additional feats and rules for E6

[Darth_Versity]

So i'm thinking of running an E6 game, but theres a couple of feats and house rules I want to implement and I was hoping to get some opinions on them.

First I have 4 feats

Martial Skill
Prerequisites: Character lvl 3
Benefit: Your BAB increases by 1 and your effective fighter level for feat requirements also increases by 1.
A fighter may select this as one of his bonus feats.

Greater Martial Skill
Prerequisites: Character lvl 6, Martial Skill
Benefit: Your BAB increases by 1 and your effective fighter level for feat requirements also increases by 1. This benefit stacks with Martial Skill.
A fighter may select this as one of his bonus feats.

Potent Spellcaster
Prerequisites: Character lvl 3, Caster lvl 1st
Benefit: Your Caster Level for all spellcasting classes increases by 1

Greater Potent Spellcaster
Prerequisites: Character lvl 6, Potent Spellcaster
Benefit: Your Caster Level for all spellcasting classes increases by 1
This benefit stacks with potent spellcaster

These feats are designed to give an edge to characters in several situations. The BAB increases allow a full BAB character to get an extra attack by 5th instead of 6th and allows a medium BAB character to get 2 attacks at 6th at the cost of two feats. It also allows Fighters (and Warblades) to qualify for feats they may not have previously.

The CL increases give a slight boost in damage and overcoming SR but mostly benefit Theurge characters. This would allow a Wizard 3/Cleric 3 to reach CL 5 with both even if they only have 2nd level spells.

Additional rules

I've decided to give my PC's a new level when I feel its time due to the fact that some players miss several sessions on the trot due to other commitments. They will still keep track XP and use it to buy 1 of 2 benefits at the cost of 5000xp.

1st benefit: Bonus feat. They may buy any feat for which they meet the requirements for.

2nd benefit: PrC Trade. They may trade a Class Level for a Prestige Class Level they meet the requirments for. They must continue to meet the requirements with the new level (such as skill requirements) but may eventually trade in all their Class levels for the PrC levels with more XP.

This will allow the people that make a lot of sessions gain an advantage from the extra XP, but the people who miss some games will not fall behind in power as they are still the same level.

So do you guys think those are good options or foolish. Anything you would add or change?

[Cieyrin]

I'd not include CL boosts, as full casters will suck those up and lay waste even more so than they already do. If you want to help theurges, I would do as the Mythweaver's guide to E6 with prestige feats and create Mystic Theurge for the epic level feats.

I also am not sure on retraining prestige class levels in for regular, though I'm not opposed to just getting regular prestige class levels before epic if that's what people really want to go for and combine that with prestige feats to advance in that method. Need some playtesting, sure, but I think that works rather well, as there are plenty of PrCs that can't be entered at 6th, 5th, even 4th or 3rd in select cases.

[Person_Man]

The Martial Skill feats are moderately useful - +1 to hit, a little more fuel for Power Attack, and the ability to qualify for certain prestige classes (which usually require a minimum of +5 BAB) a level earlier.

The Potent Spellcaster feats are much more powerful then other similar feats. There are dozens of feats and other abilities that improve caster level (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872350/Raising_Caster_Level), but almost all of them do so for a very specific school or genre of spells,and not all spells, and not for all casting classes. I would suggest that you simply provide your players with the link above if they're interested in playing a caster.

The Feat buy variant rule is pretty much standard E6. The PrC Trade sounds interesting. Assassin 6 is a lot more useful then Rogue 6, for example, but not really worth giving up 6 feats to get. But spellcasting PrC are more powerful then non-casting PrC, so you're also moving casters up a power level as well. So I'm torn on that one.

[Darth_Versity]

Well I would like a slight power boost for them as when they reach around 50k xp (about ECL 8) I'm going to put them through the Tomb of Horrors. Also, none of my players are big on optimisation so think blaster wizards and healer clerics. With that in mind do you still think the CL boosts are to strong.

[Coidzor]

Well, those firsts four feats in the OP could be folded into two feats with a special that allowed the feats to be taken twice.