Failure Points of 3.5

[tussock]

If some bizarre mechanic needs a nerf to caster level, it should just use caster level -2 or whatever in the mechanic. 3e as written just works better with no term for caster level at all and everyone using their level for that.

No increase or decrease to caster level, just cast at level +2 or level -2 as needed. Which is probably never.

[Kaelik]

If some bizarre mechanic needs a nerf to caster level, it should just use caster level -2 or whatever in the mechanic. 3e as written just works better with no term for caster level at all and everyone using their level for that.

No increase or decrease to caster level, just cast at level +2 or level -2 as needed. Which is probably never.

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[erik]

Yeah... it's making me wonder if maybe caster levels should vary. Everything tells me that having CL not equal character level is stupid-bad-wrong game design for 3e. But Tussock. Damn. I don't know

Maybe a case could be made for some monsters not having CL = HD, but I wouldn't make it.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

For the base classes, I think they should, but in case some bizarre prestige class has mechanics which require a nerf to caster level, the term should be changed.

Casters of X level should all have X competency in casting. That's probably what level-based systems should do, right? Being a SwordCaster should give you Sword abilities of X level and Caster abilities of X level, but you should have limited Sword abilities compared to Swordudes of X level and limited Caster abilities compared to Casters of X level. Then you're competent and not just a gimpy Sword/Caster dude.

[obexpe]

While on the topic of caster and spellcaster level, I have to wonder--is there any reason that D&D's span of level's is as wide as it is? Do we need 20 levels for the full-fledged D&D experience? We have fights with martials, animals, and trash mob monsters with caster-like abilities at level 1-4, more mechanically nuanced monsters and the addition of flight/easy status removal at level 5-8, a more tried and nuanced level of epic fantasy at levels 9-12, but once Wizards completely take over at level 14, I'm not sure if I can even give the remaining levels a descriptor.

Obviously, a better 3.5 would get rid of the "Wizard wins the game" problem entirely, but if we're assuming that this is no longer so, levels 14-20 would look completely different. If you keep them at all, there should be a decent idea of what that tier of play looks like.

[Lokathor]

Short Answer: You don't need all the levels.

LotR is like a 5th level adventure. It's a really long 5th level adventure, where maybe people don't level up at a pace you might expect from the normal game, but it's still a cool story that people love to hear about.

Things past level 10 are kinda goofy. Above 14... maybe just don't actually play those parts of the game.

[Username17]

D&D's level span has varied tremendously over the various editions. In most of them, different classes had different maximum levels because "LOL, fuckit" or something. The 20 level standard was a thing that happened in 3rd edition. And that was a choice made pretty much arbitrarily. In AD&D Druids only went up to 14th level and Assassins finish at 15th. In Red Box rules, no class goes past 3rd level. On the other end, 4th edition classes all go up to 30 in the PHB. And so on and so forth.

Expansions also regularly changed the level limits. The D&D Joke Book tried to make levels 21-40 a thing for 3rd edition, but before that Dragon Kings gave rules for playing levels 21-30 for 2nd Edition AD&D and the Master Rules gave rules for playing levels 26-36 in OD&D.

The core problem is that the specific meaning of level hasn't been well defined in any edition of the game (although 3rd edition comes closest), and things really break down at higher levels. Without well defined challenges for higher level play, discussions about what a balanced character looks like at those levels cannot come to definitive answers.

Were you to move forward and do a second great reconcilliation like what 3rd edition did for what had come before, you'd set yourself specific benchmarks of expected challenges at the levels you intended to support. And then you'd design things from there. Whether you decided to cap your initial design at level 10 or level 35 is simply a stylistic choice. The important part is that you need to decide what kinds of enemies are supposed to be threatening at various levels and then you have to make sure that the interactions of the abilities of those enemies and the player characters are such that neither side is invalidated at those levels.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

One of the great ideas of 3rd edition was trying to make levels and Challenge Ratings comparable, so that a creature that was CR X could present a challenge to characters that were Level X. It was pretty much a doomed idea, because even as fixed as the mechanics were in 3rd edition, the classes were never balanced against each other and there was too much movement within levels for classes to be balanced against challenges effectively - a 20th level fighter is just never going to choke a tarrasque to death - and at the other end of the scale, you have cats killing commoners.

Of course, you could divorce "class level" from overall character ability entirely - in which case you end up with something like Earthdawn.

[Judging__Eagle]

If some bizarre mechanic needs a nerf to caster level, it should just use caster level -2 or whatever in the mechanic. 3e as written just works better with no term for caster level at all and everyone using their level for that.

No increase or decrease to caster level, just cast at level +2 or level -2 as needed. Which is probably never.

WE FOUND IT BOIS! THE MOST ELUSIVE THING IN THE WORLD! THE 100% CORRECT TUSSOCK POST!

I don't exactly know what Tussock is responding to; however could it be extrapolated that this idea could be used as a way to manage Metamagic effects? This sounds sort of how the Metamagic effects Kaelik wrote up for their [Tome] errata; the various metamagic effects lower the access to spells which a spellcaster could apply metamagic. Perhaps some sort of parallel evolution of ideas, b/c I'm not sure if Tussock uses [Tome] or the [Tome] errata; or their own 3.X/OSR homebrew engine.

[tussock]

Generally, no, because not every spell cares about your casterlevel, and the ones that do are going to be solvable with math as to that being a good idea or not forever after.

Which isn't particularly fun.

The point of metamagic would seem to be that sometimes you need still spell or more dakka or whatever, but the cost should make it situational so we can mostly ignore it and have spells that work OK without it. Such cost must be payable when the situation arises, obviously.

The only cost that really makes sense for spont and prep casters both is open slots. In AD&D they'd be actual spells, but with the advent of open slots they can just be a 3rd level slot to empower shit, and maybe a higher level slot to empower higher level stuff.

And like with AD&D ones, they can even last longer than one spell, so when you need still spells you can burn a 2nd level slot with the first and they'll all be still for 5 rounds. And if it turns out you don't need them, you can prep a spell in that slot later instead.

[erik]

If some bizarre mechanic needs a nerf to caster level, it should just use caster level -2 or whatever in the mechanic. 3e as written just works better with no term for caster level at all and everyone using their level for that.

No increase or decrease to caster level, just cast at level +2 or level -2 as needed. Which is probably never.

WE FOUND IT BOIS! THE MOST ELUSIVE THING IN THE WORLD! THE 100% CORRECT TUSSOCK POST!

I don't exactly know what Tussock is responding to

The posts immediately previous, albeit on the previous page.

The execution and purpose of the knowledge is sound, it just suffers from a terrible name, like nearly every aspect of D&D does. While not specific to 3.5, a terminology rewrite would be one of the biggest things on my list for a 3.5 improvement--"caster level" should have a different name so that it is properly separated from spellcaster level, the actual levels you have in a caster class.

First you gotta justify to me why base CL shouldn't just be equal to character level.

For the base classes, I think they should, but in case some bizarre prestige class has mechanics which require a nerf to caster level, the term should be changed.

[Omegonthesane]

I thought Tome was OK with the "cost" of getting your metamagic scot free but only being able to apply it to your normally weakest spell. Then again Tome was over a decade ago at this point IIRC.

[Judging__Eagle]

Thanks erik.

I thought Tome was OK with the "cost" of getting your metamagic scot free but only being able to apply it to your normally weakest spell. Then again Tome was over a decade ago at this point IIRC.

That's sort of what I meant by [Tome] Metamagic applying a sort of penalty to caster level. Except in this case, a penalty that applies against the highest level spells one can cast (i.e. you can only cast spells you could if you were X levels lower).

[tussock]

Well, yeah, the cost decrease mechanisms turned metamagic into a universally good thing, but I hold a general objection to improving the lives of Wizards and Clerics in 3e, and anything like that in the splats got hard banned in my games. Fuckers run the show anyway.

The Tome solution makes metamagic a worthy feat compared to Tome feats, without completely breaking the game with persistent spell like the official splats.

--

As this is for a proposed re-write, 3e I imagine benefits from a thing like ...

Spontaneous casting being a thing you do with a handful of Mastered combat spells, and Prepared casting a thing you do outside combat through the day with your spellbook or prayer beads or herb smoking or performance art, but is limited in how many you can prep at once. Expand your Mastered spells with Domains, Feats, and Items, so a Wand of Fireball just lets you spont cast Fireball with maybe a slot or three a day free for it.

Then the Sor/Wiz is one class and they either pump feats into more Mastered spells (Sor) or load up on a spellbook, with item creation and metamagic feats (Wiz).

Metamagic can be Mastery of metamagic spells, that are swift action things to turn off your Somatic components a while, or beef up your damage spells a while, or whatever.

NPCs and monsters can have a short list of combat spells, found spellbooks or prayer wheels or songbooks or herb lore books or whatever are of easy size and nature to deal with, and spellcasters in general can do things as they need without getting strictly more powerful.

NB, Clerics should not have a known spells list of "all Cleric spells", though they should know more spells in general than other classes do because they need all those heals and restorations and whatnot.

Example class Sorwiz.

Code: Select all

Level   0th 1st 2nd 3rd 4th   M0  M1  M2  M3  M4
  1     0+5 1+1                3   1
  2     0+6 1+2                4   1
  3     0+6 1+3 1+1            4   1   1
  4     0+6 1+4 1+2            4   2   1
  5     0+6 1+5 1+3 1+1        4   2   1   1
  6     0+6 1+5 1+4 1+2        4   2   2   1
  7     0+6 1+5 1+5 1+3 1+1    4   2   2   1   1
  8     0+6 1+5 1+5 1+4 1+2    4   2   2   2   1

First number how many you can prep simultaneously, 2nd number how many open slots for spont casting or more prep later.

Cut it back a bit if you stick with bonus spells (which you shouldn't), maybe increase it a bit if you want to burn slots for wands and stuff, or do both and leave it.

Then you can spend a feat to Master another group of spells, flavour sorted into groups of ~1 per level, like Domains and Bloodlines and Metamagic and "I'm an Elf" and whatever else.

[OgreBattle]

Failure points of 3.5....

- Need to clearly define action economy and stick with it for whatever new classes and monsters show up

- What feats do are poorly defined and all over the place

- Caster Level and other fiddly mechanics that should just be replaced with character level

- Fiddly skill points, fiddly defensive stats when you multiclass

- Not all class levels are equal, multiclassing only works in very narrow bands or at below 6th level.

We've got dozens and dozens of page worth of discussions of 3.x failure points though and everything being stated now is a regurgitation of that