Grand Opening: The 3e Upgrade and Homebrew Project!

[Renegade Paladin]

Hello, fellow homebrewers. Today I would like to proudly announce the grand opening of the D&D 3rd Edition Upgrade Project!

This is a website designed to allow DMs, homebrewers, and aspiring game designers the opportunity to share, test, and help build upon each others' work. The idea is to bring together interested people from all across the gaming community and allow them to post, comment upon, and suggest improvements to each others' homebrew classes and monsters, house rules, and other alterations and expansions to the D&D game.

The main site is an open wiki; anyone can post material to it. If you aren't sure how to use it, ask me either through a private message here or by contacting me through the project's forum. It's fairly simple to use, so any difficulties should be easy to help out with.

Even if you don't homebrew or make house rules to speak of, feel free to join anyway. We're in need of playtesters, copyeditors, and people with a good eye for game balance, so you're welcome even if you don't have homebrew to post.

The main site is here. (http://3eupgrade.akashicrecord.org) The forum is here. (http://3eupgrade.akashicrecord.org/forum) There's not much up yet, but that's up to you to fix; I'm putting my work up there, but I don't have enough to fill the server. :smalltongue: If anyone has any requests or suggestions regarding site layout or related issues, please let me know.

Special thanks go to the guys at the Akashic Record site for offering to host the project, and also to Roland St. Jude for helping me decide what forum to post this in.

Hope to see you there!

[TheGrimace]

um...

Good sir, I do not mean to insult your intelligence...
but, isn't that very purpose the one that brings us to this site to begin with?

[SilverClawShift]

He's talking about a cohesive archive of homebrew material (rules, specifically, it seems like).

The main problem with homebrew material -be it races, classes, feats, spells, homerules, or even entire worlds- is that it's inherently scattered to the four winds. Unless you save a copy of everything you've seen that you enjoy, there's a chance
A: You won't be able to find it again
B: It'll dissapear off the net entirely
C: It'll be altered to the point that you don't like it anymore

This project (it seems) is intended to be an organized collection for people who acknowledge that 3.5 isn't the perfect edition, but who don't want to switch to 4th edition (or are currently unsure) either.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it. But if it is broken? "The 3e Upgrade and Homebrew Project!"

[Renegade Paladin]

um...

Good sir, I do not mean to insult your intelligence...
but, isn't that very purpose the one that brings us to this site to begin with?
Well, yes, but what SilverClawShift said. :smalltongue:

[Nebo_]

Seems like a bit of a waste, considering how close 4e is.

[Renegade Paladin]

Seems like a bit of a waste, considering how close 4e is.
That's the entire point, actually. I don't know about you, but there's a large number of gamers out there, myself included, who uncategorically do not like what we're hearing out of WotC regarding 4th Edition. I'm starting this now in the hopes of being able to provide a level of balance in competition with 4e's touted good game balance while not screwing up all the things they're screwing up. (I'm making fixing the monsters-as-PCs rules a priority precisely because WotC says they're just making monsters impossible to play in 4e.)

[StickMan]

That's the entire point, actually. I don't know about you, but there's a large number of gamers out there, myself included, who uncategorically do not like what we're hearing out of WotC regarding 4th Edition. I'm starting this now in the hopes of being able to provide a level of balance in competition with 4e's touted good game balance while not screwing up all the things they're screwing up. (I'm making fixing the monsters-as-PCs rules a priority precisely because WotC says they're just making monsters impossible to play in 4e.)

Agreed. Stickman gives his stamp of approval to the 3.5 upgrade project.:smallbiggrin:

[FireSpark]

<cautious hand raise>

Question.

Are we talking about only material directly aimed at upgrading current 3/3.5 material?

Or are you wanting any and all (within in balance and reason) homebrewed material?

Just so we're clear and all. :smallsmile:

[Somebloke]

...intrigued, if cautious...

[TheGrimace]

forgive my attempted insults, I have converted.
not a lot is getting done yet, but I have converted none-the-less

[Eerie]

Open wiki is bad.

You need one where only the author can change his material, but anyone is free to make his own versions

[Renegade Paladin]

<cautious hand raise>

Question.

Are we talking about only material directly aimed at upgrading current 3/3.5 material?

Or are you wanting any and all (within in balance and reason) homebrewed material?

Just so we're clear and all. :smallsmile:
Any and all. :smallsmile:

Open wiki is bad.

You need one where only the author can change his material, but anyone is free to make his own versions
I had thought so too, but the guy who's hosting talked me out of it. It's easy enough to change if that actually becomes a problem; right now the community's small enough that I think we can depend on the honor system and sysop enforcement. Besides, with a wiki you can always go back to the previous version; that's actually why I wanted a wiki. It gives you a ready-made changelog and version history without any extra effort on anyone's part.

[Yakk]

So, let's see what we should steal form 4e, and from ToB...

From 4e: Powers. Powers are picked and chosen from a list as you gain levels in a class.

From ToB: "Manifester level". Your "Wizard Spellcaster level" is the average of your character level and your Wizard class level. I'd also limit it to twice your Wizard level. This determines the max level of abilities you can use, and any level-based parameters in them.

From 4e: Keeping modifiers in check. Modifiers to d20 rolls should be highly controlled, and the difference between them should not scale with level linearly. The goal is that when "going against a reasonable target", you should succeed on a 11+ on a single d20 roll at an action. That's a swing, a spell, a sneak, etc.

From 4e: You have AC, Reflex, Fort and Will. These are all to-hit numbers. Attacker rolls.

From 3.5e: No dead levels. You gain Powers as you gain levels, and you gain class abilities. This means that PrCs can grant +1 Power level and different class abilities...

From 3.5e: Keep control of damage per attack and attacks per round.

From 3.5e: We need to make the weapon's damage dice matter more. I'd propose having higher level melee characters deal more weapon dice of damage...

From 3.5e: Criticals as a percent of damage done scale poorly. (Ie, 2x damage crits 10% of the time) I'd vote for +xd6 damage on crits.

I say.. split the "List Powers", which you pick from a list (like spells), from the "per level powers".

Thoughts?

[brian c]

http://3eupgrade.akashicrecord.org/forum/index.php

Please, come, join the forum and post your ideas over there, and see everyone else's ideas. We have some good things going on right now, but we need more input and more participation. Any ideas are welcome; if you can't think of anything on your own, then just come and read our ideas and comment on them. We're starting a very early play-test right now also, and we'll need more people for testing later.