Balancing E6

[Goblyn]

Honestly.

(snip)

In 3.5 humans are attractive to some people because that extra feat and those few extra skill points are a big advantage in a character build. They allow entry into certain prestige classes earlier (sometimes 3 to 6 levels earlier), and there are some builds that are not possible at all unless you are human.

In E6 that's just not true. (snip)

Emphasis mine.

In E6, it would mean that these prestige classes could only ever be taken by humans at all. I would consider that an all right replacement benefit.

 

[Will]

Consider human, in E6, to be functionally like having 3 bonus feats: one regular bonus feat, and then two 'bonus skills' feats (since over 6 levels you get a total of 9 extra skill points)

Regarding pixies et al... might be worth coming up with a 'race cost' on a per-monster basis. I suspect LA for a lot of critters is, like CR, a vaguely educated guess and breaks down in specific areas.

 

[Leadfeather]

In my E6 campaign there are no dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes, or orcs as player races. The majority of the population is human. In the past, Humans have occasionally interbred with other races, and sometimes a child is born to two human parents who exhibits unusual traits. They are rare and they do not breed true.

In order to give players incentive to play human while still having the occasional shifter, half-giant, or half-fae PC I gave humans even more skill points. As skill points are capped at level 6 while feats are not I think it is a valuable asset.

Human: 32 point buy
As the PHB page 12 with the following changes:
• 6 extra skill points at 1st level and 2 extra skill points at each additional level. (The 6 skill points at 1st level are added on as a bonus, not multiplied in.)

 

[Asurya]

quote Imp: Would it be easier to come up with a nerf for THF than 20 different bonuses for everyone else just so they can keep up?

I think THF problem in 3.5 just come from the PA awesomeness, here is my quick fix: PA damage bonus is treated as Str bonus (i.e. multiplied by 1.5 with THW)
That worked fine for me, but it may need to be backed up by some number crunching

As an aside, I would like to point out that 32 point buy is huge! it averages at having half one's stat at 12 and the other half at 14 (wait, I'm even 2pts short, make one 14 a 15 or upgrade a 12 to 14). This build is not optimised but it's just to show the following: even spreading the buy to all your stats (no dump whatsoever), you're better than the average commoner ... IN EVERY POSSIBLE ASPECT!
As the goal of E6 (or so I understand) is to model gritty levels, or at least make NPC competitive relative to PC, make PC so powerful is counterproductive methinks.
In the E6 campaign I DM, I gave my players 26 pts and they gain one point for every level (lvl1 included), but I trashed the flat "+1 to a stat" at lvl4
this breaks down as follow (27->28->29->30->31->32)... so yes, they hit 32 point buy, but at lvl6!