D&D 3.1E: What to change?

[Vaxalon]

Haven't we been through this before?

There are at least three reasons that a person would show up as "evil" on a paladin's radar without deserving death.

1> He holds a screaming little core of hatred in his heart, but he's too much of a coward to have acted upon it. Despicable maybe, but not worthy of death.

2> He's posessed by an evil ghost or outsider.

3> A spell with an evil descriptor has been cast on him.

Any paladin in MY game who started this nonsense would encounter a #1 within hours, a #3 within months, and eventually a #2... of course by then he would have lost his paladinhood by killing little timmy who likes to kick his sister in the shins and pull the wings off flies.

 

[mmadsen]

There's NO reason in D&D that you HAVE to start your characters at 1st level.

Given that, I think D&D should get away from the notion that 1st level (the level you typically start at) is one level of experience. The game currently grants four levels' worth of skill points at 1st level, and it front-loads most of the classes on the assumption that one level in that class means years of apprenticeship.

The whole system could be much more elegant if "1st level" was really 4th level, you got N skill points per level (no +3 at "1st level"), the Special Abilities of each class weren't so front-loaded, etc.

Hit Points might need some reworking though.

 

[hong]

Given that, I think D&D should get away from the notion that 1st level (the level you typically start at) is one level of experience. The game currently grants four levels' worth of skill points at 1st level, and it front-loads most of the classes on the assumption that one level in that class means years of apprenticeship.

The whole system could be much more elegant if "1st level" was really 4th level, you got N skill points per level (no +3 at "1st level"), the Special Abilities of each class weren't so front-loaded, etc.

I think I suggested something similar on rgfd sometime back: each character gets X bonus feats and N bonus skill points at 1st level to spend as they choose, and the starting abilities of each class are cut back to match.

Hit Points might need some reworking though.

Avaunt, troll.

 

[Humanophile]

Leave most of the game as is. I'm kind of liking the degree of balance it has, I'd rather not risk it on something that's for the most part untested. Include errata, though. (Which I guess puts us in 3.1 territory already, so we're aiming for D&D V3.2 now.)

As far as races go, give humans another language spoken (Common plus one other to start, since everyone else has racial and common). Give orcs +2 to 2 or 3 skills, and half orcs +1 to selfsame skills. Change the elven favored class to Sorcerer. There are more things I'd want to tinker with, but right now I just want little things clarified and ironed out.

Classes, give the bard 6 skill points per level, and give both the fighter and sorcerer the intimidation skill. Reduce the cleric's granted armor to light and medium. Again, there's a lot I'd love to fiddle with here, but for now I don't want to wrench things too far out.

Some combat sections should be rewritten and clarified, I think that everyone agrees that Skill Focus should be +3, and toughness should be fixed, but finding the exact fix is a little problematic. I personally allow toughnesses to be upgraded (dwarven, giants, dragons...) when the character hits the right fort save levels, but I think this might be best left alone due to the amount of playtesting required to find the right balance for everyone. Skills should be clarified and cleaned up a little, with some of them expanded a little (such as tumbling or intimidate circumstance modifiers).

The DMG should be MUCH bigger. Expand the sections on customizing races/classes and balancing different play styles. Give more ideas on how to incorporate power components into the game, possibly even giving concrete rules for "recycling" magic items, alchemy check results, and base materials. Put the "how to create..." articles up on the D&D website, maybe adding material as time goes on. (A "how to create magic items" article would be nice for pointing things out to some DM's.) Update the ECL's and explain them better (this goes back to including errata, though).

The MM needs a to put out a call for errata and be gone over with a fine toothed comb. CR's should be adjusted as appropriate, special abilities should be revised in several cases, etc. Ideally, the multiple attack rules for monsters and PC types would be better synched, but that probably requires too much playtesting to be quickly altered there.

And the splatbooks should hopefully be revised too. More advice on "how to play", both tactically and roleplaying. More feats and other goodies for higher level characters (fighters especially), the amount of space given to new items/spells/organizations seems about right, and the prestige classes should be pruned back a little. Nothing that can't concievably be used in most/all settings with a little adjusting, and try to avoid silly things like oozemasters and true necromancers. And definately add clarifications for situations that characters of the given classes tend to have problems with; common situation DC's and all that. I know these are done, but I'd pay a little more for a few more pages of these and less prestige class silliness.

And maybe, just maybe, a fourth core book that tries to be the everything-for-everyone book, with VP/WP and a skill based build system and everything. If I were WOTC, though, I'd do this kind of under the table and let someone else put it out, so if it bombs WOTC isn't stuck with it, and DM's can more confidently dismiss it as "non-core". Similar with testing class adjustments and spell level changes, and if the gaming public seems to prefer the changed versions, smile and roll them into D&D in even later editions.

 

[Tyrion]

Haven't we been through this before?

There are at least three reasons that a person would show up as "evil" on a paladin's radar without deserving death.

1> He holds a screaming little core of hatred in his heart, but he's too much of a coward to have acted upon it. Despicable maybe, but not worthy of death.

2> He's posessed by an evil ghost or outsider.

3> A spell with an evil descriptor has been cast on him.

Any paladin in MY game who started this nonsense would encounter a #1 within hours, a #3 within months, and eventually a #2... of course by then he would have lost his paladinhood by killing little timmy who likes to kick his sister in the shins and pull the wings off flies.

There are ways around this:

1. In the campaigns I've played in, and I suspect many others, an evil alignment requires both evil intent and evil actions as well. A person who has not committed any acts of evil can hardly be called evil.

2. Fine, find out with divination spells or the like if a town has the presence of any evil ghosts or outsiders. If not, no problems for the paladin.

3. I don't think this would mean the person himself detects as evil, just a spell aura around him. Otherwise, your alignment could be easily concealed by casting a spell of the opposite alignment on yourself.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that while a good, or even passable DM could work around most of the inconsistencies that alignment presents, this extra work is not worth what alignment adds to the game (ie. nothing). For me, it's another layer of unnecessary complexity.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Grease was just an example. I guess my real gripe with Metacreativity is that it seems to be a bucket for every power that doesn't fit in the other five disciplines.

The same applies to the Transmutation School of the regular magic system... (With the result that Transmutation is one of the most versatile and useful schools out there)

Many of the changes that are discusses here seem to fit for D&D 4 Edition, not D&D 3.1

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Vaxalon]

1. In the campaigns I've played in, and I suspect many others, an evil alignment requires both evil intent and evil actions as well. A person who has not committed any acts of evil can hardly be called evil.

Certainly not all campaigns. In any case, the evil actions that have been taken (for example, kicking sister in the shins) aren't necessarily deserving of death.

2. Fine, find out with divination spells or the like if a town has the presence of any evil ghosts or outsiders. If not, no problems for the paladin.

Glad you agree with me.

3. I don't think this would mean the person himself detects as evil, just a spell aura around him. Otherwise, your alignment could be easily concealed by casting a spell of the opposite alignment on yourself.
[/B]

Casting "Protection from Evil" on yourself won't make you stop detecting as evil, but it will also make you detect as good. The point is that an evil spellcaster could use "Protection from Good" to make good people radiate evil.

 

[hong]

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that while a good, or even passable DM could work around most of the inconsistencies that alignment presents, this extra work is not worth what alignment adds to the game (ie. nothing). For me, it's another layer of unnecessary complexity.

It's only a problem if your players make it a problem. None of the groups I've played with have ever had this penchant for homicidal paladins.

ANYWAY, back to the topic at hand, before this drifts into YA alignment war. In order of what I think is the likelihood of being implemented in 3.1E:

- Tighten up on unnamed bonuses. There are still lots of instances of feats or class abilities giving out unnamed bonuses, which results in plentiful loopholes for minmaxing. For instance, stacking the duelist Int bonus to AC and the monk's Wis bonus to AC is an oldie but a goodie, and that just seems wrong to me. The Star Wars rulebook is a good example on how to do this.

- Allow barbs to be lawful. The existence of classes like the sohei, Singh rager and Hida defender (all from OA) shows that going troppo is quite compatible with lawful alignment. All it takes is practice.

- Intimidate and Profession should be class skills for fighters.

- Harm needs a saving throw.

- Reduce front-loading of the paladin, monk and ranger.

- Fly, haste and invisibility should be higher level than what they are now.

- High-level spells should be toned down. In return, give spellcasters more spell slots per day. This brings spellcasters more into line with the "mundane" classes, which generally have less spectacular powers but aren't limited in how many times they can use them.

- More bonus feat slots for everyone, along the lines of fighters, samurai and shamans (from OA). Turn class abilities like evasion, uncanny dodge, etc into class-specific feats. In general, each class can have its own pool of bonus feats; this preserves class identity while also allowing greater flexibility in character development.

 

[kenjib]

If new rules were introduced in an official version 3.1, they would be playtested thoroughly by WotC. I don't see much point in bemoaning the addition of untested house rules.

EDIT: And adding errata doesn't make a new version, just a new print run.

 

[Hammerhead]

Rebalance spell lists (move up Haste and Imp Invis, etc), even out the schools some, Harm, and do something about the magic item wealth thing.

The value of magic items that high level characters are expected to have is staggering. It also leads to some problems. For example, I was looking through the Epic Level Handbook the other day. There is a feat that gives +2 natural armor. In most cases, the loss of resources from commissioning a powerful magical item is less than taking a feat. A high level character will only have a few feats: 7 if a non human, non feat giving class. But even a human fighter will have fewer than 20. So getting Epic natural armor for a +2 bonus will be a more than 5% cost. On the other hand, a +2 amulet will be a bit more than 1% of his GP. Why take the feats when you can buy the item - or get one of your friends to craft it at reduced price? Also, most fictional characters I'm familar with only possessed a few signature items. King Arthur had Excaliber, not Excaliber, Boots of Speed, a Ring of Protection, a Ring of Spell Turning, a Belt of Giant Strength, etc. The rules should encourage fewer, but cooler items, not scads of single function trinkets.

A high level fighter should be more than his collection of gear. Change something so that casters and non casters can be balanced at all levels without a ton of magical equipment - that the non casters have no guarentee of getting. Either spellcasters should have their high level slots weakened as Hong suggests, or everyone should get some tricks too. Lots of bonus feats, including some of the Epic feats, could be added. Alternatively, they could detail a better system for developing minor magical powers. For example, maybe the Xeng Fu monks swear a vow of poverty, but can perform incredible bursts of speed and see invisible stuff - with those abilities bought as something akin to no space items instead of as prestige class powers.