Are you talking about E6 "in general" or the particular version you're running?
I ran an E8 game, and I didn't have anyone doing some crazy 120 damage per round.
I guess there's people out there that like to hyper-optimize things as far as they possibly can, but... I guess I'm just not getting your point.
If the game you play/run focuses on hyper-optimizing and all that, E6/E8 isn't really going to make much of a difference in preventing it or anything like that. It boils down to "you don't level after level 6". It's not some sort of rules fixing.
I read your posts, and you seem to be talking like everybody is going to be experiencing massive balance problems or something. Earlier up thread you mentioned a fighter "with a standard build"... Maybe I missed something here the last 8 years, but I've never seen anyone in real life make that character. I'm not saying that other people _don't_, it's just you seem to be assuming a style of play that I don't see, and I don't think Ryan saw at his table either. So it's not like E6 is going to adress those issues in any way really, since it was never intended to.
It's like we're talking about 2 completely different games here. What is it that I'm missing?
First, thanks for your response.
The standard Fighter build I was talking about was something like this:
1. F1 * * (Power Attack, Cleave)
2. F2 * (Weapon Focus: Greatsword)
3. F3 * (Iron Will)
4. F4 * (Weapon Specialization: Greatsword) [+1 Str]
5. F5
6. F6 * * (Great Cleave, Something Else)
* Martial Veteran (Greater Weapon Focus)
* Weapon Specialization Greatsword
* Martial Prowess
* Swift Strikes
* Ability Boost (+1 Str)
Assuming a Strength of 18 at start. By the end Strength is 20, add Gauntlets of Ogre Power for a Str of 22.
If we pump the bonii from WF and GWF into PA every time, and get a +2 Greatsword, each hit is going to do 2d6+9(Str)+4(Spec)+2(Magic)+4(PA) = 26 average damage.
3 Attacks per round via Martial Prowess, +1 via Swift Strikes, +1 via Haste (if we're going to nova we're going to buff) means 5 attacks per round. If they all hit that's over 120 damage.
This isn't a terribly intricate build, it's just using the feats available intelligently. There are many ways to boost it further.
So I guess much of this is dependent on my own variant. It's worth noting that I had noticed the overall advantage offered to wizards with traditional E6 (the supernova build I posted earlier pretty much works the same in traditional E6) and wanted to help nudge the melee types up a bit -- maybe this was a mistake.
- Ron ^*^