E6: The Game Inside D&D (with PDFs!)

[The Souljourner]

Bards - give them Inspire Courage +2. Suggestion is pretty worthless most of the time, and inspire courage makes all the players love the bard, as well they should.

Monk - improved evasion. Wholeness of body is crap.

Paladins - Give them the [Good] and [Lawful] subtypes - makes their weapons automatically count as good and lawful.

Rangers - I like both swift tracker and trackless step.

In my campaign, I intend to remove both classes' spellcasting, since it's so weak already, and only getting a couple levels of it makes it even worse.

-Nate

 

[Morrius]

I would give rangers both swift tracker and woodland stride as their capstone.

Paladins don't really get anything new after 6th level, so maybe a feat to give them more uses of Smite Evil?

What I think monks really need to take on higher CR opponents is more AC. How about +1 AC as their capstone feat? It makes sense while not adding any of the funky supernatural abilities that make them more than human at high levels.

Evasion, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge can be general feats at 6th level for any class.

 

[der_kluge]

Once upon a time, I worked up an alternate spell list whereby I broke the spell list up by character level such that spellcasters get a new spell "level" ever class level. In essence, I broke up each spell level into two spell levels splitting what I felt like were the more powerful spells up a level. Such that 1st level spells now become 1st and 2nd level spells, and there are 20 levels of spells overall. This obviates the confusion some new players have regarding spell level <> caster level.

I was curious if there were any interest in such a thing here WRT to E6?

 

[The Souljourner]

I think that, for the most part, the point of E6 is to stick with generic D&D rules as much as possible. While I think splitting up the spell levels is a fantastic idea for a house rule, I don't think that it really fits within the context of discussing E6. One could certainly combine the two, however, and E6 could certainly work well with a more fine-grained spell system.

-Nate

 

[Ry]

This is around the point where I'd normally get the thread closed and start anew, but I'm really looking for a consensus on the monk and ranger before I do so.

Right now I'm thinking of woodland stride and swift track as 2 separate Ranger 6 skills. Wholeness of Body for the monk 6, and Improved Evasion for the Monk 6 or Rogue 6 also seems fair (since funny combinations can get it).

 

[The Souljourner]

Ryan - are we talking a feat requiring level 6 of the respective classes? I think the list you gave are good feats. Wholeness of Body is very weak, but I guess that's not a reason not to make it available.

Sounds good to me.

-Nate

 

[Kunimatyu]

This is around the point where I'd normally get the thread closed and start anew, but I'm really looking for a consensus on the monk and ranger before I do so.

Right now I'm thinking of woodland stride and swift track as 2 separate Ranger 6 skills. Wholeness of Body for the monk 6, and Improved Evasion for the Monk 6 or Rogue 6 also seems fair (since funny combinations can get it).

Woodland Stride + Swift Track is better combined, as swift tracking rarely comes up that often in games.

For the Monk, Wholeness is (frankly) a lame passive ability that no one will take. Improved Flurry would interest people, and Improved Evasion would(though I'd almost leave that as a rogue signature ability). As I've stated before, letting the Monk qualify for feats he could have taken as his 6th level bonus feat is key, as there are a number of Monk feats they would lose access to otherwise, and the feats are clearly within acceptable bounds for E6.

I feel that capstone feats should always have a "Wow!" factor associated with them, and that they should be unique and grant abilities that a feat is unable to.

Barbarian getting DR 1/- is pretty signature, as is Fighter qualifying for Improved Crit and others(though some tiny additional juice would be good), but Wholeness of Body ain't it.

 

[Shazman]

I'm a bit confused why you keep saying that monk should be able to qualify for feats that he would normally qualify for at 6th level. He already gets those feats (improved disarm or improved trip) at 6th level and doesn't have to meet the prerequisites (int 13+, combat expertise). I think that a ranger should get another favored enemy at 6th level or increase his favored enemy bonus for existing enemies by +2. Swift tracker and woodland stride are flavorful abilities, but I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen situations where they would have been useful. A ranger with only two favored enemies is gimped. He will rarely get to use that ability unless he is lucky enough to pick favored enemies the campaign will revolve around. I say reducing the monks flurry of blows to no penalty really helps. That's definitely a worthwile capstone.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I'm a bit confused why you keep saying that monk should be able to qualify for feats that he would normally qualify for at 6th level. He already gets those feats (improved disarm or improved trip) at 6th level and doesn't have to meet the prerequisites (int 13+, combat expertise).

In books like PHB2 and CW, there are a number of feats (with prereqs high enough that a monk couldn't normally qualify for them in E6) that a monk can take as his bonus 6th level feat. I think it's important to let him continue to take those.

I disagree with regards to the Ranger -- I think moving through natural difficult terrain with no penalty is actually quite awesome, and comes up more often than you'd think. Swift tracking, however, comes up once in a blue moon, and so combining them into one feat would be necessary. I'm hesitant to increase Favored Enemy since the ranger just got an upgrade at 5th, and there are several feats that can improved favored enemy or grant an additional one already.

 

[Ry]

OK, these are the likely capstones coming down the pike (let me know if you have objections):

Prereq: Monk 6
Benefit: You use Flurry of Blows with no penalty to your attack bonus. In addition, you qualify for feats that a Monk may take as 6th level bonus feats.

Prereq: Ranger 6
Benefit: You gain the Woodland Stride and Swift Tracking class abilities.