EOI: The Last Great Character Optimisation Project.

[Caedrus]

Caelic: Well said, indeed. It's something which I assume, and so utterly intrinsic to the game that I play - hopefully the game every one of you play as well, is this: Every player should have as much fun as possible, and as much fun as everyone else. Of course, sometimes, characters die, and that sucks, but the reason for being around the table should always be there.

If we can create a rules set that allows a player, regardless of class, to have fun, and, should they desire, to have a moment of glory, then that's my definition of success in an undertaking like this.

Your comments regarding turning characters (spellcasters, I'm looking at you) into Swiss Army knives - everyone can do everything - is very true, in my opinion. To me, a great game is where everybody gets to do their thing, but more importantly, the party shines.

C.

[juton]

I second Caedrus's points. These are the ones that jump to my mind:

Mundane / Magic balance As it stands now a high level Caster doesn't have to worry about an equally high level Warrior. That needs to change but I'm not advocating trying to find pure exact balance. A 20th level Wizard should be more powerful than a 20th level Fighter, if he's well rested and prepared. But 100% of the fights shouldn't go to the Wizard, maybe 75-90%. A 10th level Wizard should be very respectful of a 20th level Fighter, right now that doesn't have to be.

Give Mundanes more to do When was the last time you had a character make a disarm attempt or a bullrush if they weren't specifically made to do that? Give non casters more playable options, I don't want to play 20 levels of 'I swing my sword again'. ToB was good for this, but a lot of people find it too anime inspired.

Change AoOs Keep most of the basic mechanic but change what does and doesn't provoke, or make it easier for characters to not provoke if they have the right skill or feat.

Make Sword & Board not suck I mean really. Back in 1e going S&B meant going from a d10 to a d8 and lowering your AC by 1. Fair trade in the days before Power Attack.

Fix the really abusive crap Polymorph into something that gives Cleric casting. Creating your own plane with a different flow of time. Celerity. Dire Tortoises.

[Suzerain]

My opinion on the "mundane vs. magic" balance is that there shouldn't be a mundane. When martial characters of medium size start to be superheroes, chucking houses at the evil dragon, they stopped being "mundane" almost by definition. The biggest reason we make this distinction, I think, is the existance of antimagic.

My proposition is, therefore, to handle "martial powers" similarly as we do psionics and magic. If we want them to be non-transparent, we should have methods to create both "anti-magic" and "anti-martial"; with transparency in effect antimagic cancels all "superpowers". We may want to introduce level checks for antimagic, though.

[Prime32]

My opinion on the "mundane vs. magic" balance is that there shouldn't be a mundane. When martial characters of medium size start to be superheroes, chucking houses at the evil dragon, they stopped being "mundane" almost by definition. The biggest reason we make this distinction, I think, is the existance of antimagic.

My proposition is, therefore, to handle "martial powers" similarly as we do psionics and magic. If we want them to be non-transparent, we should have methods to create both "anti-magic" and "anti-martial"; with transparency in effect antimagic cancels all "superpowers". We may want to introduce level checks for antimagic, though.

That easily gets absurd, like that episode of Super-Friends where a power nullifier made Batman & Robins' utility belts disappear.

Give Mundanes more to do When was the last time you had a character make a disarm attempt or a bullrush if they weren't specifically made to do that? Give non casters more playable options, I don't want to play 20 levels of 'I swing my sword again'. ToB was good for this, but a lot of people find it too anime inspired.

An annoying number of people use "anime" as a synonym for "Dragonball Z". It's not like there aren't plenty of anime with low-powered fights. Even DBZ knew how to fix the problems with polymorph.

[Suzerain]

Well, I was more thinking of tagging a few (or new) feats or class abilities as (su) or somesuch (i.e. 'martial') and treating maneuvers similarly (those that do unbelievable stuff, at least). It was just a thought though, and I understand it may very well be flawed.

[RobbyPants]

I read a similar concept over at TGD.  Judging Eagle was promoting giving a vast array of spells to non-casters as Ex abilities as they gain levels.  His basic stance was (paraphrasing) as a DM not to say "No", but to figure out "how can I make this work?"

So he was all for giving fighters stuff like Stoneskin and Greater Invisiblity.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

There's better ways of achieving the same fluff than making the classes inherently unbalanced.

Yes

Problem: Prerequisites are often used as a gatekeeper mechanism to get access to more powerful feats. Would you be likely to take Mobility, except as a precursor to Spring Attack?

No. Feats as gateways are ok. They represent the 'extra feat point cost' in your solution. Unbalanced feats however would need balancing (whether too weak or too strong)

Of all in DnD, feats aren't the most broken... So I'm not interested with your solution but it looks okay... maybe.

Finding a retrain mechanic that WORKS I'm all for. The current one is either useless (only for correcting errors) or broken (used for massive prereq cheese)

I'm keen to hear your list!

My list is posted  Most of this is on my list. However:
1. Duh
2. Okay
3. Oh yea
4. The mechanic can be simplified but its EASY negation is the problem...
5. In theory its fine... the rolling is the problem (take 10's when not in combat??)
6. Exactly! (See my crazy WLD thread for an extreme example)
7. Totally see my ECL variation thread.
8. Nope lets fix ECL20 first.
9. Um. This will be difficult...
10. Totally. See the cheap item crafting thread I have so much interest in.

crafting mechanics is hard
wild shape is not as bad as it used to be
summoning without 9th levels its okay,
templates need some specification
LA adjustments see 7
Don't bother with the economy. Really.

[dark_samuari]

So two points

First, with martial characters I think we need to apply a certain amount of appropriate hopes towards what they might be. I'd offer up that no player would enjoy themselves if you told them from level one to twenty they'd essentially be the same exact attack greater and pick up maybe 2-3 feat chains. Now, we should work to create an overall arc of reasonable power progression. The twentieth level fighter should be like Beowulf, taking down monsters & dragons. That's what players should be looking forward to as they continue leveling.

Second, we need to fix dead levels and capstone abilities. There needs to be a reason to stay in a class all the way to 20th level and not immediately jump ship (sorcerer for example). Monk, Beguiler, and Dread Necromancer are great examples on which they give the player something new every level.

[RobbyPants]

Capstones are only a small part of that.  I don't think a lot of games truely see 20th level.  However, in a very simlar vein, you could have "milestones" which are like minor capstones sprinkled throughout the class.  Of course, if you spread them too far, or make any too weak, then they turn into natural break points, which is the opposite of what you want.

The second half of this equation is to keep certain advancements exclusive to a class.  For example, maybe every caster PrC costs you a caster level at level 1, but you get some really nifty stuff.  The key here is to limit casting so it isn't the be all and end all of the game, but to keep it special enough that a player needs to really think before taking a PrC or staying straight wizard.  As OW4 put it (roughly) "when a player really has to think about a build decision, that's balance."  Similarly, BAB could be kept a bit more special.  Dipping out of a class might ding you a point of BAB.  Frank & K's tomes have [Combat] feats that give you new abilities as your BAB increases at 1, 6, 11, and 16).  If this were switched to 5, 10, 15, and 20, a single loss of BAB would cost you the best parts of these feats.

[Bauglir]

I'm getting too specific, but my premise for designing a system is that each class ought to be as powerful as every other class is, inherently.

I think this is one of the main problems a project like this will face; different people have very different ideas about what constitutes an optimized set of rules.

Bauglir thinks that each class ought to be as powerful as every other class, inherently.  I think pursuing that is both quixotic and ill-advised, and that a far better target is "Every player has as much opportunity for fun as every other player."

Actually, I agree with this. In my opinion, though, having equally powerful classes is key to making sure that each player has the same amount of fun. I don't want Fighters disappointed because they're obsolete, and I don't want Wizards annoyed that enemies either steamroll them or are cakewalks (pretty much the only two options with an optimized caster).

Take Ars Magica, for instance.  They dealt with the problem of wizards being more powerful by embracing it.  "Wizards are more powerful.  They're the stars of the campaign, and the game revolves around them." 

Here's the thing, though: EVERY player plays the wizard...sometimes.  Every player has a magus character.  Every player also has a companion--someone highly skilled in his own right, but not a wizard.  Then there are a pool of "Grogs"--spear-carriers, basically--who are held in common.

Who is playing which role rotates.  Sometimes you'll be playing your wizard, and the spotlight will be on you; sometimes, you'll be playing a grog, and very definitely in a supporting role.

Now: would dynamic character balance of this sort work for D&D?  Probably not. 

That's a solution, but I find it a poor one because it boils down to "everyone gets to have fun, but not all at the same time", if I understand you correctly. But yeah, I agree that's better than "The wizard gets to have fun, and everyone else might as well not bother to show up."

Instead, I think it would be wise to recognize that a lot of what was thrown out from first and second edition SHOULDN'T have been thrown out.  Fighters were NOT irrelevant in first edition.  Why not?  Because no other character class could do their job.  Clerics didn't have Divine Power.  Wizards couldn't simply Polymorph into vastly-more-powerful frontline fighters.

3.0 and 3.5 embraced the "Characters should be able to do anything" philosophy.  Add optimization, and the result is, "One character can do EVERYTHING."

That's where the game falls apart, plain and simple; there's no inter-party dependency.

I don't know 1st and 2nd, but I agree COMPLETELY. Each character should have limits. Players should have as few as possible when building a character. I think what I said might be somewhat misinterpreted, because I definitely don't think Fighters and Wizards should be the same. They should be able to contribute equally to any given adventure, on average, but since adventures so often involve fighting things with class levels, it's important to keep class vs class balance in mind. But the Wizard's spells should have effects comparable to what a Fighter can do with a sword in terms of usefulness; not necessarily in terms of what is actually DONE.

One alternative to straight class balance (that I could get behind, anyway), for those who want classes better than other classes, would be a sort of circular hierarchy. Wizard > Fighter > Rogue > Wizard, for instance. That way each character has an advantage in certain situations, and by and large these advantages should balance out over the course of an adventure.

I'd also mention that I dislike the "certain classes are better at certain levels" because of the unlikeliness of 1-20 campaigns. In real campaigns, some of those balancing areas won't come up, so it's not a satisfactory balancer in my mind.

My List, in no particular order:

1. Polymorph and virtually all effects based on changing shape.
2. Different rates of power increase among classes.
3. CR
4. LA/Racial HD
5. Magic Items/Economy
6. Sunder, also other combat maneuvers
7. Grapple (gets its own entry)
8. Epic levels/Spellcasting
9. Metamagic
10. Certain tropes are poorly executed (1-handed fighter, sword and board, evoker (relative to other casters), etc)

[Khorus]

I've been browsing some pathfinder stuff and it really really got my blood pumping for something like this. Sorcerer got his cake and is eating it too. Tier 1 classes are strong. Tier 5 need to be buffed up.  Barbarian, give him ex abilities while he rages(pathfinder), Fighters crutch was feats. Improved trip doesn't work if you can't get 100ft into the air. Also spiked chain no longer has reach in pathfinder which I think was awesome. If you want reach for the chain you take a feat. I can think of a ton of fixes for every one but the fighter. The fighter needs some kind of schtick to build off of.

[dark_samuari]

How do we feel about re-working the L.A. system. I'd take an example of how Star Wars d20 had no LA, they just accepted that some species were instinctively better than others but it didn't give away to unbalanced games. Do you think the same could be done with this?

The fighter needs some kind of schtick to build off of.

Possibly roll together the abilities of the marshal and the warblade? We need to focus in perhaps on what strengths we want the fighter to possess.

[Bauglir]

Hm... I'm thinking that, maybe, for the Fighter, class features should consist of new tricks with weapons. Improved versions of all the combat maneuvers and entirely new ones that basically let a Fighter do stuff nobody else can. In my mind, the Warblade is the master of special attacks, while the Fighter is the master of tactical maneuvers (on the one-on-one scale; either could be masters of army level tactics, but that's another thing entirely). So, for instance, against somebody with an uber-powerful magic weapon, the Warblade might deliver a Disabling Strike that hinders the target's ability to use the weapon, while the Fighter might attempt to Disarm the wielder of the sword (perhaps taking it for himself) or, pending a proper system for it, Sunder it.

Although, given the Warblade's Int focus, maybe I've got it backwards. Oh well.

[dark_samuari]

Maybe we could go over a power arc before hand? I think it would be cool to see the fighter maybe progress from soldier (fundamental basics of combat as well as selecting a combat focus) to war leader (knowledge of siege techniques & motivational stuff) to mythic warrior (developing resistances and counter-measures to special attacks & monstrous creatures).

In my mind (and this makes the fighter much more powerful) the fighter might gain bonus feats within one sub-school of combat (like the OA Samurai but a larger list), marshal motivational powers, defense-minded powers (evasion, mettle, spell resistance), and a collection of non-combat abilities to make them still useful outside of battle (the zhen. intimidating bonus for example is one).

[Caelic]

Here's my question:

Why is more powerful automatically good?  Why is less powerful automatically bad?

Why must the quintessential fantasy system be uber-high-fantasy, and not low fantasy?

[dark_samuari]

Here's my question:

Why is more powerful automatically good?  Why is less powerful automatically bad?

Why must the quintessential fantasy system be uber-high-fantasy, and not low fantasy?

I think the system can go high or low, there should just be an equal scale of power over levels. I'm in the process of making a fighter redux with some ideas (non that are super-duper powerful).

[Tonymitsu]

Here's my question:

Why is more powerful automatically good?  Why is less powerful automatically bad?

Why must the quintessential fantasy system be uber-high-fantasy, and not low fantasy?

The answer is personal preference.

To illustrate... I have a friend who enjoys optimizing as much as I do, and is definitely my equal, if not my better, and creating extremely effective builds.

I enjoy high-level games and campaigns.  He hates them, preferring low-level campaigns.

The reason for this is he feels that all high-level games eventually evolve into scry-and-die party raids where the group divines the problem, pops in, lays waste, and pops back out.  Low-level games on the other hand force the party to work and present very difficult challenges that require clever use of limited resources.
I enjoy high-level games because they are the stuff of legends.  Great stories are about epic heroes doing battle against incalculable evils, with the world hanging on a thread ready to collapse at any moment.  In my friend's defense, my first DM (which he did not know) was extremely skilled at defeating magic with magic and making our group work hard through well-balanced encounters even at high levels.  On the other hand, I see low-level games where the local group of kobolds is a life-or-death stuggle as frustrating and annoying hurdles that are only suffered through so that one can reach high-levels and the grand storytelling can begin.

Two completely opposing viewpoints on what makes a good D&D game.

So to answer your question, more powerful is "good" because the more tools and resources you have at your disposal, the more challenging encounters can be thrown at you without being specifically intended to slaughter you outright, which in turn makes for better stories.

[RobbyPants]

Here's my question:

Why is more powerful automatically good?  Why is less powerful automatically bad?

Why must the quintessential fantasy system be uber-high-fantasy, and not low fantasy?

The answer is personal preference.

To illustrate... I have a friend who enjoys optimizing as much as I do, and is definitely my equal, if not my better, and creating extremely effective builds.

Thats my thought.  You can design a game to be low fantasy at 1st - 5th level and high fantasy at 6th - 12th and uber-high-fantasy at 13th+ (or whatever).  That way, you have the same game, but a different experience based on the level you run it at.

This also works well for the idea that once you get beyond 5th level, you've gotten into the realm of super human.  So you could run an E6 game (give or take) to model "realistic" people doing great and wonderful things that are still "believable".  When you're looking at a 15th level game, do you really care if the mundane fighters/rogues/monks are running up walls, jumping 50 feet, or balancing on the air?  It's cool.  It's fun.  It's high level to the point of beyond realistic human ability.

[Khorus]

Here's my question:

Why is more powerful automatically good?  Why is less powerful automatically bad?

Why must the quintessential fantasy system be uber-high-fantasy, and not low fantasy?

To me the sorc was weak compared to the Wizard, WOTC tried fixing this by giving a bunch of sorc only things which in my opinion worked. By the same token they tried to spark interest in a cleric by giving him all kinds of self buffs and features that we now have CoDzilla. What I'm wanting to do is bring a flatter power scale in. I like needing to work as a group. The fighter is the one class that really struggles to shine except for very basic combat.
I think spell casters should be more squishy. "Yes I have the arcane power of a god but I am frail in body from building my mind"
I think gish chars should be just that, a gish " I cast some spells really awesome, but not as awesome as the skinny guy. I break some heads but not nearly as well as the sex crazed retard strong Barbarian."
I feel, and call me crazy, Melee classes should pose some threat to a wizard. Whether this is a rebalance issue (which would be stupidly hard to rebalance all the classes and still have 3.5) Or as a friend of mine and I discussed curving xp bars for different classes. Casters level super fast to 6 and taper off, Melee level medium till 4 then pick up till 7, and maybe stay 1-2 levels ahead of the casters, that way the bab and saves of the melees give them an edge.That would let melee chars be a little more effective and still allow the casters to buff and cast without dominating the field.

"hey fighter what did you do today,"
Totally smacked a dragon in the face and made a reflex save
MADE A REFLEX SAVE IN FULL PLATE?
I know right, the casters were forced to help me or they would be screwed cuz their so squishy, although they did thow some debuff rays about.

Just an idea that hasn't been play tested. My main point is I like to be needed and have my co players feel the same.

[Bastian]

The only way I can think of that would balance the current magic system would be to split everything up. So instead of a wizard being able to do everything, each class will only be able to use certain kinds of spells, so they each have their own niche.

Here are the examples for potential classes that I've thought of:

Shield Mage
Role: Defense+Battlefield Control
Spells: defensive spells reflavored to be shields, any of the wall spells also reflavored, several spells that are reflavor to use shields to cut, etc

War Mage
Role: blaster
Spells: Loads of direct damage spells
Other features: eldritch blast

Shaper
Role: Frontline combatant + social stealth
Features: Wildshape + wildshape enhancements

Hex Mage
Role: debuffer
Spells: spells that weaken the enemy
Features: Dark Familiar from Hexblade web enhancement + other hexblade features

Summoner
Role: Battle field control (summons monsters)
Spells: any summoning spells but the spells are modified to not allow summoned creatures to use spell-likes and specific Su abilites

Cleric
Role: Buffer and Healer
Spells: healing spells and buffing spell (but only those that don't encroach on the Shield Mage's territory)

Ranger
Role: Front line combatant
Features: full animal companion progression + maneuvers + stances + full initiator progression + archery/dual wielding enhancement + favored enemy

Seer
Role: sees what has been, what is, and what is yet to come
Spells: scrying spells