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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1989251" data-attributes="member: 10201">The bar's already pretty high. D&D3E is a very complex, intricate game. It is *not* beginner-friendly. Nonetheless, you raise an important point: There are at least two measures of "elegant & streamlined" in an RPG: how it works in play, and how easy it is to learn. And they don't necessarily correspond, and may even be at odds. If you want the standard of "would it make it easier for first-time players", IME, ditching the vast majority of the combat chapter, in favor of a single rule: "If you want to do something else, it's a -2 penalty for each additional complication, and a +2 bonus for each additional element in your favor", would be a huge help. Ditch compliacted movement rules, AoOs, special sub-systems for sundering and tripping and grappling, and just about all of the chapter. Because, IME, the vast majority of things that trip up newbies are in that chapter. Have you ever actually played D&D3E with someone who doesn't know the rules? I mean, yeah, it can be done, but it's far from easy. And, more significantly, it's nowhere *near* as easy as playing Over the Edge, Everway, Fudge, or Dread with someone who doesn't know the rules. [ok, that last one's a ringer--i don't think it'd be possible for someone to play Dread without knowing the rules, because i don't think you could play the game for more than a few minutes without learning all of the rules.] Point is, there're *lots* of RPGs that are much easier than D&D3E for playing without a detailed inttro to the rules. That seems a bit wierd--it's easier to cast a 9th, 6th, 3rd, and 0th spell all at once than it is to cast an 8th, 5th, and 2nd? I like the concept, in the abstract (wizards can cast multiple spells in a round at high level), but something more like the "trade-off" multiple attacks others were suggesting would probably fit better: You can cast multiple spells, provided none of them are higher in level than (highest level you can cast) - 4x(number of spells being cast - 1). So, if you can cast 8th level spells, you could cast two 4th level or lower spells in a round, or 3 0th level. Something like that.Of the options i've seen, i think arcana unearthed is the best. Most metamagic comes in the form of "templates" that you can apply to spells, and the templates have varying costs, from none, to "ladening" the spell (uses two spellslots of the usual level), to a material cost. The important commonality here is that all of them are things you can spend on the fly, and thus you can decide to apply metamagic when you need it, to the spell you need to apply it to, rather than having to guess ahead of time what to prepare specially.That one's pretty easy: do the same thing for caster level that is currently done for "combatant level": i.e., another stat, much like BAB, which is equal to level for wizards and other "full casters", and progresses at a slower rate for other classes.</blockquote>

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