Backporting Tome to 3.0E

[DeadlyReed]

I've decided to go back to 3.0e. Anything I should keep a lookout for in regards to using Tome material?

[erik]

I reckon Skills mostly. Skills are the only thing that have consistently improved from 3.0e.

Spells of course are all slightly different, but for the most part that doesn't affect Tome.

[Orion]

3.0 Haste lets you cast 2 spells a round. 3.5 haste doesn't. That's an incredibly huge deal.

[zugschef]

3.0 Haste lets you cast 2 spells a round. 3.5 haste doesn't. That's an incredibly huge deal.

No it's not.

[erik]

A bigger deal is that 3.0 haste helps fightan mans more. As zug noted doubling casting rate is not as exciting as it sounds.

[Ice9]

It helps melee types more than 3.5 Haste does, no question. But a doubled casting rate is exactly as exciting as it sounds. 3E casters may not be as defensive as 3.5, but their offense is notably better.

[RobbyPants]

I've decided to go back to 3.0e. Anything I should keep a lookout for in regards to using Tome material?

I know one or more things in Tome default to 3.0 mechanics, anyway. I'm pretty sure Tome weapon size rules are based more off of 3.0 than 3.5.

A lot of martial PrCs are better in 3.0, although they are still crappy compared to their Tome base-class counterparts.

Damage-reduction in Tome assumes 3.5 rules, so you'll have to take that into account when mixing and matching.

[Josh_Kablack]

Yeah, 3.0 DR was all "Must have at least +N" / HUGE NUMBER", while 3.5 DR was "Specific Material or Condition / Only Mildly Too Large Number."

So anything that lets you totally bypass DR is going to come into play less often, but be a bigger deal when it does, and anything that reduces the numeric side of DR should probably reduce it by 5 or 10 times as much in 3.0 as 3.5.

[ACOS]

Double casting rate is HUGE, especially when both those spells are allowed to be top level (contrasted to Quicken Spell feat). It simply isn't sane ... not when you have a game that expects that BDFs are supposed to be in the party as well.

[virgil]

Double casting rate is HUGE, especially when both those spells are allowed to be top level (contrasted to Quicken Spell feat). It simply isn't sane ... not when you have a game that expects that BDFs are supposed to be in the party as well.

First, there's a one round delay before you start double-casting at monster face. Second, when you first get haste, you will have burned through all of your high level spells by round two. Nova-tactics are not good tactics for a wizard, so you're frequently better off just giving it to the fighter who will get more than two rounds out of it.

Non sequitur here, but I am still hearing rants about how 'ridiculous' 3.0 was because of Improved Critical stacking with Keen.

[Lago PARANOIA]

A doubled casting rate isn't a huge deal at levels 5-7; you just don't have the spell slots for it, especially if you're packing utility spells like Fly. Level 8 (about when wizards can get a +3 to intelligence and gain an extra 3rd and 4th spell slot) is about when Haste really starts to kick ass up and down the streets, though.

Keep in mind though that martials were more competent with a limited-sourcebook pallet 3.0E than in 3.5E, even with haste and +4 persistent spell thrown around. Several things contributed to this:

[*] I think you're selling short how much the haste nerf hurt martials. Sure, casters benefited more but many martial builds who are already borderline fell below the line of competence. Losing haste and especially mass haste instantly destroyed the competence of the charger, fighter-archer, and TWFer Whirlwinder. Losing that +4 bonus to AC also drove the final nail in the coffin of any mid-level+ melee build that cared about AC at all.
[*] +skill bonus items got nerfed and the Wings of Flying went from 5000 gp to 50000 gp.
[*] Monsters became much more competent bruisers thanks to the rejiggering of stat bonuses and the DR changes. They didn't actually become more threatening because they also lose much of their spellcasting, they just became harder to take down with swords.
[*] The +stat bonus spells got nerfed in duration and couldn't be empowered. Fighter-types really, really needed these because it represented a huge cost savings.
[*] Improved Crit no longer stacked with Keen. This was a pretty fucking big damage nerf, all told, especially for people who got to use Mercurial Greatswords and 19-20x3 weapons and shit.
[*] Complete Divine and especially Complete Complete ended up nerfing a lot of key martial expansion options.

So despite the nerfs to haste, even heavily min-maxxed martials went obsolete as damage dealers by level 8 or so in 3.5E D&D; it's about level 12 or so in 3.0E D&D.

If you want to use 3.0E D&D over 3.5E D&D (highly recommended) just change haste so that the extra standard action can't be used for spellcasting and/or only allow spellcasting at a reduced spell level.

[erik]

Level 8 is still a bit early to go nova with Haste. You get 3-4 rounds of casting and then you are done for the day.

I'd consider removing the ability to cast a 2nd spell per round with Haste only to prevent players from falling for the trap option where their character is useless for the rest of the day since it lames the party to camp after each battle otherwise they cart around the equivalent of a level 4 wizard.

I'd totally prefer to use Haste on martial characters over the casters at low *and* mid levels.

Having a few rounds a day where you cast your spells twice is definitely not that exciting. At higher levels sure it is good, but at that point casting twice per round is not what makes casters better than non-casters. You go from being infinitely better than a non-caster to being 2*∞ better (I say infinitely better since things begin to have binary win conditions of being a caster or not). Still not an exciting improvement. Haste is available to everyone else at high level so things are still balanced among the characters that matter.

When a fighter is taken out by a force cage in 1 round, does he really care if you can cast extra spells for the rest of the combat?

Getting double spells per round is available at level 6 for the cost of a single feat anyway.

[Schleiermacher]

I might be missing something huge here, but don't martials all want 3.0 haste for Move + Full Attack? If so, why not change the spell to give an extra move action rather than standard action? Keeps the functionality for warriors and prevents double-casting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Move + Full Attack was probably the most-used function of 3.0E Haste, but it certainly wasn't the only one. Hell, if you really wanted to you could use haste to ready a partial action to start to complete a full-round action (like full-attack) use your partial action in the next round to complete that full attack, then take your regularly-scheduled full attack. That's three full-atacks right there; of course, I've never seen or heard of anyone doing that. You also had things like:

• Manyshot
• Bull-Rush / Grapple
• Activating a Magic Item
• Readying some other action. If you had a good enough tumble check, you could take a lot of the bite out of closet trolls.
• Certain prestige class abilities that required the use of a standard action.

And hell, it's not like bards, paladins, rangers, and other reduced-functionality casters didn't use full attack + spell either.

Seriously, losing the extra standard action from haste really, really hurt melee types more than spellcasters. It's like if the taxman demanded 75% of a Ebenezer Scrooge's wealth and 30% of Bob Crachett's. Crachett is hurt much worse despite paying absolutely and proportionately less.

[OgreBattle]

It sounds like a 3.0 hasted warrior is just more fun and tactically interesting to play with the options the extra partial action brings to the table.

Would a house rule like "instead of iterative attacks you get extra partial actions (that have the attack bonus of an iterative attack)" improve the game? Would it make being level6 and level10 with 1/1BAB a big enough deal to matter against wizards of that level?

[Lago PARANOIA]

It would, but for interface reasons I'm leery of giving people more than two major open-ended actions even if they're high level. Of course, I'm also against giving people asymmetrically-obtained extra attacks because it makes the balancing math intractable (for example, it sucks the cocks of THW users even more than they already are in 3.0E), but D&D already fucked that particular chicken well before I was even born.

I don't see any harm in just declaring that everyone with more than six PC class levels was permanently hasted, including the speed and defense bonuses, while simultaneously declaring that the maximum caster level for casting spells out of your extra standard action was limited to half of your character level (EDIT: and declaring that you couldn't use this extra standard action to actually move).

[Hicks]

In my house's 3.0 games, command word boots of haste were pretty much expected past level 10; give up a standard action every 6th round to be hasted for the next 5 is a pretty good deal for everyone, as well as inexpensive.

[Meikle641]

Would it be easier to just make Full Attacks a standard action, rather than auto-haste?

[Lago PARANOIA]

On reflection (see my none-too-subtle edit above), I don't know how okay I am with letting people full-attack off of a standard action. When I think about 4E and 5E D&D as well as d20 Legend, that kind of thing ended up heavily favoring the attacker and made positioning that much less meaningful.

[Meikle641]

Well, I'd have to disagree on positioning. D&D battles are typically so static, all Full-action full attacks do is make the action less cinematic. Plodding 5' at a time or being robbed of your full BAB benefits is a shitty trade off. What is gained by the existing way?

[Josh_Kablack]

At one point I ran with a houseruled Haste that granted an extra move action - it still favors the attacker, but it nerfed doublecasting and let melee characters move into full attack without having to figure how to snag Pounce or the like.

Currently, I think that all editions of D&D really need to streamline their action sequences.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, I'd have to disagree on positioning. D&D battles are typically so static, all Full-action full attacks do is make the action less cinematic.

Why does moving around the battlefield a lot lead to more cinematic combat? I never noticed such a thing happening in 4E D&D or MnM d20. Let's say that 3E D&D made is so that people got all of their attacks off of a standard action and had a move action to spare. How would that change the control of flow of combat and why would this be more cinematic?

[Judging__Eagle]

Non sequitur here, but I am still hearing rants about how 'ridiculous' 3.0 was because of Improved Critical stacking with Keen.

I have understood "why" they didn't stack in 3.5; but the logic and reasoning are super faulty.

Apologists of this argument tend to completely miss the forest from the trees; non-casters should have all of their "dumb martial powers" noticeably improve when given any magic buffs.

Also, they miss the fact that making martial characters weaker; is going to require additional fixing afterwards to make them stronger.

Even then, people who complain about Imp Crit + Keen Edges stacking often fail to remember that the 15-19 d20 results still have to count as a hit if they're not a roll of 20; before the roll to confirm a crit can be made.

In other words; Imp Crit + Keen Edges stacking = shit all; unless To-Hit bonuses; and base raw damage; are also any good.

All it really does is "roughly halves" combat time on enemies that the TWF'er would already be able to hit and damage in some manner.

I really don't know about the idiots making that sort of argument; but I think many people at the game table could appreciate "that character's melee combat damage (MCD) approaches MCD*2" is not actually an overpowered thing. Especially when Imp Crit + Keen stacking can come online (say lvl 6-7). Once you're around level 6-7 and clerics able to start Planeshifting; and wizards are preparing to enslave demons; being able to deal "x2 damage than before" is.... 'nice'; not overpowered.

[addendum]:

Well, I'd have to disagree on positioning. D&D battles are typically so static, all Full-action full attacks do is make the action less cinematic.

Why does moving around the battlefield a lot lead to more cinematic combat? I never noticed such a thing happening in 4E D&D or MnM d20. Let's say that 3E D&D made is so that people got all of their attacks off of a standard action and had a move action to spare. How would that change the control of flow of combat and why would this be more cinematic?

Most games utterly fail at generating "cinematic combat" however. People tend to mean these sorts of scenes (these clips were to picked from for the final storyboarding assignment for one of the classes I did a few years ago; they present a variety of "combat" scenarios; many vs one; 1 vs 1; ranged free for all, strict melee duel; medieval/contemporary).

One of the major aspects of these fights is the fact that positioning is paid more attention to than attacking; also the amount of attacks that 'connect' in any way shape or form is.... tiny. Maybe one attack is needed to hit a target before it drops.

Robin Hood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnT91LRCFFA

Watchmen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZNsFCXzhfg

Star Trek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhATkZC_j3s

The Matrix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8RcgT-Zlk4

Dirty Harry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72JTENuQNgM

What happens in each? Lots of movement/positioning change; distancing/closing between characters.

What doesn't happen 'as much'.... honestly; actual attacks happen inversely proportionately to what almost any video game, tabletop game; or even a LARP expects the player to do.

The main aspects of "cinematic" combat are:

-constant movement is key to survival
-parrying counters thrusting well
-combat ends when an attack lands

In many ways; the "Attacker's Combat Skill vs Defender's Combat Skill" of After Sundown's melee combat, and why its melee combats "take forever" is probably a better system for modelling "cinematic" melee combat.

Which is ironic since Frank has said that AS's combat engine isn't good for fantasy combat games... but you know what? Fantasy combat games are mostly unrealistic bullshit anyway, further compounded by being also full of narrativistic bullshit as well.

[Koumei]

Scrying, Animal Empathy and Innuendo are all skills (not good), and Perform is just one skill (good). Abuse Magic Device is specifically locked so you can't take it if it's not a class skill (up to the reader to decide if that's good or bad). Oh and a single splatbook introduces Iaijutsu Focus. You don't want that skill to exist.

You probably don't give a shit about things like "Skill Focus only grants +2", because if it's Tome, you're not taking Skill Focus.

Sorcerers could Quicken spells, because Skip hadn't specifically soaked his nuts in the rules text to rule that option out.

Harm (lose all but 1d4 HP), Heal (regain all but 1d4 HP) and Disintegrate (<~DESTROYED~>) were better when dealing with higher-HP totals (which is to say, assuming you got around Save DCs, they remained good for longer).

The Psionics book was so bad that Jesus had to die for it, but presumably you won't be using that anyway.

Monsters gained feats at different rates because "reasons", it was a little bit weird. Also I think the "playing as monsters" might have just been a set of pretty reasonable guidelines back then.

[Scrivener]

Well, I'd have to disagree on positioning. D&D battles are typically so static, all Full-action full attacks do is make the action less cinematic.

Why does moving around the battlefield a lot lead to more cinematic combat? I never noticed such a thing happening in 4E D&D or MnM d20. Let's say that 3E D&D made is so that people got all of their attacks off of a standard action and had a move action to spare. How would that change the control of flow of combat and why would this be more cinematic?

Combat in D&D is very static. People walk up and start wailing on each other. There is very little movement, if there is team X and team O melee combat in D&D becomes quickly a chain looking like XOXOXOXO.... Also due to how flanking rules work, backing into a corner is infinitely better than standing in the open. So combat becomes a rush to the optimal corner positioning, and then a giant snake of people moving 5' at a time.

AoEs are a first strike option, and their existence actively discourages tactics like a shield wall. Any actor in the 3.X ruleset will know this and try to get to the optimal flanking chain ASAP.

The combat is more like Othello than any movie I've seen.

That being said i don't think that move+ full attack will encourage dynamic fights. The current set up you are penalized for moving by AoOs, flanking (after the initial charges), and iterative attacks. Making the last problem go away won't stop the freeze in the optimal line. If you want dynamic and interesting fights, you need mechanical benefits for different configurations, and you need limit the danger of AoOs. This problem of static fights isn't new, but it astounds me no one has looked at the issues of incremental bonuses coupled with a major disincentive to movement as the culprits.