E6: The Game Inside D&D

joela said:

Any thoughts on E6 PCs developed using the Trailblazer rules by Badaxe Games?

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I started an Eberron game using E6 and Trailblazer some time ago. But as we only had two sessions so far and just one gamer aside me played 3.5 before (others are total D&D newbies), there is no real "revelation" yet. The party is still at 1st level and consists of a gnome wizard, a satyr druid, a human barbarian and warforged scout. I gave them a party pool of extra action points at the beginning because they seemed to like the idea a lot, despite having some trouble to figure out how to get the most out of them. Other things they also did like - at least from what I noticed at the table:

- Aid Attack/Defense was used quite often. I had fun watching them helping each other on the battlemap ("No no, you go there so we can both give him the bonus.")
- the Rest Mechanic was much appreciated after I showed them a 3.5 PHB
- Disable Device Skill. The player of the warforged scout loved that he could open a door and disable a trap (an encounter trap that filled the whole room) with the same skill.
- Track folded into Survival Skill. That was something I liked to see, because the scout, the barbarian and the druid were tracking the hell out of my woods. I had to come up with a lot of spontaneous animals and creatures.

I hope to continue this game soon, because it began very promising. I told my players about the idea behind E6 and they didn't mind to give it a try. But there are still lots of sessions to do

Antariuk said:

I started an Eberron game using E6 and Trailblazer some time ago. But as we only had two sessions so far and just one gamer aside me played 3.5 before (others are total D&D newbies), there is no real "revelation" yet. The party is still at 1st level and consists of a gnome wizard, a satyr druid, a human barbarian and warforged scout. I gave them a party pool of extra action points at the beginning because they seemed to like the idea a lot, despite having some trouble to figure out how to get the most out of them. Other things they also did like - at least from what I noticed at the table:

- Aid Attack/Defense was used quite often. I had fun watching them helping each other on the battlemap ("No no, you go there so we can both give him the bonus.")
- the Rest Mechanic was much appreciated after I showed them a 3.5 PHB
- Disable Device Skill. The player of the warforged scout loved that he could open a door and disable a trap (an encounter trap that filled the whole room) with the same skill.
- Track folded into Survival Skill. That was something I liked to see, because the scout, the barbarian and the druid were tracking the hell out of my woods. I had to come up with a lot of spontaneous animals and creatures.

I hope to continue this game soon, because it began very promising. I told my players about the idea behind E6 and they didn't mind to give it a try. But there are still lots of sessions to do

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Thanks for sharing!

joela said:

Any thoughts on E6 PCs developed using the Trailblazer rules by Badaxe Games?

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I am interested in trailblazer however i have not got a chance to look at it yet.

what do you think of it? are you involved with Badaxe?

NotZenon said:

I am interested in trailblazer however i have not got a chance to look at it yet.

what do you think of it? are you involved with Badaxe?

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I like it. Distinctly different from Paizo's approach with Pathfinder but not the radical shift like True20 or FantasyCraft. And nope: not involved with Badaxe except as a fanboi of their products. (HEART Grim Tales).

I appreciate your input.

I REALLY like the piazo pathfinder stuff, (art work, writing, the whole bit) but to be honest i'm already heavily house ruling it because its just to High powered, and not classic fantasy enough for me.

I'm strongly considering buying the Trailblazer product, i've been trying to read as much about it as i can on the Enworld boards here. the only reason i'm holding out is that i'm broke for the moment! ha.

I've been playing DnD online the free game a little bit lately, and surprisingly they have a really cool slow leveling system. Basically each level is divided into 4 sublevels (you also need like 5x as much XP but that has more to do with being a video game) in which you get "action points" to spend, but these points are closer to "mini-feats" that you can choose based on you class/race. For example as a barbarian you can get an "action point" mini feat that allows you to add a +2 to damage for 3 rounds(20 seconds), using these action point feats uses an "action point" (i believe you get 5 per dungeon, until you can find a rest shrine). But some of the "action point" mini feats you buy just give you flat bonus's, like a +1 fort save vs. poison for the dwarf. they also have one for prime requisite advancement (+1)

It works on a number of levels since some of the traditional racial bonus's can be handed out this way (making it easier to balance starting races that tradtionally may have been too tough like dwarves) it also encourages people to single class since the better "action point" mini feats are available at higher levels. Of course multi classing is still awesome cause it just makes that many more mini feats available to you. Actually alot of these "action points" remind me of the "character traits" system introduced in some of the pathfinder stuff. The thing that impressed me the most is it basically keeps the core of 3.5, while allowing for more interesting and exciting level advancement (in my opinion one of DnD's biggest weaknesses), yet surprisingly doesn't seem to have the "power leveling" effect that pathfinder seems to have. my 4rth level cleric barbarian is still fighting kobolds for example. I'm wondering if anyone has tried compiling these DnD online rules for pen and paper play.

sorry totally rambled off topic there.

Demographics in E6 Eberron

I just came across this recently when I saw a E6 play by post game. May be joining one soon. This really appeals to me as a DM. You can really lay out the world without worrying about a sliding power scale.

I'm still mulling over how this would work and came up with this altered demographics chart based on the Eberron Dragonshard article.

I would reduce all the positive community modifiers and shift all the dice down all category (d6 to d4, d3 to d2, etc.). The negative modifiers for Thorp, Hamlet and Village could stay in place.

NPC classes would drop to 1d4 and Commoner and Expert (possibly Adept? Warrior?) would be unaffected by community modifiers. This would make magewrights and aristocrats rare in thorps, but allow for a town elder or master craftsman.

So you could theoretically have an elite (2nd level) fighter or rogue in a hamlet, but this would be rare. A lot of the other PC classes would be seen only in a village or larger, with the odd bard seen in a hamlet (which makes sense since their livelihood depends on people with money to spend).

Okay, let me know what you think.

Community Modifiers
Thorp -3
Hamlet -2
Village -1
Small town 0
Large town +1
Small city +2
Large city +2 (roll twice)
Metropolis +2 (roll three times)


Highest-Level Locals
Adept 1d4 + community modifier
Aristocrat 1d4 + community modifier
Artificer(3) 1d2 + community modifier
Barbarian(1)1d2 + community modifier
Bard 1d3 + community modifier
Cleric(2) 1d2 + community modifier
Commoner 1d4
Druid(1) 1d2 + community modifier
Expert 1d4
Fighter(4) 1d4 + community modifier
Magewright 1d4 + community modifier
Monk 1d2 + community modifier
Paladin(2) 1d2 + community modifier
Ranger(1) 1d2 + community modifier
Rogue 1d4 + community modifier
Sorcerer 1d2 + community modifier
Warrior 1d4 + community modifier
Wizard(3) 1d2 + community modifier

DnD online AP system

NotZenon said:

I've been playing DnD online the free game a little bit lately, and surprisingly they have a really cool slow leveling system. Basically each level is divided into 4 sublevels (you also need like 5x as much XP but that has more to do with being a video game) in which you get "action points" to spend, but these points are closer to "mini-feats" that you can choose based on you class/race.

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Wait, wait, wait. Come again? Could you provide more examples? This sounds fascinating.

joela said:

Wait, wait, wait. Come again? Could you provide more examples? This sounds fascinating.

Click to expand...

alright well i looked a bit more into it, and its explained a little bit here and a bit more specifically.

As far as i can tell the enhancements seem to be divided into abilities that give you something to spend your action points on during play. (For example, a barbarian enhancement allows you to spend 1 action point during combat to gain DR 6/- for 20 seconds - would be OP in a pen and paper game, but works in video game world - another one gives them a burst of speed for 20 seconds)

And the other category seems to be enhancements that give flat feat like bonus's, usually about the power level of about half a feat. For example the cleric can purchase an enhancement that gives them a flat +1 to will saves (half of Iron Will Feat). The barbarian can purchase an enhancement that gives them a +1 to will saves, but only while they are in a rage. They also have ones that give +1 bonus to a class skill (barbarian Jump for instance).

Also they have some enhancements that cost 2 "action points" (the term is a bit confusing cause in the game they use it to describe both the points you use to buy your enhancements, but also the points you use to activate them in game play). These are generally more feat like in power, for example the cleric can increase his wisdom by +1, with an enhancement that costs 2 action points.

I don't think it would be that hard to translate this system into game play, or E6 like play. The main concern would be decreasing the power creep of some of these powers, since they are designed for a video game (in which you often have 50+ encounters in an evening) as opposed to a pen and paper game (3-6 encounters on average for my group before we pack it in, in E6, in high level play we were lucky to complete 2 encounters, which is why we switched to E6).

Any power that lasts a time limit could just be divided by 6 and rounded down. For example 20 seconds = 3 rounds.

Finally, They actually have a list of every available character advancement Right Here.

My initial instinct was to emulate this by perhaps allowing the characters to get 2 enhancements points between levels, which could be used to purchase feats (2 points per feat), or character traits (1 point per trait), or the points could be used to raise stats as per the point buy system.

So in terms of 3.5 experience chart, since i favour slightly slower advancement maybe like this:

500xp = enhancement pt.
1000xp = enhancement
1500xp = 2nd level
2500xp = enhancement
3500xp = enhancement
4500xp = 3rd level
6000xp = enhancement
7500xp = enhancement
9000xp = 4th level
11000xp = enhancement
13000xp = enhancement
15000xp = 5th level
19000xp = enhancement
23000xp = enhancement
27000xp = 6th level

after 6th, 4000 per enhancement point.

E6 Numbers

I've been curious about how the "numbers" work out for E6 when it comes to how many magic items players accumulate, and how many encounters it takes to "level up", as compared to standard 3.5 D&D.

Well I ran the numbers last night.

I'll preface this by saying that my E6 game runs a little differently than the one presented here; in a nutshell, players gain new feats every 2,500 xp after 6th instead of every 5,000 xp (we did this to speed the game up a bit as I realized it was going to take a LONG time to reach 6+20 feats).

Also, due to the nature of the epic feats I allow (essentially granting PCs gestalt status or potent late-level abilities shortly after reaching level 6), I assume 6+2 to equal level 7 in power, 6+5 to equal level 8, and one power level "bump" to occur per five epic feats after (up to roughly 11th level equivalent at 6+20).

Note that more typical E6 games will see a greater difference between their own stats and the standard 3.5 stats presented here. It is partly for this reason that I recommend using my own method for running E6 games (though everyone's mileage may vary).

This first chart shows levels in a "standard" D&D game in the first column, the number of average EL encounters a 4-member party will need to attain that level in the second, and then the same for E6 in the 3rd and 4th columns.

6th lvl 84 encounters 6th lvl 84 encounters
7th lvl 98 6+2 95
8th lvl 112 6+5 109
9th lvl 126 6+10 130
10th lvl 140 6+15 148
11th lvl 154 6+20 165


As you can see, even requiring only 2,500 xp between feats, E6 games progress in power level more slowly than standard D&D games. For some, this may be a feature, not a bug.

Even with this faster advancement, E6 characters will end up with more equipment for their power level than standard 3.5 D&D characters. I took the average amount of treasure awarded for standard-level encounters at each power level, divided by four (assuming equal division among four party members), and tallied to figure out how much wealth an average E6 character would have at any given power level (using the number of encounters given above). I then compared to the wealth-by-level guidelines in the DMG, which use a similar formula.

Here is what I learned:

6th lvl 13,000 gp 6th lvl 13,000 gp
7th lvl 19,000 gp 6+2 18,500 gp
8th lvl 27,000 gp 6+5 27,600 gp
9th lvl 36,000 gp 6+10 40,000 gp
10th lvl 49,000 gp 6+15 52,500 gp
11th lvl 66,000 gp 6+20 90,912 gp

As you can see, after the fifth epic feat, E6 characters start having more equipment than the average for their power level. Again, note that my game requires only 2,500 xp per epic feat -- in a game that requires 5,000 xp, this discrepancy will be even greater!

Just thought this info might be interesting to fellow E6-ers.

- Ron ^*^