D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[Soda]

My wife is one day past her due date, so each day (or hour really!) brings me closer and closer to being a dad.  I'll be lucky to spend half the time here after that point!

Congratulations. +fu for charop in the face of childbirth.

[RobbyPants]

LOL.  Thanks!

I'm really looking forward to it.  My wife has been very anxious for close to two weeks.  Now that we're past the official date, I'm getting pretty anxious too!

[Kuroimaken]

LOL.  Thanks!

I'm really looking forward to it.  My wife has been very anxious for close to two weeks.  Now that we're past the official date, I'm getting pretty anxious too!

Plus birthing one. Kids rule.

[SiggyDevil]

My new concept is more in line with the Duskblade but with a lot more versatility. It's got inborn talent, but which isn't as powerful as Wizard casting, and it supplements its limited spells per day with a selection of combat feats, bloodline powers, inherent weapon enchanting (which can be changed on the fly), invocations and arcane channeling. Sounds complicated, but I don't think it actually would be in play.

Looks good but I suggest cutting out the Invokes and Bloodlines. That's a bit much for a single theme, no?
Or rather, how will you make that work?

[SiggyDevil]

I wasn't planning on it.

The idea was to postpone some key spells in various schools by a level for the Sorcerer/Wizard list, but to leave the specialist lists alone.

This allows the generalized casters to still get 9th level spells, but not all of them.  It will hopefully help lower the Wizard's and Sorcerer's power levels without chaning things for the specialized casters, who are already around tier 3.

You should. Also, rather than delaying spells by specialization, you should delay or advance spells by inherent power.
Grabbing various roles such as Warmage or Beguiler would instead 'unlock' those spells.

Perhaps they could be used and/or learned for a 2-for-1 deal if you grab the special caster package, rewarding focus.

I'm all for reducing the myriad casters to a single chassis.

[Elennsar]

'grats on fatherhood's approach. May it bring all the anticapated joy and more.

As for generalists: A partial suggestion.

While a generalist can learn from "any" school, he cannot learn from "all" schools. And of course, if you're truly a generalist, you should be forced to be one...as in, your spell list should not be cherry picking from the best options in all lists.

Not sure how to do it.

[veekie]

Elennsar, he already said that, with the better spells of each schools being exclusive to specialists, much like psion specialities.

[Elennsar]

My bad. Still, generalist should NOT be encouraged. Specializing ought to feel worth the limitations.

[RobbyPants]

Well, my wife had our baby a little over 12 hours ago. 

I'll be spending the next day and a half at the hospital, but I'll still have the next couple of nights to check the threads here.  If you want any details, you can PM me.

____________________________

I don't think there's a problem with generalists by principle.  I just think they need to be pulled back in power to line up with the existing specialist classes.  I'll see if I can find the time to make a mock-up version of the Summoner, Transmuter, and Oracle.  With those and their spell lists complete, I can begin picking out spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard list that need to be bumped up a level.  That might give us a better feeling for the whole thing.

[SiggyDevil]

Well, my wife had our baby a little over 12 hours ago. 

I'll be spending the next day and a half at the hospital, but I'll still have the next couple of nights to check the threads here.  If you want any details, you can PM me.

 

Spend more time with them, less with us.

[Elennsar]

What Siggy said. May your little angel/monster grow up to be all that its parents could wish and more.

 

Huzzah for fatherhood.

[Kuroimaken]

Damn you for ninja'ing me to it, Siggy.

[SiggyDevil]

Damn you for ninja'ing me to it, Siggy.

CONGRATMIND

[bkdubs123]

Aww, parenthood. 

Take care, Robby, and have fun with it!

[RobbyPants]

How do we want to handle barbarians?  I haven't come up with an exact 20-level progression, but I have several ideas I'd like to bounce around:

Temporary HP:
One sucky thing about rage is that you lose the HP you gain from your Con boost when your rage ends.  To make these guys a bit more tanky, perhaps we could give them a number of temporary HP equal to their HD x 2.  This would amount to the same number of HP, but these would be lost first, resulting in more HP for the barbarian at the end of the fight.  We could also give a +2 bonus to Fort saves to make up for the fact that there's no actual Con increase.

Also, greater rage would become 3 x HD temp HP, and +3 fort.


Rage uses:
Instead of Rage 1/day at 1st level, how about 1/encounter?  I'm not sure there's much point in giving multiple uses of rage per encounter, but perhaps each additional use granted from barbarian levels or some other source would improve the duration of rage by two rounds each.  So an 8th level barbarian (normally 3/day rage) would have 1/encounter, but it would last 4 rounds longer than normal.


Pounce:
I'd like to just hand this out at 6th level.  I'm not sure what to do with the lion totem from Complete Champion.


Shake it Off
Should we give the Shake it Off ability of the fighter in this thread to the barbarian?  It certainly fits, but I don't want to make all melee classes the same in the end.

Alternately, maybe the barbarian can get rid of or lessen certain effects.  Maybe something like getting a second save against exhaustion to make it fatigue.  I haven't thought this part out much yet.


Improved Damage Reduction
The DR of barbarians is pretty crappy.  I'd like to increase it.  Maybe not all the time, but maybe when raging.  Perhaps they add their Con mod to their DR when they rage.


Fast Healing
Perhaps barbarians should get Fast Healing when raging.  I'm not sure how much.  This might scale with level.


These are just my initial thoughts.  I might come up with more later.

[veekie]

Offhandedly, I can say giving temp hp while raging, making rage /encounter and getting more rounds of rage in place of extra rages are very desirable.

As for the Shake it Off, how about allowing a single reroll on Fort/Will saves one round after the original save to clear the effect? Sorta like Resurgence.

DR, double it during a rage? Wouldn't the Fast Healing while raging mean that once the barbarian gets it, along with the /encounter rage, he has essentially unlimited stamina? I'd say, instead of fast healing, replenish the temp hp every round of the rage.

Not so sure about the pounce though,.

[Kuroimaken]

As for the Shake it Off, how about allowing a single reroll on Fort/Will saves one round after the original save to clear the effect? Sorta like Resurgence.

Better yet. Why don't we give them Mettle? I can definitely see this as a Barbarian thing.

Just picture Krusk shrugging off a Disintegrate as he charges towards a VERY dumbfounded Wizard.

DR, double it during a rage? Wouldn't the Fast Healing while raging mean that once the barbarian gets it, along with the /encounter rage, he has essentially unlimited stamina? I'd say, instead of fast healing, replenish the temp hp every round of the rage.

Or maybe make it so Barbarian DR isn't x/-, but x/adamantine (which means it's surpassable).

I'm iffy about giving them fast healing. Remember, fast healing isn't as strong in-combat as it is out of it.

[Elennsar]

Shake it Off (possibly with Mettle) seems more a Barbarian thing than a Fighter thing, if it is one or the other.

Other than the Will aspect (Which barbarians have no more reason to excel at than fighters, and "all good saves" for anyone just...doesn't ring right.), Mettle does sound very fitting. A good "I  at your puny spells." Maybe a "Mettle while raging" instead of in general?

DR...well, how effective is it supposed to be? DR 4 is just not meaningful at high levels, whether it is unbeatable or adamantine.

No idea on fast healing/regeneration/temporary hit points being replenished.

[veekie]

Mettle while raging does seem suitable. It'd go very well with something that lets the barbarian rage as an immediate action.

[Elennsar]

I'm not sure I'd go that far. Being able to fly into a rage instantly doesn't feel right.

If you catch a barbarian off guard (good luck!), I'm not sure I see why he should be able to unleash his rage instantly.