Zombies that need to stay dead. DEAD.

darkwing

Explorer
Cure light wounds wands can replace clerics, but who can replace the lock guy.
The magic item of knock spells, that's who. It really sucked being a rogue in a party that didn't need a rogue. Fighting undead and constructs, knock spell... the barbarian had a better base attack and more hit points and more damage... wow I wish I would have put those dex points into cha so I could use the UMD skill to act like some kind of wizard school dropout.

That reminds me:
Differing Base Attack Bonuses... horrible game mechanic.
 

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CleverNickName

Limit Break Dancing (He/They)
While we are at it, I say we chop down and burn the Christmas Tree.

Reduce (or eliminate) the number of "types" of bonuses. There are a dozen types of bonuses in the 3.5E game...but when the sword hits the shield, does it really care that you got both an Ability bonus and an Enhancement bonus to that roll? No. Just call everything a "bonus" and leave it at that.

Or, get rid of stacking bonuses. Only the highest bonus (of whatever type) should apply. Otherwise, no matter how carefully you try to balance things, it will always be easy to exploit. The MinMaxers practically made a hobby out of trying to break the 3.5 game, after all. "DUUUUUUDE, I know how to get a +19746 to my attack roll! Check it out! First, you..." Let's learn from this, mkay?

At the very least, total bonuses should have a cap. No matter what the circumstance, there should be a reasonable limit to what all of these enhancements can do. You can have a luck bonus, a dodge bonus, an armor bonus, a shield bonus, a Dex bonus, and a circumstance bonus to your armor class, but their sum cannot exceed +5 (or +6, or one-third your level, or whatever.)

Stop the madness.
 
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Gort

Explorer
It's about time they got rid of +x weapons and armour. Each edition seems to get an "inherent bonuses" option each time, but I'd like to see it be standard instead of something I have to track and add on at appropriate levels.
 

Ainamacar

Adventurer
* Different XP for different classes.
Needs to stay dead.

* Favored class. Iconic class / race combinations will be rewarded by good support, they shoul NOT receive XP bonuses on top
I'm in total agreement.

* Detect Alignment spell
I think these spells can be fixed with a dial. The short version of the middle road is that Detect Evil doesn't detect evil creatures, but detects creatures (of any alignment) currently engaged in doing evil.

* Challenge rating.
I found it to be more useful than no tool at all. Busy DMs need something to get them in the right ballpark quickly. CR shouldn't be raised, though, it should be reincarnated. Its reincarnation as monster level in 4e was, I thought, adequate.

* Level adjustment for races -
In 3.5 I didn't find this to be more useful than no tool at all. The idea of playing monsters isn't going away, though.

* Feat-only Fighter.
We don't know how character advancement in 5e works. At some level all customization is selecting discrete bits from a list, so the distinction between a list of fighter feats and options made available in talent trees or themes is pretty tenuous.

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - led to the infamous fighter golf bag
Yeah, I'd tone it down. Special weapons should be a value-added proposition rather than a necessity in all but the rarest cases.

* Save-or-die spells - should be the absolute exception.
The shipped game needs to include both this sacred cow and a grill. That means modularization. I would prefer a method which allows a spell to be written once and easily reduced from a 4e-like crescendo of death to a prompt death. I've had an idea about this, and there are plenty others.

* Half-races:
Never bothered me in the least.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters
Yep, anything that nullifies the core ability of a class should be rare. I hate immunity far more than resistance, however.

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - good old CODzilla
I view limitless buffing as the problem, and self-buffing CODzilla as just one big symptom. I'd build concentration into pretty much every ongoing buff, and make sure no buff is ever sufficient to replace another class. There is room for more powerful buffs with rituals as long as they have a cost that never makes it a no-brainer.

* The Toughness feat. Mentioned by Monte himself to be a deliberate trap crap choice. Don't ever pull something like that again.
Absolutely. There will be enough accidental traps, no reason to build them in. My word, making a version of Toughness usable over the whole game is trivial!

I will add:
* The game assumes you have magic items.
Kill it dead. It hurts the math, it really hurts the potential wonder of magic items, and it practically impales certain types of settings. The game needs to work with whatever magic items the party actually has.

* The main function of magic items is to give higher numbers.
Sometimes magic is about the numbers, but mostly its about possibility. I think there is a place for the +1, +2, and +3 weapon, which is fortunate since they are all but inevitable. The first is heroic, the second paragon, and the third epic. And they do nothing else. That +3 might look pretty tempting...until you see exactly what the Holy Avenger can do without any pluses at all.

* Making the uniform distribution weep bitter tears.
The d20 can only handle so much variance. Specialization is best handled by providing options, not a treadmill of increasing disparity in attacks or defenses. Rerolls and other mechanics that don't change the possible range of check results should be preferred. Blanket pluses should be left to only major game elements. So I don't mind if the fighter class gets a +2 to all weapon attacks class feature as long as it stays at +2 the whole game relative to everyone else. As above, I can see a place for the epic +3 sword. But that is as far as I think it should go.

* The game's economy usually doesn't work.
3e got out-of-hand, but 4e was just ridiculous. At the very least they trivialized possessions that were once important far too rapidly. There are too many causes and effects for even a single thread. The assumption of magic items and gaining of wealth in the first place is a big one. The assumptions about how that wealth will be spent is another. A strong game economy has a tough mandate, no doubt: reflect the value of items to the players (as a game), to the PCs, and to the setting.
 
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Crazy Jerome

First Post
I agree with much of this, except...



Lots of folks have existing campaign worlds that matter to them more than the rules system they're using. Many of those worlds have half-elves and half-orcs in them, and some of them are PCs. It would be a little nuts if these characters were unplayable or lost the distinctive characteristics of their hybrid race.

I want half-elves (and other such) supported in the game world, but not with the "race" mechanic in particular. Kludging them onto "race" has led to all kinds of goofy stuff, such as treating them as if they were their own culture.

Of course, if they pulled the culture stuff out of race entirely, and made the race abilities all about nature instead of nurture, then you could probably come up with a "multi-race" analog to multiclassing that handled the nature aspect of the half races, and allowed more nuance besides.
 

Gort

Explorer
Someone in the fighter thread reminded me:

Multiple attacks at ever increasing penalties to hit. Man, these were pointless. If you want to give me more power, just give me another attack! Or better still, make the attack I already have do an equivalent amount more damage!

I don't need to roll eight attacks a round at 30/30/25/25/20/20/15/15 to feel good about myself, you know. Those last four'll probably only hit on a 20 anyway.
 

OpsKT

Explorer
Someone in the fighter thread reminded me:

Multiple attacks at ever increasing penalties to hit. Man, these were pointless. If you want to give me more power, just give me another attack! Or better still, make the attack I already have do an equivalent amount more damage!

I don't need to roll eight attacks a round at 30/30/25/25/20/20/15/15 to feel good about myself, you know. Those last four'll probably only hit on a 20 anyway.
See, when they were using Saga Star Wars as a testbed for 4e mechanics, I was really hoping that they would handle multiple attacks and damage per level the way it was handled there. I liked the fact that you got 1/2 level added to damage. It made sense for that setting and made higher level combat go faster. Want more than one attack? They have feats for that, for everyone. Or you can focus on making that one attack do more damage.
 

Gort

Explorer
That actually makes a heck of a lot of sense. Instead of damage being increased in a myriad of different ways like attribute inflation, feat inflation, class-feature inflation, just have it go up in the same way as everything else! I like it!

Of course, since hitpoints also inflate it feels a lot like running on the spot, but that would be consistent with skills, DCs, attacks and defenses.

I'd really like them all to stay more-or-less static throughout the game rather than meaninglessly inflating to no effect but to make the numbers larger.
 


Dice4Hire

First Post
My thoughts

* Different XP for different classes. - Not needed. a silly complication. Lottta groups do not use xp anyway.

* Favored class. - Not needed, mostly ignored in the past.

* Detect Alignment spell - If the game has abilities tied to alignment, nothing wrong with this. Making it an at-will for the paladin was the problem.

* Challenge rating. - 4E works better. A lot better.

* Level adjustment for races - Just plain abusable.

* Feat-only Fighter. - If the feats had been decent ......

* Entire categories of monsters with the same damage resistance - Nothing wrong with this. Who should undead have different resistances?

* Save-or-die spells - Sucks to be the one onthe receiving end, but one way to make magic as deadly as a sword.

* Half-races: - No problems with these. Don't be so squeamish. All half-orcs did not have to come from unions we cannot discuss on this board.

* Sneak attack resistance on way too many monsters - This was a problem, fixed in 4E.

* Self-buffing wizards, clerics and druids - \Depends on how long the buffs last, and if they can teleport into fights after buffing. That was the real problem. Also ties into fights taking too many rounds. If all fights are over in 3-4 rounds, this is less of an issue. Still less is better.

* The Toughness feat. - A poor feat in any way. Add 100+ more (or a thousand) to the list and I will agree.
 

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