Critique My Houserules?

[FirebirdFlying]

Hi!

I'm getting a bunch of houserules together in order to eventually run a game (on these forums), and was hoping you all could take a look to see if they make sense/offer suggestions for improvement. I'm mostly concerned about the magic items/wealth.


Base classes are limited to the following, drawn heavily from homebrew here.

Bard/Divine Bard
Beguiler

Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain sorc/wiz spells exist.
Crusader
Dread Necromancer
Elemental Casters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160451) by jiriku, excepting Void Disciple
Factotum

For Arcane Dilettante, factotums may pick spells from the bard, beguiler, or warmage spell lists.

Healer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133118) by T.G. Oskar

I don't really expect most people to play this, but I want to have the option there. Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain cleric and druid spells exist.

Ranger

Wildshape variant only. Also, to fit better with the other casters, rangers cast spontaneously with normal spells per day and using all ranger spells in the Player's Handbook as their spell list (plus 5/level from any other source).
Sagittarius (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117933) by Kellus

For Concurrence, the sagittarius may pick spells from the bard or ranger spell lists, and may also choose one elemental caster's spell list to pick from.
Swordsage
Warblade
Warmage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131346) by T.G. Oskar

Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain sorc/wiz spells exist.


The Conjuration (Teleportation) and Conjuration (Summoning) subschools do not exist. The fastest way to get places should be through flight spells and the like. The Celerity line does not exist.

I don't want the characters to be as dependent on easily-losable magic items, so instead I'm going to allow them to 'buy' innate abilities directly corresponding to various enhancement bonuses. For instance, a character can buy for 1000gp a +1 bonus for shields; this applies whenever they're using a shield of any type. For simplicity's sake, categories go something like this:

armor
shields
melee weapons
ranged weapons
unarmed attacks/natural weapons

They can also buy the equivalent of ability-enhancing items, or items like the Ring of Deflection.

Other magic items are as normal, but must be possible with the spell lists of the allowed classes.


I want to have the sort of campaign where, if a character loses their sword, they can pick up another one and be (nearly) as effective as before. To that end, I'm toying with the following rules for magic items:

Items granting +X to ability scores, AC, attack, etc. do not exist.
Wearable items that grant other benefits do not need to be enchanted to +1 first, but their cost increases by a +1 bonus.
Other magic items only exist if the spell required to make them exists outside of Advanced Learning class features; thus, no boots of teleportation or candles of invocation, etc.

I may make exceptions for some items, such as the Handy Haversack, by changing the spell they're keyed off of.

Then, to deal with the lack of magic items:

Every character receives the following benefits from Vow of Poverty (without the requirements of the feat):

Exalted Strike
Resistance
Ability Score Enhancement

I will be instituting a Defense Bonus variant similar to that from UA, but it will act more like BAB; it stacks with armor, but doesn't defend against touch attacks. Half of the armor check penalty, rounded up, is subtracted from this bonus (so a 20th level crusader wearing full plate would have an armor bonus of 8+11–3, or 16).

{table=head]Level|Poor|Medium|Good
1|+0|+1|+2
2|+0|+1|+2
3|+0|+1|+3
4|+1|+2|+3
5|+1|+2|+4
6|+1|+3|+4
7|+2|+3|+5
8|+2|+3|+5
9|+2|+4|+6
10|+3|+4|+6
11|+3|+5|+7
12|+3|+5|+7
13|+4|+5|+8
14|+4|+6|+8
15|+4|+6|+9
16|+5|+7|+9
17|+5|+7|+10
18|+5|+7|+10
19|+6|+8|+11
20|+6|+8|+11
[/table]
Beguilers, the elemental casters, and the warmage have poor progressions. Bards, factotums, healers, rangers, and sagittariuses have medium progressions. Crusaders, swordsages, and warblades have good progressions.

(Does this make sense, or is it better to just give out armor enhancement bonuses similar to Exalted Strike?)
Characters receive 1/2 wealth by level.

(They don't need to spend much on bread and butter magic items, but I want them to still have nice things. Is this a decent balance? Should they get more/less?)




Using Rich's Diplomacy fix.
Open Lock falls under the Disable Device skill, but the normal rules regarding tools apply.
Characters receive only one bonus language, and that if their Int score is above 13 (that is, they must have a +2 modifier). If Speak Language is a cross-class skill, it requires one rank to be able to speak or read/write (so a character may be able to read but not speak a language or vice versa). If Speak Language is a class skill, one rank covers both speaking and writing.
Everyone gets four free ranks in a Profession and a Craft skill.
Weapon and armor proficiencies can be bought with three skill points.




Everyone in the setting is mostly human by fluff, but players can choose any LA +0 medium sized race without terribly obvious physical differences for their crunch (Raptorans, for instance, would be inappropriate; dwarves could still work, even with darkvision).
There are no class restrictions on alignment or XP penalties for multiclassing. Fractional BAB/saves are in effect.
Death occurs at -Con or -10, whichever is lower.
Eschew Materials for everyone!
Weapon Finesse for everyone! (Still only light weapons, though.)
The two-weapon fighting line is one feat that scales with BAB.


Finally, part of the game concept is that everyone plays two characters in two different settings; one low-level and one high-level. The high-level characters exist in the past, and their actions somehow manage to affect, in small ways, what happens to the low-level characters. Any ideas/advice for how to pull this off without either one of the settings seeming like a railroad?

EDIT: Added some things people have suggested.

[The Trickster]

May I ask how PrC's are handled? Are they allowed? What of those classes give access to spells (something like the sublime chord)?

[FirebirdFlying]

On a case-by-case basis. My initial idea for PrCs that give access to spells is to simply restrict their spell list—the sublime chord, for instance, wouldn't be able to pick from the sorc/wiz list, but would instead have to choose one other arcane caster to draw spells from. They'd still end up with 9th level casting, but it doesn't introduce new spells into the game.

[limejuicepowder]

Looks pretty solid. I like the armor and weapon changes - every character above level 5 or so relying on a plethora of enhanced items always bothered me. I want my warriors to be able to grab whatever is available and pwn face.

Only think I would recommend is some changes to streamline what the mundanes have to deal with. Things like

-Attack rolls key off of dex or str, whichever is higher. Get rid of the nonsense that is weapon finesse

-Give the whole twf line with one feat, that unlocks as the character gains additional attacks.

-Change weapon and armor proficiencies to costs 3 skill points, instead of a feat.

-Give every creature with class levels a pool of Combat Points equal to 1/2 their BaB. By spending a point, they may perform an attack action that would normal draw an AoO, like tripping, bullrushing, etc. Or, they may perform a full attack as a standard action. Only 1 point may be spent per round, and the pool replenishes on a per encounter basis.

[DJroboninja]

One house rule I used back when 3.5 was new was based on the idea that people shouldn't have to be only as good as their best toy. I don't remember the specifics, but it went something like this:

- A fraction (half?) normal treasure
- Feat every odd level
- Ability score increase every even level
- No stat-boosting items

If I remember correctly, it worked decently well - it made it about your character, not your stuff. It's been like ten years since i used that variant, I'll see if I can find the full rules.

[Firechanter]

Basically it's not a bad package; I for one would try your game.

One note; the defense progression, while not a bad thing, seems a bit needlessly complicated, and end up below par. Seriously AC26 at level 20 is ridiculously low. Enemies at those levels couldn't miss that with their tertiary attacks if they tried.
Keep in mind that in a vanilla game, you can stack the following magical bonuses:
- Armour +5
- Deflection +5
- Natural +5
- Shield +5*
- Defending +5**

* Note that virtually everybody can reap the Shield bonus: either you use both your hands for weapons and have an Animated Shield, or you can use a Mithral Buckler. Even Wizards can do that without any drawbacks.

** Defending can be applied to +1 Armour Spikes, which can be buffed by GMW. Voilà, +5 to AC for 8000GP and a spell slot, and technically you can stack multiple Defending weapons because it's an untyped bonus (although that's cheesy).

So in a regular game a Crusader will have _at least_ ~AC 35 if he's super-low-op; much more likely around 40, and quite possibly even 45 or higher.

Long story short, my advice is: simply give _everyone_ a straight +1 AC/Level and be done with it.

[Jurai]

Don't Crusaders work better if they take a hit?

I like it, though.

[FirebirdFlying]

-Attack rolls key off of dex or str, whichever is higher. Get rid of the nonsense that is weapon finesse

-Give the whole twf line with one feat, that unlocks as the character gains additional attacks.

-Change weapon and armor proficiencies to costs 3 skill points, instead of a feat.

Seems fair.



-Give every creature with class levels a pool of Combat Points equal to 1/2 their BaB. By spending a point, they may perform an attack action that would normal draw an AoO, like tripping, bullrushing, etc. Or, they may perform a full attack as a standard action. Only 1 point may be spent per round, and the pool replenishes on a per encounter basis.
I'd have to think about this one a bit; at first glance, it seems to step on the toes of a couple of the ToB maneuvers, as well as Cunning Surge (although it's only a full attack vs. any standard action).



One house rule I used back when 3.5 was new was based on the idea that people shouldn't have to be only as good as their best toy. I don't remember the specifics, but it went something like this:

- A fraction (half?) normal treasure
- Feat every odd level
- Ability score increase every even level
- No stat-boosting items

If I remember correctly, it worked decently well - it made it about your character, not your stuff. It's been like ten years since i used that variant, I'll see if I can find the full rules.

Sounds interesting. You essentially sped up feat and ability score progressions, then?



One note; the defense progression, while not a bad thing, seems a bit needlessly complicated, and end up below par. Seriously AC26 at level 20 is ridiculously low.

I have to admit I don't really know where the point of balance for AC is. I can definitely see making it higher, although I do want a little more differentiation between classes with different base armor proficiencies. What if the progressions were just the BAB ones, and cut the armor check penalty clause? Or apply inherent enhancement/deflection etc. bonuses similar to VoP?


Don't Crusaders work better if they take a hit?

I like it, though.
…yeah, they kinda do.

[Yawgmoth]

You have Beguiler and Warmage, but not Dread Necromancer? 0/10 would not play. :smallmad:

The rest looks fine though.

[ericgrau]

Classes: Limited access to utility magic might become a small issue later. But as long as players can still get them in potion and other item form, assuming NPCs took advanced learning, it should be fine. Can't comment in detail on the individual homebrew classes but hopefully someone else playtested them for you and/or you made sure their abilities were similar in power to the other classes you allow.

Wealth: Add up the gp value of the bonuses you're giving out plus half WBL and see if it's close to full WBL. Or a little higher since there are less choices. I've also done something similar in my sig where basically you get partial WBL points upon level up and you use those to buy the boring items as special abilities instead of items. As long as it adds up to the ballpark of full WBL it should be fine.

For determining AC value remember there's armor enhancement, amulet of natural armor, ring of protection, dusty rose prism ioun stone. The cost to upgrade armor is 1000, 3000, 5000, 7000, 9000 (if you add them up it comes to 1000, 4000, 9000, 16000, 25000). The cost to upgrade the amulet or ring is twice that. The ioun stone is 5000. Then you sort by cheapest first. So the cost of each +1 is: 1000, 2000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 5000, 6000, 6000, 7000, 10000, 10000, etc.

Two characters: Multiple time periods is a pain. I'd put the high level characters in a different location from the low level characters. Preferably where events will later happen in the low level character world. So the low level characters don't run into what the high level characters did until later. Alternatively, run two campaigns one at a time. First the high level characters, then the low level characters.

Skills: Seems a bit random but whatever.

Special: Likewise makes little difference, so it's fine.

I also like that your houserules fit on 2-3 pages, not counting the classes that players only need to look up if they need them. Unlike some of the 20 page player-eye-bleeding monstrosities we sometimes see.

[CombatOwl]

Hi!

I'm getting a bunch of houserules together in order to eventually run a game (on these forums), and was hoping you all could take a look to see if they make sense/offer suggestions for improvement. I'm mostly concerned about the magic items/wealth.


Base classes are limited to the following, drawn heavily from homebrew here.

Bard/Divine Bard
Beguiler

Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain sorc/wiz spells exist.
Crusader
Elemental Casters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160451) by jiriku, excepting Void Disciple
Factotum

For Arcane Dilettante, factotums may pick spells from the bard, beguiler, or warmage spell lists.

Healer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133118) by T.G. Oskar

I don't really expect most people to play this, but I want to have the option there. Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain cleric and druid spells exist.

Ranger

Wildshape variant only. Also, to fit better with the other casters, rangers cast spontaneously with normal spells per day and using all ranger spells in the Player's Handbook as their spell list (plus 5/level from any other source).
Sagittarius (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117933) by Kellus

For Concurrence, the sagittarius may pick spells from the bard or ranger spell lists, and may also choose one elemental caster's spell list to pick from.
Swordsage
Warblade
Warmage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131346) by T.G. Oskar

Advanced Learning works as normal; this is the only way certain sorc/wiz spells exist.


The Conjuration (Teleportation) and Conjuration (Summoning) subschools do not exist. The fastest way to get places should be through flight spells and the like.

I want to have the sort of campaign where, if a character loses their sword, they can pick up another one and be (nearly) as effective as before. To that end, I'm toying with the following rules for magic items:

Items granting +X to ability scores, AC, attack, etc. do not exist.
Wearable items that grant other benefits do not need to be enchanted to +1 first, but their cost increases by a +1 bonus.
Other magic items only exist if the spell required to make them exists outside of Advanced Learning class features; thus, no boots of teleportation or candles of invocation, etc.

Then, to deal with the lack of magic items:

Every character receives the following benefits from Vow of Poverty (without the requirements of the feat):

Exalted Strike
Resistance
Ability Score Enhancement

I will be instituting a Defense Bonus variant similar to that from UA, but it will act more like BAB; it stacks with armor, but doesn't defend against touch attacks. Half of the armor check penalty, rounded up, is subtracted from this bonus (so a 20th level crusader wearing full plate would have an armor bonus of 8+11–3, or 16).

{table=head]Level|Poor|Medium|Good
1|+0|+1|+2
2|+0|+1|+2
3|+0|+1|+3
4|+1|+2|+3
5|+1|+2|+4
6|+1|+3|+4
7|+2|+3|+5
8|+2|+3|+5
9|+2|+4|+6
10|+3|+4|+6
11|+3|+5|+7
12|+3|+5|+7
13|+4|+5|+8
14|+4|+6|+8
15|+4|+6|+9
16|+5|+7|+9
17|+5|+7|+10
18|+5|+7|+10
19|+6|+8|+11
20|+6|+8|+11
[/table]
Beguilers, the elemental casters, and the warmage have poor progressions. Bards, factotums, healers, rangers, and sagittariuses have medium progressions. Crusaders, swordsages, and warblades have good progressions.

(Does this make sense, or is it better to just give out armor enhancement bonuses similar to Exalted Strike?)
Characters receive 1/2 wealth by level.

(They don't need to spend much on bread and butter magic items, but I want them to still have nice things. Is this a decent balance? Should they get more/less?)




Using Rich's Diplomacy fix.
Open Lock falls under the Disable Device skill, but the normal rules regarding tools apply.
Characters receive only one bonus language, and that if their Int score is above 13 (that is, they must have a +2 modifier). If Speak Language is a cross-class skill, it requires one rank to be able to speak or read/write (so a character may be able to read but not speak a language or vice versa). If Speak Language is a class skill, one rank covers both speaking and writing.
Everyone gets four free ranks in a Profession and a Craft skill.




Everyone in the setting is mostly human by fluff, but players can choose any LA +0 medium sized race without terribly obvious physical differences for their crunch (Raptorans, for instance, would be inappropriate; dwarves could still work, even with darkvision).
There are no class restrictions on alignment or XP penalties for multiclassing. Fractional BAB/saves are in effect.
Death occurs at -Con or -10, whichever is lower.
Eschew Materials for everyone!


Finally, part of the game concept is that everyone plays two characters in two different settings; one low-level and one high-level. The high-level characters exist in the past, and their actions somehow manage to affect, in small ways, what happens to the low-level characters. Any ideas/advice for how to pull this off without either one of the settings seeming like a railroad?

These rules do not sound fun to me. The base class list is far too small and arbitrary for my tastes; in my opinion, if you're going to put a straightjacket on 3.5e I don't get the point in playing it at all? The elimination of conjuration (Teleportation) is a major problem for high level play--if the healbot dies, the game grinds to a halt while everyone back-tracks to town to get them brought back. Teleportation keeps the plot bus on course. If the concern with teleportation is that it's abusive, consider removing just the tactical teleportation spells and increasing the casting time on teleport to 10 minutes or 1 hour. It still remains useful outside of combat in smoothing along the (frankly rather boring) travel scenes (okay, we all overland flight all day...), but it prevents people from seriously considering it as an option at dramatic moments.

The game mechanics are not even remotely intended for static bonus items to be removed. You've basically given non-casters a huge nerf and left casters mostly untouched. Casters actually have an even bigger advantage because there's little non-casters can do to boost saves beyond leveling and multiclassing. It's probably a good thing you got rid of fighters and barbarians, because they would probably be unplayable under those magic item rules. The implied VoP helps that a little, but it's pushing them way behind the curve... and since it's a universal bonus the casters still get the benefits even if they won't make much use of exalted strike (except for ray spells... where they will still get a bonus to hit). VoP is strong, but it isn't strong enough to completely replace the static bonuses given by the typical adventurer's WBL in magic items. From my understanding of your intent, you're trying to make martial types less focused on specific pieces of equipment, but I don't think you'll really achieve that goal given that the selection of non-static bonuses on magic weapons will just become all the more critical ("Oh, that greatsword that dropped is nice, but it doesn't have Collision, so I'll keep my current weapon."). This gets even worse because of your variant defense bonus--the game already assumes that you'll get weapons with certain static attack bonuses at certain levels when balancing monsters. By eliminating those static bonuses and still providing AC scaling, you are tilting things far more in favor of defense than the normal game provides.

Let's look at this another way. Say I'm playing an 11th level Warblade. It's an encounter with a juvenile gold dragon. That dragon by normal rules has an AC of 25. Even if we assume that racial HD for dragons is a poor progression for defense bonus, that puts the AC of that dragon at 30. My warblade has a 20 strength (max at first, plus two advancements). That's a +11 to hit from BAB, +5 to hit from strength, and +2 from Exalted Strike. So I have a +18 to hit. I need a 12 to hit. Compare this to a normal D&D game, where I would almost certainly have at least a +3 weapon and +4 str boosting item as a warblade at 11. AC of the dragon is 25, I have +11 BAB, +7 from strength, and +3 from my weapon. That's a +21 to hit. I need to roll a 4 to hit that dragon. That's a pretty huge difference in favor of the defender under your house rules. It may not seem like much, but hitting against HP is already a poor way to fight in D&D, and making it far less likely to hit just compounds the problem. It's a good thing that the only fighter types are martial initiators, because they're going to need the boost that follows very badly just to remain vaguely playable.

Maybe the intention is to draw out the combat, but what this rule actually does is drive people even more towards preferring save-or-die spells, and the classes that provide them. Why play a martial type when I'm never going to get much better at hitting things as I level because the AC of my enemies keeps scaling up faster than my ability to improve my attack bonus?

[The Trickster]

These rules do not sound fun to me. The base class list is far too small and arbitrary for my tastes; in my opinion, if you're going to put a straightjacket on 3.5e I don't get the point in playing it at all? The elimination of conjuration (Teleportation) is a major problem for high level play--if the healbot dies, the game grinds to a halt while everyone back-tracks to town to get them brought back. Teleportation keeps the plot bus on course. If the concern with teleportation is that it's abusive, consider removing just the tactical teleportation spells and increasing the casting time on teleport to 10 minutes or 1 hour. It still remains useful outside of combat in smoothing along the (frankly rather boring) travel scenes (okay, we all overland flight all day...), but it prevents people from seriously considering it as an option at dramatic moments.

The game mechanics are not even remotely intended for static bonus items to be removed. You've basically given non-casters a huge nerf and left casters mostly untouched. Casters actually have an even bigger advantage because there's little non-casters can do to boost saves beyond leveling and multiclassing. It's probably a good thing you got rid of fighters and barbarians, because they would probably be unplayable under those magic item rules. The implied VoP helps that a little, but it's pushing them way behind the curve... and since it's a universal bonus the casters still get the benefits even if they won't make much use of exalted strike (except for ray spells... where they will still get a bonus to hit). VoP is strong, but it isn't strong enough to completely replace the static bonuses given by the typical adventurer's WBL in magic items. From my understanding of your intent, you're trying to make martial types less focused on specific pieces of equipment, but I don't think you'll really achieve that goal given that the selection of non-static bonuses on magic weapons will just become all the more critical ("Oh, that greatsword that dropped is nice, but it doesn't have Collision, so I'll keep my current weapon."). This gets even worse because of your variant defense bonus--the game already assumes that you'll get weapons with certain static attack bonuses at certain levels when balancing monsters. By eliminating those static bonuses and still providing AC scaling, you are tilting things far more in favor of defense than the normal game provides.

Let's look at this another way. Say I'm playing an 11th level Warblade. It's an encounter with a juvenile gold dragon. That dragon by normal rules has an AC of 25. Even if we assume that racial HD for dragons is a poor progression for defense bonus, that puts the AC of that dragon at 30. My warblade has a 20 strength (max at first, plus two advancements). That's a +11 to hit from BAB, +5 to hit from strength, and +2 from Exalted Strike. So I have a +18 to hit. I need a 12 to hit. Compare this to a normal D&D game, where I would almost certainly have at least a +3 weapon and +4 str boosting item as a warblade at 11. AC of the dragon is 25, I have +11 BAB, +7 from strength, and +3 from my weapon. That's a +21 to hit. I need to roll a 4 to hit that dragon. That's a pretty huge difference in favor of the defender under your house rules. It may not seem like much, but hitting against HP is already a poor way to fight in D&D, and making it far less likely to hit just compounds the problem. It's a good thing that the only fighter types are martial initiators, because they're going to need the boost that follows very badly just to remain vaguely playable.

Maybe the intention is to draw out the combat, but what this rule actually does is drive people even more towards preferring save-or-die spells, and the classes that provide them. Why play a martial type when I'm never going to get much better at hitting things as I level because the AC of my enemies keeps scaling up faster than my ability to improve my attack bonus?



In all fairness, the ability modifer from the VoP would give an additional +2 modifier to hit, giving you a 50/50 shot.

[FirebirdFlying]

You have Beguiler and Warmage, but not Dread Necromancer? 0/10 would not play. :smallmad:

Actually, forgot about those. They're added in now.


Classes: Limited access to utility magic might become a small issue later. But as long as players can still get them in potion and other item form, assuming NPCs took advanced learning, it should be fine. Can't comment in detail on the individual homebrew classes but hopefully someone else playtested them for you and/or you made sure their abilities were similar in power to the other classes you allow.
I'll check on the utility magic side. Also, I picked those classes because they seem well done and appear to have been vetted out for this power level; I haven't personally playtested them, so something might come up. :smallredface:



Wealth: Add up the gp value of the bonuses you're giving out plus half WBL and see if it's close to full WBL. Or a little higher since there are less choices. I've also done something similar in my sig where basically you get partial WBL points upon level up and you use those to buy the boring items as special abilities instead of items. As long as it adds up to the ballpark of full WBL it should be fine.

Good way to do it, thanks.



Two characters: Multiple time periods is a pain. I'd put the high level characters in a different location from the low level characters. Preferably where events will later happen in the low level character world. So the low level characters don't run into what the high level characters did until later. Alternatively, run two campaigns one at a time. First the high level characters, then the low level characters.

It's supposed to be a sort of 'getting things from your ancestors' deal. So doing one at a time makes sense, or just scrapping the high-level and having a little more backstory.

CombatOwl (I'm not going to quote everything, it's a bit long):
Thanks for your input! Couple notes:
There's 15 base classes available, although it's true that some are rather similar. Core only has 11. Plus, most archetypes I've thought of are playable, except (it's true!) the bookish wizard. You've probably thought of more. :smallsmile:

Regarding teleportation, it's honestly not the tactical effects so much as the hopping back and forth that I don't like. I don't want the PCs to be able to teleport back to town; it's not that kind of setting. I mean, 'we overland flight all day' doesn't take up a lot of actual playing time, just in-character time. Maybe making teleportation spells involve a long casting time is a good compromise, though.

For the items/static bonuses, you're right about my intent. Is there a way to do that in the system? Changing the given bonuses to apply only to physical weapons (so that casters don't really get those benefits), or making them stronger? Or even (as ericgrau mentioned) making it so that people can apply wealth-by-level as normal to 'buy' the benefits of +X items without actually requiring the item?

The AC thing is, admittedly, worrisome, and exactly what I need help with. The intention was mostly to provide the same sort of static bonus that you get with enchanting items in a way that approximates the necessity of it for each class. It does, however, as in UA only apply to monsters with class levels; the dragon would still have an AC of 25, and the warblade would have an attack bonus of +20. Monsters that wear armor/have levels are going to be more weighted in favor of defense, though.

I may be overcomplicating things.

[kardar233]

Not specifically about your houserules, but I dislike it when DMs outright ban lower-tier classes. Sure, the Fighter is awful in comparison to the Warblade, but it's a source of easy feats and more importantly, has Dungeoncrasher which is worth a Fighter dip on its own. Sufficiently optimized, the Paladin can even overshadow the Crusader in some roles.

I'd say don't ban the lower-tier classes, but slap a big warning sign on them, saying "only if you know what you're doing".

[The Trickster]

Not specifically about your houserules, but I dislike it when DMs outright ban lower-tier classes. Sure, the Fighter is awful in comparison to the Warblade, but it's a source of easy feats and more importantly, has Dungeoncrasher which is worth a Fighter dip on its own. Sufficiently optimized, the Paladin can even overshadow the Crusader in some roles.

I'd say don't ban the lower-tier classes, but slap a big warning sign on them, saying "only if you know what you're doing".

This is true. Paladins and monks are also good dips. Heck, even two levels of swashbuckler isn't horrible (although still a little lackluster).

Funny how the low tier classes get all there good studd so early, isn't it?

[kardar233]

This is true. Paladins and monks are also good dips. Heck, even two levels of swashbuckler isn't horrible (although still a little lackluster).

Funny how the low tier classes get all there good studd so early, isn't it?

You want to go three levels of Swashbuckler for Int to damage, usually.

[Drachasor]

The AC on your characters is going to be really, really awful with that system. It really encourages people to ignore AC and completely go with other defenses.

Consider that a 20th level character focusing on AC is going to have a Ring of Protection +5, +5 Armor, +5 Natural Armor, and quite possibly a Shield +5 (animated). Even without one of those items, that's +15 AC from magic, but your system gives a max of a 11 minus the half the armor check penalty. To say nothing of minor magical items that increase dex or the like which is harder to get with your system (since ability increases are more limited).

This also penalizes people wearing full plate and other heavy armor. Full Plate now just provides a +5 Armor Bonus, so a dex-based build is going to have much better AC pretty quickly.

And it makes it so that if you don't have the good progression, you can definitely just forget about AC because it will never be decent after level 5 or so.

I think you forgot that bonuses to AC are a heck of a lot more common than bonuses to hit.

Btw, the VoP armor stuff is relatively weak at higher levels.

If anything I'd consider giving everyone full BAB and +1 AC/level too. Given the class limitations I don't think that will remotely upset things.

[FirebirdFlying]

What if I just scrap the item thing and instead allow characters to buy permanent enhancements (at normal cost)? So they buy a +1 enhancement bonus for shields—it costs 1000gp, and whenever they use a shield they get that bonus? They buy a +5 deflection bonus, and it acts like a permanent Ring of Protection. It would be customizable and nearly exactly approximate WBL.

Re: lower tier classes; yeah, I guess. I also kinda wanted to keep a handle on all the mechanics possible, but I suppose that doesn't really change too much when adding in fighters and such.

[ericgrau]

As long as you did it part innate and part tangible items I think it should work fine. Some random items like a rope of climbing would be hard to fluff away as innate abilities, and should be bought normally with treasure or found in treasure.

[FirebirdFlying]

Yeah, I agree—I only meant for +X type items, etc. Although a decanter of endless water would make for a pretty great innate ability…

"'Geyser!' I spit at the orc."

Like a minor breath weapon, except I'm not sure how you'd get it to stop…

[T.G. Oskar]

Classes: Limited access to utility magic might become a small issue later. But as long as players can still get them in potion and other item form, assuming NPCs took advanced learning, it should be fine. Can't comment in detail on the individual homebrew classes but hopefully someone else playtested them for you and/or you made sure their abilities were similar in power to the other classes you allow.

I can't say much about jiriku's classes, but I can tell you quite well about the Healer and the Warmage.

The Healer has most of the buffing spells a Cleric would get, so if you fear allies won't get access to bread-and-butter spells (Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Resist Energy, etc.), the Healer can cover for that. A big point I'd like to mention is that Healers gain access to Transmutation spells of the Druid spell list, which includes Shapechange. They're the only class from the list that has that spell accessible, but it's gained pretty late. Otherwise, Healers focus mostly on healing and buffing, so you shouldn't worry about them breaking the game in half.

The Warmage, on the other hand, has a good variety of low-level spells besides blasting ones (Dispel Magic and its Greater upgrade, Resist Energy, Fire Shield, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.) but very little in terms of broken spells (no Gate, no Wish, no Miracle, no Time Stop, no Planar Binding line, etc.; it does have Mordenkainen's Disjunction, though). However, staying as a Warmage means the damage scales REALLY fast. With the VoP-esque ability score increase you get, that means you can harbor a pretty high Intelligence score; high enough to really skyrocket your damage. Since that iteration of Warmage Edge is meant for games where everything is valid, getting a +30 to damage with any Warmage spell you cast by 10th level with a mere 22 Int could be dangerous...particularly when you can net that with low-level spells. You may want to consider reining in the damage potential of Warmage Edge a bit (most people use class level + Int modifier; that's roughly half the damage you'd get compared to original Warmage Edge, though pretty strong early on); you may leave Improved Warmage Edge as-is, because it's meant to keep your lower-level artillery spells working at prime condition.

[Dimcair]

]The Conjuration (Teleportation) and Conjuration (Summoning) subschools do not exist. The fastest way to get places should be through flight spells and the like. The Celerity line does not exist.

Conjuration Teleportation doesn't allow anything that can be used for long distance travel or does it?

[CombatOwl]

There's 15 base classes available, although it's true that some are rather similar. Core only has 11. Plus, most archetypes I've thought of are playable, except (it's true!) the bookish wizard. You've probably thought of more. :smallsmile:

I'm not sure I would characterize the different elemental archetypes of that homebrew elemental caster as different classes. As for core D&D--how many people still running 3.5e keep it limited to core only? I mean, I'm sure there are some, but probably not even a majority? I normally don't run or play in games that limit themselves to PHB1/2 + DMG + MM1.


Regarding teleportation, it's honestly not the tactical effects so much as the hopping back and forth that I don't like. I don't want the PCs to be able to teleport back to town; it's not that kind of setting. I mean, 'we overland flight all day' doesn't take up a lot of actual playing time, just in-character time. Maybe making teleportation spells involve a long casting time is a good compromise, though.

Personally, I don't see a lot of difference between using a long-casting-time teleport and just handwaving three or four in game days to safely overland flight back to town. But I guess that's group style. I confess I prefer hub-and-spoke campaign models.


For the items/static bonuses, you're right about my intent. Is there a way to do that in the system?

It's one of the fundamental problems with the d20 system. Because attack bonuses and AC scale by totally different mechanisms, you can design it one of three ways;

1) Favor the attacker. This is the default assumption.
2) Favor the defender. That's what you've proposed.
3) Balance the two. This sounds good on paper, but leads to very boring gameplay.

The reason #1 is the default assumption is that it's really boring to have your character attack something and do nothing. More modern systems handle this sort of thing by giving characters something else to do (Fate lets you create advantages to setup for future attacks, for example). In d20--because there is a heavy optimization pressure to either cast spells or do full attacks--favoring the defender just leads to frustration for people who are trying to hit ACs. Casters have different issues, and they're not nearly so hard to overcome.

Essentially, if you favor the defender, you're just going to force people into playing casters if they want to have interesting gameplay--if for no other reason than because rarely hitting with martial maneuvers is very boring. At least when you're spellcasting, if they happen to fair their save, they'll either be dead or severely hindered. With martial combat, they either take no damage or take a little bit of damage and keep fighting. The system's solution to all of this is to give martial types magic items that increase their bonuses and let them hit more often and hit harder. By taking that away, you're left with very few options. Maybe you could just say that people are buying magical tattoos or something that give them universal weapon bonuses, but that seems quite odd from a storytelling standpoint. Magic swords and such are fantasy staple, why get rid of them in favor of a somewhat odd universal weapon bonus?

How do you solve this? To be honest, I don't think you can without a whole lot of work. The solutions to this problem lie well outside the bounds of "house ruling" and enter into "system design" territory because you're basically going to have to rewrite large swaths of the game to correctly, fairly, reconcile the desire for weaker magic items with the design of the system. It's fundamentally assumed that characters that rely on gear (martial types, rogues, etc) will be able to acquire better versions of that same gear that provide static bonuses.

Changing the system like that is not necessarily a bad thing, but at that point why play D&D? There's lots of good systems already out there that address these issues and support fantasy settings just fine. Essentially this work has already been done.


Changing the given bonuses to apply only to physical weapons (so that casters don't really get those benefits), or making them stronger?

You might be able to kind of sort of improve it by making your pseudo VoP stronger... maybe Exalted Strike at +1 per three levels or something.


Or even (as ericgrau mentioned) making it so that people can apply wealth-by-level as normal to 'buy' the benefits of +X items without actually requiring the item?

Sure, but why go through the trouble?


The AC thing is, admittedly, worrisome, and exactly what I need help with. The intention was mostly to provide the same sort of static bonus that you get with enchanting items in a way that approximates the necessity of it for each class.

Not all classes are equally equipment dependent. If you want to make casters more powerful, make magic items weaker or more expensive (or reduce WBL). If you want to make martial types stronger, make gear stronger or cheaper.


It does, however, as in UA only apply to monsters with class levels; the dragon would still have an AC of 25, and the warblade would have an attack bonus of +20. Monsters that wear armor/have levels are going to be more weighted in favor of defense, though.

I may be overcomplicating things.

Sure seems like it to me.

[FirebirdFlying]

T.G. Oskar: Thanks for the tip!

Dimcair: Nearly all of the teleportations. Like, well, teleport, which nets you 100miles/caster level.

CombatOwl: I think Core games are more common outside message boards? This (note that I don't frequent other forums, and haven't been here for several years) is the only place I see a lot of 'any/most books allowed'.

There isn't much difference between hand-waving teleport and hand-waving overland flight, except in storytelling. So it'll take a few days in-game to reach the castle, by which time such and such a thing has had more time to happen; yeah, I think it's mostly a difference in playstyle.

Magic swords are a staple, it's true, but they seem less like magic swords when everyone has an identical one. I'd honestly rather have everyone not gear-dependent, but you're right in that this is not the system for that, so I'll approximate it until I find something better.

I know all classes don't have the same level of gear-dependency, which is why I was trying to give the casters less for what they got—but severely underestimated, because that's not where the game fails anyway. I've reverted much closer to the normal system, and I'll figure out how to fluff the results of that.

[The Trickster]

T.G. Oskar:I think Core games are more common outside message boards? This (note that I don't frequent other forums, and haven't been here for several years) is the only place I see a lot of 'any/most books allowed'.

Funny, I have personally seen the complete opposite. It feels like at this point, many of the people who play 3.5 are veterans, with fewer new players available. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, I feel this is true. Many long time players like having many options, because playing core only can get a little tiresome after having played it so many times.

The only other reasons for core only play could be the lack of books to reference, but even that isn't entirely true anymore. Pretty much every book now is available for pdf download somewhere.

I just don't see as many core games played anymore. To which his own, I suppose.