talozin wrote:Josh_Kablack wrote:
Now, you will likely be going for a different balance point than I was, so those linked classes may not be helpful to you -- but my general point is that it's often easier to find acceptable classes or versions of classes other people have already written than it is to write them yourself.
Part of my plan is to flat ban classes that are either too far out of balance or too tricky to rewrite. I don't anticipate having the Druid or Monk available, for instance. It is tempting to go fishing for rewritten classes, if there're some that fit the balance points.
Basically, the biggest issues with Druid are that they automatically know all spells that are druid spells, which includes some big things, and some absurd combos, and the whole Wild Shape+Spellcasting+Wilding Equipment (or just wildshaping into a dire ape and putting equipment back on)+everpresent flanking partner. Changing their spellcasting to a "Spells known" paradigm, and keeping a strictish control on themes and "no you can't learn Animate Snow, you're from a temperate forest and have been in a rain forest the last five fucking levels!" and changing animal companion back to the 3rd edition model that Animate Dead still uses (able to control up to twice your level in HD of animals, no buffs) would help a decent bit probably.
On the monk, it would seem that you could help things a bit by increasing the unarmed damage, stepping up Ki Strike to be more meaningful, and possibly adding some bonus feats and maybe something like Wu Shu Form (basically turn into an animal from -list- but not actually physically change). This is just off the top of my head and thinking about complaints I had playing a monk and fixes I've heard of. Hell, give the monk class a series of rituals that let them take a bit of down time and improve their attacks, like "Shiyi Gaowan De Lujing," in which the monk fasts for five days, punching ki infused plates of metal or bone or whatever for eight hours each day, chanting prayers and petitions to the spirits, and at the end, their attacks count as being Cold Iron/Adamantine/Mithral/Dragonbone/whatever the plate was made of. Only one material can be "absorbed" through a single ritual, but the ritual can be performed multiple times.
I want to try and keep class modifications relatively simple, where possible. Rewriting an entire class is a lot of work. For this reason, there will probably be more nerfing than buffing.
Yeah, tacking a few things onto monk, and increasing a few numbers wouldn't be too much work. The rituals would be a lot of work, though, so it'd be better to just take typical "DM Pity Fixes" and make them class features, so instead of handing the monk an amulet of natural armour and +whatever fistwraps, just say that at fifth level the Monk gains natural armour equal to 1/4 class level and his fists are treated as magic weapons with an enhancement bonus equal to 1/3 class level. Also, move the unarmed strike damage up at least one step, and make it an actual slam attack.
talozin wrote:sabs wrote:
If you limit their spell choices, AND get rid of their ability to be an effective combatant. You're left with a Gimp Wizard who uses Wis instead of Int or Cha.
The nature of the cleric is that he's both a spellcaster AND a combatant. Fundamentally, if he's either as good a spellcaster as the wizard, or as good a combatant as the fighter, then either of the other two is obsolete. The 3.5 cleric is
as good a spellcaster as the wizard and a
better combatant than the fighter. Since we're also nerfing the wizard, that means he's going to have lose quite a bit (though he'll lose less relative to the wizard than to the fighter).
I get that you think I'm going too far in nerfing the cleric, but I need some feedback other than "LOL OMG GIMPZ0R". What do you think he should lose instead of, essentially, Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, and a significant amount of flexibility in spell selection?
I'm actually going to tell you exactly what I told WotC in the latest 5e survey then. I think, and mind you, I'm actually not 100% on this, but I think, that the cleric really wants to be a buffer, with a few limited combat spells, and mediocre generalist combatant who specializes in fighting "otherworldly threats" like outsiders and undead. So you remove all their blasty spells, leave them with a few buffs, weighted towards helping others, and make all healing non-combat, with things like long casting times, leave them their 3/4 BAB, but give them automatic proficiency in their deity's weapon, and let them smite undead and outsiders at will. (Again, this is off the top of my head).