man, did I ever enjoy reading this thread.

I wouldn't call it "new". I dropped it over a year ago when I realized it wasn't going to work, and that we'd gone in the wrong direction.

Respect, RB. It's a huge project and it takes an even bigger man to recognize mistakes and know when to fold. I really enjoyed reading the progress on that project too, so thanks for doing it.

[JonSetanta]

I've only skimmed things, but one rule change that looked interesting made it so that all save-or-die type effects took one full round to cast. So when the Evil Wizard starts chanting and pointing his Finger of Death at you, if you hide behind a pillar, it won't go off. Also, the way it's written, the spell slot won't get expended until the spell actually goes off, no matter how many times one starts casting and gets interrupted or loses line of effect.

I like that. Reminds me of AD&D and earlier with initiative penalties on certain actions. Spells were slow as shit and so usually went last.

[RobbyPants]

Man, did I ever enjoy reading this thread.

I wouldn't call it "new". I dropped it over a year ago when I realized it wasn't going to work, and that we'd gone in the wrong direction.

Respect, RB. It's a huge project and it takes an even bigger man to recognize mistakes and know when to fold. I really enjoyed reading the progress on that project too, so thanks for doing it.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, reading back through that stuff, it's amazing how much my perceptions of the game, and what's wrong with it have changed.

Part of the problem with that project was it was piggy-backed onto what was supposed to be a small list of really quick "fixes" designed to minimize problems, but not really overhaul the game. So it was never approached from a solid, ground-up design standpoint.

[Xur]

Most of these overhaul projects suffer from two problems, or one problem with two aspects: put 5 people in a room and you get 5 versions of whats wrong with 3.5. So putting these 5 people into an internet project to work on something as complex as the d20 system, your not getting anywhere. On the other hand, doing it all solo makes the whole thing prone to miss something, either an important fix or some weird retroactive cascading effect - unless you really are a system master, but in that case your likely not going to bother with such tedious work.

My solution so far was to salvage any of those projects I found for some bits and pieces I liked, starting with some of Pathfinder's skill foldings all the way up to Frank's comment in this very thread about that applying an extra +1d6 to a roll per Action Points is unfair against two-weapon-wielders (didn't think of that before).

[JonSetanta]

My solution so far was to salvage any of those projects I found for some bits and pieces I liked, starting with some of Pathfinder's skill foldings all the way up to Frank's comment in this very thread about that applying an extra +1d6 to a roll per Action Points is unfair against two-weapon-wielders (didn't think of that before).

Likewise, I didn't realize how lame it was for TWF users to make AOOs without using both weapons at once until I saw the Tome fix for the feat.

Also, Tome taught me that it's OK to blow the power level of noncasters out of the water, as long as you make sure full casters can get a hold of it....