3.5e -- What REALLY needed fixing?

[hong]

Please, someone explain what this means. I've seen the term but don't know what it's referring to. Clerics and Druids or something.

Help me out here, people!

"Cleric or druid"-zilla

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I never really got to play high levels of D&D, so many of the complaints other people have had don't exist in my personal experience. Nevertheless I still managed to find things I did not like:

*Character Creation Traps: Too often I would make a character who I thought would be great but turned out to suck. I don't mind having a weak character if I've agreed to it, but I thing D&D needs to be more transparent with how its mechanics translate into actual play.
*Either too few skill points or too many skills. I frequently just could not make a character with the range of skills I wanted for them, even with the rogue.
*Per-day abilities and spells: Too much resource management. It's a great discouragement to playing certain classes. I much prefer the options that have cropped up to allow for at-will stuff.
*Equipment is a pain: Because they have prices listed in the PHB I'm afraid to take anything without carefully counting out every silver and copper piece I've spent. Seriously, if it doesn't have a serious mechanical impact leave out its price or put it in a "little details to tell your players" or whatever section of the DMG.
*Attacks of Opportunity. I know these are supposed to encourage tactics but in my experience all they encourage is staying in one spot in expense of tactical or any other kinds of decisions.
*PET PEEVE (not really a mechanics thing): Alignment. I don't agree with the given definitions, I don't agree with who it's assigned to, I don't agree with the existence of mechanical effects, I just hate the h***ing s**t out of it.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

AoO's (Actual acting out or LARP can quickly show how asinine the RAW really are)

I don't think LARP makes any element of tabletop gaming look asinine by comparison.

 

[Devall2000]

In regard to multi-class spell casters, would a good fix to the stacking be to allow the caster to cast at +1 casting level on the existing class for every two levels gained in a new spell casting class?

example:

A 5th level mage begins earning levels as a cleric. After he has gained two levels of cleric, he would cast as a 6th level magic user and a 2nd level cleric.


I'm not sure if this would work but it was something I thought about after reading this thread earlier. Requiring the character to have a minimum amount of levels in the 1st class might be a way to go.

What do you all think?
-Jamie

 

[SSquirrel]

Christmas tree effect, spellcasting multiclassing, alignment, Vancian magic, Rangers having spells, Paladin not being more like Monte's Champion from Arcana Evolved (there aren't LN fanatics to defend their faith?), Sorcerer being thematically different from mages but in the end just being a walking platform of combat spells b/c wasting a spellslot on something else would be stupid considering how few spells you know.

 

[SSquirrel]

In regard to multi-class spell casters, would a good fix to the stacking be to allow the caster to cast at +1 casting level on the existing class for every two levels gained in a new spell casting class?

I think just let spellcasting work based on total character level. You are a Wizard5/Cleric5. You can only cast up to 3rd level spells in both class, but your Fireball does 10d6. You still have the experience of a 10th level character, you just lack the depth in either class.

 

[Derro]

I think just let spellcasting work based on total character level. You are a Wizard5/Cleric5. You can only cast up to 3rd level spells in both class, but your Fireball does 10d6. You still have the experience of a 10th level character, you just lack the depth in either class.

The Magic Rating optional rule from UA is pretty good for this. It gives a reasonable balance for caster/non-caster multi-classing and a good option if you don't want divine and arcane magics to stack.

The caster level problem was never really an issue in any of my games. Not vocally so anyway. Most spell casters would find a prestige class they wanted and go with that. The odd divine/arcane combo usually took the Mystic Theurge. Course or games rarely progress much past 12th level so I imagine that is a major factor.

 

[Dausuul]

That's a feature. It's one of the trade-offs for the most powerful class (not counting the munchkin crap like summoning druids).

It's a lousy trade-off, however. Brokenly powerful most of the time, plus occasional suckage, does not a well-balanced class make.

 

[cougent]

I don't think LARP makes any element of tabletop gaming look asinine by comparison.

Off topic response, not worthy of rebuttal

 

[loseth]

For me:

Just the spells. 3.5 didn't go far enough in nerfing/ganking/name-du-jour all the spells. AFAIC, all the problems in D&D/3.5 can be traced back to magic.

Oh, and CoDzilla (mainly, though not entirely because of, wait for it, the spells).

Interesting. Could you expand a bit on spells? How could they be easilly fixed without compromising backwards compatibility?