3.5e -- What REALLY needed fixing?

[pawsplay]

In the case of the efreeti, I think they should have either bumped him up to CR 10 and let him use the wishes however he wants, or not have such a low HD creature able to cast wish at all, or come up with a price of some kind for the wish to replace the XP limit, or written in some text about why they can only grant the wishes for others and explain where the wishes come from. Virtually anything other than letting the wish ability be a one phrase tucked into a stat block, waiting to leap and savage your campaign.

Going by Vance, efreeti could be like sandestins, using wish left and right. If you wanted to nerf them, givem them a reason not to use all their wishes every day, or burn through them in three rounds. In Palladium, genies can grant wishes as proxies of the evil supernatural forces they serve (devils have a similar ability in 3.5 if you use the Fienish Codex).

Probably a better option in general would be not to give creatures with a CR of 18 or less or so access to wish, instead spelling out what sort of "wishes" an efreet could cast. Fabricate, polymorph any object, plane shift, teleportation, and a powerful illusion might be my short list. Maybe give them some ability to use permanency as well.

 

[Arkhandus]

I believe they should have allowed 3 feats per level, not including fighter feats (1st, 2nd, 4th, etc.) and metamagic feats (which should have been speeded up to 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.)
The 1 (or 2) starting feats should have been retained, but considered gained at 0 level. 1st level should have brought those 3 feats mentioned above.

Since many feats require higher levels to take, and many feats don't work well until higher levels, a glut of feats at low level merely allows for flexibility, not great power.

An example of this is a fighter at 1st level somehow taking Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Brutal Throw, and Power Throw.
Yes, said fighter has all these abilities. But he still has only a BAB of +1 to back them up with (if he has high Strength bonuses, he still won't have over a +3 to BAB.)
He will have the potential, but won't realize it immediately.

Now, when he gains BAB +5, plus gauntlets of strength +6, plus an axe +3 and sword +3, that's another matter. : )

.......I think you forget just how few feats were in the core rules to begin with. Everyone would have a ton of Skill Focus and Toughness feats just for lack of anything else to choose after 2nd-level or so, with an occasional feat of higher prerequisites added as they grew in level, and there would be a lot more homogeneity between members of any given class then, since they'd all have the same feats.

And this would be a notable power increase once you introduced a bunch of supplemental materials, which would only moderately alleviate the sameness between character feat-choices from the glut of feats each PC would have.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Like one of those assassins targetting Inspector Clouseau, the designers trying to 'fix' Wild Shape, Polymorph, Gate, etc. are missing the darn target, killing all sorts of class features indiscriminately, while the culprits in the Monster Manual laugh their heads off.

Hmm. Of course, some players are hell-bent on bending and breaking the rules against the clear intent of the designers, and certainly to the detriment of their DM and their fellow players.

Agreed: Playing whack-a-mole against player exploits isn't the best way for designers to proceed.

As a designer, my most sincere recommendation is for the DM to just banish these players from his table.

"Because I said so," is a perfectly reasonable and rational response to any exploit.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Just a note, you can't use diplomacy to convince efreeti to give you more wishes. That's CharOps rule bending BS, which incidentally is one of the things that killed 3e.

If I had to list things I dislike in 3.5 compared to previous editions, I think three things come up.

1) Casting. Take 2e. If a wizard is trying to cast and a thief with those delicious speed daggers is standing next to him, he's all but limited to instant cast spells only. There was no concentration check, and that thief was almost gurenteed to go faster. In 3e, concentration brought about it being stupifyingly simple to cast in the midst of combat. Furthermore, you saw wizards gain a LOT more spells per day, as well as the ability to easily and cheaply make scrolls for those "needed once" spells. Not only that, the spells themselves lost a lot of restrictions. A lot of spells that have durations of hours or ten minutes were spells that had durations of turns, and several other spells saw a significant power upgrade.

2) Saves vs HP. Limiting it to only three saves isn't a bad thing, but the way save increases were handled was. Fighters went from having some of the best saves to having the absolute worst. At the same time, you saw a huge increase in monster health. The end result is that doing actual damage became much less of a big deal, and instead the save-or-dies ruled. This combined with 1 is what lead to "spellcasting edition."

3) Nothing is static. 4e unfortunately took this and charged merrily along with one of the things I saw to be the worst change. AC saw the skies as it's limits, ending up with each person having natural armor, insight bonuses, dodge bonuses, armor bonuses, shield bonuses, magic bonuses...etc, etc, etc. Stats, too, went from being static on creation to going through the roof, which incidentally heavily altered items in a way I think is bad - you lost the Belt of Giant's Strength, which gave you the strength of a giant, and instead gained "Belt of +2 strength." And of course, with so many ways to increase your stats and saving throws...well, just refer to problem #2.

I could probably find other issues, but those are the big three I'm seeing right now while playing a 2e game. Don't get me wrong - 3e had a lot of really positive changes, and there are a few 3e-isms I'm missing in the 2e game. But those big three are the ones that make me pretty hard.

 

[ggroy]

3) Nothing is static. 4e unfortunately took this and charged merrily along with one of the things I saw to be the worst change. AC saw the skies as it's limits, ending up with each person having natural armor, insight bonuses, dodge bonuses, armor bonuses, shield bonuses, magic bonuses...etc, etc, etc. Stats, too, went from being static on creation to going through the roof, which incidentally heavily altered items in a way I think is bad - you lost the Belt of Giant's Strength, which gave you the strength of a giant, and instead gained "Belt of +2 strength." And of course, with so many ways to increase your stats and saving throws...well, just refer to problem #2.

Wonder how much this is related to how some people who like to see bigger and bigger numbers, whether it is AC, damage, to-hit, etc ...

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Wonder how much this is related to how some people who like to see bigger and bigger numbers, whether it is AC, damage, to-hit, etc ...

Oh, as someone who played WoW for some time, I know all about the love for hueg numbers.

And as someone who played a class that wasn't based on heug numbers, I have grown a healthy disrespect for them, especially if they're alliance pansies ;p

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Number one thing that needed fixing, IMO, was the problems inherent in trying to design a fantasy game, while holding one side of the system (PCs) to a different standard than the other side of the system (NPC / monsters).

The problem with Summoning/Calling spells, Shapeshifting, Mind Control spells, etc. isn't that any of those absolutely vital fantasy staples are unbalanced in a vacuum, since all of them are dependent on allowing the PCs to access abilities normally only available to NPCs. If there wasn't a CR 8 creature able to grant 3 Wishes / day, few people would give a rat's rearend about the Candle of Invocation. If the Fleshraker / War Troll / Solar / etc. weren't so darn unreasonable for their CR / HD, nobody would care if the Druid / Wizard / whatever turned into one.

You can go one route and just nerf shapeshifting, control spells, summoning spells, etc. into the ground (or just utterly remove them from the game), or go *even further* into desperate attempts to justify giving someone a 'Summon' power that creates ectoplasmic imaginary creatures that don't have the unbalanced and ridiculously arbitrary abilities that some creatures have (such as Spawn, Feed, Split, etc.).

Or you can do it right from the start, accept that this is a game where wizards and druids are supposed to be able to shapeshift, various casters are supposed to be able to summon up (or control) various creatures, and even Bob the Fighter and Jen the Rogue can take Leadership or insane ranks in Diplomacy and gain access to monsters as followers or allies.

If various creatures weren't inherently unbalanced, then no amount of polymorphing, summoning, candle of invocating, wild shaping, etc. would be unbalanced.

Too many 'fixes' focus on the PHB, and try to balance things from the Druid, Wizard, etc. lists, which does *nothing* to prevent someone with Diplomacy from convincing that Efreeti that for every Wish he grants you, you'll let him write two Wishes for his own benefit, and have them 'grant' them to you. (Assuming that the Efreeti isn't a total moron and doesn't already have a dozen mortals lined up for that very duty, pestering him to allow them to to be his wish-proxies for the day...) Like one of those assassins targetting Inspector Clouseau, the designers trying to 'fix' Wild Shape, Polymorph, Gate, etc. are missing the darn target, killing all sorts of class features indiscriminately, while the culprits in the Monster Manual laugh their heads off.

QFT.


I really don't like what pathfinder did with wildshape, polymorph spells, and animal companions.

 

[Greg K]

Off the top of my head.

My major things
1. Reduce absolutes (see Sean Reynolds' Fewer Absolutes)

2. Level Drain needs to be removed. Turn into penalty to attacks, penalties to ability/skill rolls (works also for stat debuffs)

3. XP Costs for spells needs to be removed. Find another solution. XP should be for leveling only.

4. XP Costs for Item Creation to be removed. Find another solution. XP should be for leveling only.

5. Christmas Tree Syndrome

6. Starting hit points. Characters need more hit points (Wizard vs. house cat). I, personally, like Con score (or 10+ con modifier) as the base.

7. Action Points as core: This provides some protection from SoD and linear die roll plus gives some narrative control to players (My preference is for an implementation like Mutants and Masterminds Hero Points).

8. Classes
a. Clerics, Druids, and Wizards need to be powered down at mid to high level
b. Clerics spells/abilities should be more focused on deity domain
c. Fighters need more cool things (I like the Book of Iron Might maneuver approach)
d. Add a hybrid Arcane Warrior class to core. Something along the lines of AEG's Myrmidon that is generic rather than Duskblade. Make channeling through aweapon into a feat (this is something we often see wizards do in fantasy)
d. Specialist Wizards: use Unearthed Arcana variant abilities instead of bonus spells

9. Character customization
a. Remove non biological racial abilities from the write-up and make them feats. This makes it easier for the DM to customize races to their campaign.
b. Institute d20 Modern style occupations/backgrounds. Gives players more customization.
c. Add several Unearthed Arcana class variants and Complete Champion spellless Paladin and Ranger as examples of character customization
d. add the city/wilderness skill switches from the Cityscape enhancement

10. Multiclassing
a. Armor and Weapon Proficiency via multiclassing gains circumvent feats. Limit class armor and weapon proficiency to starting characters. After first level, characters must use feats (including fighter bonus feats) to acquire new armor or weapon proficiency
b. Saving throw stacking and circumventing feats. Change so everyone has the same progression with an initial bonus to specific saves determined by their initial class. After first level, take feats like Iron Will to improve a save.
c. Caster level for multiclassed characters

11. Skills
a. More Skill Points for the 2+Int classes
b. add complex skill checks (Unearthed Arcana)


12. Combat
a. institute class based defense
b. add a star wars style condition track
c. institute death and dying rules (UA) and do away with negative hp
d. add a second wind mechanic but tie to Action Point expenditure
e. redo grappling rules (my preference is for a Hero System approach)

13. Spells
a. Rework spell level, effects
b. Remove alignment based spells
b. Add Unearthed Arcana Incantations. Make summoning, resurrection, scrying, long distance teleport etc. incantations


14. Quick NPC generation (see Adamant's Foe Factory)


My other things.
15. add weapon groups
16. Turning rules need reworking and what clerics and turn should be based upon domain of their deity. If all clerics turn/rebuke undead, those without proper domain should do so at reduced rate like the paladin.
17. Add 4e style disease track
18. Move thin blades, spiked chains, double weapons, halfling riding dogs, sunrods, tanglefoot bags, etc to a supplment

 

[Kerrick]

10. Multiclassing
a. Armor and Weapon Proficiency via multiclassing gains circumvent feats. Limit class armor and weapon proficiency to starting characters. After first level, characters must use feats (including fighter bonus feats) to acquire new armor or weapon proficiency

That's a good idea, now that I think about it - it doesn't make a lot of sense that you've been a rogue for 10 levels, you take a level in fighter, and all of a sudden you know how to use all martial weapons. Course, I did away with the "I know how to use all weapons" thing anyway; I went with weapon groups for fighters.

b. Saving throw stacking and circumventing feats. Change so everyone has the same progression with an initial bonus to specific saves determined by their initial class. After first level, take feats like Iron Will to improve a save.
c. Caster level for multiclassed characters

Fractional BAB/saves, and caster level from UA. I love that system.

17. Add 4e style disease track

Can you explain this one? I"m not familiar with the 4E disease track (or 4E mechanics in general).

 

[Cadfan]

Can you explain this one? I"m not familiar with the 4E disease track (or 4E mechanics in general).

He can explain how he would adapt it, but basically with a 4e disease you start out infected, with a small penalty. Then every so often you make an endurance check. If you fail, you drop down along the track one step, taking an additional or greater penalty. If you succeed, you move up. In this way the disease can come run a course in which you become infected, your condition degrades, and then eventually you recover.

This sort of system is adaptable to describe lots of encroaching effects that your internal biology or mental fortitude might fight off. Encroaching paralysis, mental assault, its pretty flexible if you feel like modding it up.

The 4e disease system also has some other wrinkles like characters with the heal skill helping you fight off a disease, or ritual magic cleansing you of disease instantly, but with some nasty side effects: basically, unless the ritual caster is really, really good, you're going to take some hit points damage during the ritual. If the ritualist botches his work badly enough, the damage can be very, very severe. And you're already weakened by the disease, so this can in fact kill you if your situation was sufficiently dire and your ritualist sufficiently bad.