[House] A few class-rebalancing ideas

[Peregrine]

A list of house rules I've been thinking of introducing to tweak the classes.
Clerics start with only Light Armour Proficiency. They don't get spell failure but they have to take the feats if they want to be armoured ambulances. (Rationale: This should hopefully reduce the cleric's melee might just a little; plus I never liked the flavour of the clanking cleric. I read on these boards that an early D&D designer had said the full-plate cleric was meant to be like the medieval militant orders, but the paladin's got that role covered nowadays.)
Fighters get 4+Int skill points, and several class skills that are relevant to command and tactics. (Rationale: Because I want fighters to be viable military commanders. Simple as that.)
Natural Spell will be limited to certain forms or groups of forms. This is my newest idea and will probably need detailing and refining. (Rationale: I don't want to cut Natural Spell entirely, but this should take out a bit of its power and flexibility.)
Sorcerers... yeah, still working on sorcerers.

[Gyrfalcon]

I think the general consensus is to remove Nature Spell entirely from play. That way, Druids are still effective casters, or can be effective tanks, but not both at once.

[Fizban]

You could try instituting the waking lands sorcerer (google waking lands, it should be right there). It has level based abilities that also help give a few more spells known, but in a very limite/jump through the hoops/dig through the spell lists for matches kind of way.

[Little_Rudo]

I really agree with you on the armored clerics point. In my opinion, the Cloistered Cleric (UA variant, found in the SRD) should pretty much replace the standard cleric. Just put Perform (Oratory) as a class skill, and you finally have your magical clergyperson who lets the paladin do all the melee fighting.

[NullAshton]

How is natural spell overpowered? What you should REALLY do is make it so that druids while wildshaped cannot use any magic items, or weapons of any kind. At all. Treat them as not having any type of proficiency in armor or weapons. That way, you can't be a club swinging legendary ape(At least, not an effective one). And for druids, make their spells go through arcane spell failure if using the natural spell feat. That way, they can cast in wild shape, but they can't use armor or weapons in wildshape, or any form of magical items.

EDIT: For sorcerers, have them swap out spells something like a wizard inscribes spells in her spellbook. A day of study, with a scroll of the spell. And to prevent too much money from being wasted, go ahead and say that doesn't strip the magical power from the scrolls. It fits sort of with the theme, yet makes wizards still useful(Since sorcerers have to take days to switch out their spells.)

[Squangos]

Posted this in another thread:

It's almost like turning the sixth level of Monk into a pseudo-Prestige Class, don't you think? You have to have certain feats and skills to get the only level in "Cobra Strike Monk", as it were.

Maybe Fighters could get something similar: Archers getting a bonus to spot, then adding Wisdom to Hide checks or reducing the penalties to rehide after sniping, etc.

[Peregrine]

Sounds like those Substitution Levels I keep hearing about from non-OGC sources. Interesting. I must think on this further...

[Matthew]

Clerics start with only Light Armour Proficiency. They don't get spell failure but they have to take the feats if they want to be armoured ambulances. (Rationale: This should hopefully reduce the cleric's melee might just a little; plus I never liked the flavour of the clanking cleric. I read on these boards that an early D&D designer had said the full-plate cleric was meant to be like the medieval militant orders, but the paladin's got that role covered nowadays.).

That was probably me; I have said it a few times; you can find it in the 2.0 Players Handbook. Still, as strange an analogy as that was, I have to say I think it works better than the Paladin. The Paladin is inspired by the peers of Charlemagne. I'm not sure how the flavour text works these days, but Paladins (as far as I am aware) belong to the secular orders of Knighthood (or the equivalent); they are the perfect embodiment of how a secular Knight ought to behave, rather than members of a religious order; still, times have moved on, maybe I'm wrong. Makes a true mockery of their etymology, though (Paladin refers to 'Knight of the Palace', i.e. Royal Household Knight, as far as I am aware).
I would have thought that the Cleric needs his Spell Casting powers addressed, rather than his more mundane combat skills. The cloistered Cleric is an alternative (and probably in a Pseudo-Christian Medieval Europe type game ought to be the dominant) Class.


Fighters get 4+Int skill points, and several class skills that are relevant to command and tactics. (Rationale: Because I want fighters to be viable military commanders. Simple as that.)

I think you are touching on a broader problem here; Class skills and Skill Points are the most unsatisfactory part of the 3.5 basic rule set, as far as I'm concerned. Fighters, Clerics, Wizards and Paladins continue to get something of a raw deal...

[Fax Celestis]

That was probably me; I have said it a few times; you can find it in the 2.0 Players Handbook. Still, as strange an analogy as that was, I have to say I think it works better than the Paladin. The Paladin is inspired by the peers of Charlemagne. I'm not sure how the flavour text works these days, but Paladins (as far as I am aware) belong to the secular orders of Knighthood (or the equivalent); they are the perfect embodiment of how a secular Knight ought to behave, rather than members of a religious order; still, times have moved on, maybe I'm wrong. Makes a true mockery of their etymology, though (Paladin refers to 'Knight of the Palace', i.e. Royal Household Knight, as far as I am aware).Perhaps a better name would be "Templar", eh?

[Brickwall]

Wizards and Fighters need more skills. Wizards should get as much as cloistered clerics (6 instead of 2), and Fighters need at least 4. Paladins...maybe, maybe not.

[Gyrfalcon]

Would bumping all classes skill points up by 2 be horribly unbalancing? I absolutely detest the miniscule number of skill points most classes get - I consider 4 + Int barely acceptable.

[Fax Celestis]

Would bumping all classes skill points up by 2 be horribly unbalancing? I absolutely detest the miniscule number of skill points most classes get - I consider 4 + Int barely acceptable.
And what, give rogues 10 + Int?

Jesus. Expect a sudden rash of bright young thieves.

[Cybren]

And what, give rogues 10 + Int?

Jesus. Expect a sudden rash of bright young thieves.
Bright old thieves are better. +2 int!

[Yossarian]

And what, give rogues 10 + Int?

Sure. Why not? It de-specializes them somewhat but it's not exactly going to break rogues.

[Gyrfalcon]

Well, rogues still have more skills then they know what to do with. Rogues possess 29 class skills, so 10 + 3 (int 16) + 1 (human) means they can keep 14 of 29 skills, or roughly 50% maxed.

Meanwhile, bumping fighters to 4 + Int (let's say int 12, it tends to be a dump stat) would result in 4 + 1 + 1 (human) = 6, which would allow them to max 6 out of 7 of their skills... or at least be able to toss a few skill points to cross class skills on occasion.

*edit*

Speaking of bright young thieves... in the campaign I'm currently playing online, EVERYONE initially rolled a thief without consulting each other, because I think no one in the group likes playing a character who has low skill points, especially since the DM introduced fun things like Profession (engineering) that allows you to make fun, weird devices. And when you're a fighter, you don't exactly have the skill points to toss that way, since you have all of two to four skill points a level.

[Peregrine]

Wizards can handle 2+Int skill points, generally... the 2 may be small but the Int isn't. :P I could handle giving them 4+Int, but I'd give the extra points to Sorcerers before Wizards (doesn't mean you can't do both, just that I don't see it as desperately needed for Wizards).