Bonus Levels (compatible with E6)

[slachance6]

As I was planning an E6 game using Pathfinder I was brainstorming some ideas that may provide access to high-level spells and abilities while remaining within the rules and spirit of the subsystem as much as possible. This was what I came up with:

Basics: Levels are split into two categories, standard and bonus. They are separated on a character sheet on either side of a plus sign. Standard levels, as the name suggests, grant all of the normal abilities that would come from leveling up. However, bonus levels only grant class features, including spells and bonus feats. Normal feats, hit points, BAB, skill points, saves and similar statistics can only be increased through the gain of standard levels.

Leveling Up, HD and ECL: By default, one standard level is equal to two bonus levels. Therefore, a fighter 5+3 who levels up can choose to become fighter 6+3, 5+5 or 7+1. Bonus levels count as "levels" but not "HD" for purposes such as prerequisites and spells.

For E6: Standard levels cap at 6, but bonus levels can potentially go all the way up to 20. The GM may house rule that bonus levels cannot be taken until a character has already gained 6 standard levels and/or that one bonus level costs the same amount of XP as one standard level.

Minor Fixes That I've Considered: Since martial characters often rely heavily on feats during advancement, non-spellcasting classes may gain their full progression of feats through bonus levels at the GM's discretion.

In addition, each bonus level may count as 1/2 of a point of BAB and maybe a rank in a skill for the sole purpose of fulfilling feat prerequisites.

Thirdly, scaling of spell save DCs based on levels may get out of hand in an E6 game. Therefore, the GM may rule that save DC is, for example, 10+4+ability modifier for all spells of 4th level or higher, or maybe just have the DC increase by 1 every 2 or 3 levels.

So, there's my attempt at adding a new layer to the leveling system of 3.x/Pathfinder. It was designed with E6 in mind, but could maybe allow for some interesting concepts in the base game, such as an incredibly talented sorcerer with no experience as an adventurer or a warrior who forgoes general versatility in favor of a few general techniques. What do you guys think? I'm sure it's not perfectly balanced and can be munchkinned, but I would like to know to what extent it could work and how it could be improved.

[johnbragg]

What is this change designed to accomplish?

What problem is it aimed at solving? What is it that the default system doesn't do that this added bookkeeping is aimed at doing?

I think that would help us evaluate.

[slachance6]

The main purpose is to allow for high-level spells and abilities without defeating the main purposes of E6 (bounded accuracy, manageable numbers, fairly vulnerable PCs etc). It allows for characters such as the archmage who can cast incredible spells but is still mortal when it comes down to it, without obviously superhuman hit points or AC.

[nikkoli]

This could also be an interesting alteration for gestalt games, if you are into that sort of thing.
It could also work well as something to apply to NPC's and monsters (probably better for high level monsters) because you could advance something like a pit fiend to be a 14th level sorcerer and not give it 14 more full hd but still change how the monster can function and give it new abilities.

[johnbragg]

The main purpose is to allow for high-level spells and abilities without defeating the main goals of E6 (bounded accuracy, manageable numbers, fairly vulnerable PCs etc). It allows for characters such as the archmage who can cast incredible spells but is still mortal when it comes down to it, without obviously superhuman hit points or AC.

OK. High level spells do tend to defeat the purpose of E6. You're going to have the equivalent of 7th-12th level spellcasters, polymorphing and teleporting and creating Walls of Iron/Stone/Salt/etc, CoDzillas obsoleting fighters either by wildshaping or with Divine Power and Righteous Might, but with fewer hit points. And they're going to be adventuring with, effectively, munchkinned-out 6th level mundanes. Past 6th level is where caster supremacy really comes online, and you're going to push that even farther--Joe Wizard is 80% of his 3X self, just with fewer hit points. But Fred Fighter is maybe 50% of his 3X 10th level fighter self--he has a lot less hit points, he's short a few feats and points of BAB.

Another way to accomplish this would be to open up 4th-6th level spells as E6 feats, outside the normal spell progression. Whether they're learned individually (one feat per spell, once per day) or whether you separate spell-slot-feats from spells-known-feats (learn a few spells per feat, memorize spells as usual), you can bolt mid level or even higher level spells onto E6, making it very rocket-taggy.

The question then becomes, what are the non-casters doing in the party.