Simplifying 3.5

[Wookie-ranger]

OK admittedly, I am a little bored right now. But i have a little on going pet project.

Lets Simplify 3.5!

This is my personal collection of House-rules and Home-brews that make 3.5 simpler. The goal is to make the game fast and intuitive while still maintaining “realism”. In a world of magic, psionics, dragons, beholders, ets “realism” is a relative term.
Generally the more a player can do and the less rules that apply to a given situation the better. The less less die rolls the better, to a minimum of one; to keep the excitement going (and to keep the illusion of choice alive.)


This is not about making all classes Tier equal. That's kind of silly. or create a whole new system of gaming. I'd like to keep it as close as possible to 3.5 as possible, but if something makes it 'better','faster',simpler','easier', 'more realistic' … (you get the idea) I think it is generally better. This is also why i start this thread here and not in 'homebrew'. I would like to keep it as close as possible to 3.5; no custom classes and the like. I like 3.5 with all of its (many many) downfalls.


Do the Giants (in the Playground;) have any input?
What are your common house-rules?
what are your UNcommon house-rules? and how did it work? how did it NOT work?

PS: yes i know about Pathfinder. Played a few games and it is heading in the right direction. There are somethings that is would change there too though. so, please no "just try/go to PF" comments please.

[Fighter1000]

One way to simplify the game that I rather like is to get rid of the whole weapon/armor proficiency thing and essentially just make everyone proficient with every weapon and armor, that way people can just use whatever weapons they want. Not necessarily "realistic" and makes classes more "samey" but it can speed up the game somewhat. And you can also get rid of the arcane spell failure chance for wearing armor too.
Also another thing you can do is to get rid of alignments. And for effects that are alignment-specific like Smite Evil for example, you can have it so it only works on undead and evil outsiders.
One other way to simplify the game further is to combine the skills "Climb," "Jump," and "Swim" into a skill I call "Athletics."
Another thing is to get rid of Speed and measuring everything in feet and don't use a grid and just kind of "go with the flow" in combat, essentially imagining out where everything and everyone is in a battle. Cuz measuring out every attack and spell can be really annoying and slow things down quite a bit. U just kind of guess.
One final way I can think of to simplify the game is to get rid of all languages and just have everyone speak Common.

[erikun]

Generic Classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) are another option, giving you most class abilities without needing to both with the specific classes.

[Knaight]

Getting rid of class and cross class skills so that all classes have all skills is one simplification.

[Urpriest]

Throwing out the penalty for firing into melee is probably a good idea. So is getting rid of the ability of hallway corners to provide cover. Cover can still exist, but it should happen when there's an object (low wall, crate, table, etc.) that should obviously provide cover, it shouldn't be something you have to calculate out on the battlegrid.

Also, 4e-style making all spell effects squares really helps speed up spell aiming.

[Duke of URL]

Eliminate (most) opposed checks. Just treat the "defender" as rolling 11 + modifiers, with the attacker "winning" on ties (basically, DC = 11 + defender's modifiers). As long as the margin of success/failure isn't relevant, it's statistically the same result with far less hassle.

Eliminate multi-classing penalties.

Replace XP with story-based leveling; XP costs for items and spells to be replaced with 5 GP per 1 XP. Item crafting does not require massive amounts of downtime.

[Sutremaine]

So is getting rid of the ability of hallway corners to provide cover. Cover can still exist, but it should happen when there's an object (low wall, crate, table, etc.) that should obviously provide cover
...But if the corner's ability to provide cover is in the rules as the other objects' ability to provide cover is, they're equally as obvious.

[Urpriest]

...But if the corner's ability to provide cover is in the rules as the other objects' ability to provide cover is, they're equally as obvious.

An object providing cover is simple: someone is behind the object, or not.

With a corner, by contrast, you have to go through this whole "can you draw a line from a corner of your space to all corners of their space" malarkey.

On a similar note, flanking at reach is just asking for a headache.

[lsfreak]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134805) or something like it will eliminate a lot of the item stuff, leaving magic items for rare and special effects rather than everyone picking up the same 3 or 4 pieces of gear, and it saves lists of "you find another 3 gloves of strength +2."

Eliminating all special attacks as something "special" would be a step towards more freeform, which might be simpler depending on what you have in mind for simple. No more strict rules for bull rush, and then needing special maneuvers or feats or class features to have it trip, or do damage, or anything else, just adhoc these kinds of special attacks. If that's too much, roll the Improved X feats into the basic ability (except Improved Trip, the one that's actually worth a feat).

Skill-wise, eliminate class skills. Players instead pick a number of skills they want max ranks in, and all other skills automatically have a bonus equal to half-rank (trained-only skills still require training). Multiclassing gets a bit rougher, though.

Eliminate weapon and armor proficiencies and simplify weapons a bit - the extreme might be, pick a weapon size (light, 1-hand, 2-hand), pick a die size, pick a crit size/range, pick a special ability. Rather than having "a greatax is 1d12/x3" it's "this is a 2-handed, 2d4/x3 axe that can be used to trip" (requires DM to judge a weapon overpowered or something). It goes the opposite and becomes more complex if your players loot every body they come across, though.

Eliminate the majority of feat taxes and roll them into the basic mechanics (i.e. Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, Precise Shot). A lot of the flat +bonus feats need work too (Weapon Focus, the +2/+2 skill feats), preferably made interesting, but if you're looking to simplify many could be eliminated altogether or altered (i.e. the feat Skillful now just gives +2 to any two skills, rather than having 17 different feats for different combinations).

Eliminate full attacks. I haven't come up with a really good way of replacing them though.

Eliminate AoO's, except maybe for certain actions (casting spells) or with certain feats (Robilar's Gambit).

[ericgrau]

Got a consolidated skill system in sig. The rules for each skill each one encompasses stick to 3.5. And in my rules sheets in general (consolidated skills or not) I tend to summarize a lot of things, relying on common sense. Yet while fully including all rules for an action rather than assuming you know everything in all the other sections, unlike the SRD.

Those rules are for play only. The next step would be creating monster generators, tables for dungeon stats, random weather generation tables, etc. all in one place instead of scattered throughout the rules. Basically everything for setting up the campaign rather than playing it.

I think a Combat Maneuver Bonus similar to Pathfinder would be handy, yet while keeping the special attack mechanics of 3.5. Basically you have one modifier that you apply to trip, disarm, grapple, etc. The drawback of this is that it changes your chance of success slightly for each of those. But like merging skills I think it's close enough that it could make things simpler without changing the actual mechanics too much. I'm not a big fan of the rest of PF; it's ok but I think it did little or nothing to make things easier. Including its so called consolidated skills. It has maybe 75% as many. I have 1/3rd as many. As does 4e. I might prefer 3.5 overall but that's one thing they did better.

Character generation is one thing that I think is relatively ok. Streamlining wouldn't hurt, but it needs it less than other things. Sure new players run into some pitfalls, but it's quickly overcome. If the feat section simply said "Only pick feats for tasks you do very frequently" I think that would remove 95% of feat woes. Works for selecting prepared spells too (vs. scrolled spells). Though some tips would be nice.

[Ozreth]

Just play 2e with the skills and powers and combat and tactics books :smallwink:

I kid, I kid (kind of).

Anyways, skill consolidation is a good idea and should have been done anyways, this is something 4e got right. Here are some other conversations on that topic:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138247
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtyzswh?Condensing-Skills

*Here is my thought though, if you were to consolidate them as much as those links talk about, do you have to change the amount of skill points given to each class?

OR, what I use to really simplify things is use the class based skills checks from Unearthed Arcana:
-There are no skill points
-If it's a class skill you roll 1d20+level+modifier
-If it's not a class skill you roll 1d20+modifier

A huge way to simplify the game, as mentioned above, and something that a lot of people do naturally, especially those coming from older systems is to eschew miniatures and/or a grid. I personally prefer miniatures on the table for general distance measurements but no grid. A grid locks people into a board game mind set and they sit and plan out squares in advance. If the DM states the distance between the enemies and the PC's at the beginning of the battle the rest of it can be assumed. I wouldnt get rid of spell ranges and all that, those are fun and a staple of the game, but if the wizard and the orc are stated to be 200 ft away from each other it's easy to move your miniature forward enough to be within 60ft or whatever you need. IT wont be perfect but it really dosent need to be if you have an easy going group. It's how people played it up until 3.x anyways (at least most people).

Also, try implementing the AD&D initiative system. Everybody states what they are going to do first, then those actions unfold as initiative is rolled. This way there aren't really "turns" so people don't sit and ponder. The orcs turn the corner and attack, what do you do?! Everybody yells out what they do in fear and it unfolds just like that.

Make critical hits happen on a natural 20, forget having to reroll to confirm, that's anticlimactic and time consuming.

If somebody is asleep, paralyzed etc then make coup de gras instant, because it simply makes sense. Having to roll to hit and all that is absurd.

Unfortunately, 3.5 is just full of numbers and that ends up being the biggest time sink for this edition, 4e as well. The layers upon layers that stack up as PC's grow and add skills, feats, spells, abilities etc is just too much and can't really be helped without totally butchering the game. Doing the above things though I have found the game to be smooth and simple enough :smallbiggrin:

[ericgrau]

My particular system with 1/3 as many skills effectively gives 1/2 as many points (or really, makes skills costs double). I figure that's roughly fair since triple the cost would force you to pay for portions that maybe you don't even want while full points with 1/3 skills is a bit much. I've seen arguments to not reduce them since 3.5e doesn't give out enough, but that's a separate issue in that you're actually trying to give out extra skill points. That's not trying to keep things the same.