Shazman's v3.7 rules

[Shazman]

Well everyone, I've decided to tweak 3.5 instead of switching to 4th edition. I'm doing this so I can continue to use my library of 3.5 books, and I don't wish to support WotC financially any longer because of their horrible customer relations with everything relative to 4th edition. Most of these changes have already been seen in Star Wars: Saga, and PHBII
So here it goes.

Classes
The following changes are made to the classes in the Player's Handbook.

Bard - At 4th level the bard gains inspire resiliance. This is a bardic music ability that gives all allies that can hear the bard temporary hit points equal to the bard's character level or twice the bard's character level if they are below half of their current maximum hit point total. At 16th level, the bard gains motivating song. The bardic music ability gives all allies that can hear the bard, an immediate attack that does not count against their actions for the round. In addition, bardic music requires a swift action to activate, and lasts for the entire encounter.

Barbarian - Barbarian rage lasts for the entire encounter.

Cleric - Cleric's gain the healing burst ability at 1st level. This ability requires a swift action to activate. Healing burst allows a cleric to lose any prepared spell except domain spells to cure 3 hp per spell level to all allies within thirty feat of the cleric. Turn undead causes 1d6 points of holy damage per cleric level to undead within 30 ft of the cleric. They get a will save for half damage. The DC is 10 + half cleric level + cha bonus. Improved turning adds +2 to this DC. Undead with turn resistance add that number to their save vs. turning. Rebuke and command undead are unchanged. Greater turning (from the Sun domain or another source) deals 2d6 points of holy damage per cleric level.

Druid - Druids lose the animal companion and wild shape abilities. Instead they acquire the shapeshifter alternate class feature found in PHBII at 1st level. They also lose the ability to spontaneously cast summon nature's ally spells. Instead they can lose a prepared spell as a swift action to grant all allies fast healing 1 per spell level sacrificed for the duration of the encounter. This ability is called aura of vitality.

Fighter - Fighters gain an abiltiy called combat expert at 3rd level. This ability gives them a +1 competence bonus on all opposed attack rolls or physical ability checks. This abiltiiy improves to +2 at 7th level and an additional +1 every 4 levels. At 5th level a fighter gains elaborate parry. When an attack would normally hit the fighter, he can roll an attack roll. The result of the attack roll is the AC the opponent must beat to hit the fighter. This ability is an immediate action that is usable once per encounter. At 9th level a fighter gains the counterstrike ability. Once per encounter, he may choose to use this ability to deal the maximum amount of damage to an opponent that dealt damage to him in the previous round. The fighter must declare that he is using this ability before he attacks. If he misses the ability is still used up for the remainder of the encounter. Fighters gain an ability called resolve at 11th level that grants them a +4 competence bonus to will saves. At 13th level, the fighter gains the lightning recovery ability. Any time a fighter misses with an attack, he can immediately make another attack with a +2 bonus to the attack roll. This is an immediate action that is useable once per day. At 15 level the fighter gains the augmented critical ability. This abiltiy increases the critical multiplier of any weapon they wield by one step. At 20th level, fighters gain overwhelming assault. As a full-round action, the fighter gains an immediate extra attack every time he strikes an opponent with a -2 penalty, until he misses. A fighter must declare he is using this ability before making his first attack roll. All attacks must made against the same opponent. This ability is usable once per day.

Monk - Monks gain an ability called Kiai Strike at 5th level. This ability is useable once per encouter. A monk must delcare he is using this ability before his attack roll. He adds his wisdom modifier to attack and deals his monk level in extra damage. Monk's also gain the decisive strike ability from PHBII at first level. In any given round they can choose to use flurry of blows or decisive strike.

Paladin - Paladin hit dice increase to d12. Paladins lose their turn undead, call mount, and spellcasting ability. Smite evil is changed to smite and works regardless of the alignment of the target. Smite is usuable once per encounter at 1st level, twice per encounter at 10th level, and three times per encounter at 20th level. Paladins gain the knight's challenge and shield block abilties of a knight (PHBII) of their level.

Ranger - Rangers lose their animal companion, combat style, and spelllcasting. Instead they acquire the skirmish ability as a scout of their level.

Rogue - Rogues gain poison use at 4th level. They also gain hide in plain sight at 14th level.

Sorcerer - Sorcerers lose the summon familiar ability and gain the ability to apply metamagic feats to spells without taking a full-round action. Sorcerers gain a heritage feat and eschew materials as bonus feats at 1st level.

Wizard - The reserve feats from Complete Mage are added to list of bonus feats that wizards can take every five levels.

I'll submit general rule changes in a later post.

Please, everyone feel free to offer comments or suggestions. This is all about making the game better for me and my groups, and hopefull it will inspire some of you to do the same.

 

[Shazman]

General Rules:

Combat

Five foot steps and full-attack actions are removed from the game.
To get more than one attack per round a character must get the double attack, two-weapon fighting, cleave, great cleave, or whirlwind attack feats.

Characters add half of their BAB to all weapon damage rolls.

All characters can use a second wind as a swift action once per day if their current hit point total is half of or less than their current maximum hit point total. A second wind heals 1/4 of a character's maximum hit points or their con score, whichever is higher.

To start a grapple, you must make a touch attack against your opponent. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Grapple checks are now resolved with opposed strength checks modified by size. A grappled creature loses its dexterity modifier to creatures not in the grapple. A grappled creature can make an opposed grapple check to escape the grapple, deal damage with a natural or light weapon in hand, or make an escape artist check to escape the grapple. If a creature grapples a creature equal to or less than its size, it can immobilize or forcefully throw the grappled creature with a successful opposed grapple check. Immobilized characters cannot take any physical action, except for speaking or breathing, besides trying to escape the grapple which requires two successful grapple checks in a row. Creatures thrown forcefully take blungeoning damage equal to 1d6 plus the grappling creature's strength modifier and land prone in any unoccupied adjacent square of the grappling creature's choice. Fighters can use their combat expert ability for grapple checks.

Rolls to confirm critical hits are no longer needed. A threat is an automatic critical. Creatures that are normally immune to critical hits take full normal damage from a critical hit instead of having the damage mutliplied. If the conditions for sneak attack or skirmish are met, they each do 1 hit point of damage per die to creatures normally immune to critical hits.

Skills

All characters have a skill modifier equal to have their level plus the relevant ability score modifier. All characters get an additional +5 bonus on all class skills. The skill focus feat adds another +5 bonus to the skill and grants the character the use of a skill trick associated with the skill that they qualify for. A character is considered to have their character level +3 in ranks of class skills, and half of that for cross-class skills for purposes of qualifying for feats and prestige classes.

Spells

All short duration spells (1 round or 1 minute per level) last for entire duration of the encounter during combat. They have their normal duration outside of combat.

Multiclassing

Spellcasting classes that multiclass with non-spellcasting classes or other spellcasting classes may add one third of their total level in their other classes to their effective caster level for all purposes. For example a fighter 10/ wizard 10 will cast spells as a 13th level wizard, and a cleric 10/sorcerer 10 would cast spells as a 13th level cleric and a 13th level sorcerer. Prestige classes that improve the spellcasting ability of a class a character already has levels in, such as mystic theurge or eldritch knight, improve spellcasting normally.

 

[Shazman]

Feats

The following are changes to current feats.

Dodge now grants a +1 doge bonus to AC except when you lose your dex bonus to AC. You get an additional +1 dodge bonus against an opponent of your choice that you may declare as a free action. You may change the target of your dodge feat from round to round.

Two-weapon Fighting allows a character wielding two weapons or a double weapon to get an extra attack with the secondary weapon. Both attacks are made at a -4 penalty. The off-hand weapon gets your full strength bonus to damage instead of half your strength bonus.

Improved Two-weapon Fighting reduces the penalty of fighting with two weapons or a double weapon to -2 instead of granting an extra attack with the off-hand weapon.

Greater Two-weapon Fighting eliminates the penalty of fighting with two weapons or a double-weapon instead of granting an additional extra attack with the off-hand weapon.

Whirlwind Attack now only requires dex 13 +, int 13 +, Combat Expertise, and a base attack bonus of +4.

New Feats

Double Attack (General)
Prerequisties: BAB +6
Benefit: You may make an extra attack during your turn. The second attack is made at a -5 penalty.
Normal: You may only make one attack a round.
Special: A fighter may take this feat as a bonus fighter feat.

Extra Second Wind
Prerequisites : Con 13+, Endurance
Benefit: You get an additional second wind a day.
Normal: You only get one second wind a day.

New Rules

Minion rule. Whenever a character deals damage to a creature whose hit dice are less than half the character's level, the creature drops and is automatically taken out of the fight if the damage dealt to it from one attack is equal to or greater than half its maximum hit point total. The creature isn't necessarily dead, but is either unconcsious or too injured to have any desire to fight or flee. For example, Tordek the 8th level fighter is facing off against 10 3rd level goblin warriors. Each goblin has 15 hit points. If Tordek hits one goblin for 8 points of damage, that goblin drops and is out of the fight. Dropping minions in this way enables you to use the Cleave and Great Cleave feats. These minions can be taken prisoner after the fight if the PC's wish to make efforts to save them. A simple DC 15 heal check should suffice.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

A few critiques:

I hate "per encounter" abilities. "Per 10 rounds" or similar is great, but an encounter is such a vague amount of time.

If you're changing Turn Undead, why not go the distance and simplify it to an easy and consistent mechanic?

I think that fixing TWF is great, but I don't like how you're doing it. Basically, TWF is still useless until you can get Greater TWF.

Double Attack looks pretty useless. -5 to both attacks? I guess it reduces the math and makes the dice rolling simpler, but I can't imagine anyone spending a feat for this.

 

[Shazman]

Thanks for you comments. As far as per encounter abilities go, I think it's pretty simple to determine. When you are out of initiative, the encounter is over. Which is easier? Trying to remember that you your rage lasts 3 more rounds, haste lasts 4 rounds, bless lasts 5 more rounds, etc, or that they last until the end of the encounter? Most of the time I can barely keep up with all of these things, and they ususally will last until the end of the encounter anyway. Turn undead probably should be made simpler and more consistant, I just haven't come up with something better yet. The two-weapon fighting and double attack feats are borrowed from Star Wars Saga. I believe that the reason for reducing their appeal is the same reason the full attack was removed. That reason is time. Characters with lots of attacks become serious time hogs. While they roll tons of dice to resolve their 7 plus attacks, everyone else is bored. They can easily take as much time each round as all of the characters put together. These changes go for monsters as well. If they want two claw attacks, they need to take two weapon fighting. If they need to attack with a bite and two claws, they need mutliattack and two-weapon fighting. This way, there is less time between turns, so there is less time for players to get bored or distracted. Combat becomes more fluid and engaging.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Thanks for you comments. As far as per encounter abilities go, I think it's pretty simple to determine. When you are out of initiative, the encounter is over.

What happens when a new group of combatants join the fight? Is that a new encounter or just an extension of the current one? What happens when a fight ends but the characters know that there are more foes just on the other side of the door and decide to crash on through? It just doesn't feel right to time an ability on an encounter, when some last for 1 round while others last for 10+.

Turn undead probably should be made simpler and more consistant, I just haven't come up with something better yet.

I suggest making it a spell-ish effect. In other words, the undead roll saves against the cleric's turn DC to avoid its debilitating conditions.

The two-weapon fighting and double attack feats are borrowed from Star Wars Saga. I believe that the reason for reducing their appeal is the same reason the full attack was removed. That reason is time. Characters with lots of attacks become serious time hogs. While they roll tons of dice to resolve their 7 plus attacks, everyone else is bored. They can easily take as much time each round as all of the characters put together. These changes go for monsters as well. If they want two claw attacks, they need to take two weapon fighting. If they need to attack with a bite and two claws, they need mutliattack and two-weapon fighting. This way, there is less time between turns, so there is less time for players to get bored or distracted. Combat becomes more fluid and engaging.

I suggest a different way to fix the time problem. What you're doing right now is making multiple actions so abysmal that nobody would ever use them. Have you considered sub-rounds? Instead of everyone taking all their actions at once, on their initiative score, actions are taken one at a time. For example if a 6th level fighter is battling a wizard with Quicken Spell, they roll initiative as usual. The fighter goes first and takes his first swing, then the wizard casts a spell, then the fighter takes his second swing and then the wizard casts a quickened spell.

 

[Shazman]

If a new group of enemies joins the fray before the combat with the first group ends, it's obvioulsy still the same encounter. If the group on the other side of the door are likely to join the encounter (willingly or unwillingly) their initiatives should already have been determined during the fight in the other room ,and they would be considered part of the encounter. If they are not aware, then a new encounter would begin when the PC's kick in the door. I really haven't seen these types of things come into play often enough to really think about them. I'm thinking that turn undead should be like exalted turning from BOED. The undead take 1d6 of holy damage per level of the cleric turning them. They get a will save for half damage, and undead with turn resistance add that bonus to their saving throw. It seems like sub rounds would just drag out everyone's turn even more, and those with few attacks or spellcasters would still twiddle their thumbs while those with a lot of attacks per round rolled dice. Maybe, the two-weapon fighting feats could be taken down to -3,-2, and -1 respectively and double attack would only add the penalty to the second attack.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

If a new group of enemies joins the fray before the combat with the first group ends, it's obvioulsy still the same encounter. If the group on the other side of the door are likely to join the encounter (willingly or unwillingly) their initiatives should already have been determined during the fight in the other room ,and they would be considered part of the encounter. If they are not aware, then a new encounter would begin when the PC's kick in the door. I really haven't seen these types of things come into play often enough to really think about them. I'm thinking that turn undead should be like exalted turning from BOED. The undead take 1d6 of holy damage per level of the cleric turning them. They get a will save for half damage, and undead with turn resistance add that bonus to their saving throw. It seems like sub rounds would just drag out everyone's turn even more, and those with few attacks or spellcasters would still twiddle their thumbs while those with a lot of attacks per round rolled dice. Maybe, the two-weapon fighting feats could be taken down to -3,-2, and -1 respectively and double attack would only add the penalty to the second attack.

I guess I'm just one of those people who don't like terminology that makes 6 seconds equal to a full minute or more. If you're comfortable with it though, you're the DM.

I think you're thinking of the Turning variant from Complete Divine, a personal favorite variant of mine.

I'm not sure how sub rounds would drag anyone's turn out; the overall RT (real time) round length would stay the same but each player's <sub>turns would be shorter in length which is what you want. Yeah if one combatant has significantly more actions than the others, that combatant will get extra time at the end of each round to resolve their extra actions but barring incredible cheesiness all combatants should have about the same number of actions.

Moderating your TWF penalties helps but honestly, that's just the tip of the iceburg. I won't bore you with the details of why TWF sucks and how to fix it unless you ask me to, though.</sub>

 

[Quartz]

You seem to be nerfing the combat classes pretty hard, particularly the fighter and paladin. No multiple attacks and automatic criticals?

One in particular shouts out: adding half your level to damage? Might it be better to add half your BAB?

 

[babomb]

The monk gets to hit things with a car? That's totally overpowered