Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DwarvenDog" data-source="post: 3220398" data-attributes="member: 40792">this turned out to be longer than I'd expected.  Um... sorry?1.) MulticlassingThis issue has never been a problem for me simply because I have excellent players. If they can't think of in in-game, roleplaying reason to multiclass, they don't do it. That said, I wish there were some additional prerequisites for multiclassing built into the system. Perhaps a time component (becoming a wizard takes 6 years of study at a formal academy, for example), or a training component (to multiclass into fighter you must have spent at least 3 consecutive weeks traveling in armor, training with weapons, etc.) Even if these were variants, it would be nice to have some kind of baseline "assumed standard"2.)  Free Metamagic.I completely agree.  I do not ever hand out metamagic rods, or allow their purchase. I have a warmage in one campaign as the sole arcane caster so I am not going to mess around with his sudden metamagic.  He needs all the help he can get.  However, feats like Divine Metamagic are also not used.3.)  Synergy:I can see this as a problem when the DM is not the one making the investment into books/materials and one or more of the players are always "one step ahead."  But this is going to be true no matter what you play. It's not limited to D&D, or even to RPG's. The DM really needs to be comfortable making judgments about these things.4.) 2H Weapons and7.) Expertise/Power AttackExpertise is never a problem for me. I've kept the 3.0 version of Power Attack because the 2H version in 3.5 causes me mental stress when designing encounters. I admit that I had 3 frontline fighters in one of my campaigns, one with a greataxe, one with a 2H sword, and one with a spiked chain. ALL of them ended up with animated shields. That tells me something about either: a) the skewed benefit of 2H fighting in general or b) that animated shields are too good for their cost. I'm going with the latter.5.)  Balancing Encounters...Day/WeekI do not have any issues with the way encounters work, but that comes from knowing my groups. I do have an issue with any ability, item, or function that is invoked as a "weekly" event.  Paladins' cure disease, the craft/profession rules, etc.  I hate these figures because I don't have a standard 7-day week. Just keep one unit of time (hours) and say abilities function once every x hours. 6.)  Buffs.Yup, it's a problem which comes from 2 sources: 1)  the over-dependence of EVERYTHING on the 6 core stats, and 2) the mining of different types of bonuses from multiple sources. Insight Bonus? Luck Bonus? Sacred Bonus? Enhancement Bonus?  I don't have a working solution to either problem but I have some thoughts:  1: Raise the level on buffing spells and standardize the way "mass" versions of buffing work. I think if Bull's Strength were both higher level (3rd maybe?) and variable (+2, +4, +6 dependent on caster level) and if all related items were re-priced appropriately, this would go a long way to solving the stats problem.2: remove sacreds, profanes, lucks, and untyped modifiers that come from magic. If you cast a spell that gives you a +2 to hit and damage, that's not going to stack with any other spell that gives you a + to hit or damage.3: limit the number of buffs a character can have active in the same manner that item slots on the body are limited. 8.)  Point-Buy.Love it or hate it, there is something to be said for keeping everybody within the same power curve. Stats are HUGE.  They factor into absolutely everything a character does. In one of my campaigns I allowed "4d6 drop the lowest."  I asked for everyone's stats and guess what the equivalent point-buy would have been?  51.  Yes, a 51-point-buy.  From a player's perspective that might be thrilling. From a DM's perspective this bites, big time. You can't use anything out-of-the-box and expect to challenge them. skill DC's always seem too low. You're increasing monster stats to keep the challenge up and then feeling crappy when something you thought was fair turns out to be unbeatable.In earlier editions, stats didn't matter so much. rolling by default wasn't going to cause any problems. In 3rd edition, you need to be mindful about how vital they are to every action a character takes.9.)  Rerolls.It's honestly never come up, so I've got nothing so say.10.)  Magic Item Creation.I think this needs a complete overhaul for MANY reasons. None of my PC's take them. The XP hit is just too severe and skewed against the crafter, from their POV.  There is no other mechanic that penalizes other character classes in a similar fashion. I see NPC statblocks where the developers were apparently whacked with a touch of idiocy, because they are loaded up on item creation feats and then are not given appropriate gear to utilize those feat choices.  There are too many redundancies in item abilities (not once have I ever seen Forge Ring or Craft Rod even considered) Some others, from my point-of view:11.)  There are rules that simply break suspension-of-disbelief while narrating. I detest these.  I know this is like the "common sense" argument that everyone likes to quip about, but seriously... I cannot think of any realistic way to describe the Swallow Whole process. I fail to be able to describe what "alignment-based-damage" is like. (you take 6 points of chaotic damage. Yup, OK.) 12.)  NPC classes.I cannot state my dislike in strong enough terms. If you want a crappy fighter, build a crappy fighter. If you want a crappy spellcaster, it's easy enough to make one using the base classes. The only NPC class of any worth is the expert. You can model an aristocrat with this. You can model a commoner with this. You can model a craftsman, beekeeper, or blue-haired church lady with this. Ditch the rest, make expert more robust and have that be the default NPC.And I'm done.</blockquote>

Verification