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.
For the most part, I agree with the Pathfinder approach - a huge segment of the problems in 3.5e is actually a matter of the detail of spells and magic items. That's why a systematic fix is always going to be a problem - there's not a "magic bullet", but rather some thousands of individual items needing dealt with.
The problem I see with your big fix is this: too many of the "save or suck" spells
also have no (or little) effect if the save is made. So by making the change you describe, you condemn your spellcasters to spending most of their time casting really cool spells that
don't actually do anything.
2. To many buff effects. 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.
Agreed. A lot of this can be done simply by sharply reducing, and then tightly controlling, the number of bonus keywords - instead of the 30+ in the "Rules Compendium", there should probably be no more than about 7.
3. Feats. Pathfinder powered up the martial types via feats like power attack. The downside to this though however is that even without spellcasters the martial types kind of break the game as well especially when playing Pathfinder Adventure Paths. Critical hit builds, and level 10 and 11 Rangers and Paladins cause problems with to much damage. Put simply power attack needs to go or be capped like the 4E version of it...
Note that Power Attack was indeed capped in Pathfinder.
For the rest of it, I actually disagree. If anything, Fighters should be getting more feats, and feats should be more powerful (and, especially, should scale better with level). In that regard, 3e's Power Attack is actually one of the
better feats.
(Or, alternatively, my preferred solution would be to split feats into two - 'feats' and 'talents', where the 'feats' are the small, always-on numeric bonuses (Weapon Focus), while the 'talents' are the new powers (Power Attack), and put each on a separate progression.)
4. Capped Ability scores and spell DCs.
Mostly agreed. In fact, I would eliminate everything that changes a character's ability scores - including ability damage/drain, spells, magic items... but also the bonus as level increases and even racial adjustments. I might make an exception for
wish, but that's it.
5. 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.
Agree about Pathfinder having the best skill system. I still feel it needs some more consolidation of skills, though.
These days, I'm actually tempted to roll the Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, and Monk into a single class that effectively has all the feats of the Fighter and all the skills of the Rogue (with the other classes powers becoming Talent chains).
But I'd certainly expand the range of class skills for most classes. I probably wouldn't cap the DCs though - assuming we're keeping high-level play then we need to keep sufficiently difficult challenges for them to grow into.
6. Overhaul multiple attacks.
Yes. Make them a feat chain. And I agree that a character with multiple attacks should get them all at the same bonus. In fact, I'd go so far as to apply that even to characters who use two different weapons.
7. Drop wealth by level and the ability to purchase magic items. Go back to 2nd ed item creation rules. Eliminate wands of CLWs. More or less a follow on from limiting stacking effects and buffs. Being able to buy the exact weapon you want/need for your build in my experience is a bad idea in the long run (I'm a perma DM).
Sort of agree. Early 3.0e was built on the assumption PCs would find their items, and would make or buy them
extremely rarely. The "Wealth by Level" table was nothing more than the average results from rolling on the "Treasure per Encounter" tables 13ish times at the previous level - so it was what PCs were
likely to find, not the amount PCs at that level should be given to buy.
However, it very quickly became clear that the ability to make items was an enormous boon to PCs who had it, and that the rest needed to be able to buy items to stay close.
But... the problem is that late 3e materials, and all of PF, is built on the assumption PCs will buy most of their items. Everything is for sale, and especially PCs will have the "Big Six". So, reversing that will have a massive impact on the game.
It's probably the right way to go, but tread carefully.
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 never had a problem with criticals.
9. Tweak the classes and monsters to account for the reduced damage and spell effects.
Yep. Good luck - that's going to be a
major undertaking!
10. Rewrite the combat chapter including grappling rules from both 3.5 and PF perhaps even using parts of 4th ed.
Ouch. No thanks. Rewrite the combat chapter, by all means... but gridless please.
