[3.51] An Abiding Dissatisfaction

**Doc Roc** · 2009-06-30, 12:36 AM (ISO 8601)

So I've been playing with and around D&D for a long time now. I'm not switching for 4th Edition for a variety of reasons, many of which hinge on the fact that it is incompatible with my existing settings as a pretty fundamental level. That's not what this is about. Attempts to make it about that will really upset me.

For a while, off and on, I've been working on a revision to 3.5 under the principle of minimal change. Nothing fancy. Nothing big. Nothing like a complicated set of house rules. We're talking changes to wordings and clarifications of intent, banning of items, small buffs to core melee classes, the addition of martial progression.

I was hoping to get links to as many different existing projects in this same vein as possible, so I know what's been done, what's been tested, what works, and what's a flop. I'm already familiar with Frank's work in the Tomes, and wasn't really overwhelmed with it. Felt that it did little to actually address balance issues. What else is out there?

**Pharaoh's Fist** · 2009-06-30, 12:37 AM (ISO 8601)

Tippy is working on a project for DnD 3.75.

There's always Pathfinder, but the community is rather insular and xenophobic.

Fax Celestus is working on a project too, I saw it in the homebrew section.

**Myrmex** · 2009-06-30, 12:46 AM (ISO 8601)

Frank's Tomes are aimed at making certain concepts ramped up to CharOp levels of power. I don't like his stuff for playing the sort of low high fantasy that I want in D&D. It's too compatible with the goofy wuxia of mid to high level play with casters taken to extremes.

**Doc Roc** · 2009-06-30, 01:17 AM (ISO 8601)

I'm not sure I follow your logic. I'd need to see your houserules, I think...

**Pharaoh's Fist** · 2009-06-30, 01:22 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Myrmex

I don't like his stuff for playing the sort of low high fantasy that I want in D&D.

So mid-fantasy?

**Myrmex** · 2009-06-30, 01:27 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Pharaoh's Fist

So mid-fantasy?

Maybe?

It's the sort of thing where peasants grovel in huts and you're richer than kings and the eocnomy makes no sense and having a caster who can change reality about 30 times a day, and you kill about 4 other such casters every day, makes no difference to the world at large- everyone still grovels in faux 12th century hovels.

**Pharaoh's Fist** · 2009-06-30, 01:32 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Myrmex

Maybe?

It's the sort of thing where peasants grovel in huts and you're richer than kings and the eocnomy makes no sense and having a caster who can change reality about 30 times a day, and you kill about 4 other such casters every day, makes no difference to the world at large- everyone still grovels in faux 12th century hovels.

**Doc Roc** · 2009-06-30, 01:35 AM (ISO 8601)

I tend to run a really enormously strange and extremely high-powered planescape setting, with Epica running rampant. Most of the tech level is right around iron kingdoms.Hovels are boring! How about steam pipes and tenements?

Nothing ever changes.

alternate rant ending

Spoiler

Show

War
War never changes.

**Pharaoh's Fist** · 2009-06-30, 01:40 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Tidesinger

alternate rant ending

Spoiler

Show

War
War never changes.

No. War has changed.

**Myrmex** · 2009-06-30, 01:41 AM (ISO 8601)

It's A Giant Worm! They're Sinking Cities With A Giant Worm!!

**BobVosh** · 2009-06-30, 01:42 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Pharaoh's Fist

There's always Pathfinder, but the community is rather insular and xenophobic.

I almost exclusively play pathfinder :(

As for Faxs: it is enough you can use some of it.

Haven't seen Tippy's yet, but he has been working on it forever now.

**Doc Roc** · 2009-06-30, 01:42 AM (ISO 8601)

This thread has sped off in a wonderful and wholly unintended direction. :)

I need to sit down and run pathfinder a few more times. But I'm waiting for the mysterious Final Version.

**Fishy** · 2009-06-30, 02:13 AM (ISO 8601)

It's been said that the only thing you need to do to get a good game of D&D is to ban the Core. Use Tome of Battle for your melee classes, Spirit Shamans instead of druids, and either use Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warmage instead of arcane casting or just replace it entirely with re-flavored psionics. Boom, done.

**chiasaur11** · 2009-06-30, 02:36 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Pharaoh's Fist

No. War has changed.

I feel Hellboy, being the beast of the Apocolypse and all, has a bit more knowledge of war and changes thereof than just any random narrator.

**Tempest Fennac** · 2009-06-30, 02:58 AM (ISO 8601)

Satyr is working on a similar system fix to Fax as well. I'll try and find a link to it soon.

Here they are: http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.ph...nts_and_Sewers .

**Kurald Galain** · 2009-06-30, 03:48 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Tidesinger

I was hoping to get links to as many different existing projects in this same vein as possible, so I know what's been done, what's been tested, what works, and what's a flop.

Just to throw something else out there, there's Second Edition...

**Pharaoh's Fist** · 2009-06-30, 07:12 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by chiasaur11

I feel Hellboy, being the beast of the Apocolypse and all, has a bit more knowledge of war and changes thereof than just any random narrator.

... Solid Snake, one of the greatest soldiers of the century...

**Doc Roc** · 2009-06-30, 08:41 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Kurald Galain

Just to throw something else out there, there's Second Edition...

Played it extensively. I'm not going back.

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