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  1. - Top - End - #181
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Aug 2012

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

    Random feedback on the rules as I go through them:

    • How many attacks of opportunity can you make in a round? According to Action Breakdown, making an AoO consumes an immediate action. According to Attacks of Opportunity, you can make a number of AoOs each round based on the number of iterative attacks you have.
    • I note that this system doesn't fix the "move to intentionally provoke an AoO, then cast a spell / take another action without fear of interruption" loophole, because it retains the "one AoO per round per creatuer" limitation.
    • "These classes are designed to adheare to..."
    • Are there ways to gain BAB other than class-level advancement? If so, why wouldn't they contribute to dodge AC? Without knowing any other details, that sounds like a confusing mechanic.
    • The flanking rules make it very difficult for characters that have a reach greater than 5 feet to flank, because the flanking lines are drawn from the center of the characters, regardless of their reach. Take that sample arrangement, and imagine that E1, E2, E3, and D4 are 5 feet farther back from C. Suddenly, no one is flanking, just like the core rules. That feels wrong to me.
    • Fumbling on a 1 creates problems at high levels. High level characters can make a large number of attacks each round. This means you are much more likely to fumble in any given fight as your character becomes increasingly skilled.
    • Why wouldn't almost all characters be doing "reverse combat expertise" in every fight? In general, attack bonus is significantly better than armor class, both mechanically and because of the tactics inherent in multi-person fights.
    • Not a mechanical problem with your system, but recovering HP equal to HD with a rest is still an incredibly small amount of HP. That makes healing spells and/or potions basically a necessity for every party. I like the narrative implications of having much more generous out-of-combat healing; it reduces the amount of bookkeeping and keeps the party focused on things that are actually interesting.
    • I have no idea how the Heal skill interacts with your 10-minute and 1-hour rest mechanics.
    • What is the purpose of a 1-hour rest? Does it heal the same amount as a short rest, and it's just longer in order to limit the effective number of rests you can make in a day? If so, that might want to be more explicit.
    • If you remove all body slot limitations, continue having all magic items directly replicate spell effects, and give each magic item its own independent usage limitations, you haven't removed christmas tree syndrome. That just encourages having an arbitrarily large number of magic items that have low-level spell effects with immense utility that don't need to scale with level (like, say, rope trick).
    • Wait, changing a magic item from a standard action activation to a move action activation is a 10% cost increase? (technically less than that, because math, but whatever.) That's crazy! So as a fighter, I could make a full attack and also gain the full effect of a spell? Or as a mage, I could effectively cast two spells per round?
    • Happy to see the idea of generous retraining rules. I think people underestimate how much people do things that would be considered "retraining" in real life. With that said, these seem more complicated than I would prefer, but they make enough sense I wouldn't complain too much.
    • Oh, level zero characters! That makes a lot of sense, I should add that to my system.
    • It's not clear to me why Balance has size modifiers. When I imagine a halfling and a giant walking into a room with a slippery floor, I don't expect the giant to fall first. He's too massive, and his foot has too much surface area, for that thin layer of slipperiness to matter. Now, certainly the halfling would be better at balancing on a narrow beam, but that's just because the definition of "narrow" should be size dependent.
    • How does Profession: siege engineer work? It looks like you can only ever have five skill points in it total. That doesn't make sense to me. Or do you mean there are five different subskills, just like Perform and Knowledge? If so, that seems unnecessarily complicated and very punishing for characters that have any interest in siege weapons.
    • In the Diplomacy description, it says "Diplomacy is ineffective in combat...", but in the New Uses for Old Skills section, it lists a way to use Diplomacy in combat. It feels like those disagree.
    • Intimidate: Power Intimidate, "For each +5 you skill check exceeds..."
    • The Improved (combat maneuver) feats provide an extremely large improvement to the combat maneuvers - to the point that combat maneuvers are probably completely useless without those feats. I think the most important purpose of combat maneuvers is to provide mechanics and support for combat improvisation, which means that unspecialized use of combat maneuvers should be viable. If combat maneuvers are balanced with three major improvements (not provoking AoOs, a +4 bonus, and getting a free attack after success), could one or more of those effects be merged into the core combat maneuver rules?


    ...Ah, it's good to be back on the forums.

  2. - Top - End - #182
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • "These classes are designed to adheare to..."
      . . .
    • Intimidate: Power Intimidate, "For each +5 you skill check exceeds..."
    'have no idea what you're talking about



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • How many attacks of opportunity can you make in a round? According to Action Breakdown, making an AoO consumes an immediate action. According to Attacks of Opportunity, you can make a number of AoOs each round based on the number of iterative attacks you have.
    Setting yourself to make AoOs consumes an immediate action – something which you can decide upon the instant an opponent provokes... assuming you haven't already consumed your immediate action.
    15th level monks may flurry their AoOs.
    15th level Warriors practically double their AoOs potential via the extra immediate action.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • I note that this system doesn't fix the "move to intentionally provoke an AoO, then cast a spell / take another action without fear of interruption" loophole, because it retains the "one AoO per round per creatuer" limitation.
    1. Unless you're a high level monk/warrior.
    2. Sure, but in this system casters' action economy has already taken significant beating.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Are there ways to gain BAB other than class-level advancement? If so, why wouldn't they contribute to dodge AC? Without knowing any other details, that sounds like
    • confusing mechanic.
    Yes – racial HD.
    Racial HD don't represent experience.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • The flanking rules make it very difficult for characters that have a reach greater than 5 feet to flank, because the flanking lines are drawn from the center of the characters, regardless of their reach. Take that sample arrangement, and imagine that E1, E2, E3, and D4 are 5 feet farther back from C. Suddenly, no one is flanking, just like the core rules. That feels wrong to me.
    You lost me there. I don't see how distance plays a part in my flanking rules.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Fumbling on a 1 creates problems at high levels. High level characters can make a large number of attacks each round. This means you are much more likely to fumble in any given fight as your character becomes increasingly skilled.
    "When scoring a natural 1 on a melee attack (1-2 for non proficient), unless you actually score a hit (some targets are just too easy), you fumble."
    Explanation: you don't auto-miss on a natural roll of 1.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Why wouldn't almost all characters be doing "reverse combat expertise" in every fight? In general, attack bonus is significantly better than armor class, both mechanically and because of the tactic
    • nherent in multi-person fights.
    The tradeoff is 2:1.
    If you think that's still too good, we can definitely discuss the issue.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Not a mechanical problem with your system, but recovering HP equal to HD with a rest is still an incredibly small amount of HP.
    2xHD or 1/2 remaining damage per night's rest is not that small.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • I have no idea how the Heal skill interacts with your 10-minute and 1-hour rest mechanics.
    Long term care means you recover twice as many HP. Seems straight forward to me.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • What is the purpose of a 1-hour rest? Does it heal the same amount as a short rest, and it's just longer in order to limit the effective number of rests you can make in a day? If so, that might want to be more explicit.
    1-hour rest is as effective as 10-minutes. It just means that after you have rested twice, on the third time it takes you longer to recover.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • If you remove all body slot limitations, continue having all magic items directly replicate spell effects, and give each magic item its own independent usage limitations, you haven't removed christmas tree syndrome. That just encourages having an arbitrarily large number of magic items that have low-level spell effects with immense utility that don't need to scale with level (like, say, rope trick).
    1. In this system, creating magic items costs more.
    2. There's a solid chance of failure.
    3. WBL is assumed to be significantly lower.
    4. The campaign needn't revolve around arming yourself with magic items. Down time can and should be exploited more for promoting your status and interaction with the world.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Wait, changing a magic item from a standard action activation to a move action activation is a 10% cost increase? (technically less than that, because math, but whatever.) That's crazy! So as a fighter, I could make a full attack and also gain the full effect of a spell? Or as a mage, I could effectively cast two spells per round?
    Wow, that's an old one I've been meaning to take care of for years.
    I'll need some time to get to it though.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • Happy to see the idea of generous retraining rules. I think people underestimate how much people do things that would be considered "retraining" in real life. With that said, these seem more complicated than I would prefer, but they make enough sense I wouldn't complain too much.
    I'm ok with them being a bit complicated, given that retraining is usually associated with down time.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • It's not clear to me why Balance has size modifiers. When I imagine a halfling and a giant walking into a room with a slippery floor, I don't expect the giant to fall first. He's too massive, and his foot has too much surface area, for that thin layer of slipperiness to matter. Now, certainly the halfling would be better at balancing on a narrow beam, but that's just because the definition of "narrow" should be size dependent.
    It has to do with mass increase = length increase ^ 3. And it does function that way IRL.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • How does Profession: siege engineer work? It looks like you can only ever have five skill points in it total. That doesn't make sense to me. Or do you mean there are five different subskills, just like Perform and Knowledge? If so, that seems unnecessarily complicated and very punishing for characters that have any interest in siege weapons.
    I'll admit that siege combat is not very well covered by this system. Mainly because I don't know much about it and am not interested enough with it to for the effort on formulating something more concrete.
    You're welcome co contribute if you feel like it.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • In the Diplomacy description, it says "Diplomacy is ineffective in combat...", but in the New Uses for Old Skills section, it lists a way to use Diplomacy in combat. It feels like those disagree.
    Actually, it should go like this:
    " Diplomacy is ineffective in combat, unless you know something of relevance to your target that would make it pause and think. In such cases, the effort requires a full round action and the DC is increased by +10"...




    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    • The Improved (combat maneuver) feats provide an extremely large improvement to the combat maneuvers - to the point that combat maneuvers are probably completely useless without those feats. I think the most important purpose of combat maneuvers is to provide mechanics and support for combat improvisation, which means that unspecialized use of combat maneuvers should be viable. If combat maneuvers are balanced with three major improvements (not provoking AoOs, a +4 bonus, and getting a free attack after success), could one or more of those effects be merged into the core combat maneuver rules?
    1. Actually, Improved Trip is now worth less and the other parallel feats have been brought to the same level.
    2. Not in my view. An improved maneuver means that you do more than just improvise – you're a specialist in that combat option.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    ...Ah, it's good to be back on the forums.
    Absolutely

  3. - Top - End - #183
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Setting yourself to make AoOs consumes an immediate action – something which you can decide upon the instant an opponent provokes... assuming you haven't already consumed your immediate action.
    15th level monks may flurry their AoOs.
    15th level Warriors practically double their AoOs potential via the extra immediate action.
    Ah... I understand the mechanic now, but I don't think that's explained very well in the initial post.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1. Unless you're a high level monk/warrior.
    2. Sure, but in this system casters' action economy has already taken significant beating.
    My concern isn't really about balance; it's that it's an immersion-bending and unnecessarily complicated combat tactic that rewards players who micromanage the rules. I've never seen a new player think of anything like that, because it doesn't really make sense. If the casting system is balanced around the assumption that casters can't be disrupted by AoOs while casting, then casters played by people who don't do those shenanigans will be weaker. To solve that, the mechanic should be made into a core part of the system, rather than only being accessible to a small subset of the player base. If the casting system isn't balanced around that assumption, then players who do those shenanigans will gain an unfair advantage.


    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Yes – racial HD.
    Racial HD don't represent experience.
    Ahh - so that mechanic prevents all monsters from suddenly getting an AC bonus. That makes sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    You lost me there. I don't see how distance plays a part in my flanking rules.
    Distance matters because the line is still drawn from the centers of the flanking characters' squares. When attacking from reach, the center of a character's square may not have any relationship to the square they are effectively attacking from. Here, I drew a table below to illustrate the point:

    E2 E3
    E0
    E1 C
    E0
    E4

    You can see that none of E1, E2, E3, and E4 are now flanking - or perhaps they would just barely scrape into flanking, depending on how precise your center-measuring is. In fact, I think several more Es could be added without creating a single flanking position.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    "When scoring a natural 1 on a melee attack (1-2 for non proficient), unless you actually score a hit (some targets are just too easy), you fumble."
    Explanation: you don't auto-miss on a natural roll of 1.
    I saw that, but with the attack penalties from iterative attacks, you probably will miss on a 1 against any reasonable foe with most of your attacks. I haven't done rigorous combat math for this overhaul. But if the system is designed such that, in a typical combat, you hit on a 1 with most or all of your attacks, I would seriously question whether attack bonus and armor class are balanced correctly. Sure, you're not likely to fumble much against a commoner. But you'll still fumble unreasonably often.

    Suppose, without doing any math, that you hit on a 1 with your full BAB attacks, but can miss on a 1 with all other attacks; that seems plausible to me. A 20th level warrior makes 4 attacks per round from BAB alone, disregarding all features and magic effects that would grant extra attacks (well, 5 per round with the move action attack, but since that is full BAB we can ignore it). That means they make three attacks per round with a chance to fumble, for a total of (1 - 0.95*0.95*0.95) = 15% chance to fumble every round. That seems absurd to me, given the demigod-level skill that a 20th level warrior is supposed to have.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    The tradeoff is 2:1.
    If you think that's still too good, we can definitely discuss the issue.
    Where does it say the tradeoff is 2:1? The pathfinder Combat Expertise is 1:1. In any event, the core problem is that most of the time, your personal AC doesn't really matter in a group fight, because the optimal strategy is to focus all attacks on a single member of the opposing group - that's the only way to take someone out of a fight (ignoring save-or-lose effects, which are irrelevant to AC anyway). If you are the one getting focused down, then yes, you should be using the defensive expertise. But more likely, the enemy is focusing down someone else, so you will suffer no meaningful penalty for dropping your AC through the floor. Essentially, every physical combatant* in a combat should be using either the defensive expertise or the offensive expertise every round - the combat tactics just determine which is which.

    Now, maybe that's a system you're fine with - and I'm not actually saying it's imbalanced, per se. It's just vastly more micromanage-y than I would want from a system. It means your core combat numbers change all the time, which slows down play.

    * What's the generic term for "person who hits stuff with pointy sticks" in this overhaul? I would normally say "warrior", but that's a class now...

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    2xHD or 1/2 remaining damage per night's rest is not that small.
    Yeah, if you rest overnight you should be fairly well healed. But short rests heal a totally insignificant amount of HP.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Long term care means you recover twice as many HP. Seems straight forward to me.
    In PF, the "long term care" action specifically takes 8 hours to perform, so you couldn't use it with short rests. Do you intend to change it so long term care can be performed with short rests?

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1-hour rest is as effective as 10-minutes. It just means that after you have rested twice, on the third time it takes you longer to recover.
    Got it - that makes sense. I think it could be explained slightly more clearly, but the mechanic makes sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1. In this system, creating magic items costs more.
    2. There's a solid chance of failure.
    3. WBL is assumed to be significantly lower.
    4. The campaign needn't revolve around arming yourself with magic items. Down time can and should be exploited more for promoting your status and interaction with the world.
    All of those things mean the optimal magic item strategy is harder to execute on. But that doesn't change the fact that the optimal magic item strategy is very christmas tree-like. Maybe it wouldn't come up enough in a typical campaign to matter, but I would expect those incentives to still cause problems.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Wow, that's an old one I've been meaning to take care of for years.
    I'll need some time to get to it though.

    I'm ok with them being a bit complicated, given that retraining is usually associated with down time.
    Makes sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    It has to do with mass increase = length increase ^ 3. And it does function that way IRL.
    Yes, the giant is disproportionately massive, but I feel like that would just make his footsteps so heavy that his feet push right through the grease to the solid floor. When he walks on ice, he would crack the ice so much it wouldn't be slippery at all for him. I think I understand where you're coming from - a giant should be less able to right himself after being pushed off balance, which is kind of a Balance check. But I don't think the overall mechanical impact of being larger is a net penalty to Balance checks. It's arguable, I'll grant you. I guess my concern is that spells like Grease, and other trivial environmental challenges, suddenly become almost unstoppable when used against sufficiently massive creatures who didn't train Balance (which is a rare skill to have trained, and doesn't scale with level otherwise). That seems... bizarre.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I'll admit that siege combat is not very well covered by this system. Mainly because I don't know much about it and am not interested enough with it to for the effort on formulating something more concrete.
    You're welcome co contribute if you feel like it.
    Oh, I haven't the faintest idea how seige combat works, and have never cared enough to develop it properly. But I think one of the 3.5 sourcebooks, like the Miniatures Handbook, had a fairly detailed treatment of seige warfare. Why not leave that as is instead of adding your own mechanics?

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Actually, it should go like this:
    " Diplomacy is ineffective in combat, unless you know something of relevance to your target that would make it pause and think. In such cases, the effort requires a full round action and the DC is increased by +10"...
    I'm happy with that.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1. Actually, Improved Trip is now worth less and the other parallel feats have been brought to the same level.
    2. Not in my view. An improved maneuver means that you do more than just improvise – you're a specialist in that combat option.
    Do you think the combat maneuvers are currently useful in an actual combat without the feats? I would say no, or at least not in more than perhaps 5% of combats with extraordinary circumstances. Side note, since it's unclear: is initiating a grapple still a standard action?

  4. - Top - End - #184
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Ah... I understand the mechanic now, but I don't think that's explained very well in the initial post.
    Then I'll rephrase.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    My concern isn't really about balance; it's that it's an immersion-bending and unnecessarily complicated combat tactic that rewards players who micromanage the rules. I've never seen a new player think of anything like that, because it doesn't really make sense. If the casting system is balanced around the assumption that casters can't be disrupted by AoOs while casting, then casters played by people who don't do those shenanigans will be weaker. To solve that, the mechanic should be made into a core part of the system, rather than only being accessible to a small subset of the player base. If the casting system isn't balanced around that assumption, then players who do those shenanigans will gain an unfair advantage.
    I don't get the "micromanage" angle. Near-epic warriors and monks have superior martial battlefield control. Soulknives enjoy the full benefits of melee from a distance. Hexblades hit you with omens, invocations and auras. Netherhosts are formidable foes by any standard. Every class has its shtick.
    Everybody other than 15th level warriors and monks use the same AoO mechanics.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Distance matters because the line is still drawn from the centers of the flanking characters' squares. When attacking from reach, the center of a character's square may not have any relationship to the square they are effectively attacking from. Here, I drew a table below to illustrate the point:

    E2 E3
    E0
    E1 C
    E0
    E4

    You can see that none of E1, E2, E3, and E4 are now flanking - or perhaps they would just barely scrape into flanking, depending on how precise your center-measuring is. In fact, I think several more Es could be added without creating a single flanking position.
    You figure the angle with the center, not the reach. I'm getting the feeling that you're trying to say something that didn't register on my side.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    I saw that, but with the attack penalties from iterative attacks, you probably will miss on a 1 against any reasonable foe with most of your attacks. I haven't done rigorous combat math for this overhaul. But if the system is designed such that, in a typical combat, you hit on a 1 with most or all of your attacks, I would seriously question whether attack bonus and armor class are balanced correctly. Sure, you're not likely to fumble much against a commoner. But you'll still fumble unreasonably often.

    Suppose, without doing any math, that you hit on a 1 with your full BAB attacks, but can miss on a 1 with all other attacks; that seems plausible to me. A 20th level warrior makes 4 attacks per round from BAB alone, disregarding all features and magic effects that would grant extra attacks (well, 5 per round with the move action attack, but since that is full BAB we can ignore it). That means they make three attacks per round with a chance to fumble, for a total of (1 - 0.95*0.95*0.95) = 15% chance to fumble every round. That seems absurd to me, given the demigod-level skill that a 20th level warrior is supposed to have.
    1. "Fumbles (Optional Rule)".
    2. You can resist shafting yourself (with a successful Ref save vs. DC 15 - relatively easy at high levels), but no matter how good you are, if your attack accidentally targets an ally... well, "sh!t happens".



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Where does it say the tradeoff is 2:1? The pathfinder Combat Expertise is 1:1. In any event, the core problem is that most of the time, your personal AC doesn't really matter in a group fight, because the optimal strategy is to focus all attacks on a single member of the opposing group - that's the only way to take someone out of a fight (ignoring save-or-lose effects, which are irrelevant to AC anyway). If you are the one getting focused down, then yes, you should be using the defensive expertise. But more likely, the enemy is focusing down someone else, so you will suffer no meaningful penalty for dropping your AC through the floor. Essentially, every physical combatant* in a combat should be using either the defensive expertise or the offensive expertise every round - the combat tactics just determine which is which.

    Now, maybe that's a system you're fine with - and I'm not actually saying it's imbalanced, per se. It's just vastly more micromanage-y than I would want from a system. It means your core combat numbers change all the time, which slows down play.

    * What's the generic term for "person who hits stuff with pointy sticks" in this overhaul? I would normally say "warrior", but that's a class now...
    Oh dear. That's an old error of importing from a previous incarnation of the overhaul codex.
    The intent was to import the following mechanic:
    "Fighting Recklessly: You can choose to fight recklessly at the beginning of your turn. If you do so, you take a -4 penalty to AC and gain a +2 bonus on your attack rolls until the beginning of your next turn."
    I'm nixing the offensive Expertise. What do you think of the above proposal?



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Yeah, if you rest overnight you should be fairly well healed. But short rests heal a totally insignificant amount of HP.
    1. Sometimes that's all you've got.
    2. 3xHD is an average of 40% of one's total HP. I wouldn't scoff at that. When your life is hanging by a thread - that's a lot.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    In PF, the "long term care" action specifically takes 8 hours to perform, so you couldn't use it with short rests. Do you intend to change it so long term care can be performed with short rests?
    Ok, I'll clarify that one.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Got it - that makes sense. I think it could be explained slightly more clearly, but the mechanic makes sense.
    I'll see what I can do about it.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    All of those things mean the optimal magic item strategy is harder to execute on. But that doesn't change the fact that the optimal magic item strategy is very christmas tree-like. Maybe it wouldn't come up enough in a typical campaign to matter, but I would expect those incentives to still cause problems.
    Power-groups will be power-groups. That one's out of my hands. My aim was to bring about changes that would make the regular game more fun than powergaming. I have no control over how people choose to play the game and I have no intentions of introducing preemptive rules to prevent that by any means and in the process lose something else.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Yes, the giant is disproportionately massive, but I feel like that would just make his footsteps so heavy that his feet push right through the grease to the solid floor. When he walks on ice, he would crack the ice so much it wouldn't be slippery at all for him. I think I understand where you're coming from - a giant should be less able to right himself after being pushed off balance, which is kind of a Balance check. But I don't think the overall mechanical impact of being larger is a net penalty to Balance checks. It's arguable, I'll grant you. I guess my concern is that spells like Grease, and other trivial environmental challenges, suddenly become almost unstoppable when used against sufficiently massive creatures who didn't train Balance (which is a rare skill to have trained, and doesn't scale with level otherwise). That seems... bizarre.
    Ok, I see what you mean. Nixed.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Oh, I haven't the faintest idea how seige combat works, and have never cared enough to develop it properly. But I think one of the 3.5 sourcebooks, like the Miniatures Handbook, had a fairly detailed treatment of seige warfare. Why not leave that as is instead of adding your own mechanics?
    I'll give Miniatures Handbook a look and see what it has to offer.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Do you think the combat maneuvers are currently useful in an actual combat without the feats? I would say no, or at least not in more than perhaps 5% of combats with extraordinary circumstances.
    Sometimes, killing your opponent is not your primary objective, so yes, they're still useful.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Side note, since it's unclear: is initiating a grapple still a standard action?
    Thumb rule in this codex: if it ain't specified here, use the official rules.

  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Post Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    My opinions on the combat adjustments:

    The iterative attack bonus looks good at first glance, but can result in a net gain of move speed in some strange cases. If you somehow attack more times than your full-round-action move speed divided by five, you move faster when attacking then when you aren't.

    Having separate Swift and Immediate actions is a minor boost to the general archetype that Duskblade was made to fill, but the AoO taking up the immediate action fills in part of the minor action economy screwup that the change would let happen. Namely getting off AoOs on top of both Swift and Immediate action spells. Not sure how many ways there are to get off spells as Immediate actions, but an effective 3 spells per round plus AoOs is nasty and ought to be burned in a fire.

    5 ft. step as a Swift action is a neat detail that fills in the old problem of 'How many 5 ft. steps per turn?'

    Swapping a Standard action for a Swift action is a minor thing that I suspect is a common houserule. Or is it covering up the option to pull 3 spells per round by swapping a Standard action for two Swift actions? Again, not immediately familiar with the rules, I've only read the Pathfinder rules and that was over a month ago.

    Questioning the point behind making AoOs take up the Immediate action slot, but I'm not familiar with expoits to get large piles of AoOs, so tying them to something that the Pun Pun collective can't get an infinite pile of is probably a good pick. And yes, large groups of highly skilled optimizers could not find a way to give Pun Pun infinite or arbitrarily large numbers of Immediate actions.

    Not familiar with Total Defence, but keeping AoOs is... helpful, I guess? The -4 to-hit makes it a bad idea to try, but it's helpful to some crazy ideas that are a pain in the ass to balance. Several anime 'swordsmen' come to mind...

    The fractional BAB and save stuff is little more than errata, but it's important errata that makes several character setups work.

    The removal of darts is a pointless change, as there have been IRL weapon darts, though mostly in the form of specialized spears or javelins. Arrow sized things just don't have enough mass, and at that size you're much better off with throwing knives. Dire Flails, if you mean a stick with a flail on each end, are utter nonsense. Siangham are fictional, but not really unrealistic. For the most part, they're just nun-chucks with blades on the ends. Being real ought not be a major restriction on what you get in a fantasy game.

    Halberds as double weapons is sensible, given that the only reason not to have them as such depends on design sensibilities that are a disadvantage in a world with D&D style item enhancements. Namely having all three weapon parts as one piece of metal. Your assertion of having the shaft be a quarterstaff part is not quite as sensible, given how unwieldy using that end is when you have an axe head, a spear point and an armor piercing spike on one end with nothing on the other. I think it should be slashing/piercing for the double weapon, not slashing or piercing/bludgeoning. Then again, you can always introduce triple weapons... something that is only kept away from due to bookkeeping.

    In contrast to the halberd's heavy end, a spear acting as a double weapon is sensible due to the fact that not only is the spear end unobtrusive in both weight and shape, but also because there are actual martial arts using both ends of a spear.

    Shuriken only dealing Slashing damage to unarmored targets is the sort of thing that is obvious, but if that's the case they should deal a tiny bit more damage. Perhaps have it do 1d2 Piercing and 1d2 Slashing to unarmored targets would work out.

    The Trident's bonus is... crazy at low levels, basically useless at high levels. Should add to Grapple checks as well, and have functional auto-hit, with lowered damage. Either by having literal auto-hit, or a to-hit bonus big enough to make it practically automatic.

    The Battlestaff is basically 'Better quarterstaff for non-Monks.' It invalidates the quarterstaff for everyone who isn't a Monk.

    The Bladed Gauntlet has no business being Exotic in a game where Spiked Gauntlets are Simple. At most, it should be a Martial weapon, but because it's still fully usable as 'like punching, but better!' it really has no business being Exotic. You might get an excuse with the dagger-long blades, but even that doesn't screw up punching enough to make it an Exotic weapon.

    Blowguns are very simple, very primitive weapons who's only claim to being Exotic is your viewpoint when using it. If it were hard to use, which is what Exotic actually means, then it would not be the standby of so many primitive cultures. Maybe you can excuse it with the whole 'control how you exhale' thing...

    Buckler Axe seems like it should be Martial, but I'd need a pic for it Honestly just sounds like a funny-shaped shield with a sharpened edge...

    Garrottes are a hell of a lot more lethal that you think, if you go with the piano wire type. Fully able to straight up decapitate people, with even a little strength. Think 10 damage average, not 6. Of course, that's for the piano wire type, not the rope type you seem to be working with.

    Pounding Staff is nasty, good for breaking enemy weapons. Not much else to say, though the damage numbers seem to be too large. Haven't seen your setup for HP yet, which may be part of the explanation.

    Sword Stick should be a weapon modification, or just straight up count as a rapier when actually being used as a weapon. Otherwise it's too niche to see much use.

    Three-section-staff looks like a godsend to specific crazy bastard weapon focus characters. TWF or reach, hard to disarm AND a Monk weapon? All the attacks, all the time, with so much to-hit.

    Throwing Iron is redundant. Give it more damage, like 1d4, or else the only reason for it to exist is to have an 'immersive' option for strict European-only campaigns.

    Tonfas are nice for AC on Monks who really want their flurry to matter, or worry a lot about disarming. Not sure about that bit about 'small' weapons...

    The two-hander buff is a good one, and makes some of the nasty builds even nastier.

    The range increment makes me think of Pathfinder's rule for all weapons getting an automatic 10' range increment when used as an improvised throwing weapon.

    Thank you for removing a ridiculous bit of rules that just added to the 'Spiked Chains are the best!' attitude...

    You made Mithral a real competitor with Adimantine for weapons... Also, more TWF love. Always a good idea.

    The AC alterations are good on several levels. Making Dodge be based on BAB has the side effect of making full-BAB classes a massive pain to hit. Having all magical AC bonuses be Deflection is not quite as good. Perhaps add an 'Unless otherwise mentioned' bit, for the spells that specifically call out a type of AC bonus. Like Shield, which makes a solid, physically-reacting shield. Then again, the addition of stacking Shield AC makes that a potentially bad idea... Also, if Shield AC adds to Ref save, why wouldn't Dodge? Both apply to Touch AC, and both work by preventing you from getting actually hit. Dodge is more absolute about the 'not getting touched' bit, so why not let it stack? Sure, that sends Ref saves into the stratosphere, but that's one type of save that gets targeted by things which ought to have more than Ref save targeting dangers, and a lot of the Ref save stuff is partial effect, including damage, when the save is passed.

    The initiative bonus adjustment makes rogues even more annoyingly hard to out speed. Also, makes some things even crazier to face off against.

    Combat Hustle is fun, lets the squishies haul ass into position by doing something that makes them easier to hit. Combined with the alterations to AC, it makes the Wizard more mobile than anyone else by having the least to lose by hauling ass.

    The Flanking tweaks make the sneak attackers very happy, as it lets them get flanking a LOT more often. Also makes the party less liable to be stuck trying to flank someone who has their back to a pillar, and stops the same tactic from making a character a massive pain to deal with. Yes, back-to-back-badasses is a trope, no, it should not be part of serious strategy. Besides, you can just cover eachother by beating on the ones flanking.

    The AoO alterations make sense, and make it so that there's a LOT more to lose by using a weapon you lack proficiency in.

    The nat 1 and nat 20 changes make luck a welcomely lower aspect of the game. 1-in-20 chances of massive damage or utter fail is a nice addition. Granted, you made failing on a nat 1 worse, but it's not a case of failing every time.

    Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Weapon Finesse for everyone, without feats? Thanks for removing one of the biggest sinks for Martial characters. Oh, and would it have hurt to include the bit on Power Attack applying to ranged weapons? PF has a feat for it, and having ranged characters eat up a feat where melee doesn't is bad form in a few ways.

    HP alterations do a good job of removing the rocket tag of early levels, but may cause padded sumo at high levels. Especially because it makes Dragons even more overkill for their CR, because all those HD are maxed out.

    Removing the point of extended threat range is silly, amend that bit to mention the extended crit range on weapon stat blocks counting in a way similar to how Keen does. Or come up with some other bonus for them. The Vorpal nerf is utterly ridiculous, but strangely necessary given the changes to how the dice work. The Burst alterations actually make the weapons more powerful by making them much more reliable. Eating a Swift action removes full-round, but that's hardly a downside in a lot of cases here because you turned the iteratives into a Standard action.

    Congrats on making the save stats even less important than they already were for non-frontliners. And most of the frontliners, as well. Seriously, now the heavy armor guys have even less reason for getting Dex, letting them grab Int to get skill points instead. And Sorcerers like getting to ignore Wis even more.

    The alteration to Gaze attacks makes Leadership a bit stronger than it already was, although making the Gaze attacks be once per turn free actions is an important thing. Granted, your added downside of come-alongs eat XP makes Leadership decidedly worse for long term campaigns.

    Making magic ammo stack with magic weapons makes some character archetypes much harder to make crunch for, unless having almost impossible to avoid arrows is an attractive thing. Recoverable ammo is a thing, after all. *glares at swordarrow enchantment*

    Massive Damage is ultimately rather bad in this case. Too many things resist the effects it applies. Granted, the save DC becomes close to impossible to pass rather quickly, so against the things that it does apply to it is rather effective.

    Speed bonuses get silly in some cases, here. Also makes it much harder to have enough attacks to have attacking with a full round action be faster than moving with a move action. Makes speedy characters like their Dex-based Ref save.

    The Tiny creature errata-esque change is another bit of forced sanity. Makes a few fringe cases worse off for the tiny player. Like the one 5 ft splash thing I found on the SRD...

    Aim is... nasty at higher levels. x2 damage and +2 to-hit at level 6 on a ranged attack is a lot better than Power Attack. At level 16, this morphs into x4 damage with +4 to-hit, on top of whatever magic bonuses you're packing. Is this why you declined the use of Power Attack on ranged weapons?

    Block Line of Effect is a nice way to give the Monk a way to protect those more squishy than they by getting in front of the magic beam. Add a clause about getting in the way of ranged weapons, because I'm fairly sure that ranged weapons don't use LoE by RAW. If they do use LoE, then it's all fine.

    Adding PF Drag to Bullrush may make uberchargers worse, by giving them a bundle of ways to screw over enemies. The shove adds to the repositioning power.

    The option to Charge an enemy behind a corner pleases my desire to wreck face from unconventional angles. Oh, and the fact that it translates to Charging anything in a 15' wide line appeases my sense of ridiculous abstractions and easily programmed translations.

    Climbing Your Enemies Back fills in one of the classic anti-Giant tactics with rules text. Also, another way to try to deal with Dragons. Can never have too many ways to try to kill Dragons...

    Coup-de-Grace getting the ability to act as hostage taking and maiming is a nice bit of crunch additions. The enumerated Con drain also gives a number to start with for other forms of dismemberment.

    Delay-in-Turn costing a move action isn't quite sensible, but it's better than letting players stack their turns to get the absolute most power out of their actions. Warmahordes players know the power of turn orders better than D&D players tend to, but the fact remains that a skilled party can utterly rape encounters by ordering their actions into multi-turn combos.

    Feign being BAB based with skill synergy makes Bards worse off than before, but also gives the frontliners even more reason to go for Cha instead of Wis. After all, you made Will saves be able to go off Cha, so the intimidate meatheads will go for that for their Will save. On the other hand, the ones who have no need for Cha in their build will be more insensitivised to go Wis. The more I look at it, the more your setup supports flexible SAD. Is that the point? To have SAD builds on MAD classes?

    Not willing to dig through a Grapple rules replacement, but I'll take your word for it that you made it less cumbersome. The bolded headings make it clear that it has provisions for having several people grapple one target, which makes me thing of a pile of sweaty men wrestling a Dragon.

    For Overrun, I understand that the point is to knock a large number of enemies prone without dealing damage, but Armor Spikes ought to deal damage when you are running into people. The fact that you can now properly Overrun through an army to clear the way for the Cleave rushers to butcher the prone fools is a nice bonus. Especially because you can be the Cleave rusher, doubling back on your own path to butcher the people you knocked over. Sure, you need an extra standard action, but there's more ways to get that than Celerity based things. Some don't even need magic!

    Play Dead is a nice addition to squishy Cha skillmonkeys in general. It lets you fool enemies to believe you died to an attack that only knocked you out. Not much of an improvement, but it's there... Better to be knocked out and ignored for the rest of the fight than dead and gone until you get a rez. Granted, it does have the built-in consequence of fooling your allies as well, so you can't rely on being healed in time to not die from DoTs...

    Pulling Punches is just a more comprehensive set of rules for nonlethal damage. Helpful, though.

    Shooting Down an Arrow in Midflight... hehehe... so much bull**** to be had. Makes the bow user able to properly protect the other party members with a bull**** trickshot.

    Foil Action is a neat way to have ways to mess with the party, or with NPCs you catch doing stuff. The Rogue is taking 10 on a check? Arrow to the back breaks their concentration, starting a fight off with an attack at a possibly bad time. At the very least, the Rogue is going to have to draw their weapons, wasting a valuable action.

    I've spent about two hours on this, and I will likely spend several more on the other core rules posts. For now, all I have to say is this:

    WHY DID YOU PUT THE GENREAL RULES AFTER THE COMBAT AND SPELLCASTING?

  6. - Top - End - #186
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013

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

    On the spellcasting rules:

    The Strain and Tolerance makes Con a very important stat early on. Once you hit level level 9, it suddenly becomes less important as you now have unlimited use first level spells. Similarly, at level 18, infinite 3rd level spells makes you a mook muncher. Granted, these come it at levels where the spells that are infinite use are either OP when you got them or are now useless in most situations. Except Magic Missile. People always underestimate guaranteed damage. Oh, and Cure spells. Infinite healing tends to be a big no, because the idea of limited fights per day becomes a joke when almost your entire party is able to do all their important things as much as they want and has no meaningful HP attrition.

    The spell-points system tends to be prone to frequent NOVA builds, but one way to solve that is with an exponent. For example, have the cost of a spell be 2^SL, so that a 3rd level spell costs 8 SP and a 5th level costs 32 SP. It bloats into arbitrary numbers quickly, but that just makes the lower level spells even more spamable. Granted, bookkeeping suffers when you have four digit numbers to track. One advantage is that a few metamagic feats and AFCs support this, having spell slots combine and split at a 2:1 ratio.

    The change to casting stats make it so that you will have MAD dependant on what you are fighting. If you face very little SR, Wis becomes a dump stat anyway. If you have a focused build that doesn't need a large variety of spells, then you dump Int once you don't need more of it, which will be rather quick. If you use basically no spells with a DC, you dump Cha. But it's build focused dumping, and non-Int casters will likely ignore Int rather quickly. After all, you rarely need dozens of different spells to use when you know what you're going with. The CL based skill ranks is a minor, but important buff. Very much so, although I do have a small problem with Priests getting maxed out Knowledge(Religion) because it makes Int even less important.

    The fixed spell ranges makes sense, and is a good nerf. However, it makes some metamagic even closer to mandatory than ever by making it the only way to out range the high level opponents with mundane ranged options. It also acts as a de facto buff to Arcane Archer style setups, as it makes them longer ranged than basically any other caster.

    The fixed spell durations is just a flat nerf, although Short duration is interesting in that it can be a buff for a small handful of spells. Not much to say about that...

    Lowered AoE save-or-suck is always a nice way to screw over the encounter raping caster. You have an immense hate for caster dominance, don't you? Too bad, no matter how much you nerf them and buff the mundane classes, unless you make mundane crafting on par with magic item crafting, casters will be better. Or you make the casters basically useless. No real middle ground. 3.5's basic system is just hostile to magic-mundane parity.

    Boring Metamagic Errata is Boring.

    Hateboner for the save-or-suck is showing harder than ever with the introduction of a blanket casting time extender that nerfs the hell out of the more fun and party involved of the three caster archetypes of Summoner-Blaster-Hoser. Because the Hoser-caster still needs their party to actually do the killing. Meanwhile Summoning, the most time consuming and anti-party archetype, is barely effected at all because most of those spells are already larger than full-round cast times... Also, nerfing Concentration spells into the ground by preventing you from casting non-quicked spells while they're up and making casting defensively all-but-impossible.

    No getting to concentrate on more than one spell at a time? It makes logical sense, yes, but it's not exactly making me think that you aren't just stacking on nerfs to hoser casters to make them utterly helpless on their own and forcing the party to stay in formation around the caster to get anything out of them. Again, hoser casters still need the rest of the party to finish off the enemies, and these nerfs do extremely little to stop the Summoner casters.

    Your nerf to magic propelled flight doesn't solve the main problem with it: If the caster has longer range than those attacking them, they can just float above enemies and rain doom from above. Melee foes will never hit them, and ranged attackers need to deal with large range accuracy penalties.

    ...That nerf to summoning does rather little in practice to a skilled player, makes little sense, and ultimately just seems to be another part of an attempt to prevent casters from doing anything significant on their own, which is quite decidedly not able to work with the lore of many settings. This nerf is clearly an out-of-universe construction to cripple casters, rather than part of any in-universe fact of magic. The closest to an in-universe reason for this is only being able to maintain one set of telepathic links, which still doesn't work because Charm and Dominate don't run on telepathic links, they run on infusing magic into the target's mind that forces the target to obey. It's specifically verbal commands, after all. Also, magic spells for Wizards (and presumably Mages here) are made because they're useful. This restriction would be worked around in universe quite quickly the moment the cause of it is discovered, rapidly leading to the restriction becoming utterly irrelevant in-universe as the cause of it becomes part of primer courses on magic. Good fodder for a tax Feat or two, essentially, and has little reason to need more to bypass.

    A sensible nerf to Polymorph cheese. Granted, it does little for Druids getting their Wildshape on, so it still leaves Druids with a class feature that is a significant chunk of another entire class when built around.

    Good way to nerf some of the worst spells in the game, but what save is used for the effects on the Word type spells? Kinda important...

    The Scrying adjustments make it less crazy to defend against Scrying, and make Scrying more useful when gaining intel on low-magic areas.

    Boring Metamagic Errata is Boring

    Mentioning Reversable Spells as two spells that do opposite things being one spell to learn brings up the option of making new spells that are Reverses of existing spells. Also, makes Int even less important for casters who know what they're getting for their build.

    Spells don't grant temporary training, but they can grant temporary physical and mental changes! Quite a few feats, skills and class abilities can be replicated by a change in physique or mentality, no training necessary!

    Celerity just need a 'no casting' clause to stop the action economy abuse that makes it so horrible.

    Transmutation and Enchantment. Physical and mental changes can, in fact, make those changes. Stick a melee only tag on those spells, rather than banning them.

    All I can think of with 'Call Outer Plains' is being able to pick a devil to make a deal with... Quite nasty, I agree, but not nearly bad enough to get a ban. Just make it only messages, and restrict to calling outer plains you are within one alignment step of. Then it's just a way for characters to call up Outsiders they have a sizeable chance of running into when they die.

    Glibness needs a nerf, not a ban, unless the ban falls under the 'no training' clause.

    9th level spells are at the point where being mortal is largely optional already. See Wish for example. In fact, your Wish nerf is a good way to nerf Genesis, perhaps turning Genesis into an explicit option of Wish. Besides, the only difference between making a Bag of Holding and using Genesis is size and the fact that Genesis is free standing. Seriously, the fluff is that a Bag of Holding's creation technically involves making a tiny demi-plane. It's basically a permanent Rope Trick in miniature. Genesis is a permanent Rope Trick made bigger.

    Removal of redundant spells is redundant.

    Given that Righteous Might is basically Enlarge Person and an alignment bypassed DR at 4 SL above Enlarge Person, I don't see the point of the restriction.

    Your rope trick ban seems rooted in real life logic and sensibilities, which rarely apply to magic. Your hateboner for casters is showing once more. Magic is concept based, not really logic based. Granted, the whole 'outside the normal Planes' thing is crazy, but it need only be worded in terms of Genesis.

    Shadow spells are one of those things that is really only nasty in the surroundings. And just how bad is a nerfed Anyspell? Seriously, if you're going to bomb these, get rid of Anyspell because Anyspell is a better version of these. Yes, the things are crazy versatile, but you don't need a blanket ban on them because they already have saves, lowered effect against those who fail the save, which implies the nerf of their effect against non-Illusion subject targets, and the spells are generally just heavily nerfed versions of Anyspell.

    As Toady of Dwarf Fortress fame said "Animating dead skin makes about as much sense as undead skeletons." If you can turn a person with a soul into stone, why can't you turn a lump of stone into meat? Magic need not make sense. At all.

    Astral Projection nerf does nothing impressive to casters who know what they're doing. Half hit dice isn't that bad, even if it comes with halved class level, because it's getting things done without real risk of harm. Sure, it's a big nerf, but you underestimate the power of being able to Fireball someone from a very safe place.

    Baleful Polymorph is a big thing to deal with, if it can cause identity death.

    Clone nerf is good nerf. You even included a good in-universe reason for it!

    Deathwatch buff is small, but important difference.

    Disintegrate has quite good utility from being able to Disintegrate inanimate and formerly-animate objects. For example, Disintegrating a chunk of wall, or the corpse of a dragon the party killed without the caster getting to finish it off with a Disintegrate. Why would it work on Constructs but not the still-magical remains of a Dragon? Why do a nerf that has only out-of-combat and siege effects?

    Slight buff with a slight nerf to Dominate Person. A save every day isn't important if you kill them before they get that save, after all.

    That nerf to Explosive Runes makes little sense. A more sensible nerf would be something like stacking Explosive Runes requires a Spellcraft check of 2* the number of stacks of Explosive Runes, and have a limit of half caster level on the Explosive Runes, with a failed check setting off a number of stacks based on how much you failed by. As you wrote it, it's actually more powerful in some situations because it turns into a good way to set up a repeating trap on the cheap. Sure, it's not NOVA damage, but it's basically constant damage when done right.

    Was Feeblemind's duration permanent? If so, then this is a good nerf, because Feeblemind is the killer of many things that have no business being subject to death by mindlessness. Also a nasty plot hook and character crippler.

    Personally, that Fly nerf makes me just think 'Oh, I need Slow Fall available, so what?.'

    Forcecage gets an important nerf for being a near-direct Lose spell with no save. The move out of the way requirement is a good way to make sure that it doesn't come up every. single. time. you. need. it. Ought to turn into a box containing the target, though. So that you can make terrain shapes with sufficiently large spamming of Forcecage. Granted, you are much better off with Wall of Force in that situation, but the option of spamming boxes is one of those silly things that is lacking in presence.

    Good buff to a high level spell. Great way to screw with a bunch of things.

    Gate nerf is bypassed by Dominate Monster. Provided one ignores the frankly nonsensical minionmancer nerf that has cross-school casting limits.

    Greater Shout seems like it's buff is a solution to a pet peeve of a lot of people. Is the nullification lasting? If so, it lets you make tunnels to shoot Shouts through.

    Knock's change seems to be aimed at negating the negation of non-magical locks.

    You nerfed Magic Missile's one thing, then gave it a much more valuable thing as a trade off. Have you no idea of how important the auto-hit Force damage is to getting through some enemies? You got rid of one of the most important ways to deal with AC bloat in the game after introducing several more ways to bloat AC past what it used to be and made it into a way to blatantly ignore one of the few ways to lock down casters in 3.5... You really don't have a good grasp on how 3.5 tends to work, do you? You turned Magic Missile into the go-to for anti-Dragon spells, thanks to Metamagic stacking.

    Why, exactly, can't Creation spells make mundane acids and poisons? A much more sensible nerf is to make a Craft check for Alchemical things to see if you get the detail right, and leave the mundane stuff alone, or require a Knowledge or Alchemy check related to the substance. Mundane, non-Alchemy acids and poisons aren't a big enough threat to be anything more than crowd clearing of stuff that the party ought to be able to wreck with no effort anyways. Basically, instead of 'No making these' as a nerf, do 'Roll to see if you can make it, then roll to see how much,' with the 'how much' being either a separate Knowledge/Alchemy check or a Spellcraft check,

    Miracle and Wish restrictions are welcome, given that it avoids their bypass of entire mechanics.

    Planar Binding makes sense to have it based on CR, rather than HD. Should probably put the HD to CR change as a general thing, to save on headaches.

    Did you give Divine casters early access to Planeshift, while turning it into a 'does Plot things' spell? It makes sense, but it's so... off... on a reflex level.

    I can't think of any Disney movies that have a plot centred on having living creatures being turned into plants or inanimate objects, except maybe Beauty and the Beast, which I'd accept under this as Constructs are not inanimate objects, and Constructs are closer to some living creatures than inanimate objects. Especially if you consider Elementals to be in the 'living creature' category. HD limit is a standard thing for you, it seems...

    So basically give Power Words a save to the injured... Alright, that makes sense, given the nebulous fluff on how Power Words work.

    In the case of Prismatic Wall/Sphere, that's a mostly sensible nerf. Needs more specification as to how it all works out, because my critique of knowledge based mages needing concrete, fundamental in-universe rules to stop them from making broken as hell spells still applies here. Is there a metaphysical thing that stops Prismatic Wall/Sphere from getting the Friend or Foe Recognition so many other spells have? Maybe a brief blurb on the somewhat chaotic mix of energies preventing proper caster protection.

    Protection From Arrows ought to have a bit about giving a tiny bonus to Dodge and Reflex for boulder-dodging purposes, as it still nudges it slightly. Maybe have a weight or base damage based limit to projectile size that can be deflected. You'd be surprised at the amount of detail that goes into the use of siege weapons in 3.5

    Reincarnate is specifically meant to be cheating age limits, you fool! And Last Breath is still a perfectly viable option for cheating age limits! Boost the SL of Reincarnate or give limits like needing a list of reagents including at least three different creature types of body parts.

    Why do you hate turning into Constructs so much? You can just make the creature require an Int score to be Shapechange-okay, allowing Awakened versions to be targetable, bumping up the HD. This also removes some small amount of undead cheese, which you seem to ignore.

    The odd nerf to Shield makes less sense than the Magic Missile nerf. Especially if Shield gives a Deflection bonus. Just make the auto-negate end the spell. Or only apply to a limited number of Missiles.

    I didn't know that Solid Fog acted like trapping your opponent in bizarrely thick mud. The nerf looks about right...

    Spider Climb just makes you get a climb speed equal to your move speed right? Seems like a second level spell, given the numeric value of the effect when it applies. It completely negates a Skill, after all.

    The Time Stop nerf here seems like it ought to come with a SL reduction, because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead of having only Personal range spells, have it so that spells can only effect things in the area of effect. It lets you have the normal amount of time to buff up allies, they get to prep themselves, and it's internally consistent. Alternatively, nix the AoE and return to the uber-Haste with the Personal-only spells so that the ally buffing removal part of the nerf is there and makes sense.

    This rock-to-mud nerf makes me wonder just what kind of stuff these spells are doing. Mud is not that hard to move through without some very odd things going on. Especially with the days to dry situation, and the uncut/unworked restriction.

    True Seeing nerf is big nerf. Makes it very hard to use because quite a few adventure modules don't include CLs for effects that typically won't need them. Also invalidates it's use as a way to ignore higher-level illusions. Illusions don't do much.

    The Vision nerf just seems to be scrying hate. Granted, the higher certainty and information is rather impressive, but it's hardly a story breaker. Unless the person or object is present, but I do believe a story breaker power list is well overdue anyway.

    Wall nerfs ought to just be durations added, with a giveaway of some kind. Granted, the disappearing pieces works well as a 'give away.' Oh, and does this make the Somantic component miming out a wall?

    Removal of Friend or Foe recognition on Wail of the Banshee makes it much more of a double edged sword.

    Waves of Fatigue and Exhaustion nerfs are just adding saves. Important to do that, because save-or-suck is much better for game balance that just straight suck.

    Wind Wall is strong enough to deflect Eagles in flight and rip thing out of hands with such force that it's a reflex save, not a strength check. It is quite definitively past 'severe wind.' It also happens to work by directing the arrow or bolt upwards. It's impossible to get an arrow or bolt through because of real physical obstacles involved. You can't aim through impossible to determine winds that actively counter your shots. Up the SL if it's a problem.

    Your buff to Wood Shape makes me think of some spells for metalworking of various types...

    Spell Cabal is good boost to otherwise useless feat. Oh, and absolutely insane storms of Magic Missiles.

    My comments on the magic item setup will be a separate post.

  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Post Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    So, comments on your magic item setup:

    The use of spells in place of feats make it so that it's incredibly easy to get access to magic item creation tools. As a side note, does the Intelligent Item creation thing get to be used during Golem creation for making intelligent Golems?

    Your prices are ridiculously oversized. Normal 3.5 uses exponential prices, take after it for your basis. Divide your current prices by 10 or 100, then stick an exponent in them somewhere. Look at http://www.d20srd.org to get a basis on how to set up the more complicated parts of your system fix. As is, emanating 1st level spell effects cost more than +2 enhancements in normal 3.5, and emanating 9th level spells cost substantially less than +9 enhancements to craft. Oh, and Flaming's closest spell counterpart is Flame Blade, which is a second level spell that gives +1d8 damage and +1 damage per two caster levels. Also is one of the options for the spell component to making a Flaming weapon.

    The setup for charges is crazy. A 'rechargeable' item costs more to recharge than to make once you pass 10 charges. If you mean that it costs 10% of the charge's cost to make, then say so. Perhaps you meant to say something like "Charges cost 10% of the item's cost divided by the number of charges the item can have." I'm not even sure what you mean by "For non rechargeable items, detract 25 % of the base cost." Is it meant to cost 75% of the cost to make it in the first place to recharge fully? If so, use the wording "For non-rechargeable items, recharging every charge costs 75% of the base cost." Clarify the wording on those charge costs.

    Magic vehicles in normal 3.5:
    Step 1: Cast Animate Object on mockup.
    Step 2: Cast Permanancy.
    Step 3: Argue with DM about control method.

    Your setup:
    Emanating Animated Object with some form of 'turn off' or control redirect installed. How do you do this?

    1 day per 1,000 GP is good for this setup, but if you make it less crazy on the low end price it gets very fast to make things. In the current form, it takes a week to make a 1st level spell emanating item. That keeps it from being usable in the middle of most campaigns for emanating items, which is good. Granted, specific durations stack up with the permanent, but charge limited, items perfectly to allow constant effect, lowering costs, and thus creation times.

    Construct pricings are overdone. The absolute cheapest Golem is 6,000 gp, for a 1 HD Golem with 1 Str, 1 Dex and 2 int. To get a 1 HD 10 Str, 10 Dex 2 Int Golem, you need to pay 24,000 GP. That's for no Str or Dex penalties on something with 1 HD. You need to shell out another 2,000 gp and two days of work for each added +1 attribute bonus. Golems are utterly, cripplingly expensive to get anywhere in this. Methods to upgrade are very much needed, because it costs far too much to get anything good otherwise.

    Failure rates make Golems even worse and make mid level effects even more laughably horrible to try to get. At least until you start stacking bonuses to the roll. Which your removal of the normal magic item lists succeeded in making basically impossible to do in the normal way. Scaling bonuses are there for a reason. Some effects just don't work as spells.

    Lowered repair costs make it so that instead of Christmas tree adventurers, you're going to get God items for every member of the party. Made possible by the fact that you can stack up bonuses basically infinitely high, with quite a bit of incentive to do so. Abjuration stacking makes these items nigh-indestructible.

    The action economy is not something that will snap at the slightest touch, so making all action adding items be banned is an overreaction. How about, instead of all these bans, add in a limit of extra actions per turn? That would make all these things still work, but there'd be a hard limit on them. Besides, your full-attack-as-standard-action thing makes Haste better than Celerity by a long shot thanks to duration and making the casters have so many things in the way of actually doing what they are built to do. It's not like casters get to use any of their actually good stuff with standard actions, because everything that isn't direct damage is now full-round or longer cast time!

    A lot of those class feature copying items copy features that are explicitly supernatural or are a physical or mental condition, not action. Or inflict a physical or mental condition. They tend not to copy training based stuff, and even if they did, it's magic, it does not need to follow logic! So what if these robes copy a Monk's Wis to AC, that feature is a result of a mental status that can be induced. The wearer loses the effect when it's taken off because they never learned how to willingly enter that state. Not in the fluff? So what, making up fluff for items is entirely okay!

    You ban the bag of holding. A standby of basically every adventurer's kit when they can buy one. You don't mention Magnificent Mansion, literally a mansion made out of nothing, in space that doesn't exist normally, with servants that are invisible constructs, your reason for banning Rope Trick is keyed to SL, and your reason for banning Genesis is because people with Wish, almost freeform reality warping, apparently shouldn't be able to make tiny universes! Just refluff the Bag of Holding as an extrusion of normal space, not keying into long-forgotten pocket dimensions.

    Removing the normal magic pluses is a basically meaningless thing. Especially because you made it so that it is assumed that all magic item enhancements are spell equivalents, when the official rules specifically have two different cost progressions for spells and enhancement bonus equivalents. Look up the existing crafting rules for things, yours are bizarrely costed with nonsensical changes for no real reason other than stopping a vague idea of the 'Christmas tree of magic items,' when getting all those items is an extreme late game thing and involves so many high price items that are so specific that most DMs are entirely justified in saying 'This place doesn't sell those items.'

    And why bother mentioning the removal of body slot limitations? There's no point in not dumping everything into one insanely bloated item that will never break because you dumped 5 Abjurations and a set of automated Disjunctions that counter any spell targeting the item. Also, you did nothing to prevent the real reason for the slot limits. You only solved AC and action economy busting. You did nothing to deal with the massive bonus pileups actually responsible for it. One can still grab multiple amulets of different sorts.

  8. - Top - End - #188
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The iterative attack bonus looks good at first glance, but can result in a net gain of move speed in some strange cases. If you somehow attack more times than your full-round-action move speed divided by five, you move faster when attacking then when you aren't.
    Can you explain?


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Having separate Swift and Immediate actions is a minor boost to the general archetype that Duskblade was made to fill, but the AoO taking up the immediate action fills in part of the minor action economy screwup that the change would let happen. Namely getting off AoOs on top of both Swift and Immediate action spells. Not sure how many ways there are to get off spells as Immediate actions, but an effective 3 spells per round plus AoOs is nasty and ought to be burned in a fire.
    As you guessed correctly – not gonna happen... unless you’re a very high level gish (with very low-level magical capabilities, pre-epic).
    Note that Quicken Spell feat is banned, so you only get off with 2 spell if you’re actually casting a swift-action spell.
    As for immediate-action spells – well, the list is pretty small (and some of them are banned already or or of low tactical insignificance).


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Questioning the point behind making AoOs take up the Immediate action slot...
    In 3.5, an AoO is an undefined action. Some feats/feat-combos (and homebrew class abilities) allow you to move on a successful AoO – something that you can’t do w/o a target nearby, which makes no sense


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The removal of darts ... Siangham...
    It’s just that there never was such a specific weapon and it doesn’t really caver anything not already covered by other weapons. It’s a pointless baggage that I’ve never seen or heard of in play.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Halberds as double weapons is sensible, given that the only reason not to have them as such depends on design sensibilities that are a disadvantage in a world with D&D style item enhancements. Namely having all three weapon parts as one piece of metal. Your assertion of having the shaft be a quarterstaff part is not quite as sensible, given how unwieldy using that end is when you have an axe head, a spear point and an armor piercing spike on one end with nothing on the other. I think it should be slashing/piercing for the double weapon, not slashing or piercing/bludgeoning.
    I’m looking at things from a RL practical standpoint. When not fighting with a halberd, the bottom end usually rests on the ground. You need something that doesn’t cut/stab just by resting on something. There’s a reason why there were never double-sided heavy weapons with blades/points.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Shuriken only dealing Slashing damage to unarmored targets is the sort of thing that is obvious, but if that's the case they should deal a tiny bit more damage. Perhaps have it do 1d2 Piercing and 1d2 Slashing to unarmored targets would work out.
    There are plenty of modifiers to offset the low 1d3 output if one puts an effort to it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Trident's bonus is... crazy at low levels, basically useless at high levels. Should add to Grapple checks as well, and have functional auto-hit, with lowered damage. Either by having literal auto-hit, or a to-hit bonus big enough to make it practically automatic.
    I’ll check if impaling is too easy.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Battlestaff is basically 'Better quarterstaff for non-Monks.' It invalidates the quarterstaff for everyone who isn't a Monk.
    Might be adequate to add Str minimum or penalties, or make it exotic.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Bladed Gauntlet has no business being Exotic in a game where Spiked Gauntlets are Simple.
    I think you’re underestimating the value of the wrist’s maneuverability. A bladed gauntlet is much more than a glove – it is tied to your arm.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Blowguns are very simple, very primitive weapons who's only claim to being Exotic is your viewpoint when using it. If it were hard to use, which is what Exotic actually means, then it would not be the standby of so many primitive cultures. Maybe you can excuse it with the whole 'control how you exhale' thing...
    If blowguns were so easy to operate, medieval European societies should've been using them constantly.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Buckler Axe seems like it should be Martial, but I'd need a pic for it Honestly just sounds like a funny-shaped shield with a sharpened edge...
    Complete Warrior, page 154


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Pounding Staff is nasty, good for breaking enemy weapons. Not much else to say, though the damage numbers seem to be too large. Haven't seen your setup for HP yet, which may be part of the explanation.
    1. 1d8 to a 2-hander is not that overwhelming.
    2. It does cost a feat.
    3. Usually, breaking stuff means they're no longer good as treasure.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Sword Stick should be a weapon modification, or just straight up count as a rapier when actually being used as a weapon. Otherwise it's too niche to see much use.
    Not every adventure is a dungeon crawl, you know.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Three-section-staff looks like a godsend to specific crazy bastard weapon focus characters. TWF or reach, hard to disarm AND a Monk weapon? All the attacks, all the time, with so much to-hit.
    Basically, since monks can self-enhance, all it does for a monk is grant reach for the cost of a feat. You can also gain reach with 2 aberration feats, in which case disarm and sunder are things you never have to worry about.
    Seems even to me.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Throwing Iron is redundant. Give it more damage, like 1d4, or else the only reason for it to exist is to have an 'immersive' option for strict European-only campaigns.
    That 1/2 HP is hardly significant. I'm more interested in options for more character styles. Bruce Lee had a movie where he used throwing irons.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Tonfas are nice for AC on Monks who really want their flurry to matter, or worry a lot about disarming. Not sure about that bit about 'small' weapons...
    I meant light weapon. 'Small' is a leftover from a failed passed experiment. Fixed.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Making Dodge be based on BAB has the side effect of making full-BAB classes a massive pain to hit.
    Yes. I wanted combat experience to matter.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Having all magical AC bonuses be Deflection is not quite as good.
    The aim was to prevent AC stacking abuse via magic.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also, if Shield AC adds to Ref save, why wouldn't Dodge? Both apply to Touch AC, and both work by preventing you from getting actually hit. Dodge is more absolute about the 'not getting touched' bit, so why not let it stack?
    Shield AC applies to Ref saves only on specific cases, by using it to block stuff.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The initiative bonus adjustment makes rogues even more annoyingly hard to out speed. Also, makes some things even crazier to face off against.
    Rogues need all the love they can get.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Combat Hustle is fun, lets the squishies haul ass into position by doing something that makes them easier to hit. Combined with the alterations to AC, it makes the Wizard more mobile than anyone else by having the least to lose by hauling ass.
    Combat Hustle is a standard action – screws up access too most spells


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Power Attack, Combat Expertise and Weapon Finesse for everyone, without feats? Thanks for removing one of the biggest sinks for Martial characters. Oh, and would it have hurt to include the bit on Power Attack applying to ranged weapons? PF has a feat for it, and having ranged characters eat up a feat where melee doesn't is bad form in a few ways.
    Attacking at a range keeps you relatively safe vs. melee focused combatants. I see no need for levelling the playing field here.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    HP alterations do a good job of removing the rocket tag of early levels, but may cause padded sumo at high levels. Especially because it makes Dragons even more overkill for their CR, because all those HD are maxed out.
    I always found dragons a bit easy for their CR.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Removing the point of extended threat range is silly, amend that bit to mention the extended crit range on weapon stat blocks counting in a way similar to how Keen does. Or come up with some other bonus for them.
    Weapons no longer need extended threat range to be levelled. BAB levels them nicely.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The alteration to Gaze attacks makes Leadership a bit stronger than it already was, although making the Gaze attacks be once per turn free actions is an important thing. Granted, your added downside of come-alongs eat XP makes Leadership decidedly worse for long term campaigns.
    I fail to see how nerfing Gaze attacks makes Leadership stronger.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Making magic ammo stack with magic weapons makes some character archetypes much harder to make crunch for, unless having almost impossible to avoid arrows is an attractive thing. Recoverable ammo is a thing, after all. *glares at swordarrow enchantment*
    1. I couldn't find "swordarrow" anywhere.
    2. The motivation was that the enhancement of a magical missile device doesn't invalidate the enhancement of magical missiles.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Massive Damage is ultimately rather bad in this case. Too many things resist the effects it applies. Granted, the save DC becomes close to impossible to pass rather quickly, so against the things that it does apply to it is rather effective.
    Most all of those targets are already immune to massive damage. The idea was to make massive damage a bit less terminal.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Speed bonuses get silly in some cases, here. Also makes it much harder to have enough attacks to have attacking with a full round action be faster than moving with a move action. Makes speedy characters like their Dex-based Ref save.
    1. "above its racial average" means that monsters don't gain any speed bonus unless they also took actual class levels that come with ability increase.
    2. Movement doesn't grant extra attacks.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Tiny creature errata-esque change is another bit of forced sanity. Makes a few fringe cases worse off for the tiny player. Like the one 5 ft splash thing I found on the SRD...
    I fail to visualize the scenario you're talking about.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Aim is... nasty at higher levels. x2 damage and +2 to-hit at level 6 on a ranged attack is a lot better than Power Attack. At level 16, this morphs into x4 damage with +4 to-hit, on top of whatever magic bonuses you're packing. Is this why you declined the use of Power Attack on ranged weapons?
    Aim is a full round action. Given that, I don't see how Aim can be broken.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Block Line of Effect is a nice way to give the Monk a way to protect those more squishy than they by getting in front of the magic beam. Add a clause about getting in the way of ranged weapons, because I'm fairly sure that ranged weapons don't use LoE by RAW. If they do use LoE, then it's all fine.
    Not familiar with the term LoE?


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Adding PF Drag to Bullrush may make uberchargers worse, by giving them a bundle of ways to screw over enemies. The shove adds to the repositioning power.
    Common sense dictates that a combat option that's viable IRL would also be viable by the rules.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The option to Charge an enemy behind a corner pleases my desire to wreck face from unconventional angles. Oh, and the fact that it translates to Charging anything in a 15' wide line appeases my sense of ridiculous abstractions and easily programmed translations.
    Please explain the "15' wide line" bit. (Charge = 1 Atk).


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Feign being BAB based with skill synergy makes Bards worse off than before, but also gives the frontliners even more reason to go for Cha instead of Wis. After all, you made Will saves be able to go off Cha, so the intimidate meatheads will go for that for their Will save. On the other hand, the ones who have no need for Cha in their build will be more insensitivised to go Wis. The more I look at it, the more your setup supports flexible SAD. Is that the point? To have SAD builds on MAD classes?
    Some classes are inherently revolving around SAD. With the spell mechanics changes, I made sure that no caster will have it all with a single ability and that everyone has options to assemble the character they envision. Ability increase at each level further alleviate MADness.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    For Overrun, I understand that the point is to knock a large number of enemies prone without dealing damage, but Armor Spikes ought to deal damage when you are running into people. The fact that you can now properly Overrun through an army to clear the way for the Cleave rushers to butcher the prone fools is a nice bonus. Especially because you can be the Cleave rusher, doubling back on your own path to butcher the people you knocked over. Sure, you need an extra standard action, but there's more ways to get that than Celerity based things. Some don't even need magic!
    Haven’t actually thought of the armor spikes strategy, but yes – I actually like it. Given it's not exactly a weapon you can gain offensive proficiency in, you don't get to enjoy a lot of damage increase, but you do make high attack rolls count, so that's not bad at all.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Shooting Down an Arrow in Midflight... hehehe... so much bull**** to be had. Makes the bow user able to properly protect the other party members with a bull**** trickshot.
    Shooting an arrow mid-flight is humanly possible.
    Most characters would need to ready an action.
    A dedicated BAB +6 character can pull it off once per round as an immediate action.
    A dedicated level-15 warrior can pull it off twice in a given round.
    All that doesn't seem too far out to me.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I've spent about two hours on this, and I will likely spend several more on the other core rules posts. For now, all I have to say is this:
    Unfortunately, my spare time is not enough to keep up with multiple replies per day, so you'll have to bear with me a bit.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    WHY DID YOU PUT THE GENREAL RULES AFTER THE COMBAT AND SPELLCASTING?
    Because they're not combat rules and they're not spellcasting rules... and yet they're rules, not character features. Where would you have me put them?

  9. - Top - End - #189
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Can you explain?
    Let's say that the character is a sword and shield Dwarf Fighter in heavy armor. They aren't getting much out of Dex, because they have a rather low max Dex bonus on their armor.


    As you guessed correctly – not gonna happen... unless you’re a very high level gish (with very low-level magical capabilities, pre-epic).
    Note that Quicken Spell feat is banned, so you only get off with 2 spell if you’re actually casting a swift-action spell.
    As for immediate-action spells – well, the list is pretty small (and some of them are banned already or or of low tactical insignificance).
    *re-checks banned metamagic* Dude, Quicken Spell isn't that strong. It's mostly just a way to get off spells faster. It doesn't change the amount of magic you can use, it only lets you squeeze it out faster. The effective 3 spells per turn is only nasty because it makes it more likely that the opponent will be screwed over before they can attack. It only adds to the odds of ruining an enemy before they can do anything. Horrible thing, kinda, but it's not exactly changing the very nature of the game.

    In 3.5, an AoO is an undefined action. Some feats/feat-combos (and homebrew class abilities) allow you to move on a successful AoO – something that you can’t do w/o a target nearby, which makes no sense
    Yea, movement bonuses conditionally dependent on mundane attacks don't quite work from a logical perspective.

    It’s just that there never was such a specific weapon and it doesn’t really caver anything not already covered by other weapons. It’s a pointless baggage that I’ve never seen or heard of in play.
    Consider the entire stat line. Is there anything else that does the exact same thing, or is absolutely better in all cases.

    I’m looking at things from a RL practical standpoint. When not fighting with a halberd, the bottom end usually rests on the ground. You need something that doesn’t cut/stab just by resting on something. There’s a reason why there were never double-sided heavy weapons with blades/points.
    A few D&D double weapons have one head with two weapon types on it.


    There are plenty of modifiers to offset the low 1d3 output if one puts an effort to it.
    Yes, but changing the damage type without changing the amount of damage isn't quite sensible.

    I’ll check if impaling is too easy.
    Given that the nature of this impaling is just getting off a normal thrust with a barbed weapon, it should be the same as hitting normally. It's mostly how much you want the impalement to do that is the question...

    Might be adequate to add Str minimum or penalties, or make it exotic.
    Eh, Monks get their class features and Flurry to make their weapons mean a bit more. The amount of metal isn't going to be enough for Str minimums.

    I think you’re underestimating the value of the wrist’s maneuverability. A bladed gauntlet is much more than a glove – it is tied to your arm.
    Same for spiked gauntlets. Both are perfectly usable by punching. The mobility of the hand means nothing for punching, which is the mode of use for the bladed gauntlet.

    If blowguns were so easy to operate, medieval European societies should've been using them constantly.
    Reasons not to use blowguns:
    1.Short as hell range.
    2.They deal little damage without poison.
    3.Fracking exhausting to use quickly.
    4.Useless against any armor heavier than cloth.

    Medieval Europe didn't have access to the poisons that make blowguns useful weapons. And armor very quickly went towards invalidating anything short of a proper bow or axe. Leather is entirely able to wreck any usefulness of blowguns. They are easy to use, but European style societies just don't have any way to make using them worth it.

    Complete Warrior, page 154
    So it's an actual first-party thing?


    1. 1d8 to a 2-hander is not that overwhelming.
    2. It does cost a feat.
    3. Usually, breaking stuff means they're no longer good as treasure.
    Yes, the Exotic proficiency takes a feat. And I don't know what I was thinking with criticizing the damage...

    Not every adventure is a dungeon crawl, you know.
    Yes, but a weapon that is only useful as a barely-hidden weapon and is almost identical in form to another, existing weapon should probably be a variant of that weapon, rather than a different weapon.

    Basically, since monks can self-enhance, all it does for a monk is grant reach for the cost of a feat. You can also gain reach with 2 aberration feats, in which case disarm and sunder are things you never have to worry about.
    Seems even to me.
    But for the weapon specialist Fighter, it gives access to two weapon fighting and reach and a hard to disarm weapon. All under their single tree of damage and to-hit bonuses.

    That 1/2 HP is hardly significant. I'm more interested in options for more character styles. Bruce Lee had a movie where he used throwing irons.
    The point of them being redundant still stands. They still are fundamentally and absolutely inferior to Shurikan.

    I meant light weapon. 'Small' is a leftover from a failed passed experiment. Fixed.
    Good to know I got you to fix an error!

    Yes. I wanted combat experience to matter.
    Making martial characters a massive pain in the ass to hit while casters get nerfed into near-oblivion as anything other than a blaster, historically the absolute fracking worst way to play a caster, is not exactly a good way to do that.

    The aim was to prevent AC stacking abuse via magic.
    Still not really working, given the fact that several spells specifically say they give armor and shield bonuses... And have good Watsonian explanations as to why they give those bonuses.

    Shield AC applies to Ref saves only on specific cases, by using it to block stuff.
    And I suppose the fact the several of the feats to improve the function of Ref saves are flavored as Dodge functions doesn't matter, does it?

    Rogues need all the love they can get.
    Mostly agreed. They really only get Sneak Attack and the odd status as the only reliable trap disabler. And being a skill monkey.

    Combat Hustle is a standard action – screws up access too most spells
    Only because you got rid of one of the things that is rather important to making casters actually work. And that still does nothing to Haste. Seriously, Celerity is almost fundamentally inferior to Haste, the only reason it's considered so bad is that it stacks with Haste.

    Attacking at a range keeps you relatively safe vs. melee focused combatants. I see no need for levelling the playing field here.
    Clearly you have never seen a forum thread going over the differences.

    I always found dragons a bit easy for their CR.
    You and most of the 3.5 community. Granted, you turned Magic Missile into one of the best ways to screw over Dragons by making it bypass SR, and by extension established touch attack SR bypass as something OK at 1st level.

    Weapons no longer need extended threat range to be levelled. BAB levels them nicely
    Haven't seen the general setup for how BAB is counted you are using, but the thing is that a LOT of weapons are defined by their crit rates.

    I fail to see how nerfing Gaze attacks makes Leadership stronger.
    The stacking -1 to-hit makes it slightly better in that the extra bodies make it harder to use Gaze attacks fully.

    1. I couldn't find "swordarrow" anywhere.
    2. The motivation was that the enhancement of a magical missile device doesn't invalidate the enhancement of magical missiles.
    I might have used the wrong name, but I was speaking of an enhancement that lets a person use a sword as an arrow. There is a case to be made that the Returning enhancement makes it an infinitely usable arrow. Also, you made the magic item system quite highly confusing and much, much more dangerous. Sure, you prevented the Christmas Tree, but now every adventurer is going to carry around a nigh-impossible to break magical superweapon that scales with their GP.

    Most all of those targets are already immune to massive damage. The idea was to make massive damage a bit less terminal.
    It's tearing out half a person's capacity to stay conscious through damage in one blow. It's stuff on the level of having your ribcage fractured. It's multiple, simultaneous torn muscles. It's having your skin boil off. It's stuff that's close to lethal and massively painful. Most importantly, it's showing that a 2-hit-kill is extremely likely, so for the sake of brevity, a chance for the fight to end instantly is rather helpful.

    1. "above its racial average" means that monsters don't gain any speed bonus unless they also took actual class levels that come with ability increase.
    2. Movement doesn't grant extra attacks.
    But a sufficiently overloaded number of attacks can increase movement. That thing where a full round action can let you 5' step after each attack makes it so that if you have a sufficiently bloated number of attacks and sufficiently pathetic move speed, you can move faster by attacking that by running all out.


    I fail to visualize the scenario you're talking about.
    It's a magic item ability on the Ring of Shooting Stars. 5 ft splash on a damaging ability. It's such a tiny niche situation that it's almost meaningless, but it exists.

    Aim is a full round action. Given that, I don't see how Aim can be broken.
    *Points at projectile multiplying effects*
    You have to address those. Also, it makes it so that one-hit-only effects apply to the damage of your full attack. It also saves cost on enchanted ammo, making it quite a bit easier to afford using. Oh, and it counts as one attack, so DR bypass, massive damage and

    Not familiar with the term LoE?
    No, I'm not. I'm very quick to come up with the meaning of something based on context, and line-of-effect sounds like it doesn't get used for ranged attacks by RAW. I'm probably wrong.

    Common sense dictates that a combat option that's viable IRL would also be viable by the rules.
    I'm thinking more in terms of the fact that uberchargers, one of the most infamous types of character build, are being given access to stuff that makes them able to mess with foes that they can't butcher with little effort.

    Granted, Uberchargers can deal damage on the level of one-hit-kills on dragons, so the point is largely irrelevant. Seriously, you nerf casters into the ground on in-combat things when their danger has always been from the fact that they are able to screw over people in combat as well as the combat monsters while also being able to screw with political campaigns. The tier list is about flexibility, not direct power. A tier 4 class can be the most powerful combat class in the game, no exceptions, but have literally nothing outside of combat. The tier 1 is for 'does literally everything,' which your caster nerfs don't accomplish. Caster game warping has always been about the fact that they can do everything, not that they are the best at everything. Best at everything is tier 0, or tier -1.

    Please explain the "15' wide line" bit. (Charge = 1 Atk).
    You have the normal effective 5' wide line of charging. Then the change you made adds 5' to each side. This lets you charge any single thing in a 15' wide line. The extra 5' makes uberchargers a little better, because it makes them a little more reliable.

    Some classes are inherently revolving around SAD. With the spell mechanics changes, I made sure that no caster will have it all with a single ability and that everyone has options to assemble the character they envision. Ability increase at each level further alleviate MADness.
    SR means nothing for a summoning character and spells known has never been a real issue for well made builds. This makes Cha based casting for summoners far better off because you get an actually useful effect for your build.

    Haven’t actually thought of the armor spikes strategy, but yes – I actually like it. Given it's not exactly a weapon you can gain offensive proficiency in, you don't get to enjoy a lot of damage increase, but you do make high attack rolls count, so that's not bad at all.
    Nice to see that I gave you an idea! Although Weapon Proficiency(Armor Spikes) is actually entirely valid for a pick, because it's a Martial weapon.


    Shooting an arrow mid-flight is humanly possible.
    Most characters would need to ready an action.
    A dedicated BAB +6 character can pull it off once per round as an immediate action.
    A dedicated level-15 warrior can pull it off twice in a given round.
    All that doesn't seem too far out to me.
    I'm not complaining about realism, I'm rather familiar with how reality defies expectations of what is and isn't realistic. I'm saying that it's a very strange way of blocking damage. Also makes Aim when another good archer is around a much worse idea...

    Unfortunately, my spare time is not enough to keep up with multiple replies per day, so you'll have to bear with me a bit.
    It's fine. Now I can feel better about making the post looking over the general rules.

    Because they're not combat rules and they're not spellcasting rules... and yet they're rules, not character features. Where would you have me put them?
    Before the combat and casting rules, because they are the core system by which the other things work? Generally, one puts the stuff in order of how often it gets used, or how likely it is to be checked for reference.

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    With apologies in advance for piling on, good nonsi...

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I don't get the "micromanage" angle. Near-epic warriors and monks have superior martial battlefield control. Soulknives enjoy the full benefits of melee from a distance. Hexblades hit you with omens, invocations and auras. Netherhosts are formidable foes by any standard. Every class has its shtick.
    Everybody other than 15th level warriors and monks use the same AoO mechanics.
    Oh, absolutely; sorry, I was unclear. I have no problems with high level monks and warriors being able to make multiple AoOs against the same creature. The problem I'm talking about is about how casters have to micromanage their actions. This is most true at low levels, before they have major magical defenses and other classes have major ways of getting around those defenses. As a low level caster, if I'm threatened by a nasty orc in my face, I normally have two choices. I could try to move away from the orc and cast from farther away, which guarantees that my spell will go off successfully. Alternately, I could stand still and try to cast, which is dangerous because he could hit me on the AoO and ruin my spell. However, that might be worth the risk to cast a spell I need to cast from that particular position (Burning Hands, Cure Wounds, etc.).

    However, right now, there's a third option which isn't particularly obvious: move "in place" or back and forth to end up in the same position, then cast while threatened with impunity. Or try to take a free action that provokes an AoO (do those exist?), allowing full round action casting. In either case, that allows casting spells safely from dangerous positions, which is a weird and unintuitive mechanic. That's what I think should be dealt with.

    ...Although now that I think about it more, all that is mostly pointless, because you could just 5' step out of reach in a typical encounter and cast with impunity. I guess I'm thinking that spellcasting in melee should be dangerous, but really, there are so many ways to get around it that it should only come up in very rare cases.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    You figure the angle with the center, not the reach. I'm getting the feeling that you're trying to say something that didn't register on my side.
    I think so. Here's the flanking rule:
    When in doubt about whether two friendly characters flank an opponent in the middle, trace an imaginary line between the two friendly characters’ centers. If the line passes through the opponent’s spaaaaaace, then the opponent is flanked.
    Given that rule, in the table I drew, none of those characters are flanking the person in the center. Does that make sense?

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1. "Fumbles (Optional Rule)".
    2. You can resist shafting yourself (with a successful Ref save vs. DC 15 - relatively easy at high levels), but no matter how good you are, if your attack accidentally targets an ally... well, "sh!t happens".
    Heh, it is an optional rule. I'd just recommend against using it at higher levels. Or, idea: change it so that fumbling is only possible on the first or, even better, last attack of the round. Not too hard to justify - if you have attacks remaining, you have time to recover and try again - and it removes everything about the weird scaling with attacks/round.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Oh dear. That's an old error of importing from a previous incarnation of the overhaul codex.
    The intent was to import the following mechanic:
    "Fighting Recklessly: You can choose to fight recklessly at the beginning of your turn. If you do so, you take a -4 penalty to AC and gain a +2 bonus on your attack rolls until the beginning of your next turn."
    I'm nixing the offensive Expertise. What do you think of the above proposal?
    Hmmm... yeah, that seems balanced enough. I still would rather not have it for the micromanagey reasons, but the -4 makes it sufficiently punishing to make a mistake that it is unlikely to be a problem against intelligent foes. And having an extra tool to beat zombies to death faster isn't a bad thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    1. Sometimes that's all you've got.
    2. 3xHD is an average of 40% of one's total HP. I wouldn't scoff at that. When your life is hanging by a thread - that's a lot.
    Yeah, it's definitely still noticeable. I guess this leads to a broader philosophical question: when do you want parties to stop adventuring for the day in your system? Do you expect them to rest for the night because they run of daily abilities, or because they run out of hit points to continue? (Even if the party has a dedicated healer, those two things are different, because the healer's daily abilities may be completely expended while the rest of the party has plenty. That's why I think it's important to distinguish between those options.)

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Power-groups will be power-groups. That one's out of my hands. My aim was to bring about changes that would make the regular game more fun than powergaming. I have no control over how people choose to play the game and I have no intentions of introducing preemptive rules to prevent that by any means and in the process lose something else.
    Interesting. That makes sense, though my philosophy is somewhat different: my goal is to dramatically narrow the gap between the optimal and the obvious (which is very different from narrowing the gap between the optimal and the terrible).

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Sometimes, killing your opponent is not your primary objective, so yes, they're still useful.
    I agree that they should be useful, but the chance of failure is just too high - mostly, in my opinion, because successful AoOs, which are made at highest BAB, automatically negate attempted maneuvers. That makes grappling/tripping anyone remotely competent more difficult than it should be. If that alone were removed, and AoOs just did damage, they would still be more or less useless for a typical combat situation. However, in the oddball cases where you do need to grapple/trip someone, they would have reasonable odds of success without the feat.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Thumb rule in this codex: if it ain't specified here, use the official rules.
    Yeah, that's what I've been doing, I just thought I saw a bit of wording that make me think otherwise. Nevermind.

    EDIT: I wasn't going to add on more, but I saw something and had to comment. The discrepancy in power between Major School Esoterica for Mages is absurd.
    Abjuration: Nice utility, maybe abusable in bizarre corner cases but pretty cool.
    Conjuration: Insanely powerful. Free quicken on everything you cast with no SL adjustment is the kind of thing that entire builds are based around.
    Divination: Nice utility, flavorful and cool.
    Enchantment: Useful, but only against weaker foes (since strong foes have 0% chance of failure with a +5). Not sure what the fluff is here, other than "your spells are better". It seems a bit odd to have an ability that is stronger against weak foes and weaker against strong foes, but maybe that makes sense; I haven't done the DC math to see what the expected failure rate is for a level-appropriate spell.
    Evocation: A significantly worse version of the minor school esoterica. Maybe those should be switched?
    Illusion: Nifty, though still/silent isn't that hard to get if you care. Would be nicer if it came online earlier, since by that point a lot of the narrative utility of hidden spellcasting is dwarfed by the ultimate cosmic power a 16th level spellcaster wields.
    Necromancy: Useless unless you're a specific build of necromancer.
    Transmutation: Complete garbage.

    Several of those are nice, but the Conjuration/Transmutation difference in particular is insane. Maybe that can be adjusted?

    Also, Morphic, it is my life goal for someone to give my system a fisking that detailed, even if I disagree on a number of points...
    Last edited by Vadskye; 2016-12-07 at 04:57 PM.

  11. - Top - End - #191
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    The problem I'm talking about is about how casters have to micromanage their actions. This is most true at low levels, before they have major magical defenses and other classes have major ways of getting around those defenses. As a low level caster, if I'm threatened by a nasty orc in my face, I normally have two choices. I could try to move away from the orc and cast from farther away, which guarantees that my spell will go off successfully. Alternately, I could stand still and try to cast, which is dangerous because he could hit me on the AoO and ruin my spell. However, that might be worth the risk to cast a spell I need to cast from that particular position (Burning Hands, Cure Wounds, etc.).
    You could either cast defensively or eat the AoO.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    However, right now, there's a third option which isn't particularly obvious: move "in place" or back and forth to end up in the same position, then cast while threatened with impunity. Or try to take a free action that provokes an AoO (do those exist?), allowing full round action casting. In either case, that allows casting spells safely from dangerous positions, which is a weird and unintuitive mechanic. That's what I think should be dealt with.
    To be honest, I'm not sure what you're describing here, but AFAIK you can't double track within the same move action.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    ...Although now that I think about it more, all that is mostly pointless, because you could just 5' step out of reach in a typical encounter and cast with impunity. I guess I'm thinking that spellcasting in melee should be dangerous, but really, there are so many ways to get around it that it should only come up in very rare cases.
    If a spellcaster (even a novice) faces but a single opponent, then even the core rules allow for that strategy, but with melee weapons providing the option of range, the melee dude can always go for a desperate move of throwing his melee weapon and figuring what to do next... next.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    I think so. Here's the flanking rule:

    Given that rule, in the table I drew, none of those characters are flanking the person in the center. Does that make sense?
    I see what you mean, and you're right. Now that I think of it, my instinct tells me that angle and threat should be the only factors.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Heh, it is an optional rule. I'd just recommend against using it at higher levels. Or, idea: change it so that fumbling is only possible on the first or, even better, last attack of the round. Not too hard to justify - if you have attacks remaining, you have time to recover and try again - and it removes everything about the weird scaling with attacks/round.
    Given that DC 15 becomes easier as you level up, I don't think that acrobatics is necessary.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Yeah, it's definitely still noticeable. I guess this leads to a broader philosophical question: when do you want parties to stop adventuring for the day in your system? Do you expect them to rest for the night because they run of daily abilities, or because they run out of hit points to continue? (Even if the party has a dedicated healer, those two things are different, because the healer's daily abilities may be completely expended while the rest of the party has plenty. That's why I think it's important to distinguish between those options.)
    At some point, the latter should not stop you... unless you find yourself in need of massive healing mid-combat.
    I'd expect a party to keep on going until they run out of necessary level-equivalent resources, or drop from exhaustion. That's how heroes operate in literature.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Interesting. That makes sense, though my philosophy is somewhat different: my goal is to dramatically narrow the gap between the optimal and the obvious (which is very different from narrowing the gap between the optimal and the terrible).
    I've exhausted my inspiration on this one. If you have additional suggestions, I'm all ears.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    I agree that they should be useful, but the chance of failure is just too high - mostly, in my opinion, because successful AoOs, which are made at highest BAB, automatically negate attempted maneuvers. That makes grappling/tripping anyone remotely competent more difficult than it should be. If that alone were removed, and AoOs just did damage, they would still be more or less useless for a typical combat situation. However, in the oddball cases where you do need to grapple/trip someone, they would have reasonable odds of success without the feat.
    Unpracticed maneuvers should have low probabilities. You can always go for group-grapple or try again the next round, and the melee dudes still have reasonable chances. And yes – sometimes you'll get wacked in the face several times before you succeed... and sometimes you'll fail. All pose a reasonable part of the story.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    EDIT: I wasn't going to add on more, but I saw something and had to comment. The discrepancy in power between Major School Esoterica for Mages is absurd.
    Abjuration: Nice utility, maybe abusable in bizarre corner cases but pretty cool.
    Conjuration: Insanely powerful. Free quicken on everything you cast with no SL adjustment is the kind of thing that entire builds are based around.
    Divination: Nice utility, flavorful and cool.
    Enchantment: Useful, but only against weaker foes (since strong foes have 0% chance of failure with a +5). Not sure what the fluff is here, other than "your spells are better". It seems a bit odd to have an ability that is stronger against weak foes and weaker against strong foes, but maybe that makes sense; I haven't done the DC math to see what the expected failure rate is for a level-appropriate spell.
    Evocation: A significantly worse version of the minor school esoterica. Maybe those should be switched?
    Illusion: Nifty, though still/silent isn't that hard to get if you care. Would be nicer if it came online earlier, since by that point a lot of the narrative utility of hidden spellcasting is dwarfed by the ultimate cosmic power a 16th level spellcaster wields.
    Necromancy: Useless unless you're a specific build of necromancer.
    Transmutation: Complete garbage.

    Several of those are nice, but the Conjuration/Transmutation difference in particular is insane. Maybe that can be adjusted?
    I'm open to suggestions regarding Conjuration and Transmutation, and I'll consider the swap for Evocation.
    And you're right about the Enchantment fluff. Not much to say there.
    Not sure what you mean regarding necromancy.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Also, Morphic, it is my life goal for someone to give my system a fisking that detailed, even if I disagree on a number of points...
    I really wish I could return the favor. Unfortunately, lately my schedule makes it difficult for me to keep up with this project. I'm falling behind badly and my scarce participation here is a testimony to that. I'm currently relatively new at my job and it's a 2-hour drive, so that's 4 hours eaten away from my daily routine. Maybe I'll have more time in the future, when I can start working from home, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
    Also, that one's probably on me, but I find it a bit difficult to navigate dual-text-columns in a document. It saves space, but makes things a lot less wieldy for me.
    I did glance at your rules and didn't find anything glaringly problematic. Everything I saw skimming your document seems workable and manageable, but I only did skim it. I'll try to give it some time in the next few days and if I find anything problematic, I'll let you know.

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    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    You could either cast defensively or eat the AoO.
    Oh, wow, I just remembered how different 3.5 casting mechanics are from what I've been using. Yeah, I don't think my concern is relevant - it's just a way to use shenanigans to cast in melee, but that's not really a problem in normal circumstances. Your approach is fine.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I see what you mean, and you're right. Now that I think of it, my instinct tells me that angle and threat should be the only factors.
    Cool, glad we got that figured out. I'm not sure how to word your "angle" consideration, though I see what you're trying to do, and I'd be happy to check a wording you come up with for abuses. I just removed angles entirely and use a pure count of how many creatures are threatening you, which is drastically simpler. I'd also contend it's not that much less realistic, but that's sort of a matter of taste.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Given that DC 15 becomes easier as you level up, I don't think that acrobatics is necessary.
    Sure, I'm fine with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    At some point, the latter should not stop you... unless you find yourself in need of massive healing mid-combat.
    I'd expect a party to keep on going until they run out of necessary level-equivalent resources, or drop from exhaustion. That's how heroes operate in literature.
    I mean, I have a hard time thinking of literature that uses the equivalent of daily resources; most fantasy I've read connects magic to either fatigue (mental or physical) or physical objects (such as the excellent Mistborn series). But I take your point.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I've exhausted my inspiration on this one. If you have additional suggestions, I'm all ears.
    In simple terms, I'd want the optimal magic item strategy to be close to the "obvious" magic item strategy: that is, one item per slot (or, in lieu of body slots, some other mechanic saying "this is how many items you should have"), with unslotted items being limited in power or scope. Rise does this by establishing a new "item use" daily resource shared between all characters. Using an active ability from any magic item consumes one of your daily item uses. This attacks the christmas tree effect somewhat indirectly; with that system, even if you had no body slot limitations, it would be suboptimal to have a myriad of random items, because you couldn't use all of their effects. Rise still uses body slots, but they serve a slightly different purpose.

    My point here isn't really that you should change over to a shared daily item use system, though. There are many other ways to solve the christmas tree problem. My point is just that the optimal strategy from 3.5 hasn't really changed; it's just become more complicated to implement, and it's good for different reasons (many spells with stacking effects, rather than many stacking numerical bonuses). Just something to think about for fun on your long drives...

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Unpracticed maneuvers should have low probabilities. You can always go for group-grapple or try again the next round, and the melee dudes still have reasonable chances. And yes – sometimes you'll get wacked in the face several times before you succeed... and sometimes you'll fail. All pose a reasonable part of the story.
    I think we agree on almost all of that - we just have very different definitions of what a "low probability" is for an unpracticed maneuver. I'm not too worried about it, though. Anyone who really cares will just take the relevant feat and call it a day.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I'm open to suggestions regarding Conjuration and Transmutation, and I'll consider the swap for Evocation.
    And you're right about the Enchantment fluff. Not much to say there.
    Not sure what you mean regarding necromancy.
    Hmmm, off the top of my head:
    Conjuration: Your magic can grant the ability to travel between planes, making attacks more difficult. Whenever you teleport or summon a creature, you can cause it to "blink" between its current plane and the Ethereal Plane for 2 rounds. During this time, attacks against that creature have a 20% chance of failure.
    Transmutation: Whenever you cast a Transmutation spell on a creature or object, you can grant it damage reduction against physical damage equal to half your caster level with Transmutation spells for 2 rounds.
    Those are verbosely worded, and the "2 round" duration is more of a Rise thing, but maybe that gives ideas?

    As for Necromancy, it looks like the minor and major esotericas for Necromancy are only useful for the type of necromancer who has an undead army. In my experience not all necromancers actually use a "minion-master" build; there are also necromancers who just like killing things to death with magic. These esotericas strongly encourage all necromancers to be minion masters, which is a more complicated build that can conflict with a typical adventuring party's routine.

    Plus, because they both afffect all undead allies within a large radius, it encourages having as many undead servants as possible. That is unfortunate, because having more servants also scales up the complexity. If they have to buff undead, it would be more manageable if they provided larger buffs to a single undead creature. That would encourage a simpler and more party-friendly build for necromancers where they have a single awesome undead servant, which wouldn't take nearly as much time in and out of combat to manage. Does that make sense?

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    I really wish I could return the favor. Unfortunately, lately my schedule makes it difficult for me to keep up with this project. I'm falling behind badly and my scarce participation here is a testimony to that. I'm currently relatively new at my job and it's a 2-hour drive, so that's 4 hours eaten away from my daily routine. Maybe I'll have more time in the future, when I can start working from home, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
    Also, that one's probably on me, but I find it a bit difficult to navigate dual-text-columns in a document. It saves space, but makes things a lot less wieldy for me.
    I did glance at your rules and didn't find anything glaringly problematic. Everything I saw skimming your document seems workable and manageable, but I only did skim it. I'll try to give it some time in the next few days and if I find anything problematic, I'll let you know.
    Oh, that wasn't intended to be directed at you! A 2-hour drive sounds awful, and I don't begrudge your absence in the slightest. I've been working on Rise for two-odd years now; take as much time as you want, as long as it keeps your interest. And I can solve the 2-column issue, so keep an eye on your inbox!

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Let's say that the character is a sword and shield Dwarf Fighter in heavy armor. They aren't getting much out of Dex, because they have a rather low max Dex bonus on their armor.
    If you're a sword and shield Dwarf Fighter in heavy armor, don’t put your resources on Dex. There are martial strategies other than sword and shield in heavy armor you know.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    *re-checks banned metamagic* Dude, Quicken Spell isn't that strong. It's mostly just a way to get off spells faster. It doesn't change the amount of magic you can use, it only lets you squeeze it out faster. The effective 3 spells per turn is only nasty because it makes it more likely that the opponent will be screwed over before they can attack. It only adds to the odds of ruining an enemy before they can do anything. Horrible thing, kinda, but it's not exactly changing the very nature of the game.
    There are only two or three immediate spell that target opponents at all, and their consequences are mild, so there's little to no difference between two and three.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Consider the entire stat line. Is there anything else that does the exact same thing, or is absolutely better in all cases.
    Short sword, AFAIK.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Given that the nature of this impaling is just getting off a normal thrust with a barbed weapon, it should be the same as hitting normally. It's mostly how much you want the impalement to do that is the question...
    I don't want to start an entire debate on tridents. Let's just agree that not every hit is an impalement, and I'll think of how to make it less conveniently frequent.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Eh, Monks get their class features and Flurry to make their weapons mean a bit more. The amount of metal isn't going to be enough for Str minimums.
    Try to wield a 2-inch staff with a half-inch steel core and tell me how wieldy it is.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Same for spiked gauntlets. Both are perfectly usable by punching. The mobility of the hand means nothing for punching, which is the mode of use for the bladed gauntlet.
    Still need to think if I'm ok with it being martial.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Reasons not to use blowguns:
    1.Short as hell range.
    2.They deal little damage without poison.
    3.Fracking exhausting to use quickly.
    4.Useless against any armor heavier than cloth.
    1. Certain Amazon tribes efficiently use long blowguns from 200-yards distance.
    2. No argument that poison is the main issue with blowguns.
    3. Hence an exotic weapon. You need to train your lungs for such activity.
    4. Armors have chinks and areas they don't protect.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    So it's an actual first-party thing?
    Yes, but one that people tend to miss or forget about, because those books are usually not collected for the equipment they specify.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Yes, but a weapon that is only useful as a barely-hidden weapon and is almost identical in form to another, existing weapon should probably be a variant of that weapon, rather than a different weapon.
    It's of little significance if it's specified as a variant or a different weapon. The outcome is identical.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    But for the weapon specialist Fighter, it gives access to two weapon fighting and reach and a hard to disarm weapon. All under their single tree of damage and to-hit bonuses.
    W/o TWF feat, your attack roles using that style go subterranean. What can I say... whatever rocks your boat.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The point of them being redundant still stands. They still are fundamentally and absolutely inferior to Shurikan.
    They're easier to conceal, harder to characterize as weapon and can penetrate holes that a shuriken cannot.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Good to know I got you to fix an error!
    It's quite easy actually. All you need to do is present compelling arguments that weren't previously taken into account.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Making martial characters a massive pain in the ass to hit while casters get nerfed into near-oblivion as anything other than a blaster, historically the absolute fracking worst way to play a caster, is not exactly a good way to do that.
    Ok. Specify the 4 nerfs that bother you the most (and why + alternatives), in order and we'll discuss them.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Still not really working, given the fact that several spells specifically say they give armor and shield bonuses... And have good Watsonian explanations as to why they give those bonuses.
    I'll need to asses on a case-by-case basis.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And I suppose the fact the several of the feats to improve the function of Ref saves are flavored as Dodge functions doesn't matter, does it?
    And still, dodge AC and Ref saves are different mechanics.
    Basically, dodge AC is vs. incoming attacks you can anticipate. Ref saves represent your ability to react to thins you don't anticipate and usually doesn’t have specific intention to target you.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Only because you got rid of one of the things that is rather important to making casters actually work.
    Which is?...



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You and most of the 3.5 community. Granted, you turned Magic Missile into one of the best ways to screw over Dragons by making it bypass SR, and by extension established touch attack SR bypass as something OK at 1st level.
    It bypasses SR on the merit of being a force effect, not according to SL.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Haven't seen the general setup for how BAB is counted you are using, but the thing is that a LOT of weapons are defined by their crit rates.
    Fair enough for core 3.5. I'm just not using that approach – with all the motivations given. Either use my interpretation or ignore it, whatever suites you.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The stacking -1 to-hit makes it slightly better in that the extra bodies make it harder to use Gaze attacks fully.
    I don't see how "to-hit" has anything to do with Gaze attacks. Even auto-hit spells are a form of attack. It's basically a figure of speech.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I might have used the wrong name, but I was speaking of an enhancement that lets a person use a sword as an arrow. There is a case to be made that the Returning enhancement makes it an infinitely usable arrow.
    Sure thing, if you don't mind limiting yourself to a single range attack per round.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also, you made the magic item system quite highly confusing and much, much more dangerous. Sure, you prevented the Christmas Tree, but now every adventurer is going to carry around a nigh-impossible to break magical superweapon that scales with their GP.
    Putting all your money on a single weapon that can be sundered/disarmed/stolen/lost/confiscated is bad strategy… but, whatever works for you.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    It's tearing out half a person's capacity to stay conscious through damage in one blow. It's stuff on the level of having your ribcage fractured. It's multiple, simultaneous torn muscles. It's having your skin boil off. It's stuff that's close to lethal and massively painful. Most importantly, it's showing that a 2-hit-kill is extremely likely, so for the sake of brevity, a chance for the fight to end instantly is rather helpful.
    That doesn't mean that the end has to be irrevocably lethal.
    Also remember that HP are an abstraction.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    But a sufficiently overloaded number of attacks can increase movement. That thing where a full round action can let you 5' step after each attack makes it so that if you have a sufficiently bloated number of attacks and sufficiently pathetic move speed, you can move faster by attacking that by running all out.
    Fair enough. Might be sensible to limit it to one's BAB-derived base number of attacks, disregarding extra attacks.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    It's a magic item ability on the Ring of Shooting Stars. 5 ft splash on a damaging ability. It's such a tiny niche situation that it's almost meaningless, but it exists.
    I allow myself to overlook such edge cases, where benefit doesn't offset management.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    *Points at projectile multiplying effects*
    You have to address those. Also, it makes it so that one-hit-only effects apply to the damage of your full attack. It also saves cost on enchanted ammo, making it quite a bit easier to afford using. Oh, and it counts as one attack, so DR bypass, massive damage and
    "This added damage doesn't count as damage multiplier, but it does count as precision damage"
    That's a double-restriction.
    I'm still ok with how things even out.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I'm thinking more in terms of the fact that uberchargers, one of the most infamous types of character build, are being given access to stuff that makes them able to mess with foes that they can't butcher with little effort.
    But not with particularly large opponents.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Granted, Uberchargers can deal damage on the level of one-hit-kills on dragons, so the point is largely irrelevant.
    No crits means a lot less damage multiplication means insta-kills become less frequent.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You have the normal effective 5' wide line of charging. Then the change you made adds 5' to each side. This lets you charge any single thing in a 15' wide line.
    Yes.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The extra 5' makes uberchargers a little better, because it makes them a little more reliable.
    Ubercharging is relatively easy to cope with.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    SR means nothing for a summoning character and spells known has never been a real issue for well made builds. This makes Cha based casting for summoners far better off because you get an actually useful effect for your build.
    Different build strategies have different strengths and different weaknesses, so? I see no problem here.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Nice to see that I gave you an idea! Although Weapon Proficiency(Armor Spikes) is actually entirely valid for a pick, because it's a Martial weapon.
    AFAIK, Armor Spikes are an extra, not a weapon in and on itself. If you know any different, do share.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I'm not complaining about realism, I'm rather familiar with how reality defies expectations of what is and isn't realistic. I'm saying that it's a very strange way of blocking damage.
    It's not so strange when the option of putting yourself between an attacker and a target is not available.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also makes Aim when another good archer is around a much worse idea...
    Then don't aim.

  14. - Top - End - #194
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Strain and Tolerance makes Con a very important stat early on. Once you hit level level 9, it suddenly becomes less important as you now have unlimited use first level spells.
    Con modifier vs. primary stat score. Helpful – yes. Very important – no.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Oh, and Cure spells. Infinite healing tends to be a big no, because the idea of limited fights per day becomes a joke when almost your entire party is able to do all their important things as much as they want and has no meaningful HP attrition.
    There comes a point in a legendary hero's career where HP loss should matter only during combat – especially with a specialized healer around. After all, 9th level characters are way passed the scope of capabilities any human has ever possessed.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The spell-points system tends to be prone to frequent NOVA builds, but one way to solve that is with an exponent. For example, have the cost of a spell be 2^SL, so that a 3rd level spell costs 8 SP and a 5th level costs 32 SP. It bloats into arbitrary numbers quickly, but that just makes the lower level spells even more spamable. Granted, bookkeeping suffers when you have four digit numbers to track. One advantage is that a few metamagic feats and AFCs support this, having spell slots combine and split at a 2:1 ratio.
    Worthwhile considering making SP cost as follows:
    SL Cost
    =======
    0 1
    1 3
    2 5
    3 7
    4 10
    5 13
    6 16
    7 20
    8 24
    9 28
    This will limit a level-20 fullcaster to a total of 5 9th level spells... player's choice to squeeze that extra spell over Vancian casters at the expense of burning out all your spell resources.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The change to casting stats make it so that you will have MAD dependant on what you are fighting. If you face very little SR, Wis becomes a dump stat anyway. If you have a focused build that doesn't need a large variety of spells, then you dump Int once you don't need more of it, which will be rather quick. If you use basically no spells with a DC, you dump Cha. But it's build focused dumping, and non-Int casters will likely ignore Int rather quickly. After all, you rarely need dozens of different spells to use when you know what you're going with. The CL based skill ranks is a minor, but important buff. Very much so, although I do have a small problem with Priests getting maxed out Knowledge(Religion) because it makes Int even less important.
    Which means that build strategies are still viable. Sounds desirable to me.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The fixed spell ranges makes sense, and is a good nerf. However, it makes some metamagic even closer to mandatory than ever by making it the only way to out range the high level opponents with mundane ranged options. It also acts as a de facto buff to Arcane Archer style setups, as it makes them longer ranged than basically any other caster.
    If that's your strategy, go for it.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Lowered AoE save-or-suck is always a nice way to screw over the encounter raping caster. You have an immense hate for caster dominance, don't you? Too bad, no matter how much you nerf them and buff the mundane classes, unless you make mundane crafting on par with magic item crafting, casters will be better. Or you make the casters basically useless. No real middle ground. 3.5's basic system is just hostile to magic-mundane parity.
    It's not hate. I'm aiming to narrow the gap between casters and noncasters, and make casters more (and less) than just superior to noncasters in most all aspects.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Boring Metamagic Errata is Boring.
    Care to explain?




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Hateboner for the save-or-suck is showing harder than ever with the introduction of a blanket casting time extender that nerfs the hell out of the more fun and party involved of the three caster archetypes of Summoner-Blaster-Hoser. Because the Hoser-caster still needs their party to actually do the killing.
    Hosers usually hose more than a single opponent at a time. That's very effective.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Meanwhile Summoning, the most time consuming and anti-party archetype, is barely effected at all because most of those spells are already larger than full-round cast times...
    That's why the capacity of what you can summon has been drastically narrowed down.
    I remember playing Icewind Dale II, back at the days where I had time for PC games. In the encounter with the summoner, if you didn't kill him relatively at the beginning of the encounter, you had no chance of surviving.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also, nerfing Concentration spells into the ground by preventing you from casting non-quicked spells while they're up and making casting defensively all-but-impossible.
    Relying on Concentration should be an act of desperation, when your combat strategy fails, not and almost guaranteed safety net.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Your nerf to magic propelled flight doesn't solve the main problem with it: If the caster has longer range than those attacking them, they can just float above enemies and rain doom from above. Melee foes will never hit them, and ranged attackers need to deal with large range accuracy penalties.
    1. Range weapons usually have the superior reach in these rules.
    2. Melee characters w/o some range backup are idiots that deserve to die.
    3. Full BAB classes have high hit probabilities, given high combat ability scores and plenty of means to up their attack bonuses.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    ...That nerf to summoning does rather little in practice to a skilled player, makes little sense, and ultimately just seems to be another part of an attempt to prevent casters from doing anything significant on their own, which is quite decidedly not able to work with the lore of many settings.
    Fullcasters have a very wide array of build options and in-game options. I say let them sweat figuring their combat strategies and tactics.
    You said it yourself: an experienced player...
    If you can fly, teleport, summon, polymorph, detonate etc. no reason why you would also be more powerful than noncasters without even trying.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    This nerf is clearly an out-of-universe construction to cripple casters, rather than part of any in-universe fact of magic. The closest to an in-universe reason for this is only being able to maintain one set of telepathic links, which still doesn't work because Charm and Dominate don't run on telepathic links, they run on infusing magic into the target's mind that forces the target to obey.
    They run on you actively imposing your will over someone.
    You might have a point about charming (worth considering), but not domination.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    A sensible nerf to Polymorph cheese. Granted, it does little for Druids getting their Wildshape on, so it still leaves Druids with a class feature that is a significant chunk of another entire class when built around.
    Sure, Wild Shape is awesome, but with Natural Spell gone, it's far more manageable.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Good way to nerf some of the worst spells in the game, but what save is used for the effects on the Word type spells? Kinda important...
    Good point. Probably Will.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Mentioning Reversable Spells as two spells that do opposite things being one spell to learn brings up the option of making new spells that are Reverses of existing spells. Also, makes Int even less important for casters who know what they're getting for their build.
    Which means that build strategies are still viable. Sounds desirable to me.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Spells don't grant temporary training, but they can grant temporary physical and mental changes! Quite a few feats, skills and class abilities can be replicated by a change in physique or mentality, no training necessary!
    Then use that.
    I have no problem with ability boosts gaining the same outcome as feats whose sole purpose is stat boosting. That's not an acquired training/practice.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Celerity just need a 'no casting' clause to stop the action economy abuse that makes it so horrible.
    Sounds acceptable to me, but then their level is too high, because fullcasters can't do a lot with their action economy if spellcasting is not an option.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Transmutation and Enchantment. Physical and mental changes can, in fact, make those changes. Stick a melee only tag on those spells, rather than banning them.
    Not sure what you refer to here.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    All I can think of with 'Call Outer Plains' is being able to pick a devil to make a deal with... Quite nasty, I agree, but not nearly bad enough to get a ban. Just make it only messages, and restrict to calling outer plains you are within one alignment step of. Then it's just a way for characters to call up Outsiders they have a sizeable chance of running into when they die.
    The ban is because this spell can become a headache to manage.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Glibness needs a nerf, not a ban, unless the ban falls under the 'no training' clause.
    That.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    9th level spells are at the point where being mortal is largely optional already. See Wish for example. In fact, your Wish nerf is a good way to nerf Genesis, perhaps turning Genesis into an explicit option of Wish. Besides, the only difference between making a Bag of Holding and using Genesis is size and the fact that Genesis is free standing. Seriously, the fluff is that a Bag of Holding's creation technically involves making a tiny demi-plane. It's basically a permanent Rope Trick in miniature. Genesis is a permanent Rope Trick made bigger.
    Reminder: Bag of Holding being a dimensional anything is banned in these rules (see the bottom of the spellcasting rules).




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Removal of redundant spells is redundant.
    It's not that they're redundant – it's that they make no sense mechanically within these rules, or they physically have no functionality.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Given that Righteous Might is basically Enlarge Person and an alignment bypassed DR at 4 SL above Enlarge Person, I don't see the point of the restriction.
    This ban comes from a thematic standpoint, not for balance issues.
    Righteous Might simply spells out "Paladin" to me.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Your rope trick ban seems rooted in real life logic and sensibilities, which rarely apply to magic. Your hateboner for casters is showing once more. Magic is concept based, not really logic based. Granted, the whole 'outside the normal Planes' thing is crazy, but it need only be worded in terms of Genesis.
    1. Realism – no. Verisimilitude – yes. I'm not comfortable with a 3rd level spellcaster (practically a novice) tearing a sustainable hole in the fabric of space.
    2. It's so fraggin Disney.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Shadow spells are one of those things that is really only nasty in the surroundings. And just how bad is a nerfed Anyspell? Seriously, if you're going to bomb these, get rid of Anyspell because Anyspell is a better version of these. Yes, the things are crazy versatile, but you don't need a blanket ban on them because they already have saves, lowered effect against those who fail the save, which implies the nerf of their effect against non-Illusion subject targets, and the spells are generally just heavily nerfed versions of Anyspell.
    I'll give it a thought.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Astral Projection nerf does nothing impressive to casters who know what they're doing. Half hit dice isn't that bad, even if it comes with halved class level, because it's getting things done without real risk of harm. Sure, it's a big nerf, but you underestimate the power of being able to Fireball someone from a very safe place.
    Just saying that if you can do things safely – you're not gonna do it at full capacity. It's enough for accomplishing a lot of goals, just not those that require the full scope of your abilities.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Disintegrate has quite good utility from being able to Disintegrate inanimate and formerly-animate objects. For example, Disintegrating a chunk of wall, or the corpse of a dragon the party killed without the caster getting to finish it off with a Disintegrate. Why would it work on Constructs but not the still-magical remains of a Dragon? Why do a nerf that has only out-of-combat and siege effects?
    No argument there. All I said is that the target has to be dead for the effect to actually disintegrate it. Allows unconscious/dying targets to still survive the spell. That's all.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Slight buff with a slight nerf to Dominate Person. A save every day isn't important if you kill them before they get that save, after all.
    The point of dominating someone is not to kill them.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    That nerf to Explosive Runes makes little sense. A more sensible nerf would be something like stacking Explosive Runes requires a Spellcraft check of 2* the number of stacks of Explosive Runes, and have a limit of half caster level on the Explosive Runes, with a failed check setting off a number of stacks based on how much you failed by. As you wrote it, it's actually more powerful in some situations because it turns into a good way to set up a repeating trap on the cheap. Sure, it's not NOVA damage, but it's basically constant damage when done right.
    Once the writing blows up in your face, you have the option of closing your eyes or just looking away.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Personally, that Fly nerf makes me just think 'Oh, I need Slow Fall available, so what?.'
    No biggie if you're conscious... deadly otherwise.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Gate nerf is bypassed by Dominate Monster. Provided one ignores the frankly nonsensical minionmancer nerf that has cross-school casting limits.
    1. Not sure what's the "cross-school casting limits" you're talking about.
    2. Dominate Monster is another 9th level spell that has to overcome the powerful monster you're trying to get on your side.


    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Greater Shout seems like it's buff is a solution to a pet peeve of a lot of people. Is the nullification lasting? If so, it lets you make tunnels to shoot Shouts through.
    Nullify > Suppress.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You nerfed Magic Missile's one thing, then gave it a much more valuable thing as a trade off. Have you no idea of how important the auto-hit Force damage is to getting through some enemies? You got rid of one of the most important ways to deal with AC bloat in the game after introducing several more ways to bloat AC past what it used to be and made it into a way to blatantly ignore one of the few ways to lock down casters in 3.5...
    1. Touch AC << regular AC.
    2. No more standalone offensive / defensive plusses. Magic Vestment/Fang/Weapon only works once.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You really don't have a good grasp on how 3.5 tends to work, do you? You turned Magic Missile into the go-to for anti-Dragon spells, thanks to Metamagic stacking.
    The most you can squeeze out of it is maximized 150% by making it a 7th level spell. I have no problem with that.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Why, exactly, can't Creation spells make mundane acids and poisons? A much more sensible nerf is to make a Craft check for Alchemical things to see if you get the detail right, and leave the mundane stuff alone, or require a Knowledge or Alchemy check related to the substance. Mundane, non-Alchemy acids and poisons aren't a big enough threat to be anything more than crowd clearing of stuff that the party ought to be able to wreck with no effort anyways. Basically, instead of 'No making these' as a nerf, do 'Roll to see if you can make it, then roll to see how much,' with the 'how much' being either a separate Knowledge/Alchemy check or a Spellcraft check,
    The idea is acceptable... the description is vague.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Did you give Divine casters early access to Planeshift, while turning it into a 'does Plot things' spell? It makes sense, but it's so... off... on a reflex level.
    What "early access" are we talking about?




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I can't think of any Disney movies that have a plot centred on having living creatures being turned into plants or inanimate objects, except maybe Beauty and the Beast, which I'd accept under this as Constructs are not inanimate objects, and Constructs are closer to some living creatures than inanimate objects. Especially if you consider Elementals to be in the 'living creature' category. HD limit is a standard thing for you, it seems...
    Polymorph Any Object refers to CR or HD.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    In the case of Prismatic Wall/Sphere, that's a mostly sensible nerf. Needs more specification as to how it all works out, because my critique of knowledge based mages needing concrete, fundamental in-universe rules to stop them from making broken as hell spells still applies here.
    What specification do you find missing?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Is there a metaphysical thing that stops Prismatic Wall/Sphere from getting the Friend or Foe Recognition so many other spells have? Maybe a brief blurb on the somewhat chaotic mix of energies preventing proper caster protection.
    What "so many other spells"?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Protection From Arrows ought to have a bit about giving a tiny bonus to Dodge and Reflex for boulder-dodging purposes, as it still nudges it slightly. Maybe have a weight or base damage based limit to projectile size that can be deflected.
    Ok. I'll think about the details for this one.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Reincarnate is specifically meant to be cheating age limits, you fool! And Last Breath is still a perfectly viable option for cheating age limits! Boost the SL of Reincarnate or give limits like needing a list of reagents including at least three different creature types of body parts.
    Ok. I see what you mean. Removed reference to Reincarnate.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Why do you hate turning into Constructs so much? You can just make the creature require an Int score to be Shapechange-okay, allowing Awakened versions to be targetable, bumping up the HD. This also removes some small amount of undead cheese, which you seem to ignore.
    Constructs are extremely flexible under the rules of magic items creation and cost a lot on purpose (we'll get there later on). Spells being a shortcut to construct abilities would be far worse than polymorph into other creatures.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The odd nerf to Shield makes less sense than the Magic Missile nerf. Especially if Shield gives a Deflection bonus. Just make the auto-negate end the spell. Or only apply to a limited number of Missiles.
    That's definitely an acceptable solution.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Spider Climb just makes you get a climb speed equal to your move speed right? Seems like a second level spell, given the numeric value of the effect when it applies. It completely negates a Skill, after all.
    Good point. Removed reference to Spider Climb.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Time Stop nerf here seems like it ought to come with a SL reduction, because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead of having only Personal range spells, have it so that spells can only effect things in the area of effect. It lets you have the normal amount of time to buff up allies, they get to prep themselves, and it's internally consistent. Alternatively, nix the AoE and return to the uber-Haste with the Personal-only spells so that the ally buffing removal part of the nerf is there and makes sense.
    Time Stop hasting to ridiculous speed means something that not even the gods themselves have answer for. With my interpretation, divine entities being immune to Time Stop makes perfect sense.
    To make possible the scenario of a high level entity stopping time and conversing with someone, it could be reasonable to allow an optional casting that exempts a single creature from the effect and make it last 1 minute – at the cost of negating spellcasting altogether and ending if either of them exits the AoE.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    This rock-to-mud nerf makes me wonder just what kind of stuff these spells are doing. Mud is not that hard to move through without some very odd things going on. Especially with the days to dry situation, and the uncut/unworked restriction.
    It's a no-save cripple. You can't chase, you can't run away. I don't like no-save cripples being so effective. At least with my interpretation very strong creatures can reduce the spell's effectiveness – which is still quite effective in cutting their speed by half.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    True Seeing nerf is big nerf. Makes it very hard to use because quite a few adventure modules don't include CLs for effects that typically won't need them. Also invalidates it's use as a way to ignore higher-level illusions. Illusions don't do much.
    I see no problem with what you're describing. 5th SL is not an appropriate level for total immunity.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Vision nerf just seems to be scrying hate. Granted, the higher certainty and information is rather impressive, but it's hardly a story breaker. Unless the person or object is present, but I do believe a story breaker power list is well overdue anyway.
    As explained, compare it to Legend Lore. Such a gap merits at least 2 SLs diff. if in your campaign it's ok to have Legend Lore as a 5th level spell, that's manageable as well.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Wall nerfs ought to just be durations added, with a giveaway of some kind. Granted, the disappearing pieces works well as a 'give away.' Oh, and does this make the Somantic component miming out a wall?
    This would make Wall of Iron inferior to Wall of Stone, because iron is susceptible to rusting effects.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Removal of Friend or Foe recognition on Wail of the Banshee makes it much more of a double edged sword.
    I'm ok with a tool that can kill multiple targets (no HD/CR limit) in a single round being a double edged sword. The caster has control over when to cast it and where to aim it.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Wind Wall is strong enough to deflect Eagles in flight and rip thing out of hands with such force that it's a reflex save, not a strength check. It is quite definitively past 'severe wind.' It also happens to work by directing the arrow or bolt upwards. It's impossible to get an arrow or bolt through because of real physical obstacles involved. You can't aim through impossible to determine winds that actively counter your shots. Up the SL if it's a problem.
    The problem I have with this spell is that it's a range immunity that doesn't hinder the caster's range power.
    It makes range encounters totally one-sided.
    If the wall directs arrow upwards, then it's only reasonable that aiming at the caster's feet could end up in his face, no?

  15. - Top - End - #195
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    If you're a sword and shield Dwarf Fighter in heavy armor, don’t put your resources on Dex. There are martial strategies other than sword and shield in heavy armor you know.
    The point is that extremely low Dex characters can end up attacking enough times that the 5' step after each attack is actually faster than a normal Move action.

    There are only two or three immediate spell that target opponents at all, and their consequences are mild, so there's little to no difference between two and three.
    I was thinking more in terms of obscure nonsense that can be used to get off normally standard action spells as immediate actions...

    Short sword, AFAIK.
    Short Sword isn't a Monk weapon.

    I don't want to start an entire debate on tridents. Let's just agree that not every hit is an impalement, and I'll think of how to make it less conveniently frequent.

    Try to wield a 2-inch staff with a half-inch steel core and tell me how wieldy it is.
    About as wieldy as a greatsword, which rarely gets past 6 pounds.

    Still need to think if I'm ok with it being martial.
    Dude, it's a punch driven weapon based on a Simple weapon with a change of damage type and dice size.

    1. Certain Amazon tribes efficiently use long blowguns from 200-yards distance.
    2. No argument that poison is the main issue with blowguns.
    3. Hence an exotic weapon. You need to train your lungs for such activity.
    4. Armors have chinks and areas they don't protect.
    1. Compared to the lethal range of arrows coming in at almost 1000 yards.
    2. Good to know that you recognize the near-uselessness of them without poison.
    3. Breathing heavily is not exactly a hard skill. It's more that it's just weird for Europeans.
    4. Not heavy clothing, or properly constructed leather. Those have only face holes.

    Yes, but one that people tend to miss or forget about, because those books are usually not collected for the equipment they specify.
    I dig through equipment sections... It's how I found the Tekko Kagi, usable as weapon or buckler.

    It's of little significance if it's specified as a variant or a different weapon. The outcome is identical.
    *points at weapon focus tree*
    Counting as a separate weapon is a big deal for Fighters.

    W/o TWF feat, your attack roles using that style go subterranean. What can I say... whatever rocks your boat
    No change in feat layout from normal TWF Fighter, but some rather significant bonuses.

    They're easier to conceal, harder to characterize as weapon and can penetrate holes that a shuriken cannot.
    Those are IRL things, nothing in their crunch makes that important. Even just a bonus to hiding them as a weapon would make having them separate mean something important.

    Ok. Specify the 4 nerfs that bother you the most (and why + alternatives), in order and we'll discuss them.
    1. Full-BAB classes got massively bloated Touch AC while the capacity to actually bypass it for casters is nerfed to hell. You made anything outside of direct damage almost impossible to use correctly, yet direct damage magic is some of the narrowest use stuff magic users get.
    2. Casters get a bundle of nerfs that have little to in-universe validity, because people don't like limits and would not use spells with crippling limits. If there's a one-link-limit on telepathy, then spells will be made to not need that link. Your nerf ignores established settings, which explicitly require the use of tactics the nerfs make impossible. Armies of undead fall under your minionmancer nerf, yet they are part of so many settings that not having ways to pull it off in-game is a rather large plothole. How about instead of making blanket nerfs that make the mere practicality of entire classes utterly ruined, you instead force proper specialization on the overgeneralized classes?
    3. The magic item setup is utter nonsense. Instead of keeping the spells to enhancements relation intact, you instead completely removed the foundation of the magic item system in normal 3.5, which was quite well balanced. Seriously, AC stacking from items was from the fact that there were so many types of AC, not from basic enhancement bonuses. Off the basic bonuses, the best you get pre-Epic is +10 to AC, 5 from armor, 5 from shield. The fact of the matter is that you stripped away something for arbitrary replacement, making new problems in place of the single one you removed, which is only an issue in games that will allow egregious exploits to see play. A +5 costs 50,000 GP. The items spammed by high end characters are either specific game breakers, break the WBL cap or are only bad when stacked up in ways that are so very easy for GMs to excuse denying access to.
    4. If you are introducing new classes made to work with this system, why bother including so many nerfs to the core classes when you can just integrate those nerfs into the classes made to work in this utterly warped environment? A lot of classes from WotC in 3.5 will just stop working in this. The Monk in particular gets insane buffs from the fact that magic items are almost nonfunctional and BAB and Dex are now the main source of AC. Instead of making most magic user archetypes basically impossible to actually play, why not integrate some way around those issues into the classes made to be balanced in this utterly insane derivative of 3.5? Like full school restrictions for magic users to hard lock them into a build at chargen.

    I'll need to asses on a case-by-case basis.
    The two main ones are Shield and Mage Armor, but there are a few other things to keep track of that I can't name off the top of my head.

    And still, dodge AC and Ref saves are different mechanics.
    Basically, dodge AC is vs. incoming attacks you can anticipate. Ref saves represent your ability to react to thins you don't anticipate and usually doesn’t have specific intention to target you.
    And knowing how to dodge when being faced with a half-dozen attacks in all of six seconds is also not much room for anticipation. Oh, and several of the Ref save things are rather obvious in their preparation, like a Dragon's Breath Weapon, or Fireballs. Which, contrary to OotS, actually do have a travelling projectile.

    Which is?...
    Being able to have more than one set of minions, being able to cast more than one of a spell per round (Well, Haste still covers that), generally being able to actually stand on their own... PCs are the sort who warp settings, by definition. Look at the power difference between Warriors, the NPC class, and Fighters, a direct PC equivalent. Your system seems made for game balance, not for actual proper setting function. Liches, the BBEG you build campaigns around, use Wizard or Sorcerer or Cleric levels for their casting. By making casters incapable of standing on their own, you directly make Liches a joke because Liches use the exact same mechanics as the casters you are nerfing so much. When a level 11 Fighter can wreck a level 21 Lich, you've screwed up bad.

    It bypasses SR on the merit of being a force effect, not according to SL.
    So now all Force effects ignore SR? That's a rather nasty thing to say, because it makes some once-useless spells quite effective at murdering things with SR.

    Fair enough for core 3.5. I'm just not using that approach – with all the motivations given. Either use my interpretation or ignore it, whatever suites you.
    You do realize that crits are a staple of how quite a lot of things work in 3.5, right? Removing them actually destroys the function of a lot of things, scattered between WotC products, third party publishers and homebrew. You aren't just overhauling 3.5, you are doing changes larger than the change between 2nd and 3rd edition when it comes to how the game actually plays.


    I don't see how "to-hit" has anything to do with Gaze attacks. Even auto-hit spells are a form of attack. It's basically a figure of speech.
    One of the things you typed out made gaze attacks have a -1 to-hit. It might have been worded differently, but that's what it amounted to.

    Sure thing, if you don't mind limiting yourself to a single range attack per round.

    Which Aim makes completely irrelevant by making one attack with all your damage and improved hit chance a thing. This is quite a lot better than something that is a 6 BAB Feat in PF, to get an idea of how strong Aim is.

    Putting all your money on a single weapon that can be sundered/disarmed/stolen/lost/confiscated is bad strategy… but, whatever works for you.
    Which is invalidated by the variety of item protections that are included in 3.5, often used by Liches to make their highly important phylactery harder to break.

    That doesn't mean that the end has to be irrevocably lethal.
    Also remember that HP are an abstraction.
    Yes, HP are an abstraction, but when someone is getting two-hit-killed anyway, why bother having them get an ultimately easy to bypass debuff when you can just cancel that second hit and save time?

    I allow myself to overlook such edge cases, where benefit doesn't offset management.
    Fair enough, it's a tiny fringe case that really doesn't make sense with it's existence anyway.

    "This added damage doesn't count as damage multiplier, but it does count as precision damage"
    That's a double-restriction.
    I'm still ok with how things even out.
    So, no multiple projectiles and it's useless against Constructs, Undead and generally anything with Sneak Attack immunity? Why bother having it, again?

    But not with particularly large opponents.
    You do realize that the massive Str scores you let happen do still add to grapple, right?

    No crits means a lot less damage multiplication means insta-kills become less frequent.
    Actually, uberchargers are so powerful they can reliably kill dragons without crits. Provided they land the hits and manage to get off the charge. Your extra 1/3 Str-to-damage on two handed weapons actually makes them stronger.

    Yes.
    It's a significant bonus because it makes slaughtering groups a LOT easier for Uberchargers. Sure, it's one attack per round, but when that attack probably deals about twice your max HP...

    Ubercharging is relatively easy to cope with.
    Does over 1,000 damage in one hit sound easy to cope with? That's the kind of numbers that well made uberchargers can dish out.

    Different build strategies have different strengths and different weaknesses, so? I see no problem here
    When a chunk of your mechanics mean basically nothing because the specifically contradict existing rules that they don't override and are mostly irrelevant anyway, you've messed up somewhere.

    Seriously, RAW and RAI both have class text overruling core rules when conflicts come up. Your change to casting mechanics flatly does not work with some classes. Sorcerer comes to mind, due to already having a spells known table to override your system change. And that's not mentioning the specialized casters made utterly useless by your nerfs... *points at Dread Necromancer*

    AFAIK, Armor Spikes are an extra, not a weapon in and on itself. If you know any different, do share.
    Actually, rules text specifically mentions putting weapon enhancements on them. It's a popular option for Defending, so that you can squeeze another +5 bonus out of basic item enhancements without using up valuable enhancement space on it for something you actually use as a weapon.

    It's not so strange when the option of putting yourself between an attacker and a target is not available.
    Didn't one of your added things make that an option?

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The point is that extremely low Dex characters can end up attacking enough times that the 5' step after each attack is actually faster than a normal Move action.
    Spell it out for me in concrete examples please.
    And notice in my next reply that I suggested to limit the number of 5' steps to the number of BAB-derived base attacks, ignoring extra attacks.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    I was thinking more in terms of obscure nonsense that can be used to get off normally standard action spells as immediate actions...
    Such as...



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Short Sword isn't a Monk weapon.
    Ok, I can live with that. Siangham is back on.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    About as wieldy as a greatsword, which rarely gets past 6 pounds.
    There's a correct technique of wielding a greatsword, nicely demonstrated in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (the magnificent girl vs. girl duel).
    There's no similar technique for a heavy staff. Take my word for it, I know a thing or two about martial arts.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1. Compared to the lethal range of arrows coming in at almost 1000 yards.
    No human propelled arrow has ever reached 500 yards (even if this article is credible).
    Reliably hitting a target 120 yards away counts as a nigh inhuman feat (achieved by a handful of of samurai bow masters).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    *points at weapon focus tree*
    Counting as a separate weapon is a big deal for Fighters.
    Ok, it's a separate weapon then. it shouldn't even be finessable, even though it's light, because it doesn't have the same balanced construction of a rapier.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    No change in feat layout from normal TWF Fighter, but some rather significant bonuses.
    Ok, what would you suggest then? (other than nixing it, which I state in advance that I'll reject).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Those are IRL things, nothing in their crunch makes that important. Even just a bonus to hiding them as a weapon would make having them separate mean something important.
    1. So why are you against them?
    2. Where I'm coming from, crunch alone is not the whole story.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1. Full-BAB classes got massively bloated Touch AC
    Offset by them no longer being able to pile up magical protections.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    while the capacity to actually bypass it for casters is nerfed to hell.
    Where did you see that?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You made anything outside of direct damage almost impossible to use correctly, yet direct damage magic is some of the narrowest use stuff magic users get.
    Are you absolutely sure about what you're saying?
    What about Enchantments, terrain modifiers, barriers, polymorph, minions, debuffs...



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    2. Casters get a bundle of nerfs that have little to in-universe validity, because people don't like limits and would not use spells with crippling limits.
    I'll need details here, because I'm not sure what you're referring to.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    If there's a one-link-limit on telepathy, then spells will be made to not need that link.
    1. I don't remember imposing such a restriction myself.
    2. What do you mean by the the bolded text?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Your nerf ignores established settings, which explicitly require the use of tactics the nerfs make impossible. Armies of undead fall under your minionmancer nerf, yet they are part of so many settings that not having ways to pull it off in-game is a rather large plothole. How about instead of making blanket nerfs that make the mere practicality of entire classes utterly ruined, you instead force proper specialization on the overgeneralized classes?
    1. Blanket rules are important for having a manageable number of rules.
    2. CL x 2 is not enogh for you? And then you have the option of relinquishing control over your minions and let them run amok on the poor adventurers while you establish control over other minions (. . . and repeat).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    3. The magic item setup is utter nonsense. Instead of keeping the spells to enhancements relation intact, you instead completely removed the foundation of the magic item system in normal 3.5, which was quite well balanced.
    Magic item system in normal 3.5 is arbitrary, unformulated and is just too damn easy. It's what brought up the magic mart syndrome.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Seriously, AC stacking from items was from the fact that there were so many types of AC, not from basic enhancement bonuses.
    6 rings of protection! Need I say more?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Off the basic bonuses, the best you get pre-Epic is +10 to AC, 5 from armor, 5 from shield.
    Armore, shield, deflection, morale, sacred... need I say more?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The fact of the matter is that you stripped away something for arbitrary replacement
    My formula is anything but arbitrary.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    , making new problems in place of the single one you removed, which is only an issue in games that will allow egregious exploits to see play.
    1. What new problems?
    2. Single one? Prove it. I'm assuming you haven't been visiting the char-op forums very oftenly.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    A +5 costs 50,000 GP.
    Yes, but by RAW you can spam 5 (or more) +2s with ease.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    4. If you are introducing new classes made to work with this system, why bother including so many nerfs to the core classes when you can just integrate those nerfs into the classes made to work in this utterly warped environment? A lot of classes from WotC in 3.5 will just stop working in this.
    None of the 3.5 classes exist in these settings.
    None of any other systems' classes exist in these settings.
    The proposed classes are the classes of these settings.
    I never claimed that any of the 3.5 classes could function decently in this system. Click the second item in my sig if you wish to see my proposal for fixing 3.5 within the system (which I think does a rather decent job). That's not the purpose of this overhaul.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The Monk in particular gets insane buffs from the fact that magic items are almost nonfunctional and BAB and Dex are now the main source of AC.
    The core Monk – using official rules – has a higher AC potential than my proposed Monk.
    Putting Dex & Wis bonuses aside (they work the same in both systems)…
    - My Monk gets +12 over the core Monk by merit of leveling. Sure, that's nothing to scoff at, but...
    - 3.5 Monk gets stacking bonuses and multi-type bonuses via magical gear and magical effects, not to mention stat boosting via tomes.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Instead of making most magic user archetypes basically impossible to actually play
    You still haven't validated that claim with concrete specifications.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    why not integrate some way around those issues into the classes made to be balanced in this utterly insane derivative of 3.5? Like full school restrictions for magic users to hard lock them into a build at chargen.
    1. "this utterly warped environment"... "this utterly insane derivative of 3.5"... You're shouting man.
    2. I'm letting players choose the school restrictions of their mage, but those restrictions exist (unless you're ok with having a vanilla and inferior generalist mage – which is also a valid choice).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The two main ones are Shield and Mage Armor, but there are a few other things to keep track of that I can't name off the top of my head.
    Mage Armor is an armor made of force – the very definition of deflection.
    Ditto on Shield.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And knowing how to dodge when being faced with a half-dozen attacks in all of six seconds is also not much room for anticipation.
    I'm getting an impression that your martial arts knowledge is lacking



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Oh, and several of the Ref save things are rather obvious in their preparation, like a Dragon's Breath Weapon, or Fireballs. Which, contrary to OotS, actually do have a travelling projectile.
    A travelling projectile that goes "boom" upon impact, acting as a wide-are-effect granade.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Being able to have more than one set of minions, being able to cast more than one of a spell per round (Well, Haste still covers that), generally being able to actually stand on their own... PCs are the sort who warp settings, by definition. Look at the power difference between Warriors, the NPC class, and Fighters, a direct PC equivalent.
    1. You can actually cast as many as 3 spells per round – 1 standard action, 1 swift action, 1 immediate action. No conflict (provided you're not using spells that had their casting time elevated to full round action or longer). You just need to make sure your enemy doesn't catch you in a particularly vulnerable position after you've acted.
    2. Being able to have more than one set of minions is fine – just not simultaneously. That's why not all of them horde adventurers all at once.
    3. If a fullcaster can go toe to toe with a martial character – unprepared and within melee reach, then what's the point of being a noncaster?
    4. I handwave NPCs as distinct classes. I scoff at the very notion.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Your system seems made for game balance, not for actual proper setting function. Liches, the BBEG you build campaigns around, use Wizard or Sorcerer or Cleric levels for their casting. By making casters incapable of standing on their own, you directly make Liches a joke because Liches use the exact same mechanics as the casters you are nerfing so much. When a level 11 Fighter can wreck a level 21 Lich, you've screwed up bad.
    1 word: strategy.
    Liches plan ahead for centuries. They're not some wandering monster.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    So now all Force effects ignore SR? That's a rather nasty thing to say, because it makes some once-useless spells quite effective at murdering things with SR.
    Then be a forcemance if that works for you.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You do realize that crits are a staple of how quite a lot of things work in 3.5, right? Removing them actually destroys the function of a lot of things, scattered between WotC products, third party publishers and homebrew. You aren't just overhauling 3.5, you are doing changes larger than the change between 2nd and 3rd edition when it comes to how the game actually plays.
    3e introduced crits and you'r saying that crits alone pose more that the total change from AD&D to 3e? Sorry, that math is beyond my comprehension.
    Ok, now that we got sarcasm out of the way, I'll state that I just proposed a more gradual and manageable alternative to crits. My crit-substitution is just a tweaked form of crits.
    What do you mean by "destroys the function of a lot of things"?
    Also, in the context of these rules, I don't give a rat's ass about third party publishers and homebrew. I could draw ideas from them, but I'm not bound by them.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    One of the things you typed out made gaze attacks have a -1 to-hit. It might have been worded differently, but that's what it amounted to.
    "the check to resist is made only once, with a cumulative -1 penalty for each individual beyond the first."
    Mummies being the specific example for fear effect in question



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Which Aim makes completely irrelevant by making one attack with all your damage and improved hit chance a thing. This is quite a lot better than something that is a 6 BAB Feat in PF, to get an idea of how strong Aim is.
    1. It is relevant when you have an appropriate target.
    2. Range-focussed martial characters were never impressed by attack penalties, so iteratives carry a strong punch as well.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Which is invalidated by the variety of item protections that are included in 3.5, often used by Liches to make their highly important phylactery harder to break.
    What does that have to do with an adventurer adopting the strategy of putting all his money on a single weapon? Care to connect the dots for me?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Yes, HP are an abstraction, but when someone is getting two-hit-killed anyway, why bother having them get an ultimately easy to bypass debuff when you can just cancel that second hit and save time?
    Sorry, I completely lost your trail of thought.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    So, no multiple projectiles and it's useless against Constructs, Undead and generally anything with Sneak Attack immunity? Why bother having it, again?
    Because some of the targets are susceptible, and because you wish to start off with that one big strike (which is a valid and frequent tactic IRL).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You do realize that the massive Str scores you let happen do still add to grapple, right?
    Yes, but you can't gain an advantage in grapple vs. an opponent 2-sizes larger than yourself. At best you can only prevent the other side from gaining an advantage over you.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Actually, uberchargers are so powerful they can reliably kill dragons without crits. Provided they land the hits and manage to get off the charge. Your extra 1/3 Str-to-damage on two handed weapons actually makes them stronger.
    . . .
    It's a significant bonus because it makes slaughtering groups a LOT easier for Uberchargers. Sure, it's one attack per round, but when that attack probably deals about twice your max HP...
    . . .
    Does over 1,000 damage in one hit sound easy to cope with? That's the kind of numbers that well made uberchargers can dish out.
    I need to see how you can actually manipulate these rules to produce such ridiculous amounts of damage.
    I can't correct what I can't see.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Actually, rules text specifically mentions putting weapon enhancements on them. It's a popular option for Defending, so that you can squeeze another +5 bonus out of basic item enhancements without using up valuable enhancement space on it for something you actually use as a weapon.
    1. Being able to put weapon enhancements on them doesn't turn them into a martial weapon.
    2. you're using mechanics that I changed from the core (magic item creation) to argue against these rules.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Didn't one of your added things make that an option?
    Not to my recollection (but maybe I missed something that could be implied from something I've written).
    Last edited by nonsi; 2016-12-10 at 01:33 AM.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Cool, glad we got that figured out. I'm not sure how to word your "angle" consideration, though I see what you're trying to do, and I'd be happy to check a wording you come up with for abuses. I just removed angles entirely and use a pure count of how many creatures are threatening you, which is drastically simpler. I'd also contend it's not that much less realistic, but that's sort of a matter of taste.
    1. I get your motivation. I just find it difficult to consider someone in a room corner counted as flanked just because he's facing 2 opponents.
    2. It actually took a very small change. You can assess for yourself.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    I mean, I have a hard time thinking of literature that uses the equivalent of daily resources; most fantasy I've read connects magic to either fatigue (mental or physical) or physical objects (such as the excellent Mistborn series). But I take your point.
    I just regard daily resource depletion as mental fatigue. This seems to me like a reasonable reconciliation between fantasy literature and fantasy RPG. It's not perfect, but it's the best I can think of.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    In simple terms, I'd want the optimal magic item strategy to be close to the "obvious" magic item strategy: that is, one item per slot (or, in lieu of body slots, some other mechanic saying "this is how many items you should have"), with unslotted items being limited in power or scope. Rise does this by establishing a new "item use" daily resource shared between all characters. Using an active ability from any magic item consumes one of your daily item uses. This attacks the christmas tree effect somewhat indirectly; with that system, even if you had no body slot limitations, it would be suboptimal to have a myriad of random items, because you couldn't use all of their effects. Rise still uses body slots, but they serve a slightly different purpose.
    An interesting approach.
    How does a character in Rise know s/he has exhausted/exceeded their "item use" daily resource?



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Conjuration: Your magic can grant the ability to travel between planes, making attacks more difficult. Whenever you teleport or summon a creature, you can cause it to "blink" between its current plane and the Ethereal Plane for 2 rounds. During this time, attacks against that creature have a 20% chance of failure.
    Nice. Since it's a major esoterica, I'll go for the full 50% for 5 rounds and make it applicable to self as well.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Transmutation: Whenever you cast a Transmutation spell on a creature or object, you can grant it damage reduction against physical damage equal to half your caster level with Transmutation spells for 2 rounds.
    Those are verbosely worded, and the "2 round" duration is more of a Rise thing, but maybe that gives ideas?
    I'll go a bit wilder and make it a stacking DR 5/- or energy resistance 15 (chosen energy type between acid/cold/electricity/fire/sonic). This would last for the duration of the effect or 5 rounds (whichever is longer).

    Might seem a lot in both cases, but it is level 16 we're talking about.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    As for Necromancy, it looks like the minor and major esotericas for Necromancy are only useful for the type of necromancer who has an undead army. In my experience not all necromancers actually use a "minion-master" build; there are also necromancers who just like killing things to death with magic. These esotericas strongly encourage all necromancers to be minion masters, which is a more complicated build that can conflict with a typical adventuring party's routine.

    Plus, because they both afffect all undead allies within a large radius, it encourages having as many undead servants as possible. That is unfortunate, because having more servants also scales up the complexity. If they have to buff undead, it would be more manageable if they provided larger buffs to a single undead creature. That would encourage a simpler and more party-friendly build for necromancers where they have a single awesome undead servant, which wouldn't take nearly as much time in and out of combat to manage. Does that make sense?
    I get what you're saying. How about this:
    Minor: 1/2 CL bonus to saves to a single undead ally (self-included if you happen to be one) or 1/4 CL to all allies.
    Major: Fast Healing 10 to a single undead ally (self-included if you happen to be one) or Fast Healing 3 to all undead allies.



    Quote Originally Posted by Vadskye View Post
    Oh, that wasn't intended to be directed at you! A 2-hour drive sounds awful, and I don't begrudge your absence in the slightest. I've been working on Rise for two-odd years now; take as much time as you want, as long as it keeps your interest. And I can solve the 2-column issue, so keep an eye on your inbox!
    Will do, but I wouldn't want you to tax your spare time specifically on my account.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Spell it out for me in concrete examples please.
    And notice in my next reply that I suggested to limit the number of 5' steps to the number of BAB-derived base attacks, ignoring extra attacks.
    As an example, suppose someone with a move speed of 10' makes 4 attacks in one round. They get a 5' step after each attack. So, by attacking, they have managed to move twice their move speed.

    Such as...
    Never seen it, but it probably exists somewhere. The amount of stuff made for 3.5 makes a lot of insane ideas happen.

    There's a correct technique of wielding a greatsword, nicely demonstrated in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (the magnificent girl vs. girl duel).
    There's no similar technique for a heavy staff. Take my word for it, I know a thing or two about martial arts.
    There are proper techniques for wielding two handed hammers weighing over 10 pounds. The change in weight is also not all that important, because it doesn't preclude normal quarterstaff techniques, it just makes them more difficult and a bit slower.

    No human propelled arrow has ever reached 500 yards (even if this article is credible).
    Reliably hitting a target 120 yards away counts as a nigh inhuman feat (achieved by a handful of of samurai bow masters).


    Ok, it's a separate weapon then. it shouldn't even be finessable, even though it's light, because it doesn't have the same balanced construction of a rapier.
    Making it balanced isn't really that hard, given that the only thing that can be imbalanced is the grip, and the curved cane grip is far from universal and not having it isn't suspicious. And finessable weapons are about weight, not balance. Would you call a sickle or a mace a balanced weapon? Both of those are Light and finessable weapons. Dex to-hit is about being able to

    Ok, what would you suggest then? (other than nixing it, which I state in advance that I'll reject).
    Nothing, really. Just pointing out that you made something that adds to versatility for a build that should have almost none.

    1. So why are you against them?
    2. Where I'm coming from, crunch alone is not the whole story.
    Realism is not a good substitute for game design, and having a weapon that is entirely and absolutely inferior to another weapon just to include another weapon that exists in real life is rather bad from a game design perspective. Especially in pen and paper, because it takes up valuable design space with something that has no point in existing mechanically. As opposed to machine-run games, which have the computer do all the bookkeeping.

    Offset by them no longer being able to pile up magical protections.
    Not really, because they can get massive amounts of healing every round quite easily because you removed the one thing holding back custom items from dealing arbitrary damage and healling. Namely, only having one iteration of an enhancement. There's little issue with making a weapon effectively have five stacks of Flaming on it with your crafting setup. You also didn't clarify how Emanating works with spells that have Instantaneous duration, because if it's activating every round, then Eminating Cure Moderate Wounds becomes an atrocity against game balance.

    Where did you see that?
    Save-or-suck, save-or-die, losing the auto hit on magic missile, removing one of the very few ways to cast more spells early on and

    Are you absolutely sure about what you're saying?
    What about Enchantments, terrain modifiers, barriers, polymorph, minions, debuffs...
    One casting of Summon Monster doesn't do much in 3.5 or your setup, and all the terrain modifiers can only be done once per round because of your casting time extension. This makes the actual use of those spells go down the ****ter because many of them only work because you can combo them in the same turn. Putting up a wall to stop the enemies from reaching you also stops the mundane people from attacking because there is now a wall in the way. To get around this basic problem, a lot of players cast an AoE DoT spell, like Cloudkill, before making the wall on the same turn. Other times, they use the walling spell twice in one turn, then twice the next turn to trap the enemies in a box faster than all the enemies can get out. If they can only make one wall per turn and nothing else, then it just delays the game for no real benefit because the wall blocks basically everyone.

    I'll need details here, because I'm not sure what you're referring to.
    If spells have restrictions, the ones who invent spells will make new spells that don't have those restrictions. It becomes more likely the more crippling the restrictions.

    1. I don't remember imposing such a restriction myself.
    2. What do you mean by the the bolded text?
    1. The only in-universe connection between the various minion spells that get restricted is a telepathic link
    2. Wizards and other studious casters invented their spell lists over time. In-universe, you need impossible to break reasons for restrictions or else they are going to invent spells without restrictions.

    1. Blanket rules are important for having a manageable number of rules.
    2. CL x 2 is not enogh for you? And then you have the option of relinquishing control over your minions and let them run amok on the poor adventurers while you establish control over other minions (. . . and repeat).
    The RAW of your nerf to minion making spells makes it look like only one casting of Create Undead can be active. At that point, CLx2 is only 40 1 HD Undead, complete mooks in numbers too small to be a threat.

    Magic item system in normal 3.5 is arbitrary, unformulated and is just too damn easy. It's what brought up the magic mart syndrome.
    And your system makes piling up magic items even easier, it only makes single items less powerful.

    6 rings of protection! Need I say more?
    Impossible due to the limit of item slots or impractically expensive. Also destroyed by your single act of making all magic Deflection bonuses that don't stack.

    Armore, shield, deflection, morale, sacred... need I say more?
    Only Enhancement bonus is basic. That's why I said basic. As in the normal + bonuses.

    My formula is anything but arbitrary.
    Linear progression of cost does not fit with 3.5's exponential progression of power. The difference in power between level 5 and level 6 is rather smaller than the difference in power between level 10 and level 11. The big one, level 20 to level 21, is a change in power rather few can properly understand.

    1. What new problems?
    2. Single one? Prove it. I'm assuming you haven't been visiting the char-op forums very oftenly.
    1. How about making it so that having 10 rings is not only easy
    2. The stuff in the char op forms doesn't see play in games with people who aren't using crazy exploits of the system anyway. The only problem you actually solved with all this that I've seen so far is AC modifiers, because the power of casters has always been that they can do things which basically invalidate the mundane classes. Melee characters are still helpless against casters with Fly, because they still can't reach the caster. To actually balance melee classes with casters, you have to completely remove the existing spell lists and replace them altogether.

    Yes, but by RAW you can spam 5 (or more) +2s with ease.
    And 5 +2s aren't that big, unless you trawl through a large number of source books looking for abilities that stack. Again, 3.5 uses exponential power growth, your setup assumes linear growth. And the issue has never been stacking straight bonuses, it's been stacking abilities, attribute score bonuses, damage modifiers and things that don't stack when you have multiples of them.

    None of the 3.5 classes exist in these settings.
    None of any other systems' classes exist in these settings.
    The proposed classes are the classes of these settings.
    I never claimed that any of the 3.5 classes could function decently in this system. Click the second item in my sig if you wish to see my proposal for fixing 3.5 within the system (which I think does a rather decent job). That's not the purpose of this overhaul.
    Why mention all of those 3.5 things if you don't actually use the classes? Why call it a 3.5 overhaul if your system doesn't actually work with most of the published 3.5 material? Why say this is a 3.5 overhaul when you can't actually use 3.5 monsters for it?

    The core Monk – using official rules – has a higher AC potential than my proposed Monk.
    Putting Dex & Wis bonuses aside (they work the same in both systems)…
    - My Monk gets +12 over the core Monk by merit of leveling. Sure, that's nothing to scoff at, but...
    - 3.5 Monk gets stacking bonuses and multi-type bonuses via magical gear and magical effects, not to mention stat boosting via tomes.
    Most of the differences are from magic items,

    You still haven't validated that claim with concrete specifications.
    Minion making casters need more than one casting of minion making spells to actually be useful.

    1. "this utterly warped environment"... "this utterly insane derivative of 3.5"... You're shouting man.
    2. I'm letting players choose the school restrictions of their mage, but those restrictions exist (unless you're ok with having a vanilla and inferior generalist mage – which is also a valid choice).
    What I'm getting at is having it so that you choose what schools of magic you can use, with almost nothing outside that school or so many penalties that it's not worth using. That is a much less extreme amount of changes

    Mage Armor is an armor made of force – the very definition of deflection.
    Ditto on Shield.
    ...no, the Force effects are solid things. That's why they are able to stop charging melee characters. That's why Force Cage holds them inside.

    I'm getting an impression that your martial arts knowledge is lacking


    A travelling projectile that goes "boom" upon impact, acting as a wide-are-effect granade.
    One that you can still see coming, and can be prepared for if you know what it is.

    1. You can actually cast as many as 3 spells per round – 1 standard action, 1 swift action, 1 immediate action. No conflict (provided you're not using spells that had their casting time elevated to full round action or longer). You just need to make sure your enemy doesn't catch you in a particularly vulnerable position after you've acted.
    2. Being able to have more than one set of minions is fine – just not simultaneously. That's why not all of them horde adventurers all at once.
    3. If a fullcaster can go toe to toe with a martial character – unprepared and within melee reach, then what's the point of being a noncaster?
    4. I handwave NPCs as distinct classes. I scoff at the very notion.
    1. The number of Swift action spells with actual useful effect is tiny because the intended way for casters to use a Swift action with Metamagic, and as such removing that makes casters much less likely to do anything with their Swift actions.
    2. Mook Chivalry is a storytelling trope, not something to integrate into the mechanics that define what is possible in a setting. Especially when the restriction still doesn't apply to the intelligent guards who don't need to be told what to do, and actual kingdom threatening necramancers are supposed to be a thing.
    3. It's not about going toe to toe, it's about being able to do something meaningful. It isn't fun to have your character be unable to do anything because one of the enemies stays on you. If the mage can't do anything when the DM decides to focus down them, them there isn't a point to being a caster. Also, if there is no power difference between a caster and a mundane archer, why ever play a caster in a combat campaign? The archer has a lot better combat power because they can fight in melee to some extent.
    4. PCs are exceptional. PCs have more power than NPCs. This is part of the D&D design philosophy. There's also the matter of the fact that if the regular town guards are as strong as your party members, there is no real reason that there could be things the PCs can handle that the guards can't without getting into. The point of NPC classes is to make it clear that the level one Fighter is still better than the normal town guards in one-on-one combat.

    1 word: strategy.
    Liches plan ahead for centuries. They're not some wandering monster.
    Planning only works for things you can see coming. And when you can actually use your preparations. With the amount of increase to difficulty in casting with a melee opponent present, a Lich caught in melee is basically doomed unless they can outdo the opponent in melee without casting spells, which makes the entire point of being a caster rather than a melee class pointless, or they have some way to move away faster than the opponent can close the gap. Which Charge makes basically impossible.

    3e introduced crits and you'r saying that crits alone pose more that the total change from AD&D to 3e? Sorry, that math is beyond my comprehension.
    Ok, now that we got sarcasm out of the way, I'll state that I just proposed a more gradual and manageable alternative to crits. My crit-substitution is just a tweaked form of crits.
    What do you mean by "destroys the function of a lot of things"?
    No, it's the mix of changing how level progression works, making every single creature need to be reworked to make it work in your system, your removal of the distinction between a lot of weapons and the fact that a lot of abilities on monsters stop working in this system. You changed so many things that 3.5 creatures don't work anymore.

    "the check to resist is made only once, with a cumulative -1 penalty for each individual beyond the first."
    Mummies being the specific example for fear effect in question
    Is the penalty to the target's save, or to the DC of the fear effect? I though that line applied to Gaze attacks, rather than Fear effects.

    1. It is relevant when you have an appropriate target.
    2. Range-focussed martial characters were never impressed by attack penalties, so iteratives carry a strong punch as well.
    That bit was actually about the fact that you mentioned Returning on ammo-type things you only have one of results in only getting one attack per turn, which Aim makes irrelevant when it can be used because it sticks all your damage in one hit. And Aim gives a bonus to hit chance, not a penalty.

    What does that have to do with an adventurer adopting the strategy of putting all his money on a single weapon? Care to connect the dots for me?
    It makes it so that the risk of sticking everything into one item becomes negligible, because it makes it easy to make the weapon nearly impossible to break. Because you can stack protections that alter Hardness and make it harder for spells to work.

    Sorry, I completely lost your trail of thought.
    It's about the fact that if you are killing something in two hits anyway, why waste everyone's time with the second hit? It's a convinced tool.

    Because some of the targets are susceptible, and because you wish to start off with that one big strike (which is a valid and frequent tactic IRL).
    If a mechanic means nothing

    Yes, but you can't gain an advantage in grapple vs. an opponent 2-sizes larger than yourself. At best you can only prevent the other side from gaining an advantage over you.
    And that is made mostly irrelevant by Enlarge Person extending that to 3 sizes above your normal size.

    I need to see how you can actually manipulate these rules to produce such ridiculous amounts of damage.
    I can't correct what I can't see.
    ...a large number of your nerfs are over stuff on the char-op boards, stuff that almost never sees play in games that have people who aren't using it and often ignore WBL restrictions or are stuff at the point of the game where the basic system starts falling apart around casters access to spells that invalidate entire types of encounter, and you don't know how Uberchargers work, one of the few ways to have mundane classes stay relevant in those games where people are optimizing...

    1. Being able to put weapon enhancements on them doesn't turn them into a martial weapon.
    2. you're using mechanics that I changed from the core (magic item creation) to argue against these rules.
    1. How about the fact that they have a weapon entry that says they are Light martial weapons? Seriously, they are actually weapons in the rulebook and have nothing saying that they can't be the choice of Weapon Focus.
    2. You can still stick weapon-based bonuses on them separately from the rest of the armor, and they technically can be sundered separately from the armor.

    Not to my recollection (but maybe I missed something that could be implied from something I've written).
    Block Line of Effect, in the Combat Actions part of the combat rules post.

  19. - Top - End - #199
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    As an example, suppose someone with a move speed of 10' makes 4 attacks in one round. They get a 5' step after each attack. So, by attacking, they have managed to move twice their move speed.
    Ok, but remember that since full attack is at least a standard action, and given that a standard action takes twice as long as a move action, this still falls within acceptable stretch of common sense . . . provided the attacker actually uses iterative attacks - contrary to multi-attack based on natural weapon (and it does eat away at feat slots).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Never seen it, but it probably exists somewhere. The amount of stuff made for 3.5 makes a lot of insane ideas happen.
    I'll worry about that when I see it.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    There are proper techniques for wielding two handed hammers weighing over 10 pounds. The change in weight is also not all that important, because it doesn't preclude normal quarterstaff techniques, it just makes them more difficult and a bit slower.
    Your description actually spells out for me why it should be a martial weapon.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Making it balanced isn't really that hard, given that the only thing that can be imbalanced is the grip, and the curved cane grip is far from universal and not having it isn't suspicious. And finessable weapons are about weight, not balance. Would you call a sickle or a mace a balanced weapon? Both of those are Light and finessable weapons.
    Ok. Acceptable.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Nothing, really. Just pointing out that you made something that adds to versatility for a build that should have almost none.
    "The special benefits of this weapon are applicable only when light loaded and wearing light or no armor"



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Realism is not a good substitute for game design, and having a weapon that is entirely and absolutely inferior to another weapon just to include another weapon that exists in real life is rather bad from a game design perspective. Especially in pen and paper, because it takes up valuable design space with something that has no point in existing mechanically. As opposed to machine-run games, which have the computer do all the bookkeeping.
    1. It is not inferior against opponents more resistible to bludgeoning/slashing weapons.
    2. It's easier to conceal.
    3. It can penetrate narrow holes (which shuriken can't).
    4. Player's vision of his/her character.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Not really, because they can get massive amounts of healing every round quite easily because you removed the one thing holding back custom items from dealing arbitrary damage and healling. Namely, only having one iteration of an enhancement.
    Whaaat?!
    I never said that.
    Either I misworded it or you're misreading it. Either way that wasn't the intention.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    There's little issue with making a weapon effectively have five stacks of Flaming on it with your crafting setup. You also didn't clarify how Emanating works with spells that have Instantaneous duration, because if it's activating every round, then Eminating Cure Moderate Wounds becomes an atrocity against game balance.
    "Instant, changing or exhaustible powers (such as disintegrate, mirror image, quest etc) can't be used to create emanating effects"



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Save-or-suck, save-or-die, losing the auto hit on magic missile, removing one of the very few ways to cast more spells early on and
    I played a low level beguiler once, focusing on SoS effects. I rocked so bad that 2 players retired and the remaining 3 kicked me out for ruining their fun.
    Believe me that I know what I'm talking about when I say that SoS need toning down badly.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    One casting of Summon Monster doesn't do much in 3.5 or your setup
    You may relinquish control and summon/call another monster… and repeat. You just need to stay away from the monster you just released.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    , and all the terrain modifiers can only be done once per round because of your casting time extension.
    Terrain modifiers shaft entire groups.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Putting up a wall to stop the enemies from reaching you also stops the mundane people from attacking because there is now a wall in the way. To get around this basic problem, a lot of players cast an AoE DoT spell, like Cloudkill, before making the wall on the same turn.
    The thing about wall spells is that you cast them at your convenience, probably after casting Stinking Cloud or something – preferably from an elevated position, so that you can finish it off with a wall on the other side one round later (still a very much viable tactic).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Other times, they use the walling spell twice in one turn, then twice the next turn to trap the enemies in a box faster than all the enemies can get out. If they can only make one wall per turn and nothing else, then it just delays the game for no real benefit because the wall blocks basically everyone.
    What about the poor opponents' chance to fight back?
    The game is about more than butchering opponents and collecting their loot – it's about real challenges.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    If spells have restrictions, the ones who invent spells will make new spells that don't have those restrictions. It becomes more likely the more crippling the restrictions.
    Heaven forbid casters would actually need cooperative allies to maximize their combat potential (who cares about teamwork – teamwork's for weaklings).




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The RAW of your nerf to minion making spells makes it look like only one casting of Create Undead can be active. At that point, CLx2 is only 40 1 HD Undead, complete mooks in numbers too small to be a threat.
    You can't control simultaneously – that doesn't mean you can't bring more and more.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And your system makes piling up magic items even easier, it only makes single items less powerful.
    Sure, with elevated price tags and failure chances. How's that making things easier?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Impossible due to the limit of item slots or impractically expensive. Also destroyed by your single act of making all magic Deflection bonuses that don't stack.
    Stay in context, I was arguing RAW.
    3.5 RAW - the ring restriction is 6, and +2 is not all that expensive.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Only Enhancement bonus is basic. That's why I said basic. As in the normal + bonuses.
    Again – in this system there are no more standalone plusses. Plusses have ceased being a measuring tool for anything. I'm quite aware of what I was doing.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Linear progression of cost does not fit with 3.5's exponential progression of power. The difference in power between level 5 and level 6 is rather smaller than the difference in power between level 10 and level 11. The big one, level 20 to level 21, is a change in power rather few can properly understand.
    Breaking RNG makes linear numeric changes express quadratic power changes.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1. How about making it so that having 10 rings is not only easy
    2. The stuff in the char op forms doesn't see play in games with people who aren't using crazy exploits of the system anyway.
    I just described how a low level beguiler owned the campaign. All I had to do was make a build that would make him inconspicuous enough to be disregarded by the enemy.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The only problem you actually solved with all this that I've seen so far is AC modifiers, because the power of casters has always been that they can do things which basically invalidate the mundane classes. Melee characters are still helpless against casters with Fly, because they still can't reach the caster. To actually balance melee classes with casters, you have to completely remove the existing spell lists and replace them altogether.
    Didn't you just say that I boned spellcasters? Make up your mind already.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And 5 +2s aren't that big, unless you trawl through a large number of source books looking for abilities that stack.
    RAW, plusses from rings stack.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Again, 3.5 uses exponential power growth, your setup assumes linear growth. And the issue has never been stacking straight bonuses, it's been stacking abilities, attribute score bonuses, damage modifiers and things that don't stack when you have multiples of them.
    I propose no stacking of any sort (unless I misworded something).



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Why mention all of those 3.5 things if you don't actually use the classes? Why call it a 3.5 overhaul if your system doesn't actually work with most of the published 3.5 material? Why say this is a 3.5 overhaul when you can't actually use 3.5 monsters for it?
    As far as mechanics go...
    - Ability Scores
    - BAB
    - Saves
    - Skills
    - Feats
    - Spells
    - Conditions
    - Combat Options
    - LA
    - CL
    - CR
    - XP
    ... Etc.

    I'm using the majority of the mechanics of 3.5 as they are.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Most of the differences are from magic items,
    That's right.
    3.5 relies heavily of equipment and WBL.
    The motivation is to make classes matter far more than equipment. To make them effective on their own, with equipment being a bonus – not a must have.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Minion making casters need more than one casting of minion making spells to actually be useful.
    You mean that core allows a single minions-spell to take effect multiple times? Where's that written?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    What I'm getting at is having it so that you choose what schools of magic you can use, with almost nothing outside that school or so many penalties that it's not worth using. That is a much less extreme amount of changes.
    Not really. A mage may choose to give up anything from 2 to 5 schools – depending on his build choices... or go Generalist Wizard.
    That's Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necro and dozens of other archetypes in a single class. Why's that bad exactly?




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    ...no, the Force effects are solid things. That's why they are able to stop charging melee characters. That's why Force Cage holds them inside.
    So how do they hurt incorporeal targets with zero miss chances?!




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    One that you can still see coming, and can be prepared for if you know what it is.
    Yeah, just as preparing for a bullet in midflight (hint: with a standard action, you cast it, make it fly 800' and go boom).




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1. The number of Swift action spells with actual useful effect is tiny because the intended way for casters to use a Swift action with Metamagic, and as such removing that makes casters much less likely to do anything with their Swift actions.
    Removing what?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    2. Mook Chivalry is a storytelling trope, not something to integrate into the mechanics that define what is possible in a setting. Especially when the restriction still doesn't apply to the intelligent guards who don't need to be told what to do, and actual kingdom threatening necramancers are supposed to be a thing.
    Who said anything about mooks?
    What about owning 2 thralls – each of which with as many HD as your CL?



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    3. It's not about going toe to toe, it's about being able to do something meaningful. It isn't fun to have your character be unable to do anything because one of the enemies stays on you.
    Give me a fullcaster (your pick) using my system and we'll see who's not able to do something meaningful.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    If the mage can't do anything when the DM decides to focus down them, them there isn't a point to being a caster. Also, if there is no power difference between a caster and a mundane archer, why ever play a caster in a combat campaign? The archer has a lot better combat power because they can fight in melee to some extent.
    You're not looking hard enough. Reread the Mage.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    4. PCs are exceptional. PCs have more power than NPCs. This is part of the D&D design philosophy. There's also the matter of the fact that if the regular town guards are as strong as your party members, there is no real reason that there could be things the PCs can handle that the guards can't without getting into. The point of NPC classes is to make it clear that the level one Fighter is still better than the normal town guards in one-on-one combat.
    Yes. Absolutely. Level and build strategy reflect that beautifully.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Planning only works for things you can see coming. And when you can actually use your preparations. With the amount of increase to difficulty in casting with a melee opponent present, a Lich caught in melee is basically doomed unless they can outdo the opponent in melee without casting spells, which makes the entire point of being a caster rather than a melee class pointless, or they have some way to move away faster than the opponent can close the gap. Which Charge makes basically impossible.
    1. If your Lich didn't see them coming, then you're doing something very wrong.
    2. Powerful undead have intrinsic overtake powers that have nothing to do with spells and limits. A lich should have plenty of minions and intelligent undead allies to work with.





    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    No, it's the mix of changing how level progression works, making every single creature need to be reworked to make it work in your system, your removal of the distinction between a lot of weapons and the fact that a lot of abilities on monsters stop working in this system. You changed so many things that 3.5 creatures don't work anymore.
    Actually, monsters can remain just the way they are. I never claimed to hold any value for monster HD replicating actual class levels. You just use them according to the codex rules.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Is the penalty to the target's save, or to the DC of the fear effect? I though that line applied to Gaze attacks, rather than Fear effects.
    Ok. A better wording would be to say that the DC gets a cumulative increase.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    That bit was actually about the fact that you mentioned Returning on ammo-type things you only have one of results in only getting one attack per turn, which Aim makes irrelevant when it can be used because it sticks all your damage in one hit. And Aim gives a bonus to hit chance, not a penalty.
    Ever since the boxed sets, we always played that returning allows only a single attack per round. Maybe I missed that one. I'll check it out in the near future.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    It makes it so that the risk of sticking everything into one item becomes negligible, because it makes it easy to make the weapon nearly impossible to break. Because you can stack protections that alter Hardness and make it harder for spells to work.
    Again – that's no insurance policy vs. disarm/theft/loss/confiscation.
    Wanna put all your eggs in one basket – go right ahead. Just don't come crying when that basket drops.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    It's about the fact that if you are killing something in two hits anyway, why waste everyone's time with the second hit? It's a convinced tool.
    I still need you to show me what means you found to manipulate this system to kill a gold Great Wyrm in two strikes.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    If a mechanic means nothing
    You were saying?...




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And that is made mostly irrelevant by Enlarge Person extending that to 3 sizes above your normal size.
    Fair point, but you usually don't hang around enlarged all the time.




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    ...a large number of your nerfs are over stuff on the char-op boards, stuff that almost never sees play in games that have people who aren't using it and often ignore WBL restrictions or are stuff at the point of the game where the basic system starts falling apart around casters access to spells that invalidate entire types of encounter, and you don't know how Uberchargers work, one of the few ways to have mundane classes stay relevant in those games where people are optimizing...
    I actually hardly experienced 3.5 passed level 15, so that's really not my measuring instrument.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1. How about the fact that they have a weapon entry that says they are Light martial weapons? Seriously, they are actually weapons in the rulebook and have nothing saying that they can't be the choice of Weapon Focus.
    Can you please show it to me?
    1. Book + page number.
    2. Or here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    2. You can still stick weapon-based bonuses on them separately from the rest of the armor, and they technically can be sundered separately from the armor.
    I still ask – so what?




    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Block Line of Effect, in the Combat Actions part of the combat rules post.
    "A character/creature that is not flatfooted may spend an immediate action to block any line of effect that pass through the space it threatens when unarmed or with its natural weapons"

  20. - Top - End - #200
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    Default Re: 3.5e Overhaul – Fixing ALL 3.5e's problems (P.E.A.C.H)

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    So, comments on your magic item setup:

    The use of spells in place of feats make it so that it's incredibly easy to get access to magic item creation tools.
    It means that all spellcasters get the chance to play w/o hurting their character's build versatility.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    As a side note, does the Intelligent Item creation thing get to be used during Golem creation for making intelligent Golems?
    That's the intent.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Your prices are ridiculously oversized.
    Which is intended to eliminate magic marts – especially at low levels.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Normal 3.5 uses exponential prices, take after it for your basis. Divide your current prices by 10 or 100, then stick an exponent in them somewhere. Look at http://www.d20srd.org to get a basis on how to set up the more complicated parts of your system fix.
    I know how 3.5 prices work. I never liked it.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    As is, emanating 1st level spell effects cost more than +2 enhancements in normal 3.5, and emanating 9th level spells cost substantially less than +9 enhancements to craft.
    Regarding the former, I agree.
    Regarding the latter, I'm not sure there's such thing as a standard standalone +9 pre-epic. As far as I can remember, +5 is roughly equivalent to 9th SL.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Oh, and Flaming's closest spell counterpart is Flame Blade, which is a second level spell that gives +1d8 damage and +1 damage per two caster levels. Also is one of the options for the spell component to making a Flaming weapon.
    Meaning what?
    Seems like an unfinished sentence.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The setup for charges is crazy. A 'rechargeable' item costs more to recharge than to make once you pass 10 charges. If you mean that it costs 10% of the charge's cost to make, then say so. Perhaps you meant to say something like "Charges cost 10% of the item's cost divided by the number of charges the item can have." I'm not even sure what you mean by "For non rechargeable items, detract 25 % of the base cost." Is it meant to cost 75% of the cost to make it in the first place to recharge fully? If so, use the wording "For non-rechargeable items, recharging every charge costs 75% of the base cost." Clarify the wording on those charge costs.
    Ok, agreed. Charges costs need some clarifications and rework. I'll take care of that in the next few days.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Magic vehicles in normal 3.5:
    Step 1: Cast Animate Object on mockup.
    Step 2: Cast Permanancy.
    Step 3: Argue with DM about control method.

    Your setup:
    Emanating Animated Object with some form of 'turn off' or control redirect installed. How do you do this?
    "Magical Vehicles:
    This is where my inspiration did not prevail in regards to any officially published spells.
    The best option I see so far is to make high-level spells specifically for this purpose. These spells will follow the creation rules as given in this topic for other spell effects."



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    1 day per 1,000 GP is good for this setup, but if you make it less crazy on the low end price it gets very fast to make things. In the current form, it takes a week to make a 1st level spell emanating item. That keeps it from being usable in the middle of most campaigns for emanating items, which is good. Granted, specific durations stack up with the permanent, but charge limited, items perfectly to allow constant effect, lowering costs, and thus creation times.
    Which is (partly) why I wouldn't want to reduce prices.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Construct pricings are overdone. The absolute cheapest Golem is 6,000 gp, for a 1 HD Golem with 1 Str, 1 Dex and 2 int. To get a 1 HD 10 Str, 10 Dex 2 Int Golem, you need to pay 24,000 GP. That's for no Str or Dex penalties on something with 1 HD. You need to shell out another 2,000 gp and two days of work for each added +1 attribute bonus. Golems are utterly, cripplingly expensive to get anywhere in this. Methods to upgrade are very much needed, because it costs far too much to get anything good otherwise.
    I'm open to suggestions.
    One approach could be similar stat pricing at character creation, but I'm not sure where to start and how to price increased values or how to tie ability limits to level limits.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Failure rates make Golems even worse and make mid level effects even more laughably horrible to try to get. At least until you start stacking bonuses to the roll. Which your removal of the normal magic item lists succeeded in making basically impossible to do in the normal way. Scaling bonuses are there for a reason. Some effects just don't work as spells.
    Magic Vestment and Greater Magic Weapon/Fang scale just fine AFAICT.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Lowered repair costs make it so that instead of Christmas tree adventurers, you're going to get God items for every member of the party. Made possible by the fact that you can stack up bonuses basically infinitely high, with quite a bit of incentive to do so. Abjuration stacking makes these items nigh-indestructible.
    I'm still puzzled where you encountered any bonus stacking rules in this codex.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    The action economy is not something that will snap at the slightest touch, so making all action adding items be banned is an overreaction. How about, instead of all these bans, add in a limit of extra actions per turn? That would make all these things still work, but there'd be a hard limit on them. Besides, your full-attack-as-standard-action thing makes Haste better than Celerity by a long shot thanks to duration and making the casters have so many things in the way of actually doing what they are built to do. It's not like casters get to use any of their actually good stuff with standard actions, because everything that isn't direct damage is now full-round or longer cast time!
    1. The action economy may not snap at the slightest touch, but I see no benefit in opening that door.
    2. I could live with the celerity line not being used for spellcasting or magic item activation, but only for mages, and that would make them quite pointless to matter. Bards and spellthieves can still benefit too much from them and I'll have to clip the Spellthief's wings to make that happen. Not worth it.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    A lot of those class feature copying items copy features that are explicitly supernatural or are a physical or mental condition, not action. Or inflict a physical or mental condition. They tend not to copy training based stuff, and even if they did, it's magic, it does not need to follow logic! So what if these robes copy a Monk's Wis to AC, that feature is a result of a mental status that can be induced. The wearer loses the effect when it's taken off because they never learned how to willingly enter that state. Not in the fluff? So what, making up fluff for items is entirely okay!
    It's magic, but for the sake of formulating magic items creation w/o the need to look at other items to figure the prices, I can't go for that.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    You ban the bag of holding. A standby of basically every adventurer's kit when they can buy one. You don't mention Magnificent Mansion, literally a mansion made out of nothing, in space that doesn't exist normally, with servants that are invisible constructs, your reason for banning Rope Trick is keyed to SL, and your reason for banning Genesis is because people with Wish, almost freeform reality warping, apparently shouldn't be able to make tiny universes! Just refluff the Bag of Holding as an extrusion of normal space, not keying into long-forgotten pocket dimensions.
    Actually, I covered that one with an example.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Removing the normal magic pluses is a basically meaningless thing. Especially because you made it so that it is assumed that all magic item enhancements are spell equivalents, when the official rules specifically have two different cost progressions for spells and enhancement bonus equivalents.
    In the end, when somebody wished to use 3.5e item creation rules to figure the price for a new item, they have to deduce it from existing items.
    That's bad in my view.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Look up the existing crafting rules for things, yours are bizarrely costed with nonsensical changes for no real reason other than stopping a vague idea of the 'Christmas tree of magic items,' when getting all those items is an extreme late game thing and involves so many high price items that are so specific that most DMs are entirely justified in saying 'This place doesn't sell those items.'
    Magic marts and the 'Christmas tree of magic items' are noticeable since about 6th level. Character features and resources are not enough to circumvent that unless you settle for a game that's designed primarily for novices – which is not enough after a given mileage in the game.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    And why bother mentioning the removal of body slot limitations? There's no point in not dumping everything into one insanely bloated item that will never break because you dumped 5 Abjurations and a set of automated Disjunctions that counter any spell targeting the item.
    Ok, that's one aspect that needs some clarification and refinement.



    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Also, you did nothing to prevent the real reason for the slot limits. You only solved AC and action economy busting. You did nothing to deal with the massive bonus pileups actually responsible for it. One can still grab multiple amulets of different sorts.
    Yes. I guess I was a bit too lenient in how I worded that part.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    Minion making casters need more than one casting of minion making spells to actually be useful.
    Just noticed I made an error replying to that one, so...

    A minionmancer has at least 2 options on this one:
    1. Summon / call minions; let them loose on the enemies from a distance; relinquish control (they'll probably continue on inertia); re-summons/re-call (with the possibility of repeat).
    2. Summon / call and then use other magical / nonmagical means.

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

    @ Morphic tide: Turns out that you made quite an impact.

    You stirred quite a few tweaks and fixes . . .

    1. Activation of magical items is never faster than the spell in question.
    2. Siangham is back on.
    3. Slight stat tweaks to the Trident.
    4. 5'-Steps may never accumulate in a given round to exceed one's movement rate.
    5. Spell-Points cost has been gradually upped a bit.
    6. Charm is no longer subject to HD limits.
    7. Celerity spells are back on, but may not be exploited for spells/SLA/Su.
    8. Contact Outer Plane is back on.
    9. Sword Stick categorized as a simple weapon.
    10. Fear auras (mummies etc.) have been clarified.
    11. Returning: "...returns to the thrower just before the creature’s next turn..." . . . no need to address this one.
    12. Magical Charges and Constructs: Figured out and conflicts resolved.
    13. Body Slots: Resolved and Re-Worded.
    Last edited by nonsi; 2016-12-23 at 10:33 AM.

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

    .
    Ok, it's been quite a while since the last update report – over 6 months ago.
    Quite a few additions have managed to find their way in. Some I thought I'd never resolve, some were rekindled assignments that I had forgotten about, some I didn't even know I wanted until inspiration struck lately.

    Shifter race addressed and Weretouched concept now viable via racial feats (post #6).
    Warforged race addressed and Warforged Juggernaut concept now viable via feats (post #6).
    Class-Roles specified (post #10).
    – Versatile Shadow-themed powers added – using Class-Combo feats (post #10).
    Soulknives may now form substitution/additional Mental Limbs (post #22).
    Item Familiars are now viable, along with a wide variety of magical items (see Tool of the Worthy spell; post #28).
    – Tons of new Lich goodies added (post #29).
    Flying Castles – an elegant solution via two spells (post #30).
    Long-Term Magical Enslavement (post #30) - Wheel-of-Time style.
    – "New Monsters" section added (post #31).
    – Roughly 40 feats added overall throughout the overhaul project.
    – Some class features added/expanded, to cover more character archetypes.

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

    We have used the DC 15 Reflex save to avoid fumbling for over a decade (maybe two decades) with good results. We however use it to avoid all fumbles, including accidentally attacking a friendly. Figured with the successful save you realize your mistake in time to abort the attack. We use it for high level characters as well. Yes, they have a greater chance of rolling a one with more attacks, but with their good reflex saves, actually fumbling happens less often than with low lever characters.

    I am currently DM'ing a group that has done a lot of combat on ships, and I had an idea that I am going to play test. When environmental conditions are such that a fumble would logically be more likely such as fighting on the deck of a ship in rough seas, or on a narrow ledge, or while covered with slimy mud, or anything else the DM deems appropriate, fumbles threats (you always get a reflex save) occur on natural ones and natural two's. In extreme situations it could even occur with natural threes. Monsters are of course affected as well as PC's.

    Also, if the roll would have actually hit, it does, but is also a potential fumble. I created a more extensive list of possible outcomes than yours, but If you think about it, it's possible with all of them. Fall prone as you hit them. Drop your weapon after the hit. Even strike an ally, think Cleave.
    What is best in life? The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Nupo View Post
    We have used the DC 15 Reflex save to avoid fumbling for over a decade (maybe two decades) with good results. We however use it to avoid all fumbles, including accidentally attacking a friendly. Figured with the successful save you realize your mistake in time to abort the attack. We use it for high level characters as well. Yes, they have a greater chance of rolling a one with more attacks, but with their good reflex saves, actually fumbling happens less often than with low lever characters.

    I am currently DM'ing a group that has done a lot of combat on ships, and I had an idea that I am going to play test. When environmental conditions are such that a fumble would logically be more likely such as fighting on the deck of a ship in rough seas, or on a narrow ledge, or while covered with slimy mud, or anything else the DM deems appropriate, fumbles threats (you always get a reflex save) occur on natural ones and natural two's. In extreme situations it could even occur with natural threes. Monsters are of course affected as well as PC's.

    Also, if the roll would have actually hit, it does, but is also a potential fumble. I created a more extensive list of possible outcomes than yours, but If you think about it, it's possible with all of them. Fall prone as you hit them. Drop your weapon after the hit. Even strike an ally, think Cleave.
    Making a successful hit and still fumbling

    Bravo
    (:applause galore:)

    I'm laughing my guts out from the thought that no one had suggested this up until now.
    Didn't see that one myself, but you're absolutely right. No reason why this couldn't be an actual scenario, and it livens up combat quite a bit.

    If you have a complete list of things that raise the odds of fumbling, I'd be most happy to see it.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    Bravo
    (:applause galore:)
    I'm glad you like it.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonsi View Post
    If you have a complete list of things that raise the odds of fumbling, I'd be most happy to see it.
    No list yet. I just had this idea last night. A complete list would be impossible, but a good list of examples would be helpful for DM's. Heck, maybe it could be as simple as anytime they are on "difficult terrain." I don't know, that might be too often. I'm open to suggestions.
    What is best in life? The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Nupo View Post
    I'm glad you like it.


    No list yet. I just had this idea last night. A complete list would be impossible, but a good list of examples would be helpful for DM's. Heck, maybe it could be as simple as anytime they are on "difficult terrain." I don't know, that might be too often. I'm open to suggestions.
    Just realized a disturbing fact: IRL, one might score a devastating hit and still fumble
    You won't hit an ally, but you might still lose your grip on your weapon (1 - 3) or trip yourself (4 - 6).

    This means that an authentic simulation would probably require another d20 roll where a roll of 1 results in fumble regardless of your actual attack roll.
    . . . But this means adding another d20 roll on each attack, and adding more dice rolls is bad practice for gameflow (:cry:).


    Suggestions ?...........

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

    Rolling twice for each attack wouldn't be worth the slow down of the game for the slight bit of added realism.
    What is best in life? The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

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

    By-the-way here are my fumble charts:

    Fumble Chart

    If a natural 1 is rolled while attacking, a DC 15 reflex save must be made to
    avoid fumbling. If the save is failed no further attacks are possible that round.

    Attacking with a weapon
    1-15 Stumble, dazed 1 round
    16-30 Drop weapon
    31-40 Fall, prone
    41-49 Fall, prone and drop weapon
    50-58 Fling weapon, lands 2d10+10 feet away
    59-67 Light weapon damage (1d10+1 damage to weapon)
    68-72 Stumble, stunned 1 round
    73-77 Moderate weapon damage (1d10+10 damage to weapon)
    78-82 Hit comrade, roll attack against comrades flat-footed AC, if no comrade is in range as moderate weapon damage (1d10+10 damage to weapon)
    83-87 Hit self, roll attack against your flat-footed AC. If using a ranged weapon treat as hit comrade.
    88-91 Hard fall, prone and stunned 1 round
    92-94 Hard fall, prone, fling weapon 2d10+10 feet away, and stunned 1 round
    95-97 Heavy weapon damage (2d20+30 damage to weapon)
    98-99 Very hard fall, prone, fling weapon 2d10+10 feet, and stunned 2 rounds
    00 Extreme weapon damage (1d100+50 damage to weapon)


    Unarmed Strike or Natural Weapons
    1-30 Stumble, dazed 1 round
    31-49 Fall, prone
    50-67 Strike nearby object (1d2 damage to self)
    68-72 Stumble, stunned 1 round
    73-77 Strike nearby object (1d6 damage to self)
    78-82 Hit comrade, roll attack against comrades flat-footed AC, if no comrade is in range treat as strike nearby object (1d6 damage to self)
    83-87 Hit self, roll attack against your flat-footed AC. If using a ranged weapon treat as hit comrade.
    88-94 Hard fall, prone and stunned 1 round
    95-97 Strike nearby object hard (2d6 damage to self)
    98-99 Very hard fall, prone and stunned 2 rounds
    00 Strike nearby object very hard (2d10 damage to self)
    What is best in life? The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Nupo View Post
    By-the-way here are my fumble charts:

    Fumble Chart

    If a natural 1 is rolled while attacking, a DC 15 reflex save must be made to
    avoid fumbling. If the save is failed no further attacks are possible that round.

    Attacking with a weapon
    1-15 Stumble, dazed 1 round
    16-30 Drop weapon
    31-40 Fall, prone
    41-49 Fall, prone and drop weapon
    50-58 Fling weapon, lands 2d10+10 feet away
    59-67 Light weapon damage (1d10+1 damage to weapon)
    68-72 Stumble, stunned 1 round
    73-77 Moderate weapon damage (1d10+10 damage to weapon)
    78-82 Hit comrade, roll attack against comrades flat-footed AC, if no comrade is in range as moderate weapon damage (1d10+10 damage to weapon)
    83-87 Hit self, roll attack against your flat-footed AC. If using a ranged weapon treat as hit comrade.
    88-91 Hard fall, prone and stunned 1 round
    92-94 Hard fall, prone, fling weapon 2d10+10 feet away, and stunned 1 round
    95-97 Heavy weapon damage (2d20+30 damage to weapon)
    98-99 Very hard fall, prone, fling weapon 2d10+10 feet, and stunned 2 rounds
    00 Extreme weapon damage (1d100+50 damage to weapon)


    Unarmed Strike or Natural Weapons
    1-30 Stumble, dazed 1 round
    31-49 Fall, prone
    50-67 Strike nearby object (1d2 damage to self)
    68-72 Stumble, stunned 1 round
    73-77 Strike nearby object (1d6 damage to self)
    78-82 Hit comrade, roll attack against comrades flat-footed AC, if no comrade is in range treat as strike nearby object (1d6 damage to self)
    83-87 Hit self, roll attack against your flat-footed AC. If using a ranged weapon treat as hit comrade.
    88-94 Hard fall, prone and stunned 1 round
    95-97 Strike nearby object hard (2d6 damage to self)
    98-99 Very hard fall, prone and stunned 2 rounds
    00 Strike nearby object very hard (2d10 damage to self)
    Nice and detailed. I like the variety of possibilities.
    While I'm not gonna take this suggested solution as given, you gave me some good ideas to work with.

    The goal is to significantly expand the variety of combat scenarios while keeping things simple.
    I want a set of ruled that's easy to memorize.


    This is what I have ATM:

    Spoiler
    Show

    When making an attack roll and scoring 1 on the d20 roll, even if you score a hit, you fumble.
    In difficult terrain, this goes up to 1 or 2.
    If you wield a weapon with which you're not proficient, you fumble on 1–3 (or 1–5 in difficult terrain).

    Roll d8:
    - On a result of 1 – 3, have the attacker roll an additional attack against a square adjacent to the target that's within his reach (including self, for self-inflicted injury). The target of such an attack always loses its Dex-bonus to AC. If no target is available in the "point of impact", the attacker simply missed stylishly. This option is discarded in case of a reoccurring fumble (you never fumble a fumble).
    - On 4 or 5 the attacker drops his weapon. The weapon falls [10 x (1d3-1)] feet away (in the attacker's space, or up to 20' away).
    - On 6 or 7 the attacker is rendered prone.
    - On a roll of 8, the attacker is rendered both prone and disarmed.

    If a fumble scenario turns out to be an impossible result (self-inflicted injury w/ reach weapon, disarmed when not armed in the first place, etc), fumble never actually happened.

    In case of ranged attacks with missile devices, dropping prone is replaced with damaged missile device (bow string broke, X-Bow mechanism jammed...).


    Special: When fumbling, one provokes AoOs.
    Special: When fumbling, if the result is becoming Prone or Disarmed, a successful Ref save vs. DC 15 negates the effect, and prevents provoking AoOs (and since rolling 1 is not an auto-fail, then with all sorts of modifiers, there will come a time when one becomes immune to getting himself prone/disarmed).
    Last edited by nonsi; 2017-03-20 at 03:10 AM.

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