Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
Yitzi
That's why I rethought the whole idea of the fighter and have a completely different plan (focusing not on vertical power but horizontal power and the ability to change the rules), which is why I didn't use the old fighter fix in this one like I did for the monk/
Alright, I respect that then. I suggest porting the Fighter specific feats from non-Core, such as Weapon Supremacy and Melee/Ranged Weapon Mastery (PHB II), to your new fighter feats. Just because they give the fighter some nice bonuses to hit and damage.
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Most creatures with blindsight tend to ignore AC with their most powerful attacks as well; when fighting an Yrthak, things are of course going to be different than usual.
Tremorsense is more likely to be an issue, but note that it gives only the location (like blindsense does); it does not remove concealment. So the successful hide check will still give total concealment, for a 50% miss chance (25% if the enemy has Blind-Fight), which is pretty decent.
Alright, you've got a fair point with the concealment on tremorsense.
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It'll help the fighter (who gets a lot more than 7) and the paladin (who under the new rules gets more), and maybe a few that can use it particularly well (note that it's not going to be static bonuses, but rather something more along the lines of Combat Expertise).
Or he can ditch Two-Weapon Fighting, stay away from the enemy, and use ranged attacks. Or if he prefers he can go for Spring Attack so that he never ends his turn next to the enemy (this of course works a lot better with an ally who focuses on combat control). Naturally, this means that he won't be as useful in combat as a fighter or barbarian, but he's far more effective outside of combat (while rogues can't easily be strongly "optimized" in the normal sense, an optimally-played rogue is second only to an optimally-played bard in effectiveness.)
Or he can talk the party wizard into giving him Improved Invisibility, which gives him not only easy sneak-attacks and a much-needed boost to hit, but also 50% miss chance.
I understand that, and you're right, but what I was suggesting was, instead of making AC only viable by improving it, since you're doing a system change, it might just be better to change AC itself to something more reasonable. Some kind of Armor as Damage Reduction, a level-based bonus to AC for all classes with light or no armor, higher base AC granted by the armors in the PHB, etc. This is just a suggestion, but I thought it would work out better for everyone instead of just raising AC with feats.
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That's what Mobility and Spring Attack are for. And of course he can go after enemies that can't take effective attacks of opportunity, such as archers and casters.
True; the monk is somewhat of a niche class.
Alright, but I hope that your new feats improve Dodge, so that it's not so harsh to get Spring Attack. Or perhaps have the monk gain Spring Attack as a bonus feat (ignoring prerequisites), since it is part of his niche. Then smart monk players will pick up Mobility on their own, but players who want to customize their monk a little differently won't suffer for not spending 3 feats on Spring Attack.
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You shouldn't be facing something with +30 to hit (barring enemies with PC classes) until level 17 or 18 at the earliest, and by that point there's something seriously wrong if you can't push your AC well above 23.
I did some calculations and checked both the MM and the DMG after reading this post and came to the conclusion that you were right. Sorry for the misinterpretation. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
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That was the old version, which was based on the idea of changing bonuses. The new version is based more on the idea of changing the rules.
Good, I can't wait to see it.
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Probably, but not as badly as you imply. After all, the Tarrasque's attack, while powerful, is nothing that can't be survived for some time by a 20th level party with a few good buffs and some decent tactics, and Swallow Whole might look impressive but requires Improved Grab, which is countered by a level 4 spell.
Alright, good point. I'm a little biased here, because I played the barbarian alongside a cleric and an optimized spellcaster (Int-based sorcerer with access to the druid and cleric spell lists, Unearthed Arcana)/incantatrix, and when we fought the tarrasque I was swallowed whole 8 or 9 times because the spellcaster was keeping himself a safe distance above the tarrasque and didn't fly down to help me. (I know he has freedom of movement Persisted too, the DM tried to grapple him in another encounter)
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As I said; the limits are technically the same, they just affect the PCs more. (Of course, so do the upcoming boosts.)
Great. As long as you're going to be handing out boosts, then I'll wait and see what the improved rogue and ranger look like before judging. I'm really not trying to give you a hard time to be a jerk, I want this to work out so that you and the people you play with enjoy the system more like you want.
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And yet the dragon still waited until V separated him/herself from the party.
To be completely fair, V wasn't with a "party" as much as he/she was with a group of ships that contained more than 30 paladins/warriors of various levels.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
NeoSeraphi
Alright, I respect that then. I suggest porting the Fighter specific feats from non-Core, such as Weapon Supremacy and Melee/Ranged Weapon Mastery (PHB II), to your new fighter feats. Just because they give the fighter some nice bonuses to hit and damage.
I can't, as I don't have PHB II, and I don't really want to include stuff from there. I might use Pathfinder for some second-tier combat maneuver feats if I can't think of anything better for the non-numeric bonus, though.
And I'm not planning to give the fighter any flat bonuses to to-hit and damage; that's really more the barbarian's job. What the fighter's getting is going to be more like "make attacks as touch attacks", "make attacks vs. flatfooted", "force the enemy to use his DEX for to-hit", "sacrifice AC for DR", "make several times as many attacks", and so on; of course, each of those is at the top of a chain and comes with substantial trade-offs that makes it useful only about 30 to 40 percent of the time, but that's why he's got 21 feats (by level 20) to play around with.
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I understand that, and you're right, but what I was suggesting was, instead of making AC only viable by improving it, since you're doing a system change, it might just be better to change AC itself to something more reasonable.
I have thought about a fix to make a point of AC equally valuable no matter how high the enemy's to-hit is, but that's a different fix.
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Some kind of Armor as Damage Reduction
Actually, two of the new feats will do that. One of them is for you (armor and shields let you trade dodge and DEX bonuses for DR; an optimized sword-and-board fighter will be pretty much invulnerable except to magic and splash weapons until his shield is eliminated from the picture), while the other is for your target (because sometimes you'd rather they have DR than AC, particularly when you plan to Power Attack. The DR from that tends to be high, but is weaker against bludgeoning.)
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a level-based bonus to AC for all classes with light or no armor
Monk already gets it, arcane casters have spells, and rogue and ranger will tend to have total concealment at higher levels.
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Alright, but I hope that your new feats improve Dodge, so that it's not so harsh to get Spring Attack.
They don't improve Dodge, but they do make it a prerequisite for another feat (the aforementioned "force enemies to use DEX for to-hit") which monks will DEFINITELY want (since the trade-off is losing most armor, shield, and deflection bonuses to AC).
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Good, I can't wait to see it.
I'm actually planning to finish up the casters first, and also barbarian because one of the barbarian abilities gets mentioned in one of the bonus feats. But after that comes fighter feats and the fighter/paladin fix.
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Alright, good point. I'm a little biased here, because I played the barbarian alongside a cleric and an optimized spellcaster (Int-based sorcerer with access to the druid and cleric spell lists, Unearthed Arcana)/incantatrix, and when we fought the tarrasque I was swallowed whole 8 or 9 times because the spellcaster was keeping himself a safe distance above the tarrasque and didn't fly down to help me. (I know he has freedom of movement Persisted too, the DM tried to grapple him in another encounter)
And of course he thought that because he's a spellcaster he can easily disable the tarrasque and then lightning it to the point where a Miracle can kill it, and the party barbarian doesn't really matter.
With this fix, that would be a losing approach.
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Great. As long as you're going to be handing out boosts, then I'll wait and see what the improved rogue and ranger look like before judging.
The rogue and ranger are actually interesting: The rogue will benefit mildly from some of the new feats (a TWF rogue will actually be able to do some decent DPR even without Sneak Attack, so long as the enemy has no DR), and will appreciate the changed Knock spell (making Open Lock actually be worth something), but will get very few changes. The way I see it, any class with that skill list and that many skill points can do just fine on its own. (To put it another way, a rogue can, if played to its optimum, be to the adventure or even campaign what a "standard" wizard is to the encounter. If rogues and bards weren't so difficult to play optimally, they'd be the most broken classes out there.)
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I'm really not trying to give you a hard time to be a jerk, I want this to work out so that you and the people you play with enjoy the system more like you want.
Naturally; if I didn't want that, I wouldn't say PEACH.
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To be completely fair, V wasn't with a "party" as much as he/she was with a group of ships that contained more than 30 paladins/warriors of various levels.
True.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
Yitzi
I can't, as I don't have PHB II, and I don't really want to include stuff from there. I might use Pathfinder for some second-tier combat maneuver feats if I can't think of anything better for the non-numeric bonus, though.
And I'm not planning to give the fighter any flat bonuses to to-hit and damage; that's really more the barbarian's job. What the fighter's getting is going to be more like "make attacks as touch attacks", "make attacks vs. flatfooted", "force the enemy to use his DEX for to-hit", "sacrifice AC for DR", "make several times as many attacks", and so on; of course, each of those is at the top of a chain and comes with substantial trade-offs that makes it useful only about 30 to 40 percent of the time, but that's why he's got 21 feats (by level 20) to play around with.
Alright, sounds like a plan.
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I have thought about a fix to make a point of AC equally valuable no matter how high the enemy's to-hit is, but that's a different fix.
Well, even if you don't include it in your actual Core fix, I'm sure the Playground would appreciate you posting that anyway.
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Actually, two of the new feats will do that. One of them is for you (armor and shields let you trade dodge and DEX bonuses for DR; an optimized sword-and-board fighter will be pretty much invulnerable except to magic and splash weapons until his shield is eliminated from the picture), while the other is for your target (because sometimes you'd rather they have DR than AC, particularly when you plan to Power Attack. The DR from that tends to be high, but is weaker against bludgeoning.)
Changing an opponent's AC to DR? That's...very interesting.
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And of course he thought that because he's a spellcaster he can easily disable the tarrasque and then lightning it to the point where a Miracle can kill it, and the party barbarian doesn't really matter.
With this fix, that would be a losing approach.
No. He wasn't a blaster. He was a self-buffer who used a special mighty longbow that adjusted itself to whatever strength he had, in this situation, it was 42. (bite of the werebear, divine power, and some other bonuses to Str, plus his full BAB and a splitting longbow meant he was firing 6 shots a round at full BAB)
No, we were only level 12, so we didn't have access to miracle or anything like that. We ended up winning only because the cleric cast finger of death as a joke on his turn and the tarrasque rolled a natural one, then I stayed there and cou'de'graced it to keep its hit points below -858 while the spellcaster teleported back to our boss (an epic wizard) who used wish to transport it to another plane.
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The rogue and ranger are actually interesting: The rogue will benefit mildly from some of the new feats (a TWF rogue will actually be able to do some decent DPR even without Sneak Attack, so long as the enemy has no DR), and will appreciate the changed Knock spell (making Open Lock actually be worth something), but will get very few changes. The way I see it, any class with that skill list and that many skill points can do just fine on its own. (To put it another way, a rogue can, if played to its optimum, be to the adventure or even campaign what a "standard" wizard is to the encounter. If rogues and bards weren't so difficult to play optimally, they'd be the most broken classes out there.)
I suggest, since your rogue will likely be Hide-focused, that you change the rules of Sneak Attack to make it easier to perform ranged Sneak Attacks, so sniper rogues/assassins don't have to work nearly as hard to keep up with TWF rogues, who not only deal more damage, but also have a much easier time Sneak Attacking with their walk-up-and-flank approach.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
NeoSeraphi
Well, even if you don't include it in your actual Core fix, I'm sure the Playground would appreciate you posting that anyway.
Definitely. It's on the list. (The basic idea is to make it exponential instead of linear, in a sense.)
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Changing an opponent's AC to DR? That's...very interesting.
When you're doing over 100 damage (e.g. major power attack) and need the to-hit, it can be worth it.
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No. He wasn't a blaster. He was a self-buffer who used a special mighty longbow that adjusted itself to whatever strength he had
Isn't that an epic weapon?
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No, we were only level 12, so we didn't have access to miracle or anything like that. We ended up winning only because the cleric cast finger of death as a joke on his turn and the tarrasque rolled a natural one, then I stayed there and cou'de'graced it to keep its hit points below -858 while the spellcaster teleported back to our boss (an epic wizard) who used wish to transport it to another plane.
You know, that really doesn't work by RAW. You can't CDG something that has regeneration except with something that can bypass the regeneration.
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I suggest, since your rogue will likely be Hide-focused, that you change the rules of Sneak Attack to make it easier to perform ranged Sneak Attacks
If it can't see you, you can sneak attack. Improved Invisibility can do wonders for sneak attack rate.
Or if the terrain supports it (in an area like a dungeon it usually does), you can attack, move behind total cover to break LoS, then move back into LoS but stay behind cover and sneak attack again.
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so sniper rogues/assassins don't have to work nearly as hard to keep up with TWF rogues, who not only deal more damage, but also have a much easier time Sneak Attacking with their walk-up-and-flank approach.
There is no way that a sniper rogue will do as much damage as a TWF rogue. It's a trade-off; if you want the heavy damage, you have to give up some defensive capability. If you want both, you have to play a martial class and give up most or all of your noncombat abilities. Nobody can be the best at everything.
Oh, I realized that I forgot to post about the ranger's boosts: Unlike all the others, his boosts will be mid-level and will largely overlap with his high-level stuff, with the result that a high-level ranger will be only marginally increased in power.
Not that he really needs the boost at high levels, as he's already by far the best guerrilla class out there.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
Yitzi
Isn't that an epic weapon?
The DM let him homebrew a weapon enhancement. He claimed it was similar to the sizing enhancement, just altering Strength at will instead. She let it go.
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You know, that really doesn't work by RAW. You can't CDG something that has regeneration except with something that can bypass the regeneration.
Well, even if I couldn't, I was still dealing way more than 40 damage per round. (Lycanthropy for the win)
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If it can't see you, you can sneak attack. Improved Invisibility can do wonders for sneak attack rate.
Or if the terrain supports it (in an area like a dungeon it usually does), you can attack, move behind total cover to break LoS, then move back into LoS but stay behind cover and sneak attack again.
But that makes the rogue either item or party dependent, which is alright for a base class, but makes it harder for the DM to make rogues actually challenging enemies. Classes need to stand alone to challenge PCs.
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There is no way that a sniper rogue will do as much damage as a TWF rogue. It's a trade-off; if you want the heavy damage, you have to give up some defensive capability. If you want both, you have to play a martial class and give up most or all of your noncombat abilities. Nobody can be the best at everything.
Well, perhaps you could at least extend the range that Sneak Attack can take place by 30 ft. I mean, having to be within 30 feet when you take a -20 to Hide checks after shooting will be painful. (Even if you cut that penalty down a bit, it would still put the ranged rogue in danger)
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Oh, I realized that I forgot to post about the ranger's boosts: Unlike all the others, his boosts will be mid-level and will largely overlap with his high-level stuff, with the result that a high-level ranger will be only marginally increased in power.
Not that he really needs the boost at high levels, as he's already by far the best guerrilla class out there.
I disagree, your monk fix makes a better skirmisher than the current ranger. But I'll be interested to see some of his boosts.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
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Originally Posted by
NeoSeraphi
But that makes the rogue either item or party dependent, which is alright for a base class, but makes it harder for the DM to make rogues actually challenging enemies. Classes need to stand alone to challenge PCs.
If the DM's solo rogue villain ever engages the PC's in combat before they've already effectively won, he's doing it wrong.
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Well, perhaps you could at least extend the range that Sneak Attack can take place by 30 ft. I mean, having to be within 30 feet when you take a -20 to Hide checks after shooting will be painful. (Even if you cut that penalty down a bit, it would still put the ranged rogue in danger)
Seems fair; it's not something worth giving for free, but "double sneak attack range" seems a decent Rogue special ability. (A weak HiPS ability might be useful too, so it can be another option.)
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I disagree, your monk fix makes a better skirmisher than the current ranger.
Oh, as a skirmisher (mobile fighter), the monk probably is better, limited only by his lack of effective ranged options (so an ex-barbarian(1) monk would probably be the best skirmisher).
But a guerrilla fighter is not the same thing as a skirmisher. Guerrilla warfare isn't about using mobility to win the battle, it's about using the ability to pick your battles (via mobility to some extent, but more importantly stealth and knowledge of the area) to win the war. And that's something that the ranger (by far the best base class out there in terms of stealth, and with K(geography) as a class skill and the ability to live off the land) is terrific for. He could be better (I'm planning to spread out his stealth bonuses along earlier levels, and give him Fast Movement), but a somewhat optimized 20th level ranger is by far one of the most frustrating opponents to deal with on his home territory.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
And the cleric portion is up; it's also independently posted here.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
And the druid is done. Next comes the boosts, starting with the barbarian.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
And the barbarian's done. Next comes the fighter and paladin.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
Fighter and paladin (and feats and equipment rules) are done.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
And the ranger fix is up.
Re: General 3.5 Core balance fix (3.5 Core, PEACH)
