Is there a fully balanced 3.5 variant?

[zlefin]

By fully balanced i mean all classes are within one tier of each other.

Pathfinder is nice and all, but the tiers are still there from what i've seen and read; somewhat closer, and some classes in different places, but still quite there.

Numerous people have started their own attempts to balance 3.5; even i just started on one :P
But I haven't seen one that's accepted as a standard of balance.

With all the expertise on this forum, so many people who truly know the system very well inside and out; how come there isn't a fully balanced, standardized one in use by now? With the expertise on this forum, building a fully balanced system shouldn't take more than a month, and then it's just a question of being popular enough to be accepted as a standard.
So are there systems that just aren't accepted as standard, but are around, or what? Or people working on it just couldnt' agree enough to cohere on a single balanced setup?

[deuxhero]

Yes: Remove every class but one and all options from it.

It is impossible to have anything be perfectly balanced if all sides aren't symmetrical.

[RaggedAngel]

Nothing is perfect, but Legend is very close. (http://www.ruleofcool.com/) What's more, right now it's "pay whatever you can", so you and your friends can pick up the system for a reasonable sum. (You pick your own definition of 'reasonable'.) It is very easy to learn, and as far as I can tell every single possible character is about as tough as another character of the same level while retaining variety and versatility. It's incredibly impressive, actually.

[Dsurion]

I'm sure someone's going to chime in with "Play 4e" :smallwink:

But really, there are so many wildly varying ideas of what D&D "should be", that there will never be a single, accepted re-balance of 3.5. And that's all I have to contribute.

[BobVosh]

Yes: Remove every class but one and all options from it.
It is impossible to have anything be perfectly balanced if all sides aren't symmetrical.


I'm sure someone's going to chime in with "Play 4e" :smallwink:
But really, there are so many wildly varying ideas of what D&D "should be", that there will never be a single, accepted re-balance of 3.5. And that's all I have to contribute.

Basically he did :P

[tcrudisi]

Basically he did :P

Basically, you've not really played 4e then. :P

As for a 3.5 variant, there are no balanced versions that I'm aware of. My one time playing PF did nothing to assure me that it was even remotely balanced.

Honestly though, if you are looking for balance, 3.5 is not the system for you. You could try 4e. :P (That's mostly a joke at Dsurion.)

I'm really not even sure how you would go about balancing 3.5. It would be tricky to boost casters at the lowest levels and nerf them at the mid-to-highest to make them on par with melees. I'm not sure it can be done as long as they get access to high level spells. I'm not even sure it can be done as long as they get access to mid level spells. Polymorph as an example.

[erikun]

Your question just gets odder the more I read it.

I mean, even if you narrow down the variance between classes, there are still going to be tiers. 4e still has their tiers, even though nearly every class would fit into Tier 3 by 3.5e standards (maybe). And as for why there isn't a "standardized" homebrew system... are there any standard homebrews? E6 possibly comes close, although the rules played for that are hardly standard.

Banning Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 5, Tier 6, and prestige classes that would put characters into those tiers is probably the most common houserule for allowing all classes within one tier, and is probably what you are looking for.

An actual homebrew system would probably involve re-writing 90% or more of the game system, which is why you haven't seen many people do it. Legend did, but it looks more like 4e than anything else.

[olthar]

If your DM wants balance, then balance can be created.

[Ravens_cry]

It is impossible without removing almost all options from the game.
When you have options, unless you lose almost all of them and play test what remain rigorously, some are going to be better than others.
And I really mean "almost all." Adding options increases the number of possibilities exponentially and some of those possibilities are going to suck and some of them are going to break the game.
Even fourth edition, where an incredible amount of effort went into balancing it, still has broken options.
For another example, Valve spent years balancing Team Fortress 2 and still have had to issue patch after patch once it hit players.

For a game that is meant to be fun rather than competitive, I think "fully balanced" is a bit of a mugs game. Overly balancing things, in my opinion, can either make what options remain bland and uninteresting or rigid and uncustomisable.
In my opinion, it is only part of what makes a game fun and, to a certain point, not even a particularly important part.

[zlefin]

Your question just gets odder the more I read it.

I mean, even if you narrow down the variance between classes, there are still going to be tiers. 4e still has their tiers, even though nearly every class would fit into Tier 3 by 3.5e standards (maybe). And as for why there isn't a "standardized" homebrew system... are there any standard homebrews? E6 possibly comes close, although the rules played for that are hardly standard.

Banning Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 5, Tier 6, and prestige classes that would put characters into those tiers is probably the most common houserule for allowing all classes within one tier, and is probably what you are looking for.

An actual homebrew system would probably involve re-writing 90% or more of the game system, which is why you haven't seen many people do it. Legend did, but it looks more like 4e than anything else.

Right, there will always be tiers; i had forgotten about that.
I was looking for a balance point where all classes are within one tier of each other.
While there may not be standard homebrews, there are standards that have been developed by people, pathfinder and legend are such. I'm just surprised there hasn't been one that balances the 3.5 base closer, without feeling too much like 4.
I wonder if perhaps as you approach balance it just ceases to look/feel like 3.5?

Rewriting the system would only take a month or two, if you stick to core. The hard part is doing extensive balance testing to verify the changes work as expected. But I agree the more I look at it the more it looks like a lot of things have to be rewritten; I wonder how much can be preserved while still keeping things balanced?

[MeeposFire]

Normally when people want "balanced" what they really mean are that most every option is a good one and everything is in the same realtive operational sphere. In 3.5 if you took all of tier 3,4, and 5 classes you would get most of the way there. While tier 3 is better than tier 5 tier 5 is still somewhat in the same operation sphere (which in my example is they work and they don't generally break the game). Tier 6 is too weak and tier 1 is too strong. Tier 2 characters can be tweaked down but do notice that is some work. One thing you could do is make more warmage/beguiler/dread necrmoancer type casters of all types. Tier 5 works but if you want to put a little more work in you might be persuaded to give them some love so that they are more friendly to newer players (so they won't fall too far behind). You can just not use tier 5 but it does limit you a bit not using any of them so just choose on whether you keep tier 5 or not (though you could probably dump classes that you have a class filling the same niche such as dumping paladins for crusaders or the like).

This won't make it perfect but it is a start. The levels of power will have been brought closer to the middle and you should have enough classes to fill the basic archetypes assuming you make the warmage type spellcasters for some of the basic magic types not already represented.

[Hunter Killer]

The biggest problems don't really reside in the classes themselves. Most of the class abilities are well thought out and fine. Even Wildshape, as much as people claim it is borked, isn't that bad.

The problem with 3.5 is that magic is just sooooo damn powerful. It's so good that the most powerful characters can absolutely suck at everything else and still own face in almost any situation.

To balance 3.5, you have to gut the entire spell list and rewrite that. Every single spell. You would need to figure out borked interactions and eliminate those as well. Plenty of spells are bad by themselves, but powerhouses in a combo.

[Infernalbargain]

In short, no.

The problems with 3.5 are very deep, almost systemic. The system is... salvageable. Legend is a big step in the right direction, however I have a few minor beefs with it; namely they weren't bold enough to pitch the standard/move/swift paradigm.

[MeeposFire]

Right, there will always be tiers; i had forgotten about that.
I was looking for a balance point where all classes are within one tier of each other.
While there may not be standard homebrews, there are standards that have been developed by people, pathfinder and legend are such. I'm just surprised there hasn't been one that balances the 3.5 base closer, without feeling too much like 4.
I wonder if perhaps as you approach balance it just ceases to look/feel like 3.5?

Rewriting the system would only take a month or two, if you stick to core. The hard part is doing extensive balance testing to verify the changes work as expected. But I agree the more I look at it the more it looks like a lot of things have to be rewritten; I wonder how much can be preserved while still keeping things balanced?

The biggest problem you will have is that there is no way to balance 3.5 unless you give up one major aspect-that magic can do anything easily for little to no cost. That is the single biggest difference between 3.5 and 4e not the things people mostly talk about which are mostly organizational.

For instance many people know 4e gave fighters powers and some feel that makes them "mages" but the thing is that all of those powers could easily have been written as not being powers and they also made fighters that have no daily powers that are as good as the ones that have daily powers. The power system is mostly for ease of use, design, and to learn. If you want a good example the slayer and knight type fighters do not have daily powers and use basic attacks (the 4e version of the attack and full attack action) as their standard mode of attack. Those classes could be rewritten into a 3e style game so long as you remember some basic differences in encounter design (4e encounter are designed to normally be between 3-7 rounds long with most attacks being standard actions which means that your 4 encounter powers do not need to be recharged typically in a combat since the encounter should not last much longer than that. Also damage and the like would need to be modified to deal with 3 style HP) and those classes would look very similar to ToB classes.

The big change was that magic was limited. In 3.5 if you wanted to scry an enemy and teleport miles away and hit them with abilities that were nearly impossible to resist you could do that as several standard actions and a few spell slots. The 4e wizard needs to spend a long time and lots of money to create a teleportation circle, etc and magic now uses attack rolls so nothing is a sure thing (the wizard is in the same realm of "hitting" their target as a warrior of the same level).

So unless you are willing to make magic much more limited in some fashion. You don't have to do it in the same way as 4e but the magic system itself needs more limiting limits.

[Draz74]

The problems with 3.5 are very deep, almost systemic. The system is... salvageable. Legend is a big step in the right direction, however I have a few minor beefs with it; namely they weren't bold enough to pitch the standard/move/swift paradigm.

What's your fundamental beef with the standard/move/swift paradigm? I was under the impression (e.g. in my own homebrew) that people generally like that part of the system. I didn't think it was a question of boldness.

On a similar vein, though, I do wish Legend had dropped the "iterative attacks" paradigm.

[MeeposFire]

What's your fundamental beef with the standard/move/swift paradigm? I was under the impression (e.g. in my own homebrew) that people generally like that part of the system. I didn't think it was a question of boldness.

On a similar vein, though, I do wish Legend had dropped the "iterative attacks" paradigm.

Yea the action system is one of the best things that 3e implemented (it could be tweaked sure as 4e has but 4e is still basically the 3e system tweaked a bit).

I agree though I hate iteratives. For one it makes balancing defenses more difficult. That is also one of the tweaks that I like in the 4e action economy (eliminating full actions and making standard actions better much like ToB upgraded standard actions for warriors making full attacks less needed).

[Infernalbargain]

What's your fundamental beef with the standard/move/swift paradigm? I was under the impression (e.g. in my own homebrew) that people generally like that part of the system. I didn't think it was a question of boldness.

On a similar vein, though, I do wish Legend had dropped the "iterative attacks" paradigm.

It is the root of action economy abuse and some very weird things from a realism perspective. It is also the cause for a lot of unnecessary things like charging, full round attacks, spring attack, the list goes on. Movement is only marginally different from short range teleportation. Consider a chase between to humans. They are neck-in-neck with each other. However, if you time it right you can land a fireball between them and hit neither. A smooth movement system will fix everything I've listed in addition to opening up a lot of more avenues to create variance like having a whole continuum of casting times.

[sonofzeal]

I actually like the idea of full-attacks. The only problem is that they scale poorly - you've got big cutoffs every 5+ levels, and that's a huge portion of a person's adventuring career. And the penalties on later iteratives get a little ridiculous. I like the idea of getting an advantage if you devote your turn to it, but the implementation is lacking.

Instead, what if you could "spend" your move action to gain bonuses for the round similar to ToB's boosts? Something like "add BAB to damage for the round", or "gain bonus +4 to hit" or "bypass DR" or "extra attack; all attacks at -2". I dunno, just a thought.

[Infernalbargain]

That reminds me, is there ever a reason to not use flurry? I'm pretty sure the math comes to it being worth it to use it unless you only hit on an 18; in a few levels, you are probably not attacking or always have enough to-hit to always use flurry.

[MeeposFire]

I dislike having tons of attack rolls as it gets tiresome (especially if they very different on the attack roll like an iterative attack). I would rather have fewer bigger attacks than a ton of attacks and have them use standard actions. That is what makes ToB so much fun. You can land a big attack and then move or move and then land a big attack. Much more interesting than "I stand and launch 8 attacks" (even if 8 attacks is big damage it is still a lot of rolling and you can't move which limits tactical maneuvers).

[MeeposFire]

That reminds me, is there ever a reason to not use flurry? I'm pretty sure the math comes to it being worth it to use it unless you only hit on an 18; in a few levels, you are probably not attacking or always have enough to-hit to always use flurry.

Eventually you always use flurry (no penalty). If there is a penalty it really depends on the AC of the subject and how accurate you really are in the first place.

[sonofzeal]

That reminds me, is there ever a reason to not use flurry? I'm pretty sure the math comes to it being worth it to use it unless you only hit on an 18; in a few levels, you are probably not attacking or always have enough to-hit to always use flurry.
True. Same with Rapid Shot and TWF. The only reason not to is if you've got a use for that move action.

[Infernalbargain]

Even at level 1, you are typically looking needing to hit around a 15 on your rolls for most appropriate encounters. For when you only have one attack, using flurry is statistically better, even ignoring triggers, as long as you hit on a natural 17 without flurrying. The math gets more complicated when you get iteratives, but not flurrying is really a trap option.

[Infernalbargain]

True. Same with Rapid Shot and TWF. The only reason not to is if you've got a use for that move action.

Curse you ninja! Flurry in Legend is simply an attack option. Rapid shot and TWF at least had opportunity costs to use the better option.

[Psyren]

Numerous people have started their own attempts to balance 3.5; even i just started on one :P
But I haven't seen one that's accepted as a standard of balance.

Obligatory:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png

[Darrin]

Well... there's Call of Cthulhu d20:

"Everybody is Tier 5. If you can cast any spells, you're Tier 6. If you can't read and have a severe enough Listen or Spot penalty, then maybe you're Tier 4. Oh, and for no apparent reason, make a Will Save or Die right now. If you succeed, you might have a very slim chance to live out the rest of your days drooling on yourself in a sanitarium."

[Tyndmyr]

By fully balanced i mean all classes are within one tier of each other.

Legend is probably as close as you're going to get. There are a lot of 3.5 variants, but to get anywhere close to fully balanced, you have to get pretty far from 3.5.


Pathfinder is nice and all, but the tiers are still there from what i've seen and read; somewhat closer, and some classes in different places, but still quite there.

It's not really closer at all, tbh.


Numerous people have started their own attempts to balance 3.5; even i just started on one :P
But I haven't seen one that's accepted as a standard of balance.

With all the expertise on this forum, so many people who truly know the system very well inside and out; how come there isn't a fully balanced, standardized one in use by now? With the expertise on this forum, building a fully balanced system shouldn't take more than a month, and then it's just a question of being popular enough to be accepted as a standard.
So are there systems that just aren't accepted as standard, but are around, or what? Or people working on it just couldnt' agree enough to cohere on a single balanced setup?

Eh, pass. More people = more coordination work. And there's a LOT of books. And there's copyright issues with published balanced versions of much of that material. And frankly, it's easier to handle balance by just not making a big deal out of it. I have players that have large amounts of system mastery and could break games in half...but they'd prefer to play through the game normally. Done deal, vastly easier.


Even at level 1, you are typically looking needing to hit around a 15 on your rolls for most appropriate encounters. For when you only have one attack, using flurry is statistically better, even ignoring triggers, as long as you hit on a natural 17 without flurrying. The math gets more complicated when you get iteratives, but not flurrying is really a trap option.

Unless you're naturally only hitting on 20s...then, back to flurrying being superior! Hitting on nat 19s is equally good. So, the only case where flurrying is actually inferior to a single attack is when you're hitting on natural 18s.

TLDR: Mash the flurry button whenever possible.

[Talionis]

The best way to do it with 3.5 is only allow tier 3 classes and tier 4 or only tier 4 and tier 5. This would be the best to just limit which classes by the judges discretion. I think that is what most games end up doing anyway.

[DoctorGlock]

The best way to do it with 3.5 is only allow tier 3 classes and tier 4 or only tier 4 and tier 5. This would be the best to just limit which classes by the judges discretion. I think that is what most games end up doing anyway.

Not really, otherwise there would not be a slew of "help, wizard is breaking my game!" threads. Also it's a crude way of dealing with problems. T4-5 leaves a horribly boring game where you are shoehorned into playing the classic archetypes rather than your own character. The best way to do it is to say "please dont break the game or make the others feel useless" or suggest classes within tiers 2-4 which covers most to all builds. Yes, the ideal balance is 3, but some people want to play a master of arcane lore and the warlock's pew pew pew style is not what they want.

As others have said, Legend is really the closest you are going to get, and even there you can have some choices that work better than others, but even then the less effective ones can contribute significantly

[Orzel]

Everyone knows 3.5 is unbalanced but few can agree on the fixes. There are probably a lot of balanced variants and rewrites out there. But would you like it. Orzel d20 is very balanced but it goes the 4e route and goes farther by taking two axes to versatility and enforces classes to be masters at their conceptual occupation.

[DoctorGlock]

Everyone knows 3.5 is unbalanced but few can agree on the fixes. There are probably a lot of balanced variants and rewrites out there. But would you like it. Orzel d20 is very balanced but it goes the 4e route and goes farther by taking two axes to versatility and enforces classes to be masters at their conceptual occupation.

I'd like to know how true that is from players of 4e. Some folks by me are advocating it and I have skimmed the books, but not enough for a real understanding of the system. From what I saw of powers everything was combat related and did damage of the same amount as the next guy and maybe imposed a minor penalty. Also HP inflation increased and damage cut to about 10% for 5 hour combats. Is this actually true?

[Novawurmson]

The way you balance 3.5 is through good communication between DM and players and DM system mastery to understand what is broken and what isn't.

[Talionis]

Not really, otherwise there would not be a slew of "help, wizard is breaking my game!" threads. [/I]

If you aren't using tier 1 or 2 you don't have any wizards. OP didn't ask if the variation was boring, just if there was one.

These boards have so much love for the tier 1 and 2 classes because they are optimization boards, but really you can optimize anything that is better than tier 6.

For some balancing will reduce fun, but for most the people on these boards, fun is equivalent of coming up with combinations that are unbalanced.

Normal people can accept limitations of a game and be happy to do their best with the given restrictions.

[Tyndmyr]

The way you balance 3.5 is through good communication between DM and players and DM system mastery to understand what is broken and what isn't.

This. The only caveat I add is that the DM need not be the one with the system mastery...but someone's got to have it, and be acknowledged as the person in that role. If multiple people do...all the better.

[DoctorGlock]

If you aren't using tier 1 or 2 you don't have any wizards. OP didn't ask if the variation was boring, just if there was one.

These boards have so much love for the tier 1 and 2 classes because they are optimization boards, but really you can optimize anything that is better than tier 6.

For some balancing will reduce fun, but for most the people on these boards, fun is equivalent of coming up with combinations that are unbalanced.

Normal people can accept limitations of a game and be happy to do their best with the given restrictions.

Normal people can accept limitations, yes, but making those limitations "T4/T5" are unreasonable because normal people also want to define their own characters. "Blaster" Warmage, "Healbot" Healer, "BSF" Fighter and "Sneaky" the rogue are about the only things you can make in T4/5, and those are not characters, those are overused archetypes that most people do not want to simply mimic.

The optimization boards have nothing to do with breaking the game but with making any idea viable. Yes, that means taking things outside the archtypes and making playable contributing characters. To state that we only have fun when we are breaking the game is a fallacious statement. We have fun when we define what our characters are, not when the ghost of Gary Gygax is whispering in our ears "do it my way or none at all"

[Eldest]

I'd like to know how true that is from players of 4e. Some folks by me are advocating it and I have skimmed the books, but not enough for a real understanding of the system. From what I saw of powers everything was combat related and did damage of the same amount as the next guy and maybe imposed a minor penalty. Also HP inflation increased and damage cut to about 10% for 5 hour combats. Is this actually true?

They originally messed up some with the MM 1 and 2, and then fixed it with MM 3. And there are rules for combat encounters and social/skill encounters. Everything else is meant to be done through roleplay.

[Talionis]

Normal people can accept limitations, yes, but making those limitations "T4/T5" are unreasonable

My original suggestion was Tier 3-4. Tier 3 has spell casters. You can define yourself within those tiers unless your character needs to be god-like.

Once you get into tier 2 and above characters can do such broken things balance becomes far more difficult. Some tier 3 might be too strong for some games and parties.

But tier 3 is a pretty strong level still allowing some more specialized spell casters. This has a chance of being balanced.

[Tyndmyr]

They originally messed up some with the MM 1 and 2, and then fixed it with MM 3. And there are rules for combat encounters and social/skill encounters. Everything else is meant to be done through roleplay.

That said, the skill challenge rules should basically be ripped out of the book, torn up, and thrown away. Possibly burned, for safety.


Back to the main topic...yes, 4e has rather more balance than 3.5. It's not COMPLETELY balanced...the first infinite combo was found before release, I believe, but it's more so. However, it's a notably different game than plays rather different on the tabletop than 3.5.

[Novawurmson]

Normal people can accept limitations, yes, but making those limitations "T4/T5" are unreasonable because normal people also want to define their own characters. "Blaster" Warmage, "Healbot" Healer, "BSF" Fighter and "Sneaky" the rogue are about the only things you can make in T4/5, and those are not characters, those are overused archetypes that most people do not want to simply mimic.

Besides Barbarian, Warlock, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshall, Swashbuckler, Monk, Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, Samurai, Paladin, and Knight (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0); if you take tiers 3-4, you can make almost any character you can think of.

[Orzel]

I'd like to know how true that is from players of 4e. Some folks by me are advocating it and I have skimmed the books, but not enough for a real understanding of the system. From what I saw of powers everything was combat related and did damage of the same amount as the next guy and maybe imposed a minor penalty. Also HP inflation increased and damage cut to about 10% for 5 hour combats. Is this actually true?

Pretty much. 4e put most of the game in the power and challenge systems in order to better montionr the "Effect" line. Everything that couldn't be describe as a power or challenge was made into a ritual. This gives everyone access to every system. At that point, the only worry is balance within the systems themselves.

[DoctorGlock]

Pretty much. 4e put most of the game in the power and challenge systems in order to better montionr the "Effect" line. Everything that couldn't be describe as a power or challenge was made into a ritual. This gives everyone access to every system. At that point, the only worry is balance within the systems themselves.

Rituals were a good idea. If there was a way to port this into 3.5 it might go a little way to fixing balance, especially if you can prep a ritual and bind it to a single use item


Besides Barbarian, Warlock, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshall, Swashbuckler, Monk, Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, Samurai, Paladin, and Knight (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0); if you take tiers 3-4, you can make almost any character you can think of.

3-4 yes, 4-5 not reall. 4-5 has no master of arcane lore, true jack of all trades, shapeshifter, arcane warrior (hexblade doesn't have enough to count), summoner or whatnot. All of those are in 3.

[gkathellar]

Rituals were a good idea. If there was a way to port this into 3.5

Check out Incantations, from Unearthed Arcana.


I agree though I hate iteratives. For one it makes balancing defenses more difficult. That is also one of the tweaks that I like in the 4e action economy (eliminating full actions and making standard actions better much like ToB upgraded standard actions for warriors making full attacks less needed).

Just to clarify, Legend doesn't have full actions. Iteratives are part of a standard attack.


A smooth movement system will fix everything I've listed in addition to opening up a lot of more avenues to create variance like having a whole continuum of casting times.

I'd love to see a demonstration of how a "smooth movement system" is supposed to work.

[Kerrin]

I've never been a fan of the 3.5 action system. It works okay, but it somehow annoys me and I'm not really sure why.

3.5 has the actions:
Full
Standard
Move
Swift
Immediate
Free

I've been toying with something simpler in my mind (haven't actually tried to use it yet). Something like:
Action - 3.5's full, standard, move
Half-Action - 3.5's swift, immediate, free

Per round, characters would get 2 Actions and 1 Half-Action.

The largest issue with this would seem to be reworking some of the spell casting times and how to change iterative attacks so they're not so mechanically clunky.

[Psyren]

Not really, otherwise there would not be a slew of "help, wizard is breaking my game!" threads.

That might be because, oh I don't know, Wizards are neither T3 nor T4?

If you allow wizards into a T4 game and get surprised when they wreck it without really trying, it's your own fault for not understanding what T4 means.


Also it's a crude way of dealing with problems. T4-5 leaves a horribly boring game where you are shoehorned into playing the classic archetypes rather than your own character.

Whereas T3-T4 is extremely fun and diverse. You get Binders, Incarnum*, ToB, Beguilers, Dread Necros, Bards, Factotums, Warlocks, DFAs, Wildshape Rangers, Shugenja, PsyWars and PsyRogues, and a boatload of PrCs that don't harm this balance paradigm. They all play differently, and can take down any CR-appropriate challenge in the game. Add in Pathfinder classes and you get even more - Alchemists, Magi, Vitalists, Soulknives, Aegii, etc.

*minus Soulborn

Also, why would you do a T5 game anyway? The whole point of T5 is that you have to tailor encounters to fit their strengths or else they run a much higher risk of failure. That's making MORE work for the DM, not less.

[Talionis]

I've been toying with something simpler in my mind (haven't actually tried to use it yet). Something like:
Action - 3.5's full, standard, move
Half-Action - 3.5's swift, immediate, free

Per round, characters would get 2 Actions and 1 Half-Action.

The largest issue with this would seem to be reworking some of the spell casting times and how to change iterative attacks so they're not so mechanically clunky.

I always liked the idea that you could get an immediate action or free action in response to each enemy, up to a limit.

[Draz74]

It is the root of action economy abuse and some very weird things from a realism perspective. It is also the cause for a lot of unnecessary things like charging, full round attacks, spring attack, the list goes on. Movement is only marginally different from short range teleportation. Consider a chase between to humans. They are neck-in-neck with each other. However, if you time it right you can land a fireball between them and hit neither. A smooth movement system will fix everything I've listed in addition to opening up a lot of more avenues to create variance like having a whole continuum of casting times.
See, I always thought "action economy abuse" was actually a fun option, as long as it's kept within reason. The Factotum's Cunning Surge, for example (when restricted to 1/round and not paired with Fonts of Inspiration) is a very cool, powerful, flavorful-for-a-skillmonkey ability that I think really helps define the class.

4e demonstrates that you can keep the "standard, move, swift" paradigm without having iterative attacks or making charges so complicated.

As for the other issues you mention ... yeah, the fireball thing and similar effects break verisimilitude a little. But that's more a function of having a turn-based game than it is caused by dividing those turns into standard/move/swift actions, right? And as for the turn-based aspect itself,

I'd love to see a demonstration of how a "smooth movement system" is supposed to work.
Yeah, this. I would be intrigued by a system that didn't have the fireball-timing issue, but I've never seen such a system revealed. Even when I've seen such things (like a "ticks" system) merely proposed, they looked like they'd get so bogged down in bookkeeping that the benefit would be lost.

Elucidate, please?


And the penalties on later iteratives get a little ridiculous.
Legend at least fixes that part.


Instead, what if you could "spend" your move action to gain bonuses for the round similar to ToB's boosts? Something like "add BAB to damage for the round", or "gain bonus +4 to hit" or "bypass DR" or "extra attack; all attacks at -2". I dunno, just a thought.
It's a start. My own design strategy has been to give no advantage to "spending" your move action by default, but create special abilities like Power Attack that allow you to get boosts kind of like this.


That reminds me, is there ever a reason to not use flurry?
In Legend? Only if you're using one of the other Combat Maneuvers, like Charging or Tripping. Especially before you get iterative attacks, those other options can be quite powerful.


If you aren't using tier 1 or 2 you don't have any wizards.
Yeah ... it's odd how (barring homebrew) with all the Tier 3 and 4 classes 3.5e ended up with, there's still no class in that range that nicely fills the "scholarly, versatile magic-user" role. Psion is a little too powerful, Beguiler can't quite blast well enough, Bard and Dragonfire Adept aren't Intelligence-based enough ...

My usual solution is to allow Wizards or Psions and just ban anything overpowered they try to access, but now I'm kind of wanting to homebrew an Intelligence-based DFA variant. Maybe with the Archivist's Dark Knowledge?


"Blaster" Warmage, "Healbot" Healer, "BSF" Fighter and "Sneaky" the rogue are about the only things you can make in T4/5, and those are not characters, those are overused archetypes that most people do not want to simply mimic.
Stormwind Fallacy. A mechanical set of abilities does not make or break a character's roleplaying potential. An amazing character like Jack Sparrow could be roleplayed using some generic "overused" set of mechanical abilities.


I've been toying with something simpler in my mind (haven't actually tried to use it yet). Something like:
Action - 3.5's full, standard, move
Half-Action - 3.5's swift, immediate, free

Per round, characters would get 2 Actions and 1 Half-Action.

The largest issue with this would seem to be reworking some of the spell casting times and how to change iterative attacks so they're not so mechanically clunky.

You've already got a "full attack" system built in here -- all characters, regardless of their level, will get one iterative attack (which has no -5 attack penalty) by holding still while they fight.

That seems like it would make combat too sedentary (non-mobile) for my taste, as holding still would provide a huge DPR advantage. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

[Talionis]

The big thing that makes the wizard tier 1 is all that versatility. As soon as you start adding versatility you get very broken quick.

I guess if your DM is attentive they can home brew something. Otherwise I guess you just fluff some classes to get that feel.

I would also add that almost all spell casters have more versatility than most melee creatures.

[Psyren]

The big thing that makes the wizard tier 1 is all that versatility. As soon as you start adding versatility you get very broken quick.

It's not just versatility, it's versatility with no drawback.

A Binder or an Incarnate has tons of versatility, but they have to choose what they want to focus on each day and can actually be bad at the things they don't choose. T1 classes (especially Druids) don't have this problem. I can do your job while doing mine, or summon something that can do your job, or summon something that can do my job while I stay home, or make everyone else's job obsolete etc.

[gkathellar]

The big thing that makes the wizard tier 1 is all that versatility. As soon as you start adding versatility you get very broken quick.

Expanding on what Psyren said: it's not just versatility, it's powerful versatility. Tier 3s aren't all that much more versatile than Tier 2s, and some (Factotum, Binder, I'm lookin' at you) even rival Tier 1s for the sheer number of things they can do.

But the things Tiers 1-2 can do break the story. Tier 2s have a number of options that are tremendously effective. Tier 1s have all the options that are tremendously effective.

In general, you have to understand Tiers as a measure of both power and versatility, not just one or the other.

[Doug Lampert]

I'd like to know how true that is from players of 4e. Some folks by me are advocating it and I have skimmed the books, but not enough for a real understanding of the system. From what I saw of powers everything was combat related and did damage of the same amount as the next guy and maybe imposed a minor penalty. Also HP inflation increased and damage cut to about 10% for 5 hour combats. Is this actually true?

Damage the same? I take it you didn't build a level 11+ ranger or anything. No, the strikers do 2x what anyone else does as a baseline and go up from there.

HP inflation? Not really, not adding Con bonus for every level means that at mid to high level you have FAR fewer HP than was likely in 3.x, and that's even before you consider all the houserules used in 3.x to increase HP rolls and the 3.x improved toughness.

Combat takes longer, but that's because rounds take longer and the fights are closer to ballanced (foes outclassed 2:1 rather than 4:1 in standard patrol encounters). The number of rounds is about the same, fewer if you cancel combat once the big powers have been used and the outcome is a foregone conclusion (and the characters involved should be fleeing or surendering anyway once the outcome is a foregone conclusion).

The pre-errata monsters have too high defenses and too low damage, but the rest of what you're saying is pretty well nonsense.

[Greenish]

Unless you're naturally only hitting on 20s...then, back to flurrying being superior!If you're only hitting with 20s without flurrying, taking the -2 penalty from flurry would mean you'd never hit. Nat 20 isn't an autohit in Legend.


you can optimize anything that is better than tier 6.You can optimize anything. You can even powergame any tier, if that strikes your fancy. There are tactics for commoners too powerful for most games I've played.


Tier 3 has spell casters.Every tier but 6 has spellcasters. :smalltongue:

[DoctorGlock]

Damage the same? I take it you didn't build a level 11+ ranger or anything. No, the strikers do 2x what anyone else does as a baseline and go up from there.

HP inflation? Not really, not adding Con bonus for every level means that at mid to high level you have FAR fewer HP than was likely in 3.x, and that's even before you consider all the houserules used in 3.x to increase HP rolls and the 3.x improved toughness.

Combat takes longer, but that's because rounds take longer and the fights are closer to ballanced (foes outclassed 2:1 rather than 4:1 in standard patrol encounters). The number of rounds is about the same, fewer if you cancel combat once the big powers have been used and the outcome is a foregone conclusion (and the characters involved should be fleeing or surendering anyway once the outcome is a foregone conclusion).

The pre-errata monsters have too high defenses and too low damage, but the rest of what you're saying is pretty well nonsense.

I don't have the books and the srd does not have much in the way of detail, but i remember an enemy like the tarrasqu having upward of 1000hp whereas the warlock's biggest written blast power was something like 7d10+charisma, which was a daily IIRC... if the rest were like that, that seems like alot of rounds before progress is made.

I aint ripping on 4e, I just don't get it. How do the strikers deal loads of damage? I like combats that take a maximum of 3 rounds or so, and it seems that even with everyone opening with a 21 gun salute... that things will take a while.

[MeeposFire]

I don't have the books and the srd does not have much in the way of detail, but i remember an enemy like the tarrasqu having upward of 1000hp whereas the warlock's biggest written blast power was something like 7d10+charisma, which was a daily IIRC... if the rest were like that, that seems like alot of rounds before progress is made.

I aint ripping on 4e, I just don't get it. How do the strikers deal loads of damage? I like combats that take a maximum of 3 rounds or so, and it seems that even with everyone opening with a 21 gun salute... that things will take a while.

Warlocks don't do damage very well (generally warlocks are high control moderate damage strikers). That 7d10 damage will only be slightly better on its own that a high level twin strike at will and an encounter power added on (due to being a minor action). Multi attacks are the damage generators in 4e (and a few other tactics like charging). Using charging I will be doing way over 300 damage on an encounter nova with my arcane slayer (which is a weaker slayer that uses an arcane at will on a slayer fighter class). Also you are comparing a solo creature who is designed to fight the party almost alone and uses the MM1 HP which for solos was changed (MM3 and beyond solos had slightly reduced HP and defenses but given more damage and more turns per round with more chances of removing status effects).

[DoctorGlock]

Warlocks don't do damage very well (generally warlocks are high control moderate damage strikers). That 7d10 damage will only be slightly better on its own that a high level twin strike at will and an encounter power added on (due to being a minor action). Multi attacks are the damage generators in 4e (and a few other tactics like charging). Using charging I will be doing way over 300 damage on an encounter nova with my arcane slayer (which is a weaker slayer that uses an arcane at will on a slayer fighter class). Also you are comparing a solo creature who is designed to fight the party almost alone and uses the MM1 HP which for solos was changed (MM3 and beyond solos had slightly reduced HP and defenses but given more damage and more turns per round with more chances of removing status effects).

What level were you doing that kind of damage at?

Clearly I need to read through the books at some point, but being at heart a blast happy player seeing the low looking numbers just turned me away. Maybe I'll ask about the 4e boards before derailing this one further.

[MeeposFire]

What level were you doing that kind of damage at?

Clearly I need to read through the books at some point, but being at heart a blast happy player seeing the low looking numbers just turned me away. Maybe I'll ask about the 4e boards before derailing this one further.

That particular build was a level 30 but I thought this was a discussion of epic abilities so I thought it to be kosher (I also thought that the monster was for a level 30 character but I did not look).

[JaronK]

Besides Barbarian, Warlock, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshall, Swashbuckler, Monk, Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, Samurai, Paladin, and Knight (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0); if you take tiers 3-4, you can make almost any character you can think of.

Barbarian: Already T4
Warlock: Already T4
Scout: Already T4
Ranger: Already T4 (with a T3 Variant)
Hexblade: Already T4
Adept: Already T4
Spellthief: A Factotum or Beguiler can already do "magical Rogue type" pretty well.
Marshal: A Crusader or Warblade can fill this role.
Swashbuckler: A Warblade can fill this role
Monk: An Unarmed Swordsage can fill this role.
Ninja: A Swordsage can fill this role
Soulknife: A Swordsage can fill this role
Expert: A Factotum can do this easily.
Samurai: A Warblade, especially a Warblade/Iaijutsu Master, can do this
Paladin and Knight: Crusaders do both of these.

So... no. You can do all those character concepts in 3-4.

And really, just keeping to Tiers 3-4 should get a relatively balanced game from a class perspective. But even then there's unbalanced stuff (certain feats are far stronger than others, certain items are insane, certain skill uses can be crazy too) that a DM still has to deal with.

A nice gentlemen's agreement to be careful with it does wonders.

JaronK

[Tyndmyr]

If you're only hitting with 20s without flurrying, taking the -2 penalty from flurry would mean you'd never hit. Nat 20 isn't an autohit in Legend.

Oh, that wasn't intended to be a legend-specific statement. Back to discussing flurry in 3.5 in general, and in there, flurry is pretty much a "do it whenever you reasonably can" option.

[stainboy]

It is the root of action economy abuse and some very weird things from a realism perspective. It is also the cause for a lot of unnecessary things like charging, full round attacks, spring attack, the list goes on. Movement is only marginally different from short range teleportation. Consider a chase between to humans. They are neck-in-neck with each other. However, if you time it right you can land a fireball between them and hit neither. A smooth movement system will fix everything I've listed in addition to opening up a lot of more avenues to create variance like having a whole continuum of casting times.

The root of action economy abuse is having an action economy. Any game that says "you can only do X things in a round" has an action economy, and in all of them it is advantageous to be able to do more than X things.

The chase thing is weird but it's about discretizing the action into rounds, not standard+move+swift. Do you have a fix for that? (Difficulty: without writing a special "chase mode" that isn't part of the combat engine. Most chases happen during combat.)

[Psyren]

Soulknife: A Swordsage can fill this role

I'dve picked Soulbound Weapon Psywar or Incarnate here, but yeah :smalltongue:

[Doc Roc]

Right, there will always be tiers; i had forgotten about that.
I was looking for a balance point where all classes are within one tier of each other.
While there may not be standard homebrews, there are standards that have been developed by people, pathfinder and legend are such. I'm just surprised there hasn't been one that balances the 3.5 base closer, without feeling too much like 4.
I wonder if perhaps as you approach balance it just ceases to look/feel like 3.5?

Rewriting the system would only take a month or two, if you stick to core. The hard part is doing extensive balance testing to verify the changes work as expected. But I agree the more I look at it the more it looks like a lot of things have to be rewritten; I wonder how much can be preserved while still keeping things balanced?

It took us 3 years with 28 people. Just... for a point of reference, I produce about a class a week and about a thousand words a day on top of that.

[Nohwl]

you should check out legend if you haven't already. you can find it here (http://www.ruleofcool.com/?page_id=49).

[Tvtyrant]

I actually like the idea of full-attacks. The only problem is that they scale poorly - you've got big cutoffs every 5+ levels, and that's a huge portion of a person's adventuring career. And the penalties on later iteratives get a little ridiculous. I like the idea of getting an advantage if you devote your turn to it, but the implementation is lacking.

Instead, what if you could "spend" your move action to gain bonuses for the round similar to ToB's boosts? Something like "add BAB to damage for the round", or "gain bonus +4 to hit" or "bypass DR" or "extra attack; all attacks at -2". I dunno, just a thought.

I think one thing they could have done is simply multiply the damage of the single attack rather than have a multitude of smaller ones. x2 at one marker, X3 at the next, etc. That would make PA ungodly broken, but whateves.

[OrzhvoPatriarch]

sure, only allow people to play commoners. They will have a really tough time of it, they will have to roleplay out of most fights since otherwise they would be crushed, but the party itself would be very well balanced.

[Doc Roc]

sure, only allow people to play commoners. They will have a really tough time of it, they will have to roleplay out of most fights since otherwise they would be crushed, but the party itself would be very well balanced.

Not really. That just places a premium on feats that offer skills, particularly use magic device, or spell like abilities. And then there's Leadership. And item optimization. This one *knows* that the *knowing* of this is unpleasant, and would see the topic shifted again gently.

[Greenish]

sure, only allow people to play commoners. They will have a really tough time of it, they will have to roleplay out of most fights since otherwise they would be crushed, but the party itself would be very well balanced.The commoner who can Handle Animal Warbeast Battletitan might have a slight edge on the others.

[ericgrau]

Balance takes play-testing takes money takes a big business. Even Pathfinder had horrible balance in the early days before the updates and they got to build off all the work already done on 3.5, and I'm not saying it's all that special now either. Homebrew, while awesome to have a few custom things... is a catastrophic mess balance-wise for making an entire system. I wouldn't recommend homebrew rebalancing for anything beyond tic-tac-toe.

[Doug Lampert]

Not really. That just places a premium on feats that offer skills, particularly use magic device, or spell like abilities. And then there's Leadership. And item optimization. This one *knows* that the *knowing* of this is unpleasant, and would see the topic shifted again gently.

There's always Chicken Infested at level 1.

And don't forget Handle Animal, which is on your class list. (This is a separate item from chicken infested games.)

At the high end I saw a TO excercise based arround a level 20 commoner that was pretty sick. WBLmancy obviously. It would have been stronger with a Wizard, but I think someone was making a point about monk builds or something.

I'm pretty sure I've seen someone initiate Pun-Pun with a fairly low level commoner.

[Greenish]

At the high end I saw a TO excercise based arround a level 20 commoner that was pretty sick. WBLmancy obviously.Are you thinking about The Cube? I thought that was slightly lower level.

[Nohwl]

In short, no.

The problems with 3.5 are very deep, almost systemic. The system is... salvageable. Legend is a big step in the right direction, however I have a few minor beefs with it; namely they weren't bold enough to pitch the standard/move/swift paradigm.

one of the original goals was to be fully compatible with 3.5, so a lot of the basic ideas from that system were carried over to legend.



On a similar vein, though, I do wish Legend had dropped the "iterative attacks" paradigm.

iterative attacks are used to help with the math--instead of using a spell that's resolved with one roll (a save), iteratives spread damage out over multiple rolls, making them a little more reliable for damage. say you had an attack that did 100 damage, and you could use it once a round. if you hit, you do 100 damage, if you miss, you do 0, so an average of 50 per round if hitting and missing is equally likely. if you have 4 attacks that deal 25 damage each, you can deal either 0, 25, 50, 75, or 100 damage if each attack is equally likely to hit or miss. you still have an average of 50 damage, but it's more likely to do damage than the one attack at 100 damage.

changing iteratives was considered, but there didn't seem to be a nice way to make it work.


It is the root of action economy abuse and some very weird things from a realism perspective. It is also the cause for a lot of unnecessary things like charging, full round attacks, spring attack, the list goes on. Movement is only marginally different from short range teleportation. Consider a chase between to humans. They are neck-in-neck with each other. However, if you time it right you can land a fireball between them and hit neither. A smooth movement system will fix everything I've listed in addition to opening up a lot of more avenues to create variance like having a whole continuum of casting times.

in legend, standard actions are usually reserved for some offensive or defensive action--you heal an ally or you attack the enemy. most swift actions and immediate actions seem to be more focused on damage prevention or changing your attack slightly, like mystic focus in just blade. an extra swift action is good, but it's not always something you must get because it's usually something a bit more minor or something you won't need up all the time. move action abilities are pretty rare. they exist, but they're not common.


That reminds me, is there ever a reason to not use flurry? I'm pretty sure the math comes to it being worth it to use it unless you only hit on an 18; in a few levels, you are probably not attacking or always have enough to-hit to always use flurry.


True. Same with Rapid Shot and TWF. The only reason not to is if you've got a use for that move action.

that's exactly how it's supposed to be.there are other combat maneuvers to use, but movement is much more important in legend than it is in 3.5. characters can move fast if you want them to. i mean 90 feet per round isn't hard to achieve. it gives characters options every round instead of just i full attack. maybe you took the feat reckless charge and are using it to power attack as you close distance--i'd consider a +bab to every attack better than having one more attack.

[Togo]

I'd strongly suggest not trying to find a balanced variant.

What you need for a game is balanced characters. That's somethnig that you need the GMs help for, because only they know what's coming up in the game, and thus what capabilties will be helpful.

Tiers are about the flexibilty of the most optimal characters you can create. You can balance an individual Tier 1 and an individual Tier 5 character within a game. It's not even terribly hard to do.

But if you're looking for a balanced variant, where all choices, no matter what combination they are taken in, provide balanced characters, then what you;ll end up with is characters that are all very similar. And that's simply not as much fun.

[Infernalbargain]

It's not really closer at all, tbh.
[\quote]

It is a actually quite a bit closer. PF has gotten rid of a lot of the powerhouse options available to casters in 3.5. Sure they gave wizards nice looking school benefits, but do any of them really compare to having access to celerity?

[quote]

Unless you're naturally only hitting on 20s...then, back to flurrying being superior! Hitting on nat 19s is equally good. So, the only case where flurrying is actually inferior to a single attack is when you're hitting on natural 18s.

TLDR: Mash the flurry button whenever possible.

Then is it really an option?

@nohwl:

I've read the system. It still doesn't address the concerns that I brought up.

@stainboy: yes I have a fix for that. I equated a round to 24 counts, then had each action require a certain number of counts. When you finished your previous action it was your turn again. I had to add in some more subtlities to make basic attacks, casting spells, and attacks of opportunity to work at the same time, but the basic concept is still there.

[Suddo]

It is balanced have everyone play a wizard.

If you mean a version where the fighter class is as good as the wizard class then no. And there will never be.

[zlefin]

please keep the talk going; it's been quite helpful.
It's helped me brainstorm alot of fixes; and confirms my belief that it would be quite feasible to make a highly balanced one with all the expertise on this forum.

[Endarire]

No system as complex as 3.5 and made by a mere mortal (or dozens of mere mortals) can be "perfectly balanced."

The closest you come are these:
-Fun
-Balance within a party
-Balance of party vs. environment
-Balance of a character/group within a setting
-A game significantly more balanced than 3.5

Balance alone isn't fun. Chess is balanced, but it's also symmetrical. I have more fun playing a typical 3.5 game (with less balance) than this more rigid game with more balance.

PS: I'm working on a new game that's a rewrite of 3.5. It's more balanced because it's written mostly by one guy who wants things to be fun and manageable. I'm also honest about the tier system and include only tier 1-3 classes. (Thank you, Jaron!)

[Doc Roc]

There's always Chicken Infested at level 1.

And don't forget Handle Animal, which is on your class list. (This is a separate item from chicken infested games.)

At the high end I saw a TO excercise based arround a level 20 commoner that was pretty sick. WBLmancy obviously. It would have been stronger with a Wizard, but I think someone was making a point about monk builds or something.

I'm pretty sure I've seen someone initiate Pun-Pun with a fairly low level commoner.

It was L13, and it murdered a variety of Tier Zero builds.

[Rejakor]

Tome pretty much does away with the tiers.

[OrzhvoPatriarch]

The commoner who can Handle Animal Warbeast Battletitan might have a slight edge on the others.

Yes, but all the commoners would have the same ability to do that....not that I think a commoner would be able to do that unless he was very, very, very high level. They would all have the same ability to take feats and skills as the others. If players make more powerful characters when with the same resources and class features then it is no longer a problem with the system, its a problem with the players.

Of course, that's if you consider different power levels in a game a problem, and I only would if it gets to the point that one player is so much stronger then the others that he overshadows them completely, and that is once again usually a player problem then a system problem.

[Infernalbargain]

Chess is balanced, but it's also symmetrical.

There is actually an asymmetry in chess, one side goes first. Now we have computationally proven that checkers is balanced, but we're a long way from proving chess is balanced and even further from go.

[sonofzeal]

The commoner who can Handle Animal Warbeast Battletitan might have a slight edge on the others.
MwahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAAAHAh

....in all seriousness though, that shouldn't be taken to mean much of anything. Bubs was pretty much TO, and shouldn't reflect actual gameplay power in the same way that Punpun doesn't mean Kobolds are the strongest race.

[Hunter Killer]

I've been mulling this over and, again, I'm telling you the magic system is where you start.

I believe if you massively tone down magic, then the game will become a lot more balanced as a result. The trick would be to add massive restrictions to full casters without hurting partial casters too much...

Here's what I can think of off the cuff:

1. Spells have to cost something other than a spell slot. You have to make the player not want to use his semi-phenomenal, nearly-cosmic powers all the time. Especially higher level spells.

There's a few ways I think that could be accomplished.

a. Permanent or semi-permanent ability drain (Something that hurts; Either their casting stat or CON) on really powerful spells. Sure, you can reshape reality, but it's going to leave a mark (When I say permanent, I mean nothing short of Wish changes that score back. No Restoration!).

b. Attach experience costs to a wide range of spells. Anything higher than 3rd or 4th, perhaps, would have a small cost? Again, playing with reality is fun, but do it too much and your buddies will be levels ahead.

c. Attach level loss to other spells. Resurrection already does that to the recipient. Let's do it to the caster too. He'll think twice about bringing his buddy back. Bonus is that death becomes a little more biting and scary.

2. We have to introduce a random element of failure into casting to match the chance of failure combat characters have on attack rolls. We can do this by attaching a Casting DC to every single spell. This would be a Caster Level Check (D20 + Caster Level) vs. the following DC's:

{table=head]0th|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th
12|14|16|19|21|23|25|28|30|32[/table]

We would not, for the love of all that is good and holy, allow any modifiers to this check. Boosts to Caster Level (Like, through Practiced Spellcaster) would still affect the power and scope of the spell, but never the check.

Furthermore, we can introduce mishaps for failure. Lose the spell, have it turn on you, take damage, take ability drain, etc.... The higher level the spell, the worse it would be.

3. Limiting the spells available wouldn't hurt. Adding Spells Known to Druid and Cleric, and forcing the Wizard to ban at least one or two schools even if he doesn't specialize would go a long way (And specialization, at that point, would hurt a lot more than it currently does).

4. Simply remove or rework certain spells. Listen, there's a few spells that are just too powerful even if we make them harder to cast or cost more resources. Those would have to be identified and taken care of.

[erikun]

I've never been a fan of the 3.5 action system. It works okay, but it somehow annoys me and I'm not really sure why.

3.5 has the actions:
Full
Standard
Move
Swift
Immediate
Free

I've been toying with something simpler in my mind (haven't actually tried to use it yet). Something like:
Action - 3.5's full, standard, move
Half-Action - 3.5's swift, immediate, free

Per round, characters would get 2 Actions and 1 Half-Action.

The largest issue with this would seem to be reworking some of the spell casting times and how to change iterative attacks so they're not so mechanically clunky.
Use the 4e action system - Standard, Move, Minor - and translate Swift/Immediate into Minor actions. You can either have them as the same action, or just hand out "Opportunity Actions" much like 4e did.

[Yahzi]

It is balanced have everyone play a wizard..
That's right. Play D&D the way it was supposed to be played.

Everybody plays a caster (wizard/cleric/druid). Fighters and rogues are mooks you hire. :smallbiggrin:

[Draz74]

I've been mulling this over and, again, I'm telling you the magic system is where you start.

I believe if you massively tone down magic, then the game will become a lot more balanced as a result. The trick would be to add massive restrictions to full casters without hurting partial casters too much...

Here's what I can think of off the cuff:

1. Spells have to cost something other than a spell slot. You have to make the player not want to use his semi-phenomenal, nearly-cosmic powers all the time. Especially higher level spells.

There's a few ways I think that could be accomplished.

a. Permanent or semi-permanent ability drain (Something that hurts; Either their casting stat or CON) on really powerful spells. Sure, you can reshape reality, but it's going to leave a mark (When I say permanent, I mean nothing short of Wish changes that score back. No Restoration!).

b. Attach experience costs to a wide range of spells. Anything higher than 3rd or 4th, perhaps, would have a small cost? Again, playing with reality is fun, but do it too much and your buddies will be levels ahead.

c. Attach level loss to other spells. Resurrection already does that to the recipient. Let's do it to the caster too. He'll think twice about bringing his buddy back. Bonus is that death becomes a little more biting and scary.

2. We have to introduce a random element of failure into casting to match the chance of failure combat characters have on attack rolls. We can do this by attaching a Casting DC to every single spell. This would be a Caster Level Check (D20 + Caster Level) vs. the following DC's:

{table=head]0th|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th
12|14|16|19|21|23|25|28|30|32[/table]

We would not, for the love of all that is good and holy, allow any modifiers to this check. Boosts to Caster Level (Like, through Practiced Spellcaster) would still affect the power and scope of the spell, but never the check.

Furthermore, we can introduce mishaps for failure. Lose the spell, have it turn on you, take damage, take ability drain, etc.... The higher level the spell, the worse it would be.

3. Limiting the spells available wouldn't hurt. Adding Spells Known to Druid and Cleric, and forcing the Wizard to ban at least one or two schools even if he doesn't specialize would go a long way (And specialization, at that point, would hurt a lot more than it currently does).

4. Simply remove or rework certain spells. Listen, there's a few spells that are just too powerful even if we make them harder to cast or cost more resources. Those would have to be identified and taken care of.

The sad thing is that, even though this is overkill and would basically make spellcasters not fun to play at all, at high levels a spellcaster with good system mastery could still dance in circles around non-magical (non-ToB) characters.

Fill all your dozens and dozens of spell slots with lower-level spells that don't carry significant penalties. They don't even have to be ban-happy spells like Celerity, Shivering Touch, or Polymorph -- just good old useful spells like Haste, Greater Magic Weapon, Benign Transposition, and so on. Since none of this "fix" touches metamagic, might as well fill the higher-level slots with metamagic'ed versions of these spells, too. Voila, you're still at least Tier 3, if not higher ... and most non-magical characters aren't.

Really, besides the individual spells often being too powerful, there's one main reason spellcasting wins D&D. It's that they increase in power in so many ways as you level up. When you level up a Wizard from Level 5 to Level 10, besides normal old progression of HP and saves and so forth, look what happens to him:

His number of daily spells goes up from ~13 to ~27
His number of spells to choose to fill those slots increases by at least 10, probably more
His highest level of spells to choose from increases from 3rd to 5th
His lower-level spells that he could already cast grow in duration, range, damage potential, etc.

Really, any one of those progressions would be in line with the progress that a Tier 4 character's class features make in the same level span. You want to fix spellcasting? Then don't let magic improve in so many independent ways simultaneously.

[Endarire]

Most 'nerf caster' ideas I've found don't make the game more fun. Sure, it makes casters weaker. Where's the fun in it?

[dspeyer]

Doing T3-4 has lots of fun options, but does leave you down a few archetypes. The only divine stuff there is divine bard and ranger and the mages are all pretty limited. On the other hand, if you bring in homebrew from these forums, you can fill in a lot of that.

[Big Fau]

It is a actually quite a bit closer. PF has gotten rid of a lot of the powerhouse options available to casters in 3.5. Sure they gave wizards nice looking school benefits, but do any of them really compare to having access to celerity?

Only if you ignore PF's intent of being backwards compatible, which reopens the Celerity options. And Core PF still has broken Wizards. The spells were nerfed a little, but not nearly enough to drop Wizards out of Tier 1.

[Fax Celestis]

Most 'nerf caster' ideas I've found don't make the game more fun. Sure, it makes casters weaker. Where's the fun in it?

That's been my intention behind the d20r nerfs to cleric (http://forum.faxcelestis.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71&sid=e910af3be9fcbe7f403bb5801cbd5ead), druid (http://forum.faxcelestis.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15&sid=e910af3be9fcbe7f403bb5801cbd5ead), and (still a WIP) wizard (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=D20r:Wizard).

[Aquillion]

E6 is probably about as close as you can get (and you'll notice that it works by dramatically removing a huge chunk of the game.) Certainly in terms of the ratio of simplicity-of-change vs. how effectively it balances things, it wins out.

[Eldest]

Going along with the mention of E6... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215986)
It's a compilation of homebrewed classes, all meant to be tier three. Races are under construction, as are feats and skill tricks.

[navar100]

There is actually an asymmetry in chess, one side goes first. Now we have computationally proven that checkers is balanced, but we're a long way from proving chess is balanced and even further from go.

Jenga is all about balance!

Anyway, if you need to fundamentally change 3E to suit your needs, such as punishing spellscasters with XP costs, ability drains, or other scars that can never ever be removed you bad bad character you for the audacity of casting spells who says you are allowed to cast spells just because you're a spellcaster how dare you have so much power, then just admit to yourself already that 3E is not for you and play something else. For the rest of us who have no trouble at all with 3E spellcasting and in our games wizards and fighters get along just fine, we'll continue to have our fun.

[Infernalbargain]

Only if you ignore PF's intent of being backwards compatible, which reopens the Celerity options. And Core PF still has broken Wizards. The spells were nerfed a little, but not nearly enough to drop Wizards out of Tier 1.

Yet PF was also designed as a stand-alone game. PF as a stand-alone has much better balance than 3.5 stand-alone. After all, it's not even a discussion whether a level 20 wizard can beat a level 1000 monk in PF only because he can't.


Jenga is all about balance!

Anyway, if you need to fundamentally change 3E to suit your needs, such as punishing spellscasters with XP costs, ability drains, or other scars that can never ever be removed you bad bad character you for the audacity of casting spells who says you are allowed to cast spells just because you're a spellcaster how dare you have so much power, then just admit to yourself already that 3E is not for you and play something else. For the rest of us who have no trouble at all with 3E spellcasting and in our games wizards and fighters get along just fine, we'll continue to have our fun.

It is because I enjoy the game that I want to see improved. If I didn't I wouldn't be spending the time trying to improve it myself.

[gkathellar]

Yet PF was also designed as a stand-alone game.

Wasn't complete or near-complete backwards compatibility pretty heavily advertised during PF's early release cycle?


Tome pretty much does away with the tiers.

Nope.

[Infernalbargain]

Wasn't complete or near-complete backwards compatibility pretty heavily advertised during PF's early release cycle?

You have the definition of stand alone game wrong then. A stand alone game is one that requires no other material to be played.

[Big Fau]

You have the definition of stand alone game wrong then. A stand alone game is one that requires no other material to be played.

However, the intent of PF was to provide continued support for 3.5 and update abilities that were under the OGL. It can be played with just PF-Core material, but so can 3.5.