D&D 3.1E: What to change?

[Wolfen Priest]

my changes for D&D 3.1 (not 4.0)

1.) All races have Favored Class: Any

2.) Half-Elves do not suffer a 20% XP penalty for multi-classing, ever. Thus they may take any amount of classes, to any level allowed by that class (class restrictions for multi-classing still apply).

3.) Rangers may fight with two-weapons with the standard -2 penalty in medium armor at level 5.

4.) Rangers may take the feat Weapon Specialization with any bow or crossbow at level 6.

5.) At level 8, rangers receive a +1 to two-weapon fighting when in medium or lighter armor (reducing their penalties to -1 for both hands).

6.) At level 10, rangers receive an additional +1 to two-weapon fighting when in medium or lighter armor (reducing their penalties to -0 for both hands).

7.) Bards get 6 skill points per level.

8.) The Harm spell allows a Will saving throw.

9.) The feat Skill Focus provides a +3 bonus to any skill, rather than a +2 (thanks Green Ronin ).

 

[RogueJK]

and everything Spikey said. Persistant Haste is just wrong.

Well, you shouldn't have to worry, since Haste can't be used with Persistent Spell. In order to apply that metamagic feat to a spell, it must have a fixed range. Haste has a range of touch.

This is clarified in the DnD FAQ...

Would spells that have touch range, such as spell resistance, be considered to have a fixed range, and therefore be usable with the Persistent Spell feat?
No. Range touch is not "fixed" for purposes of the Persistent Spell feat. The spell must affect the caster's person (personal range) or have some effect that radiates from the caster's person (a fixed range, expressed in feet).

 

[Conaill]

fix Craft (time required to make an item proportional to its cost? The higher the difficulty, the faster the production? What were they thinking?)

Cost proportional to time required to craft and difficulty? What were they thinking? Sorry but, I just had to point that one out. If you think about it that way around, the Craft rules make a LOT more sense.


My number one priority would probably be to revamp the AoO rules. Add a Withdraw action at the very least. Or maybe do away with them altogether and make Readying more flexible to make up for it.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

What I'm really looking for is core kinds of magic that a spellcaster can augment with more power.

Say for example, you learn basic fire magic. For 1 unit of magical energy, you can produce a flame in your hand. By pumping more units into it, you cn make it bigger. By pumping more units into it, you can fling it as a fireball. Along with basic fire magic comes the ability to extinguish normal fires. With more units of energy you can extinguish/ignore magical fires. So some spell caster creates a wall of fire. Spell caster #2 comes by and tries to extinguish it. It doesn't go out. So he keeps pumping units into it until it goes out, he exhausts his energy supply, or decides to quit. I want something that players can augment in real time with more energy to change the effects of the spell.

You should check out the channeling system from Wheel of Time. It's slick, and it incorporates a lot of the features you want... more or less.

Really the most free-form magic system that I can think of off the top of my head is the Ars Magica system, which allows you to do most anything you want. You might try intermeshing that with your dnd games as well.

-F

 

[Shado]

Kill the sacred cows!

Eliminate multclassing restrictions.

Armor as DR, not AC increase.

Monte's Sorceror, Bard & toned down version of his Ranger.

Incorporate OA Monk rules into core Monk class.

Fix the discrepancies in the weapons. (A sickle's a simple weapon, but a kama is exotic???)

All classes start with simple weapon prof.

All errata.

Change up saves and BABs. I've done up some charts that still allow single class characters to keep their BABs and saves as they are, but eliminate the Monk 1, Rogue 1, Bard 1, Sorcerer 1, Cleric 1 from having a BAB of +0 and the Ranger 1, Fighter 1, Barbarian 1 from having a Fort save of +6.

Many other changes... but this is now becoming 3.5 more than 3.1.

 

[Neowolf]

Say for example, you learn basic fire magic. For 1 unit of magical energy, you can produce a flame in your hand. By pumping more units into it, you cn make it bigger. By pumping more units into it, you can fling it as a fireball. Along with basic fire magic comes the ability to extinguish normal fires. With more units of energy you can extinguish/ignore magical fires. So some spell caster creates a wall of fire. Spell caster #2 comes by and tries to extinguish it. It doesn't go out. So he keeps pumping units into it until it goes out, he exhausts his energy supply, or decides to quit. I want something that players can augment in real time with more energy to change the effects of the spell.

Re-reading that, I don't think I articulated what I am looking for very well. Oh well.

While not exactly what you're talking about, the magic system for the game Talislanta is VERY similar. The only difference is that casters don't have a limited number of spell points. Instead, they have to make what basically becomes a Spellcraft check in D&D 3E terms, where the difficulty is modified by the caster's skill level in that particular type of magic (necromancy, divination, etc.), the type of effect they want to create (healing, attacking, defending, etc.), and the level of the spell. To keep spellcasters in check, each spell they cast adds a cumulative penalty on their next casting roll. These penalties go away once they've rested up. It eventually gets to the point where casting each spell is dangerous, as a low enough roll resulted in a magical mishap (a skill check failure gone VERY wrong), and could backfire on the caster, or worse, the whole party. I've meant for a while now to work on a conversion of the system, as it wouldn't be too hard to put into D&D at all, just haven't gotten around to it.

Talislanta is a great game on its own too: the system is fairly simple (not really rules light, but lighter than D20), the setting is great (though a bit too exotic for some tastes - no elves, dwarves, or halflings, but there are 'gnomekins' ), and there are something like 50 different archetypes (combination of class and race), all tightly enmeshed into the setting.

 

[kenjib]

Chaos Magic by Mongoose is actually pretty close to what you want, but it uses subdual damage rather than spell points.

I would retool all of the core and prestige classes to use a point based system for determining their class abilities, but I wouldn't reveal this in the PHB. In the DMG, or perhaps a different book altogether, I would release the class creation system. The net result would be that class based D&D would be by far the standard (and the only thing you see at all in the PHB) but there would be an option for people to play classless as well, since you can use the extra rules option to build a custom class as you go (perhaps even incrementally instead of by level as an additional option).

Of course such a system would naturally mean that there should be no restrictions on multi-classing.

It doesn't even have to be all that big of a change at the play-level, since you can keep all of the classes almost the same as they are now, with most of the changes being implemented behind the scenes. If you ignore the variant rules you'd hardly notice a difference in the game except for some minor class re-tooling to make them more balanced and fit the rules.

 

[rounser]

despite all the grousers, the system really does work well.

...and despite all the flagwavers and fanboys, the system could benefit from a few alterations/clarifications/overhauls.

 

[kenjib]

One other things I forgot is a revamp of the XP system. Something like the following:

1. Experience reward is based on EL rather than CR times number of creatures.

2. Average party level for calculating EL is total party level divided by four, regardless of actual party size.

3. The experience progression and reward charts both become linear. There's no need for them both to increase exponentially other than a psychological effect and it complicates the math unecessarily. Consider this:

XP required per level:
Level 1: 0 - 100
Level 2: 101-200
Level 3: 201-300
Level 4: 301-400
etc...

XP rewarded per person based on EL compared to average party level:

...
2 less than: 45 XP
1 less than: 60 XP
equal: 75 XP
1 greater than: 100 XP
etc...

Don't have my book ATM so the numbers aren't exactly right up there, just the general idea.

4. Magic items and spells do not cost XP to create/cast. Another mechanic will be introduced. I really dislike that aspect of the rules.

 

[WizarDru]

All I'd want is errata applied, and rewording of some more confusing sections, such as AoOs. I think 3E works quite well, and don't want wide-spread stylistic and untested design changes purely for the sake of change alone.

I realize that some folks have differences of opinion on what does and doesn't work in 3E, which is fine. But such alternate systems should be presented as options, not as the standard.

Many of the proposed changes don't sound like they've considered balance issues, even if they prefer the flavor changes. YMMV.