D&D 3E/3.5 Changes you'd like to see made to 3.5/4E?

[Gothmog]

My gaming group was brainstorming last night, and wondering what kind of changes people would like to see in 3.5/4E. I was wondering what people thought of some of our ideas, and what they would like to see included. Here's our list:

1) A move away from the focus on numbers and min/maxing characters. All versions of D&D have been bad about this to some degree, but 3E is the worst by far. Its a role-playing game, not roll-playing.

2) Feats that have something to do with anything but combat. Background feats were a great idea- now run with it and give us some truly inspired feats.

3) Get rid of the silly automatic proficiency with weapons per class. Just give fighters 2 extra skill points per level; clerics, rogues, paladins, barbarians, and rangers one extra skill point per level; and no extra skill points per level for wizards, sorcerers, druids, and bards. Then spend a skill point to learn a weapon, or 3 or 4 skill points to learn a whole group of weapons (like axes, or short blades). Spending a feat to pick up a weapon outside your suggested list is just a plain stupid thing for a character to do- end result is that all characters of certain classes take the same weapons. Boring.

4) Ditch the XP by CR thing completely and either go back to giving a set # of XP per monster, or better yet- don't reward killing things, but actually role-playing and overcoming obstacles, solving mysteries, etc.

5) A WP/VP optional system in the PHB/DMG. It wouldn't be hard at all to fit it in.

6) Suggestions in the DMG for how to run low-magic or non-magic games, as well as horror based fantasy.

7) Get rid of that silly treasure worth by level chart in the DMG, or at least clearly state it is optional. Its a nice guideline for DMs to use if they want to have the standard magic level, but players take that silly thing as gospel, and get irate if they don't have X much GP worth of items by Y level.

8) We have rules for critical hits, why not fumbles? Maybe if a natural 1 is rolled, the character makes a DC 15 or 20 Reflex save or he is considered flat-footed, drops a weapon, etc.

9) Make the DC for spells 10 + spell level + 1/2 character level. Makes more sense that an experienced caster's spells would be harder to resist, rather than just taking into account the base stat bonus.

10) Get rid of the base cleric list of spells, and instead group ALL cleric spells by domain. Right now, all clerics are identical except for 2 domain spells per level. Thats just boring. With a little work, 5-8 spells could be fit into each level per domain, making more specialized clerics that were much more interesting. I've done it in my house rules, and it works wonderfully.

11) This would be really cool: every so many levels, allow each class to pick 1 of 3 or 4 listed abilities that are level dependent, so each class can be more personalized to the character. Not feats, but actual core abilities of the class. Some of the prestiege classes in FFG's Path of books already do this, and I think its a wonderful idea. This is also extra incentive for a character to progress to high levels in a core class.

12) Resisting a disease/poison should be a simple Con check, with the Great Fortitude feat applicable as well. Why does level have anything to do with how resistant a person is to disease or poisons? As it is currently, poisons and diseases have no bite except to low level characters.

 

[CRGreathouse]

No offense, but I'm glad you're not designing the coming editions.

Point #1 isn't well-defined, and seems counterproductive -- a move away from designers thinking about the numbers means min/maxing would be easier and more powerful.

I'll agree with 2 and 6 (even if I didn't like many of the background feats). I wouldn't mind #11, though I don't see why the abilities couldn't be feats -- why restrict them to a single class?

I don't want to see 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 happen.

 

[Grazzt]

4) Ditch the XP by CR thing completely and either go back to giving a set # of XP per monster, or better yet- don't reward killing things, but actually role-playing and overcoming obstacles, solving mysteries, etc.

While I agree and disagree with some of the points ya posted, this one I totally disagree with. D&D has always been about killing monsters and combat. It just wouldnt be D&D any other way.

I'm not saying that PCs shouldnt earn XP for role-playing, solving puzzles, thinking, interaction, etc....but I definitely think combat, killing monsters, etc. should garner an XP award. Like I said, it just wouldnt be D&D any other way.

 

[Dark Jezter]

My gaming group was brainstorming last night, and wondering what kind of changes people would like to see in 3.5/4E. I was wondering what people thought of some of our ideas, and what they would like to see included. Here's our list:

1) A move away from the focus on numbers and min/maxing characters. All versions of D&D have been bad about this to some degree, but 3E is the worst by far. Its a role-playing game, not roll-playing.

D&D has always been about numbers. I find it odd that you are saying D&D has always been bad about this, as though "real role-playing" is an inherently better style of play than playing a campaign with lots of combat & dungeon exploration.

2) Feats that have something to do with anything but combat. Background feats were a great idea- now run with it and give us some truly inspired feats.

Actually, 3.5 does include non-combat feats, such as Athletic (+2 to climb and swim checks), Stealthy (+2 to all hide and move silently checks), and many more.

3) Get rid of the silly automatic proficiency with weapons per class. Just give fighters 2 extra skill points per level; clerics, rogues, paladins, barbarians, and rangers one extra skill point per level; and no extra skill points per level for wizards, sorcerers, druids, and bards. Then spend a skill point to learn a weapon, or 3 or 4 skill points to learn a whole group of weapons (like axes, or short blades). Spending a feat to pick up a weapon outside your suggested list is just a plain stupid thing for a character to do- end result is that all characters of certain classes take the same weapons. Boring.

I'm sorry, but this sounds way too much like the "proficency slots" system of previous editions. I'm glad that's gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.

Under the proficency slots system, you could have a fighter who was a grand-master with a bastard sword, but completely clueless about how to use simple weapons like daggers or maces effectively. It made a lot less sense than the current system of warrior classes automatically being proficent with all simple and martial weapons.

4) Ditch the XP by CR thing completely and either go back to giving a set # of XP per monster, or better yet- don't reward killing things, but actually role-playing and overcoming obstacles, solving mysteries, etc.

The idea for a set amount of XP per monster is a bad one, since it would allow a party to simply kill goblins and kobolds until they hit level 20 (granted, it would take a long time, but it's still possible). Under the current system, a character will get deminishing returns as they level up, which encourages them to go after bigger game, so to speak.

Also, I don't like the idea of giving XP awards only for solving puzzles and stuff like that. How will solving a murder or finding a noble's runaway daughter increase the fighter's combat prowess or the wizard's spellcasting skill?

5) A WP/VP optional system in the PHB/DMG. It wouldn't be hard at all to fit it in.

6) Suggestions in the DMG for how to run low-magic or non-magic games, as well as horror based fantasy.

I don't know what WP/VP means, so I can't respond to that one.

I also wouldn't object to suggestions for running low-magic, non-magic, etc. in the DMG.

7) Get rid of that silly treasure worth by level chart in the DMG, or at least clearly state it is optional. Its a nice guideline for DMs to use if they want to have the standard magic level, but players take that silly thing as gospel, and get irate if they don't have X much GP worth of items by Y level.

All rules are optional. If you don't like it, you can always come up with your own system. The treasure by level chart was made for game balance reasons, so that characters would recieve enough treasure to afford typical items a character of their level should possess. CRs for monsters take in more to account than just the party's level, but also the items and spells the party is supposed to possess at the time.

8) We have rules for critical hits, why not fumbles? Maybe if a natural 1 is rolled, the character makes a DC 15 or 20 Reflex save or he is considered flat-footed, drops a weapon, etc.

IIRC, that actually is included as a variant rule in the DMG (I could be wrong, though). I'm currently a PC in a Scarred Lands campaign where the DM uses fumble rules, and it certainly has it's ups and downs; it can be aggrivating when you fall off your horse in the middle of combat due to rolling a 1, but it can be fun when an enemy rolls a 1 and stumbles, provoking an attack of opportunity.

9) Make the DC for spells 10 + spell level + 1/2 character level. Makes more sense that an experienced caster's spells would be harder to resist, rather than just taking into account the base stat bonus.

That's actually an intruiging rule, but it really wouldn't make much of a difference. Let's say you have a level 20 wizard with 30 intelligence (extremely high intelligence scores are very possible for a typical high-level wizard under the current system, due to magic items, wish spells, etc). Under the current system, the saving DC if the wizard cast a 9th-level spell would be 29. Under your system, the saving throw DC would be exactly the same.

Now, I know that that example wouldn't apply to most situations, but considering that a smart caster usually looks for items that increase their most vital ability score, the biggest difference between your system and the current one would be a DC difference of 1 or 2 at most.

10) Get rid of the base cleric list of spells, and instead group ALL cleric spells by domain. Right now, all clerics are identical except for 2 domain spells per level. Thats just boring. With a little work, 5-8 spells could be fit into each level per domain, making more specialized clerics that were much more interesting. I've done it in my house rules, and it works wonderfully.

I don't know how well it worked in your own campaign, but I can already see a lot of abuse coming out of this system. Every party would force their cleric to take the domains that had the best healing and buffing spells, and nobody would ever take the other domains. I know that there are currently domains that are very powerful (a cleric who takes the Strength and War domains, for instance, can pretty much assume the roles of both front-line fighter and healer), but grouping ALL spells by domain would make some domains REQUIRED if you wanted a decent cleric.

11) This would be really cool: every so many levels, allow each class to pick 1 of 3 or 4 listed abilities that are level dependent, so each class can be more personalized to the character. Not feats, but actual core abilities of the class. Some of the prestiege classes in FFG's Path of books already do this, and I think its a wonderful idea. This is also extra incentive for a character to progress to high levels in a core class.

Currently, the game does reward focusing on a single class in most cases. A wizard who decides to take a few levels in fighter for weapon proficencies and extra hit points will often be shooting himself in the foot because he'll be lacking the higher-level spells that are expected for a caster of his character level.

12) Resisting a disease/poison should be a simple Con check, with the Great Fortitude feat applicable as well. Why does level have anything to do with how resistant a person is to disease or poisons? As it is currently, poisons and diseases have no bite except to low level characters.

It's supposed to represent adventurers becoming physically tougher and more resistant to all forms of harm as their adventuring carrers progress. A seasoned warrior who has been exposed to dozens of poisons and diseases, as well as surviving countless wounds is naturally going to be more resistant to punishment than a youngster who just picked up his first sword.

Whoo! That was a long post.


Now, back to the subject at hand, if I could make any changes to 3.5e, I would get rid of the "you can't be a cleric of a racial deity unless you are a member of that race" rule. Why is it that a gnome can be a cleric of Gond and a halfling can be a cleric of Tymora, but a human couldn't be a cleric of Moradin?

 

[FireLance]

Multiclassing rules that make multiclassed spellcasters viable without being overpowered. Perhaps (quick ideas):

1. Every class gets a spellcasting level progression akin to BAB. Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Wizards get +1/level, Bards, Monks, Rangers and Paladins get +3/4 levels, Barbarians, Fighters and Rogues get +1/2 levels.

2. Master table of base spells per day so a Clr10/Wiz10 gets the same base spells as a Clr20 or a Wiz20. Clerics, specialist Wizards and Sorcerers get domain spells and bonus spell slots as class features.

3. The ability to cast spells of higher levels will still depend on progression in individual spellcasting classes. However, although a Clr10/Wiz10 can only cast 5th-level Cleric and Wizard spells, he can fill his higher level spell slots with metamagiced versions of the lower-level spells he can cast.

I believe some of these ideas have already been floated around in the various Mystic Theurge and multiclassed spellcaster threads.

 

[Technik4]

Weapon Proficiency can already be changed to suit your needs gothmog.

Give the increased skill points you proposed. Then do it like this:

Earn 1 rank to become proficient with any weapon on your proficiency list (considered class weapons). If you are not proficient, you suffer a -2 to attack when using that weapon. If you are not proficient and it is not on your class weapon list, you suffer a -4 to attack.

Earn 2 ranks to become proficient with any weapon not on your class weapon list (since the weapon is not on your list, this is a cross-class skill for you, it costs 2 ranks). If the weapon is exotic you need 3 ranks to become proficient and exotic weapons are cross-class skills for every class except fighter.

In this way a wizard could spend 4 skill points to use a longsword (or 6 skill points to use a bastard sword), but would have to spend 1 skill point just to use a dagger or quarterstaff with full proficiency. A fighter would need to spend 1 skill point to use any weapon on his list, or 3 skill points to use an exotic weapon.

The problem with this system is that it favors classes with more skill points for being more weapon-savvy, when it really should be the fighters who are the most weapon savvy.

Technik

 

[Carnifex]

Re: Re: Changes you'd like to see made to 3.5/4E?

Now, back to the subject at hand, if I could make any changes to 3.5e, I would get rid of the "you can't be a cleric of a racial deity unless you are a member of that race" rule. Why is it that a gnome can be a cleric of Gond and a halfling can be a cleric of Tymora, but a human couldn't be a cleric of Moradin?

On that note, I actually run a human cleric of Moradin. He also has non-standard domains for Moradin (Strength and Metal). The reasoning behind this is that in that campaign world, which uses the PHB gods, Moradin is as much a forge & craftsman god to the humans as he is a racial deity to the dwarves.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

The changes I would most like to see:

1. New Magic System: Do away with memorization and just allow spontaneous casting for all. The wizards in movies and books know spells by heart. They can call on them at need. I would love D and D wizards to be able to do the same.

Do the same for clerics as well. Priests know their prayers by heart. They shouldn't have to pray daily for spells. They should simply know certain prayers for certain situations.

2. Eliminate Easy Ressurection: Get rid of this "death is just another easily correctible event in the course of adventuring" from the game. It is incredibly difficult to incorporate the idea of mortality and sacrifice in a game where once the party cleric hits a certain level death is unheard of.

3. Falling Damage: Make falling damage cumulative so that a characters worry a great deal about taking a long fall.

4. Damage Reduction for Armor: Some kind of damage reduction for armor to show that wearing steel armor is alot more effective than wearing light leather armor.

5. More uses for Turning: Channeling divine power should have more uses than simply turning undead. I would like to see turning used to counter evil spells, banish demons/devils and their counterparts for evil, and break magical wards like glyphs, symbols and the like.

6. More reactive defensive options without feats: I would like to see casters able to counter a spell without taking a ready action much like the rules for spell duels in Magic of Faerun. Spell battles should be interesting, not just contests of who wins initiative and makes their saves.

I would like to see spell battles where wizards and clerics hurling spells at each other did stuff like shatter their opponents defenses or shielding themselves from a killing attack. Make spell battle more epic.

I would also like to see opposing melees able to parry and defend against the other. Attack and damage bonuses become insane at high levels. Each hit takes away a level or more of an opponents hit points and usually hits very easily. This makes combats far too short and often anti-climatic.

I would like to see two highly trained melees or a melee versus a powerful monster given defense options that allow them to avoid an attack. I would love to see long, drawn out fights like you see in film or read about in books between two great opponents or a great fighter versus an awsomely powerful monster. That would make for more dramatic battle scenes.


The above is what I would love to see D&D incorporate into their system. The above changes would better allow me to develop truly great stories with epic battles that far exceed what can be done with the current system.

 

[johnsemlak]

5. More uses for Turning: Channeling divine power should have more uses than simply turning undead. I would like to see turning used to counter evil spells, banish demons/devils and their counterparts for evil, and break magical wards like glyphs, symbols and the like.

Don't a lot of cleric spells (dispel evil, protection from evil, etc, Holy Word, etc) do many of these things in effect? Also, Can turning not be used agains evil outsiders?

 

[Quinn]

I would like to see a system where AC is not outstripped by attack bonus. People should be able to improve their ability to block blows just as well as they can improve their ability to hit or to damage.

More customization of characters. Make feats the tool to customize a character, not just to make fighter types better. Right now, feats are the domain of the fighter. The majority of them are aimed towards combat. I'd rather see more of the class abilities turned into feats. In order not to turn the system into a classless system governed solely by feats, make certain feats only available to certain classes.

Free multiclassing across the board. I don't see any reason why a paladin couldn't freely multiclass with a fighter or a wizard and not be able to advance any further as a paladin. Ditto the monk. The favored class restriction on non-human races is also arbitrary. It really doesn't add anything to the game.

Metamagics...quit making Wizards pay through the nose for them! They already have to take a higher spell slot to use a metamagiced spell, so there's no need to make them use up a feat as well.

Also regarding spells, I'd like to see them do away with castings per day...the ol' fire and forget system. Personally, I think the existance of Fireball and Magic Missile have more to do with the flavor (and are the sacred cows) of D&D than the Vancian system. To that end, give spells a point value and give spellcasters a growing pool of points from which to cast from.

Don't penalize spellcasters for multiclassing. Have a progression similar to base attack bonus that allows spellcasters to advance in spell levels if they take other classes. Whether it's a fighter/wizard or a cleric/wizard, there should be a way to make both options viable over the course of a campaign without having to use prestige classes.