If you were to rewrite 3.5 from the ground up how would you do it?

[danzibr]

Granted it wouldn't really be 3.5 anymore. Anyway...

In a different thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=290404) we're talking about what books need a good rewrite, and ELH came up a lot. A big problem with ELH is that it came out so early (there are other big problems, but this is a big one). Naturally, books that came out after ELH got no support in ELH.

So the solutions would be thus (IMO): now that all of 3.5 is out, it can be reworked from the ground up.

How would you do this? Perhaps you wouldn't change it at all. Perhaps you'd make minor changes. Perhaps you'd make a total overhaul.

I think I'd do something like the following:
0) Make very clear all definitions. In fact, the first book should probably be a dictionary. What exactly is a "true dragon"? It would be extra nice if the relevant entries provided comprehensive lists. Like definition of natural weapon: blah. List of all natural weapons: blah.
1) Make core casters weaker. Weaker in the sense of less versatile. Instead of giving Wizards access to all schools, give them access to 1 or 2. Granted there's still a ton of power/versatility in certain schools, so the individual schools would have to be examined.
2) As with someone's feat overhaul (was it Morph Bark? I don't recall), have feats synergize and scale. This oughta help melee out a lot. However, I would *not* make ToB the new core melee. Instead I would...
3) Keep the splat books mostly as they are. I mean, there are balance issues in them which need reworking, but keep ToB ToB. People would know the more books you make available the stronger your players will be.
4) Obviously fix RAW contradictions and silliness.

[Barsoom]

Someone already re-did 3.5 from the ground up. Unfortunately, what they came up with was 4E. Let their example be a warning to us all. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Embrace the brokenness.

[Juntao112]

Well, there's also Legend.

[Maginomicon]

First Step: Throw away the d20. Replace it with a 3d6. Rewrite everything from the ground-up basing DCs on that. Bell Curves are by far more fair than a 5% chance for anything.

Second Step: Either make tiers null or make explicit mechanical penalties for playing a higher-tier class. You should not be able to wipe the floor with other classes in TO. Every class should be versatile, to be able to look at a given situation and say "I have an idea".

Third Step: Clearly define the meanings of RAW, RAI, Fairness, and Ruling Primacy within the context of Rule 0. Everything should have entries for RAW, RAI, Fairness, and Fluff in some fashion.

Fourth Step: Take advantage of metadata, hypertext, and other technological advances to make sure the system does not rely on dead media.

Fifth Step: Clearly define "Line of Sight", "Line of Effect", the differences between them, and utilize them in reasonable ways.

Sixth Step: Clearly define "Ray-like", "Bullet-like", and "Grenade-like"/"Shotgun-like" effects and use those terms in effect descriptions.

Seventh Step: Implement "menacing" rules so that we no longer have the conga line of death.

[Yora]

Keep all the chapters of the PHB but take out Combat and Spells and give those a major overhaul.

Though I wouldn't mind replacing the Skills with the Pathfinder version. Except for scrapping the Fly skill and finally axing Appraise.

[Alabenson]

I'd probably start by integrating the maneuver system from ToB into every melee class from the start, which would likely solve many of the "melee versus spellcasting" problems.

Then I'd take a hard look at the most problematic spells in core, specifically things like Gate, Polymorph, and Planar Binding. Personally, based on my own experience, I think many of the attempts at nerfing casters go way too far; assuming you actually make the effort to bring melee up to Tier 3, then there's no need to gimp the Tier 1 spellcasters aside from the really game-shatteringly powerful spells.

I'd also either condense or retool many of the weaker feats, with the understanding that feats are a significant character build decision worth more than an inconsequential number boost.

[Grinner]

Fourth Step: Take advantage of metadata, hypertext, and other technological advances to make sure the system does not rely on dead media.

Your reasoning for the others if pretty clear, but I'd like to know more about this one.

[Maginomicon]

Your reasoning for the others if pretty clear, but I'd like to know more about this one.

In essence, I mean use Web-2.0 and Web-3.0 technologies to great effect.

[Barstro]

Part of the problem is that it will still be a growing game. This is especially problematic with caster classes.

When creating spells, care must be taken to ensure that they to not affect each other in a powerful way. But it is almost certain that when the next book/web-page/expansion comes out with a couple new spells, Tippy will be there to break everything.

Were it me, I would;
1) Gives casters a boost at lower levels
2) Give melee some way to have powers be exponential (attacks that stack with maneuvers, magic resistance, something)
3) Restrict upper level spells drastically. Probably require L8 or L9 spells to become long rituals that require multiple casters.
4) Have a guild for making Feats. Knife throwing and archery could be good if some feats and items that already exists were tweaked in a small way
5) Make flanked a condition so that ranged can get precision damage and the +2 if melee is already flanking
6) As a GM, give severe penalties for attempting to rest between each fight just so spells get recharged.

edit: I'd probably go to a recharging spell-point system (Like Ancient Anguish, et al.)

In the end, the game can stay fair only as long as it is simple. But everyone wants a new class/race/power, and adding complexity screws with RAW and allows for Pun-Pun.

[Invader]

If you completely rewrite something from the ground up aren't you just writing something totally new? :smallamused:

[JusticeZero]

Use the E6 philosophy, of running advancement with feats, but instead of just switching modes, instead offer many feats with things like +1 HP for each combat feat etc to make it more of a rapidly upward leaning E1 with a buffed up 1. Advancement would become based on feat trees. Then pump out lots and lots of feats.

[ArqArturo]

There would be no classes, only 'character trait points' in which players could invest what to make.

Armor would give damage reduction, and players/some monsters would have the ability to parry/block hits.

Fighters would look more like warblades.

Wish/Miracle would be an epic spell, and bringing characters back from the dead would require actual questing.

A good bit of roleplay moment would trump over mechanics.

[inuyasha]

Step 1: Burn psionics, no seriously, burn it

Step 2: give monk full BaB and better AC progression that 1/5th their level (:p)

Step 3: use nothing but core books and maybe spell compendium

Simplest rewrite ever!

[Snails]

Define areas of excellence in an explicit manner that makes sense at the practical adventuring level, and balance classes with these yardsticks.

In 3e we have Magic & Mundane. Mundane gets sub-divided at a small level of details, forcing every class to be broadly incompetent. And then Magic gets to leak into every area of Mundane.

Then we could compare Face Spellcaster ("Enchanter?) with Face Mundane and see how they stack up in combat encounters, non-combat face encounters, and everything else.

Personally, I think that the structure of 3.5 Psionics points out at a reasonable compromise about how to do magic. There are these really good Specialty spells that are only available to the Specialists. And then there is a general pool of pretty good stuff available to everyone.

The Generalist Wizard and Generalist Cleric is an idea that should be killed. Cleric Domains could have defined specialties in useful way, but they ended up not working out that way.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'd make Legend. Oh, wait, it's already made...

[danzibr]

If you completely rewrite something from the ground up aren't you just writing something totally new? :smallamused:
I believe this was stated in the opening sentence of the original post.

[Grinner]

In essence, I mean use Web-2.0 and Web-3.0 technologies to great effect.

An HTML5 PHB?!?! I love it!

[gooddragon1]

Cry. A lot.

Nah, I'd just modify existing stuff to remove egregious abuses that I didn't feel like dealing with in game.

[zlefin]

If I were to do it in a way that eliminates cross-compatibility with splatbooks?
I'd rework the spells a lot, and the spell distributions, to fix core.
I'd adjust BaB's bonuses a lot.
Skills would be reworked into something that resembles Legend.

The biggest reason I don't do it is that not many people would care what I think. So making a full rewrite wouldn't accomplish much if people didn't use it.

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm just gonna point people to my houserules/3.5 fix down in my sig. *grabs food from the party-spread and leaves*

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd structure the core of the game around ToB-style maneuvers. (Warning: post originated in stream-of-consciousness and may not be coherent)

First, strip away most of the fluffy-names so that everything's nicely generic.
Have "schools" for all sorts of things. Everything from combat styles-- TWF, THF, sword-and-board, skirmisher, and so on-- to magic subschools-- fire magic, force magic, summoning magic, transportation magic, and so on.
Make sure that the maneuvers are more varied than what we have now, especially in the newer-style schools like stealth and magic.
Distinguish martial maneuvers and magic maneuvers "spells" for the purpose of DR and SR and similar, so that a fireball maneuver is clearly magic and a cleave maneuver is clearly mundane.
You'd probably also use a Base Attack Bonus and Base Magic Bonus (BMB), with your BAB being your "initiator level" for martial maneuvers, and your BMB being your "caster level" for magic maneuvers. You'd probably have either one good and one bad, or both average.
The classes are made up of a chassis, a mechanic for preparing and recovering maneuvers (which would vary a lot from class to class), and set of class-specific (and largely passive abilities).
Each class would have access to a certain number of schools-- at least one class-specific, and others shared across similar classes.
Skills would auto-scale-- say 2+1/2 levels if untrained, and 3+1/level if trained-- with the option to drop a skills to no progression to get additional trained skills.
Feats would be more like skill tricks, I think-- adding new functions and abilities to the existing, universal skill system. They'd be the main way that you distinguish a specialist in a skill from someone who's mainly competent.
There'd have to be some way to dabble in non-selected schools, although I dunno if it'd be better to do via feats or some other mechanism.


The varying maneuver mechanisms would, hopefully, keep classes from feeling too similar in play. A barbarian might have access to certain schools only in rage, but have all his known maneuvers from 'em available while raging, and recharge when he hurts people. A wizard could keep a Vancian "maneuvers known/maneuvers readied" thing, with a lot of maneuvers in his book and a slow recovery mechanism (only out-of-combat time, perhaps). And so on.

You'd make sure all abilities scaled to be relevant at higher levels-- a Tracking feat might start with letting you follow footsteps and move on to let you follow fliers and teleporters, at the highest levels. Maneuvers, I think, would scale to be technically relevant, but you'd also offer ToB-style retraining, to swap lower-level effects out for more spectacular ones.

RNG would be kept much more under control than 3.5, in general.

Style-wise, I'd say you start at "realistic but competent," capable of taking on a few goblins by yourself as a tough fight-- maybe 1st level 4e character-- and reach mid-level superhero by 20th-- maybe around 15th level 3.5 character.

The druid, to take a random example, would be able to pick from a shapeshift school (with different forms as different stances), a summoning school (a stance to summon the creature, and strikes/boosts to command it or have it use its SLAs), and a few magic schools, depending on how things get broken up (healing, storm magic, plant magic?). The chassis would



Tying it all together, and taking the Druid as an example, you might have:

Average BAB
Average BMB
A chassis giving you stuff like Woodland Stride and Resist Nature's Lore.
Your pick of 3/5 schools:




Shapeshifting-- different animal forms would be stances, with boosts and strikes to grant active abilities. (There might be some kind of feedback where the exact effect of the strike depends on your stance, I dunno).
Summoning-- different summons would be stances, and/or maybe boosts. Strikes would be used to give commands to summoned creatures, to keep the action economy from exploding too much.
Storm Magic (a gust of wind strike, a call lightning stance/boost, and the like)
Earth Magic (an earthquake strike, a meld with stone stance...)
Plant Magic (an entangle strike, a speak with plants stance...)

[navar100]

Warriors and Rogue built using Tome of Battle style.

Wizards and Sorcerers built using Psionics style. Wizard = Psion. Sorcerer = Wilder.

Clerics use Vancian Style but all spells are divided into Domains, akin to 2E's Spheres. Deities get more Domains. Clerics get all the spells of their deity's Domains. There would be an All Domain for spells every cleric gets, such as Cure Wounds, Atonement, Planar Ally among others. (Not Raise Dead/Resurrection which would be in Life Domain, formerly Healing.) Clerics do not get spells of Domains their deity doesn't have. They still pick two Domains to determine choice for domain spell slot and Domain abilities, which themselves would be improved depending on ability. Clerics keep spontaneous Curing. Turn Undead has a DC of 10 + half cleric level + CH modifier. Undead make a will saving throw to ignore. Clerics have to choose a deity.

Druids are the same as in 3E except there's no Animal Companion. Druids have to choose a deity. Wildshape/Polymorphing become buffs similar to Pathfinder, but I might be more generous than Pathfinder in abilities allowed. Devil is in the details.

Bard is the same with improved bardic music abilities and number of uses.

Feats scale with level. Every class gets bonus feats at particular levels depending on class.

No cross-class skill nonsense. All classes get minimum 4 + Int modifier skill points per level. Classes choose three skills (Rogue six, Bard four) from a specific list according to class that gain 1/2 level bonus.

No class is MAD, being at worst DAD. 27-25-23 for default ability score creation, but 4d6 drop lowest and Point Buy given as options. For Point Buy, base of all scores is 10 and let the player choose a lower score for bonus points if he wants.

[Kamai]

Extend the capabilities of mundanes. Skill tricks would be a good step, and ToB style abilities wouldn't be bad. On the other side, having spells should take out some to most of the capability of taking manuevers/skill tricks.
Default to a psionics-like system (with somewhat downtuned effects) for spontaneous casters.
All prepared casters have some sort of spellbook mechanic (that would mean prepared cleric/druid casting too).
Then, try to split off Transmutation and Conjuration into 2 schools.
From there, you either have Specialist Wizards, which are allowed exactly 1 or 2 schools, or you have generalist Wizards, which are capped at 6th level spells (but no school restrictions and more spell slots than the 3.5 sorcerer).
Clerics and Druids I would probably make into domain casters, Clerics based on god, Druids based on their current locale.
Feat chains basically get reworked. Basic combat styles (shield bashing, TWF, Archery, THF, etc) should be functional in 0-1 feats, and start pulling off cool stuff past that point of investment (and not just more numbers).
Physical feats will sometimes have guidelines of how to do with a skill check (like say charge around a corner), making feats a reliable way to do things instead of the only way to do it.
It should be rare for feats/items to just give numbers. Rerolls/alternate functions should be the focus of these bonuses.
Treat some feats like PF traits (i.e. weapon proficiencies), making them half-feats.
Use Pathfinder shape forms instead of polymorph.

That's where I'd start, but it'd still need cleaning up of spells.

[Snowbluff]

First Step: Throw away the d20. Replace it with a 3d6. Rewrite everything from the ground-up basing DCs on that. Bell Curves are by far more fair than a 5% chance for anything.
This is either wrong, or intentionally misleading.

Second Step: Either make tiers null or make explicit mechanical penalties for playing a higher-tier class. You should not be able to wipe the floor with other classes in TO. Every class should be versatile, to be able to look at a given situation and say "I have an idea".
These 2 statements conflict. IF you want a successful system, it will rely on the ability to make higher tier decisions in the first place. The later 3.5 classes were an incredible improvement over the old ones, so this might have been discredited as an issue on most tables.


Third Step: Clearly define the meanings of RAW, RAI, Fairness, and Ruling Primacy within the context of Rule 0. Everything should have entries for RAW, RAI, Fairness, and Fluff in some fashion.
There should only be RAW. Fluff should be noted as mutable. Intent is secondary even when clear, and only leads to unnecessary ambiguity when in conflict with a more strict RAW.

Fourth Step: Take advantage of metadata, hypertext, and other technological advances to make sure the system does not rely on dead media.
Killing books would be a bad idea.


Fifth Step: Clearly define "Line of Sight", "Line of Effect", the differences between them, and utilize them in reasonable ways.

Sixth Step: Clearly define "Ray-like", "Bullet-like", and "Grenade-like"/"Shotgun-like" effects and use those terms in effect descriptions. Yeah, this is good.


Seventh Step: Implement "menacing" rules so that we no longer have the conga line of death.


I am sorry. This is just... oh wow... HAHAHA!

[ArqArturo]

I would actually just remove the Vancian casting system, as it makes no sense to me. Instead, go with a Mana/Strain/Madness counter, to see how many spells can you cast.

[Devronq]

Well i would do exactly what im doing right now.. which is rewritting 3.5 while trying to keep in close to 3.5 to seem familar. Im like 300ish pages in so its a huge project but the biggest thing to me right now is rewritiing spells

[Yahzi]

GURPS.

The only reason I don't play GURPS is because a) nobody else does, and b) it doesn't have that weird D&D flavor: Vancian magic, warrior clerics, etc.

[Blightedmarsh]

-Make skills relevant again
-Full transparency of spells, invocations, manifesting and SLA
-Universal maneuvers
-Modular classes via ACF:

EG: Their is only one kind of "spellblade" Gish class but there are ACF to use divine, arcane, manifesting or invocations. AFCs to decide whether its an archer gish, unarmed or melee.

[Eldan]

Let's see, from the beginning.

Classes:
Everyone should get a class feature of some kind every level. New spells is a class feature.
Incorporate alternate class features right into the core rules. Not by that name. Just let every class choose from one of several features every few levels.
Two classes need to go: The fighter because it has no place in the game. There is no character in fiction with no talent but swinging weapons. Put in Knights, rangers, rogues, swashbucklers, Paladins, whatever you want. But no generic fighter. The second is the druid, it has too much stuff. Give Animal companions to the ranger. Make the shapeshifter one class and the shaman, druid, or whatever else you call the pure nature class another. Make shapeshifting work like the PHB II druid, but more versatile.

Prestige Classes:
None that are strictly better than the base class, period.

Skills:
More high level skill options, but available earlier. Embrace the fact that by about level 5, you can match some of the best the real world can do, then go beyond that. Far beyond.
No consolidated skills. I don't like it. The only skill that should go is appraise, everything else is fine. If anything, add more skills. And give everyone more skill points to compensate. A lot more.

Feats:
More than half the core feats can go. No feats that just add numbers, they are boring. Feats should be like small class features. The difference is this: class features are for one class. Feats are things more than one class can access. Example: power attack. A lot of classes use melee combat, this should be open to all of them.

Combat system: hm. Maybe add a few more base combat maneuvers. Kill iterative attacks, they don't do much interesting anyway. Make something ToB-like the default.

Magic:
Kill any spell with an absolute effect. No absolute immunities or automatic successes.
No spells that emulate class features easily.
No omni-versatile spells either.
Steal a bit from my own fix and put spells into thematic groups that are learned in order.
Limited number of spells known for everyone, even book casters.
Defensive casting needs to go, make spellcasters squishy again.

Items:
Same as with feats. No +number items. Or very few, at least. Just new abilities. Stop the number threadmill. Higher level shouldn't just mean higher numbers, it should mean more abilities, primarily.

[Drachasor]

I've been messing around some with a system that gets rid of attack rolls. You might not do any damage on an attack, but you'll help the next guy breach the defenses.

Haven't worked on it in a while though, I need to get back to it. Going through some of what makes D&D good has made me realize how important subsystems can be. They can really help flesh out and make characters feel different, even in cases where the net effect might be very similar. That's a problem 4E had when it basically tried to get everyone using the same system.

I'd definitely grab 4E's idea of magical rituals. That's a good way to handle utility magic and even more powerful magical effects. Obviously some really OP stuff would have to be removed.

I'd like to find a way to balance "extra actions" like summons. Preferably without the really lame "you spend your actions to make a summon take an action" because that's extremely immersion-breaking.

Tome of Battle is very inspirational on what martial characters should be able to do on many levels. That would be a huge influence.

Hmm, I've always thought there should be an animate dead-like effect but for constructs -- using the same control pool as for undead. Somewhat random thought there.

[Yondu]

If I was writing D&D 3.5, I will commit suicide .....
Seriously, remove bonus spell to spellcasters at all, rework the combat system eg if you move you only attack once, rework the sneak attack (if you apply DR and SA immunities, you have a double pain for the rogue), rework the feat system (dodge gives you +1 AC for one opponent.....), rework the core class abilities and the combo that could be applied.....
Yeah, it's a lot of things, er..... in fact it's all the game that need to be rewrite...a even better idea, remove 3.5 from the memory of the world...:smallbiggrin:

[Vellus]

If I was writing D&D 3.5, I will commit suicide .....
Seriously, remove bonus spell to spellcasters at all, rework the combat system eg if you move you only attack once, rework the sneak attack (if you apply DR and SA immunities, you have a double pain for the rogue), rework the feat system (dodge gives you +1 AC for one opponent.....), rework the core class abilities and the combo that could be applied.....
Yeah, it's a lot of things, er..... in fact it's all the game that need to be rewrite...a even better idea, remove 3.5 from the memory of the world...:smallbiggrin:

I have to ask this because something in me is just that curious.

If you hate 3.5, as you seem to, why are you hanging about in the 3.5 / pathfinder subforum in the firstplace?

EDIT: Somewhat more on topic, but as a rewrite to fix 3.5 I'd mostly do what I could do lightly nerf high-level magic. It's the thing where, well, magic being highly versatile and outpacing mundanes just... by fluff, makes sense and I don't see what's bad about the power level and abilities of magic in the first place.

However, that means that rather than highly affect casters (I'd buff sorcerer, even) I'd prefer to find means of bringing the mundane classes to relevance past level 6. It'd be hard and honestly I've no idea how to do it. I like some of the way ToB tries to handle things. I think there should be nothing a mundane's class features give that shouldn't be (EX) - essentially, give them ways of doing things that -seem- magic - but it's all just from their nigh superhuman degree of physical mastery. Like Shadow Jaunt and other such abilities.

How would a mundane deal with a flying wizard? Have them capable of making an action that either pulls the wizard down or teleports/floats/jumps the mundane up to the wizard. And then give them means of reducing falling damage, because someone who's all but shuffed off their mortal coil and attained nigh godly power should be capable of handling a fall from that height. Wizard's can, and from first level.

[BWR]

I ended up with a classless/levelless version which after a lot of playtesting ended up... ok. Not really any better or worse than the original, just a bit different.

If I were to keep classes and levels, for the most part I would use Pathfinder, but rework feats (reducing the number of useless feats like Mobility, Endurance, the splitting of 3.x combat maneuver feats).
And seriously rework item creation rules. Personally, I much prefer the idea that any spellcaster can create magic items. It's just that it's way too easy and bland now. Grab the old PO:S&M and adapt the rules (actually I am already doing that), with maybe some inspiration from Ars Magica.

[Yondu]

[QUOTE=Vellus;15553043]I have to ask this because something in me is just that curious.

If you hate 3.5, as you seem to, why are you hanging about in the 3.5 / pathfinder subforum in the firstplace? [QUOTE]

I do not hate 3.5, to be honest, it is for me a broken, unbalance system of play... but I love RPG and as most of the players around me play 3.5, so I have to adapt (In France we say "Love has his reasons that Reason ignore...).
I'm only sad to see if you want to play a character and succefully contribute to the team, I have to fit into builds...That was not the case in previous editions (in my surrounding, we've never searching the best build to defeat the DM in AD&D2...)
On Pathfinder, I do not hate it, in fact, the rework of the 3.5 edition by Paizo, is for me a good thing, It still have balance problem but it is a step to improvement...

[ryu]

Clearly label everything that already exists with tiers in all books to get rid of the game ruining idea that a fighter can play ball effectively with competent spell casters. Make overpowered versions of every class lower than tier 2 and fluff the world as completely magic saturated. Everyone who wants magic easily gets it. People who didn't take to magic training are effectively the new commoners regardless of physical strength. Make all of this clear at the outset so that people who want to just hit things real good can at least feel useful with more magic ability options, and people who want low power games can still play as a group of mundanes. Think of it as paranoia where if you didn't train in magic all magic users are friend computers.

[Kasbark]

When i did my rewrite of 3.5 (designed specifically for my group) i started by figuring out my design goals and worked from there.

My goal where to:

Make combat more dynamic
Streamline combat maneuvers
Lower the power disparity between casters and mundanes


The major changes i implemented where:
Remove the full-attack action. You can now make all your attacks as a standard action. (Pounce allows you an extra attack at your highest BAB when charging).

All combat maneuvers are now riders on your normal attacks. If you hit you deal damage and the target must make a save or suffer the effects of the effects of the maneuver. They are limited in number of uses per day.

Slow down spell progression. After getting 3rd level spells, full casters need 3 class levels to get access to a new spell level, rather than 2. This means a wizard will get 4th level spells at level 8, 5th level spells at 11 and so on. At 20th level you'll get level 8 spells, which means 9th level spells are epic level (and not used in our group)

Remove or nerf spells we consider overpowered (Polymorph, overland flight, binding spells)

[Tetsubo 57]

Step 1: Burn psionics, no seriously, burn it

Step 2: give monk full BaB and better AC progression that 1/5th their level (:p)

Step 3: use nothing but core books and maybe spell compendium

Simplest rewrite ever!

Out of curiosity, why do you dislike psionics so much? I consider the OGL and even more the Pathfinder psionics rules to be the best spell point system ever written. I wouldn't ever run a campaign without it. I have even considered a pure psionics campaign.

[Tetsubo 57]

For me there are a number of different ways to go. I think the Thousand Suns 2d12 system is quite interesting. But my go-to d20 system would be either Pathfinder or Radiance. Where I fall on the spectrum between those two systems varies from day to day.

[Vultawk]

Firstly, I'd keep the basic D&D stuff: the six ability scores, the classes and races, iconic spells and items, AC, BAB/THAC0, etc. This is the stuff Dungeons and Dragons is made of, and why (personally) I feel 4th Edition was a wholly different game than the previous editions. 3e and 3.5 changed a lot, but it was still recognizably D&D.

Second, I'd rework the system to be of a much lower power scale throughout, playing to expectations of the average person who comes into the game (i.e. that they'll be playing their version of a sword and sorcery novel, not a high magic superheroes with swords game). Warrior classes and roguish types would probably stay about the same, and the spellcasters would likely be hit with nerfs due to this, but that would mostly be changes to the spells themselves, as in the next one.

Third, I'd put drawbacks back into the spells. I remember when Haste aged you a year, which is a good limiter of such power, and has a good bit of fluff to it that wizards and others who dally in the realms of magic are breaking natural laws. (I also hate the idea of "safe" Wishes, but I'd probably keep the concept, though I'd trim the list a bit.) There would be spells without drawbacks (typically blasty-types and healing aside from resurrection), and most of the drawbacks would be in line with the power of the spell, so minor spells would have less drawbacks, but more powerful ones would have larger ones.

Fourth, I like feats and I think that aside from the batches of generic "everyone" feats, there should be more feats that mimic class abilities, and some class abilities should be feats. A good example is Animal Companions/Bonded Mount (though I'd allow that to be an "everyone" feat).

Fifth, I'd use the Pathfinder skill system, only with scaling DC's for most mental skills. Diplomacy shouldn't have fixed DC's, for example.

[killem2]

Take it to a high school english teacher, because they could correct the writing in it. :smallamused:

A team of proofreaders. :smallannoyed:

Also, I would hire the Magic the Gathering R&D team to man the writing as well, because if you want to see a concrete team that knows how to do rules and address every possible out come, these guys can do it.

[BowStreetRunner]

I would use KEYWORD abilities, where each such ability is defined in a section separately from the race or class description. The race or class ability that grants the keyword ability might add restrictions, but the ability would be clearly and universally defined in one place.

For instance, SMITE would be a keyword ability. The basic mechanics of the smite ability would never change. One class might allow you to make a smite attack only against evil creatures, another might allow you to smite any creature, and each might allow the ability to function a different number of times per day, but the core ability would always be the same.

This would alleviate confusing situations where CAMOUFLAGE and HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT have completely different mechanics for different classes and/or races that gain these abilities. It would also mean that when dealing with prestige classes or feats that have the ability as a prerequisite, no one would be left wondering if the Hellbreaker's 'Mantle of Darkness' ability qualified as hide in plain sight.

[Ionbound]

Beyond typos and RAW sense-fixing, I'd give Martial Classes powers, similar to what spellcasters have. Not maneuvers like in ToB, but feats of strength. Stuff that is truly superhuman, like legendary heroes of old. Each feat would have an HP cost to represent the toll it takes on the human body, but you'd get X per day, and if you wanted more you could pay the price to use more. Magic would be mostly unchanged, but the truly gamebreaking stuff like wish and suchlike would become rituals.

[BowStreetRunner]

...the truly gamebreaking stuff like wish and suchlike would become rituals.

Any spell powerful enough to be considered a plot device should be taken out of reach of ordinary spell-casting. Similar to how Artifacts treated, spells like Wish and Miracle really need to be placed in a subset of the rules that keep the players from realistically considering them for casual abuse.

[Snails]

When i did my rewrite of 3.5 (designed specifically for my group) i started by figuring out my design goals and worked from there.

My goal where to:

Make combat more dynamic
Streamline combat maneuvers
Lower the power disparity between casters and mundanes


I really like your ideas.

The full iterative attack mechanics sort of made sense, from a 1e/2e mindset where tactical maneuvering did not exist. But the incentives did not encourage interesting tactical play. It was an interest idea, but a failed one.

The 4th, 5th, and 6th level spells are incredibly meaty and yield big boosts to spellcaster power. There is no real reason to not dole these out a bit more slowly.

[killem2]

Aside from the editing portion, as far as actual content, I would go into at least a minimum of 1 page per skill, and make sure that there is at least a fair list of DC gages.

I would also implement more professions, and their impact on the game, and give the players the power to create what professions would be used for.

Sort of like how Pathfinder has ways for players to create their own races.


I would remove level adjustments completely or put a few level adjusted races in the core books so explanation of it is readily available. I would also have the crux of the formulas put out there so everyone could see how monsters are truly made so savage progression could be done.

I would expand firearms, and weapons.

Fighter class would def need to get some abilities found in TOB as class features.

Aside from books, I would have made the miniatures of d&d be actually a part of the game rather than trying to make money off them for some other game. Why wizards of the coast never got into 3d terrain/objects/miniatures on a massive scale specially as accessories to the game is beyond me.

Stop making **** collectible items and just sell the freaking items.

[Ceaon]

Here's some things I'd consider:

1. Adjust XP-gain of classes based on their power. This way, stronger classes are lower level and become less powerful. Mages have to be protected at all times by their 5-level higher fighters. This'd mean an 10th level fighter still has little chance against an 10th level wizard, but 10th level fighter may be up against 7th level wizards.
2. Make AC rise by HD, not by magic (and magic items);
3. No dead levels (new spells do not count as dead levels);
4. Reduce front-loadedness of classes, mostly by increasing 'back'-loadedness;
5. Revise skill list;
6. Revise feat list;
7. Revise equipment (weapons, armor etc.) so that they are more different.

[CRtwenty]

First off I'd remove the "Casting Defensively" option. If you want to cast anywhere near combat you'd better be willing to risk an AoO.

[Eldan]

Here's some things I'd consider:

1. Adjust XP-gain of classes based on their power. This way, stronger classes are lower level and become less powerful. Mages have to be protected at all times by their 5-level higher fighters. This'd mean an 10th level fighter still has little chance against an 10th level wizard, but 10th level fighter may be up against 7th level wizards.

I never liked this one. Level is there as a measure of power, I think one Level X should be equal to another level X. What I'd do is spread out a wizard's power over more levels. Make them start as relatively weak apprentices or nonmagical scholars.

[Zombimode]

Here's some things I'd consider:1. Adjust XP-gain of classes based on their power. This way, stronger classes are lower level and become less powerful. Mages have to be protected at all times by their 5-level higher fighters. This'd mean an 10th level fighter still has little chance against an 10th level wizard, but 10th level fighter may be up against 7th level wizards.

Problem: this goes directly against the way leveling up works in D&D 3.5
You choose the class you want to take a level at at the time you level up. Thats why you need uniform XP tables. D&D 3.5 isn't actually a class based system. It just offers prepacked ability packages arranged in tracks of class levels.
See it this way: you're not a level 10 wizard or level 10 fighter. You're a level 10 character with 10 levels in fighter (or whatever).

Edit: also, seconding what Eldan said

[Tarqiup Inua]

Perhaps 9th and epic level spells should take much longer to research so that only those 300 years old geezers can cast them.

PC wizards should be still powerful in their own way, but shouldn't gain so much power in last few levels. The real power should be unattainable for PC not because mechanic wouldn't allow it, but because spending so much time on it would be incompatible with pacing of most campaigns.

I don't believe spells should be made less powerful, but rather the magic should be harder to get access to and more taxing and/or unreliable.


Take movie Excalibur, where Merlin casts his epic level magic - that's pretty much like I imagine epic level wizard... and then a woman with some talent in magic (Morgana) comes in and defeats him in his own game - because using powerful magic isn't without danger even for someone like him and when I say "danger", I don't mean the obligatory "10d6 damage from backlash, I can take that"

[Eldan]

If I rewrote it, I'd probably do something like that.

I'd start by stretching everything out to 30 levels, not 20. At level one, the wizard is a scholar. You study languages, arcane lore, perhaps a bit of truenaming. By level 5 or so, you get smallish tricks. What most people think of as D&D spells comes around level 8-10. And from there, you scale up to about level 30. Wizards as we know them start at level 10.

Fighters as we know them end at level 10. Perhaps there's a short overlap, but not much. After that, they simply aren't really appropriate anymore.

In the current system and the 20 level structure, spellcasting classes could easily all be prestige classes that require 8 ranks of Knowledge: Arcane or something else that's appropriate.

[Thrudd]

If I rewrote it, I'd probably do something like that.

I'd start by stretching everything out to 30 levels, not 20. At level one, the wizard is a scholar. You study languages, arcane lore, perhaps a bit of truenaming. By level 5 or so, you get smallish tricks. What most people think of as D&D spells comes around level 8-10. And from there, you scale up to about level 30. Wizards as we know them start at level 10.

Fighters as we know them end at level 10. Perhaps there's a short overlap, but not much. After that, they simply aren't really appropriate anymore.

In the current system and the 20 level structure, spellcasting classes could easily all be prestige classes that require 8 ranks of Knowledge: Arcane or something else that's appropriate.

That's definately an interesting take on it, would be a very different game for sure. No such thing as a low level caster, low level play is essentially non-magical combat/tactics and skills. After level 10, all characters prestige into some type of caster or magical abilities. If people want to play as wizards, you just start a high level campaign.

That's not where I would go in my homebrew, however. I don't think that wizards are as broken as a lot of people. I feel like some spells need to be tweaked, some possibly removed, and I definately would implement negative effects for using certain high level spells ala 1ed AD&D. This means that aging, disease and sanity rules need to be a part of the core RAW, at least where high level wizards are concerned. I guess it could still be optional if people want to allow crazy high powered magic without repercussions in their game, but I would definately include the limiters for my own. Wish, I think, should not be a spell that can be researched by default (you have to find it via adventure) and it should come with a healthy dose of GM fiat and twisting-your-words-back-on-you built into it. Again, ala the AD&D description of the spell, you should expect your DM to try to screw you over with technicalities and creative interpretations of your words, especially if you use the spell to blatently ask for more personal power.

At low levels (1-3) I think casters, especially wizards, actually need a boost rather than nerfing. Also, right now I feel like the sorcerer and wizard class can be combined. We don't need two classes that have identical spell lists with a slight difference in the manner that they cast.
New Wizard ideas:
There was an idea presented on another thread here along a similar line. I would keep the RAW regarding learning and finding spells and recording them in the spellbook. But daily spell prep will be different, this is where it combines with the sorcerer. The wizard will study a number of spells each day basically equal to the number of spells a sorcerer would know, and then has a daily number of spell slots which can be used to cast any of the spells that have been studied. So limited spontaneous casting. I still want the planning and forethought built into the wizard, but I also don't want wizards to always take the same few spells, which tends to happen. If they have the ability to spontaneously choose, they could have some more interesting utility spells prepared but not feel like they are leaving themselves too vulnerable in case of unexpected combat. They still have the full depth of spells in their spellbook to make for interesting play vs the current sorcerer, but they need to plan ahead and choose a small list to have access to each day. The exact number of spells studied per day can be tweaked, as well as available spell slots. Without playtesting I'm thinking it would be spells known per day as current sorcerer, spell slots per day as current wizard.
Also, I feel there needs to be something in place to encourage lower level wizards to select more utility spells for the spellbook and not feel like they need only combat spells. That is partly on the DM and the type of game being run, but it can also be addressed by the rules. I have a couple ideas for this which both come from 4th ed. One is to have "ritual" casting rules. You have the option of casting most or all spells as a ritual. This means it does not need to be memorized beforehand, you can read it right out of the spellbook, but the time required for casting is significantly higher (impossible to do in combat situations). That could be abused, I suppose, but higher level rituals should require both extremely long casting times and material or XP costs. Sure, you can sit in the dungeon for 2 hours performing the ritual, but good luck getting through it without an interruption...fighters bar the door! This is probably best reserved only for specific utility spells, not everything. Alternatively or additionally, I think I would try giving lvl 1 wizards a "mastered spell", which should be a lvl 0 spell that they can cast at will. The spells available for this should be tweaked to make sure it will not be game-breaking, but give the wizard some slightly useful magic that can be used all the time. Daze is the only one I can think of right off that needs to be adjusted, either moved to lvl 1 or changed to a touch attack w save instead of a 25ft range with no attack roll. I would add a couple more ranged touch attack spells that do 1d3 damage similar to acid splash and ray of frost but with different elements/forces just for flavor (definately nothing which automatically hits, or increases with level). I think the range on these also should not increase with level, you need to use a spell slot for that. So a wizard has some weak short range magic for protection, and won't necessarily feel like they need to memorize magic missile every day, but the amount of damage they do will be less than a small crossbow or dagger and still rely on a roll to hit, so not a game changer.

I would also adjust clerics slightly. Domains should be more significant, and give the cleric something more meaningful than a weapon proficiency and a single spell.
New Clerics: Expand each domain to an entire spell list (though many domains will still overlap on various spells). They have fewer spells overall to choose from, but get more thematically appropriate spells. Would probably need to create a number of new spells with this in mind. Each domain will have a spell or ability that automatically gets a small number of uses each day above and beyond the normal spell slots prayed for (I'm thinking 3 uses per day). This way a healing domain could actually have more healing available and still prepare some other spells, like maybe a 1d4 cure spell would be appropriate for this. A cleric of the seduction goddess would have a few daily uses of a weaker type of charm person, etc. The way domains are now are trying to do this, but I don't feel it is enough with just one more spell each day. Having a cleric specializing in healing should atually give your party more healing, you shouldn't need to specialize in healing just to have one healing spell.
Since druids have an entire spell list of their own and are generally seen to be pretty powerful, they may not need to change as much. But it might be nice to allow them a couple options other than just summoning as their spontaneous casting choice. Maybe your druid would choose to specialize in either animal, plant, or weather spheres, and the spontaneous casting choices will be along those lines. I would consider doing the same for druids as for clerics, and instead of replacing a prepared spell with the spontaneous spell, they just get 3 uses per day of their sphere spell. These changes will go some way to mitigating the 15 minute adventuring day for low level parties, and won't really have a big impact on higher level play.

Adjustments to Fighters and martial classes:
Fighters and all the martial classes should have maneuvers and stances built into their level progression, but not exactly TOB. I don't like the overt magical nature of many of the feats and requiring specialized classes or caster levels to use them, dealing fire damage, etc. Fighting skills should be mundane physical and mental abilities, not Ex or Su powers. Some of the TOB maneuvers can be used, but stripping away the supernatural and magical elements, and some new ones created. Each fighter will feel unique, specialize in certain types of weapons, an have different tactics at their disposal.
Also, it makes no sense for Rangers specifically to have two weapon fighting as something which defines their class. There's no reason a ranger would specialize in two weapon fighting over any other type of fighter. Archery, yes. For their other combat style option, there should be a different set of feats which represent a sort of maneuverable guerilla style of combat, which could use environmental and terrain features to assist in melee. Favored enemy can also be represented as a tree of maneuvers which help to fight certain types of enemies (but could possibly be applied in other situations), rather than just +2 to hit. There should still be +2 for tracking the favored enemy.

[Drachasor]

Hmm, an addendum to what I said earlier.

I'd add in minion rules and have summoning spells use them. This was a good thing about 4E.

[Eldan]

Would minion rules work with summoning? I mean, I haven't played 4E, but the way I understand it, Minions are "one hit and they die".

With Summoning, that would essentially mean "caster wastes a turn to summon, opponent wastes a turn to kill". It's a 0-sum game, except the caster just used a spell-slot. If the enemy has more than one attack per turn, it's even worse.

[Drachasor]

Would minion rules work with summoning? I mean, I haven't played 4E, but the way I understand it, Minions are "one hit and they die".

With Summoning, that would essentially mean "caster wastes a turn to summon, opponent wastes a turn to kill". It's a 0-sum game, except the caster just used a spell-slot. If the enemy has more than one attack per turn, it's even worse.

Let's say a summoning spell summoned 4 creatures by default. Go one level down, then it is 8 (or some such). They do all get to act immediately when they appear. They do fixed damage on hits and have one attack roll.

If the enemy focuses on killing them, those are still hits that don't strike at the party. Minions typically take no damage when they make a save.

I think the rules could be adjusted well and would make summoning easier to manage and balance, overall.

[Scots Dragon]

Rewriting D&D 3.5e from the ground up... since I actually intend to do something similar anyway, albeit with Pathfinder rather than straight 3.5e, I suppose I could give something of a similar thought experiment here. The first thing I'd do is go back and look at what worked in the previous editions that doesn't work in the current edition, even if only because I prefer some of the style and approach of various OSR games.

I suppose these are the things I would keep;
The class list, at least, would not have any removed entries. I might add some entries like knights/cavaliers, or other various classes whose direct theme is not well-represented amongst the core eleven. But ultimately those core eleven would remain.
Spellcasting methods for clerics, wizards and druids. They would remain as utterly Vancian casters because that's one of the most iconic things about Dungeons & Dragons.
Other classes keep their basic method of functioning. I don't want to make fighters into mages-of-another-name wielding borderline Vancian magic abilities any more than I want to make wizards into auto-specialists who only gain access to 7th level spells or something like that.
The nine-alignments would remain the same.
The general flavour and fluff of worlds like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Planescape would remain the same, which would kind of influence the rest of this.
Monsters would work approximately like player characters in the way of receiving ability scores and skills based on the type of monster they are; regardless of whether they're dragons or undead.

Here's what I'd remove or change;
I'd either get rid of or severely alter the feat system. As created currently, it's a horrible system with a wide selection of non-scaling and non-useful abilities that nonetheless are necessary to get any remotely good choices for warrior classes. If I were to keep feats, I would make them into kind of a hybrid system like the old proficiency systems from AD&D 1e/2e.
I'd change the skills system to something that involved less book-keeping, similar to True20, Star Wars Saga Edition, and the non-weapon proficiencies from AD&D 2e, but I'd at least keep it reasonable.
Multiclassing and monsters-with-class levels would be changed to work like old AD&D dual-classing and multiclassing depending on your choices.
Classes would have different experience progressions, alongside the return of AD&D multiclassing. A fighter should progress slower than a wizard at lower levels, but progress faster after hitting the sweet-spot.
Prestige classes would be changed to become more like AD&D 2e 'kits' or Pathfinder's archetypes; you could actually generally start out as a shadowdancer rogue, or a loremaster wizard, in exchange for certain other class features. Multiclass archetypes would be ignored in favour of, well, multiclassing unless they specifically add something to the game.
I would alter the concentration and defensive casting system to make it more difficult for high level wizards to achieve.
Like in most OSR games, hit dice for classes outside of those granted by monsters or otherwise would cap out at around 8-11 or so outside of special cases like monks or racial hit dice.
Racial hit dice would max out at eight-sided dice, though like Pathfinder would be tied to attack bonus. For slow attack progression, you would have d4s, for medium you would have d6s, and for fast you would have d8s.
Ability scores would remain the same for base modifiers, but I would give new bonuses for high ability scores; a high constitution adding faster healing and immunity to poison, for instance. And on top of that, I would also cap other bonuses. Non-warrior classes and monster hit dice, for instance, would only add half of their constitution modifier to bonus hit points. Exceptions would exist for certain special monsters.
High ability scores would be made rarer by way of making wish-based boosting much harder to achieve, and making magic items which boost ability scores only available for certain abilities such as strength and dexterity rather than constitution or mental ability scores.
Racial ability scores would be reduced for most monsters, capping out at thirty or so for most monsters outside of unique cases like the tarrasque.
Saving throws would work like they do in Castles & Crusades by way of being tied to individual abilities, though without a primes-based system. Instead your class choice would give you a bonus to appropriate saving throws. Multiclass bonuses would overlap, using the highest of your classes. Challenge ratings and wealth by level are generally concepts that would be removed and burned. They make the game far too predictable.

Things that I would add:
Classes like sorcerers, bards, and other spontaneous casters would be given a mana system rather than spell slots. I'd make it mathematically identical, but having energy reserves rather than having a number of fixed spell slots would give them a stronger theme, I think. I would also add the option for 'wizardly bards', who prepare their spells from books like the version of the class in 0e and 2e.
A non-ToB styled combat manoeuvre system. Fighters should benefit most from this, but paladins, rangers and barbarians would also get a few nifty little tricks.
A new and improved system of multiple attacks.
Occasional drawbacks to spellcasting. Particularly powerful divine or arcane spells could have temporary negative drawbacks for spellcasters; kind of like in the early days when magic-users or priests would age after casting spells like gate or wish. Instead they'd suffer temporary ability damage.
A detailed conversion guide for adding monsters, classes and other such from other editions of the game.
Something akin to minion rules to represent easily-killed monsters. But they would only be applicable to things like goblins, orcs, humans and other humanoids who you'd expect to fight small armies of. They would apply mostly for the case of expediency and fleshing out encounters rather than anything else.
A more 2e AD&D or Swords & Wizardry styled initiative system. Not to be complicated, but one that allows for a bit more unpredictability in encounters.

[Eldan]

I thought about it some more and here's what I think I'd do.

I'd steal the idea of tracks from Legend and the idea of Tiers from 4th edition.

Tracks means that instead of a class, one picks three lists of abilities that scale with level, not just one. I'd also do away with the basic idea of a chassis and instead bind that to tracks: combat tracks get more hit points and attack bonus, other tracks get more skills or saves. This allows a lot more flexibility: if you want to have a character who talks to ancestor spirits and flies into berserker rages in combat by letting the spirits of his tribes greatest warriors possess him, you no longer need to cross-class spirit shaman, barbarian and a homebrew prestige class, you pick up a track for rage, one for basic combat and one for spirit magic. It's a neat solution to alternate class features and dual prestige classes.

Levels 1-5 are the heroic tier. Here, magic is rare and subtle. Fighters and rogues get through life with their swordplay and wits, while clerics and scholars are taken along for their broad expertise.
The martial characters have the combat power, they know the wilderness, trapping, ambushing, thievery, whatever else they want to learn.
The scholarly characters could have a broad variety of skills, but no spells as such. Languages, healing, alchemy, geography, diplomacy are all fine and useful arts. At the higher levels, some subtle magic might creep in. Perhaps the ability to sense supernatural energies, but no overt magic.

Levels 6-15 are the mystic tier. Here, everyone picks up a new supernatural track of some kind. Either this represents the magic you always had, if you start here, or you just learn about the energies of the world more, if you leveled up from the lower tier. Scholars become wizards, priests become clerics, fighters begin to master their bodies to incredible or even divine degrees, start channelling ki, develop psychic metabolisms and other such things, rogues turn into shadowdancers, magical assassins, ghostlike killers.

16-20 is epic. Here, we just go crazy. Your fighter is on a level somewhere between Cu Chulainn, Rama and Gilgamesh. Your wizard is a small god. You're hopping the planes shaking hands with avatars of the mystical forces and fight over the fate of universes.


So, basically just run with the idea that the game's feeling changes radically over the span of 20 levels. Embrace it and make it a basic assumption of the game.
I'd probably also include options for staying in a tier at maximum level, E6 like. You are level 5 but don't want to graduate your game to mystical? Here's a few suggestions. You like being a powerful character, but don't quite want to go into the epics? Here, read this.

[undead hero]

Tons of people have great and not so great ideas.

Make everyone tier 4 to tier 3, make a supplemental book for tier 1 classes.

However...

Make combat maneuvers be a DC that someone needs to hit in order to not be bullrushed.

Fighter McFighter wants to bull rush the monster off the cliff. His CMDC (combat maneuver DC) is 10 + Str + Size Mod + Feat Bonus. The target gets a Fort or Reflex save to resist or dodge the maneuver.

The math needs fixed but I would love to see this martial system in play.

Edit:

Oh the additional attacks a PC gains from high base attack bonus are at the highest BAB.

BAB 1 : one attack at Bab 1
BAB 6: two attacks at BAB 6

And so on...

[Sylthia]

Part of the problem is that it will still be a growing game. This is especially problematic with caster classes.

When creating spells, care must be taken to ensure that they to not affect each other in a powerful way. But it is almost certain that when the next book/web-page/expansion comes out with a couple new spells, Tippy will be there to break everything.

Were it me, I would;
1) Gives casters a boost at lower levels
2) Give melee some way to have powers be exponential (attacks that stack with maneuvers, magic resistance, something)
3) Restrict upper level spells drastically. Probably require L8 or L9 spells to become long rituals that require multiple casters.
4) Have a guild for making Feats. Knife throwing and archery could be good if some feats and items that already exists were tweaked in a small way
5) Make flanked a condition so that ranged can get precision damage and the +2 if melee is already flanking
6) As a GM, give severe penalties for attempting to rest between each fight just so spells get recharged.

edit: I'd probably go to a recharging spell-point system (Like Ancient Anguish, et al.)

In the end, the game can stay fair only as long as it is simple. But everyone wants a new class/race/power, and adding complexity screws with RAW and allows for Pun-Pun.

For resting, I make it pretty clear that if the party tries to rest they will either be attacked, or if they are in some extra-dimensional plane, they will be attacked once they return. Give your enemies eight hours to prepare for your return in the middle of their lair isn't a good idea, as they can call for their high-level mage friends as back-up.

Resting "on the road" doesn't incur a penalty, unless there is some ticking clock per the plot.

[undead hero]

For resting, I make it pretty clear that if the party tries to rest they will either be attacked, or if they are in some extra-dimensional plane, they will be attacked once they return. Give your enemies eight hours to prepare for your return in the middle of their lair isn't a good idea, as they can call for their high-level mage friends as back-up.

Resting "on the road" doesn't incur a penalty, unless there is some ticking clock per the plot.

This makes no sense. How do the monsters keep finding my hiding places? Oh DM fiat is always a good answer :smallsigh:. Sure if I rest in a hallway of a castle then they can find me but my invisible spell rope trick or nondetection bag of holding that has been hidden?

But hey if I want XP I would just keep resting and when I run out of spells I'll just pack it in and go home. Sure the mission might fail but I'll hit level 20 within a month or two.

[Sylthia]

This makes no sense. How do the monsters keep finding my hiding places? Oh DM fiat is always a good answer :smallsigh:. Sure if I rest in a hallway of a castle then they can find me but my invisible spell rope trick or nondetection bag of holding that has been hidden?

But hey if I want XP I would just keep resting and when I run out of spells I'll just pack it in and go home. Sure the mission might fail but I'll hit level 20 within a month or two.

Maybe not R.A.W. but they'd be able to figure out roughly where the party left and beef up security at that point. One might try to grind XP that way, but inevitably, they'd have a party member or two die, or even a TPK.

[undead hero]

Maybe not R.A.W. but they'd be able to figure out roughly where the party left and beef up security at that point. One might try to grind XP that way, but inevitably, they'd have a party member or two die, or even a TPK.

Mildly optimized party that wants to hide won't leave traces. Having a battle EVERY time they stop resting is just ridiculous. You are just punishing players at this point, not adding to the realism.

I have another submission. Get rid of rule 0 and use 4e's method of DM calls it at the table and then after the game the group votes.

Way to many DMs get a huge ego because it is "their game" and the rules give them god power of veto.

Have this be in the first page of the PHB, DMG, and every other book created.

[Sylthia]

Mildly optimized party that wants to hide won't leave traces. Having a battle EVERY time they stop resting is just ridiculous. You are just punishing players at this point, not adding to the realism.

I have another submission. Get rid of rule 0 and use 4e's method of DM calls it at the table and then after the game the group votes.

Way to many DMs get a huge ego because it is "their game" and the rules give them god power of veto.

Have this be in the first page of the PHB, DMG, and every other book created.

It's not every time they rest, just if they try to in the middle of the dungeon. Just before they enter the dungeon, they can rest safely, usually. I, as a DM, design the dungeon so that it can be completed with a standard "day", and if it's not, I either design a safe point, or throw in scrolls or other things to get them the extra mile. I've never had the group complain, and often they want to keep going longer, when they might have otherwise rested.

I'm sorry if you've misconstrued my statements as some sort of vindictive streak against PCs, it's just a way to prevent the 10 minute adventure day, and make the PCs plan carefully being tackling a dungeon.

[Krobar]

I would do away with metamagic feats (pretty much all of them) and reintroduce casting times to spells.