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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6074605" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm trying to recall my giant World and Peace of houserules to make the game wieldy for us.  I ran my group through not one but two, yes two, 3.x games through high level (3.0 level 1 - 16 and 3.x level 3 - 22).  I didn't touch the Rangers pet because it already scaled at 1/2 the druid and wasn't a problem at all.  That class was fine.  Same for Paladin mount.  I did something, I cannot recall what, to incentivize healing priests (I'm pretty sure I did something with swift actions to allow them minor healing spells; that made the humble healer quite fun and effective with more things to do than just heal or not heal.  Basically like Healing Word in 4e.).  However, at the end, the group consisted of a Generalist Wizard (Yikes), a Druid (Yikes), a Fighter/Mage/Bladesinger (good deal), a Duelist/Rogue/Warlock/Shadow Caster (good deal).  From memory, these are some things that I did to make the game work until I waved the white flag and we played several Indie games until 4e came about.1)  Normalized Action Economy.  No more Full Round Actions.  Melee Full Attack with Standard Actions.2)  Revised, improved several feats and created others to improve total combat mobility for everyone.  Did something to scale 5 ft steps with attacks and created more feats for martial immediate actions.3)  All weak saves (for everything) improved by + 1 at levels 7/13/19.4)  Everyone gets + 1 to all saves at level 11.6)  Made standing up from prone not provoke AoO.7)  Standardized all summoned creatures to specific metrics per level.  Summon spells cost you HPs.8)  Druid animal companion scaling moved down two tiers with (level 12-14 benefits at max)9)  Druid wildshaping hard-coded to specific metrics per level attained rather than going through the book and picking stuff.  Just reskin it as needed.10)  Removed tons or outright changed the functionality of problem children spells from all spell lists (Divine Power, most conjurations, teleports, divinations including the mundane detect lines which were probably the worst - most constant - offenders of all).11)  Removed rolling for HPs and upped all d4 HP classes to d6 and d6 to d8.  d6 = 4 HP/level.  d8 = 5 HP/level.  d10 = 6 HP/level. 12 = 7 HP/level.12)  Completely altered scroll and wand functionality; they didn't store spells...they gave some other bonuses like in 4e.13)  Normalized tons of status effects.14)  Normalized tons of buffs so they just gave a flat bonus.  Also removed several stacking issues.15) Sneak Attack and Crits on everything (Did something with caster level checks for crits too...can't recall.)There were tons and tons more but that is just off the top of my head.  We all universally agreed on this, Druid and Wizard player as well.  All told, regardless of those changes, the Druid and Wizard still were easily the most powerful characters and affected play (and my mental health) the most.  Melee monsters and dragons (without being sorcerers) were interesting, viable threats with these changes.  The Rogue and F/M were much more mobile and combat was much more mobile and dynamic in general (including more immediate actions).  It went faster as well (but was still excruciatingly slow at high level).  I remember buff calibration and recalibration (post Dispel) was probably a 20 minute pause in play effort beforehand (these are scientists, accountants and mathematicians we're talking about).  That was reduced by the buff overhaul but still way too much overhead.  We held it together for as long as we could until we burned out in Spring 2007 and stuck to our Indie games and one-offs until 4e came out.</blockquote>

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