3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

[VladtheLad]

I have read quite a bit of the overhaul (not all of it) and I remember actually reading a lot of what you wrote back when you had extra abilities (perception and agility I think).
I salute you for keeping at it for such a long time!

I actually agree with a lot of your design goals and choices. Especially the "lets not have an unnecessary abundance of classes".

I am interested in how this rules play out, so I have some questions:
-I couldn't find anything indicating a wealth by level chart. More importanly, because that's where wealth by level emerges from, is there a standarized award for defeating a monster of a specific CR?
-Also what changes would monsters require to run in your overhaul?
-Would monsters with spell like abilities incur strain(couldn't find a section about spell likes in spellcasting)? How about normal spellcasting?
I am thinking that maybe you could include general instructions on how to convert monsters (if that's actually even necessary).
- You mention ability enhancing magic items don't stack, does that mean there is no point to them? In general I am confused about how dc's and saves will scale in your games. Will spellcasters have a chance to affect lvl appropriate monsters and player resist lvl appropriate dc's?
In a post you mention the iron will etc feats function differently in your games but i can't find them anywhere in your rules.

Other notes: I always wanted to connect level with longevity in dnd 3.5. Kinda like if you gain levels you age more slowly. I see you had a similar idea with cancelling age penlaties. If you went that slower aging route, do you have any ideas how would you do it?

[nonsi]

I have read quite a bit of the overhaul (not all of it) and I remember actually reading a lot of what you wrote back when you had extra abilities (perception and agility I think).

I remember those.
With time, I've come to the understanding that practicality must precede common sense when it comes to an effective game overhaul, or even isolated house rules. Any changes to the set of ability scores would have just too much impact on the game, to a point where reconciling all the implications would merit huge amounts of rules, and the end result would probably confuse the majority of the readers.

I salute you for keeping at it for such a long time!

Thanks : )

I actually agree with a lot of your design goals and choices. Especially the "lets not have an unnecessary abundance of classes".

Sure. But that reduction in the number of classes must not come at the expense of the available character concepts to choose from.
I believe I have that angle covered with a lot of extra.

-I couldn't find anything indicating a wealth by level chart.

WBL is meant to become unimportant when using the overhaul. The classes are so much more versatile and capable on their own than any official classes that they should be able to function with very little gear (except for extreme cases where it would promote the story line).

More importanly, because that's where wealth by level emerges from, is there a standarized award for defeating a monster of a specific CR?

See "Encounter-CRs and XP Awards" spoiler in post #5.

[Edit:] Oh, you meant treasure. No. nothing in particular. I'd advise no more than 50% of what's suggested in the DMG. In all epic stories, heroes save the day using mostly their innate capabilities + wits. Much more stylish and elegant than shining like a Christmas tree.

-Also what changes would monsters require to run in your overhaul?

Very few actually.
1. Give them maxed out HP, but also see "Modified Monsters" spoiler in post #28.
2. Up their saving throws when relevant, according to "Saving-Throws Modifiers – Redefined" spoiler in post #3.

-Would monsters with spell like abilities incur strain (couldn't find a section about spell likes in spellcasting)? How about normal spellcasting?

No and yes.
SLAs always had #uses per day and never counted as regular spellcasting. No reason to change that.
Spellcasting should work the same for everyone, otherwise it'll complicate things.

I am thinking that maybe you could include general instructions on how to convert monsters (if that's actually even necessary).

I'd prefer converting only what merits change, and not converting for the sake of changing.

- You mention ability enhancing magic items don't stack, does that mean there is no point to them?

No. it means that if one has multiple magical effects that augment a given character stat (ability score, attack bonus, deflection bonus to AC, etc.) they overlap and only the highest augmentation applies.

In general I am confused about how dc's and saves will scale in your games. Will spellcasters have a chance to affect lvl appropriate monsters and player resist lvl appropriate dc's?

AFAIK, no change there. Nothing that's intended anyway.
None of the classes was designed to break RNG, and a lot of crazy stat-boosting means have been eliminated.

In a post you mention the iron will etc feats function differently in your games but i can't find them anywhere in your rules.

Better rather than differently.
See "By Categories" spoiler (inside "Modified Feats", post #8).

 

Other notes: I always wanted to connect level with longevity in dnd 3.5. Kinda like if you gain levels you age more slowly. I see you had a similar idea with cancelling age penlaties. If you went that slower aging route, do you have any ideas how would you do it?

I wouldn't, for the simple reason that dying of oldage is not something one should be concerned about.
Downtime should never accumulate to dangerous levels, otherwise the DM is doing something terribly wrong.
Also, quite a few classes overcome oldage altogether (Jester, Priest, Druid, Warlock, Witch, Monk, Dragon Evolutionist, Time Bender, Elementalist, Radiant Soul).
On top of that, there's Lichdom, Green Star Adept, Bone Knight, divinity and Highlander immortality.

But if I would, I'd make it like that:
6th character level: +20% to character's age steps and maximum age.
12th character level: +50%
18th character level: +100%

[VladtheLad]

I remember those.
With time, I've come to the understanding that practicality must precede common sense when it comes to an effective game overhaul, or even isolated house rules. Any changes to the set of ability scores would have just too much impact on the game, to a point where reconciling all the implications would merit huge amounts of rules, and the end result would probably confuse the majority of the readers.

Absolutely, it was the right choise IMO.
As an aside familiarity is also an issue, if 3.5 came out today, I wouldn't be so sure I could spend the time or more importanly have the desire to re learn it.

Sure. But that reduction in the number of classes must not come at the expense of the available character concepts to choose from.
I believe I have that angle covered with a lot of extra.

I personally would be satisfied even with only the class and multi class options from adnd (provided they were well done), but I understand why many people want more.

WBL is meant to become unimportant when using the overhaul. The classes are so much more versatile and capable on their own than any official classes that they should be able to function with very little gear (except for extreme cases where it would promote the story line).

[Edit:] Oh, you meant treasure. No. nothing in particular. I'd advise no more than 50% of what's suggested in the DMG. In all epic stories, heroes save the day using mostly their innate capabilities + wits. Much more stylish and elegant than shining like a Christmas tree.

AFAIK, no change there. Nothing that's intended anyway.
None of the classes was designed to break RNG, and a lot of crazy stat-boosting means have been eliminated.

I haven't run any numbers but my fear is without magic items classes will be very vulnerable, especially on saves and ac. On the other hand I could be totally wrong because even half WBL and your as far as i understand more expensive magic items should end up granting some considerable bonuses.

I am also considering running published adventures with your rules, treasure and magic items unchanged, and simply disallowing or severly hampering magic item trading, which will make things much more straightforward and faster.
In general I always wanted to have a system where magic items aren't necessary but are also randomly awarded, since the fun factor in my experience is very high on that one, and the treasure can be used for other things or simply as xp awards (like in old school games).

Very few actually.
1. Give them maxed out HP, but also see "Modified Monsters" spoiler in post #28.
2. Up their saving throws when relevant, according to "Saving-Throws Modifiers – Redefined" spoiler in post #3.

I see, if that's all, the conversion isn't that hard. Also I personally would ignore feat conversions saying that if a feat is picked by your racial hd it uses the old version (unless the feat and the rules it affects have changed radically).

That said I just noticed you used 4th edition saving throws, for the purpose of not having dump stats. I don't see how exactly this is achieved and I don't see many dump stats in your rules actually, except maybe charisma. Then again its hard to predict how all of your many houserules interact so I could be totally wrong.
This will result in many strength focused monsters having even better fortitude saves and generally monsters with higher saves will be even harder to affect for spellcasters, who now have lower dc's because of MAD on spellcasting and less magic items. Again I haven't run any actual numbers so I could be totally wrong here.
But on that note what spell dc's do you expect a 15th level wizard or caster generally to have?
Thinking further about maybe without resistance adding items players might need this revised saves rule to make up for it?

What do you think would be the effect of removing the redifined saving throws modifiers from your houserules?

No. it means that if one has multiple magical effects that augment a given character stat (ability score, attack bonus, deflection bonus to AC, etc.) they overlap and only the highest augmentation applies.

That's what I thought, thanks for clarifying

Better rather than differently.
See "By Categories" spoiler (inside "Modified Feats", post #8).

 
Ah yes that's what I meant, but I couldn't find it.

I wouldn't, for the simple reason that dying of oldage is not something one should be concerned about.
Downtime should never accumulate to dangerous levels, otherwise the DM is doing something terribly wrong.
Also, quite a few classes overcome oldage altogether (Jester, Priest, Druid, Warlock, Witch, Monk, Dragon Evolutionist, Time Bender, Elementalist, Radiant Soul).
On top of that, there's Lichdom, Green Star Adept, Bone Knight, divinity and Highlander immortality.

But if I would, I'd make it like that:
6th character level: +20% to character's age steps and maximum age.
12th character level: +50%
18th character level: +100%

Seems reasonable, though downtime for elfs and dwarfs isn't controlled by oldage, but more likely by dm intervention.

I was thinking sth like:

6th level half elf lifespan
12 level dwarf lifespan
18 level elf lifespan

Some extra things:

In your general rules ability score progression you write "Special: Once per 6 character levels, a general feat can be used to raise one's ability score and ability limits by +1." do you mean "to raise one's ability scores" so all ability scores are increased?


The rogue seems to be able to coup de grace as a sneak attack, isn't this a bit excessive? Again its hard to tell for me because I can't see all the rule interactions. At 15 level your sneak attack is 8d6, 10d6 total damage with a short sword for coup de grace and lets say str 14 for another +4. That's 39+10=49 dc save, it pretty much kills anything you can sneak attack automatically. Considering you have anti immunity to
3 enemy types for sneak attack as a class feature and darkstalker it, at least initially, seems to me very few enemies will be able to do sth about this.

[nonsi]

I haven't run any numbers but my fear is without magic items classes will be very vulnerable, especially on saves and ac.

If there's one thing that I'm sure of, is that my classes are anything but vulnerable.
None of the core classes comes on its own anywhere near the level of survivability as my classes.

I am also considering running published adventures with your rules, treasure and magic items unchanged

Amen to that. I'd love to know how things go at the gaming table.

simply disallowing or severly hampering magic item trading, which will make things much more straightforward and faster.

That's an upside I didn't mention, but I do believe it to be so.

treasure can be used for other things or simply as xp awards (like in old school games).

Going back to "Encounter-CRs and XP Awards", I think that magical gear should affect XP calculations if and only if it makes the encounter more difficult in practice.
Now the DM only needs assessing what was the in-practice CR.
That way, your notion comes into practice on one hand and is very simple to execute on the other hand.

Also I personally would ignore feat conversions saying that if a feat is picked by your racial hd it uses the old version (unless the feat and the rules it affects have changed radically).

I think that using different versions of feats would probably turn out to make things more confusing.
And on that note, another thing I forgot to mention in monster adaptation is to replace omitted feats (e.g. Power Attack)

That said I just noticed you used 4th edition saving throws, for the purpose of not having dump stats. I don't see how exactly this is achieved and I don't see many dump stats in your rules actually, except maybe charisma.

Since each level comes with an ability boost, any dump stat means that you have less ability scores to put those ability boosts into.
The save-redundancy approach gives more incentive to make previously unorthodox character builds and give more room for players to build the characters they envision rather than always building given classes around the same ability scores or end up shooting themselves in the leg.

This will result in many strength focused monsters having even better fortitude saves and generally monsters with higher saves will be even harder to affect for spellcasters, who now have lower dc's because of MAD on spellcasting and less magic items.

A far better ability package to start with plus an ability boost at each level practically guarantee that MAD is far less of an issue now.
Also, I wanna talk about spellcasters overcoming DCs. A few years back I played a 6th level Beguiler and made an excessive use of SoS effects. I was so good at it that I got kicked out of the group for ruining the fun for all the other players. I'm more than ok with SoS effects being a gambit. This would give more room to damage effects and save (partial) effects.

But on that note what spell dc's do you expect a 15th level wizard or caster generally to have?

The same as for official 3.5e. When facing a really tough cookie, you should really give SoS effects (which are basically an "I win" button) a serious consideration before spamming them.

What do you think would be the effect of removing the redifined saving throws modifiers from your houserules?

1. Less means of offsetting gear reduction.
2. Less room for maneuvering with character builds.

Seems reasonable, though downtime for elfs and dwarfs isn't controlled by oldage, but more likely by dm intervention.

I was thinking sth like:

6th level half elf lifespan
12 level dwarf lifespan
18 level elf lifespan

Doesn't bother me, but this would practically remove the age differences between the races and make longer lifespan a no-reason for choosing a race for having a longer lifespan.

In your general rules ability score progression you write "Special: Once per 6 character levels, a general feat can be used to raise one's ability score and ability limits by +1." do you mean "to raise one's ability scores" so all ability scores are increased?

Absolutely not. This would practically make this option a no-brainer. You should only use it if it really makes a difference for you – and usually every class has that one ability score that really affects its power level. Like any other benefit, you should spend your resources on it only when it counts (i.e. raising the chosen ability score from an odd number to the next even value). If it makes a difference – take it. If not – don't.
In a perfect world, all feats are made equal and choices amount to player's vision of the character. Still, I'm trying to bring feats as close as possible to one another. When a feat is obviously superior to most other feats, the chances that it sees use increase and you end up with the same builds over and over again.

[Edit]: Just for comparison, I know of only a single official 3.5e race that grants +2 to Int with LA +0 (Gray Elf, with -2 to Str) and I see no reason to think why it wouldn't be the obvious choice for Int-based classes and scoundrel type classes. That's how much another +1 to the modifier of the right ability can affect a character's effectiveness.

The rogue seems to be able to coup de grace as a sneak attack, isn't this a bit excessive? Again its hard to tell for me because I can't see all the rule interactions. At 15 level your sneak attack is 8d6, 10d6 total damage with a short sword for coup de grace and lets say str 14 for another +4. That's 39+10=49 dc save, it pretty much kills anything you can sneak attack automatically. Considering you have anti immunity to
3 enemy types for sneak attack as a class feature and darkstalker it, at least initially, seems to me very few enemies will be able to do sth about this.

This is absolutely a correct observation.
I'll need to see how I resolve this issue and I'd really prefer not to resort to a daily #uses limit, but rather make it more situational.
Suggestions would be appreciated.

Just an observation: you can't coup-de-grace creatures with no anatomy - even if you know how to effectively SA them.

[VladtheLad]

If there's one thing that I'm sure of, is that my classes are anything but vulnerable.
None of the core classes comes on its own anywhere near the level of survivability as my classes.

Oh absolutely, but still magic items are pretty big numeric power booster. I guess only if I actually sat down and created characters with your classes I would have an informed opinion and even then that can't replace actually playtesting them.

Going back to "Encounter-CRs and XP Awards", I think that magical gear should affect XP calculations if and only if it makes the encounter more difficult in practice.
Now the DM only needs assessing what was the in-practice CR.
That way, your notion comes into practice on one hand and is very simple to execute on the other hand.

I was talking about getting xp from the treasure you bring back, not about magical gear affecting xp award calculations.

I think that using different versions of feats would probably turn out to make things more confusing.
And on that note, another thing I forgot to mention in monster adaptation is to replace omitted feats (e.g. Power Attack)

Understood, btw feats is one aspect of your system I have explored the least of.

Since each level comes with an ability boost, any dump stat means that you have less ability scores to put those ability boosts into.
The save-redundancy approach gives more incentive to make previously unorthodox character builds and give more room for players to build the characters they envision rather than always building given classes around the same ability scores or end up shooting themselves in the leg.

I am a bit confused on how this is achieved exactly. I am trying to think of some examples:
You can now play a wizard that focuses on strength a bit more than constitution without gimping his fortitude save, or a fighter than can have higher charisma than wisdom which is unlikely in 3.5 and a cleric with high intelligence and low dexterity.
Basically stength, intelligence and charisma and especially strength and charisma have the potential to not be dump stats as often?

A far better ability package to start with plus an ability boost at each level practically guarantee that MAD is far less of an issue now.
Also, I wanna talk about spellcasters overcoming DCs. A few years back I played a 6th level Beguiler and made an excessive use of SoS effects. I was so good at it that I got kicked out of the group for ruining the fun for all the other players. I'm more than ok with SoS effects being a gambit. This would give more room to damage effects and save (partial) effects.

The same as for official 3.5e. When facing a really tough cookie, you should really give SoS effects (which are basically an "I win" button) a serious consideration before spamming them.

Oh if the dc's will be the same as for official 3.5 then they are more than enough. I was pretty sure the dc's would be ok at low levels, but I am a bit worried about high levels. You will have less gold and more expensive magic items so most likely a weaker headband of intelligence cloak of charisma. I was also worried about the split stats and the fact that a wizard will need both intelligence and charisma, but it is true that the extra ability points make up for that.

1. Less means of offsetting gear reduction.
2. Less room for maneuvering with character builds.

Hmm I 'll run it then as you propose, though I never really minded 2 and perhaps 1 can be solved with just more treasure.

Doesn't bother me, but this would practically remove the age differences between the races and make longer lifespan a no-reason for choosing a race for having a longer lifespan.

True.
Its funny because part of it is ironing the mechanical differences between players, after all races are supposedly mechanically equal, and the other part affects setting assumptions.
As things are there is no direct explanation why elfs don't just dominate other races by aquiring levels. At older edition level limits performed that role, now you have to say elves are bored, barren, mad or utterly detach level gaining from the passage of time.

In any case to be honest I don't especially mind how the DM goes about this issue.

Absolutely not. This would practically make this option a no-brainer. You should only use it if it really makes a difference for you – and usually every class has that one ability score that really affects its power level. Like any other benefit, you should spend your resources on it only when it counts (i.e. raising the chosen ability score from an odd number to the next even value). If it makes a difference – take it. If not – don't.
In a perfect world, all feats are made equal and choices amount to player's vision of the character. Still, I'm trying to bring feats as close as possible to one another. When a feat is obviously superior to most other feats, the chances that it sees use increase and you end up with the same builds over and over again.

[Edit]: Just for comparison, I know of only a single official 3.5e race that grants +2 to Int with LA +0 (Gray Elf, with -2 to Str) and I see no reason to think why it wouldn't be the obvious choice for Int-based classes and scoundrel type classes. That's how much another +1 to the modifier of the right ability can affect a character's effectiveness.

Oh yes it did seem a tad too good to me. My point is you should then change the text to " Once per 6 character levels, a general feat can be used to raise one ability score and ability limits by +1."

This is absolutely a correct observation.
I'll need to see how I resolve this issue and I'd really prefer not to resort to a daily #uses limit, but rather make it more situational.
Suggestions would be appreciated.

Yes I would also dislike uses per day for sth like this.
Perhaps in the same conditions mentioned in the rogue entry (full/standard action and unobserved) double the sneak attack damage? At level 15 tripple it?
Or simply add your dex mod to the sneak attack damage die?

Just an observation: you can't coup-de-grace creatures with no anatomy - even if you know how to effectively SA them.

Ah I see, you are correct, that makes it much more tame then.


Other stuff:

The jester class you have is from Frank and K's dungeonomicon, so author isn't unknown.

The druid's Avenger of nature ability says you add twice your wisdom bonus, do you mean add one time your wisdom bonus and one your charisma bonus or two times your wisdom bonus and one time your charisma bonus?
A bit of silly aging nitpick (another point about aging for some reason!) but druid turning into a plant type could affect his aging, though he does overcome this totally at 20th level.

I get the feeling from reading your houserules, that you might appreciate adventurer conqueror king's domain managament rules. I suggest you check them out, maybeyou will find sth usable in them, even if they are made for classic dnd.

[nonsi]

I was talking about getting xp from the treasure you bring back, not about magical gear affecting xp award calculations.

I know how it went in prev editions.
I'm against it for 2 reasons:
1. It makes no sense: items don't teach you new ways of how to cope with challenges, so there's no reason why they'd take direct part in XP accumulation.
2. It's an effective way of producing malcontent players and an ever increasing pressure on the DM from the players' side (which is bound to lead to WBL incline). Been there, done that.

Understood, btw feats is one aspect of your system I have explored the least of.

Like everything else in the overhaul, everything that I've done with feats was motivated by 2 main goals:
1. Bringing them closer together – to make feat selection revolve more around vision of character than choosing optimal builds.
2. Making any imaginable character concept viable.
Also, some of them are essential since there are no PrCs in the overhaul.

I am a bit confused on how this is achieved exactly. I am trying to think of some examples:
You can now play a wizard that focuses on strength a bit more than constitution without gimping his fortitude save, or a fighter than can have higher charisma than wisdom which is unlikely in 3.5 and a cleric with high intelligence and low dexterity.
Basically stength, intelligence and charisma and especially strength and charisma have the potential to not be dump stats as often?

Not just those in specific, but basically that.

I was pretty sure the dc's would be ok at low levels, but I am a bit worried about high levels. You will have less gold and more expensive magic items so most likely a weaker headband of intelligence cloak of charisma.

If you look at "Offensive and Defensive Magical Plusses" spoiler (post #4), you'll see that there's no longer a headband of intelligence or a cloak of charisma.

Oh yes it did seem a tad too good to me. My point is you should then change the text to " Once per 6 character levels, a general feat can be used to raise one ability score and ability limits by +1."

Go it.

Yes I would also dislike uses per day for sth like this.
Perhaps in the same conditions mentioned in the rogue entry (full/standard action and unobserved) double the sneak attack damage? At level 15 tripple it?
Or simply add your dex mod to the sneak attack damage die?

I believe that the problem is now taken care of.
Also, I think you had a slight error in the DC calculation. 15^th level grants 6 SA dice, and a medium short sword deals 1d6 base damage, so that's 7d6 overall (not including Improved Sneak Attack special ability, which can push it to 9d6 at 15th).

The jester class you have is from Frank and K's dungeonomicon, so author isn't unknown.

Yes, that was a leftover.
The credit is in the Credits section.

The druid's Avenger of nature ability says you add twice your wisdom bonus, do you mean add one time your wisdom bonus and one your charisma bonus or two times your wisdom bonus and one time your charisma bonus?

1. Cha was never a part of this ability. It's all about willpower and intuition, not force of personality.
2. I re-worded Avenger of Nature and modified it a bit (+1 per level is a bit crazy, so I toned it down).

A bit of silly aging nitpick (another point about aging for some reason!) but druid turning into a plant type could affect his aging, though he does overcome this totally at 20th level.

1. Extending character age twice via class features seems redundant to me.
2. I'm already scratching the content limit for the Druid entry. This might come at the expense of more important future corrections/changes.

I get the feeling from reading your houserules, that you might appreciate adventurer conqueror king's domain managament rules. I suggest you check them out, maybeyou will find sth usable in them, even if they are made for classic dnd.

Are you talking about the STRONGHOLDS AND DOMAINS section (p.125)?
Seems like an expansion of what's suggested in Rules Cyclopedia (BECMI).
I'm not categorically against stronghold rules, but it seems quite tedious for players that just wanna sit around the table and have fun.
1. It promotes individual sessions with the DM, which is bad for group meetings.
2. If two or more players start messing around with strongholds, this might get real messy very fast.

On that note, mass combat rules could be a nice addition....... provided you don't get too much into rules about how to build a low-level army.

[VladtheLad]

I know how it went in prev editions.
I'm against it for 2 reasons:
1. It makes no sense: items don't teach you new ways of how to cope with challenges, so there's no reason why they'd take direct part in XP accumulation.
2. It's an effective way of producing malcontent players and an ever increasing pressure on the DM from the players' side (which is bound to lead to WBL incline). Been there, done that.

I think it works pretty well in old school games, if i were to implement it in 3.5 would be in a different way. Money you spend on class stuff like training, better training equipment, magic research, temple building, running your army, guild, academy or temple, buying ancient scrolls regarding your class grant you xp. The ration of xp/gp would have to obviously become smaller and smaller as you lvl up though.

Just to clarify I am not suggesting you implement it in your houserules, I simply mentioned my own preference two posts back.

As an aside though how would you feel about a level progression where is easier to gain the lower lvls than the higher ones?

If you look at "Offensive and Defensive Magical Plusses" spoiler (post #4), you'll see that there's no longer a headband of intelligence or a cloak of charisma.

So there is no way to buff your spell dc's which based on charisma? So lvl 20 wizard who starts with 16 charisma will have 21 at level 20, which will make his dc's 16-24?
Those seem too low to me.
Also if you cast magic vestment to a ring does it give a deflection bonus? If no is it even possible to gain a deflection bonus to ac from a magic item?

I believe that the problem is now taken care of.
Also, I think you had a slight error in the DC calculation. 15^th level grants 6 SA dice, and a medium short sword deals 1d6 base damage, so that's 7d6 overall (not including Improved Sneak Attack special ability, which can push it to 9d6 at 15th).

Hmm I think I didn't use your critical rules but the original critical rules. I also forgot to add any bonus damage due to a magic weapon.
In any case I think your solution works.

1. Cha was never a part of this ability. It's all about willpower and intuition, not force of personality.
2. I re-worded Avenger of Nature and modified it a bit (+1 per level is a bit crazy, so I toned it down).

Yes but charisma adds to all save dc's for spellcasting. So its charisma bonus+ wisdom bonus at the very least.

1. Extending character age twice via class features seems redundant to me.
2. I'm already scratching the content limit for the Druid entry. This might come at the expense of more important future corrections/changes.

Agreed.

Are you talking about the STRONGHOLDS AND DOMAINS section?
Seems like an expansion of what's suggested in Rules Cyclopedia (BECMI).
I'm not categorically against stronghold rules, but it seems quite tedious for players that just wanna sit around the table and have fun.
1. It promotes individual sessions with the DM, which is bad for group meetings.
2. If two or more players start messing around with strongholds, this might get real messy very fast.

On that note, mass combat rules could be a nice addition....... provided you don't get too much into rules about how to build a low-level army.

Yes, regarding individual sessions, I have always handed these things with skype and emails. If a player doesn't want to partake that's cool too.

There is a supplement for mass combat for the same game. Its called domains of war, though I suppose it uses rules based on he originals economy so ymmv.

On the other side pathfinder has some rules (Kingmaker/Ultimate Campaign) and expansions-fixes on those rules exists from legendary games (Ultimate Battles/Rulership) no idea if they are worth it though.

[nonsi]

As an aside though how would you feel about a level progression where is easier to gain the lower lvls than the higher ones?

I think it would take the wind out of players' motivation to continue at high levels.
My best practice with the game experience and fun is roughly a level once every 4 or 5 gaming sessions. That's about 1 level per 20 encounters. Just the right time to experience all the goodies that were gained in the current level and move on.
Making it an ever increasing uphill climb would probably make things feel tedious.

So there is no way to buff your spell dc's which based on charisma? So lvl 20 wizard who starts with 16 charisma will have 21 at level 20

1. Eagle's Splendor raises Cha.
2. If you start with 16 Cha, you still have a racial limit of 18 (unless you're a dwarf or some other race with inherent Cha penalties). So that's 23 of the board – 26 (i.e. +8) if you put 3 general feats into it.
3. I assume that it's within reason that a 9th level spell could raise an ability score by +6. Make an appropriate item and you have it covered.
That's potentially +11 at level 20.
I really don't think that you need more than this.

Also if you cast magic vestment to a ring does it give a deflection bonus? If no is it even possible to gain a deflection bonus to ac from a magic item?

I'd count magic vestment as deflection bonus, since it includes "an outfit of regular clothing".
Also see "'Personal' Spell Effects" spoiler under "Redefining Magical Items' Creation"

Yes but charisma adds to all save dc's for spellcasting. So its charisma bonus+ wisdom bonus at the very least.

Absolutely. Features always come in addition to the general rules.

There is a supplement for mass combat for the same game. Its called domains of war, though I suppose it uses rules based on he originals economy so ymmv.

Couldn't find it.

On the other side pathfinder has some rules (Kingmaker/Ultimate Campaign) and expansions-fixes on those rules exists from legendary games (Ultimate Battles/Rulership) no idea if they are worth it though.

I'm not fascinated enough by the subject to devise rules for mass combat, but if I find anything that will sit well with me I'll reference it.
In the meantime, I've referenced the stronghold rules you suggested (on post #29).

[VladtheLad]

1. Eagle's Splendor raises Cha.
2. If you start with 16 Cha, you still have a racial limit of 18 (unless you're a dwarf or some other race with inherent Cha penalties). So that's 23 of the board – 26 (i.e. +8) if you put 3 general feats into it.
3. I assume that it's within reason that a 9th level spell could raise an ability score by +6. Make an appropriate item and you have it covered.
That's potentially +11 at level 20.
I really don't think that you need more than this.

Missed that you push racial ability score limits and not your intial score.
+11 is certainly more than enough, that said it would require though 3 general feats, starting with 16 charisma, investing 7 levels of raised ability scores and an item that costs 9splvl*6000 constant*1,85 caster level=99.900gp which is excessive for half WBL and I am not sure I missed anything.
Ofcourse even a +4 charisma item would be okeyish and that would be much much cheaper.
To be honest 3 general feats are also a bit much considering you need another two to make sure you have good saves at high levels, so reach 5 feats already commited.
However with no general feats 22 charisma and a +4 you can reach 26 charisma which is workable.

If you are lvl 1, with 32 point buy and the stats are sth like
str 8 dex 14 con 14 int 14 wis 10 cha 16, you would end up with
At level 20 you would end up with str 8 dex 14 con 20 int 22 wis 10 cha 22
with no feats or magic items.

As an aside does the mage have a limit on spells known? How does int help him, with extra spells known, if he hasn't a limit on them?

I'd count magic vestment as deflection bonus, since it includes "an outfit of regular clothing".
Also see "'Personal' Spell Effects" spoiler under "Redefining Magical Items' Creation"

So you can have magic vestment on you armor giving you an armor bonus and one on your ring giving you a deflection bonus?
Or does it always grant a deflection bonus wherever you put it?

What? Magic vestment isn't a personal effect.

Absolutely. Features always come in addition to the general rules.

Yes, but the "twice your wisdom modifier" made me think maybe it was a left over from when druid used wisdom modifier for spells, that's why I mentioned it.

Couldn't find it.

Stupid mistake, Domains at war.

[nonsi]

Missed that you push racial ability score limits and not your intial score.
+11 is certainly more than enough, that said it would require though 3 general feats, starting with 16 charisma, investing 7 levels of raised ability scores and an item that costs 9splvl*6000 constant*1,85 caster level=99.900gp which is excessive for half WBL and I am not sure I missed anything.
Ofcourse even a +4 charisma item would be okeyish and that would be much much cheaper.
To be honest 3 general feats are also a bit much considering you need another two to make sure you have good saves at high levels, so reach 5 feats already commited.
However with no general feats 22 charisma and a +4 you can reach 26 charisma which is workable.

That's right. +8 is definitely solid.
It's ok to be a pig and go for broke toward +11, but....... it takes a heavy toll and players should make their own calculations if they're willing to pay it.
Raising the DC bar by +3 (+5 for some spells with Greater Spell Focus) is a significant power boost. It's supposed to have a significant toll on character resources.

If you are lvl 1, with 32 point buy and the stats are sth like
str 8 dex 14 con 14 int 14 wis 10 cha 16, you would end up with
At level 20 you would end up with str 8 dex 14 con 20 int 22 wis 10 cha 22
with no feats or magic items.

Check out "Optional Rules & Brews" spoiler at post #29. In it there's a link: "Alternative Stat Rolling Rules".
In a game where it's a lot harder to abuse stats, that proposal doesn't seem outrageous to me.
. . . but I guess it's a matter of personal taste, that's why those links are placed at post #29 rather than post #5.

As an aside does the mage have a limit on spells known? How does int help him, with extra spells known, if he hasn't a limit on them?

Under "Arcane Spellcasting" the Mage has an inner spoiler: "Mage Spells-Permanently-Memorized".
- Those are the class' Spells Known: the base package that the character keeps even if she's somehow deprived of her spellbooks.
- On top of that you have a small pool of floating memorization: some flexible daily addition to play with.
Both amount to a bit less than what an official Wizard can memorize daily. But...
- On top of that there's the casting from an open book part: I've seen that more than once in fantasy films/series. That's also the part of not losing a day for making bad memorization choices.
Without spellcasting a mage has absolutely nothing, so it only makes sense that the Mage class gets the most out of them.

So you can have magic vestment on you armor giving you an armor bonus and one on your ring giving you a deflection bonus?
Or does it always grant a deflection bonus wherever you put it?

Stat benefits from any given spell are expressed in only one manner. This is something that seems to me to belong to the "goes w/o saying" part.
Either armor or deflection, not both. My common sense goes with deflection.

Yes, but the "twice your wisdom modifier" made me think maybe it was a left over from when druid used wisdom modifier for spells, that's why I mentioned it.

The Druid still uses Wis as its primary casting stat.
It's divine spellcasting (the Priest) that is changed to Cha – for 3 reasons:
- You need inner conviction (force of personality) to follow your faith.
- You need to be charismatic to convert others to your faith.
- Turn/Rebuke Undead is Cha-based.

Stupid mistake, Domains at war.

Way too long. It's an entire system in and on itself.
BECMI Rules Cyclopedia (TSR 1071, 1992) had something a lot shorter and way more coherent (but that proposal was quite inaccurate and hand-wavy).

[VladtheLad]

Sorry for responging late but here it goes.

That's right. +8 is definitely solid.
It's ok to be a pig and go for broke toward +11, but....... it takes a heavy toll and players should make their own calculations if they're willing to pay it.
Raising the DC bar by +3 (+5 for some spells with Greater Spell Focus) is a significant power boost. It's supposed to have a significant toll on character resources.

I still think its too much, especially compared to how much the +2 dc costs, but that is easily fixed by making it a 6th level spell instead of a 9th level one.
In any case the changes in gp magic item calculation are many and I need to invest more time to fully grasp them.

Check out "Optional Rules & Brews" spoiler at post #29. In it there's a link: "Alternative Stat Rolling Rules".
In a game where it's a lot harder to abuse stats, that proposal doesn't seem outrageous to me.
. . . but I guess it's a matter of personal taste, that's why those links are placed at post #29 rather than post #5.

Yeah that would fit your overhaul better.

Under "Arcane Spellcasting" the Mage has an inner spoiler: "Mage Spells-Permanently-Memorized".
- Those are the class' Spells Known: the base package that the character keeps even if she's somehow deprived of her spellbooks.
- On top of that you have a small pool of floating memorization: some flexible daily addition to play with.
Both amount to a bit less than what an official Wizard can memorize daily. But...
- On top of that there's the casting from an open book part: I've seen that more than once in fantasy films/series. That's also the part of not losing a day for making bad memorization choices.
Without spellcasting a mage has absolutely nothing, so it only makes sense that the Mage class gets the most out of them.

I had found it at some point and then for some reason I kept missing it.
So intelligence adds to the spells known per day in a sense, or more precicely to available spells known for casting.

Stat benefits from any given spell are expressed in only one manner. This is something that seems to me to belong to the "goes w/o saying" part.
Either armor or deflection, not both. My common sense goes with deflection.

Okey so you can at max add a +5 to your ac from magic item bonuses? Barring increasing your dexterity?
Maybe I am missing sth, but I can't think of anything else.
Ah maybe you could have an item that gives you permanent barkskin?

The Druid still uses Wis as its primary casting stat.
It's divine spellcasting (the Priest) that is changed to Cha – for 3 reasons:
- You need inner conviction (force of personality) to follow your faith.
- You need to be charismatic to convert others to your faith.
- Turn/Rebuke Undead is Cha-based.

Oh didn't mean he didn't use wis as a primary casing stat, I was talking about spell dc calculation, where everything uses charisma as far as I understand

[nonsi]

I still think its too much, especially compared to how much the +2 dc costs, but that is easily fixed by making it a 6th level spell instead of a 9th level one.
In any case the changes in gp magic item calculation are many and I need to invest more time to fully grasp them.

That's fine. Remember that all game rules – official as well as unofficial – are all suggestions. You can stretch them as you see fit.
My objective was to tell stories more about awesome characters and less about awesome gear.
Just note to be careful how you up the numbers. Too much would make things too easy for the players, which would come at the expense of sense of accomplishment.

So intelligence adds to the spells known per day in a sense, or more precicely to available spells known for casting.

If to be accurate, Int adds to the pool of knowledge (i.e. known spell) for all casters.
Specifically for Mages (Int-based casters), it also adds to their tolerance pool / spell points (according to the spellcasting mechanism you choose to adopt).

Okey so you can at max add a +5 to your ac from magic item bonuses? Barring increasing your dexterity?
Maybe I am missing sth, but I can't think of anything else.
Ah maybe you could have an item that gives you permanent barkskin?

Indeed that could work... and then there's also "Bestow Spell-Like Ability", along with its continuation feat "Spell-like to Supernatural Conversion" (which is a bit more costly in terms of character resources, but also way more permanent).
I'm considering upping the cost of the latter when it comes to spells with short duration. Not sure by how much ATM.

[nonsi]

.

Status Report since last update:

• Mirror Dancer and Colossus Hammer classes added. With a high probability, the last classes I homebrew for this project (or anything for that matter).
• Craft skill resolved for high-level play.
• Giant races redesigned.
• New monster added: Chupacabra.
• Revenant imported from 5e (that one’s a big “should’ve-been in 3.Xe”)
• A handful of monsters tweaked slightly.
• Armor and DR rules added.
• Aasimar & Tiefling adapted to the codex as LA +0 races.
• "Restrained" condition adopted from 5e and adjusted for 3e mechanics.
• Weapons section enriched with more weapons and more options.
• Gravity Mage concept introduced
• Classes by Frequency of Appearance distinction added
• A few more feats, spells and invocations added.
• A handful of spells imported (referenced) from 5e.

[nonsi]

.

A small update this time:

• Cyclops added to the New Monsters section (post #31).
• Tortel added to the Races section (post #6)

[VladtheLad]

Hey Nonsi, hopefully you are still brewing in this thread. I have read your rules some more and I have some questions, maybe even suggestions.

1)Why do racial hd get max hp? Is it because you try to differenciate between hp from experience and hp from physical qualities/race. Or is there a balance reason?

2) Regarding SLA you said:

Nonsi:
No and yes.
SLAs always had #uses per day and never counted as regular spellcasting. No reason to change that.
Spellcasting should work the same for everyone, otherwise it'll complicate things.

So are SLAs affected by Severe conditions effects, Battlefield control spells and Casting Defensively under the Mechanics of Spellcasting? If yes, aren't spellcasting monsters nerfed pretty hard? Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, I just want to clarify

3) You mentioned you would change the feats the monsters have to your new versions.
Maybe you should mention in your houserules how toughness, combat reflexes and save enhancers change the monsters. Toughness especially. Picking an edge case the Tarrasque will have 4194 hp which seems excessive (I counted toughness only 5 times not 6 as it can't take it 6 times according to your rules).
On that note toughness seems excessive to me in general even for player characters.


4)Your item creation system doesn't differentiate between durations of spells. For example divine agility is a pretty good spell to put in an item. Granting +10 dex for 32.400gp? As an aside you can use Conviction at caster level 18th for the +5 bonus to saves, for 11.400gp as a replacement for cloaks of resistance.


Maybe you should factor the spell duration to the price of permanent items. For example spells at 1 min per level have the normal cost and spells with lower duration cost more while spells with a higher duration cost less.

5) Darkstalker ignoring blindsight is super wrong. Many creatures with blindsight have no spot or listen ranks and are blind, you could make it so that dark stalker turns blindsight into blindsense or tremorsense.

[nonsi]

Hey Nonsi, hopefully you are still brewing in this thread.

Yes, still brewing. But it’s getting more and more challenging to find new ideas, improvements or lingering errors that require corrections.

1)Why do racial hd get max hp? Is it because you try to differenciate between hp from experience and hp from physical qualities/race. Or is there a balance reason?

Among the more frustrating things I remember when starting new parties was the high level of fatalities associated with pure bad luck of dice rolls at early levels that constantly required the DM to cheat to avoid TPKs and forced repeated stat-rolling for new characters.

On the monsters’ side... with personal experience, players find more and more techniques to increase the party’s damage output, which means that if they manage to ensure a 50% hit ratio and their opponents don’t have a massive amount of HP, the encounters usually end within 4 rounds.

So are SLAs affected by Severe conditions effects, Battlefield control spells and Casting Defensively under the Mechanics of Spellcasting? If yes, aren't spellcasting monsters nerfed pretty hard? Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, I just want to clarify

This is offset by the versatility that spells grant. Every spellcaster should have fallback spells that are maybe less potent, but easier to execute.

3) You mentioned you would change the feats the monsters have to your new versions.
Maybe you should mention in your houserules how toughness, combat reflexes and save enhancers change the monsters. Toughness especially. Picking an edge case the Tarrasque will have 4194 hp which seems excessive (I counted toughness only 5 times not 6 as it can't take it 6 times according to your rules).
On that note toughness seems excessive to me in general even for player characters.

I’m not sure how you’re getting those numbers.
The official Tarrasque has 48d10+594 (858 hp). Even maxed-out, this amounts to 1074.
Con 35 = +12. Therefore, 5 times (12 +48) equals 300.
This gives us a total of 1374, and even that’s only when taking things to the extreme.

4)Your item creation system doesn't differentiate between durations of spells. For example divine agility is a pretty good spell to put in an item. Granting +10 dex for 32.400gp? As an aside you can use Conviction at caster level 18th for the +5 bonus to saves, for 11.400gp as a replacement for cloaks of resistance.

Maybe you should factor the spell duration to the price of permanent items. For example spells at 1 min per level have the normal cost and spells with lower duration cost more while spells with a higher duration cost less.

This is odd. I was sure I had this issue addressed. Maybe it was a suggestion that I made as a reply and forgot to incorporate it into the codex.
I’ll give it some thought to figure out how durations affect prices of permanent items (I’d probably limit thing to 2 or 3 steps at most).

5) Darkstalker ignoring blindsight is super wrong. Many creatures with blindsight have no spot or listen ranks and are blind, you could make it so that dark stalker turns blindsight into blindsense or tremorsense.

Or maybe make Blindsense would grant +10 to Spot while Blindsight would grant +20.

[VladtheLad]

Yes, still brewing. But it’s getting more and more challenging to find new ideas, improvements or lingering errors that require corrections.

Well that's good in a sense.

Among the more frustrating things I remember when starting new parties was the high level of fatalities associated with pure bad luck of dice rolls at early levels that constantly required the DM to cheat to avoid TPKs and forced repeated stat-rolling for new characters.

On the monsters’ side... with personal experience, players find more and more techniques to increase the party’s damage output, which means that if they manage to ensure a 50% hit ratio and their opponents don’t have a massive amount of HP, the encounters usually end within 4 rounds.

Ah I see, so its more like a balance issue.

This is offset by the versatility that spells grant. Every spellcaster should have fallback spells that are maybe less potent, but easier to execute.

I’m not sure how you’re getting those numbers.
The official Tarrasque has 48d10+594 (858 hp). Even maxed-out, this amounts to 1074.
Con 35 = +12. Therefore, 5 times (12 +48) equals 300.
This gives us a total of 1374, and even that’s only when taking things to the extreme.

I read that toughness grants you (con modifier+1) hp per level not con mod+1hp per level. Ok that's fine.

This is odd. I was sure I had this issue addressed. Maybe it was a suggestion that I made as a reply and forgot to incorporate it into the codex.
I’ll give it some thought to figure out how durations affect prices of permanent items (I’d probably limit thing to 2 or 3 steps at most).

Sounds fine.

Or maybe make Blindsense would grant +10 to Spot while Blindsight would grant +20.

I don't think blindsense needs changing and it seems this would make these abilities even better.

[nonsi]

Sounds fine.

What do you think about the following solution?

Optional: Spell Durations and Permanency
Spells with duration of 24 hours or longer duration all use the formula given above for permanent magical effects.
Spells with a shorter duration add 10%, 20%, 40% and 80% respectively (see "Spell Durations Redefined" above)
Motivation: Duration is a major balancing factor of spells. More potent effects are given shorter durations, so it only makes sense that turning them into permanent effects should be more costly.

I don't think blindsense needs changing and it seems this would make these abilities even better.

And what if that clause was specifically aimed toward Darkstalker?

[Roland St. Jude]

Hey Nonsi, hopefully you are still brewing in this thread. I have read your rules some more and I have some questions, maybe even suggestions.

Sheriff: Thread necromancy is generally prohibited here. If you find an old Homebrew thread and have questions, try PMing the brewer and they can answer or revive the thread.

[nonsi]

Sheriff: Thread necromancy is generally prohibited here. If you find an old Homebrew thread and have questions, try PMing the brewer and they can answer or revive the thread.

Greetings.
I'd appreciate it if this thread could be excluded from the Thread-Necromancy policy.
This overhaul is an ongoing project and as far a I have a say on that matter it remains active for as long as I'm taking part of the activity here.
I believe that it would be pointless and counterproductive on my part to bump it periodically just for the sake of making a statement that it's still active.
I took every reasonable step I could think of to keep it alive. It seems to me that periodic bumping would be a step too far.

Thanks.

[Durzan]

You could request that it be stickied, I suppose.

[nonsi]

You could request that it be stickied, I suppose.

If only...

While the thought is by all means appealing, AFAIK sticky threads were always restricted here to the category of "serves the general public's interest" and never for someone's personal homebrew materials (except for The Giant... privileges of rank ).
I seriously doubt they'll make an exception on my behalf - definitely not when 3e is no longer the official D&D edition.
It's a nice thought though

[nonsi]

Ok, given that 3e activity is extremely slow here lately (with even less noticeable amount of exchange of ideas), I thought of bumping this project to try and liven things up.
Everybody's welcome to plunder ideas and use/abuse them as they see fit.
Questions and comments regarding this thread's contents are also welcome.

[Pakis54]

oh man i really enjoyed this some years back,the whole idea of it, your intro, the spellacsting part etc....dont know how much time ur investing in it now...have u playtested it a lot? real life has f**ed me up and i barely have time to play a bit of 3.5 now like once a month

[nonsi]

oh man i really enjoyed this some years back,the whole idea of it, your intro, the spellacsting part etc....dont know how much time ur investing in it now...have u playtested it a lot? real life has f**ed me up and i barely have time to play a bit of 3.5 now like once a month

Greetings Pakis.
I have my hands quite full these days and don't really have the time or energy for further extensive researches. But whenever an inspiration pops up, I do my best to have it quickly resolved in here.
I personally stopped playing a few months before I started this project and it basically sums up my experiences (BECMI D&D, AD&D 1e & 2e, as well as 3e and 3.5e) along with all the various insights I've collected here and on previously active forums. And yet, I threw away about twice the volume of what's in here (everything that in the aftermath proved not to be an improvement - most of which was indicated by others, but for some I got to the conclusion myself).
AFAIK a lot of the stuff in here was play-tested in parts by others with satisfying results. Whatever few caveats and reservations people had presented (all revolved around how things could be made even better) were dealt with.
I never got feedback about the system as a whole, but I'm quite convinced it's solid. I'd like to hear if any proposed mechanics interact poorly with another proposed mechanics so that I can further improve things.

[nonsi]

.

”Epic” Skills and Feats

Spoiler

Show

Skill Additions drawn from D20SRD Epic Skills page:

Spoiler

Show

Writer's Note: One can easily notice that a lot of the DCs suggested below are quite lower than those suggested in the SRD. The motivation for this is that the core rules take into account easily obtainable magical enhancements to skill checks, whereas under this project enhancements to skill checks are only circumstantial and are never directly magic-derived. Furthermore, quite a few of the things made possible below were actually achieved by real life people. The rest were simply leveled with those.


Autohypnosis
Poison’s DC+5: Resist Poison: You don’t have to make a saving throw against the poison’s secondary damage.
DC 30: Stay Conscious: If reduced to negative HP but not dead, you don’t go unconscious and can continue taking actions until you bleed to death or stabilize.
DC 40: Mental Resistance: If a failed saving throw indicates you’re affected by any mind-affecting powers, spells, or (Sp) effects, make an immediate second saving throw to resist the effect.
If the mind-affecting effect normally does not allow a saving throw, a successful Autohypnosis check allows a saving throw.
DC 45: Durability: You gain temp HP equal to [10 + Wis-mod]. The temp HP persist until lost. You cannot check for temp HP more than once per day.
Temp HP gained through Autohypnosis do not stack with temp HP gained through any other source.
DC 60: Damage Reduction: On a successful Autohypnosis check, you gain DR 2/- that lasts for 12 hours. You cannot check for DR more than once per day.
Damage reduction gained through Autohypnosis does not stack with damage reduction gained through any other source.

Balance
DC 20: 1-2 inches wide surface
DC 30: Up to 1 inch wide surface
DC 45: Liquid / fragile brance / other surface that couldn’t support your weight.
DC 60: Cloud

Bluff
DC +30: Instill Suggestion in Target: This is identical to the effect of the suggestion spell, except that it is nonmagical and lasts for only 10 minutes.
It can be sensed as if it were an enchantment effect (Sense Motive DC 25).
DC 45: Display False Alignment: You can fool alignment-sensing effects by displaying a false alignment of your choice.
Once set, a false alignment remains as long as you remain conscious and awake.
Setting or changing a false alignment requires a full-round action.
DC 55: Disguise Surface Thoughts: You can fool spells such as detect thoughts (or similar effects) by displaying false surface thoughts.
While you can’t completely mask the presence of you thoughts, you can change your apparent Int-score (and thus your apparent mental strength) by as much as 10 points and can place any thought in your “surface thoughts” to be read by such spells or effects.
If a character attempts to use Sense Motive to detect your surface thoughts (see the Sense Motive skill description), this becomes an opposed check.

Concentration
DC 30 + 2*SL: Cast spell with somatic component while grappled
DC 35 + 2*SL: Cast spell with material component while grappled
DC 40 + 2*SL: Cast spell with somatic and material component while grappled

Disguise
DC +20: Change height and/or weight 11% to 25%
DC +35: Change height and/or weight 26% to 50%

Gather Information
DC +20: Avoid Suspicion: By accepting a Gather Information DC increase of +20, you can avoid any suspicions that might otherwise be aroused by someone pursuing sensitive information.

Heal
DC 30: Quicken Recovery:You can allow a character to regain HP in a single hour as if you had provided long-term care for a full day (2 or 3 hit points per level, based on activity).
You can quicken the recovery of up to six patients at a time. No character’s recovery can be quickened more than once per day.
DC 50: Perfect Recovery:You can allow a character to regain HP in a single hour as if he or she had provided long-term care for a full week (2 or 3 hit points per level per day, based on activity).
You can use perfect recovery on up to six patients at a time. No character’s recovery can be perfected more than once per day, nor can perfect recovery and quicken recovery both be used on the same patient in the same day (even by different healers).

Hide
DC +20: Hide Another: You can hide another adjacent creature whose size is no more than one category larger than your own.
Modifiers to the check for the size of the creature still apply, as do all other penalties, including those for moving faster than half speed.
Likewise, you can only hide another creature when it is not under direct observation by a third party.
The creature you hide remains hidden until it is spotted or it takes some other action that breaks its concealment, as normal.

Listen
DC 40: Defeat Illusion: You can automatically detect any illusion with an auditory component for what it truly is.
No Will save is required, and you don’t have to interact with the illusion (but he or she must be able to hear its auditory component).
Special: You can use Listen to notice the presence of an invisible creature (generally opposed by a Move Silently check).
You can pinpoint the location of the invisible creature, though it still maintains total concealment from you (50% miss chance).

Ride
DC 35: Stand on Mount: This allows you to stand on your mount’s back even during movement or combat.
You take no penalties to actions while doing so.
DC 40: Unconscious Control: As a free action, you can attempt to control a light horse, pony, or heavy horse while in combat.
If you fail, you control the mount as a move action. You don’t need to roll for warhorses or warponies.
DC 45: Attack from Cover: You can react instantly to drop down and hang alongside your mount, using it as cover.
You can attack and cast spells while using your mount as cover without penalty. If you fail, you don’t get the cover benefit.

Search
DC 35: Get along in the wild while moving at full speed: You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which the check result exceeds 35.
DC 40: Automatically succeed on all Fort saves against severe weather: You can extend this benefit to one other character for every 2 points by which the check result exceeds 40.
DC 40: Ignore overland movement penalties of terrain: You and your mount can move at full overland speed regardless of terrain. You can extend this benefit to one other character for every 5 points by which the check result exceeds 40.
DC 55: Identify race/kind: Identify race/kind of creature(s) by tracks (requires Track feat).

Sense Motive
DC 35: Discern Partial Alignment: This use of the skill lets you discern one alignment component of a target within 30’.
When making the check, you state whether you’re trying to discern the law-chaos or good-evil component.
You can’t retry the check, and you can’t use this to discern more than one component of the alignment (but see below).
DC 40: Discern Full Alignment: This use of the skill lets you determine both alignment components of a target within 30’.
You can’t retry the check.
DC 50: Detect Surface Thoughts: This lets you read the surface thoughts of a single target (as the 3rd-round effect of detect thoughts) within 30’.
There is no saving throw to resist this effect, though the target can use Bluff to disguise his or her surface thoughts (see the Bluff skill description), in which case this becomes an opposed check.

Sleight Of Hand
DC +20: Disown Weapon: You can lift a sheathed weapon from another creature and hide it on your person.
- A small or one-handed weapon can be taken if the weapon is no more than one size category larger than your own size.
- A two-handed weapon can be taken if the weapon is no more than your own size.
- A pole-weapon can be taken if the weapon is no more than one size category smaller than your own size.
DC 50: Hide a willing creature or object: Make an adjacent, willing creature or object of your size or smaller “disappear” while in plain view. In fact, the willing creature or object is displaced up to 10’ away.
Make a separate Hide check to determine how well the “disappeared” creature or object is hidden.

Spellcraft
DC 40+CL: Identify Basic Property of Magic Item: This use of the skill requires one round of inspection, and functions exactly as if you had cast an identify spell on the item. You can’t attempt this on the same item more than once.
DC 50+CL: Identify All Properties of Magic Item: This requires one minute of inspection, and reveals all properties of a single magic item (including command words and charges remaining). You can’t attempt this on the same item more than once. If an item has different CLs for different properties, use the highest CL.
DC 50: Quick Identificationof alchemical substances and potions: You can identify a substance or potion in the field as a full-round action, without an alchemical lab or any cost. You can’t retry this check (or take 20); if you fail, you must identify the substance in an alchemical lab, as normal.

Spot
DC 20: Notice presence of active invisible creature
DC 30: Notice presence of unmoving, living invisible creature
DC 40: Notice presence of inanimate invisible object / unmoving nonliving creature
DC 45: Sense the presence of any active magical effects in the area being searched. You can’t determine the number, strength, or type of the effects.
DC 55: Defeat illusion

Swim
DC 40: Swim up Waterfall: This use of the skill allows you to swim an angled or vertical surface, as long as you remain completely or mostly immersed in water.
Other examples might include swimming up a whirlpool or an incredibly large wave.
DC +20: Speed Swimming: You can swim at your speed as a move action, or double his or her speed as a full-round action.

Tumble
DC 30: Reduce falling damage by 20’
DC 35: Free stand: You can stand up from prone as a free action (instead of a move action). You don’t provoke AoOs.
DC 40: Reduce falling damage by 30’
DC 45: Climb vertical surface: You can climb up to 20’ (as part of normal movement) by jumping and bouncing off walls, trees, or similar vertical surfaces.
You must have at least two vertical surfaces to bounce off, and the two must be within your jump distance from a standstill.
DC 50: Reduce falling damage by 50’
DC 70: Ignore falling damage

Use Rope
DC 50: Quick splicing: You can splice two ropes together as a move action.
DC 60: Tie unique knot: You can tie a knot that only you know how to untie. This doesn’t affect any Escape Artist checks made to escape these bindings.
DC 80: Animate held rope: You can command any rope you hold as if animate rope was cast upon it.
Each command requires a separate Use Rope check. Because the effect isn’t magical, it can’t be dispelled.

Feats drawn from D20SRD Epic Feats page:

Spoiler

Show

Bane Of Enemies
Requirements: Signature Enemy, Knowledge (arcana) 8, Spot 12
Benefit: Any weapon you wield against one of your signature enemies is treated as a bane weapon for that creature type (thus, its enhancement bonus is increased by +2 and it deals +2d6 points of damage).

Blinding Speed
Requirement: Dex 23
Benefit: You can act as if hasted for 1 round per level each day. The duration of the effect need not be consecutive rounds.
Activating this power is a free action.

Bonus Domain
Requirement: Priest level 10
Benefit: Choose an additional domain from your deity’s domain list. You now have access to that domain’s spells and granted powers.
You can gain this feat multiple times – once per 10 Priest levels.

Death Of Enemies
Requirements: Bane of Enemies, Knowledge (arcana) 12, Spot 18
Benefit: Your precision-based damage vs. a signature enemy is doubled. Oppenents that are typically not susceptible to precision damage still suffer precision damage once.

Efficient Item Creation
Requirements: Knowledge (arcana/religion/nature) 24 ranks, Spellcraft 24 ranks, Master Artisan.
Benefit: When crafting items as a Master Artisan, you enchant them at a rate of one day per 10,000 gp of the enhancement’s market price.

Epic Reputation
Requirement: Cha 23
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, and Perform checks.
Extended Life Span
Requirement: Con 23
Benefit: Add one-half the maximum result of your race’s maximum age modifier to your normal middle age, old, and venerable age categories. Calculate your maximum age using the new venerable number. This feat can’t lower your current age category.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Group Inspiration
Requirement: Perform 20, Bardic Music class feature.
Benefit: The number of allies you can affect with your inspire competence or inspire greatness bardic music ability doubles.
When inspiring competence in multiple allies, you can choose different skills to inspire for different allies.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Improved Spell Resistance
Requirement: Must have SR from a feat, class feature, or other permanent effect.
Benefit: Your SR increases by +2.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Improved Stunning Fist
Requirement: Dex 19, Wis 19, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist.
Benefit: Add +2 to the DC of your stunning attack.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Inspire Excellence
Requirement: Perform 24, Inspire Heroics.
Benefit: You can use song or poetics to grant a bonus to one ability score to your allies.
To be affected, an ally must hear you sing for 1 full round.
The effect lasts as long as you sing and for 5 rounds after you stop singing (or 5 rounds after the ally can no longer hear you).
Each ally to be inspired gains a +4 competence bonus to the same ability score, which you must choose before you begin inspiring.
Inspire excellence is a (Su) mind-affecting ability. Using the feat counts as one uses of song or poetics.
This feat is treated as a bardic music inspiration ability for purposes of feats that affect such abilities.
Special: If you also havr Group Inspiration, you my assign a different ability scor boost to each ally.

Instant Reload
Requirements: Quick Draw, Rapid Reload, Close Combat Shot, Sleight of Hand 7.
Benefit: You may fire a crossbow at your full normal attack rate. Reloading the crossbow does not provoke AoOs.

Legendary Tracker
Requirements: Wis 23, Track, Knowledge (nature) 24 ranks, Search 24.
Benefit: You can track creatures across water, under-water, or through the air.
This adds the surfaces of water, underwater, and air to the list of surfaces found under the Track feat as follows:
- Water: DC 50
- Underwater: DC 60
- Air: DC 70

Legendary Wrestler
Requirements: Str 21, Dex 21, Improved Grapple, Escape Artist 15.
Benefit: You gain a +10 bonus on all grapple checks.

Magical Beast Cohort
Requirements: Knowledge (nature) 24 ranks, wild shape 6/day.
Benefit: The following magical beasts are added to the lists of wild cohorts from which you can select.

1st Level (No Adjustment)

• Stirge
• Darkmantle

4th Level (-3)

• Hippogriff
• Shocker lizard

7th Level (-6)

• Cockatrice
• Ankheg
• Griffon
• Owlbear
• Sea cat*

10th Level (-9)

• Basilisk
• Digester
• Girallon
• Spider eater

13th Level (-12)

• Bulette
• Chimera
• Remorhaz

16th Level (-15)

• Gorgon
• Gray render

Special: Creatures marked with an asterisk are available only in an aquatic environment.

Permanent Emanation
Requirements: Spellcraft 25 ranks, ability to cast the spell to be made permanent.
Benefit: Designate any one of your spells whose area is a Spread effect centered on you. This spell’s effect is permanent (though you can dismiss or restart it as a free action). Effects that would normally dispel this spell instead suppress it for 1d4 rounds.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, select a different spell to become permanent.

Proactive Search:
Requirements: Search 13, Spot 8
Benefit: Whan you pass within 5’ of a trap or any item of interest, you are entitled to a Search check to notice it as if you were actively looking for it.

Ranged Inspiration
Requirements: Bardic music class feature, Perform 25
Benefit: Double the range of any bardic music ability that has a range.
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Spell Opportunity
Requirements: Dex 21, Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Spellcraft 15
Benefit: Whenever you are allowed an AoO, you may cast (and attack with) a touch spell as your AoO.
You may not hold the spell in case of a miss.

Thundering Rage
Requirements: Str 25, Tireless Rage
Benefit: Any weapon you wield while in a rage is treated as a thundering weapon.
The DC of the Fortitude save to resist deafness is equal to 10 + ½ your level.
This ability does not stack with similar abilities.

Uncanny Accuracy
Requirements: Dex 21, base attack bonus +11, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Spot 20 ranks.
Benefit: Your ranged attacks ignore the miss chance granted to targets by total concealment (50% miss chance).

[VladtheLad]

Hello there!

So some extra questions/thoughts on your homebrew.

1) "Epic-Level Spellcasting:
Spellcasters that have gained their 21st class level gain a new spell level (regardless of the level that had granted them their highest pre-epic spell level).
Beyond level 21, access to new spell levels is gained at the normal rate as it did pre-epic:"
What's the strain cost for spells higher than level 9? And does the strain cost change as the caster goes into epic levels?
I asume the new spell level for full caster (wizard etc) is 10th at 21, 11th at 23, 12th at 25 etc...

2) Your critical replacement system requires calculating by how much you beat an opponents ac at every attack. Do you worry this will be too time consuming?

3) Is there any way to get back the ability points loss from being raised from the dead?

4) What do you think about changing all spell dc's to 10+1/2 caster level derived from class leels+modifier(charisma in your houserules). It does make casters stronger, but design wise it's kinda weird the lower level spells have lower dc's. This punishes low level spells that use dc's despite them being essentialy weaker than higher level ones.
Normally I wouldn't advice this kind of rules change, but in the context of your houserules I think it can work.
You can also make a similar rule for magic items. For example magic swords and armor could use 10+1/2 bab+ spell level. Wondrous items 10+spell level+ charisma modifier or sth. I big problem IMO with magic items that have saves or sth effects is that they don't scale.

5) What stuff do consider allowable outside of core 3.5? Obviously you have classes/prestige classes covered. Feats are also pretty comprehensive, but what about spells?

[nonsi]

1) "Epic-Level Spellcasting:
Spellcasters that have gained their 21st class level gain a new spell level (regardless of the level that had granted them their highest pre-epic spell level).
Beyond level 21, access to new spell levels is gained at the normal rate as it did pre-epic:"
I assume the new spell level for full caster (wizard etc) is 10th at 21, 11th at 23, 12th at 25 etc...

Correct.

What's the strain cost for spells higher than level 9? And does the strain cost change as the caster goes into epic levels?

The answer here is: Follow the pattern of your chosen spell-pool rules.
The example below is for full casters, but the trail of thought is the same for all spellcasting classes:
Strain & Tolerance:
- Spell Levels 1, 2, 3 start with a cost of 7
- Spell Levels 4, 5, 6 start with a cost of 8
- Spell Levels 7, 8, 9 start with a cost of 9

(notice that for each even class-level gained in the class, the strain toll decreases by 1 for each SL)

- This will make SLs 10, 11, 12 start with a cost of 10. Then, SLs 13, 14, 15 start with a cost of 11 . . . and so on.
Spell Points:
- Just continue with a +2 incline: SLs 10, 11, 12 . . . cost 21, 23, 25 . . .

2) Your critical replacement system requires calculating by how much you beat an opponents ac at every attack. Do you worry this will be too time consuming?

At first glance it would seem so, but . . .
In my experience, one of the most costly aspects of the game is dice rolling.
OTOH, All crit-substitution calculations are done by one player and one player alone: the GM, with no intervention whatsoever from the other players. After all, only the GM knows the AC and attack rolls of the party's opponents.
After about 2 game sessions it should become second nature.
In practice, this should save huge amounts of your game time.

3) Is there any way to get back the ability points loss from being raised from the dead?

The answer here is: Yes and No.
You can recover them in 2 ways:
1. Gain levels
2. Buy them with feats (post #5, first spoiler)
You cannot undo the loss. Dying should hurt in some permanent way. Otherwise it removes a lot of the suspense.

4) What do you think about changing all spell dc's to 10+1/2 caster level derived from class leels+modifier(charisma in your houserules). It does make casters stronger, but design wise it's kinda weird the lower level spells have lower dc's. This punishes low level spells that use dc's despite them being essentialy weaker than higher level ones.

Currently I don’t see how this would improve things.
Both proposed spell-pool systems favor preserving your resources, so there’s already a significant incentive for preferring lower-level spells whenever possible.
I want to maintain a health dilemma between using low-level and high-level spells.

You can also make a similar rule for magic items. For example magic swords and armor could use 10+1/2 bab+ spell level. Wondrous items 10+spell level+ charisma modifier or sth. I big problem IMO with magic items that have saves or sth effects is that they don't scale.

In this system, every magical item is a wondrous item.
My approach to magical items is such that the only thing that dictates prices and functionality are the spells themselves, not the shape or modus operandi of the item on the physical level.
I’m not sure what kind of scaling you refer to. A magic item is constructed for a certain purpose and usefulness. If it upholds its purpose then you probably made a good choice. If not, then better luck next time.

5) What stuff do consider allowable outside of core 3.5? Obviously you have classes/prestige classes covered. Feats are also pretty comprehensive, but what about spells?

All official 3.5e materials.
The overhaul codex takes all of them into account.
I’ve addressed whatever spells I know of that warrant attention. If you notice something I’ve missed, do share your thoughts.
Same goes for feats, skills and any other aspect.
In the aftermath, the majority of doing the hard work of getting into details was on me. It should come at no surprise that I might’ve missed something along the way.
Specifically regarding PrCs – that's the one aspect that made 3.5e absolutely impossible to balance, so it was particularly important for me to find a way to remove them. All credit goes to Vadskye for making it possible.

[VladtheLad]

The answer here is: Follow the pattern of your chosen spell-pool rules.
The example below is for full casters, but the trail of thought is the same for all spellcasting classes:
Strain & Tolerance:
- Spell Levels 1, 2, 3 start with a cost of 7
- Spell Levels 4, 5, 6 start with a cost of 8
- Spell Levels 7, 8, 9 start with a cost of 9

(notice that for each even class-level gained in the class, the strain toll decreases by 1 for each SL)

- This will make SLs 10, 11, 12 start with a cost of 10. Then, SLs 13, 14, 15 start with a cost of 11 . . . and so on.
Spell Points:
- Just continue with a +2 incline: SLs 10, 11, 12 . . . cost 21, 23, 25 . . .

Huh... so there was a pattern, I honestly tried to see it but failed to do so and now it seems quite obvious.
You also didn't, directly at least, answer my question on wether the tolerance continues to be reduced. From what I can gather it does. So at level 22 4th level spells will have 0 strain?

At first glance it would seem so, but . . .
In my experience, one of the most costly aspects of the game is dice rolling.
OTOH, All crit-substitution calculations are done by one player and one player alone: the GM, with no intervention whatsoever from the other players. After all, only the GM knows the AC and attack rolls of the party's opponents.
After about 2 game sessions it should become second nature.
In practice, this should save huge amounts of your game time.

I suppose confirming criticals is also time consuming, though in my houserules, I made improved critical not double the crit range but simply make criticals automatically confirm.
I suppose only testing this will give me a clear answer on wether your way is better than the core rules way.

The answer here is: Yes and No.
You can recover them in 2 ways:
1. Gain levels
2. Buy them with feats (post #5, first spoiler)
You cannot undo the loss. Dying should hurt in some permanent way. Otherwise it removes a lot of the suspense.

Ouch!
Heh seems to me its simply No, but I can see why you do it.
Personally I think pathfinder guess too far in ignoring the concequences, but losing a level as in normal 3.5 is still pretty bad, unless you have true resurection I guess.
Personally I increase the material component of raise spells to a maximum of your level's wealth by level minus your (level's-1) wealth by level. So higher level pc's require more gold to raise.

Currently I donÂ’t see how this would improve things.
Both proposed spell-pool systems favor preserving your resources, so thereÂ’s already a significant incentive for preferring lower-level spells whenever possible.
I want to maintain a health dilemma between using low-level and high-level spells.

It balances things out between low level spells I think. Usually you are incentivized to avoid low level spells that require saves and prefer spells like buffs, utility and no save offensive spells.

In this system, every magical item is a wondrous item.
My approach to magical items is such that the only thing that dictates prices and functionality are the spells themselves, not the shape or modus operandi of the item on the physical level.

Ah, the differences between the magic items types was tangential, nothing to do with my main point.

IÂ’m not sure what kind of scaling you refer to. A magic item is constructed for a certain purpose and usefulness. If it upholds its purpose then you probably made a good choice. If not, then better luck next time.

I mean the scaling of its dc. Its clear in official 3,5 certain magic items would be much more usable if you their dc scaled a bit.
Ignore my suggestion for scaling spells dc. Lets say you make a whatever type of item that throws fireballs. All I am saying is that the fireball could use the users charisma modifier to add to its 13 dc and maybe even his caster level.

All official 3.5e materials.
The overhaul codex takes all of them into account.
IÂ’ve addressed whatever spells I know of that warrant attention. If you notice something IÂ’ve missed, do share your thoughts.
Same goes for feats, skills and any other aspect.
In the aftermath, the majority of doing the hard work of getting into details was on me. It should come at no surprise that I mightÂ’ve missed something along the way.
Specifically regarding PrCs – that's the one aspect that made 3.5e absolutely impossible to balance, so it was particularly important for me to find a way to remove them. All credit goes to Vadskye for making it possible.

I am certain that is impossible to know every single problematic spells from all the 3.5 source books.
I am talking more about main line books, basically spell compendium, phb II, and the complete series.

Regarding feats the ones you don't mention at all are generally allowed then?

Yeah your rules don't need prestige classes at all, and that's sth I like, though I do remember you had a paladin prestige class at some point, the last prestige to be removed from your houserules I think?

As another aside I guess I get a kind of old school dnd feel from your rules, especially the harder casting, heavy consequences for dying and a dedication to a consistent vision parts.

[nonsi]

So at level 22 4th level spells will have 0 strain?

Yes

Ouch!
Heh seems to me its simply No, but I can see why you do it.
Personally I think pathfinder guess too far in ignoring the concequences, but losing a level as in normal 3.5 is still pretty bad, unless you have true resurection I guess.

That’s not how it works.
Under these rules, dying doesn’t cost you a level (nothing does actually). See XP “Payment” (last spoiler on post #5)

Usually you are incentivized to avoid low level spells that require saves and prefer spells like buffs, utility and no save offensive spells.

If you can make SoS spells do the job 30% of the times, then they’re worthwhile.
Statistically speaking, they do that. I once played a Beguiler focused on SoS spells and hiding his spellcasting ability and I totally dominated the game.

Lets say you make a whatever type of item that throws fireballs. All I am saying is that the fireball could use the users charisma modifier to add to its 13 dc and maybe even his caster level.

The Mage does have Spellpower to shift things in her favor, but I guess that’s more class-oriented than item-oriented.

I am certain that is impossible to know every single problematic spells from all the 3.5 source books.
I am talking more about main line books, basically spell compendium, phb II, and the complete series.

I don’t know all spells from all official source books, but until I know a spell is problematic, it is allowed as is.
It is a common consent that core has the most broken stuff, whereas in other sources you only get broken stuff if you read things RAW instead of RAI (which are easy to figure out).

Regarding feats the ones you don't mention at all are generally allowed then?

Yes. When problems are pointed out, I deal with them.

Yeah your rules don't need prestige classes at all, and that's sth I like, though I do remember you had a paladin prestige class at some point, the last prestige to be removed from your houserules I think?

The Paladin theme is covered by the Pries class. You can take the “Cleric” variant to build a full fledged Paladin. You don’t get full BAB, but what you do get more than compensates – and with a lot of extra.

As another aside I guess I get a kind of old school dnd feel from your rules, especially the harder casting, heavy consequences for dying and a dedication to a consistent vision parts.

The pattern consistency is an actual goal. It makes things easier to remember and to fill in the blanks w/o asking for expansion.

And as far as “oldschool” feel goes – it goes beyond that.
One of the goals of this project is to allow you to role any fantasy character you’ve ever seen in any story or on screen, and more.
- Raistlin Majere: Low-Con Tolerance-mage
- Verminaard (Dragons of Winter Night): Hexblade
- Elrik of Melnibone: Bladeweaver with Lifedrinker feat
- Leto Atreides ii: A high-level Wierding Channeler (I’ve left out the sand-worms symbiosis, because it’s more of a storyline thing)
- The shipwreck survivor from Star Trek TNG that transcended into a being of light: Radiant Soul
- Master Li Mu Bai: 9th level Monk with Whirling Steel feat
- Dr. jekyll & Mr. Hyde: Netherhost
etc.