Gnorman's Complete E6 Compendium

[Gnorman]

Responses in bold below.

Yeah, I pretty much figured multi-classing wasn't the intended use of it (I presume the original thread contained actual statements to that fact), glad you understood where I was coming from.

The original thread did have the "word of God," so to speak, on the subject. But I wouldn't mind it now, it just takes a bit of work to suss it out. Yes, there will be overpowered combinations, even if "class level" is used uniformly. I'm only one designer, but I have one hell of an editing team - just let me know if you see weird interactions.

I'd be happy enough if it was specifically zero multi-classing bound into the class features, but a reasonable tradeoff between several lesser archetype bonuses and a single greater archetype might not be a bad thing to vaguely shoot for.

The way it is now you can either have a myriad number of lessers, two moderates, or a single greater. I think that's reasonable, though not all archetype powers are created equal.

Back to Poet: Glad you removed the level 3 spell slot; having two spell lists to choose from for utility just gave too much potential to the Poet (especially if the Spontaneous equivalent to Pearls of Power are brought into it). Even with the reduced spell slots it's still a seriously decent

I also really like the new capstone.

Concord of Sweet Sounds: Does this allow an inspiration without having any inspirations left?
If so, then the wording might be something along the lines of:

"As a standard action the Poet may use any inspiration ability they have, including those granted by their archetype. Using an inspiration in this way does not count against their total number of inspirations per day."

My intention was that it would, yes. I will add the wording.


Noble: To remedy the dead level 2, what about expanding Impel?

Level 2: Impel Quick: Target ally within 30' regains use of their swift action, if they had used it. A Noble may use Impel a number of times per day equal to half their class level plus their Charisma modifier.

Level 4: Impel Attack: Target ally within 30' may make an immediate attack against any enemy they threaten.

Level 6: Great Impel: Target ally within 30' may take a full round worth of actions etc. Using this ability consumes 2 Impel uses/day.

Eldest: Note that by the literal text, they may use their ability without it being deducted from their daily limit. This does not dispense the ability to use it if they would otherwise not be able to by not having any remaining inspirations left, or by only having one daily use left for two-inspiration-use abilities.

As another viable alternative, they may simply regain one of their expended uses of inspiration for the day as a swift action; this is almost the same thing, except not quite so potent.


Brawler: Faster Than the Naked Eye: To amend the wording slightly, what about:
The Brawler may make a full attack as a standard action or as part of a charge. If they make a full attack action in this way they may make one additional attack as part of their full attack at their highest Base Attack Bonus. All attacks made in this full attack action must be made using the Brawler's unarmed strike or natural attacks.

In this way, if the brawler is "armed" by holding a salad fork in one hand, or wearing a spiked bracer, they can still flurry using only unarmed attacks.

Will fix.

Brawler > Martial Artist: I could be wrong here, but seeing as you only get one immediate or swift action per round, isn't restricting stance switching to once per round redundant?

Yes. True. Fixed.

Gladiator > Should Weapon of Choice require them to practice for five minutes with the new weapon in question? It seems odd that theoretically the gladiator could theoretically declare a particular farmer's Scythe as their WoC.

Secondly, it should probably be restricted to a weapon they are proficient with, at least thematically.

Reasonable requests. Added.

Does "attack" include anything with an attack roll?

Brute > "By wearing medium armour", perhaps? I know it's petty, but I have the grim vision of a player insisting that he can indeed carry around seventy-nine Breastplates without encumbrance because they're medium armour...

Fixed.

Man at Arms > No action is assigned to Weapon of Choice in the first place, and I'd again suggest possibly restricting it to any weapon which the Man at Arms is holding.

Fixed.

Pit Fighter > This archetype may be a little extreme in all honestly. Automatic spell loss combined with being almost literally impossible to escape makes this instant and irrevocable death to casters.

With a +9 to hit before Strength (Weapon of choice + BAB), the chance of a 16 Strength Pit Fighter with Weapon Focus hitting an unarmoured, Dex 16 mage is about 95%, for an average damage of 12 damage before power attack. At a D6 HD, your average mage is going to have ~31 HP. Power Attacking for an extra 20 damage is still a 50% chance to hit.

Whilst yes, I know and appreciate that mages are supposed to be squishy, but this can be done at reach, and it absolutely, utterly shuts down another class in a way that they have no means of dealing with (there's not much quicken in E6 is there?). That's not really fun design. Can an equal levelled mage survive a situation where a Pit Fighter ends up in melee range with them?

Second would be the fact they move like a cheetah on crack.

A level 6 Pit Fighter with a Spiked Chain may make make an attack of opportunity if anything within 10' moves, casts, draws, or 5' steps (or anything else, but you get the idea).

They may now also take a 10' step as per the Fancy Footwork ability, potentially leaving them 5' closer to the target ten feet away who took a 5' step away from them.

They can do this every time they "may make" an attack of opportunity (which is not the same thing as hitting with, or even "refraining from", an attack of opportunity). Imagine a line of goblins around the world all drawing their swords split seconds after one another. The Pit Fighter has now 10' stepped his way across thousands of miles.

Incidentally, the way the major archetype power is worded, it doesn't actually use up an AoO to make a Full Attack. Possibly this should be something along the lines of: "Any time the Pit Fighter makes an attack of opportunity they may make a full attack rather than a single attack."

Maybe limit their 5' steps to one extra one per round, stop it from being Fancy Footworkable, or possibly tie it to actually taking the AoO. Since their AoO-step also means that nobody wielding a reach weapon that also can't be used in melee can make a full attack against them.

For the mageslayer aspect, I'd suggest Concentration checks to engage in Defensive Casting automatically fail, and there's a -4 penalty against concentration checks about losing the spell to damage dealt by the Pit Fighter. This means that a Strength 4 pixie with a rapier can't auto-disrupt the mage with a 1-damage love-tap.

Very good points. I've changed the Lesser Archetype ability to hinge on "successfully connect[ing]" with an attack of opportunity, so there's an inherent limit of either one or Dex modifier (in the case of Combat Reflexes), and removed the "threatens even during a 5' step" (mainly because it made it impossible for anyone to approach a pit fighter, especially one with a reach weapon). Moderate changed to give a -4 penalty to casting defensively or Concentration check to avoid losing a spell. Greater poached your wording. Hopefully that tones it down somewhat, while still maintaining its role as "dirty anti-mage fighter".

Vindicator: Lesser Archetype is a little confusingly worded, it may be an idea to lift it straight from the Ranger: At 5th level the Vindicator may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by 2.

The vindicator is on the chopping block. It's a lot of bookkeeping for little gain. I don't like favored enemy-style abilities very much (they're overly specific and do very little outside of a few numeric bonuses), so I'm hoping to replace it.

Greater: Again I'd suggest a 5 minute workout or something to reselect a favoured enemy, or otherwise indicating when a new enemy can be selected each 24 hours, and how long it takes.

See above.

Hunter: Completely optional here, but swapping Trapper and Deadly Aim around might be a smoother progression (PA at level 1 is a little mediocre anyway)

I'll consider it. I'd like the hunter's initial ability to support their combat style (i.e., shooting stuff). But it does prevent Hunter 1 from being a hell of a dip.

Peltast: Suggested slight rewording of the Major Archetype:
The Peltast may make a full attack as a standard action on any round where they have moved at least 10'. All attacks made in this full attack action must be made using thrown weapons with which the Peltast is proficient.

Fixed. Peltast in general reworked a bit.

Sentinel: Possible rewording of Interception: Once per round as an immediate action the Sentinel may attempt to intercept a melee attack targeted at any ally within 10' by making an opposed melee attack roll against the total result of the attack he wishes to intercept. If successful, the attack is instead directed towards the sentinel, and he may use his armour class to defend against it as if he were the original target.

Level 4 rework: A Sentinel may take one additional Immediate action per turn, so long as that immediate action is used to Intercept a blow.

By RAW, a Free action cannot be performed outside of your turn except for speaking.

Interception is going to be completely overhauled. It's an awkward mechanic in general.

Juggernaut: Major Archetype power - It may be worth clarifying that the Juggernaut is still subject to the attack normally. I don't like automatic "no save just suck" abilities, so if a balance check or reflex save or something were required to knock them prone that would be a lot better to me; it makes little thematic sense that a nimble Rogue is easier to knock over than a Fighter, who is easier to knock over than.... a Fighter that has Weapon Focus, or that waiting until their second iterative attack is basically a +5 bonus to Juggs on the check to auto-bulltrip them.

Also this sort of ability that triggers on interception makes it worth specifying on interception that they cannot intercept blows targeted at themselves (otherwise they may count as their own ally for the free bulltrip).

In fact, considering the logical extent of this ability, a Juggernaut who rolls a 20 (say 30, with 16 Str, Weapon Focus and 6 BAB), against a Tyrannosaurus that rolled a 2 (22), has just knocked a tyrannosaurus back eight feet and knocked them onto their back.

Cool? Hell yes. Little extreme though? What about a free bullrush attempt with a bonus pushback equal to half the difference if they succeed?

Landsknecht: When using Interception, if a landsknecht's opposing attack roll succeeds, the landsknecht may make one free melee attack at his highest base attack bonus as a free action.

Against the target who made the attack they were intercepting... right?

Praetorian: I'd seriously suggest capping the bonus by class level or +5. Having five pet parrots who are your allies at level 1? Pretty crazy go nuts.

I'll just say this for the sentinel: he is about to undergo a serious face lift.

Zealot: Raise the Banners: Considering the Poet can basically get a free inspiration for ~5 rounds once per encounter, perhaps this should be a number of rounds equal to half their charisma modifier or something?

Will consider.

Rally the Troops: Death is arguably a negative status by RAW.

Will clarify this, choosing specific statuses. Iron Heart Surge all over again.

All the auras need to cover "positive Charisma bonus (to a minimum of 1)" or something similar, and smiting needs to include the "bonus (if any)" clause to Smite instead of modifier.

Okay.

How does the Templar's Aura interact with Raise the Banners?

I do not know.

Green Mage: I assume it's intentional that Green Mages are proficient with Light Armour, but still suffer ASF in it?

From the proficiencies section of the green mage: "He does not suffer from arcane failure while in light armor"

The free inspiration ability is already the weakest of the three, giving you one more use of inspiration is far, far weaker (you can't use the 2/3 cost inspirations, for instance). Compare with the healing ability.



Actually, the closest RAW (or at least the SRD) comes to adressing it is by saying you can preform 1 standard, swift, and move actions per round, and no limit on the number of free actions. Per round, not per turn.

I was operating under this assumption for a long time, too, but it is not technically correct. As Kholai quotes below, you can't take free actions (other than speaking) when it's not your turn.

You rolled a 20 and the other guy rolled a 2. The other guy has to be freaking legendary to win that round. Think of all the skill things you can get by putting a little effort in and getting a 20.

While I agree with you that this should be a pretty epic win/fail, Kholai is right that it is a bit extreme for E6.

By RAW, death isn't defined very well. The only negative part is that you can't receive healing. Nothing preventing you from taking any action. And you can't be damaged any further, because your Con is at 0, which means you are dead, which means your health is permanently at -10. If you say dead people can't take actions, you are moving into (incredibly well supported and widely held as valid) RAI. So death is, by RAW, not negative because it is a net gain in power for the player. And if you try that with your DM, you will get hit with books.
So go ahead and state "except for death", but be aware of how rules-lawyery you'd need to get to have that work.

I wasn't suggesting it to be the best, merely that a cleaner alternative was slightly less potent. You and I disagree on the comparative potency of a highly conditional healing move (healing, reasonably, about 30 HP to a target who must have just been disabled or worse), compared to an always relevant bonus that the poet can always benefit from even in the final round of combat (fully healing all party members after a combat for no resources), or even simple things like always having a +2 Inspire Courage available after a long day (force multipliers can save lives just as assuredly), or a 30' AOE stun. It's a great Poet ability - it's decently powerful, and it's very versatile. I just want it to be as clearly worded as possible.

The SRD states:

Without question, you cannot perform a Swift action outside of your turn. You can take a swift action any time you may take a free action. You cannot take free actions any time except during your own turn, with the sole (and explicit) exception of talking. This is why Immediate actions exist, to take actions out of turn.

This problem was brought up in the last thread. I have not fixed it yet, because Interception will look quite different soon, but I am aware that free actions may not technically be performed on other turns.

Assume the Sentinel has a one use +20 competence bonus to one attack roll. They roll to intercept an equal level Gladiator. That Gladiator has just been thrown 100'.

They're in a 20' by 20' room. The Gladiator has now taken 16D6 damage. With no save.

I can go on, but I feel it to be self-evident that there's something wrong here.

Fair point. I'll reexamine.

This is actually what I was alluding to. By RAW, "Negative Status Effects" isn't defined at all. What about unconsciousness? Pinned? Disabled? Flat Footed? Helpless? Petrified? Energy/Ability Drained? Starvation? Drowning? Unhappy? Wounded? Diseased? Poisoned? Slightly gassy? Missing an arm? Blinded via eye trauma? On fire?

When a Zealot can instantly cure the cancerous, disease ridden, geas afflicted, god-blighted, quadriplegic king (who, for the sake of argument, is on fire) by staging a demonstration fight with their friend in front of him and popping off a swift action, I hope you're not in disagreement that this needs a little bit of limitation on exactly what entails "a negative status effect".

I'll reexamine the "negative status effect" thing, because yeah, that one doesn't specify. Others do. Originally it was truncated for space. Now I have space. You see where I'm going with this?