Rules in 3.5 that need fixing and what you'd do to fix it.

[Rystil Arden]

9) Fix the LA system. Here, what I recommend is that LAs are simply removed, and instead creatures simple increased in hit dice so that the LA is no longer required. So, for example, instead of being a 1 HD creature with LA +2, the Drow would instead be a 2 or 3 HD creature with all the same abilities, and no LA. Alternately, the 'base Drow' could be constructed without the powers, and the a Paragon class introduced to 'fix' them. However, I think the former system is probably the more concise and better fix.

This will only fix things for races whose type has a crummy racial HD. If you made Tieflings and Aasimar have 1 Outsider HD instead of +1 LA, then except for a pure caster (due to the problems with multiclassing casters which you said you wanted to fix anyways), you've gained a bunch (full BAB, +2 to all saves, tons of skills, etc).

 

[delericho]

This will only fix things for races whose type has a crummy racial HD.

True. Some re-balancing would be needed to make this work. I don't see that as a fundamental problem though - the scale of the changes I suggested was such that that was a requirement anyway.

If you made Tieflings and Aasimar have 1 Outsider HD instead of +1 LA, then except for a pure caster (due to the problems with multiclassing casters which you said you wanted to fix anyways), you've gained a bunch (full BAB, +2 to all saves, tons of skills, etc).

In that particular case, I would require 2 or even 3 hit dice. Those class features they then aren't getting start to look mighty appealing. Sure, you have the BAB of a Fighter, the saves of a Monk and the skills of a Rogue, but you're missing those key feats (and HD of Fighter), or the Unarmed combat abilities (and Wis AC bonus), or the Sneak Attack and Evasion.

Still, it's obviously not a perfect solution - Half-dragons would probably require 4 or 5 racial hit dice to be balanced, and that's probably too many to be reasonable.

 

[Rystil Arden]

True. Some re-balancing would be needed to make this work. I don't see that as a fundamental problem though - the scale of the changes I suggested was such that that was a requirement anyway.



In that particular case, I would require 2 or even 3 hit dice. Those class features they then aren't getting start to look mighty appealing. Sure, you have the BAB of a Fighter, the saves of a Monk and the skills of a Rogue, but you're missing those key feats (and HD of Fighter), or the Unarmed combat abilities (and Wis AC bonus), or the Sneak Attack and Evasion.

Still, it's obviously not a perfect solution - Half-dragons would probably require 4 or 5 racial hit dice to be balanced, and that's probably too many to be reasonable.

4 or 5 HD of Dragon for the Half-Dragon bonuses? Sign me up for that! That's still d12 HD, Full BAB, all good saves, and 6+ skills. With all the half-dragon perks, that's much better than taking, for instance, Barbarian (which has comparable HD and BAB at least), and certainly a Half-Dragon 5 / Barbarian 1 is much more powerful than a Barbarian 6.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I would eliminate the need for Level Adjustment as discussed above, but it's actually pretty easy to avoid all of this type-dependent crap: you don't have to use the current type system. In fact, I would think it would become slightly silly to assume that you can design every dragon, monstrous humanoid, outsider, et cetera to a full monster-class no-LA standard and retain the current type system . . . at least inasmuch as type determines racial hit die, BAB, skill points, bonus feats, blah blah blah.

No, better to design each monster directly to concept and scale the use of creature types back to descriptive categories and targets of specific magical effects (like hide from undead or repel abberation).

 

[delericho]

certainly a Half-Dragon 5 / Barbarian 1 is much more powerful than a Barbarian 6.

Congratulations - you've discovered that the Barbarian is too front-loaded

Seriously, though, this is clearly one of the areas where my proposed fix breaks down. In fact, it may not work with templates at all, since these tend not to add more hit dice to the underlying creature.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Which is why templates should add Hit Dice - should be treated as (short) monster classes.

 

[Herobizkit]

One of my biggest fixes would be to buy the rights to Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth from Eric Noah (I think...) and make it D&D spell canon. I wold remove the spell lists entirely and have the PCs invent their own spells. An eloquent system that can do practically anything, though the wizard using a system such as this might not. Boo-urns on the Vancian system.

But if the Vancian system is too canon, I say replace it with the psionics system. Mana points and spending more points to make the spells better (and less for weaker effects) ftw!

I would also reintroduce the Kit books, in d20 Modern's "Occupations" format. Add some skills to a narrow skill list, maybe a free feat or two, and perhaps even some free bennies as you advance in level.

Those PrC talents are nice. Let's make them feats instead. Better, let's make them "superpowers" like Mutants and Mastermionds and allow us to completely customize our characters.

 

[comrade raoul]

Now, if we're talking about rules that I think should be changed, here's my list:

YES YES YES. If I made my own list it would look exactly like this.

 

[greywulf]

Here's my top ten, in no particuar order:

1) Make AoO and using miniatures in gaming optional again. Stick it in a sidebar where it belongs, or even in a seperate book altogether.

2) Fix grappling, natural attack / unarmed attacks so the rules are consistent and clear by making them all natural attacks, period.

3) Bring in the base classes from d20 Modern and make fighter, apprentice mage, rogue, etc occupations so we can have Smart Rogues, Tough Mages and Strong Druids. I'd like that. Bring in talent trees and make low-level spell casting access a bunch of feats with a pre-req of "must be of the right occupation". Have Druid, Cleric, Mage as Advanced Classes with standard spell progression.

4) Remove Level Adjustments and replace them with a Feat Cost. What is now +1LA will have a Feat Cost of 1, so you've no free feat at first level. +2 LA becomes Feat Cost 2 - no free feats at 1st or 3rd level. Playing powerful monsters has nothing to do with "Level" at all (Hit Dice still apply, however). That makes the more unusual monsters attractive to play without being too overbalanced. Humans still get an extra feat at 1st level; in effect, they're Feat Cost -1.

5) Ditch variable dice for weapon sizes. Make weapons "small, medium, large, etc" and say that a wielder can use a weapon one size larger than them two handed only. Anything larger is used two handed with a cumulative -4 penalty. So a halfling can wield a shortsword (which is a small weapon) just fine. A longsword (a medium weapon) is two-handed for a halfling and a greatsword (a large weapon) is two-handed and at -4 to wield. That's much better than the current "halfling greataxe" nonsense.

6) Add in penalties for hit point loss. When you lose HP = your CON, make a DC15 Fort save or be at cumulative -1 to all actions until rested and healed. You're injured, so act like it That'll make the game much grittier and encourage tactical play instead of the PCs being invulnerable to all but the last hit.

7) Get rid of the whole CR/EL/LA fiasco. They all measure a monster's power, allbeit in slightly different ways. Make it ONE number which measures a critter's overall capabilities. Use Feat Cost (See above) as a control over it's playability as a character race.

8) Make XP a simple calculation rather than a table lookup. Have each "CR" (or whatever it's called) = 100XP and put the emphasis on GMs giving XP for good role-playing rather than dice-rolling.

9) Make a beginner's boxed set which is like the D&D Basic set to take characters through levels 1-3 with a sample dungeon, monsters, etc. Provide all the rules they need for this level of play, but no more.

10) Also provide a one-book system which gives character generation, skills, feats, some spells, some monsters and DM advice. Make it like the D&D Rules Cyclopedia - a resource for experienced players rather than a newbie book so it's text heavy, stuffed full of rules and options and a perfect "Bible" for in-game rules decisions.

EDIT: And get rid of alignment restrictions for base classes. That's a campaign-level decision, not a rules-level decision. I think that's a given now though

 

[VirgilCaine]

The fact that half the DMG is magical stuff is a crying shame.

3.0 DMG: 256 pages, Magic starts on p. 173 and ends at page 246. ~74 pages, including the rules for making magic items, cursed items, artifacts, intelligent items and the intro section, and the actual magic items that you use start on page p. 179, second column, with Armor and go until the end of the Wondrous Item section, with like five or six items in the left column of page 228. 49 pages is one fifth of the book.

10) Also provide a one-book system which gives character generation, skills, feats, some spells, some monsters and DM advice. Make it like the D&D Rules Cyclopedia - a resource for experienced players rather than a newbie book so it's text heavy, stuffed full of rules and options and a perfect "Bible" for in-game rules decisions

The is exactly like the PHB, with an incomplete assortment of monsters and spells tacked on. How is this desirable?