Redoing 3E without recycling Tome/Pathfinder material.
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 3:45 pm
You know, 3E D&D was the first edition to fully take advantage of the information age. So we know what the problems are. We have several years worth of playtesting and writing. Pathfinder should not have fucked up things the way they did, but they did. So fuck it. Here goes something.
Let's not get into class or spell overhauls just yet. Overhauling the entire evocation and divination school is just too much beyond the scope of this post. So we'll just do specific fixes.
First order of business, the 3.0E/3.5E transparency thing. Frankly, the 3.5E's thing of going back and applying stealth errata sucks. So first order of business, there's a disclaimer at the front of the book saying that except for specific examples (which will be taken care of in the book) people are allowed to use 3.0E versions of anything that conflicts with 3.5E.
Swift/Immediate Action gets defined in this book. There are so many goddamn 3.5E books that define these terms over and over again, so let's just save them some time.
Wizards: Can find the spells they want with a Lore check or whatever. No more sucking the cocks of DM to see if a spell they want is available; the fact that they have to pay money to copy it down or buy a scroll is enough of a limit.
Evil spell tag: Does not have an alignment stipulation to it. All it does is tell you how it interacts with certain effects.
Hallow/Unhallow: Have a permanent duration. Not instantaneous.
Cleric: Clear up the 'spontaneous healing' thing once and for all. Clerics of either alignment can spontaneously cast both conjuration (healing) spells or the inflict line of spells. The 'choose negative or positive energy' crap is just for your turn-undead shenanigans.
Heal/Harm: These should just adjust hit points straight-up by 20 per caster level. That way you have OMG healing without having the high-level problem of 'BAM! Reset button, biyatch!'
Prayer Beads of Karma/Candles of Invocation: Are an abomination and should not be in the game.
Persistent Spell/Divine Metamagic: Divine Metamagic should be gone from the game. Persistent spell should go back to being a +4 level bonus. Because by the time you can make Divine Power persistent having full-BAB should be a stupid pet trick; sword-based classes already have a much better variety of stunts. By the time you can make Divine Favor persistent it's competing with stuff like Triadspell and Doomtide and Wall of Stone. Really, it's just not a problem.
Bull's Strength line of spells: Should go back to being either 10 minutes/level or an hour a level. I think they should go back to being an hour/level. Make them a flat bonus or something you roll. I don't care.
1 min/levels spells: Should not be 1 min/level. Every one of these goes back to being 10 min/level. The functionality remains the same without encouraging players to micromanage.
Teleport Ambushes: Teleport should be able to be blocked by a variety of inconvenient but doable things. I think it's okay to teleport right in front of the BBEG's lair or
Flight: Should require concentration checks depending on how much damage you take.
Invisibility: Should just have a will save if the person interacts with whatever if they're being invisible. None of this 'attack drops it' crap.
Hide: Goes back to how it was in 3.0.
Cover: Goes back to how it was in 3.0.
Grapple: Explain once and for all whether it's an attack or a check.
Diplomacy: Just needs a slight nerf. As in, a really good check won't completely change someone's motivations around--they'll just regard your opinions highly. This means that there is a limit to how much you can diplomatize anyone; higher DCs just let you diplomatize more powerful/insane critters. So the mayor will be just as impressed with your 45 Diplomacy check as he would with a 30, it's just that the 45 Diplomacy check will also convince the mind flayer to at least converse respectfully with you before eating your brain.
Hit points: You don't roll for hit points. You fucking take the average.
Rolled stats: Are also an abomination. Stats are too powerful in 3E at low level for this to fly. If you don't roll what you want after 4 tries, you get to go with 36-point buy. Not 32-point buy, that's actually slightly underpowered compared to 4d6.
Ability/Level Drain: There is no such thing as permanently missing levels/abilities. They can ALWAYS be recovered. Ability/Level Drain just prevents you from permanently raising either again until you get it fixed. Otherwise that leads to difference engine crap.
Multiclassing: No multiclassing experience penalty. I don't know what that was about. You don't lose prestige class abilities for not meeting the prerequisites unless the prestige class specifically says so. For racial/gendered/regional prestige classes that don't depend on a specific quality from said category, you don't frickin' actually need to be the race. If it's a 'self-taught' PrC like Dwarven Defender, the racial prerequisite is dropped. If it's an organizational PrC like Red Wizard of Thay, you just need to convince the circle wizards to take you in.
Sorcerers: Are now called Psions and get all crystal/ectoplasm flavored. I normally hate changes that block off options the book author personally doesn't like, but psionics are a back alley abortion done by blind cannibals. And sorcerers psions work like the Frank Trollman sorcerer.
Half-elves and half-orcs need a boost.
Magical Item Crafting: 1st of all, these do not require feats anymore. They require caster levels and craft checks. Piss. Fuck. Oh my god.
Repairing magical items are free as long as you have all of the pieces; they just take a time investment.
Item crafting times are way reduced. It should take 1 day per 10,000 gold pieces of the price. Not 1000.
Personal spell blockage on potions removed.
No more discounts for making magical items 'can be used by fighters only'.
Amulet of Mighty Fists and Bracers of Armor get a huge reduction in price. Both of these items cost way too much.
Clear up once and for all the whole 'can you make an Oathbow an Oathsword' thing.
Spell-storing enchantment can't be placed on ammunition, just on bows.
A lot of the enchantments go to being a fixed cost rather than a modifier. This was one of the few things that 3.5E got right.
Magical weaponry costs way too fucking much. They should cost less than half of what they do right now.
Combine the 'on-hit' and 'critical hit' properties of the weapon enchantments. This should put them more in line with just getting a flat bonus.
Metamagic Feats:
Some of the metamagic feats are too punitive. For stuff like silent and persistent spell you should get a few freebies. One spell slot of every level can get the feat without a level adjustment.
Enlarge Spell: Should just flat-out increase the range AND width. You can already increase the range of cones and shit and unlike 4E there typically are few enough enemies so that you can get all of them in the first place. So what the hey?
Multi-Metamagic Stacking: Yes, you should be able to multi-empower spells without it being a pisser. The only reason why you couldn't beforehand was because people got whiny about Spelldancing.
Empower spell and Maximize Spell should stack normally. I couldn't even imagine what they were thinking. It's totally okay for an Empowered/Maximized Fireball (8th level spell) to do 90 damage, considering that a 20d6 spell will on average do 70 damage.
Metamagic raises the save DC automatically. That means Heighten Spell is fucken banned.
Metamagic rods should have their price standardized. I don't know why it's such a big deal to make specific rods, but does anyone really mind if players go around crafting Earthbound or Uttercold Rods? No, I don't.
Let's not get into class or spell overhauls just yet. Overhauling the entire evocation and divination school is just too much beyond the scope of this post. So we'll just do specific fixes.
First order of business, the 3.0E/3.5E transparency thing. Frankly, the 3.5E's thing of going back and applying stealth errata sucks. So first order of business, there's a disclaimer at the front of the book saying that except for specific examples (which will be taken care of in the book) people are allowed to use 3.0E versions of anything that conflicts with 3.5E.
Swift/Immediate Action gets defined in this book. There are so many goddamn 3.5E books that define these terms over and over again, so let's just save them some time.
Wizards: Can find the spells they want with a Lore check or whatever. No more sucking the cocks of DM to see if a spell they want is available; the fact that they have to pay money to copy it down or buy a scroll is enough of a limit.
Evil spell tag: Does not have an alignment stipulation to it. All it does is tell you how it interacts with certain effects.
Hallow/Unhallow: Have a permanent duration. Not instantaneous.
Cleric: Clear up the 'spontaneous healing' thing once and for all. Clerics of either alignment can spontaneously cast both conjuration (healing) spells or the inflict line of spells. The 'choose negative or positive energy' crap is just for your turn-undead shenanigans.
Heal/Harm: These should just adjust hit points straight-up by 20 per caster level. That way you have OMG healing without having the high-level problem of 'BAM! Reset button, biyatch!'
Prayer Beads of Karma/Candles of Invocation: Are an abomination and should not be in the game.
Persistent Spell/Divine Metamagic: Divine Metamagic should be gone from the game. Persistent spell should go back to being a +4 level bonus. Because by the time you can make Divine Power persistent having full-BAB should be a stupid pet trick; sword-based classes already have a much better variety of stunts. By the time you can make Divine Favor persistent it's competing with stuff like Triadspell and Doomtide and Wall of Stone. Really, it's just not a problem.
Bull's Strength line of spells: Should go back to being either 10 minutes/level or an hour a level. I think they should go back to being an hour/level. Make them a flat bonus or something you roll. I don't care.
1 min/levels spells: Should not be 1 min/level. Every one of these goes back to being 10 min/level. The functionality remains the same without encouraging players to micromanage.
Teleport Ambushes: Teleport should be able to be blocked by a variety of inconvenient but doable things. I think it's okay to teleport right in front of the BBEG's lair or
Flight: Should require concentration checks depending on how much damage you take.
Invisibility: Should just have a will save if the person interacts with whatever if they're being invisible. None of this 'attack drops it' crap.
Hide: Goes back to how it was in 3.0.
Cover: Goes back to how it was in 3.0.
Grapple: Explain once and for all whether it's an attack or a check.
Diplomacy: Just needs a slight nerf. As in, a really good check won't completely change someone's motivations around--they'll just regard your opinions highly. This means that there is a limit to how much you can diplomatize anyone; higher DCs just let you diplomatize more powerful/insane critters. So the mayor will be just as impressed with your 45 Diplomacy check as he would with a 30, it's just that the 45 Diplomacy check will also convince the mind flayer to at least converse respectfully with you before eating your brain.
Hit points: You don't roll for hit points. You fucking take the average.
Rolled stats: Are also an abomination. Stats are too powerful in 3E at low level for this to fly. If you don't roll what you want after 4 tries, you get to go with 36-point buy. Not 32-point buy, that's actually slightly underpowered compared to 4d6.
Ability/Level Drain: There is no such thing as permanently missing levels/abilities. They can ALWAYS be recovered. Ability/Level Drain just prevents you from permanently raising either again until you get it fixed. Otherwise that leads to difference engine crap.
Multiclassing: No multiclassing experience penalty. I don't know what that was about. You don't lose prestige class abilities for not meeting the prerequisites unless the prestige class specifically says so. For racial/gendered/regional prestige classes that don't depend on a specific quality from said category, you don't frickin' actually need to be the race. If it's a 'self-taught' PrC like Dwarven Defender, the racial prerequisite is dropped. If it's an organizational PrC like Red Wizard of Thay, you just need to convince the circle wizards to take you in.
Sorcerers: Are now called Psions and get all crystal/ectoplasm flavored. I normally hate changes that block off options the book author personally doesn't like, but psionics are a back alley abortion done by blind cannibals. And sorcerers psions work like the Frank Trollman sorcerer.
Half-elves and half-orcs need a boost.
Magical Item Crafting: 1st of all, these do not require feats anymore. They require caster levels and craft checks. Piss. Fuck. Oh my god.
Repairing magical items are free as long as you have all of the pieces; they just take a time investment.
Item crafting times are way reduced. It should take 1 day per 10,000 gold pieces of the price. Not 1000.
Personal spell blockage on potions removed.
No more discounts for making magical items 'can be used by fighters only'.
Amulet of Mighty Fists and Bracers of Armor get a huge reduction in price. Both of these items cost way too much.
Clear up once and for all the whole 'can you make an Oathbow an Oathsword' thing.
Spell-storing enchantment can't be placed on ammunition, just on bows.
A lot of the enchantments go to being a fixed cost rather than a modifier. This was one of the few things that 3.5E got right.
Magical weaponry costs way too fucking much. They should cost less than half of what they do right now.
Combine the 'on-hit' and 'critical hit' properties of the weapon enchantments. This should put them more in line with just getting a flat bonus.
Metamagic Feats:
Some of the metamagic feats are too punitive. For stuff like silent and persistent spell you should get a few freebies. One spell slot of every level can get the feat without a level adjustment.
Enlarge Spell: Should just flat-out increase the range AND width. You can already increase the range of cones and shit and unlike 4E there typically are few enough enemies so that you can get all of them in the first place. So what the hey?
Multi-Metamagic Stacking: Yes, you should be able to multi-empower spells without it being a pisser. The only reason why you couldn't beforehand was because people got whiny about Spelldancing.
Empower spell and Maximize Spell should stack normally. I couldn't even imagine what they were thinking. It's totally okay for an Empowered/Maximized Fireball (8th level spell) to do 90 damage, considering that a 20d6 spell will on average do 70 damage.
Metamagic raises the save DC automatically. That means Heighten Spell is fucken banned.
Metamagic rods should have their price standardized. I don't know why it's such a big deal to make specific rods, but does anyone really mind if players go around crafting Earthbound or Uttercold Rods? No, I don't.