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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nonsi256" data-source="post: 5416192" data-attributes="member: 86164">>> simple is better (I think you complicate things WAY TOO MUCH (too many house rules).)  Why did I “complicate” things . . .  Every time you ask yourself “what do I do now? The rules don’t cover this issue”, you’re wasting time.  Every time you twiddle your thumbs because the rules don’t provide you with options, you’re wasting time.  Every time a player is not content with the rules (and expresses it), you’re wasting time arguing.  Tracking spell slots and re-editing spell-lists wastes time.  Over-dice-rolling wastes time.  Too many fatalities and near-fatalities waste time (lots and lots of time).  Struggling against the core rules to manage your character concept wastes time.  The need for optimizing wastes time.etc, etc, etc.This discussion is about your HR, so I won’t get into specifics about how mine deal with the above (but they most certainly do).  >> you made too many changes, taking too much work to implement.  You’ll be surprised how well organized my document is. It was designed to be very easy to navigate and to remember where everything is, and for the few times when one forgets where a topic is handled (something that for me doesn’t happen on a weekly basis) – one can always search the page source.        >> You will see that my house-rules are short and simple. The most extended part in my work is only the re-writing of each class.  Shorter than mine, yes, but I find them less organized and less formatted.    >> What ####s my games in 3.5?>> 1. The rogue sucks when you have a dungeon full of undead and golems, with no locks or traps, and dies way too easy when taking a disintegrate.  Here’s where you banning non-core material goes against you: Dungeonscape has an ACF for that.  >> 2. The wizard sucks at the first levels (their players get bored).  I played a low level Beguiler using nothing but spells during encounters and was kicked out of that certain group for being too dominant (SoS and battlefield control all the way baby).  >> 3. The wizard does a lot more damage after around 13th level, and warriors become only a shield (their players get bored).  Try 8th. And damage spells are usually the worst strategy for full casters.  >> 4. Over optimized (many classes and subclasses) characters vs beginner’s characters.  Which was a major consideration in the way I designed my classes.  >> 5. Slow character creation (specially skill calculations).  Since the issue is your HR, I’ll just state my opinion that character creation is something one can do at home and not at the expense of getting together for the actual game time. Once people get together – that’s when the game should be rigged to be as flowing as possible.    >> What did I do when working out my rules was this:>> 1. First of all I kicked off any non-core books (too simplify stuff as much as possible).  What’s wrong with the Beguiler, Dread Necro, Duskblade, Wildshape Varient Ranger or Warlock? What do they bring to the gaming table that’s more broken than the grisly trio ?  What’s not right with skill-tricks ?  What’s wrong with all the utility spells out there ?Instead of banning PrCs altogether, you could say that a PrC can only advance features of base classes (that way, you won't have to deal with stuff like Wizard 10/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 8, or crazy gish builds).  >> 2. I made the rogue better at more combat situations.  And you took out the special abilities (no more Slippery Mind vs Will based effects), pushed Evasion to higher levels and omitted IUD.     >> 3. I put my warrior classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger and Rogue)   >> side by side at each level, creating characters and putting them to fight against each  >> other. I believe their combat power is now pretty close.  And now they can attack it, attack it and attack it some more. Wonderful (I roll to hit. I hit (dmg), I roll to hit. I miss. I roll to hit… aint life wonderful?)  >> 4. I put the gish classes (Bard, Cleric and Druid) to fight against the warriors and made  >> sure their raw combat power was somewhat lower (including Divine Favor, Divine Power,  >> Righteous Might and Wild Shape).  1. Making CODZilla gishes was one of the biggest mistakes of 3e’s designers. Even with poor BAB they’re tier-1. Divine Power is nothing more than adding insult to injury. Combined with Cause [X] wounds, it makes the Cleric a better fighter that the Fighter more often than not. Same goes for Wild Shape with avg BAB. And let’s not forget full spellcasting with Natural Spell. And like that’s not enough, you add an almost equally powerful companion.  2. PvP is not a contributive way of assessing the fun factor of a given class. In straight melee no one should be able to stand toe to toe with a fighter of equal level (otherwise, what’s the point of being a Fighter?). A class should offer other stuff beyond combat applications (and the tier-1 & tier-2 classes have a lot of stuff a straight combatant can only dream of at that department – and so do skillmonkeys (which are not so much skillmonkey-ish in your system anymore) and strikers).  >> 5. I made sure all classes got some good stuff as would a character over optimized with prestige classes from many books.  In effect, many of your classes lost options from here to Timbuktu.>> About magic power:>> 1. I made the saves for each class better (nerfs “save vs” spells).  >> 2. I nerfed instant death effects.Not enough. Not nearly enough (scry & die, polymorph, battlefield control, crowd control, no-save-endgamers, weaponlike spells – all these issues require attention).  >> 3. I kicked off spells from other books (that gave spellcasters too many options).  >> 4. I still believe spellcasters should be the most resourceful classes (so I left them the PHB spells of course).The core spells still trump the brokenness competition easily.  >> More simplifying:>> 1. HP/level.  >>2. Saves.  I saw no title that covers HP or Saves changes in an orderly fashion.  >> 3. Skills (especially skill training and number of different skills).  Meaning that in your campaign, everybody’s an accomplished tumbler and lockpicker, even if “only” as CC skill.  Reliability is an important factor for game seriousness – one that this rule tosses out the window.    >> 4. Multiclassing.  1. And what if thematically speaking people are tired of the same 10 base classes and envision roles that are significantly different ?  2. There’s no a significant difference between your Monk and Your Rogue, your Monk has been severely crippled and your Paladin is basically a very nerfed version of your Cleric.     >> 5. NO PRESTIGE CLASSES.now there’s an issue of real debate.  PrCs are one of the best ideas in 3e, but yet are probably the worst execution. When they clearly offer major bonuses with negligible offsetting penalties, one has to be brain dead on to PrC.        >> I think the bard is like a troubadour spell-casting warrior and not necessarily a jack-of-all-trades.  Ok, my bad on the personal preference issue here, but did you notice that all your spellcasters are full spellcasters?     >> I don’t need any samurai, ninja or psionic stuff in my games.  Sure you don’t. The classes were shamefully executed and psionics is just another way of saying “spells”.    >> Things that still need improvement:>> 1. More different feats for warriors (to give them more options, as you say)  Martial feats cannot possibly rival spells or spellcasting feats.  >> 2. Work around some unbalanced spells.  It’s gonna be a long “day”.  >> 3. Playtest.  Again, no offense, but if you and your group do find your proposed changes an improvement, then you haven’t experienced 1% of what the game is all about (and believe me, my only intention is to be contributive).</blockquote>

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