Class balance changes in revised PHB?

[d20Dwarf]

I would be extremely surprised if Skill Focus isn't raised to +3. Even then, it will still be a weak feat.

They could put a lot of publishers out of business by just making Skill Focus say "Benefit: You get a +3 bonus to a single skill or a +2 bonus to a pair of related skills."

The biggest thing on my list is fix spell copying costs for wizards! The current costs are way too high, making it very difficult to add spells to a spellbook. I would also like to see them add something like the FR rules for mastering somone else's spellbook. That would go a long way towards restoring spellbooks as a valued treasure.

I don't think these costs are excessive, considering that wizards are already overpowered at high levels. These gold costs only serve to help balance the core classes against a wizard by allowing other classes to have more magic items.

 

[Steverooo]

Harping on the Ranger

Ugh! Why does everyone harp on the ranger?

Because it needs work.

The class is in no need of a boost. Every ranger I have seen played in 3E has been a powerhouse. Yes, they are not as strong as a fighter, but neither should they be.

The have good skills, great BaB, spells and great abilities. A ranger is made for a party, not a combat demon.

They have good skills (but not enough skill points to take advantage of them), only good BAB, only one real ability, and two Pseudo-Feats.

In order for a Ranger to DO HIS JOB, he needs Listen, Search, Spot, Hide, Move Silently, Wilderness Lore, and at least a smattering of Animal Empathy, Handle Animals, and Knowledge (Nature). Some Climb, Jump, and Swim would also be nice.

In order to DO HIS JOB, he needs a minimum of five or six skill points/level... one more than he has. In order to have any animal/nature skills, at all, he needs at least six. More if he wants to pick up any skill in movement!

None of these make him a fighting powerhouse, just a stealthy, perceptive woodsman. A Ranger without WL maxed out just isn't a "real" Ranger.

If anything, they are too frontloaded with feats. A 1st level ranger gets 4 feats (track, ambidex, two-weapon, and general feat) This is seriously front-loaded and should be changed, but otherwise a very balanced class.

What burns me is that almost everyone one of my players who cannot wear armor take a ranger level to get those three feats!

As opposed to taking a level of Fighter? The only differences are that the Ranger gets two Feats, only one of which can be chosen, and two Pseudo-Feats. The Fighter gets three, all of which can be chosen. Furthermore, unless the PC taking Ranger-1 is a Barbarian, Druid, or Priest of the Travel Domain, Track will never do them much good, as they will have to develop it as a Cross-Class skill.

A better fix to THAT problem is to give the Ranger two Bonus Feats (at first and second level) from a limited list which includes Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot, All the other archery Feats, Mounted Combat, all the other mounted Feats, etc., etc. Then let the player pick. Fewer Drizzts, and more Robin Hoods, I betcha. More Fighters and fewer Ranger-1/Something-Xs, too.

Finally, make being a Ranger a way of life, like Monks and Paladins. You can leave the class to be something else at any time. Once you leave, though, you can never gain more Ranger levels. Don't even get me started on the "Cool Abilities" factor! Add some "flavor skills" to help explain why, and you have a better, more unique class.

I doubt WotC will even come close, however...

 

[I'm A Banana]

I disagree with the ranger needing more skill points.

The ranger is primarily a warrior, not a skill user. A ranger's job isn't nessecarily to be the animal friend and wilderness master (that belongs to the druid, if anything).

Ranger strikes me as one of those who won't max out all of his skills. He could probably live with a bit of animal empathy, a few handle andimals, a smattering of wilderness lore, but most rangers I've seen have gone the route of hide/move silently rangers, maxing out those, and then only taking a smattering of other things.

I don't personaly think any class, spell, etc. definately absolutely NEEDS a revision or else it's UNPLAYABLE and BROKEN.

But I do think many will occur because of the popularity of complaining about them.

 

[Steverooo]

Tracking Rangers

And I think most people will disagree with you. Tracking is what the Ranger does. That's why she gets it as a free Feat at level one. Even in 1e, where there were (almost) no skills, Rangers tracked. Even in 2e, where Non-Weapon Proficiencies were optional, Rangers got Track ANYWAY (and with the removal of the -6 penalty everyone else got).

 

[I'm A Banana]

You don't need to max out WL to be good at tracking, though.

Maybe get it up to about +10, but you don't need every skill point devoted to it...

Though maybe this is just IMXP...

 

[MThibault]

On the Ranger and Bard getting 6 skill points.

I think that this would be well and good if they weren't concerned about backwards compatibility. It has long been a pet peeve of mine that bards and rangers essentially pay twice for basic class abilities (once for bumping another hypothetical class ability, and again when they purchase ranks in the related skill) but even so, I've seen some very *effective* rangers and bards in my campaigns so I don't think that it is absolutely necessary.

The real kicker is that it is very easy to add a discrete special ability to existing PCs and NPCs. Adding something like Evasion at 5th level is about the easiest revision you can implement. It is a situational effect that doesn't cause any of the other numbers on the character sheet or statblock to change, so you pencil it in and move on. On the other hand it is very labor intensive to recalculate the skill points for 15th level NPCs based on new quantities -- that would be a huge pain, and I would constantly have to remind myself to double check NPCs skill points in d20 products to see if they are using the new or the old values. That is lengthy and tedious work.

If they can figure out another way around the problems of these classes, I would prefer they take the road less travelled.

Specifically on Rangers:

Like I said, I've seen more than one very effective ranger over the last few years. I don't think that the class needs a ton of changes, and definitely *not* a boost in power.

If I were in charge, I would drop the HD down to a d6 (yes d6) to discourage Rgr 1/ Other X. Then add a bonus feats or special abilities at higher levels to compensate -- heck you could even give free Toughness feats at levels 4, 7, 10, 12, 15 and 18 to bring the average HP up to around the same as a d8. You will definitely see fewer Ranger 1/ Barbarian X combos with the lower HD, and even lightly armored fighters will think twice of taking Ranger at character level one. This will also provide some wiggle room for other special abilities or bonus feats without coming too close to the Fighter's general combat ability.

But again, backwards compatibility rears its ugly head.

Specifically on Bards:

Again they are very effective at what they do. They make the party better at almost everything. Aside from the double-dipping on the Bardic Music costs, I have issues with the diminishing returns of their spell list. Because they only have 6 levels of spell their Save DCs are always on the low side at higher levels. Add to this that a bard usually needs more than two good stats to be effective so their spell casting ability score (charisma) isn't usually as high as wizards or sorcerers (or even clerics, for that matter) so the DCs take another hit. In my experience high level bards have save DCs that are usually around 4 or 5 lower than a wizard or sorcerer of comparable level so it is pretty easy for high level opponents to make their saves against high level bard spells.

But just as with skill points, adding 3 more levels of bard spells and redistributing the spells over 9 levels as appropriate would not be very backwards compatible. Adding new spells that are cast on the bard or his allies might help some, but that undermines the bard's mind-controlling, persuasive niche and makes him more of a back-up buffing caster to the cleric.

The only thing I can could think of would be to allow Bardic Music Uses to be applied to spell DCs. Make a perform check to increase your spell's save DC. DC25 +1, DC30 +2, DC 35 +3, DC40 +4 (or something to that effect). This will also integrate the bardic music and the casting a bit more for flavor.

Having more options for high level bardic music goes without saying, doesn't it?

Cheers.

 

[Oni]

I know there are a lot of things I would like to see.

- Change the sorcerers spell advancement so that it more closely matches the other primary spellcasters and doesn't have that weird blip that puts them a level behind just so the chart looks pretty.

-Sorcerers to have their own spell list, or a balanced way to take spells from other casters spell list. Many druid and cleric spells seem more appropriate a natural caster than many of the wizard spells, a lot more elemental and nature type spell and maybe a just a smattering of healing, but get rid of stuff like Leomund's Secure Shelter.

- a penalty to spellcraft checks against sorcerers

- drop the silly multiclass restrictions

- make magic users better able to defend against and nullify magic instead of them being the most easily killed with one spell. I want wizard duels darn it, and the silly mage duel things from Magic of Faerun doesn't cut it.

- give the monk some choice in advancement. I would like to see a chart much like the loremasters secrets through which a monk can basically build their own style as they advance.

- feats or class abilities that make the non spellcasting classes less dependent on magic items. I would say feats or fighting techniques for instance that might let a fighter type mimic a weapon enchantment or something along that line. Anything thing to get away from this unheroic dependence on magic items.

- Better half-orcs

- evenly balance all the schools of magic.

- go back to the second ed. style of having one spell be in more than one school of magic, there should be some overlap because the alternative is silly.

- lower the level of the arcane animate dead, bring speak with dead over to the arcane list, as well as create undead.

There are plenty of other things that I can't think of right now, that is just what immediately spring to mind. These are things I would like to see, but I doubt I'll ever see most of them. Maybe WotC should release a D&D Alternate, something that ditches all the sacred cows, and really overhauls the system and does things a regular edition couldn't do, but would be compatible with the regular line, something like this Arcana Unearthed that is being done by Monte Cook, but not so world specific.

 

[Pazu]

Re: Harping on the Ranger

In order for a Ranger to DO HIS JOB, he needs Listen, Search, Spot, Hide, Move Silently, Wilderness Lore, and at least a smattering of Animal Empathy, Handle Animals, and Knowledge (Nature). Some Climb, Jump, and Swim would also be nice.

In order to DO HIS JOB, he needs a minimum of five or six skill points/level... one more than he has. In order to have any animal/nature skills, at all, he needs at least six. More if he wants to pick up any skill in movement!

Only if you assume that all of those skills have to be kept at maximum ranks.

Amusingly enough, the same argument holds true in the case of rogues who want to emulate the 1e thief model. Pick Pocket, Open Lock, Search, Disable Device, Move Silently, Hide, Listen, Climb, Decipher Script (9 skills) would all be needed to cover the basic 1e thief abilities, and that's before adding in Use Magic Device (for the high-level thief) or anything else (like Spot and Tumble, for instance) that a rogue might want.

Not that I'm saying that 3.1e needs to give rogues more skill points. I'm just pointing out that I think all the classes are deliberately slightly low on skill points. Personally, I think that 3e went a little astray in presenting maxed-out ranks as the default model.

A better fix to THAT problem is to give the Ranger two Bonus Feats (at first and second level) from a limited list which includes Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot, All the other archery Feats, Mounted Combat, all the other mounted Feats, etc., etc. Then let the player pick. Fewer Drizzts, and more Robin Hoods, I betcha. More Fighters and fewer Ranger-1/Something-Xs, too.

Maybe this is too radical a solution, but I suspect that 3.1e may address the issue by doing away with the Ambidexterity/TWF requirements, since D20 Modern only requires TWF. As has been pointed out, the gain for using two weapons is low given that two feats are needed to acquire the ability, and an additional feat is needed every time you want to advance it.

This may also be too radical a change, but what I would like to see are "talent trees" for rangers and bards (the two "generalist" classes) in order to allow them personal areas of focus. If not that, then something like a limited set of goodies from which they can pick a certain number of times (like the rogue's special talents after 10th level). Rangers could get abilities like woodland stride, increased movement, additional favored enemies, or some kind of favored terrain. Bards could gain abilities like taunt, dazzle, favors, or additional class skills (like D20 Modern's Charismatic Hero and the advanced classes related to it).

But since I don't think that's likely, I'd settle for rangers and bards just starting with a free 4 ranks in Wilderness Lore and Perform, respectively, and gaining another 1 free rank every other level or so.

-- Pazu

 

[mooby]

The only skill the ranger needs to max out is Wilderness Lore. It's very rare to find a single classed Ranger who isn't maxed out in this skill.

Maybe they could just go up to 5 Skillpoints/level for rangers. Why do skill points have to be an even number?

I think a d8 HD would be appropriate for the class, with the toughness feat given every 4 levels (or something like that). d6, as suggested earlier, is too little for a rugged type.

bards NEED 6 sp/Level.


And for CRYIN OUT LOUD, make some sense with the Druid's access to weapons.

 

[War Golem]

They could put a lot of publishers out of business by just making Skill Focus say "Benefit: You get a +3 bonus to a single skill or a +2 bonus to a pair of related skills."

I've considered house-ruling exactly as you say, but held off for two reasons. One, my players don't seem too interested in taking these skill bump feats anyway (they tend to stick with the PHB feats almost exclusively), so the need was questionable. Two, and more important for WotC or whoever,....

how do you define "related" in game-mechanic terms?