Intent/Spirit of 3.5?

[RagnaroksChosen]

So I was reading a review of Pathfinder (Here (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50083)) and it got me thinking I know that Pazio was trying to make 3.75. As I know a lot of people even here are trying there hand at it (Fax specifically comes to mind). I here the term "there going against the spirit of 3.5" and creating radically different game then what d&d is.
It seems hard to me to make fixes for a game that the company that created it can seem to agree on how things work.

I understand that no System is perfect and that there will always be tweeks done by each gaming group.

I guess what I'm asking is the following:
What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?
What are your opinions of the ones out there?
Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)
I know the class Tier system is held in great regard here and on other sites as well.

Any ways was thinking about this stuff and wanted to here others opinions.

[Eloel]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

An almost (if not fully) overhaul of the magic system.

What are your opinions of the ones out there?
Most are good, but don't cover the whole system, which drastically reduces choices.

Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)
I know the class Tier system is held in great regard here and on other sites as well.
Well, the tier list, and the balancing of it is the main thing. Either the uses of skills need to be buffed good, or the spell system's versatility should be drastically reduced. Vancian casting is a good alternative to the system most RPGs are using, mana points. But the effectiveness should be reduced, either by good enough drawbacks, nerfed spells, or something...

[ericgrau]

Not much is generally agreed on, and what is isn't specified. You'd have to search thread after thread and keep notes, crossing off anything that hits significant disagreement. What's worse is that some complaints are merely popular in these forums in this particular year; you'd have to search archives of this and other forums to be sure. Other ideas tend to travel from forum to forum, so then you'd have to review offline people to be sure you're finding an idea with general agreement and not something people say b/c it was popular in some forum and then spread to others.

My suggestion is to ditch opinion and only address a handful of severe, quantifiable problems. If it can't be measured with a number and compared to another number then don't touch it. Beyond that you might as well start over and make your own new system.

I realize such a project is still rather involved b/c you actually have to prove something needs changing rather than "some people tend to have a lot of problems with this" (while others might experience the opposite), but when you compare it to analyzing opinions of every group out there and trying to please everyone - like Paizo failed to do - it's far less work.

[Dr_Emperor]

your answers in order

1. Fix most of the worst problems in a mechanically simple way that doesn't change much, I don't like complete class rewrites. They would also have to add something unique, interesting, and balanced to get money.

2. I actually use pathfinder Beta's fixes for spells and some of its shrunken skill lists, so from the fixes I see a hodgepodge of good ideas that I agree with.

3. I think peoples lists of problems vary greatly, most think alter self et. all are broken, some think knock is

Implied tier system is impossible to get away from on message boards, I tried, but 1 of its suggested fixes is if playing a power class buff is actually quite playable. Actually building characters together and making sure you don't step on the other members toes to much helps a lot too. Basically if you have a good spirit of cooperation in your group and not competition 3.5's problems aren't really there.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Not much is generally agreed on, and what is isn't specified. You'd have to search thread after thread and keep notes, crossing off anything that hits significant disagreement. What's worse is that some complaints are merely popular in these forums in this particular year; you'd have to search archives of this and other forums to be sure. Other ideas tend to travel from forum to forum, so then you'd have to review offline people to be sure you're finding an idea with general agreement and not something people say b/c it was popular in some forum and then spread to others.

My suggestion is to ditch opinion and only address a handful of severe, quantifiable problems. If it can't be measured with a number and compared to another number then don't touch it. Beyond that you might as well start over and make your own new system.

I realize such a project is still rather involved b/c you actually have to prove something needs changing rather than "some people tend to have a lot of problems with this" (while others might experience the opposite), but when you compare it to analyzing opinions of every group out there and trying to please everyone - like Paizo failed to do - it's far less work.

I guess a list of quantifiable issues is really what im looking for. I know some of the issues are fluff related. I am specifically talking mechanical wise, so there for should be quantifiable.

[ericgrau]

Well the biggest complaint - casters vs. non-casters - is difficult to quantify since their abilities are so different. As for other things, I really wish people would use some numbers instead of so many opinions. I've run numbers on some things that were easier to test and found them to be exceptionally well balanced in spite of people's opinions. But then there are special abilities and what not that are much harder to test and who knows if they are or not.

[erikun]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?
I feel that the basic mechanics of D&D 3.5 have inherit flaws, and as such, as appropriate "fix" for 3.5 would be a system possibly very different from the core ruleset. I realize I'm probably in a minority here, so any ruleset fix for 3.5 which I would prefer would probably not interest a large number of fans (because it is so vastly non-3.5) or would be better as an entirely new ruleset.


What are your opinions of the ones out there?
Eberron is an example of a "fluff update" for 3.5. Eberron took several concepts which were new with the 3.5e system - such as the easier item creation, variable monster alignment, and simpler planar travel - and used it to create the setting.

Homebrews, such as Fax's, are taking the existing ruleset and re-writing feats and classes to work within the existing system.

Pathfinder took a complete re-write of the basic ruleset, thus making it technically incompatable with existing 3.5 products. However, it is (apparently) similar enough that conversions can be made easily.


Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5?
There are two things I see as the "big" problems with 3.5.

1.) The tier system, as already mentioned, making some classes vastly more capable of dealing with anything which may happen. Fighters (who can just hit stuff) are worse than Rogues (who can hit stuff and rely on skills) who are worse than Wizards.

2.) D&D's focus on combat. In most other roleplaying games I've seen, being able to sneak in-sneak out, or able to talk to people and gather information, are just as effective as swordfighting.

[Fax Celestis]

*subscribes to the thread*

I'll be watching this. <_<

[Darcand]

I imagine that alot of the complaints which players have about Paizo's 3.75 are extremely similiar to complaints made when WotC bought TSR and revamped AD&D into 3rd edition. An alteration of some basics while still keeping the general shape the same that actually turned out to be an improvement.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I imagine that alot of the complaints which players have about Paizo's 3.75 are extremely similiar to complaints made when WotC bought TSR and revamped AD&D into 3rd edition. An alteration of some basics while still keeping the general shape the same that actually turned out to be an improvement.They nerfed the 2 best core Fighter feats and made Wizards better. Not to mention the fact that Humans got a boost over other races and Bards were both rendered weaker and unable to use a good chunk of the splatbook feats. Their game is as poorly balanced as 3.5, I prefer the Eberron fluff, and it's not easily backwards-compatible. Why would I switch?

[Gralamin]

An update for 3.5 should fix the rules without making a drastically different system. That's it. Fax's D20r is a good example

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I imagine that alot of the complaints which players have about Paizo's 3.75 are extremely similiar to complaints made when WotC bought TSR and revamped AD&D into 3rd edition. An alteration of some basics while still keeping the general shape the same that actually turned out to be an improvement.

Are Fighters still screwed by a Solid Fog or Grease spell as much as they were under 3.5 edition rules?

If yes, then back to the drawing board!

[Ravens_cry]

Forgive this newbie, but why is balance so darn well important? I agree that every character should feel useful, contributing to the party. But Dungeons and Dragons is not primarily player verses player, but player's verses enviroment.
In PvP, balance is all important because the idea is to win by beating other players, and so skill of said player should be the only consideration. In PvE, winning is much fuzzier. There will be goals, but it will be a team effort. As long as each player is contributing to that goal, all is well in my view. There is no win condition. I agree 3.5 has issues with contribution balance, but too much of a obsession with balance, in my view, implies too much sameness.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Forgive this newbie, but why is balance so darn well important? I agree that every character should feel useful, contributing to the party. But Dungeons and Dragons is not primarily player verses player, but player's verses enviroment.
In PvP, balance is all important because the idea is to win by beating other players, and so skill of said player should be the only consideration. In PvE, winning is much fuzzier. There will be goals, but it will be a team effort. As long as each player is contributing to that goal, all is well in my view. There is no win condition. I agree 3.5 has issues with contribution balance, but too much of a obsession with balance, in my view, implies too much sameness.

The BBEG should be able to be either a monster or a villian with PC levels. Or both, such as a Lich. If your party faces a Lich of CR 12 with ten levels in wizard and he can make your group's melee characters useless with one 4th level spell, there's a problem with the balance between the classes that affects the player vs environment conflict that you want.

Under the current system, you just can't have the BBEG be an evil wizard. He'll know the party is coming and trounce it hard, unless you've gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare counters...

[Zore]

Ok two hypothetical characters

A Druid who can melee, cast 9th level spells and just for kicks has an animal companion who operates as roughly half a character.

A Fighter who can do one of those things, and the weakest to boot.


At high levels pure fighters start to become an active liability and resource drain for that PVE party. Someone should not be penalized for not playing a spellcaster. A Fighter can contribute, but a Druid can actually handle an encounter by himself that four fighters could not handle.

And balance does not have to be perfect, but everyone should have some way of meaningfully contributing. No one should be forced to rely on having other classes buff them to jack them from 'Totally ineffective' to 'kinda-sorta threatening'. Fighters should in some way be able to contribute in a way Wizards can't or are inferior in.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

At high levels pure fighters start to become an active liability and resource drain for that PVE party. Someone should not be penalized for not playing a spellcaster. A Fighter can contribute, but a Druid can actually handle an encounter by himself that four fighters could not handle.


"What's that Lassie? Timmy's fallen down the old well?"

[imperialspectre]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

The only way to make a 3.5 update that actually works in terms of balance and design is to subject every class to rigorous, scientific playtesting. That means Same Game Tests (pitting each class against a variety of even-CR encounters at various levels; if you're around a 50% success rate then you're where the CR system says every single class should be). That means PC-vs.-PC matches across power sources and party roles. And that means being willing to cut material that doesn't work.


What are your opinions of the ones out there?

Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG) has completely failed to fix any of the serious 3.5 balance problems. Their monk still sucks, their fighter got quantifiably less powerful, and wizards and sorcerers got a significant power boost. On top of that, they added a host of little changes to the system that are hard for experienced 3.5 players to keep track of. The few things they did well (consolidated skills, no multiclass XP penalty) were already houseruled by many, many people well before either Pathfinder or 4e.

Fax's d20r (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98722) is really too early to call one way or the other, but what I've seen so far has a lot of merit. There are a lot of flavorful classes that appear to have reasonable mechanical capabilities. However, I'm not sure that he goes far enough in fixing some things, such as the wizard class.

Fax, are you using any kind of same-game or other rigorous playtesting? If you need help or info, I'd be glad to help you out however.

Trailblazer (http://www.enworld.org/forum/bad-axe-games-hosted-forum/248609-trailblazer-teasers-collected.html) has next to no information that I've seen just yet. However, what I've seen so far doesn't really inspire much confidence, as the teasers might have had some good ideas but don't seem to offer a whole lot in the way of addressing basic game flaws. The caster level (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-rules-discussion/239938-proposed-fix-spellcaster-multiclassing.html) rule looked really interesting, though.

The Tome series (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48453) is definitely the most systematic attempt to rebalance 3rd Edition D&D that's even partially published. That's a big strength, in my mind; unfortunately, the series has not been finished to date and is at this point reliant on community efforts to finish the last several Tomes. Also, the authors chose a balance point where most classes are expected to compete with well-built 3.5 full casters. While there are good reasons for that design choice, the fact remains that the result is a much more powerful set of classes and other character options than many people will be comfortable with using.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with any other extant projects to critique them.


Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)

Sorcerers aren't necessarily weaker than wizards. The problem there is that wizards are incredibly flexible in their "build" for a specific period of time, making it almost impossible to nail them down.

I'm not sure that such a list exists. I can't recall ever seeing one. For a good set of minimal-change choices that should be in almost any 3.5 update, see Tidesinger's 3.51 house rules that apply to Test of Spite.


I know the class Tier system is held in great regard here and on other sites as well.

It's not exactly infallible. There's room for quite a lot of debate as to what classes belong where. However, there is something of a consensus regarding the merits of the tier system.


I imagine that alot of the complaints which players have about Paizo's 3.75 are extremely similiar to complaints made when WotC bought TSR and revamped AD&D into 3rd edition. An alteration of some basics while still keeping the general shape the same that actually turned out to be an improvement.

Just...no. First off, Pathfinder is nowhere near as big of a change as 2e -> 3e. It's not even close. Second, Pathfinder is not an improvement on 3.5, for the simple reason that it makes balance decisions that are objectively worse for the most part. There is no possible way to justify making wizards stronger and nerfing fighter abilities in the same book.

However, I'm not going to say anything more on the subject here; if you want to discuss Pathfinder either start a new thread here or check out the critique here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50083).

[Pharaoh's Fist]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

Employ the following as designers:

GitP
Emperor Tippy
Keld Denar
Talic
Tidesinger
Eldariel
Saph
Fax Celestas

BG
Kaelik
Sinfire Titan
Guyr Adamantine
Solo

Charop
sofawall
carnivore
Tleilaxu_Ghola
Caelic
LordofProcrastination
Khan the Destroyer (KHAAAAAN!)
Endarire
Temptest Stormwind
PhaedrusXY
RadicalTaoist
Surreal
Funny Slaughter

And Stephen Colbert.

[Mongoose87]

I feel that 3.5e's balance issues should really have been fixed by Obama by now. Why wasn't that in the stimulus package?

[Doc Roc]

Man, this is a broad question. You can see my general philosophy of minimal change at work in the ToS. In actual practice, I normally ban prepared casters, in addition to the 3.51 rules.

Edit: Mongoose, your sig makes me twitch each time I read it. :(

[Kaiyanwang]

Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG) has completely failed to fix any of the serious 3.5 balance problems. Their monk still sucks, their fighter got quantifiably less powerful, and wizards and sorcerers got a significant power boost. On top of that, they added a host of little changes to the system that are hard for experienced 3.5 players to keep track of. The few things they did well (consolidated skills, no multiclass XP penalty) were already houseruled by many, many people well before either Pathfinder or 4e.


A question: what makes you so sure to make this assumption? The complete game is not out, yet (at least in my country, if you have the book in your hand, apologies :smallredface:).

Most of 3.5 problems weren't so evident at the moment it came out. Shouldn't we wait a little bit and give to PF a chance before throw it away?

See, maybe you are right. But still, this mindset seems to me fairly untimely.

[Nero24200]

I guess what I'm asking is the following:
What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?
Act with sense (Non of this "we fix this problem using this completely out-the-way-method). The simpilest solution to any problem is often the right one, and I think too many people forget that.

Act with a degree of professionalism. You want to be treated as a big-time game designer? Act like one. Don't bad mouth other companies or designs and (in the case of all D20 games) remember that at the end of the, you're using someone elses rules as a base.


What are your opinions of the ones out there? Some are alright, but most seem to cateer to play-styles I don't like. Fax's, for instance, theres nothing really wrong with that, just doesn't suit my style. However, certain ones do throw me right off (Paizos), though this is also partly because both paizo and their fans can't seem to accept the possibility that there could be flaws.

If I'm going to go for a 3.5 update, I'd have to go for one that meets the above and cateers to my own play-style, though I don't see that being likely since theres alot I like/dislike that others might disagree with.

[bosssmiley]

So I was reading a review of Pathfinder (Here (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50083)) and it got me thinking I know that Paizo was trying to make 3.75. As I know a lot of people even here are trying there hand at it (Fax specifically comes to mind). I here the term "they're going against the spirit of 3.5" and creating radically different game then what d&d is.

It seems hard to me to make fixes for a game that the company that created it can seem to agree on how things work.

I understand that no System is perfect and that there will always be tweaks done by each gaming group.

I guess what I'm asking is the following:
What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?


Adopt the mantra: "simplify and add clarity".
- No game system needs 20 types of bonuses.
- Textwalls, page long stat blocks, formulae, cross-referencing between sources: all these things turn off the average paying punter (and these guys vastly outnumber the CharOp / numberfap internet optimizers).
Show that they understand where the faults in the 3.X system actually are. They should understand before they ever put pen to paper why, where, and how the RAW breaks down.
Show they have a clear vision of what they thing D&D should be about, how it should scale, and how certain options simply do not conceptually work beyond certain points.
They should destruct test their game mechanics in a repeatable and mathematically provable manner.
Hire Keith and Frank. The Gaming Den boys have a proven track record of making clean, functional mechanics intended to allow all characters to contribute to the fun at all levels.


What are your opinions of the ones out there?
RAW D&D (d20 SRD): doesn't work as written. The learning curve can turn off casual gamers.
Pathfinder (aka 3.P): talked a good fight, but the mechanics are too fiddly, and the designers failed in 2 of their 3 stated design aims.
Tome Series (aka 3.T): incomplete. Earlier material not edited to gel with later. Amends the D&D world to fit with the mechanical facts of the SRD, rather than modelling classic (TSR-era) D&D.
True 20 and Castles and Crusades: change enough to avoid infringing copyright (and confuse the newbie). Don't fix the fundamental flows of the system as written.
E6 mod: models fantasy literature / swords-and-sorcery well. Lacks the Nietzschean power worship of SRD D&D.
Diminutive d20: uses a stripped down version of the SRD to model old-school D&D play. Simplifies and adds clarity at the cost of optimisation potential - something which some new-style players will resent.
Satyr's Serpents & Sewers mod: interesting. Attempts to break character options down into a classless system ("Heresy!"). Too involved for some tastes, just right for others.


Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)
I know the class Tier system is held in great regard here and on other sites as well.

Disregard the hivemind. It has a tendency to form an unthinking brayherd behind the current orthodoxy, regardless of whether said orthodoxy is actually correct or not (*cough* ENWorld *cough*). The 'wisdom of crowds' only takes one person with provable truth to bring it crashing to a mindless, gabbling, nerdrage-spewing halt.

The class tiers orthodoxy in particular is the kind of over-elaborate fanwank that distracts people from fixing the real problems with the game.


I really never got the point of that "tier system" anyway. In an abstract sense it is literally impossible to rate the classes as the Highest of the High or the Lowest of the Low. There are three "tiers" for reasonable people. NPC Classes, Classes that Cannot Pull Weight, and Classes that Can Pull weight. I think that further subdividing is pointless; hell, the NPC classes thing is only marginally its own league.
-- Akula, The Gaming Den

[Killer Angel]

Forgive this newbie, but why is balance so darn well important? I agree that every character should feel useful, contributing to the party. But Dungeons and Dragons is not primarily player verses player, but player's verses enviroment.
In PvP, balance is all important because the idea is to win by beating other players, and so skill of said player should be the only consideration. In PvE, winning is much fuzzier. There will be goals, but it will be a team effort. As long as each player is contributing to that goal, all is well in my view. There is no win condition. I agree 3.5 has issues with contribution balance, but too much of a obsession with balance, in my view, implies too much sameness.

D&D shouldn't be measured on a PvP scale, but the real problem is exactly when you consider PCs Vs Enviroment.
A pure meleer could be fine, lookin' the spellcasters doing cool things, if only he were the king of the fight. Sadly, the spellcaster have tons of options to render the meleers almost useless also in what is supposed to be their field. It's sad to be largely surpassed by the other pcs in your only little niche of competence, expecially if outside of combat you cannot contribute at all.
THIS is the problem.
Luckily, this is often a moot point, 'cause many groups play D&D the way it was intended by the "playtesters": sorcerers with fireball, clerics that heals in combat, etc., and the big holes of the rules don't show.

[The Rose Dragon]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

A company actually did a great 3.5 update before 3rd Edition came out.

You may know it as Unisystem, the rules behind the games All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft, Ghosts of Albion and Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.

[RagnaroksChosen]

ericgrau: Do you have any of those numbers or what have you crunched that people are saying differently on.
You don't need to post your results Im just curious what tests you have run.

Eirkun:
2.) I disagree. I think d20 is great for skill based encounters. Especially infiltration.
I believe that the ability for it to be sneak in sneak out is up to the GM really. Can you
provide evidence that it is not capable of doing that?

Fax Celestis:
Please do... I find your work interesting. I like it. I don't know if i would use it...
I'm a bit of a minimalist when i run games. (as far as abilities go)


Nero24200:
Hmm Dealing with Play-styles is a pain for a developer especially because they have to cater
to a few different play styles.


Bosssmiley:
Can you please explain "...page long stat blocks, formula, cross-referencing between sources: all these things turn off the average
paying punter (and these guys vastly outnumber the CharOp / numberfap internet optimizers)"
I understand the text walls but can you show an example of the rest as im not following?

Also regarding the tier system. You think it pulls away from the Real problems?
I agree with the simplified version that Akula mentioned but i think that the tier system helps
get deeper into the issues.. though i agree there is a ton of room for debate especially the mid tiers

[Telonius]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

Playtest and gather opinions beforehand. You have an army of millions of nerds who are ready, willing, and able to find the most obscure breaking points in any system and suggest fixes for them. For free. If you are a game company and don't take advantage of this fact and use it in your product development, you are a halfwit and whatever system you come up with will not be worth my time and money.


What are your opinions of the ones out there?
Pathfinder was a decent attempt, but it didn't really fix the biggest issues. It was an improvement - a marginal improvement, but an improvement - in some areas. It seemed like it tried to do what I suggested in the previous example, but missed the big stuff. Some of the homebrew rules (such as the homebrew forum on this site) can be quite good, but not very many of them are system fixes. FaxCelestis has a full-fledged system reboot in the works, and there were a few attempts at an exhaustive spell-fixing effort a while ago, but that's about it.



Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)
This is the internet. Nobody agrees on anything here. :smallbiggrin:

[Kaihaku]

The strongest two themes I've heard over the months are...

"Fix it the way I would fix."
"Don't try to make money off of it."


That said, there is another theme that lacks the volume of the first two but with which I actually agree, basically it's "address the core balance issues in ways that leave '3.75' 90% compatible with 3.5."

[Kaiyanwang]

This is the internet. Nobody agrees on anything here. :smallbiggrin:

I respectfully disagree.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think a 3e update should take quite a bit of inspiration from 1e and 2e. No, not THAC0 and nonweapon proficiencies and weapon speed and suchlike--not even a combination of mindrape and dominate person could convince me to advocate that. :smallwink:

I'm thinking instead of things like faster character creation, much less of an emphasis on the grid, simplicity of bonus types, easier-to-resist magic, multiple attacks only for the martial types, and so on. Many of 3e's problems stem from WotC ripping these things out in the transition; the classes were much more balanced when the casters couldn't insta-gank fighters with a single SoD unless the fighter crit-failed, combat was faster when you didn't have to worry about the minutiae of squares and AoOs, buffing and dispelling and attacks and such were much easier when you didn't have to add or subtract tons of little modifiers from a dozen bonuses, and so on. If an update improved defenses across the board, removed squares and replaced AoOs with floating immediate attacks or similar, cut down on the bonus type bloat/spell redundancy/etc., and just generally cleaned up and tightened the core mechanics, I'd be happy.

[bosssmiley]

Can you please explain "...page long stat blocks, formula, cross-referencing between sources: all these things turn off the average paying punter (and these guys vastly outnumber the CharOp / numberfap internet optimizers)"

I understand the text walls but can you show an example of the rest as I'm not following?

Sure thing mate.

Page long stat blocks (ie: the late-model 3E stat block, the Pathfinder monster stat block, trap stat blocks) make it far too difficult to find relevant information quickly and easily. A monster stat 'block' should be no more than a line or two long at most. Anything more than that is infodump and bad design.

Good mechanics layout? Look at "Warhammer *" stat layouts. Two line stat blocks. Special rules and exceptions called out below.


Stephen Hawking tells an anecdote in Brief History of Time about his agent warning him that each and every equation in a book reduces sales by 50% (1 equation = half of expected sales, 2 = quarter of..., 3 = eighth of...). This is because most people don't want to do maths for fun. Hence all the online labour-saving number crunchers created for maths-heavy systems like 3E + 4E.

Keep formulae (and more broadly in-play mathematics more complex than finger-counting) to a minimum and people will be happier playing the game.


Cross-referencing is a chore during play. Having to drag the books out to look up an obscure spell, feat, situational modifier, etc. has the potential bring the game to a grinding halt each and every time it happens. This ruins immersion and flow of play, and should be avoided at all costs.

In short: research != fun for the vast majority of players.

Optimizers are (for all the noise they make on the internet) a small and elite subset of gamers. 90% of gamers don't want to weigh up the comparative advantages of 16 different ways to squeeze out that one extra +1 bonus; they just want the rules to be clear, unambiguous and easy to use. These people want to buy and play the game too. Why drive them away?

[RagnaroksChosen]

Sure thing mate.

Page long stat blocks (ie: the late-model 3E stat block, the Pathfinder monster stat block, trap stat blocks) make it far too difficult to find relevant information quickly and easily. A monster stat 'block' should be no more than a line or two long at most. Anything more than that is infodump and bad design.

Good mechanics layout? Look at "Warhammer *" stat layouts. Two line stat blocks. Special rules and exceptions called out below.


Stephen Hawking tells an anecdote in Brief History of Time about his agent warning him that each and every equation in a book reduces sales by 50% (1 equation = half of expected sales, 2 = quarter of..., 3 = eighth of...). This is because most people don't want to do maths for fun. Hence all the online labour-saving number crunchers created for maths-heavy systems like 3E + 4E.

Keep formulae (and more broadly in-play mathematics more complex than finger-counting) to a minimum and people will be happier playing the game.


Cross-referencing is a chore during play. Having to drag the books out to look up an obscure spell, feat, situational modifier, etc. has the potential bring the game to a grinding halt each and every time it happens. This ruins immersion and flow of play, and should be avoided at all costs.

In short: research != fun for the vast majority of players.

Optimizers are (for all the noise they make on the internet) a small and elite subset of gamers. 90% of gamers don't want to weigh up the comparative advantages of 16 different ways to squeeze out that one extra +1 bonus; they just want the rules to be clear, unambiguous and easy to use. These people want to buy and play the game too. Why drive them away?

I understand all of those i agree about the monster stat block thing. I usually prep monster with there tohit HP AC and maybe saves and a brief descript of ability's.

The spell cross referencing thing is really a player based issue not so much a system issue. Aka not knowing the spells you have or abilities. I ususaly have my players write down spell mechanics for spells the own or just hand them copys of the books so they have a stack. Usually they have the spell pulled up by the time its there turn.. or they know the spell.

[Kaiyanwang]

The spell cross referencing thing is really a player based issue not so much a system issue. Aka not knowing the spells you have or abilities. I ususaly have my players write down spell mechanics for spells the own or just hand them copys of the books so they have a stack. Usually they have the spell pulled up by the time its there turn.. or they know the spell.

I agree. See, I recently asked my players to keep track of the main informations about thei items,magical and mundane, and to give me an hand with the maps and combat. This increased a lot both the gameplay speed and the attention span of one of my player that usually was away with his mind. He became a very active player session by session.

About the monster stat block, I had quite the opposite issue: IMHO, both the early and the late 3.5 had their pros and cons. On the other hand, I've seen splatbook after splatbook a lot of monster with less spell like abilities, as an example, just because "it's a long list and my head hurts if I read too much".

A lot of old fey with a laundry list of (Sp) were way more interesting both in combat and out of combat.

[Fax Celestis]

Fax, are you using any kind of same-game or other rigorous playtesting? If you need help or info, I'd be glad to help you out however.

I will, but I have not yet.

[Nero24200]

Nero24200:
Hmm Dealing with Play-styles is a pain for a developer especially because they have to cater
to a few different play styles.


Perhaps, but I also think any attempting to redesign the game should think closely about the play-styles. Paizo, for instance, have had alot of problems because I don't think they take into account play-styles.

The cleric, for instance, they feel focuses too much on healing. So to fix this, rather than put a dent in the cleric's healing power, they made it more powerful, so that "The cleric won't waste all his spells on healing". This, I think, was a silly mistake. It might work for the paizo teams own personal games, but I don't see how it would sense in the majority of any other games. The logic is also pretty inconsistant. This is a good example of what I said earlier, rather than opting for a simple solution (such as say...making use of the varient in PHB, in which the cleric only spontainious heals if they have access to the healing domain) they decided to up his power, trying to fix the problem in an indirect manner.

Truthfully, the best homebrew system I've ever seen as actually a Final Fantasy X D20. The reason is quite simply:- Whether or not I think the game suits my table is debateable, but the game itself is consistant and fit's the play-style/theme aimed at. It's simple and the desired effects are acheived easily. When the designer saw problems he/she sorted them directly rather than indirectly like Paizo.

[Master_Rahl22]

Hmm, a proper fix for 3.5 would be 4E. :smallbiggrin:

Ah, don't flame me! It was a joke!

Seriously though, regardless of your opinion of 4E, they fixed many of the issues with 3.5 Simplified skills, simplified character creation, classes that aren't totally the same but are in the same ballpark in terms of power/usefulness, no one class can fulfill every role, etc. Even if you don't like 4E or think it's "not D&D" at the very least it eliminated the worst of the problems from 3.5. Yes you occasionally can find RAW that contradicts other RAW and things like that, but it's still a game produced by humans, and humans still aren't perfect. I think it would be worthwhile to analyze 4E from an objective standpoint.

[Killer Angel]

Hmm, a proper fix for 3.5 would be 4E. :smallbiggrin:

Ah, don't flame me! It was a joke!


It's a dangerous path, the one you're joking... :smalltongue:

[RagnaroksChosen]

Hmm, a proper fix for 3.5 would be 4E. :smallbiggrin:

Ah, don't flame me! It was a joke!

Seriously though, regardless of your opinion of 4E, they fixed many of the issues with 3.5 Simplified skills, simplified character creation, classes that aren't totally the same but are in the same ballpark in terms of power/usefulness, no one class can fulfill every role, etc. Even if you don't like 4E or think it's "not D&D" at the very least it eliminated the worst of the problems from 3.5. Yes you occasionally can find RAW that contradicts other RAW and things like that, but it's still a game produced by humans, and humans still aren't perfect. I think it would be worthwhile to analyze 4E from an objective standpoint.

Yes i agree, but it did make every class pritty much the same. I agree though character creation is simplified... and they did simplify skills (which personaly i don't think needed to be done).

[Kaiyanwang]

Hmm, a proper fix for 3.5 would be 4E. :smallbiggrin:

Ah, don't flame me! It was a joke!

Seriously though, regardless of your opinion of 4E, they fixed many of the issues with 3.5 Simplified skills, simplified character creation, classes that aren't totally the same but are in the same ballpark in terms of power/usefulness, no one class can fulfill every role, etc. Even if you don't like 4E or think it's "not D&D" at the very least it eliminated the worst of the problems from 3.5. Yes you occasionally can find RAW that contradicts other RAW and things like that, but it's still a game produced by humans, and humans still aren't perfect. I think it would be worthwhile to analyze 4E from an objective standpoint.


Yes i agree, but it did make every class pritty much the same. I agree though character creation is simplified... and they did simplify skills (which personaly i don't think needed to be done).


I BEG on my knees to stop it NOW.

[Tiki Snakes]

Really, I'd say the whole point is to be backwards compatible with 3.5. It needs to be entirely backwards compatible for it to make sense for me. If the differences are greater than those between 3 and 3.5, then it's really an entirely different edition and claiming otherwise would just be a case of disingenuous marketing.

I've no idea how the above compares to the options kicking around, though. :)

The tricky bit is, to make it worth buying, it'd also have to offer a significant improvement on what already exists. Which amounts to fixing the larger problems. Simply switching up the old martial classes with TOB classes might be the kind of thing to look at. If what is said about them is true and fair, then they really do make decent 'can compete with spellcasters' style replacement classes for most possible martial archetypes.

I fell deeply in love with 4th editions fighter, because I've always loved the *idea* of the class. An armoured combatant who succeeds through his own might, whatever. But actually having things to DO? Having options and tactical prescence beyond 'I make an attack'? I got a little giddy for a while. Still haven't gotten to play one much, though. ^_^
This is what it sounds like the TOB classes offer, and as such, yeah. Stuff. Probably not going to ever get the chance to try them out, though.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Really, I'd say the whole point is to be backwards compatible with 3.5. It needs to be entirely backwards compatible for it to make sense for me. If the differences are greater than those between 3 and 3.5, then it's really an entirely different edition and claiming otherwise would just be a case of disingenuous marketing.

I've no idea how the above compares to the options kicking around, though. :)

The tricky bit is, to make it worth buying, it'd also have to offer a significant improvement on what already exists. Which amounts to fixing the larger problems. Simply switching up the old martial classes with TOB classes might be the kind of thing to look at. If what is said about them is true and fair, then they really do make decent 'can compete with spellcasters' style replacement classes for most possible martial archetypes.

I fell deeply in love with 4th editions fighter, because I've always loved the *idea* of the class. An armoured combatant who succeeds through his own might, whatever. But actually having things to DO? Having options and tactical prescence beyond 'I make an attack'? I got a little giddy for a while. Still haven't gotten to play one much, though. ^_^
This is what it sounds like the TOB classes offer, and as such, yeah. Stuff. Probably not going to ever get the chance to try them out, though.

Backwards compatability is key!! i agree whole heartedly.

[PinkysBrain]

Symmetry between PCs and NPCs (they have these new fangled inventions which can run algorithms to generate NPCs).

Balancing encounters is the DM's job, and finding unexpected ways to trivialize encounters is the player's job, contextually powerful abilities are fun (of course 3e went a bit overboard here, with casters being able to have an encounter ending ability ready for every occasion).

[Doc Roc]

Disregard the hivemind. It has a tendency to form an unthinking brayherd behind the current orthodoxy, regardless of whether said orthodoxy is actually correct or not (*cough* ENWorld *cough*). The 'wisdom of crowds' only takes one person with provable truth to bring it crashing to a mindless, gabbling, nerdrage-spewing halt.

I'm pretty sure that one person won't be you, today. Welcome to the brayherd, sweetie! Sure most gamers aren't optimizers. That doesn't mean that game balance is a trivial concern. It's possible I'm misreading what you are suggesting, though, and if so, I apologize.

[Indon]

What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?
Set about expanding the system, rather than contracting it, and making it inexpensive/free for common access (basically making it an addendum to the SRD).

I don't really have an opinion on any of the supposed fixes out there - I prefer personal houseruling over using someone else's set of houserules.

The biggest problem with 3.5, as I see it, is that the system does not have a method to appropriately describe the relative effectiveness of player character builds. Much of the game's balance problems are rooted in the potential of disparate player character build power levels in a single party(The rest is from specific spells).

[erikun]

Forgive this newbie, but why is balance so darn well important?
It's been answered before, but I felt like throwing in my 2cp.

For a player, balance shouldn't be much of a concern. Sure, a player will want to tweak your stats so that their character can accomplish what you want it to, but they should be making choices based on their character concept, not which classes give which special abilities as which levels.

For a designer, balance is important so that players can do the above.

With a radically imbalanced system, creating a powerful (or as some times just viable) depends a lot on selecting what would otherwise be random elements together for a character. Want to fight with two weapons? You're better off fighting with a single two-handed weapon, or oddly enough, two weapons glued together (double weapon). What to be an agile fighter, stepping into and out of combat? I hope you picked a Rogue (or something with precision damage) and that the "step into and out of combat" is just fluff.

Overall, the point of balance is to allow as many character concepts to be as viable in the system as possible. Does that mean every character should be equal to every other character? No, not at all. The "NPC Classes" from 3.5e are weaker than there standard counterparts, and sometimes that's the balance you want in a party. Please note, however, that anyone playing an NPC class is doing so knowing that it is functionally weaker than the standard classes. Portraying the Barbarian as equal to a Wizard, or the Fighter as equal to a Druid, causes a problem when players (typically after a few sessions) begin to discover that their character concepts don't work. Not don't work as intended, just either don't work or work worse than the other options.


((@RagnaroksChosen: I need to step out for a few hours. I'll be back with your response later today.))

[JaxGaret]

The class tiers orthodoxy in particular is the kind of over-elaborate fanwank that distracts people from fixing the real problems with the game.

And your quote of Akula:


I really never got the point of that "tier system" anyway. In an abstract sense it is literally impossible to rate the classes as the Highest of the High or the Lowest of the Low. There are three "tiers" for reasonable people. NPC Classes, Classes that Cannot Pull Weight, and Classes that Can Pull weight. I think that further subdividing is pointless; hell, the NPC classes thing is only marginally its own league.
-- Akula, The Gaming Den

Just wanted to point out that Akula clearly states that they don't get the point of a tier system, and then immediately states that there are three tiers. Either a tier system is valid, or it is not, and Akula has clearly stated that it is valid.

Whether there should 3 tiers, or 5, or 7, or 20, is also a vaild question. According to Akula, there should be 3 tiers. According to others, there should be more tiers. But there is no fundamental break between those two opinions, and I'm really not sure what wedge Akula is trying to drive in here.


As to your quote, boss, why exactly do you feel that the tier system is over-elaborate? It seems like a fairly straightforward and simple thing to me.

[thegurullamen]

Just wanted to point out that Akula clearly states that they don't get the point of a tier system, and then immediately states that there are three tiers. Either a tier system is valid, or it is not, and Akula has clearly stated that it is valid.

Whether there should 3 tiers, or 5, or 7, or 20, is also a vaild question. According to Akula, there should be 3 tiers. According to others, there should be more tiers. But there is no fundamental break between them, and I'm really not sure what wedge Akula is trying to drive in here.

You missed the heck outta that point. Akula doesn't understand the point of a tiered system beyond the so-basic-it's-a-waste-of-words-to-say-it tri-tier system. For any given category, there is always The Good, The Bad and The Third (Not An) Option. Classes are no different. What she meant was further subdividing the quality continuum into more and more classifications is pointless because it's all too subjective. Heck, even TGTB&TTNAO division is too subjective to work beyond a glance; it's only there because common sense says it needs to be.

[Doc Roc]

Oh yes, I'm sure that a monk is perfectly balanced with a wizard who PrCs into Io7V. Totally a subjective differentiation.


Are you mad? The power level difference is so large, it hurts almost physically during the arduous period where I have to sit down and tweak and retweak the characters my players submit so that we can at least pretend we're playing the same game.

[Alex Star]

What if the problem with 3.5 is the core mechanic?

What if the problem isn't with abilities, or balancing of powers, or feats... but at the very building of Characters.

[The Rose Dragon]

What if the problem with 3.5 is the core mechanic?

What if the problem isn't with abilities, or balancing of powers, or feats... but at the very building of Characters.

Explain what you mean by "core mechanic".

EDIT: I mean, I don't suppose you're talking about "d20 + modifiers = DC => success!".

[Doc Roc]

I agree with you in some respects. But class-based systems can be balanced, as a number of other games show us. So building characters is not the core problem. I may prefer class-less systems, but that doesn't invalidate the existence of classed systems. Unless you are suggesting that characters shouldn't be built at all, in which case I have an asbestos suit with your name on it.

Here, though, this is neat. Take a look at their discussion of the release of 3.5. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030715x)

Interesting note:
Wizard and cleric get banned a lot, so there's some credence to the idea that the spiritual core of 3.5 is rotten.

[AstralFire]

The d20 as a primary modifier is a big issue. Until you work with very large numbers, it provides a huge amount of variance. Someone with a +10 (decently large modifier) can succeed 5% of the time on something incredibly hard, DC 30; someone with a +20 (double the competency, and nearing what's expected for epic levels) is still only succeeding 50% of the time.

This is doubly highlighted whenever you use the d20 as a graded resolution mechanic (as appears sometimes) rather than a yes/no.

[Alex Star]

Explain what you mean by "core mechanic".

EDIT: I mean, I don't suppose you're talking about "d20 + modifiers = DC => success!".

The core of D&D Character building encourages specialization.

Wizards need INT
Clerics need WIS
Sorcerers need CHA

Why? because everything is based on it. So it encourages specializing in one ability score.

What if Wizards need INT for the highest level of spell they can cast. WISDOM for all effects related to bonuses to spell effects. And CON to determine Save DC's?

What if Clerics needed WIS for highest spell level, CHA for bonus effects, and CON for Save DC's?

And Sorcerers needed CHA, WIS, and CON for the same reasons?

This would require a much broader stroke at character creation. Reducing the capablity of long term specialization through items, and other enhancements.

Casting spells should require more than just one ability score... why? because IT IS more complicated than swinging a sword.

[AstralFire]

Heh, that is one thing I always thought the Favored Soul got right. There should never be such a thing as a one-stat god. Totally agreed Alex.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

What if the problem with 3.5 is the core mechanic?

What if the problem isn't with abilities, or balancing of powers, or feats... but at the very building of Characters.
But that's sort of true with almost every game to some extent (except pure storytelling games) because it is a game. Since you have to mechanize some aspect of the game, that will always subject to min/maxing.


The d20 as a primary modifier is a big issue. Until you work with very large numbers, it provides a huge amount of variance. Someone with a +10 (decently large modifier) can succeed 5% of the time on something incredibly hard, DC 30; someone with a +20 (double the competency, and nearing what's expected for epic levels) is still only succeeding 50% of the time.

This is doubly highlighted whenever you use the d20 as a graded resolution mechanic (as appears sometimes) rather than a yes/no.
Agreed but d20 was introduced as a simple dynamic...except its also used to resolve not so simple things. Unless you use some electronic/programmatic means to resolve probabilities, dice will always introduce these discreet probabilities.


Forgive this newbie, but why is balance so darn well important? I agree that every character should feel useful, contributing to the party. But Dungeons and Dragons is not primarily player verses player, but player's verses enviroment.
In PvP, balance is all important because the idea is to win by beating other players, and so skill of said player should be the only consideration. In PvE, winning is much fuzzier. There will be goals, but it will be a team effort. As long as each player is contributing to that goal, all is well in my view. There is no win condition. I agree 3.5 has issues with contribution balance, but too much of a obsession with balance, in my view, implies too much sameness.
Balance is important because at a certain level in the game certain classes start to be much better (have more power in game, have more options). This is not to say that you cannot play a fighter in an old (pre 4e, pre ToB) version of D&D and have fun even in a high level game.

The issue is not the spellcaster per say but the spells he can cast. Since magic is open ended and the combat resolution and skill systems are fairly, it is inevitable that some spell somewhere will circumvent/overshadow/dominate combat or skill use.

There are several "solutions" to that. One is to limit everyone, that is limit magic, to what it can do. Another is to make everyone capable of using some form of magic.


What would a company have to do to gain your trust about making a 3.5 update?

What does it mean for gamers "trusting" a game mechanic? Gamers "prefer" or "like" or even "fanatically defend in an internet forum" a game mechanics.

If you mean can there be a consensus, like will the 3.x market get behind one fix or version, no I don't think that will happen.

If you mean will the market be the same as it was when WotC's product was 3.x, then no, I don't think that will happen. RPG's have a life cycle and 3.x has reached a certain point in it.



What are your opinions of the ones out there?
Is there a List or a thread on some forum with a general list on agreed on issues with 3.5 ?( i know that is subjective but i mean a few things can be generaly agreed on. Monks aren't great, Wizards > sorcerers)
I know the class Tier system is held in great regard here and on other sites as well.

There are so many proposed fixes out that you can almost become paralyzed by the choices. It's not hard to find lists and lists of the problems and proposed fixes. The best thing (in any edition) is to play the game and gain experience with it yourself. Then you can make adjustments yourself or borrow fixes from someone else.

[Doc Roc]

So... there's this system called Savage worlds, Right?
And it's pretty cool, I think... so I was wondering, if maybe you'd like to hang out sometime, you know, with me and Savage Worlds?

[JaxGaret]

You missed the heck outta that point. Akula doesn't understand the point of a tiered system beyond the so-basic-it's-a-waste-of-words-to-say-it tri-tier system.

Where exactly does it say that in the quote? I must have missed it.


For any given category, there is always The Good, The Bad and The Third (Not An) Option. Classes are no different. What she meant was further subdividing the quality continuum into more and more classifications is pointless because it's all too subjective. Heck, even TGTB&TTNAO division is too subjective to work beyond a glance; it's only there because common sense says it needs to be.

Hardly. For example, there are no such divisions in 4e. It is not a universal.

[Umael]

That's a funny question.

The intent/spirit of 3.5?

When I first saw 3.0, it looked a lot like 2nd edition, only better. Things like having a 12 Strength actually mattered. You could have a half-orc sorcerer if you want. Things that were new, like feats, seemed natural, like they SHOULD be in D&D.

As I looked at 3rd edition, I saw that it was important to not only have a variety of class-race combos, but to have a distinction between two individuals of the same class-race combo, even if they had similar ability scores.

3.5 carried on the same thing from 3.0, only it fixed a few things here and there.

Naturally, as I got more familiar with 3.5, I saw the cracks that I didn't think should be there.

The big one is that a 20th-level fighter should be as powerful as a 20th-level monk should be as powerful as a 20th-level wizard, and that I should be able to play a 16th-level sorcerer 4 ECL race and have it function just as well as a 20th-level druid from a 0 ECL race.

I guess it's just one crack... but it's a big one.

[JaxGaret]

I guess it's just one crack... but it's a big one.

The problem is that it's not one big crack, it's lots of cracks of differing sizes.

[erikun]

Erikun:
2.) I disagree. I think d20 is great for skill based encounters. Especially infiltration. I believe that the ability for it to be sneak in sneak out is up to the GM really. Can you provide evidence that it is not capable of doing that?
Let's assume that the party rogue has a +18 bonus to their hide check over the guard's passive (take 10) spot checks. That means, obviously, that there is a 95% the rogue gets past the guard with out being noticed.

Two guards? 90.25% (0.95 * 0.95)
Three guards? 85.7375% (0.95 ^ 3)

Twenty guards? Around 36% chance to sneak past all of them. Drop that down to 13% if the DM requires listen checks, too.

Now, this isn't a problem with all checks. Missing an attack in combat isn't too bad, as you can always try swinging again next round. Missing a bluff check against one individual in a group isn't so bad when you convince everyone else. If you're trying to sway the leader of a group with diplomancy, only the one roll really matters.

However, things like stealth are a bit different. The goal isn't to succeed most of the time - it's to not fail, and asking for repeated rolls (and the D&D rules recommend) sets up a roll-until-you-fail senario. You will fail, given enough rolls, meaning that I couldn't rely on stealth to get me into and out of a dangerous situation.

This is a rather easy solution, though. Several other RPG systems (Burning Wheel, JadeClaw, World or Darkness I believe) recommend one roll per "scene", meaning that if I rolled high, I will sneak past all the guards - unless something happens that would alert them, such as shouting, knocking something over, or someone triggering an alarm.

--

The other major issue I have is the skill system. Not necessarily with the way it works (when it does) but with the way it doesn't work, and the way it presents itself.

A level 10 character with max skill ranks (+13) and a relevant ability score of 20 (+5) will have a +18 to their skill checks, at least. A similar character with max cross-class skill ranks (+6) and a 14 ability score (+2) ends up with only +8. Someone with no skill ranks can easily still have a +0, or worse.

If the character with a +8 to their score takes 10, then the one with max skill ranks automatically wins - no roll required, every time. Conversely, the zero-ranks character can almost never win against the cross-class guy, dipping into "literally never" if they have a penality.

So, as early as level 10, we're seeing characters who will always win against any half/no skill ranks opponent, and characters who will always lose against any half/max skill ranks opponents. While at earlier levels, the "take half ranks to Jack-of-all-Trades" make work out well, but it becomes the "Jack-of-no-Trades" later on.

I guess it does depend on how you look at levels, though. If you consider lv. 1-7 to be "standard" human abilities, lv. 8-13 to be "olympic", and lb. 14-20 to be "superheroic", then the skill ranks would make a bit more sense. As such, almost anyone is a challange in your beginning years, only characters with training can compete with olympic heroes, and only the most devoted and focused can keep up with you when you're near-epic.

However, I think I'm the only one to suggest such a reasoning behind the skill points system. Moreso, I would think that my near epic, godlike character wouldn't still be doing the same stupid things he did back in commonerhood. My fighter, who has been crawling through caverns and over slippery mudholes his adult life should have some ability to keep his legs under his body - and he shouldn't be a poor horseman because of it. My wizard, who has been wandering the kingdom for the last 20 years searching for artifacts and arcane lore, should be able to tell which way is north by now. My rogue, whose underground connections and silver tongue has basically taken over the entire kingdom underworld, should know better than to refer to the princess as "Miss Prissy Stick-in-the-Butt." I would think that characters as advanced and experienced as these would have some idea of what they're doing, even when it doesn't fall into their direct realm of expertise.

[Umael]

Erikun - just for the record, level 4 is Olympic-athlete-class. Level 5 is grand master, or whatever you have it. At least according to a particularly smart review I read, which made quite a bit of sense.

[JaxGaret]

This is a rather easy solution, though. Several other RPG systems (Burning Wheel, JadeClaw, World or Darkness I believe) recommend one roll per "scene", meaning that if I rolled high, I will sneak past all the guards - unless something happens that would alert them, such as shouting, knocking something over, or someone triggering an alarm.

The character sneaking around can also simply take 10 on their Stealth checks. EDIT: Hide and Move Silently, I mean. :smallbiggrin:


I guess it does depend on how you look at levels, though. If you consider lv. 1-7 to be "standard" human abilities, lv. 8-13 to be "olympic", and lb. 14-20 to be "superheroic", then the skill ranks would make a bit more sense. As such, almost anyone is a challange in your beginning years, only characters with training can compete with olympic heroes, and only the most devoted and focused can keep up with you when you're near-epic.

I think that's the generally agreed to interpretation of the levels, by people who analyze what being at a certain level actually means in terms of capability. Although I think it might be closer to 1-3 standard, 4-6 olympic, and 7+ superheroic, or something similar to that.


Erikun - just for the record, level 4 is Olympic-athlete-class. Level 5 is grand master, or whatever you have it. At least according to a particularly smart review I read, which made quite a bit of sense.

Yeah, what Umael said. I'll find the link in a second.

I think this is it - D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html).

[Sinfire Titan]

1. Fix most of the worst problems in a mechanically simple way that doesn't change much, I don't like complete class rewrites. They would also have to add something unique, interesting, and balanced to get money.

Problem: Many classes need total rewrites. Pretty much everything below Tier 4 and absolutely everything in Tiers 2 and 1 (especially Tier 1).

Tier 3 and Tier 4 are somewhat balanced, and should be used as a base-line.

Then you get into PrCs. Sometimes, the +2 Tier PrCs are actually very balanced, despite being an obvious must-have for a particular class or build. Most of the time, the +2 Tier PrCs can be nerfed safely (spellcaster PrCs only, as melee needs nice things). All of the -2 Tier PrCs need a total remake.

Spells/Feats are another issue. Magic items too (a single class should not be able to completely replace the party with magic items alone). All three of these need to be fixed.

Trying to fix a system without changing that much, at the very least, is doomed to fail. There's just too much broken or garbage to actually leave out. Sometimes the only way to fix it is to rewrite the entire book (CW in general, Truenamer, Spell Compendium, Savage Species, etc).

[erikun]

Erikun - just for the record, level 4 is Olympic-athlete-class. Level 5 is grand master, or whatever you have it. At least according to a particularly smart review I read, which made quite a bit of sense.
More to the point, while level 5 may be grand master for skill checks - when combined with feats, aid another, and masterwork equipment - it doesn't quite feel like that for the rest of the system. A level 5 Fighter doesn't feel much like a commander, general, or master of war. A level 5 Monk isn't punching through several feet of solid stone, as some olympic athletes do.

Wizards et al. are a bit harder to judge, although I will admit that causing a room to explode into fire is rather impressive.

This is one reason why I'd like to see the skill system revised: so that an "expert master skillsman" occures around the same time as an "expert master warrior" or "expert master spellcaster."

[Umael]

More to the point, while level 5 may be grand master for skill checks - when combined with feats, aid another, and masterwork equipment - it doesn't quite feel like that for the rest of the system. A level 5 Fighter doesn't feel much like a commander, general, or master of war. A level 5 Monk isn't punching through several feet of solid stone, as some olympic athletes do.

A level 5 fighter is a grunt, someone who has been in the trenches, a war hero. Not necessarily a commander, let alone a general.

As for punching through several feet of solid stone, I would LOVE to see a video of that, given that several feet would put the person's arm into the stone to their armpit.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Olympic athelete's don't even do that...

[Fax Celestis]

The other major issue I have is the skill system. Not necessarily with the way it works (when it does) but with the way it doesn't work, and the way it presents itself.

A level 10 character with max skill ranks (+13) and a relevant ability score of 20 (+5) will have a +18 to their skill checks, at least. A similar character with max cross-class skill ranks (+6) and a 14 ability score (+2) ends up with only +8. Someone with no skill ranks can easily still have a +0, or worse.

If the character with a +8 to their score takes 10, then the one with max skill ranks automatically wins - no roll required, every time. Conversely, the zero-ranks character can almost never win against the cross-class guy, dipping into "literally never" if they have a penality.

So, as early as level 10, we're seeing characters who will always win against any half/no skill ranks opponent, and characters who will always lose against any half/max skill ranks opponents. While at earlier levels, the "take half ranks to Jack-of-all-Trades" make work out well, but it becomes the "Jack-of-no-Trades" later on.

I guess it does depend on how you look at levels, though. If you consider lv. 1-7 to be "standard" human abilities, lv. 8-13 to be "olympic", and lb. 14-20 to be "superheroic", then the skill ranks would make a bit more sense. As such, almost anyone is a challange in your beginning years, only characters with training can compete with olympic heroes, and only the most devoted and focused can keep up with you when you're near-epic.

However, I think I'm the only one to suggest such a reasoning behind the skill points system. Moreso, I would think that my near epic, godlike character wouldn't still be doing the same stupid things he did back in commonerhood. My fighter, who has been crawling through caverns and over slippery mudholes his adult life should have some ability to keep his legs under his body - and he shouldn't be a poor horseman because of it. My wizard, who has been wandering the kingdom for the last 20 years searching for artifacts and arcane lore, should be able to tell which way is north by now. My rogue, whose underground connections and silver tongue has basically taken over the entire kingdom underworld, should know better than to refer to the princess as "Miss Prissy Stick-in-the-Butt." I would think that characters as advanced and experienced as these would have some idea of what they're doing, even when it doesn't fall into their direct realm of expertise.

So it sounds like a reasonable solution would be to have a static modifier based upon character level for all skills. Say, 1/2 or 1/3 class level, rounded down, as a competence bonus.

[Milskidasith]

A level 5 fighter is a grunt, someone who has been in the trenches, a war hero. Not necessarily a commander, let alone a general.

Considering a level 5 fighter is assumed to be able to fight trolls, 500 pound 9 foot tall regenerating beasts with strength and stamina far beyond humans, I'd say he's a bit more than a grunt.

[erikun]

As for punching through several feet of solid stone, I would LOVE to see a video of that, given that several feet would put the person's arm into the stone to their armpit.
Some guy named Drew Serrano. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtnQlT9VIqE) Meh music, but that first stack of bricks is well more that one foot high.

Punching through 35 bricks, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwGDO2wknLE) which I believe is still a world record. I'd guess that stack is somewhere around 7-8 feet high.

Dorothea Kapkowski breaking 15 blocks with her elbow, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68C5TpmT8pE) which is at least 3 feet high.

9th Dan Grand Master Kevin Taylor palm striking through 500+ cement bricks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjakBg7mLJw) in under a minute.


I'm not comparing that to a monk's unarmed damage - the D&D "monk" is really more a Shaolin-style than a general martial artist - but I think even a Lv.5 fighter with Power Attack and a magical adamantine sword would have difficulty breaking through six feet of rock.

[Fhaolan]

Some guy named Drew Serrano. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtnQlT9VIqE) Meh music, but that first stack of bricks is well more that one foot high.

Punching through 35 bricks, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwGDO2wknLE) which I believe is still a world record. I'd guess that stack is somewhere around 7-8 feet high.

Dorothea Kapkowski breaking 15 blocks with her elbow, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68C5TpmT8pE) which is at least 3 feet high.

9th Dan Grand Master Kevin Taylor palm striking through 500+ cement bricks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjakBg7mLJw) in under a minute.


I'm not comparing that to a monk's unarmed damage - the D&D "monk" is really more a Shaolin-style than a general martial artist - but I think even a Lv.5 fighter with Power Attack and a magical adamantine sword would have difficulty breaking through six feet of rock.

There's a trick to that breaking of bricks (speaking as someone who's done that kind of stuff personally), and cement blocks, and whatever. The trick relies on the fact that there's a thin sliver of airspace between each brick. If the bricks were actually right up against each other with no gaps, they wouldn't be able to it. It's not the same thing as breaking through six feet of solid rock.

Mind you, it does take a lot of training and experience to achieve what they did. It's just not the same thing as punching a hole through a stone wall, and should not be used as a measure of such. :smallsmile:

There was this guy who was testing for a belt, and had to bring his own bricks. He stood there and battered at the brick for awhile before giving up in frustration. The sensei picked up the brick, looked at it, and then smashed it up agains the concrete blocks that were being used the hold the brick up. The blocks shattered, and the brick was undamaged. The thing was, the brick was glazed, and it had those holes in it that actually structurally reenforce the brick. The sensei failed the guy, and on the exam report wrote:

If you wish to break bricks, learn to choose better bricks for breaking.

[Umael]

I'm not comparing that to a monk's unarmed damage - the D&D "monk" is really more a Shaolin-style than a general martial artist - but I think even a Lv.5 fighter with Power Attack and a magical adamantine sword would have difficulty breaking through six feet of rock.

Cute. Nice video.

Are you aware that there is a different between breaking a stack of bricks six feet high and breaking a solid stone block six feet thick?

(Note: I don't think the D&D mechanics would allow even the breaking of bricks as per these videos. I forget the physics involved, and no, I'm not saying that even knowing the physics I could do it - but there is less "mystical chi power" involved here than they let on.)

[Pharaoh's Fist]

1. Fix most of the worst problems in a mechanically simple way that doesn't change much, I don't like complete class rewrites. They would also have to add something unique, interesting, and balanced to get money.


But... it's a symptom. You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on, consumes the system. The fish rots from the head, so they say. So I'm thinking, why not cut off the head?

[Umael]

But... it's a symptom. You're treating a symptom while the disease rages on, consumes the system. The fish rots from the head, so they say. So I'm thinking, why not cut off the head?

So... shoot the design team at WotC?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I never said it was a perfect analogy.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Let's assume that the party rogue has a +18 bonus to their hide check over the guard's passive (take 10) spot checks. That means, obviously, that there is a 95% the rogue gets past the guard with out being noticed.

Two guards? 90.25% (0.95 * 0.95)
Three guards? 85.7375% (0.95 ^ 3)

Twenty guards? Around 36% chance to sneak past all of them. Drop that down to 13% if the DM requires listen checks, too.

Now, this isn't a problem with all checks. Missing an attack in combat isn't too bad, as you can always try swinging again next round. Missing a bluff check against one individual in a group isn't so bad when you convince everyone else. If you're trying to sway the leader of a group with diplomancy, only the one roll really matters.

However, things like stealth are a bit different. The goal isn't to succeed most of the time - it's to not fail, and asking for repeated rolls (and the D&D rules recommend) sets up a roll-until-you-fail senario. You will fail, given enough rolls, meaning that I couldn't rely on stealth to get me into and out of a dangerous situation.

This is a rather easy solution, though. Several other RPG systems (Burning Wheel, JadeClaw, World or Darkness I believe) recommend one roll per "scene", meaning that if I rolled high, I will sneak past all the guards - unless something happens that would alert them, such as shouting, knocking something over, or someone triggering an alarm.

--

The other major issue I have is the skill system. Not necessarily with the way it works (when it does) but with the way it doesn't work, and the way it presents itself.

A level 10 character with max skill ranks (+13) and a relevant ability score of 20 (+5) will have a +18 to their skill checks, at least. A similar character with max cross-class skill ranks (+6) and a 14 ability score (+2) ends up with only +8. Someone with no skill ranks can easily still have a +0, or worse.

If the character with a +8 to their score takes 10, then the one with max skill ranks automatically wins - no roll required, every time. Conversely, the zero-ranks character can almost never win against the cross-class guy, dipping into "literally never" if they have a penality.

So, as early as level 10, we're seeing characters who will always win against any half/no skill ranks opponent, and characters who will always lose against any half/max skill ranks opponents. While at earlier levels, the "take half ranks to Jack-of-all-Trades" make work out well, but it becomes the "Jack-of-no-Trades" later on.

I guess it does depend on how you look at levels, though. If you consider lv. 1-7 to be "standard" human abilities, lv. 8-13 to be "olympic", and lb. 14-20 to be "superheroic", then the skill ranks would make a bit more sense. As such, almost anyone is a challange in your beginning years, only characters with training can compete with olympic heroes, and only the most devoted and focused can keep up with you when you're near-epic.

However, I think I'm the only one to suggest such a reasoning behind the skill points system. Moreso, I would think that my near epic, godlike character wouldn't still be doing the same stupid things he did back in commonerhood. My fighter, who has been crawling through caverns and over slippery mudholes his adult life should have some ability to keep his legs under his body - and he shouldn't be a poor horseman because of it. My wizard, who has been wandering the kingdom for the last 20 years searching for artifacts and arcane lore, should be able to tell which way is north by now. My rogue, whose underground connections and silver tongue has basically taken over the entire kingdom underworld, should know better than to refer to the princess as "Miss Prissy Stick-in-the-Butt." I would think that characters as advanced and experienced as these would have some idea of what they're doing, even when it doesn't fall into their direct realm of expertise.

I disagree with your analagy. +18 to hide and a gaurdesman taking ten the rogue should win? or should loose so low of the amount of time. Think about it. Guards what got mabye a + 4-6 roll even if it was +8 or higher you have to factor in the penalties like -1 per ten feet to the spotter. and or -5 if hes distracted,(aka half asleep talking). so in theory that +18 the person has should easily beat the guard with no problem... With out even needing to roll because skills don't critical or critical fail. And what if there is 20 gaurds... there not all using Aid another on there spot checks that requires actions to take and is a guard really going to be doing that the whole night.

Also World of darkness is a bad example to use..(not sure about the other one) but you would get a re-roll if your dice pool changed. and the one scene thing is some times debatable. those rules are to open for interpretation to be used though I see where your getting at with it. (Especialy where your dicepools could be neer epic with almost any starting character according to the character generation rules)

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

as for your other thing i have mixed feelings about the skill system in general. On one hand i like it because i understand it (which it sounds like you do as well) and i can manipulate it the way i need for what i need. and if my players call me on it i can show them the math and what the modifiers are. But i agree with you that skills do seem to sky rocket pritty quickly especialy if some one is a little geared tword it.

Good example i have a wisper gnome rogue 5 in my group hes a sneaky guy... i think his hide modifier is neer 30 now... +4 small, +4 race, +5 dex, +8 ranks + 5 comp from armour(shadow). And i belive he has the stuff to take shadow dancer next level which is cool... but he build his character so he could hide in a jiffy..

In responce to your Ride thought I disagree... if a character has never ridden a horse(rank 0) then no i don't think he should be able to sit on a horse and just go with no problems... Why would he know what to do hes been in a dungion most his carear?
That one of the things i hated about 4th ed is that you add your level to skill checks. It all seems so static.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I never said it was a perfect analogy.

Mmm...no, I'd say anything that ends with "[do something terrible] at/to the WotC design team" is a pretty good one, actually.

[Indon]

Problem: Many classes need total rewrites. Pretty much everything below Tier 4 and absolutely everything in Tiers 2 and 1 (especially Tier 1).

Tier 3 and Tier 4 are somewhat balanced, and should be used as a base-line.

Why? Why not use, well, any of the other tiers as a baseline?

It's not like T3 and 4 are balanced with anything but each other - CR doesn't work consistently, so it doesn't work for any of the character tiers, so 'balance' seems pretty much governed by relative PC power level.

[AstralFire]

Why? Why not use, well, any of the other tiers as a baseline?

It's not like T3 and 4 are balanced with anything but each other - CR doesn't work consistently, so it doesn't work for any of the character tiers, so 'balance' seems pretty much governed by relative PC power level.

Because almost everything in T3/4 is interesting to play mechanically and represent the most popular splatbook classes among optimization primaries and RP primaries alike in my experience.

[Yora]

2.) D&D's focus on combat. In most other roleplaying games I've seen, being able to sneak in-sneak out, or able to talk to people and gather information, are just as effective as swordfighting.
But that's not the rules, that's just the players.

I really like, and do prefer games, where it is the best choice to avoid violence and the story is advanced by dialoges and complex plots. And I can't think of any rules I'd need to do that, that are not allready included in D&D.

It is true, that the DMG explains the game in terms of fighting monsters for so long until you get a new level and then go fighting monsters who are a bit more powerful. But the bare rules don't do anything to complicate non-combat focused games.

[Indon]

Because almost everything in T3/4 is interesting to play mechanically and represent the most popular splatbook classes among optimization primaries and RP primaries alike in my experience.

Different people like different classes - some people prefer T4/5 classes while others prefer T1/2.

Believe it or not, some people like playing a Fighter who does nothing but Full Attack each round in combat. Not having to sweat over some power list, for some people, is a perk, and as a DM, if your players have that option, it's to the benefit of your party.

And I may be mistaken, but it seems to me the single most popular class in the game, in general, is a T5.

[Alex Star]

That one of the things i hated about 4th ed is that you add (HALF) your level to skill checks. It all seems so static.

I houseruled this in for 3.5... I always thought it was silly that a level 10 adventurer had absolutely no bonus to Monster Knowledge checks even though he'd spent the last 10 levels fighting monsters.

I have always felt that ranks in skills symbolized hardcore training and refinement. But that experience and knowledge were always gained over time. I think the system of adding 1/2 level to skill checks reflects that, especially for skills that can be used (UNTRAINED).

[Kaiyanwang]

But that's not the rules, that's just the players.


Or the DM. In my experience, when things like that fail, we are facing railroading.

About the skill thing: in Unhearthed arcana, there are 2 alternative way to handle skill.

Take a look, because they consider the Level / half level thing (similar way to 4th edition, so no skill points).

Edit: they are in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm), too

[RagnaroksChosen]

Why? Why not use, well, any of the other tiers as a baseline?

It's not like T3 and 4 are balanced with anything but each other - CR doesn't work consistently, so it doesn't work for any of the character tiers, so 'balance' seems pretty much governed by relative PC power level.

I thought Tier 3 was balanced that IMO is where its at, nothing is to over powered when fighting appropriate cr monsters they seem to do alright (around 50-50 ) which is a good thing.


Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Can be game breaking only with specific intent to do so. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribute to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well.

(quoted from the thread Here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0))

If we look at those descriptions why wouldn't we a developer want to place classes there. It allows for no one character to out sine the group in all situations,yes every class will have its moment to shine. Except a few classes like the bard who kinda has his hand in alot of things(BC, Healing., Stealth, skills, face) but realy doesn't master any of them unless you supper specialise the build which meens most every thing else is disregarded.

This is to every one:
Would it be fair to assume a balanced class will have one area it shines in an mabye one or a few areas where its decent but won't go over board?

Another example is like a ranger kinda the warrior/skill monkey/caster(though crappy) if they specialize in one it hurts the others
Or what if it is the whole specialisation that is the problem?

[RagnaroksChosen]

I houseruled this in for 3.5... I always thought it was silly that a level 10 adventurer had absolutely no bonus to Monster Knowledge checks even though he'd spent the last 10 levels fighting monsters.

I have always felt that ranks in skills symbolized hardcore training and refinement. But that experience and knowledge were always gained over time. I think the system of adding 1/2 level to skill checks reflects that, especially for skills that can be used (UNTRAINED).

Well what if that character just hasn't retained it... i know I've studied long and hard for a test the night before and nearly forgotten the next day about the test. But then again in my games players can't roll for knowledge blah for monsters they have to figure it out...

Also another counter point is why if they have been fighting goblins and kobolds there hole career should they be any knowledgable of Fiends or elementals? yet with the static addition they do? doesn't seem to make sense for me.. though i do agree though that they should get a bonus for future knowledge checks relating to the things they have fought (which is actualy in rules i belive the DMG talks about adding modifiers for favorable circumstances.)

@Yora: they do Thats why exp is set up by encounter. Any social situation can be considered an encounter. therefor you can get EXP.

The way I do it for games (mainly because i have found no way else of doing it) is:
Start at a base of EL(encounter level) = average group level
+1-3 depending if there was alot of risk
-1-3 if there was no risk or if they gained some thing else out of it(a follower/item)
+1 for awsome RP
-1 for Lame RP
+1 for passed skill checks
-1 for failed skill checks
Skill checks that don't pass or fail don't add anything.
Unfortunately that usually my check list and my players know it... though its really a judgment call..

[Doc Roc]

Problem: Many classes need total rewrites. Pretty much everything below Tier 4 and absolutely everything in Tiers 2 and 1 (especially Tier 1).

I disagree. I think Tiers 2 and 3 can stay. After all, in many groups, the player base is small, 2-4 players, and the challenges if they are to remain interesting must often be quite bloody. Tier 4, I normally find quite boring to play, in some cases excruciating. Most of my fixes are aimed at Tier 2, as a result of this.

Tier one, however, must die so that others may live.


On that note, I'm going to put something forward:
I think there was no intent in 3.5. Not anything meaningful or useful to us, anyway.

[PinkysBrain]

I think the question in the title is so much better than the question actually asked in the original post :( Agreeing on what needs to be conserved seems to me a more fruitful endavour than shooting the fish in the barrel which are the poorly designed parts of 3e.

It will make a shorter list for sure ...

[RagnaroksChosen]

I think the question in the title is so much better than the question actually asked in the original post :( Agreeing on what needs to be conserved seems to me a more fruitful endavour than shooting the fish in the barrel which are the poorly designed parts of 3e.

It will make a shorter list for sure ...

Please feel free to answer that question too :) I'm always interested in hearing peoples opinions about that.

Also any thoughts on issues with 3.5 are welcome I'm just collecting peoples thoughts on stuff.. As you can see some of the stuff here i've posted. I know fax is pritty stoked about hearing it.

[Tiki Snakes]

On that note, I'm going to put something forward:
I think there was no intent in 3.5. Not anything meaningful or useful to us, anyway.

That sounds about right to me. They worked hard on it, and made a great game, but there was probably no unified, stated-beforehand goal that everything was designed around, unlike Saga edition star wars, and 4th.
Essentially reactive, as it were?

[Gnaeus]

Just a note:

Many well loved systems have not the faintest hint of "Balance". Rifts has been in play for years, and I know players who swear by it, but you can make a starting Level 1 human skill-monkey with less than 50 hit points, and put him next to a spellcasting Level 1 dragon with 10,000 (i.e. 100 megadamage). The old Elric system had a random race class generation system, where one starting player can get a Melnibonean noble/Sorcerer with a demon bound into his sword and another bound into his armor, and the next player can roll a beggar with penalties to his stats and a starting roll on the crippling injuries table! Through low and mid levels, 3.5 is not nearly as badly balanced as its detractors would claim.

Balance can mean "everyone is at the same power level" (which I think was 4.0s goal, and failed), or "everyone is close enough to the same power level that they can stand in the same combat encounters and have everyone be challenged and contribute something" (which I would say is the goal of 3.5, also failed), or "everyone has situations in which they are needed and valuable to the team (but not necessarily in combat)(which seems to happen more in modern/future systems, where the spaceship pilot or the computer hacker or the guy with connections to the police are all viable roles even if they can't fight at all)". If balance is really your top goal, point buy systems beat any class system.

Most people get in discussions about balance, without really agreeing on what it means first, and what the goal should be. If you want to "balance the game" it will be easier if you clearly state wtf that means.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

On that note, I'm going to put something forward:
I think there was no intent in 3.5. Not anything meaningful or useful to us, anyway.

I would disagree. There was very much a focus on tradition for 3.0/3.5--translate 2e so as to change the core mechanic while leaving pretty much everything as intact as possible--so the intent of 3e was the same as the intent of 2e, as much as we may deride 2e nowadays for being nonsensical or unintuitive and as much or as little as 3e achieved that goal. This is a good design goal, since it required them to look at all of aspects of 2e at least in a big-picture sense and analyze what should be translated and how, but problems cropped up in two places.

First, the devs didn't always realize or understand the 2e design process/intent and so "mistranslated" things--like removing a lot of the things that made fighters good and that put a check on casters, while we're speaking of tier 1/tier 5, in the name of streamlining initiative and introducing skills and such. It's like the situation with 4e skill challenges, where the intent is good, the structure is sound, but it's the little details that ruin a great idea without being all that obvious about it on paper.

Second, they didn't playtest mid levels enough and high levels much at all. 4e epic levels would suck relative to heroic and paragon if they decided to playtest 1-20 and then throw numbers at level 21-30 hoping something works, but the underlying system would still be sound even though the epic math was wonky. Same way with high-level spells--they were (mostly) fine in 2e because they came with drawbacks both general (casting difficulties) and specific (aging/expense), but when the devs did their analysis and decided to toss out some of the spellcasting drawbacks to make it easier on low-level casters, they didn't test things to see that that rippled up to the higher-level casters as well.

So yes, I'd say there was definitely an intent, it's just that it was botched in a few important aspects that lead to most of the problems in 3e and obscure the design goals.

[imperialspectre]

That sounds about right to me. They worked hard on it, and made a great game, but there was probably no unified, stated-beforehand goal that everything was designed around, unlike Saga edition star wars, and 4th.
Essentially reactive, as it were?

Well, WotC worked on 3.5, and they made a game. ;)

I really think that a lot of the good things from 3.5 were largely coincidental, up until the late 3.5 books that were actually really well written. There was no effort to playtest core intelligently. Look, shapechange was buffed between 3.0 and 3.5, as was alter self. The spells actually weren't all that abusive prior to 3.5. Meanwhile, non-casters and sorcerers were systematically nerfed in 3.5 core.

It took two years and a lot of bad material for WotC to start fixing the problems that they created going into 3.5. While the d20 system itself is really good and has managed to keep us around, the actual rules of 3.5 weren't very good at all for most of the edition's life. That means if we want to have a good 3.5 remake, we have to rigorously test everything that we build against the assumptions of the d20 system, specifically by using the CR system to ensure balance between PCs in a wide variety of level-appropriate encounters. Anything less will simply replicate the failure of WotC's designers.


Through low and mid levels, 3.5 is not nearly as badly balanced as its detractors would claim.

At low levels, 3.5 is just rocket tag. However, the casters do end up way ahead in that rocket tag game, because they are literally the ONLY people who can take away the actions of multiple enemies. That means that if one caster gets a spell off, that caster's side is going to be way ahead in the encounter.

At mid levels, it is true that there are a number of classes that can do just fine in a Same Game test. That's a good argument for some level of balance. The problem is, at least two core classes can completely dominate any Same Game test through mid levels, while at least two core classes haven't a prayer. Sure, if you ban Tier 1 and everything below Tier 3, you'll be a lot better off in terms of balance. But that also means that you're throwing out huge sections of 3.5 material, which doesn't speak well to the system's balance.


Balance can mean "everyone is at the same power level" (which I think was 4.0s goal, and failed), or "everyone is close enough to the same power level that they can stand in the same combat encounters and have everyone be challenged and contribute something" (which I would say is the goal of 3.5, also failed), or "everyone has situations in which they are needed and valuable to the team (but not necessarily in combat)(which seems to happen more in modern/future systems, where the spaceship pilot or the computer hacker or the guy with connections to the police are all viable roles even if they can't fight at all)". If balance is really your top goal, point buy systems beat any class system.

Most people get in discussions about balance, without really agreeing on what it means first, and what the goal should be. If you want to "balance the game" it will be easier if you clearly state wtf that means.

The interpretation of balance that I've been advocating in this thread is fairly similar to the 3.5 goal that you identified. Each individual class should be able to function at a roughly similar level in a wide range of encounters. This is tested via Same Game testing, where you put an average build of the class you're testing up against a range of equal-CR monsters and NPCs, looking for a 50-55% average success rate. If you hit that range of success at a variety of levels (say, 5, 10, and 15), then that class can be considered balanced compared to the overall system.

Of course, this means that any class will be weak against some encounters (note that this is "weak," not "useless"). That's why a balanced game will include parties that have a variety of complementary characters, instead of two druids, a cleric, and a wizard. Sounds good to me. :smallsmile:

[AstralFire]

Different people like different classes - some people prefer T4/5 classes while others prefer T1/2.

Believe it or not, some people like playing a Fighter who does nothing but Full Attack each round in combat. Not having to sweat over some power list, for some people, is a perk, and as a DM, if your players have that option, it's to the benefit of your party.

And I may be mistaken, but it seems to me the single most popular class in the game, in general, is a T5.

The most popular classes I've seen are all core; but out of the classes beyond PHB I, the stuff in T3/T4 is what I see the most. Also, note that not all of the Tier 3/4 classes have big lists of abilities. The Crusader actually has a rather small list. You just need more effective tricks than you can get from PHB feats.

[Indon]

Just a note:

Many well loved systems have not the faintest hint of "Balance".
This. Everything this guy says.

And frankly, I'm hesitant to proscribe any intent to balance to D&D between Chainmail and the 3.5 Tomes of NotQuite4thEdYet (Battle, Magic, etc).

Whatever the basement-nerd fantasy gaming equivalent to the Rule of Cool is, I would posit it is the primary (and in some cases, only) design intent for the specified era of the game.

After all, isn't an elven ranger in a book the reason Rangers can dual-wield effectively today?

[RagnaroksChosen]

I would disagree. There was very much a focus on tradition for 3.0/3.5--translate 2e so as to change the core mechanic while leaving pretty much everything as intact as possible--so the intent of 3e was the same as the intent of 2e, as much as we may deride 2e nowadays for being nonsensical or unintuitive and as much or as little as 3e achieved that goal. This is a good design goal, since it required them to look at all of aspects of 2e at least in a big-picture sense and analyze what should be translated and how, but problems cropped up in two places.

First, the devs didn't always realize or understand the 2e design process/intent and so "mistranslated" things--like removing a lot of the things that made fighters good and that put a check on casters, while we're speaking of tier 1/tier 5, in the name of streamlining initiative and introducing skills and such. It's like the situation with 4e skill challenges, where the intent is good, the structure is sound, but it's the little details that ruin a great idea without being all that obvious about it on paper.

Second, they didn't playtest mid levels enough and high levels much at all. 4e epic levels would suck relative to heroic and paragon if they decided to playtest 1-20 and then throw numbers at level 21-30 hoping something works, but the underlying system would still be sound even though the epic math was wonky. Same way with high-level spells--they were (mostly) fine in 2e because they came with drawbacks both general (casting difficulties) and specific (aging/expense), but when the devs did their analysis and decided to toss out some of the spellcasting drawbacks to make it easier on low-level casters, they didn't test things to see that that rippled up to the higher-level casters as well.

So yes, I'd say there was definitely an intent, it's just that it was botched in a few important aspects that lead to most of the problems in 3e and obscure the design goals.

I wonder what would happen if designers now went back and tried retranslating the classes into d20/3.5. I wonder if the would come out differently. I know a few classes would have leadership build into there classes.(I'm looking at your Fighter) Actually i may try to do this it seems like an interesting idea. Thank you :)

[Swordguy]

translate 2e so as to change the core mechanic while leaving pretty much everything as intact as possible--so the intent of 3e was the same as the intent of 2e,
...
So yes, I'd say there was definitely an intent, it's just that it was botched in a few important aspects that lead to most of the problems in 3e and obscure the design goals.

For what's it's worth, PairODice has the right of things. The playtesting wasn't done to see what the new system could do, it was done to ensure that 2e-style D&D could be played with the new system. Which, for the record, it can.

Whether you agree with that or not is a function of opinion, but the playtesting DID achieve its stated goal, and they DID make a game that would emulate the 2e playstyle with a great deal less "odd mechanics" and a great deal more customizability. Their failing was in not realizing the scope of what they had created, and the lengths of number-crunching to which a large number of obsessive fans were willing to go to attain greater power within that rules framework.

I feel this mindset of "how can we achieve a 2e playstyle with cleaned-up mechanics" lasted until just after the public reception of 3.5, where WoTC felt that they really had fixed the issues that kept people from playing in a 2e manner with 3.x rules. The public reception was what clued them in to the fact that people were playing a completely different game than WoTC had meant them to play.

That's forgivable, I think.

What I DO feel should be made clear is that variety/customizability and balance are inherently antithetical. The more variety you have, the greater the ability for someone to see a combination of individual items that add up to more than the sum of their parts and which "break" the game. We've seen both extremes in 3.x and 4, and I'm not sure that ANY game company can afford to devote the time and resources to develop a game that would have the best of both systems. It's a white whale we're chasing here.

[AstralFire]

What I DO feel should be made clear is that variety/customizability and balance are inherently antithetical. The more variety you have, the greater the ability for someone to see a combination of individual items that add up to more than the sum of their parts and which "break" the game. We've seen both extremes in 3.x and 4, and I'm not sure that ANY game company can afford to devote the time and resources to develop a game that would have the best of both systems. It's a white whale we're chasing here.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Not the destination but the journey.

If I have seen farther than others, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Etc.

I fully believe that on average most gaming mechanics made or revised within the last 5 years beat the tar out of what people were coming up with 5 years after OD&D was released. I would love to see what we come up with in 30 years.

[Doc Roc]

I dunno, I play a lot of systems and I really do feel like some of them are Just Better.

[Indon]

I dunno, I play a lot of systems and I really do feel like some of them are Just Better.

So do I. By definition, they're the ones I like.

Mechanical variety and balance are not wholly antithetical, though. I'd phrase the engineering dilemma as such:

System Diversity, System Mechanical Balance, Ease of Creation and Maintenance. Pick two.

[Doc Roc]

Yep. Sometimes you get lucky, and you get to pick three. I'll give you a hint:

Ease of creation is never the one you get to pick in those cases. :)

[Indon]

Something I like about 3.5 is that it has so much accumulated material to it that you can customize the triangle to a great degree. You can pour work into the system and produce a diverse, balanced game, or you can say, "Tier 3 classes only" and you're practically playing 4th edition.

[Doc Roc]

I agree with you there, Indon. ToS has been a really rough road for me, particularly picking some of the things to ban and trying to design a dungeon that isn't one sided.

[Swordguy]

So do I. By definition, they're the ones I like.

Mechanical variety and balance are not wholly antithetical, though. I'd phrase the engineering dilemma as such:

System Diversity, System Mechanical Balance, Ease of Creation and Maintenance. Pick two.

Fair enough. I could certainly go with that (System Diversity+Mechanical Balance best exemplified by the HERO system...but it reads like a math textbook and you're looking at a 2-hour character creation time, minimum).

Or, to put it another way, there hasn't been a system created in 30 years that combines ease of creation/play with mechanical balance AND a 3.x-esque level of diversity in character options. I don't think, on the table top at least (computer RPGs are of course different), that we'll ever have one.

[Matthew]

I fully believe that on average most gaming mechanics made or revised within the last 5 years beat the tar out of what people were coming up with 5 years after OD&D was released. I would love to see what we come up with in 30 years.

Depends on your aims, usually. My experience of it is mainly that people keep reinventing the same thing over and over again, usually with the same problems. True innovations are few and far between.

[AstralFire]

Depends on your aims, usually. My experience of it is mainly that people keep reinventing the same thing over and over again, usually with the same problems. True innovations are few and far between.

Ah, but there's the rub! It's not whether an individual mechanic is an innovation, it's whether or not it's a more efficient arrangement of mechanics.

All the basic components of a computer - silicon, gold, tin, electricity - they are not new under the sun. But the thing and the whole of the thing is.

[Doc Roc]

Depends on your aims, usually. My experience of it is mainly that people keep reinventing the same thing over and over again, usually with the same problems. True innovations are few and far between.

No, seriously, what games are you playing?!

Compare Savage Worlds to Dread! Or 1st edition to Amber Diceless!

[Swordguy]

No, seriously, what games are you playing?!

Compare Savage Worlds to Dread! Or 1st edition to Amber Diceless!

Something like Call of Cthulhu or WFRP? They're extremely solid games that are 20+ years old with no really significant changes to their operating system. Or, as much as it pains me to say it, even GURPS.

There's only so many ways to manipulate or interpret a dice roll, after all. :smallwink:

[erikun]

There's a trick to that breaking of bricks (speaking as someone who's done that kind of stuff personally), and cement blocks, and whatever. The trick relies on the fact that there's a thin sliver of airspace between each brick. If the bricks were actually right up against each other with no gaps, they wouldn't be able to it. It's not the same thing as breaking through six feet of solid rock.

Are you aware that there is a different between breaking a stack of bricks six feet high and breaking a solid stone block six feet thick?

True. The physics of said breaking isn't about the force generated by the breaker - they are hitting the bricks hard enough to break all of them. It's that, in trying to punch through 6 feet of solid stone, you'd have the same force applied back to your arm - darn Newtonian physics! You'd shatter your armbones if you tried.

By having the bricks stacked, with spaces inbetween, you only get the resistance of the first brick applied to your fist/palm/whatever. The force from the strike doesn't immediately stop after the first brick, though, which allows it to continue through the whole stack.

Reguardless, I think I'm getting off my point. My point is that, while 3.5 may have been designed with the 5th level expert/10th level legend in mind, it really doesn't feel like that when playing. My 10th level Barbarian doesn't feel like Lü Bu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BC_Bu), my 10th level Fighter doesn't feel much like a viking or knight templar, and my 10th level Bard doesn't feel like Joan of Arc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc).

Well, maybe the Barbarian Lu Bu fits. :smallwink:


I disagree with your analagy. +18 to hide and a gaurdesman taking ten the rogue should win?

Perhaps it was a bad example. My point was that, if a skill keeps getting tested, it is bound to fail eventually. What's more, it's not a fact that most people would realize without point it out, especially when the book basically encourages DMs to re-roll with every new situation.

While it is unlikely the rogue will pass by 20 different rooms with 20 different guards all having the same modifiers, it is likely he'll pass by a dozen rooms with various modifiers giving his chances of success around 75%-90%. However, they chances of succeeding all of them is far, far lower than 75%. Changing circumstances should force a new roll, but asking for a roll with every guard is virtually guaranteeing failure.

As for the Balance/Ride skill situation: consider a Fighter with 8 INT. That's 1 skill point each level. He could start off with ranks in Ride, but in order to avoid slipping and falling all the time, he has to... give up on horse riding lessons, to take not-falling-on-my-keester lessons? :smalltongue:

What's more, this isn't universal. A Fighter or Rogue who gains a level in wizard will toss around Lesser Acid Orbs better than a lifetime Wizard. A lv.20 Wizard can swing a sword just as well as a lv.10 Fighter, despite never holding one before. It is rather odd to see some things scale over levels, while other things remain static.


I really like, and do prefer games, where it is the best choice to avoid violence and the story is advanced by dialoges and complex plots. And I can't think of any rules I'd need to do that, that are not allready included in D&D.

Wealth-by-Level, XP/CR, most class abilities, most feats, most spells....

It's not that you can't play a game without killing stuff, it's that the rules and systems of 3.5 feel like they're ignoring (and sometimes opposing) doing so. Want to sneak past the orcs in the fortress to explore the caverns beyond? Sure, but you're going to be in trouble if you run into the dragon without any magical weapons. Want to convince the local kingdom to send an army to wipe out the Red Hand Horde? Okay, but you won't be getting the XP for it. Want to wander around town, gathering news on the street and pulling contacts to find who might be causing the murders? Makes sense, although the Cleric with Diplomancy, Gather Information, and Knowledge: Local has just as much of a chance as the Rogue.

While the 3.5 system can handle a lot of non-combat situations, the further you get from "standard" D&D the less the system supports it. Want to run a game with mid-level PCs stalking vampires through the city, using only common or easily crafted weapons? Good luck or start homebrewing, as oak-stake-crossbows and clubs coated with silver will only get you so far, and lacking the magical bonuses to attack/defense makes the character far squishier than the system would expect. Can it be done? Sure, but you're looking at either re-defining CR or adding passive buffs/bonuses to compensate for the lack of WBL gear.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

My experience of it is mainly that people keep reinventing the same thing over and over again, usually with the same problems.
Sounds a lot like real life...

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Reguardless, I think I'm getting off my point. My point is that, while 3.5 may have been designed with the 5th level expert/10th level legend in mind, it really doesn't feel like that when playing. My 10th level Barbarian doesn't feel like Lü Bu, my 10th level Fighter doesn't feel much like a viking or knight templar, and my 10th level Bard doesn't feel like Joan of Arc.

That depends. How flammable is your bard?

[erikun]

I kind of wanted to play the character a little bit before her execution. :smalltongue:

[AstralFire]

That depends. How flammable is your bard?

According to deviantart, she's
SMOKING HOT

http://th05.deviantart.net/fs12/300W/i/2006/267/8/8/Anime_Joan_of_Arc_by_LoneWolf64.jpg

God I hate most of the people in deviantart.

[Umael]

Reguardless, I think I'm getting off my point. My point is that, while 3.5 may have been designed with the 5th level expert/10th level legend in mind, it really doesn't feel like that when playing. My 10th level Barbarian doesn't feel like Lü Bu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BC_Bu), my 10th level Fighter doesn't feel much like a viking or knight templar, and my 10th level Bard doesn't feel like Joan of Arc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc).

Well, maybe the Barbarian Lu Bu fits. :smallwink:


Ah! Well, since THAT is a matter of how you feel, you're spot on! I can't dictate how you feel, after all.]

I have to more-or-less agree with you, but I think my reasons are going to be different. I don't think a 10th-level fighter SHOULD be a Viking, at least not a typical one, because most Vikings are probably 2nd- or 3rd-level warriors. Most of what the Viking needs are a few skills and a few Weapon/Armor Proficiencies. Toss in a decent set of stats to reflect their time training, some period equipment, and I'm good to go. I don't need Cleave or Sunder, or probably a host of other feats higher up the tree. If I took this Viking and increased him to 10th-level, I would have a pretty good Viking hero.

But for a case like Joan of Arc, that's a lot more dependent on the setting. Joan of Arc wasn't much like a Bard at all, just a warrior who managed to rall a lot of low-level commoners and warriors in a world full of low-level commoners and warriors. Joan of Arc wasn't worried about dragons or giants or beholders. Hey, goblins were just fairy tales and children's stories to her!

I've got nothing on your barbarian, mind you...

[Matthew]

Ah, but there's the rub! It's not whether an individual mechanic is an innovation, it's whether or not it's a more efficient arrangement of mechanics.

All the basic components of a computer - silicon, gold, tin, electricity - they are not new under the sun. But the thing and the whole of the thing is.

I am not sure I see a lot of rearranged mechanics becoming more efficient. There certainly are better ways to implement the same ideas, though, so I think I get what you are saying, but I am not so sure there are a lot of departure points. More often we end up with a variation on a theme. The development of second edition War Hammer is probably a good example, eliminating some problems only to introduce new ones. Mainly we're talking nuances, rather than innovations, I think.



No, seriously, what games are you playing?!

Compare Savage Worlds to Dread! Or 1st edition to Amber Diceless!

Amber Diceless was certainly a departure in the 1980s; Savage Worlds, not so much, good game though it is. I have no experience with Dread.



Something like Call of Cthulhu or WFRP? They're extremely solid games that are 20+ years old with no really significant changes to their operating system. Or, as much as it pains me to say it, even GURPS.

There's only so many ways to manipulate or interpret a dice roll, after all. :smallwink:

There are some horrible rumours about War Hammer Third Edition out there.

[only1doug]

What's more, this isn't universal. A Fighter or Rogue who gains a level in wizard will toss around Lesser Acid Orbs better than a lifetime Wizard.
perhaps that could be explained by the years of training at hitting dodging targets... Accuracy is partly knowing where the target will be.


A lv.20 Wizard can swing a sword just as well as a lv.10 Fighter, despite never holding one before. It is rather odd to see some things scale over levels, while other things remain static.

Can he? the L20 wizard and L10 fighter have the same BAB but the wizard will suffer a non-proficiency penalty (only -4 but that is 40% of his level based bonus to attack) this is ignoring the fact that the L10 fighter will probably have more strength than the wizard granting a still better chance to hit. (unless the wizard has trained with light weapons, signified by the weapon finesse feat).

[AstralFire]

These things are accurate, but I think you're missing erikun's point - you're advancing other abilities besides your primary ones, but the game is rather selective about what goes up and what doesn't, I think a little bit too much so for a level system.

[JaxGaret]

Reguardless, I think I'm getting off my point. My point is that, while 3.5 may have been designed with the 5th level expert/10th level legend in mind, it really doesn't feel like that when playing. My 10th level Barbarian doesn't feel like Lü Bu, my 10th level Fighter doesn't feel much like a viking or knight templar, and my 10th level Bard doesn't feel like Joan of Arc.

Could you explain why exactly it doesn't feel like that? If you look at what the characters are actually doing and cross-reference it with what people IRL actually do, you'll see how it matches up.

9th level characters are doing things that no mortal could do on their best day, even without the aid of magic.

[AstralFire]

I know that for me, when not playing with a lot of splat, the classes that aren't 9th level spellcasters can often feel like you're doing the exact same tricks at level 10 that you are at 5, which can lead to a disconnect between how good your character's supposed to be and how good they are. Bardic Music and spellcasting doesn't break out into its own until splat and well... I prefer ToB to core melee. But that's me, not erikun.

[Gnaeus]

A lot of that feel comes from how the DM runs his world. If in his game 10th level characters are the strongest in the kingdom, and your plots involve saving the entire land from those who would destroy it, you are superheroic. On the other hand, I have been in games where the city police or merchant guild guards are level 6-8. In those games, level 10 is really nothing special.

[only1doug]

These things are accurate, but I think you're missing erikun's point - you're advancing other abilities besides your primary ones, but the game is rather selective about what goes up and what doesn't, I think a little bit too much so for a level system.

any system has to choose how to resolve ongoing character improvement. DnD isn't a perfect system. There are more simulationist level based system like rolemaster, it would do exactly what Erikun seems to want... unfortunately it takes 10x as long to generate characters and small combats take several hours to resolve... (is there a perfect system? I like different aspect of different systems but amalgamating the best parts of each is a task i don't desire to undertake).

[AstralFire]

any system has to choose how to resolve ongoing character improvement. DnD isn't a perfect system. There are more simulationist level based system like rolemaster, it would do exactly what Erikun seems to want... unfortunately it takes 10x as long to generate characters and small combats take several hours to resolve... (is there a perfect system? I like different aspect of different systems but amalgamating the best parts of each is a task i don't desire to undertake).

Actually, I was leaning more towards gamist here. I feel 4E/SW Saga's 'half-level to all skills' is the way to go for a level-based system, and just make it so some very important and selective skills cannot be used untrained.

[Doc Roc]

Amber Diceless was certainly a departure in the 1980s; Savage Worlds, not so much, good game though it is. I have no experience with Dread.

Dread uses, I kid you not, a Jenga tower as its randomizer.

[erikun]

I think AstralFire made my intended point quite well in her two posts, which apparently proves that I talk too much yet say too little. :smallannoyed::smalltongue:


Yes, a 10th level spellcaster does tend to bring to mind the abilities and concepts of magic-weavers of legend. Wizards raining fire, clerics channeling divine power through their bodies, and druids embodying the primal forces of nature bring to mind characters like Merlin, Elric, and Gandalf. While they don't replicate them completely, it isn't hard to think of a 10th level wizard being on par with one of them.

10th level melee doesn't feel quite the same. It's hard to look at a 10th level fighter and say that it is supposed to be Conan, Hercules, or Legolas. To steal a blatant example from the movie: I don't expect my 10th level melee anything to swing up the back of a huge mount, climb up to behind its head and plant an arrow into the back of its neck. Doing so would require full ranks in climb, balance, and jump, not to mention a dozen feats directed towards climbing up large targets and shooting them in the back - thus leaving my fighter with little else to. And yet, that's not the only thing Legolas can do - it's just something he randomly tries, and pulls off because he's been fighting long enough that his agility and reflexes let him pull it off.


Which, ironically enough, seems to flow into my next point. Because of the division between Combat vs. Skills, all characters' combat abilities improve over the levels while their skills don't, even if they're related to combat. The lv.20 wizard who is non-proficiently swinging around a bastard sword? He still has a better chance to hit (+10 BAB, -4 proficiency) than the first level fighter who worked his whole life learning how to use it (+1 BAB, +4 STR bonus). Why? Because the wizard is more skilled in battle, knowing how to dodge and weave... despite rarely being in actual melee, and never having used a sword before.

Conversely, the fighter, now level twenty, still slips and falls as much as he did back then (+0 Balance) despite having fought as many battles as the wizard, and supposedly being as experienced at keeping his feet on stable ground as the wizard has experience swinging a sword.

That's what makes no sense to me - that one thing can improve with level, while another does not. I'd rather see all abilities lag being unless worked on (a skill based system, like WoD or Shadowrun) or see all abilities improved by level (much like 4e).

[Doc Roc]

Shadowrun and WoD have their own problems, and pretty extensive ones. I love SR4 dearly though.

[erikun]

True, although it feels like D&D 3.whatever tries to have it both ways. The skill system feels Shadowrunish (get skill points, distribute them between skills as desired) while combat still feels DnDish, based on level. The two systems don't mesh well, except on the most basic "max skill points in X skills" level.

[RagnaroksChosen]

...
Conversely, the fighter, now level twenty, still slips and falls as much as he did back then (+0 Balance) despite having fought as many battles as the wizard, and supposedly being as experienced at keeping his feet on stable ground as the wizard has experience swinging a sword.


Wouldn't a fighter at 20th level have a few ranks in balance? wouldn't that show that he has experienced tripping or keeping his feet steady?

[tyckspoon]

Wouldn't a fighter at 20th level have a few ranks in balance? wouldn't that show that he has experienced tripping or keeping his feet steady?

He might, but it's unlikely- with a base of just 2 skill points/level Fighters can barely afford to have ranks in their own class skills, let alone cross-classing something like Balance. Something as simple as being able to keep his footing in a Grease spell requires all of the Fighter's skill points for a full 5 levels.

[Matthew]

Dread uses, I kid you not, a Jenga tower as its randomizer.

I read an article in Knights of the Dinner Table about doing that for sanity rules in D20...

[RagnaroksChosen]

He might, but it's unlikely- with a base of just 2 skill points/level Fighters can barely afford to have ranks in their own class skills, let alone cross-classing something like Balance. Something as simple as being able to keep his footing in a Grease spell requires all of the Fighter's skill points for a full 5 levels.

I don't know how i feel about that. see to me thats the point of having ranks... if your good at it with out any training your dex would be higher. if you have training in it then you have ranks in it... I think that the Fighter skill list should have more in it then what it does. Balance being one of them as well as tumble.


I was thinking about making some sort of varient where there are no cross class skills.. for any class.. though i think there would be a bit of a balance issue. mabye do something like if its not a class skill(still have the lists) you can only put up to your level in it... but its still 1 for 1, not sure... I don't know why i like the skill system for 3.5 but it makes sense for me... mabye its because i don't play alot of higher level games not sure.

[Yora]

Expanding the fighters class skill list and giving him more skill points should help a great deal to make a fighter more versatile. He's still basically hitting things with a sword until it's dead, but he could be far more effective with decent ranks in balance, tumble, and escape artist.
And of course, it would make his actions at least appear much more cool. ^^

[Gnaeus]

I was thinking about making some sort of varient where there are no cross class skills.. for any class.. though i think there would be a bit of a balance issue. mabye do something like if its not a class skill(still have the lists) you can only put up to your level in it... but its still 1 for 1, not sure... I don't know why i like the skill system for 3.5 but it makes sense for me... mabye its because i don't play alot of higher level games not sure.

Thats like Pathfinder Beta. 1 for 1 on all skills. Normal (not x4) skill points at first level. Static +3 bonus on class skills that you put ranks in.

[Indon]

Expanding the fighters class skill list and giving him more skill points should help a great deal to make a fighter more versatile. He's still basically hitting things with a sword until it's dead, but he could be far more effective with decent ranks in balance, tumble, and escape artist.
And of course, it would make his actions at least appear much more cool. ^^

Well, 3.5 wasn't designed to be cinematic - it inherited its' old wargame roots as surely as the games before it. So fancy actions like that end up being strictly regulated, and there's little incentive (or indeed, sometimes there's punishment) for performing actions like that.

You even see this in the spell system, in earlier games - tracking spell memorization, spell learning (there was a time when you could fail to learn a spell), spell components, all of these things led to the Wizard requiring fairly extensive bookkeeping just to be functional.

When designing 3rd edition, it was realized that the extensive bookkeeping and other restrictions to spells were making Wizard not only awkward to play effectively, but less fun to play. So they got rid of the bookkeeping and other fun-reducing restrictions.

Meleers, however, had no comparable problem - since their bread-and-butter relied on the game's wargaming roots, they were functional, and enjoyable, without anything extra that the game would try to heavily regulate.

Or, in short, 3rd edition needs a stunt system, and implementing it would probably prove tricky.

[Eldariel]

Or, in short, 3rd edition needs a stunt system, and implementing it would probably prove tricky.

Are you talking about Tome of Battle here?

[Indon]

Are you talking about Tome of Battle here?

No. Tome of Battle is, mechanically, a reflavored (and severely weakened) casting system. It has as much to do with stunts as casting Magic Missile does. Ditto everything in 4th edition.

By 'stunt system', I'm referring to the system of that name in Exalted - a system which not only does not penalize for exceptional actions (not spells or special abilities, mind, but mundane actions performed exceptionally), but rewards them. Most importantly, the system is dynamic in nature, as opposed to 3.5's Learn-Prepare-Use-Refresh static ability formula, or 4th edition's Learn-Use-Refresh static ability formula.

Edit: Okay, prototype idea: It's not a stunt system, but it's a good start towards loosening the strict controls on capability, particularly in conjunction with a revision of the skill system (introducing more skill points, more class skill availibility, and probably entirely new skills to cover areas not covered in the current system).

Imagine if many feats didn't exist as distinct abilities. Instead, feats were things you could do if your stats and skills were high enough - if you have 13 Strength, you can Power Attack. If you have 15 Dexterity, you can make an off-hand attack as part of a full attack. If you have 4 ranks in Ride, you can make a Ride check to keep your mount from getting hit.

[AstralFire]

Action Points + DM leniency I find highly useful for stunts.

[The Rose Dragon]

Action Points + DM leniency I find highly useful for stunts.

Of course, in Exalted, you get Willpower, XP or motes for using stunts, rather than expending a resource.

[Kaiyanwang]

Action Points + DM leniency I find highly useful for stunts.

Even without action point. Sometimes is enough one of these:

1) "Ok, but -4"

2) "Roll in this order these skill check"

3) "I think that [feat] can be valid even for [unusual situation]"


Please consider that (1) is suggested several time by the Sage, and there is an example of (3) in the archives (quickdraw and a weapon on the wall).

ToB (great book, don't get me wrong) IMHO is not such an improvement if you play that way, even if some of its maneuvers are for sure a great improvement for an imaginative player.

Example? Sudden Leap. A jump as a swift action is just sweet. IMHO, things like that should have been not maneuvers, but "special rewards" for high rank in a certain skill (jump, here) in a new edition of the game.

Sigh.

[Yora]

Iron Heroes has a nice idea about Stunts. Though I never used it in play so far.

[AstralFire]

Of course, in Exalted, you get Willpower, XP or motes for using stunts, rather than expending a resource.

I'm one of the last people you'll see saying that D&D in any form is a perfect system, or that there aren't a lot of systems that do a specific mechanic or feel better. I was just throwing out an idea with regards to 3.5.

I don't care for the extremely limited nature of action points and some of my work in Avatar is making them a renewable resource.

[Morty]

Or, in short, 3rd edition needs a stunt system, and implementing it would probably prove tricky.

No, it doesn't. Lack of cinematic "stunts" is one of the things I like in 3.5, regardless of its faults.

[Indon]

No, it doesn't. Lack of cinematic "stunts" is one of the things I like in 3.5, regardless of its faults.

Heh, fair enough. Feel free to read, "I feel 3rd edition could benefit greatly from a homebrew stunt system."

[RagnaroksChosen]

Thats like Pathfinder Beta. 1 for 1 on all skills. Normal (not x4) skill points at first level. Static +3 bonus on class skills that you put ranks in.

Well thats not realy what i said. Cuz the static +3 is rediculous i would rather have the x4 skill points at first.. I know this goes aganst optimisation but typicaly i won't max out as many skills as i can at 1st level.. I usualy spread them out. I find it works out better.