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

[VirgilCaine]

And the D&D Rules Cyclopedia is 304. 304 < 317 last time I checked. I said it's less than the PHB and it is. Did I misunderstand, or did you?

I understand that.
In 3e...4 monsters per page, dropping dragons, vermin, animals, templates, and the less popular monsters (grick, rast, grey render, ravid, vargouille, etc.), maybe you could do it. Maybe.

Edit: Your list is pants, Pants.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I disagree with much of what you've said here, but I've decided to keep the thread tidy and just address the point I disagree with most - the change to Harm from 3.0 to 3.5.

This spell was ridiculous in 3.0. Touch attack to reduce an enemy to D4 hitpoints with no save is completely broken. It would be broken as a 9th level spell, let alone at 6th where it currently appears. Do you really like every fight from 11th level onward to consist of "cleric approaches monster, casts harm and a quickened inflict light wounds, monster topples over dead."? "People should be afraid of clerics"? Well, they should be afraid of level 20 fighters as well, but with harm the 11th level cleric kills him in one round. Likewise for many higher level monsters. (barring SR)

Yes, I do - sincerely do - appreciate how powerful Harm was. In 2E, it was overwhelming (cast Harm, hold spell. Next round, strike with one hand with Harm, punch with other hand. Knock foe out, do with foe as you please. ... Or simply cast Harm, strike once, let fighter kill foe with sword strike after your turn.)
And I appreciate that Harm was even MORE overwhelmingly powerful in 3.0. Because the cleric was much stronger in general, and had access to metamagic feats (such as casting Harm as a ranged touch spell ... shudders.)

However, there has been a massive power escalation since 3.5 came out. Yes, Haste is nerfed, but we have the Frenzied Berserker. And so on. The Power Creep, as it is called, is widely noted.
Note that I added in Gestalt, a very upgraded and enpowered version of Gestalt, as a standard rule. So a 1st level fighter/wizard would have all the abilities of both classes, plus the hit points of both classes (and bonuses would be doubled too), and save throws would stack, and skills would stack, and yes feats would stack (2 feats per level, instead of the 1 feat per level that I proposed.)
You will say this is overwhelming, and perhaps you are right. But ...

How many DMs really want the headache of finding high powered monsters to throw at high level characters? They didn't want to do it in my time, and I doubt they want to do it now. As powerful as that 1st level character is, he still has low hit points, a limit to feats (and feat selection, since you must be higher in level to take many feats), spell limits, BAB limits, and so on. A simple bugbear is still going to kill him or her.

Now, as this relates to the 10th level cleric and her Harm ...
Harm is incredibly powerful, but if you do the progression I have laid out, a 10th level gestalt character by my rules would be a full 20th level character! And the DM, if he is willing to run for 20th level characters, would be hurling 20th level foes at said cleric with the Harm spell.
In which case, the Harm is powerful, but only relatively so. Everything is relative. If the enemy is a 20th level wizard with that Initiative of the Sevenfold Veil PrC, that equals one dead cleric.

In 2nd edition, every cleric was eager - all too eager - to get to 11th level so they could have the mighty Autokill spell (and worse, to get to 14th level for the Destruction Autokill spell ...)
Now, there would be less eagerness. There is quite enough Goodness at lower level to have. Does the character really wish to have to fight 20th level foes, to get her hands on that Harm? If yes, bully for her. But it's not a path for the timid.

 

[Celebrim]

And a good one it is. These are the kinds of changes that help the game still be D&D rather than help it be 'generic d20 fantasy.'

Which is a good point to make. There are certain changes I want to see in the rules, which, if I were in charge of designing 3rd edition I would have done exactly the same way. It was more important for 3rd edition to feel like D&D and in particular D&D from the 'good old days' than it was to meet some standard of elegance.

I'm going to pick on you because you're actually one of the more sensible posters in this thread.

[*]Classes: Make the monk, druid, and barbarian more generic.

Absolutely. I suggested that myself. I'll take it one further. Drop the monk entirely. You should be able to build the monk from the fighter class to within a pretty close approximation, provided the fighter is provided the sort of high quality feats it should be. Fighters need to become more mystical at high levels to keep up with spell casting classes. At a certain level of skill, the mundane becomes magical.

Let players choose different class abilities at different levels.

There has already been some pretty good movement in that direction. Primal Heroes is a good series on this theme which shows what you can do when class abilities become more like feats. At the very least, its alot more interesting take on classes than these 'Complete Nosepicker' splatbooks that have been coming out.

Ditch clerics and bring back the priest spheres (at the very least as an option).

As an option maybe, but I think that clerics are pretty well designed as is. Alot of people what a less combat oriented class for priestly types, but never really consider the problem of multi-classing. A divine spell casting class without starting armor proficencies is not that penalized, because a single multi-class into something with heavy armor solves the problem. Alot of attempts at 'non combat cleric' I've seen are significantly more powerful than a cleric 20, when you build them as a Cleric 1/uber-Cleric 19, or Fighter 1/uber-Cleric 19.

I do however think that the spells need more descriptors attached to them, but not necessarily for priest spheres. That you could use them for priest spheres as an optional rule would just be a bonus.

Remove alignment restrictions. Make the paladin a generic 'champion' class.

Agreed. In fact, this was one of my suggestions as well.

Grant all classes a Defense bonus or something.

You can't just do that. You have to write, "Grant all classes a Defence bonus, AND..." Granting all classes a defence bonus depends on changing some other aspect of the game, and the problem you'll run into is that you are either a) add alot of complexity in order to make no net change on how the game works, or b) make a game that loses some thing of D&D which is important to it.

[*]Turn Undead: Overhaul turn undead. Make it simpler so that you don't have to look at a table everytime it's used. Use the Complete Divine version?

I actually find the current core turn undead system rather elegant, and much more elegant than the Complete Divine version. Note among other things that Complete Divine causes turning to not work like turning works in D&D. Basically, the existing turn undead system works alot like an attack. You roll 'to hit', and you roll damage. Both rolls work very elegantly without requireing you to know any numbers other than those you would already track. And the secret to remembering the 'to hit table' is to remember that it always breaks on multiples of '3' - 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc.

In fact, I think that there are alot of similar mechanics to turning which I would like added to the game which could use the same table.

Grapple: Simplify grappling either in the way its presented or in the rules that are used.

Ok, the grappling rules are a bit complicated, but I haven't seen anything that simplifies them in a way which keeps grappling interesting.

Polymorph: Simplify this spell without removing its versatility. It's possible, I know it is!

No, it isn't. Polymorph by itself is inately as complicated as the entire combat system. In fact, the way to simplify this spell is to make it more complicated.

Feats: Get rid of all the similar +2 to two skill feats and make an all-inclusive feat for that.

Almost everyone has seen the logic of that. I suspect we'll see it become core sooner or later.

Proficiencies/Weapons: I'd bring back Weapon Groups and replace the current system with it.

It's an interesting option, but it doesn't make anything simplier. I'm afraid I have to lump that in with my nostalgic desire to bring back the weapon vs. ac modifiers in some form. It's a intresting option for people that want to put up with the complexity, but I'm not sure I even I want to be crossreferencing the weapons class against the targets armor bonus even though I was using touch attacks, armor bonus, deflection bonus, and so forth 15 years ago mainly as a side effect of my desire to simplify calculating the whole weapon vs armor thing.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

However, there has been a massive power escalation since 3.5 came out. Yes, Haste is nerfed, but we have the Frenzied Berserker. And so on. The Power Creep, as it is called, is widely noted.

Power creep does not exist.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Wow, what have I wrought? This thread is outta control which is very cool. I love reading people's ideas on rules no matter how crazy they may seem. I would have posted sooner, but I've been drooling over the new Apple iPhone. Anyhoo, some more things I'd like and comments on what has been said:

In fact, I would go so far as to say that I'm the only poster that has actually suggested something that would make things simplier. The first poster for example suggested doing away with cross class skills in favor of a system of feats that would give classes special circumstantial abilities. So in other words, to avoid a problem that only occurs intermitantly when characters level up, he wants to create a reoccuring complexity during play and a whole new section of feats.

Whoa tiger, I never said I wanted to create a whole new section of feats. Its hard to come up with an example without having written the rules, but I would write in conditions for using the skills that can only be used if you have levels in the class. Since Rogues are supposed to be the best at Open Lock, I would give them some sort of buff when using it. Rogues can Open Locks without Thieves Tools or something like that. Terrible example, but you get the idea. That way, you don't lose the classic "X class is good at doing X" and you also help augment the classes in certain ways and remove the cross-class nonsense. We had the purging of class only skills in 3.5, we should have the purging of class skills in 4e.

I think that's a bad solution. Classes are an important representation of what the character is; to divorce a character class from their skills would dilute the meaning of classes in a telling way.

Does what I wrote above clarify what I meant and help allay that fear at all?

A lot of people want to make the classes more generic and give players access to more feats. Craziness! I agree with what you all want as an end result, but I don't agree with the application.

Feats are awesome. They give our characters cool powers that make them more like heroes. Given more frequently our characters gain more abilities which makes going up in level a lot more satisying. We are also able to customize our characters using feats. All great things, but I don't think giving more feats is the answer. As an aside, why the hell is Weapon Specialization a Feat and not a class ability?

My solution? I would spec all of the initial classes as generic concepts keeping the core themes: fighter, arcane caster, etc. but have a lot of class abilities that are chosen throughout the character's career. If I play a fighter, I should have the choice to be a mounted warrior or an archer with the abilities that the class presents. If I play an unarmed fighter, I should be able to be a wrestler, pugilist, or a monk. This way we keep the customization factor and have better classes to boot. I probably would make a standardized progression on feats for all classes. Maybe 1 every 3 levels. The fighter would get actual class abilities so he's not like everyone else as far as abilities. Thoughts?

 

[VirgilCaine]

Absolutely. I suggested that myself. I'll take it one further. Drop the monk entirely. You should be able to build the monk from the fighter class to within a pretty close approximation, provided the fighter is provided the sort of high quality feats it should be. Fighters need to become more mystical at high levels to keep up with spell casting classes. At a certain level of skill, the mundane becomes magical.

Look at the Book of Nine Swords.
Fighters can already take Martial Study as a fighter bonus feat. Give them a better initiator progression than everyone else does--2/3, maybe or just for Iron Heart, Stone Dragon and Diamond Mind or some subset of the disciplines.
Let them take it more than three times or take different discipline trees of Martial Study.

 

[Celebrim]

Wow, what have I wrought?

Something to argue over. That's usually good so long as everyone remains good spirited, hitches up thier asbestoes underware, and realizes that no matter how much they think they are winning the debate, they still look really silly for arguing over something so utterly pointless.

I never said I wanted to create a whole new section of feats...Since Rogues are supposed to be the best at Open Lock, I would give them some sort of buff when using it.

Fundamentally the same thing. Basically, you would have class specific abilities. But a class ability is just a feat you don't have much flexibility in choosing and/or which can't be taken by another class. But however you implement your class specific buffs, it will still be by its very nature more complicated and harder to remember than the rules for which skills are class and which are cross case.

The skill system is actually quite elegant. The only variant I've seen for D20 which is as good is the Iron Heros skill groups system. But I don't think it is actually better than the core system, it just trades one set of problems for another set and actually think dropped into a normal D20 game were everyone isn't some shade of fighter, that its probably more problems than the core rules.

A lot of people want to make the classes more generic and give players access to more feats. Craziness! I agree with what you all want as an end result, but I don't agree with the application.
...
My solution? I would spec all of the initial classes as generic concepts keeping the core themes: fighter, arcane caster, etc. but have a lot of class abilities that are chosen throughout the character's career. If I play a fighter, I should have the choice to be a mounted warrior or an archer with the abilities that the class presents.

These are basically feats. Its interesting that you are taking skills away from the direction of being specific to classes, but are actually taking feats toward being more specific to a class by essentially making alot of 'class feats'. The fact that your design is incoherent like that suggests to me that you know what you want, but you don't quite know how to get there. Take my word for it that keeping cross-class skills is a good idea for the very same reason it is a good idea to replace most classes fixed class abilities with a selection of player options.

I probably would make a standardized progression on feats for all classes. Maybe 1 every 3 levels. The fighter would get actual class abilities so he's not like everyone else as far as abilities. Thoughts?

What you are failing to understand is that the fighter already has actual class abilities. They are called 'fighter bonus feats'. Those are actual class abilities, particularly the ones like 'weapon specialization' that don't appear on any other classes' list (or shouldn't). What you are actually doing is making the rest of the classes' class abilities look more like the fighter's class abilities.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Let me see now...

Okay, these are rules that have caused real friction when they appear in our game, so we fixed them.

1) The animated shield caused the sword & board players to revolt, so they became dancing instead.
2) Swallow hole 'muscular action'.. he he, yeah well we just chuckled at that. We require the creature to be slain for the person to be freed, which makes it a bit buff so CR+1. Hey, it's a bit more xp but do not fight these guys alone!
3) Rolled stats method. No default system is usable as is so we houseruled it until we can reliably generate the character we want.
4) Not sure about this but the player with the craft character was going to have to spnd 10 years crafting adamantine fullplate so the material component was removed from the cost.

Hey I agree about the price list. It would be cool if armour types & the like were priced properly, along with mundane magically enhanced equipment.

 

[Nyaricus]

Some quick and dirty thoughts:

* Grapple - make it make more sense and go faster.

* The unarmed/natural attack split needs fixing

* weapon groups are far superior to the S/M/E system - here's my take on it, inspired, infact, by Diablo II rather than UA (but subsequently influenced by it).

* classes need to be more generic. Here's my take:

• Aristocrat - a noble/royalty base class
• Battlemage - a fighter/spellcaster combo.
• Champion/Crusader - a more generic Paladin
• Cut-throat - a base assassin class
• Duelist/Spadassin - a 'nimble fighter' base class, uses light, dextrous weapons.
• Mentalist - basically, a "psion", but can be a bone-thrower, soothsayer, "psion" or any number of things.
• Priest - less battle cleric, more holy man. 1/2 BAB, and cleric (which is way overpowered) is dropped.
• Pugilist - a brawler base class. Could represent a wrestler, a pankrationist, a boxer, or whatever. Monk is ninja-kicked into the 3.5 OA
• Scout - a outdoorsy class good in any terrain. A cumination of the ranger and the scout class, and the archer archetype. Ranger is a PrC.
• Shaman - a primitive-culture priest, connected with nature/spirits/animals. Druid is a PrC
• Thief - the new rouge. I mean rogue. Basically, a skillsy, witsy scoundrel.
• Warrior - a fighter class, mainly for the heavy armour and big sword type guys. A feat chain would be opened for 'ragers' (Barbarian would be dropped)
• Wizard - your bookish, scholary mage-type.

That's 13 base classes, compared to 11. The Sorcerer, Bard and Barbarian were outright dropped, since all of their abilities could easily be represented by the above base classes and/or feats and/or PrCs. IE a theif could become adept at music and work towards a Bard PrC, maybe taking up a few Wizard levels. Barbarian could eba straight Warrior, or maybe with a dip in Scout, Pugilist, Champion or Aristocrat as appropriate.

Cleric = Priest, Druid = Shaman, Fighter = Warrior, Paladin = Champion/Crusader, Monk = Pugilist (but also a Shaolin Monk in OA, of course), Ranger+Scout = Scout, Rogue = Theif, Wizard = Wizard. Aristocrat, Battlemage, Duelist and Mentalist are all needed concepts.

With these base classes, basically any concept can be created, in my opinion.

* Did I mention Weapon Groups?

* Charisma needs to made more important. Cha to Willpower saves is a good step in the right direction.

* more feat slots, so we can enjoy the 700+ feats published by WotC alone.

* skill system needs a severe re-working, with fewer skills, but more skillpoints. Skill groups is a bit much, but stuff like Listen+Spot into a Notice skill, Diplomacy, Bluff and INtimidate into a Persuade skill, Hide+Move Silently into a Sneak skill and such would go a long way.

* less types of Bonuses. Fergodssakes! It's honestly ridculous. It really is.

* less reliance on magic items, more magic magic special again. Really.

that's about it, off the top of my head. This remids me I need to write up a set of House Rules for my game, lol....

cheers,
--N

 

[FireLance]

Allow me to break down this complaint into two parts. First, you say that you don't need the rules. Secondly, you say that you don't need more detail.

Yes.

I fully agree that most groups wouldn't make use of a more detailed craft system. As you say, most of the time most groups (even mine) are very focused on the adventuring aspects of the game and most groups will not have to work out problems involving crafting (even rude implements) all that often if ever. But lets compare what I'm asking for to what WotC is producing. Products like the legions of hell, hordes of the abyss, book of madness, savage species, frostburn, book of nine swords, complete psion, and so forth and so forth contain interesting information. But it is not, you should admit, necessarily something that will come up often in any given campaign or at all. Granted, when it does show up it might be pretty central, but in another campaign it might not even exist (by the simple expedient of the DM not buying or allow the book). By contrast, things like craft and profession are core and though they might not show up all that often, they are more likely to be a part of every groups adventures (however rarely) than say Beholders or Psionics.

Although Craft and Profession checks are in the core rules, I would say that it is far easier (for me, at least) to come up with a campaign or an adventure focusing on a particular type of creature (dragon, undead, aberration, fiend), set in a particular environment (arctic, desert, aquatic, urban), or involving a new type of magic (psionics, incarnum, binding, blade magic) than it would be for me to come up with a campaign or an adventure centered around making Craft and Profession checks. I might be able to pull off an encounter or challenge that could be overcome more easily with a Craft or Profession check (especially if I had a PC that had the skill), but there are so many aspects of a character (class abilities, racial abilities, feats, gear, other skills) that I am unlikely to want to do so very often.

Besides which, I would argue that part of the reason no one bothers with the profession or craft skills is that they are so badly written up that players never see why they would need them, DM's never see how they can use them, and both groups - knowing that the other will neglect them - elect to ignore them outside of character flavor. In other words, the very fact that they aren't important in the rules shapes how people play the game.

While there is truth in this, I don't think this is the only reason why players and DMs neglect Craft and Profession. I think the more significant factor is that players seldom define their character concepts in terms of Craft and Profession skills, and this is because there are few examples of heroic acts in the fantasy genre which can be attributed to a successful Craft or Profession check. For example, the creation of powerful magic items tend to involve more than simple skill.

Secondly, you say you don't need more complicated rules, that all you really want is a simple mechanism for resolving the issue if it comes up. Well, that's all I want to. But what I'm saying is that right now such a mechanism doesn't exist. In the case of craft, there is a simple mechanism but it doesn't produce remotely reasonable results. In the case of profession, there really isn't a mechanism at all. For example, outside making some money, it's not at all clear what Profession (Lawyer) lets you do. How does it relate to Knowledge (Law)? How does it relate to Diplomacy? Can you do everything a lawyer can do with Knowledge (Law) and Diplomacy? If not, can you do everything Knowledge (Law) and Diplomacy do with Profession (Lawyer) provided you are in a court room? Or if not, how can you earn any money as a lawyer if you know nothing about the law and know nothing about oration and debate? There is a similar lack of clear mechanism everywhere in the Profession skill - which is precisely why no one takes it. Profession (Boater) is one of the easier cases, but even then it would be nice if the average DC of paddling on flat water, or in a storm, or on rapids where in the rules just for completeness sake and so forth (How much faster can someone with 5 ranks of Profession (Boater) paddle down a 20 mile river than someone with none?). Depending on what the skill Profession actually does (right now I'd argue that noone knows), when it is revealed what it actually does, it could go from being a useless skill to a broken abusable skill to anything in the middle. Right now, its just not at all clear and DM's ignore it to be on the safe side.

I agree that they are not clear, but for the vast majority of games, I don't need them to be clear. If PCs have to travel by boat, there are already rules for how long it takes. If the PCs have to argue a case in court, I can resolve this with opposed Diplomacy checks, with perhaps a circumstance bonus to the party who is more familiar with the legal system. Right now, the main game effect of Profession is to make money, and I see no need to make it more complicated.

I can house rule and fiat rule all these things when and if they come up (and probably do a good job), but that's alot of work and stress and I would pay money for someone to work all of this out well and write it all down for me.

If someone came up with a good supplement for Craft and Profession, I might buy it, too. But I don't see it as simplifying the game.

As for the rest, your complaints don't even apply.

I was focusing mainly on the greater detail for Craft and Profession as I don't think the additional rules will simplify the game. However, since you brought them up again, and the OP doesn't mind...

#1 and #2 cover issues that are probably relevant to most peoples campaigns, even if they don't realize it. There is no reason all people living in the wild should be chaotic, and no reason that lawful warriors can't rage (imagine a religious fanatic offended by the desicration of a sacred shrine). Likewise, there is no reason that only LG dieties should have champions, and no reason why LG should be 'more good' or 'more holy' than NG.

I've always thought WotC should have named the Barbarian class the Berserker so that people don't confuse someone with levels in the Barbarian class with someone from a barbarian culture. Yes, you have cultural barbarians with levels in the Barbarian class, but cultural barbarians can also be experts, adepts, rangers, fighters, paladins, clerics, druids, etc. I also have no problems with someone who has lived all his life in a city taking levels in the Barbarian class. As for alignment restrictions, I don't have a problem with lawful warriors raging (although I appreciate the flavor that only non-lawful ones can), but I do have a definite, but personal, preference for paladins being lawful good only.

#4 comes up in every single campaign at some point and remains and has been ever since 1st edition a huge problem resulting in no ammount of DM frustration (and player frustration when the DM throws up his hands and says, "You can't bust through the tomb's stone door with your longsword. You just can't.")

I mostly deal with this problem by not having doors or barriers that the PCs aren't supposed to get past. From experience, before the DM gets frustrated because the PCs are trying to batter down a stone door with their longswords, the players get frustrated because there is a stone door their PCs can't get through. I simply design adventures that avoid both types of frustration. If I must send the PCs on a treasure hunt before I allow them into area X, it's something they can't batter down, like an item that activates a keyed teleport.

#6 refers to one of the rule changes of 3.5 that's widely ignored.

I like the 3.5 weapon size rules. I can't speak for everyone, so I don't know how widely ignored they are.

#7 refers to a general conceptual problem introduced by the rules. How is it that all fighters can freely learn Craft (Blacksmith), Craft (Embriodery), Craft (Basketweaving) and not Profession (Porter), Profession (Soldier), and Profession (Teamster)? Profession and Craft (and probably Perform) are 'everyman' skills that should apply to all classes.

Fighters can freely learn Profession. It's just harder for them (2 skill points = 1 rank, half maximum ranks). That said, it isn't a big deal to me whether all classes get Profession and Perform or not. What I think would be needless complication is a matrix of which classes get which professions as class skills.

#8 never comes up in your campaign? Are all your combats lethal?

Assuming your target is within range of an overrun attempt, it is also within range of a charge, using the melee attack to make a trip or a grapple.

#9 doesn't come up in your campaign? Are all your dungeons in someone's back yard? Do your characters never chase anything? Never have to get anywhere in a hurry? Do they all have flying carpets?

The existing overland movement rules work fine for my games, including the penalties for hustling long durations. I seldom run chase scenarios.