First thoughts: D&D 3.5

[Carthrat]

Bah, even taking AoOs and stuff on casters isn't balancing them. Remove 5ft steps and concentration- doesn't change anything once they get something like Contingency.

Or fly.

Or- get this- expeditious retreat.

Take into account that dimension door is a virtually uninterruptable spell that can even be cast while in a grapple, and you can figure than any 7th-level mage had to be OHKO'd, or you're stuffed.

<->

I don't really fault the idea of making clerics more interesting... but with their epic modern spell selection, and their domain powers, I really question the need for crap like divine power. I'm not convinced not allowing spellcasting during divine power is enough. There are some particularly disgusting metamagic things that'll allow it to last all day, if you take one book out of core.

Dune's really, really hit the nail on the head when he talks about core-only games.

I do (or did, rather, it's kind of old, now) perusing the books, both as a player and a GM. They give plenty of ideas and sometimes very interesting new directions for feats and class abilities.

[Dracos]

AoOs: There's a few ways to take advantage of them, and a few more ways if you have a spiked chain. (You trigger an AoO for standing up, and improved trip lets you knock people over and get a free attack when you do! Hmm...)

Skills: Perhaps the same could be said for all dicerolls in this system.

It can to a degree.  That said, skills are a strong offender some because so many of them go against static limits and others because they're so often against reasonably static limits.  It's easily understandable that bigger monsters or more skilled enemies come up, but for a large deal of the skill rolls you really do have to create pretty convoluted situations to keep challenging a 12+ character.  The game's massive encouragement to keep dumping points in doesn't really help the situation either  (You can...become even more certain of succeeding in one skill or get a meaninglessly low but improved chance in another?).

Classes: Making a high-level fighter isn't about the feats, it's about how bored you're willing to get before making a magic-user (or a rogue). Paladins are actually worse; they barely scrape through with spells like Holy Sword... and they still kinda suck. They get to use smite hardly ever, and when they're not using it, they're busy being sub-par fighters.

In fairness, this depends a lot on the GM.  I've played enough campaigns with paladins that got to smite almost once a session (Oh, more EVIL enemies) to not blink at it.  And frankly, I think you undersell having a fighter that can heal and turn a bit and has a magical mount just at the cost of...not getting the fighter core feats.

Rangers are kind of good... but rogues are better at sneaking around, and actually hurt things better when they surprise attack, too. Actually, rogues remain relevant for many reasons, in part because they can get around without being seen, and use magic items. Sneak Attack, if used right, can seriously outdamage any of the fighting classes- on a regular, expected basis. I'd also like to state that I think the skill system is a vast improvement over the ridiculous 2e system, which implied that a rogue had an x% chance of overcoming *any* particularly roguely check. It's true you could apply modifiers to that check... but I never, ever saw anything in the 2e books that suggested giving circumstantial bonuses.

On the rogue side, yes.  On the rest of the skill side?  Not so much.  And yes, rogues rock.

Monks are a joke. They get owned by any real man's fighting class- their AC isn't high enough, they can't outdamage them, and they can sometimes barely *hit*. They don't get enough spell resistance, or useful tricks, to outplay a spellcaster. In fact, most of their tricks are a joke; I forget when they get Quivering Palm, but the save is too low and the caster can spam save-or-dies at that point anyway. Stunning Fist is admittedly pretty good... overall, though, I think they're basically crap rogues.

That's a bit unfair.  To the rogues.

*goes and cries about monks sucking*

Casters are the shit. Clerics and Druids are unquestionably the most powerful classes in the game; once they get beyond around 6th level, they can effectively turn into fighters (only better), and THEN they have all their nifty spells and whatnot. Wizards have a better spell selection, imho, but half the HP and none of the armour. It's very hard for anyone to catch up, at this point.

You know, I almost never see anyone playing a druid, 'powerful' or not.  In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone but you here even consider them for a class.  That said, can't disagree with cleric's little uberspell set.  I don't really think that was needed.

[Dracos]

Just be wary of casters. Mages, Clerics and Druids all become utterly unbalanced later on. The limitations of 2nd edition(Not being able to move when casting, casting charge times each round, disruption if you take damage at any point before casting that round, ect ect) are by and large gone. Combine that with absolutely amazing versatility and damage that can outpace warrior types even early on? Boom.

Personally, I'm going to give a big huge shouted "Hallelujah!" that the whole stuipd segment system is gone.  Casting as "either standard or full-round action" thing is a nice piece of simplification, and it ties into the whole AoO thing.  Concentration and the ability to keep casting through damage is, I think, a bit of needed balance.  Certainly, casters weren't at all popular in my group back when I was playing 2e, simply because it was far too easy to shut them down.  Casting defensively, though, seems a bit unbalanced -- with sufficient Concentration skills, it means that standard-action spells are now effectively uninterruptable except with ready actions.  It seems to me that it ought to be an opposed check, Concentration vs a BAB attack roll, or something.

Movement... the 5' move thing is strange.  I don't see any game balance reason that it shouldn't provoke an AoO.  If casters want to spend skill points on getting tumble, or are willing to burn an action to withdraw clear of melee damage, then fine.  But unless I'm missing something, "no AoO on 5' steps" does nothing but weaken the role of a melee combatant.

Amen on that last one.  I suspect it's intent is to allow pitched combat to not be 'slug until other guy drops because  you can't move away', but with potion and spells basically being able to be cast in that setup it really means "being in the guy's face is meaningless unless he truly has nowhere to go".

And frankly, building everything around trip/grapple/other 'haha, can't get away' is annoying.  There really should be some kind of exchange move (I stand next to the guy and we can swap places as a '5 foot step' for each of us or something) and 5 foot steps should incur the AoO just as much.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Bah, even taking AoOs and stuff on casters isn't balancing them. Remove 5ft steps and concentration- doesn't change anything once they get something like Contingency.

Or fly.

Or- get this- expeditious retreat.

Take into account that dimension door is a virtually uninterruptable spell that can even be cast while in a grapple, and you can figure than any 7th-level mage had to be OHKO'd, or you're stuffed.

Well, assuming Contingency is basically the same spell as in 2e (at work now, don't have the 3.5 book with me), in practice it'll work pretty much the same way as a quickened spell.  On a game balance perspective, I'm okay with this -- "melee fighter beating on me" is an obvious weak point in the wizard class, and if they want to prepare for it, it should be possible for them.

The movement spells... well, if the fighter gets off an AoO and the wizard uses his turn to escape and not to deal any damage, then the fighter came out the winner in that round.  Of course, it's now down to the fighter to be able to chase down the wizard, but this is what magic items are for, I guess.

I assume, by the way, that you're saying dimension door is uninterruptable because it's a standard action and has only a vocal component?  Which means the most you can do is get off an AoO.

I don't really fault the idea of making clerics more interesting... but with their epic modern spell selection, and their domain powers, I really question the need for crap like divine power. I'm not convinced not allowing spellcasting during divine power is enough. There are some particularly disgusting metamagic things that'll allow it to last all day, if you take one book out of core.

Well, making it last all day is just the blatant fanboyism you get in the splatbooks.  Nothing new there.

I dunno, I think not allowing spellcasting or (perhaps easier) not letting Personal-effect buffs stack should solve the problem.  Righteous Might is very good, and unquestionably by itself puts clerics on an even standing or perhaps better with fighters.  But it shouldn't make them better; by the time a cleric can cast Righteous Might, the fighter should have magic items giving him the same basic effects.  The cleric can be dispelled, and is temporary to boot, and preventing the buffs from stacking will keep him from insanely outstripping the fighter.

Pure theory, of course.

[Bjorn]

You know, I almost never see anyone playing a druid, 'powerful' or not.  In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone but you here even consider them for a class.  That said, can't disagree with cleric's little uberspell set.  I don't really think that was needed.

Druids were pretty ridiculous in 2e, too, and just as rare then. Partly it was the whole "you must KILL the higher-level druids in order to proceed" thing, of course.  But I think a bigger part of it is: druids just aren't thematically appropriate for 90% of adventures.  Why are they involved in politics?  Why would they be crawling around in dungeons?  If they're supposed to be custodians of nature, why the hell are they slaughtering dire rats?

So, basically, an RPer won't take druids because they don't fit, and twinks won't take 'em as a result because they're just a little too obvious.

Amen on that last one. I suspect it's intent is to allow pitched combat to not be 'slug until other guy drops because you can't move away', but with potion and spells basically being able to be cast in that setup it really means "being in the guy's face is meaningless unless he truly has nowhere to go".

And frankly, building everything around trip/grapple/other 'haha, can't get away' is annoying. There really should be some kind of exchange move (I stand next to the guy and we can swap places as a '5 foot step' for each of us or something) and 5 foot steps should incur the AoO just as much.

So I was thinking about it more.  If you don't allow 5 foot steps, once you get within someone's range, you're pinned.  That kills a lot of strategy.  It makes creatures larger than Medium really powerful (since there's no way to advance on them without getting smacked by AoOs over and over), and it makes it a lot harder to flank -- you can't just circle the guy, so either you flank at first contact or you suck up AoOs trying to get into the right place.

So I think that rather than saying "5 foot steps incur AoOs," I'd change it to "If A moves from a square threatened by B into another square threatened by B, no AoO is incurred."  So circling is fine, closing in on some Large+ creature with reach is fine, but the mage strategy of "back out of fighter's reach, cast spell" doesn't work.

Well.  Actually, I wouldn't change anything soon.  I want to see how it plays out.  The problem with seemingly obvious changes is: why haven't they been made yet if they're so obvious?

Like relative mobility of fighters vs wizards.  Why is using all a fighter's attacks a full action while casting a spell is only ever a standard action?

[Anastasia]

Take into account that dimension door is a virtually uninterruptable spell that can even be cast while in a grapple, and you can figure than any 7th-level mage had to be OHKO'd, or you're stuffed.

I think the problem is that mages aren't practically interruptable anymore. This spell's just a really bad reminder of that.

So, basically, an RPer won't take druids because they don't fit, and twinks won't take 'em as a result because they're just a little too obvious.

This is only somewhat true. I've seen a few druids around - heck, a very good RPer is currently running one in a game I GM. (Hi, Eb.) They're viable, but as a good RPer, he's starting to run into the fact that a druid living near a city and in the town guard is a rather "Half assed druid!". (Angst and comment the character's own.) While there are a few interesting RP chances here, the fact remains that there is a palpable misfitting going on.

On thinking about it, Druids feel more like an uber NPC or boss class: They're excellently capable and make great opposition, but they're really too strong as PCs.

[Dracos]

I don't really fault the idea of making clerics more interesting... but with their epic modern spell selection, and their domain powers, I really question the need for crap like divine power. I'm not convinced not allowing spellcasting during divine power is enough. There are some particularly disgusting metamagic things that'll allow it to last all day, if you take one book out of core.

Well, making it last all day is just the blatant fanboyism you get in the splatbooks.  Nothing new there.

I dunno, I think not allowing spellcasting or (perhaps easier) not letting Personal-effect buffs stack should solve the problem.  Righteous Might is very good, and unquestionably by itself puts clerics on an even standing or perhaps better with fighters.  But it shouldn't make them better; by the time a cleric can cast Righteous Might, the fighter should have magic items giving him the same basic effects.  The cleric can be dispelled, and is temporary to boot, and preventing the buffs from stacking will keep him from insanely outstripping the fighter.

Pure theory, of course.[/quote]

Additionally, the fighter has a stack of feats they've gotten at  this point which should render them more  effective in close combat without spending a round on a buff.  Clerics, in general, have other places to put said feats and fewer of them.  They're also banned from the blatantly useful weapon spec and higher tree, which even there adds another 2 to damage on every hit.

Dracos

[Carthrat]

As an aside, magic items are shitty balance justification.

It's not like clerics and wizards and whatever don't get them. In fact, they have the option to get better, more useful ones, thanks to item-creation feats.

And magic items can also be temproarily dispelled! I also tout that quantity of fighter feats mean less than quality. (Also, to fix druids, ban natural spell. It's a *start*.) Ultimately, the vibe I tend to get is that 'fighters > other stuff 1/6 times. The rest of the time...'

Also, I need to go open a new thread.

[Anastasia]

I also tout that quantity of fighter feats mean less than quality.

Oh yes, this is entirely true. To compare it to a caster's bread and butter, will a caster even have a level up that sucks for spell gains? No, not really. They'll get more gas or access to a new level of magic. On the other hand, it's quite possible to have throwaway feats as a fighter.

[Dracos]

You know, I almost never see anyone playing a druid, 'powerful' or not.  In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone but you here even consider them for a class.  That said, can't disagree with cleric's little uberspell set.  I don't really think that was needed.

Druids were pretty ridiculous in 2e, too, and just as rare then. Partly it was the whole "you must KILL the higher-level druids in order to proceed" thing, of course.  But I think a bigger part of it is: druids just aren't thematically appropriate for 90% of adventures.  Why are they involved in politics?  Why would they be crawling around in dungeons?  If they're supposed to be custodians of nature, why the hell are they slaughtering dire rats?

So, basically, an RPer won't take druids because they don't fit, and twinks won't take 'em as a result because they're just a little too obvious.

Amen on that last one. I suspect it's intent is to allow pitched combat to not be 'slug until other guy drops because you can't move away', but with potion and spells basically being able to be cast in that setup it really means "being in the guy's face is meaningless unless he truly has nowhere to go".

And frankly, building everything around trip/grapple/other 'haha, can't get away' is annoying. There really should be some kind of exchange move (I stand next to the guy and we can swap places as a '5 foot step' for each of us or something) and 5 foot steps should incur the AoO just as much.

So I was thinking about it more.  If you don't allow 5 foot steps, once you get within someone's range, you're pinned.  That kills a lot of strategy.  It makes creatures larger than Medium really powerful (since there's no way to advance on them without getting smacked by AoOs over and over), and it makes it a lot harder to flank -- you can't just circle the guy, so either you flank at first contact or you suck up AoOs trying to get into the right place.

So I think that rather than saying "5 foot steps incur AoOs," I'd change it to "If A moves from a square threatened by B into another square threatened by B, no AoO is incurred."  So circling is fine, closing in on some Large+ creature with reach is fine, but the mage strategy of "back out of fighter's reach, cast spell" doesn't work.

Well.  Actually, I wouldn't change anything soon.  I want to see how it plays out.  The problem with seemingly obvious changes is: why haven't they been made yet if they're so obvious?

Like relative mobility of fighters vs wizards.  Why is using all a fighter's attacks a full action while casting a spell is only ever a standard action?

creatures larger than medium are really powerful as five foot step or not, I'm pretty sure moving from threatened area to threatened area incurs an AoO (otherwise range weapons would be even less common, due to the fact people could just five step inside of them.)  Of course, they come with generally meaty costs outside of enlarge spell, higher ECL is pretty standard with larger creatures and vice versa.  Reach in the 20 foot inclusive bracket is almost 5-10 ECL by itself, largely because you are pinned since stepping back moves you still within their hitting range.

That reading is actually the opposite of how AoO's work right now (Moving 'through' a threatened space triggers one, so Threat to no threat doesn't but threat to threat does).

Dracos
too asleep to be writing this.

[Bjorn]

creatures larger than medium are really powerful as five foot step or not, I'm pretty sure moving from threatened area to threatened area incurs an AoO (otherwise range weapons would be even less common, due to the fact people could just five step inside of them.)

The rules seem very clear -- a five-foot step provokes no AoO.  This is very clearly one of the disadvantages with most reach weapons, and it's part of what makes the spiked chain so ridiculous.

That reading is actually the opposite of how AoO's work right now (Moving 'through' a threatened space triggers one, so Threat to no threat doesn't but threat to threat does).

Er.  One of the two of us (probably me) is reading the rules wrong.  The 3.5 PHB says (at least, this is what I remember) that you provoke an AoO for leaving a threatened space.  Moving from "no threat" to "threat" gets you no AoO. Moving from "threat" to "no threat" does get an AoO.  Moving from "threat" to "threat" also gets you an AoO, since you're leaving one threatened square, even though you're moving into another.

Not getting an AoO when someone moves from "threat" to "no threat" seems silly.  Unless they're taking precautions (either by moving slowly, via 5' step, or via withdrawing), the idea is that they're turning their back on you to get away, and you should get a free shot.  Similarly, the idea that someone just moving into your attack range should provoke an attack is a bit silly, and arguably makes melee weapons vs melee weapons ridiculous.

On the other hand, there are quite a few rules that don't really make sense to me, so I could be reading things very wrong. >.<

[Rezantis]

Moving from "no threat" to "threat" gets you no AoO. Moving from "threat" to "no threat" does get an AoO.  Moving from "threat" to "threat" also gets you an AoO, since you're leaving one threatened square, even though you're moving into another.

Not that I'm an expert on 3E, but Bjorn's way is the only way I've ever seen it interpreted or played with.

[Dracos]

No, your interpretation is right there, Bjorn.

Dracos
Who shouldn't post half asleep =)

[tabyk]

Just jumped into the 3.5 system and made my first character, and wanted to share some observations (or maybe I'm just looking to get flamed, who knows?)...

The skill system sounds really neat, and was an utter pain to figure out, especially when you are attempting to multi-class and are dealing with cross-class skills.  Also, with the possibly exception of the Rogue, nobody gets enough skill points to do anything BUT take the standard "cookie-cutter" class skills... it's too damn expensive to branch out into other areas.  Now while this is good in some aspects (someone had mentioned a Fighter trying to take Rogue skills), it's a hindrance in others, like wanting to take skills for role-play purposes (say a Wizard who enjoys playing the flute while traveling) or learning a new skill later on (which looked horribly expensive).

The character I built is pretty much done now, but I literally spent two to three times as long figuring out my skill mix (with the GM's help) then the time spent doing EVERYTHING ELSE with my character... including the background write-up.   :roll:

In just looking at the classes in general, I have to agree with the general statement that spell-casters seem pretty damn powerful, especially after they hit level 6+.