Is E6 alive?

[MukkTB]

Do people play E6 much? Does the playground think E6 is a good idea or a bad idea?

My group ran E6 for a shorty while, but they were not overly interested in it and so we stop using those rules.

[Fates]

The system's still alive and well. I see people discussing it, as well as playing it, on these and other forums not infrequently.

[ArcturusV]

It's... odd. I mean I do actually see several E6 recruitment on the board here. But it's far more common to see things like: Starting at level 20 Gestalt. Or even "Starting at level 8" or "Starting at level 5".

It's something I've been curious about, and I tend to get three sorts of responses to it, depending on who I ask:

People I used to game with "Back in the day", meaning before 3rd Edition. "Sounds neat. Get a group and I'll throw in."

People I know who are very much into system mastery and optimizing, "Give me a moment..." *two days later* "Okay, I think I'll play... as long as you let me use a cheese trick to break the premise and end up with level 6 Spellcasting or more". Though they usually don't tell me that, when I look over their character sheets or they start asking me questions it becomes clear that is the point. At which point you have to tell them E6 isn't really for them as they are breaking the spirit of the system.

And people that I have more recently met who say things like "Pssh, that's STUPID. All the good stuff is high level. I don't even join campaigns unless we start out at least level 10".

So... its just hard to do. I've tried to get a game for it going since I've heard of it and it sounded interesting. I've found two old school guys I still keep in touch with who are fine with the premise. After all, we used to Retire our characters around level 8-12 anyway. But other than that, it's been hard.

[Yora]

It keeps popping up every now and then. Since it involves pretty much no special rules material, there is usually no need to treat it in any way different than any other low-level campaigns.

The really most important part about E6 is not the effect on the characters, but the rest of the world around them. And I, as many others as well, noticed that you can have the very same effect by simply having only a very small number of 7th or 9th level NPCs around. If one or two kings have a court sorcerer who knows to 4th level spells, that has basically no impact at all on the game world as a whole.
And for PCs, E6 really only come into play when the campaign would otherwise have gone up to 8th level and above. If you have a party of 7th level character or E6 characters with one feats makes no real difference. And in actual pracitce, it seems that the vast majority of games played never go beyond these levels anyway, especially when you have relatively slow advancement. Which in groups that would want to have the flavor of E6, would be quite likely to be the case.

E6 is a great idea, but I feel that most of the people who would like what E6 does, don't have much actual need for it. Designing setting with only low-level NPCs and having slow character advancement is usually enough.

[Gnorman]

I, for one, rarely play (or design for) anything else. I think there is definitely a place for E6 and all its advantages. And while Yora's approach does help to rein in the abuses of power, I find that the dividing line between 3rd and 4th level spells really does tend to change the world. Not as much as 5th level spells, which make long distance travel and death minor inconveniences rather than actual problems, but it's still significant (and, to be fair, Reincarnation is 4th level). 4th level spells can trivialize a lot of encounters and tactics (I'm thinking of Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Celerity, Polymorph, etc.). Obviously, the quick fix is to remove those spells, but I think E6 does so in a way that also encourages tactical, intelligent combat, a believable world, and doesn't make mundane characters obsolete in the same way that high levels do.

E6, to me, solves a lot of the problems inherent in 3.5 in a simple and elegant way, while still retaining the thrill of character advancement and a palpable sense of dramatic tension. You don't have to use it, but it's a great solution.

[Gnome Alone]

E6 might often be obviated as a truly separate thing in the wayYora says, but it sure gets folk jazzed up to create cool low-level campaign worlds & classes & such.

For example, Gnorman's E6 Compendium up there? Go check out Gnorman's E6 Compendium.

[Mithril Leaf]

People I know who are very much into system mastery and optimizing, "Give me a moment..." *two days later* "Okay, I think I'll play... as long as you let me use a cheese trick to break the premise and end up with level 6 Spellcasting or more". Though they usually don't tell me that, when I look over their character sheets or they start asking me questions it becomes clear that is the point. At which point you have to tell them E6 isn't really for them as they are breaking the spirit of the system.

That's a bit... Weird to say on a one of the top three optimization boards. There's a lot of fun to be had in seeing what you can accomplish with the very limited resources available in E6. I personally love to play hyper optimized E6, since it's a new game compared to normal 20th level optimization.

On the main topic, I love E6, but have a lot of issues with the lack of content available, one of my problems with Pathfinder as well. I also find all the normal classes to be rather boring. If the majority of E6 homebrew is on the table, I have a lot more fun with it. Gnorman's compendium is nearly mandatory.

[JusticeZero]

My next game is planned to be like this. I'll be giving access to 4th level magic and aRaise Dead spell, but through spell completion manuals with Ritual Spell baked in.

[BigKahuna]

I'm running an E6 Pathfinder game right now, and its a lot of fun. Its probably working so well for me because I wanted to do a Pulpy Victorian Setting, but my players and I are really enjoying the grittier fantasy style of E6. That being said, the players are only at Level 3 right now so it might all fall apart later on.

[Gnorman]

E6 might often be obviated as a truly separate thing in the wayYora says, but it sure gets folk jazzed up to create cool low-level campaign worlds & classes & such.

For example, Gnorman's E6 Compendium up there? Go check out Gnorman's E6 Compendium.


That's a bit... Weird to say on a one of the top three optimization boards. There's a lot of fun to be had in seeing what you can accomplish with the very limited resources available in E6. I personally love to play hyper optimized E6, since it's a new game compared to normal 20th level optimization.

On the main topic, I love E6, but have a lot of issues with the lack of content available, one of my problems with Pathfinder as well. I also find all the normal classes to be rather boring. If the majority of E6 homebrew is on the table, I have a lot more fun with it. Gnorman's compendium is nearly mandatory.

Well, thank you both kindly for the plug. It's true - E6 can feel devoid of content, with a lot of dead levels for some classes. While there are many ways of fixing this, it is a definite problem. And it's not the only one - even in E6 there's a clear divide between both tiers of play (the low-fantasy adventures of 1-5 and the borderline sword and sorcery of 6+) and class tiers (casters still rule, just not as much). So a little bit of homebrew certainly helps. If you need to justify it to yourself, hey, E6 is itself homebrew, so you're already halfway there.


My next game is planned to be like this. I'll be giving access to 4th level magic and aRaise Dead spell, but through spell completion manuals with Ritual Spell baked in.

Ritual spells or incantations (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/incantations.htm) are an excellent way to open up limited access to higher-level magic in E6. Some people prefer to say that spells above 3rd level don't exist, full stop, but I myself like to have them available on occasion.

EDIT: Arcturus is right in that there are some definite power-player options available in E6. Some of them are excessive - I never want to hear about Dragonwrought Loredrakes again. Some of them are on the higher end of the curve, but maybe still acceptable - Anima Mage comes to mind. In fact, Wizard 1 / Binder 1 / Anima Mage 4 is one of the best wizard builds in E6, with 5th level casting and the ability to bind a 4th-level vestige. Plus, it's cool as hell.

[Zombimode]

I, for one, rarely play (or design for) anything else.
[...]
E6, to me, solves a lot of the problems inherent in 3.5 in a simple and elegant way, while still retaining the thrill of character advancement and a palpable sense of dramatic tension. You don't have to use it, but it's a great solution.

This, both.

To most of the issues of 3.5 discussed on this board I can simply just shrug and say: "Eh, not my problem, I play E6."

[Gnorman]

This, both.

To most of the issues of 3.5 discussed on this board I can simply just shrug and say: "Eh, not my problem, I play E6."

It's also a lot easier, bookkeeping-wise, for just about everyone!

DMs can come up with enemies on the fly, players can keep track of their relatively small number of abilities. Designers only have to make six levels worth of stuff. Everybody wins.

[Silus]

I tried doing an E6 game a few years ago. It...didn't last more than a session if I remember right.

For me, a game has to have at least one of the following three.

1. Advancement. High level shenanigans and whatnot.
2. Magic/magic items. Essentially, stuff to kit yourself out with to make you awesomer.
3. Lots and lots of cash. No magic and stuck at lvl 6? Hire an army.

The reason for those is that there's something that you can try to aim for. If you kill a dragon and raid its horde and are now the richest person on the continent, why not build yourself a castle?

But the guy that ran it did a low magic, low wealth E6 game. Adepts were the only magic classes we were allowed to play, a +1 weapon was supposed to be OMGGODLY, and you were lucky if you came back with a purse of silver coins from raiding an orc stronghold. Oh, and this was all under the guise of "sandbox" when all the players could clearly see the rails under the dunes.

So we were a group of 4-6 mostly martial characters, next to no money, no way to heal between fights, stuck at lvl 6.

Needless to say, the whole experience soured E6 for me.

[Gnorman]

In that case, you should be blaming the driver, not the car.

Though it sounds like you'd prefer a different make and model anyway.

E6 is not, however, mutually exclusive with 1. character advancement, 2. magic, 3. feelings of epic accomplishment, 4. castle-owning, 5. dragon-slaying, or 6. amassing gobs of cash or armies.

[Silus]

In that case, you should be blaming the driver, not the car.

Though it sounds like you'd prefer a different make and model anyway.

E6 is not, however, mutually exclusive with 1. character advancement, 2. magic, 3. feelings of epic accomplishment, 4. castle-owning, 5. dragon-slaying, or 6. amassing gobs of cash or armies.

Well the same guy ruined psionics for me as well :smallannoyed:

But I think in the hands of a competent DM, I'd be willing to give E6 another shot.

I wouldn't mind a low fantasy E6 where a chimera is something rare and that you need a group with an awful lot of planning to take out. That's all fine for me, 'cause it makes sense. it's when you're doing E6 and the DM is all "Oh by the by, there's Mindflayers in this world" that I start getting annoyed.

[Zombimode]

it's when you're doing E6 and the DM is all "Oh by the by, there's Mindflayers in this world" that I start getting annoyed.

Because I'm curious: what's your reasoning behind this?

It is just the mental connection between Mindflayers and "high magic world"? Or somethings else?

[Silus]

Because I'm curious: what's your reasoning behind this?

It is just the mental connection between Mindflayers and "high magic world"? Or somethings else?

Aye, probably the whole mental connection thing. An alternate one would be "Oh, go slay this Colossal Red Dragon at E6 with crap gear and little to no magic. Oh, and the dragon is being run as RAW."

Essentially "nigh-impossible task given the party's ability and the gear and funds on hand".

[Archmage1]

Shivering touch is your friend...
E6 can be fun.
Currently playing a second campaign with a DM in an E6 world, trying to free the world after our previous party managed to take it over(awesome version of versatile spellcaster, beguiler and DN, a couple of wishes to get 4th level spells...)
Of course, our current party is more evil than the old one was, so we will probably end up taking over the world... again.
And then roll up some good characters to actually complete the original campaign...

[Bnox]

me and my mates play E6, I really like it specially since we play allot of Eberron, and its a world there support low level

[Yora]

I am currently working on a whole setting that is Pseudo E8. In the sense that there are only a few dozens of "epic" NPCs who are 8th or higher level in the whole world and there are no 5th level spells (but they can use metamagic to beef up 4th level spells) Most of the important people are in the 4th to 7th level range and you have a hard time to find any magic items with a caster level greater than 6th (since there are only 30 or so people who could make them).

[Soranar]

Personally, I find the hardest thing to find in a game is a DM, and E6 is really DM friendly:

-you don't need to learn higher CR enemies, you can focus on a certain CR and just stick with it

-most of the players trump cards (many were mentioned before, for example : freedom of movement) simply don't exist.

-Dnd makes a lot more sense at that level, the economy can actually sound plausible in E6

-magic items are far less problematic, you won't have your players scouring the magic mart for months in E6, there's only so much level 6 gear available

[HMS Invincible]

Has anyone tried running E6 and then converting back to 3.5 after they gained a few feats? e.g. they are level 6, and they gain 5 feats from their adventuring. However, they get bored, and the game resumes by letting them level. You can stop or restart leveling at any time, you just resume gaining more feats.

[Snowbluff]

I am actually in 2 PbP ones right now. One is actually going up to 8, though.

[Eldest]

Well the same guy ruined psionics for me as well :smallannoyed:

That is very sad. E6 and psionics are two of my favorite things about 3.5. Third thing is Factotum. Please say he didn't ruin that for you too...

[JusticeZero]

For me, a game has to have at least one of the following three.
1. Advancement. High level shenanigans and whatnot.
2. Magic/magic items. Essentially, stuff to kit yourself out with to make you awesomer.
3. Lots and lots of cash. No magic and stuck at lvl 6? Hire an army.
Yeah, not having those is not normal for even an E6 game.
1: You still advance, it's just that you have hit diminishing returns and are advancing laterally instead of numerically. Your enemies have also capped out, so the lateral means something instead of being 'keep up with the joneses' treadmill racing.
2: After a certain point, those items are just adding bigger treadmill-numbers and more verbs. Going from "I battle the beast with my Flaming Sword" to "I battle the Dire Paragon Extradimensional Savage Great beast with my Keen Flaming Anarchic Sword" is pretty much just obsoleting cool stuff from before for the sake of stacking more nouns. E6 your power level is capping out, and now instead of just ramping up continually, your character can rearrange their gear loadout at home with a collection of more or less equally cool stuff.
3: "I'm not an all-powerful god-killer, so i'm going to hire an army" is arguably one of the main points of E6. You're *supposed* to do that.

That said, it might be nice if someone made a pass over the classes and spells and made a different construction of the classes.

[Talionis]

I find that things are more dangerous in an E6 world. In our version being brought back is next to impossible. So we roll new characters and try new things. E6 isn't the only game we play, but that world is a fun full world. I have access to high level game play when we want to switch taste and I wouldn't want to only play E6 exclusively. But I love the E6 worlds we've made. The power level of the game seem in check and we allow everyone to optimize pretty much as much as they want in E6 since its pretty hard to really break the game.

I like E6 and I keep going back to it. I'd like to try an E8 game just to see how it plays.

My biggest regret about E6 is not being able to get access to Prestige Classes and some of their abilities. We aren't big on homebrew and haven't added all the feats, etc.

[Toy Killer]

I'm running an E6 game right now.

I wanted to do Zombie Apocalypse, and then it became Hell invading earth (as I quickly realized that Zombies, then Zombies, the slightly differenter zombies becomes boring and stale quickly).

At first, I was going to make it a standard game that opened up at 6th, force the training requirement for a new level, and then never give them the opportunity to train, then I came to my senses and realized they were going to lynch me by the second session of game play.

So how do I keep tension high regularly running zombies, with low level characters and still threaten them? Then I stumbled on E6 through Gnorman's signature. It works like a charm, I can still advance the players through feats and with a little refluffing, many of the feat chains that never see use in a D&D game (Like Aberrant blood and The Tomb Tainted) become viable for people to fully invest into And be effective without curbing the encounters.

I know that a lot of classes are feat starved, but I didn't realize how just a few extra feats along the way with a low level character can dramatically reduce the 'Edge' off of feat selection.

Two thumbs way up in my eyes.

[Zombimode]

My biggest regret about E6 is not being able to get access to Prestige Classes and some of their abilities. We aren't big on homebrew and haven't added all the feats, etc.

The solution I use for my group is to lower the level dependent prerequisites across the board: BaB -2 (min +3), skill ranks -2 (min 6 ranks), spell (or whatever) level -1 (min level 2).
So a Bab +8 prereq would be changed to +6, +5 to +3 and +4 also to +3; etc.

This makes most PRC's available for E6 and many of them as early as level 4.

[Scow2]

Do people forget that spells higher than 3rd level do exist in Epic 6? They're just not available for daily/at-will consumption, requiring rituals to get similar effects. Which means that, even if you cheeze yourself 4th-level spell-slots, you still can't cast them - but you can use that slot for metamagic.

[JusticeZero]

Most people don't control that, even though they should. I blame the spell learning system for arcane casters; Sorcerers and Bards "just get" spells at new levels, and Wizards "just get" two spells that appear for no reason in their spellbook at a new level. Divine casters "just get" any spell they want. Generally none of those people will even tell the GM what spells they got, they just look through splats and make a selection.

To control spells beyond that requires an active act of restriction, which GMs are often loathe to do for some reason. It's the same effect that ends with GMs overwhelmed by groups with every splat open wide and a clockwork magitech character standing next to a neanderthal stone age character because "The rules exist, therefore I will use them".

[Xervous]

I'm still in the process of tossing about a bunch of homebrew ideas for my campaign setting, and E6/E8 is governing a great deal of it.

MVPS (most valuable problem solvers) from E6:
1. alternate points buys for mitigating LA (warning, broken templates are still broken)
2. Feats, so many feats, so you don't have to bend them into the shape of a triangle with three right angles to meet all the requirements for your character to even function, and then you take goodie flavor feats.
3. None/few of the "what encounter?" buttons exist in this level range.
4. Most classes are playable, unlike standard 3.5 where any unoptimized noncaster will be laughed to -10 by challenges fit for the typical party (which is a good deal stronger than what WotC pictured for the typical party).

[Silus]

That is very sad. E6 and psionics are two of my favorite things about 3.5. Third thing is Factotum. Please say he didn't ruin that for you too...

Oh no no no. In fact, the one game I ran, I threw a Factotum/Mindbender/Ur Priest at them.

'Course said player did make shockingly short work of the two Fiendish Fire Giants he summoned...

But the guy was a poor DM. Thought it a "keen" idea to throw a lvl 20 Psion/Rogue at a group of lvl 6s in a low magic campaign (My first major D&D game that I played I might add). Hence my dislike of Psionics.

[Gnorman]

That's tragic, because 3.5 psionics is probably the best system WotC ever made. The fluff can be a little wonky sometimes (crystals and ectoplasms and SCIENCE-Y POWER NAMES!) but mechanically it is so solid it hurts.

[Silus]

That's tragic, because 3.5 psionics is probably the best system WotC ever made. The fluff can be a little wonky sometimes (crystals and ectoplasms and SCIENCE-Y POWER NAMES!) but mechanically it is so solid it hurts.

As with E6, I'd be willing to give psionics another chance if I knew the DM knew what they were doing.

[Mithril Leaf]

If you can ritual your way up to a lesser planar binding, it's an exception ritual spell for E6. I personally spend inordinate amounts of time reading Gnorman's guide to the lower planes, so I may be biased, but it's one of those world ending things that works really really well in a campaign at 6th level.

[Gnorman]

If you can ritual your way up to a lesser planar binding, it's an exception ritual spell for E6. I personally spend inordinate amounts of time reading Gnorman's guide to the lower planes, so I may be biased, but it's one of those world ending things that works really really well in a campaign at 6th level.

Lesser Planar Binding may be too much to unleash on an E6 world. It opens up the door to succubi, vrocks, etc.

I'd recommend something like this:

Planar Binding, Least

Conjuration (Calling) [see text for lesser planar binding
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Close
Target: One elemental or outsider with 2 HD or less
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: No and Yes

This spell functions like Lesser Planar Binding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarBindingLesser.htm), except that you can only call a single creature of 2 HD or less.

This gets you small fiends like dretches, or small elementals. Seems appropriate for the setting. Maybe a feat or a class ability could increase the HD limit to 3, opening up options to call imps and mephits.