West Marches: 3.5 House Rules

[Username17]

All wands are CL 6 and limited to 3rd level spells. 5x the cost/hp for healing sticks makes the spells a better proposition, which drains the cleric's power a little.

This is a common mistake. Making healing spells more necessary does not reduce the power of Clerics. It makes characters who are a net drain on party healing (most melee fighters, for example), a more noticeable drain on resources. If you make healing scare enough, everyone is going to go into Shadowrun style ambush hunting or all the melee characters are going to be Clerics so that they don't have to rely on others for the healing they need.

Nerfing heal sticks is not a nerf to the Cleric. it is a nerf to the Melee Ranger.

-Username17

[tussock]

Class healing is not scarce in 3e. At all. It's pretty hard to run out of class healing using the default encounter suggestions, even with just secondary healers. Plus, yeh, ambush hunting, not blindly fighting everything you see all the time, and relying on the other PCs for their class abilities. None of this is a "mistake".

Melee Rangers suck compared to Clerics, true, but that's because they're a low-AC, low-HP, low-damage, lame-attack-bonus class that can't move and has no functional class abilities. Like less-mobile Monks.

[ModelCitizen]

Class healing is not scarce in 3e. At all. It's pretty hard to run out of class healing using the default encounter suggestions, even with just secondary healers.

Ok, a level 6 paladin with 14 Cha can heal (assuming average rolls) 27 HP per day. That's less than a single Rend from a troll, which isn't even an equal-CR opponent. The default encounter suggestion has you fight four things more powerful than that per day.

By RAW the paladin can do HP-maintenance just fine because he can use cure sticks. But under your house rules all he's good for is as a healer is stabilizing dying people.

[sabs]

If you want to nerfstick healers.
Give them spells from the domains only, plus the 'Priestly' generic spells.

Bless, sanctify, stuff like that.

Don't give healing to clerics, except those with the healing domain. And grab one of the healer classes somewhere. Then, you tweak access to wands of cure(l/s/c), healing potions, etc.. to give the right level of healing for your setting.

Leave them able to wear armor, and with d8 hp, and you've got yourself a VERY solid class that can cast certain kinds of spells based on domain, and can fight depending on the bonuses from their domain.

[Voss]

Class healing is not scarce in 3e. At all. It's pretty hard to run out of class healing using the default encounter suggestions, even with just secondary healers.

You're talking crazy, especially at low levels (where this campaign will apparently begin). Full spellcasters could waste all their resources trying to keep up with damage outputs, even with ambush hunting. Secondary healers have essentially non-existent healing until level 4. Wands are the only thing that make them functional at all as healers.

[tussock]

@Modelcitizen: Do not stand in melee against melee monsters. That's something you should have learnt in August Y2K. 6th level Paladins have a horse that is faster than trolls and can ride-by-attack them all day without ever letting the bloody things full attack.

If the troll wants to full attack ever it needs to charge-trip someone slow, re-trip them when they get up and run, and hope to live long enough against the rest of the party's attacks. But there's several first level spells spoil all such attempts automatically. Easy meat.

Now flying full-attack archers in open ground are a pain in the ass for damage output, but full concealment is basically free and hard cover not that hard to generate. Pull a wagon overland at low levels to hide under.


@Voss, I've run several low level 3e games with no healers. It's fine, players stop letting themselves take so much damage when they can't heal it quickly, and even the natural & skill healing rules soon fix everyone up.

[ModelCitizen]

@Modelcitizen: Do not stand in melee against melee monsters.

Remind me again how making healing harder doesn't nerf melee?

[Red_Rob]

6th level Paladins have a horse that is faster than trolls and can ride-by-attack them all day without ever letting the bloody things full attack.

If the troll wants to full attack ever it needs to charge-trip someone slow, re-trip them when they get up and run, and hope to live long enough against the rest of the party's attacks. But there's several first level spells spoil all such attempts automatically. Easy meat.

It's a good thing you never encounter trolls in caves, or dungeons. And that they always come alone, and never in pairs or with a bunch or Orcs.

[Prak]

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.

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).

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Quite honestly I think you're Putting the chicken before the egg. What you're proposing are not insignificant changes but ones which proclude all sorts of other balance ones. You would be much better served by limiting material (which you have done) and then limiting level (e6 may be a good solution)

Quite seriously there are a million Dms each with their own house rules. Many times players just want to play the game more or less like it is. I think much of your efforts described previously are quite unnecessary and ultimately a non-value added activity that does not improve the game for you or your players.

Just my opinion of course.

-Bill

[tussock]

@ModelCititzen: This is a core 3e thread, many monsters are better at melee than the PCs are. Giants and Dragons can potentially kill any level-appropriate character in one round, no save, and falling into a literal closet-troll trap is to be avoided at all costs. Healing has very little to do with it.

Sort of fundamental to 3e issues with melee though, that's true. It's a good way to take a lot of damage without achieving anything in particular.

@Red_Rob: Yes, harder fights are harder. Well spotted.

[ModelCitizen]

Oh so healing doesn't matter, and it's more important to have abilities to keep monsters out of melee with you? You should think long and hard about how that might apply to your original argument.

[tussock]

My original argument seems to be that class healing is sufficient, and putting some drain on the healers (and semi-healers) is good for the game. It appears I should add that unlimited item-based healing makes people play very poorly and not understand D&D at all.

The enemy attack at range with superior movement? You find hard cover and make them come to you, whereapon you murder them with extreme prejudice.
With inferior movement? Run, charge, lockdown, melee.
The enemy is better at melee with multiple attacks? Do not stand next to it at all. The Spring or Ride-by attack chains are quite valuable for this purpose, as are various low-level spells that restrict movement, Tumble for the Rogues, not being there for the Wizards.

If you're an archer or spellcaster, you never want to get in melee, just blast away from the best cover you can find, and spend all day trying to catch your enemies out in the open. DMFs should remember they can also be archers as the need arises.

And there's always the option of buffing so hard that you become much better than them in melee, or at range, whichever. D&D as War. Earn surprise, defeat them in detail, strike where they are weakest, do not let them deploy their strengths. DM sets you up with a really hard fight? Go around it, work out how to pick them off later.

[erik]

It's a good thing you never encounter trolls in caves, or dungeons. And that they always come alone, and never in pairs or with a bunch or Orcs.

Heh, during an Living Greyhawk Special at Gencon I made this mistake, well, I made several mistakes.

The Average Party Level of the mod was set to 2 with monsters tailored to that level (being a "special" a 2 is more like APL 4 tho). We encountered a dungeon room with several statues of trolls and of course someone triggered the trap and it de-petrifys right in front of us. The very model of a stupid closet troll.

Anywho, if that wasn't bad enough, to set up a lance-charge (I think I was a halfling 2 Druid/1 Fighter with spirited charge) I moved further into the room against the urgings of the rest of my party who feared that I would trigger another one to de-stone. I boldly announced meta-knowledge "Hey, one troll is ridiculous enough for APL 2, there's no way the module would let the trap could trigger again." I learned later on that I was correct, but the DM was either piqued at my meta-knowledge or he didn't read the module closely enough because damn if he didn't de-petrify a 2nd troll for us.

My penance was that I had to solo the 2nd one, trapped in a largish room (but not as large as I would have liked) until the rest of the party handled the first. =-(

[ModelCitizen]

Tussock do you seriously not get this? Clerics and druids have better uses for their spell slots whether cure sticks are available or not. Even if you are for some stupid reason only worried about maintaining the party's HP totals, you negate more damage per spell slot by using control, buffs, and SoLs than by casting Cure X Wounds.

Taking away cure sticks doesn't magically make clerics waste all their slots healing spells. It makes clerics do what they would have done anyway, and takes away fighters' option to support their melee habit for a few more levels by throwing in for wands.

[tussock]

Clerics and druids have better uses for their spell slots whether cure sticks are available or not.

Wow, that's dumb. Like, the bit where you say other spells prevent more damage than a cure can fix is true. But then you all get some damage anyway and need to cure it, because when you run out of hit points you die. Like playing D&D, not theorycraft.

That bit, where people don't like running out of hit points? That makes the healers cast some cures, which is indeed less effective than the things they do with those slots when healing is item-based. Where I said it's a bit of a nerf to healers? It is. QED.

Your Cleric won't heal anyone anyway? Great, have fun playing D&D all by yourself, dick.

[ishy]

And what if nobody plays a class with healing?

[Murtak]

I don't think you can fix the cleric, or any "healer" class for that matter. At the very least, healing for piddly amounts has to go. I suggest giving everyone healing/curing of some sort. The fighter can get some heroic surge once-per-day-full-HP thing and cure crippling injuries out of combat. The ranger can hand out party-wide fast healing and cure poison. And the paladin gets lay on hands and cure disease. Add heals to casters as needed. And do not make them use spell slots. Daily uses or whatever is fine I guess, but no one should get to select less awesome because the party needs a healbot.

Mind you, while you are at it you should really kill vancian casting and have everyone heal to full out of combat (and then reintroduce an injury system for getting your arm broken or leg chopped off), but that is a lot of work. Handing everyone some kind of healing and curing capability is doable though, and gets rid of healing classes in the process. Of course that probably means that clerics get scrapped, but they were boring anyway, so no big loss there. There are plenty of divine caster classes to replace them that actually have flavor.

[Josh_Kablack]

While probably beyond the scope of the houseruling for a core-ish 3.x campaign that this thread is about, I'm rather fond of the idea that fighter/melee/tank type classes should have abilities to give themselves Temporary HP each round as something less than a standard action.

That lets them tank with less dependance on external healing while still meaning they want to position to limit the number of attacks they take in a given round and allowing for the possibility of being fully recovered after a minor injury without help and also allowing for the possibility for wounds to accumulate between battles.

[tussock]

And what if nobody plays a class with healing?

Stupid hot-keys eating my rants.

Uh, it's grim. More grim than a grim thing. No matter what level you are, an Orc that rolls a 20 is part of a long, slow, unstoppable Total Party Kill. Maybe not today, maybe today you'll get out before you loose too many characters. But eventually there's going to be more Orcs roll 20's from surprise, and then you'll all die as the party's ability to sustain the level of attacks you need fades all too early.

It can be quite entertaining though, despite the grinding grim-dark. Though I've only seen it at low levels without any automatic-damage type monsters, as it's hard to find a 3e party with no healing after 3rd level.

[Red_Rob]

Tussock, first you said:

@Voss, I've run several low level 3e games with no healers. It's fine, players stop letting themselves take so much damage when they can't heal it quickly, and even the natural & skill healing rules soon fix everyone up.

Then you said:

And what if nobody plays a class with healing?

Uh, it's grim. More grim than a grim thing. No matter what level you are, an Orc that rolls a 20 is part of a long, slow, unstoppable Total Party Kill. Maybe not today, maybe today you'll get out before you loose too many characters. But eventually there's going to be more Orcs roll 20's from surprise, and then you'll all die as the party's ability to sustain the level of attacks you need fades all too early.

It can be quite entertaining though, despite the grinding grim-dark. Though I've only seen it at low levels without any automatic-damage type monsters, as it's hard to find a 3e party with no healing after 3rd level..

Care to explain these two contradictory statements?

[Zaranthan]

Care to explain these two contradictory statements?

No contradiction. They both specify low-level games. At low levels, you don't NEED to refill your hp between encounters, because the cleric's spell slots dictate that you sometimes can't. It's gritty and scary, but you can run like that for a while. Then you run into an ankheg and get your faces dissolved, but it was fun while it lasted.

[tussock]

I suppose I gained a new appreciation for what people think is "fine" for how they play D&D, in all of four days. After having to explain not to melee Trolls and shit, repeatedly.

Of course, you can melee trolls, because you can one-round them if you do it right even below 6th level, and they don't have that great of an attack bonus if you let them do the closing. But it's a bad habit and more costly/risky than doing it the smart way.

[ModelCitizen]

So in your games you drastically reduce the healing available to PCs, and you seem to be the only one who's found that PCs can't go into melee against melee monsters. It's pretty funny how you can't see the connection between the two.

[duo31]

Only a fool engages the enemy, on the enemy's terms.