Gnorman's Complete E6 Compendium

[Gnorman]

Did a little revamp of the Red and White Mages today. Moved a few of the archetype powers around, and fleshed in the Divine Executioner (the archetype that replaced the Mystic) a bit, though I am not completely finished with it.

Red Mage now keys off Charisma and Constitution - spellcasting is Charisma-based, while secondary abilities usually use Constitution. This should make them a bit hardier than the average mage.

Also, I'm hoping for a balance check on the new Pyromancer Greater ability:

Greater Archetype Power: When casting a spell that deals fire damage, the pyromancer may choose to fuel it with his own life force. For every 1 point of Constitution damage that he chooses to take, the spell deals an additional die of damage. This ability cannot increase the damage of a spell beyond twice its original damage.

A 6th-level Pyromancer could take 6 Constitution damage to have his Fireball deal 12d6 damage, for example, or take 1 Constitution damage to have his Flame Arrow spell cause the enchanted ammunition to deal an extra 2d6 fire damage. I think it makes for a high-risk, high-reward caster, but 12d6 fireballs may be... too much. Thoughts? Perhaps 2 points of Con damage per extra die?

Also! I'm working on a very bare-bones "combat tactics" system, which will be similar to maneuvers only much less... hrm... what's the word... mystical, I guess? There will be less "fightin' with fire and shadow and stuff" and more "throwing sand into your opponents eyes or stabbing him in the back" but a lot of the effects will be similar. I'm shooting for dirtier and more realistic with this, more Gladiator than Crouching Tiger.

One of the key things about the new system is Weapon Groups - you can't Backstab someone with a warhammer, and you can't Impale someone with a morningstar. Your choice of weapon is going to affect more than your damage die and type of damage - certain weapons will be able to perform certain Tactics that others will not, though there will be universal Tactics. I'm not an expert on medieval weaponry, though, so please bear with me if something seems outlandish. The plan is to offer Tactics to all the combat classes on a per-encounter basis. There will be ranged Tactics, unarmed Tactics, offensive Tactics, defensive Tactics, et cetera. If successful, I'll be implementing this as a way of increasing the versatility of combat classes without having to delve into a system not everyone is familiar with - I'm going to try and keep Tactics as accessible and easy to learn as possible. I'll keep you updated about this as time goes on.

If it works out, I may implement a Tricks system for the skilled classes, thus giving all the classes something fun to work with.