E6: The Game Inside D&D

alan · Sep 5, 2007

Looking over the E6 rules and checking out some of the prestige class conversion above, I have a quick question / note. As it currently stands, the only way to increase a skill after reaching level 6 is to take the "Skill Focus" feat, as well as the various "+2 to two skills" feats - correct?

Would it be too much to give out one skill point and one feat every 5,000 XP once above 6th level?

Imp · Sep 5, 2007

Complete Adventurer, Open Minded, adds 5 skill points. Suddenly very very useful!

If you want to get past the skill point cap, yeah, you're looking at Skill Focus, etc.

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 6, 2007

alan said:
Would it be too much to give out one skill point and one feat every 5,000 XP once above 6th level?

That's an interesting idea.

Makes me think of giving out a skill point every 1,000 XP and then letting characters buy feats for 5 skill points.

shdwrnr · Sep 6, 2007

Evilhalfling said:
How do you get the req 11 ranks in spellcraft & kn:arcane with only six levels?
the archmage also looks overly complicated - I would be more likely to handwave villians with greater magical power. I don't think e6 works well for archmage abilities.
come up.

One of the capstone feats posted by Ry (and bastardized my me for clarification and format consitancy):
Skill Beyond Your Years [General]
Prerequisite: Character level 6th.
Benefit: Pick a class skill. Your max ranks in that skill becomes character level +5.
Normal: Your max ranks in a class skill are character level +3
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack, each time you apply this feat to a different class skill.

The way I made the feats was just so the archmage didn't have to lose their precious spell slots. Those abilities as writen would burn a 6th level wizard dry before you could gain any real power, and without spell slots, what's the point anymore?

pallen said:
It seems odd to me that the cleric capstone feats have requirements in addition to just "Cleric 6" when no other class-specific capstone feat does.

Most of the other capstone feats are class abilities already possessed by those classes at later levle or, like the paladin capstone, from a variant rule. The cleric capstone was probably added simply so the cleric isn't left out and is not an ability a cleric would normally be able to acquire.
I felt that they were backwards myself so I flipped them for my own use. IMO most clerics would get the domain power and forget the spell list, so my players would have to get the spell list first. (That and I think the domain power is much more powerful than 3 new spells).

PoeticJustice · Sep 6, 2007

shdwrnr said:
One of the capstone feats posted by Ry (and bastardized my me for clarification and format consitancy):
Skill Beyond Your Years [General]
Prerequisite: Character level 6th.
Benefit: Pick a class skill. Your max ranks in that skill becomes character level +5.
Normal: Your max ranks in a class skill are character level +3
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack, each time you apply this feat to a different class skill.

BTW, A player in my campaign has brought it to my attention that a lot of feats have prerequisite: X skill 12 ranks. If Skill Beyond Your Years could be bumped up to character level +6, then a lot of new options could be explored.

shdwrnr · Sep 6, 2007

PoeticJustice said:
BTW, A player in my campaign has brought it to my attention that a lot of feats have prerequisite: X skill 12 ranks. If Skill Beyond Your Years could be bumped up to character level +6, then a lot of new options could be explored.

Skill Beyond Your Years is Ry's brainchild. Not mine. What feats are you describing btw?

Grimstaff · Sep 6, 2007

Still toying around with the idea of running E6 for my upcoming campaign. I'm happy with my fix for spell levels, but having a little trouble with the exp progression. With 6th lvl representing the pinnacle of success, it seems to arrive a bit too soon for my tastes, in as little as 12-15 sessions. Simply increasing the xp required to gain a level seems like it may lead to some annoyingly long stretches for goal-oriented players.

One thought I had was to increase xp requirements, but give out a bonus feat "in between" levels, as it were, and they should take 6 months or so of sessions to reach "epic" levels. As such, my progression chart would look something like this:
0xp 1st lvl
1000xp bonus feat
2000xp 2nd lvl
4000xp bonus feat
6000xp 3rd lvl
9000xp bonus feat
12000xp 4th lvl
16000xp bonus feat
20000xp 5th lvl
25000xp bonus feat
30000xp 6th lvl
+bonus feat each additional 5k xp

My hope is that this justifies the 6th lvl npcs in a my campaign being older than 18 or so ;-) and that it stretches out these fun low levels without too big of a gap between rewards.

My big concern is: would, say, the 3rd lvl PC with 3 bonus feats be too unbalancing? It seems less powerful than gestalt at first glance, but then I have yet to playtest this.

Any thoughts?

PoeticJustice · Sep 6, 2007

shdwrnr said:
Skill Beyond Your Years is Ry's brainchild. Not mine. What feats are you describing btw?

In reference to skill beyond your years, it would allow greater dragonmarks as well as a lot of skill based feats.

Turanil · Sep 6, 2007

PoeticJustice said:
I'm currently running an E6 game.
My players said it sounded like a fun variant, and I was intrigued with the idea.

Despite that, there have been a few snags. Spells of level 4 or higher are sorely missed, and I do pine to make use of the hundreds of prestige classes I've accumulated.

I thought the same. Personally, I would do E7. Just one level more won't really disrupt the concept, and allows wizards to get 4th level spells (1 to 3 at best) while sorcerers remain at 3rd level spells. Also, with E7, still only warrior classes eventually get an additional attack (at level 6 and 7).

For prestige classes, I am for doing this: allow a prestige class to be taken upon reaching the 3rd level. Use the alternate roleplaying method outlined in Unearthed Arcana, where character must succeed a peculiar mission/adventure to be inducted into the special training of the class. With this method and E7, you can gain 5 levels of prestige classes, and often the interesting features of prestige classes are found within the first 5, the subsequent levels being only improvements on those...