House Rules

I think the biggest question, IMO, is whether Kevin tries to make huge changes that try to fix all the problems (!!!), or if that's too much work (more likely). Although I'm not sure if I agree with Kevin about all the changes he thinks should be make (I like Prestige Classes), there are a lot of things that seem pretty obviously broken.

Fortunately, some of the things that don't work right are just underpowered, and you can just not take them, instead of us trying to fix them. So what if one of your Swordsage's 6th level maneuvers is dumber than his 5th level maneuvers? Just take a different maneuver instead. It does become a problem, though, if none of the 6th level maneuvers are worth taking, however).

Yeah there is a lot more to address than one person would be capable of. Also I am certainly of the opinion that not only would the amount of rewrites be very difficult for one person but also that multiples of us should be involved to get that representation.

About Prestige Classes, I like the concept of Prestige classes: That there are more 'advanced' classes that one can only transition into by meeting certain special requires to get into awesome school. However the execution of Prestige classes has been very poor by wizards in general, and worse by others.
In no particular order some problems that PrCs have off the top of my head:
Firstly, many are made to be used by NPCs even though they don't say so. Second they gain abilities that aren't close to level appropriate by even SRD standards, or the powers are staggered such that you have to get into a PrC asap and then take all its levels with no break just to try to keep up. Which disses on MCing, which people in general like the freedom to do. Another big issue of PrCs is that they are entrenched in flavor where classes shouldn't be representing who you are, it should be the other way around, you choose who you are then pick the classes to fit. They should be a collection of abilities around a kind of training rather than a role in the world. Say Fighter as compared to Knight Retainer of the Golden Throne. There's some other issues, and hopefully with these boards they'll come to mind and I'll feel more motivated to talk about and log these design issues.

I was thinking what could be a cool idea is to collectively work on us making a new group of base classes and power/feat progression to address the silly situation of how fighters are supposed to take several different classes to perform their basic functions, and all the other oddities and issues of the current system.

Some things would be addressing status conditions, save or dies, death and dying rules, I'm sure there are some others. If you got em, let em out! Almost all the current clear house rules are listed in the STPHB, but its not exhaustive, nor does it go in to metagame things like our informal social contract on gaming.

Several things: First, I too like prestige classes, but wished that they would give abilities that were worth taking the prereqs for. Mostly what I see is that I need to take a bunch of skills or feats that are pretty dumb in order to get a bunch of different abilities that you can't get base class. But you're glad you can't because they just suck.

Secondly, I don't think it's very peculiar for a fighter to have to MC to be able to do it's job. To have different classes for different fighting styles makes sense. If you want your fighter to be more back-stabby rage-aholic you have more rouge/barb, and if you want more combos and bow wielding you go more fighter/ranger (or whatever). The point if is that to bring fighter to just one class would seem very stale.

Thirdly, to get back to Joel's post, it is an issue if all of the 6th level maneuvers are worth taking. I'm not sure how true that is, but it could be. I'm not sure what the fix for that is other than making your own maneuvers, which is a lot of work.

That's all I got for now.

It's not peculiar for a fighter to multiclass to perform his basic function in the current system because thats in fact how it is. I meant its peculiar in the way that one shouldn't expect a person to have to take 3 or more classes in order to be, say, an Archer. I'm of the opinion that basic concepts should be fillable by basic classes, and not require combination. It would be strange if a straight class wizard got 4th lv spells at lv9, but if he multiclasses right could do it by 7. I'm not talking necessarily making 1 class for all non-magic users, that would probably be kind of awkward.

Another major flaw in PrCs in general is that in order to take them you normally have to plan to do so at level 1, which really makes very little sense for the flavor entrenched ones [like Drunken Master, where ultimately you have to find a Drunken Master to train you, but also had to start meeting the prereqs from lv. 1], and only slightly more sense for the ones that are collection of abilities. Its very painful for organic characters to have to plan their whole lives to be some specific feat / skill combo in order to go after some concept they find they like. Like for Loremaster, who would take skill focus a bunch of times unless they were going for LM to make up for it? Its whack, yo.

I think you may be exaggerating the problem a bit. If you want to be, say, and Archer you could just pick Ranger or Fighter and get on with it. The basic ideas can be obtained by single classing; cut off an arm/head every time you swing an axe? Barb. Wield your two scimitars with your panther companion? Ranger. Shoot someone with a bow until they get close enough to get cut with your sword? Fighter. Put all your eggs in one basket? Paladin.

It would be strange if a straight class wizard got 4th lv spells at lv9, but if he multiclasses right could do it by 7.
-Korohit

Not sure where that comes from, but yea that would be awkward.

I can see how having some prereqs for prestige classes makes sense. That way the wizard can't just start taking levels in eldrich knight when he feels like it. But the ones that require a bunch of stupid feats (like the skill focus ones you pointed out) are quite annoying. And requiring skills is basically a waste of space because skills don't do much anyway.

One thing that I have noticed in my limited experience of playing Sban and reading through the books is that a lot of the pre-reqs for becoming a certain prestige class makes sense that you have to take them (naturally), but it seems that there are limited situations where you would use them once you have that class, especially since Kevin can't always remember to put us in situations where we'd need to use them (and I don't expect him to remember to do so). Something that I'd like to see is if there can be more things that you can do with those skills and also get added bonuses, especially if you have certain combinations of skills (more than just getting additional synergy bonuses). Take for instance if you want to jump from a building and attack an opponent. Maybe having a higher jump skill would give you more attack, say 1 damage for every 5 jump skill or something like that.

Sure, some PrCs give dumb abilities, but I think there are enough that give good abilities that people like taking. It's not like anyone's forced to take a PrC that doesn't help their character at all.

As for prereqs, it depends. There are some that are too burdensome to take, but a lot of them are fine. The Order of the Bow Initiate is required to have a few bow feats, the Cavalier is required to have mounted combat feats. Not a problem. And for the ones that are too burdensome (Loremaster), there are ways to fix it, that don't fundamentally change the PrC. Also, requiring skills can make sense. A class like Shadow Dancer, where a lot of the abilities are based around skills - it makes sense to have skill prereqs that tie in.

As far as multi-classing goes, yes, you can be a fighter, and be an archer. But you'll be almost strictly better if you go Hawk Totem 2, Ranger 2, Fighter 2 than if you go Fighter 6, or Ranger 6. Ranger 6 might give you other, non-archery things you do better, but some characters don't care about that other stuff much.

Wade8813 wrote:As far as multi-classing goes, yes, you can be a fighter, and be an archer. But you'll be almost strictly better if you go Hawk Totem 2, Ranger 2, Fighter 2 than if you go Fighter 6, or Ranger 6. Ranger 6 might give you other, non-archery things you do better, but some characters don't care about that other stuff much.

Yep, Ranger 6 will give you other non-archery things, skills, spells, animal companion, ability to track, favorite enemy. And I guess if you don't care about having those things, then be a Fighter!!! So I don't think strictly better is something that can be said. Better at attack rolls and damage with a bow could be, I don't know but I trust if you do. But that's not everything an archer can be said to do.

I'm all for better uses of skills, or actual uses. Who seriously has appraise? Anyone? Didn't think so. I just don't know what those uses could be.

Yep, Ranger 6 will give you other non-archery things, skills, spells, animal companion, ability to track, favorite enemy. And I guess if you don't care about having those things, then be a Fighter!!!

That's just it. Yes, being Ranger 6 gives you other cool things. But why be Fighter 6, when being Fighter 4/Ranger 2 gives me EVERYTHING a pure Fighter has, plus you gain a Favored Enemy, skills, the ability to track, etc?

The problem isn't that there aren't ways you can do other things. The problem is you want to be the best archer, you multi-class. You can be a good archer, and do other cool things if you're a Ranger, but you can't be as good at archery.

The problem is you want to be the best archer, you multi-class. You can be a good archer, and do other cool things if you're a Ranger, but you can't be as good at archery.

Thats exactly what I mean. I'm not trying to argue over how to build under the current rules, I'm talking about a flaw in the underlying design. I meant that a straight ranger is like the 9th lv wiz just getting th lv spells, while the multi-class archer guy has equivalent of 7th lv wiz, getting his archery on a couple levels ahead. I know the analogy isn't great because archery isn't on par with spells, but the idea of the gap is basically the same.

I think, slightly relatedly, that tomorrow I'll try and post up some ways various games have divided class roles, and some ideas I've had about. Also I'll try to get up a more comprehensive version of how I was thinking feats should work, that they should each scale by level. Like I was thinking instead of an Archer multiclassing into way too many classes [ hawk totem, ranger, fighter, deepwood sniper, order of the bow initiate, etc] and taking a bunch of different feats, a Fighter type class should maybe have 2 feats: One called basic archery that gives that person a level appropriate use of bows in combat [attack rolls that count, ability to deal meaningful damage], and then a 2nd, advanced archery, that gives some extra options [like shot on the run, manyshot, and other such narrow but cool things you'd expect from a bow expert]. Both of which would confer powers based on level. Like Iron Heroes but with out the tree dipping, more sensible scaling, and not needing 1,000,000 feats to do it.

Korohit wrote:...and not needing 1,000,000 feats to do it.

But I like my 1,000,000 feats of this and that, =P.

Korohit wrote:Like I was thinking instead of an Archer multiclassing into way too many classes [ hawk totem, ranger, fighter, deepwood sniper, order of the bow initiate, etc] and taking a bunch of different feats, a Fighter type class should maybe have 2 feats: One called basic archery that gives that person a level appropriate use of bows in combat [attack rolls that count, ability to deal meaningful damage], and then a 2nd, advanced archery, that gives some extra options [like shot on the run, manyshot, and other such narrow but cool things you'd expect from a bow expert]. Both of which would confer powers based on level.

I believe that something like that would be nice. However, what is constituted as level appropriate use of bows in combat? The general concept is nice, but coming to an agreement as level appropriate bonuses is what will come up next.

Alfax wrote:I'm all for better uses of skills, or actual uses. Who seriously has appraise? Anyone? Didn't think so. I just don't know what those uses could be.

Bryn uses appraise, but that is a very limited case and it pertains directly to what he does - find things of value i.e treasure hunting.

Regardless of that yes, I would love to see better/actual uses of skills. From what I've noticed there are only a few skills that are regularly used and then the rest come up maybe once or twice. One of the things I liked about Cook's skills in Arcana Unearthed is the combining of some skills that make sense together. One I believe is the combination of hide and move silently. So perhaps doing a few more skill combinations like that?

The skill system is basically far too complex for how useful it is.

Which means A] Higher functionality should be added, which will almost certainly require a degree of rewriting the advancement and use of skills or b] The skill system should be simplified.

I'm leaning towards B, because some good ideas have already been put out in that direction, but am open to A.

One version of B I was thinking might be a good idea to switch to would be the Saga skill system, which is something 4th ed will likely resemble. It has no skill points, it has less skills. All characters are considered heroic and therefore at higher levels get categorically superior to lower level people at everything. Mechanically skill checks turn into d20 + 1/2 lv + stat mod. Based on class and int each person receives a number of skills they are "trained" in. They get a +5 on skill checks with trained skills and there are some things you have to be trained in a skill in order to do with it.

This allow higher level char.s to be made faster, allows it to be easier to scale DCs, minimizes haxzor and 1 sided bluff contests, etc. The biggest con is you don't get to mechanically see a frenetic skill monkey with 1s and 5s all over his char sheet.

Even now people are like... wait do I have jump? how many ranks? hmm interesting =p, whereas choosing to be trained in a few specific things is likely to make one remember and figure mods a lot easier, and untrained checks don't just feel like failure checks at higher levels, since being trained in Hide isn't like turning invisible ;p.

While that sort of skill system could be quite fun, I think it takes away an important function of skills. It basically means that a character who randomly decides to be able to hide can be just as good at hiding as the rogue who's worked on hiding their entire life. I agree, it seems a little weird for a 1st level Rogue to be able to bluff the epic Wizard most of the time, but it would also seem weird for the Archer who randomly takes Hide to be just as good at hiding as the Rogue who dedicates their entire life to stealth.

Well you can't "randomly decide" to be good at hiding, since Saga trained skills are determined at lv1 and there aren't int enhancements beyond lv up bonuses. Though surely we could manage something wherein skill based people get some kind of additional edge.

You can still randomly decide at L:1.

"Huh, I've got 4 skills to choose. I'll take Spot, Listen, Tumble, and... (rolls a d20) Hide. Hide sounds good."

Going with Plan B for the skills though does bring up what do you do with the skill monkeys?
What about synergy bonuses?

The basic premise surrounding B could be nice, but there are a few flaws surrounding it, such as what Joel pointed out. Except how do you remedy that? Do you get all of the skills offered by your class and then how many are special bonuses skills? I like the idea of specializing in certain skills, but I think a part of the problem with that is there are a few core ones that are likely to be chosen again and again. Spot and listen for example. Would we this push us into evaluating our characters and what they would focus in? For example if I remade Adleeya in this way what would she actually reasonably focus in if she got four choices? Knowing her and her love for treasure [lawful greedy for the win] one would likely be Search, she's a cleric and does actually run out of spells so maybe one would be Heal. Outside of that what does she do? now there are two left, so spot and listen are pretty important except is that true to her character? Just something to think about.

Wade8813 wrote:You can still randomly decide at L:1.

"Huh, I've got 4 skills to choose. I'll take Spot, Listen, Tumble, and... (rolls a d20) Hide. Hide sounds good."

Which is no more random than a rogue's lv.1 skill choices. The choices imply background in those skills. Its not like the 4 skill barb was a master spotter, listener, and tumbler, then the first game-day of play becomes a trained hider, he's been hiding, and working on the skill just as much as the others. I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here.

In response to Joan:
Yeah some skills are going to be more useful than others still, generally speaking, that is to say not always better. Like sure spot and listen are skills that basically give turn advantage, whereas craft [basketweaving] is doing what again? Part of Saga's advantage though is leveling the playing field between trained and untrained, not widening it. Such that people who aren't trained in spot are not highly deficient like in the 3rd ed gap.

Under Saga if Adleeya didnt choose to train in heal skill she'd still have a +10 mod on heal checks... trained would bump it to +15. Where in 3rd ed +10 would cost her 5 skill points of her approx 30. Saga overall increases skill rolls by level on trained skills and non trained skills [more importantly evening out the differences & making higher lv people better vs lower lv.s], while lowering book keeping.

As an aside, for Saga, Spot + Listen are combined into one skill, so are Hide + MS.

Which is no more random than a rogue's lv.1 skill choices. The choices imply background in those skills. Its not like the 4 skill barb was a master spotter, listener, and tumbler, then the first game-day of play becomes a trained hider, he's been hiding, and working on the skill just as much as the others. I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here.

Yes, in game terms, he's been working on hiding. But as far as I can tell, that system has no way to differentiate between someone who's fairly good at hiding, and someone who dedicates their entire life to being better at hiding.

But as far as I can tell, that system has no way to differentiate between someone who's fairly good at hiding, and someone who dedicates their entire life to being better at hiding.

DnD 3.5 doesn't pull it off either with its skill advancement system. A lv.6 Rog has not worked a lot longer than a lv.1 Rog based on normal advancement rules, he's just worked more epicly. A lv.6 Rog might have say a +21 MS and Hide easily, basically vanishing vs spot +5s at distances outside of 30' with any bit of cover [be scurred of Rog.10 +s and Rangers who get HiPS they're in your face =p]. How much longer did a lv.6 Rog vs his lv.1 rog spot +5 opponent?

Well as an example Halo has gone from 1 to current state in less than a game-month. 1 month of their life has been spent post-Halo appearing, yet they totally outclass people 20 years their senior, and people their junior.

Now I guess if we're just talking about comparing two different people on the epic advancement track then there's no distinction between who's been working more of their life on a skill, just who's been working more of their epic life on it.

Ok, for the most part I like how the Saga version of skills simplifies things. I no longer need to worry about where my already almost useless skill points go (seriously, sometimes I even forget that I gained skills in a level) and I don't need to check and recheck to see if I have any 'bonuses' to them from other skills. I also like that the lv2 bard can't charm the epic wizard into being friendly toward him with his amazing flute performance. That part's great.

The part I don't like is how the higher level person is better than the lower level person at Everything. The fact that Faceripper the level 10 barb can go to Yuppytown1 and enter their lute playing contest without ever having played let alone seen a lute before. And then he bests them all, except maybe the town showman (with his +5 speciality), who gives Ol' Faceripper a run for his money.

Which I think harkens back to Joels point that the part Wizard could hide just as well, or almost as well as the party Rouge, presumably without spending his days at Wizard college hiding behind book stacks all day. Is this really a problem? Probably not since they are likely near the same level and the Rouge makes up for it with his +5 and better skill mod.

Korohit wrote:

The problem is you want to be the best archer, you multi-class. You can be a good archer, and do other cool things if you're a Ranger, but you can't be as good at archery.

Thats exactly what I mean. I'm not trying to argue over how to build under the current rules, I'm talking about a flaw in the underlying design. I meant that a straight ranger is like the 9th lv wiz just getting th lv spells, while the multi-class archer guy has equivalent of 7th lv wiz, getting his archery on a couple levels ahead. I know the analogy isn't great because archery isn't on par with spells, but the idea of the gap is basically the same.

Getting back to this, My main point here is that if all you want to be is attack roll and damage with a bow then I don't think that should be it's own class. To be the best archer here you need to multiclass to the places where there is good archery skills, take them and move on. The classes you are taking it from do archery, and do it well, but they also do many other things. But if all you want is the bow attack rolls and damage then you can just take those and go scrounge somewhere else and leave the other things for someone who cares. Sure, the straight ranger isn't as good at bow use as multiclass man, but he's much much better in other places.

Oh, mostly I like how the skills are in the Saga system. I think my only real qualm with it and other skill systems is whether or not the players are willing to actually think more about their skill choices or not while pertaining to their character. In other words getting back to the idea of specializing in certain skills, but not as much in other ones. The +5 bonus is a nice way of doing this, but I think it'll take a bit more thought out of a character as to what places he/she gets a +5 in. Not that I have a problem with that, it's a reason to think a bit more about your character, so huzzah.

Getting back to this, My main point here is that if all you want to be is attack roll and damage with a bow then I don't think that should be it's own class. To be the best archer here you need to multiclass to the places where there is good archery skills, take them and move on.

Why should one have to multiclass to be a good archer? That's the part I'm missing. I'm thinking that a basic concept should not require extensive or any multiclassing. I'm not just talking about a Player A ftr2/h totem 2/rng 2 [or just in srd terms rng2 / ftr4] vs a Player B ftr 6 or rng 6 or h totem 6 dealing more dmg per hit and getting better attack rolls. I'm saying its whack that he's super superior to that guy. Player A gets more feats, more attack rolls, more damage, and more misc. powers than Player B. If I made it sound like a good archer is just Atk rolls and dmg, that misses the point entirely. The progressively epic archer should be doing shots on the run, banking off walls, disarming at range, shooting supernatural wraith striking arrows, and all that crazy stuff. The straight fighter gets these powers slower, misses out on misc. powers, and doesn't even have access to some of these without getting other classes, and that strikes me as wrong.

Which I think harkens back to Joels point that the part Wizard could hide just as well, or almost as well as the party Rouge, presumably without spending his days at Wizard college hiding behind book stacks all day.

If the wizard is trained it presumes he was working on hiding in the case of the ten levels higher wizard [which is what it takes to offset the +5] I'm pretty sure I'm okay with a 15th lv Wizard being comparable to a lv1-5 trained rog at hiding. The epicness he has making him hide better seems as reasonable as the fact he has like 3-4x the HP of a lv5 rogue [not counting potential temp buffs the Wizard might have] seems reasonable. Remember to offset the trained bonus a character needs a 10 level advantage, its a pretty epic lead needed.

Also how much do we want to consider the Wizard can already steal all your class features? By the time he has that ten level advantage it just really doesn't matter you're not even in the same playing field. Lv1 vs 11 even, 11th is access to 6th level spells... teleport, greater invis, charm monster, Planar Binding, etc.

If the wizard is trained it presumes he was working on hiding in the case of the ten levels higher wizard [which is what it takes to offset the +5] I'm pretty sure I'm okay with a 15th lv Wizard being comparable to a lv1-5 trained rog at hiding. The epicness he has making him hide better seems as reasonable as the fact he has like 3-4x the HP of a lv5 rogue [not counting potential temp buffs the Wizard might have] seems reasonable. Remember to offset the trained bonus a character needs a 10 level advantage, its a pretty epic lead needed.

My problem is that a 7th level Wizard who has fairly good stats might have 16 Dex and the trained bonus in Hiding (just because he felt like it). Then lets say we have a 7th level Rogue, who has 19 Dex, is almost insignificantly better then the Wizard at hiding, no matter how hard he tries.

Korohit wrote:Why should one have to multiclass to be a good archer? That's the part I'm missing. I'm thinking that a basic concept should not require extensive or any multiclassing. I'm not just talking about a Player A ftr2/h totem 2/rng 2 [or just in srd terms rng2 / ftr4] vs a Player B ftr 6 or rng 6 or h totem 6 dealing more dmg per hit and getting better attack rolls. I'm saying its whack that he's super superior to that guy. Player A gets more feats, more attack rolls, more damage, and more misc. powers than Player B.

You don't actually have to multiclass to be a good archer. A straight fighter or ranger can be a good archer. But he's not the best archer, like the Player A you mentioned above. Straight Ranger has other qualities that I get into a little further down that set him apart from just bow use. And I contest that Player A gets more misc powers than the straight ranger or hawk totem, since they get powers almost every level.

Korohit wrote:The progressively epic archer should be doing shots on the run, banking off walls, disarming at range, shooting supernatural wraith striking arrows, and all that crazy stuff. The straight fighter gets these powers slower, misses out on misc. powers, and doesn't even have access to some of these without getting other classes, and that strikes me as wrong.

We all know that the Fighter isn't a very good class, which is why I kept comparing it to the Ranger. Who would get those things slower, but that's because he's getting other things like spells, fav en, animal companion, etc.

Korohit wrote:If the wizard is trained it presumes he was working on hiding in the case of the ten levels higher wizard [which is what it takes to offset the +5] I'm pretty sure I'm okay with a 15th lv Wizard being comparable to a lv1-5 trained rog at hiding. The epicness he has making him hide better seems as reasonable as the fact he has like 3-4x the HP of a lv5 rogue [not counting potential temp buffs the Wizard might have] seems reasonable. Remember to offset the trained bonus a character needs a 10 level advantage, its a pretty epic lead needed.

I was more referring to how the same level wiz isn't too much worse at hiding than the same level rouge. And, sure I can see how the 11th lv wiz is better at hiding than the 1st lv joker. But what I'm saying is that he's better at everything than they are. Even things he has no business being better at.

You don't actually have to multiclass to be a good archer. A straight fighter or ranger can be a good archer. But he's not the best archer, like the Player A you mentioned above. Straight Ranger has other qualities that I get into a little further down that set him apart from just bow use. And I contest that Player A gets more misc powers than the straight ranger or hawk totem, since they get powers almost every level.

Our point is, if you want to be the best spellcaster, you can take straight Wizard. If you want to be the best sneaky dude, you can be straight Rogue. If you want to be the best archer, there is no class for you. You can be a Ranger, and get other things, but so what? That's like arguing that a party tank should be a Bard, since they (technically) get other things too. Nobody cares.