Shazman's v3.7 rules

[Claudius Gaius]

Dumping Prestige Classes

The trouble with "per encounter" supernatural abilities is I always want to know what's actually recharging them? Where does the energy come from and how does it know that the "new encounter" started at door #3 instead of when you came in the front, first started scouting, or after door #2 within the context of the game world? I'd rather go with limitless-use abilities or every so-many-minutes powers than anything as vague as "per encounter". (There's a sample design for that here)
As far as character abilities go, our games dumped prestige classes and fixed ability progressions in favor of a level-by-level point-buy system awhile ago. Puts an end to all those weird multiclass builds and lets people create exactly the characters that they want, a lot like the Hero games system for d20. Since it's recently been released as Shareware, and I've had a lot of fun with it, I thought I'd point it up to anyone who's needing ideas for things. It should be linked for download through the onebookshelf people in the signature.

 

[Shazman]

The abilities get recharged everytime you have chance to take a few minutes to rest and recharge. Taking a moment to get your focus and stamina back is what recharges your abilities. If you don't like per encounter, insert every 5 minutes, everytime it says per encounter. It's a minor change that really won't effect the game.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

The druid shifter variant should start at 1st level, or not give up the animal companion.
Unless you're running a low magic (item) game, a shifter druid is less powerful than a standard one. They're like clerics with less armor, who have to pretty much drop their shield and buff spells for one round to cast a spell.

Iron Heroes has a nice feat mastery that makes animal companions available to anyone who wants to pour feats into their training.

 

[Shazman]

Okay, I gave the druid the shapeshifter ability at first level. Since they lose their animal companion, it doesn't seem unbalanced.

 

[Shazman]

bump

 

[GlassJaw]

The druid shifter variant should start at 1st level, or not give up the animal companion.
Unless you're running a low magic (item) game, a shifter druid is less powerful than a standard one. They're like clerics with less armor, who have to pretty much drop their shield and buff spells for one round to cast a spell.

I like the shifter variant just because it drops the animal companion. I'm not a fan of "pets" because they slow down play and require more bookkeeping (plus, have you ever actually read the rules on animal training?! Has anyone?).

On top of that, the druid could stand to drop a couple of notches on the power scale. Wild shape should be a "story-based" ability, not a "look through the monster book of the month and pick out the most over-powered things to shift into" ability. If the wild shape ability wasn't allowed in combat, it would be fine.

The issue with gear and wild shape never sat well with me either, which gets into the combat issue as well. Gear is such a huge part of 3ed and the druid loses that when he shifts. I've thought about making wild shape some kind of hybrid form like a lycanthrope but never got around to it.

 

[Shazman]

bump

 

[Eldragon]

Have you had a chance to use these rules in play yet? If so, what level was the party?

My concern with dropping the iterative attacks is that many monsters seem to be neutralized without their iterative attacks. Do monsters keep them in your system, or do they get rewrites?

Instead of the "Double Attack" feat, Why not create a "Weapon Mastery" feat that grants an extra attack at the full Attack Bonus, but only for the selected Weapon? Personally, I would never take Double Attack unless my BaB is greater than 15 or so.

I've been working on my own set of v 3.75 rules, since switching to 4e is going to be a while for me yet. I'm yanking a couple of your ideas.

 

[Shazman]

Feel free to yank any ideas you want. Sadly, I have not had a chance to playtest these rules yet. I think I left it out of my initial posts, but monsters and NPC's should also add half of their BAB to their damage rolls. If a monster typically fights with two claws or two claws and a bite, give them multiattack for free. If you really think that a monster really needs more attacks, just give him one attack per natural weapon. The primary weapon will have no penalty, while the others will be at a -5, or -2 with muti-attack. Give monsters that just fight with two claws two-weapon fighting instead of multiattack.

 

[Shazman]

What do you guys think about giving the fighter the weapon aptitude ability of a warblade. Too much or spot on?