Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Edition

[Orion]

I've had a lot of fun over the years playing 3.5 with Den material, especially the Monks, Energy Mages, and Assassins from the various Tomes. However, although these games are reliably fun, they are also limited. First, they tend to feel like shounen anime. I love martial-arts anime, but if one is going for more a traditional dungeon-crawlng or psuedo-military vibe, Races of War is not appropriate. Second, these fixes leave a tremendous amount of potentially interesting published material unusuable. It's not easy to explain to Tome of Battle fans that a Warblade is not an appropriate character, or to a Warlock fan for that matter. Finally, the power level is a hard sell; plenty of play groups just refuse to look at Races of War in-depth. Finally, Races of War+Dungeonomicon+Tome of Necromancy are not a complete or coherent ruleset. There's are major optional subsystems that give huge amounts of free power, and not all of them want to interact with each other (for instance, putting Book of Gears enchantments on Races of War armors seems like overkill). Almost everyone recognizes at least a few abilities or exploits that go way above their desired power range, but people don't agree on exactly what is kosher. For these reasons, I've decided to develop my own 3.5 ruleset. My design goals are to

• Rationalize and simplify pre-requisites, character builds, and magic items a la the Tomes
• Use the Rogue as my balance point: everyone should have a simple and effective combat schtick, but game-warping power is kept to a minimum
• Keep heroes human--cut down on the amount of special mobility and unusual defense to allow players more chances to fuck around with ropes and horses and 10-foot poles and shit
• Salvage neglected material -- Make playable interesting content that would not otherwise see play

Races
Half-Orcs have no penalty to Int or Cha
Half-Elves get +1 skill point per level

Skills

Characters no longer receive X4 skill points at first level. Instead, they receive a +3 untyped bonus to all skills which are class skills for any of their classes. This bonus only applies to Craft, Perform, and Knowledge disciplines in which they actually have ranks. Classes with Speak Language as a class skill DO get 3 free languages. Max rank now equals character level, with feat pre-requisites adjusted accordingly. Synergy bonuses come online at rank 2.

Disable Device includes Open Lock
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) includes Knowledge (Architecture)
Knowledge (History) includes Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty)
Knowledge (Geography) includes Knowledge (Local)
Escape Artist includes Use Rope
Profession is not a skill. A PC may spend 1 skill points for practical ability in a profession, or two for exceptional ability.

Feats:

Feats never require ability scores
If a feat gives you a bonus to a skill, it becomes a class skill for your character.
Dodge and Weapon Focus are gone, and feats that used to require them... don't.
Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon Style Proficiency, and Quick Draw no longer require +1 BAB.
Metamagic feats do not increase the level of spell slot actually used, but the total effective spell level of the modified spell must be of a level the character could cast.
Improved Familiar scales with character level.
Item Creation feats require character level, not caster level.
Weapons
See Exotic Styles post. I'll reprint it here eventually.

Classes
The caster level of your spell effects is equal to your character level. No Exceptions.

The following classes work exactly as described in the relevant books:

Rogue
Barbarian
Bard
Fighter
Warblade
Swordsage
Scout
Duskblade

The following classes work exactly as printed, save for some numerical adjustments summarized here

Warlock: learns one invocation every level
Incarnate: Full BAB, D8 Hit Die, 4 skill points/level
Binder: Full BAB, d10 Hit Die; Effective binding level equals character level or Binder Level X2, whichever is lower.

The following classes are scrapped completely and rebuilt from the ground up:

Monk
Ranger
Paladin

The following classes are no longer available to level 1 characters. A PC may never have more levels of any one of these classes than 2/3 of their ECL, rounded down. PrCs that grant spell progression count against the class they are progressing:

Wizard
Cleric
Sorcerer * (no spell failure in light armor, d8 HD, clerical BAB, 4 skill points)
Druid
Favored Soul/Shugenja/Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warmage/Summoner/Elementalist * Upon reaching third level in any of these classes, the character receives a permanent +1 level of spell progression for free. This virtual level is not effected by the level cap. That is, a 6th-level character could play a Rogue2/Beguiler4, and cast as a 5th-level Beguiler, but could not play a Rogue1/Beguiler5.

The following new classes exist:

Scholar

Prestige Classes

The entry requirements for PrCs are simplified across the board. Each one will gain a Character Level requirement based on the BAB, Spell Level, or Skill requirements from the original writeups. Skill requirements are then removed. Each PrC will have at most 1 required feat. In some cases, the character level requirement will be reduced so that abilities come in more level-appropriately. Spell level requirements may be reduced for the same reason. Alignment requirements are generally gone. In particular:

Eldritch Knight: character level 6, 2nd-level arcane spells
Assassin: requires Hide 5
Dwarven Defender: Toughness, Character level 7
Loremaster: Requires Skill Focus (Knowledge) and Character level 7

Magic Items
Item attuning works as per Book of Gears
Enhancement bonuses scale as per Book of Gears, except
Enhancement bonuses to skill checks are always exactly +5
Potions count as an attuned magic item as long as they are in effect. Instantaneous potions count as attuned until your rest.

[Orion]

Class Rebuild: Monk This class is no longer a generic martial artist, but specifically a shaolin monk whose purity aids them in defeating supernatural threats.

BAB: as Fighter Saves: as Monk Skills: 4/Level
Proficiencies: all simple and martial weapons, no armor

1 Swift Blow, Stunning Fist, Improved Unarmed Strike, WIS bonus to AC
2 Evasion, Deflect Arrows, Ki Strike (magic), Expeditious Retreat
3 Detect Undead, Feather Fall, Still Mind
4 Ki Strike (ghost touch), Jump, Mage Armor
5 Purity of Body, Water Walk, Ki Strike (silver and iron)
6 Improved Trip & Improved Disarm, See Invisibility
7 Ki Strike (good), Wholeness of Body, Levitate
8 Air Walk, Diamond Body
9 Improved Evasion, Fly
10 Diamond Soul, Timeless Body, Ki Strike (Adamantine)

Bonus Feats: the Monk gains the indicated bonus feats at the appropriate levels.

Swift Blow: the Monk may make an unarmed attack as a swift action. If she has Spring Attack, she may use this attack during her move.

Spell Effects: The Monk permanently benefits from the listed spell effects, although they are (Su) abilities and cannot be dispelled.

[Chamomile]

I'm working on a similar concept right now. I'll probably start my own thread for it once I finish up my drafts of the five Wizard-replacement classes, which break up the Wizard's spell list a lot so that he's less omnipotent. The only one I have that I'm reasonably satisfied with right now is the Beguiler. I'll post that here as sort of a proof-of-concept; you totally can play a caster from level 1 without completely overshadowing everyone else.

Note that this is all copy/pasted straight from my draft of Magignosis, which so occasionally it'll do stuff like list off three things and only get to one or two of them, because the others aren't important to the Beguiler class.

Illusions

Illusions: There are two problems with the Illusions school. First off, some of the spells were horribly underestimated by the writers. Color Spray should not be a level 1 spell. That's an easy fix, though: Just bump the level up. The Image spells are more important, because they are the sort of absurdly overpowered abilities that end up being totally underpowered becuase the GM effectively bans all good use of them from the game. In a world as magic-saturated as D&D-Land, there is never any strong reason to disbelieve the air in front of you suddenly bursting into flame, the wizard you're chasing suddenly fading into shadow, or a demon suddenly appearing in front of you and trying melt your face off. These things totally do happen all the time. On top of that, creatures like skeletons and constructs will never disbelieve anything because they aren't sentient, which means Minor Image beats all non-sentient undead in the entire game regardless of their CR or their numbers, period. This is terrible.

First off, illusions, when observed, automatically appear to be bizarre and unreal because they're magic and people can tell with what is basically a sixth sense and also because magic. This means that an illusions spell immediately gives a will save. You are considered to be "interacting with it" if you are looking at it, hearing it, smelling it, or in any other way observing it. If you pass, your sixth sense picks up on it being an illusion and you get some sort of gut instinct that it's not real even though it looks and sounds exactly like whatever it's supposed to be an illusion of. On top of this, creatures without an Intelligence score automatically detect the unreal nature of an illusion. Finally, image spells will flicker and waver every time something solid comes into contact with them, which means "toss some pebbles at it" is a great way to see through an illusion, so long as you think to do that.

Enchantment

Enchantment runs into the same problems as Illusions. The limits on Charm effects are poorly defined, while spells like Suggestion can be instant-win buttons for major problems, and some of the spells are just ridiculously strong for their level. To begin with, the effects of Charm are often construed to be something that removes an opponent from the fight altogether. And in 3.X RAW, there's an argument to be made for that. But in Gnosis, charm just means someone thinks you're pretty neat. This doesn't mean they won't hit you with an axe if they're being paid to, they face punishment if it's found out they failed their duty, they are personally committed to duty, you're threatening some of their other friends, their other friends want them to kill you, or they've been driven to homicidal fury. Almost any reason an enemy has for starting a fight in the first place is not alleviated by a charm effect, and at best you might convince them to take a round to try to convince you to surrender, or avoid attacking you in favor of other targets for as long as possible. You will not remove them as a theat to your entire party unless their grounds for attacking you were pretty shaky in the first place.

Rather than being able to force someone to do anything not immediately self-destructive, Suggestion can be used to make someone do anything that doesn't immediately make them feel bad. Essentially, it's a real-world hypnotic suggestion, except you can force it on the subject against their will, does not require a trance, and thus the subject doesn't appear to be in any sort of daze. However, any command the subject would feel a powerful and emotional reluctance to obey will be ignored automatically. A Suggestion along the lines of "these aren't the constructs you're looking for" would work. A suggestion along the lines of "murder your loved ones" would fail. A Suggestion to murder strangers would work on people like soldiers or adventurers who murder a lot, but would fail on peasants and blacksmiths who have never killed before. Dominate has no special limitations past what's in the SRD; go crazy with it.

Beguiler

Alignment: Any

Hit die: d6

BAB: Poor
Fort: Poor
Ref: Poor
Will: Good

Skills: 4+INT/level
Class Skills: Bluff (CHA), Concentration (CON), Decipher Script (INT), Diplomacy (CHA), Gather Information (CHA), Intimidate (CHA), Knowledge (any) (INT), Perform (CHA), Sense Motive (WIS), Sleight of Hand (DEX), Spellcraft (INT), Use Magic Device (CHA)

Spellcasting: Full (Note: this means spells-per-day at same rate as the Wizard)
Spellbook: Limited (Note: this means spells known at the same rate as the Sorcerer)
Casting Attribute: CHA

Starting Age: Moderate
Starting gold: 4d4*10 (average 100)

Proficiencies: A Beguiler is proficient with simple weapons as well as the short sword, rapier, and scimitar, but not with any kind of armor or shields.

Abilities:

Spellcasting: Beguilers can cast spells off the Beguiler list. Beguilers are spontaneous casters.

Magic Missile: A Beguiler can cast Magic Missile at-will.

Mage: A Beguiler can cast Mage Hand at will.

Magician: A Beguiler can cast Prestidigitation at will.

Thrall: At level 3, a Beguiler gains a thrall, who acts as a cohort whose CL is equal to the Beguiler's CL minus one. This ability still applies even if leadership feats aren't allowed, and if leadership feats are allowed, the cohort granted by them is granted in addition to the thrall.

Enthralling: At level 6, a Beguiler's leadership score is equal to CL+CHA+Beguiler level, which does mean the Beguiler levels get counted twice. Obviously this only matters if you're allowed to use your leadership score in the first place.

Beguiler Spell List:

0: Daze, Ghost Sound, Arcane Mark
1: Charm Person, Disguise Self, Magic Aura, Silent Image, Ventriloquism
2: Daze Monster, Hideous Laughter, Hypnotism, Touch of Idiocy, Sleep, Blur, Invisibility, Magi Mouth, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Misdirection, Phantom Trap
3: Color Spray, Displacement, Heroism, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Illusory Script, Invisibility Sphere, Major Image, Rage, Suggestion
4: Charm Monster, Confusion, Crushing Despair, Deep Slumber, Greater Invisibility, Hallucinatory Terrain, Illusory Wall, Lesser Geas, Phantasmal Killer
5: Dominate Person, Dream, False Vision, Feeblemind, Hold Monster, Mind Fog, Mirage Arcana, Nightmare, Persistent Image, Rainbow Pattern, Seeming, Symbol of Sleep
6: Geas, Greater Heroism, Mass Suggestion, Mislead, Permanent Image, Programmed Image, Shadow Walk, Symbol of Persuasion, Veil
7: Insanity, Mass Hold Person, Mass Invisibility, Power Word Blind, Project Image, Simulacrum, Symbol of Stunning
8: Antipathy, Binding, Demand, Irresistible Dance, Maddening Scream, Power Word Stun, Symbol of Insanity, Sympathy, Mass Charm Monster, Scintillating Pattern, Screen
9: Dominate Monster, Mass Hold Monster, Power Word Kill, Shades, Weird

[...You Lost Me]

I assume scaling feats are unallowed. Also your classes are weird--you have a terrible base class (bard) with weak classes (barbarian, scout) and damn good classes (wilder, psywar, warblade) around a balance point of 'rogue', which could range anywhere between Moderate or High (flask rogues? blink, grease?).

Also humans/strongheart halflings are still the master race. Are RoW races allowed here, and are you still going off of RoW combat rules (so no power attack/combat expertise in addition to no dodge/weapon focus)?

Feat starvation will probably be even more common now because there are fewer classes that run independent of feats, so I recommend changing it up to 1/2 levels or letting the fighter back in. He looks very lonely.

Also, you should just re-write casting instead of nerfing it like that. It makes progression... weird.

[Orion]

My dad's playgroup has been using the 2/3 progression rule for casters for a couple of years now, and it's been really popular so far. Re-writing casting might produce better results, but be more work. Plus, I'm trying to work with printed material as much as possible so that it's easier to sell to 3.5 veterans. "Let's agree not to use powerful builds like Wizard and Cleric" is an easy pitch to make compared to "lets all use these variant casters I wrote." Could you elaborate on what you find problematic about it.

You got me on the Psionic characters. I don't really know or care about psionics. I threw psychic warrior in under the theory that they looked like bard-level casters. Wilder because if you're going to play with the trope of uncontrolled wild power it really OUGHT to give you higher-level effects than everyone else. I haven't looked closely at Wilder but if I thought they were too strong to single-class I would probably just not use them.

What's your beef with Bards? They get spells that fucking kill people, they now get higher-level spells than Wizards do, and they get to be single-classed so their BAB and saves aren't fucked over.

[Whatever]

So, for a caster, I would take my levels as follows:

Filler
Caster
Caster
Filler
Caster
Caster
etc?

[Orion]

Yes

[...You Lost Me]

My dad's playgroup has been using the 2/3 progression rule for casters for a couple of years now, and it's been really popular so far. Re-writing casting might produce better results, but be more work. Plus, I'm trying to work with printed material as much as possible so that it's easier to sell to 3.5 veterans. "Let's agree not to use powerful builds like Wizard and Cleric" is an easy pitch to make compared to "lets all use these variant casters I wrote." Could you elaborate on what you find problematic about it.

Well, sure. At level 1 a caster is doing pretty much exactly what a full caster would do at level 2, because they are the best color-sprayer in the game and can drop about one per combat.

Then at level 3, the caster-hurting trend kicks in where your SoDs aren't keeping up. The effects become a tad tamer before going into stupidville, but you drop a point of DC almost consistently every 3 levels, and in the end lvl 8 wizards are still playing crazy-style with rope trick and fly and outbuffing warriors into the dust. You hurt blasters and encouraging buffing, and buffing remains a problem. I mean, the DMM Persist Cleric still outperforms the barbarian because at level 5 he can cast bull's strength and bear's endurance as many times as the barbarian can use his central class ability.

Also, double-casting gets seriously hurt and the beguiler is now the best caster class in the game.

You got me on the Psionic characters. I don't really know or care about psionics. I threw psychic warrior in under the theory that they looked like bard-level casters. Wilder because if you're going to play with the trope of uncontrolled wild power it really OUGHT to give you higher-level effects than everyone else. I haven't looked closely at Wilder but if I thought they were too strong to single-class I would probably just not use them.

The wilder plays similarly to the psion, except instead of getting feats it can pump manifester level on a gamble--basically a full caster with an inventive to nova. I would remove it, because it's basically the optimizer's psion and you don't seem like you care that much about optimizers.

The psychic warrior has medium BAB and some OK buffs. I think the trick that brings it really up to rogue level is a bunch of self-buffing including the psionic polymorph. If you include it, I recommend bumping it up to full BAB because most people won't optimize like that.

What's your beef with Bards? They get spells that fucking kill people, they now get higher-level spells than Wizards do, and they get to be single-classed so their BAB and saves aren't fucked over.

Well first off, use BAB and fractional saves. It's a necessity.

And bards get some funny things. Their bardic music starts out ok and gets relatively worse as the game progresses. They can wear light armor but have to take arcane spell failure. The effectiveness of their spell DCs isn't level appropriate because of spell scaling and MAD, and they're all going to be ranged characters so their damage is piddly.

----------------------------

I'd like to reiterate the points I find important. Players need to actively optimize to keep the barbarian, fighter, rogue, and bard at the level of warblade, swordsage (ish), New Warlock, New Binder, New Monk, and I assume the rest of your edited classes (I haven't got a damn clue how the duskblade/incarnate work), so they don't seem to fit well.

Also 1/2 feat progression. Seriously, it'll be awesome.

[Korwin]

What about weird PRC's like Sublime Chord and Ur-Priest?

[Neurosis]

I appreciate this project, how is it coming along?

[Orion]

Well, when I started this project I was homeless and had a great deal of time on my hands in internet cafes late at night. After that, I was homeless for a week hauling crates full of possessions all over town and trying not to freeze to death. Then I got a home, and slept for about a week straight. (There may have been some Mass Effect also). Then the cable box in my new home died.

So, I haven't done much with this. Do you have any particular requests?

[OgreBattle]

so the monster manual monsters should work with your system right?

[Orion]

Yes, mostly. But the details of how it works out are different. The big deal here is that higher-level spells come online more slowly. This has two effects you need to watch out for. First, the higher level you go the farther PCs will fall behind on GTFO abilities and counters. This might very well mean that there are a bunch of CR 13 Outsiders that characters from this game can't effectively do anything against. I wouldn't know, because I don't really give a shit about anything over level 10. The second big effect is that lower-level enemies don't drop off quite as quickly, because it will take longer for spells that clear them out en masse to come online.

This is actually an intended feature. When I was a kid I played an AD&D ranger in a part where the core high-level members were me, a Fighter/Thief, and a Fighter/Cleric. We could and did take out dozens of giants by just hacking our way through with our swords. That's not something that ever really happens in 3.0 By the time you get fighting-men who could single-handedly fight a half-dozen Ogres--even using a lot of Gaming Den powerups--You don't bother to actually play that out because you can force an arbitrary number of Ogres to GTFO with a single spell. To go a little more abstract here, D&D is a game where the Monster have ridiculously more HP and attack bonuses than players do, and Players have ridiculously more special defenses and "fuck you" spells. This edition scales back both of these things. I believe that with reasonably skilled play and builds and advantages like Book of Gears magic items and removing feat taxes, PCs will be able to compete at their CR through to level 10. You want to be really careful about any monsters higher than CR 10, but might be able to let PCs go a little higher than that to smack around CR 8 giants and demons in groups.

[echoVanguard]

I admit to being curious why you kept Fighter around at all instead of folding it into Rogue. With as much as you're doing to rearchitect the playspace, it doesn't really seem worthy of preservation the way, say, Ranger or Warlock does.

echo

[Orion]

Fighter in't a real class, as well all well know. "Knowing how to wear armor and use a sword" is not a real character schtick. But it is a decent template to throw on top of a real character. It's in this ruleset as a dip for casters and I think it works fine for that purpose. Say you're a Cleric. You're required by law to multiclass. Taking 2 Fighter levels gives you access to good weapons, and a couple of feats to leverage the numbers you get form your Cleric buff. I think as a Fighter 2/Cleric 4 you feel pretty good about your life. Plus, you get to his BAB 6 for that second swing at level 7 rather than level 9 like a Rogue/Cleric. You could also run an Elf Fighter/Wizard who can plink away with Rapid Shot while he hoards his kill spells, or during cleanup. Obviously there are other BAB/Martial weapons classes, but they come with baggage. Ranger works for archers, but locks you into shitty melee tactics, and it doesn't give armor proficiencies if your real class doesn't have them. Warblades are cool, but there needs to be a combat-oriented dip class for casters that doesn't load them into a parallel resource system.

[Username17]

This whole experiment seems extremely dumb to me. You're asking people to wait until 7th level to get remove blindness, 13th level to get raise dead, and 16th fucking level to get stone to flesh. How you expect to use the monsters out of the book when the basic defenses and cures for monstrous GTFO abilities take 50% longer to become available is beyond understanding.

If you want spellcasters to be weaker, you need to make weaker spellcasters. A Cleric-like character that is able to treat paralysis and throws an occasional flame strike is probably no better than a Rogue. The problem with the Cleric is that they either buff themselves into unrecognizability or they one-shot entire encounters by dumping a wall of stone or doomtide onto the proceedings. The problem is absolutely not that they get access to restoration at level 7. The entire party needs them to have that, because Specters.

-Username17

[Krusk]

I think you are better served scrapping printed material and rewriting stuff from scratch at your desired power level ala tome to wizards. Its gonna suck, but in the long run when it is finished it will be a better product.

You have 4/11 classes from PHB1 that are unaltered. Thats barely worth bringing the book to the game for the majority of the players

Prestige classes will be a pain. Especially those who grant caster levels. A cleric 4/fighter 2/any full casting prestige classes 14 is way better than most other builds in the game. Shit, why would I not just play wizard 3/ master specialist 10/who cares 7 and be normal wizard.

You admit fighter isnt a real class, but don't alter it to "leave as many of the main books usable as possible". Why not rewrite it so its a real class, scrap it, or limit it to a 2 level class for characters to dip.

If you do a total ground up rewrite, you can do stuff that would benefit the game as a whole, like rework skills, do interesting races, and the like.

[Orion]

Not having Restoration at level 7 is not a serious impediment to performing at level. Let's assume we're following your own advice and making most encounters against groups of monsters below player CR, reserving monsters at or above par for bosses and more pivotal encounters. If a spectre shows up during the boss fight, it's seriously not even a deal. If the spectre lands 4 hits on one person, they die. If they land one hit, it's basically like being sickened, which is a bullshit status effect handed out all over the place. Negative levels area moderately-irritating debuff effect during the combat. After the adventure, the negative levels are more likely than not to go away by themselves. However, if they don't, the adventurers do need to get a Restoration cast some time before the start of their next adventure. If they have access to a town, they can presumably get it done there. Even if the spectre shows up earlier in the adventure, it's still just like being sickened for the rest of the dungeon, but with the perks of being able to complain about feeling cold and weak. That's actually a net benefit to the game, I feel.

Let's take a look at some other CR 7 monsters. Invisible Stalkers are vulnerable to glitterdust, or a Fighter3/Wizard 4 with See Invisible and a bow. Medusas could be problem without stone to flesh, but regular characters don't have stone to flesh at level 7 either. Evidently the medusa is meant to appear in a context where there is some other solution. Nymphs hand out permanent blindness, which your cleric can remove at level 8. The biggest problem is probably the Aboleth. You also have the options of fighting CR 5 monsters in groups. I don't think a group of Fighter/Clerics and Rogue/Druids is going to have too much trouble smacking around flocks of manticores, large elementals, mummies and green hags.

It's entirely possible that monsters above CR 10 don't work at all under this system--in fact for the most part they probably don't. This system has a planned expiration date of about character level 12, where you have 4th level spells are smacking around smack around groups of vrocks and fire giants.

[Blicero]

This is only tangentially related to the topic, but it's connected to bits that people have mentioned.

In projects like this (ie, rewriting 3.5 classes to be at a more consistent power level), it is a common method to split up casters into thematically distinct groups: Necromancer, Conjurer, Illusionist, etc...

Now, it seems that this splitting may harm the Illusionist more so than at might first appear. Consider an example:

The PCs are engaged in combat with a powerful spellcaster. He finishes an incantation, and a horrific nightmare beast appears in front of him. He bids it attack the PCs. The party cleric then squints at the beast and realizes that it is an illusion! She triumphantly communicates this fact to her companions, and they proceed to ignore it. The enemy spellcaster, not to be deterred, casts another spell, and this time a barrier of gnashing teeth and biting claws appears around him. The PCs pause.

Let's now consider the options. The first creature the wizard summoned was clearly an illusion. In normal 3.5, though, even if he were an Illusion-specialized wizard, there's no guarantee that this second spell is also an illusion.

In a d&d with thematically distinct wizard classes, though, discovering that a spellcaster is capable of creating illusions strongly implies that any further spells he casts will also be illusions. Which puts a tremendous damper on his efficacy. This is by no means metagaming, since the characters are presumably aware that spellcasters have thematically distinct groupings of powers. Even if we posit the existence of some "Advanced Learning" type class-feature, Illusionists still have dramatically reduced schticks.

Has anyone ever encountered problems like this in play? Does it seem like a valid argument?

[Whatever]

Illusionists make terrible villains. Not for any in-game reason, but because having the MC tell you "surprise! that thing I said was a lie" gets old fast. The players can only interact with the world via the MC's descriptions, and if those descriptions go out the window, then players have literally nothing to go on.

[...You Lost Me]

I think that's a very special problem that applies only to a small subset of classes. The solution is not to make that a shtick.

[OgreBattle]

The solution is to make "I disbelieve it!" not just make it go *POOF*. It's still magic stuff.



Still, it should be rewarded that they figured out it's an illusion, so its hit points are reduced, or its power is reduced, but the magic stuff of it makes it still threatening no matter how hard you disbelieve it. Instead, Disbelief can just make it so when you shoot it with an arrow, the arrow does double damage or something. So Illusions are big monsters with a glowing weakpoint.

You can also roll up the charm magics to the illusionist portfolio if you want to make it more diversified.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Every time I see this thread's title, my first thought is that it's about making D&D more like Nethack or Dungeons of Dredmor.

[Neurosis]

Well, when I started this project I was homeless and had a great deal of time on my hands in internet cafes late at night. After that, I was homeless for a week hauling crates full of possessions all over town and trying not to freeze to death. Then I got a home, and slept for about a week straight. (There may have been some Mass Effect also). Then the cable box in my new home died.

So, I haven't done much with this. Do you have any particular requests?

Just happy you're not homeless! : )