What exactly is E6?

[Rahdjan]

I've seen the term a few times and would like to know. It sounds like 6th edition but I don't think DnD has made that far yet.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Here you go. (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?352719-necro-goodness-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D)

[Jeraa]

Others can explain it in more detail, but basically it is a way to play 3.5 D&D without exceeding 6th level. Its more balanced then standard D&D.

[Ravenica]

I'm not an expert but as far as I'm familiar with it E6 is D&D that stops regular level progression at level 6, and then has a set kind of progression beyond

[Rahdjan]

Thanks, that is something my group might be interested in

[Weimann]

I've seen the term a few times and would like to know. It sounds like 6th edition but I don't think DnD has made that far yet.E6 stands for Elite 6. It's D&D 3.5, but with this added twist: you cap out at level 6. After rhis, you just gain bonus feats.

This has several benefits, such as removing problematic high-level spells and generally evening out the playing field between casters and everything else ever. It also promotes a grittier and more low-power game tone, as enemies retain their levels. A dragon will be a properly legendary opponent.

It's intended to be played with normal classes cut off at level 6, but there are some custom E6 classes out there. Check the Homebrew forum if you're interested.

[shizukanashi]

Its a very cool concept that traditional roleplayers enjoy. Something that power gamers scoff at, but I really enjoy it. Basically you cap off at 6th level after that you get a new feat every 5,000 exp.

Its been said before but Gandolf was only a 5th level magic user!

[The-Mage-King]

Well, it's a shodi-


Its a very cool concept that traditional roleplayers enjoy. Something that power gamers scoff at, but I really enjoy it. Basically you cap off at 6th level after that you get a new feat every 5,000 exp.


Excuse me?:furious:

I am no powergamer. I do not try to hog the spotlight, nor do I sacrifice fluff for sheer power. I don't go for the most powerful option at all times- I go for the most fun and appropriate for the character option.

I scoff at E6 because it doesn't fix the inherent problems of the system- it merely hides them. I scoff at it because it completely removes 2/3rds of the rules, most of which I like.

I scoff at it because I happen to think games where you have more than about 80 Hp are fun, and that options are fun.


If your sense of enjoyment is so different than my own, there is no need to insult myself and others because of it.





Its been said before but Gandolf was only a 5th level magic user!

First, it's Gandalf. Second, 6th level, not 5th.

Third, he was really an Outsider with SLAs, not a caster.

[Soranar]

Eesh, didn't realize there were such ardent defenders of high level games

Personally, I'm a big fan of E6, I find it fixes more problems DnD had then Pathfinder, and nothing is stopping you from playing an E6 pathfinder game either.

E6 makes a lot of feats far more interesting than they used to be, simply because you get so many of them. It doesn't matter if your combo requires 12 feats to work perfectly, eventually you'll get them. And , even when you do, you're unlikely to outshine everyone else in the party (unless you're playing a sword of the arcane order wildshape ranger). And even such a build is just really versatile, not necessarily better at everything like old Tier 1 classes would be in normal DnD 3.5

Basically, if you're familiar with the tier concept, E6 puts every between tier 3 and 5, the other tiers simply disapear due to the way classes scale. Even truenamers are suddenly playable.

Finally, I don't think E6 hides the flaws of DnD 3.5, it creates a whole other game.

It's like watching the comic Garfield minus Garfield when compared to the original

It looks the same and it feels the same at a quick glance but the experience is mind bogginly different

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Its a very cool concept that traditional roleplayers enjoy. Something that power gamers scoff at, but I really enjoy it. Basically you cap off at 6th level after that you get a new feat every 5,000 exp.

Its been said before but Gandolf was only a 5th level magic user!

A Kobold can get 9th level Wizard casting in E6, with four 5th and eight 4th level spells automatically known, and they're written on his body so there's no risk of losing a spellbook.

A Dread Necromancer can fire four rays for eight negative levels each as a full round action, and can hit the same target with multiple rays, a different target with each ray, etc.

A single-classed Half-Orc Ranger is the overall strongest character possible in E6, barring homebrew like Lightning Warrior.

The feat Ancestral Relic allows a character to make a staff with literally any spells he wants in it, including 9th level spells. Just a single level in a class that has a spell it contains on its spell list is enough to enable him to activate it.

Powergamers don't scoff at E6, we say, "Challenge accepted," and still make characters that are both extremely strong and extremely fun/useful.

[The-Mage-King]

Eesh, didn't realize there were such ardent defenders of high level games

Less defender of high level games, more insulted by being called a powergamer and having it implied that I wasn't a "traditional" roleplayer for not liking E6.

I favor the level 8-14 range, to be honest. Plenty of options, but not overwhelming. So mid-level over low-level or high-level.


The main reason I dislike E6 is the lack of options. Having only 6 levels to play around with... Doesn't exactly leave much room to work fun abilities into builds.


That, and it pretends to fix the issues but really just shoves them off to the side.



It's like watching the comic Garfield minus Garfield when compared to the original

So E6 is rather pointless compared to normal 3.5? :smalltongue:

[shizukanashi]

Christ Mage-Knight. I said power gamers scoff at it. is that a true statement? I said nothing about you! Can't others scoff at it as well. I am sorry you are so angry. Take a Prozac. :)

[The-Mage-King]

Christ Mage-Knight. I said power gamers scoff at it. is that a true statement? I said nothing about you! Can't others scoff at it as well. I am sorry you are so angry. Take a Prozac. :)

The way you phrased it, it came out as "only roleplayers enjoy it, and only powergamers scoff at it", at least to me. That implies that I, who scoff at it, am a powergamer, which is untrue and quite an insult in my eyes.


That's the last of what I'll say on the matter for now, though. My opinions of E6 are out there for the person asking about it, and that's all that's I feel needs to be said.




Also? It's The-Mage-King, not Mage-Knight.

[Gnorman]

1. Roleplaying and "power gaming" is not an either/or proposition.

2. E6 is not inherently more roleplaying-friendly than regular 3.5.

3. High-level play is not inherently more "power gaming" friendly - you can break E6 just fine!

4. E6 does not "remove 2/3 of the rules." Maybe 2/3 of the spells. Most of the rules are intact!

5. I don't understand what you mean by the "hiding the problems" comment. Care to elaborate?

6. E6 should be about fun, not about fostering division between players. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you do like it, do play it. But choosing to do one or the other isn't inherently better or worse!

[JusticeZero]

It "hides most of the problems" because most of the problems come from things you only see at very high levels when you are doing the equivalent of, in a modern game, walking into a town in Maine and saying "I'm going to go down to the corner store to see if I can buy a spare F-22 Fighter Jet and twenty thousand rounds of depleted uranium ammunition. Do you need me to pick you up anything? Launch codes for an orbital laser maybe? I know you like to collect them. I'm sure I can find one at Walmart." The numbers get silly, and the synergies can spiral into crazy places. The feel gets very different. There is no reasonable fix for these things, so E6 more or less comments out the part that goes haywire and slots in a completely different kind of lateral advancement in its place. All the rules are still being used. The magic item selection and spell lists are admittedly shorter.

[SiuiS]

It "hides most of the problems" because most of the problems come from things you only see at very high levels when you are doing the equivalent of, in a modern game, walking into a town in Maine and saying "I'm going to go down to the corner store to see if I can buy a spare F-22 Fighter Jet and twenty thousand rounds of depleted uranium ammunition. Do you need me to pick you up anything? Launch codes for an orbital laser maybe? I know you like to collect them. I'm sure I can find one at Walmart." The numbers get silly, and the synergies can spiral into crazy places. The feel gets very different. There is no reasonable fix for these things, so E6 more or less comments out the part that goes haywire and slots in a completely different kind of lateral advancement in its place. All the rules are still being used. The magic item selection and spell lists are admittedly shorter.

That's sloppy DMing, not a rules issue. You're supposed to either, following your metaphor, plunder old WW II bases off the coast of Japan while fighting off aupernatural guardians, or spend years learning advanced chemistry and engineering so as to forge the materials you need and build your own F-22 in your secret bunker your paranoid friends dug by hand in the depths of the Apalachians.

E6 is a fix if the problem is that players feel they Must have whatever is available. Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case with a lot of players.


Shizukanashi, please don't say 'take a prozac'. It's rude and insulting, Nd no amount of smilies will fix that.

[ArcturusV]

Aye, I'm a bit familiar with the problem that he lists. I mean people who, admittedly have more system mastery than I, will go up to me and say something like "Well how big is this town?" and I'll say "Oh, it's 96,400". And then you got the guy saying "Ah ha! By rule ____, on page ____ I can just walk into a store and buy _____ because they exist in this town!"

To which I say "Well I don't want you able to buy ____, it doesn't make sense in the context of the setting as built that people would just be selling ____. Even if it existed in the town, and I'm not saying it would, it's probably in the armory of the praetorian guard and kept locked up until needed, and then issued only to elite, trusted members of the guard."

... which usually results in a hissy fit being thrown, stupid argument, and oftentimes drama I rather not deal with. Such as one player who tried to poach the group I built up from the ground up (Doing a lot of leg work to find enough people) because I was an "unfair" and "immature" DM who was "picking on players for no reason" and "Was ruining the game".

[SiuiS]

That's a pretty crappy scenario. :smallfrown:

I find the biggest problem with interpersonal relations is a sense of expectations. People get upset when they have expectations that aren't met. It's why I've taken to prohibiting character generation on your own. The first "session" of a game is everyone getting together, working together, and building a party that works instea of each person building a character in isolation and unveiling them at start. This includes discussions on campaign specifics, such as different takes on fluff, what the theme and feel of the game should be, And any specific inspirations. It really helps to cut down on these issues, and boils down to just bein friendly about makin sure everyone is on the same page. :smallsmile:

[Pandiano]

O.o
Wow Magey, chillax! "Powergames scoff at it" has very little to do with "all who scoff at it are powergamers". Nobody insulted you, you jumped the gun out of nowhere.

Anyway, I have heard of E6 here in the forums and it sounds like a quite interesting concept. I think I'll try it at some point.

[Gnorman]

I don't know that that is what was being referred to.

I was asking The-Mage-King's comment about E6 "pretending to fix the issues" but "shifting them off to one side," specifically.

What exactly does E6 pretend to fix, but not fix? What problems does it try to address, but sweep under the rug? It's a rather bold claim and not one I've ever heard leveled at E6 before, so I'm legitimately curious.

[ArcturusV]

Thus one of the reasons I have wanted to try out E6, SiuiS. At the very least? The world being limited to level 6 mortals means that for the most part any epic loot and such is going to be entirely in my domain to assign. Less Rules Lawyers stuff.

Course, I've seen a couple of weird, broken things. Kobolds were mentioned. Saw another on the boards here with Sha'irs that I have not yet run into. If I do run an E6 game, it'd be to act within the spirit of the limits (As I see it), and thus have a bit more of a lower magic, grittier world springing up logically.

Ah well. Here's hopin' I can get it.

[Norin]

A Kobold can get 9th level Wizard casting in E6, with four 5th and eight 4th level spells automatically known, and they're written on his body so there's no risk of losing a spellbook.

A Dread Necromancer can fire four rays for eight negative levels each as a full round action, and can hit the same target with multiple rays, a different target with each ray, etc.

A single-classed Half-Orc Ranger is the overall strongest character possible in E6, barring homebrew like Lightning Warrior.


Any more info somwhere on the 9th Kobold, 4x ray DN, Half-orc ranger? :smallsmile:

[SiuiS]

Thus one of the reasons I have wanted to try out E6, SiuiS. At the very least? The world being limited to level 6 mortals means that for the most part any epic loot and such is going to be entirely in my domain to assign. Less Rules Lawyers stuff.

Course, I've seen a couple of weird, broken things. Kobolds were mentioned. Saw another on the boards here with Sha'irs that I have not yet run into. If I do run an E6 game, it'd be to act within the spirit of the limits (As I see it), and thus have a bit more of a lower magic, grittier world springing up logically.

Ah well. Here's hopin' I can get it.

It does make a more melee-friendly world, indeed. Fewer magic solve-alls. Careful, though, it's easy to fall into the trap of just giving really strong NPCs a bunch of feats. that can make them much stronger.

But yes, yes indeed. A smaller, grittier world is what springs up, I find. And if you ever do need something bigger, power-wise, then rituals make up the difference. I think my favorite presentation of the concept was if the end-boss guy was a titan. That's way too strong for sixth level characters, but the last leg of the adventure could be to break his power, sunder his weapons, talk the fates into twining his destiny with lead instead of gold, and when you face the titan he's actually (stat-wise) a 12 HD ogre.

Definitely worth approaching with an attitude of what story you want to present, and how to get there, and then seeing which mechanics allow it.

[MirddinEmris]

Thus one of the reasons I have wanted to try out E6, SiuiS. At the very least? The world being limited to level 6 mortals means that for the most part any epic loot and such is going to be entirely in my domain to assign. Less Rules Lawyers stuff.

Course, I've seen a couple of weird, broken things. Kobolds were mentioned. Saw another on the boards here with Sha'irs that I have not yet run into. If I do run an E6 game, it'd be to act within the spirit of the limits (As I see it), and thus have a bit more of a lower magic, grittier world springing up logically.

Ah well. Here's hopin' I can get it.

Well, Rule Lawyers problem is not a problem with rules, but a problem with players, so going E6 wouldn't fix it.

I assume that The-Mage-King meant by "hiding the problems" is that (for example) while casters don't have something like Time Stop, they still got something Fly + Wind wall, while mundanes much more limited with their loot (Solid Fog became much more powerful now, because minimum gold you need to protect yourself from it is 36k (+1 Freedom armor) which is considerable investment). He meant that if you got problem with DnD3.5, you'll probably got the same problem with E6 (at least i think so). Remember that original Pun-Pun is 5th level build))


Its a very cool concept that traditional roleplayers enjoy. Something that power gamers scoff at, but I really enjoy it. Basically you cap off at 6th level after that you get a new feat every 5,000 exp.

Yes, it really sounds kinda insulting, implying that "powergamers" can't really roleplay.

[Zombimode]

The main reason I dislike E6 is the lack of options. Having only 6 levels to play around with... Doesn't exactly leave much room to work fun abilities into builds.

While I can see where you're coming from, I think this view is a result of your inexperience with E6.

D&D 3.5 offers a truck-load of options in terms of classes, PRCs and feats, but as we all know many of those options aren't very "good". Sometimes it is because the option is just horrible. But often, it is more a case of: "Well, its useful now, but it won't be useful then, so I will skip it". But with E6 "then" probably never comes.

What I'm trying to say is that because of the much lower power level range in E6 option seldom become obsolete. So while you have much fewer levels to play with, the viability of the builds within those levels is much broader then in a level 14 game.

Take for example Intimidating Strike (PHB 2). Its a standard action so in higher level games where melee characters always try to get full attacks it could be a waste of a feat. But in E6 full attacks are much less important if at all. Only characters that only take levels in full bab classes will get an iterative, and you don't have to do this to be a competent melee character in E6. So Intimidating Strike suddenly becomes a very attractive option.



That, and it pretends to fix the issues but really just shoves them off to the side.

I echo Gnorman's desire to understand what exactly you mean with that.

I my experience many, many of the often discussed problems of 3.5 simply do not appear in E6. A measure that makes the perceived problems to not occur is, well, a rather good fix in my book.

[MirddinEmris]

Take for example Intimidating Strike (PHB 2). Its a standard action so in higher level games where melee characters always try to get full attacks it could be a waste of a feat. But in E6 full attacks are much less important if at all. Only characters that only take levels in full bab classes will get an iterative, and you don't have to do this to be a competent melee character in E6. So Intimidating Strike suddenly becomes a very attractive option.



Actually, you may want to change your example of feat, because it's not very best option even in E6 'cause you can't escalate this effect past Shaken, so i doubt i would take regardless of the level i'll play. Imperious Command on the other hand....

My personal preference is for levels 6-12 where most of my characters shine (i usually play non-casters melee/ranged type and, occasionally, roguish scoundrels and arcane gishes), so E6 isn't for me

[Krazzman]

In my opinion... I haven't looked into it but from what I heard and read about it it seems quite nice. I would like to play/DM in a campaign using it. In the current altough? It would suck. For that campaign I thought Eldritch disciple seemed quite awesome for a cleric. In E6 the reasons for why I took it don't fit.

I don't know of a way (except taking Elan/Warforged as race) to attain immortality before 6th level. It might be possible but something simple as being always in your "prime years" seems awesome when the characters goal is a widespread change in the travel system.

Another thing is it changes a few classes/options to be far better than normal.
Ranged Warlock? In normal 3.5 you have to really think it through to make it really good. In E6? You're basically a 3d6 spamming mashine of shattering doom. Having (if you can play long enough) all least but only one lesser invocation seems to be good.

I really can't say anything about the options stuff since the highest campaign I was in recently "stopped" at level 6 and was rather low powered anyway and the second is at level 5 currently.

[Rukia]

Saying that E6 "hides" the problems of 3.5 is probably not the right word, it's more accurate to say that it simply prevents them from happening. Most of what breaks high level games are spells and ridiculous numbers. There are plenty of other reasons but these are the main 2 issues that E6 fixes. No more 5th-9th level campaign breaking spells or +35 modifiers to guarantee success.

There are ways to break E6 but if any DM was running it with the spirit of it's intent then they simply wouldn't allow them. No Dragonwrought Loredrake Kobold Sorcerer shenanigans allowed even if it's "RAW". The entire point is that not only are you are limited to 3rd level spells(with the ability to gain some 4th level ones if you take the appropriate feats) but to keep all classes in the sweet spot of level 6 where they are more balanced. Most DM's won't allow that type of cheese even in a higher level normal game, I doubt many would allow it in an E6 one where the entire goal is to prevent that sort of power.

I'd love to run E6 in my next campaign but I'm not sure my players would like it. It seems as if it'd be far easier on the DM to prepare and create meaningful challenges for the players vs trying to do the same for a level 20 party of tier 1 optimizers. It would also make a lot of the mid level creatures a more legitimate challenge since you can't just cast <insert unbalanced spell here> and trivialize the encounter.

[MirddinEmris]

Saying that E6 "hides" the problems of 3.5 is probably not the right word, it's more accurate to say that it simply prevents them from happening. Most of what breaks high level games are spells and ridiculous numbers. There are plenty of other reasons but these are the main 2 issues that E6 fixes. No more 5th-9th level campaign breaking spells or +35 modifiers to guarantee success.


Guidance of Avatar is 2nd level spell (+20 to one skill check). See, the problem is still there. Yes, you could ban this spell but it's just one from the top of my mind, if a player wants to break a game he always find a way. It's a mistake to think that game gets broken just after certain level and before that its just fine. If you have a Gentelman Agreement with players about breaking the game, than you'll do just fine even in high level campaign, and if not...E6 wouldn't save you (as i said earlier, Pun-Pun doesn't need mid-high levels ^_^ ). Though E6 certainly cut many options...to mundane/melee mostly - no more those nice PrC and feats like Robilar's Gambit or Bear Warrior, though you still can be Dungeoncrusher Fighter with Shock Trooper Combat Brute, battle Jump and Leap Attack and decimate all things you can reach. Don't really see anything changing drastically, to be honest.


The entire point is that not only are you are limited to 3rd level spells(with the ability to gain some 4th level ones if you take the appropriate feats) but to keep all classes in the sweet spot of level 6 where they are more balanced

Yes, so what would mundane archer do against flying mage with windwall around him? Or what counter does fighter/barbarian/ranger/paladin has vs Solid Fog? And it's not some shenanigans, it's just spells from Core. Even if we think of the balance as contributing to the party instead of head to head combat, there still exists things like Knock (Knock: oblitirating the rogue's class feature since 3ed) or Invisibility (Invisibility, meet the Knock. Rogue, meet the door and close it on your way out) etc. The list can go on and on, but i think you got my point

[Rukia]

Guidance of Avatar is 2nd level spell (+20 to one skill check). See, the problem is still there. Yes, you could ban this spell but it's just one from the top of my mind, if a player wants to break a game he always find a way. It's a mistake to think that game gets broken just after certain level and before that its just fine. If you have a Gentelman Agreement with players about breaking the game, than you'll do just fine even in high level campaign, and if not...E6 wouldn't save you (as i said earlier, Pun-Pun doesn't need mid-high levels ^_^ ). Though E6 certainly cut many options...to mundane/melee mostly - no more those nice PrC and feats like Robilar's Gambit or Bear Warrior, though you still can be Dungeoncrusher Fighter with Shock Trooper Combat Brute, battle Jump and Leap Attack and decimate all things you can reach. Don't really see anything changing drastically, to be honest.



Yes, so what would mundane archer do against flying mage with windwall around him? Or what counter does fighter/barbarian/ranger/paladin has vs Solid Fog? And it's not some shenanigans, it's just spells from Core. Even if we think of the balance as contributing to the party instead of head to head combat, there still exists things like Knock (Knock: oblitirating the rogue's class feature since 3ed) or Invisibility (Invisibility, meet the Knock. Rogue, meet the door and close it on your way out) etc. The list can go on and on, but i think you got my point

I agree with what you're saying in general, but the thing is if the Wizard has used some of his 3rd level spells on windwall and fly, at least he hasn't used them to debilitate the party. At least at these levels you are still limited on the total amount of level 3 and level 2 spells so you don't just have 5 or 6 to burn on a whim. It's also not impossible at that level to be able to get some items that grant fly or have a caster in the group cast it on the BSF so he can chase the Wizard in the air.

Yes the game can be broken at any level, but in E6 it takes a bit more work than simply "I take another level of wiz/druid/cleric". Most of what casters get at that level can still somewhat be countered even by non-casters in the form of gear or feats. I mean if a melee wants to fly that bad then there are ways to get it via race/feats/etc... On the other hand it's not so simple for non-casters to counter level 4 spells and up.

[Yora]

As I see it, the main effect of E6 is not on the PCs, but on the game setting.

Being a 6th level character in a world where 12th level spellcasters are common and 20th level characters exist, is a very different thing than being a 6th level character in a world where there are no people who can cast 4th level spells or magic items that can replicate them. Some outsiders or fey could still provide such spells or magic items, but they would not be available by simply giving someone a bag of gold in the next city.

[Lapak]

I agree with what you're saying in general, but the thing is if the Wizard has used some of his 3rd level spells on windwall and fly, at least he hasn't used them to debilitate the party. At least at these levels you are still limited on the total amount of level 3 and level 2 spells so you don't just have 5 or 6 to burn on a whim.Indeed. One of the major (theoretical) limits on spellcasters which goes away at higher levels - limited spell slots - is much more persistent in E6. And given that you can't use Contingency or its variants, and given that the durations of the spells you have is much lower, there are actual choices to be made for casting classes.

Indeed, the answer to the question of 'what does an archer do against Fly / Wind Wall' is one of two things:

- walk through the wall and attack, just like anyone else confronted with Wind Wall at any level, since the Wall is stationary.
- go away for a minute and return, since the Wall is stationary and 1 round/level duration.

[MirddinEmris]

Yes, i also agree that generally power level get toned down and things like Teleport ,which can be disturbing for a DM who didn't plan on this particular moment, usually out of reach (after all, scrolls and magic item are on DMs mercy). My point was that imbalance is not limite to some levels, it persits on all of them (we also might get different definition of brokeness :) for example Hulking Hurler os not broken by my point of view - after certain point it doesn't matter if you deal 3k+ of d6 or 500+ damage per round, after all Tarrasque only got 800 hp, besides it's their only trick and boulders wouldn't hurt incorporeal creatures if not enchanted). Also, my point was that if your players have no intention of breaking the game, they wouldn't break it (especially if you communicate with them) and if they have, then it doesn't matter what level you will play. Game won't break if you don't break it))



- walk through the wall and attack, just like anyone else confronted with Wind Wall at any level, since the Wall is stationary.
- go away for a minute and return, since the Wall is stationary and 1 round/level duration.

Suddenly, your mundane can fly to walk trough the wall in the air?) And you think that wizard just let you go and wait until you return ("Sorry, lad, it's five o'clock already - tea time")

And common mistake is that while casters got limited resourses, noncasters have unlimited. Your HP is limited also, and on this levels you'll burn them fast, and there are still risk of death from crit from something big and nasty.


And given that you can't use Contingency or its variants, and given that the durations of the spells you have is much lower, there are actual choices to be made for casting classes.

Yes, while there isn't actual choices for mundane :) (that was just a joke)

[Yora]

- go away for a minute and return, since the Wall is stationary and 1 round/level duration.
That is always a good idea. Far too many hypothetical scenarios are set in a completely empty 30-feet cube where your only option is to kill before you get killed.
In reality, there are always way more options.

[MirddinEmris]

That is always a good idea. Far too many hypothetical scenarios are set in a completely empty 30-feet cube where your only option is to kill before you get killed.
In reality, there are always way more options.

Yes, there is, it's just sad that this is not a reality but a role-playing game) Jokes aside, why do you think that this situation will always favor noncasters? The "empty 30ft cube" is to exclude external factors so they would favor no one.

"Run and hide" actually isn't always a good ideas, no matter what class you are and they aren't always an option. In this example, i don't see why spell caster should let you run when he can prevent it with battlefield control spells.

[Lapak]

Suddenly, your mundane can fly to walk trough the wall in the air?) And you think that wizard just let you go and wait until you return ("Sorry, lad, it's five o'clock already - tea time")Wind Wall is required to be vertical. Therefore, the wizard has to be on the other side of it. (Even in cylinder shape, there's space directly under the wizard.) It explicitly doesn't stop non-flying creatures from passing through it.

So the archer just uses his movement to go to the other side of the wall and shoots the wizard.

As for the 'walk away,' if the wizard pursues you he leaves his Wind Wall behind (it's not mobile!) and you shoot him. If he doesn't, if stays he bunkered-up, then you wait a minute and come back to murder him.

And common mistake is that while casters got limited resourses, noncasters have unlimited. Your HP is limited also, and on this levels you'll burn them fast, and there are still risk of death from crit from something big and nasty.Of course, but that's not the point. The point is that - as you point out with your example - it's possible for wizards to negate a particular threat (given the right circumstances) if they have the right spells prepared. That's what they do. But they can only prepare so many defenses in E6; if they have Fly and Wind Wall memorized they may have resistance to a mundane archer but have no worthwhile defenses against a flying melee threat - a gryphon, for example. Or they may face two archer-encounters.

Melee also has limited resources, but they are all-purpose resources. Spell slots are specialized in a way that hit point are not, and so limits on them have a more immediate effect.

EDIT: Your battlefield-control 'won't let you leave' example builds on this point, incidentally. The wizard has already spent two top-level spell slots to protect himself and is now spending at least a third just to keep you from leaving (and I'm actually trying to think what he could do in E6 that would accomplish this while leaving him able to attack and coming up a little short) - how many spell slots did this wizard dedicate to spells that will actually HARM you? Because otherwise 'sit there and wait for all his protections and BFC spells to terminate' is a perfectly legitimate option as well.

[MirddinEmris]

Meh, mundane vs casters duscussion has been done to death and if you aren't convinced by now, i doubt that i would be able to do it with arguments. So, if you care, we could do duel by E6 rules, i'll do wizard and you'll do mundane character (ranged, melee, sneak - your choice and i shouldn't be able to know it before actual battle, to evade the argument, that i prepared specifically for this battle). If you wish, say so and we will discuss details in PbP forum (this thread is no place for it).

Actually, it may not be a duel but a series of encounters (if we find DM who'll do them for this occasion) and we'll see which character fares better and who's resources ends faster.

Besides, we duscussed a wizard in this topic. What about Druid, for example? Wildshape for 5-6 hours each (and feat for Extra Wildshape can be obtained easily by this rules) which is a versatile and powerful instrument, not to mention animal companion and spells. So, this class got some resources that last VERY long, got good base stats (saves, HD etc) and is a prime spellcaster. Still imbalanced, even in E6

[Lapak]

Meh, mundane vs casters duscussion has been done to death and if you aren't convinced by now, i doubt that i would be able to do it with arguments. So, if you care, we could do duel by E6 rules, i'll do wizard and you'll do mundane character (ranged, melee, sneak - your choice and i shouldn't be able to know it before actual battle, to evade the argument, that i prepared specifically for this battle). If you wish, say so and we will discuss details in PbP forum (this thread is no place for it).It's been 'done to death' in that it's not really a question outside the E6 environment, but it's also not the point at hand. You asked what a mundane archer would do about a wizard with Wind Wall and Fly, so I answered. I had no intention - and no desire - to get into a broader debate than that, so I think we can let this go and let the thread go back to discussing E6 more generally.

Obviously some classes are going to have more options than others; some classes are going to be flat-out more powerful - the Tome of Battle classes do particularly well compared to their melee counterparts in E6 because the hard limit on BAB/full attack routines cuts down severely on many of the non-TOB melee options. But in general, those differences are smaller in both number and degree in an E6 environment compared to a normal 3.x environment.

[MirddinEmris]

It's been 'done to death' in that it's not really a question outside the E6 environment, but it's also not the point at hand. You asked what a mundane archer would do about a wizard with Wind Wall and Fly, so I answered. I had no intention - and no desire - to get into a broader debate than that, so I think we can let this go and let the thread go back to discussing E6 more generally.

Yes, that would be wise, though i'm afraid there wasn't much of a discussion besides usual "casters vs everyone else" and insults to "powergamers"))

P.S. Actually, E6 challange between characters sounds kinda fun (not necesserely caster vs non-caster even). Maybe someone digs this idea?

[Mighty_Chicken]

Since you guys are fighting specifically over it :)

I'm trying to 'fix' Spell Points to use it with E6. The idea is to nerf spellcasters... yes, via Spell Points. Mwahahaha!

I don't intend to make things "balanced". My sweet spot objective is to make them more powerful and/or versatile than everything else, but juuust a little bit. However, they'd have to watch their resource-spending more closely. The idea is kind of like they were in AD&D, when casters where both powerful and frail, at least up to 6 lvl.

(as anything E6 related, this intends to make the setting more low-magic)

So my question is, how necessary is it? Or how possible? Will any nerf to E6 casters make them too weak? Or do I need reasonable nerfs to tickle their power? Or is any change to spells per day irrelevant since the problem is what lvl 3 spells can do?

[Lapak]

A spell-point system is nearly always a boost to casters, not a nerf, all other things being equal. So you'd have to give some more details on how it's cutting them down power-wise.

[Mato]

E6 is a failed ideal based off a proverbial blanket nerf, to mundanes. It's mechanics is meant to cap everyone at level 6 and grant additional Feats afterwards. It's idealism is that high level Casters break the game, and if they don't exist then everything is *fixed*.

But that's just not the case. Steel Dragons can self use self aging tricks to obtain Epic Spellcasting in E6, even more so than every thanks to Bonus Feats. An many like to point out Versatile Spellcaster & several extra Extra Spell Feats can be combined to grant pretty much anyone 9th level spells. And things will always come back to this so keep that in mind. But hte point to take away form here is E6's rules fails to preform the very job it set out to do.

E6 also claims it helps Mundanes. the problem with that statement is that Mundanes often make up a huge part of their short comings through Magical Items and PrCs. WBL prevents them from ever owning Flight outside of special mounts, they will never have enough money to afford significant Save increases, in fact caster cheating aside a Wizard obtains Freedom of Movement via Heart of Water but no mundane will ever be able to achieve such.

And it gets worse. Often melee oriented PrCs require +6 BAB, of Skill based Classes desire 8 or more Ranks. So often you'd be lucky to achieve even a single level in PrCs. But it doesn't truly debuff both sides of the coin. Master Specialist was designed to be taken at the 3rd level and went completely unaccounted for. Master of Shrouds is another easily entered Caster PrC at the same level and it's Summon Shadow Ability is extremely powerful at low levels. E6 limits Spellcaster PrCing, and all but prohibits Mundanes.

It also calls lv6 the most balanced area of the game. This is about as far from the truth as you can get. A Druid still has Wild Shape, Venomfire, and their Greenbound Animals will only continue to get stronger as they obtain more Summon based Feats. On the same token, a Cleric has Animate Dead and now has all the Feat room they want to pick up the entire Corpsecrafter line. And finally the Mundane side has something to offer as well, the 6th level is the lowest level you can obtain Shock Trooper and mitigate miss chances while Ubercharging. So even the Barbarian dipped Monk can deal a couple hundred more than any monster's HP. I could point out that there is *one* thing a Mundane can still do, but that'd be too insulting.

The last problematic element to E6 is the human component. At a glance, it's less power. Therefor clearly Poleplayers would like it and if you don't your a hate filled munchkin playing D&D wrong. This has already made it's appearance last page. It's a fallacy. A good roleplayer can play any level just as a good optimizer can break any level and there is no imaginary limitation that prevents you from being both. But if a roleplayer doesn't need a certain level and E6 fails to meet it's design intentions mechanically. What is it really designed for?
Answer: Optimization Challenges.

[Mighty_Chicken]

(Since I'll be using the variant most as it is, here's the link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm).)

Well, I'm basically stending the Vitalizing Spell Points variant.

To begin with, casters now use 2 abilities, not one: save DCs, maximum spell levels and spells prepared per day are still based on Int, Wis or Cha, as usual, depending on the class. But additional spell points per day and Concentration checks are done with wither Con or a second mental stat (I believe players should be given the choice).

Then I'm creating two new conditions: magical fatigue and magical exhaustion.

Magical fatigue strikes when a caster has spend half her SPs. -2 to Str, Des, and to both the abilities she uses to cast spells.

Magical exhaustion strikes when she spends 3/4 of her SP pool. -6 to the above mentioned abilities. It doesn't stack with racial penalties.

Other than that, they work like their mundane counterparts (no run or charge; half movement, etc). They can't bring any ability bellow 1 but they DO stack with anything else (including mundane fadigue and exhaustion). They can't be denied with magic, only by regaining SPs normally.

Additional details:
A character can rest from her magical fatigue if she rests 1 hour, but the magical fatigue is back immeadiatly after she spends a SP again.

Magical exhaustion can be turned into magical fatigue if she rests 1 hour, but the exhaustion is back if she spends another SP, or casts a 0-lvl spell and fails a DC 15 concentration check.

Also, all spells are cast at minimum level (1 for 1st, 3 for 2nd, etc) unless the caster pays aditional spell points.

For sorcerers and specialist wizards, that's it. For universalists, clerics and druids, I'm giving the following SP table:


Level.....Spell Points
1st.....1
2nd.....3
3rd.....6
4th.....10
5th.....15
6th.....21
7th.....26
8th.....33
9th.....40
10th....49

Oh ho wait, there's something else. An extra nerf to make wizards less like sorcerers. It only affects spells from 2nd level and above.

When an universalist wizard prepares 2nd level or higher spells, only half are memorized flawlessly. With the rest he does the best he can... they cost an extra spell point to be cast.

A specialist wizard treats all his spells like this, always, except the ones from his chosen school. To those ones, he actually spends a SP less to cast them. So Vaarsovius would spend 4 SPs to cast Bull's Strength as a 3rd level wizard; but he would spend only 5 SPs to cast Fireball as a 6th level wizard. However, he couldn't cast Fireball for less than 5 SPs, because it has a minimum caster level of 5.


Well, what do you think? Too much, too little?

Then again, I'm trying to make magic less banal, but not weak.

[Mighty_Chicken]

E6 is a failed ideal based off a proverbial blanket nerf, to mundanes. It's mechanics is meant to cap everyone at level 6 and grant additional Feats afterwards. It's idealism is that high level Casters break the game, and if they don't exist then everything is *fixed*.

Well, personally, I like the idea that a fighter can't defeat an army alone. It's not all about balance.


But that's just not the case. Steel Dragons can self use self aging tricks to obtain Epic Spellcasting in E6, even more so than every thanks to Bonus Feats. An many like to point out Versatile Spellcaster & several extra Extra Spell Feats can be combined to grant pretty much anyone 9th level spells. And things will always come back to this so keep that in mind. But hte point to take away form here is E6's rules fails to preform the very job it set out to do.

What kind of DM allows tricks? Someone who enjoys power gaming just as his players do. Then they'll probably not try E6.

Why would any DM without this profile let players use "tricks" of any nature if they defeat the purpose of the game style they chose together?


E6 also claims it helps Mundanes. the problem with that statement is that Mundanes often make up a huge part of their short comings through Magical Items and PrCs.

Appropriate encounter levels? Intentional unappropriate encounter levels? Low magic setting?


And it gets worse. Often melee oriented PrCs require +6 BAB, of Skill based Classes desire 8 or more Ranks. So often you'd be lucky to achieve even a single level in PrCs.

Lower PrC requirements? I agree that E6 effectively outrules PrCs. Because PrC were designed for characters (mostly) above 5th level. So since you're already heavily houseruling, houserule a little more.


It also calls lv6 the most balanced area of the game. This is about as far from the truth as you can get.

Maybe it isn't. But you didn't say why other areas are more balanced, just why E6 isn't. E6 could be imbalanced and still the "most balanced".


The last problematic element to E6 is the human component... A good roleplayer can play any level just as a good optimizer can break any level and there is no imaginary limitation that prevents you from being both.

Agreed, but while I can roleplay at any level, maybe I prefer escaping to gritty fantasy worlds rather than high-fantasy worlds.

I've been thinking about a solution like this years before people gave it a name. I was never worried about optimizers, because I don't mind DMing to optimizers.

[ArcturusV]

Well there is a PrC as a Base Class for E6 topic up in here. Which could be a counter to the PrCs being useless idea. Some of them have issues but so far most of them seem like they'd be perfectly acceptable as a base for E6.

Exception being ones with full spellcasting progression + Extra Goodies. As that is effectively Tier 0, after all. I wouldn't allow classes like Dominator or Disciple of Aalarun.

[hymer]

@ Mato: Are you really saying that because you can still commit some cheesery (especially by ignoring RAW and righteous DM fiat) in E6, it is a bad system? That would mean that D&D is a bad system for there being cheese in the first place.
Something like 70% of cheese is hindered or impossible in E6 (just like something like 70% of all statistics are made up oon the spot). But that's not really the issue. The issue is that non-cheese in E6 is better balanced (as has been discussed on the wizard using fly and windwall higher up).
Balance when discussed in this context is generally inter-class balance, by the way, not PC vs. NPC balance (which is supposed to be out of whack anyway).
Are you saying that prestige classes are inherently more powerful than base classes? That the ability to get into something like Master Specialist is somehow a huge boon? It grants you one extra spell and two specific feats. It costs a feat to get in, and you miss out on the fifth level bonus feat. As you note, feats are cheaper in E6 than usual, making the whole thing even less of a deal. If you allow Versatile Spellcaster shenanigans (and someone got together the 64 3rd level spell slots to cast a ninth level spell), how can you be bothered by such minuscule movements?

Your idea that wealth stops once you get to level 6 is not based on E6, but seems to be your exceedingly critical interpretation of it. In my E6 campaign, players continue to accumulate wealth, and I suspect this is the usual way to do it. A simple cloak or vest of resistance is among the cheapest of magic items for what it provides, and most people want one or the other. Since feats are so cheap, you can also take Great Fortitude, Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes if you feel it's needed.
Regardless, players don't cast spells against each other (usually), so what's more interesting is how well you do against NPCs here. Even if spells are something like 15 percentage points less likely to be saved against than usual, the mundanes will also be better than usual at whatever shtick they prefer, and they don't run out of spells like a 6th level caster tends to do. Wands of Cure Light Wounds are all the mundanes need to expend.

In short, don't knock it 'till you've tried it.

[Greenish]

@ Mato: Are you really saying that because you can still commit some cheesery (especially by ignoring RAW and righteous DM fiat) in E6, it is a bad system? That would mean that D&D is a bad system for there being cheese in the first place.Well, D&D is hilariously borked.

[hymer]

And yet we play it and spend untold amounts of time foruming about it. It must be doing something right. :smallsmile:

[ArcturusV]

It's the VHS vs Beta-Max thing.

DnD is the VHS. Initially lower start up cost to get into. Easy to make things for due to OGL. And just flooded the market, anywhere with RPGs has DnD, which cannot be said for anything else. World of Darkness is the only one that otherwise comes close.

And I'm not talking about "In a specialty hobby shop" or something. I'm talking anywhere. I can go to any bookstore and find DnD books. I can usually find World of Darkness. Anything else is a crapshoot.

So while other systems might be technically superior (Like Beta-Max was to VHS), it still gets crushed.

[Greenish]

And yet we play it and spend untold amounts of time foruming about it. It must be doing something right. :smallsmile:Yeah. It's complex and complicated and arcane and unwieldy and convoluted and labyrinthine and sprawling and self-contradictory, and those are the reasons people like it. :smalltongue:

[Edit]: Yeah, and what Arcturus said. Being popular is a highly desirable trait in an tabletop RPG, since you'll be more likely to find people to play with.

[JusticeZero]

All I heard there is "With several combinations of poorly tested and written rules in splats and other aftermarket wackiness that interact with each other in unusual ways, I can completely miss the point!" A powergamer with a large stack of splats and aftermarket supplements can bend the rules over in silly ways regardless. It's already hard to prevent that in Core. And where the heck is your GM through all this to veto the absurd cheese builds? Is your party normally composed entirely of Hulking Hurlers, Pun-Puns, Druidzillas and other hyper-optimized cheese in Standard games? Is there something about E6 that will make the guy who plays a Monk in your usual game suddenly make some crazy character cobbled together out of five splats to be able to cast Wish?

That... doesn't actually prove anything, because it's a complaint that something meant to mitigate the worst of problems is somehow defective because it doesn't prevent 100.000% of all problems.

It prevents a lot of problems. It keeps your characters on par with the heroes of fantasy fiction and movies. It keeps the total complexity of your characters down, it keeps the intensity of the numbers down to levels that are soundly playtested. It caps your casters at a point where they are "powerful" but before they start getting spells designed to lock the laws of physics up in the attic to cry for mercy.

It does not solve EVERY problem, nor does it claim to. And it's a bit simplified. It could use fleshing out and tinkering to fill in some of those dead levels. But it works pretty well at what it's there for.

[Aldizog]

If the DM 1) says "It's just like 3.5 except you can't reach the higher levels" and then 2) chooses to allow "tricks" that let spellcasters cast as if they were in those inaccessible-but-existent higher levels, he will indeed have spellcasters breaking the game, and the game becomes one of "find the loopholes."

If the DM says "No, there simply are no levels higher than 6," then kobold cheese (or whatever) can't work. There is no spellcaster progression beyond 6th. There are no spells beyond 3rd except for those specifically and actively chosen by the DM to be included as capstone feats or rituals. It's like a 3.5 Ftr7/Suel Arcanamach10/EK3; since his class's spellcaster progression has already finished, "+1 level of arcane spellcasting class" gives him nothing.

Thankfully, the E6 material places a strong emphasis on DM judgment calls.

[MukkTB]

E6 only balances casters and non-casters marginally. By capping the level limit early it prevents the quadratic castes from going too far above linear melee. The casters are still undeniably better, they just aren't unassailable. Additionally any spells in E6 beyond level 3 are epic. They aren't supposed to be available to regular players. It depends on the E6 house rules you use, but generally its worded strongly that the players don't get access to level 4+ spells any more than they would get access to level 10 spells in a standard core only game.

The reason to go into E6 isn't balance. If you're willing to do extensive house ruling to achieve balance I would suggest going over to 4E. E6 purpose is to populate a world with people who feel more realistic. Instead of a world with supermen and god-wizards we have a world of pretty good fighters and potent spellcasters. It is said that a lot of fantasy falls within pretty low levels for D&D. E6 is a ruleset for emulating that kind of thing.

[Mighty_Chicken]

About spellcasters still being stronger in E6, isn't anyone giving a look in the Spell Points fix I wrote in my previous post? :smallwink:

[Soranar]

Have you guys ever played an E6 game? Cause everyone I hear defending caster classes doesn't seem to understand how fragile they are in E6.

Low hitpoints, very few defenses, not enough spell slots and lack of access to persistent spell or contingency (no celerity either). All of this really levels the playing field.

Spell slots are far more valuable in E6 than they are in high level games: you can't just spam low level spells and you don't have access to good defensive tricks (like a really high DR, etheralness, teleportation, freedom of movement or mind blank). You don't get rope tricks and you will struggle if you face more than 1 encounter per day, which you should if your DM is challenging at all.

Spell durations are MUCH lower than in a normal game

Nevermind mage slayer feats which nullify most of a mage's tricks at those levels.

And a sneaking rogue is a legitimate threat, if he manages to backstab you you're very likely to be dead. Not annoyed, dead.

On the divine side, a cleric doesn't get persistent spell. So forget all of those buffs that are only worth their casting time when they're done outside combat.

A druid is still powerful , especially with his animal companion and his ability to wildshape, but he's powerful not almighty.

[MukkTB]

Yeah Soranar casters aren't invincible in E6, but they're still better than the lower tier classes. You get too many levels further and casters become really tough to touch.

[MirddinEmris]

Actually, clerics still got Persist spell, even mor so that feats are more easily to get in E6 and divine metamagic still an option. Rope trick is a level 2 spell (you'll need E2 to prevent that :) ).
Casters are fragile, yes. So does melee on this levels - one crit or couple of good blows and you are dead, nd unlike casters you can't prevent that

I wouldn't waste time to argue about the point that you don't need some obscure cheese to "break" the game (you even don't need 4th level spell, but they will be nice addition). I just remind everyone that challenge still on for anyone who want to prove that E6 is somehow more balanced than full 20th level dnd game.

P.S. If you want to play gritty low-magic world, why do you even use dnd? It's not even remotely low magic, no matter what level - magic is cheap in dnd.

[ArcturusV]

Well, Rope Trick is hardly the Unassailable Fortress that it's made out to be. I don't worry about it. MMM however, is. But that isn't something you'd get outside of some serious cheese level.

[Rukia]

Of course it's more balanced. The gap between a highly optimized E6 fighter vs an E6 wizard is much smaller than a 20 fighter vs 20 wizard and that's looking at the extreme of both tiers. Classes that fall in the middle are even closer. To try to argue any differently at this point is just arguing for the sake of it. Is it perfect? No. There are far too many variables in the D&D system even at this level to ever make something perfectly balanced, but it goes a long way to narrow the gap which again is the entire point of E6.

I brought it up and several others have argued the lack of spell slots is a huge concern but you keep brushing it away like it's nothing. It isn't. If you only get a few level 3 spells per day you can't spam them at will as if you can in high levels. And unless you have a clueless DM that just allows a "one encounter day" then you better use them wisely. Burn them all on the first encounter and you're toast on the next one.

Look at it this way. A competent level 20 warblade wouldn't really stand a chance against a competent level 20 wizard. Now take an E6 Warblade vs an E6 wizard and tell me that his chance of winning isn't greater. All it would take is one solid attack and it could be the end of the wizard. At that level the warblade can rely on his maneuvers to make up for his bad saves and has some major damage output. The wizard would likely spend a good portion of her spells defensively and can fly, but she'd have to find a way to do enough damage to take the Warblade down. Sure she could escape if needbe, but then she didn't win the fight.

I know in your mind you're already making the assumption that the wizard:

1. Wins initiative (less advantage at this level)
2. Is pre-buffed (not likely with short duration at CL6)
3. Lands her offensive spells (possible but less likely with low DC vs Warblade high concentration modifier)

Unfortunately as has already been explained, buffs don't last that long at level 6 so you can't just fire them up at morning and be good for the day. She'd likely not have any buffs but "maybe" mage armor, the rest have to wait for an encounter. Considering the extra feats available in E6 the guarantee of the Wizard even winning initiative is lost. Warblade could easily have decent dex and improved initiative along with any magic item available the wizard has access to. Meaning you're looking at nerveskitter as the advantage and you still have randomness of dice to deal with. If Wizard loses initiative then she likely dies in the opening round to the Warblade.

Assuming the wizard has 22 int(which is a kind estimate) her DC for spells like grease is 17, glitterdust 18, web/slow 19. She could up them a little with feats making something like a 20 more realistic. The Warblade would rely on maneuvers to use a concentration check instead relying on poor saves. At level 6 with 9 ranks and an 18 con thats already +13, with magic items(+stat, +con skill) I'm quite sure we can get that higher to more like a +17-18. So now the Warblade succeeds on anything more than say a 5 for a level 3 spell. It's even easier for the lower level spells.

Point being it's not an automatic win for the wizard like it is at level 20. Ergo it is far more balanced. Not perfect, but improved.

[JusticeZero]

P.S. If you want to play gritty low-magic world, why do you even use dnd? It's not even remotely low magic, no matter what level - magic is cheap in dnd.
because we don't play E6 because we want to play a gritty low-magic world? There's a big difference between "You're rich - you go vacation in Europe on a whim" and "You're rich - you bought a fleet of nuclear powered aircraft carriers to play golf on just because your accounting firm thought that the worlds' banking industry would collapse if you didn't blow some of your mad money on something". After a certain point, the numbers and effects in a standard DnD setting start to get really absurd, and the sanity of the setting starts to break down. "Oh yay, we're mowing down more of these CL10 cannon fodder. Why dont they just go conquer a city or something? Individually? We can.. the city we came from was statted out fourteen levels ago so that it wouldn't be totally laughable that we would have any reason to adventure."

Fiction: "My father passed this legendary sword down to me! I shall battle the evil goblin empire with them!"
E6: "For plot reasons, I was given a Longsword +1, Flaming. For in character reasons, I like to use it when I can. Sometimes I pull out the Battleaxe +1, Shocking, or the +2 Longsword. We're fighting an evil goblin empire."
Standard DnD: "My father was supposed to be a big hero with a legendary sword. I gave it to some beggar on the street years ago because I found a better one. Which I outgrew and sold. Now I use a +5 sword with a bunch of other properties on it that costs half of the GDP of the city i'm in that I found in a pawn shop. We used to be fighting a goblin empire, but we don't get XP for goblins anymore so now we mostly farm Beholders that were hiding in the sewer.. somehow, we try not to think too hard about that."

[hymer]

MirddinEmris: Persist Spell is only viable with Divine Metamagic, as you mention. And DMM is one of those things DMs are apt to deal with in some way or another. There was a poll thread a little while back, and only a small minority let DMM: Persist get through fiat without any sort of managing in. Some forbade DMM altogether, some had never had a player ask to do it, some nerfed it, some allowed it only with some metamagics, etc.
What I'm trying to say is that DMM: Persist is one of the things that people have to deal with any jolly way. But even so, having a persisted vigor is one thing (compare to a lowly Dragons Shaman's healing aura e.g.). Having a persisted Righteous Might or Holy Transformation on the other hand is the Clericzilla getting ready to beat the world one encounter at a time.

[Mato]

What I said is E6 fails to accomplish everything it set out to do and gave several examples there of.
Yes, D&D is inherently broken.
Yes, D&D places a strong emphasis on DM judgment calls.
Yes, you can add even more houserules to try and fix E6.
But those are not counter points, only further observation of how little of an impact E6 makes on anything resembling balance.

The problem is the entire thing exists in the fallacy that X level is balanced. I mean, even "E1" would have DMM Persist Clerics, Greenbound Druids, Incarnate Constructs, Dragon-Magazine Regeneration, and mid-twenties AC Warforged running around. Certainly such a low level game would be more random since the impact of the d20 is more significant. Which also means it can create the ZombieU appeal (look there is my corpse from ten minutes ago!) much to the dismay of people who like developing their characters.

If you want to rebalance D&D on your table top. You need to deal with those powerful combinations and choices. And if you did, ideally even Epic play would be viable because there again, level isn't the biggest factor. Like saying a Core game doesn't remove Planar Binding abuse, E6 doesn't depreciate Lucid Dreaming connected Diplomacy checks befriending every King-like official in the world. You really need to take the time and address the issues your Players (or DM) may be looking into rather than thinking one huge blanket ban will magically solve your problems.

And if you really want to linger in the level 6 area for style purposes. A good alternative would be starting at level 4 and letting players know XP will be awarded for quest objective completions rather than running into the woods at night and beating up wolves Final Fantasy style for extra levels (D&D) or additional Feats (E6). Such a "system" self justifies it's existence by removing the ability to farm XP like a video game. There is no petty remorse over stagnation created leading to a houserule that lets you buy Feats with XP, nor does it require a fancy rule listing in a post and certainly it wouldn't have the audacity to call it's self a fix. But I digress.

[Hecuba]

Personally, I find the primary benefit of E6 to be internally consistent world building: if most people are level 1-2, level 6 heros will influence geopolitics. For the same population base, Level 20 heros should shatter geopolitics.

To say it has no positive effect on balance, however, would be disingenuous. Yes it is still breakable with optimization. But it does, in my opinion, at least get to a point where it requires deliberate optimization to introduce the kind of class-dictating power gap that is all but unavoidable at higher levels. There are still huge problems, but the tend to be the kinds of problems introduced by synergies and deliberate combinations.

Put another way, I find that E6 balance is harder to break accidentally.

[Gnorman]

What I said is E6 fails to accomplish everything it set out to do and gave several examples there of.
Yes, D&D is inherently broken.
Yes, D&D places a strong emphasis on DM judgment calls.
Yes, you can add even more houserules to try and fix E6.
But those are not counter points, only further observation of how little of an impact E6 makes on anything resembling balance.

The problem is the entire thing exists in the fallacy that X level is balanced. I mean, even "E1" would have DMM Persist Clerics, Greenbound Druids, Incarnate Constructs, Dragon-Magazine Regeneration, and mid-twenties AC Warforged running around. Certainly such a low level game would be more random since the impact of the d20 is more significant. Which also means it can create the ZombieU appeal (look there is my corpse from ten minutes ago!) much to the dismay of people who like developing their characters.

If you want to rebalance D&D on your table top. You need to deal with those powerful combinations and choices. And if you did, ideally even Epic play would be viable because there again, level isn't the biggest factor. Like saying a Core game doesn't remove Planar Binding abuse, E6 doesn't depreciate Lucid Dreaming connected Diplomacy checks befriending every King-like official in the world. You really need to take the time and address the issues your Players (or DM) may be looking into rather than thinking one huge blanket ban will magically solve your problems.

And if you really want to linger in the level 6 area for style purposes. A good alternative would be starting at level 4 and letting players know XP will be awarded for quest objective completions rather than running into the woods at night and beating up wolves Final Fantasy style for extra levels (D&D) or additional Feats (E6). Such a "system" self justifies it's existence by removing the ability to farm XP like a video game. There is no petty remorse over stagnation created leading to a houserule that lets you buy Feats with XP, nor does it require a fancy rule listing in a post and certainly it wouldn't have the audacity to call it's self a fix. But I digress.

In the interest of transparency, Mato, I should admit that I am an ardent E6 defender, so I may be a bit zealous here. My apologies if in doing so I somehow distort your position, and please correct me if I do so that we can have a proper dialogue about the subject. However, as I understand it:

You're operating under a misinterpretation of what E6 is attempting to do. As I see it, you're claiming that because E6 doesn't deal with Dragonwrought Lore Drakes, it fails in its basic goal? E6 is not a "fix." It's a different way of playing D&D, one that requires significantly less effort and makes for a quicker, more accessible game. Less number inflation means faster, deadlier combat. Stakes seem higher because death is a real possibility, and not easily obviated. The lack of spell bloat means that casters don't accidentally trip over ruining the campaign (they can still do it if they try, but as you correctly point out, you can do that at Level 1 - however, it's a lot harder). You're cherrypicking a few examples of cheese that E6 by itself does not address, and then excoriating it because it doesn't? Does E6 somehow lull the DM into a complacent, pseudo-hypnotic state where he will suddenly allow Greenbound Summoning and Venomfire?

E6 does not claim to "balance the game." Obviously, nothing short of a severe overhaul is going to do that. E6 has a nice side effect of cutting off access to a large portion of the cheese, but it's not 100%. But that's okay, because E6 doesn't claim to do that. And it's certainly not trying to "hide" the issue - I have literally no idea where you get that assumption. Here's a short list of the benefits of E6, from the original post:


1. Very fast play at every level of the campaign.
2. Focus on planning, not levelling. To defeat the black dragon Zolanderos, the CR 10 terror of Staunwark Island, the heroes will need help, special resources, and information. I want to further encourage party-directed adventuring, and if the heroes want to take on something 4 to 6 CR above them, then that's what they will require.
3. A low magic game that everyone knows how to play.
4. Never a need for meaningless encounters. The players can be involved in a dozen or so major combat scenarios (perhaps more than one encounter each) and have proven themselves and made a major accomplishment. See Lord of the Rings movies, or most fantasy novels.
5. Classic monsters stay classic throughout the campaign; Chimeras and Aboleths start scary, and stay scary. Dragons are always exciting encounters.
6. Even legendary heroes remain mortal; while a 6th level fighter who has taken toughness several times can take on a good mob, he isn't invulnerable. The sorcerer's 6d6 fireballs are phenomenal, but not so powerful that he can destroy a village and not fear retaliation.
7. Quicker prep. Make a 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 6th version of a sorcerer, and now you have a whole sorcerous dragon-cult that can last you through your whole campaign.
8. You can put what you've learned of the rules to good use. It's hard to know every 4th through 9th level spell out there; they're the ones we see the least. But we've seen 0th through 3rd level spells many, many times, and mastery over them is relatively simple.
9. E6 is a great system for on the fly GMing. If you’re reasonably familiar with what a 2nd level threat looks like, power-wise, you can probably get away with running it without stats handy.

You'll notice "balance the game," "put mundane classes on par with magical ones," et cetera, are not amongst those claims. E6 alone will not solve that problem - it will make it less of a problem, because you typically don't have access to Enervation, Black Tentacles, Teleport, or Planar Binding, but you do still have Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, Power Word Pain, etc. It should be glaringly obvious that casters still dominate. Just to a lesser extent. Don't castigate E6 for not fulfilling a design goal it didn't have.

[MirddinEmris]

Fiction: "My father passed this legendary sword down to me! I shall battle the evil goblin empire with them!"
E6: "For plot reasons, I was given a Longsword +1, Flaming. For in character reasons, I like to use it when I can. Sometimes I pull out the Battleaxe +1, Shocking, or the +2 Longsword. We're fighting an evil goblin empire."
Standard DnD: "My father was supposed to be a big hero with a legendary sword. I gave it to some beggar on the street years ago because I found a better one. Which I outgrew and sold. Now I use a +5 sword with a bunch of other properties on it that costs half of the GDP of the city i'm in that I found in a pawn shop. We used to be fighting a goblin empire, but we don't get XP for goblins anymore so now we mostly farm Beholders that were hiding in the sewer.. somehow, we try not to think too hard about that."

More like this actually:

Standard DnD: "My father gave me his sword, so in respect to my ancestors i made it stronger by enchanting him further, so when i give it to my son, he will have a very powerful tool and a relic from a family...And we still fighting evil goblin empire - their shamans and assasins are really pain in the rear. Not to mention their mercenaries kobolds under the banner of Tucker"


MirddinEmris: Persist Spell is only viable with Divine Metamagic, as you mention. And DMM is one of those things DMs are apt to deal with in some way or another. There was a poll thread a little while back, and only a small minority let DMM: Persist get through fiat without any sort of managing in. Some forbade DMM altogether, some had never had a player ask to do it, some nerfed it, some allowed it only with some metamagics, etc.
What I'm trying to say is that DMM: Persist is one of the things that people have to deal with any jolly way. But even so, having a persisted vigor is one thing (compare to a lowly Dragons Shaman's healing aura e.g.). Having a persisted Righteous Might or Holy Transformation on the other hand is the Clericzilla getting ready to beat the world one encounter at a time.

So, it's not broken if you can fix it? Looks like Oberoni fallacy.

Remember, that it wasn't my examples (Rope trick, dmm, persist) of "broken" things that supposedly doesn't exist in E6, i just pointed out mistakes.



1. Very fast play at every level of the campaign.
2. Focus on planning, not levelling. To defeat the black dragon Zolanderos, the CR 10 terror of Staunwark Island, the heroes will need help, special resources, and information. I want to further encourage party-directed adventuring, and if the heroes want to take on something 4 to 6 CR above them, then that's what they will require.
3. A low magic game that everyone knows how to play.
4. Never a need for meaningless encounters. The players can be involved in a dozen or so major combat scenarios (perhaps more than one encounter each) and have proven themselves and made a major accomplishment. See Lord of the Rings movies, or most fantasy novels.
5. Classic monsters stay classic throughout the campaign; Chimeras and Aboleths start scary, and stay scary. Dragons are always exciting encounters.
6. Even legendary heroes remain mortal; while a 6th level fighter who has taken toughness several times can take on a good mob, he isn't invulnerable. The sorcerer's 6d6 fireballs are phenomenal, but not so powerful that he can destroy a village and not fear retaliation.
7. Quicker prep. Make a 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 6th version of a sorcerer, and now you have a whole sorcerous dragon-cult that can last you through your whole campaign.
8. You can put what you've learned of the rules to good use. It's hard to know every 4th through 9th level spell out there; they're the ones we see the least. But we've seen 0th through 3rd level spells many, many times, and mastery over them is relatively simple.
9. E6 is a great system for on the fly GMing. If you’re reasonably familiar with what a 2nd level threat looks like, power-wise, you can probably get away with running it without stats handy.
You'll notice "balance the game," "put mundane classes on par with magical ones," et cetera, are not amongst those claims. E6 alone will not solve that problem - it will make it less of a problem, because you typically don't have access to Enervation, Black Tentacles, Teleport, or Planar Binding, but you do still have Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, Power Word Pain, etc. It should be glaringly obvious that casters still dominate. Just to a lesser extent. Don't castigate E6 for not fulfilling a design goal it didn't have.

Good points. E6 really doesn't claim anything about balance (some players did, though :) ), and it does do what it claims. Except "low-magic" thing. For me, at least, low-magic world is something like in LotR where magic is more like plot device, while in dnd (even in E6) it's just something you do on everyday basis (so, magic is still easy and cheap).

[Mato]

E6 does not claim to "balance the game."Please reread it's own FAQ.


Q: Where did E6 come from?
A: E6 was inspired by the article Gandalf was a Fifth-Level Magic User by Bill Seligman. The article was published in The Dragon (which became Dragon magazine) in issue #5, March 1977. When I first had the concept of E6, where we used the first six levels for the whole game, my very first step was pitching it to my players. Some thought it was a great idea, and the rest were willing to give it a try, so I gave it a shot. E6 worked really well for our tastes, and we've done lots of playing inside E6 since then. Back then E6 was a lot more convoluted than it is now: there were intricate quasi-gestalt rules and several other little things that weren’t so much about the cap as they were about my group’s thoughts on D&D class balance. Over time, we found that the only rules we were really using (on both sides of the screen) were the feat rules, and that was producing a great play experience. So when I returned to E6 just recently, that’s how I wrote it up: As it was actually played.

Q: Why 6th level for the cap? Why not 12th, or 20th?
A: My experience in D&D is that at around 6th level the characters are really nicely balanced, both in terms of balance against other classes, and against the CR system. Also, there was an element of setting assumptions; each class is strong enough that they're well defined in their role, but not so strong that lower-level characters don't matter to them any more.Balancing D&D is synonymous with fixing D&D, they both refer to changing D&D's rule set to be more fair. E6 came from the author's ideas to fix D&D, and he says level 6 is balanced. -- Well, not just balanced, really nicely balanced. -- And these are the core ideals E6 is built on and what the writer claims E6 is meant for and does. And I find my self a little more inclined to take the author's word on things rather than your own.

You can defend it by saying add more house rules or by sheer ignorance on the discussion at hand. But it won't change the fact E6 fixes nothing and failed to accomplish it's goal of balanced play because it never addresses any tangible problem to start with.

[JaronK]

E6's obvious balance improvement comes from the fact that the game was better playtested at the lower levels. That's definitely worth something. Sure, it's not everything... but it's a lot.

JaronK

[Gnorman]

Please reread it's own FAQ.
Balancing D&D is synonymous with fixing D&D, they both refer to changing D&D's rule set to be more fair. E6 came from the author's ideas to fix D&D, and he says level 6 is balanced. -- Well, not just balanced, really nicely balanced. -- And these are the core ideals E6 is built on and what the writer claims E6 is meant for and does. And I find my self a little more inclined to take the author's word on things rather than your own.

You can defend it by saying add more house rules or by sheer ignorance on the discussion at hand. But it won't change the fact E6 fixes nothing and failed to accomplish it's goal of balanced play because it never addresses any tangible problem to start with.

First off, I do not appreciate being called ignorant. Secondly, I believe I was using the author's own words too.


Back then E6 was a lot more convoluted than it is now: there were intricate quasi-gestalt rules and several other little things that weren’t so much about the cap as they were about my group’s thoughts on D&D class balance.

E6 might have originally sprang from the author's group's thoughts on D&D class balance, but as he says in the very same passage you accuse me of being ignorant of, those aspects were basically abandoned. The issue of balance is brought up, admitted as a factor, but ultimately, does not seem to be the primary motivation for the system. It's a nice side effect, though.

From the same document:


E6 will always inherit d20's balance issues at the same level, especially issues that result from scenarios where those characters d20 characters have long periods of downtime. The best approach is to be cognizant of these issues when considering what feats to allow in your E6 game.

Here we have the author admitting that E6 will not balance the game. Perhaps he does intend to fix it - but I doubt that seriously constitutes hiding the issue.


E6's obvious balance improvement comes from the fact that the game was better playtested at the lower levels. That's definitely worth something. Sure, it's not everything... but it's a lot.

Agreed. It's not a perfect fix. But it's a lot better than nothing. When you don't have the time or inclination to create your own elaborate system of house rules, it's a quick, effective tool that creates an easy and exciting game.

[Greenish]

Fiction: "My father passed this legendary sword down to me! I shall battle the evil goblin empire with them!"
E6: "For plot reasons, I was given a Longsword +1, Flaming. For in character reasons, I like to use it when I can. Sometimes I pull out the Battleaxe +1, Shocking, or the +2 Longsword. We're fighting an evil goblin empire."
Standard DnD: "My father was supposed to be a big hero with a legendary sword. I gave it to some beggar on the street years ago because I found a better one. Which I outgrew and sold. Now I use a +5 sword with a bunch of other properties on it that costs half of the GDP of the city i'm in that I found in a pawn shop. We used to be fighting a goblin empire, but we don't get XP for goblins anymore so now we mostly farm Beholders that were hiding in the sewer.. somehow, we try not to think too hard about that."I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate here, except maybe that you haven't heard of the Ancestral Relic feat.

I have nothing against E6, but I don't think of it as The One True Way®, and I don't think it impossible to run serious campaigns on higher levels (which you seem to be implying). Just because you feel the way you play is being attacked doesn't mean you should lash out at everyone who plays differently.

[Gnorman]

Just because you feel the way you play is being attacked doesn't mean you should lash out at everyone who plays differently.

Agreed. As I mentioned before, I don't see this is as a divisive issue meant to separate players into E6 and non-E6 camps. If I get the opportunity to play in a high level game, I'm not going to turn it down. Level 8, Level 12, Level 15, they can all be fun. But to me, there's a distinctive positive correlation between game level and game complexity. Some people enjoy that; I do on occasion, but often I find myself preferring the simplicity of E6, and the accompanying low-level storytelling environment.

[hymer]

So, it's not broken if you can fix it? Looks like Oberoni fallacy.

If it removes a vast quantity of problems from the game, but not all, is it a failure?
I have no idea what the Oberoni fallacy is.


Remember, that it wasn't my examples (Rope trick, dmm, persist) of "broken" things that supposedly doesn't exist in E6, i just pointed out mistakes.

I took that to mean you were quibbling, splitting hairs to willfully misunderstand an argument (which is that X number of problems exist in 3.5; E6 solves Y of those, Y being a number smaller than X, but still of substantial size; the result being an improvement you can clearly feel when playing). I'm still not sure I was wrong, but I hope I was. :smallsmile:

[Greenish]

I have no idea what the Oberoni fallacy is.Oberoni fallacy states that if it can be fixed, it's not broken.

[Hecuba]

I have nothing against E6, but I don't think of it as The One True Way®, and I don't think it impossible to run serious campaigns on higher levels (which you seem to be implying). Just because you feel the way you play is being attacked doesn't mean you should lash out at everyone who plays differently.

I play it often and prefer it to D20, but I agree that it's not "the One True Way."
It doesn't fix everything and anyone who says it does has very limited experience examining the balance issues in 3.5.

It does, however, address low-power balance fairly well: quite simply, "linear warrior, quadratic wizard" isn't crippling with 3rd level spells. And that is not the only benefit.

Yes, you can 4th level spells (and better) if at 6 if you put your mind to it. But you can get them at level 7 even if you don't put your mind to it.

Regarding seriousness, higher level games can certainly be serious. But I don't personally think "serious" is the term we should be using.

I would say, instead, that (by default) 6th level characters relate to the campaign world in a way that is more similar to the tone of most fantasy fiction (and to a great extent, the tone of the earlier editions) than do high level characters.

Legacy weapon addresses one element of that tonal problem (heirlooms), but there are others. Unless the campaign world levels with the characters (which doesn't strike me as particularly verisimilitudinous), a world that can accommodate both level 1 and level 20 can be hard to build.

[Crustypeanut]

Considering that my group has never gotten past level 6 except where we started past it, this might actually be an amazing ruleset for my group. I don't mind high-level stuff - but we've never naturally progressed past that - it might be because my players get bored of it after level 6, I'm not sure.

I'm gonna show them this ruleset and see if they want to try it out.. looks fun. We're the kind of group who loves finding creative uses for things as simple as rope - having magic do everything for you is just boring for my group (and even me, who's more tolerant of magic, loves mundane solutions for problems through creative thinking).

The question is, however, is that how well would this system work with Pathfinder as my group only plays Pathfinder and the various Warhammer 40k games (Black Crusade being the current one we're playing)

[Greenish]

The question is, however, is that how well would this system work with Pathfinder as my group only plays Pathfinder and the various Warhammer 40k games (Black Crusade being the current one we're playing)If you've never made it past 6th level, I don't see how it would change much anything (except maybe world design), and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work for PF. PF classes tend to get class features every level, so that removes (or at least reduces) one of the complaints against E6.

[Crustypeanut]

Yeah thats what I was thinking..might have to try it soon!