How I Would Fix 3.5/Pathfinder

[Lwaxy]

Would bother me a lot. D&D/PF is about high power magic for me. I already have an issue with the 5e nerfs.

 

[billd91]

I wonder how many people would be fine with revoking level 8 and 9 spells for Clerics and Druids. Doesn't bother me at all if they went bye bye.

I'm not terribly thrilled with the idea. It's not like clerics didn't have 9th level-eque spells in 1e. They just had them as 7th level spells and got them at 16th level because of a weird stagger rather than at 17th. Ultimately, I have no problem with the regularization of of spellcasting in 3e.

 

[Celebrim]

1. CoDzilla. The power level of the spell casters was kind of off the charts in 3.5. Pathfinder kind of helped this by buffing the martials and fixing the worst offenders. My solution would be to lower spell DCs and buff saving throws so at higher levels you only have a small% chance of flunking a save vs a save or suck or a save or die. This is in effect similar to how it used to work in AD&D. Spell DCs would be 10+ the level of the spell (capped at 20) and some feats could increase this.

I came at this the other way. Spell DCs are 10+ability bonus. The save DC does not depend on the level of the spell. This accomplishes the same purpose in my opinion - allowing saving throw bonuses to increase more rapidly than the target DCs.

Additionally, Clerics are given a list of known spells by level, similar to Sorcerers. Only wizards are allowed to know all spells, and this is generally controllable by restricting spell ability and the general difficulties with owning spell books.

Druids would also be overhauled and lose the animal companions going back to something like the 2nd ed Druid and the feat natural spell would go bye bye. The spell list could also be cut down eliminating or rewriting the problem spells.

Druids went bye bye completely under my rules, for a lot of reasons, and yes so did the feat 'Natural Spell'. I replaced the concept of the Druid with the more generic and more balanced Shaman class from Green Ronin and reshuffled some spells. You can still make a Druid in every sense in my game, but it will be significantly less potent in many ways than the stock 3.X Druid.

Specifically scaling buff spells like divine favor and divine power. AD&D had buff spells and Prayer for example was actually a decent spell. Spells like Greater Magic Weapon, Divine Favor/Might either need to go or become a static bonus. Overall I would be trying to drag the numbers porn down more towards AD&D/BECMI levels.

I haven't had too big of a problem with these things. I find buffs to be somewhat self-limiting. The main buff spells that are problematic IMO are the shape-change spells. Those are the ones that need redefining to more predictable bonuses and caps. Otherwise, just be careful with things like Persistant spell.

I generally have no problems with martial characters ability to deal damage. The only thing you mention I even have a problem with is Rapid Shot, and that's simple because its a no brainer that ups the number of attack roles and the time required to resolve attacks while simultaneously advantaging the best response to any tactical problem - hit it from range. Martial characters being primary DPS isn't a problem I've got. My biggest problem is the relative value of a martial character outside of combat compared to a spellcaster, which is where martial character's need buffs and problem solving capability.

I have no issue with ability caps. Maintain some sanity in your item distribution and availability of magic, and things should be fine.

Overhaul the skill system and even out the spread between the classes for skills. Most classes would have 4-6 skill points with wizards getting 2 and rogues getting 8. DCs would top out at about 25 or 30 though. Pathfinder has the best skill system IMHO our of 3.0,3.5, 4th ed and SWSE but it could do with some tweaks.

Under my current system, which has slightly more skills than standard 3.X, spellcasters generally get 3 skill points per level, where as martial classes vary from 4 (in the case of a fighter) to 11 (in the case of a rogue). I've made a variety of other tweaks that make skills more epic sooner, but the main things is to allow all martial classes to be something of skill monkey's relatively easier and to reduce the ability of spells to substitute for skills to an absolute degree.

Overhaul multiple attacks. instead of having 3 attacks at +11/+6/+1 I would just allow 3 attacks at +11 and eliminate the full attack. Let fighter types move their full movement rate and unleash. This is similar to how it worked in AD&D and the fighter was actually nerfed in this regard from 2nd ed to 3.0.

I've had no problems with the current iterative attack system beyond the math complexity. The advantage of 3.X standard iterative attacks is that they create much smoother damage curves. You seem to be busy buffing fighters in areas that they really don't need to be buffed in.

Drop wealth by level and the ability to purchase magic items.

Yes.

Go back to 2nd ed item creation rules.

No, though there does need to be some greater attention paid to balance and some general rules overhaul.

Eliminate wands of CLWs.

Yes. I generally just made it impossible to create divine wands.

8. Eliminate X2 and X3 damage on crits. Replace with max damage or an extra dice of damage. Reduce the rocket tag effect and the importance of weapons with 18-20 threat ranges.

I've got no problem with crits as written. Again, the problem with game balance is not that fighters can produce lots of damage. That's ok, and easily balanced against. The problem is that spellcasters too easily dominate the action economy (the same could be said of some monsters, requiring too much dependency on absolute immunities at high level), and martial classes are too easily overshadowed in problem solving ability out of combat.

9. Tweak the classes and monsters to account for the reduced damage and spell effects. Perhaps return weapon specialization to its AD&D levels of glory.

No. Weapon specialization is and was always a bad idea that hurt the game, particularly in its AD&D incarnation. I've kept it in the game because players expect it, but taken steps to mitigate its bad side effects - like being disappointed to find weapons other than that one weapon type you use well.

You might search for 'Playing like Celebrim', where I do some of my class write ups and describe my general philosophy.

 

[Celebrim]

Would bother me a lot. D&D/PF is about high power magic for me. I already have an issue with the 5e nerfs.

My goal is to allow for high power magic of the sort D&D has always allowed for while simultaneously not completely overshadowing the traditional fantasy hero with a sword.

The general philosophy is:

a) By 8th level, your guy with a sword is a superhero, and therefore no longer 'mundane'. By 15th level, you're the Batman. By 20th level, you are pushing toward golden age Superman status - leaping buildings, stronger than an oxen, faster than a horse, etc.
b) Balance with spellcasters involves letting them do their thing, while limiting their ability to consistently outshine fighters and skill monkeys. That means limiting save or suck, tight integration of spells into the skill system, and being careful with skill replacement spells while moving skills toward the ability to replace spells (like mechanics for the Heal skill to actually heal damage).

Part of the solution is also adventure design. If you design your adventures toward one big encounter a day or resolvable in such a fashion (kill the BBEG, it's over), you'll tend to strongly favor spell-casters going nova over the endurance of martial classes. But if you really force the players to deal with proactive enemies and distributed foes, then spell-casters have to do more resource management.

 

[Zardnaar]

I should have clarified. I have been testing weapon specialization but allowing the fighter to apply it to any weapon they use and it scales up to +3 to hit and damage and they do not get bonus attacks like AD&D> Also made it a single feat instead of 2.

 

[Celebrim]

I should have clarified. I have been testing weapon specialization but allowing the fighter to apply it to any weapon they use and it scales up to +3 to hit and damage and they do not get bonus attacks like AD&D> Also made it a single feat instead of 2.

Yes, that does clarify a bit. I retain the focus->specialization chain, but I offer a new feat Weapon Mastery that expands all existing feats that cover weapon a weapon in a selected list to two additional related weapons. In addition to other feats, fighters get Weapon Mastery for free every few levels. Additionally, fighters get more bonus feats compared to stock 3.X (1,2,4,5,7,8...plus additional feats at 18,19,20 beyond the normal progression).

I will say you continue to be obsessed with the ability of fighter's to do damage - which isn't there problem in stock 3.X at all.

The basic problems of Fighters:

a) Insufficient out of combat problem solving capability
b) Insufficient effective build variations - ei, not enough out of the box support for smart, cunning, charismatic, or even tough fighters.
c) Skills are too conservatively defined relative to spells. They neither are as effective nor do they scale as well. Feats have a similar problem. There seems to be little understanding in the design that a combat feat that can't be obtained till 12th level is equivalent in power to gaining access to a 6th level spell, or that high level martial characters need that sort of thing. In the fighter's case, no skills that represent iconic fighter skillfulness (which gets silo'ed out to 'Marshall'/'Warlord' type class abilities).
d) Too many spells or creature abilities have no effective counter other than magic, making fighters dependent on either spellcasters or gear or both, whereas spellcasters can usually be self-sufficient.
e) Power increases more or less linearly with level. Whereas, spell casters get more powerful spells, more spells, and existing spells increase in ability. Most attempts to fix this focus on the wrong things and fail to understand the math, like having Weapon Focus hit +2 or +3 bonuses at higher levels. In fact, the +1 bonus to hit actually scales well already. The real problems are things like DR, save or suck and generally limited ability to influence the action economy, no way to remove debuffs, force effects that are immune to damage, little way to perform action at a distance, movement that doesn't scale (compare teleport for an extreme example), etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, that does clarify a bit. I retain the focus->specialization chain, but I offer a new feat Weapon Mastery that expands all existing feats that cover weapon a weapon in a selected list to two additional related weapons. In addition to other feats, fighters get Weapon Mastery for free every few levels. Additionally, fighters get more bonus feats compared to stock 3.X (1,2,4,5,7,8...plus additional feats at 18,19,20 beyond the normal progression).

I will say you continue to be obsessed with the ability of fighter's to do damage - which isn't there problem in stock 3.X at all.

The basic problems of Fighters:

a) Insufficient out of combat problem solving capability
b) Insufficient effective build variations - ei, not enough out of the box support for smart, cunning, charismatic, or even tough fighters.
c) Skills are too conservatively defined relative to spells. They neither are as effective nor do they scale as well. Feats have a similar problem. There seems to be little understanding in the design that a combat feat that can't be obtained till 12th level is equivalent in power to gaining access to a 6th level spell, or that high level martial characters need that sort of thing. In the fighter's case, no skills that represent iconic fighter skillfulness (which gets silo'ed out to 'Marshall'/'Warlord' type class abilities).
d) Too many spells or creature abilities have no effective counter other than magic, making fighters dependent on either spellcasters or gear or both, whereas spellcasters can usually be self-sufficient.
e) Power increases more or less linearly with level. Whereas, spell casters get more powerful spells, more spells, and existing spells increase in ability. Most attempts to fix this focus on the wrong things and fail to understand the math, like having Weapon Focus hit +2 or +3 bonuses at higher levels. In fact, the +1 bonus to hit actually scales well already. The real problems are things like DR, save or suck and generally limited ability to influence the action economy, no way to remove debuffs, force effects that are immune to damage, little way to perform action at a distance, movement that doesn't scale (compare teleport for an extreme example), etc.

Short of making a new game that is not D&D you can't really fix some of that. My fighter for example will have AD&D level saves, 4 skills per level, no iterative attacks, and I would be nerfing spell DCs and trimming the spell list as well back to BECMI levels perhaps. Spellcaster will lose most of their poach a class ability from another class type spells or at least most of them (knock may make it in).

I would also rewrite the feats and instead of having feat chains use level requirments so a level 12 fighter could pick up a Dragonmark that grants them spells or some other ability like once per day make your save vs magic or whatever. I'm not looking for a perfectly balanced game just one where spell casters are not uber except maybe at the highest levels. Some form of old school magic resistance would also come back as well either the 2nd ed % system or maybe just a flat number to beat with a d20 roll and have very few if any spells that bypass it.

 

[Celebrim]

Short of making a new game that is not D&D you can't really fix some of that.

Sure you can. If you are familiar with AD&D, you ought to be able to see where some of the problems came from. For example, the DR problem was a result of too much diversification in modes of overcoming DR combined with being at times too generous about the scale of DR provided to monsters. This created too much gear dependency that spellcasters didn't have. And it's notable that out of the box, you don't get feats that give fighters inherent ability to overcome DR. For example, what if you had a feat that basically meant, "Any time a fighter wields a weapon, it's as if he cast Greater Magic Weapon on it." Or what if you had a feat that said, "Any DR which can be overcome is reduced by 15 when you attack." So if you have something like "DR 30/epic" or "DR 30/obsidian", and you happen to be holding a +4 cold iron sword, you aren't completely useless. If you want to fold something into the fighter's class abilities to avoid feat tax, it should be that sort of thing.

Likewise, on serious problem high level fighters face is things like Force Cage and Wall of Force. But what if you rewrote those spells to instead quantify how immune they were to damage instead of just giving them blanket immunity. If a Wall of Force had hardness 100, it would still do its job, but it would not be an insurmountable obstacle because "if it has stats we can kill it", and because you could have feats like "Smash Things Good" that "Half the hardness of any unattended object you attack." The problem is that too often spells don't have stats, so until they do, the feat doesn't address the problem. And incidently, that sort of feat gives Fighters more problem solving ability. It turns 'hitting things' in to a viable solution in the way that Disintegrate can also be an out of combat problem solving ability.

Likewise, if the problem is the action economy, what if Fighters not only had good saves versus things like Paralyzation, Petrifaction, and so forth, but they actually could "shake it off" either with shortened durations or second chances? What if Fighters could cancel magical fear, moral penalties, or charms on their allies, or at least provoke rerolls? What if you could buff allies like a Bard, or debuff enemies - say attack the target AND give the target a -2 penalty on its saving throws to help out the spellcaster? What if depending on your build you could do all of this just 'at will' and some of them as free actions? Whose dominating the action economy now?

Or movement. Ok, you can Teleport - that's hard to beat on one level. But I have a natural movement speed of 60', a natural climb speed, a natural swim speed, can leap over 20' obstacles or 40' wide pits and run for 20 hours without tiring without the need for magic.

And so forth.

The point is that you can make the martial classes as epic as the spellcasters already are, without gimping spellcasters completely and without the need to get into continual power creep (because the spellcasters are already beyond in 3.X where I'm going to let them reach, and late 3.X monsters were designed with this in mind anyway). I haven't got things exactly where I want them yet, because I need play testing at higher levels, but I'm pretty sure with some tweaks its going to work pretty darn well.

 

[fjw70]

Use Trailblazer...
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/64009/Trailblazer

This looks interesting. I will have to check it out sometime.

 

[Lwaxy]

That means limiting save or suck, tight integration of spells into the skill system, and being careful with skill replacement spells while moving skills toward the ability to replace spells (like mechanics for the Heal skill to actually heal damage).
.

I totally agree one the save or suck - I almost never allow "no save" for any spell. But I allow the spells themselves.

Resource management for my houserule games usually means the wizard needs to be careful with his remaining mana (I utterly dislike the Vancian magic idea and try to avoid it wherever possible). But the wizard is usually able to cast a lot more, and a lot more varied, spells instead fireball fireball, firebally, oh and the occasional teleport. She's also usually able to cast higher level spells earlier but then there goes the mana for the day.

Also we did make, for example, arcane heal possible but with consequences. First, the arcane caster has to give up part of his own health (temp HP loss) and, while the pantient it gets cast on will appear to be healthy by all physical means, the pains will not be gone and take the normal healing time to disappear. One group liked it so much we made up similar rules for clerics now (clerics suffer the pain of their patients and temporary loses HP, and thus are useless for a while after the heal). So a lot of time, especially for smaller stuff, the PCs refuse to heal if there are other means available. It has become a thing for real need.

Similar with the knock spell. It only works if the mage using it succeeds against a DC higher than the locksmith's craft+dex value. This obviously does not affect stuck doors. He can do the spell several times each time reducing difficulty, but each time using up mana, and as in our houserules, each same spell on the same day costs slightly more mana (we call it repeat stress) you can imagine the rogue got a bit more work right there.

I really think changing the way magic works as opposed to limiting it is the better way to go. At least it worked for all 3 of the groups I tried it with.