[TOME] Revising Spells & Making Skills MATTER.

[maddd0g]

This is the next step forward for Tome!

The Spell lists for every class need to be read through, and evaluated.
Spells that are truely overpowered need to be changed and rewritten, and we need to make the standard spell list interesting and functional even for Evocation wizards.

On that topic, I think generalist wizards that have access to everything should be a thing of the past (or atleast in a more balanced form), specialization should be mandatory for balance, and variety.

Also, Skill-based characters need options at higher levels, and "Warriors" need more out of combat options period, so I think the Skill system should be able to simulate Spells in alot of ways.
(i.e. High Level Stealth grants straight up invisibilty, or even an invisibility sphere.) I think Rogue should probably get bonus Skill Feats at even levels.

http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_of_Pr ... rcebook%29

This is a pretty awesome start for the skill system, lets expand it!

[maddd0g]

reserved for spell list work

[TarkisFlux]

If, by expand, you mean add in new options for ranks 14+, sure. I'm open to suggestions and happy to add stuff to it that makes sense. If you mean more skill abilities at existing ranks, I'll admit to being somewhat disinclined to do so because ability bloat is a real concern. And I really hope you don't mean "moar skillz".

[Dominicius]

You should focus your energy on making better spell lists rather than changing the spells themselves.

[maddd0g]

If, by expand, you mean add in new options for ranks 14+, sure. I'm open to suggestions and happy to add stuff to it that makes sense. If you mean more skill abilities at existing ranks, I'll admit to being somewhat disinclined to do so because ability bloat is a real concern. And I really hope you don't mean "moar skillz".

Totally agree, I think most of the work that is left to be done is more Feats for the skilled (I particularly like idea of have alot of the non-scaling ones that you can retrain as you go along), Feats that allow stealthers to shadow teleport, survivalists to brew deadly poisions and boastful potions, or maybe build deadly dungeon level traps, etc. and skilled classes that can take fuller advantage of your skill system, like a rogue that gains bonus Prowess feats or something.

In your personal opinion, what areas of your system could use the most work? How much testing have you done?

You should focus your energy on making better spell lists rather than changing the spells themselves.

I agree, that is mainly my focus, but some spells may need to be modified or seen in a new incarnation. When you open up the PHB and start looking at the spell list, you see a bunch of uninspired crap and a few broken spells that basically define those classes. I think the PHB should have a full, balanced, and interesting spell list.

Do you think it smarter to turn all casters into some type of Dread Necromancer/Beguiler type thing with preselected lists?

[TarkisFlux]

If, by expand, you mean add in new options for ranks 14+, sure. I'm open to suggestions and happy to add stuff to it that makes sense. If you mean more skill abilities at existing ranks, I'll admit to being somewhat disinclined to do so because ability bloat is a real concern. And I really hope you don't mean "moar skillz".

Totally agree, I think most of the work that is left to be done is more Feats for the skilled (I particularly like idea of have alot of the non-scaling ones that you can retrain as you go along), Feats that allow stealthers to shadow teleport, survivalists to brew deadly poisions and boastful potions, or maybe build deadly dungeon level traps, etc. and skilled classes that can take fuller advantage of your skill system, like a rogue that gains bonus Prowess feats or something.

In your personal opinion, what areas of your system could use the most work? How much testing have you done?

Feats mostly. High level options are lacking, but since most high level spells are either refinements of lower level options (covered by check scaling) or niche effects (that I don't want in general skills), feats were always the intended place for that sort of thing.

As for testing, I've done a fair bit of numerical testing and some level 6-10 short running games, but no campaign length or high level testing personally. Life hasn't allowed me to fit one in for a while. I've gotten longer term play reports from a number of others that have gone into updates and changes though.

So feats, high level testing, and probably editing. Possibly editing down.

You should focus your energy on making better spell lists rather than changing the spells themselves.

I agree, that is mainly my focus, but some spells may need to be modified or seen in a new incarnation. When you open up the PHB and start looking at the spell list, you see a bunch of uninspired crap and a few broken spells that basically define those classes. I think the PHB should have a full, balanced, and interesting spell list.

Do you think it smarter to turn all casters into some type of Dread Necromancer/Beguiler type thing with preselected lists?

That would work, if you wanted more narrow casters. It would also work to just go through and take all the spells that are crap for whatever reason and assign them to different levels. And then spot fix whatever issues that didn't resolve. As an example, Frank has often said that Fireball scales well enough to be a level 1, and I would agree aside from the range of it. So a drop to 1 or 2 and a range drop to close or medium, and similar treatment for other spells that are underwhelming at their level.

[Duke Flauros]

One of the biggest problems is how to adapt items/skills/feats/whatever that scales with your knowledge ranks. How will you do this?

[TarkisFlux]

Tome of Prowess threw Knowledge (and profession, and craft, and perform) skills in the trash. Monster 'theory' was rolled into other skills, since you can justify those abilities in conjunction with other stuff. But the other "I know about X" abilities are problematic and there isn't a way to make them scale to level, so they're gone. With ToP as a base, there just aren't any knowledge skills to adapt to those things.

The official way to handle these removed bits in ToP is via character backgrounds and associated "but I would totally know that" discussions along side in game research, conversations/interviews with NPCs, or use of class/skill abilities to rip the information from peoples minds. The background thing is a fair bit of MTP and might not satisfy people though, so working out a system for how those things are acquired and if/how they advance could be added if it was desired. I have the basics sketched out and could throw together a functional, if rules light, setup fairly quickly if there was wanted. It would not involve skill point investment and not be level limited system, since these abilities don't matter when you're level 10 or 20. You can be a level 1 commoner who lived in a library and be a sage, or a level 1 noble who is also a flute virtuoso. Or have both things on some a single racial hit die, whatever. It's totally fine to have those sorts of things be separated from being able to stab people in the face effectively.

[Duke Flauros]

Tome of Prowess threw Knowledge (and profession, and craft, and perform) skills in the trash. Monster 'theory' was rolled into other skills, since you can justify those abilities in conjunction with other stuff. But the other "I know about X" abilities are problematic and there isn't a way to make them scale to level, so they're gone. With ToP as a base, there just aren't any knowledge skills to adapt to those things.

The official way to handle these removed bits in ToP is via character backgrounds and associated "but I would totally know that" discussions along side in game research, conversations/interviews with NPCs, or use of class/skill abilities to rip the information from peoples minds. The background thing is a fair bit of MTP and might not satisfy people though, so working out a system for how those things are acquired and if/how they advance could be added if it was desired. I have the basics sketched out and could throw together a functional, if rules light, setup fairly quickly if there was wanted. It would not involve skill point investment and not be level limited system, since these abilities don't matter when you're level 10 or 20. You can be a level 1 commoner who lived in a library and be a sage, or a level 1 noble who is also a flute virtuoso. Or have both things on some a single racial hit die, whatever. It's totally fine to have those sorts of things be separated from being able to stab people in the face effectively.

I don't think my last post was very clear. While the "I won't know this for another level, then it will suddenly pop into my head" shenanigans are gone, it still leaves us with a few problems. Some abilities are based on knowledge skills (archivists lore), some PRC requirements are based on knowledge skills (archmage), and some of the tome skills are based on know skills(army of demons). How will you adapt these?

[maddd0g]

Tome of Prowess threw Knowledge (and profession, and craft, and perform) skills in the trash. Monster 'theory' was rolled into other skills, since you can justify those abilities in conjunction with other stuff. But the other "I know about X" abilities are problematic and there isn't a way to make them scale to level, so they're gone. With ToP as a base, there just aren't any knowledge skills to adapt to those things.

The official way to handle these removed bits in ToP is via character backgrounds and associated "but I would totally know that" discussions along side in game research, conversations/interviews with NPCs, or use of class/skill abilities to rip the information from peoples minds. The background thing is a fair bit of MTP and might not satisfy people though, so working out a system for how those things are acquired and if/how they advance could be added if it was desired. I have the basics sketched out and could throw together a functional, if rules light, setup fairly quickly if there was wanted. It would not involve skill point investment and not be level limited system, since these abilities don't matter when you're level 10 or 20. You can be a level 1 commoner who lived in a library and be a sage, or a level 1 noble who is also a flute virtuoso. Or have both things on some a single racial hit die, whatever. It's totally fine to have those sorts of things be separated from being able to stab people in the face effectively.

I don't think my last post was very clear. While the "I won't know this for another level, then it will suddenly pop into my head" shenanigans are gone, it still leaves us with a few problems. Some abilities are based on knowledge skills (archivists lore), some PRC requirements are based on knowledge skills (archmage), and some of the tome skills are based on know skills(army of demons). How will you adapt these?

Simple, change Archivists Lore to Thaumaturgy, PRC requirements are kind of arbitrary and can just be overlooked, or can be changed to Arcana, Concentration, etc. And, change Army of Demons to Thaumaturgy(divine magic).

[TarkisFlux]

Ah, conversions. Got it.

Skill re-mapping would have to happen in general, not just with the Knowledges. There are merged skills, renamed skills, and 2 new skills that may fit better for some themes than old ones. So some level of rethink is going to be required for a lot of things. For knowledge in particular, there are 3 skills with strong magic associations that fill in for Know (Arcane), (Nature), and (Religion) - Arcana, Geomancy, and Thaumaturgy respectively. Knowledge (Planes) is in those three as well, broken up along the lines of which planes are being referred to. Knowledge (Local) is sort of in Cultures. So most feats or class features that key off of those knowledges could be mapped to a similar skill instead. Anything that keyed off of other knowledges might find a similar home, or it might need to be rethought entirely.

It's worth pointing out that these skills don't have the same associations as people might be expecting. Undead is in Arcana, because I want wizards to be fucking necromancers instead of clerics and I want them to consider liching out later in life. Angels and demons are in Thaum because I want clerics focused on the co-residents and likely servants / enemies of their deities. And I'd rather them be summoning celestial hosts or demons to tempt mortals than other classes. Elementals are in Geomancy, because they're rarefied natural things and I want high end druids to pokevolve into elementals. So assuming those associations were kept (and people could go write new ones if they wanted), Army of Demons would go to Thaum and Lord of Death would go to Arcana, and minor attribute and wording changes might also be needed.

This is probably a good time to hammer the point in though. ToP is not 100% compatible with existing Tome work, and it is not intended to be. While I tried to keep it sort of compatible early on, I got over that. I don't know if it's a lot less compatible with Tome than Tome is with itself in some places, but there may be substantial conversion costs associated with using it.