Building a completely new system; your feedback appreciated

[Conacar]

Adventurers,

My good friend and I are writing and publishing a new D20-style RPG in the hopes of improving the 3.5 / Pathfinder ruleset. We've made some pretty significant changes already, but would love more feedback from the 3.5 community:

1) What's your least favorite element of the 3.5 (or Pathfinder) ruleset?

2) Any suggestions for major improvements? Any house rules you've found that work especially well?

3) Is magic too complicated?

4) Have you found that these games effectively prepare you for worldbuilding? Or do you often find yourself online, searching for external ideas that the DMG didn't cover?

5) Do you think the Player's Handbook and DMG should be shorter? Longer? Have more armor/weapons options? More worldbuilding discussion?

6) Do you like the art style? Would you prefer a darker, more brutal setting, or a lighter, high fantasy setting?

If you have any significant changes you'd like to propose, shoot me a message, we'd be happy to include your name and material in our books. Project's still pretty far off, but I really appreciate any feedback you can give me. Thanks ladies and gents!

[ComaVision]

First, good luck.

1. Trap options, which are options that may seem good but mechanically cripple your character.
2. I have a lot of house rules but the main one that my players appear to appreciate is that I let the Heal skill actually heal a number of times per day equal to their ranks in it. Thankfully, nobody has asked me for a fluff justification for the limited times per day because I don't have one.
3. I don't think so. I'm sure there are people that do think so.
4. No comment - I know that world generators and other generators are available and I find it easier to start with a generated world and change it to my liking and that is why I use them. It's not because I'm unable to generate them otherwise.
5. It has been a very long time since I've read the PHB or the DMG but I found them both good, helpful reads when I was beginning to play. If anything, the spell chapter in the PHB felt too long.
6. I'm pretty indifferent to art. I prefer a neutral setting that can be used for both gritty or high fantasy play.

[martixy]

1. +1 for Coma's response. My own pet peeve is the rocket-tagginess. The skill system in 3.5 ranks high up there as well. I like what PF did to it.
2. Tactical diversity. Create a system that allows all manner of players and classes to make meaningful decisions from moment to moment. Especially for mundanes, who need more than "let's hit things till they drop" and variations on it or its timing.
3. Nope. It's kinda the point of magic. Heck, it only helps reinforce the verisimilitude of the "arcane-ness" of magic.
4. Well no, and they can't possibly. Good world-building requires other, external stimuli and motivations. It is the nature of the beast. IMO, a lot of the books discuss very helpful techniques and approaches that the vast majority of DMs completely ignore. So unless you literally personally go around hammering that knowledge into people's heads, there is little you can do, that hasn't already been done.
5. No idea. In general, there's always value in adding more, but you shouldn't lose focus in that pursuit, clarity of presentation has to match breadth of content.
6. I do enjoy PFs art style and design a great deal. On D&D side, I prefer 3.5's art, but 5e's design(PF still beats both). I think books should have more environment art. On aesthetics, I'm a fan of high-fantasy.
But overall that's a pointless question since it's purely a matter of personal taste. Which is a notoriously fickle trait from person to person.

[Khedrac]

One of the things I would like to see fixed is the confusion on spells Vs Damage Resistance.

A number of spells state that the damage that they do is bludgeoning (or whatever); this is obviously meant to be for DR calculations, but DR never applies to spells...
(Also, does DR apply to falling damage?)
I would remove the DR never applies to spells rule, and instead say "DR applies to all physical damage" where physical has a specific meaning (like fire, cold, acid, holy etc.) and spells that specifically do physical damage (or physical[piercing] damage) are subject to DR. You then just need to decide whether force spells do physical damage (I am inclined to 'yes' but that is an un-needed nerf to magic missile - perhaps make it bludgeoning, piercing and slashing).

Also clarify on prestige classes and entry conditions. The intent is obvious that one needs to remain qualified to take the class unless the class itself de-qualifies you, but too many classes do self-dequalify and only 2 books say you must be qualified so it remains a mess.

Edit: I know what the current rules state in these circumstances, I just think that the rules are not what the designers intended in many cases and need re-work.

[SilverLeaf167]

1) The rigidness of the rules, classes and such. It would be nice to have more customization without getting really complicated or resorting to outright homebrew, so every character could feel mechanically distinct. PF archetypes are a good start, but I'd love it if casters were able to do something other than preset spells, too. (Not like casters need much of a buff, of course)

2) More mechanics for... not really non-lethal combat, but non-lethal repercussions to combat. More ways for characters (PCs and NPCs alike) to get knocked unconscious, get temporarily (or permanently) crippled and otherwise suffer the consequences of defeat without actually dying. There are ways to do this in 3.x, but they tend to be a little unwieldy, so it's easy to fall into the mindset of making encounters a little too easy since losing would be such a hassle.

3) D&D's magic systems themselves are pretty simple, but the number of spells is the biggest complication. As mentioned in point 1), it would be cool if instead of having such a massive list of spells, there were more ways to apply individual ones. Spells Known (or its equivalent) should probably be reduced to make up for it, of course. One example that springs to mind is that the same spell could serve either as a solid Wall of Force, a movable barrier or even a protective bubble if you just cast it differently.

4) It's neither possible nor necessary for any prewritten book to cover all the bases of worldbuilding. Short pieces of fluff and other examples dispersed all over the place, together with some guidelines and helpful advice in the DMG, work just fine. Asking the internet isn't a problem, it's an asset. :smallwink:

5) It's alright for the books to be longer, if that means more rules will be concentrated in the same books without having to search all over the place. What really matters is how easy they're to navigate. Clearly indexed and logically structured chapters go a long way. Actual mechanical rules should be the first priority to include, though.

6) The art style used in most D&D is alright, and "neutral" in a good way: D&D doesn't really have a set tone, every group and DM sets it themselves. Making the art style noticeably lighter or darker would definitely affect people's impressions of the game's style as well. If that's what you want, great, but otherwise a "neutral" or even "generic" style works just fine.

[Fitz10019]

I've been listening to actual plays of the new Star Wars RPG, and I like advantage/disadvantage system that happens during combat. You might hit but something else goes wrong, or you miss but something else goes right.
It would be nice to have something similar in a D&D-type game.