Little class balancing changes

[ken-do-nim]

There has been many an article on this forum about class balancing, and many creative souls have come up with a completely redesigned monk, or fighter, or what not, but I'm looking for small tweaks that I can make that hardly if at all affect existing stat blocks.

Here's what I've got so far, mostly from reading this forum:
Bard - find traps as 2nd level spell
Monk - ki focus weapons do unarmed damage
Ranger - wilderness trapfinding (they can find traps made of natural materials; the ranger will notice that the tree is bent back and therefore must be tied down waiting to spring. Rangers can also find quicksand and pits covered by leaves)
Sorcerer - eschew materials feat for free

What other small changes do you think could be introduced without any significant rework?

[Matthew]

Ranger Bonus Feats instead of Combat Styles? Ditch the Light Armour requirement for using the Combat Style Feats?

It depends what you consider significant, I think. A lot of minor changes soon end up more than the sum of their parts.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Casters are confined to wheelchairs permanently?

[InaVegt]

Casters are confined to wheelchairs permanently?

Hey, I take offense at that. Not to mention magical weelchairs are probably more than able to function precisely as standard legs (As far as mechanics are concerned) for a small cost.

[Raish]

Bards get same BaB as fighters....i know unrealistic but that would fully complete the bards circle of awesomeness.

raish

[jjpickar]

Personally I think you should ditch the eschew materials feat for the sorcerer (who keeps track of that sorta thing anyway?) and replace his d4 with d6 and give him 4+int skill points instead.

Bards don't need tweaking at all. Two words: Charm monster.

For monks just give them access to special version of the Amulet of Mighty Fists that cost as much as standard enchanted weapons. 2,000 gp for +1, 8,000 gp for +2, etc. Also Monks at higher levels are fairly insane anyway.

I'm not sure what to do with rangers. Whenever I play-tested them they always worked fine.

[Were-Sandwich]

I'd give Rangers martial maneuvers rather than spells. It just seems to fit better.

[Morty]

I'd give Rangers martial maneuvers rather than spells. It just seems to fit better.

Maybe, but you'd probably have to rename them to fit Rangers' flavour.

[ken-do-nim]

Hey, I take offense at that. Not to mention magical weelchairs are probably more than able to function precisely as standard legs (As far as mechanics are concerned) for a small cost.

I once had a BBEG who was a mighty lich, but so old that his skeleton was crumbling and he couldn't walk anymore. Instead he zipped around on a flying magical throne that had all kind of neat defenses.

Anyway, full BAB for bards, ranger combat feats or maneuvers, none of this stuff so far is what I'd call tactical. But thanks for the suggestions anyway!

[Draz74]

I'm in favor of nerfing full casters simply by giving them MAD in their casting stats. Make the Wizard's spell DCs depend on Wisdom, the Sorcerer's depend on Intelligence, the Cleric's depend on Charisma. Bing -- instantly makes those three classes more reasonable.

[ken-do-nim]

I thought of another one myself:
Paladin - add righteous might as a 4th level spell

[jjpickar]

I love that spell.

Seriously though, What about changing bard song around a little? Say perhaps replacing inspire competence with something more tactically minded. Maybe try something like the Seeker of the Song PrC and give him a song that does sonic damage.

[ken-do-nim]

I love that spell.

Seriously though, What about changing bard song around a little? Say perhaps replacing inspire competence with something more tactically minded. Maybe try something like the Seeker of the Song PrC and give him a song that does sonic damage.

Good point, although I think inspire competence helps out a lot. But that song of freedom, that's got to go, since break enchantment is already on their spell list and isn't a highly used ability in the first place. Maybe replace with haunting melody from Eberron?

[Bosh]

Ranger Bonus Feats instead of Combat Styles?

That doesn't necessarily help. One of the few good things about being a ranger is that you don't have to have sky-high dex to TWF.

[Matthew]

It wouldn't preclude choosing those combat style Feats. I just don't like being locked into them. Seriously, though, what kind of Ranger doesn't already have a sky high Dexterity?

[Orzel]

My friend gives ranger's full caster level when casting on himself, his AC, and his FEs; bard's full BAB when singing; and auto crit hit on AoO provoked by casting spells.

[Stephen_E]

I posted this in the Druid balance thread.
It has tweaks to knock the 3 purecasters back.
-------

If you want to chop the Druids back some I approach it this way.

There are 3 major power threads to a Druid.
Spellcasting
Wildshaping
Animal Companion
With Spellcasting been the strongest.

Make a Druid have to choose which of 3 types of Druid they want.
a) Full Spellcasting, Wildshaping but no Animal Companion.
b) Full Spellcasting, no Woldshaping but they do get their Animal Companion.
c) Limited Spellcasting (standard 1-4 levs, then half advancement, i.e. the 5th lev advance would occur over the 5th and 6th, so by 20th lev you cast as a 12 lev Druid, with CL2) Wildshaping and Animal Companion.

This will chop the Druids strength back by about 20%, and create different Druids.

Then to balance up the other Pure casters -

Clerics. - Clerical Buff spells can no longer target self. Clerics are their to preach the word and support God's Champions. Not to be the champions.
Those "self only" Buffs will instead be reserved for the most devout warriors of the God - Paladins, Blackguards, Pious Templars, ecetre, + anyone whose taken the True Believer feat (Comp Divine). Note that the warrior also has to worship the same God to receive the Ex-"Self" Buffs (Righteous Might and Divine Power). I'd also give them SR = to class level vs Arcane spells. (you'll see the point to that shortly)

Arcane Casters. - Penetrating Spell Resistance will now be done using CL/2 + 1d20. Suddenly Spell Resistance becomes a real pain in the arse for Arcane casters (as it was in earlier editions, which was one of the things that kept them honest at high level). Feats and Class abilities that are specifically designed to assist penetrate Spell Resistance will be a flat add to the roll, rather than a add to the CL. Note with Clerics now getting SR, spell duels with high level Clerics become dicier, and the Wizard would much rather have a Fighter to throw at him (and with the Cleric not been able to Buff himself, the Fighter is much more interested in having that Fighter/Cleric fight).

Stephen

[Darkshade]

Bump Monk up to 6+int skill points; Force druids to use Aspect of Nature wildshape variant from UnA; give sorcerers a d6 and ability to cast in light armor; take away Clerics heavy armor proficiency

[JaronK]

Fighters: At 1st Level, give them the Warblade ability that lets them shift Weapon Focus and the like. Also, bump them up to 4 skill points per level and add Spot, Listen, and Survival to their skill list.
At 5th level, give them a bonus feat that's a floating feat like the Chameleon floating feat, except it must be from the Fighter bonus feat list.
At 15th level, give them a second floating feat that may use the first as a prerequisit.
At 20th level give them something really freaking cool. I have no idea what, though.

Rogues: Again, they need a capstone. How about the ability to sneak attack things that normally can't be sneak attacked, but you only use D3s on such targets instead of D6s?

JaronK

[ken-do-nim]

I posted this in the Druid balance thread.
It has tweaks to knock the 3 purecasters back.
-------

If you want to chop the Druids back some I approach it this way.

There are 3 major power threads to a Druid.
Spellcasting
Wildshaping
Animal Companion
With Spellcasting been the strongest.

Make a Druid have to choose which of 3 types of Druid they want.
a) Full Spellcasting, Wildshaping but no Animal Companion.
b) Full Spellcasting, no Woldshaping but they do get their Animal Companion.
c) Limited Spellcasting (standard 1-4 levs, then half advancement, i.e. the 5th lev advance would occur over the 5th and 6th, so by 20th lev you cast as a 12 lev Druid, with CL2) Wildshaping and Animal Companion.

This will chop the Druids strength back by about 20%, and create different Druids.

Then to balance up the other Pure casters -

Clerics. - Clerical Buff spells can no longer target self. Clerics are their to preach the word and support God's Champions. Not to be the champions.
Those "self only" Buffs will instead be reserved for the most devout warriors of the God - Paladins, Blackguards, Pious Templars, ecetre, + anyone whose taken the True Believer feat (Comp Divine). Note that the warrior also has to worship the same God to receive the Ex-"Self" Buffs (Righteous Might and Divine Power). I'd also give them SR = to class level vs Arcane spells. (you'll see the point to that shortly)

Arcane Casters. - Penetrating Spell Resistance will now be done using CL/2 + 1d20. Suddenly Spell Resistance becomes a real pain in the arse for Arcane casters (as it was in earlier editions, which was one of the things that kept them honest at high level). Feats and Class abilities that are specifically designed to assist penetrate Spell Resistance will be a flat add to the roll, rather than a add to the CL. Note with Clerics now getting SR, spell duels with high level Clerics become dicier, and the Wizard would much rather have a Fighter to throw at him (and with the Cleric not been able to Buff himself, the Fighter is much more interested in having that Fighter/Cleric fight).

Stephen

See, these are the kinds of things that could make players rebel, not what I'd call small tactical changes. Especially that penetrating spell resistance one. "Had I known, I would have taken spell penetration and greater spell penetration". I don't want to introduce any changes that would affect somebody's feat selections.

[ken-do-nim]

Fighters: At 1st Level, give them the Warblade ability that lets them shift Weapon Focus and the like. Also, bump them up to 4 skill points per level and add Spot, Listen, and Survival to their skill list.
At 5th level, give them a bonus feat that's a floating feat like the Chameleon floating feat, except it must be from the Fighter bonus feat list.
At 15th level, give them a second floating feat that may use the first as a prerequisit.
At 20th level give them something really freaking cool. I have no idea what, though.

Rogues: Again, they need a capstone. How about the ability to sneak attack things that normally can't be sneak attacked, but you only use D3s on such targets instead of D6s?

JaronK

I *gasp* don't own Tome of Battle aka Book of Nine Swords so I don't know what this shifting weapon focus thing is. I will say that giving fighters spot/listen/survival makes rangers useless, so I won't go there.

I kinda like your sneak attack undead/constructs for lesser damage idea.

[ken-do-nim]

Bump Monk up to 6+int skill points; Force druids to use Aspect of Nature wildshape variant from UnA; give sorcerers a d6 and ability to cast in light armor; take away Clerics heavy armor proficiency

Bumping skill points & hit points is again a stat block change, so not so tactical. Were I a designer of 4th edition, I would definitely advocate for sorcerers to go up to 6-sided hit dice, but I'll live with d4 for 3.5

[Stephen_E]

See, these are the kinds of things that could make players rebel, not what I'd call small tactical changes. Especially that penetrating spell resistance one. "Had I known, I would have taken spell penetration and greater spell penetration". I don't want to introduce any changes that would affect somebody's feat selections.

Ahh, I see what you're saying.

No offense intended but frankly you seem to be backing yourself into a corner where you can only give, rather than take away, and you only want minimal boosts at that.

In all honesty I cna't see the point since the best you can hope for is to make players briefly not notice the huge balance inequities that exist at 10+ level.

If you don't mind significant boosts, then "Bears with Lasers" did some nice stuf in Homebrew on Fighters that can be attached to the other Melee types. There's a link to it in the recent Fighter improvement thread.

The trouble is that if you give your NPC's this stuff as well I suspect you're just as likely to get howls as my pure-caster reduction stuff would.

Stephen

[ken-do-nim]

Ahh, I see what you're saying.

No offense intended but frankly you seem to be backing yourself into a corner where you can only give, rather than take away, and you only want minimal boosts at that.

In all honesty I cna't see the point since the best you can hope for is to make players briefly not notice the huge balance inequities that exist at 10+ level.

Well I wouldn't call it "backing myself into a corner", unless you want to call anybody who plays by RAW that too. Also, I don't think the inequities are really huge until say 13+. I think maybe I'll start another thread about that.

But anyway, I'm just exploring what changes can be made without significant homebrew. Also these changes are not just about class-balance but also what make sense. Monks doing unarmed damage with ki focus weapons makes sense from a game balance standpoint but also from a metaphysical ki standpoint. Rangers having wilderness trapfinding also makes total sense.

[Shazzbaa]

Clerics. - Clerical Buff spells can no longer target self. Clerics are their to preach the word and support God's Champions. Not to be the champions. Those "self only" Buffs will instead be reserved for the most devout warriors of the God - Paladins....

Huh. The flavour of this really, really works for me. But I wonder, would such a change compound the problem of the cleric always being nothing more than the "healbot," as a lot of people complain about?

Ken-do-nim: are you looking for changes that can be implemented in the middle of an existing game? Otherwise, I think those wishing to play full-casters would be warned in advance of the changes that Stephen_E would be implementing.

[ken-do-nim]

Huh. The flavour of this really, really works for me. But I wonder, would such a change compound the problem of the cleric always being nothing more than the "healbot," as a lot of people complain about?

Ken-do-nim: are you looking for changes that can be implemented in the middle of an existing game? Otherwise, I think those wishing to play full-casters would be warned in advance of the changes that Stephen_E would be implementing.

Yup, changes in existing games.

I think changing say divine power & righteous might from target:self to target:'anybody other than self' is a huge change, but maybe even just changing it to target:touch may be a good change.

On another note, its amazing how many "deity champion" classes there are. There's the cleric, who due to his armor & combat prowess fits that description, to paladin, favored soul, and the divine champion prestige class (which is an awful lot like favored soul but scrunched to 10 levels).