Impact of suggested design changes

[Lago_AM3P]

Okay, this board has been pretty good for giving me ideas.

I had an idea awhile ago of starting my own online D&D campaign, inspired heavily from Fist of the North Star. Apocolyptic war, humanity has trouble surviving, heroes make the world safe, yadda yadda. Unfortunately, I noticed that the magical item system (characters are not expected to be loaded up on bling) breaks the game very quickly, so I had to put up a patchwork system.

While I was at it, I thought up some other changes. I'm trying to eliminate most of the openly cheesy/bothersome elements (i.e. stuff that appears on the message boards a lot, rather than stuff that might bring the game to a screeching halt) so people can still recognize it as being D&D. Check it out.

Suggested changes

-- Massive beefing up of non-spellcasters. I'm talking every level should give as much bling as the first level of barbarian, the first and second level of paladin, the first two levels of fighter, and the first two of ranger FOR THE FIRST LEVEL AND IT SCALES OMG

-- Teleportation, most divination (to preserve the mystery, not for game balance reasons) and polymorphing spells banned. The druid class has also been temporarily banned.

-- Characters get a +1 to two stats every two levels. Cannot raise the SAME two stats (i.e. a fighter can raise strength and constitution at level 2, can raise strength and dexterity or constitution and dexterity at level 4); your lowest stat gains a +2 bonus as long as it won't make it greater than your second-lowest stat.

-- The bard has completely inherited the sorceror's spell list and spellcasting mechanic.

-- Psion: Frank/Paul S. sorceror with the Psion label slapped on it.

-- In this setting, Clerics gain spells like wizards. Wizards gain spells like clerics. Clerics had overlapping spells raised to a higher level or banned outright.

-- No Arcane spell failure penalty.

-- No wealth by level; characters select bonuses or special abilities off of charts. If they want their bonuses to be inherent or come from a goofy gadget, they can.

-- All classes no more than 6 levels long.

-- Fractional save, BAB bonuses

-- The autofail rule is gone, for both attacks and saves. The autosuccess rule is still in effect.

-- Martial weapons have been beefed up.

-- Massive hp inflation, moderate save inflation, massive healing spell inflation. Spellcasters are actually expected to cast spells 2-3 times before they have the dramatic effects that they did in D&D, due to save increase.

-- Status effects other than dead are a lot more common. In fact, dead is easier to cure (think Final Fantasy Tactics) if it happens in battle or the characters are on the ball. If you want to take someone out, nauseating or petrifying them is actually quicker than insta-death.

-- Multiple stat dependency has been implemented for all spellcasters.

-- More skills, points for skills.

-- Elimination of alignment. Instead, certain antagonists have the [evil] tag and are completely evil and irreedimble within the context of the game; it is always for the greater good that you kill/imprison/disable these people as soon as they give a hint of what they truly are. This tag is usually reserved for mooks.

-- As hinted at, death is easier to cure. Magical healing or certain class features will bring people back from the brink of death, and the margin of death and deterioration (disablement, staggered, etc.) has been widened.

-- Elimination of armor. Since characters in this setting are poor, they 'choose' their armor by selecting a fighting style which only takes 5 minutes of in-game time to change. They balance their dodge armor and ACP against armor bonuses. A huge, slow guy will still pick the fighting style equivalent to heavy armor, only he'll be naked.

-- THF, TWF, and sword and board is done according to Frank's website.


And other stuff, like power-attack not blatantly favoring THF anymore, but that's the major stuff.

What do you think?

[User3]

That all looks a lot more balanced then the standard D&D rules.

Have you actually tried it?

Can I ask for more specifics? Specifically I'm interested in how you've improved the Fighter (1 feat/level, more skills?), and what ability scores you've chosen for the casters (Cleric=Cha/Wis, Bard=Int/Cha, Wiz=Int/Wis?).

Also what is the "Frank/Paul S. sorceror"? I assume it is something Frank (and apparently Paul S.) came up with, but where can I find it?

Thanks.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

You can find it in this thread.

[Lago_AM3P]

Okay. Anything that can't be explained quick won't, because in changing the fighter, I'm also changing the way the feat structure works. I'm not writing a whole new spellcasting paradigm, so the idea was to have a typical fighter easily be the equal to a tricked-out cleric or wizard. It's a lot more like the feats in Final Fantasy d20, where one is actually a combination of several related feats.

I had like 35 written down that I've just made-up over the last month, and I'll look for the binder today. For an example of what I'm talking about...

Hordebuster
Combat Reflexes A- Like the 3.0E combat reflexes. The 3.5E combat reflexes, which will let you take multiple AoOs against a single opponent is part of the technical feat. You cannot cleave off of this version of combat reflexes.
Whirlwind- Like the 3.0E whirlwind, only you do not get extra attacks from cleave.
Eyes in the back of your head- Like Improved Uncanny dodge, also makes it so that enemies do not hit you on a natural 20.
Great Cleave- As the feat. Only great cleave (supreme cleave if you read Sword and Fist) allows a single 5' step between cleaves if you haven't already made one this round.

There are no prerequisites for this feat.


The ability scores for the spellcasters work like this. Intelligence determines the maximum number of spells a spellcaster can cast. Wisdom determines bonus spells. Charisma determines save DC.

And while we're at it, caster level is tied to character level. That divine favor you got from multiclassing a level of cleric is still good (however, most of the personal range spells will also be castable on other people).

[User3]

1092141112[/unixtime]]The ability scores for the spellcasters work like this. Intelligence determines the maximum number of spells a spellcaster can cast. Wisdom determines bonus spells. Charisma determines save DC.

Congratulations on proposing the first rules revision in more than two decades that would make me seriously consider a nonspellcasting character.

--d.

[Maj]

You mean having to choose spells isn't deterant enough?

[Lago_AM3P]

Goddamn it, I just noticed that almost every single thing on that list has been proposed by Frank at one point or another. Some things are my own (hp, save inflation, the bard, elimination of armor), but they're tiny.

This pretty much proves the critics' interpretation that my nose is permanently parked in FrankTrollman's ass. But it's a nice, cushy ass, so I don't care.

[Sma]

That´s why you play a druid or cleric, if you chose wrong you can change your mind tomorrow

Sma

[Username17]

That's quite a metaphor you've got right there.

What do you mean by "Save Inflation"?

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

As in, saves for characters in the game world are bigger than in core D&D.

I can't think of an exact formula, but a 'poor' save would grow at a rate of .75 and a 'good' save would grow at a rate of 1.00. Something noticably higher than in D&D, or most d20 stuff.

When I say massive hp inflation, I mean hp for everyone increases somewhere between 50% to 100% across the board.

I'm not too sure about it, s'why it's suggested.

[rapanui]

These are all excellent ways to make the game more balanced. In fact, that's probably enough to make the Core Rules genuinely fun in terms of game balance (if you outlaw uber-cheesy spells).

Indeed, some of these changes are very familiar to me.

The Inflated Saves are one of the main things I give thumbs up to, and extra HPs make battles longer, something I think 3e scores pretty badly on.

"Teleportation, most divination (to preserve the mystery, not for game balance reasons) and polymorphing spells banned. The druid class has also been temporarily banned."

You could create stricter versions of teleporting with much longer casting times and easy to block with lead or something. That is, if teleportation is part of your game world. As for polymorph... well, you could keep an offensive version of the spell, a la BG1.

Oh, and you could make druids simply be Clerics with nature domains. Better way to handle that in my opinion.