A while ago I posted an article entitled "Featless" which seemed to get a lot of attention. Some ideas were bandied about, and I thought more on the feat issue. I suppose part of the reason I was thinking about getting rid of feats was to take some of the thought out of character planning so that players can focus more attention on the in-character play rather than the meta-game. For groups who prefer a quick-and-dirty style with simple character creation and a simpler game, I still think cutting feats out of the game wholecloth (forgive the analogy) is a capital idea. But what about those who still want to use feats, but, like me, feel that the regular interval of feats and the necessity of planning for prerequisites either stresses players out too much or at the very least makes them feel shoe-horned into paying feat taxes (which is a bigger problem in 4e, but persisted in 3.5, which is my chief area of interest)?
Let's look at some other ways in which feats, a mechanic which is admittedly cool and fun to play around with, might be utilized in the game without being earned every third level. Because we are working off of the assumption that players will not be able to expect to earn feats at regular intervals, we will first have to do away with the notion of feat prerequisites for things. That is easy enough. If you use prestige classes (as I imagine most 3.5 DMs do), then I highly recommend the Test-Based Prerequisites variant from Unearthed Arcana. I have used this variant rule for many years and both my players and I agree that it is a much better approach to prestige classes than the core rules. Second, we need to make sure that feats are not given out in too great a quantity. At the very most, a player should not be able to earn more feats than he might otherwise earn through the core rules. This is partially for balance and partially to keep complexity of the game at a moderate level. Personally, I recommend no more than one feat per five levels, but as the DM, you can make that judgment as you choose. And if you are going to do this, I highly recommend you take my advice from the Featless article and ignore monster feats as well. Just pretend monsters and NPCs in written adventures or monster manuals do not have the feats listed in order to keep things more on an even keel with the player characters.
With our ground rules established, what are these other ways in which we can introduce feats into our games, keeping them interesting, but not automatic or based on (sometimes arbitrary) prerequisites? One idea which I particularly like is the idea of a feat as a reward. It can be a reward from an NPC for completing a quest, a reward for accomplishing some heroic deed, or just about anything the DM likes. The key is that the feat is a reward, a bonus, a boon, not something that is expected. I suppose some examples might be in order to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
The player characters have been charged by the Wizards of Eindore to retrieve a magical orb from the den of the dragon, Mitzcatla. Without the orb, the Wizards of Eindore are powerless to defend their citadel and so the heroic player characters seek out Mitzcatla, slay him and his monstrous minions, retrieve the orb, and in exchange the Wizards of Eindore offer to teach the player characters one metamagic feat. It could be any metamagic feat or it could be a selection of metamagic feats of the DM's choosing. Of course, training to learn this feat ought to take some amount of time (a couple weeks at the least); I recommend seeing the Dungeon Master's Guide for recommendations on training times and costs. What about the fighters, barbarians, and rogues who gain nothing from this? Well, the Wizards of Eindore would reward those characters in the traditional way, with gold or a specially-crafted magic item. In a future adventure, the player characters might assist the army of the Kingdom of Macea in driving back the goblins from the evil Johaki Empire. This time it would be the turn of the non-casting classes to have the option of learning a combat-oriented feat in exchange for their service while the spell-casters receive a more traditional monetary or magic item reward.
An entirely different way of going about things could be to make specific conditions for players to earn feats by accomplishing some great deed or displaying phenomenal skill. I will present a few examples below.
In order to learn the Maximize feat, a spellcaster must roll the maximum roll on at least five dice worth of damage when casting a spell. Such a task is difficult, and may in fact never happen, but when it does, it will be all the more special. It is also more likely to happen the higher level the caster (it is more likely to get five maximum dice on a 15d6 cone of cold than a 5d6 shocking grasp for example).
A character may learn the Power Attack feat after dealing the killing blow to an opponent with a roll of maximum damage on the damage dice (and it must be a true killing blow which knocks the opponent to -10 hit points or the destruction of a construct, undead, etc.). This is also an unlikely event, but the longer the campaign, the more likely it is to happen. It is also not as unlikely as the Maximize Spell feat, representing the fact that Power Attack ought to be theoretically available earlier.
The Improved Initiative feat may be learned any time after the character has rolled a natural 20 for initiative and also won initiative over all other participants in the combat. This is a fairly simple thing to do. When someone rolls a natural 20 for initiative, he usually ends up going first. And this represents the fact that Improved Initiative has no prerequisites in the core rules and thus is theoretically available to anyone at any time.
These types of "accomplishments" could be secrets of the DM or they could be freely available knowledge to all players, depending on how the DM wishes to run his campaign. And the player would have the choice of taking the feat at that time, or waiting for the opportunity to later take another feat which might interest him instead (remember there still ought to be a limit on the number of feats a character may have). The point is to add a little more excitement and special nature to feats, something that is truly earned through perseverance (and some luck; after all some of the greatest accomplishments in history have happened due to luck). Obviously, this method puts quite a bit more work upon the DM. But if the DM likes this idea and is pressed for time, he could easily do it a little more free-form, deciding on the fly that some awesome stroke of brilliance, luck, or perseverance which fits the nature of the feat has been done which earns the character the feat. A DM in this case need only be wary of not showing too much favoritism to one character over another. I would suggest allowing each character no more than one more feat than the other characters in the party to keep things fair in the eyes of the players.
So there you have some ideas on how to integrate feats into the campaign on a more limited level and make them a bit more exciting and special at the same time.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Doing Away with Touch Spells and Rays
After receiving some comments from EN World, I have been thinking about what to do with touch spells. I really don't like touch spells. They require touch AC, which is a mechanic I believe is completely unnecessary. So if you are like me and think touch AC needs to go and want to unify spell mechanics, then the challenge is coming up with a simple system to convert spells that doesn't require a lot of thought and can be done on the fly without really requiring a re-write of the entire system.
Ideally, I want a situation where spells only require saving throws as a mechanic for avoiding damage or effects so casters never need to worry about calculating their to-hit bonus with touch spells and rays. There has to be a sort of balance there though. So I am going to float out a trial balloon of an idea and see what people think. I want to get feedback on this system because I really have no idea how it would work out in-game.
Here is the idea in a nutshell: Touch spells automatically hit so long as there is line of sight and the target is within range. If the spells already have a saving throw mechanic tied to them, then that saving throw mechanic remains and no other change is needed. If the spell has no saving throw mechanic, then the following rule applies: If a spell is a ray and has no saving throw tied to it, then it allows a saving throw for half damage (or a partial effect). If the spell is a melee touch attack, then the target merely needs to be within melee reach. If the melee touch spell already has a saving throw tied in the saving throw remains and nothing else is needed. If the melee touch spell has no saving throw tied in, it allows a saving throw for half damage or partial effect. Here is an example of all 1st-level spells from the Player's Handbook 3.5 and how it would work.
Bard Spells
Cure Light Wounds: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save for half damage against undead.
Cleric Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Inflict Light Wounds: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save for half damage against living targets.
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law: no touch attack required (against hostile targets); allows a Will save to negate as usual.
Druid Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Paladin Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Protection from Chaos/Evil: see Cleric Spells.
Sorcerer/Wizard Spells
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law: see Cleric Spells.
Shocking Grasp: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Reflex save for half damage; targets in metal armor receive a -3 penalty to save.
Chill Touch: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save to negate the Strength damage for living targets; undead receive a Will save to negate.
Ray of Enfeeblement: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save for half Strength penalty.
So obviously this is just a sampling, but I think it is fairly straightforward. A couple spells are a tad more complicated so I will also address those and how they would be addressed.
Disintegrate: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save for 5d6 damage.
Dimensional Anchor: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save to negate.
Obviously there is a little bit of room for interpretation in some of these, but I think the majority are fairly simple. But the rule of thumb is that a ray or touch attack with no saving throw required would require a saving throw for half damage if the spell deals damage and partial effect or negate depending on how powerful you feel the spell is. The saving throw depends on school of magic. For evocation and divination, Reflex is required. For conjuration, necromancy, and transmutation, Fortitude is required. For abjuration, illusion and enchantment, Will is required. You might go and make all ray spells Reflex saves, but that could complicate matters as to which rule takes precedence.
Bear in mind this is just a prototype idea. I welcome all constructive criticism.
Ideally, I want a situation where spells only require saving throws as a mechanic for avoiding damage or effects so casters never need to worry about calculating their to-hit bonus with touch spells and rays. There has to be a sort of balance there though. So I am going to float out a trial balloon of an idea and see what people think. I want to get feedback on this system because I really have no idea how it would work out in-game.
Here is the idea in a nutshell: Touch spells automatically hit so long as there is line of sight and the target is within range. If the spells already have a saving throw mechanic tied to them, then that saving throw mechanic remains and no other change is needed. If the spell has no saving throw mechanic, then the following rule applies: If a spell is a ray and has no saving throw tied to it, then it allows a saving throw for half damage (or a partial effect). If the spell is a melee touch attack, then the target merely needs to be within melee reach. If the melee touch spell already has a saving throw tied in the saving throw remains and nothing else is needed. If the melee touch spell has no saving throw tied in, it allows a saving throw for half damage or partial effect. Here is an example of all 1st-level spells from the Player's Handbook 3.5 and how it would work.
Bard Spells
Cure Light Wounds: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save for half damage against undead.
Cleric Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Inflict Light Wounds: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save for half damage against living targets.
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law: no touch attack required (against hostile targets); allows a Will save to negate as usual.
Druid Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Paladin Spells
Cure Light Wounds: see Bard Spells.
Protection from Chaos/Evil: see Cleric Spells.
Sorcerer/Wizard Spells
Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law: see Cleric Spells.
Shocking Grasp: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Reflex save for half damage; targets in metal armor receive a -3 penalty to save.
Chill Touch: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save to negate the Strength damage for living targets; undead receive a Will save to negate.
Ray of Enfeeblement: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save for half Strength penalty.
So obviously this is just a sampling, but I think it is fairly straightforward. A couple spells are a tad more complicated so I will also address those and how they would be addressed.
Disintegrate: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Fortitude save for 5d6 damage.
Dimensional Anchor: no touch attack required; automatically hits and allows a Will save to negate.
Obviously there is a little bit of room for interpretation in some of these, but I think the majority are fairly simple. But the rule of thumb is that a ray or touch attack with no saving throw required would require a saving throw for half damage if the spell deals damage and partial effect or negate depending on how powerful you feel the spell is. The saving throw depends on school of magic. For evocation and divination, Reflex is required. For conjuration, necromancy, and transmutation, Fortitude is required. For abjuration, illusion and enchantment, Will is required. You might go and make all ray spells Reflex saves, but that could complicate matters as to which rule takes precedence.
Bear in mind this is just a prototype idea. I welcome all constructive criticism.
Bonus Spell Slots: Do We Need Them?
I think just about everyone who has played 3rd edition D&D to any extent will admit that spell casters have it good. In fact, all editions up to and including 3rd edition are very favorable to spell casters. Even at 1st-level, a wizard can end a battle before it begins with the casting of a single sleep spell. In AD&D, I often marveled at the sheer power of spell casters and for a time wondered why anyone ever bothered to play anything else. Then 3rd edition came along and just made everything better for spell casters. I indulged for a few years, playing wizards, clerics, sorcerers and druids to the exclusion of other classes. Things had just gotten too good not to be a spell caster in my own humble opinion. Of the reasons for this, not least of which was the introduction of bonus spell slots for all spell casters (not just clerics, as was the case in previous editions) based upon their associated spell casting ability score (and even clerics got a boost with the addition of domain spell slots, but I digress).
In my eternal quest for a simpler version of 3.5, not just a version that would serve to teach new players the game, but one that would just be simpler and easier to play for everyone, I have begun to ask one key question about a number of elements of the game: "Do we really need this for the game to work?" Today I have come to the subject of bonus spell slots and honestly, truly, I cannot answer "Yes" to this question.
Now I imagine that back in AD&D bonus spell slots based on a high Wisdom score were added to the game to encourage more players to choose to play clerics. It seems like there is an eternal struggle that is never-ending to this very day each and every time a new campaign begins. Who will play the healer? Well, clerics are so much more than that, of course (as any experienced cleric player such as myself will tell you), but they often get distilled down to that, appearing to the rest of the party as so many boxes of Band-Aids. I imagine this was discovered early on by Gygax & Co. and so when they published their definitive 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, part of the thinking was that the cleric deserved a few extra spell slots because some of his spell slots would inevitably end up being used as healing spells. Now maybe I am incorrect on this, but I would not be surprised at all if this were exactly the case. So bonus spell slots perhaps make sense for the cleric class. But for everyone?
Well the nice thing about 3rd edition is that the system is so internally consistent. I imagine having separate rules for clerics gaining bonus spell slots probably seemed like yet another sub-system that the designers of 3rd edition wanted to streamline. What this really came down to, in my opinion (and feel free to disagree), was making lower level a little more interesting for spell casters. But while their intentions were good, and certainly made other classes like the wizard a little more fun to play at 1st-level, they actually tackled this from several directions and ended up with what I like to more properly call a mess.
You see, along with bonus spell slots, they also introduced 0-level spells (cantrips or orisons) as a core rule, which had appeared as a variant rule in various official and unofficial versions for years. This gave several more options to low level spell casters, minor though they may be. Furthermore, crafting magic items and the assumption of availability of magic items changed as well. It was now possible to make scrolls as early as 1st-level, allowing a spell caster with only a small cache of XP and GP to add significantly to his arsenal of spells after only a session or two, provided a bit of downtime was provided (I have taken full advantage of Scribe Scroll more times than I care to count, even on sorcerers if you can believe that; it's just that good). Scrolls and potions were also exceptionally cheap. And campaigns in the Forgotten Realms in 3rd edition often began with the assumption that a brand-spanking new 1st-level character could come equipped with either several potions of cure light wounds, or a single potion of cure moderate wounds, not to mention the vast options for other both divine and arcane scrolls, potions, and even wands. A character from The Golden Water, for example, could choose a wand of cure light wounds with 20 charges at character creation!
So we now have 0-level spells, easy crafting of scrolls, cheap scrolls and potions (and 1st-level wands as well), cleric domain spell slots, and bonus spell slots for a high ability modifier. And if you are feeling really generous you give your PCs some extra equipment a la the Forgotten Realms and who is really thinking that hard about resource management? Well, I say enough already. I think a lot of this can be done away with. But let's just focus on bonus spell slots since that is the subject of this article. Given all of the options that are now available just in the core rules of the game, why do we really need bonus spells slots again? We don't. It's that simple.
Spell casters already receive a benefit for having a high ability score in their spell casting attribute, which is improved saving throw DCs. Do they really need more? I believe if you think about it, you will agree with me that they really don't. And by the time you get to level 10, they are exceptionally superfluous. So a fix intended to address a low-level problem just balloons into a nightmare of book-keeping for spell casters as they progress higher and higher. So many spells to choose and so little time! I don't know about you, but I want to play the game, not the meta-game.
In my eternal quest for a simpler version of 3.5, not just a version that would serve to teach new players the game, but one that would just be simpler and easier to play for everyone, I have begun to ask one key question about a number of elements of the game: "Do we really need this for the game to work?" Today I have come to the subject of bonus spell slots and honestly, truly, I cannot answer "Yes" to this question.
Now I imagine that back in AD&D bonus spell slots based on a high Wisdom score were added to the game to encourage more players to choose to play clerics. It seems like there is an eternal struggle that is never-ending to this very day each and every time a new campaign begins. Who will play the healer? Well, clerics are so much more than that, of course (as any experienced cleric player such as myself will tell you), but they often get distilled down to that, appearing to the rest of the party as so many boxes of Band-Aids. I imagine this was discovered early on by Gygax & Co. and so when they published their definitive 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, part of the thinking was that the cleric deserved a few extra spell slots because some of his spell slots would inevitably end up being used as healing spells. Now maybe I am incorrect on this, but I would not be surprised at all if this were exactly the case. So bonus spell slots perhaps make sense for the cleric class. But for everyone?
Well the nice thing about 3rd edition is that the system is so internally consistent. I imagine having separate rules for clerics gaining bonus spell slots probably seemed like yet another sub-system that the designers of 3rd edition wanted to streamline. What this really came down to, in my opinion (and feel free to disagree), was making lower level a little more interesting for spell casters. But while their intentions were good, and certainly made other classes like the wizard a little more fun to play at 1st-level, they actually tackled this from several directions and ended up with what I like to more properly call a mess.
You see, along with bonus spell slots, they also introduced 0-level spells (cantrips or orisons) as a core rule, which had appeared as a variant rule in various official and unofficial versions for years. This gave several more options to low level spell casters, minor though they may be. Furthermore, crafting magic items and the assumption of availability of magic items changed as well. It was now possible to make scrolls as early as 1st-level, allowing a spell caster with only a small cache of XP and GP to add significantly to his arsenal of spells after only a session or two, provided a bit of downtime was provided (I have taken full advantage of Scribe Scroll more times than I care to count, even on sorcerers if you can believe that; it's just that good). Scrolls and potions were also exceptionally cheap. And campaigns in the Forgotten Realms in 3rd edition often began with the assumption that a brand-spanking new 1st-level character could come equipped with either several potions of cure light wounds, or a single potion of cure moderate wounds, not to mention the vast options for other both divine and arcane scrolls, potions, and even wands. A character from The Golden Water, for example, could choose a wand of cure light wounds with 20 charges at character creation!
So we now have 0-level spells, easy crafting of scrolls, cheap scrolls and potions (and 1st-level wands as well), cleric domain spell slots, and bonus spell slots for a high ability modifier. And if you are feeling really generous you give your PCs some extra equipment a la the Forgotten Realms and who is really thinking that hard about resource management? Well, I say enough already. I think a lot of this can be done away with. But let's just focus on bonus spell slots since that is the subject of this article. Given all of the options that are now available just in the core rules of the game, why do we really need bonus spells slots again? We don't. It's that simple.
Spell casters already receive a benefit for having a high ability score in their spell casting attribute, which is improved saving throw DCs. Do they really need more? I believe if you think about it, you will agree with me that they really don't. And by the time you get to level 10, they are exceptionally superfluous. So a fix intended to address a low-level problem just balloons into a nightmare of book-keeping for spell casters as they progress higher and higher. So many spells to choose and so little time! I don't know about you, but I want to play the game, not the meta-game.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Touch AC and Why it's Irrelevant
When 3rd edition of D&D came out they introduced a new concept to AC, the Touch Armor Class (as well as the Flat-Footed Armor Class). The idea was that it should be simpler to strike someone if you do not care about getting through full plate or chain mail and just want to connect with that individual bodily. This is all perfectly fair and logical. It just has one problem. It is completely unnecessary. Why? Well there is already a perfectly good mechanic in the game for one's ability to get out of the way of something dangerous. It's called the Reflex save, and if you were to evaluate all the characters you have ever played, I think you would find that if you added 10 to the value of your Reflex save, it would fairly closely match your character's touch AC. So let's get rid of that entry on the Character Sheet for Touch AC and save a little space. (We can get rid of Flat-Footed AC too, which I'll discuss below.)
Now we have to deal with the situations in 3.5 in which Touch AC is required and convert them to Reflex saves. This is actually fairly simple. The situations in which Touch AC are required are very few: 1) initiating a grapple, 2) making a trip attack, 3) touch spells. If I've missed anything, forgive me, but I think it is sufficient to say that if there are any other examples left they are marginal. Grapple and trip attacks are both easy to handle. The attacking character makes an attack roll opposed by the opponent's Reflex save; high roll wins (in case of ties, highest bonus wins the tie, as is the case for all opposed checks in 3.5). With touch spells, this is even easier. The target of the spell makes a Reflex save against the spell with a DC appropriate for the spell level in question. Viola! We've just eliminated an unnecessary part of the character sheet.
I mentioned Flat-Footed AC too. This really isn't necessary either. 4th edition acknowledged (rightly I think) that you don't need to have several values for Armor Class on your character sheet to cover every situation you could possibly think of. Realism is nice for those who like it. But I want a simpler game with a simpler character sheet. So in 4e they introduced the idea of Advantage. Whenever your character has Advantage, you gain a +2 on your roll. I like that idea. It's simple and easy to remember. So whenever your character is Flat-Footed, an attacker gets a +2 to hit you.
So now we only need one entry for Armor Class on our character sheet and don't need to worry about whether or not bonuses from one source or another apply to Touch AC or Flat-Footed AC (something that can be confusing to a new player or an old player). I have other ideas to cut down the size of the character sheet as well. Stay tuned.
Now we have to deal with the situations in 3.5 in which Touch AC is required and convert them to Reflex saves. This is actually fairly simple. The situations in which Touch AC are required are very few: 1) initiating a grapple, 2) making a trip attack, 3) touch spells. If I've missed anything, forgive me, but I think it is sufficient to say that if there are any other examples left they are marginal. Grapple and trip attacks are both easy to handle. The attacking character makes an attack roll opposed by the opponent's Reflex save; high roll wins (in case of ties, highest bonus wins the tie, as is the case for all opposed checks in 3.5). With touch spells, this is even easier. The target of the spell makes a Reflex save against the spell with a DC appropriate for the spell level in question. Viola! We've just eliminated an unnecessary part of the character sheet.
I mentioned Flat-Footed AC too. This really isn't necessary either. 4th edition acknowledged (rightly I think) that you don't need to have several values for Armor Class on your character sheet to cover every situation you could possibly think of. Realism is nice for those who like it. But I want a simpler game with a simpler character sheet. So in 4e they introduced the idea of Advantage. Whenever your character has Advantage, you gain a +2 on your roll. I like that idea. It's simple and easy to remember. So whenever your character is Flat-Footed, an attacker gets a +2 to hit you.
So now we only need one entry for Armor Class on our character sheet and don't need to worry about whether or not bonuses from one source or another apply to Touch AC or Flat-Footed AC (something that can be confusing to a new player or an old player). I have other ideas to cut down the size of the character sheet as well. Stay tuned.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Skill Packages
I received some interesting feedback from my last post on Skills at EN World. Another poster suggested skill packages, a set of skills that are somehow associated with each other, or follow a common theme. Each class gets to choose from a set of skill packages rather than choosing skills piecemeal as the current D&D 3.5 rules do. I thought about this for a moment and instantly loved it. After all, I think the 3.5 rules do a very good job of enumerating upon skills. My main problem is that they are often so complicated that it takes a good long while to pick which skills to invest in and how much to invest. It would be nice if players could pick a concept that lets them be good at what the concept implies without having to necessarily worry about the details of each and every skill point. While the Maximum Ranks, Limited Choices goes part of the way to solving this issue, it still leaves a lot of choices for a player, and still allows for things like synergy and other complicated cross-class issues. So I hit upon this idea and came up with a list of some sample skill packages of three skills each a player character might choose.
Again, let me emphasize this system does away with the whole notion of class skills and cross-class skills and lets players choose any skill package they want. The number of skill packages a player can choose would be limited in the same manner as previously described in my last post on the subject, that is, a player would receive half as many skill packages as he could normally receive in skill points per level in the core rules. Note that this system actually results in players getting more skills and potentially more skill points (if you were to reverse engineer the rule) by not being limited by class skills. I think with this system we could re-introduce the bonus for having a high a high Intelligence. For each point of Intelligence modifier, you may select one additional skill package. Instead of the synergy rule, a +2 synergy bonus would be granted if a single skill appears in two or more of your skill packages, but this bonus can only be granted once. A guiding principle in this system would also be that no two skill packages should have more than one skill in common.
So here are a few examples. It is not an exhaustive list, just a sampling. Take a look and tell me what you think.
Academic: Architecture and Engineering, Geography, History
Acrobat: Balance, Jump, Tumble
Arcanist: Concentration, Arcana, Spellcraft
Ascetic: Concentration, History, Religion
Athlete: Climb, Jump, Swim
Burglar: Hide, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand
Caretaker: Handle Animal, Heal, Nature
Con Artist: Bluff, Disguise, Forgery
Dilettante: Local, Nobility and Royalty, Perform
Interrogator: Bluff, Intimidate, Use Rope
Naturalist: Geography, Nature, Survival
Negotiator: Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive
Noble: Diplomacy, History, Nobility and Royalty
Purveyor: Appraise, Gather Information, Local
Scout: Listen, Spot, Survival
Spelunker: Climb, Dungeoneering, Use Rope
Teamster: Handle Animal, Ride, Survival
Trapper: Disable Device, Open Lock, Search
Again, let me emphasize this system does away with the whole notion of class skills and cross-class skills and lets players choose any skill package they want. The number of skill packages a player can choose would be limited in the same manner as previously described in my last post on the subject, that is, a player would receive half as many skill packages as he could normally receive in skill points per level in the core rules. Note that this system actually results in players getting more skills and potentially more skill points (if you were to reverse engineer the rule) by not being limited by class skills. I think with this system we could re-introduce the bonus for having a high a high Intelligence. For each point of Intelligence modifier, you may select one additional skill package. Instead of the synergy rule, a +2 synergy bonus would be granted if a single skill appears in two or more of your skill packages, but this bonus can only be granted once. A guiding principle in this system would also be that no two skill packages should have more than one skill in common.
So here are a few examples. It is not an exhaustive list, just a sampling. Take a look and tell me what you think.
Academic: Architecture and Engineering, Geography, History
Acrobat: Balance, Jump, Tumble
Arcanist: Concentration, Arcana, Spellcraft
Ascetic: Concentration, History, Religion
Athlete: Climb, Jump, Swim
Burglar: Hide, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand
Caretaker: Handle Animal, Heal, Nature
Con Artist: Bluff, Disguise, Forgery
Dilettante: Local, Nobility and Royalty, Perform
Interrogator: Bluff, Intimidate, Use Rope
Naturalist: Geography, Nature, Survival
Negotiator: Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive
Noble: Diplomacy, History, Nobility and Royalty
Purveyor: Appraise, Gather Information, Local
Scout: Listen, Spot, Survival
Spelunker: Climb, Dungeoneering, Use Rope
Teamster: Handle Animal, Ride, Survival
Trapper: Disable Device, Open Lock, Search
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Cohorts and Henchmen and Hirelings, Oh My!
I love stories like The Hobbit where a huge party of would-be heroes go out seeking adventures. I would one day like to run a campaign that is some sort of reflection on that and isn't just focused on one small group of nigh-invulnerable characters (as so many fantasy RPG games seem to be these days). I really never have had the opportunity to run something like this and I think it would be a great experience. But how to work it into D&D 3.5?
In older editions of the game, player characters were allowed to acquire henchmen based on their Charisma scores. In 3.5 we have something similar: the Leadership feat. But something about the Leadership feat has never sat right with me. Perhaps it is the fact that you must devote a cherished character resource (a feat) in order to gather followers. Or maybe I just object to the idea of having only one real henchman (your cohort) and a bunch of glorified hirelings (your followers). Whatever the case, I don't really like Leadership. In the past I have tried various means to reconcile the feat with my distaste for it. In one campaign I granted every character the Leadership feat for free starting at 3rd-level (meaning the player characters could begin training a 1st-level cohort as soon as they reached 3rd-level). But that was not a very satisfying experience. Ultimately, I would like to tie the recruiting of henchmen and other such lackeys into the core rules of the game. But it needs to be a simple system and it also ought to have a basis in the mechanics of the game.
A good many things are calculated in the game using one half of a character's level or hit dice. Especially as one looks at more and more into the later source books for material you can see this rule used, as in the saving throw DC of a dragonfire adept's breath weapon. So let's do away with the Leadership feat, give every player character a Leadership score, and base it on the half-level mechanic. Every character has a Leadership score equal to half his level plus his Charisma modifier (minimum 1); this only applies to the character's natural or inherent Charisma score, not to any bonus he might receive from magic items or temporary boosts such as the eagle's splendor spell (a DM may allow a magic item to count if the character never removes it). Starting at second level (after all a character with henchmen ought to have acquired at least a little prestige), a player character can begin acquiring henchmen (or cohorts, whatever you want to call them). A henchman is a new 1st-level character which you may choose for yourself, but must follow the character creation rules set by the Dungeon Master for the campaign. Furthermore, your total number of henchmen allowed can be no greater than your Leadership score, and DMs may choose to restrict the number of new henchmen to one per level gained with your primary player character based on how he wishes to run his campaign. DMs might also require a little bit of roleplaying (gasp!) or at the very least a DC 10 Leadership check to acquire a new henchman.
Henchmen work mostly like other player characters. However they can never have henchmen of their own. They also gain experience points equal to half the experience points earned by their leader whenever their leader is participating in the same adventure and are likewise only entitled to half a share of the treasure gained. So a player may decide for one adventure to have his primary character sit the adventure out so that his henchman might gain full experience points and treasure for the adventure. However, if a henchman ever reaches enough experience points to equal the experience level of his leader, or his leader dies and is not resurrected, he becomes a full-fledged player character in his own right and may begin acquiring henchmen of his own.
This leads to players developing a stable of characters with which they can choose to play. Thus if a character dies after 1st-level, the player of that character always has henchmen to fall back on, making the death of a character less of a burden for a player and the party. The player already other characters waiting in the wings and doesn't need to create a brand new character from scratch. The DM also does not have the headache of determining how much wealth a brand new character entering the campaign will have or what magic items (if any) he should be allowed; the DM has already decided to allow whatever the henchman has into the campaign. A dead player's wealth and magic items pass on to his henchman as he desires, thus removing another thorny issue that often arises when a player character dies. There is no looting of the bodies of the dead character because his henchmen will receive his treasure. And the player of the dead character gets to keep any truly special items he might have acquired "in the house" so to speak.
I think this would work out brilliantly for a campaign that is friendly to having lots of characters around, especially one with simplified rules (such as I have been discussing already in this blog). I think it also gives players a better sense of attachment to their new primary character should their old primary character die or be required to leave the party for some reason (sometimes a player may lose interest in his primary character and just want him to retire). Obviously since henchmen start out at 1st-level and only gain half experience, they become progressively weaker relative to their leader, but since most henchmen will never become a primary character, this is not so much an issue. (And if you look at the experience table, a henchman will never be that much further behind the primary character than a cohort would; a 10th-level player character's first henchman gained at 2nd-level would be at least 7th-level, for example.) I also love that this rule gives a real tangible benefit to the Charisma score for ALL player characters, as Charisma is often seen as the default dump stat for practically every character who doesn't have Charisma tied to spellcasting (I've even seen paladins dump it or invest very little in it).
And of course none of this keeps a DM from running a four or five man party of superheroes who don't have time for things like henchmen if that is his fancy. This is a take-it-or-leave-it rule for those DMs who want the opportunity to have a large pool of characters in their campaigns even when they have a limited number of players. I imagine this could work out very well for DMs with only two or three players.
In older editions of the game, player characters were allowed to acquire henchmen based on their Charisma scores. In 3.5 we have something similar: the Leadership feat. But something about the Leadership feat has never sat right with me. Perhaps it is the fact that you must devote a cherished character resource (a feat) in order to gather followers. Or maybe I just object to the idea of having only one real henchman (your cohort) and a bunch of glorified hirelings (your followers). Whatever the case, I don't really like Leadership. In the past I have tried various means to reconcile the feat with my distaste for it. In one campaign I granted every character the Leadership feat for free starting at 3rd-level (meaning the player characters could begin training a 1st-level cohort as soon as they reached 3rd-level). But that was not a very satisfying experience. Ultimately, I would like to tie the recruiting of henchmen and other such lackeys into the core rules of the game. But it needs to be a simple system and it also ought to have a basis in the mechanics of the game.
A good many things are calculated in the game using one half of a character's level or hit dice. Especially as one looks at more and more into the later source books for material you can see this rule used, as in the saving throw DC of a dragonfire adept's breath weapon. So let's do away with the Leadership feat, give every player character a Leadership score, and base it on the half-level mechanic. Every character has a Leadership score equal to half his level plus his Charisma modifier (minimum 1); this only applies to the character's natural or inherent Charisma score, not to any bonus he might receive from magic items or temporary boosts such as the eagle's splendor spell (a DM may allow a magic item to count if the character never removes it). Starting at second level (after all a character with henchmen ought to have acquired at least a little prestige), a player character can begin acquiring henchmen (or cohorts, whatever you want to call them). A henchman is a new 1st-level character which you may choose for yourself, but must follow the character creation rules set by the Dungeon Master for the campaign. Furthermore, your total number of henchmen allowed can be no greater than your Leadership score, and DMs may choose to restrict the number of new henchmen to one per level gained with your primary player character based on how he wishes to run his campaign. DMs might also require a little bit of roleplaying (gasp!) or at the very least a DC 10 Leadership check to acquire a new henchman.
Henchmen work mostly like other player characters. However they can never have henchmen of their own. They also gain experience points equal to half the experience points earned by their leader whenever their leader is participating in the same adventure and are likewise only entitled to half a share of the treasure gained. So a player may decide for one adventure to have his primary character sit the adventure out so that his henchman might gain full experience points and treasure for the adventure. However, if a henchman ever reaches enough experience points to equal the experience level of his leader, or his leader dies and is not resurrected, he becomes a full-fledged player character in his own right and may begin acquiring henchmen of his own.
This leads to players developing a stable of characters with which they can choose to play. Thus if a character dies after 1st-level, the player of that character always has henchmen to fall back on, making the death of a character less of a burden for a player and the party. The player already other characters waiting in the wings and doesn't need to create a brand new character from scratch. The DM also does not have the headache of determining how much wealth a brand new character entering the campaign will have or what magic items (if any) he should be allowed; the DM has already decided to allow whatever the henchman has into the campaign. A dead player's wealth and magic items pass on to his henchman as he desires, thus removing another thorny issue that often arises when a player character dies. There is no looting of the bodies of the dead character because his henchmen will receive his treasure. And the player of the dead character gets to keep any truly special items he might have acquired "in the house" so to speak.
I think this would work out brilliantly for a campaign that is friendly to having lots of characters around, especially one with simplified rules (such as I have been discussing already in this blog). I think it also gives players a better sense of attachment to their new primary character should their old primary character die or be required to leave the party for some reason (sometimes a player may lose interest in his primary character and just want him to retire). Obviously since henchmen start out at 1st-level and only gain half experience, they become progressively weaker relative to their leader, but since most henchmen will never become a primary character, this is not so much an issue. (And if you look at the experience table, a henchman will never be that much further behind the primary character than a cohort would; a 10th-level player character's first henchman gained at 2nd-level would be at least 7th-level, for example.) I also love that this rule gives a real tangible benefit to the Charisma score for ALL player characters, as Charisma is often seen as the default dump stat for practically every character who doesn't have Charisma tied to spellcasting (I've even seen paladins dump it or invest very little in it).
And of course none of this keeps a DM from running a four or five man party of superheroes who don't have time for things like henchmen if that is his fancy. This is a take-it-or-leave-it rule for those DMs who want the opportunity to have a large pool of characters in their campaigns even when they have a limited number of players. I imagine this could work out very well for DMs with only two or three players.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Skills? What Skills?
In my quest for a simpler version of D&D 3.5, I have been thinking about skills. Skills in 3.5 are cool. But really there is a lot of complication in them when you think about it. Class skills, cross-class skills, synergy bonuses, maximum ranks, taking 10, taking 20, etc. It is something that has been difficult for me to explain to new players in the past. Unlike the relatively simple skill system used in Palladium games (which I only use as a comparison because I know it well), learning the ins and outs of the D&D 3.5 skill system is something that can truly take years to master. This is just a game for goodness sakes! While I appreciate the realism that complexity can simulate, I am finding myself more and more attracted to simple fun. So what can be done to make skills simpler? Getting rid of them would be a start. This is the just the beginning of the genesis of an idea so bear with me. I hope to develop this out a little more thoroughly over time.
As I discussed in Featless?, sometimes the simplest way to deal with a complex system is to just get rid of it. If you can find a way to do so while preserving the balance of the game and not requiring a massive re-write of the entire 3.5 library, then I think that is the ideal. Now when I say get rid of of skills, what I am really talking about is the fiddly bits, namely the stuff it takes to figure out what your bonus is, i.e. the math. I think it would be nice to be able to quickly calculate your character's bonus for something that could be considered a skill without needing half your character sheet to show all your math. So join me in a little thought experiment. What if there were only six skills and each of them corresponded to an ability score?
The Strength skill would encompass climbing, jumping, swimming, breaking down doors, bending open bars, and anything of that nature. The Dexterity skill would involve sneaking around, picking locks, balancing on precarious surfaces, tumbling past your opponents, and so on. Constitution would include not just the Concentration skill (which you might be surprised to learn comes into play for more characters than just spellcasters), but also checks against fatigue as well as starvation and thirst. You get the picture. As a rule of thumb, use the ability score associated with the 3.5 skill list as a guideline for what skill belongs where. If a skill is associated with an ability score, it falls under that ability score's skill.
So how would we determine what skills your character has and what your bonus is? This part is a little trickier if you want to preserve balance and probably requires some thought, but I think a good way to determine how many skills your character has would be to take the base number of skill points received at each level and divide by two. Thus a fighter would receive one skill, a druid would receive two, a ranger three, a rogue four, and so on. What about bonus skills for a high Intelligence? Well I haven't thought that far ahead yet, but for now let's work on the assumption that Intelligence is its own reward and not worry about that (perhaps a topic for a future blog post).
I can hear the arguments against this now. "Way overpowered!" Well maybe. But let's consider that there has been a general trend in the d20-based gaming market recently towards hefty consolidation of skills. Pathfinder and 4th edition both have considerably smaller lists of skills than 3.5, and many people like those skill systems quite a lot for this very reason. Does this go too far? I don't know. As I said this is just the beginning of an idea. We'll see where it goes.
-Marionnen
As I discussed in Featless?, sometimes the simplest way to deal with a complex system is to just get rid of it. If you can find a way to do so while preserving the balance of the game and not requiring a massive re-write of the entire 3.5 library, then I think that is the ideal. Now when I say get rid of of skills, what I am really talking about is the fiddly bits, namely the stuff it takes to figure out what your bonus is, i.e. the math. I think it would be nice to be able to quickly calculate your character's bonus for something that could be considered a skill without needing half your character sheet to show all your math. So join me in a little thought experiment. What if there were only six skills and each of them corresponded to an ability score?
The Strength skill would encompass climbing, jumping, swimming, breaking down doors, bending open bars, and anything of that nature. The Dexterity skill would involve sneaking around, picking locks, balancing on precarious surfaces, tumbling past your opponents, and so on. Constitution would include not just the Concentration skill (which you might be surprised to learn comes into play for more characters than just spellcasters), but also checks against fatigue as well as starvation and thirst. You get the picture. As a rule of thumb, use the ability score associated with the 3.5 skill list as a guideline for what skill belongs where. If a skill is associated with an ability score, it falls under that ability score's skill.
So how would we determine what skills your character has and what your bonus is? This part is a little trickier if you want to preserve balance and probably requires some thought, but I think a good way to determine how many skills your character has would be to take the base number of skill points received at each level and divide by two. Thus a fighter would receive one skill, a druid would receive two, a ranger three, a rogue four, and so on. What about bonus skills for a high Intelligence? Well I haven't thought that far ahead yet, but for now let's work on the assumption that Intelligence is its own reward and not worry about that (perhaps a topic for a future blog post).
I can hear the arguments against this now. "Way overpowered!" Well maybe. But let's consider that there has been a general trend in the d20-based gaming market recently towards hefty consolidation of skills. Pathfinder and 4th edition both have considerably smaller lists of skills than 3.5, and many people like those skill systems quite a lot for this very reason. Does this go too far? I don't know. As I said this is just the beginning of an idea. We'll see where it goes.
-Marionnen
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Featless?
I once touched on this on my EN World blog. In my quest to find simpler ways to run and play D&D 3.5 (particularly at high levels), I have done a lot of thought experiments and house rule experiments in my campaigns. One of the simplest ideas I think I ever came up with was to completely take feats out of the game. The idea might sound crazy, nigh irrational. After all, aren't feats one of the things that really makes 3.5 unique and customizable? But one thing I have noticed after over a decade of DMing is that feats are things players tend to agonize over. And they are entirely unnecessary. That's right, entirely unnecessary. I think the game works just fine if you get rid of feats.
So what exactly do I mean when I say get rid of feats? Well, I don't mean all feats. After all, the fighter has nothing if he doesn't have feats. There are basically two ways of approaching this. The simplest is to say that characters do not receive level-based feats. So the feats you get at 1st, 3rd, 6th and so on are entirely cut out. Class-based feats remain. Do this for monsters too and everyone is basically on a level playing field. The feats that add bonuses to monster stats are a little harder to extricate, but in my experience, they matter so little that the work to remove things like +2 from Iron Will is unnecessary, but you can do it on the fly with a bit of simple arithmetic. So characters would still get to pick bonus feats based on class such as fighter bonus feats. It is only the level-based feats that would be affected.
The second way to do this is to codify the exact feats that classes like the fighter and the wizard receive, such that they have no choice in the matter. "No choice in the matter? So my character is a cookie-cutter character?" Not exactly. There are still ways to customize your character. You can still multiclass and arrange your stats the way you want them. And classes like the fighter would probably have at least three paths to choose from. For example, one path would be for archery, one for two-handed weapon fighting, and one for sword-and-shield fighting (two-weapon fighting would remain the demesne of the ranger).
Bear in mind all of this is in the interest of simplifying character creation and encouraging players to try new things. With simpler rules for character creation it would be easier for a player to pick up two or three different characters (at a time) and give them a try without having to worry about planning the character out too much. I haven't tested this to its fullest extent, but I think it is worth considering, and I am leaning towards giving this a try for the new campaign I run.
One of the primary barriers I see to this is the fact that I tend to run my games in Eberron and it gives characters no technical means to acquire dragonmarks. Perhaps I could make dragonmarks character traits a la Unearthed Arcana. I also understand that 4e had a different mechanism for dealing with this which might warrant a look. Another means is to simply require some type of trade-off. A fighter could trade a bonus feat, or a cleric might trade a spell slot. But this will take a little bit of thought. Your comments are welcome!
-Marionnen
So what exactly do I mean when I say get rid of feats? Well, I don't mean all feats. After all, the fighter has nothing if he doesn't have feats. There are basically two ways of approaching this. The simplest is to say that characters do not receive level-based feats. So the feats you get at 1st, 3rd, 6th and so on are entirely cut out. Class-based feats remain. Do this for monsters too and everyone is basically on a level playing field. The feats that add bonuses to monster stats are a little harder to extricate, but in my experience, they matter so little that the work to remove things like +2 from Iron Will is unnecessary, but you can do it on the fly with a bit of simple arithmetic. So characters would still get to pick bonus feats based on class such as fighter bonus feats. It is only the level-based feats that would be affected.
The second way to do this is to codify the exact feats that classes like the fighter and the wizard receive, such that they have no choice in the matter. "No choice in the matter? So my character is a cookie-cutter character?" Not exactly. There are still ways to customize your character. You can still multiclass and arrange your stats the way you want them. And classes like the fighter would probably have at least three paths to choose from. For example, one path would be for archery, one for two-handed weapon fighting, and one for sword-and-shield fighting (two-weapon fighting would remain the demesne of the ranger).
Bear in mind all of this is in the interest of simplifying character creation and encouraging players to try new things. With simpler rules for character creation it would be easier for a player to pick up two or three different characters (at a time) and give them a try without having to worry about planning the character out too much. I haven't tested this to its fullest extent, but I think it is worth considering, and I am leaning towards giving this a try for the new campaign I run.
One of the primary barriers I see to this is the fact that I tend to run my games in Eberron and it gives characters no technical means to acquire dragonmarks. Perhaps I could make dragonmarks character traits a la Unearthed Arcana. I also understand that 4e had a different mechanism for dealing with this which might warrant a look. Another means is to simply require some type of trade-off. A fighter could trade a bonus feat, or a cleric might trade a spell slot. But this will take a little bit of thought. Your comments are welcome!
-Marionnen
Friday, November 30, 2012
The Ineffective Iterative
An idea struck me today right out of the blue. So in D&D 3.5 everyone knows that characters get an extra attack for every 5 points of base attack bonus beyond +1 up to 20. We also know that these so-called iterative attacks are at -5 for each subsequent attack, such that a 16th-level fighter's fourth attack is penalized a full -15. A common criticism of the system in this respect is that the iterative attacks grant a diminishing return. Whereas the wizard continues to gain more powerful and higher level spells as he levels up, the fighter and his kin receive weaker and yet weaker attacks as they progress. That is hardly balanced and is often a central part of the argument that spell casters are far too powerful compared to fighting classes. In the past I have considered getting rid of this penalty to iterative attacks altogether and simply reducing the number of iterative attacks to three, granted at +8 and +16 respectively. But what about something more internally consistent?
Consider that monsters in 3.5 all have a primary attack which receives the full base attack bonus and secondary attacks which are all at a -5 penalty. Well this works well for monsters like dragons and trolls. Why couldn't it work for PCs too? At 6th-level the fighter gets a second attack at -5 and again at level 11 and level 16 he gains a third and fourth attack, but these are also at merely -5, instead of -10 and -15. This might go some of the way to ameliorating the imbalance between fighters and wizards. Obviously not a cure-all, but it is internally consistent with the way monsters work and also gives the fighter more reliable iterative attacks.
-Marionnen
Consider that monsters in 3.5 all have a primary attack which receives the full base attack bonus and secondary attacks which are all at a -5 penalty. Well this works well for monsters like dragons and trolls. Why couldn't it work for PCs too? At 6th-level the fighter gets a second attack at -5 and again at level 11 and level 16 he gains a third and fourth attack, but these are also at merely -5, instead of -10 and -15. This might go some of the way to ameliorating the imbalance between fighters and wizards. Obviously not a cure-all, but it is internally consistent with the way monsters work and also gives the fighter more reliable iterative attacks.
-Marionnen
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Backgrounds and Archetypes
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the 3.5 edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Specifically, I have been thinking about ways to keep the things that I love (the internally consistent mechanics) while trimming some of the fat which I believe interferes with the development of characters. Anyone who has played 3.5 knows that it has a glut of rules and options. That is what players probably like most about it: the choices. But in my old-school style of play there are things I would like to do with a D&D game that 3.5 provides barriers to. I will demonstrate with an example from my current D&D campaign.
I am running the Shackled City Adventure Path published by Paizo. I have set the adventure path within the world of Eberron (my favorite setting for 3.5) and made some adaptations to the story where necessary. Anyway, that is the short-hand background. I have three players and the group dynamic is good; I really don't want to add a fourth or more. Sessions flow smoothly and I feel I have the freedom to give each player a good amount of time to develop their characters, a fact of which I am very proud; stories are very important to me. But the problem lies in the adventure path itself. If I do not make major adjustments to the challenge level then the players have a very difficult time of things. Early on I addressed this by granting each player character 20 bonus hit points at 1st level and 4 bonus skill points per level to give them added survivability and flexibility respectively. But the player characters are now 13th level, and they have entered the realm of frequent save-or-lose effects like finger of death or dominate. Extra hit points and skill points simply are not going to help them handle this. So to address this new dynamic of high-level play I offered the players several options for selecting cohorts to act as a buffer and backup characters, but the response I got was generally that the players felt their characters were already complicated enough, and the group doesn't even have a dedicated spellcaster! In the end, only one player opted to take on a cohort.
Legendary heroes of phenomenal (and indomitable) power are all well and good for some games, but I have never felt D&D was that kind of game. And the Eberron campaign setting certainly isn't meant for that style of play. Characters who get beyond 10th level in Eberron are already bordering on the stuff of legend. But D&D has a long tradition of large parties of adventurers and heroes going off to face dangerous circumstances, which for some will mean their ultimate demise. Character death is part of the game, but it makes it difficult to keep that flavor of danger and suspense when there are so few heroes in the group. If I, as the Dungeon Master, allow even one of these characters to die, the party loses a very significant portion of its strength, which means I must be careful to walk a thin line between keeping things dangerous enough to keep the game interesting but not so dangerous as to actually kill a character, as doing so would spell almost certain doom for the entire party. We will probably continue to the end of the adventure path with the current party make-up mostly the way it is now, three heroes and one cohort, but this is not ideal. Ultimately it hamstrings my ability to challenge the players because the death of a single character is so detrimental. So I am forced to break with the milieu and run a game which I feel does not truly capture the essence of D&D. I've resigned myself to that for the sake of this campaign. I am still having fun, but there are things I wish I could do differently.
So this has got me to thinking about how I intend to run things the next time I run a D&D campaign. I love many things about 3rd edition, and at this point it would be difficult for me to break from it. But I have begun to consider ways in which characters might be made simpler so that the prospect of taking on the responsibility of playing a second (or even a third!) character might not seem so daunting.
I have one idea which has been building in my mind and is influenced by some of the developments I have seen coming from the playtest of D&D Next, the latest incarnation of the game which is still in development, as well as the idea of kits, which were introduced in 2nd edition. The idea is the concept of backgrounds or archetypes. Now 3rd edition D&D already has a lot of complexity in character creation, and I think that might be one of the main barriers to players feeling they can play multiple characters. It isn't so simple as rolling stats then picking a race and a class. But I want to make it that simple, in practical terms anyway. Probably a better way of saying this is that I want to make it as close to that simple paradigm of stats/race/class as possible, and the way to do that is with backgrounds and archetypes.
A background is independent of character class and can represent the way a character developed early in life. It influences his early training as well as his feat and ability score increase choices. To put it succinctly, it is a set of pre-selected feats and ability score increases intended to reduce some of the thought needed to put into character development. Actually, this has already been done for 3rd edition in an official way in the Player's Handbook 2. If I wanted to do things the easy way, I could just steal Table A-3: Feat Progressions by Role. But this has a couple disadvantages. First, it assumes your character is staying in the same class for 20 levels, which, in my experience, few characters do. Second, it is limited to three roles per class. (It also does not select ability score increases, but that is a more minor detail.) In my ideal world, each and every background would be completely independent of class. You could select a background that grants you the Power Attack, Cleave and Improved Sunder feats with any class or multiclass combination you like.
Archetypes are based on class, stylized on the way you intend to play the class. Mechanically they are skill and options packages for classes which make leveling the character easier by building in your choices on skill points and other class features, such as bonus feats and the like, from 1st level. A fighter who chooses the Archer archetype, for example, would gain bonus feats like Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot and Rapid Shot. I would not allow myself to be beholden to the class skills as described in the Player's Handbook either. If a skill made sense for an archetype, it would be treated as a class skill.
Now there are a few problems that need to be worked out. First of all, I would have to make sure that there is little to no overlap between archetypes and backgrounds. Otherwise, there would be the obvious complications when a feat is indicated by both. And they would need to be designed so that archetypes and backgrounds which are similar would be synergistic. And of course this whole idea might detract from the very value of playing 3.5 for many players as well. I freely admit that what draws many players to 3.5 is its options and customization. But quite frankly, when I have players of relatively simple classes like the soulknife telling me they have too many things to keep track of to take on the responsibilities of a second character, I have to wonder if perhaps the character generation system is part of the problem.
This is only step one. The 3.5 system could do with a good bit of simplification. More unified rules for combat maneuvers, such as those found in the Pathfinder system might definitely be called for. (I have no interest in actually playing Pathfinder, but that is a discussion for another day.) A simplified spell system would likely be in order, although that is a tougher beast to tackle; still, I have some ideas. Ultimately, however, I hope to develop within the next year (and in time for my next campaign) a more streamlined system in which playing more than one character will not seem like a burden but rather an opportunity.
-Marionnen
I am running the Shackled City Adventure Path published by Paizo. I have set the adventure path within the world of Eberron (my favorite setting for 3.5) and made some adaptations to the story where necessary. Anyway, that is the short-hand background. I have three players and the group dynamic is good; I really don't want to add a fourth or more. Sessions flow smoothly and I feel I have the freedom to give each player a good amount of time to develop their characters, a fact of which I am very proud; stories are very important to me. But the problem lies in the adventure path itself. If I do not make major adjustments to the challenge level then the players have a very difficult time of things. Early on I addressed this by granting each player character 20 bonus hit points at 1st level and 4 bonus skill points per level to give them added survivability and flexibility respectively. But the player characters are now 13th level, and they have entered the realm of frequent save-or-lose effects like finger of death or dominate. Extra hit points and skill points simply are not going to help them handle this. So to address this new dynamic of high-level play I offered the players several options for selecting cohorts to act as a buffer and backup characters, but the response I got was generally that the players felt their characters were already complicated enough, and the group doesn't even have a dedicated spellcaster! In the end, only one player opted to take on a cohort.
Legendary heroes of phenomenal (and indomitable) power are all well and good for some games, but I have never felt D&D was that kind of game. And the Eberron campaign setting certainly isn't meant for that style of play. Characters who get beyond 10th level in Eberron are already bordering on the stuff of legend. But D&D has a long tradition of large parties of adventurers and heroes going off to face dangerous circumstances, which for some will mean their ultimate demise. Character death is part of the game, but it makes it difficult to keep that flavor of danger and suspense when there are so few heroes in the group. If I, as the Dungeon Master, allow even one of these characters to die, the party loses a very significant portion of its strength, which means I must be careful to walk a thin line between keeping things dangerous enough to keep the game interesting but not so dangerous as to actually kill a character, as doing so would spell almost certain doom for the entire party. We will probably continue to the end of the adventure path with the current party make-up mostly the way it is now, three heroes and one cohort, but this is not ideal. Ultimately it hamstrings my ability to challenge the players because the death of a single character is so detrimental. So I am forced to break with the milieu and run a game which I feel does not truly capture the essence of D&D. I've resigned myself to that for the sake of this campaign. I am still having fun, but there are things I wish I could do differently.
So this has got me to thinking about how I intend to run things the next time I run a D&D campaign. I love many things about 3rd edition, and at this point it would be difficult for me to break from it. But I have begun to consider ways in which characters might be made simpler so that the prospect of taking on the responsibility of playing a second (or even a third!) character might not seem so daunting.
I have one idea which has been building in my mind and is influenced by some of the developments I have seen coming from the playtest of D&D Next, the latest incarnation of the game which is still in development, as well as the idea of kits, which were introduced in 2nd edition. The idea is the concept of backgrounds or archetypes. Now 3rd edition D&D already has a lot of complexity in character creation, and I think that might be one of the main barriers to players feeling they can play multiple characters. It isn't so simple as rolling stats then picking a race and a class. But I want to make it that simple, in practical terms anyway. Probably a better way of saying this is that I want to make it as close to that simple paradigm of stats/race/class as possible, and the way to do that is with backgrounds and archetypes.
A background is independent of character class and can represent the way a character developed early in life. It influences his early training as well as his feat and ability score increase choices. To put it succinctly, it is a set of pre-selected feats and ability score increases intended to reduce some of the thought needed to put into character development. Actually, this has already been done for 3rd edition in an official way in the Player's Handbook 2. If I wanted to do things the easy way, I could just steal Table A-3: Feat Progressions by Role. But this has a couple disadvantages. First, it assumes your character is staying in the same class for 20 levels, which, in my experience, few characters do. Second, it is limited to three roles per class. (It also does not select ability score increases, but that is a more minor detail.) In my ideal world, each and every background would be completely independent of class. You could select a background that grants you the Power Attack, Cleave and Improved Sunder feats with any class or multiclass combination you like.
Archetypes are based on class, stylized on the way you intend to play the class. Mechanically they are skill and options packages for classes which make leveling the character easier by building in your choices on skill points and other class features, such as bonus feats and the like, from 1st level. A fighter who chooses the Archer archetype, for example, would gain bonus feats like Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot and Rapid Shot. I would not allow myself to be beholden to the class skills as described in the Player's Handbook either. If a skill made sense for an archetype, it would be treated as a class skill.
Now there are a few problems that need to be worked out. First of all, I would have to make sure that there is little to no overlap between archetypes and backgrounds. Otherwise, there would be the obvious complications when a feat is indicated by both. And they would need to be designed so that archetypes and backgrounds which are similar would be synergistic. And of course this whole idea might detract from the very value of playing 3.5 for many players as well. I freely admit that what draws many players to 3.5 is its options and customization. But quite frankly, when I have players of relatively simple classes like the soulknife telling me they have too many things to keep track of to take on the responsibilities of a second character, I have to wonder if perhaps the character generation system is part of the problem.
This is only step one. The 3.5 system could do with a good bit of simplification. More unified rules for combat maneuvers, such as those found in the Pathfinder system might definitely be called for. (I have no interest in actually playing Pathfinder, but that is a discussion for another day.) A simplified spell system would likely be in order, although that is a tougher beast to tackle; still, I have some ideas. Ultimately, however, I hope to develop within the next year (and in time for my next campaign) a more streamlined system in which playing more than one character will not seem like a burden but rather an opportunity.
-Marionnen
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