D&D 3E/3.5 Changes you'd like to see made to 3.5/4E?

[Arnwyn]

Re: Re: Changes you'd like to see made to 3.5/4E?

Now, back to the subject at hand, if I could make any changes to 3.5e, I would get rid of the "you can't be a cleric of a racial deity unless you are a member of that race" rule. Why is it that a gnome can be a cleric of Gond and a halfling can be a cleric of Tymora, but a human couldn't be a cleric of Moradin?

Guh? What's stopping you? To use an over-used cliche here at ENWorld: Will the WotC game police come to your house and drag you away?"

If I could make changes, I'd add in *more* flavor rules, but clearly mark them in every instance as an "Optional Flavor Rule". A game without flavor rules is dull dull dull dull dull (especially in a specific campaign setting where these rules are absolutely necessary to make the game world actually mean something...).

I'm sure competent DMs can remove whatever flavor rule is there without any problems.

 

[Aaron2]

G'day
10. I'd like rules like Bushido used to have that allowed players to run manors and fiefs, schools of martial arts and magic, temples and religious movements.

11. I'd like rules like Bushido used to have for characters to take part in battles and sieges. But please! let some of the choices not be no-brainers.

18. I'd like rules for PCs finding wives and raising families (such as Bushido had, but compatible with PCs marrying NPCs who have already been introduced into the campaign.

Bushido rocks. The social system would work well too. I'm gonna have to dig out my d20 Bushido and finish it up. Its amazing all the topics those two little books covered.

Don't forget Bushido's part-time job rules.


Aaron

 

[mmadsen]

1. New Magic System: Do away with memorization and just allow spontaneous casting for all.

Preparing spells could be made into an option. If you prepare ahead of time, you Quicken at casting time.

2. Eliminate Easy Ressurection: Get rid of this "death is just another easily correctible event in the course of adventuring" from the game. It is incredibly difficult to incorporate the idea of mortality and sacrifice in a game where once the party cleric hits a certain level death is unheard of.

D&D does a remarkably bad job of knocking characters unconscious, chopping off arms or legs, etc. Characters are either alive or dead, and you can heal anything.

4. Damage Reduction for Armor: Some kind of damage reduction for armor to show that wearing steel armor is alot more effective than wearing light leather armor.

If you simply want heavy armor to be more effective than light armor, bump up its AC bonus or its Max Dex Bonus.

5. More uses for Turning: Channeling divine power should have more uses than simply turning undead. I would like to see turning used to counter evil spells, banish demons/devils and their counterparts for evil, and break magical wards like glyphs, symbols and the like.

I suggest just the opposite: make turning just another spell -- especially if Clerics get spontaneous casting.

6. More reactive defensive options without feats: I would like to see casters able to counter a spell without taking a ready action much like the rules for spell duels in Magic of Faerun. Spell battles should be interesting, not just contests of who wins initiative and makes their saves.

Agreed.

I would also like to see opposing melees able to parry and defend against the other.

A Defense Bonus would handle that nicely.

 

[Grazzt]

Originally posted by Dark Jezter:




And D&D wouldn't be D&D without racial restrictions stating that dwarves can't be wizards either- but that restriction was broken with 3E.

That restriction was broken by a lot of groups I knew or played with...even way back in 1e. Granted, it was a house rule at the time, but it was still D&D.

There is a bit of a difference between lifting racial (or even level limit) restrictions for certain races and changing the way XP are awarded (read doing away with XP for killing stuff).

What I am wanting to encourage is the reward of role-playing rather than random killing of creatures. How does killing an orc make a bard a better musician, or a wizard a better spellcaster?

By reality's standards it wouldnt. But ya can't really apply reality or logic to a lot of the parts of D&D. That's what makes it D&D afterall....the abstractness of it all.

I'd just like to reduce the incidence of "Ohh, I need 22 more XP to make next level- I'm going to go start a fight with that group of peasants."

You as DM (or whoever is DM) can prevent this kind of thing from happening...particularly regarding peasants and townsfolk. How? Easy. When the PCs start a fight, the guards rush in, arrest them, strip them of their gear, toss them in the dungeon for a few days or whatever.

As for the "Ok, I need 2 more XP, so I think I'll wander around the wilderness looking for a lone orc or goblin." Dont let them find a lone orc or goblin. Let them find a raiding or hunting party. Or even roll for wandering monsters. "Hmm- while looking for your single orc, you encounter a den of dire tigers." (or whatever).

Make them earn their XP.

 

[Michael Tree]

If your way were to happen, why would anyone ever take more than 1 level of Wizard? I could start as a wizard, become a fighter and still progress in spells. D&D is still a Class based RPG. Do you want to change that?

There's been some discussion about what Quinn is proposing on this and other boards.

It would work well if there were two aspects of spellcasting progression: caster level and spells/day. That way a bard could have +1/level caster level but only +3/4 levels spells/day, paladins and rangers would have +1/2 levels for both, and non-spellcasting classes could hace +1/2 or 3 levels caster level but no spells/day improvement.

That way multiclassing between caster classes would be worthwhile, and multiclassing caster and non-caster classes together wouldn't fall too far behind in terms of caster level effects and dispelling.

 

[maddman75]

Everyone else was picking on your list, I might as well too .

My gaming group was brainstorming last night, and wondering what kind of changes people would like to see in 3.5/4E. I was wondering what people thought of some of our ideas, and what they would like to see included. Here's our list:

1) A move away from the focus on numbers and min/maxing characters. All versions of D&D have been bad about this to some degree, but 3E is the worst by far. Its a role-playing game, not roll-playing.

A move away from numbers how? The game itself is not more centered on combat and min-maxing, only the way certain people play it. My group could care less about smackdowns and power plays. Not that they're the best roleplayers in the world or anything, just casual gamers.

2) Feats that have something to do with anything but combat. Background feats were a great idea- now run with it and give us some truly inspired feats.

Background feats - like the regional stuff in FR? Don't like it, you get the opposite effect. Players don't make a character from X area and choose Y feat, they want Y feat and so make the character from X area.

But in general more RP centered feats would be a good thing.

3) Get rid of the silly automatic proficiency with weapons per class. Just give fighters 2 extra skill points per level; clerics, rogues, paladins, barbarians, and rangers one extra skill point per level; and no extra skill points per level for wizards, sorcerers, druids, and bards. Then spend a skill point to learn a weapon, or 3 or 4 skill points to learn a whole group of weapons (like axes, or short blades). Spending a feat to pick up a weapon outside your suggested list is just a plain stupid thing for a character to do- end result is that all characters of certain classes take the same weapons. Boring.

Disagree completely. The old system was clunky and made no sense. I'm a master of the battle axe but daggers confuse me? Maybe you're putting too much into 'proficiency'. If you read 'has basic familiarity with' instead of 'extensively trained' it makes more sense.

4) Ditch the XP by CR thing completely and either go back to giving a set # of XP per monster, or better yet- don't reward killing things, but actually role-playing and overcoming obstacles, solving mysteries, etc.

That's how I like to play, but D&D stands on the foundation of casual gamers killing monsters and taking their stuff. The CR system works well for them. I could go with some more on using freeform XP instead.

5) A WP/VP optional system in the PHB/DMG. It wouldn't be hard at all to fit it in.

Nope. Don't like it, doesn't make things much more realistic IMHO. Grim n' Gritty hit points does this better.

6) Suggestions in the DMG for how to run low-magic or non-magic games, as well as horror based fantasy.

W3rd

7) Get rid of that silly treasure worth by level chart in the DMG, or at least clearly state it is optional. Its a nice guideline for DMs to use if they want to have the standard magic level, but players take that silly thing as gospel, and get irate if they don't have X much GP worth of items by Y level.

I'd have them note that this is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. I'd also have them note that if you're using the CR system and not freeform, by reducing the amount of money and/or magic in the campaign you should increase the XP given for killing monsters.

8) We have rules for critical hits, why not fumbles? Maybe if a natural 1 is rolled, the character makes a DC 15 or 20 Reflex save or he is considered flat-footed, drops a weapon, etc.

I've found that a natural 1 provokes an AoO is quick, elegant, and gives the right feel.

9) Make the DC for spells 10 + spell level + 1/2 character level. Makes more sense that an experienced caster's spells would be harder to resist, rather than just taking into account the base stat bonus.

What, you think DCs aren't high enough already? An experienced caster is already taken into account, in the spell level addition.

10) Get rid of the base cleric list of spells, and instead group ALL cleric spells by domain. Right now, all clerics are identical except for 2 domain spells per level. Thats just boring. With a little work, 5-8 spells could be fit into each level per domain, making more specialized clerics that were much more interesting. I've done it in my house rules, and it works wonderfully.

INteresting idea. I think I'd rather see a couple alt.cleric classes in there. Keep the Knight Templar(cleric) and Nature Priest(Druid), add in the Barbarian Shaman(I hear OA has a nice one) and something for a cloistered holy man.

11) This would be really cool: every so many levels, allow each class to pick 1 of 3 or 4 listed abilities that are level dependent, so each class can be more personalized to the character. Not feats, but actual core abilities of the class. Some of the prestiege classes in FFG's Path of books already do this, and I think its a wonderful idea. This is also extra incentive for a character to progress to high levels in a core class.

The rogue does this, and with their free feats the wizards and fighters arguably don't need it. For the rest of the classes it would make a great addition.

12) Resisting a disease/poison should be a simple Con check, with the Great Fortitude feat applicable as well. Why does level have anything to do with how resistant a person is to disease or poisons? As it is currently, poisons and diseases have no bite except to low level characters.

Um, use stronger poisons (higher DC)? The 'no bite' IME comes more from easy access to cures than higher saves.

 

[TiQuinn]

There's been some discussion about what Quinn is proposing on this and other boards.

It would work well if there were two aspects of spellcasting progression: caster level and spells/day. That way a bard could have +1/level caster level but only +3/4 levels spells/day, paladins and rangers would have +1/2 levels for both, and non-spellcasting classes could hace +1/2 or 3 levels caster level but no spells/day improvement.

That way multiclassing between caster classes would be worthwhile, and multiclassing caster and non-caster classes together wouldn't fall too far behind in terms of caster level effects and dispelling.

Exactly along the lines I was thinking. A 14th level Fighter/1st level Wizard may only have a few spells, but his caster level would be higher. A different system could with the same character may have a low caster level but have access to 3rd or 4th levels spells. Specialization would still be rewarded (a 15th level Wizard would have have 8th level spells and the approp. caster level) and multiclass characters will not be punished for diversifing their skills. Hopefully this would balance out the two options (single class vs. multi-class).

Edit: Just in case anyone's wondering, TiQuinn and Quinn are the same people. Different computer, different login...I should just pick one.

 

[Gort]

Our own house rule for critical misses is that if you roll a 1, you take a dex check, DC 10. Fail and something bad happens, pass and it's just a miss.

 

[drothgery]

Exactly along the lines I was thinking. A 14th level Fighter/1st level Wizard may only have a few spells, but his caster level would be higher. A different system could with the same character may have a low caster level but have access to 3rd or 4th levels spells. Specialization would still be rewarded (a 15th level Wizard would have have 8th level spells and the approp. caster level) and multiclass characters will not be punished for diversifing their skills. Hopefully this would balance out the two options (single class vs. multi-class).

I really like the idea, but I think it needs a bit more work; I'd like some disincentive for the aspiring fireball-slinging munchkin to do something other than take a level of wizard then go Cleric the rest of the way.

One idea might be to use something similar to d20 WoT's Talent mechanic. Categorize all spells into schools or domains (and possibly a short 'universal list'), require use of a feat to get access to a category of spells, and give Wizards, Clerics, Sorcerers, and Druids a lot of Bonus Feats. Then add Extra Arcane School (pre-req: arcane casting ability; on the wizard bonus list) and Extra Domain Spells(pre-req: divine casting ability; on the cleric bonus list) feats. The Bard/Sorc limited number of known spells is still problematic, though.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by maddman75:

Nope. Don't like it, doesn't make things much more realistic IMHO. Grim n' Gritty hit points does this better.

Yep, I am a fan of the Grim n' Gritty system too. It has great flavor and adds exactly the kind of atmosphere to a game I like. We tried it for a shot campaign (8 adventures), and I really only have one beef with it- but its a big one. GnG requires all characters to use only high damage weapons- otherwise they absolutely cannot hurt something in heavy armor. Basically, any weapon with a d4 or d6 for damage becomes useless, despite the fact that some of those d4 or d6 weapons were designed to punch through armor (like picks). I know they have penetration rules, but they didn't really simulate the armor peircing abilities of some weapons very well. WP/VP has its flaws as well, but at least under that system, wizards and rogues are still useful in a fight with low-damage weapons.