Subsystems you wish 3.5 had

[atemu1234]

What are some subsystems you wish that 3.5 had created or used? Like magic, psionics, initiating, incarnum, etc?

[flappeercraft]

Some kind of initiating but for ranged combat

[Cosi]

1. Incarnum, but without all the extra stuff Incarnum puts on top of "you have a pile of points and somethings to put them in".
2. Something where you have a bunch of different ability suites which grant a passive all the time and an active from the one you choose to focus.
3. Some kind of Rage Meter deal where you get stronger for attacking people.
4. Table based Winds of Fate.
5. Some kind of aura class that isn't terrible. Probably also with some kind of more active abilities. Like a guy with a passive aura and active Battlecries.
6. Some kind of path based character (but less terrible than the Shadowcaster).
7. Really, just not-awful versions of all the later 3.5 classes with weird resource management mechanics.
8. Some class that works off of Drain.
9. A class that does something interesting with the "Normal/Reversed" set up the Truenamer has going on.
10. Most of the classes from this thread (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=53893).

[Gildedragon]

Good skill-based casting
a more robust diplomacy/social encounter thing

[AOKost]

My favorite subsystem that I've incorporated into virtually all games I run comes from: http://www.easydamus.com/CustomCharacters.html that I've heavily modified as I've incorporated MANY base and prestige classes into the purchase system. It offers a very easy way of drastically changing what is possible for any player and their character(s) and they could never be the same.

It is true that it offers the ability for everyone to learn everything without having to worry about any "class" system, and I find that liberating. I know there's a lot of strong opinion on that matter, but just about everyone that learns the system I run love it. The way I explain this system you have to go to school or find someone to teach you a specific ability, so that forces players to have to role play more about how and where they learn something. It takes time and money to learn something.

Basically, whenever we start a campaign, my players start off as the NPC class Commoner. I further give my players 90 points to distribute as they please among their Ability Scores, point for point, with no score over 18 before racial modifiers, and lower than 5 after racial modifiers. If they survive their first adventure, they get to learn something, and further spend their loot. If not, they get to make another character and go on the next adventure.

In reference to subsystems like Incarnum, Psionics, and the like, I would love more information and options for Spell Points in official materials. A better Unarmed Damage progression (I would end the Medium Monk Unarmed Strike damage progression at 4d6 but allow further increasing from prestige classes or advancement in classes that improve Unarmed Strike.

I would like to see more mechanics or explanation/expansion on abilities like those from Tome of Battle, and more variability and expansion on Spheres of Power.

I would love to see a compendium on Special Materials and Item/Crafting Templates that includes 100+ Special Materials and the same number of templates or more, with new feats, and prestige classes that have class specific templates or Special Materials. I've scrounged the net and books alike to make a compendium that I use but it's nothing 'official' so a lot of other GM's wouldn't allow. This is a point I've commented on many times before...

Figuring out a way to officially incorporate something like the Illithid Savant class into Pathfinder would be awesome! But I don't allow it unless a player is willing to play an Illithid from level 1 using Savage Species, modifying the end result to be more like the standard Illithid at the end instead of the reduced version that is presented. That way there's a reason and story behind why they have the skills/abilities/feats/qualities that it does instead of just giving it to them arbitrarily even though that's kinda the point of the combination.

More information or clerification on the multiverse and the planes of existance therein, and it's denizens.

Love the idea of luck, but there's not much dealing with it. I know there are classes, but it's like Tome of Battle. There's too little.

I would love to have an updated version of Savage Species, with more playable races.

[AOKost]

Good skill-based casting
a more robust diplomacy/social encounter thing

I kinda do something like this. I break Magic up under Spellcraft. The first rank in Spellcraft opens up access to magic, and 0 level Universal spells, and after that first point they can pout a point in sub-skills that are each school, allowing for specialization. Spells that require 2 or more schools require the number of ranks in both schools to be able to cast a spell of that level. The level of spell that is cast is determined by the number of ranks one has in a specific school divided in half. This does mean that access to 1st level spells is pushed back to 'level' 2, but it makes more sense to me... Psionics are similarly subdivided.

This is also using a different system that allows the 'purchase' of skill ranks, feats, HP, and virtually every other aspect of a character. The system I use is a continuation of what I found here: http://www.easydamus.com/CustomCharacters.html

[AOKost]

Symbyotes would be cool to expand, as would Grafts.

You could also introduce implants of some sort. Like "slotless" lenses that add additional bonus to Perception that don't interfere with normal magic items, or for all intense and purposes would add Circumstance bonus or some such that doesn't interfere with goggles or a mask, or anything else. You could also have "slotless" gems that could be inserted into different parts of the body that give bonuses. These could just as easily be explained as technology and cybernetics of some sort.

Speaking of technology, I can't wait for Starfinder! I hope it's as backwards compatible as extolled! I love using technology in certain planes that don't operate on planes of magic, and some technologies developing on planes that have magic that have properties that skew the lines between magic and science to the n'th degree.... A gun would work on virtually any plane that allowed complex mechanical operations or chemical operations, or technological means...

[frogglesmash]

BM3. Some kind of Rage Meter deal where you get stronger for attacking people.

There actually is a system that makes you stronger for attacking people. It's know as the "xp" system, and can be in the PHB. /S


Symbyotes would be cool to expand, as would Grafts.

You could also introduce implants of some sort. Like "slotless" lenses that add additional bonus to Perception that don't interfere with normal magic items, or for all intense and purposes would add Circumstance bonus or some such that doesn't interfere with goggles or a mask, or anything else. You could also have "slotless" gems that could be inserted into different parts of the body that give bonuses. These could just as easily be explained as technology and cybernetics of some sort.

Speaking of technology, I can't wait for Starfinder! I hope it's as backwards compatible as extolled! I love using technology in certain planes that don't operate on planes of magic, and some technologies developing on planes that have magic that have properties that skew the lines between magic and science to the n'th degree.... A gun would work on virtually any plane that allowed complex mechanical operations or chemical operations, or technological means...

D20 modern/future has a lot of this kind of stuff and most of it can be ported to 3.5 with little to no work.

[Bronk]

I would have liked a full subsystem dealing with dreams, lucid dreaming, various dream planes, and so on, more than what is currently sprinkled around various books...

[MHCD]

I would have liked a full subsystem dealing with dreams, lucid dreaming, various dream planes, and so on, more than what is currently sprinkled around various books...

This make me grateful indeed. Dream stuff is fantastic, and there is some excellent material, but like you said, sprinkled...

I also second the "rage meter" and "drain" subsystems, including magic drain. Psychic warriors and spellthieves are about as close to "drain" classes as you get right now.

A "heroic" subsystem could be pretty cool, particularly for grittier or low-magic settings and lower level play (or even as a specifically E6/E8 subsystem). Drawing inspiration greatly from what works out of things like skill feats, tactical feats, ToB, Dungeonscape and the other "environmental" books, and all the best stories about old-school dungeoneering, creative player puzzle-solving, and Rule of Cool DMs, it would be nice to see something completely about "badass normal", from simple survival and adventure in a harsh world to pushing the boundaries of reality through increasingly heroic abilities.

I once played with a DM who strictly enforced realism and/or rules for mundane things like the difficulty of physical combat on an icy rock ledge while carrying on your back all the camping and climbing gear needed for the expedition up Wyvern's Peak or planning defensive strategies months in advance, but who also was very flexible when it came to trying action-movie-esque stunts or improvised solutions to problems that strained reality/rules. Even just trying out giving all the characters the nice benefits of Vow of Poverty meant you could be stripped down and thrown in jail, but you could still wrestle a guard, grab his sword, and proceed to beat face and go to town on the magic monster.

Yeah, there are existing crunchy resources for that, and a good part can be achieved through player and DM cooperation, fun, and fluff, but some part of me still thinks 3.5 was waiting for Wizards to publish "Heroes of Hardcoreness", including things like the ultimate grognard adventuring equipment and Gygaxian hazards lists, (Ex) Paladin ACFs, massive Factotum support, 13 levels and variations of Iron Heart Surge, and an entry on Thug Life.

[Necroticplague]

I like Epic Spellcasting's idea of being able to make spells from combining basic components on a point-buy system (since the DC to make is basically just a point limit). I just A: wished it wasn't so broken in both directions simultaneously, B: available at lower levels, so you could simultaneously develop unique spells and be fair about it, C: that the concept had been applied more often to other things, like crafting (mundane, alchemical, and magical) and initiating.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd like to see a good alchemist class. The Pathfinder version was decent, but I'd like to see something even farther removed from standard spellcasting, with weirder potions and bombs and the like.

Better skill and skill challenge type rules, especially for social stuff.

[ben-zayb]

A better skill subsystem, for one. Skill-monkey classes getting special abilities instead of just more ranks would be a plus. I'm not really a PF guy, and barely played one, but from what I see, the skill unlock is a step to that direction where I want the subsystem to go.

[stack]

I would have liked some kind of truenaming system. Shame they never tried that.:smalltongue:

[Mehangel]

I wish that 3.5 never used vancian spellcasting but instead had created and used Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).

[martixy]

A better treatment of grafts.
It's a topic somewhat near and dear to my heart since I've silently been chipping away at it for a while.

Also +1 for epic spellcasting. I have not read up on Spheres of power, but from what little I've seen I wonder if there's some opportunity to combine them to produce something glorious.

[Cosi]

Good skill-based casting

You cannot make this work. Full stop. Skill based casting is either broken (if skill checks do not scale linearly with level), or pointless (if they do). Thus far, D&D has generally chosen broken. The Truenamer is underpowered because your skill checks scale slower than your DCs. Diplomacy is overpowered because the DCs to do high level things are fixed and can be hit at low levels. Epic Spellcasting is this weird thing where you can (and, indeed, are rewarded for) ignore the whole skill based portion of the system.

[khadgar567]

Well this is gonna be odd but my subsystem of choice would be unholy trio( book of erotic fantasy, blue magic and temptress)

[Necroticplague]

You cannot make this work. Full stop. Skill based casting is either broken (if skill checks do not scale linearly with level), or pointless (if they do). Thus far, D&D has generally chosen broken. The Truenamer is underpowered because your skill checks scale slower than your DCs. Diplomacy is overpowered because the DCs to do high level things are fixed and can be hit at low levels. Epic Spellcasting is this weird thing where you can (and, indeed, are rewarded for) ignore the whole skill based portion of the system.


Not necessarilly. If you have it scale such that producing the same thing is always the same task, you can then leave the 'scaling' being to have it produce level-appropriate effects. So, making the same thing doesn't get harder as you level up, but making a version strong enough to be worth using does (because you have a larger threshold for what qualifies as 'strong enough').

Or to use truenaming as an analogy: a fixed DC getting you the base effect of an utterance, but a scaling DC to improve it's CL to keep up, could work. You could 'make do' with a low-cl version if need be, or to add different effects (like meta-utterances). Could be balanced.

[Cosi]

Not necessarilly. If you have it scale such that producing the same thing is always the same task, you can then leave the 'scaling' being to have it produce level-appropriate effects. So, making the same thing doesn't get harder as you level up, but making a version strong enough to be worth using does (because you have a larger threshold for what qualifies as 'strong enough').

Or to use truenaming as an analogy: a fixed DC getting you the base effect of an utterance, but a scaling DC to improve it's CL to keep up, could work. You could 'make do' with a low-cl version if need be, or to add different effects (like meta-utterances). Could be balanced.

No. That cannot be balanced. The difference between "having an Item Familiar" and "not having an Item Familiar" is as much as your entire level bonus. If you balance to people who have an Item Familiar (like the Truenamer does), the system will suck for anything less than high optimization. If you balance to people who don't have Item Familiar (like Diplomacy does), the system will be broken at high optimization.

The reality is that you can have two characters of the same level whose bonus to the same skill check differs by more than twenty points -- the entire length of the RNG. You cannot plug both of those numbers into the same equation and get balanced results for both (assuming, of course, that the check result matters to the evaluation of the equation).

Of course, there is an alternative. You could have a skill check that was sharply chained to level. That would be consistent, and therefore (potentially) balanced. But it would also be pointless to make it a skill check, because you could get the same performance out of a level check.

[bekeleven]

According to my homebrew, I've spent years trying to figure out ways that classes can interact with magical effects without casting spells.

So, the more ways we have to do that, the better I suppose.

[CasualViking]

No. That cannot be balanced. The difference between "having an Item Familiar" and "not having an Item Familiar" is as much as your entire level bonus. If you balance to people who have an Item Familiar (like the Truenamer does), the system will suck for anything less than high optimization. If you balance to people who don't have Item Familiar (like Diplomacy does), the system will be broken at high optimization.

The reality is that you can have two characters of the same level whose bonus to the same skill check differs by more than twenty points -- the entire length of the RNG. You cannot plug both of those numbers into the same equation and get balanced results for both (assuming, of course, that the check result matters to the evaluation of the equation).

Of course, there is an alternative. You could have a skill check that was sharply chained to level. That would be consistent, and therefore (potentially) balanced. But it would also be pointless to make it a skill check, because you could get the same performance out of a level check.

Or you could have cancerous turds like Item Familiars completely excised.

[Quertus]

Or you could have cancerous turds like Item Familiars completely excised.

And Cloak of Elvenkind? Wield Skill? Synergy bonuses? Alchemy bonuses? Skill Focus? High stats? Racial bonuses? Masterwork tools?

There's a lot that goes into a skill check...

[Sian]

An effective Healing class that aren't tied to Divine Magic (Or the trainwreck that is "Healer")

[Cosi]

Or you could have cancerous turds like Item Familiars completely excised.

That's just the alternative I talked about. If you remove all the stuff that makes skill checks vary wildly at the same level, you can have balanced skill based magic, but if skill checks track to level, there's no reason to not just use a level check. However, there's also another issue where the bonus from level is really tiny with respect to the RNG. I did some back of the envelope calculations on it once, and it takes more than a dozen checks for a +1 bonus to be decisive. Given that two of those are the difference between evard's black tentacles and cloudkill, that's deeply unlikely to be good enough.

[AOKost]

Well this is gonna be odd but my subsystem of choice would be unholy trio( book of erotic fantasy, blue magic and temptress)

I love using these materials!

[martixy]

Well this is gonna be odd but my subsystem of choice would be unholy trio( book of erotic fantasy, blue magic and temptress)

I wouldn't say odd.

Sexuality is as much a part of human experience as anything else the game explores. Though the only reference to blue magic I've seen is in Nymphology and that book is moronic. And I have no idea what existing thing temptress might refer to.

But I can vouch for BoEF.

[khadgar567]

I love using these materials!


I wouldn't say odd.

Sexuality is as much a part of human experience as anything else the game explores. Though the only reference to blue magic I've seen is in Nymphology and that book is moronic. And I have no idea what existing thing temptress might refer to.

But I can vouch for BoEF.
quintessential temptress mate and books are bad so if I create 6th edition my first official books is unholy trio which done correctly( like cleric getting holy whore archtype so if you read this hush mate and pls delete from quote and other proper goodies like maybe a belly dancer class

[Morphic tide]

My planned attempt at the whole "skillcasting" thing involves giving caps for the check result based on HD, and making it so you still have a point of going past it by keeping the Law of Resistance and making it into a pseudo-cooldown that penalizes you for spamming the same ability. And making the metamagic-alike reduce the check result you get, rather than raise the DC. Said cap is balanced around Item Familiar, but my plan for the effects is to have them be balanced around basic skill ranks plus Skill Focus and a high Intelligence. With an overall goal of being t2 when you are constantly hitting that cap and the simple max-ranks cross-class skill being tailored to boost the t4 and t5 classes up to t3 by letting them fill their gaps. Well, mostly by having targeting modes that are heavily disproportionately good for weapon users. Including Ranged ones.

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Less subsystems I wish 3.5 had and more things I wish existing subsystems did:

Tome of Battle Maneuvers being a set of alterations to existing actions. For instance, Strikes being able to be applied to any attack action. This serves to let you make use of all previous Martial stuff as an Initiator without having to sacrifice using your Maneuvers.

Epic level spells and powers being balanced around making non-Epic spells that fit existing ones, including CL scaling, to let you easily re-use the rules for them to make any spell/power you want quite directly. It'd also make Epic spells and powers considerably more grounded.

Incarnum having less class-locking and having some Soulmelds have different abilities based on which Chakra you bind it to. Also, a proper crafting-equivalent that lets you make items which scale based on invested Essentia, with every effect scaling based on one investment.

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A couple subsystems I wish that 3.5 did have:

Song magic. Classes built around Bardic Music type abilities that get to choose abilities that either add effects to their Song or allow them to expend uses/rounds of the Song to do larger things. Workable as a set of Bard PRCs that sacrifice casting for extra music, possibly literally losing spell slots rather than just not progressing, rather than as a set of base classes.

Some form of bull**** (Ex) ability subsystem with no relation to Vancian magic, not even with having levels of ability. By bull****, I'm talking doing stuff normally restricted to t2 magic. The sole reason why is to dissuade "(Ex) is Realistic" *******s from ****ting on every try at giving martials nice things. It's Extraordinary, by definition it's beyond normal.