Project Phoenix is live!

[Kerrick]

Project Phoenix has gone public! PP is a major project 9 months in the making - a complete makeover of the 3.5 system. Project Phoenix is an Open Source system: 100% OGC, and it will include design notes to enable other designers or DMs to take part or all of the system and adapt it for their own ends. It's not complete - I'm still working on the monsters, a few odds and ends, and the design section - but there's enough done now that I feel comfortable opening it to the public as an alpha release. So go forth, visit the site, see what Project Phoenix has to offer, and leave a comment if you wish.

From the front page FAQ:

Why "Project Phoenix"? It was the first thing that popped into my head when I started thinking about names, and I liked it, so it stuck. Besides, having a name makes it more official (or at least makes it seem like I know what I'm doing). Calling it "D&D 3.75" gives people preconceptions - they expect it to look and feel like D&D; calling it by a completely different name allows me to avoid the preconceptions and expectations and make the changes necessary for it to be a workable ruleset.

Is it compatible with 3.5? Of course. The changes are more pervasive and deeper than, say, Pathfinder, but not nearly as much as 4E - it's still recognizably 3.5. All the classes are still there, most of the PrCs are still there, the spells, the monsters (except the PI material), magic items... it's just that the way some things work got changed.

Will it get published? Getting paid for all my work would be nice, but it's a big pain trying to find artists, editors, and a publisher, not to mention getting people to buy three complete books worth of stuff. I much prefer to just write stuff and share it with anyone who wants to use it. Maybe if it takes off I'll see about getting it published, but for right now, I'm content to make it available to anyone who wants it. I'm a big supporter of the Open Game Movement, so all of Project Phoenix is now and will forever be OGC and available for free.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Congrats, Kerrick.

I'll be sure to check it out. Hm, might go do that now, actually. . .

 

[Angel Tarragon]

You might want to update the link in your sig then.

 

[-Archangel-]

I tried to comment on the site but it said I do not have permission.
I looked at the Monk and I must say when compared to 3.5e and especially Pathfinder your version is really bad. It is even worse then the 3.5e.
You made a weak class even weaker.

 

[Dagredhel]

I tried to comment on the site but it said I do not have permission.
I looked at the Monk and I must say when compared to 3.5e and especially Pathfinder your version is really bad. It is even worse then the 3.5e.
You made a weak class even weaker.

Archangel? Of the "fallen" variety, maybe?

Offering unsubstantiated criticism without any explanation or positive suggestions is simply bad manners. (Maybe you're lost? The WOTC boards are over there...)

That being said, the comment is just dead *wrong*. Kerrick's Monk gets plenty of extra goodies: a better weapon selection, a dodge bonus to AC that isn't stat dependant, and the special abilities of s chosen fighting style.

Or perhaps you missed the link to the fighting styles, which are on a seperate page?

 

[Kerrick]

You might want to update the link in your sig then.

Ooh, good idea. I'll do that now.

I tried to comment on the site but it said I do not have permission.
I looked at the Monk and I must say when compared to 3.5e and especially Pathfinder your version is really bad. It is even worse then the 3.5e.
You made a weak class even weaker.

Like dagredhel said, you might want to check out the fighting styles before you pass judgment on it. I got a LOT of feedback on that thing from folks on this board - 3 pages' worth. The 3.5 monk is a mish-mash of unrelated abilities, and the Pathfinder monk isn't much better, IMO - they made only cosmetic changes to it.

I'll see what's up with the comment system.

 

[StormingMarcus]

One brief comment, having skimmed briefly only through classes. I noticed some of them have dead levels. Wouldn't it be better if every class had at least one (even minimal) goodie at every level?

 

[Arkhandus]

The guy has a point. Your Monk is slightly weaker than in the core rules. While the fighting style compass points provide some advantage in place of the lost flurry attack and special abilities, the class is a bit weaker overall.

Weaker Evasion, far fewer of the core Monk's special abilities and especially missing Diamond Soul, less speed, slightly weaker Slow Fall, fewer anti-caster and anti-status effect abilities, fewer escape abilities, weaker Purity of Body, and lower AC. A core monk may have higher AC from Wisdom, and doesn't lose their AC bonuses when surprised or attacked invisibly. The fighting styles are kind of unbalanced against one another, too.

Not saying it sucks, but it certainly isn't an improvement, either; its only advantages are a bit of extra direct melee ability and some flexibility in its choice of abilities, some clearly inferior to others. But with greatly reduced viability in combats involving spellcasters or monsters with special abilities.

 

[Merlin's Shadow]

I noticed that you gave half-orcs -1 Int and Cha. That's typically avoided in d20 design since it's so easy to avoid suffering an actual penalty.

 

[Kerrick]

One brief comment, having skimmed briefly only through classes. I noticed some of them have dead levels. Wouldn't it be better if every class had at least one (even minimal) goodie at every level?

I dunno... giving them something at every level leads to more crap to keep track of (unless they're simply scaling abilities, in which case they're kind of boring).

The guy has a point. Your Monk is slightly weaker than in the core rules. While the fighting style compass points provide some advantage in place of the lost flurry attack and special abilities, the class is a bit weaker overall.

Weaker Evasion, far fewer of the core Monk's special abilities and especially missing Diamond Soul, less speed, slightly weaker Slow Fall, fewer anti-caster and anti-status effect abilities, fewer escape abilities, weaker Purity of Body, and lower AC. A core monk may have higher AC from Wisdom, and doesn't lose their AC bonuses when surprised or attacked invisibly. The fighting styles are kind of unbalanced against one another, too.

Not saying it sucks, but it certainly isn't an improvement, either; its only advantages are a bit of extra direct melee ability and some flexibility in its choice of abilities, some clearly inferior to others. But with greatly reduced viability in combats involving spellcasters or monsters with special abilities.

Well, considering the 3.5 monk was pretty powerful, it's not hard to make it LESS powerful, though I thought it was pretty close. I wanted to change it from a mishmash of unrelated abilities into a focused, cohesive whole. As far as balance of fighting styles... I can't really say, since it hasn't been playtested. How do you rate them, balancewise?

I noticed that you gave half-orcs -1 Int and Cha. That's typically avoided in d20 design since it's so easy to avoid suffering an actual penalty.

I know, but I couldn't justify giving them a -2 to both - that just gimps them too much. I could just go with -2 Int and drop the Cha penalty.