E6: The Game Inside D&D (new revision)

[Ry]

I have one more question. What happens to special mounts, animal companions, and familiars after 6th level? Do they get a feat for every extra hit die they get or maybe every 10000 exp the PC gets?

No, but there are feats in a few different books for upping your familiar, mount, or animal companion.

 

[Ry]

Re: invocations, I think Icifur's method is the way to go, but I would write it as a "Greater Extra Invocation" feat with the prerequisites he described (because I prefer to add a feat rather than rewrite anything).

 

[Shazman]

No, but there are feats in a few different books for upping your familiar, mount, or animal companion.

So in other words, don't bother getting these. They are mostly liablities anyway except for a druid's animal companion at lower levels. PHBII has some good alternate class features that are superior to these anyway. I also agree that warlocks should get an extra invocation feat.

 

[Ry]

Graeter Extra Invocation
Prerequisites: Extra Invocation
Benefit: You gain a new invocation of the best type you can cast.
Special: You must always have at least twice as many Least Invocations as Lesser Invocations

 

[Dragonblade275]

Well, I've always given fighters 4+int skill points, any two skills as class skills, and every other feat (2/6/10/14/18) as Wildcard Feats (see below). Maybe changing all the Fighter Bonus Feats to Wildcard feats, as well as the extra skill stuff, would make them worthwhile. The Wildcard Feats alone may actually do it, as they're a pretty cool unique ability, representing a very broad area of training expertise.
[sblock=Wildcard Feats]I got the idea from the Iron Heroes book, but thought the 1/day part was a little stiff.

Basically, certain Bonus Feats* become Wild Card Feats. They are left blank. At any time, you may concentrate for one full round. If you do, you may choose any Fighter Bonus Feat you qualify for, and this feat fills the Wild Card Feat slot. The feat is 'learned' until you use another Full Round action to 'learn' a different one. If you use this ability to learn a feat that grants extra HP and later trade that feat for a different one, you lose the HP that was granted by the feat, as if it were gained through a Con increase.

* All of them, in the case of the E6 Fighter.[/sblock]That was an old house rule of mine, and I completely forgot about it for this. It seems like it would work, an Wildcard Feats are a very good reason to stay full Fighter.

I think this is the option that would fix fighters for E6.

Personally, I like the fighter class even in standard 3.5 and I don't really see why folks think it is underpowered next to other martial classes. But, wildcard feats would seem to be the solution for the fighter.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Another fighter fix, though this one involves Book of Nine Swords:

Disallow crusader, swordsage, and warblade.

Martial Study (new maneuver) and Martial Stance(new stance) are allowed for all classes, but fighter levels count as initiator levels (so a fighter can learn 3rd level manuevers, but nobody else can)

You also introduce the following feat:
Martial Recovery
Prereq: Fighter 6
Benefit: You may recover an expended maneuver with a full-round action.

 

[Shazman]

I like 3.5 fighters as well. They are a good fit for a skilled combat oriented character, especially if you are using feats from the PHB II. If you want lots of feats, play a fighter. For hardcore powergamers/optimizers, the fighter is considered sub-par because he gets no class abilities other than bonus feats. They are just used as a quick 2 level dip to get a few bonus feats. Feats are generally weaker than class abilities, especially spells. In E6, the fighter eventually only has a few more feats than everyone, so there isn't as much incentive to play one. That's the main concern some of us have for the E6 fighter. I think the feats I came up with were a good start for making a Fighter 6 attractive in E6. They were pretty potent, and only a fighter could get them. He still, however, has to spend a considerable amount of feats to get them, so he will be fairly high "level" before he has access to them.

 

[Shazman]

Another fighter fix, though this one involves Book of Nine Swords:

Disallow crusader, swordsage, and warblade.

Martial Study (new maneuver) and Martial Stance(new stance) are allowed for all classes, but fighter levels count as initiator levels (so a fighter can learn 3rd level manuevers, but nobody else can)

You also introduce the following feat:
Martial Recovery
Prereq: Fighter 6
Benefit: You may recover an expended maneuver with a full-round action.

I like that one. I love Tome of Battle. That would definitely make me want to play a fighter.

 

[DogBackward]

Thanks Dragonblade, I really liked the concept in Iron Heroes, but didn't like the way they executed it.

As for the ToB, I wouldn't really be all that against adding Warblade maneuver progression to the Fighter straight on. Take away the Warblade's maneuvers, and the Warblade and Fighter seem about even, to be honest. Higher HD and Skills, combined with the Battle "x" abilities, Uncanny Dodge setup and fewer bonus feats traded for the Fighter's big list of bonus feats and higher armor proficiency, and ranged weapon proficiency. Hell, I'd probably still choose Warblade over Fighter even without the Maneuvers.

Although I will admit that the ToB maneuvers are a little higher in power than some other low-level things, and they will tend to overshadow low-level mages quite often. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem as a 20 level progression still balances out with mages at later levels. In E6, though, that eventual balance doesn't really come, unless you've got a mage with well-planned feats.

There are a lot more little details and minor changes for an E6 game than are readily apparent from the desctiption... Not a bad thing, but I think it'll take a little more thought to run it than I had figured on.

 

[Ry]

Bah.

-- doesn't own ToB.