Fixing 3.5, the internet's consensus.

[Shinizak]

So in another forum it was brought up that pathfinder didn't actually fix any of the problems and balance issues that 3.5 had, and there has been an awful lot of talk about how horrible most classes are in it. What is the internet's consensus on how to best approach the daunting task of fixing the fuster cluck that is 3.5?

[Rebel7284]

You need a complete re-write. 5th edition seems to do OK with balancing the core classes while maintaining the 3.5 flavor.

[Shinizak]

well yes, but in this rewrite what specifically would be changed, and how?

[Psyren]

So in another forum it was brought up that pathfinder didn't actually fix any of the problems and balance issues that 3.5 had, and there has been an awful lot of talk about how horrible most classes are in it. What is the internet's consensus on how to best approach the daunting task of fixing the fuster cluck that is 3.5?

If you really think PF is "horrible" and needs "fixing" then your best bet is to play something with a different balance point and design goal entirely, like 5e. What you will not ever get, however, is consensus on those two beliefs.

[eggynack]

The simplest and possibly best method is your basic tier restriction. Open up the tier system for classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293), pick any two adjacent tiers, and exclude anything outside of those two tiers. Tier 2+3 is probably the least balanced setup, and even it provides a reasonably balanced game. Tier 3+4 is among the most popular, I think, offering classes pulled from a wide variety of subsystems, and allowing for just about any role to be filled, but just about any setup has its place.

[Shinizak]

If you really think PF is "horrible" and needs "fixing" then your best bet is to play something with a different balance point and design goal entirely, like 5e. What you will not ever get, however, is consensus on those two beliefs.

I never said I personally felt that way, I actually really like Pathfinder and recently just bought the Bestiary 2 AND rise of the rune lords, but after hearing people gripe about it I am increasingly curious about it.

[Sian]

and Psyren opined that there is 'at least' two mutually exclusive school of thoughts of how it should be balanced

[Flickerdart]

the internet's consensus
Hahahahaha you're funny.

There is absolutely no consensus on how 3.5 could be improved, mostly because different people want to use it for different things. You'll hear people in one corner complaining that the melee is useless compared to summoning dragons that fart bees, and in the opposite corner some grogs will be arguing that the fighter is too good and needs nerfing because it's super implausible that a level 20 character could take an axe to the face or fall off a cliff and survive. One person might want every class to have its own complex subsystem, while another might want every class to be simple and straightforward to play. Some tables will want all classes to contribute equally, and others will defend their right to terrible lodestone characters because it's great for roleplaying.

The trick to making 3.5 into a system that isn't terrible is to pick one of the warrings camps, stick to its vision, and go from there. Compromise will lead to tears.

[Psyren]

I never said I personally felt that way, I actually really like Pathfinder and recently just bought the Bestiary 2 AND rise of the rune lords, but after hearing people gripe about it I am increasingly curious about it.

Thing is, there will always be some subset of the target audience who will gripe about anything. "You can please all of the people some of the time" etc.

The big issue I see is that you're asking for "internet consensus" on a solution, when we don't have consensus on whether a problem even exists at all, much less what that problem might be or how to go about it. I would posit that the vast majority of "balance problems" are due to a player abusing the system - and while some of the fault for that can be laid at the system's door, all of the attempts I've seen at creating an airtight solution have done so by stripping out too much of what makes 3.5 the kitchen sink system that it is. For example, I recall our debates over Legend - a solid system in its own right, but when it came to importing iconic monsters or class builds it came up short. 5e is in a similar boat - a useful system in its own right but bounded accuracy does limit the concepts it can realize relative to 3.5.

Similarly, binding the class selection to the T3/T4 range can stop some bad abuses, but if the players aren't abusing T1 classes they aren't going to be a problem anyway.

[Wiggins]

To me, 3.5 is a toolbox, and a damn good one.

Especially if you can justify allowing all the different resources, and everyone knows the kind of things you'll allow and the kind of things you won't.

It's especially good if either the group together, or failing that the DM can tell when one person is intending a different tier or different level of optimisation, tell them so, and work out how to get them where they want to go (You want to cast a wide range of spells spontaneously by 12th level? Instead of going early entry rainbow warsnake, why not try Sand Shaper?)

The Balance issues are real, but practice makes perfect. It's mostly a matter of getting everyone on board with the tier that the game will be set in, and allowing more optimisation tricks (and the occassional item of huge bonuses!) for those likely to lag behind.

[Troacctid]

If you want balance, try 4th or 5th edition. They're much more balanced. 3.5 is pretty much a hopeless case; it would take such a major overhaul to balance it properly that you're probably better off just porting things you like into 5e. That or focus on balancing your individual group and don't worry about the system itself.

[Sheogoroth]

It's not a video game, it doesn't need to be balanced, it just needs to be fun.
If you, as a DM, feel as though you can improve the fun by tweaking, you do it.
But improved balance is not always improved fun.

[kellbyb]

Can't, and shouldn't.

Snowbluff says it best:

All gaming systems should be terribly flawed and exploitable if you want everyone to be happy with them. This allows for a wide variety of power levels for games for different levels of players.:

[Telonius]

How you fix it depends (at least in part) on what exactly you think is broken. I do think there is some general consensus about things that really don't work well in 3.5:


Class imbalance (even within the magic/mundane divide; Monk vs Crusader, for example).
Magic being much more powerful and versatile than mundane.
The tendency of those power differences to be magnified in higher-level combat.
... then getting completely out of control when things get to Epic.
Higher-level combat bogging down (in terms of real-world playing-time).


I think those are the most widespread and consistent critiques of 3.5. There's a whole bunch of other stuff that could use tweaking: the CR system (or lack thereof), Grappling being a gigantic pain, Sword and Board not being a particularly well-supported playstyle, and lots of others. But I think those are the biggest over-arching issues that you'd probably get at least 3/4 of people to agree on. We've known about these things for over a decade now, and there really isn't that great of a way to fix most of them (other than the Gentleman's Agreement). That's because the root of those problems are in spells.

At least four of those five big issues are explicitly magic-related, and the last one (combat bogging down) is magic-related, as it takes more and more time to remember and add all of the fiddly bonuses. In order to really fix them, you have to either take a +5 Disrupting Axiomatic Nerf-Bat to the spellcasting classes, or go through the entire list of spells with a fine-tooth comb to weed out combinations that are just too good. There are somewhere between 1400 and 2500 spells (I honestly can't remember the final count) published in 3.5, including all of the Completes series and the Spell Compendium, so you can see how massive of an undertaking this would be. (And that's just the spells; it wouldn't even get into how they interact with things like metamagic reducers and the like). The Test of Spite's ban list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=6885281&postcount=2) is a pretty good effort at identifying the worst offenders, but even that isn't a complete list of how a spellcaster can make reality cry four times before breakfast.

The other option, nerfing the casters, has its own set of problems. Nerf it too much, and you make them useless; not enough, and you still have your original problem. Do you make casting harder to do, take longer to accomplish, carry a risk of backfire, happen less often, happen more often but be weaker, something else altogether? Every fix carries its own problems with it, and there's no consensus on which one of them would be the lesser evil.

[eggynack]

Can't, and shouldn't.

Snowbluff says it best:
That is perhaps true on a systemwide level, but when you instantiate down to a particular game, balance seems like a reasonable thing to seek. After all, it is the imbalance intrinsic in the system that would allow both a tier one and tier six campaign to exist, but I'd rather not run the wizard in a team of warriors (or the inverse) unless there's a particular reason we're doing that.

[Psyren]

Magic being much more powerful and versatile than mundane.

No consensus, this should be the case.



The tendency of those power differences to be magnified in higher-level combat.
... then getting completely out of control when things get to Epic.

No consensus, high-level play is designed to be over-the-top.



Higher-level combat bogging down (in terms of real-world playing-time).

Higher-level combat can actually be much faster due to rocket tag and the greater variety of ways to functionally end combat. It's like those chess grandmasters that sit down to a game in progress, glance at the current state of the board and say "Mate in 12" - once you set things up properly the rest is just slitting throats.



The other option, nerfing the casters, has its own set of problems. Nerf it too much, and you make them useless; not enough, and you still have your original problem. Do you make casting harder to do, take longer to accomplish, carry a risk of backfire, happen less often, happen more often but be weaker, something else altogether? Every fix carries its own problems with it, and there's no consensus on which one of them would be the lesser evil.

The key here is that you cannot just decide to nerf casters in a vacuum simply because of what they're capable of doing. A caster is only as powerful as its player lets it be - if the player isn't causing problems then the caster won't either, no matter what it's tier. All the system has to do is enforce a tradeoff between the various things the caster can do; it won't matter if he can do any of them, so long as he can't do all of them simultaneously.

[YossarianLives]

Imbalance is inherantly built into 3.5/pathfinder. You could fix it but it wouldn't be 3.5 anymore.

[Hiro Protagonest]

That is perhaps true on a systemwide level, but when you instantiate down to a particular game, balance seems like a reasonable thing to seek. After all, it is the imbalance intrinsic in the system that would allow both a tier one and tier six campaign to exist, but I'd rather not run the wizard in a team of warriors (or the inverse) unless there's a particular reason we're doing that.

Yeah. Good balance would be a blessing to Exalted, where there's a built-in power imbalance between different character types, but also lots of unintentional bad imbalance between characters of the same type.

[Honest Tiefling]

Maybe I am the odd one out, but I think fixing it depends greatly on the party in question. Some groups don't have god wizards, but pew-pew-pew wizards. Some groups need complexity, others have issues with attention spans. Some agree on alignment, some don't.

I think I like 3.5 because it feels like I can customize it.

[Vhaidara]

It's not a video game, it doesn't need to be balanced, it just needs to be fun.

Can I sig this? It's always nice to find others who share this opinion.

[Flickerdart]

Maybe I am the odd one out, but I think fixing it depends greatly on the party in question. Some groups don't have god wizards, but pew-pew-pew wizards. Some groups need complexity, others have issues with attention spans. Some agree on alignment, some don't.

I think I like 3.5 because it feels like I can customize it.
Honestly, it's not that hard to come up with fixes that boost pew-pew wizards while neutering the wizards that are more Contingency than flesh.

[ace rooster]

I think that the biggest issue that needs to be addressed is the hard link between level and hit dice, followed by the link between hd and bab and saves.

For example, to increase the CR of a monsterous humanoid by 1 you can either give it a level of fighter, or 3 monsterous humanoid hd. The 3 monsterous humanoid levels are better in every way, even giving more feats. From this perspective it is obvious that fighter levels are massively over CRed, and that the actual cr of a fighter is probably closer to it's hd/3. If the choice was between a 10hd wizard and a 30hd fighter the decision of which to play is trickier.

The other thing that irks me is the link between hd and all other stats. Elephants are much more accurate attackers than tigers for example, and have better reflexes than hawks. The auto scaling of bab in particular makes ac difficult to keep viable as a defense. A cr 12 scorpion has a +30 to attack and +13 to saves from hd alone.

I feel much could be achieved in terms of balance simply from decoupling some of the stats a bit. Giving saves and bab to monsters on an ad hoc basis can help build variety, as well as giving DMs the ability to ignore some of the more silly scaling that damages mundanes dispreportionately.

[jedipotter]

I'd say:

1. Fix and plug all the tiny loop holes, mistakes, misprints, bad wording and other such things in magic. D&D magic has lots of problems, but lots of fixes are very simple.

2. Give everyone nice things. D&D gives spellcasters like 10 DR spells at like 7th level, but thinks a mundane ''should be lucky'' to get a DR of 5 by 20th level. This fix is easy too, more nice things!

3. More bad things. 3x did a huge disservice to the game by making everything ''safe''. Bad things hold power in check. No bad things, you get too much power. So bring back the bad things.

4. Less rules. They will never do Economy or Wealth right. They should just toss them out of the game and replace them with a simple ''things cost character level x 1-100'' mechanic. They can publish an optional book if they want too.

5. More Old School. D&D, played Old School style works very well. For example, rolling for hit points and having a 10th level character with 15 hit points is a good thing for game play and balance. So is character death.

[eggynack]

5. More Old School. D&D, played Old School style works very well. For example, rolling for hit points and having a 10th level character with 15 hit points is a good thing for game play and balance. So is character death.
Better for game play, for some I suppose. Better for balance, I find somewhat doubtful. Low tier characters rely more on HP for survival, and on a level below that, they rely more on HD for their HP. A wizard will derive, on average, about half their HP from constitution and half from HD rolls, and more from constitution later on. A barbarian, all the way on the other end of the spectrum, will derive about a fourth of their HP from constitution, though again, more than that later on. Thus, at least in this microcosm of overall system balance, the low power class will have more to fear from variance than the high power class, especially because the high power class already has more potential to eliminate variance. In a broader context, it seems rather unlikely that an increase in variance without significantly impacting the actual underlying averages will have that much impact on overall balance.

[jedipotter]

Better for game play, for some I suppose. Better for balance, I find somewhat doubtful. In a broader context, it seems rather unlikely that an increase in variance without significantly impacting the actual underlying averages will have that much impact on overall balance.

I can't speak to the math, I can only talk from experience. And after having seen thousands of dice rolls I can say anything can happen. You can see 10th level wizards with 40 hit points, and 10th level barbarians with 10 hit points.

But it's not just hit points. It's the DM ''throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the characters''. It is where, the dragon dive bombs the characters on round one and kills two characters. It's where the beholder uses disintegrate on a character, not Inflict Wounds. It's where the bad guys are smart enough to read the ''don'ts'' on the Evil Overlord List.

Character death and loss is a huge part of game balance.

But Old School is also things like ''a curse that you can't just remove with remove curse'' and ''damage that can't be healed'' and so on.

[JusticeZero]

If you consider the problems with 3.5 to be too severe, then the system is unfixable. You simply cannot fix them and have something that feels anything like 3.5. Nonetheless, people manage to get past that and enjoy 3.5 every day.

[ZamielVanWeber]

But it's not just hit points. It's the DM ''throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the characters''. It is where, the dragon dive bombs the characters on round one and kills two characters. It's where the beholder uses disintegrate on a character, not Inflict Wounds. It's where the bad guys are smart enough to read the ''don'ts'' on the Evil Overlord List.

Honestly this is a play style. Following it will not intrinsically improve anything about 3.5. Some people will love it. Some people will hate it.

[HunterOfJello]

Play E6 or ban all Tier 1 and 2 classes.

[eggynack]

I can't speak to the math, I can only talk from experience. And after having seen thousands of dice rolls I can say anything can happen. You can see 10th level wizards with 40 hit points, and 10th level barbarians with 10 hit points.
That is how variance works, yeah, and I can't really see how high HP wizards and low HP barbarians would be good for balance. Although, seems odd that those specific numbers would occur, given the existence of constitution. After all, the barbarian would only need to pick up a +1 mod to constitution to make 10 HP impossible.

Character death and loss is a huge part of game balance.

You're saying that, but you haven't really given reasons why it would be the case.

[Psyren]

I can't speak to the math, I can only talk from experience. And after having seen thousands of dice rolls I can say anything can happen. You can see 10th level wizards with 40 hit points, and 10th level barbarians with 10 hit points.

But it's not just hit points. It's the DM ''throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at the characters''. It is where, the dragon dive bombs the characters on round one and kills two characters. It's where the beholder uses disintegrate on a character, not Inflict Wounds. It's where the bad guys are smart enough to read the ''don'ts'' on the Evil Overlord List.

Character death and loss is a huge part of game balance.

But Old School is also things like ''a curse that you can't just remove with remove curse'' and ''damage that can't be healed'' and so on.

I think part of the reason that level of lethality was phased out of the game is because, from a player perspective, the meta began to focus more on the character building and planning side of things. I never really played the older versions of D&D, but by my understanding they had less of the decision-tree metagame that 3e onward had where you were picking out feats and deciding where your ability score increases would go and planning your build around specific magic items and so on. When you invest that much time into making a character only to have it get wiped out by a seemingly random twist of fate - getting disintegrated or divebombed by a dragon in the first round, say - it can be pretty discouraging. So the designers, consciously or unconsciously, steered the game in such a way that incidents like that became the exception rather than the norm. Gygaxian "you'd better have a couple of spare sheets handy" styles of play fit in with that new paradigm less and less.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the success of video game RPGs, notably Diablo, Final Fantasy and Ultima (not to mention the D&D-based ones like Baldur's Gate) had something to do with that shift in philosophy.


Honestly this is a play style. Following it will not intrinsically improve anything about 3.5. Some people will love it. Some people will hate it.

The tough sell with this playstyle is that D&D as a whole has moved away from it (since it is difficult to have a system where things can be both disempowering/frightening/insanely lethal AND epic empowerment fantasy), and for those folks who want the former, other systems like the Lovecraftian games do it better.

[RoboEmperor]

Simple. Play only casters. Clerics > fighters in every way, so what's the point of fighters? So I guess I'm saying pick only t1 or t2 classes, so high levels won't destroy players.

I don't like 5e because they got rid of making a playstyle revolving around demons. Can't even planar bind your own summons because the summon spell will end .00001 earlier than planar binding. That and sorcerers have the crappiest spell list. They're supposed to be the even more specialized wizard, but now are strong armed into blasting, like in 4e I guess. I really don't see why anyone would pick sorcerer over wizard. Same spells known, spell progression, spells per day, except wizards have access to every spell while sorcerers have metamagic. Like those two can ever compete.

[icefractal]

The consensus is that it's a hell of a lot of work, not many people want to tackle it, most of the people who do try to tackle it give up partway through, and there's no agreement on whether the fixes people have made are any good.

Several of the attempts are the Tomes, Legend (not the Mongoose one), and I've seen references to a "d20r" project.

The reason people say Pathfinder didn't fix it isn't that they have a fixed version to compare it to, it's just that Pathfinder isn't generally any more balanced than 3.5. And the reason I mostly play Pathfinder nowadays is because the pfsrd exists and it's easy to get players for, not because I consider it an improvement.

[Coidzor]

Going through and either banning or fixing or adjusting the spell level of each individual spell is one commonly cited example of the kind of exhaustive work one would have to do in order to really get at fixing 3.5 without going to the point of just axing the magic system entirely and replacing it with something else.

[SinsI]

Overpoweredness is actually easily fixed by DM doing his work, so 3.5 doesn't really need much fixing in that department.

It is the underpoweredness that is unfixable in D&D:
For each decent or good class, feat, spell or magic item there are several that are completely lackluster, situational or even blatantly trap-worthy.

[jedipotter]

Honestly this is a play style. Following it will not intrinsically improve anything about 3.5. Some people will love it. Some people will hate it.

Sure, in the modern view it gets lots in the sea of a thousand play styles.

But here is the thing, the whole mechanics of D&D are built around the play style. Just the fact that D&D has Hit Points and that a Character can die is proof. It's not like Characters have ''story points'' in D&D and when they ''get in trouble'' they loose ''story points'' and can't ''contribute to the communal story as much''. The DMG has a huge section on traps. Traps that are just quick ''unfair'' ways to kill characters.

So my point is when you take the basic game, full of combat and loss and character death and negative such things. And then you put a play style over it, but it does not change the game. No matter the play style the D&D game still has hit points. But if your play style does not use the hit points, your effecting the balance of the game.




You're saying that, but you haven't really given reasons why it would be the case.

It's not like anyone cares or would listen.



I think part of the reason that level of lethality was phased out of the game is because, from a player perspective, the meta began to focus more on the character building and planning side of things.

Sure, true enough. But here is the point: they changed the way the style of the game was played, but did not change the mechanics. D&D has Hit Points, when a character take damage they die. It's very clear cut. But if they wanted to make D&D less about character life and death, why not change that? The ''wound system'' from Star Wars is much better for keeping characters alive. As are the games that don't even have hit points.




I never really played the older versions of D&D, but by my understanding they had less of the decision-tree metagame that 3e onward had where you were picking out feats and deciding where your ability score increases would go and planning your build around specific magic items and so on.

Very true. To level up took less then 60 seconds....about how long it took you to roll for your hit points.



When you invest that much time into making a character only to have it get wiped out by a seemingly random twist of fate - getting disintegrated or divebombed by a dragon in the first round, say - it can be pretty discouraging. So the designers, consciously or unconsciously, steered the game in such a way that incidents like that became the exception rather than the norm. Gygaxian "you'd better have a couple of spare sheets handy" styles of play fit in with that new paradigm less and less.

Again, my point is the core of D&D combat is not built around that type of storytelling. Just go look at any storytelling type game that has storytelling type game mechanics. Think if each character had ''story points'' and ''drama points'' and ''plot twist points''. Think of where a 5th level character could have +5 plot twist points to add to any action and ''twist'' the plot. But when the character gets ''hurt'' they loose plot twist points. And zero the character does not die, but not they have a +0 to actions. That is more the rules for a storytelling game.

Now compare a D&D character with 99% pure combat abilities, vs a Storytelling character that can add lots of bonuses of all kinds to effect the story in all sorts of various mechanical ways.

[eggynack]

Overpoweredness is actually easily fixed by DM doing his work, so 3.5 doesn't really need much fixing in that department.

It is the underpoweredness that is unfixable in D&D:
For each decent or good class, feat, spell or magic item there are several that are completely lackluster, situational or even blatantly trap-worthy.
They're almost necessarily equally problematic. Balance is relative, which means that overpowered things are only so due to the existence of underpowered things and vice versa. Thus, the shifting of either end of the spectrum could plausibly remove imbalance, whether you do so through empowerment or removal.


It's not like anyone cares or would listen.

I honestly can't see how there would be much justification for the idea, but if you came up with one that holds up to scrutiny, then I could be convinced. At the very least, balance issues tend to have a more objective core nature than the subjective game play philosophy discussions you tend to get involved in.

[Madhava]

Personally, I really have no problem with the caster v. mundane power divide. Namely because:

It makes sense (to me) that magic is very powerful.
Magic is a limited per-day resource, & a DM is able to exploit this.
Any character can access magic via items, and/or UMD skill + class-specific items.
Any character has the option to access useful special Ex, Sp, or Su abilities, from a variety of (mostly late-game) subsystems, via feats.
The concept of class balance is both impossible and unnecessary, because a DM can play to the strengths of any character. A Wizard, for example, who is fond of 15-minute-workdaying through his daily spells, then taking 8-hour rope trick breaks to rememorize, could one day find himself faced with a task wherein timing is of the essence.

The disparity between full casters & mundanes/martial adepts/Warlocks does begin to come in line, if only just a little, whenever the casters feel compelled to carefully manage their resources (marathon-scenarios & whatnot).

I definitely agree that gameplay gradually becomes tedious & unfun, at some point around level 15ish.

I also feel the time needed to reach high levels is rediculously short, especially compared to how this was in AD&D. I don't think I've every had an AD&D character survive past level 13 or so (this was a Fighter 13, by the way). And it seriously felt like days, possibly weeks, of gametime, just to get him to level 13. And really, this wasn't a bad thing at all.

And this should be an easy enough problem to fix... although, in my case, I can't get the other players on-board with accepting a flat-% XP reduction. Which, my DM would be happy to arrange, if only we could all agree.

[eggynack]

The concept of class balance is both impossible and unnecessary, because a DM can play to the strengths of any character. A Wizard, for example, who is fond of 15-minute-workdaying through his daily spells, then taking 8-hour rope trick breaks to rememorize, could one day find himself faced with a task wherein timing is of the essence.
I disagree. A DM can play to the strengths of a monk and play to the weaknesses of a wizard, but that doesn't change the fact that both the list of strengths and the list of weaknesses are both incredibly short. Moreover, at any reasonably high level, meaning maybe somewhere around five, with some degree of per-encounter spell rationing, a wizard can last through a day without running seriously short on spells. The 15 minute adventuring day is a potential resource a wizard can bring to bear, rather than something the wizard relies on.

That's also just looking at the wizard. If you compare the monk to, say, a druid, with its oddly comparable chassis, friendly animal companion, and pile of wild shape forms, or to an unarmed swordsage, with its everything better than a monk attitude, the number of weaknesses on the high tier classes drops to somewhere around zero. Point is, whether the concept of class balance is unnecessary is very much up to the particular game, but what it's definitely not is impossible. A well constructed and played character in the high tiers can easily overpower one in the low tiers, even when the game is slanted towards the low tiered character. Of course, it's also worth note that building a campaign to accommodate low tier characters over high tier ones is practically the point of the tier system, rather than a refutation of it.

[Coidzor]

The concept of class balance is both impossible and unnecessary, because a DM can play to the strengths of any character. A Wizard, for example, who is fond of 15-minute-workdaying through his daily spells, then taking 8-hour rope trick breaks to rememorize, could one day find himself faced with a task wherein timing is of the essence.

I would say that the existence of the tier system, the reason it came about in the first place, and how people independently have stumbled upon it in their own games goes to show that it's not always a simple thing for DMs to play to the strengths of characters of wildly disparate ability.

[jedipotter]

I disagree. .

I disagree too.

3.5E has way to over powered magic. And it's not that i don't love powerful magic, but 3.5 is just crazy.

And 3.5E does not give mundanes nice things. Just look at the monk, they don't even get full BaB. Why, did the designers fear that monks might dominate the game? The way a high level wizard or druid can? At 20th level a monk can get a +4 to their AC.....and a wizard can do that with a first level spell.

And D&D lost a lot by removing bad effects. Yes, back effects suck and yes bad effects are ''no fun''.....but that is kinda the point. Take polymorph. In old D&D, when you changed shape...you dropped all your stuff. It sucked! But it was a fair trade off of change your shape and loose your stuff. That alone made any shape changing a lot less used. But 3E came in with ''you always keep your stuff'' and unbalanced things.

I've found you need to modify the game with all five of my points to have any real effect. In the end balance is not hard and is possible.

[RoboEmperor]

Another simple solution: Don't play to power game, play to play a character.

Take skyrim for example. There are a ton of exploits/bugs, but as a player, I choose to do none of them for a fun roleplay experience. I did all those exploits once, had my fun, and then intentionally chose a severely restricted character. i.e. 0 items, only upgrade magicka, only use illusion conjuration and sneak.

So games like 3.5 and skyrim, they're insane on customization, but unfortunately customization comes with huge difference in power levels.

5e and 4e maybe more "balanced", but I will never play 4e, probably not play 5e, all because they removed the things I want to do. But if they add the things I want to do, I won't be overpowered, but other people can become ridiculous.

So treat 3.5 like a sandbox game, and play characters you want.

[Madhava]

Okay, there's an inherent problem with comparing a Druid & Monk, because only one of these is a tactically sound choice for all 20 levels.

I'm assuming (probably assuming too much) that your run of the mill 3.X D&D player will have a decent familiarity with the rules, they have a general idea of what to expect from a build, & they know enough not to play a 'bad' build: For example, a build with two levels in every base caster class, or a Monk 20.

Strong 'Monk' builds exist, and in the end they're usually gishes, instead of the 'punchy guy' theme which the PHB pitches to us. Non-gish punchy guys are doable, but they seem to be not very Monk-intensive; Barb/FotF with a monk's belt + single Cleric level dip to taste, or maybe Carmendine Monk 2 or 6/Warblade X + single Cleric level dip to taste.

When you compare a Druid 20 to a level 20 GishMonk (Sacred Fist, Tashalatora/PsyWar, Ascetic Mage or whatever), or Barb-or-Warblade-intensive puncher, then yeah, there's still some disparity, but I'd say it's within workable limits; the Monk-esque build here can still contribute in some meaningful way. I don't feel that it's asking too much of the DM, to accommodate tiers 1 & 3 at the same table, in most cases.

But Monk 20 is a poor choice altogether, unless you're sitting at with the guy who wants to try the 2 levels in everything build. The game will punish you for choosing bad options, and Monk 20 is one. Personally, I like games which punish choosing bad options, provided there's a fair spread of good options available. Some people don't care for this, and they may cry broken. And I can understand why they'd think as such. But I don't share their opinion.

Harmony can exist with a Wizard & a Monk both being played as party members. Because, if we're talking about experienced players, then it's okay, because the Monk player isn't truly playing with (many) Monk levels. And with novice players, everything is usually fine, because a novice player playing tier 1 is seldom ever a god.

[LudicSavant]

The best way? Pay a professional game designer that is good at balancing games without sacrificing depth a good 5 figures for a few months dedicated work. Heck, I could put a small game design team on it tomorrow if the financing was there.

Note that WotC doesn't actually do much of this for D&D, presumably since mechanics are less obviously, directly marketable than other things you could invest in, which can have their value communicated clearly and easily to a layman in no uncertain terms ("oh, this book binding is really nice"). This is especially true when there is no substantive player network or competitive scene for a game (compare how ruthlessly and efficiently the meta of a well-balanced game like League of Legends evolves compared to the way that people will still argue that the Fighter is okay in a party with a Druid in D&D, even though the imbalance dwarfs anything you'd find in League of Legends by several orders of magnitude. Such views can only thrive in small worlds divorced from any true challenge).

The simplest way? Ask a reputable, experienced charopper who cares about balance (some do, some don't) for their short-list of house rules (particularly whitelist/blacklist rules, since those tend to have the most corrective impact on balance without changing the core game as much), and/or set your own expectations for how strong you'd like PCs to be, communicate it to your players, and have them abide by a gentleman's agreement to build within that range. One well-connected, intelligent person is probably better than a "consensus" here since the tabletop RPG medium is even more prone to mythology than, say, the meta in a competitive videogame (in which gross imbalances on the scale of "Fighter vs Druid" would remain controversial for less than a week beyond launch day, let alone years into the future). This is because most groups are isolated and inexperienced (often having played one or less 1-20 campaigns), which can cause a lack of perspective... and thus endless forum arguments.

I recommend the informed blacklist/whitelist rules *and* the gentleman's agreement because the gentleman's agreement doesn't really cover enough on its own, due to the simple fact that not everyone has a similar level of game knowledge, and because 3.5e is more than unbalanced enough for some people to create large balance disparities completely by accident.

- The two best supplements for improving the balance of your game are the Tome of Battle (best official solution for melee fighters) and the Magic Item Compendium (much less stupidly priced magic items per capita).

- Some things you probably want to consider for banning or otherwise ruling on include polymorph & friends (which you can replace with spells like "Trollshape" and friends), wildshape (you can replace it with the PHB II variant, which is much more balanced), Iron Heart Surge (doesn't really work as written. The designers clearly had something else than what they actually wrote in mind), White Raven Tactics (Either ban it or don't let it work on the same person multiple times), Leadership and its variants, Diplomacy skill in general, Persistent Spell, Initiate of Mystara, wishes via summoning, Venomfire, Streamers, Consumptive Field, Ice Assassin, Power Word: Pain, Shivering Touch, Celerity (all versions), bamf variant Conjurers (the PHB II ones), Rope Trick, Guidance of the Avatar, Simulacrum, Gate, Dust of Sneezing and Choking, Lyre of Building, Aboleth Mucus, Sudden Stunning (use MIC "Stunning Surge" instead), Candle of Invocation, Item Familiars, Shadow Cloak, top tier templates, and ALL trick builds from the "CharOp Campaign Smashers" list.

- Some high-demand underpowered things that are super-easy to fix:
Hobgoblins: +2 dex OR con, otherwise as normal. 0 LA.
Drow: No SR, Dex and Int OR Cha bonus not both, 0 LA. Compare Lesser Tiefling to get an idea of the balance point this will sit at.
Orcs: Use Water Orcs, but remove the elemental traits.
Half-orcs: Either use the stats for regular orcs above, or give them a feature from their human heritage.
Half-elves: Give them a feat from their human heritage. Bam, now they're top tier like humans and dwarves.
Races in general: Apply racial penalties BEFORE point buy rather than after. This simple change alleviates a ton of problems. I can break down all the reasons mathematically if desired.

[SinsI]

They're almost necessarily equally problematic. Balance is relative, which means that overpowered things are only so due to the existence of underpowered things and vice versa. Thus, the shifting of either end of the spectrum could plausibly remove imbalance, whether you do so through empowerment or removal.

There is a third category in addition to "Overpowered" and "Underpowered" - "Normal".

I know what to say to a player that wants to get a Wish out of Candle of Invocation.
But I don't know how to help a player that plays as a 1st level Wizard that have only memorized Hold Portal and Jump. Or a player that has selected Clever Wrestling and Destructive Rage as his feats.

[atemu1234]

I'm going to dissect this, because there are parts I agree with and parts I don't.


I disagree too.

3.5E has way to over powered magic. And it's not that i don't love powerful magic, but 3.5 is just crazy.

I agree with this, but I also kind of like the problem; most of my players play casters anyway, but I recognize this is an actual problem.


And 3.5E does not give mundanes nice things. Just look at the monk, they don't even get full BaB. Why, did the designers fear that monks might dominate the game? The way a high level wizard or druid can? At 20th level a monk can get a +4 to their AC.....and a wizard can do that with a first level spell.

Most of this I agree with, though Monk =/= a normal mundane. Though most mundanes still are horrible compared to casters. Even with Tome of Battle, they are still marginally worse than casters, barely brushing T2 in some cases, while casters of one flavor or another dominate T1.

This isn't a Tome of Battle thread, so I might just leave it at that.


And D&D lost a lot by removing bad effects. Yes, back effects suck and yes bad effects are ''no fun''.....but that is kinda the point. Take polymorph. In old D&D, when you changed shape...you dropped all your stuff. It sucked! But it was a fair trade off of change your shape and loose your stuff. That alone made any shape changing a lot less used. But 3E came in with ''you always keep your stuff'' and unbalanced things.

I seem to remember your stuff still falling off in 3.5. I think. Also, polymorph is a powerful spell even if you drop your loot.

This is the part I kind of disagree with; they removed the bad effects because nobody actually likes them; if you're DM, you have to work hard to keep the character alive, and if you're the player, then you've got to keep your character alive. Plus it's a pain to keep the books with that kind of thing.


I've found you need to modify the game with all five of my points to have any real effect. In the end balance is not hard and is possible.

I'm still interested in a full list of your fixes; perhaps you could post it and the rest of us could pick through it another time.

/dissection

Anyway, as to your earlier point of character death being essential to the game, I don't tend to like the randomness of it. You seem convinced that just because rules for dying exist, means that they should do it a lot (at least, it sort of seems like it).

I admit that sometimes a character needs to die, and that death seems kind of like the thing that introduces a threat into the game; the threat is why it's necessary, not the actual need to die.

If characters die all the time, then I find roleplay difficult and annoying; why should I roleplay my character when he'll be dead in half a session along with the rest of them? Why go to the trouble? If too many characters die, then players become callous to the threat itself.

Also, as DM, I like to have a degree of plot to my campaigns. Not to the extent of railroading, but to the point where you do have enemies out for blood, you're going to have to kill them, and this leads into an overarching plot arc. Death throws a wrench into this; why is it that when the ranger dies, you replace him in a week with a bard? Why does that bard want to join the party? What stake does he have in it, apart from the metagame concept of being played by the same guy? These aren't by any means unanswerable, but they are good questions, and a hassle to answer via backstory.

These can all be answered with two things: Resurrection or not dying. But in the first case, the characters still become callous to the threat of death (though I often use the HoH variant for resurrections going wrong) and the second can give the players a feeling of immortality.

My overall solution is a mix. Sometimes characters die, sometimes they don't want to come back, sometimes they just can't, sometimes they do come back, sometimes they come back wrong, and sometimes they reach death's door and pull through (usually I involve the player in this concept by having his character go through a battle-in-the-center-of-the-mind type thing against death itself (usually a version of himself)). This is what the game does (well, minus the coming-back-wrong thing, but that's something I like for flavor reasons) and it tends to work out well, at least in my experience.

[GreyBlack]

I don't know if anyone brought this up, but i. The Old Days (2e), there was differentiated experience growth. Where it may only take a fighter 1000 xp to gain level 2, a ranger would require 2000 and a wizard would need 2600. In noting that, the Pathfinder system grants the ability to do such, giving a "slow, average, and fast" xp growth tables (core p. 30). Differentiating the advancement between classes, IMHO, fixes a great many issues in 3.x, as (assuming equal xp advancement between players), there becomes a question of risk v reward. Yes, the Cleric and Wizard are tremendously powerful, but advance at a snail's pace. A fighter, on the other hand, advances far faster and, while not as powerful, can still be relevant for longer. 50k xp means a wizard would be level 6, while the fighter is level 9.

[atemu1234]

I don't know if anyone brought this up, but i. The Old Days (2e), there was differentiated experience growth. Where it may only take a fighter 1000 xp to gain level 2, a ranger would require 2000 and a wizard would need 2600. In noting that, the Pathfinder system grants the ability to do such, giving a "slow, average, and fast" xp growth tables (core p. 30). Differentiating the advancement between classes, IMHO, fixes a great many issues in 3.x, as (assuming equal xp advancement between players), there becomes a question of risk v reward. Yes, the Cleric and Wizard are tremendously powerful, but advance at a snail's pace. A fighter, on the other hand, advances far faster and, while not as powerful, can still be relevant for longer. 50k xp means a wizard would be level 6, while the fighter is level 9.

I actually ran a Pathfinder game a while back and debated using that; but in 3.5 it wouldn't work as well. Pathfinder is single-class oriented, designed for you to take a class to level 20. 3.5 is multi-class oriented: almost any character worth their salt will be taking levels in at least two classes (martial), or using a bunch of PrCs. Quite frankly, casters would probably wind up ahead in either case.

[Sam K]

I don't think it should be fixed at all. The beauty of 3.5 is that it ISN'T balanced. You can make god wizards and CoDzillas, or weapon focus fighters and sneak attack rogues, and yes they are so horribly balanced that they don't belong in the same multiverse (let alone the same party), but thats what keeps us interested in the system!

We may complain about the balance, we may laugh at the obvious lack of playtesting, and debate RAW vs RAI vs RA-what-the-hell-were-they-even-thinking until the break of dawn, but the fact is that all the flaws in the system (and the many brilliant ways you can work with or around them) is one of the reasons we stay interested.

Trying to "fix" 3.5 is like trying to make a vintage Jaguar or Maserati into a cheap, reliable utility car; it would be horribly complicated and expensive, and in doing it you would completely strip it of all it's charm and personality. If you want a Toyota, just buy a Toyota.

[eggynack]

Okay, there's an inherent problem with comparing a Druid & Monk, because only one of these is a tactically sound choice for all 20 levels.

I'm assuming (probably assuming too much) that your run of the mill 3.X D&D player will have a decent familiarity with the rules, they have a general idea of what to expect from a build, & they know enough not to play a 'bad' build: For example, a build with two levels in every base caster class, or a Monk 20.

Strong 'Monk' builds exist, and in the end they're usually gishes, instead of the 'punchy guy' theme which the PHB pitches to us. Non-gish punchy guys are doable, but they seem to be not very Monk-intensive; Barb/FotF with a monk's belt + single Cleric level dip to taste, or maybe Carmendine Monk 2 or 6/Warblade X + single Cleric level dip to taste.

When you compare a Druid 20 to a level 20 GishMonk (Sacred Fist, Tashalatora/PsyWar, Ascetic Mage or whatever), or Barb-or-Warblade-intensive puncher, then yeah, there's still some disparity, but I'd say it's within workable limits; the Monk-esque build here can still contribute in some meaningful way. I don't feel that it's asking too much of the DM, to accommodate tiers 1 & 3 at the same table, in most cases.

But Monk 20 is a poor choice altogether, unless you're sitting at with the guy who wants to try the 2 levels in everything build. The game will punish you for choosing bad options, and Monk 20 is one. Personally, I like games which punish choosing bad options, provided there's a fair spread of good options available. Some people don't care for this, and they may cry broken. And I can understand why they'd think as such. But I don't share their opinion.

Harmony can exist with a Wizard & a Monk both being played as party members. Because, if we're talking about experienced players, then it's okay, because the Monk player isn't truly playing with (many) Monk levels. And with novice players, everything is usually fine, because a novice player playing tier 1 is seldom ever a god.
A straight monk 20 with no ACF's is a perfectly reasonable, if not amazing, tactical choice in a game filled with tier five and six classes. A fighter doesn't immediately invalidate a monk's existence just by being in the same party as one. Because again, balance is relative. A druid isn't a sound tactical choice either in a game where everyone's running around as pun-pun, after all, and neither is a tier three build in a game with planar shepherds and incantatrixes. In any case, it seems rather absurd to claim both that DM accommodation is the end all and be all, and that there are fundamentally bad choices.

[Necroticplague]

I don't know if anyone brought this up, but i. The Old Days (2e), there was differentiated experience growth. Where it may only take a fighter 1000 xp to gain level 2, a ranger would require 2000 and a wizard would need 2600. In noting that, the Pathfinder system grants the ability to do such, giving a "slow, average, and fast" xp growth tables (core p. 30). Differentiating the advancement between classes, IMHO, fixes a great many issues in 3.x, as (assuming equal xp advancement between players), there becomes a question of risk v reward. Yes, the Cleric and Wizard are tremendously powerful, but advance at a snail's pace. A fighter, on the other hand, advances far faster and, while not as powerful, can still be relevant for longer. 50k xp means a wizard would be level 6, while the fighter is level 9.

This kinda defeats the point of what a 'level' is, though. After all, the point of a level is that it either represents a certain amount of advancement, or represent a certain amount of power increase (ideally, both). If the level neither requires a certain amount of advancement, nor represents a similar increase in power, why have the level? What does it represent at that point?

Besides, while that system works well if you have everyone single-class, it becomes a complete mess the second anyone tries to prestige class or multiclass.

[atemu1234]

This kinda defeats the point of what a 'level' is, though. After all, the point of a level is that it either represents a certain amount of advancement, or represent a certain amount of power increase. If the level neither requires a certain amount of advancement, nor represents a similar increase in power, why have the level? What does it represent at that point?

Besides, while that system works well if you have everyone single-class, it becomes a complete mess the second anyone tries to prestige class or multiclass.


See my response, above.

[LudicSavant]

I don't think it should be fixed at all. The beauty of 3.5 is that it ISN'T balanced. You can make god wizards and CoDzillas, or weapon focus fighters and sneak attack rogues, and yes they are so horribly balanced that they don't belong in the same multiverse (let alone the same party), but thats what keeps us interested in the system!

We may complain about the balance, we may laugh at the obvious lack of playtesting, and debate RAW vs RAI vs RA-what-the-hell-were-they-even-thinking until the break of dawn, but the fact is that all the flaws in the system (and the many brilliant ways you can work with or around them) is one of the reasons we stay interested. Speak for yourself. I can identify many reasons I remain interested in the system, but balance certainly isn't one of them. If a game came out tomorrow that possessed similar virtues but had superior balance, I'd drop 3.5e in a heartbeat and never look back.

I feel like a key thing to understand as to why 3.5e remains popular is that tabletop RPGs are more like game engines than games, and 3.5e, despite its many significant flaws, is the most potentially powerful (if not the most streamlined) engine out of all of the editions of D&D. You can, quite simply, do more things with it than in 4e or 5e. You can build more character concepts and realize more diverse campaign concepts without cutting as many corners.

- 3.5e has more "creative use" abilities than 4e or 5e, and more abilities with unique functions. For instance, compare Animate Dead in 3.5e and Animate Dead in 5e. In 5e, Animate Dead can only create indentical boring skeletons out of humans and forehead aliens. In 3.5e, Animate Dead works in a way more in line with the fluff, and just about anything with a skeletal system can be made into a skeleton. So you get to ride around your undead tyrannosauruses.

- 3.5e has parity between PCs and NPCs (that is, they're built with the same rules), with all of the positive implications that go along with that. 4e and 5e largely abandoned this for no really good reason, and it brings with it all the limitations you'd expect it to bring (that is, an NPC orc isn't built the same way as a PC orc, and the characters follow different rules).

- 3.5e has a more functional skill system than 4e or 5e (in 5e skills don't have proper rules at all, and in 4e we have insanity like "skill challenges" and the constant failed fixes for skill challenges). This is saying a lot about the skill systems of 4e and 5e, because 3.5e's has nonsense like "Diplomacy" in it and is far from actually being a well-written skill system. It's just more functional than 5e's choice to... not actually define skill rules and tell DMs to wing it.

- 3.5e has a much greater range of levels than 5e. Sure, they both go from 1-20, but a level 16 3.5e character is basically in a different *genre* of power level than a level 16 5e character. 3.5e scales up from Conan that Barbarian to The Avengers and One Piece power levels. Compare the Balor in 5e with the Balor in 3.5e; they're completely different beasts fulfilling fundamentally different roles and capable of fundamentally different kinds of feats and stories.

- 3.5e has more content overall than 4e or 5e. Even after you cut out the massive glut of useless filler trap options or obviously broken nonsense.

- Regardless of what you think of the various editions, 3.5e maintains the largest player base of them all, and as such provides more opportunities for actual play with more diverse groups of experienced players.

Those are a few of the reasons I remain interested in a game of 3.5e. Balance isn't on this list, nor are things like accessibility for new players or any of the other things that 3.5e isn't good at. I can love a game despite its flaws; I don't need to convince myself that the flaws are features.

[ZamielVanWeber]

- 3.5e has more content overall than 4e or 5e. Even after you cut out the massive glut of useless filler trap options or obviously broken nonsense.

I just want to point out that, as a strange virtue of 3.5, so much material exists that the useless filler trap options can actually become useful members of parties in their own right. It isn't easy sometimes, but it is doable.

[Snowbluff]

Can't, and shouldn't.

Snowbluff says it best:

Indeed. PF's problem biggest problem is that the "fixes" are a selling point, not that it's a hopelessly broken system, which is a strength in a lot of ways. :smallsigh:

[ericgrau]

So in another forum it was brought up that pathfinder didn't actually fix any of the problems and balance issues that 3.5 had, and there has been an awful lot of talk about how horrible most classes are in it. What is the internet's consensus on how to best approach the daunting task of fixing the fuster cluck that is 3.5?
Opinions differ from person to person and forum to forum. PF used the Paizo forum. Then it was way more broken, then they toned it back a bit and made only small changes.

[johnbragg]

So we've established, There Is No Consensus.

There are many POVs about the problems or lack thereof, based on different preferences. What the solution is depends on what the problem is. Solutions range from "No problem at all, our fighter/wizard/rogue/healbot games have been running since we upgraded from 3.0 to 3.5 with no problems." to E6 to Pathfinder (the major problem is a lack of a new stream of continuing supports) to 4e to 5e to entire forums full of homebrew, plus additional multiverses of homebrew on shelves.

So the question is, how much time to you have to invest figuring out what fixes you think work, and what your table would like.

I'd chime in that the tier balance problem is real, even in the lowest-op games, after the first few levels. In a 10-12 level campaign I played in, the houserule was that absent players characters were ghosted, much like V's familiar in the early OOTS strips. Playstyle was radically different when the party wizard wasn't there to polymorph into whatever sort of beast would best solve the encounter. (In retrospect, we probably weren't reading the Polymorph rules closely enough and going by the Rule of Awesome.) My sorcerer, brought in to cast Teleport (barred school for the wizard), was one of the most effective damage-dealers with a homebrewed, diceless Magic Missile variant (2 points per level up to 20 points).

Stylistically, I think that the sword-and-board fighter should be the best melee combatant, the Big Damn Hero. But unfortunately (to me), the math is heavily weighted against melee styles besides two-handed Power Attack.

[Vhaidara]

Stylistically, I think that the sword-and-board fighter should be the best melee combatant, the Big Damn Hero. But unfortunately (to me), the math is heavily weighted against melee styles besides two-handed Power Attack.

Absolutely not. I actually feel S&B SHOULD be the lowest damage combat style (among einhander, S&B, THF, TWF)
S&B should have 4th DPR, the 1st defensive, the 3rd mobility, and 2nd resistance to DR
Einhander should have 3rd DPR, 2nd defensive, 1st mobility, and 3rd resistance to DR
THF should have 2nd DPR, 3rd defensive, 4th mobility, and 1st resistance to DR
TWF should have 1st DPR, 4th defensive, 2nd mobility, and 4th resistance to DR

Shields are not a weapon, they are armor. However, you trade mobility for that. As a result, your individual swings are stronger
Einhander is more about mobility and dodging than a full defense, but relies on more hits than the "stand your ground" styles
THF is individual superpowered hits. Therefore, DR is almost irrelevant to it while maintaining almost the highest DPR. But you trade out defensive options and mobility for it
TWF is the all aggressive style with the highest DPR. And since you need to be fast, you maintain mobility. The weakness is that DR destroys death by a thousand cuts.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The single biggest problem with 3.5, in my opinion, is the level of system mastery required to play the character creation game. A group of experienced players can make a party of characters who are balanced at around the same power level, and an experienced DM can play to that. But the game has way too many trap options to be balanced for new players-- things that are too weak and things that are too strong, even at newbie-optimization levels (coughDruidcough).

The best way to address that without losing the feel of the system is to try and trim off the highest and lowest levels of stuff. Remove the most overpowered and underpowered material. For every Incantrix that you ban, also cut out a Shining Blade of Heironeous. (Maybe even more-- there's an awful lot of crap in 3.5). After that, rewrite the classes to make sure they all have equivalent optimization floors. Take things like the Beguiler and Warblade that are difficult to mess up and make them the standard.

And that's really not hard to do. There is a fair amount of consensus on what's broken, in both directions. (Druid? Yep. Dread Necro? Nah) There are also boatloads of class fixes and rewrites out there. Remove or replace the stuff that will always be too strong or too weak, and suddenly you've got a much better looking game. It will still have its tricks and abuses, sure, but for the average player the experience will be much improved.

[SinsI]

Shields are not a weapon, they are armor. However, you trade mobility for that. As a result, your individual swings are stronger
Einhander is more about mobility and dodging than a full defense, but relies on more hits than the "stand your ground" styles
THF is individual superpowered hits. Therefore, DR is almost irrelevant to it while maintaining almost the highest DPR. But you trade out defensive options and mobility for it
TWF is the all aggressive style with the highest DPR. And since you need to be fast, you maintain mobility. The weakness is that DR destroys death by a thousand cuts.

TWF actually should be extremely similar to sword-and-board, since if you look at real life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_wield), second weapon basically serves as a shield.

[LudicSavant]

The single biggest problem with 3.5, in my opinion, is the level of system mastery required to play the character creation game. A group of experienced players can make a party of characters who are balanced at around the same power level, and an experienced DM can play to that. But the game has way too many trap options to be balanced for new players-- things that are too weak and things that are too strong, even at newbie-optimization levels (coughDruidcough).

The best way to address that without losing the feel of the system is to try and trim off the highest and lowest levels of stuff. Remove the most overpowered and underpowered material. For every Incantrix that you ban, also cut out a Shining Blade of Heironeous. (Maybe even more-- there's an awful lot of crap in 3.5). After that, rewrite the classes to make sure they all have equivalent optimization floors. Take things like the Beguiler and Warblade that are difficult to mess up and make them the standard.

And that's really not hard to do. There is a fair amount of consensus on what's broken, in both directions. (Druid? Yep. Dread Necro? Nah) There are also boatloads of class fixes and rewrites out there. Remove or replace the stuff that will always be too strong or too weak, and suddenly you've got a much better looking game. It will still have its tricks and abuses, sure, but for the average player the experience will be much improved.

How much interest would there be in having a few independent game designers / founding charoppers comb through the entirety of the content of 3.5e and giving it the DBZ: Kai treatment? That is, cutting 2/3rds (or more!) of its runtime to make it watchable. Because I could arrange that, but it's not worth it to me unless I see a very large amount of interest.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121203205901/legomessageboards/images/7/79/DBZ_Kai.jpg
I can actually watch this show without my brain melting
now that Cell doesn't take 3 episodes to transform.

Essentially, the idea would be that we would create a list of items, spells, feats, etc etc that are all good, and fill out as many roles / concepts as possible in as little space as possible. I could also basically rewrite the PHB to present better introductions for how to use the rules and create character archetypes, and give an archive of example PCs that are all competitively balanced at different levels (think the section of the DMG with premade NPCs, except good).

[Emperor Tippy]

Thing is, there will always be some subset of the target audience who will gripe about anything. "You can please all of the people some of the time" etc.

The big issue I see is that you're asking for "internet consensus" on a solution, when we don't have consensus on whether a problem even exists at all, much less what that problem might be or how to go about it. I would posit that the vast majority of "balance problems" are due to a player abusing the system - and while some of the fault for that can be laid at the system's door, all of the attempts I've seen at creating an airtight solution have done so by stripping out too much of what makes 3.5 the kitchen sink system that it is. For example, I recall our debates over Legend - a solid system in its own right, but when it came to importing iconic monsters or class builds it came up short. 5e is in a similar boat - a useful system in its own right but bounded accuracy does limit the concepts it can realize relative to 3.5.

Similarly, binding the class selection to the T3/T4 range can stop some bad abuses, but if the players aren't abusing T1 classes they aren't going to be a problem anyway.

And I would argue that the vast majority of "balance problems" arise from an unwillingness on the part of many individuals to not actually use the rules as written. Look at how many people complain about using Disjunction, despite the fact that it solves virtually all of the balance issues with long duration buffs.

Or who complain about all of the save or dies, despite the fact that resurrection is trivial and expected in 3.5. Death in higher level D&D 3.5 is and was never supposed to be anything more than temporary removal for the rest of the encounter or adventuring day (at most).

Or who complain about Teleportation magic when all of the tools exist in the rules to control it.

To the extent that D&D 3.5 (pre epic) really has balance problems it is in the power divide between the caster and melee PC classes.

[LudicSavant]

I tend to agree with Emperor Tippy, insofar as many balance issues are falsely identified due to a lack of game knowledge or an unwillingness to use certain mechanics for fear of things like "PC death" or "nooo you can't take my looot!" or even simple misconceptions about the kind of world that D&D's mechanics imply (his very own Tippyverse provides a solid illustration for those who think it's just like Conan the Barbarian or Lord of the Rings). On the other hand, I disagree that mundanes vs casters represents the majority of the balance problems, particularly since not all balance issues are issues of class balance. For instance, magic items are balanced utterly horrifically throughout most of 3.5e, and the ratio of magic items in the game to ones that are actually worth their relative cost is dismayingly low.

[big teej]

The ''wound system'' from Star Wars is much better for keeping characters alive. As are the games that don't even have hit points.


not necessarily. getting shot in Savage Worlds on a crit can put you down in a hurry.*
same with Shadowrun, from what I've read.





*except in Necessary Evil, where the game explicitly calls out that PCs can't die in the setting. because comic book

[GreyBlack]

I actually ran a Pathfinder game a while back and debated using that; but in 3.5 it wouldn't work as well. Pathfinder is single-class oriented, designed for you to take a class to level 20. 3.5 is multi-class oriented: almost any character worth their salt will be taking levels in at least two classes (martial), or using a bunch of PrCs. Quite frankly, casters would probably wind up ahead in either case.


This kinda defeats the point of what a 'level' is, though. After all, the point of a level is that it either represents a certain amount of advancement, or represent a certain amount of power increase (ideally, both). If the level neither requires a certain amount of advancement, nor represents a similar increase in power, why have the level? What does it represent at that point?

Besides, while that system works well if you have everyone single-class, it becomes a complete mess the second anyone tries to prestige class or multiclass.

First, I'd argue it isn't actually all that difficult to work out the multi class side of things. If you level up in a slow progression class then decide to take a level in fast progression, it would be your current XP total + enough for level 2 in the fast class. (Just spitballing here, obviously more work would need to be done to make it work).

Second, to Necroticplague, what do you mean, "level"? In OGL, level can mean class level, character level, spell level, skill level, or any number of things. If we go to your definition of level as to represent a given amount of advancement in a class, then wouldn't the high-caster classes need more experience and effort to advance in rank than the guy who picks up a sword? Maybe it's a YMMV, but not all paths are equally easy, some should require more effort to become more powerful. Why not represent that mechanically by differentiating the XP scaling?

[Psyren]

Sure, true enough. But here is the point: they changed the way the style of the game was played, but did not change the mechanics. D&D has Hit Points, when a character take damage they die. It's very clear cut. But if they wanted to make D&D less about character life and death, why not change that? The ''wound system'' from Star Wars is much better for keeping characters alive. As are the games that don't even have hit points.

This doesn't really follow in my view. All "hit points" mean is that "death by damage is possible" - their existence, in and of themselves, does not say anything about the lethality of a system unless you have an "incoming damage from typical encounter" metric to compare them to. There are games where hit points measure in the hundreds of thousands, and DR/resistances measure in the millions, yet you can die 1 second after a fight starts without even getting to do anything if you're not careful. (Looking at you, Diablo 3 Torment 6.)

Or to reword your phrasing above for accuracy: "D&D has Hit Points, when a character takes enough damage they die. It's very clear cut."



Again, my point is the core of D&D combat is not built around that type of storytelling. Just go look at any storytelling type game that has storytelling type game mechanics. Think if each character had ''story points'' and ''drama points'' and ''plot twist points''. Think of where a 5th level character could have +5 plot twist points to add to any action and ''twist'' the plot. But when the character gets ''hurt'' they loose plot twist points. And zero the character does not die, but not they have a +0 to actions. That is more the rules for a storytelling game.

Now compare a D&D character with 99% pure combat abilities, vs a Storytelling character that can add lots of bonuses of all kinds to effect the story in all sorts of various mechanical ways.

D&D has those drama points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm) if you want them. The name is different but the principle is the same - a way for players to minimize the effects of random chance on their heroic narratives.

Beyond that, "storytelling type games" are not my forte so I can't comment too much on them. I will however point out that D&D characters can easily be built that "can add lots of bonuses of all kinds to effect the story in all sorts of various mechanical ways." Just because you can build a "99% pure combat" character in D&D doesn't mean you have to.


Indeed. PF's problem biggest problem is that the "fixes" are a selling point, not that it's a hopelessly broken system, which is a strength in a lot of ways. :smallsigh:

The real problem is that some folks vastly overestimated/read too much into the degree to which PF was "fixing" anything, and then got bent out of shape when their unreasonable expectations weren't met. You can't fix 3.5's balance and keep it fully backwards compatible - you need a brand new system for that. Paizo wisely focused on the latter.


And I would argue that the vast majority of "balance problems" arise from an unwillingness on the part of many individuals to not actually use the rules as written. Look at how many people complain about using Disjunction, despite the fact that it solves virtually all of the balance issues with long duration buffs.

3.5 Disjunction solves the buff problem in much the same way that burning your house down would get ants out of your kitchen :smalltongue:

I agree with your main point - that a large number of problems are caused by DMs treating their houserules as RAW, or simply not being aware of well-designed rules that cover their specific dilemma and feeling like they have to invent something on the fly, and even worse enforcing it inconsistently. However, houserules can solve a lot of problems too (like monks not being proficient with unarmed strikes, or Darkness creating light.) Nobody, not even you, runs a 100.000% RAW game (drown-healing and all) - there is always a gentleman's agreement, corner case or contested interpretation in there somewhere. Which is fine, because the game was never intended to be run 100% RAW anyway (DMG 6 "Adjudicating" / CRB 9 "The Most Important Rule.")


I don't think it should be fixed at all. The beauty of 3.5 is that it ISN'T balanced. You can make god wizards and CoDzillas, or weapon focus fighters and sneak attack rogues, and yes they are so horribly balanced that they don't belong in the same multiverse (let alone the same party), but thats what keeps us interested in the system!

We may complain about the balance, we may laugh at the obvious lack of playtesting, and debate RAW vs RAI vs RA-what-the-hell-were-they-even-thinking until the break of dawn, but the fact is that all the flaws in the system (and the many brilliant ways you can work with or around them) is one of the reasons we stay interested.

Trying to "fix" 3.5 is like trying to make a vintage Jaguar or Maserati into a cheap, reliable utility car; it would be horribly complicated and expensive, and in doing it you would completely strip it of all it's charm and personality. If you want a Toyota, just buy a Toyota.

^ Yep, that.

[jedipotter]

Another simple solution: Don't play to power game, play to play a character.

Sure, you can play a character and just ignore the power problem. So with a group of 10th level characters, the spellcaster can just use 1st level spells, for example.



Take skyrim for example. There are a ton of exploits/bugs, but as a player, I choose to do none of them for a fun roleplay experience. I did all those exploits once, had my fun, and then intentionally chose a severely restricted character. i.e. 0 items, only upgrade magicka, only use illusion conjuration and sneak.

But D&D is a group game. You have a 10th level character that can't do much more then ''walk up to a foe and swing a weapon'', others have characters that can ''bend time and space to do anything''. So, sure, you could ask them not to do that.



This is the part I kind of disagree with; they removed the bad effects because nobody actually likes them;

Sure, no one likes them but they provided a part of the balance. Even Uno has ''skip your turn'' and ''draw'' that no one likes to get, but they are part of the game. Giving a powerful ability a bad cost, make that cost too much for a lot of people. And even when they use it, there is a chance it might not work out.



Anyway, as to your earlier point of character death being essential to the game, I don't tend to like the randomness of it. You seem convinced that just because rules for dying exist, means that they should do it a lot (at least, it sort of seems like it).

Though, again, your not meant to like it. It's meant to be random. And if the dying rules exist, that means they are there to be used. A lot.



If characters die all the time, then I find roleplay difficult and annoying; why should I roleplay my character when he'll be dead in half a session along with the rest of them? Why go to the trouble? If too many characters die, then players become callous to the threat itself.

This kinda gets to the basic point: D&D is a combat adventure game, not a role-play character building game. The mechanics do say ''don't role play your character'', the mechanics of D&D are just about all combat.

And I don't think the ''callous'' thing makes sense. All most every other classic game has ways you ''loose your player/turn''. Yea, we still play games. If you like Chess, or Battleship or Uno, you don't stop playing if you ''loose the game all the time''.



Also, as DM, I like to have a degree of plot to my campaigns. Not to the extent of railroading, but to the point where you do have enemies out for blood, you're going to have to kill them, and this leads into an overarching plot arc. Death throws a wrench into this; why is it that when the ranger dies, you replace him in a week with a bard? Why does that bard want to join the party? What stake does he have in it, apart from the metagame concept of being played by the same guy? These aren't by any means unanswerable, but they are good questions, and a hassle to answer via backstory.

And again: D&D is a combat adventure game. Your describing a epic drama storytelling game.

[eggynack]

This kinda gets to the basic point: D&D is a combat adventure game, not a role-play character building game. The mechanics do say ''don't role play your character'', the mechanics of D&D are just about all combat.
That's fair if you just play the game purely as chess with bonus complexity, but plenty of games do care about role playing and story. Moreover, it seems like you have an issue with the degree to which the game says that you should role play your character, given that you take issue with its high lethality.


And I don't think the ''callous'' thing makes sense. All most every other classic game has ways you ''loose your player/turn''. Yea, we still play games. If you like Chess, or Battleship or Uno, you don't stop playing if you ''loose the game all the time''.
The difference between D&D and chess is that chess doesn't ask you to be significantly invested in a character who is dying all the time. The rest state with regards to the death of a pawn, or even a queen, is callous apathy, with the only actually relevant thing being how that even alters the outcome of the game as a whole. The rest state with regards to your PC can potentially be that callous apathy, especially if you're just using the system as a tactical simulator, but there can also be a strong emotional connection there, and if a particular game is seeking that emotional connection, then making the player callous is a bad thing.

[johnbragg]

Sure, you can play a character and just ignore the power problem. So with a group of 10th level characters, the spellcaster can just use 1st level spells, for example.



But D&D is a group game. You have a 10th level character that can't do much more then ''walk up to a foe and swing a weapon'', others have characters that can ''bend time and space to do anything''. So, sure, you could ask them not to do that.

Or you could build in house-rules that make low-level magic a better choice than high-level magic.



This kinda gets to the basic point: D&D is a combat adventure game, not a role-play character building game. The mechanics do say ''don't role play your character'', the mechanics of D&D are just about all combat.

And I don't think the ''callous'' thing makes sense. All most every other classic game has ways you ''loose your player/turn''. Yea, we still play games. If you like Chess, or Battleship or Uno, you don't stop playing if you ''loose the game all the time''.

That was a persuasive argument at Gygax' table. But in 2015, if you want to play a combat adventure/tactical simulation/etc, you fire up your XBox or your PC and you have a plethora of options, which do the job better than 4e does.

The comparative advantage that tabletop (or play-by-email) RPGs is role-playing.

[Necroticplague]

Second, to Necroticplague, what do you mean, "level"? In OGL, level can mean class level, character level, spell level, skill level, or any number of things. Yes, though I had Effective Character in mind.



If we go to your definition of level as to represent a given amount of advancement in a class, then wouldn't the high-caster classes need more experience and effort to advance in rank than the guy who picks up a sword? Nope. No reason tht magic should necessarily be any more hard to learn than learning the intricacies of combat.



IMaybe it's a YMMV, but not all paths are equally easy, some should require more effort to become more powerful. Why not represent that mechanically by differentiating the XP scaling? Because its extra bookkeeping, and throws a wrench in the very idea of ECL if not all of them are equal.Whats a level appropriate CR for a level 7 rogue, 9 fighter, 6 wizard, and 3 cleric/3 fighter? Instead, you can represent that same "this path is more difficult" by simply making it weaker, so that it takes longer to become more powerful. Make paths that are easy represented by front-loaded classes that encourage you to dip around a lot, while the harder paths have most of there power near the end of there classes, encouraging those who want to take that path to first have to slog through.

That is, if you want to represent that concept in your game. I think balancing something by making it hard to get access to is a poor design choice, as how hard it was to get to wont matter once you finally have it. Instead, just making them roughly as equal in both power and how easy they are to get.

(Side note to above, but related to thread, is that I feel similarly about x/day being used as a limit on otherwise too-strong abilities. Because as long as you can use the ability, its still broken compared to other things, but then your much weaker after you use it all up, so you are much less able to contribute. Thus, both before and after the ability was used, it was creating an imbalance. Come to think of it, a more balanced 3.5 would probably be turning all spellcasters and similar into specialized warlocks, then buffing some of the lowest remainders. That easily cuts the tier list down to 3-5. Only real thing that might still be above 3 would be the artificer, but I honestly can't think of any cure for that, due to the inherent power of magic items within the system.)

[jedipotter]

This doesn't really follow in my view. All "hit points" mean is that "death by damage is possible" - their existence, in and of themselves, does not say anything about the lethality of a system unless you have an "incoming damage from typical encounter" metric to compare them to. There are games where hit points measure in the hundreds of thousands, and DR/resistances measure in the millions, yet you can die 1 second after a fight starts without even getting to do anything if you're not careful. (Looking at you, Diablo 3 Torment 6.)

The point is, Hit Points in D&D are saying that this character can die. Lose the hit points, and the character dies. And the game if full of ways to lose hit points.



Beyond that, "storytelling type games" are not my forte so I can't comment too much on them. I will however point out that D&D characters can easily be built that "can add lots of bonuses of all kinds to effect the story in all sorts of various mechanical ways." Just because you can build a "99% pure combat" character in D&D doesn't mean you have to.


You can build a non-combat D&D character, in name anyway. Your ''non-combat character'' will still have an AC, HP, a Base Attack Bonus, and if they are a spellcaster they have 75% of all combat spells to pick from. Note the very important point: D&D does not have non-combat rules. A non-combat character does not get Base Peace Bonus, for example.

But ok, your non-combat character goes on an adventure. In all most all games, this involves combat. The goblin bandits rush over to kill the characters. So the non-combat character still has to fight, and D&D is full of combat rules.

But, ok, go one step further. Say you want D&D to be all peaceful with no combat. So the goblin bandits will come over and attempt to trick or bribe the characters out of loot. Well, D&D does not really support this much. Sure you can roll a diplomacy skill check or cast a spell like charm person. But there is no chapter in the Players Handbook titled ''Non-Combat'' or ''Peace''.

There are a couple handfuls of options for a non-combat character, but nothing that changes the base combat adventure game. Your making a non-combat character for a combat game as a subversion, not as part of the games framework.


That's fair if you just play the game purely as chess with bonus complexity, but plenty of games do care about role playing and story. Moreover, it seems like you have an issue with the degree to which the game says that you should role play your character, given that you take issue with its high lethality.

I love role playing and story and plots! But when I play D&D it's role playing and story and plots built around a framework of a combat adventure. Your group can sit back and role play and not touch any dice or use a single rule for three hours. Though that is just role-playing. As soon as you pick up the dice and get ready to use the rules, that is where the games mechanical problems kick in.

[eggynack]

I love role playing and story and plots! But when I play D&D it's role playing and story and plots built around a framework of a combat adventure. Your group can sit back and role play and not touch any dice or use a single rule for three hours. Though that is just role-playing. As soon as you pick up the dice and get ready to use the rules, that is where the games mechanical problems kick in.
Sure but, point is, if you up the lethality of a game significantly, then you're causing the mechanical half to interfere somewhat with the story half. A death every now and then is fine, because that just gives things stakes and drama, but if everyone's always a hair's breadth from death, then actually striving for anything feels pointless. It's the same sort of problem that exists in more formal narratives, actually. Both consistent and perfect success and endless character death lead to complacency on the part of the viewer/player. It's in the middle between the two options that you create situations with actually unexpected outcomes, and that seems like the ideal if you're seeking a highly dramatic game.

[Arbane]

So we've established, There Is No Consensus.


I disagree! :smallbiggrin:



I'd chime in that the tier balance problem is real, even in the lowest-op games, after the first few levels.

Yep. 3.5 persists in this bizarre delusion that 20 Wizard is in some way shape or form 'equal' to 20 Commoner. And quite a few of the Fighters Shouldn't Have Nice Things arguments come down to "casters get to play all 20 levels, mundanes are E6, because REALIZM." :smallannoyed:


And I would argue that the vast majority of "balance problems" arise from an unwillingness on the part of many individuals to not actually use the rules as written. Look at how many people complain about using Disjunction, despite the fact that it solves virtually all of the balance issues with long duration buffs.

Or who complain about all of the save or dies, despite the fact that resurrection is trivial and expected in 3.5. Death in higher level D&D 3.5 is and was never supposed to be anything more than temporary removal for the rest of the encounter or adventuring day (at most).

Or who complain about Teleportation magic when all of the tools exist in the rules to control it.

To the extent that D&D 3.5 (pre epic) really has balance problems it is in the power divide between the caster and melee PC classes.

Disjunction turns rocket tag into Thermonuclear War Tag. I'm not sure that's any sort of improvement.

The problem with save-or-dies as I see it, is that characters get a certain amount of Ablative Plot Armor (hit points) vs instant death from fleshy injuries, but every SoD spell is potential instant death.
(As another problem, D&D fighting really doesn't handle 'fighting defensively' well at all. "Oooh, +2 AC for -4 on attacks. THAT'll save my butt from the enraged dragon....")

And I couldn't agree more with you about the caster/mundane power gap.

And ANOTHER problem is the gear-centric nature of D&D adventurers. Sure, the game can be a magic version of a Tom Clancy novel, with the party's gizmos doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but it would be nice if that wasn't mandatory. (Here's one suggested fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules) to that problem.) This has been a problem since "+1 or better weapon to hit" was a thing, and I don't see it improving any time soon.

[jedipotter]

That was a persuasive argument at Gygax' table. But in 2015, if you want to play a combat adventure/tactical simulation/etc, you fire up your XBox or your PC and you have a plethora of options, which do the job better than 4e does.

The comparative advantage that tabletop (or play-by-email) RPGs is role-playing.

But that is my point, D&D is not mechanically built for role playing, it's mechanically built for action adventure combat.



Just think what a D20 Role Playing fantasy game that focused on the plot and story would mechanically look like:

1. First off we want classes that are made for storytelling and not combat. So we dump ''cleric'' and make that class ''faithful'' removing the armor and weapons and turn undead. ''Rogue'' becomes ''Sneak'', and instead of a pure combat ability like Sneak Attack, the Sneak class gets Plot Twists. So every could of levels they get +1d6 to d20 rolls to effect the plot.

2. Next we dump combat. So no more BAB for each class, it's now Base Action Points...BaP. If your character wishes to effect anything in the game, they must first be able to effect the person place or thing. The game has Plot Armor. The more important a character, place or thing is to the plot, the harder it is to effect. The game does not have hit points, it has energy points. So things in the game can reduce a characters energy. At zero energy a character can do much. Energy points are like a pool, you can use them at will, and each point is a plus one. They recharge slowly.

3.Next we really expand skills(to be as big as the spell chapter in D&D). We want tons of skills, and tons and tons of plat and storytelling social ones. Feats too.

Game Example: So classic of: group goes after some bandits:

So Bandit Hawk goes first. His Rebel class has the ''favored foe'' of ''law enforcement'' so he will target the player character that is a ''Lawman''. He rolls the d20, adds two for his base action points, three for his charisma bonus, one from his action focus feat, and finally adds five from his energy points. He gets a total of 20 and effects! He uses his ''family photo'' and weaves a tale of ''just trying to feed his kids'' The ''photo effect'' does 1d6 effect, plus two from favored foe, plus two from charisma and 1d6 from his Plot Twist class ability. The damage total is 12. The lawman character only has 10 energy, so he is drained of energy. But the rebel also has ''plot cleave'' and ''tosses'' his story at the next character.

Player character Comic goes next. He will use one of his Comic Bits and attempt to effect three Thugs. Each thug gets a will save, but the comic has the Improve feat so that makes the DC plus three. All the thugs fail their saves and each takes 3d4 energy drain. The comic rolls a 9, so each is drained of nine energy.

The Lawman gets to go next. He is at -2 energy, so that -2 applies to his actions. He tries the ''giving up is the right thing to do'' action. Adds his base action points, one from charisma, and takes away two from his low energy. His modifier is zero. He gets a total of 8 and does not effect the rebel.

[atemu1234]

But that is my point, D&D is not mechanically built for role playing, it's mechanically built for action adventure combat.



Just think what a D20 Role Playing fantasy game that focused on the plot and story would mechanically look like:

1. First off we want classes that are made for storytelling and not combat. So we dump ''cleric'' and make that class ''faithful'' removing the armor and weapons and turn undead. ''Rogue'' becomes ''Sneak'', and instead of a pure combat ability like Sneak Attack, the Sneak class gets Plot Twists. So every could of levels they get +1d6 to d20 rolls to effect the plot.

2. Next we dump combat. So no more BAB for each class, it's now Base Action Points...BaP. If your character wishes to effect anything in the game, they must first be able to effect the person place or thing. The game has Plot Armor. The more important a character, place or thing is to the plot, the harder it is to effect. The game does not have hit points, it has energy points. So things in the game can reduce a characters energy. At zero energy a character can do much. Energy points are like a pool, you can use them at will, and each point is a plus one. They recharge slowly.

3.Next we really expand skills(to be as big as the spell chapter in D&D). We want tons of skills, and tons and tons of plat and storytelling social ones. Feats too.

Game Example: So classic of: group goes after some bandits:

So Bandit Hawk goes first. His Rebel class has the ''favored foe'' of ''law enforcement'' so he will target the player character that is a ''Lawman''. He rolls the d20, adds two for his base action points, three for his charisma bonus, one from his action focus feat, and finally adds five from his energy points. He gets a total of 20 and effects! He uses his ''family photo'' and weaves a tale of ''just trying to feed his kids'' The ''photo effect'' does 1d6 effect, plus two from favored foe, plus two from charisma and 1d6 from his Plot Twist class ability. The damage total is 12. The lawman character only has 10 energy, so he is drained of energy. But the rebel also has ''plot cleave'' and ''tosses'' his story at the next character.

Player character Comic goes next. He will use one of his Comic Bits and attempt to effect three Thugs. Each thug gets a will save, but the comic has the Improve feat so that makes the DC plus three. All the thugs fail their saves and each takes 3d4 energy drain. The comic rolls a 9, so each is drained of nine energy.

The Lawman gets to go next. He is at -2 energy, so that -2 applies to his actions. He tries the ''giving up is the right thing to do'' action. Adds his base action points, one from charisma, and takes away two from his low energy. His modifier is zero. He gets a total of 8 and does not effect the rebel.



Since your argument is that rules for death exist, therefore it should happen, you should know the rules also mention awarding good roleplaying. So the logic therein dictates...

[jedipotter]

Since your argument is that rules for death exist, therefore it should happen, you should know the rules also mention awarding good roleplaying. So the logic therein dictates...

Where do you see the rules saying good role playing gets an award? Are you talking about the two paragraphs in the DMG after several pages and tables of ''the amount of XP you get for killing foes''?

Is there a chapter in the core rules about awarding good role playing?

[Killer Angel]

Imbalance is inherantly built into 3.5/pathfinder. You could fix it but it wouldn't be 3.5 anymore.

I'd also add that a great part of the fun, is to take a weak class, and squeeze all the good you can from it, 'til you obtain a good build. It's a challenge.

[johnbragg]

Where do you see the rules saying good role playing gets an award? Are you talking about the two paragraphs in the DMG after several pages and tables of ''the amount of XP you get for killing foes''?

Is there a chapter in the core rules about awarding good role playing?

More to the point, there are no rules for good role playing increasing BAB, HP, skills, feats or spells, which is the focus of the game. Jedipotter has a point.

[Arbane]

But that is my point, D&D is not mechanically built for role playing, it's mechanically built for action adventure combat.


And that's why we call them 'Tarted-Up Miniatures Wargaming' instead of 'Role-Playing Games', right?



Just think what a D20 Role Playing fantasy game that focused on the plot and story would mechanically look like:

3.Next we really expand skills(to be as big as the spell chapter in D&D). We want tons of skills, and tons and tons of plat and storytelling social ones. Feats too.


I disagree with you about everything else, but I'm going to disagree EXTRA HARD with this bit. The longer an RPG's skill-list gets, the HARDER it is to make a competent character.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Essentially, the idea would be that we would create a list of items, spells, feats, etc etc that are all good, and fill out as many roles / concepts as possible in as little space as possible. I could also basically rewrite the PHB to present better introductions for how to use the rules and create character archetypes, and give an archive of example PCs that are all competitively balanced at different levels (think the section of the DMG with premade NPCs, except good).

I've toyed with ideas like that before, but never gotten very far. If you break it down so that each contributor is just doing a book or two's worth of "this is worth using," it becomes a lot less intimidating. Pair the list of worthy feats, PrCs, spells, and so on with a class-based balancing project like, oh, Giants and Graveyards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?329161-Giants-and-Graveyards-Grod-s-collected-3-5-revisions)...

[Psyren]

The point is, Hit Points in D&D are saying that this character can die. Lose the hit points, and the character dies. And the game if full of ways to lose hit points.

It is, but that does not mean the game is intended to be lethal. The game is also full of poisons, curses and diseases, yet you can go a whole campaign without being subjected to any of them, and certainly without dying to any of them.



You can build a non-combat D&D character, in name anyway. Your ''non-combat character'' will still have an AC, HP, a Base Attack Bonus, and if they are a spellcaster they have 75% of all combat spells to pick from. Note the very important point: D&D does not have non-combat rules. A non-combat character does not get Base Peace Bonus, for example.

But ok, your non-combat character goes on an adventure. In all most all games, this involves combat. The goblin bandits rush over to kill the characters. So the non-combat character still has to fight, and D&D is full of combat rules.

But, ok, go one step further. Say you want D&D to be all peaceful with no combat. So the goblin bandits will come over and attempt to trick or bribe the characters out of loot. Well, D&D does not really support this much. Sure you can roll a diplomacy skill check or cast a spell like charm person. But there is no chapter in the Players Handbook titled ''Non-Combat'' or ''Peace''.

There are a couple handfuls of options for a non-combat character, but nothing that changes the base combat adventure game. Your making a non-combat character for a combat game as a subversion, not as part of the games framework.

I agree - D&D is weak at non-combat resolution. But do you really need robust rules for that? Swinging a sword is easy - the stronger or faster you are, the more telling the blow. The thicker your opponent's armor, or skin, or the quicker they are at twisting out of the way, the less so it becomes.

The talky bits - well, they're much more fiddly. Some groups will want to get them out of the way quickly to get back to the action. Others will want an elaborate system of complex resolution, rewards and punishments. Some will reward an eloquent player who comes up with a great argument. Others will rely more on dice so that the more fumbletongued players can shine. Some groups will be fine with one person handling the talking. Some will get irritated if one person has the limelight too long. It's all a tangled snarl, and other systems already do it better.

[Killer Angel]

And I would argue that the vast majority of "balance problems" arise from an unwillingness on the part of many individuals to not actually use the rules as written. Look at how many people complain about using Disjunction, despite the fact that it solves virtually all of the balance issues with long duration buffs.


I don't know if D. was made to "solve the balance issues with long duration buffs".
What I know, is that it primarily hurts characters with weak will saves (mundane ones), characters that need magic items to be competitive (mundane ones), and that cannot easily replace those items, 'cause they cannot craft them (again, mundane characters)

Disjunctions is simply a bad joke, and one redeeming quality is not enough to save it.

[kellbyb]

But that is my point, D&D is not mechanically built for role playing, it's mechanically built for action adventure combat.



Just think what a D20 Role Playing fantasy game that focused on the plot and story would mechanically look like:

1. First off we want classes that are made for storytelling and not combat. So we dump ''cleric'' and make that class ''faithful'' removing the armor and weapons and turn undead. ''Rogue'' becomes ''Sneak'', and instead of a pure combat ability like Sneak Attack, the Sneak class gets Plot Twists. So every could of levels they get +1d6 to d20 rolls to effect the plot.

2. Next we dump combat. So no more BAB for each class, it's now Base Action Points...BaP. If your character wishes to effect anything in the game, they must first be able to effect the person place or thing. The game has Plot Armor. The more important a character, place or thing is to the plot, the harder it is to effect. The game does not have hit points, it has energy points. So things in the game can reduce a characters energy. At zero energy a character can do much. Energy points are like a pool, you can use them at will, and each point is a plus one. They recharge slowly.

3.Next we really expand skills(to be as big as the spell chapter in D&D). We want tons of skills, and tons and tons of plat and storytelling social ones. Feats too.

Game Example: So classic of: group goes after some bandits:

So Bandit Hawk goes first. His Rebel class has the ''favored foe'' of ''law enforcement'' so he will target the player character that is a ''Lawman''. He rolls the d20, adds two for his base action points, three for his charisma bonus, one from his action focus feat, and finally adds five from his energy points. He gets a total of 20 and effects! He uses his ''family photo'' and weaves a tale of ''just trying to feed his kids'' The ''photo effect'' does 1d6 effect, plus two from favored foe, plus two from charisma and 1d6 from his Plot Twist class ability. The damage total is 12. The lawman character only has 10 energy, so he is drained of energy. But the rebel also has ''plot cleave'' and ''tosses'' his story at the next character.

Player character Comic goes next. He will use one of his Comic Bits and attempt to effect three Thugs. Each thug gets a will save, but the comic has the Improve feat so that makes the DC plus three. All the thugs fail their saves and each takes 3d4 energy drain. The comic rolls a 9, so each is drained of nine energy.

The Lawman gets to go next. He is at -2 energy, so that -2 applies to his actions. He tries the ''giving up is the right thing to do'' action. Adds his base action points, one from charisma, and takes away two from his low energy. His modifier is zero. He gets a total of 8 and does not effect the rebel.



All I get from this is that you don't understand gray areas.

[aidenn0]

One bare minimum for balancing 3.5 more is eliminating Vancian magic. Every d20 system that I like better than 3.5 doesn't use it. I think the sweet spot for "Balances out having to prepare all spells in advance" is either nonexistent, or so small as to be impossible to hit.

Also note that if you reduce the power of an optimized wizard build even the slightest, a half-dozen people will post on the internet that magic is underpowered.

[Emperor Tippy]

I don't know if D. was made to "solve the balance issues with long duration buffs".
What I know, is that it primarily hurts characters with weak will saves (mundane ones), characters that need magic items to be competitive (mundane ones), and that cannot easily replace those items, 'cause they cannot craft them (again, mundane characters)

Disjunctions is simply a bad joke, and one redeeming quality is not enough to save it.

It punishes characters that are reliant on a single specific item and were too stupid to ensure its survival. Otherwise it kills some of your magic items for the rest of the encounter. Then the party Wizard brings out the free Wish's and replaces all of the destroyed items.

Really not hard.

[jedipotter]

And that's why we call them 'Tarted-Up Miniatures Wargaming' instead of 'Role-Playing Games', right?

Occasionally things get misnamed. There is no dog in hot dog, no ham in hamburgers, and just as a liquid is organic and white does not make it milk.


All I get from this is that you don't understand gray areas.

The gray areas are the problem. D&D is black and white.



It is, but that does not mean the game is intended to be lethal. The game is also full of poisons, curses and diseases, yet you can go a whole campaign without being subjected to any of them, and certainly without dying to any of them.

I think D&D should be lethal, you think character should be immortal. I think Ac, BaB, HP, and the death and dying rules are there to be used, you think they are there to ignore. We can drop this now.



The talky bits - well, they're much more fiddly. Some groups will want to get them out of the way quickly to get back to the action. Others will want an elaborate system of complex resolution, rewards and punishments. Some will reward an eloquent player who comes up with a great argument. Others will rely more on dice so that the more fumbletongued players can shine. Some groups will be fine with one person handling the talking. Some will get irritated if one person has the limelight too long. It's all a tangled snarl, and other systems already do it better.

Right, now your talking about Free Form Role Playing. Where everyone just sits around and role plays with no mechanical support what so ever. And you can stop playing the game and do this in any game you want too. You could stop playing Battleship! and give each your ships a name and a crew and long histories and spend hours role playing the two crews talking to each other. D&D is exactly the same way.

Nothing in the D&D rules helps or enhances role play. In fact, the D&D rules are built around ''skip the talking and role play and get back to the combat''. Consider skills like Gather Information. The role play way to gather information is to role play your character talking to dozens of NPCs. The D&D way is ''roll the die and the DM will tell you want your character discovered.''

And nothing about free form role playing needs to be fixed or has any balance problems. It's the mechanics that are the problem.

[eggynack]

I think D&D should be lethal, you think character should be immortal. I think Ac, BaB, HP, and the death and dying rules are there to be used, you think they are there to ignore. We can drop this now.
I don't think that's something Psyren ever said. I don't think it's something anyone in this thread said, apart from you just now.


Right, now your talking about Free Form Role Playing. Where everyone just sits around and role plays with no mechanical support what so ever. And you can stop playing the game and do this in any game you want too. You could stop playing Battleship! and give each your ships a name and a crew and long histories and spend hours role playing the two crews talking to each other. D&D is exactly the same way.

Nothing in the D&D rules helps or enhances role play. In fact, the D&D rules are built around ''skip the talking and role play and get back to the combat''. Consider skills like Gather Information. The role play way to gather information is to role play your character talking to dozens of NPCs. The D&D way is ''roll the die and the DM will tell you want your character discovered.''

And nothing about free form role playing needs to be fixed or has any balance problems. It's the mechanics that are the problem.
He didn't really say that either. Free form role playing requires that nothing be handled directly with standardized mechanics, and Psyren was only talking about handling the more talky parts of the game without standardized mechanics. In any case, role playing mechanics aren't the place where the emphasis is placed in 3.5, certainly, but that doesn't mean that one can't roleplay in 3.5. You could always give your ships names and crews or whatever, and then play the game normal up until one of them gets sunk by normal mechanics, and then act things out at that point. That's not stopping the game. If anything, it seems like it'd enhance the game. Battleship is kinda boring, after all.

[kellbyb]

Occasionally things get misnamed. There is no dog in hot dog, no ham in hamburgers, and just as a liquid is organic and white does not make it milk.
Hamburgers are not named for their composition, but from the fact that their origination is credited to Hamburg, Germany.


The gray areas are the problem. D&D is black and white.
Original D&D may have been B&W, but 3.5 is anything but.


I think D&D should be lethal, you think character should be immortal. I think Ac, BaB, HP, and the death and dying rules are there to be used, you think they are there to ignore. We can drop this now.
You assume too much about everyone else's beliefs. Stop.

[jedipotter]

He didn't really say that either. Free form role playing requires that nothing be handled directly with standardized mechanics, and Psyren was only talking about handling the more talky parts of the game without standardized mechanics. In any case, role playing mechanics aren't the place where the emphasis is placed in 3.5, certainly, but that doesn't mean that one can't roleplay in 3.5.

I'm saying you can role play in place of playing D&D.

You say you can role play ''in'' D&D.

Though other then the things like your character name, you don't use much of the mechancis of D&D to role play. So how is it your ''in''(playing) D&D, if your not using the rules?

Look I'll say role playing is part of the D&D Culture, but it's not part of the game.

[Psyren]

It punishes characters that are reliant on a single specific item and were too stupid to ensure its survival. Otherwise it kills some of your magic items for the rest of the encounter. Then the party Wizard brings out the free Wish's and replaces all of the destroyed items.

Really not hard.

It seems to me that in a game with this much power flying around, that any window without your protective gear, buffs and contingencies would be extremely lethal. But if the party wizard is able to restore everything so quickly that there is no such window of vulnerability, then the disjunction itself was pointless as a balancing mechanism anyway.

Arbane put it best - this is thermonuclear tag.



I think D&D should be lethal, you think character should be immortal. I think Ac, BaB, HP, and the death and dying rules are there to be used, you think they are there to ignore. We can drop this now.

Please don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing. Characters can get hurt and die - but it should happen because the players themselves exercised poor judgment or took foolish risks, not merely due to Gygaxian random chance and not poking every square with your 10 ft pole before stepping in it.

There's a quote from The Giant that I think sums it up: "My feeling has always been that if a character dies as part of the narrative, it should be as a result of their choices or else it's meaningless."


Right, now your talking about Free Form Role Playing. Where everyone just sits around and role plays with no mechanical support what so ever. And you can stop playing the game and do this in any game you want too. You could stop playing Battleship! and give each your ships a name and a crew and long histories and spend hours role playing the two crews talking to each other. D&D is exactly the same way.

Nothing in the D&D rules helps or enhances role play. In fact, the D&D rules are built around ''skip the talking and role play and get back to the combat''. Consider skills like Gather Information. The role play way to gather information is to role play your character talking to dozens of NPCs. The D&D way is ''roll the die and the DM will tell you want your character discovered.''

And nothing about free form role playing needs to be fixed or has any balance problems. It's the mechanics that are the problem.

I actually agree and think freeform isn't very satisfying. But comprehensive mechanics to resolve social interaction - a very situational activity - are a tall order, and one I think D&D just isn't equipped for. From my perspective, you can either design your fingers off trying to make the square peg fit in the round hole, get through the social bits as quickly as possible, freeform them (with a little help from the dice) or play something else.

[Necroticplague]

Um, how is the system all about lethality? All the stuff that's been brought up only shows that combat is a large focus of the game (which is pretty undeniably true), not necessarily that dying is. After all, the list of things that you can do when your alive is significantly better enumerated than the things you can do when your dead. In fact, the rules for what you can do when your dead are so ill-defined that its possible to actually read the rules to allow psions to keep manifesting post-mortem.

[Arbane]

Look I'll say role playing is part of the D&D Culture, but it's not part of the game.

The alignment rules say you're wrong.

[jedipotter]

Um, how is the system all about lethality? All the stuff that's been brought up only shows that combat is a large focus of the game (which is pretty undeniably true), not necessarily that dying is. After all, the list of things that you can do when your alive is significantly better enumerated than the things you can do when your dead. In fact, the rules for what you can do when your dead are so ill-defined that its possible to actually read the rules to allow psions to keep manifesting post-mortem.

It goes back a page or two...

One of my five fixes is making the game lethal again. Death is the great equalizer and brings balance. The D&D game rules are written this way. Your character has X hit points and when your character takes X+ damage, your character dies. It's really basic.

Now, bring in the Storytelling Idea, above and beyond the rules. Players put lots of time into characters. DM's put lots of time into settings. Both players and DM's put lots of time into the story and plot and role playing. And both ''like'' characters. And both ''don't like change''.

So then things are changed. House rules like ''max hp per level'' are a great mechanical example, as is having a lot of healing available.

But mostly it comes down to the play style. The D&D rules are made for character death as part of the game. As soon as it is decided to alter that, the game becomes unbalanced.

Teleport Example: In Ye Old D&D teleport was a risk. No matter what you might ''miss'' when you teleport. And if you were off target and appeared in the ground, your character died. It was a small risk if your character knew the target area, but it was never zero. So every teleport was a risk. And the more you teleported, the more risk. Now some players chose to not take the risk, some chose to ignore it, and some used it only when they really needed too. But the risk was there, and play the game for a bit and you'd see a character die from a teleport mishap.

Now 3E removed all that. Teleport was now 100% safe. So now, anyone could teleport all around at will. Even with just viewed once, you knew a character would be safe. So now, there is no reason to not to teleport...the character will always land in a safe place.

But see, the risk of character death is a powerful element in the balance of the game. Powerful spellcasters can teleport...but how often? How much risk do they want to take? The player knows every roll could be the characters last...

Ask any player of a high level spellcaster if they would want to use the 2E teleport and die rules. Most will say no. They like the 3E teleport and your character will always be safe. But, say they do agree.....you think they will have their character use teleport a lot?

[ZamielVanWeber]

One of my five fixes is making the game lethal again. Death is the great equalizer and brings balance. The D&D game rules are written this way. Your character has X hit points and when your character takes X+ damage, your character dies. It's really basic.

Except for the part where magic users have a tremendous number of defensive options and mundanes don't. Hitting a wizard can be tricky. Hitting a wizard prepared for the encounter can be near impossible.

Anecdotal, but as an example: I spent a campaign as a Beguiler/Shadowcraft Mage. I got hit once. I was attacked many times, but between Greater Mirror Image and my Shadowcraft miss chance (we didn't have the RC rules forbidding the stacking of these effects) I was only ever hit once (I also used other spells such as Solid Fog to keep combatants away from me). Another guy managed to go through two characters in 8 sessions. He was a mundane both times. He got hit and taken down because he simply could not bring to bear the kind of defenses I could.

The biggest problem with 3.5 has been and always will be the gap between casters and non-casters. Options will always trump non-options.

[eggynack]

I'm saying you can role play in place of playing D&D.

You say you can role play ''in'' D&D.

Though other then the things like your character name, you don't use much of the mechancis of D&D to role play. So how is it your ''in''(playing) D&D, if your not using the rules?

Look I'll say role playing is part of the D&D Culture, but it's not part of the game.
As Arbane notes, there are a number of mechanical systems devoted to non-combat situations. In particular, you have a good majority of skills in the game, a reasonable number of spells, the rules surrounding everything from deities to alignments to organizations, and a number of other things. It's not the strongest mechanical core, but it exists, which means that there is non-combat stuff supported by game mechanics. Those shouldn't be the entirety of roleplaying, because a big part of the point is that it's not purely mechanical, but they back it up reasonably.


Teleport Example: In Ye Old D&D teleport was a risk. No matter what you might ''miss'' when you teleport. And if you were off target and appeared in the ground, your character died. It was a small risk if your character knew the target area, but it was never zero. So every teleport was a risk. And the more you teleported, the more risk. Now some players chose to not take the risk, some chose to ignore it, and some used it only when they really needed too. But the risk was there, and play the game for a bit and you'd see a character die from a teleport mishap.
That doesn't seem so much like an example of decreased lethality as it does the general removal of drawbacks. Which, yes, does reduce balance, but it's not like all of those drawbacks have to lead to instant death.

[Emperor Tippy]

It seems to me that in a game with this much power flying around, that any window without your protective gear, buffs and contingencies would be extremely lethal. But if the party wizard is able to restore everything so quickly that there is no such window of vulnerability, then the disjunction itself was pointless as a balancing mechanism anyway.

Arbane put it best - this is thermonuclear tag.

Item's, assuming that they failed their saves, are down for the rest of the encounter or so. Buffs are down until the caster can recast them, which could be anywhere from under a round to a day or more.

And yes, it is extremely lethal. High level D&D is inherently extremely lethal. You pretty much either have a defense that virtually hard counters that particular attack or you die. And then you either have a means to prevent your soul from being destroyed/trapped and come back to life or you don't.

[kellbyb]

It goes back a page or two...

One of my five fixes is making the game lethal again. Death is the great equalizer and brings balance. The D&D game rules are written this way. Your character has X hit points and when your character takes X+ damage, your character dies. It's really basic.

Now, bring in the Storytelling Idea, above and beyond the rules. Players put lots of time into characters. DM's put lots of time into settings. Both players and DM's put lots of time into the story and plot and role playing. And both ''like'' characters. And both ''don't like change''.

So then things are changed. House rules like ''max hp per level'' are a great mechanical example, as is having a lot of healing available.

But mostly it comes down to the play style. The D&D rules are made for character death as part of the game. As soon as it is decided to alter that, the game becomes unbalanced.

When you're well and truly in trouble, full HD doesn't mean jack squat. I find that randomized HP tends to arbitrarily hurt people for whom it HD is a major contributing factor to total HP, which is mundanes, aka the people who need more good things. A wizard's HP rolls generally won't mean much. A fighter's rolls can easily be the difference between life and death.


Teleport Example: In Ye Old D&D teleport was a risk. No matter what you might ''miss'' when you teleport. And if you were off target and appeared in the ground, your character died. It was a small risk if your character knew the target area, but it was never zero. So every teleport was a risk. And the more you teleported, the more risk. Now some players chose to not take the risk, some chose to ignore it, and some used it only when they really needed too. But the risk was there, and play the game for a bit and you'd see a character die from a teleport mishap.

Now 3E removed all that. Teleport was now 100% safe. So now, anyone could teleport all around at will. Even with just viewed once, you knew a character would be safe. So now, there is no reason to not to teleport...the character will always land in a safe place.

But see, the risk of character death is a powerful element in the balance of the game. Powerful spellcasters can teleport...but how often? How much risk do they want to take? The player knows every roll could be the characters last...

Ask any player of a high level spellcaster if they would want to use the 2E teleport and die rules. Most will say no. They like the 3E teleport and your character will always be safe. But, say they do agree.....you think they will have their character use teleport a lot?

Just wanted to add that there are two teleports, one of which still uses die rolls like the one you described. Further on, you have to go outside of core to get a reliable version of Plane Shift.


That doesn't seem so much like an example of decreased lethality as it does the general removal of drawbacks. Which, yes, does reduce balance, but it's not like all of those drawbacks have to lead to instant death.

Actually, they lead to Orcus.

[jedipotter]

The biggest problem with 3.5 has been and always will be the gap between casters and non-casters. Options will always trump non-options.

It's Number One(magic is over powered, vague and down right crazy) and Number Two(mundanes need nice things) on my List.


As Arbane notes, there are a number of mechanical systems devoted to non-combat situations. In particular, you have a good majority of skills in the game, a reasonable number of spells, the rules surrounding everything from deities to alignments to organizations, and a number of other things. It's not the strongest mechanical core, but it exists, which means that there is non-combat stuff supported by game mechanics. Those shouldn't be the entirety of roleplaying, because a big part of the point is that it's not purely mechanical, but they back it up reasonably.

Just point me to the massive block of very crunchy heavy mechanical rules in Core 3.5 D&D devoted to non-combat situations. The three and one fourth, lets just say five pages on alignment don't really match up vs the Chapter on Combat. And alignment has no crunch or mechanics.


That doesn't seem so much like an example of decreased lethality as it does the general removal of drawbacks. Which, yes, does reduce balance, but it's not like all of those drawbacks have to lead to instant death.

True all drawbacks are not instant death, I said so pages ago. But all drawbacks and negative things add balance. My favorite was polymorph changing an effected persons mind, at 100% minus one per Int point and one for each HD of difference....polymorph was, again, a risk.


When you're well and truly in trouble, full HD doesn't mean jack squat. I find that randomized HP tends to arbitrarily hurt people for whom it HD is a major contributing factor to total HP, which is mundanes, aka the people who need more good things. A wizard's HP rolls generally won't mean much. A fighter's rolls can easily be the difference between life and death.

Well, again, it's not like you change one tiny thing. Dozens of things need to be changed. Though why does not HP effect wizards in your games?



Just wanted to add that there are two teleports, one of which still uses die rolls like the one you described. Further on, you have to go outside of core to get a reliable version of Plane Shift.

The 3.5E teleport spell is a joke, as you always land ''safe''. Oh sure you might ''miss the target'' or even take 1d10 damage, but that is it. Planeshift is my hidden gem, I just love tossing characters into lakes of acid one billion miles from their target destination with this spell. I'm glad it's so baddy written.

[eggynack]

Just point me to the massive block of very crunchy heavy mechanical rules in Core 3.5 D&D devoted to non-combat situations. The three and one fourth, lets just say five pages on alignment don't really match up vs the Chapter on Combat. And alignment has no crunch or mechanics.
The combat rules definitely outnumber the non-combat rules. However, you've presented the idea that roleplaying is fundamentally not an element of the game, only an aspect of the culture, and that's just inaccurate.


True all drawbacks are not instant death, I said so pages ago. But all drawbacks and negative things add balance. My favorite was polymorph changing an effected persons mind, at 100% minus one per Int point and one for each HD of difference....polymorph was, again, a risk.
No, drawbacks and negative things add balance when they're specifically applied to things that are too powerful. That's why your broad spectrum increase in lethality doesn't really add to the balance to the game, while a specific increase in the lethality of wizard things could plausibly increase balance, even if it isn't by the exact method I'd prefer.

[SwordChucks]

I've been working on a 3.5 core fix for a while now and besides the obvious need for a boost for mundanes and a reworking of magic, I've found the abundant half-rules to be the most in need of fixing.

Half-rules are those rules that the designers added without all of the necessary bits included. Things such as having no rules for how to stop a character from drowning once they start, or that thirst and starvation aren't lethal (at least until later books), and effects with no listed duration. Basically anything in the dysfunctional rules thread was something that the designers could have fixed at anytime during the 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder transitions but chose not to for some reason.

Individually they're small annoyances, but after making a list of all of the things in the PHB alone it really shows how much the designers focused on combat and just sort of said "Oh well, good enough." for the rest of the rules.

[jedipotter]

The combat rules definitely outnumber the non-combat rules. However, you've presented the idea that roleplaying is fundamentally not an element of the game, only an aspect of the culture, and that's just inaccurate.

Unless you can point me to crunchy mechanical role playing rules rules in D&D equal to the massive chunk of crunchy mechanical combat adventure rules.....



No, drawbacks and negative things add balance when they're specifically applied to things that are too powerful. That's why your broad spectrum increase in lethality doesn't really add to the balance to the game, while a specific increase in the lethality of wizard things could plausibly increase balance, even if it isn't by the exact method I'd prefer.

The ''broad spectrum'' effects everyone. Just making magic more dangerious, negative, harmful and lethal effects everyone...though it effects spellcasters more.

And remember the ''specter'' of lethality is often more powerful then the action. When a player is told that this will be a lethal game, they play differently. They are often very cautious and careful and avoid taking risky actions. This has a huge effect on balance.

And it's other negative things too....like loss of stuff. I do the times of things like ''the magic flames destroy your ring of protection +5''. This really keeps the players on their toes....they don't want to loose their characters stuff. But some games ignore this, and the characters stuff is always ok. And things they character ''needs'' are fair targets in my game. Like a spellbook, holy symbol or weapon. Using Sunder is a great way to destroy magic items, as is the old disarm and then smash one too.

But, again you don't need to say ''everyone spellbooks explode'' five minutes into the game.....you just have the possibility there.....it could happen.....there is no plot armor/safety net.

[TheIronGolem]

Unless you can point me to crunchy mechanical role playing rules rules in D&D equal to the massive chunk of crunchy mechanical combat adventure rules.....
He doesn't need to. Your claim is invalidated by the presence of even one rules passage that deals with non-combat activity. You will not be allowed to move the goalposts.

[eggynack]

Unless you can point me to crunchy mechanical role playing rules rules in D&D equal to the massive chunk of crunchy mechanical combat adventure rules.....
I feel like you didn't read the part where I agreed that there were less roleplaying rules, but that even the existence of said rules invalidates your claim. Because it's right in that thing you quoted. First sentence of it, actually. I'm obviously not going to start proving a thing I've already ceded.



The ''broad spectrum'' effects everyone. Just making magic more dangerious, negative, harmful and lethal effects everyone...though it effects spellcasters more.
Increasing the lethality of magic isn't broad spectrum, any more than making unarmed strikes threaten the monk's hand breaking is broad spectrum. We're talking about the balance of characters against each other here, and things that weaken specific classes weaken specific classes. However, there is a problem of broad spectrumness to magic nerfs, in that some magic using classes are low tier. Increasing the self-lethality of spells that a warmage uses might not be the best idea for game balance.

A broad spectrum lethality increase is something like not using average HP, as you noted, which has a chance of doing that, or even using 1's as the result for every HD. In fact, the latter is a pretty good example of why broad lethality increases don't necessarily increase balance. High HD characters are obviously going to care more about the value on their HD, so setting it to 1 is going to reduce balance. Broad spectrum lethality increases don't necessarily reduce balance either. It's honestly a bit difficult to come up with a good example of a balance increasing broad spectrum lethality increase, however, because high tier characters tend to be better at bypassing such a general rule. Reducing saves, for example, just makes casters better at hitting stuff, and they're more likely to have a separate defense against the attack in question.

[kellbyb]

Though why does not HP effect wizards in your games?



Daze
Grease
Obscuring Mist
Color Spray
Fog
Displacement
Pyrotechnics
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
Wall of X
Baleful Polymorph
Globe of Invulnerability
Mirror Image
Solid Fog
Scintillating Pattern
Prismatic Sphere
Ironthunder Horn
Web
...I don't have enough time to list all of it.



The point is that wizards have a lot of ways to prevent themselves from getting hit in the first place.

[Grod_The_Giant]

While this feels strange to say, I feel like 3.5 can do noncombat/role-playing things better than an awful lot of games. Not necessarily on the skill side, but in the sheer amount of abilities you can get to affect the gameworld. Most are spells, admittedly, but still-- the ability to make permanent additions to the world, be they items, minions, spell effects, what have you-- isn't something you often see. Add in the fact that "rules for everything" means that there are serviceable (if not good) rules for, oh, building a castle (Stronghold Builder's Guide)...

[LudicSavant]

While this feels strange to say, I feel like 3.5 can do noncombat/role-playing things better than an awful lot of games. Not necessarily on the skill side, but in the sheer amount of abilities you can get to affect the gameworld. Most are spells, admittedly, but still-- the ability to make permanent additions to the world, be they items, minions, spell effects, what have you-- isn't something you often see. Add in the fact that "rules for everything" means that there are serviceable (if not good) rules for, oh, building a castle (Stronghold Builder's Guide)...

Oh definitely. The spell system has all kinds of wonderful things for out-of-combat action, be it social encounters, infiltration or sabotage missions, logistics-and-dragons, puzzles, information wars, exploration... whatever. For instance, spells like "Detect Thoughts" or "Zone of Truth" are a great example of what diplomatic abilities SHOULD do: It doesn't reduce resolving a "social combat" to a roll, but rather gives you tools that reshape the way the real meaty social encounter gameplay (roleplaying) plays out. It doesn't replace the roleplaying encounter, it just tosses in tools, complications, and conditions that changes it up from the usual talking encounter.

This is one area where 4e really dropped the ball, essentially deciding that this side of the game didn't matter much compared to playing a miniatures game and where it did, emphasizing its lackluster skill system.


I've toyed with ideas like that before, but never gotten very far. If you break it down so that each contributor is just doing a book or two's worth of "this is worth using," it becomes a lot less intimidating. Pair the list of worthy feats, PrCs, spells, and so on with a class-based balancing project like, oh, Giants and Graveyards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?329161-Giants-and-Graveyards-Grod-s-collected-3-5-revisions)...

I don't find it to be too inimidating; it's not beyond the scope of other game design projects I've taken on with short deadlines. It's just a matter of whether or not there's a point in us taking the time to do it, particularly since it would be a case of basically doing our jobs for free. I mean, we're talking about a level of time investment comparable to a game jam in which I would actually finish up a prototype video game.


Giants and Graveyards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?329161-Giants-and-Graveyards-Grod-s-collected-3-5-revisions)... I have quite a lot of points I could offer on this post, but I apparently can't due to the playground's odd "thread necromancy" rule. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Curmudgeon]

To fix the game you need to do a line-by-line vetting. Many items will need to be eliminated or toned down (half the core spells, for instance). Many other items will need to be added to or improved (most of the Monk class features, most Fighter Bonus Feats). Stupid rules will also need to be fixed (linear distance penalties for Spot and Listen, obviously).

There is no consensus, and there is no simple fix.

[Killer Angel]

It punishes characters that are reliant on a single specific item and were too stupid to ensure its survival. Otherwise it kills some of your magic items for the rest of the encounter. Then the party Wizard brings out the free Wish's and replaces all of the destroyed items.

Really not hard.

So, the aftermath is: the caster prepares a new set of spells, while the "stupid" T4 characters must rely on their wizard's charity.
I don't know why i'm complaining... :smallsigh:

edit: to put it another way, i don't believe that high powered games, with raw abuses ala "who cares, I've got free wishes", are the default for D&D games. In standard games, disjunction is an havoc for low tier classes.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

This is from a page back, but since no one else addressed it:


One bare minimum for balancing 3.5 more is eliminating Vancian magic. Every d20 system that I like better than 3.5 doesn't use it.

The presence or absence of Vancian magic has practically no effect on the overall balance of 3e compared to the effect of individual spells. Sure, having silo'd spells vs. spell points vs. recharging spells affects per-encounter balance, length of adventuring day, per-class stamina, and so forth, but once you've established the mere existence of spells like Shapechange, Wish, Time Stop, et al., that has waaay more impact than how often those game-altering and -breaking effects can be used.

Every d20 system you like better than 3e uses non-Vancian, but then I'm sure every one you don't like (that isn't just 3e with a minor reflavoring) does as well, because the first thing authors like to do when writing up Arcana Evolved or Iron Heroes or Slayers d20 or True20 or Midnight or one of the other umpty-bazillion d20 games is change up the magic system so their game stands out. Again, that has nothing to do with balance; Iron Heroes, 3e epic spellcasting, Mutants & Masterminds, and several other systems use a similar "take a bunch of base seeds and complicating factors, build up a spell of a certain difficulty, and roll to cast it" mechanic, but each of those systems' balance is drastically different and affected much more by different system assumptions and relative component balance than by the overall magic system philosophy.


I think the sweet spot for "Balances out having to prepare all spells in advance" is either nonexistent, or so small as to be impossible to hit.

As mentioned, the problems are the spells. Some spells are too weak to ever bother preparing and some spells are too strong to ever not have prepared, and both sets need to be removed or tweaked, but the spells that are left work just fine with Vancian, both alone and as part of an overall power set; wizards and clerics who prepare beguiler- or dread necromancer-style spell loadouts are well-balanced, and it's only the God wizards and warmage-alikes that cause problems.

[SinsI]

The presence or absence of Vancian magic has practically no effect on the overall balance of 3e compared to the effect of individual spells.
1st level "wizard" that has used his one single available spell slot in the first encounter of the day and has to sit out the other 3 since neither his equipment nor skills allow him to contribute anything useful in them disagrees with you.

Having to predict the future (to select what to memorise) is not good either.

[Curmudgeon]

1st level "wizard" that has used his one single available spell slot in the first encounter of the day and has to sit out the other 3 since neither his equipment nor skills allow him to contribute anything useful in them disagrees with you.
The Wizard's equipment should include a crossbow, because it's a weapon they're proficient with and its cost is well within their starting gold. Being out of spells (the Wizard's significant class feature) is no different from a 1st level Rogue when there's nobody flanking the enemy — no sneak attack (the Rogue's significant class feature) possible. It's not ideal, but both of these characters can stand back and attempt to make ranged attacks: i.e., useful contributions to the combat.

[Psyren]

Item's, assuming that they failed their saves, are down for the rest of the encounter or so. Buffs are down until the caster can recast them, which could be anywhere from under a round to a day or more.

And yes, it is extremely lethal. High level D&D is inherently extremely lethal. You pretty much either have a defense that virtually hard counters that particular attack or you die. And then you either have a means to prevent your soul from being destroyed/trapped and come back to life or you don't.

Again, while houserules can cause problems, playing perfectly to RAW on everything can be just as problematic. Your solution of ratcheting up the rocket tag works for you and that's great, but it's not really something that can be reasonably widespread to most tables.


So, the aftermath is: the caster prepares a new set of spells, while the "stupid" T4 characters must rely on their wizard's charity.
I don't know why i'm complaining... :smallsigh:

edit: to put it another way, i don't believe that high powered games, with raw abuses ala "who cares, I've got free wishes", are the default for D&D games. In standard games, disjunction is an havoc for low tier classes.

You're exaggerating sir! They can rely on the cleric's charity too :smallbiggrin:

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't find it to be too inimidating; it's not beyond the scope of other game design projects I've taken on with short deadlines. It's just a matter of whether or not there's a point in us taking the time to do it, particularly since it would be a case of basically doing our jobs for free. I mean, we're talking about a level of time investment comparable to a game jam in which I would actually finish up a prototype video game.
Intimidating as a casual project, at least. It's probably 30-90 minutes of work per book.


I have quite a lot of points I could offer on this post, but I apparently can't due to the playground's odd "thread necromancy" rule. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Hmm, that is beyond the normal limit. I can revive it, though. Hang on, comrade.

[johnbragg]

Intimidating as a casual project, at least. It's probably 30-90 minutes of work per book.


Hmm, that is beyond the normal limit. I can revive it, though. Hang on, comrade.

I thought thread necromancy was allowed in Homebrew?

[eggynack]

I thought thread necromancy was allowed in Homebrew?
It is, but only for the original poster. Hence Grod's doings.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I thought thread necromancy was allowed in Homebrew?
It is for creators. I just want to be sure I've got something useful to post when I do.

EDIT: I've tweaked and updated the races like I kind of wanted to do for a while. It should be safe to post now, as I understand the forum rules. (If I'm wrong, someone please correct me fast-- I don't want anyone else to get in trouble)

[SinsI]

The Wizard's equipment should include a crossbow, because it's a weapon they're proficient with and its cost is well within their starting gold. Being out of spells (the Wizard's significant class feature) is no different from a 1st level Rogue when there's nobody flanking the enemy — no sneak attack (the Rogue's significant class feature) possible. It's not ideal, but both of these characters can stand back and attempt to make ranged attacks: i.e., useful contributions to the combat.

Average AC for level 1 appropriate opponents is 15. Wizard 1st level is trying to fire into melee (-4 penalty) at BAB 0. Assuming no Dex bonus or penalty, that means he is going to hit only on 19 and 20 - a 10% chance.
I stand by my statement.

neither his equipment nor skills allow him to contribute anything useful

Rogues are a completely different thing, as they always have their "significant class feature" on, even if it requires cooperation or tactical expertise to use.

[eggynack]

1st level "wizard" that has used his one single available spell slot in the first encounter of the day and has to sit out the other 3 since neither his equipment nor skills allow him to contribute anything useful in them disagrees with you.
I'm not really sure what you mean by a single available spell slot. Something as simple as a 12 intelligence pushes the wizard to two slots, 20 intelligence from 18+gray elf pushes it to three, specialist, domain wizard, or elven generalist gets it to four, and focused specialist or domain wizard+elven generalist gets it to five. That seems like plenty for a four encounter adventuring day, especially because it's backed up by cantrips for out of combat utility, and in the case of the specialists, abrupt jaunt for defense.

Edit: As for your attacking numbers, does your AC assume all CR 1 opponents, or does it take into account a number of lesser opponents? Seems like that could impact things. More than one enemy also makes it less likely that the wizard will be shooting into melee. Additionally, enemies above the average AC will only lower to hit by a maximum of 5%, because you necessarily only move from 10 to 5, while enemies below it will continually increase to hit. Finally, I don't know why you assume no dexterity bonus. Ranged touch attack spells, initiative, and AC bonus combine to make dexterity a very good stat for wizards, and it's the thing to raise after you have constitution at a healthy 14. Point is, wizards are significantly more likely to hit than you make them out to be.

[SinsI]

I'm not really sure what you mean by a single available spell slot. Something as simple as a 12 intelligence pushes the wizard to two slots, 20 intelligence from 18+gray elf pushes it to three, specialist, domain wizard, or elven generalist gets it to four, and focused specialist or domain wizard+elven generalist gets it to five. That seems like plenty for a four encounter adventuring day, especially because it's backed up by cantrips for out of combat utility, and in the case of the specialists, abrupt jaunt for defense.

Stats are basic 11,11,11,10,10,10, no bonus intelligence or dexterity. Otherwise we are drawn into comparing the bonuses, not the basic chassis.

AC used is average for monsters of CR <=1

[Vhaidara]

Stats are basic 11,11,11,10,10,10, no bonus intelligence or dexterity. Otherwise we are drawn into comparing the bonuses, not the basic chassis.

AC used is average for monsters of CR <=1

Excuse me? This is a PC, not a monster. At least you'd be using the elite array, not the commoner array.

Also, okay, so now it's just


specialist, domain wizard, or elven generalist gets it to four two, and focused specialist or domain wizard+elven generalist gets it to five three

[SinsI]

Sometimes the stats are rolled (worst case is classic 3d6, no arrangement). At low stats, SAD casters are a much better choice than most other types of classes.
Also, some worlds have inherently low power levels so you start the PCs at basic commoner stats.


Also, okay, so now it's just

And Warlock or Dragonfire Adept gets it to infinity.

It doesn't change that "wizard 1st level" is not a wizard after using up his one trick for the day.

[Vhaidara]

Sometimes the stats are rolled (worst case is classic 3d6, no arrangement). At low stats, SAD casters are a much better choice than most other types of classes.
Also, some worlds have inherently low power levels so you start the PCs at basic commoner stats.

Maybe some worlds, but that's far from the standard. Also, in your scenario, even the fighter will have, at best, +2 to hit (1 BAB, 1 Weapon Focus), so less than a 50% chance to hit.




And Warlock or Dragonfire Adept gets it to infinity.

It doesn't change that "wizard 1st level" is not a wizard after using up his one trick three tricks for the day.

And given that each of those three tricks ends an encounter, if you have 4 per day, as is standard, then you just have to count on your party for 1 encounter. Not that they'll be able to clear it with the fighter being even more pure crap than usual and the rogue being worthless.

[Troacctid]

See, that's one of the nice things that 5e did. Unlimited-use cantrips that actually do useful things in combat. It makes Wizards feel like Wizards instead of crossbowmen with pointy hats. Super-easy to port back to 3.5, too.

[eggynack]

Stats are basic 11,11,11,10,10,10, no bonus intelligence or dexterity. Otherwise we are drawn into comparing the bonuses, not the basic chassis.

Why would I assume this? It doesn't really reflect actual game states to any extent, because characters always have stats above that by the rules, and usually have stats high enough to support dexterity. I care about wizards as they actually are in this game. Not wizards as they are in some theoretical game where we arbitrarily set things to zero.

[Killer Angel]

You're exaggerating sir! They can rely on the cleric's charity too :smallbiggrin:

I don't always play paladins, but when I do, they worship the same God of the cleric, so I can count on the help of my godly T1 friend!

[dascarletm]

And given that each of those three tricks ends an encounter, if you have 4 per day, as is standard, then you just have to count on your party for 1 encounter. Not that they'll be able to clear it with the fighter being even more pure crap than usual and the rogue being worthless.

Eh, level one spells don't end encounters as hard as you imply.

At these levels baddies have a fair chance to make the save.

Color Spray one of the goodies (assuming 18int+2racial) has a DC of 16. (Human would be lower, and if we use an elite array we're down to DC 13.)

Standard commoner can still make that save.

Looking at some CR 1 fey (using pathfinder since it's online source has a CR filter for ease) Grigs have a +3, Nixies have a +4.

Then we are within 15ft. to use this bad-boy. (not a good spot to be level 1)

[Vhaidara]

I was more thinking Grease, which drops everything on it that's good at reflex saves (high dex) AC down because they're flat footed.

[Troacctid]

That hardly ends an encounter. And it still takes a full standard action. A fighter can often kill low-level enemies in two standard actions just by swinging a greatsword twice. If you grease them, it doesn't lower their HP, so it still takes the fighter two swings. CR 1 enemies aren't going to have super-high Dex either, so maybe you dropped their AC by 2 or 3 points, tops.

Compare if you were a second fighter with your own greatsword. You could move in for the flank, giving the same +2. Then you could smack the other guy with your own greatsword, effectively doubling the damage output, and the fight is over in one round instead of two. If you won initiative, your opponent doesn't even get a turn (and they're already flat-footed to boot).

[Flickerdart]

I don't always play paladins, but when I do, they worship the same God of the cleric, so I can count on the help of my godly T1 friend!
Skip the middle man, just worship the party cleric.

[Honest Tiefling]

Worship the DM and bring offerings of chips, soda and pizza.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Regarding the "a wizard 1 has one spell and then isn't a wizard" debate, that's entirely missing the point. I objected to the idea that Vancian magic is unbalancing in and of itself, and said that the balance of the spells matters more than the resource management system used, so how many spells a wizard gets under Vancian doesn't matter; rather, compare the Vancian wizard to another sort with similar resource limitations and see how that affects the balance.

Using other limited-magic-per-day paradigms, if the Vancian wizard gets enough spell slots to cast 1 spell, a spell point wizard gets enough spell points to cast 1 spell, a cast-from-HP wizard can cast roughly 1 spell before knocking himself out, and so forth. In any scenario where the other wizard gets more resources at 1st level, the Vancian would get the same, so whether the wizard is one-and-done before pulling out a crossbow or can cast all day is resource-system-independent. The wizard isn't suddenly more balanced because he's using points or HP (the two most commonly-suggested Vancian alternatives on most forums, from what I've seen) instead of slots..and I'd argue that those two options are much less balanced than Vancian, because points allow for more nova-ing (which is bad in two ways, more power per encounter makes balancing them harder and using up resources faster affects the adventuring day) and casting from HP is either trivially broken (if the damage is allowed to be healed) or too punishing (if it can't be).

So, if nova capabilities make points-based casting less balanced, why is 3e psionics largely viewed as more balanced than 3e magic? Because, while psionics beats magic in a few areas (basically action economy manipulation and energy type flexibility for blasters), magic has a much wider variety of effects and many more very powerful effects. Give the wizard the ability to add the psion's power list to his spellbook, and there's barely a blip in his power level since 99% of what the psion can do the wizard can do already; give a psion the ability to add the wizard's spell list to his powers known and, well, you get the Spell-to-Power Erudite, probably the most breakable class in 3e.

To look at systems without a limited-magic-per-day paradigm, compare the warlock and wizard. What is balanced as an invocation would be very weak as a spell, and what is balanced as a spell would be overly strong as an invocation, because you need to pair weaker magic with more frequent usage and vice versa, so you can't simply say that Vancian is "balanced" against at-will magic without looking at the powers you get. When you do that, you see that the most powerful invocations are those where they took already-good spells (charm person, fly, foresight, etc.) and handed them to the warlock, and the weakest invocations are those where they took the weaker or more situational spells (endure elements, hold portal, etc.) and handed them to the warlock, so once again it comes down to spell strength over system.

That's why, when attempting to rebalance 3e, you can't just declare Vancian broken, throw it out, and use another resource system, you need to address the broken spells first and foremost, and after you do that using Vancian or not is merely a matter of flavor and playstyle preference rather than balance.

[aidenn0]

Regarding the "a wizard 1 has one spell and then isn't a wizard" debate, that's entirely missing the point. I objected to the idea that Vancian magic is unbalancing in and of itself, and said that the balance of the spells matters more than the resource management system used, so how many spells a wizard gets under Vancian doesn't matter; rather, compare the Vancian wizard to another sort with similar resource limitations and see how that affects the balance.


I agree that PairODice is missing the point. The distinguishing feature of Vancian magic is that you need to prepare spells in advance.

What ends up happening then is that a wizard that prepares all SoS spells, combined with spells that have significant negatives without a save is way better off than any other wizard. Spells that have niche uses won't get used, because they won't be prepared.

Let's make a really simple magic system, I'll call it "Rock, Paper, Scissors" All enemies have one of those 3 types and all spells have one of those 3 types. Rock enemies are immune to scissors spells, and weak to paper spells, using Rock against Rock is marginally better than using your crossbow. So on for the other 3 types.

In the average with this hypothetical system, all Vancian magic has done vs. any other spells/day system is divide by 3 the number of truly useful spells you have. You can prepare imbalanced spells as a riskier move, as you can be fooled. This is probably balancable.

Any change to the system though will potentially tilt the balance, which is why I think Vancian magic is harder to balance.

You are right that there is a more deep seated issue with any system that lets a caster push the "I win" button and tries to balance it with "Only X times per day" and this is separate from the Vancian magic issue.

[jedipotter]

stem.

That's why, when attempting to rebalance 3e, you can't just declare Vancian broken, throw it out, and use another resource system, you need to address the broken spells first and foremost, and after you do that using Vancian or not is merely a matter of flavor and playstyle preference rather than balance.

Agreed. Lots of things in D&D magic are broken. Lots more are poorly worded. Lots more is vague. And worst of all there very few rules of magic that cover everything.

[Honest Tiefling]

I actually have to agree. One problem I have with DnD magic is that a lot of spells are gamebreakers, and end a combat or encounter. I prefer an approach to magic where it simply nudges combat into your favor, or large effects have a very huge cost. This way, more minor magic can be slung around without a care so I have something to do. And I want to contribute out of combat by supplementing my party, not supplanting them. I feel a lot of iconic spells really don't work well in doing this.

I don't like Polymorph or Shapechange. I don't like teleportation. I don't like contingency. I don't like them because they feel too powerful for many types of games.

I love playing wizards but these spells don't appeal to me because they don't work in a party dynamic. I want to do cool effects other then damage, I want to buff and debuff and control, not nova everything all of the time or nova once and then sit in the back. This is why I am okay with whitelists and blacklist approaches to spells.

[Psyren]

See, I really like the cinematic approach to magic too. I like when a powerful wizard arrives and decimates an army by himself. I loved Milamber's arena scene in Magician: Master, or Dumai's Wells in Wheel of Time, or Sparrowhawk protecting his entire village from a horde of raiders alone. I want to roleplay as characters like that - not all the time, but I like that D&D gives me the option to reach those dizzying heights of power.

[Necroticplague]

With the slight change in topic, I feel some stuff I mentioned earlier is actually relevant now:
(Side note to above, but related to thread, is that I feel similarly about x/day being used as a limit on otherwise too-strong abilities. Because as long as you can use the ability, its still broken compared to other things, but then your much weaker after you use it all up, so you are much less able to contribute. Thus, both before and after the ability was used, it was creating an imbalance. Come to think of it, a more balanced 3.5 would probably be turning all spellcasters and similar into specialized warlocks, then buffing some of the lowest remainders. That easily cuts the tier list down to 3-5. Only real thing that might still be above 3 would be the artificer, but I honestly can't think of any cure for that, due to the inherent power of magic items within the system.)

Of course, come to think of it, it wouldn't have to be all the way to warlock level. Maybe giving spellcasters a /encounter system, somewhat like ToB. Even lets you differentiate them a little by changing how they recover and use a bit more.

[Honest Tiefling]

I...Actually like that idea. And if your melee buddies are using ToB, then its not even like you have another system. Concentration checks to refresh seem quite broken and boring...But then again, Warblades do it with a Standard action. So a concentration check + standard action that provokes an AoO?

[Grod_The_Giant]

With the slight change in topic, I feel some stuff I mentioned earlier is actually relevant now:

Of course, come to think of it, it wouldn't have to be all the way to warlock level. Maybe giving spellcasters a /encounter system, somewhat like ToB. Even lets you differentiate them a little by changing how they recover and use a bit more.
I swear I saw a ToB-spellcaster type system a while back. Codex something, I think? I seem to have lost my link.

I also brainstormed doing something similar for all classes, though I never got very far with it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291015-quot-Tome-of-D-amp-D-quot-maneuvers-for-everything!&p=15557184).

[Necroticplague]

I swear I saw a ToB-spellcaster type system a while back. Codex something, I think? I seem to have lost my link.

Likewise. I think it was codex of...spellshaping?

[aidenn0]

One other issue with the 3.x Vancian magic is that 3.x is fundamentally about being a core with lots of expansions. When you add 10 more melee feats and 10 more spells, then (unless the feats are highly broken) only some melee characters will take some of those feats, but most wizards will get several of the spells (unless the spells all suck).

So with every expansion a wizard gains more options than a melee character.

Note: Even if you don't have access to another wizards spell book for copying spells, in the worst case, buying a scroll for a spell you can cast without a significant component cost is what, about 1% of the WBL?

[aidenn0]

Likewise. I think it was codex of...spellshaping?
Yup:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?224508-3-5-Magic-System-The-Codices-of-Spellshaping

[jedipotter]

S I like that D&D gives me the option to reach those dizzying heights of power.

Me too. The problems are though: Magic in D&D gets out of control too fast, it needs a couple ''speed bumps'' and most of all the mundanes need nice stuff too.




So with every expansion a wizard gains more options than a melee character.



Right at the top of my list of magic fixes is Limiting Spells Known.

[Brookshw]

One other issue with the 3.x Vancian magic is that 3.x is fundamentally about being a core with lots of expansions. When you add 10 more melee feats and 10 more spells, then (unless the feats are highly broken) only some melee characters will take some of those feats, but most wizards will get several of the spells (unless the spells all suck).


Haven't really been paying much attention to this thread.but if that's how you feel about the feats you could always let a mundane choose three feats to add to their list but can only have a certain # active per day as they normally would have had.

[Arbane]

One other issue with the 3.x Vancian magic is that 3.x is fundamentally about being a core with lots of expansions. When you add 10 more melee feats and 10 more spells, then (unless the feats are highly broken) only some melee characters will take some of those feats, but most wizards will get several of the spells (unless the spells all suck).

So with every expansion a wizard gains more options than a melee character.


That's another thing: it would be nice to find a way for the snivelling peasants non-spellcasters to have some ways to expand their capabilities without leveling up. (Besides magic items.)

[Hiro Protagonest]

See, I really like the cinematic approach to magic too. I like when a powerful wizard arrives and decimates an army by himself. I loved Milamber's arena scene in Magician: Master, or Dumai's Wells in Wheel of Time, or Sparrowhawk protecting his entire village from a horde of raiders alone. I want to roleplay as characters like that - not all the time, but I like that D&D gives me the option to reach those dizzying heights of power.

Then martial classes should get similar options. Fighters should reach a level of strength and reflexes that they can be surrounded by devil legionaries, and artfully deflect every blow without breaking a sweat. They should be able to cleave straight through stone and steel. A running jump should get them to land on the back of a flying dragon. They should be able to deflect attack spells with their blade and their mind should be a steel fortress against enchantments. You could say that their most unrealistic abilities come from a strong bond between body, soul, and weapon, which would still be Ex because your soul doesn't stop function in an AMF.

Solar Exalted who are warriors fit that description pretty well though. That's why I like Exalted. :smalltongue:

For the record, I don't think the things you described are "Tier 1". They might be Tier 2 with such raw power, but they lack the sheer gamebreaking abilities of a Tier 1. Of course, they could be Tier 3 or 4, since that high level of power could be considered "standard", and then the less versatile ones are like the equivalent of Tier 4 and the more versatile ones are equivalent to 3.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I agree that PairODice is missing the point. The distinguishing feature of Vancian magic is that you need to prepare spells in advance.

What ends up happening then is that a wizard that prepares all SoS spells, combined with spells that have significant negatives without a save is way better off than any other wizard. Spells that have niche uses won't get used, because they won't be prepared.

I very much disagree: Spells with niche uses will only get used in a Vancian system, because Vancian (and pseudo-Vancian, like the spirit shaman) is the only system involving codified powers where you can have different "adventuring" and "downtime" powersets. Look at any discussion on spell selection and you'll see many spells that are great for a wizard to pick up and terrible for a sorcerer, because when a wizard is done covering his tower with explosive runes or done carrying treasure out of a dungeon with a Tenser's floating disk he can swap it out for something else, but a sorcerer's spells known are his spells known, period.

Vancian casters do well when they choose focused spells that don't need to be cast repeatedly, while spontaneous casters do well when they choose broad spells that benefit from repeated castings. In a system such as 3e where a single spell can take out an enemy or bypass an obstacle, Vancian is quite powerful...but then, so is spontaneous casting (or points-based or any other resource system, as long as it's attached to the same spells) because there are very few problems you can't solve by throwing the Monster Manual at them (polymorph, undead minions, summons, etc.) or super-specializing on one tactic and spamming it. In a system with weaker spells, Vancian casting isn't too great because even perfect spell selection won't single-handedly win combats...but then, neither is spontaneous casting because then you don't have any spells that are good enough all around to be able to apply to a wide variety of problems. Which one is more balanced comes down, once again, to the individual spells.


I don't like Polymorph or Shapechange. I don't like teleportation. I don't like contingency. I don't like them because they feel too powerful for many types of games.

I love playing wizards but these spells don't appeal to me because they don't work in a party dynamic. I want to do cool effects other then damage, I want to buff and debuff and control, not nova everything all of the time or nova once and then sit in the back. This is why I am okay with whitelists and blacklist approaches to spells.

I'm not sure why you say you want to do "cool effects other than damage" but don't like teleporting and polymorphing. In contrast, I love the teleports and fabricates and polymorphs and dislike the fireballs and lightning bolts and cones of cold. Pretty much every game out there lets you throw some variation on an energy bolt, and that gets really boring after the millionth one you throw. In my TTRPGs, I want magic that lets me shape the world and affect the plot, since those are exactly the strengths of a TTRPG as opposed to a cRPG. Not to mention that coming up with and balancing blasting spells is trivial given a working knowledge of a system but it took the 3e devs, what, six tries? to balance polymorphing and we still don't have a single good solution.

One of my favorite uses of magic in fiction is the later Wheel of Time books, like someone mentioned upthread. When Rand al'Thor, Dragon Reborn and general badass, needs to move an army quickly, build a tower, or do something else impressive in the course of assaulting his enemies or protecting his kingdoms, he doesn't need to ask an NPC, go on a quest for a MacGuffin, wait for a convenient solution to fall into his lap, or otherwise wait on the DM to hand him something. Nope, he says "I'm Rand bleeping al'Thor, if I need my army to travel 2000 miles in one day I'm going to punch reality in the face with my mind and send my army through the resulting tear in the Pattern." The one time he does need a MacGuffin, (A) it's something that enhances his own ability to do something he could already do (but now has a chance of surviving) rather than something he has to lean on to do what he wants at all, and (B) it's to perform a deed on the order of magnitude of "Hey GM, I don't like the magic drawbacks in this campaign, my character is updating the setting from AD&D to 3e rules, hope you don't mind" for which I'd say it's quite reasonable to need some sort of artifact.

As for whether that kind of powerful magic works in a party context, it works just fine--as long as the noncasters get the same kind of effects, which they certainly need to as part of any system revision. In WoT, the channelers (magic users) have lots of personal power, but the non-channelers get armies, kingdoms, and other world-shaping abilities, plus personal abilities that let them go toe-to-toe with similarly-powerful channelers. (Rand gets both, because he's the main main character, but that's cheating. :smallwink:) As Hiro said:


Then martial classes should get similar options. Fighters should reach a level of strength and reflexes that they can be surrounded by devil legionaries, and artfully deflect every blow without breaking a sweat. They should be able to cleave straight through stone and steel. A running jump should get them to land on the back of a flying dragon. They should be able to deflect attack spells with their blade and their mind should be a steel fortress against enchantments. You could say that their most unrealistic abilities come from a strong bond between body, soul, and weapon, which would still be Ex because your soul doesn't stop function in an AMF.

...and I can't agree more.


One other issue with the 3.x Vancian magic is that 3.x is fundamentally about being a core with lots of expansions. When you add 10 more melee feats and 10 more spells, then (unless the feats are highly broken) only some melee characters will take some of those feats, but most wizards will get several of the spells (unless the spells all suck).

So with every expansion a wizard gains more options than a melee character.

Note: Even if you don't have access to another wizards spell book for copying spells, in the worst case, buying a scroll for a spell you can cast without a significant component cost is what, about 1% of the WBL?


That's another thing: it would be nice to find a way for the snivelling peasants non-spellcasters to have some ways to expand their capabilities without leveling up. (Besides magic items.)

I think one of the main components of a 3e fix would have to be a codified downtime system for recruiting armies and followers, building fortresses, ruling lands, crafting things, etc. that everyone has equal access to. One of the balancing aspects of AD&D was that everyone got some sort of home base and followers, with the non-casters getting the best bases and followers while the casters had less impressive bases and followers to go with their powerful magic.

Yes, 3e has rules for all of that already (which is one of the things I love about it), but they're non-uniform, non-integrated, scattered all over the place, and not fleshed out: non-uniform, meaning that different characters have drastically different access to them (wizards can have tons of minions and a tower and self-crafted items, while paladins get one mount and whatever minions they can get with Leadership and low-Cha fighters get zilch); non-integrated, meaning that the subsystems don't take each other into account (e.g. the Stronghold Builder's Guide merely handwaves the effect of being able to cast wall of X on pricing, the Craft and Profession rules don't match up with the DMG2 business rules don't interact with the magic item rarity and creation rules, etc.); scattered all over the place, meaning most DMs don't want to deal with the complexity of pulling stuff from tons of books; and not fleshed out, meaning being the party face doesn't mean much when there are barely two paragraphs of how to use Gather Information and those are the only social rules that don't involve lying or making people like you.

A single unified system that defined how long certain downtime task categories take (thus enabling the rogue to actually do stuff with his skills outside the dungeon), set overall limits on follower power and number (thus both enabling the noncasters to more easily pick up minions and limiting caster minions by putting all sorts of minions in the same pool), gave guidelines on the time and cost of learning new spells/feats/maneuvers/etc. (thus letting everyone have caster-like versatility), and so forth would go a long way towards narrowing the balance gap between casters and noncasters.

------------------

Regarding putting every class on an at-will or per-encounter system, I wouldn't be in favor of that. Even with different refresh mechanics shaking things up, I'd prefer more variety in my resource mechanisms, and as mentioned above forcing every class to specialize in one area removes most of the "interesting" magic from consideration.

Take a look at the Tier 3 classes: Bard, Beguiler, Binder, Crusader, Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, Factotum, Psionic Warrior, Swordsage, Warblade, and Wildshape Ranger. They each have drastically different resource systems:
Spontaneous slotted casting from powers known, chosen individually, plus multiple fixed powers sharing a daily pool of uses.
Spontaneous slotted casting from a fixed power list.
Passive powers and at-will powers with cooldowns, chosen in broad packages and re-chosen daily.
Randomly-allocated per-encounter powers, chosen from a subset of powers known and refreshed every few rounds automatically.
Spontaneous slotted casting from spell list, plus freely-allocated minion control limits.
Spontaneous slotted casting from powers known, with powers per day slanted towards more weaker and fewer more powerful powers, plus class features to activate multiple powers per round.
A per-encounter pool of points used to activate per-encounter, at-will, and daily powers, with daily powers following a non-regimented power level progression and re-chosen daily.
Spontaneous points-based casting, plus a toggle-able focus to either passively maintain multiple powers at once or trigger a single power with an action.
Selected per-encounter powers, chosen from a subset of powers known and refreshed singly with an action or out of combat.
Selected per-encounter powers, chosen from a subset of powers known and refreshed with an action, plus the power to reallocate other powers in downtime.
Vancian casting from a small but potentiallly-unbounded spell list, plus daily uses of a power from a potentially-unbounded monster list.
Almost none of those classes share resource mechanisms for their powers, and those that do (Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, Crusader and Swordsage and Warblade) either have secondary resource mechanisms to shake things up or use their resource mechanisms quite differently, yet these diverse classes are viewed as the most balanced in the game despite their major differences. Changing even just all the T3 classes to use a ToB-style per-encounter system, much less everything else from wizard to commoner, would be drastically limiting in playstyle and a lot less fun--no offense intended to the Codices of Spellshaping, which are quite fun as a change of pace but would be less interesting if everything worked the same way.

[JusticeZero]

I very much disagree: Spells with niche uses will only get used in a Vancian system, because Vancian (and pseudo-Vancian, like the spirit shaman) is the only system involving codified powers where you can have different "adventuring" and "downtime" powersets.In general, the majority of those niche spells are also best suited for "ritual" spells rather than tactical ones. There is very little reason to worry about casting them in a standard combat round as a rule. When was the last time you needed to try to win initiative to get off an Exploding Runes, Raise Dead, divination, pocket dimension building, or scrying spell?

[Coidzor]

In general, the majority of those niche spells are also best suited for "ritual" spells rather than tactical ones. There is very little reason to worry about casting them in a standard combat round as a rule. When was the last time you needed to try to win initiative to get off an Exploding Runes, Raise Dead, divination, pocket dimension building, or scrying spell?

So, tag a bunch of spells as [Ritual] and then give spellcasters half of their normal Vancian spell slots in ritual spell slots along with whatever Vancian or non-Vancian primary combat/adventuring casting they have? Tag a bunch of them as [Ritual], make sure they're assigned a GP cost, XP cost, or both a GP and XP cost and then let spellcasters do them 1/day or 1/hour or once every 10 minutes or something?

Make those spells into Rituals which are more like UA's Incantations than standard spells but require a certain level in a spellcasting class and maybe a certain DC in UMD to emulate being an X-level spellcaster of Y class in order to perform them in a pinch?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

In general, the majority of those niche spells are also best suited for "ritual" spells rather than tactical ones. There is very little reason to worry about casting them in a standard combat round as a rule. When was the last time you needed to try to win initiative to get off an Exploding Runes, Raise Dead, divination, pocket dimension building, or scrying spell?

Even limiting ourselves to a very constrained dungeon environment, being able to drop an explosive rune in the surprise round to seal off a hallway, use augury in the first round of combat to see if it's better to try to fight off an ambusher or run away, hop into a rope trick to hide from pursuing monsters, drop some prying eyes to see which path your quarry took at an intersection, revivify someone during battle, teleport out of danger, send a sending to a party member who was split up by a clever trap, or do other ritual-like things in combat time can be very useful.

In my experience, when people advocate splitting things into "combat" magic and "ritual" magic, the straightforward effects go into combat magic and anything that's interesting, open-ended, or plot-altering gets shoved into the ritual system and locked behind exorbitant gold, XP, and time costs to cut down on the variables present in a given scene and thereby make combat more straightforward and divergence from plots more difficult. Some effects certainly do need to have time or gold costs for balance or setting reasons, but the vast majority of spells can be left in the same ol' combat-time system and work just fine.

I'd much rather those spells be made available and have people come up with creative combat-time uses for them than to have the designers decide that, for instance, arcane lock, magic circle, and discern lies should be made into rituals (as happened in 4e) because they can't possibly imagine a scenario where a party might need to seal a door behind them, stop a party member from being possessed, or unobtrusively check to see whether someone's lying to them without chanting and waving their arms for 10 minutes.

[Troacctid]

use augury in the first round of combat to see if it's better to try to fight off an ambusher or run away
If by "first round" you mean "first ten rounds because it has a casting time of 1 minute", sure.


drop some prying eyes to see which path your quarry took at an intersection
Also has a casting time of 1 minute.


revivify someone during battle
When else are you supposed to revivify them? It only works within 1 round of their death.


send a sending to a party member who was split up by a clever trap, or do other ritual-like things in combat time can be very useful.
That one is 10 minutes.

[Flickerdart]

When else are you supposed to revivify them? It only works within 1 round of their death.

You know you've been adventuring too long when you can only imagine death at the end of a blade, and not for instance from an aged duke's unfortunate mishap during a rousing bout of intercourse, or an insidious poisoner's vile brew.

Or, you know, traps to the guts.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If by "first round" you mean "first ten rounds because it has a casting time of 1 minute", sure.

Also has a casting time of 1 minute.

When else are you supposed to revivify them? It only works within 1 round of their death.

That one is 10 minutes.
Nitpicking doesn't change the point.

[jedipotter]

In my experience, when people advocate splitting things into "combat" magic and "ritual" magic, the straightforward effects go into combat magic and anything that's interesting, open-ended, or plot-altering gets shoved into the ritual system and locked behind exorbitant gold, XP, and time costs to cut down on the variables present in a given scene and thereby make combat more straightforward and divergence from plots more difficult.

Agreed. I hate the whole ''ritual'' idea that 4E sparked.




I'd much rather those spells be made available and have people come up with creative combat-time uses for them than to have the designers decide that, for instance, arcane lock, magic circle, and discern lies should be made into rituals (as happened in 4e) because they can't possibly imagine a scenario where a party might need to seal a door behind them, stop a party member from being possessed, or unobtrusively check to see whether someone's lying to them without chanting and waving their arms for 10 minutes.

Agreed too. I've run lots of classic dungeon crawls and can say I've seen characters on the run use Arcane Lock to lock a monster in. It's not just a ''lock your doors at night spell''.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If by "first round" you mean "first ten rounds because it has a casting time of 1 minute", sure.


Also has a casting time of 1 minute.


When else are you supposed to revivify them? It only works within 1 round of their death.


That one is 10 minutes.

Yes, you're right, sorry; I pulled my examples from the character sheet of my party's utility wizard, who has Uncanny Forethought and can thus turn any downtime spell into a combat-time spell. Omen of peril, eye of stone, and whispering sand serve the same purposes as augury, prying eyes, and sending, since you're being picky.

And that, incidentally, is another point against ritualizing lots of spells: there are already a bunch of ways to cut down long casting times to combat time (Alacritous Cogitation, Uncanny Forethought, DMM: Rapid Spell, Contingent Spell, the shadow conjuration/evocation line, several ways to turn things into SLAs, the list goes on)...and yet, aside from the general sentiment that casting spells with hours-long casting times in combat must be broken because they must have those long casting times for balance, there are very few specific examples of spells that (A) break the game merely by virtue of being cast faster and (B) are worse than the spells that already break the game in combat time.

[Kaidinah]

I would do these things. Basically just trading out the worst subsystem ever made for 4 better ones.
-Magic from Spheres of Power, Ultimate Psionics, and Akashic Mysteries
-Path of War always allowed
-Pathfinder core line and golarion line are in
-Little Red Goblin Games, Rogue Genius Games and Amora Games are fine too
-Fighter is banned.
-Arcane and divine Vancian magic is banned

[johnbragg]

In my experience, when people advocate splitting things into "combat" magic and "ritual" magic, the straightforward effects go into combat magic and anything that's interesting, open-ended, or plot-altering gets shoved into the ritual system and locked behind exorbitant gold, XP, and time costs to cut down on the variables present in a given scene and thereby make combat more straightforward and divergence from plots more difficult. Some effects certainly do need to have time or gold costs for balance or setting reasons, but the vast majority of spells can be left in the same ol' combat-time system and work just fine.

That's a valid concern. My preferences skew towards E6, with the party at higher levels as Big Damn Heroes, who could logically be the ones who, through diplomancy, alliance-building, prestige plus their own caster levels, are the ones who can arrange for the usually-squabbling Seven Kingdoms to get on the same page, and get the seven Royal High Priests to all touch the Dragonbane Doohickey at once after the seven kingdoms have each marked their borders by burning up a few dozen wands of Bless, restoring the magic ward of the Old Empire that keeps dragons out.

That said, if you have a Knock spell, your adventuring wizard should cast it the same way he casts Flaming Sphere.

Ritual magic should be how non-adventuring wizards cast most of their spells--you just don't earn enough XP sweeping the Archmage's tower to level up otherwise. (But that's an argument for the What is LEvel 3 thread).

TLDR: Ritual magic is for effects you want to exist in the campaign world, but not let the players have ready access too. Ritual magic is the tool of kingdoms and mage guilds and cults and covens. Ritual magic is why the highways of the Old Empire are still enchanted with a Longstrider effect. Ritual magic is why the Shadow-Apocalypse is now confined to that one city where it started. etc.

So if the party wants to mess with ritual magic, they'd better get to diplomancing and plotting and politicking.

[GammaPaladin]

Ran across this thread while searching for material, and happened to have been doing a lot of thinking about the topic just beforehand. So even though this thread is several months old, I just have to cast animate thread to post my opinion.

It's something I've thought about on and off for years, and one time even started on an attempt at remaking the core martial classes, but gave up partway through because I wasn't getting any feedback, and ultimately I decided that fixing the core martial classes wouldn't really solve the problem.

To my mind, D&D 3.5 has a lot of weaknesses, but some relatively unique strengths. I'll lay out what I feel are its good and bad points (And old 2E fans will utterly disagree with everything I'm about to say, so you can probably just stop reading now if that's you).

Things I consider good qualities:
1. Variety. The sheer volume of options available is a selling point.
2. The complexity of character creation.

Things I consider bad qualities:
1. Balance, obviously.
2. Lack of clear direction in its design goals
3. Too many abstractions left ambiguous
4. Setting- and fluff-bound crunch.
5. Crunch and fluff contradicting each other. CONSTANTLY.
6. Poorly thought through settings and fluff in general.

Now to expound on these points.

Variety: I don't know how much I really need to say here. To me it's just axiomatic that more options is always better. More players can find a way to build a character they love when there are 100000 ways to build them. More players can find a setting they enjoy when the rules allow for a wide variety of settings. These are obvious things. And that feeds into the next point.

Complexity: This will be a controversial point, because it's easy to dismiss character optimizers as bad players, munchkins, twinks, exploiters, people out to win the game by breaking it. But IMO, a game system needs a min/max puzzle element to character creation. Because a lot of charop people like the game of finding loopholes and ridiculous combinations but are still good roleplayers and courteous gamers who restrain themselves in actual play, and if you take that "build an awesome character" element away, you lose them.

That said, when you have massive variety and complexity, you need to be wary of falling into the trap of...

Poor balance: Yes, tons of options and complexity is good! But only if your designers do their jobs and make sure it's not all horribly broken one way or another. And here I'm going to lose a lot of readers again, but I'm going to come right out and say this: Lack of balance is bad game design. Period.

You can argue that tabletop games don't need to be balanced because they're not video games and they have an intelligent human adjudicating them, or that a wide variety of power levels is good because it allows groups to play at different levels, according to their proclivities... But both of those arguments are bull****, and I'll tell you why.

Yes, you have a DM who can adjudicate, edit the rules and make decisions about what is and isn't allowed in their group. But anyone who's actually played knows that DM fiat doesn't make this a good thing. It's like using the fact that modders have made cool and good things out of a bad video game to say that the original video game wasn't bad. The problem here is that DMs who have the time, capacity, and inclination to carry out this task are rare. If you have such a DM, be grateful, but please don't assume this is the rule. And even when a group has a great DM, this causes conflict in the group.

Obviously any campaign represents a compromise between the desires of all the players and the DM, but it becomes a much more complicated and painful situation when the things that player A wants to do are right there in the rulebook, but the mean DM says he can't use them! Aside from which, you have to account for the fact that you're going to have gamers who want to put in a ton of time and effort designing their characters and need that element, and players who are just going to want to throw something together and play, and the system needs to allow these people to play together in the same group without creating friction through massive disparities in character utility.

If your game is balanced to start with, then Bob the hardcore gamer can spend 36 hours building his character and going over it with a fine-tooth comb, and get some benefit, but Joe the casual player can just pick something that looks cool at random, and they'll both have characters who can contribute meaningfully to the campaign.

Basically the goal needs to be a high optimization floor and a low optimization ceiling. A ton of options, and yes, synergies and combinations to be found that can make your character stronger... But the benefits should be very small. The min/max aficionado still gets his fix, he doesn't really care that he's only gotten 1% stronger than Joe's default character, the 36 hours of character building were fun, and that 1% boost was totally worth it. And Joe doesn't even notice probably, because his character is awesome anyway.

So that's the "It's not a video game" argument exploded (To my satisfaction anyway), but what about the idea that groups should be able to play low power or high power games according to their preferences? Well, yes, obviously. But that should be something the game rules explicitly account for, not something you accomplish by discarding 9/10 of the game!

Everything should be balanced to a standard baseline, and the system should have provisions for moving that baseline, where every class is useable whether you want a dark and gritty "realistic" (For whatever value of realistic can be found in a game about fairies and unicorns and wizards and dragons) campaign, or an epic four-color romp.

Bad balance is bad design. Sure you can take advantage of it, but you need to face the fact that you're making lemonade from lemons. A well balanced game would give you even more options, because you wouldn't have to do something inane like restrict your players to 1 or 2 tiers of classes to fit the campaign power level. And if you want to have a low magic campaign, that's an aesthetic choice you're still free to make.

So, balance taken care of, let's move on.

Lack of clear direction in design: This is sort of a complicated point, and it somewhat encompasses all of the others. Or rather, all the other points are symptoms of it. Basically, 3.5 is trying to distance itself from the hack and slash rollplay we all did in junior high (Oh wait, most of you are probably kids who played 3.0/3.5 in junior high. God I'm old :( ) and be something more sophisticated. But it's still clinging to its roots too.

Granted, there are certain realities we have to accept about D&D. It's a combat-centric system. It's intended to be played in a medieval fantasy setting, or a setting which is a medieval fantasy analogue (Steampunk/JRPG fusion like Eberron, sci-fi settings which are deliberately analogous to medieval fantasy like Dune, or War40k).

But there are elements of the game which are just plain ambiguous: If I were to start a thread asking "What do hit points represent", we would get people who feel that they are literally health, and when you take damage you are in fact wounded, and others who feel that hit points are an abstraction of "plot armor", and you're only taking scratches and flesh wounds (If that), right up until you're incapacitated. And the problem is, the rules don't say which is the case.

The difference between PC class levels and NPC levels is significant enough that it gives you the impression that the PCs are meant to be accomplished heroes who are better than regular people even at level 1, but then your actual capabilities at level 1 make you feel like you're hopeless, and most players seem to have the impression that you're supposed to be like a barely trained apprentice at that point... The game itself does not help you figure this out.

These are the sorts of things that need to actually be decided on and put into a design bible (And explicitly delineated in the resulting rulebook as well). Clearly even the designers had wildly disparate opinions on some of these subjects, and this is part of why balance is so wonky. Abstractions are necessary for gaming, but the mechanics of those abstractions must be explicit, and well rationalized.

And speaking of rationalization...

Crunch and fluff contradict each other: Most D&D settings simply DO NOT MAKE SENSE. Not even in an internal consistency fashion. Given the prevalence of super high level NPCs in the setting fluff... Well, honestly your characters are irrelevant. Evil rogues are threatening the city? Well statistically the city watch probably has several high level mages, so that shouldn't be a problem. Why do you need us again? 100 children have been kidnapped and are going to be sacrificed to the evil gods? We're adventurers, here, take 100,000 diamonds from our pocket lint and get them resurrected. The king is ill? Cure disease. Uh, an army of 500,000 orcs, goblins and trolls is massing in the mountains and--Oh, is that all? Here's ten hojillion gold pieces, go hire yourself a mercenary company. There's no mercenaries about and we're the only hope? TOO BAD THERE ARE NO DECENT RULES FOR MASS COMBAT. Guess you're all screwed, sorry about that. We'll come through and rez you all after the slaughter kay?

Which is to say nothing of "Why the **** is there so much gold and treasure buried in random dungeons and crap... Why the **** do "civilized" kingdoms not burn these pestholes out with their proper armies and seize the treasure? For that matter, why is any of this stuff even worth anything when any wizard could technically come up with a spell to create it out of thin air through spell research?

Why are all these worlds stuck in pre-industrial economies when you have things like persisted spells and...

Look, none of it makes any sense, ok? Eberron gets a bit of a pass here for actually having a relatively well thought out history and socioeconomic/political structure... but... all the rest, not so much.

So the "Poorly thought out settings" bit is rather intertwined with the "Crunch and fluff no agree!" bit.

Although that actually brings me back to the "Ambiguous abstractions" bit, here's another one: I see people often say that an item or ability's flavor--its aesthetics and fluff--are malleable. I happen to agree with this, that I should be able to buy a weapon and have it look like whatever I want as long as it is relatively congruent with its mechanics... A Drow Scorpion Chain can be a sickle on the end of a chain or a razor sharp metal ribbon, both are reach weapons that cut and can entangle... But others don't accept that... And the game books do not take a position on the matter. By RAW, a longsword is a longsword, it cannot be anything else. It's name, form, appearance, etc, are linked inextricably to its statblock. Which I consider absurd but it's a valid interpretation because the rules are ****ING AMBIGUOUS.

But ehhhh anyway...

I'm sort of considering starting up working on a complete rewrite of 3.5, even if I doubt it'll get anywhere. I have clear design goals at least, even if a lot of people will disagree with them or hate my aesthetic choices.

But they do constitute my answer to "How would you fix 3.5"



1. Take the system introduced in the Tome of Battle and integrate it into the core game by making all martial and hybrid classes maneuver initiator classes to varying degrees (Full martial classes become full initiators, hybrids become 3/4 or 2/3 or 1/2, probably).

2. Entirely revamp broken classes like the Monk, and reduce (Ideally remove) the power gap between casters and non-casters.

3. Make the ruleset setting and fluff agnostic. Rules should be statblocks, with *example* flavor text, suggestions on possible uses of that game rules-object.

4. Fix rationality issues where certain elements of the rules become problematic to the plot, such as the existence of resurrection spells and such.

5. Increase the power of player characters at level 1, and reduce it at level 20, such that the actual power ramp is small, and in general the character progresses by getting new abilities, more options to play with.


Accomplishing all that would be a significant task, and would basically require declaring all existing material null, and starting from scratch with new stuff. Basically saying "Stuff from 3.x/PF isn't legal for this version of the game unless and until we either rewrite it or explicitly include it by referencing it in our material (Possibly with revisions).

First step would be to do a new PHB, with fixes for bad systems like grappling, revised core classes, a complete spell by spell review of the core spell list, review of the feat system, rewording of everything to make it all fluff and setting agnostic, etc.

A big task, but not insurmountable...

[atemu1234]

Ran across this thread while searching for material, and happened to have been doing a lot of thinking about the topic just beforehand. So even though this thread is several months old, I just have to cast animate thread to post my opinion.

It's something I've thought about on and off for years, and one time even started on an attempt at remaking the core martial classes, but gave up partway through because I wasn't getting any feedback, and ultimately I decided that fixing the core martial classes wouldn't really solve the problem.

To my mind, D&D 3.5 has a lot of weaknesses, but some relatively unique strengths. I'll lay out what I feel are its good and bad points (And old 2E fans will utterly disagree with everything I'm about to say, so you can probably just stop reading now if that's you).

Things I consider good qualities:
1. Variety. The sheer volume of options available is a selling point.
2. The complexity of character creation.

Things I consider bad qualities:
1. Balance, obviously.
2. Lack of clear direction in its design goals
3. Too many abstractions left ambiguous
4. Setting- and fluff-bound crunch.
5. Crunch and fluff contradicting each other. CONSTANTLY.
6. Poorly thought through settings and fluff in general.

Now to expound on these points.

Variety: I don't know how much I really need to say here. To me it's just axiomatic that more options is always better. More players can find a way to build a character they love when there are 100000 ways to build them. More players can find a setting they enjoy when the rules allow for a wide variety of settings. These are obvious things. And that feeds into the next point.

Complexity: This will be a controversial point, because it's easy to dismiss character optimizers as bad players, munchkins, twinks, exploiters, people out to win the game by breaking it. But IMO, a game system needs a min/max puzzle element to character creation. Because a lot of charop people like the game of finding loopholes and ridiculous combinations but are still good roleplayers and courteous gamers who restrain themselves in actual play, and if you take that "build an awesome character" element away, you lose them.

That said, when you have massive variety and complexity, you need to be wary of falling into the trap of...

Poor balance: Yes, tons of options and complexity is good! But only if your designers do their jobs and make sure it's not all horribly broken one way or another. And here I'm going to lose a lot of readers again, but I'm going to come right out and say this: Lack of balance is bad game design. Period.

You can argue that tabletop games don't need to be balanced because they're not video games and they have an intelligent human adjudicating them, or that a wide variety of power levels is good because it allows groups to play at different levels, according to their proclivities... But both of those arguments are bull****, and I'll tell you why.

Yes, you have a DM who can adjudicate, edit the rules and make decisions about what is and isn't allowed in their group. But anyone who's actually played knows that DM fiat doesn't make this a good thing. It's like using the fact that modders have made cool and good things out of a bad video game to say that the original video game wasn't bad. The problem here is that DMs who have the time, capacity, and inclination to carry out this task are rare. If you have such a DM, be grateful, but please don't assume this is the rule. And even when a group has a great DM, this causes conflict in the group.

Obviously any campaign represents a compromise between the desires of all the players and the DM, but it becomes a much more complicated and painful situation when the things that player A wants to do are right there in the rulebook, but the mean DM says he can't use them! Aside from which, you have to account for the fact that you're going to have gamers who want to put in a ton of time and effort designing their characters and need that element, and players who are just going to want to throw something together and play, and the system needs to allow these people to play together in the same group without creating friction through massive disparities in character utility.

If your game is balanced to start with, then Bob the hardcore gamer can spend 36 hours building his character and going over it with a fine-tooth comb, and get some benefit, but Joe the casual player can just pick something that looks cool at random, and they'll both have characters who can contribute meaningfully to the campaign.

Basically the goal needs to be a high optimization floor and a low optimization ceiling. A ton of options, and yes, synergies and combinations to be found that can make your character stronger... But the benefits should be very small. The min/max aficionado still gets his fix, he doesn't really care that he's only gotten 1% stronger than Joe's default character, the 36 hours of character building were fun, and that 1% boost was totally worth it. And Joe doesn't even notice probably, because his character is awesome anyway.

So that's the "It's not a video game" argument exploded (To my satisfaction anyway), but what about the idea that groups should be able to play low power or high power games according to their preferences? Well, yes, obviously. But that should be something the game rules explicitly account for, not something you accomplish by discarding 9/10 of the game!

Everything should be balanced to a standard baseline, and the system should have provisions for moving that baseline, where every class is useable whether you want a dark and gritty "realistic" (For whatever value of realistic can be found in a game about fairies and unicorns and wizards and dragons) campaign, or an epic four-color romp.

Bad balance is bad design. Sure you can take advantage of it, but you need to face the fact that you're making lemonade from lemons. A well balanced game would give you even more options, because you wouldn't have to do something inane like restrict your players to 1 or 2 tiers of classes to fit the campaign power level. And if you want to have a low magic campaign, that's an aesthetic choice you're still free to make.

So, balance taken care of, let's move on.

Lack of clear direction in design: This is sort of a complicated point, and it somewhat encompasses all of the others. Or rather, all the other points are symptoms of it. Basically, 3.5 is trying to distance itself from the hack and slash rollplay we all did in junior high (Oh wait, most of you are probably kids who played 3.0/3.5 in junior high. God I'm old :( ) and be something more sophisticated. But it's still clinging to its roots too.

Granted, there are certain realities we have to accept about D&D. It's a combat-centric system. It's intended to be played in a medieval fantasy setting, or a setting which is a medieval fantasy analogue (Steampunk/JRPG fusion like Eberron, sci-fi settings which are deliberately analogous to medieval fantasy like Dune, or War40k).

But there are elements of the game which are just plain ambiguous: If I were to start a thread asking "What do hit points represent", we would get people who feel that they are literally health, and when you take damage you are in fact wounded, and others who feel that hit points are an abstraction of "plot armor", and you're only taking scratches and flesh wounds (If that), right up until you're incapacitated. And the problem is, the rules don't say which is the case.

The difference between PC class levels and NPC levels is significant enough that it gives you the impression that the PCs are meant to be accomplished heroes who are better than regular people even at level 1, but then your actual capabilities at level 1 make you feel like you're hopeless, and most players seem to have the impression that you're supposed to be like a barely trained apprentice at that point... The game itself does not help you figure this out.

These are the sorts of things that need to actually be decided on and put into a design bible (And explicitly delineated in the resulting rulebook as well). Clearly even the designers had wildly disparate opinions on some of these subjects, and this is part of why balance is so wonky. Abstractions are necessary for gaming, but the mechanics of those abstractions must be explicit, and well rationalized.

And speaking of rationalization...

Crunch and fluff contradict each other: Most D&D settings simply DO NOT MAKE SENSE. Not even in an internal consistency fashion. Given the prevalence of super high level NPCs in the setting fluff... Well, honestly your characters are irrelevant. Evil rogues are threatening the city? Well statistically the city watch probably has several high level mages, so that shouldn't be a problem. Why do you need us again? 100 children have been kidnapped and are going to be sacrificed to the evil gods? We're adventurers, here, take 100,000 diamonds from our pocket lint and get them resurrected. The king is ill? Cure disease. Uh, an army of 500,000 orcs, goblins and trolls is massing in the mountains and--Oh, is that all? Here's ten hojillion gold pieces, go hire yourself a mercenary company. There's no mercenaries about and we're the only hope? TOO BAD THERE ARE NO DECENT RULES FOR MASS COMBAT. Guess you're all screwed, sorry about that. We'll come through and rez you all after the slaughter kay?

Which is to say nothing of "Why the **** is there so much gold and treasure buried in random dungeons and crap... Why the **** do "civilized" kingdoms not burn these pestholes out with their proper armies and seize the treasure? For that matter, why is any of this stuff even worth anything when any wizard could technically come up with a spell to create it out of thin air through spell research?

Why are all these worlds stuck in pre-industrial economies when you have things like persisted spells and...

Look, none of it makes any sense, ok? Eberron gets a bit of a pass here for actually having a relatively well thought out history and socioeconomic/political structure... but... all the rest, not so much.

So the "Poorly thought out settings" bit is rather intertwined with the "Crunch and fluff no agree!" bit.

Although that actually brings me back to the "Ambiguous abstractions" bit, here's another one: I see people often say that an item or ability's flavor--its aesthetics and fluff--are malleable. I happen to agree with this, that I should be able to buy a weapon and have it look like whatever I want as long as it is relatively congruent with its mechanics... A Drow Scorpion Chain can be a sickle on the end of a chain or a razor sharp metal ribbon, both are reach weapons that cut and can entangle... But others don't accept that... And the game books do not take a position on the matter. By RAW, a longsword is a longsword, it cannot be anything else. It's name, form, appearance, etc, are linked inextricably to its statblock. Which I consider absurd but it's a valid interpretation because the rules are ****ING AMBIGUOUS.

But ehhhh anyway...

I'm sort of considering starting up working on a complete rewrite of 3.5, even if I doubt it'll get anywhere. I have clear design goals at least, even if a lot of people will disagree with them or hate my aesthetic choices.

But they do constitute my answer to "How would you fix 3.5"



1. Take the system introduced in the Tome of Battle and integrate it into the core game by making all martial and hybrid classes maneuver initiator classes to varying degrees (Full martial classes become full initiators, hybrids become 3/4 or 2/3 or 1/2, probably).

2. Entirely revamp broken classes like the Monk, and reduce (Ideally remove) the power gap between casters and non-casters.

3. Make the ruleset setting and fluff agnostic. Rules should be statblocks, with *example* flavor text, suggestions on possible uses of that game rules-object.

4. Fix rationality issues where certain elements of the rules become problematic to the plot, such as the existence of resurrection spells and such.

5. Increase the power of player characters at level 1, and reduce it at level 20, such that the actual power ramp is small, and in general the character progresses by getting new abilities, more options to play with.


Accomplishing all that would be a significant task, and would basically require declaring all existing material null, and starting from scratch with new stuff. Basically saying "Stuff from 3.x/PF isn't legal for this version of the game unless and until we either rewrite it or explicitly include it by referencing it in our material (Possibly with revisions).

First step would be to do a new PHB, with fixes for bad systems like grappling, revised core classes, a complete spell by spell review of the core spell list, review of the feat system, rewording of everything to make it all fluff and setting agnostic, etc.

A big task, but not insurmountable...

Please post a continuation thread. I don't like necroposting.

[bean illus]

How much interest would there be in having a few independent game designers / founding charoppers comb through the entirety of the content of 3.5e and giving it the DBZ: Kai treatment? That is, cutting 2/3rds (or more!) of its runtime to make it watchable. Because I could arrange that, but it's not worth it to me unless I see a very large amount of interest.


Essentially, the idea would be that we would create a list of items, spells, feats, etc etc that are all good, and fill out as many roles / concepts as possible in as little space as possible. I could also basically rewrite the PHB to present better introductions for how to use the rules and create character archetypes, and give an archive of example PCs that are all competitively balanced at different levels (think the section of the DMG with premade NPCs, except good).


11,11,11-10,10,10
I believe that's about 15 points on a point buy system, but I'll give it
a try: 9,12,10-12,12,8


Please post a continuation thread. I don't like necroposting.

I'm really glad that his thread was revived. I read the whole thing. There is a lot of really good work here, and I believe that I've noticed what few have....there is a consensus. It's a nearly universal admission that 3.x can be improved, and that it would not be easy.

Still, I see a lot of good work above, and know several folks have already dabbled with the idea. My assessment is that perhaps the time is near... a time when some smart and co-operative folks will sit down and codify a 'fix' of the d20srd/ogl. It won't make everybody happy, but it can be done by the right folks. I like the high floor/low ceiling example.

As far as getting those folks paid.... well, just a little bit more c0-0peration could (theoretically) make a cash machine (or just for fun if that's what you're into).

My advice would be: look for a way to edit with interested parties, and maybe open a sub-forum here? and call a small symposium. Then culture(edit) that and this work into a 12-step task list toward playtesting (which should happen asap, once started). Assign(volunteer) a few task, and bam! You're into beta phase.

If we wanted to get paid, i could (ahem) ....would like to attend that thread (have a few little ideas).

[Pluto!]

1. Take the system introduced in the Tome of Battle and integrate it into the core game by making all martial and hybrid classes maneuver initiator classes to varying degrees (Full martial classes become full initiators, hybrids become 3/4 or 2/3 or 1/2, probably).

2. Entirely revamp broken classes like the Monk, and reduce (Ideally remove) the power gap between casters and non-casters.

3. Make the ruleset setting and fluff agnostic. Rules should be statblocks, with *example* flavor text, suggestions on possible uses of that game rules-object.

4. Fix rationality issues where certain elements of the rules become problematic to the plot, such as the existence of resurrection spells and such.

5. Increase the power of player characters at level 1, and reduce it at level 20, such that the actual power ramp is small, and in general the character progresses by getting new abilities, more options to play with.

...

First step would be to do a new PHB, with fixes for bad systems like grappling, revised core classes, a complete spell by spell review of the core spell list, review of the feat system, rewording of everything to make it all fluff and setting agnostic, etc.

A big task, but not insurmountable...
Not trying to be glib, but have you read 4e?

(Unless that's the joke, in which case, whoosh.)

[Brova]

Before you can "fix 3e" in anything more than the most cursory sense you need to decide whether you want it to be "heroic fantasy with dragons" or "superheroes in fantasyland". The Fighter lives in the first game and the Wizard lives in the second. And you cannot have both of those games in the same ruleset. At least, not without a sufficiently radical re-imagining of the game that I am hard pressed to find any reason to call that project "fixing 3.5" rather than "making a custom edition of D&D".

[Necroticplague]

Before you can "fix 3e" in anything more than the most cursory sense you need to decide whether you want it to be "heroic fantasy with dragons" or "superheroes in fantasyland". The Fighter lives in the first game and the Wizard lives in the second. And you cannot have both of those games in the same ruleset. At least, not without a sufficiently radical re-imagining of the game that I am hard pressed to find any reason to call that project "fixing 3.5" rather than "making a custom edition of D&D".

You can easily support both of those in the same system. You simply set it up so the difference is by level, and not class. When the fighter is merely swinging a sword, the wizard is having to use long rituals for the most potent spells. When the wizard is casually changing form and teleporting, the fighter should be skilled enough to cut apart non-physical things and abstractions, and move so fast as to essentially teleport at short ranges.

[Brova]

You can easily support both of those in the same system. You simply set it up so the difference is by level, and not class. When the fighter is merely swinging a sword, the wizard is having to use long rituals for the most potent spells. When the wizard is casually changing form and teleporting, the fighter should be skilled enough to cut apart non-physical things and abstractions, and move so fast as to essentially teleport at short ranges.

You can kludge it, and it will work "kind of okay", but there are parts of those two games that want radically different things to be happening. Consider animate dead. In superhero land, that's just a thing that you can do. Being a Necromancer or a Death Knight or whatever is not even necessarily you primary shtick. But in heroic fantasy, a guy who raises the dead at all is a major deal. Mechanically, one of those games has animate dead as something you can pick up as a class feature and the other has it as a ritual. Or on a more fundamental level, combat in superhero comics works radically differently than it does in heroic fantasy. For example, tracking the Flash's movement speed in increments of five feet is stupid as hell.

Honestly, the "heroic fantasy" game is actually basically there if you cap levels at six. The problem is that the superheroes game is clunky as hell and is tied to a bunch of design choices it has no real reason to make. Basically, you want to write a Logistics and Dragons mini-game from the ground up. And then re-write most of the classes. And then either accept rocket launcher tag or rewrite all of the monsters and all of the classes. Now, you can get something that works with minimal writing, but it's going to involve serious bans.

[marphod]

My opinion on the easiest way to fix the martial/casting imbalance is to change the spells, across the board.

Establish a table of 'maximum' power effects for a spell of a given spell level (if it does non-repeating direct damage to a single target, it can do at most Caster Level d(foo), with a die cap of Bar; if it does a single round status effect, it can do any effect up through Foo (and an established tier system of status effects); etc.), and a system for combining effects, extending them, adding additional targets, and similar. Then re-level spells so that their abilities are on par with this table.

Using my perspective table, this changes things a lot. Magic Missile becomes a second level spell, Fireball a 4th or 5th, Web a 3rd level spell, and Heal a 6th level. It does burn a lot of sacred cows in that respect.

Many spells get replaced with metamagiced versions of other spells. Mass Cure Light Wounds is just Cure Light Wounds with the Mass metamagic applied, and becomes 4th level (although it only heals 1d8+5 HP per target). Delayed Blast Fireball becomes Fireball with a Delayed Trigger Metamagic.

Some spells vanish entirely; Wish and Miracle in their current incarnation, are gone. As is Gate, Shapechange, and a lot of the 'optimal' spells per spell level.

The system of balancing spells also needs to be fixed. If a spell is balanced against other spells of the same level with an XP cost or expensive material component, it isn't balanced. XP and Gold costs only truly hit PCs, and even then, they are often ignored (so that parties stay roughly the same level) or immaterial (WBL doesn't reflect the cost of expensive material components used for non-permanent effects at earlier levels).

Material Components and Foci need to be there for RP flavor, not a balance mechanism.

Then bring up the martials a little by giving them access to abilities that are easier to use (no casting) and have similar, but diminished, effects as spells. Maybe a player can make a Heal check at a DC possible for a character with max ranks can be used to remove 1d4+1 points of ability damage, once per an encounter, 2 or 3 levels after the cleric gets Lesser Restoration. A Intimidate check can be used to get some of the effects of Dominate. Acrobatics allows movement akin to Dimension Door, Spider Climb, or Feather Fall, with DCs at levels appropriate to 2-4 or maybe 4-6 levels after casters get access. Diplomacy, Survival, and appropriate Knowledge checks at really high DCs might allow preternatural predictions of NPC actions akin to the knowledge gained by Scrying.

Out of combat caster abilities may still be at a scale beyond martial capabilities, but not to the scale currently found.

[Vhaidara]

Using my perspective table, this changes things a lot. Magic Missile becomes a second level spell, Fireball a 4th or 5th, Web a 3rd level spell, and Heal a 6th level. It does burn a lot of sacred cows in that respect.

I can kind of see where you are coming from, except for this.
Magic Missile and Fireball: WHY? Both of them are already pretty much garbage spells at their levels (MM is used for delivering metamagics like fell drain, that's it). What about Magic Missile makes it a second level spell?

Web is becoming third seems really strange when you're making fireball 4-5. Considering that Web is like 30 times better than fireball.

Heal already is level 6 for Cleric. It's 7 for Druid.

[Necroticplague]

You can kludge it, and it will work "kind of okay", but there are parts of those two games that want radically different things to be happening. Consider animate dead. In superhero land, that's just a thing that you can do. Being a Necromancer or a Death Knight or whatever is not even necessarily you primary shtick. But in heroic fantasy, a guy who raises the dead at all is a major deal. Mechanically, one of those games has animate dead as something you can pick up as a class feature and the other has it as a ritual. Or you can have both, with some capable of picking it as a class ability, and others needing the ritual to do it. At low levels, only the latter is available.


Or on a more fundamental level, combat in superhero comics works radically differently than it does in heroic fantasy. For example, tracking the Flash's movement speed in increments of five feet is stupid as hell. However, tracking The Blob's movement in such is reasonable, but measuring his resilience with just hit points might not be. Both are superheros/villians, its just they make use of different parts of the system to they point where the normal rules don't deal with them well.

[Brova]

Or you can have both, with some capable of picking it as a class ability, and others needing the ritual to do it. At low levels, only the latter is available.

If you're going to do that, I have to ask what benefit you have from sticking with the framework provided by 3e. If you're going to write up, test, and balance both of those things, and do that for every possible power, you're making a new game. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. There are plenty of things worth changing from 3e. Open multiclassing should probably go, the tiers from 4e are worth adding, and WBL needs to be reworked or abolished. But if your project is to "fix 3e" that's not really on the table.

To fix 3e, you need to figure out two things. First, how powerful people are supposed to be. Are you buffing the Fighter or nerfing the Wizard? Second, how much work are you willing to do. Are you just going to ban shapechange, or are you going to rework it until it doesn't break the game?

[Endarire]

I recommend playing 3.5 or/and Pathfinder mostly as-is and coming to your own conclusions. Any changes you make will affect your group, who are the most important people to you in this discussion anyway. Don't worry about other groups. If you're curious, ask what they do differently than default and consider using that.

[Lans]

Honestly I would put fixing 3.5 into 2 categories

1 nerfing infinite loops, and dysfunctional rules. Gate chains, diplomacy and the like
2 Make the classes, archtypes and fighting styles more balanced. Things don't have to be perfect, but I am of the opinion that you can get things down to a tier 4-2 range pretty damn easily

[GammaPaladin]

Not trying to be glib, but have you read 4e?

(Unless that's the joke, in which case, whoosh.)

I have, but to me, they went the wrong way with it. They ditched the sort of "card deck/hand" mechanism of ToB which had been (To my understanding) a working concept they were considering using for 4e, and went with one of the things I hate most in D&D, the limited use ability... All the classes were full of things you can use once per various units of time, which bugs me. I'm not a fan of the at will/per encounter/per day model. It's admittedly at least not as bad as the poor benighted 3.5E Monk's per week BS (Like anyone ever keeps track of in game weeks passing), but yeah, not my thing.

The cool thing to me about the ToB system is that you're never really out of abilities. It's never a matter of husbanding your supply of abilities and picking the moment to use them so that they don't go to waste... It's about picking which of your many options to use in this specific turn... You're limited by action economy, not finite resources.

Basically what the ToB system does for me is it eliminates fighter boredom... You have something to do other than just the same standard attack over and over! 4E attempts to give you that but it ends up being just as bad. You blow your per encounter and per day abilities, and then you use your at will ability over and over every round. It might as well just be a standard attack, and that's sad.

Beyond which, since a ToB class like say, a Crusader, is just as effective in his 12th fight of the day as he was in his first fight of the day regardless of how many maneuvers he's used because those maneuvers are not a limited resource, it means that the DM does not have to plan out in detail a specific series of encounters to make sure that he's taxing everyone's resources and not letting them all just burn all their vancian magic and per day abilities on one fight...

Which lessens the temptation to railroad your players and allows the game to become more freeform and player-driven.


Before you can "fix 3e" in anything more than the most cursory sense you need to decide whether you want it to be "heroic fantasy with dragons" or "superheroes in fantasyland". The Fighter lives in the first game and the Wizard lives in the second. And you cannot have both of those games in the same ruleset. At least, not without a sufficiently radical re-imagining of the game that I am hard pressed to find any reason to call that project "fixing 3.5" rather than "making a custom edition of D&D".

I agree, to a certain extent. And my personal opinion would be "superheroes in fantasyland", because while certain classes may live in the lower powered world in theory, in practice the setting is nonsensical for that type of game. If you are meant to be a mere mortal then D&D 3.x is a total and miserable failure IMO.

That said, I disagree that they can't coexist in the same system, they just can't coexist in the same campaign.


You can easily support both of those in the same system. You simply set it up so the difference is by level, and not class. When the fighter is merely swinging a sword, the wizard is having to use long rituals for the most potent spells. When the wizard is casually changing form and teleporting, the fighter should be skilled enough to cut apart non-physical things and abstractions, and move so fast as to essentially teleport at short ranges.

You've sort of got the idea here, but I'm not sure it really makes sense to have that wide of a power spread between low and high levels. I mean, what's the rationalization for this? Are you essentially starting play as an untrained apprentice of whatever class you've chosen? How is it that you end up being so powerful later on, and are all master level <insert class name> people that powerful? If so then what's the purpose of your adventuring at level 1 when the world is apparently full of thousands upon thousands of superheroes who could squash you with a thought?


You can kludge it, and it will work "kind of okay", but there are parts of those two games that want radically different things to be happening. Consider animate dead. In superhero land, that's just a thing that you can do. Being a Necromancer or a Death Knight or whatever is not even necessarily you primary shtick. But in heroic fantasy, a guy who raises the dead at all is a major deal. Mechanically, one of those games has animate dead as something you can pick up as a class feature and the other has it as a ritual. Or on a more fundamental level, combat in superhero comics works radically differently than it does in heroic fantasy. For example, tracking the Flash's movement speed in increments of five feet is stupid as hell.

Honestly, the "heroic fantasy" game is actually basically there if you cap levels at six. The problem is that the superheroes game is clunky as hell and is tied to a bunch of design choices it has no real reason to make. Basically, you want to write a Logistics and Dragons mini-game from the ground up. And then re-write most of the classes. And then either accept rocket launcher tag or rewrite all of the monsters and all of the classes. Now, you can get something that works with minimal writing, but it's going to involve serious bans.

I don't really think the heroic fantasy game is there, even capping it at level six, because the setting still doesn't make sense, IMO. But even if that did work, the game still has the problem, to me, that martial characters do not have enough to do. I mean, they're acting every turn, but they're just repeating the same actions over and over. It's monotonous, and they should have the sort of tactical choices involved that spellcasters do.

That's a matter of fixing the game by making it more fun, rather than more balanced though.


Or you can have both, with some capable of picking it as a class ability, and others needing the ritual to do it. At low levels, only the latter is available.

Having both in the same game ends up creating conflicts in my opinion, between players because Bob picked the guy who can raise the dead with an at-will ability and it's making Joe feel useless because he can only do it as a week-long ritual, and with the verisimilitude of the setting. The problem isn't so much creating a system in which low powered and godlike characters are both accounted for, it's creating a setting where that makes any sort of sense whatsoever.


Open multiclassing should probably go...

Nevar! The complexity of the mix and match class system is one of 3.5's main redeeming qualities to me.

[Necroticplague]

You've sort of got the idea here, but I'm not sure it really makes sense to have that wide of a power spread between low and high levels. I mean, what's the rationalization for this? Are you essentially starting play as an untrained apprentice of whatever class you've chosen? How is it that you end up being so powerful later on, and are all master level <insert class name> people that powerful? If so then what's the purpose of your adventuring at level 1 when the world is apparently full of thousands upon thousands of superheroes who could squash you with a thought? As you train, you become better in your field, and because it's a fantastic world instead of a boring one, the amount of better with which you can get by practice is much higher than realistic; assuming your at very low levels, yes;practice and perseverence, yes; for the same reason you see Peter Parker fighting mobsters while Silver Surfer fights apocalyptic threats.


Having both in the same game ends up creating conflicts in my opinion, between players because Bob picked the guy who can raise the dead with an at-will ability and it's making Joe feel useless because he can only do it as a week-long ritual, and with the verisimilitude of the setting. The problem isn't so much creating a system in which low powered and godlike characters are both accounted for, it's creating a setting where that makes any sort of sense whatsoever.
What versimilitude problem? "Some specialist mages can perform certain spells they specialize in in significantly less time and effort than others." The focus and specialization is represented by your class. If Joe isn't the caster class that animates dead as an at-will, than he's got some other, similarly potent ability. Maybe he's an abjurer instead who breaks unwanted magic effects like pringles between an olive press. Or he's a fellow necromaner, but focused more on the 'crippling with negative energy' portion, and has an aura that causes their foes to start gaining nasty status effects and die. Maybe he's a fighter heals like wolverine out sheer tenacity, or a rogue so quite he has an EX silence effect on him.

[GammaPaladin]

The verisimilitude problem is in the details you're not thinking about.

If in this setting practice can make you that much better, it opens up a whole host of implicit questions. Does this "practicing something for a couple years can make you into a god" principle apply to everyone? Like, the farmer NPCs in the village we're passing through, could they become godlike wizards or martial adepts or whatever if they swung a sword around long enough? If so, why don't they? If not, why not? What makes the PCs different?

If there's no difference, then anyone could become a superhero if they wanted to and worked hard. That means that statistically, tons of people do. Which begs the question... What are you doing adventuring at low level? Shouldn't you be running into all sorts of opponents that can turn you into red mist by farting in your direction?

Plus, at that point you're talking about a world where there are a whole ton of people who can cast spells like resurrect, which then leaves you wondering why anyone is ever left to stay dead... And how the world's resources sustain an infinitely growing population since no one ever really dies... Which is easily explained by your thousands of clerics who can create food and magical shelter out of thin air, but that begs the even greater question of why does anyone need to go adventuring? This is clearly a world where everyone has all their needs met, the streets are paved with gold, universal health care in the form of tons of people who can cast cure disease and such, and who have no reason to charge you anything for it because basically everything has been rendered a non-commodity...

There's no reason for anyone to fight in that world. Any non-sentient hazards would have been stomped out by thousands of high level characters, and the sentients are all fat and happy.

And then if you go the other route, where there is some magical difference that makes PCs capable of reaching vastly greater heights than mere mortals, there are other issues. First, you need to explain why PCs are different in the setting fluff. And then figure out the implications of that, like, if there are enough high level monsters to keep you occupied when you do reach those high levels of superherodom, why on earth haven't they overrun the kingdom and slaughtered everyone? The level 20 monsters are a few hundred miles away from the kingdom you were adventuring in at level 1... So why does that kingdom still exist? How does it survive while you're leveling up to the point where you can go save the kingdom from them?

I realize these sorts of details probably never even occur to most people to wonder about, but they bug the living hell out of me.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The verisimilitude problem is in the details you're not thinking about.

If in this setting practice can make you that much better, it opens up a whole host of implicit questions. Does this "practicing something for a couple years can make you into a god" principle apply to everyone?

Given that, by the DMG guidlines, every metropolis has at least 4 members of each PHB class who are at least 13th level (not to mention whatever non-core classes you include) and every such city has at least a 75% chance of including at least 1 person capable of casting 9th level spells, I'm going to go with "definitely yes".


Like, the farmer NPCs in the village we're passing through, could they become godlike wizards or martial adepts or whatever if they swung a sword around long enough? If so, why don't they?

Incompatibility of interests and ability score distributions, most likely. If you don't have the high Int or Cha for arcane magic, have a moderately high Wis but aren't faithful enough to become any sort of divine caster, are too law-abiding to consider a roguish class given their poor reputation, and faint at the sight of blood, NPC classes are the best option for you.

Also, motivation; just like many people in the modern world would rather work a 9-to-5 and watch TV on weekends instead of becoming CEOs or professional athletes because that requires a ton of time and dedication, sometimes it's just easier to stay on your family farm and do the same ol' thing you've been doing to become a Commoner 12 than it is to go to Wizard School and have to work much harder. Sure, the rewards for being a wizard are worth it, but so are the rewards for being a CEO or a professional athlete, and a lot of people just can't hack it.


What are you doing adventuring at low level? Shouldn't you be running into all sorts of opponents that can turn you into red mist by farting in your direction?
[...]
There's no reason for anyone to fight in that world. Any non-sentient hazards would have been stomped out by thousands of high level characters, and the sentients are all fat and happy.
[...]
if there are enough high level monsters to keep you occupied when you do reach those high levels of superherodom, why on earth haven't they overrun the kingdom and slaughtered everyone? The level 20 monsters are a few hundred miles away from the kingdom you were adventuring in at level 1... So why does that kingdom still exist? How does it survive while you're leveling up to the point where you can go save the kingdom from them?

You've answered your own question. The high-level heroes don't stomp out the giant tribes and orc hordes because they're busy dealing with the demonic invasions and dragon attacks and the high-HD monsters don't stomp out the low-level heroes because they're busy dealing with the high-level heroes. I mean, really, how often do high-level PCs in your games think "Gee, Hommlet is having some goblin troubles right now, let's put our crusade against Lord Darkevildeath the Lich King to go take care of that"?

Note that powerful monsters do take time out of their busy schedule to raze some minor villages every now and then; those orphaned PCs with tragic pasts have to come from somewhere, right? :smallwink:


Plus, at that point you're talking about a world where there are a whole ton of people who can cast spells like resurrect, which then leaves you wondering why anyone is ever left to stay dead...

Death by old age, a lack of 5K gp in diamonds, and/or an unfortunate tendency to die repeatedly faster than one can make up the lost levels from resurrection.


And how the world's resources sustain an infinitely growing population since no one ever really dies... Which is easily explained by your thousands of clerics who can create food and magical shelter out of thin air, but that begs the even greater question of why does anyone need to go adventuring? This is clearly a world where everyone has all their needs met, the streets are paved with gold, universal health care in the form of tons of people who can cast cure disease and such, and who have no reason to charge you anything for it because basically everything has been rendered a non-commodity...

Again, it comes down to the high-level-monster problem. For every high-level LG cleric who wants to bring free food and healthcare to the peasantry, there's a high-level CE cleric who wants to spread famine and disease. For every high-level CG wizard who wants to usher in the Magitech Revolution and create a communist utopia, there's a high-level LE wizard who wants to subjugate the masses. For every NG warrior who wants to slay the threats to the land and ensure peace for generations, there's a NE warrior who assassinates benevolent political leaders for profit.

Eberron is an excellent example. They just had a massive century-long war that wiped out pretty much everyone above level 12 or so, and all of the higher-level monsters are either locked away on another plane (Khyber for the demons, Xoriat for the aberrations) or hiding away on their own continent for their own reasons (psionicists on Sarlona, dragons on Argonnessen), and with those powerful threats removed society has thrived, exactly as you posited should happen: lightning rails and airships crisscross the continent, healing is ubiquitous and commoditized, magical marvels are on every street corner, and the standard of living is much higher than in any other published setting...but if any of those threats breaks free or decides to invade Khorvaire, the continent would be plunged into a massive dark age because they don't have the high-level heroes to counterbalance those threats, and if they did claw their way up out of that dark age the world would look a lot more standard-D&D-ish thereafter.

Forgotten Realms is another excellent example. For all the joking on the internet about high-level NPCs popping in to solve the PCs' every problem (and bad DMs who actually do that sort of thing in real games), the setting as published is locked in a cold war that prevents that sort of thing. The Hathrans can't turn Rashemen into a magical utopia because they're constantly under attack by the Red Wizards, who can't commit their full forces to the effort because they have to defend themselves from the Simbul leading assaults to kill them, who can't focus on making life better for the Aglarondans because the Society of the Kraken is constantly trying to undermine the country, who can't devote more effort to the task because the Harpers are always up in its business, who can't wipe out all the bandits and mercenaries on the Sword Coast because the Sharites and Shadow Weave adepts are always causing trouble, who can't advance their plots against Mystra because Elminster is always ruining their schemes, who can't try to advance the Dalelands because the Zhentarim are always meddling and raiding there, who can't expand farther north because the Hathrans guard their borders against such miscreants, who can't turn Rashemen into a magical utopia because they're constantly under attack by the Red Wizards....

The closest thing the Realms have had to magical utopias, Netheril and Jhaamdath, were taken out by divine power (albeit self-inflicted in the former case), and the constant Realms-Shaking Events prevent any more such utopias from arising. Non-magical technology isn't a viable alternative, since Gond suppresses things like smokepowder and mundane clockwork that would allow for non-magical advancement. If the FR gods were much less dickish to mortals and the good guys ever managed to get themselves some breathing room to start making the world a better place, it too could turn into an Eberron-style world that makes everyday life great for everyone, but with said gods and baddies that's not going to happen any time soon.


I realize these sorts of details probably never even occur to most people to wonder about, but they bug the living hell out of me.

They occur to plenty of us, but the DMG demographics, PC/monster spell level parity, setting details, and other factors explain most of those details, and where they don't, those details are easily explained and houseruled without any massive overhaul being necessary.