[3.P] What are the likely consequences of these homebrew rules?

[Endarire]

INTRO
Greetings, all!

These rules are for a hypothetical 3.P game that's open world, difficult, and where characters are likely to die and have plot reasons for frequently reviving with the option for different characters/builds. Character death isn't the end of the game, but, like with XCOM, it's a very likely aspect and one players should expect.

The house rules listed below aren't a fully exhaustive list, but things that seemed the fastest to type and most important to share. Thankee!

SYSTEM-LEVEL STUFF
-Extra iterative attacks are still at 6, 11, and 16 BAB. They're at +0/-5/-5/-5 accuracy instead of +0/-5/-10/-15!

-Full attacking is a standard action. Charging can be done as a standard action with movement up to your movement speed or as a full-round action by moving up to double your movement speed.

-Caster level automatically scales with HD. Thus, your base caster level equals your HD unless it would be higher. (It's like a permanent Practiced Spellcaster in every casting class.)

-Player characters get full HP per HD. Most other creatures - including special mounts, familiars, and animal companions - don't.

-Flight is binary: Either you have a fly speed or you don't. If you can fly, there are no maneuverability grades, only perfect. This makes flight simpler and it's how I was running it for years anyway.

CASTER STUFF
-All casters cast spontaneously and use mana. 1 mana = 1 spell level. All casters can only spend a maximum amount of mana on a spell - metamagicked or not - equal to the maximum level of spell they can cast in that class. Thus, a Wizard6/Cleric1 can spend maximum of 1 mana per Cleric spell and a maximum of 3 mana per Wizard spell.

-Prepared casters still prepare spells as normal, but fully spontaneous casters like Sors get more mana per level.

-After each long rest, fully spontaneous casters can swap 1 spell they know for another spell they could learn of the same class and same spell level. Multiclassed fully spontaneous casters can swap 1 spell per class. Thus, a Sor1/Oracle1 could swap 1 Sor spell and 1 Oracle spell known per day.

-Fully spontaneous casters that cast level 9 spells maximum (Sor, Oracle, etc.) access new spell levels 1 class level earlier to make them even with prepared casters. Thus, a Sor7 can cast level 4 Sor spells natively, just like a Wiz7.

-Bloodline spells, mystery spells, and other automatically granted spells are normally granted as soon as a caster can cast spells of that level. (Archetypes and class features that delay this spell known by a spell level like Ancient Lorekeeper still do.) Thus, an Arcane Bloodline Sor automatically learns invisibility from his bloodline as soon as he can cast level 2 Sor spells from Sor levels. PrCs like Arcane Trickster and Mystic Theurge also grant bonus spells known from bloodlines, mysteries, and similar.

-I'm considering making the Arcanist class the Wizard class with the option to specialize in a school like a 3.5 Wizard considering the other changes mentioned in this document.

[RandomPeasant]

-Extra iterative attacks are still at 6, 11, and 16 BAB. They're at +0/-5/-5/-5 accuracy instead of +0/-5/-10/-15!

This is a good change. I assume this applies to things like Flurry of Misses as well?


-Full attacking is a standard action. Charging can be done as a standard action with movement up to your movement speed or as a full-round action by moving up to double your movement speed.

Do you get a full attack on a charge by default?


-Caster level automatically scales with HD. Thus, your base caster level equals your HD unless it would be higher. (It's like a permanent Practiced Spellcaster in every casting class.)

Caster level should scale by CR/ECL, not HD. That way you don't get random crap with stupid high CLs that ends up murdering the entire party with blasphemy.


-Player characters get full HP per HD. Most other creatures - including special mounts, familiars, and animal companions - don't.

I don't understand what this means in the context of familiars. They have half their master's HP, so they would seem to benefit from whatever happens to their masters automatically.


-All casters cast spontaneously and use mana. 1 mana = 1 spell level. All casters can only spend a maximum amount of mana on a spell - metamagicked or not - equal to the maximum level of spell they can cast in that class. Thus, a Wizard6/Cleric1 can spend maximum of 1 mana per Cleric spell and a maximum of 3 mana per Wizard spell.

How much mana do you get? Is it just a one-to-one conversion from spell slots, does it use the UA spell point values, or something else?


-After each long rest, fully spontaneous casters can swap 1 spell they know for another spell they could learn of the same class and same spell level. Multiclassed fully spontaneous casters can swap 1 spell per class. Thus, a Sor1/Oracle1 could swap 1 Sor spell and 1 Oracle spell known per day.

That seems like it kinda sticks it to the Warmage-types of the world. Or are you leaning enough to Pathfinder that you expect people to not play those?

[Kurald Galain]

The likely consequences are that
(1) martial classes who are great at damaging enemies and bad at everything else become even better at damaging enemies, which is the one thing they don't need; and
(2) nobody will want to play a prepared caster any more, because spontaneous casting is usually better with all the bonus spells PF sorcerers get that 3E sorcerers don't, and by your rules they get even more bonuses.

[Telonius]

Iterative rule combined with full attack as a standard: a Wounding weapon becomes more dangerous; Two-weapon-fighting with Wounding weapons becomes deadly. The wielder is are probably going to be dealing 3-4 Con damage a round (or 6-8 if TWF'ing), in addition to any of the hit point damage you're going to do.

[Zombimode]

1) In addition to what others have said:
- it makes attack bonuses against non-extreme AC opponents less important
- AC becomes EVEN MORE all-or-nothing since there are no "bad" iteratives to defend against
- it removes a lot of the decision making for Power Attack: you don't have to balance the use of Power Attack vs. the loss of your later iteratives

2) That removes MUCH of the interesting decision making in the melee gameplay.
- Positioning becomes less important.
- Full attack denial becomes becomes less viable.
- Defending squishies from getting full-attacked becomes harder.
- Less tatical possibilities, since full-attacks don't have to be set up anymore.
- Removes the need for balancing of getting of a full attack vs. getting full-attacked back.
- Make combat more polarizing: winning initiative is even more important, and expect player character getting destroyed by big monster full attacks (hydras, dragons, trolls, humanoid high level martials etc.).

1) and 2) seem like they would benefit player who don't want to engage with the combat system and just make "use SWORD with ORC" decisions in combat - at least until they realize that they can't defend against enemy full attacks anymore.

[King of Nowhere]

I wouldn't be so extreme. The changes aren't all that radical. Yes, martials become sensibly stronger at dealing damage. And yes, there's less tactics in combat. The difference is felt more at high levels. Optimized martial builds can get full attacks anyway. Overall i don't like it, but i don't think it would change too much.

CL=HD is too open to abuse by stuff with high racial hd.

The whole mana stuff seem more like a refluffing than anything else.

[Elkad]

2. went poorly at my table. Positioning didn't matter any more, the fast guy can run around everyone and gib the wizard in the back. It seemed OK at low levels, but once people had 50'-80' move rates, it got out of control.
I went with something inbetween the next game. Full attack remains a full-round action. "as part of a full attack, you can move half your speed in a straight line.". It's going much better. BBEG can put a couple goblins between him and the barbarian and they'll at least soak up some attacks.

[zlefin]

That extra hp is quite significant for the characters. It should mitigate the risks of monsters full attacking. It means CON has a less profound impact on overall hp, making con a bit less important.

It was not immediately clear what it means to have all casters cast spontaneously and prepared casters prepare spells normally.

If I understand it right, charging still doesn't allow a full attack. It might be good to make it explicitly clear so people don't get confused or misread it; I had to think about it for a minute to parse it.

[Jervis]

I recommend not using this mana system and using psionics rules for the casters in place of it. Spells don’t have linear power, 2 level 1 spells are less than a level 2 spell for example. Psi points don’t keep up with this balance wise either but it comes closer. Other than that these all seem fairly harmless for a high power game.

[Seward]

The melee changes makes martial gameplay more like 1st-2nd edition. There were no negatives to extra attacks and you could run up and full attack. The hitpoint boost might be a necessary adjustment because your squishies will get gibbed a lot easier by martials. Battlefield control becomes even more important because basically nothing can stop incoming martials except distance and walls and sticking a battlefield control maneuver like trip or stand-still (an AOO as they run past your tank to kill a squishie is the cost of doing business). As noted, con becomes a bit more like in AD&D/2nd edition too, which is to say for most characters (con between 8 and 14) it didn't matter at all, and if you weren't a fighter class, the best you could get was a +2/level (simulated by the bigger hit die in 3.x going to max - max hitpoints on a d4 class vs a d12 class will show that old AD&D/2nd edition difference)

I've done mana-based systems of spellcasting before with D&D flavored spells, but I'd changed the entire underlying system to a Hero Games engine, where that sort of thing was natural (spells were more like superpowers with an endurance battery, with higher tier spells having a steep endurance cost compared to cantrips). I concur with an above poster to look at 3.x Psionics, because that's how mana-based systems work in 3.x and they've at least tried to balance it against 3.x physical threats and all-day capabilities martials provide. If you stick with your mana idea, I'd recommend a geometric progression (3rd level spells cast 9 mana, and you need to be 6th level to burn 9 mana in one round etc) because the power ratio between tiers is very significant. Or possibly an almost-Fibonacci sequence where you add current level to past level cost (L0=0, you can just cast cantrips all day, as in Pathfinder, L1=1, L2=3, L3=6, L4=10, L5=15, L6=21, L7=28, L8=36, L9=45)

Providing UFO flight for everybody is a major boost to dragons, which isn't a bad thing. The most significant thing is that more flying types could pull tricks that only air elementals normally do in 3.x, which is to pick up somebody and next round be 200' up and then drop them. Although without a whirlwind it would mostly be enemies with improved grab who can stick it on a -20 and still move normally, or perhaps the snatch feat that would be able to do that trick, so it probably isn't too big a deal. Of your changes this is probably the least significant, especially as you are already kind of playing that way anyway, so its implications are familiar.

[Endarire]

INTRO
Thankee everyone for your responses! Here are further clarifications!

HP
-A familiar still has half the HP of his master.

-Animal companions, class-granted mounts, and other creatures are granted half HP per HD.

MARTIAL CHARACTERS
-Turning every attack into a full attack may be too much, and I understand this makes animals and other multiattackers - especially at low levels - painful and deadly. What about changing full attacking to grant every creature Pounce while still requiring a full round action for a full attack without a charge?

CASTING
-I know that spell levels aren't linearly powerful, and I had considered a 3.5 psionics-like PP system, but I found the simplicity of "spell level = mana cost" tentatively appealing and more easily understood and explained. There is already a cap of how much mana a caster can spend at a time equal to the highest spell level they can cast in that class.

-3.5-style Heighten Spell shenanigans are likely removed due to all metamagic changing the spell's slot level used to the spell's new level. Thus, a Quickened haste - normally a level 3 spell in a level 7 spell slot - is simply a level 7 spell. Because that had to go. (Abilities that don't change a spell's slot level, like using a metamagic rod on a spell, also don't change the spell level.
Thus, using a Maximize Rod on fireball - assuming no other spell level modifiers - keeps it as a level 3 spell.)

-Unlike 3.5 psionics and the SRD's spell points, this mana system means casting a spell is always done at full caster level as if using 3.5's default spell slots. Thus, casting a fireball at CL5 and CL19 costs the same mana amount, assuming no metamagics or other effects increase the spell level.

-Casters still receive bonus mana from a high ability modifier as normal. I'm leaning toward the SRD spell point version, but will likely increase it for spontaneous casters to make them more appealing.
-While all classes in this game would cast spontaneously, I use the term 'prepared caster' and 'spontaneous caster' somewhat as 3.5 uses them. A prepared caster like a Wizard, a Cleric, or a Druid can change all his spell preparations per long rest, and a spontaneous caster like a Sor, an Oracle, or a Bard can change only 1 spell known per long rest, and the spell swapped in must be of the same spell level as the one swapped out.

-I wasn't expecting anyone to play Warmages, Beguilers, Artificers, nor other similar classes that just know all their spells (minus class features to expand their spell lists) and spontaneously cast them. My backup rule for them is to allow them to learn a small number of spells from the Sor/Wiz list and swap 1 of those spells per long rest for another of the same level, subject to the same requirements as learning the spell initially.

[RandomPeasant]

-Turning every attack into a full attack may be too much, and I understand this makes animals and other multiattackers - especially at low levels - painful and deadly. What about changing full attacking to grant every creature Pounce while still requiring a full round action for a full attack without a charge?

I think that change is probably desirable for PCs, as it removes the need for every melee martial build to include a Barbarian dip, but applying it to enemies makes closet trolls more deadly, because you are effectively always stuck in the closet with them.


-I know that spell levels aren't linearly powerful, and I had considered a 3.5 psionics-like PP system, but I found the simplicity of "spell level = mana cost" tentatively appealing and more easily understood and explained. There is already a cap of how much mana a caster can spend at a time equal to the highest spell level they can cast in that class.

I would ask why you feel the need to use a spell point system at all. It's not just that cloudkill is better than magic missile at a greater-than-linear rate, it's that there's no rate at which you can be expected to get magic missiles for cashing out your cloudkill that is not insulting.