(Trying to) fix 3.5 - how to.

[Aspenor]

A truly well defended fortress is underground. No fly for joo. Guards and Wards can make for interesting occurrences, and contingency gust of wind for those PC's trying to abuse spells like cloudkill that flow downhill.

[Magusrex777]

I really can't help but laugh at very smart people deliberately ruining a great game. I will say again, in every system I have ever ran it always tells you that the rules are guideline and that you should change them where you see fit. So for the rules lawyers out there, IT IS IN THE RULES. What is your job as DM? Priority #1 to create a situation where you and your friends have fun. You can have challenging, deadly even, but this is STILL supposed to be fun. We are trying to recreate a "party" and melee's are needed. The only person who can make them useless or meaningless is the DM and if you do that, sorry but you a bad DM, very bad.

Spellcasters have limitations on the spells they can cast, if you allow spellcasters to recharge completely after every battle or even every few battles you are bad. Spells should be saved for the right occasion, most simple combats should be handled by the fighters, some monsters are very resistant to magic. It is your job to make the party operate like a team. My parties always did. You create encounter that encourage them to work together and use each others strengths and defend against one anothers weaknesses.

The best mages that played under me did not take the full company of personal offensive spells. They took many spells that were not combat related and found useful ways to incorporate them into an encounter by being "creative" with spells I chose to allow them access to. I limited access to spells(very important), yes you can join a guild but now you are going listen them and do their bidding and mage guilds are never nice, power corrupts. Yes you can have a private teacher, you will be role-playing to find that and sure he could be a great guy/girl but as such is going to be sure to limit your access to power because he understands how it corrupts, he will tell you to rely on your friends work together ect. I am the DM it my responsibility to insure I run a balanced campaign that is fun for all my players regardless of class choice, MY JOB. Blaming imbalance or lack of enjoyment on the system, edition or rules is just the excuse of the weakest kind of DM, sorry but it is true.

[Aspenor]

I really can't help but laugh at very smart people deliberately ruining a great game. I will say again, in every system I have ever ran it always tells you that the rules are guideline and that you should change them where you see fit. So for the rules lawyers out there, IT IS IN THE RULES. What is your job as DM? Priority #1 to create a situation where you and your friends have fun. You can have challenging, deadly even, but this is STILL supposed to be fun. We are trying to recreate a "party" and melee's are needed. The only person who can make them useless or meaningless is the DM and if you do that, sorry but you a bad DM, very bad.

Spellcasters have limitations on the spells they can cast, if you allow spellcasters to recharge completely after every battle or even every few battles you are bad. Spells should be saved for the right occasion, most simple combats should be handled by the fighters, some monsters are very resistant to magic. It is your job to make the party operate like a team. My parties always did. You create encounter that encourage them to work together and use each others strengths and defend against one anothers weaknesses.

The best mages that played under me did not take the full company of personal offensive spells. They took many spells that were not combat related and found useful ways to incorporate them into an encounter by being "creative" with spells I chose to allow them access to. I limited access to spells(very important), yes you can join a guild but now you are going listen them and do their bidding and mage guilds are never nice, power corrupts. Yes you can have a private teacher, you will be role-playing to find that and sure he could be a great guy/girl but as such is going to be sure to limit your access to power because he understands how it corrupts, he will tell you to rely on your friends work together ect. I am the DM it my responsibility to insure I run a balanced campaign that is fun for all my players regardless of class choice, MY JOB. Blaming imbalance or lack of enjoyment on the system, edition or rules is just the excuse of the weakest kind of DM, sorry but it is true.

True, very true. Unfortunately many DM's are somewhat incompetent (not you, just many I've come across). Take my current campaign as a simple example. The party is in no hurry to do anything. If we have a tough encounter at the beginning of the day, no worries. Both myself (travel/magic domain cleric) and the wizard keep a teleport spell loaded every day. One is for use to travel to the spot of the dungeon we just were before resting, the second is for traveling back to our "lair" when we either need rest or need to get out of a battle that's out of our reach (which has never happened). Our lair is basically a suite, with beds, storage closets, and even an artifact that lets us raise our dead fairly cheaply.

Luckily the DM was smart enough to make one player reroll. He was a wildshape, natural spell druid who was somewhat abusing the rules since (not on purpose, I might add, he didn't know the rules and neither did our DM, and he never explained to me where all his bonuses were coming from. he had applied the Companion's level up bonuses to Nat AC, Str, etc. to his wildshape forms) the DM didn't get the rules. He's now a monk, and I think the party is happier for it.

On the positive side, the wizard is not exactly one to abuse his most powerful spell options. He likes to blast stuff, and it's whatever to me.

I play the party gimp (healer) but rarely need to actually use hardly any of my spells per day. I turn undead like a machine, but don't do much offensive spell casting. The extent of my offensive spell casting so far has been Wall of Stone to force 1 on 1 battles when I know we can't handle a full-on assault.

Oh, I also have an artifact, myself. Luckily it's mostly a utility item, which helps me play party leader/face. I just think it's funny that we're level 10-11 and are in possession of two artifacts already.

Thus the problems created with some published campaigns.

[SquelchHU]

What Cedad meant is (I think) : If you have the Blind Fighting feat you have a better chance to hit a Wizard with Mirror Image if you close your eyes than if you keep your eyes open and get fooled by the images.

Mirror Image affects only sight, so you can ignore it if you're blind/closing your eyes.

About the rest, well...

I also played Living Greyhawk for several years, with players from all around the world, and I agree with most of what Cedad and Thedjinnfor said.

I don't mean any disrespect, but you seem to have a very narrow opinion of what D&D 3.5 game should be
That's sad.

It still doesn't work. Even if it does work the way you say, you must still be aiming at the right square. As the Mirror Images need not all be in the same square, and indeed explicitly can be 5 feet from each other the only result of attempting to use blindfight is that you have a 25% miss chance, and are still most likely swinging at a fake.

As for D&D being narrow... well it actually is. It wasn't really supposed to be, it was supposed to be a kitchen sink type deal. But so many archetypes are flat out unsupported that you really don't see any variance at all unless discussing the archetypes that are supported. Casters for example get plenty of options. And the other guys could have as well, if they were done right. But they aren't. D&D is very schizophrenic in the sources it draws from. It claims a main source to be LotR, then turns around and makes the actual game change fundamentally every few levels instead of fighting level 1 bandits at level 1, level 10 bandits at level 10, and level 20 bandits at level 20. This is the exact opposite of LotR. And it is also why the mundane guys are little more than 'dude with sword' even though 'master swordsman' or 'Miyamoto Musashi' could easily keep the archetype viable past the first few levels, and the archetype is clearly supposed to be viable past the first few levels. And then to keep it going? Pull from the sources that actually make mundanes relevant. There's plenty of them, and despite the 'anime' whines most of them are neither Asian nor recent. King Arthur for example was far more than 'dude with artifact sword' in the original tellings before he got mundaned up because people feared mysticism even in fiction.

It is for this reason I call LotR the worst thing to happen to D&D. Yes, even worse than 4th edition and PF. Those have only held it back for a few years instead of a few decades. It is the reason Fighters Do Not Get Nice Things, and it is the reason so many people have the same mindset.

And that is why this thread is here. Broaden it by letting the swordsman stand next to the wizard as an equal. Or try to. It still doesn't quite go that far unfortunately. But you can at least not feel small in the pants. Think Batman and Robin, instead of Superman and Aquaman (outside of water).

Edit: While in combat healing is certainly gimp, I have to wonder how you are the party gimp when there is both a blaster caster and a monk there.

[Krag]

2. Globally increasing hitpoints means a buff for characters who defeat enemies without regard for their hitpoint totals, which means casters get better.

Who cares?
It's not like Squelch plays anyone but casters.

[SquelchHU]

Who cares?
It's not like Squelch plays anyone but casters.

Hi Krag. I see you've chosen to join the troll party. And actually, you're wrong. I play both, but only play non casters when I know the DM understands what is required to make them relevant as more than anything else, I hate wasting my time and I signed up to play the game to ACTUALLY PLAY IT, not to spend most of the time shut out because I have exactly one option available, that more often than not cannot be applied at all.

[Magusrex777]

True, very true. Unfortunately many DM's are somewhat incompetent (not you, just many I've come across). .

Yeah, it is hard to find a great DM, I was very fortunate to run across some excellent ones very early in my playing career. I had been playing since about 10 years old, You could roll percentile dice, and I could tell you what magic item was generated on specific table. I had every book, I knew every rule. I thought I ran the best campaign ever.

The truth was, I was awful but how would I know? I didn’t until I started playing with other older people. I started going to conventions and met some of the creators of D&D. In college, if I heard about anyone playing I asked if I could go their games even if their groups were full. I learned so much but I had a dream and I needed to be good. I dropped out of college and opened a Comic & Card Hobby store. I had a room in the back dedicated to gaming and I ran games there and allowed others to run games.

We had maps and all kinds of accessories and a HUGE table. We charged a small fee for a few hour session per person, we gave you soda and snacks free. We even had late night games that ran with all adults, it was beyond cool. I then started to run conventions and got to witness some GREAT DMs many terrible ones , and we would all get together at my store after and I would run for some of the best DMs because they never got a chance to pl ay, cursed by their ability to run games. By this point I was very good and one of them told me he felt like he could hear the snow fall and to this day, it is one of the greatest compliments I have gotten.

I am a husband and father now, I sold my store years ago but I know I still “got it” I also know what a good campaign looks like and how little it has to do with the “rules” It is 100% the what the players and DM make of it. So really, I chuckle at what I see here at times and I hope some these people get to experience great PnP someday, I really do. It looks like you are on your way, you have the right attitude. I wish someone would come up with a way we could use voice chat and I could see other peoples rolls, I would run something for people just so they could get a taste. Kind of like a web ex and I could share my screen and show you all visual aids and you could hear me and I could hear you. I know I could make 4th edition knock someone’s socks off.

[ddaedelus]

One of the reasons (there were several) my players and I abandoned 2E as our play system (and never returned to D&D again) was exactly the problem of melee's vs. casters that you mention. There were ways to get around it, of course. One of which being a substantial rewrite of the rules as you've proposed. But while I'll happily spend months planning a campaign, I'm not nearly so enthusiastic about rewriting rules beyond the bare necessities to make the campaign work.

The primary problem with magic in D&D is the sheer volume of bizarreness in the spells. There is a spell for everything you can think of and a dozen more for everything you would never think of. Add to this all the no-save, instant kill, and AOE spells and things become out of control very quickly. In short, magic in D&D is too easy. It is always the right solution to every problem. Much like beer, but without the goodness. My solution for awhile was to severely restrict the availability of spells, and, quite honestly, that's not much fun for the player.

We took up Rolemaster for a long time. The magic at higher levels was not nearly so unbalanced as in D&D, but combat in Rolemaster is incredibly tedious (though the critical hit system was fun) and eventually drove our playstyle much more into "pretend" than "dice rolling." Quite simply, due to the game mechanics you could get more accomplished faster in one night of gaming through diplomacy and intrigue than you could through combat. All in all, this was fine, as my campaigns were starting to lean that direction anyway.

But even in Rolemaster, there was little reason for a min-max player (and all mine were) to play a non-spell user. The utility gain from spell use was still an advantage if not so overwhelming as in D&D.

Magic became such a predominate component of our playstyle that we eventually switched to Ars Magica, a system which makes no pretenses about even trying to balance magic and melee. It expects you to play a magus. It has what I consider to be one of the richest magic systems (though it still needs supervision), but a very mediocre melee combat system that was tacked on almost as an afterthought (and in earlier editions was even worse).

So I guess my point is that, yes, there is a gross imbalance between high level melees and casters in D&D (and in many other systems as well). These imbalances can be gotten around through a heavy focus on roleplaying, but as you point out, that doesn't fix the system, it simply ignores the broken part. They can also be gotten around by a lot of situational devices, which, when overused, begin to feel gimmicky and build resentment. Any real fix requires extensive rule changes and even, I would argue, a change to the common idea we have of what a fantasy game should be (largely the legacy of D&D, not LotR).

I can't really comment on the changes you've specifically suggested as I've never played 3.5 outside of video games (which is substantially different), so I'm not really qualified and will leave that to others. I do think you're attempting to address a valid issue, though.

For me and my players, the solution was to move to a more roleplaying/political based playstyle and setting, and to rethink the purpose of melee characters: skilled servants who collected your taxes, did your shopping, and answered the door.

[Magusrex777]

I liked Ars Magika and I ran a campaign of that. I played a lot of Rolemaster because it was very easy to create whatever the PC wanted to play. You are correct most of my players in Rolemaster had access to at least one spell list. Rolemaster was what I consider HighMagic. I had a couple people that played completely non magically in Rolemaster. I gave everyone a chance to shine and that is the key. I ran Rolemaster and D&D the most often, lots of books and accessories to sell. I also ran Rifts, Shadowrun, Warhammer Role Play, Vampire, GURPS, Champions, Fantasy Hero(Very Good) I would tell you that all them were good campaigns and fun. Every system had their strengths and weaknesses that needed to be taken advantage of or adjusted, nothing is perfect.

[SquelchHU]

One of the reasons (there were several) my players and I abandoned 2E as our play system (and never returned to D&D again) was exactly the problem of melee's vs. casters that you mention. There were ways to get around it, of course. One of which being a substantial rewrite of the rules as you've proposed. But while I'll happily spend months planning a campaign, I'm not nearly so enthusiastic about rewriting rules beyond the bare necessities to make the campaign work.

This is true. Even many of the optimizers tend to respond with something along the lines of '**** that, I'll just play a gish.' For those who don't recognize the term, a gish is the name for a mage knight, named because the Githyanki like this approach a lot. And there is a very strong element of truth to it. Since the only defenses that actually work without extensive house rules such as these are spell based having Mirror Image, Greater Blink, and similar to protect you while you swing your weapon around the gish is an archetype that is viable out of the box (though building one that gets the right mix of swording and spelling to not simply suck at both is another matter). Further, it also gives you better numbers when swinging your weapon around so you need not be so exacting in your methodology to get your damage high enough to matter and it gives you alternative options when swinging a sword around just won't work. Of course a gish, even properly made is still inferior to a plain caster. However it does allow for viable meleeing, in so much as attacking for HP damage can be viable. It is also worth mentioning that a gish is also the only character type that can be accurately described as a 'caster killer'. No, not even other casters can do this as well (though they're still good at it) because well... there's a chance they kill you too. It still doesn't work when the caster goes all out and really uses all the tools at his disposal (if he does, congrats you just killed an astral projection... repeat until he gets you, at no risk to himself), but when merely played competently with abilities that merely win battles and not D&D you have a fairly good success chance against him.

However it is worth noting 2nd edition is not QUITE as bad at this. While Fighters are still the booby prize because you didn't roll high enough to play a real class, and spellcasters are still awesome far lower enemy HP combined with far simpler tactical situations and a better base chassis (actually having significantly more HP than everyone else, the best or close to the best saves in all categories) the Fighter was more a lackey than a pile on. Still inferior, but not nearly as much so.

The primary problem with magic in D&D is the sheer volume of bizarreness in the spells. There is a spell for everything you can think of and a dozen more for everything you would never think of. Add to this all the no-save, instant kill, and AOE spells and things become out of control very quickly. In short, magic in D&D is too easy. It is always the right solution to every problem. Much like beer, but without the goodness. My solution for awhile was to severely restrict the availability of spells, and, quite honestly, that's not much fun for the player.

In actuality the problem isn't that spells can do all sorts of different things. It's that non spells cannot. If Miyamoto Musashi could solve the swarm of ogres problem by slicing them all up at once, solve the Lich problem with the Facestab of Bonebreaking technique, then go back to his liege and convince him that that was a feat that proved he is worthy of running the place and that his liege should pass the title to him then no one would really mind that much that the Wizard is doing it with an AoE negation spell of some sort, a Disintegrate, and a Charm Person respectively. It's when you can't be Mr. Miyamoto, and your option to the ogres is 'Uh, I attack' and your option to the Lich is 'Uh, I attack', and your option to your leige is 'Uh... wait, I can't attack him!' you have a problem.

We took up Rolemaster for a long time. The magic at higher levels was not nearly so unbalanced as in D&D, but combat in Rolemaster is incredibly tedious (though the critical hit system was fun) and eventually drove our playstyle much more into "pretend" than "dice rolling." Quite simply, due to the game mechanics you could get more accomplished faster in one night of gaming through diplomacy and intrigue than you could through combat. All in all, this was fine, as my campaigns were starting to lean that direction anyway.

The problem with ANY luck based feature available to players and enemies is that it will always favor Team Monster. You win a fight, ok cool. There will be more fights. The fight wins you, and Soviet Russia jokes aside you are screwed.

Critical hits are one of the more glaring examples of this, if for no other reason than in a tight system like D&D, it turns a lot of what would be a near miss (surviving one round at low HP) into a one round wonder. Even if the odds are low on a swing by swing basis, you fight many fights and the enemies fight one each.

It also means that the more problematic criticals are, the more Team PC, particularly the melee sorts get completely and utterly screwed. As Rolemaster practically invented the concept of critical hits that tell you where to go and what to do when you get there it is only natural you would choose to stop playing it even before you realized you had chosen to stop playing it.

Magic became such a predominate component of our playstyle that we eventually switched to Ars Magica, a system which makes no pretenses about even trying to balance magic and melee. It expects you to play a magus. It has what I consider to be one of the richest magic systems (though it still needs supervision), but a very mediocre melee combat system that was tacked on almost as an afterthought (and in earlier editions was even worse).

Admittedly, D&D would have been better if it were honest from the start that non casters were second class citizens at best, players were encouraged to play a real class, and the other guys were for followers, hangers on, and mook opposition. However it did not tag them as NPC classes in 3rd/3.5, nor did it make this distinction apparent earlier. So it's too late for that. Now I'm not saying it would have been good. After all, people like playing non casters. Telling them flat out your archetype is not supported would have made them lose interest... but it would have made a better impression than lying would have.

So I guess my point is that, yes, there is a gross imbalance between high level melees and casters in D&D (and in many other systems as well). These imbalances can be gotten around through a heavy focus on roleplaying, but as you point out, that doesn't fix the system, it simply ignores the broken part. They can also be gotten around by a lot of situational devices, which, when overused, begin to feel gimmicky and build resentment. Any real fix requires extensive rule changes and even, I would argue, a change to the common idea we have of what a fantasy game should be (largely the legacy of D&D, not LotR).

You aren't getting around it. You're ignoring it by not playing the game.

It is also worth mentioning the problem kicks in far before high levels. It is most obvious, and most severe at high levels. But you can notice as early as level 3. Just look for Aspenor's Alter Self post. And he's being tame and core only about it - there are certainly far worse things you could Alter Self into than a Troglodyte.

I can't really comment on the changes you've specifically suggested as I've never played 3.5 outside of video games (which is substantially different), so I'm not really qualified and will leave that to others. I do think you're attempting to address a valid issue, though.

For me and my players, the solution was to move to a more roleplaying/political based playstyle and setting, and to rethink the purpose of melee characters: skilled servants who collected your taxes, did your shopping, and answered the door.

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit about that last part. While not quite the term I would have used, it's close enough.

And just for the record, the video games tend to greatly gimp enemy stats. How much? Go into a high level area with AC low 30s. Watch em miss very often, if not all the time. In actuality AC low 30s would not make you near invulnerable unless you were fighting level 5 and lower stuff... and as that is far more AC than you would actually get at those levels it doesn't happen. AC low 30s in a high level area might as well be 0 - enemy PAs half their BAB or more away and still hits 95% of the time. Yes, 0 would let them PA even more but you're probably going to die in 1 round anyways so 'more damage' makes no practical difference.

Now, take a look at the AC fix. Since it's based on the magic item system, it scales with that. At level... let's say 5 very little of your AC is coming from magic items, as opposed to the mundane component of those items. 1-3 points from +1 bonuses depending on your setup, for a cost of 1k-4k gold out of 9k gold depending on how far you want to go. And spending almost half your money on a single stat is serious overkill, but you can get +2 for 2k, so let's assume that.

With the house rule, 2k gets you +3 AC = the same +1 on your armor, and +1 on your shield if you actually use one of those (you really shouldn't, no Animated yet and holding a shield gimps your DPS hard). Anyways, that's one point more. Well, AC vs enemy to hit is not too far behind the curve at level 5. So getting a single extra point, without doing anything extra is about right. And if you're following the entire guide, and you should you don't have '9k' anymore. You have '9k that refines into 13.5k or 18k by crafting'. Which means you can afford to sink another 1-2k into it pretty easily for another point or two. Total of +2-3 now which is about right.

At level 20 though most of your AC is coming from the magic part. So it makes a huge difference, and +20 AC, while seeming like it would completely break a D20 system actually fixes it because it corrects the fact you were about 20 points BEHIND. So now instead of level 20 stuff hitting an AC capped build on a negative 8 they hit on a positive 12. Slightly better than displacement. We're getting somewhere.

And if you want to pick a number between 5 and 20, you'll see results somewhere between 5 and 20.

One thing I forgot to mention in the original post, and one thing that greatly helps correct several problems is the problem with iterative attacks. The penalty on follow up attacks (-10, -15) is too steep to make those attacks worthwhile. This makes BAB near worthless past the 3/4th progression, and it makes manufactured weapon based creatures (mostly PC melees, some monsters, all humanoid melee NPCs) a joke as well. It isn't the only thing that does so, but it is one of the things.

Now, look at natural attackers for a moment. See a pattern? Maximum attack penalty = -5. -2 with Multiattack, no penalty with Improved Multiattack. Well how does that work out in play?

Natural weapon based melees (the monsters, even if a PC gets natural attacks they won't be any good) are actually a threat in melee. And this has the unfortunate effect of making them win more or less automatically against the PC who tries to do his job and fight the melee as a melee. But it also demonstrates if manufactured weapons did the same thing, they would not be so easily dismissed.

So in short, make iterative attack penalties a maximum of -5.

BAB 6 is +6/+1.
BAB 11 changes from +11/+6/+1 to +11/+6/+6.
BAB 16 changes from +16/+11/+6/+1 to +16/+11/+11/+11.

If you want, make feats like multi attack, but for manufactured weapons. Though just doing that is enough to close the gap. And this doesn't really hurt the PCs at all. Natural attackers still have better stats than an undergeared humanoid NPC BY FAR, so you aren't raising the bar on encounters. Maybe the undergeared humanoid NPC won't be a complete joke now... ok, he still will but that's because he's an undergeared gear dependent, not because Fighters Cannot Have Nice Things. Mainly though it makes high BAB PCs better. And yes, that includes Divine Power users. If he wants to burn a round or a Persist on doing things worse than he can do for free, he's welcome to swing that mace around 5 times with Haste at a higher bonus on the later attacks. I am not the slightest bit upset about this, because if Fighters were actually viable they would not be so easily, or casually replaced or ignored. And this thread is meant to do that, so let the Battle Cleric have his fun.

[Krag]

Hi Krag. I see you've chosen to join the troll party. And actually, you're wrong. I play both, but only play non casters when I know the DM understands what is required to make them relevant as more than anything else, I hate wasting my time and I signed up to play the game to ACTUALLY PLAY IT, not to spend most of the time shut out because I have exactly one option available, that more often than not cannot be applied at all.

Very insightful observation.
Melee classes are one-trick-ponies at best. 3.5 would be my last choice if I were to play such a character.

[Magusrex777]

Why do you play PnP games?
What are you looking to get out of it?
What do you think your players want?

I always assume my players wanted to enjoy themselves. I want to enjoy myself too. Putting together and running a quality campaign is work so the result needs to be positive. So what makes me feel good? I want players to be engaged, I want them to pay attention and feel like they are part of the world. I want them to have fun, that feels good to me. I want to be able to challenge them, force them to think outside the box. I want them to work together and make the party feel like a family. I want the characters to care about one another and I want them to play that way. I need them to role-play, I do not want to be a narrator and adversary, I want it to be more.

How do I get that? I reward the good behavior with either XP rewards or positive game experience. Good role-play can net you favor with powerful in game factions or entities. The stick needs to be used at times too, but I always tried to use that sparingly. Maybe I am a natural but it has always been easy for me to encourage good play. Not many of my gamers never took up the challenge of trying to raise a pure mage to high level. You can't make it easy to attain that much power and you need friends. Melee types are your friends and you need to treat them in a way that they want to protect you and someday you will return the favor.

If you make combat nothing more than dice rolls melee can seem to be a one trick pony but a good party leader playing a fighter can make a huge difference when your PCs go up against another party of equal level and abilities. Do you let your mages breeze through early levels in a few sessions? You do not make them earn it over months? I dunno, I never had people complain about being pure melee, there was always one or two who that is all they wanted to do. I did not have issues with min/max people or rules lawyers either you didn't play in my campaigns. I do not let toads ruin a good campaign.

[ddaedelus]

I liked Ars Magika and I ran a campaign of that. I played a lot of Rolemaster because it was very easy to create whatever the PC wanted to play. You are correct most of my players in Rolemaster had access to at least one spell list. Rolemaster was what I consider HighMagic. I had a couple people that played completely non magically in Rolemaster. I gave everyone a chance to shine and that is the key. I ran Rolemaster and D&D the most often, lots of books and accessories to sell. I also ran Rifts, Shadowrun, Warhammer Role Play, Vampire, GURPS, Champions, Fantasy Hero(Very Good) I would tell you that all them were good campaigns and fun. Every system had their strengths and weaknesses that needed to be taken advantage of or adjusted, nothing is perfect.

The customizability of PCs in Rolemaster was what drew us to it.

I've used many of those systems on a short term basis as well. For low magic worlds, I strongly recommend RuneQuest, an excellent system with a very light touch on the magical side of things.

For the record, except for Call of Cthulhu, my setting was always of my own design. I've never used a game setting like Grayhawk, Forgotten Realms, or Eberron. Even my Ars Magica campaign was not set in medieval Europe. This allowed a lot of leeway as to how to tailor my house rules without expectations from the players as to what they should be allowed to do or not do.

In actuality the problem isn't that spells can do all sorts of different things. It's that non spells cannot. If Miyamoto Musashi could solve the swarm of ogres problem by slicing them all up at once, solve the Lich problem with the Facestab of Bonebreaking technique, then go back to his liege and convince him that that was a feat that proved he is worthy of running the place and that his liege should pass the title to him then no one would really mind that much that the Wizard is doing it with an AoE negation spell of some sort, a Disintegrate, and a Charm Person respectively. It's when you can't be Mr. Miyamoto, and your option to the ogres is 'Uh, I attack' and your option to the Lich is 'Uh, I attack', and your option to your leige is 'Uh... wait, I can't attack him!' you have a problem.

I'm not sure that this example really supports your argument. Are you saying that a fighter has no chance whatsoever of convincing the king? Or are you saying that a fighter cannot take down a lich? Or are you saying that because it will take more than one blow to kill a tribe of ogres that it doesn't compare? And while I'm sure you're exaggerating for the sake of example, I don't think three spells from a wizard would make the situation a walk in the park. (At the very least, if you made your king susceptible to Charm Person, well, I'd have to wonder about the state of the kingdom.)

You aren't getting around it. You're ignoring it by not playing the game.

I admitted as much, with the possible difference between your "not playing the game" and my "ignoring the broken part." There is more to D&D than just the combat mechanics; those other rules can and do influence the course of roleplay.

I think it does your case a disservice when you draw so clear a line between the game mechanics and the roleplay aspects of the game. (I'm not referring to the quoted bit above so much as the general sense of your other posts and what seems to me to be the core dispute between you and MagusRex777.) You seem to be suggesting that roleplay exists entirely outside the mechanics of the game... in fact is NOT the game but a separate thing, and can therefore be safely discounted from any argument of rules.

The key, I believe is your word "options." If you limit a player's options to only what the mechanics state, then, yes, you have the problem you describe. The disconnect between you and MagusRex777 (and indeed myself, insomuch as there is any disconnect there) seems to be that his "options" include those made available by roleplay and careful preparation by the GM -- things you consider either "not the game" or "avoiding the game." And those options can, if done correctly, mitigate the "shutting out" of melee-types that your house rules seek to address.

In short, the "game" your talking about and the "game" that MagusRex777 is talking about are two very different games.

In fact, roleplay as it relates to RPGs (or even as it relates to... erm... other things) is also governed by a set of rules: informal but well understood rules of storytelling and discourse. For MagusRex777 and myself (and yes, I know I'm now putting words in his mouth, but feel confident he'll call BS if he sees it), D&D is not just the numbers and formulae described by the books and house rules, but includes that larger rule framework of storytelling and discourse. That larger framework may be shared between different RPGs (though each will color the framework to some degree -- roleplay in Call of Cthulhu or Vampire: the Masquerade is, or should be, wildly different from D&D --, but it is no less a part of the game for that.

That said, there is no reason to NOT to try to fix the issues with the underlying mechanics, and in that, I commend your attempt.

(Yay, work is over. Time for beer and drunken DDO!)

[ddaedelus]

I did not have issues with min/max people or rules lawyers either you didn't play in my campaigns. I do not let toads ruin a good campaign.

Hey, don't call my players toads.

[SquelchHU]

I'm not sure that this example really supports your argument. Are you saying that a fighter has no chance whatsoever of convincing the king? Or are you saying that a fighter cannot take down a lich? Or are you saying that because it will take more than one blow to kill a tribe of ogres that it doesn't compare? And while I'm sure you're exaggerating for the sake of example, I don't think three spells from a wizard would make the situation a walk in the park. (At the very least, if you made your king susceptible to Charm Person, well, I'd have to wonder about the state of the kingdom.)

It was a deliberately simple example. Point is no one would mind 'extraordinary magic kicking ass' if 'extraordinary non magic' also kicked ass.

With that said, no he couldn't really convince the King. No Diplomacy. A Rogue could do it, so this isn't a problem all non casters have but it is still fairly extraordinary situation 'just give up your kingdom to me'. The kind of thing that even though you can do it RAW with a DC 50 Diplomacy check most DMs will get mad and say Rogues Cannot Have Nice Things.

He'd have a very hard time even getting the Lich to notice him too. Remember, Liches are high level casters with all that entails. So even though Lichdom actually makes you weaker, it's still a call for extraordinary abilities. Dude with sword cannot deliver, but that does not mean a swordsman cannot.

The ogres example... well that was simply meant to illustrate he has no way of taking em all out in one hit or something awesome. No, don't try and say Whirlwind Attack. Range is too low for that if nothing else (not to mention it is a waste of 3-4 feats).

I admitted as much, with the possible difference between your "not playing the game" and my "ignoring the broken part." There is more to D&D than just the combat mechanics; those other rules can and do influence the course of roleplay.

Actually there isn't. The game is the rules, and the rules are almost entirely combat based. There are a few non combat rules, but not many actually are willing to allow a DC 50 Diplomacy check to make anyone your lifelong slave even if you can do the same thing with magic. So what actually happens is when you aren't fighting, you're playing freeform.

I think it does your case a disservice when you draw so clear a line between the game mechanics and the roleplay aspects of the game. (I'm not referring to the quoted bit above so much as the general sense of your other posts and what seems to me to be the core dispute between you and MagusRex777.) You seem to be suggesting that roleplay exists entirely outside the mechanics of the game... in fact is NOT the game but a separate thing, and can therefore be safely discounted from any argument of rules.

When you are doing it, you are not playing the game yes. And really, in order for a game to be enjoyable you have to be doing both. Tabletop is too slow for a pure combat game to be interesting, and a pure roleplay game would again be freeform. My objection is simply to calling freeform D&D. It is not. D&D exists because someone wanted an alternative to that. Call a duck a duck.

The key, I believe is your word "options." If you limit a player's options to only what the mechanics state, then, yes, you have the problem you describe. The disconnect between you and MagusRex777 (and indeed myself, insomuch as there is any disconnect there) seems to be that his "options" include those made available by roleplay and careful preparation by the GM -- things you consider either "not the game" or "avoiding the game." And those options can, if done correctly, mitigate the "shutting out" of melee-types that your house rules seek to address.

What he is doing ranges from making up all manner of random stuff to give him free bennies to just going off the wall and randomly changing the whole world. And here's the thing. It's ok for a world to have different rules than Earth. That kinda comes with the whole magic and orcs thing. But when those rules are not consistent, you no longer have any means of interacting with the world. In other word, his approach shuts you out of any, and all meaningful interaction with the world and makes you play Mother May I instead.

My approach means you succeed or fail on your own merits. It's on you. There are clear conditions to be met. The rules of the world are not constantly shifting around you. If your goal is 'kill the king' then whether you succeed or fail depends on you. Maybe I don't want you killing the king. Doesn't matter. I'm not going to get upset because a player did something unexpected. I encourage that sort of thing.

I'm going to pick two things out of Magus' otherwise empty statements.

1: "Melee types are your friends and you need to treat them in a way that they want to protect you and someday you will return the favor. "

Problem 1: They do not have the actual ability to protect anyone. Not even themselves. So even if they want to, and they should even if you're a bit of a jerk because it is still in their best interest they cannot. The enemy will do whatever the hell it wants, which usually involves jumping a caster. And that caster will live or die based on the extent of their preparations. What Fighter boy is doing isn't even a factor. The other casters can help though. And if you're smart, and not using these house rules, 'the other casters' means 'the entirety of the rest of the party'. Then you can all help each other, and actually function as a team. Instead of bringing 5/1 theory to a PnP game.

2: "If you make combat nothing more than dice rolls melee can seem to be a one trick pony but a good party leader playing a fighter can make a huge difference when your PCs go up against another party of equal level and abilities."

Which means either you have an incompetent leader or a metagaming one. Which goes against that roleplay card you keep playing.

To be a leader, first and foremost you must know your enemy. That's knowledge skills. Who has those again? Oh right, the Wizard. And to a lesser extent some of the other casters. He doesn't even know what's he's fighting half the time (at least), how can he possibly devise a plan against it? And that assumes it is NOT a trick encounter. If it is (Gas Spore, anyone?) the importance of proper knowledge skills increases. This isn't 4th edition where you can X button your way through encounters. No, not even as a Wizard. And if it were, you don't need someone to tell you the obvious. He doesn't really understand his buddies' abilities either. Again, knowledge skills. If you don't know the abilities of your team, you can't use their talents to collective advantage. So he's either stumbling through it, telling everyone to listen to that guy *points at guy who actually knows how to direct people* who then gives all the orders, or metagaming up a storm.

[ddaedelus]

With that said, no he couldn't really convince the King. No Diplomacy. A Rogue could do it, so this isn't a problem all non casters have but it is still fairly extraordinary situation 'just give up your kingdom to me'. The kind of thing that even though you can do it RAW with a DC 50 Diplomacy check most DMs will get mad and say Rogues Cannot Have Nice Things.

I will admit the very first house rule of mine is that roleplaying trumps social skills. Don't bother taking them. To do otherwise, in my opinion, is to turn the game into this:

DM: You have an audience with the king.

PC: I use my Diplomacy to convince him to make me his heir.

DM: (rolls: failure) Sorry. Next module?

Extreme example? Perhaps, but I do know a few tragic players who would consider this hardcore roleplaying. Not my kind of crowd, obviously.

I personally would rather play the scenario out. How does the king feel about his current heir? What criteria would need to be met to change or exacerbate those opinions? Are there folk in the court who could be counted as allies? What laws exist that the players might be able to manipulate to their advantage? Can the king be blackmailed or strongarmed or even killed? These questions are not "Mother may I?" or "freeform." They are useful and consistent guidelines defined by the personality and political conditions of the king and his entourage, all discoverable by the players should they try.

Will a player come up with something I've not considered? Guaranteed. But if I've done my homework, I can always go back to the personality of the NPC as I've defined it and work from there. Perhaps this still seems too arbitrary to you, but for my troupe, this system has never caused a problem and in fact encourages cleverness on their part. Then again, most of my players and I have been together for over twenty years, so they know how I structure my worlds.

When you are doing it, you are not playing the game yes. And really, in order for a game to be enjoyable you have to be doing both. Tabletop is too slow for a pure combat game to be interesting, and a pure roleplay game would again be freeform. My objection is simply to calling freeform D&D. It is not. D&D exists because someone wanted an alternative to that. Call a duck a duck.

I'm afraid all I can say is that we are playing wildly different games.

[RictrasShard]

To be a leader, first and foremost you must know your enemy. That's knowledge skills. Who has those again? Oh right, the Wizard. And to a lesser extent some of the other casters.

So if a fighter had encountered a particular species many times before and observed everything they could do, you would rule that without the knowledge skill he knows nothing about them?

[Cratecrusher]

It still doesn't work. Even if it does work the way you say, you must still be aiming at the right square. As the Mirror Images need not all be in the same square, and indeed explicitly can be 5 feet from each other the only result of attempting to use blindfight is that you have a 25% miss chance, and are still most likely swinging at a fake.

Err... what hat did you pull that one from ?
Mirror images ARE in the same square. You're probably mixing up with another (higher level) spell. We're talking about a lvl 1 spell, here

As for D&D being narrow...

It's not.
Your conception of the game is. And seems to prevent you (and your table) from having fun

So if a fighter had encountered a particular species many times before and observed everything they could do, you would rule that without the knowledge skill he knows nothing about them?

That would be stupid imho, but as it's not specifically written in the rules...

[Corebreach]

With that said, no he couldn't really convince the King. No Diplomacy. A Rogue could do it, so this isn't a problem all non casters have but it is still fairly extraordinary situation 'just give up your kingdom to me'. The kind of thing that even though you can do it RAW with a DC 50 Diplomacy check most DMs will get mad and say Rogues Cannot Have Nice Things.
...
The game is the rules, and the rules are almost entirely combat based. There are a few non combat rules, but not many actually are willing to allow a DC 50 Diplomacy check to make anyone your lifelong slave even if you can do the same thing with magic.

I don't see where this is RAW until past level 20.

50 is the highest Diplomacy DC I can find in the 3.0 DMG, and it only covers swaying an NPC from hostile ("will take risks to hurt you") to helpful ("will take risks to help you"). Helpful is not "will do whatever you say, no questions asked", and there is nothing higher at those character levels.

The "lifelong slave" and "willing to abdicate the throne to you just because you asked" attitudes would fall under "fanatic", which is epic rules only and reserved for characters level 21+ according to www.d20.org. That roll has DC 50 in the best case only. It can get as bad as 150.

[SquelchHU]

I will admit the very first house rule of mine is that roleplaying trumps social skills. Don't bother taking them. To do otherwise, in my opinion, is to turn the game into this:

Stop. Right there. You just found the problem.

See, playing a game of this sort is about character abilities. Not yours. Your characters.

Of course your character abilities are 'roll a Diplomacy check'. Not very engaging, certainly.

Your abilities are independent of that. You could be a public speaker, or simply good at manipulating people and be playing a 6 cha half orc Fighter. You may be able to get people to do whatever you want, but he can't. Likewise, someone could be playing the bard and be barely capable of getting past the 'Hi, how are you?' phase of the conversation. There's little doubt the bard can convince people, but the bard player is going to stumble through it. And you'd think the obvious answer would be 'switch characters' but what if Mr. Social doesn't always want to play bards, or Mr. Shy doesn't always want to play the gruff brute? After all, the whole point of roleplaying is to be something you are not. You don't need to be super strong for your Barbarian to yell 'I HAVE FURY!' and go swing his greataxe at an ogre, and you don't need to be super smart to describe how your Wizard solves an intellectual problem, or to simply cast spells. Why do both you and your character need the uber social skills to get NPCs at your beck and call?

And really, 'get a kingdom' is not too big a deal. It's level appropriate around level 7ish, give or take 1 or 2. Remember, most of these guys are low level Aristocrats. Basically useless. Having real, not NPC characters looking out for them is a really big deal, and one of the best things that can happen to them is getting such a character in the family. So when he gives his daughter to a PC to marry, it's an investment. And if that means he steps down, well his family is still doing the ruling part.

But the main reason why it's a level 7ish thing is because past that you've gone international, and later extraplanar. One country just isn't that big of a deal anymore.

So if a fighter had encountered a particular species many times before and observed everything they could do, you would rule that without the knowledge skill he knows nothing about them?

First, if that happened then the rest of the party already knows that too. So he's still wasting his time, because everyone knows how to deal with it. Second, the others still probably know better - while he may understand the basics, he probably still does not get the reasons behind it. Unless someone sat him down and told him why, in which case that other person is still better qualified to lead.

Err... what hat did you pull that one from ?
Mirror images ARE in the same square. You're probably mixing up with another (higher level) spell. We're talking about a lvl 1 spell, here

Wrong, and wrong.

Mirror Image
Illusion (Figment)
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2

Mirror image creates 1d4 images plus one image per three caster levels (maximum eight images total). These figments separate from you and remain in a cluster, each within 5 feet of at least one other figment or you. You can move into and through a mirror image. When you and the mirror image separate, observers can’t use vision or hearing to tell which one is you and which the image. The figments may also move through each other. The figments mimic your actions, pretending to cast spells when you cast a spell, drink potions when you drink a potion, levitate when you levitate, and so on.

This means that if you have a 5 images, the following is a valid use of the spell:

. . .
. X .
. . .

X = You, and 5 images of you.

And so is this.

. . .
X X X
X X X

X = You, or one of the five images of you.

And you could also do this.

. . X X X X X X .

X = You, or one of the five images of you.

And the close your eyes and swing blindly at a square method would work better against the first option in the short term, as you take a straight 50%, or 25% miss chance per shot instead of a high miss chance at first which decreases as the ablative mirror images go away.

But the second and third? Either you swing at the right square, or you're disadvantaging yourself further for no gain.

It's not.
Your conception of the game is. And seems to prevent you (and your table) from having fun

Wrong answer. Know what stops me and my table from having fun? When someone shows up with a character who cannot participate in the adventure, and then blames me, or someone else for their failings. Especially since I would have said at the beginning something to the effect of 'That is not a viable character. X, Y, and Z would allow you to do the things you want your character to do'. And they would have had to refuse to listen to even get a gimp into the game, thereby ignoring my attempt to help them enjoy the game as well. Of course everyone I have ever told that to did listen and follow through, because they had no intention or desire to be a blame shifting attention seeker whose gimp character tries to demand all the spotlight to showcase their gimpiness. No. They wanted to play the game and have fun, and if that means picking another kind of swordsman to play their swordsman concept that's perfectly fine.

The one time I did get such a player, who blamed me for their own incompetence was because I took over someone else's game... bunch of 8 Con gimps that could barely handle humanoid NPCs without getting blown off the field.