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Charles Phipps
2007-10-11, 11:29 AM
The Big Thread I'm sure everyone has something to contribute too. What things, if anything, would you change about Dungeons and Dragons if you could. Please keep it mechanics or storytelling related.

No complaining about price :smallcool:

Nevar
2007-10-11, 11:39 AM
Quick two second Idea

Cleric – Chop down universal spell list make it more domain specific. Have a larger domain spell slot and cut down universal cleric spell slots. An example might be is in the universal spells for clerics their healing spells only go up to cure moderate or cure light. However for Cure critical or other large healing or resurrection spells require domain specific healing.

Wizard – limit save or suck to round duration
- No spell has no save
- Limit school selection (IE if you want to be a universal school mage implement limitations on spells For example each school has universal spells that each wizard can learn however some of the more powerful spells require a specialization) This would allow a mage to be adaptable but could allow restraints so that the wizard would not be too powerful. A checks and balance method.

Druid – Create schools there are different environments out there so theoretically speaking there would be different druid types. IE wood druids desert druids. However It would be a bit like the Wizard/cleric as there would be universal spells and then spells limited to specific climates or ‘domains’. However the tricky part would be in how to allow a universal druid. Work in progress... Also a druid’s ability to know all spells but has to prepare the same way as they do now.

Flawless
2007-10-11, 11:39 AM
Well, I'd make spellcasting take longer, like in previous editions. Spells would at least take a full-round-action to cast, some spells even several rounds. And most important: no swift casting and no immediate casting.

Oh, no casting defensively, either.

And I'd make concentration checks harder as well as take out spells that allow the mages to be virtually untouchable. This way, casters would rely more on someone that can keep the mooks away from them.

On the other hand, this means that the front-liners had to be able to keep the enemies occupied. So I'd like to see some steps in that direction as well.

leperkhaun
2007-10-11, 11:41 AM
I wish wizards would make/sell an online table top.

Buy a book, get a code, tabletop gets updated. complete with the ability to make maps and online character sheets and what not.


Ohh i was also a fan of weapon speeds.

Riffington
2007-10-11, 11:44 AM
Much more use/reliance on skills.
Like if a canny observer could Spot invisible characters walking nearby (provided they didn't have an amazing Hide skill)...

Dubie
2007-10-11, 01:16 PM
-More ability for all classes to buy class related skills and universal skills, with perhaps a slightly steeper cross class penalty. I see no reason to limit some classes to 1 or 2 skill points, and give others ten times the amount.

-Fix some of the monsters resistances and DR. You shouldn't have to have entire sets of gear in Cold Iron, Adamantium, Silver, and whatever else in order not to be practicaly helpless. Magical enhancement should be able to either lower the DR, or bypass it depending on strenght of the enchantment. If you have the right stuff, its easier. But if all you have is a +2 longsword you still have a chance of hacking your way through.

-A little thought into balancing the classes so they're roughly even strengthed at equal levels. I don't like having fighters who are good at low levels, then turn useless at higher levels without a mage or cleric around...

-Cut down on the sheer number of classes. Keep classes more to the basics, but add optional level advancement paths to take. Instead of "get X at level Y" make it "choose A,B or C at level Y". There is realy no need to have a thousand base classes, that basicly do similar things in slightly different ways.

-Find a better way to pay for Item creation then an experience point cost. I personaly cut that requirement out, and replace it with specific material requirements. These materials are rare, not easy to come by, and accuiring them can be an adventure itself. I realy don't see how one becomes less experienced for creating something, rather then a little more experienced. If I build a hotrod in my garage, I don't become less experienced in life. Why should the wizard for building a Wand of Magic Missle?

I'm sure I could come up with more...another time.

Arang
2007-10-11, 01:32 PM
Scale back on the Cleric's spellcasting and maybe hitpoints. Maybe split it into two classes. Cleric has d8 and spells up to level 7, as well as slow progression, Priests have d4 and go to level 9.

Get rid of a lot of the spells, especially arcane spells, and especially the gamebreaking ones (Celerity). Also try to get rid of the Batman Wizard, maybe by denying them metamagic or giving MM to Sorcerers for free, and move spells into schools where they belong.

Not system-specific, but I'd try to scale back on the magic. Not necessarily a low-magic world, but as it is it makes no sense for 90% of the population of FR to be dirt farmers.

Thinker
2007-10-11, 01:33 PM
I would move everything to be skill based:

Social Skills
Martial Skills
Stealth Skills
Supernatural Skills

Each class gets a varying number of skill points for each category, representing its focus. And no such thing as cross-class skill points.

Also, in case you were unaware you can delete your post from the edit screen.

Kel_Arath
2007-10-11, 01:38 PM
Kill off the people that think D&D is only about making the single most powerful combat character ever... killing them dead.. (on a lighter note, I would also like to see some cooler/realistic(er) rules for jumping... I <3 jumping).

AKA_Bait
2007-10-11, 01:38 PM
Well, I'd make spellcasting take longer, like in previous editions. Spells would at least take a full-round-action to cast, some spells even several rounds. And most important: no swift casting and no immediate casting.


QFT

Roll up redundant skills (adjust skill points accordingly). I know WotC is already planning this to a degree. Spot and listen really should just be one skill if only because it would half the time spend rolling dice about who sees and hears what.

Mindless undead being neutral. It messes with the alignment system in my view when something that has no int is evil just because an 'evil' spell animated it. I'd probably also do away with the evil descriptor for those necormancy spells. Why you are digging up a corpse and creating a zombie should determine if the spell is evil or not. Ghost armies for the goodguys abound in literature.

Clerics no longer have access to EVERY cleric spell. With each and every splat book that comes out Clerics get more powerful since no one seems to be able to resist tossing in that extra spell or two. At this point playing a smart cleric is both annoying (I have to keep printouts of Crystalkeep with me when I game and even that doesn't cover everything) and makes them extremely powerful if they can prepare for the situation. Somewhere, in some book, there is now pretty much a cleric spell for any occasion. I'd either limit them to 2x or 3x the spells they can prepare in a day known per level or just do away with them entirely and let the Favored Soul take over.

Give Favored Souls Turn/Rebuke undead.

Get rid of a ton of spells and feats. Too many to name here but we can start with Natural Spell, Divine Metamagic, Enervation...

alchemyprime
2007-10-11, 01:42 PM
I'd like:
More streamlined combat. No more three different ACs. Use Relfex for Touch. It makes more sense.
Give the fighters and rogues more abilities with more options.
Make the bard not suck. It should be the "One cup rogue, one cup fighter, one cup sorcerer" class. Not a "I can sing well" class. Make bardic music a Strong ability, but give them like a constant battle chant.
Wizards should have radically different abilities for each branch of magic.
Clerics... I think more specialized spell lists. Remember spheres? I liked spheres of influence.
Druids... never liked them, so I can't be unbiased.
Monks... more options. Allow it to be more of a "Fighting Style" class than a "Punchy kicky" class
Paladins... Any good is okay. Make like three different paths: a LG paladin, a NG paladin and a CG paladin.
Make a different divine class for ideals. Clerics are for gods and powers only!

More mind flayers. They are untapped potential.

squishycube
2007-10-11, 01:45 PM
I'd remove auto-succes and auto-failure rules. I'd also introduce gradual succes and failure, if you fail only slightly you just fail, if you fail by a fair margin you get some ill-effect and if you botch the roll majorly you suffer a larger ill-effect. Same way other way round.

OX166
2007-10-11, 01:50 PM
changes in grappling and other combat action mechanics would be hot. I don't feel the need to make five chks to throw the Goblin over the bridge.

And yes ... clerics are over powered ... but I'm playing one right now ..so no changes...LOL

Indon
2007-10-11, 02:37 PM
I'd change saves/health so that it would be almost impossible to end a combat in one round.

Hawriel
2007-10-11, 03:45 PM
Healing is necromancy not conjeration, please that just an obvios marketing ploy to make nice with Thick headed peaple.

Get rid of the FF, WOW, Animie, PC feal of the game. D&D is a medieval Europ game. If Peter Jackson can keep that tone for the LOTR movies so can wizards. Besides expanded books for the REAL orient (the middle east), Africa, Aisa, India, Russia ect ect would be damn cool and draw peaple in just as well if not better.

A paladins mount should not be a pokimon hiding in the astral plane. Make it equivalent to the ranger animal companion. That way if a Paladin is with out a horse they dont lose 1/3 of their effectiveness.

Vancien casting. Its really dumb. Combine the wizard and the sorc. Spells per day is fine, but lets get rid of having to memorize spells. Wizards should have to studdy a spell book and use components but having to memorise fireball three times is silly. you can cast fireball x mount of times a day provided you have enough bat poop.

Get rid of resurrections. All clerics are not Christ. Death is permanent. If there is resurrection available it needs to be hard and truely a plot/divine intervention.

Monks are not a class. Pugilists should be an alternat fighting style for warriers. Monks are a consept. Weather its frier Tuck or Kung Fu's Kane walking the Earth.

No class skills.
Two skill lists. Active and Knowledge. example. Climbing, Bluff, Hiding...any thing done under stress, active time limit, IE in a combat round. Local History, Geography, Theolegy, any thing your character would know from experience or studdy. Some skills may cross the line between like crafting, engineering, servival. Yeah shadowrun is whare I get this idea.

Last (yeah the last promise)
Ahmen Dubie..Keep the class list short. have 6-8 core classes and keep it there. Frighter, Rogue, Mage, Cleric, Ranger, Bard, Paladin, Druid. Any additional classes can be PRCs. PRCs should be atainable by 5th level. Any thing ells are consepts, swashbuckler, scout, Duskblade, Monk, Knight ect. Varient rules are cool just dont take it to the point whare hundreds of classes are being made because of simantics.

Dhavaer
2007-10-11, 03:59 PM
I'd lower the magic item dependancy.

skeeter_dan
2007-10-11, 04:09 PM
Since when do bards suck? That's news to me...

Anyways, not to get off-topic, I would like to see fewer save or suck/die spells, of course, and I would also like to see some streamlined grappling rules. I like grappling.

Crazy_Uncle_Doug
2007-10-11, 04:10 PM
Well, some of this is listed, so I'll briefly just shout out agreements to the end of a myriad of classes, of the surfeit of spells, end of experience for item creation, and end of cross-class skills.

That said, I like my Vancian casting. Thank you.

Some things I'd change:

No Variable Experience. I liked the days when I could count on a beastie having x amount of experience points. I'm tired of having to pull out a calculator just to figure out experience points for a variable level party. A beastie should be worth so much, and sure, that means a level 10 might get experience for killing a goblin, but he'd have to kill a huge mess of goblins if he planned to get to level 11 on goblins alone. Poor Goblins.

Fighter Impotence. What happened to the poor Fighter? He went from kick-butt to kick-self-in-butt-for-not-taking-other-class. Poor guy. He should go sulk with the goblins.

Universal Ability Practicality. Sure, at level 1 the Toughness Feat looks cool for a Wizard, but at level 15, he's wishing he'd used that Feat slot for something else. I'd like to see an end of class abilities and feats that have limited practicality based on level. A Feat useful at level 1 should be useful at level 20.

TimeWizard
2007-10-11, 04:11 PM
Healing is necromancy not conjeration, please that just an obvios marketing ploy to make nice with Thick headed peaple.

Get rid of the FF, WOW, Animie, PC feal of the game. D&D is a medieval Europ game. If Peter Jackson can keep that tone for the LOTR movies so can wizards. Besides expanded books for the REAL orient (the middle east), Africa, Aisa, India, Russia ect ect would be damn cool and draw peaple in just as well if not better.

A paladins mount should not be a pokimon hiding in the astral plane. Make it equivalent to the ranger animal companion. That way if a Paladin is with out a horse they dont lose 1/3 of their effectiveness.

Vancien casting. Its really dumb. Combine the wizard and the sorc. Spells per day is fine, but lets get rid of having to memorize spells. Wizards should have to studdy a spell book and use components but having to memorise fireball three times is silly. you can cast fireball x mount of times a day provided you have enough bat poop.

Get rid of resurrections. All clerics are not Christ. Death is permanent. If there is resurrection available it needs to be hard and truely a plot/divine intervention.

Monks are not a class. Pugilists should be an alternat fighting style for warriers. Monks are a consept. Weather its frier Tuck or Kung Fu's Kane walking the Earth.

No class skills.
Two skill lists. Active and Knowledge. example. Climbing, Bluff, Hiding...any thing done under stress, active time limit, IE in a combat round. Local History, Geography, Theolegy, any thing your character would know from experience or studdy. Some skills may cross the line between like crafting, engineering, servival. Yeah shadowrun is whare I get this idea.

Last (yeah the last promise)
Ahmen Dubie..Keep the class list short. have 6-8 core classes and keep it there. Frighter, Rogue, Mage, Cleric, Ranger, Bard, Paladin, Druid. Any additional classes can be PRCs. PRCs should be atainable by 5th level. Any thing ells are consepts, swashbuckler, scout, Duskblade, Monk, Knight ect. Varient rules are cool just dont take it to the point whare hundreds of classes are being made because of simantics.

I never thought I'd say this, but I disagree with everything you just said. Except for the Vancian magic, I think everything here would serve to worse DnD, but I'm glad to have someone with drastically different viewpoints becuase it makes for good conversation. Specifically, I like having an incredible number of classes, and feats, because I see new material in DnD as Wizards saying "here, we hope this new stuff will allow you more ways to make the character you really want to make". Hell, up until 3rd edition psionics was only acheived through caster's RPing (IIRC).

Anyway... If I could cut out only one thing, it would the Contingency spell. Other then that, I'd call for extra things specifically designed for the non-caster classes to shine in- my DM put videogame-esque "easter eggs" in for the rogue: magic traps with permanency which when succesfully disarmed gave back a (small) percentage of the xp cost to make them. It was like an extra marshmellow in the rogue's hot chocolate. Things like that, especially if they can design ones the warrior slot has to fill.

Cruiser1
2007-10-11, 04:16 PM
What would I change about D&D? Nothing major! I don't want to buy 100's of books again, and go through the whole balancing process over again. I don't want to fragment our community with half playing 4.0 and the other half staying with 3.5. Instead let's just fix the most glaring issues with 3.5. Call it 3.6. :) In other words, I want an "errata compendium" that clarifies or adjust's the most common issues. And make it freely available!

For example, add that drowning only sets your hp to 0 if your hp are above zero. Adjust the most broken abilities, such as give Forcecage a reflex save to avoid it, and Natural Spell still exists but only works caster level rounds/day. Have simple adjustments to improve class balance, such as Sorcerers get Eschew Materials and can Metamagic without a full round action, and Monks get full BAB.

I'd also like to see much of D&D computerized and made online, for those who prefer that format. There should be a WotC provided character generator program like that one that came with the 3.0 PHB. We shouldn't have to use 3rd party programs like PCGen just to make a character! There should also be official online programs, or programs like the Temple of Elemental Evil game engine where the DM can set up figures in a program and have attacks and such resolved automatically. Miniatures, and even manual dice rolling and hp calculations, are too low tech and prone to error.

cupkeyk
2007-10-11, 04:16 PM
Make no fighter feats that does not scale with hit dice. In fact, make no feats that does not scale with level.

Different xp tables for each class, like in ADnD, (with the exception of the Cleric and Druid). Instead of nerfing the druid, cleric and wizard, it should just be slightly easier to be naturally gifted (spontaneous caster) and it should be vastly easier to progress as a mundane adventurer (rogue, fighter). All casters should be MAD.

AKA_Bait
2007-10-11, 04:23 PM
What would I change about D&D? Nothing major! I don't want to buy 100's of books again, and go through the whole balancing process over again. I don't want to fragment our community with half playing 4.0 and the other half staying with 3.5. Instead let's just fix the most glaring issues with 3.5. Call it 3.6. :) In other words, I want an "errata compendium" that clarifies or adjust's the most common issues. And make it freely available!

For example, add that drowning only sets your hp to 0 if your hp are above zero. Adjust the most broken abilities, such as give Forcecage a reflex save to avoid it, and Natural Spell still exists but only works caster level rounds/day. Have simple adjustments to improve class balance, such as Sorcerers get Eschew Materials and can Metamagic without a full round action, and Monks get full BAB.

I'd also like to see much of D&D computerized and made online, for those who prefer that format. There should be a WotC provided character generator program like that one that came with the 3.0 PHB. We shouldn't have to use 3rd party programs like PCGen just to make a character! There should also be official online programs, or programs like the Temple of Elemental Evil game engine where the DM can set up figures in a program and have attacks and such resolved automatically. Miniatures, and even manual dice rolling and hp calculations, are too low tech and prone to error.

I think the Rules Compendium contains the errata that's been published on the website... of course it's not free... and won't fix the class balance issues... and WotC sucks at programming (as evidenced by the free 3.0 program)...

WhiteHarness
2007-10-11, 04:41 PM
Armour should grant DR. I am, however, growing more and more comfortable with the idea of it adding to your Fortitude Defense (in addition to your Reflex Defense/Armour Class), as in Star Wars Saga Edition, and apparently, 4th edition D&D...

Fighters should have an even chance to kill wizards, one-on-one, at all levels of play.

Rust monsters' ability to destroy your precious gear shouldn't be automatic; they need to be scaled back in power a bit.

Druids and Monks should be excised completely from the game.

That is all. :smallcool:

cupkeyk
2007-10-11, 04:44 PM
Armour should grant DR. I am, however, growing more and more comfortable with the idea of it adding to your Fortitude Defense (in addition to your Reflex Defense/Armour Class), as in Star Wars Saga Edition, and apparently, 4th edition D&D...

Fighters should have an even chance to kill wizards, one-on-one, at all levels of play.

Rust monsters' ability to destroy your precious gear shouldn't be automatic; they need to be scaled back in power a bit.

Druids and Monks should be excised completely from the game.

That is all. :smallcool:

I wish the monk didn't have that lawful flavor and that they weren't 3/4's bab. I think all the class features of a monk can be pulled out and turned into feat trees available to fighters. The word monk implies too much, same with paladin, ergo making a paladin of slaughter counter intuitive.

Xuincherguixe
2007-10-11, 05:24 PM
Either drop alignment, or make it clearer. It's too crazy the way it is right now

Have magic follow rules more in line with psionics. For a more powerful fireballl you're expend more points.

Spells should be at the same time less limited, and yet more so. There's a few that can break economies. But at the same time a good imagination should be something that can turn a mediocre wizard into a great one. Using a fireball to turn the water source into steam, and using some wind spells to move it, and a cone of cold to then make it rain. For arguments sake we'll say this is an elaborate way of ruining someone's picnic. (Wizards are jerks)

Stronger class balance. It's understandable that magicians are going to be the most useful in most situations. But that shouldn't mean non magicians should be useless in most situations. If that is the case, then frankly everyone should get spells. Which also may not be a bad idea.

Races with more variety. Most of the "monster" races have little to no character. This one is less a problem than the others because it's easy enough for the DM to make up some background.

It might be an idea to be able to pick from a variety of features as well, for balance. Full Spell Casting could have a certain value given to it, as would the different BAB progressions, Skill Points and such.

Silkenfist
2007-10-11, 05:27 PM
I would change a lot. But since most of the others looked at the Base Classes, I'll list what comes to my mind sponatenously about them:

Barbarian: Remove Trap Sense, add Animal Empathy, Make Spot&Listen in-class, give them Ranger-Type Bonus Feats
(Obviously my mental image of a Barbarian leans towards Ranger. Also the class could need a small buff in power, although it might only be me wanting to see more of them.)

Bard: Nothing. Honestly. Bards are NOT underpowered and if you know how to play them, they are far from weak. I'd remove their shield proficiency and add their most important feats to the core, but the class it well-created already and doesn't need any work. Only their key skill needs to be made into a contested roll.

Cleric: As I mentioned somewhere else: The key to make the Cleric balanced is a harsher god. If you are a deity, you want your representants on the Material Plane to live your ideal. Clerics may never leave their deity's alignment or act against their deity's goals or philosophy. Their spell lists are limited to their deity's domains (though the deity's should have more than just three in that case), Healing is made a supernatural ability accessible no matter the alignment. Weapon/Armor Proficiency, Good Saves and Class Skills depend on the Cleric's deity.

Druid: Druids receive a harsh code of conduct as well. They may not act in a way that endangers or destroys natural environments directly. They may not attack animals without trying to deal with the problem peacefully first. Healing is made a supernatural ability apart from their spell slots. Wild Shape takes longer to transform, the amounts per day are reduced and the healing is stripped from it.

Fighter: The humble Fighter class needs help and their are some tempting ways. Give them a feat chain around Battle-Focus that makes them less penetrable when engaged in combat. Add Survival/Spt/Listen to their class skills. Give them the special abilities of the Warblade. Make the ToB stances Fighter Feats.

Monk: The Monks are flavorful and have a nice mix of flavorful abilities: Too bad that most of them are horrible. Give them level-progressing Spell-Resistance, Freedom of Movement, good BAB and an additional enhancement to Initiative and they are ready to go. Cut away some of the skill selection in return.

Paladin: A very good class already but it can still be improved. Give them more than one possible code of conduct, depending on the ideal/deity to which the Paladin belongs. Give them access to the Mount earlier. Remove the Healing and give them a good Will Save in return. Add the abilities of Justicar/Bloodhound.

Ranger: See Barbarian. The D&D Ranger is too savage for my taste. Remove the Combat Styles, give them Medium BAB, remove the Shield Proficiency. Give them Healing as a supernatural ability and make it on par with Cleric/Druid. Give them enhanced movement abilities like Fast Movement or Climb/Swim at base land speed.

Rogue: The Rogue is fine, but its social abilities should be cut back a little. Remove Diplomacy from the skill list to make the Bard a significantly better face. Put a halt to their Trapfinding monopol, by making Trapfinding a feat like Track. Being the class with lots of skill points and Search/Disable Device in-class won't stop them to be the first choice trapmonkeys.

Sorcerer/Wizard: Each time I complain about the Wizards being overpowered, I am told, I am focused too much on powergaming. I am NOT. I want to see more roleplaying without the dice in D&D. When I aim to take away power from the full casters, I am trying to achieve this very goal: To make the roleplaying more important. To make it important for the party to stand together. Best way to do this is making the Wizards slower. It's pointless to take away their spells or limit their options. The Wizards will always have a spell that turns the encounter in a very favorable one instantly. But what if they need precious time to cast it?
All spells have their casting times improved. I am not sure how exactly, but there won't be many spells you could cast as standard action. Some of the tricky battlefield control needs to keep a short casting time, but any spell that is capable of ending an encounter instantly should take its time - which gives the party fighters more responsibility since they need to keep their wizard friend alive.
Of course I don't want to gimp the wizard altogether. The abjuration/transmutation spells to defend themselves will still be available as a standard action. But most of the offensive stuff won't be, sorry.

And one last thing: The sorcerer is removed from the list of Base Classes. Nothing personal, it just doesn't add enough flavor or range of abilities to the mix. If I were to choose an 11th Base Class for the Core Book, I'm not exactly sure, who I'd choose but it wouldn't be the fighter. Dusklblade/Marshal/Warlock come to my mind. Or an altered version of the Dragon Shaman. Each of them has more to offer than friend Sorcerer.

Jerthanis
2007-10-11, 05:31 PM
I've sort of just thought of this concept recently, so I'm still hammering out the details in my mind, but offering ability focuses to other classes which appear similar to the Domains which Clerics get, offering those classes additional class skills, bonus feats, new supernatural abilities which scale with level, and having the choice of those 'domains' reflect the character's personality. Thus, a Fighter with the Brute ability might get a temporary unnamed strength bonus a few times per day, and perhaps a supernatural ability to shaken his foes when he does a certain amount of damage... while the fighter with the Tactical mastermind ability might get the ability to give flankers additional bonuses, or... something like that. Anyway, it's just a rough idea in my head as it is, but I realized that Clerics are one of my favorite classes due to their flexibility in terms of flavor and abilities, and giving other classes a similar flexibility would be a lot of fun.

Also, I'd make grappling less... like it is.

Pronounceable
2007-10-11, 05:33 PM
What'd I change about DnD? That's an easy one:

-Emphasize roleplaying.
-Devalue combat.
-Forget miniatures.
-Cut back on dice (no more polyhedron inflation on the table)
-Drop classes.
-Drop levels.
-Drop HP system.
-Drop alignment.
-Accept the system can never be "balanced"
-Remove item dependency.
-Fiddle around with main stats.
-Cut back on the damned dragons. And elves. And dwarves. And all subraces, come to think of it.
-No more racism towards nonhumans. (remember www.goblindefensefund.org)

Simple, no?

But wait... I already did all these to my homebrews. Thank god I'm not a corporate entity which exists solely to make profit. I could never do all these if that were the case.

And it doesn't particularly LOOK like DnD anymore...

Anxe
2007-10-11, 05:47 PM
I'd add more Zombies.

Silkenfist
2007-10-11, 05:47 PM
What'd I change about DnD? That's an easy one:

-Emphasize roleplaying.
-Devalue combat.
-Forget miniatures.
-Cut back on dice (no more polyhedron inflation on the table)
-Drop classes.
-Drop levels.
-Drop HP system.
-Drop alignment.
-Accept the system can never be "balanced"
-Remove item dependency.
-Fiddle around with main stats.
-Cut back on the damned dragons. And elves. And dwarves. And all subraces, come to think of it.
-No more racism towards nonhumans. (remember www.goblindefensefund.org)

Simple, no?

But wait... I already did all these to my homebrews. Thank god I'm not a corporate entity which exists solely to make profit. I could never do all these if that were the case.

And it doesn't particularly LOOK like DnD anymore...


Uhm... you know that you could just create a different roleplaying game or switch to the White Wolf publications, right? From what I see, those are far better for your taste in roleplaying games.

Pronounceable
2007-10-11, 05:51 PM
Yep. That's what I said. Or tried to say.

dungeon_munky
2007-10-11, 06:03 PM
I would limit the base classes as much as possible, making each one highly customizable. For example, i think four would be a good number. I threw the classes we have now into a general category. I left monk out because they dont really fit in; as someone above said, it's a concept, not a class.

Warrior: Encompasses fighter, barbarian, some paladins and some rangers. Most things who want to have good martial skills (unarmed included).

Mage: Sorcs, Wizards, Battle Mages, Alchemists, and that stuff
The wizards youve seen in Tolkien, Pratchett or LeGuinn, witches of fairy tales or Pratchett, Aes Sedai of WoT, or any other thing like that you can think of.

Rogue: Rogues, bards, some rangers
Basically anything you could see being sneaky or skillful. Tracking, playing music, espionage, sabotage, etc

Priest: Clerics, druids, some paladins
Evangellists, holy warriors, healers, devout believers in a cause, and so on.


As for alignment, that could definately use some changes. What I would suggest is just two; good and evil. Maybe have some sort of sliding scale, and give good or evil points adjusting the scale based on character actions, like the alignment in KotOR. The law vs chaos thing really doesnt work as an alignment, but are just representative of how these people go about doing good or evil.
To sum that up; sliding good/evil scale. No law/chaos.

horseboy
2007-10-11, 06:04 PM
The Big Thread I'm sure everyone has something to contribute too. What things, if anything, would you change about Dungeons and Dragons if you could. Please keep it mechanics or storytelling related.

No complaining about price :smallcool:

Everything.

SurlySeraph
2007-10-11, 06:40 PM
Well, some of this is listed, so I'll briefly just shout out agreements to the end of a myriad of classes, of the surfeit of spells, end of experience for item creation, and end of cross-class skills.

That said, I like my Vancian casting. Thank you.

Some things I'd change:

No Variable Experience. I liked the days when I could count on a beastie having x amount of experience points. I'm tired of having to pull out a calculator just to figure out experience points for a variable level party. A beastie should be worth so much, and sure, that means a level 10 might get experience for killing a goblin, but he'd have to kill a huge mess of goblins if he planned to get to level 11 on goblins alone. Poor Goblins.

Fighter Impotence. What happened to the poor Fighter? He went from kick-butt to kick-self-in-butt-for-not-taking-other-class. Poor guy. He should go sulk with the goblins.

Universal Ability Practicality. Sure, at level 1 the Toughness Feat looks cool for a Wizard, but at level 15, he's wishing he'd used that Feat slot for something else. I'd like to see an end of class abilities and feats that have limited practicality based on level. A Feat useful at level 1 should be useful at level 20.

I agree with all of this, especially fixed experience.

Let's see, what else? Wizards need to be balanced, of course. I propose that every time they cast a spell, they should have to make a Fortitude save or become Fatigued, then Exhausted, then start taking nonlethal damage. The idea that doing magic is tiring is pretty much universal in fantasy literature, and it would help give Wizards some MAD, which would make them more balanced. 18 INT shouldn't make you untouchable even if you have 6s in every other stat.

I agree that Fighters should be a) more powerful, and b) have various fighting style paths available to them. And Monks should be folded into Fighters.

Kill Natural Spell. Kill it with fire. And make Druids progress in spell levels more slowly.

All feats which give a fixed bonus should scale with level. Lightning Reflexes and suchlike should give good saves to characters in classes with poor saves, and add +2 per level to saves for characters in classes that already have good saves. Toughness should increase the size of all hit dice one die size (e.g., d4 to d6). Characters should be able to take Toughness until they have d12 hit die, and stop then.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-11, 06:55 PM
I would make all abilities work x times per encounter or x times per y minutes outside combat. No 3/day crap, unless it is something really powerful, then maybe 1/day.

An archer and rider base class, or at least make them on par with other styles.

Remove favored class, but have racial substitution levels instead.

Weapon speeds.

Potential for all characters to have some form of "casting".

Incorporate psionics and any other systems into core, don't add something later that can't be fit into a game easily *cough*incarnum*cough*.

Smaller pantheons that have no holes or redundancies.

Remove the bulk of the base class fluff and alignment restrictions except when completely obvious (such as the mountebank).

Make casters specialize and make those specialties matter.

Make goblins a basic race and remove gnomes; create a "Half-breed" template or get rid of all half-breeds completely.

That's all for now.

Kiero
2007-10-11, 07:16 PM
Aside from wholesale replacement with True20 (or maybe even Forward...to Adventure!), some major changes:
-Remove the silly split between arcane and divine magic. Make all magic one, and everyone able to use any kind depending.
-Decouple magic items from the core assumptions of the system. Make them purely optional, rather than a necessary component of play.
-Change alignment so the only thing that shows up on a "detect" are non-mortal things from other planes, and those powered by them. Thus detect evil would show someone possessed by some non-corporeal undead, but not the serial killer at the bar.
-Cull the classes some. Barbarian and Monk would be the first to go.
-Remove the level-escalation element of hit points, and rebalance the damage system to accomodate.
-Cull the skill list (True20's is a nice length) and remove all that non-class skill guff.

Jorkens
2007-10-11, 07:36 PM
As for alignment, that could definately use some changes. What I would suggest is just two; good and evil. Maybe have some sort of sliding scale, and give good or evil points adjusting the scale based on character actions, like the alignment in KotOR. The law vs chaos thing really doesnt work as an alignment, but are just representative of how these people go about doing good or evil.
To sum that up; sliding good/evil scale. No law/chaos.
Yeah, looking at the arguments around here, fixing alignment would be nice.

A rough sketch of one way I could see it working:
Characters have a motivation (loosely equivalent to good / evil) which is one of altruism, selfishness or 'neutral'. This is from the character's point of view, it doesn't matter if they're deluded. Altruism and selfishness are fairly obvious, neutral characters would be happy to seek personal gain if it doesn't cause undue suffering to others, and to help others if it doesn't inconvenience them too much.

You then have a bunch of attitudes which say how much value you place on various things - the sanctity of life, the upholding of law and the social order, honesty, other moral code (please specify) etc.

The 'values' might be uphold even if I'm motivated against it - uphold unless I'm motivated against it - don't (make an effort to) uphold unless I'm motivated to do so - don't make an effort to uphold at all. Although I haven't really thought this through, the basic idea is "would I kill someone (or break the law or lie or whatever) if it was for the greater good / a significant profit respectively? Would I have no qualms about killing someone even if there was no good reason? Would I actively seek to kill people even if there was no good reason."

Thus you could play a police chief who believes they're just killing and torturing loads of people to keep society running as an altruist with low regard for the sanctity of life but a high regard for the social order, and you don't have to get into arguments about whether they're lawful neutral because they aren't killing for their own good or whatever.

What is affected by religious Good / Evil spells is determined by the specific religion and is renamed 'Holy' and 'Unholy'. Most conventionally 'good' religions would probably have some commandment against murder, so a mass murderer would still show up as 'unholy.'

Cocky
2007-10-11, 09:18 PM
I wish the monk didn't have that lawful flavor and that they weren't 3/4's bab. I think all the class features of a monk can be pulled out and turned into feat trees available to fighters. The word monk implies too much, same with paladin, ergo making a paladin of slaughter counter intuitive.

I could not agree more. There is something wonderfully primal about pounding ones enemies face to mush with ones fist. I cannot stand the fact that I have to not just be lawful but have my entire character dictated by some trite code if I want to achieve this.

SleepingOrange
2007-10-11, 09:32 PM
There are two things that grate with me in a mjor way: undead and magic items, although probably not for the reason you suspect. (except for you Charles. You know what I'm going to say about one of these at least)

Undead: Undead should not (and are not whenever I'm DM) be automatically evil. I have yet to have any-one offer a cogent argument saying definitively that they should be evil.

Magic Items: I LIKE the dame's dependancy on magic items. I think they are fun, and that's why I play: to have fun. That doesn't mean you have to like them, or use them, I just do, and wouldn't change that aspect of the game. No, what bothers me is experience cost. A mage should GET experience for crafting an object of power, not lose it. That's totally counter-intuitive. I understand the need for a balancing factor so mages don't just spend their time crafting magical items, but exp loss is not the way to go. A few ways I like better:

1) Increase price. A lot.

2) Make the necessary materials really hard to get: the wood for wands (for instance) can only be found in the Forest of Sorrow, and the druids who guard the forest don't lke it being harvested, the creatures that live in the forest are dangerous and ferocious, the fey that live there are bastards ('cause come on. Fey are. Look at the mythology.), and the trees themselves aren't big fans of being harvested. It makes a good plot-hook and an opportunity for a side-quest that can be completed in a huge number of ways.

3) Magical item creation is exhuasting. A magic-user who creates a magical item must for 1d4 weeks make a DC X fortitude save every time he casts a spell; if he succeeds, the spell is cast normally; if he fails, the spell if minimized/weakened or fizzles completely, and the caster takes (spell level)d4 subdual damage and is fatigued.

4) Magical item creation is dangerous. There are higher chances of cursed items being produced, and the process binding a force as dynamic as magic into a real object is difficult; at certain points during the ritual, the caster must make DC X will saves, or the enchanment breaks free, possibly harming the enchanter.

5) Magical item creation is hard. The appropriate Craft DCs are pumped by a factor of 5-15. The caster must also make Spellcraft checks periodically to ensure the enchantment comes out as planned.

6) Magical item creation takes a long time, a la first edition AD&D.



Oh, and while I'm here: I happen to like the alignment system and don't understand its detractors. It it rigid enough to be applied consistently, but flexible enough that every CG character isn't a carbon copy of every other CG character. Plus, I don't think it makes sense without the law/chaos aspect. Things like motivation are part of a character's personality, and should be role-played, but shouldn't be part of the rules. A system like the ones described in this thread would either be too rigid or way way too complicated .

dungeon_munky
2007-10-11, 09:40 PM
Plus, I don't think it makes sense without the law/chaos aspect. Things like motivation are part of a character's personality, and should be role-played, but shouldn't be part of the rules. A system like the ones described in this thread would either be too rigid or way way too complicated .

Well, this is essentially what I'm saying. Law and chaos are part of a character's personality, and should be role played, but shouldn't be part of the rules; this means that you dont need a separate alignment to describe it, but rather include it in your characters personality description.

Dausuul
2007-10-11, 10:24 PM
Mindless undead being neutral. It messes with the alignment system in my view when something that has no int is evil just because an 'evil' spell animated it. I'd probably also do away with the evil descriptor for those necormancy spells. Why you are digging up a corpse and creating a zombie should determine if the spell is evil or not. Ghost armies for the goodguys abound in literature.

But typically the ghost armies in question are the ghosts of bad people who are being forced to expiate their sins by fighting on the right side. They aren't enslaved undead warriors that serve the good guys forever and ever.

I actually prefer undead being evil, even mindless ones, but I do agree that they need to be consistent on this. If mindless undead are still considered evil, that implies that negative energy is an inherently evil force, which means virtually all offensive necromancy spells are now [Evil].

Not that I have a problem with that.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-11, 11:09 PM
But typically the ghost armies in question are the ghosts of bad people who are being forced to expiate their sins by fighting on the right side. They aren't enslaved undead warriors that serve the good guys forever and ever.

I actually prefer undead being evil, even mindless ones, but I do agree that they need to be consistent on this. If mindless undead are still considered evil, that implies that negative energy is an inherently evil force, which means virtually all offensive necromancy spells are now [Evil].

Not that I have a problem with that.

ditto.
The mindless undead are compelled to do evil by their nature.

TimeWizard
2007-10-11, 11:24 PM
Fighters should have an even chance to kill wizards, one-on-one, at all levels of play.

I'm going to refer you to one of the oldest time honored traditions of fantasy gaming. In fact, I'll just tell you: Fighter-> Rogue -> Mage. I like to call it Rock-Paper-Scissors.

knightsaline
2007-10-12, 12:13 AM
What would I change?

Alignment: Unless you serve a powerful outsider, alignment does not exist.

Half races: The assumption that humans like to mate with anything that so much as moves is wrong. Half elves can also be half elf, half halfling. Half orcs should not exist. Half giants shall not be spoken of.

Elves: Who the hell thought that elves don't sleep? Everything living needs to sleep, regardless of race.

Magic: I curse the day Jack Vance thought up the idea that a person who studies magic instantly forgets how to cast a spell as soon as they cast it. I'd prefer a system much like mana, but limiting it to the point where high level spells are spammed leaving the poor magic missile and acid splash spells uncast.

Sorcerer: Silly human, magic does not come from the blood! The idea that a dragons mate with anything that moves doesn't sit right with me. Magic should come from years of study or infernal/abyssal/celestial pacts.

Paladin: Remove detect evil at will, replace with paladin only domains. remove alignment restrictions and restrictive code, replace with slightly better casting.

Divine magic: Make better rules for getting divine magic without worship of a diety. As the rules are now, If I make a cleric who draws power fromthe power of friendship, he can be any alignment and never violate it!

Psionics, ToB and Warlocks: Make core.

ToB: Add some ranged paths of the Sublime Way.

Arcane magic: Make some Arcane only armor and give its practioners proficiency from 1st level.

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 01:48 AM
I'd start with nerfing casters.

That alone would keep me busy for a long time, so I might not be able to get back to you right away.

I'm not sure yet how I'd go about it. Getting rid of the most broken spells strikes me as good (bye-bye celerity, and time stop should be either removed entirely or made an incredibly obscure epic spell that maybe one person in the whole world knows). Making teleportation take time would be good, too (no "insta-evac" teleporation). No contingencies ... ever. No spells that take less than a standard action to cast (yes, that means no quickening). Dramatically reduce the effectiveness of save-or-dies, save-or-sucks, battlefield controls and buffs -- in other words, Batman's toolbox. No spells that don't allow some form of defense (save or at least armor class), and no cheese methods of getting around spell resistance (assay resistance). The spell penetration feats are fine -- then you're spending precious feats to get good at it.

It might even be good to skip straight to my "one school" idea.

For clerics, much the same, and get rid of divine power altogether.

For druids, much the same, and get rid of natural spell altogether.

No ressurections. As someone already pointed out, they just make death cheap and kill the drama of it. Every dramatic moment you ever saw in a movie with someone breathing his or her last is cheapened by some jerk who just waves a hand and spits out, "True Ressurection!"

The closest any PC should ever expect to come to a ressurection spell should be a spell that pulls someone right back from the brink of death, like a magical defibrillator. That allows for dramatic tension. The ability to turn a pile of goo or ashes into your best buddy again by casually snapping your fingers does not.

Tempest Fennac
2007-10-12, 02:08 AM
I'd give animals Intelligence and Charisma stats of about 12 on average while removing the "animals don't have souls" rule (I don't see why they shouldn't have souls or be at least as intelligent as humans).

Orzel
2007-10-12, 02:35 AM
The main thing I'd change is how easy the reality barrier is broken without magic. I'd say by level 7 there should be people causing strong gusts with weapon swings, folks leaping 50ft in the air with ease, and guy who can track you for miles based on what you ate for breakfast.

That and DCs based on effect. Easy less threatened effects has high DCs but killer, "oh crap" effects are hard to stick. Making a guy sneeze should be easier than making his brain fall out. Not the other way around. Remove the spell/power level from the DC. Make them case by case but easily remembered (Death/"Might as well be dead" spells are 7+Mod, blasty spells are 13+Mod, minor curses are 17+Mod).

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 02:53 AM
The main thing I'd change is how easy the reality barrier is broken without magic. I'd say by level 7 there should be people causing strong gusts with weapon swings, folks leaping 50ft in the air with ease, and guy who can track you for miles based on what you ate for breakfast.

I like this idea, too. But then, I would since I like anime. :smalltongue:

Vilehelm
2007-10-12, 03:58 AM
I'd remove the dependency on magic (and magic items in particular). Classes should be balanced not by relying on Wealth-by-Level systems (not that the classes are balanced, right ow) but inherently.

Magic items should also be special. Finding or creating one should be a meaningful event, and just shopping for one or creating whatever you wish removes some of the magic of magic.

These are the major changes I make in any 3.5 campaign I run, and this is the way my players and I like it.

Devin
2007-10-12, 05:27 AM
As far as undead being inherently evil goes, I could come up with a quick fix for that. Just say that the soul(mind, spirit, etc.) of anything turned undead exists in a constant state of torment. That way, the creation and existence of undead is inherently evil, and destroying them is the only moral option. As far as I know, there's no source that says this, but I don't see why they wouldn't if they want undead to be always evil.

Jorkens
2007-10-12, 06:55 AM
Oh, and while I'm here: I happen to like the alignment system and don't understand its detractors. It it rigid enough to be applied consistently, but flexible enough that every CG character isn't a carbon copy of every other CG character. Plus, I don't think it makes sense without the law/chaos aspect. Things like motivation are part of a character's personality, and should be role-played, but shouldn't be part of the rules. A system like the ones described in this thread would either be too rigid or way way too complicated .
Well, I was thinking of the whole thing as essentially shorthand for part of your character description rather than a straightjacket. The basic point was to sidestep all the philosophical arguments that come from the words Good and Evil and their real world meanings and the different ideas people have of what they refer to and have some comparatively simple and less loaded terminology to do approximately the same thing ie are you an altruist or are you selfish, do you defend the village from bandits because innocent villagers need defending, do you defend the village because you might score some of the bandits' loot or do you sell out the villagers to the bandits in exchange for a 20% share in the takings.

I agree about it not being part of the rules. Hence the faff about religion.

Kiero
2007-10-12, 06:57 AM
I'd give animals Intelligence and Charisma stats of about 12 on average while removing the "animals don't have souls" rule (I don't see why they shouldn't have souls or be at least as intelligent as humans).

Bleh, opening the door to anthropomorphic animals and the like. More than enough of that in Blue Rose.

hewhosaysfish
2007-10-12, 08:20 AM
I'd give animals Intelligence and Charisma stats of about 12 on average while removing the "animals don't have souls" rule (I don't see why they shouldn't have souls or be at least as intelligent as humans).

12 Int?! That's higher than the average human! I can see why you might argue that animals should have a higher Int (even if i don't agree) but my dog should not be better at maths than me!

EDIT: Oh and Jorkens: what you said about alignment being shorthand for your character's attitude and not a straight-jacket: is that not the point already? Doesn't the PHB see say about character personality that "class, race and alignment are good places to start but bad places to stop. What makes your LG dwarf fighter different from every other LG dwarf fighter?". The problem occurs when people get lazy and don't think any further than that.

Jorkens
2007-10-12, 08:55 AM
EDIT: Oh and Jorkens: what you said about alignment being shorthand for your character's attitude and not a straight-jacket: is that not the point already? Doesn't the PHB see say about character personality that "class, race and alignment are good places to start but bad places to stop. What makes your LG dwarf fighter different from every other LG dwarf fighter?". The problem occurs when people get lazy and don't think any further than that.
Basically I have two (pretty much distinct) issues:
1) detect evil / smite evil / whatever mean that alignment is a mechanical issue (and a bizarrely absolute one - it seems odd that all the gods managed to agree on what is Evil and should be smitten.)
2) I don't think that classifying people into "Good / Evil" and "Lawful / Chaotic" is a particularly helpful shorthand - they're rather complex ideas taking into account a range of issues, which doesn't mean that you shouldn't deal with them as ideas, but does make them (imo) bad choices for quickly and simply outlining the basics of where a character's (or an NPC's) morals and drives lie.

Tempest Fennac
2007-10-12, 09:03 AM
I wasn't actually thinking about giving animals in D&D the ability to talk (at least not in common or any other languaged except for Sylvan and their own languages). Also, an intelligence o 12 may not make the animal better at maths then an average human (I don't know if you've heard of a lady named Temple Grandin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin , but she mentioned in a book called "Animals in Translation" that her research has lead her to believe that animals are as intelligent as humans while being intelligent in a different way).

hewhosaysfish
2007-10-12, 09:32 AM
I wasn't actually thinking about giving animals in D&D the ability to talk (at least not in common or any other languaged except for Sylvan and their own languages). Also, an intelligence o 12 may not make the animal better at maths then an average human (I don't know if you've heard of a lady named Temple Grandin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin , but she mentioned in a book called "Animals in Translation" that her research has lead her to believe that animals are as intelligent as humans while being intelligent in a different way).

I can get the idea that animals are not necessarily "stupid", that their brains are actually doing something but in the jargon of D&D "Intelligence" only refers to a particular subset of those concepts which we would normally refer to as "intelligence", specifically the areas of reasoning, learning and analysis. You may have people criticise IQ for not being a good measure of "intelligence"; well, it is a good measure of "Intelligence".

The potential of animals to be "intelligent in different ways" would, in D&D terms, be represented by their Wisdom scores, I feel. I see the Int/Wis distinction as one of intellect vs. intuition which I think is an adequate representation of the gulf between human and animal modes of thought (or if not, it is an adequate representation of how that gulf is perceived, which is all that matters for our purposes).

So: good/high Wis, low Int (but not necessarily as low as 2).

Tempest Fennac
2007-10-12, 09:45 AM
That is a very good point (it would also make sense to use that idea).

dungeon_munky
2007-10-12, 12:39 PM
12 Int?! That's higher than the average human! I can see why you might argue that animals should have a higher Int (even if i don't agree) but my dog should not be better at maths than me!


Dogs, no. Camels, on the other hand...

The animalic intelligence is based on the fact that they dont "think," but rather act on instinct. Most animals have little more on their minds than "eat, avoid danger, reproduce." This is why they all (or most?) have a higher than average wisdom.

Tempest Fennac
2007-10-12, 12:49 PM
Isn't acting on instinct all the time counterproductive if something changes, though? (Admittedly, i'm also going on what animal communicators such as Penelope Smith and Amelia Kinkade have said concerning animal intelligence). Also, please could you point me in th direction of evidence that camels are good at maths? (I've never heard anything about this before).

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 01:29 PM
Sure, some animals are smart. Frighteningly smart.

For example, humans are very, very smart. I'd even go so far as to assign them an average Intelligence of 10 -- that's how smart those wily humans are.

We are animals, you know. Where people first go wrong when discussing "people and animals" is in thinking those are two separate things. You may as well say "dogs and animals" or "elephants and animals."

I would also partly blame our arrogant idea of being something more than animal for our falling into exactly the same trap that every other animal on the face of this Earth falls, given the chance: given access to excessive resources, we rapidly and thoughtlessly overpopulated. (There's something else that eventually happens to every species that dramatically overpopulates -- I'll leave you to guess what it is and try to rationalize how it will somehow be different for us.) We think we're somehow above and fundamentally different from other animals, but time and time again, we prove ourselves painfully incorrect.

But other animals being as smart as we are or smarter? Oh please. Douglas Adams humor aside, we're a shoo-in for the #1 spot on that point, unless there's some species we've somehow managed not to discover yet.

Serenity
2007-10-12, 02:23 PM
Either make Necromancy and Negative Energy explicitly evil, or, my preference, lose the ridiculous idea that something without a mind can be anything but neutral, and then provide some neutral and/or good aligned intelligent undead for the heroic necromancer.

No one has less than 4+Int skill points. No skills are cross-class; all can be bought 1-for-1.

Drop Vancian casting for spontaneous casting. Rework spells to bend reality rather than break it. A caster can do very powerful things with his magic, but needs to use it inventively and imaginatively to turn the tide. Nothing like Time Stop, Force Cage, Cloud Kill. Make more durations Concentration based, and make those checks harder to make.

Swordsage kills the Monk and takes his stuff. Implement Fax's How It Should Be Paladin or combine Paladin and Crusader. Possibly mix both. Warblade replaces the Fighter, who has no stuff to take. Either rework Devoted Spirit fluff or make it explicitly supernatural.

Summary execution of anyone who claims ToB is 'anime'.

I've got no beef with the concept of new base classes in general, but a lot of them, like Swashbuckler ought to be substitution levels or otherwise options for the normal base class.

Eliminate multiclassing penalties. Everyone ignores them anyway.

I understand the concept of XP prices in magic--investing yourself into the item, etc. But XP should not be something characters themselves spend.

SurlySeraph
2007-10-12, 03:26 PM
Sure, some animals are smart. Frighteningly smart.

For example, humans are very, very smart. I'd even go so far as to assign them an average Intelligence of 10 -- that's how smart those wily humans are.

We are animals, you know. Where people first go wrong when discussing "people and animals" is in thinking those are two separate things. You may as well say "dogs and animals" or "elephants and animals."

I would also partly blame our arrogant idea of being something more than animal for our falling into exactly the same trap that every other animal on the face of this Earth falls, given the chance: given access to excessive resources, we rapidly and thoughtlessly overpopulated. (There's something else that eventually happens to every species that dramatically overpopulates -- I'll leave you to guess what it is and try to rationalize how it will somehow be different for us.) We think we're somehow above and fundamentally different from other animals, but time and time again, we prove ourselves painfully incorrect.

But other animals being as smart as we are or smarter? Oh please. Douglas Adams humor aside, we're a shoo-in for the #1 spot on that point, unless there's some species we've somehow managed not to discover yet.

*eyeroll* Yes, technically humans are animals. We ARE above and fundamentally different from other animals. No other animals made tools more complex than twigs stripped of bark, create habitats in which their species can live everywhere on Earth, create non-functional art, analyze their own behavior so as to rationally decide whether or not to act differently, have any means of recording events to tell future generations about them, or have languages capable of expressing abstract concepts. Dolphins and some species of apes are very smart - about as smart as a human child. The highest level of intelligence found in normal animals is about that of a human that's halfway between birth and adulthood. Plus, as you said, we're smart enough to notice that we are overpopulating our habitat and that we shouldn't be doing so. Many countries are even taking measures to correct it. Can you show me any animals that take measures to limit their population size?

Back on topic, one critical thing that needs to be done is removing any combination of spells, powers, and abilities that can create a feedback loop. Pun-Pun and numerous slightly less broken builds rely on feedback loops.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-12, 05:05 PM
The one thing I'd change about D&D is the price of the source books.

mostlyharmful
2007-10-12, 05:19 PM
The one thing I'd change about D&D is the price of the source books.

Well, the 3.5 DnD you know and love is about to get a whole lot cheaper in 2nd hand stores near you. :smallsmile: Just cause there's something newer doesn't mean the old stuff is any less fun (this isn't saying anyone out there is saying it is or anything)

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 06:16 PM
*eyeroll* [rant]Yes, technically humans are animals. We ARE above and fundamentally different from other animals.

No, we're not. We're far and away better tool-users, but the underlying patterns we pursue, as a species (as a whole, that is, not as individuals necessarily) are exactly the same as any other animal. We take all that we can, we expand in terms of population as rapidly as we can, we gobble up resources as quickly as we can find them, and we engage in many of the same basic social behaviors (forming hierarchies, employing aggression to achieve dominance, etc.). The fact that we overcomplicate them is a surface trait that doesn't change the fundamental underlying nature of the behavior itself.

Nor does all of the tool-using in the world, which in the end is just a more complicated form of resource consumption. Bear in mind that we do not actually create anything, we only consume resources and reshape them into other forms. That's why we're facing various resource-related issues now (Peak Oil, water shortages, etc.) that will only get worse before they get worse.


Can you show me any animals that take measures to limit their population size?

As individuals, we do some of that. As a species -- as a whole -- we do not, as any look at our rapidly increasing population will demonstrate. We possess the intelligence to be aware (some of us) of the danger inherent in such behavior, and we've even scientifically demonstrated, conclusively, that overpopulation leads to an eventual mass die-off, but we still lack the will, as a species -- as a whole -- to overcome our basic natures. Otherwise, our global population would not still be increasing.

That is because we're still animals. Just as ignoring history dooms us to repeat it, so the arrogance of thinking ourselves other than animal is part of our downfall.

(Sorry for derailing this thread so much -- this is just a real hot-button topic for me.)

Buoyancy
2007-10-12, 06:26 PM
No, we're not. We're far and away better tool-users, but the underlying patterns we pursue, as a species (as a whole, that is, not as individuals necessarily) are exactly the same as any other animal.

This is an incredibly ignorant statement. No other animal has language. Not even the most brilliant example of the most intelligent animal species comes anywhere close to the problem solving ability of an average human.


Nor does all of the tool-using in the world, which in the end is just a more complicated form of resource consumption. Bear in mind that we do not actually create anything, we only consume resources and reshape them into other forms.

I'm not sure what point you think you're making here? To do otherwise would require that entropy globally decrease over a macroscopic timescale. That is so unlikely to happen that you would need to wait long beyond the heat death of the universe before it would ever occur.


As individuals, we do some of that. As a species -- as a whole -- we do not, as any look at our rapidly increasing population will demonstrate.

Any look at our rapidly increasing population would immediately tell us that population stops increasing once a certain standard of living is met.

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 06:36 PM
This is an incredibly ignorant statement. No other animal has language. Not even the most brilliant example of the most intelligent animal species comes anywhere close to the problem solving ability of an average human.

Not only was it not an ignorant statement, but your rebuttal absolutely in no way even addressed my point. It was as if I'd said, "Humans are mammals," and you'd said, "No, that's ridiculous -- police pull over red vehicles more frequently."


I'm not sure what point you think you're making here? To do otherwise would require that entropy globally decrease over a macroscopic timescale. That is so unlikely to happen that you would need to wait long beyond the heat death of the universe before it would ever occur.

My point, of course, is that our tool-fashioning and tool-using is only a more complicated form of resource consumption, which every living thing on the planet does. We do it "better" (or worse, from another perspective), but we're not doing anything fundamentally different, nor are we pursuing fundamentally different goals as a whole (we're still dedicated to perpetuation of the species regardless of consequences, short-term survival, dominance, etc.).


Any look at our rapidly increasing population would immediately tell us that population stops increasing once a certain standard of living is met.

Any look at that standard of living would immediately tell us that it's not sustainable by any known means.

Goober4473
2007-10-12, 07:03 PM
Alignments: Drop them. They protray a terribly unrealistic morality system and I can't stand running games using the normal alignment system.

Balance: This is pretty self-explanitory... The classes are unbalanced. Which brings me to prestige classes.

Prestige classes: Prestige or advanced. Pick one. Don't give classes the best of both world. Allow me to explain: An advanced class is a class that a lot of people will want, and most people do take one, where the class isn't terribly differant, but specializes or generalizes in some way that doesn't merrit an entire class of its own. A prestige class is the few, the elite, the prestigious. Not everyone in the world should have one, and there don't need to be 4 million of them in every book. When you make a character, your first thought should not be "what prestige class should I take?" Playing a single-class character is almost entirely pointless. There are a few exceptions (druid, maybe wizard?), but 99% of characters will pick a prestige class, and qualify it effortlessly, since the "requirements" are things people who would want those sorts of abilities will have anyways.

As a personal preferance, I'd like to see more things based on events, not options picked from a book. What your character does and experiences should affect it. A character played from level 1 to 20 should be vastly more interesting than a character created at level 20, even outside of all the stories you'd have and good times you could talk about. As a DM, I like to throw in things that the players never could have just picked out of a book that affects the characters in serious ways, and doesn't jsut give them a higher bonus, more damage/healing, or any other generic enhancement. A 20th level fighter who just finished the World's Largest Dungeon should be completely differant from one who just went on a largely out-doors based adventure, or one that spent his whole carreer in one giant city. Not just a few feats and a couple differant weapon enchantments.

My recent Pocket Summoner, though somewhat a joke, captures (no pun intended) this perfectly. Depending on the monsters they face, weather or not some of them make their Will saves, and which monsters they level up, the character will be wildly differant in capabilities.

I'd like to see more classes like that, just as a matter of play style. How about a mimic base class that uses something like blue magic from Final Fantasy? Once they've been subjected to an ability, they can use it. Hard to design and balance, but I think it'd be worth it (and I think I'll start working on it). Also, a specialized shapeshifter base class that can only shift into things it has touched? It could get more abilities of the assumed forms, but would be limited based on what's happened.

[edit]
I curse the day Jack Vance thought up the idea that a person who studies magic instantly forgets how to cast a spell as soon as they cast it.
I like the current D&D magic system, because it's not like every other magic system ever. If I feel like doing the same thing every fantasy setting, story, or game has done, then I'd go play Final Fantasy 1. I like that D&D magic is distincly D&D magic, and not just generic fantasy magic.

But there are plenty of house rules to change that, if it doesn't fit your style (and I get it's not for everyone). Unearthed Arcana has a few good ones.


I'd give animals Intelligence and Charisma stats of about 12 on average while removing the "animals don't have souls" rule (I don't see why they shouldn't have souls or be at least as intelligent as humans).

Intelligence is a measure of logic, reason, and knowledge. An Intelligence score of 3 in D&D assumes the ability to speak. Animals I would agree are smart, but that's Wisdom: intuition, common sense, willpower, and perception, which they tend to have in abundance. They can solve basic logic puzzles, but that's more a combination of a 2 Intelligence and a 12 Wisdom, not simply high/average Intelligence.

As for souls... I'm not familiar with that rule. As far as I know, ressurection works on animals, because they have souls that can return to life. If it is a rule, it's kinda stupid.

0oo0
2007-10-12, 07:16 PM
Nor does all of the tool-using in the world, which in the end is just a more complicated form of resource consumption. Bear in mind that we do not actually create anything, we only consume resources and reshape them into other forms. That's why we're facing various resource-related issues now (Peak Oil, water shortages, etc.) that will only get worse before they get worse.


Um, I'm pretty sure that is the only type of creation that occurs in our universe. Matter is not created, it is merely reshaped, or converted to energy via fission/fusion. The over all level of matter/energy does not change. (I'm pretty sure this is what my physics class have taught me, ignoring quantum scale, where weird things take place). So what is your point? Humans obey the laws of physics just like everything else?

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-12, 07:59 PM
Um, I'm pretty sure that is the only type of creation that occurs in our universe. Matter is not created, it is merely reshaped, or converted to energy via fission/fusion. The over all level of matter/energy does not change. (I'm pretty sure this is what my physics class have taught me, ignoring quantum scale, where weird things take place). So what is your point? Humans obey the laws of physics just like everything else?

No -- you're correct about matter, but no.

My point is that tool-using and tool-making are both nothing more than more complicated versions of resource consumption.

Think of it like this:

1 is a number.

313,574.01 is also a number.

The latter is more complex than the former, but both are still fundamentally the same things (numbers).

In the same way, we're (way) more intellectually complex than any other animal, but we're still fundamentally animals, and that matters because it directly impacts how we will ultimately conduct ourselves regardless of our intelligence.

If that doesn't get the point across, I'm just giving up here and now. This is getting silly and probably annoying to anyone who has to wade through it all.

Dubie
2007-10-12, 09:06 PM
Yes. Quite silly and annoying.

We are animals, yet we're above animals. What seperates us from animals is the ability to use logical thought to overcome our instinctual side. There are times I feel the urge to assert my dominance over other men, and pound thier face in. Dogs would bite each other, cats would his and scatch and yowl, sheep will headbut each other. I, on the other hand, think it through and decide I'd rather not go to jail for beating up the jerk that cut in line at Walmart.

Take an animal out of its environment, and it dies. Take a human out of his environment, and he adapts. We've survived in any climate you can think of including underwater and outerspace.

We've developed tools, not just for survival, but for comfort and convenience. We've built the computers we're typing on, fridges to keep our food fresh, we've changed entire land masses into areas sutable for growing the foods we like best and prefer, rather then just being content to scavange and forage for whatever suitable meal happens to be laying around. No matter how smart a Chimp is, they do not have the capacity to figure out how to grow a banana farm. If there is no bananas, they'll just eat some grubs out of a tree stump...

Deepblue706
2007-10-12, 09:15 PM
Things I'd change if I wanted to get more money:

-I'd probably make it like WoW.

Things I'd implement if I wanted D&D to be a quality game:

- Use a GURPS-like point buy.
- Use GURPS-like flaws.
- Skills would be significantly more important to all classes.
- PCs who neglect these important skills in favor in min-maxing will indeed be good at whatever they want to do, but absolutely horrible at what they decide to overlook, and suffer real penalties because they decided that being illiterate gave them the points they needed to have an amazing strength score, and it wouldn't really harm their efficiency as much as having any less strength would.
- Allow for easier multiclassing - going from 19 Barbarian to 19 Barbarian / 1 Wizard shouldn't be inherently as difficult as going from 19 Barbarian to 20 Barbarian.
- Make spells significantly weaker, but allow nearly everyone access to them (via a skill system of sorts).
- Make combat more potentially lethal.
- Make damage types more signficant.
- Make armor significantly better.
- Make shields significantly better.
- Make bows significantly better.
- Make mounted combat more viable.
- Give all classes more special combat abilities.
- Have PCs gain levels at a slower rate, but allow them to continue to learn new abilities at a fairly fast pace.
- Make magical battle-gear a little more intriguing than "+1 Longsword".
- Make NPCs a little more competent.
- Determine what "HP" explicitly means.
- Have wounds hinder PCs.
- Make the system still useful for "non-standard" types of play.

Kesnit
2007-10-12, 09:21 PM
No other animal has language.

Tell that to wolves, lions, elephants, and bees. Just to name a few...


Take an animal out of its environment, and it dies. Take a human out of his environment, and he adapts. We've survived in any climate you can think of including underwater and outerspace.

Take a random human and force them underwater or into space (without gear) and they will die. Take any living creature and gradually change their environment and over time, the species will adapt.

Dubie
2007-10-12, 09:38 PM
Most of the ones that adapt, do so because humans have influence the environment to make it similar enough to support the species and planted them into these special areas.

I'll agree I'd die if you just dumped me off underwater or on the moon. But not only will people generaly survive if you transplant them into a new environment (say from the desert to the jungle, or the jungle to the arctic), they will not only adapt, but after time will change the environment to suit thier needs and preferences. Colder then you like? Ad insulation and a heat source to your house, and wear animal skins until your comfortable. Don't like the food? Well, with some good fertalizing, irrigation, and some tools made for working the land, you can have rice or wheat or apples or whatever your heart desires. Its why humans are the only animal to occupy every last corner of the earth.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-12, 09:49 PM
Most of the ones that adapt, do so because humans have influence the environment to make it similar enough to support the species and planted them into these special areas.

I'll agree I'd die if you just dumped me off underwater or on the moon. But not only will people generaly survive if you transplant them into a new environment (say from the desert to the jungle, or the jungle to the arctic), they will not only adapt, but after time will change the environment to suit thier needs and preferences. Colder then you like? Ad insulation and a heat source to your house, and wear animal skins until your comfortable. Don't like the food? Well, with some good fertalizing, irrigation, and some tools made for working the land, you can have rice or wheat or apples or whatever your heart desires. Its why humans are the only animal to occupy every last corner of the earth.

And this can apply to D&D!! You see, thats why humans are all over the place!!

Seriously, this is getting really old, can we just accept our different points of view and get on with the rest of our pointless lives?

dungeon_munky
2007-10-13, 01:38 PM
Isn't acting on instinct all the time counterproductive if something changes, though? (Admittedly, i'm also going on what animal communicators such as Penelope Smith and Amelia Kinkade have said concerning animal intelligence). Also, please could you point me in th direction of evidence that camels are good at maths? (I've never heard anything about this before).


Not all animals have the same instincts. If something changes, the ones who instinctually can survive the change will survive, and the ones who can't, wont. That's why species go extinct, from lack of adaptability. Grissom on CSI had a good quote about that this week. I'll paraphrase: Two people are on a savanah and both see something out of the corner of their eye. One instinctivly runs, assuming its a predator. The other one doesn't have that instinct, thinks it's just the wind, and gets eaten by a hyena. So yes, it can be counter productive, but thats the way things are.

As for camels being good at math? The example I'm thinking of is in Terry Pratchett's book "Pyramids." Dunno if it's in any of his other novels, but it's a running gag that the best mathmatician on the disc is a camel. :smalltongue:



Sure, some animals are smart. Frighteningly smart.

For example, humans are very, very smart. I'd even go so far as to assign them an average Intelligence of 10 -- that's how smart those wily humans are.

We are animals, you know. Where people first go wrong when discussing "people and animals" is in thinking those are two separate things. You may as well say "dogs and animals" or "elephants and animals."

I would also partly blame our arrogant idea of being something more than animal for our falling into exactly the same trap that every other animal on the face of this Earth falls, given the chance: given access to excessive resources, we rapidly and thoughtlessly overpopulated. (There's something else that eventually happens to every species that dramatically overpopulates -- I'll leave you to guess what it is and try to rationalize how it will somehow be different for us.) We think we're somehow above and fundamentally different from other animals, but time and time again, we prove ourselves painfully incorrect.

But other animals being as smart as we are or smarter? Oh please. Douglas Adams humor aside, we're a shoo-in for the #1 spot on that point, unless there's some species we've somehow managed not to discover yet.

Very good call. But of course, this discussion is about animals in D&D, which are a specific type. Humans are (arrogantly) humanoids. I like what you're saying though. :smallsmile:

Fax Celestis
2007-10-13, 01:47 PM
I like the current D&D magic system, because it's not like every other magic system ever. If I feel like doing the same thing every fantasy setting, story, or game has done, then I'd go play Final Fantasy 1. I like that D&D magic is distincly D&D magic, and not just generic fantasy magic.

Interesting note: Final Fantasy 1 has Vancian casting.

Lolzords
2007-10-13, 02:57 PM
I would make paladin's alignment lawful only, as apposed to LG only.

A good paladin would still be the same, but an evil paladin would hold up the rights of evil and so on.

Yahzi
2007-10-13, 08:15 PM
unless there's some species we've somehow managed not to discover yet.
If there was another species smarter than us, then they would be smart enough to know they need to hide from us.

:smallbiggrin:

Yahzi
2007-10-13, 08:18 PM
Interesting note: Final Fantasy 1 has Vancian casting.
I think the problem with D&D Vancian magic is that it's not Vancian enough. Vance mentions wizards who can memorize three or even four spells, but nowhere does he suggest they can do that every day, day in and day out, like clockwork.

Wizards should get to memorize spells a set number of times per life, not day or encounter. Then you'd see some self-balancing going on. :smallbiggrin:

rankrath
2007-10-13, 08:41 PM
I think the problem with D&D Vancian magic is that it's not Vancian enough. Vance mentions wizards who can memorize three or even four spells, but nowhere does he suggest they can do that every day, day in and day out, like clockwork.

Wizards should get to memorize spells a set number of times per life, not day or encounter. Then you'd see some self-balancing going on. :smallbiggrin:


that's twisted, I like it.

Hawriel
2007-10-13, 08:50 PM
The atonment spell has got to go. It greatly cheapens forgiveness. To atone for your sins takes great effort on the part of the sinner. It can possibly take there intire life, if they can atone at all. In D&D though you can betray your lord kill children and double park your horse, but luckely you can walk in any temple pay a fee and have it washed away with a simple spell. please.

I put atonement with reserection. Good RP, and the goal of a plot.

Xuincherguixe
2007-10-14, 07:23 AM
Interesting note: Final Fantasy 1 has Vancian casting.

Not quite, but it was close. You learned some spells, and had a limit of how many total spells you could cast per day. But it didn't say that you forgot them, and then had to relearn.

The first Final Fantasy had loads of Dungeons and Dragons influences.



Now, as far as the animal arguments go. There are some very smart animals out there. Tool use is not a human only trait, and certain animals are capable of learning language. But Humans are better at it. A lot better. It's not just that we're smart that is the reason we're the dominant species of the planet, but communication. Many people working for many, many years and exchanging ideas. Sometimes I get the impression it's only really a few humans that are really thinking but I'll save the misanthropy for later.

Only Humans (and fictional beings) should be sentient. Since it is fantasy one could have stuff like talking beavers, but that's really giving human characteristics to animals anyways. The great apes, dolphins and whales are the only other animals that come anywhere close in terms of Human intelligence levels, so declaring those animals as also sentient is plausible. (We can pretend magic is a plausible excuse too).

But when we start talking about animal sentience we're mixing science with fantasy... which D&D kind of has been doing already.

I don't think most animals should approach human intelligence levels, but the Game Master can make the world however they want to. Ideally at least maintaining consistency.

I do think we vastly underestimate animal intelligence. Some of those rodents are pretty clever. Show me an animal that can perform Algebra though and I'd have to rethink things.