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Roderick_BR
2007-10-30, 01:24 PM
I'm writing a campaign for some friends, and we are going to heavily house rule the basic rules, and I'm looking for some opinions.
Base attack bonus: No more iterative attacks. There'll be feats to do extra attacks or more damage.
Feats: Every character gains one feat for every 2 character levels, instead of 3. Feats won't escale with level, and in it's place will have improved and greater version. Others feats that are useless will either be fixed, or get rid of. Some will be merged.
Saves: The bad save progression will start at +1, and go up to +8.
Armor Class: Classes will have a defense bonus, and armors will give damage reduction.
Hit Points: Can be healed faster, but there'll be a rule with vitality points (based on the wounds system from UA).
Critical Hits: Threats won't need to be confirmed, and will always bypass damage reduction.
Magic: All magic will be spontaneous, but will require time to cast. Spells can still be prepared ahead of time with metamagic effects, and more time will be needed to restore spell slots. Save-or-suck/lose/die spells will be slightly nerfed. All spell casters will use either Int (arcane) or Wis (divine) to select highest level spells and bonus spells, but the DC will be based on Cha.

Classes:

Fighters: They'll get the warblade's maneuvers, and lose the bonus feats. There'll be no more fighter only feats.
Wizards: Wizards can learn any spell, but can only memorize a small list at a time, that increases with level, and will not have bonus feats as well.
Clerics: Clerics will receive more domains, but will have spell casting restricted according to domains, split in minor, normal, and major access (up to 3rd, up to 6th, and up to 9th levels).
Rogues: No changes for now.
Barbarians: No changes for now.
Ranger: They'll get full progression with animal companion instead of favored enemy, and give a generic bonus to tracking and others things when in the wilderness.
Paladins: They'll have a good Will save, and their smite is usable by encounter, not by day, but the damage will be only half the paladin's level (rounded up), and will start casting spells from first level (0 1st level spells at level 1).
Druids: They'll use the shapeshifting variant from PHB2, with a similar spellcasting to the cleric. I may consider folding druid into cleric, with abilities based on domains.
Bards: They'll get a better spell progression, and the ability to use his music as swift actions.
Sorcerers and monks: Monks will be folded into the fighter, and the sorcerer won't be needed anymore.


That's it. Give more options to the warrior types, nerf the spellcasters, and remove effects that can disrupt the game.
I'm still looking for options for the rogue and the barbarian, and seeing if the added power to the paladin and fighter won't unbalance things.
Right now I'm balancing the core base classes, so I'm not considering others base classes (including PHB2) nor PrCs.
The basic idea is that class' abilities must scale, but not feats, to avoid "bad feats/good feats/ugly(broken) feats", and to avoid level dipping ("my character is a wizard3/archivist3/wildmage3/artificer4/archmage2/enchantress1/fatespinner2", "mine is a fighter2/paladin1/barbarian1/dervish1/hulking hurler1/exotic weapon master1/frenzied berzerker5")
I'm open for suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Nebo_
2007-10-30, 11:04 PM
Don't get rid of all the fighter's feats, just slow the progression.

Roderick_BR
2007-10-31, 09:32 AM
Don't get rid of all the fighter's feats, just slow the progression.
All characters already get more feats, and the fighter gets maneuvers. I guess that's balanced. I think that the warblade is a bit overpowered at times.