D&D 3.x Issues that might arise from a "core book only" 3.5 campaign and possible fixes?
- Thread starter Rocksome
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Celebrim
Legend
3.5 Core only will work fine provided...
a) You don't allow magic items to be treated as part of character build. Fully fungible wealth as magic items allows a player to optimize builds and make up for otherwise severe shortcomings in it. 1e tended to deal with this problem by having magic items firmly in the hands of the DM, and even having random magic item tables largely geared to providing gear for martial classes. Keeping control over what magic items the party has access to, allows you to tweak the effectiveness of individual party members as needed. In my current campaign for example, the most powerful spellcaster in the party is still dealing with having a 10 AC because gear to fix the AC is hard to come by, and tends to be prioritized by those who expect to be on the front lines. It's hard to feel OP, if you could get one shotted if you ever find yourself in a situation where you don't have another party member face tanking for you.
b) You don't have players optimizing spell-casters. If you read most of the discussion of why Cleric, Druid, or Wizard is tier 1, a lot of it comes down to a list of mostly non-core spells that lets them solve every possible problem. If you stick to core, it's not terribly obvious to the average player how you break casters. If you have characters slinging fireballs and the like, you are golden. Watch out though for the player that does things like take 3.5 Alter Self, and uses it to shapechange into a Troglodyte to get a +6 natural AC bonus. That's indicative of a player that is going to break the game at higher levels, and may require preemptively house ruling some spells. (Note that in 3.0 Alter Self, you couldn't pull this trick, so how you house rule Alter Self is obvious).
But, you made a good choice; so much of the broken is gone. No whisper gnomes; no strongheart halflings. No Arcane Thesis. No Domain Wizard. No Uncanny Forethought. No Wizard variant subclassing. No split ray. No twin spell. No Incantrix. OMG just so many fewer headaches. You may still have problems with players who really know how to abuse battlefield control (web, glitterdust, stinking cloud, etc.), but the degree of brokenness is still down and the nice thing about battlefield control and buff/debuff strategies is that the spell-caster is playing nice with the rest of the party, so even if they are what makes the party work the other players are in on the glory. Likewise, you may end up with a player that goes into crafting his own stuff, and that is also very optimal, but the XP costs of self-crafting tend to mean that the character lags behind the rest of the party in levels, which in turn means again that they can't hog all the spotlight.
There is nothing wrong with this at all.
I will offer this caveat, though: in my experience even though the PHB casters get the lion's share of awesome stuff in nearly all the splatbooks, there is enough for the other classes and multiclassed characters- especially the partial casters- to boost them a bit more as well.
There was a feat I used on a Geomancer- the original Sacred Healing*- which greatly increased his healing potency of the character, especially when coupled with the feat Extra Turning. The ability to heal large numbers of characters simultaneously without burning spells meant greatly increased availability of those spells later on. That character almost never healed any other way, all through RttToEE.
But in a sense, this actually works better for a Paladin or multiclassed Cleric than it does for single-classed Clerics. Why? In its usual use, Turn Undead is level based, and Paladins are hindered in that regard. If your Paladin is doing the turning, something has gone wrong. But Sacred Healing is based on Charisma alone, so a Paladin burning TUs this way is as effective as a Cleric with the same Cha. All of a sudden, the Paladin's ability to step into the role of a healer is radically increased.
So, to me, at least, I think the splatbooks open up a lot more character concepts into viability. And that's a good thing.
* Use Turn Undead attempt to give Fast Healing 3 for (1+Cha bonus)rds in a 60' burst
Celebrim
Legend
[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION]: I don't at all disagree that there are a lot of solid concepts that the core books don't support well that perhaps there should be support for.
I'm just not at all sure that the particular way the splat books go about it is the best way to go about it.
Lets say we decide that we want to make the ability to channel divine power more generally useful in cases where there aren't undead around, and that we want to support different thematic uses of divine power depending on the character concept.
That's sounds good, and I agree that in theory that could help 1/2 casters more than full casters.
So lets say we decide that it's a fair price to pay one feat to get the ability to turn one turning attempt into the equivalent of a 1st level spell.
Well, right off the bat, that's a better feat than just about any non-caster feat as it is. Spend one feat to get to get 6-8 additional 1st level spell slots? Yes, please! That's an awesome feat, even if it is restricted to a single spell and even if it is competing with another use of our (sometimes rarely used) class ability.
But then, when you get to something like Sacred Healing and you start comparing it to standard spells, what you find is that this ability you just granted isn't in fact equivalent to a 1st level spell. You find that the ability to heal 12-21 h.p. to all your allies is at least equivalent to Mass Cure Light wounds which is a fifth level spell. So suddenly, from a relatively low level, we are now granting a sizable chunk of 5th level spell slots to a spell-caster. This is beyond an awesome feat, and of course this radically increases the Paladin's ability to step into the role of healer. Granting any class the ability to cast a half dozen or more 5th level spells of a particular type would radically increase that classes ability to fulfill whatever role that spell facilitated.
Typically, the way I would expect someone to respond to me at this point is to say something like, "Well, no, it's not that awesome. The party could achieve basically the same effect with just a Wand of Cure Light Wounds." And while the point is true, the fundamental argument being made with that sort of rebuttal is, "Since there exists something isn't balanced, it doesn't matter really what the power level of anything else is." It's that sort of thinking which lead to 3.5 being so wholly imbalanced, especially once people started combining different redundant facilitating features into single builds. I think it's very easy as a 3.5 player to fall into the trap of thinking that because they can think of something that is even more game breaking, that X thing is well balanced. You have to step back I think and compare what you are doing to some sort of baseline just to be able to answer the question, "Exactly what are we doing here?"
I'm just not at all sure that the particular way the splat books go about it is the best way to go about it.
Lets say we decide that we want to make the ability to channel divine power more generally useful in cases where there aren't undead around, and that we want to support different thematic uses of divine power depending on the character concept.
That's sounds good, and I agree that in theory that could help 1/2 casters more than full casters.
So lets say we decide that it's a fair price to pay one feat to get the ability to turn one turning attempt into the equivalent of a 1st level spell.
Well, right off the bat, that's a better feat than just about any non-caster feat as it is. Spend one feat to get to get 6-8 additional 1st level spell slots? Yes, please! That's an awesome feat, even if it is restricted to a single spell and even if it is competing with another use of our (sometimes rarely used) class ability.
But then, when you get to something like Sacred Healing and you start comparing it to standard spells, what you find is that this ability you just granted isn't in fact equivalent to a 1st level spell. You find that the ability to heal 12-21 h.p. to all your allies is at least equivalent to Mass Cure Light wounds which is a fifth level spell. So suddenly, from a relatively low level, we are now granting a sizable chunk of 5th level spell slots to a spell-caster. This is beyond an awesome feat, and of course this radically increases the Paladin's ability to step into the role of healer. Granting any class the ability to cast a half dozen or more 5th level spells of a particular type would radically increase that classes ability to fulfill whatever role that spell facilitated.
Typically, the way I would expect someone to respond to me at this point is to say something like, "Well, no, it's not that awesome. The party could achieve basically the same effect with just a Wand of Cure Light Wounds." And while the point is true, the fundamental argument being made with that sort of rebuttal is, "Since there exists something isn't balanced, it doesn't matter really what the power level of anything else is." It's that sort of thinking which lead to 3.5 being so wholly imbalanced, especially once people started combining different redundant facilitating features into single builds. I think it's very easy as a 3.5 player to fall into the trap of thinking that because they can think of something that is even more game breaking, that X thing is well balanced. You have to step back I think and compare what you are doing to some sort of baseline just to be able to answer the question, "Exactly what are we doing here?"
Dandu
First Post
This leads to the question of what to balance towards
Many people seem to consider that Barbarians, Bards, Rangers, Rogues, Favored Souls, Spirit Shamans, Warlocks, Warmages, Beguilers, and Binders are the general sorts of classes to balance around, since they do what they say on the tin without spilling over into other roles or tapping into ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER without the itty bitty living space.
Question: Would you say that a feat like Law Devotion, which lets the Paladin use Turning attempts to hit things better, is better balanced than Sacred Healing, considering that there are other classes with a generally similar mechanic (ie, the Barbarian) and hitting things is something the Paladin does anyways?
Many people seem to consider that Barbarians, Bards, Rangers, Rogues, Favored Souls, Spirit Shamans, Warlocks, Warmages, Beguilers, and Binders are the general sorts of classes to balance around, since they do what they say on the tin without spilling over into other roles or tapping into ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER without the itty bitty living space.
Question: Would you say that a feat like Law Devotion, which lets the Paladin use Turning attempts to hit things better, is better balanced than Sacred Healing, considering that there are other classes with a generally similar mechanic (ie, the Barbarian) and hitting things is something the Paladin does anyways?
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Yep, it's an awesome feat: auto stabilizing & FH3 for every creature in a 60' burst. That is a LOT of potential targets. If you're traveling with pets- familiars, companions, steeds- and allies, a single use of the feat potentially heals hundreds of points of damage. And you recharge at days end. That means even a low level cleric (typically, multiclassed, like my Geomancer) or Paladin can really keep a party going.
If your Cha bonus is +4, you're healing 15hp/target in 6 seconds. If the group is messed up, keep burning Turns- 2 more and everyone has regained 45hp in 18 seconds.
This is perfect for something like a "hospitaller" concept.
As for balance...well, I really haven't been concerned with that for years. I started thinking of the typical D&D party kind of like a naval carrier group: the carrier is the primary projector of power, but it can be vulnerable. The other units in the group either accentuate the carrier's projection of power or protect the carrier itself, especially from things it can't handle too well, like submarines. So I don't care if the wizards, Druids, Sorcerers & Clerics have all the goodies, they can't use them all simultaneously. Everybody has a role to play. Besides...y'all know I don't concern myself with mechanical optimization, either.
My thing is how many kewl PC concepts the game lets you model in a fun way. I really mean that. Even though I know the mechanical shortfalls & things that don't work as intended, I still love playing 3.5Ed Monks, Soulknives, and so forth.
If your Cha bonus is +4, you're healing 15hp/target in 6 seconds. If the group is messed up, keep burning Turns- 2 more and everyone has regained 45hp in 18 seconds.
This is perfect for something like a "hospitaller" concept.
As for balance...well, I really haven't been concerned with that for years. I started thinking of the typical D&D party kind of like a naval carrier group: the carrier is the primary projector of power, but it can be vulnerable. The other units in the group either accentuate the carrier's projection of power or protect the carrier itself, especially from things it can't handle too well, like submarines. So I don't care if the wizards, Druids, Sorcerers & Clerics have all the goodies, they can't use them all simultaneously. Everybody has a role to play. Besides...y'all know I don't concern myself with mechanical optimization, either.
My thing is how many kewl PC concepts the game lets you model in a fun way. I really mean that. Even though I know the mechanical shortfalls & things that don't work as intended, I still love playing 3.5Ed Monks, Soulknives, and so forth.
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Celebrim
Legend
Personally, I consider that we want to balance toward two things:
1) We want every class when built in a straight forward manner to be roughly tier 3, in that as you say, we want each class to be able to fulfill their primary role, perhaps be ok in a secondary role or two, but not be able to go it alone. That is to say, we want each class to be able to shine as part of a group, but not outshine the group or be able to take on challenges intended for a group solo.
2) We want a group of 4 PC's to find a suitable degree of challenge against a predictable set of foes, so that novice DMs have some guidelines regarding how to design challenges.
We also want to have a goal of being able to open up space for playing recognizable fantasy archetypes, but without continual power creep. That means, when we extend classes via chargen resources like Feats, we want to avoid strengthening builds that are already strong, and we want to avoid redundant stackable resources. In general, that means we want to avoid "there is more than one way to do things". 3.5 on the other hand continually reinforced builds that were already strong, while continually providing multiple routes to achieve the same result. These individual routes were often not overpowered on their own, but when players cherry picked the best elements of race, feats, new skills, skill tricks, PrCs, and equipment the results were generally undesirable. In general, the 3.5 designers seemed to never think about what they were actually doing or the implications of it.
And we could go on and on for pages in this vein, discussing how 3.5 designers never seemed to understand basic things just how hard it is to design a good feat, churning out tons of feats just because they were short, or that when you created a spell you were in fact adding a class ability to a class and so you ought to be really hesitant to do this without good cause. And on and on and on. 3e D&D was victimized by its own failure to rein in its own obvious extensibility, ultimately resulting in a train wreck and the over compensation of 4e.
I would generally feel that if you spend a feat to give you some additional use of a class ability like 'turning undead', that it is probably reasonably balanced if it doesn't do more than what we'd expect of 1st level spell. In this case, Law Devotion is IMO better balanced than Sacred Healing. The appropriate comparison is with Divine Favor, which isn't a swift action and grants a smaller bonus but which on the other hand boosts both hit and damage. And maybe most importantly, Law Devotion is limited by 1/day which means you are effectively only gaining a single limited spell slot - not a number of slots that scales with charisma and which can be boosted by feats like Extra Turning which wasn't created with the idea that it was a spell slot booster in mind. If it wasn't limited to 1/day, then IMO the bonus it offers is simply too large and the feat too much of a no brainer. Whereas, spending a limited resource like a feat to gain a 1/day ability is an obvious tradeoff.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
I'd echo the comment that being careful about allowing item creation is something to be wary of. One of the balancing aspects of 1e/2e was the relative infrequency of wizard-oriented magic items on the random treasure tables (excluding scrolls which were common but a lot harder to make). Martial-oriented items, particularly weapons and armor, were a lot more common than wands and bracers of armor. Easy item creation, despite being a popular addition to the game, utterly trashes any balance derived from the concept of equipment-oriented PCs like fighters having easier access to magic equipment. And last I really looked, the random tables in the 3.5 DMG don't really promote the idea of weapons and armor being more common - they're too oriented around market price.
Celebrim
Legend
While we are on the subject, there are two areas in core in particular to watch out for:
a) Divine Wands: These didn't exist in 1e, and 3e added them in IMO thoughtlessly. Divine wands are just often too darn efficient as healing and buffing mechanisms.
b) Always on Items: The primary example of this would be something like a 'Ring of Invisibility'. The big problem here is that the crafting rules radically undercosted the price/XP outlay of items that grant permanent buffs. 2000 x caster level x spell level might be fine for something that has a spell duration of all day or in hours, but is just way too low in the case of buffs which have very short durations when cast as spells. If the PC's make moves to abuse the crafting system as written, make sure to scale the cost of an always on item to the real advantage in enhanced duration it is providing.
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I don't quite agree with the "1st level spell" as the litmus test. Some Feats have prerequisites: being a member of a race, class or other subgroup; having a certain alignment; having a certain stat minimum; having some certain mechanical ability or feature; being of a certain minimum level. The more difficult the prereq is to attain, the more powerful the feat can be, IMHO.
Ditto if the Feat requires the burning of specific resources, like sacrificing XP.
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