Are there enough people here who like 3e compatible d20 games to justify its own thread?So, PF1 posts aren't really welcome in the 3.5 thread; and they're kindof ignored in the Paizo thread. If you like other d20 games, d20 Warcraft or something, there's the occasional actual Warcraft thread, but that's about it. If you like FantasyCraft or SpyCraft or d20 Conan or d20 Modern or Arcana Evolved or something, there's no real thread for that. People ask questions about them in the 3.5 thread sometimes, but whether they get replies is pretty hit-and-miss. It seems most of the 3.5 thread people don't even look at third party 3.5 stuff, making it a pretty narrow thread in scope.So, just out of curiosity - are there enough people who like other d20 games to warrant its own thread? Sound off if you'd actually be interested in something like that, with what other d20 games you like. I assume the most common one would be Pathfinder 1e, but who knows what other 3e-d20 compatible systems people are into.Or am I the only one who would show up to that?
>>93668831d20 games aren't the bane of my existence or anything. Just so long as they're not a lazy reskin of DnD's mechanics and actually put the effort in to adapt them to a different setting.
>>93668868So like pic related?I liked their magic system, very thematic. The martials were pretty plain though, and largely felt like variations on 3e fighter and rogue. They did up the lethality though, which made the combat feel like it had higher stakes.
>>93668868I like how much you can combine them, personally. It's almost GURPSlike how much you can change them up thanks to how many of them there are that share so many core mechanics and the math scale.Obviously M&M doesn't work, but most of the rest do.
>>93668907I have no experience with that particular game, but it sounds like what I'm talking about. It's lame when you crack open, say, a sci-fi game and the "psionic" powers are just refluffed spell lists with the exact same casting mechanics.
>>93668981Ah. Yeah. that's totally fair. I personally like the idea that you have to sit down and spend hours preparing your spells, and then in combat you fire them off, rather than being able to cast spells quickly on the fly, and if you wanted to cast a spell *on the fly* it might take you 30 minutes or longer, but that's a very AD&D flavored plan-ahead magic system, with prepared spells in combat basically as consumable equipment loadouts.Anyways. So far it seems like there's just two of us. I was wondering if it would be worthwhile making a multisystem 3e-d20-general, but that would require enough people interested to keep the thread alive.I guess we'll see who else shows up.
>So, PF1 posts aren't really welcome in the 3.5 threadWell, it's strictly inferior to 3.5 so any comments on it have to be proceeded with an apologetic about why the fuck you would ever play it.>People ask questions about them in the 3.5 thread sometimes, but whether they get replies is pretty hit-and-miss. It seems most of the 3.5 thread people don't even look at third party 3.5 stuffBut that's true in general, which is the broader issue you face. Let go of the "generals only" brainrot and just make a thread about a game that you want to talk about at that time and accept that that thread will probably die after it has run it's course. Only d20 game I've played was d20 star wars, and I'm sure most people likewise only have a passing familiarity with few games. Unless you're going to claim there's a community out there that play a large blend of d20 games rather than just random people having random experiences with random ones, there's no reason to try to clump all this stuff into a repeating general.
>>93669306>Unless you're going to claim there's a community out there that play a large blend of d20 gamesThere are a lot of people who mix and match 3.0 / 3.5 / PF1 stuff, as far as I can tell from other websites. Fewer who go further afield and grab bits from FantasyCraft and d20Conan and whatever else. My personal interest is in the mix and match blend; but I also hear mention of these other games from time to time, but never enough to sustain a general. So I was just wondering if there was enough interest in non-orthodox 3.x d20 gaming to have such a thread stay up.>it's strictly inferior to 3.5 so any comments on it have to be proceeded with an apologetic about why the fuck you would ever play it.It has a few upsides. All the mechanics are on d20pfsrd, while dndtools is incomplete for instance. The base classes are arguably a bit better in that they're more customizable. Doing away with multiclass XP penalties was a good idea. A few other things here and there.But yeah, overall it's worse.
>>93669306>>93669381I still maintain that CMB was a great design streamlining idea, but Paizo dutifully fucked the math by splitting the feats and including two abilities AND a size modifier on CMD.
>>93669381>The base classes are arguably a bit better in that they're more customizableI find that hard to believe in the face of all 3s ACFS and racial classes and the like but I'm no PF scholar for sure, so I'll take your word on it.But surely in that case you'd just grab shit from PF and use it in D&D as homebrew though? What bothers me is I see people do the opposite but what I do know about PF is that the developer rulings are the weakest part, and I know that because they were literally 2nd party rulings during 3.0 and they were the fucking worst then to the point where people had to link comments in guides explaining that the sage advice on some topic was wrong.>There are a lot of people who mix and match 3.0 / 3.5 / PF1 stuff, as far as I can tell from other websites. Fewer who go further afield and grab bits from FantasyCraft and d20Conan and whatever else. My personal interest is in the mix and match blend; but I also hear mention of these other games from time to time, but never enough to sustain a generalI mean, people talk about that in the 3e general already. It's just very bespoke and niche so of course most people aren't going to have much to say.There's nothing stoping you from making threads on a specific topic to try to poll the board anyway.>>93669480What does it offer over using a combination of saves and checks? A trip and a bullrush are already the same thing other than situational bonuses, rollwise. Like most things, weaboo fightan magic did it better.
>>93669480>I still maintain that CMB was a great design streamlining idea, but Paizo dutifully fucked the math by splitting the feats and including two abilities AND a size modifier on CMD.This is absolutely correct>>93669962>Like most things, weaboo fightan magic did it better.This is absolutely retarded.
>>93669480Yes, and it was even worse when you had the fucktard devs going out of their way to whine at people and lock threads when they were called out on it.
>>93669962>What does it offer over using a combination of saves and checks?Not needing to remember half a dozen different ones. Hence "streamlining".
>>93668831I'm working on a 3.X rewrite that focuses on E6 play and actually has good systems for GMs and Game Stores/Clubs that want to run those old fashioned 50 player Westmarches games.I've rewritten the classes to condense them to 6 levels, and I'm working on reorganizing the feats to match what "The Tomes" did with Feats. It's been fun so far, but it take a lot of time get focused and actually write down my ideas.How would you guys say I should fix CMB/CMD? It seems the denizens of this thread think it was good, but that it was broken just as much as it was fixed. I'm already going to make the maneuver feats have no prerequisite and double your BAB to your CMB. I was thinking about grouping them into Dex Manuevers as one feat and Str manuevers as the other feat, and if you take one, you get to switch between those manuevers at each long rest.
>>93670945If it's E6, you are far away from when CMB/CMD breaks - am I wrong?
>>93671094Not quite. Since CR 1-9 is what you're looking at, CMD goes from 14 to 30.
Besides DCC’s Might Deeds, did any other game try and replace the Feat system with a simpler flexible one?
>>93668831Most of the stuff not made by WotC themselves ended up being alright, mostly because it wasn't informed by the same retarded design philosophy that there should be options that suck on purpose.
>>93671310>design philosophy that there should be options that suck on purpose.Repeating this won't make it true.
>>93671347Being a contrarian retard doesn't change the truth.
>>93671347Ivory Tower game design was an intentional design philosophy and spoken about openly. Stop making it our problem that you weren't alive at the time.
>>93671310>>93671360>>93671371>retarded design philosophy that there should be options that suck on purposeDifferent anon.I find amazing that after all these years you retards still didn't get what ivory tower design meant.Additionally, you have clearly no clue because while there is a lot of gold in 3P material, there is a lot of shit that is unbalanced out of the box instead of requiring specific combinations.tl:dr you are a dumb fuck with no clue.
>>93671347It being true makes it true.
>>93671371>and spoken about openly.And you clearly didn't understand.Because you are stupid.
>>93671371Ivory tower game design is the idea that the rules should speak for themselves, and that the designers shouldn't explain their intent because that spoils the fun. Dumbass. Go read Monte's blogpost again, it should be easy to find because it's a meme now. Toughness was never meant to be a weak option, toughness was meant to be very powerful option for 1st level wizards, Monte's whole point is that designers should start talking about that sort of thing so that they don't accidentally trap their players (and this was years before the term "trap option" took off on the internet).
>>93671397>nuh uh!You can't even discuss the matter without admitting that the game was poorly balanced and needed specific combos to bring some things up to the level of other things out of the box.Either the game was poorly designed because they were retarded and didn't test their shit properly, or it was poorly designed on purpose to encourage people to buy more books in hopes of finding some stupid, overlooked combo for theorycrafting minmaxing subhumans.>>93671411>Ivory tower game design is the idea that the rules should speak for themselves>if I make up my own definitions, it means I can't be proven wrong!Fuck off. I know you've had this argument before and you've always been wrong every fucking time you crawl out of your troll cave.
>>93671430You obviously haven't read it yet. "Ivory tower game design" does not refer to templating, that's the fist concept that they took from MtG."Ivory tower game design" does not refer to timmy cards (i.e. trap options i.e. rewarding system mastery), that's the second concept that they took from MtG.Ivory tower game design refers to the practice of "laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help", which is the third thing that they took from MtG. And he goes on to talk about how this is bad and how it exacerbates the issues created by the second thing (rewarding system mastery). >To continue to use the simplistic example above, the Toughness feat could have been written to make it clear that it was for 1st-level elf wizards (where it is likely to give them a 100 percent increase in hit points).
>>93671430>You can't even discuss the matter without admitting that the game was poorly balanced and needed specific combos to bring some things up to the level of other things out of the box.Also incorrect.There is nothing to discuss because you don't understand this game on a fundamental level.You also don't understand the very document that you posted.You are a complete and utter moron, who is posting here because is butthurt d20 exists.I can only tell you this anon - it was never the system. It was you.
>>93671486You have a lot of patience trying to explain this to such obtuse retard.More than two decades passed, if he didn't get it by now he's either too stupid, or unwilling, or probably both.
>>93671411>(and this was years before the term "trap option" took off on the internet).true, people should be allowed to play atractive feminine males.
>>93671486You have to resort to dancing around Toughness because it's the only example you have material to use from King Retard himself and it's still a flimsy argument that doesn't hold up to scrutiny because a wizard wasting their feat on a handful of HP is a bad option and it's worse for everyone else. Instead of wasting page space on a feat that serves an extremely conditional purpose: One-shots and convention games. This is a problem fixed by suggesting that those kinds of games offer extra HP to players, instead of, again, making them waste a feat on a severely suboptimal feat to try and mitigate the various other bad design decisions.>>93671509>>93671519You do this every time, too. You humiliate yourself and then hurl a pile of insults like it does anything but make you look childish and pathetic. Especially when you start replying to yourself to try and save face.
>>93671535You literally got blown out entirely by your own image, how the fuck do you think anon is the one humiliating himself?
>>93671535>You do this every time, too. You humiliate yourself and then hurl a pile of insults like it does anything but make you look childish and pathetic. Especially when you start replying to yourself to try and save face.Anon, you have been objectively btfo.Also>alwaysI really live rent free in your rotten brain ?Learn to fucking read for once in your life you complete moron.
>>93671553He's part delusional and part in damage control.The fact that both a 3e and a d20 thread are up sent him in meltdown.Luckily, he's so stupid he ends up embarrassing himself.
>>93671553>>93671562>>93671571You wouldn't need to reply to yourself if you made anything remotely approaching an intelligent argument.
>>93671579We are two different anons, you utter retard.You are so stupid you are unable to follow a simple three people conversation, yet you think you can criticize game design.You stupid fuck.These things didn't work out for you because of the rules. They didn't work our because you are DUMB.
>>93671535>a wizard wasting their feat on a handful of HP is a bad optionIt actually isn't. It's power-now-pay-later, but only if you assume that there IS a "later", designing characters for convention games is also part of the game.We're talking about Toughness because you think that Monte Cook admitted that toughness was bad on purpose. He did not. You're an idiot and you don't have a point. I know you think that you can design a better game than 3.0, but you actually can't. Other people can, sure, but only because 3.0 came out 20 years ago and has been argued to death on the internet, allowing everyone (except you) to learn from its mistakes. Your whole modern concept of game balanced was invented in response to 3.0.
>>93671604>We are two different anons, you utter retard.I think there's three of us actually, I posted >>93671614 and >>93671486
>>93671614Better games than 3.0 existed before it. Fuck off.
>>93671639Actually, this is something I'm curious about, I would be very interested if you could like to a forum discussion about a TTRPG from before 2000, especially one dealing with the concept of game balance. I admit that this was before my time, 3e was my first TTRPG, but I have some experience with older games and their players and I think that they talked about game balance in the way that you are. They would talk about he balance of the game if you gave them something like punpun, something that throws the game wildly out of wack or that just doesn't work, but if you took an option and then realized that a different option was better they would just lol and tell you to slap some mud on it and walk it off. I don't think that there was any over-riding expectation that all player options should all be equally good in all situations. I think that this expectation was invented by 3e and its fans.
>>93671671You'd have to go to Usenet.
>>93671671>I think that this expectation was invented by 3e and its fans.3.5 championed a ton of changes on the flag of inter class balancing
>>93671614>it's not bad on purpose!>it's bad because of highly specific, non-listed situational conditions!You can try your hardest to spin it, but it still amounts to the same problem, which he admitted to and outlined in the letter you desperately insist you read and understood, which is that the game has many poorly designed options on purpose. Spread across many books. Most of which never had some hyper-niche situation where they were the optimal or even acceptable choice compared against the hundreds or other options available. The idea that there was a secret classification of one-shot and convention game character options hidden amongst the other, more useful feats, is fucking laughable, and the fact that they were NEVER EVER indicated as such or otherwise classified in any of the many books that followed only reinforces that fact. Saying that something is good, only if you find some obscure blog post or article where the designer explains that he had some idea in mind, but didn't communicate it properly still amounts to purposeful bad design. Your incessant sperg-outs and frothing insult-laden rage doesn't disprove a damned thing. Every argument you've made it "it's not shitty on purpose, it's shitty on purpose!"
>>93671671Fucking nobody could have dealt with the magic item system in 2e and come away with the expectation that character power could possibly be remotely balancedt. that was my first TTRPG (notwithstanding board games like heroquest or dark world)
>>93671713>Every option has to be equally balanced in every situation or else the game is bad on purpose.Christ, mate. Does it ever occur to you to just read the blogpost and see what it says?
>>93671713Is figuring out that maybe power attack isn't the best feat for your wizard really something you need someone to hold your hand and explain to you?I genuinely have no idea what the fuck you could even hope for from a system. I mean, I know exactly what you want, which is not to play anything and just to bitch about something (that you don't understand isn't broken in the way you think it is because it isn't possible for something TO BE broken in the way you think it is), but if I pretend you're not being disingenuous, I have no fucking idea what you could want. Is your assumption that the people making the game were omnicompetent demigods and so they could have perfectly laid out every interaction so that you wouldn't need to think about it? Is your complaint that they weren't, but also that they didn't, even though by your own view they couldn't? I'd ask you to help me to understand but I know it's all a hypothetical and you don't even have a concrete idea of what the words you're typing could mean.
>>93671745>>93671757This moron looked at the d20 system and got triggered.You are assuming an intellectual honesty that simply is not there.
>>93669480I don't hate the idea in theory, but between fucking the feat chains and fucking the math scaling on enemies, they just rendered combat maneuvers fucking worthless.
>>93671788See, I don't think that 3e was ever unbalanced on purpose, but sometimes I think that pathfinder is unbalanced on purpose (as a way of building hype and driving engagement). Like the way they overpowered paladins in pf1e, or the way they made wizards underpowered in pf2e, it's one of the things they do to work the crowd.
>>93669962>I find that hard to believe in the face of all 3s ACFS and racial classes and the like but I'm no PF scholar for sure, so I'll take your word on it.The PF1 Base classes have more features from the outset, and there's an order of magnitude more customization through stackable Archetypes, but at the same time, that customization is less granular, because Archetypes swap out multiple things at once. As with everything PF1, you get some upgrade and some downgrade combined. But the base class versions you're starting from have more going on, and thus more room for customization.>But surely in that case you'd just grab shit from PF and use it in D&D as homebrew though?100%. Absolutely. I would start with 3.5 and mix in parts of 3.0 and PF1 to taste; I'm not just running PF1.These days though as I homebrew more and more, I'm passing both classes through Eclipse, which turns them into point-buy progressions, and then I'm using them more like GURPS Profession templates. A buffet of purchasable options. Slap a minimum level on some of the features, and let players take whichever ones they want in whatever order they want within level limits.>people talk about that in the 3e general already. It's just very bespoke and niche so of course most people aren't going to have much to say.They do, I was just curious if that was because of the people in the 3.5e thread specifically being very vanilla centric, or if the whole board was very vanilla 3.5 centric where d20 games were concerned.>There's nothing stopping you from making threads on a specific topic to try to poll the board anyway.Yeah, if I have a specific topic in mind, I will do that. Just wondering if there was enough interest in a general d20 thread, given the people I've seen show up in the 3.5 thread wanting to talk about other d20 games over the last year or so.>>93670138Paizo is not run by competent decent people.
>>93670945Oh hey! We've talked before. I think my homebrew is the only other one to show up in the 3.5 threads this year.>How would you guys say I should fix CMB/CMD?Flatten the feat trees; and make the base math not require any feats to have a reasonable chance of success against the best CR=LV enemies; just good BAB and a good attribute should get you to ~40% against most such enemies, with the feats giving you a significant edge in your chosen maneuver; and maybe allowing you to ignore size differences more and more as your CMB/CMD goes up.It's less of an issue in e6 though. It really starts to fall apart in the L5-9 range, after which, IMO it's completely worthless. So the adjustment shouldnt be quite as hard to do for low Level.
>>93671830I'm given to understand that Paizo was deliberately caster-favoring in PF1 to try to sell the idea of "look we've got real magic" in comparison to 4e. It's not like even the dumbest asshole (present company excluded, it seems) could have had a hard time figuring out roughly what was strong in 3e by 2009 if you literally lived on the forums and had direct fan correspondence for a lot of that time like paizo did.>(as a way of building hype and driving engagement)I'm sure that the devs also spite-nerf things that they don't like without actually having reference to whether it's strong or not, but my best example is something that was strong since unfortunately I don't really know the paizo deeplore.
>>93671291Yes. Both "Elephant in the Room" for Pathfinder, and "Eclipse: The Codex Persona" for 3.5 are takes on redoing feats. Elephant in the Room, IIRC makes feats scale and be much chunkier, while Eclipse just lets you buy the individual benefits and the ones that would normally be a feat in 3.5 are worth 6 pts, but there's no prereq trees involved.
>>93671866Believe it or not that's a different guy making an unrelated E6 homebrew.
>>93671869IIRC at one point they issued some errata that blocked allowing monks to transform their unarmed strike into a natural weapon which could then receive weapon enchantments, and monks were kindof shit, and really needed the boost that would have given them. But that's a vague recollection, I don't have links or anything.
>>93671877Haha. Okay; fair enough. I thought there was just one E6 homebrew guy. Well. I'm the one making 3.5+3.0+Eclipse+GURPS with some AD&D and a custom setting, with a goal of starting at L6. Good to hear there are three of us doing our own thing.
>>93671894That was SKR throwing out poorly thought out errata that forced Monks to make half of their attacks unarmed with flurry, which ruined weapon builds.
>>93671912Yeah. SKR is loud and entertaining to read rants from sometimes, but he is generally not a very competent game designer. I mean. Better than Jason Bulmahn perhaps. But that's a low bar.
>>93671745>>93671757Again, you concede the argument without having the humility to admit that's what you're doing. The point is that the system is full of useless crap and stuff that was poorly designed on purpose. If your argument is that it's not supposed to be balanced or fair or that there's hidden, external information that gives greater context as to why certain classes, spells, feats, and so on are purposefully worse than anything else offered to players, then that means it was either designed badly on purpose, or that it's just plain badly designed and they offered excuses to placate players.
>>93672096Repeating this won't make it true.
>>93672096There are a lot of absolutely worthless feats in PF1, but I think it wasn't that they were trying to make worthless options, merely that they weren't making an effort to prevent them. I vaguely remember some Jason Bulmahn forum thread where he said their QA process only involved looking things over to try to determine if they were too good, and they didn't even look them over to see if they were useless.Same end result, but I think it's more from not giving a fuck, not some elaborate marketing stunt.
>>93672343lol, I think you replied to the wrong dude. >>93671935He used to shitpost on Monte Cook's messageboards sometimes, and Monte would just say "That's just SKR being SKR", which was (even back then) a verbatim quote of a classic "nerd social fallacy". As in, "SKR is a poisonous person, but we need to put up with him because he's one-of-us". I went over to his messageboard once, and got into a disagreement with him over what it means to be racist, because he suggested that it isn't semantically possible for non-white people to be racist against white people. lol. And this was back around 2003-2004-or-so.I still don't think that he's a bad person, but he's a character, for sure. The moral authority that he has achieved within the paizo community is just-plain-funny.
>>93674176>I think you replied to the wrong dudeAre you not the one saying they made it shit on purpose for (reasons)? I'm saying it's not deliberate, it is incompetence.
>>93674176>The moral authority that he has achieved within the paizo community is just-plain-funny.Well, he is in the habit of calling out his former employers online. He works for Monte Cook now, right? Better than Mearls dumping on customers calling a coherent setting and complete mechanics "gatekeeping women via complexity; only to get laid off by monopoly man.
>>93672096>The point is that the system is full of useless crap and stuff that was poorly designed on purpose.Fucking retard. You have been already BTFO, just STFU.
>>93671877Are you sure it's not me both times? I've posted about my homebrew before, but very rarely. If there's another guy, I'd love to know about it. E6 is the best.
>>93671713You don't understand the difference between "poorly designed" and "designed to be weak on purpose". I just thought I should point that out to you so we can stop fucking around. You aren't using the same dictionary as everyone here, and that's why everyone is repeating themselves trying to explain things to you, and why you are repeating yourself trying to explain things to them. You and everyone else aren't speaking the same language. Since you are speaking the minority language, you should leave. This culture isn't for you. There are other cultures where people will like you better, but trying to covert us is a waste of your time.
>>93683034That's a lot of words to agree with the point you're trying to disagree with. Next time, be less of a faggot and cut off all the semantic nonsense.
>>93683762NTA, but "Its bad on purpose because [blank]" and "It's bad because Jason Bulmahn is retarded" are not the same argument. They agree on the result being bad - yes, but disagree on the cause.
>>93684629but making something bad on purpose is retarded
Has anyone played D20 Gamma World? Did you like it?
>>93684765But nothing was made bad on purpose [in 3e]
I played Saga Edition once. The system was okay but the GM didn't really get how some things were supposed to work.
>>93685021The difference is that one thought it was a good idea and the other didn't know it was a bad idea, but both end with the same outcome: A poorly designed game. Splitting hairs over what they intended or what was going through their heads only comes down to whether you value excuses more than outcomes.
>>93685469meant to reply here >>93684629
>>93680180How does your homebrew differ from regular E6?
I'm the guy who said that about Pathfinder, but you're replying to the guy who said that about 3e. Pathfinder is a different story because it came out after people had been playing 3e for seven years and after the 3e splatbook-treadmill had already played out. I think that Pathfinder devs hoped to reproduce the splatbook treadmill, and I also think they overtuned certain things in the core rules just to get attention, and I think it sort of worked out for them (though I'm not as familiar with pf2e) because it got a lot of people to spend a lot of time talking about their rules on the internet. And their use of underpowered options is very much like the dreg cards in Magic: the Gathering. Charop becomes a game in its own right and players think they're clever for sorting through the chaff and noticing the "real" options". You can't call it incompetence if it's done on purpose and it sells. >>936830343.0 wasn't poorly designed, 3.0 was way ahead of its time and that's why it it redefined the industry, which made it easy for people now to look back (with the benefit of everything they learned from 3e) and say that 3e is bad. >>93674720I believe you're thinking of Mearls, but I could be wrong, the truth is that the pathfinder devs preach way harder than anyone at hasbro.
>>93686261lolI meant to link >>93672343 at the beginning of my post.
>>936862613.0 was not ahead of its time in any way other than the OGL. All it is is watered down content from other games.
>>93686507I've never seen anything from an older game or its community that would make me think this. Any 90s TTRPG would be seen as way, way worse if it had ever gotten to be as popular (and discussed as hard and played as hard) as 3.0 was.
>>93686526Not my problem. Every idea in 3.0 can be traced to another game and it still had aspects in it that were lagging behind the mid 90s.
>>93685006It took itself too serious. OmegaWorld is better.
>>93686575You aren't giving any reason why anyone should believe you or trust your analysis. >Not my problem.o.k.
>>93686628It's not an analysis, it's a fact. 3E was a modernization of D&D to get away from arbitrary bullshit of AD&D in favor of the in-vogue standardization, not a game that broke new ground, and the idea that it broke new ground is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. And no, I don't consider 3.0 well designed.
>>93686656You don't have a point.
>>93686734I do. It's that your claim of 3E being ahead of its time is complete bullshit and if you had any idea what the fuck you were talking about you'd have never made it.
>>93686774Standardization is good design. You're trying to play it off like it was responding to a fad, but it didn't, it started the fan. And this is all you've offered in 4 posts. You're obviously useless, if you had a point you would have made it by now.
>>93687581>3E started standardizationRetard, that was standard in RPGs long before the year 2000.
3e still makes 4rries and OSRtards seethe after all this time.Blessed game.
>>93684629>but making something bad on purpose is retardedAnd making something bad by accident because you didn't think is a different type of retarded.>>93686261>You can't call it incompetence if it's done on purpose and it sells.Is there evidence it on purpose for real business reasons, and wasn't just Bulmahn being bad at game design and it working out because a bunch of people wanted more 3.X type fantasy gaming instead of 4e style gaming?>I'm the guy who said that about Pathfinder, but you're replying to the guy who said that about 3e.Oh. My bad. I thought it was all you about PF1. I must have misread.>>93685469>Splitting hairs over what they intended or what was going through their heads only comes down to whether you value excuses more than outcomes.If you make a claim as to what something is and why, people can disagree with you over either the what or the why.>The difference is that one thought it was a good idea and the other didn't know it was a bad idea, but both end with the same outcome: A poorly designed game.Despite all of it's problems, 3.0/3.5/PF1 is still more fun than most of the many other TTRPGs I've tried in the last 25 years. They fucked some shit up, sure, but Most of the others I've tried either fucked up things at a more fundamental level and made the core mechanics play like shit; or they forgot to include any actually fun gameplay or verisimilitude, and I would opt to stay home and read a novel rather than play them again. 3.5 has a bunch of issues - yes, but the vast majority of TTRPGs are a lot worse. 3.5 is in the 15 or so systems I've tried that I would be interested in playing again. And that 15 or so is filled with only a handful of different systems and different cross-compatible variations thereof, not me counting "all 3.x d20" and "all d100" systems as one each. Counting similar systems as one system each as one each, 3.x is one of like, 7 systems I've tried that I would actually consider playing / running again.
>>93688949>3.5 has a bunch of issues - yes, but the vast majority of TTRPGs are a lot worseI can make 3.5 fun with a few targetted houserules (I could certainly make it better with more than a few pages of houserules) - Like> Only Test-Based Prerequisites for PRCs.> Feats can only have one prerequisite. A skill rank; a character level; a BAB requirement; a CL requirement; a Racial Requirement; A Class Feature; or a Feat that has no other Feat Prereqs.> WBL is not a thing. Important magic enhancements WBL was meant to provide are available via points by level, see this few page document of your options and their point costs.> Only Classes of Tier 2/3/4 are playable.> We Start at Level 5.Good Enough. Done.While 5e / 4e / M&M / SW / AW - I'll be rewriting half the fucking game before I get anything even vaguely palatable.
>>93685616It's not that I'm changing E6, but I'm rewriting all the core rulebook content to be better for E6. All the classes had their abilities crunched down into six levels. This makes these level 6 characters stronger than level 6 3.X characters. Some classes got complete overhauls (sorcerer was overhauled so much that it's just a different class now), and many situational abilities were made to work more often. I'm using some modern ideas like the three action turn, and mostly trying to get the game to be a little less rough around the edges, but still compatible with existing monster manuals and adventure modules. I also tried to set up scenarios where multiclassing leads to interesting ability combos.My most controversial change is removing animal companions, summoning spells, magic mounts, or anything that makes a character juggle more than one character sheet/stat block. If I can really streamline these elements, I'd like to reintroduce some of them.
>>93689295>My most controversial change is removing animal companions, summoning spells, magic mounts, or anything that makes a character juggle more than one character sheet/stat block. If I can really streamline these elements, I'd like to reintroduce some of them.That would be divisive. I do like my summons and pet classes. Have you considered giving them average damage rather than rolling dice and adding damage modifiers? That speeds things up a bunch. I've tried that before, I liked it. So if the Beast would hit with a claw for 1d8+4, that's just hitting for 9.
>>93689329My idea of streamlining is that having an animal companion, familiar, etc is like a piece of equipment. It might give you the ability to move more (like a mount), it might let you spend an action to make a melee attack at a distance, or it might give a passive buff. It wouldn't have a character sheet of its own or get its own actions or turns.?As far as summoning goes, I'm going to fold that into domain level play. Summoning spells will let you conjure an army, but that's a completely different layer of the game. Armies can't fit into dungeons or be used in normal combat.
>>93691935Oh. Yeah that sucks all of the fun out of both.The fun of having a pet is having an autonomous little buddy.The fun of summoning is plopping 1d3 or 1d4+1 little mobile hazards onto the battlefield and having them get in the way of the enemy going where and doing what they want. Blocking off the lower part of a hallway or doorway for movement while your Archer buddy shoots arrows at the enemy above them, Making them have to take an AoO from the summon and maybe even the barbarian to get to the wizard. That sort of thing. Trying to use them as a competent combatant - that's not generally interesting or worth the effort.
>>93693113I appreciate your feedback. I'll look into how I can incorporate it into the game.
>>93689295There's a fair amount of common ground there with what I did for my homebrew. E6, 3 actions, class redesigns, etc. It's gone through a few tweaks and rewordings since and gotten a Gunslinger analogue and firearms because a member of my group wanted one, but I'm holding off on posting a full update until I have more substantial work done. https://pastebin.com/3wx0KfQY
>>93671571OP HereSo it appears, if I were to make a d20 thread; there would be enough posters to keep it going, but also a lot of people assblasted that some of us like this system better than the new and trendy slop.I will have to put together a d20 General OP and give it a test run in a bit.
>>93671639>Better games than 3.0 existed before it. Fuck off.This is true. There's HARNMaster, RoleMaster, and GURPS. Maybe Shadowrun if you're into that.
>>93671788Unless you focused solely on them, in which event they became as good as a decent full attack like with Dirty Trick or were worse than a full attack. I guess there's Double Slice Vicious Stomp unarmed trip builds getting 6 AoOs in, but tripping has hard immunity from a 3rd level spell or hard immunity all day long from a 5th.
>>93703696PF1 Also got rid of the thing where you could trip a flyer and they would plummet to the ground and take fall damage too, right? IIRC Trip was great on flyers in 3e.
So much shitflinging in this thread.
>>93671535This, it's such a bad design, and they really do dance around it all.
>>93671430Wow, that's disastrous.
>>93671713In my opinion you won the argument here and every reply to you was incapable of addressing the argument.
>>93686656>It's not an analysis, it's a fact.You have no evidence, just an axe to grind.
>>93711133Your ignorance of the evidence isn't a lack of it. Try familiarizing yourself with other RPGs.
>>93711211You are still not posting examples. Because if you did, you would be again BTFO like it happened upthread.You are incredibly pathetic, anon.
>>93711221I shouldn't need to post examples because you should be familiar with other RPGs before you make sweeping claims like 3E having groundbreaking RPG design. But if you insist.Feats? Fallout perks, which derived it from GURPS's advantages, which means these were around 14 years prior to 3.0. Not groundbreaking.Standardized skill system? Standard by the 80s. Done in the 70s. BRP, Rolemaster, GURPS, the list goes on and on, there are less RPGs by the 90s that don't have this than those that do. And worse, 3E's skill system is bottom percentile in quality out of most of those. Not groundbreaking, this was a bare minimum expectation of RPGs by that time.Standardized resolution mechanics? Standard by the 80s. Also done in the 70s. BRP, GURPS, Shadowrun, WoD, just naming the most obvious ones. Not groundbreaking.Keywords? Magic: the Gathering. Not groundbreaking.It's only groundbreaking if your point of comparison is TSR D&D, which was well out of date by the 90s.
>>93711327Ok which one of those did it all at once?
>>93711598Most of them? Why are you even having this discussion if you have no familiarity with other RPGs?
>>93668907I heard that one's armor system is pretty good, anyone got first hand experience playing it?
>>93711658But that's simply not true.It's also debatable wether shit like the perks are comparable to feats.You are presenting yourself as an expert but you are clearly talking out of your ass because d20 sends you in a blind rage.
>>93711885>It's also debatable wether shit like the perks are comparable to feats.You're a fucking moron. WotC explicitly told Tim Cain that feats were drawn from Fallout's perks. It's not debatable.
>>93711885Yeah, sure, buddy. GURPS didn't have advantages, a universal roll under 3d6 system, and a standardized skill list. WoD didn't have merits, a universal dice pool rolling system, and a standardized skill list. Shadowrun didn't have edges, a universal dice pool rolling system, and a standardized skill list.3.0's design was not revolutionary. Not for its time. Wouldn't have been if it came out 5 years prior. It's what to expect from a game of its era and inclinations, and not because it set the standards, but because it almost caught up to the standards of the time. Get the fuck over it.
>>93711975>You're a fucking moron. WotC explicitly told Tim Cain that feats were drawn from Fallout's perks. It's not debatable.but this is a lieYou are literally making shit up hoping people don't google
>>93712078But those didn't work like the d20 one, you are comparing apples to oranges because you are bitter of d20's success.Why are you so mad, that you have to misconstrue facts, anon?
>>93712191https://youtu.be/T2OxO-4YLRk?t=2686You sure about that?
>>93712201Are you honestly that retarded?
>>93712204Of course that guy is going to say that - doesn't mean that it's true.We see with "how much X edition sold" designers lie all the time.
>>93712214I mean I am not the one so obsessed in hating a given system that can't help posting in a thread that makes him constantly mad, while hampering any actual discourse about games deriving from that system.
>>93712290Yeah, okay, so 3E somehow managed to use identical feat and XP progressions to Fallout by sheer coincidence. Moron. Something isn't a lie because you don't want to hear it.
>>93712298>thinking it's about hating the systemNo, no it's not. I'm not the guy going on about trap options. This is about you not having the slightest idea what in the fuck you're talking about and making ridiculous claims about how revolutionary a system is with no basis in reality. You have no experience in RPGs outside of D&D, zero clue what RPG design space looked like in the 90s and early 2000s. You have no point of comparison and no idea what the environment 3E came out in was.
>>93712332>identical feat and XP progressions to FalloutBut this is simply untrue.
>>93712387Why are you so mad?
>>93712388Fallout: 2 gifts at 1, perks every 3 levels, 1000xLevel XP to level3E: 1 feat at 1, feats every 3 levels, 1000xLevel XP to level
>>93712392Because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and are too dumb to understand that.
>>93712405>still insists perks are the same as featscome on now anon
>>93712413But this isn't even what the people who made the thread wanted to talk about.Why are you so frustrated to do this?You are a miserable cunt.
>>93712503>implying they aren't
>>93712511If you don't want a bullshit claim called out, don't make a bullshit claim then play the victim.
LA is broken, what’s a simple fix or replacement for it?
>>93712503They serve much the same niche in design, but fill that space very differently due to Fallout being mainly skill-based while d20 uses level scaling of primary "base" modifiers.>>93712662GiantITP has been assigning less retarded LAs for years:>https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?518086The physical book Unearthed Arcana made part of the SRD offers buying it off to start catching up:>https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htmIt may also be possible to overwrite RHD with PBH II rebuilding rules, though the "convention" is eating negative levels down to one.
>>93711860I've played it yeah. It's pretty good. Armor gives Damage reduction, and every class has a dodge value and parry value. It's not bad at all. Also, the Death By Massive Damage save happens if you take 20hp in one hit, rather than 50, and IIRC you stop getting HP after level 10. It has been a while. My last d20 Conan game was in 2016. >>93712662>1. The simplest fix? Use ECL = CR and set it as a minimum character level.>2. Up next: Use Oslecamo's Monster Classes.>3. After That: Use the LA Reassignment Project and Negative LA Assignment Project.>4. After That: Grab the iconic abilities and ability score modifiers the monster needs (which could include some extra HD for huge creatures) set a minimum character level according to monster CR, and make the effort to allow that monster stuff to be purchaseable as feats or ACFs. If it doesn't *add* to the power of the character, and only adds a bit of versatility (like limited use SLAs), you can hand it out for free at the appropriate character level.>5. After That: Have players build their characters with Eclipse (Distant Horizons), and Monster-Player just buys his iconic Monster shit with points.I've tried 1-4, all worked to some extent, obviously #1 is the most wonky but is very simple. 4 Works well, but the DM is going to need to make custom monster abilities for the player and build a custom progression, which can be a few hours work.
>>93713547>most wonky but is very simpleAnd still way better than LA+HD by the book.
Could you replace LA as an additional 5% XP required to level per LA?Need to advance through Monster HD first before Class levels.
>>93712662LA works just fine>>93713026Forget where it's written (SS or UA?) but if you take a class level with 1 RHD it replaces the RHD anyway if you're abusing negative levels
>>93685006I ran a game a couple of years ago and used D20 Modern, especially Blood and Fists to make a cool martial arts campaign. It was fun.
>>93714293That would be absolutely crap. - Monster HD are way worse than class levels. Which is what's already a lot of the problem with LA+HD. (The other problem being the LA are usually way too high)
>>93712503You are absolutely pathetic. You know damn well you're wrong.
>>93670945>E6 play what the heck is that?
>>93722744Level cap is level 6, XP gain that gets you a level past that point earns you a feat instead.
>>93714293>>93717558No, he's got a point. It's hard to write LAs in a way that's useable at low levels without being overpowered at high levels. Things like large ability boosts, large natural armor and spell resistance become relatively more powerful as you gain levels. You just need to understand that the LAs in the books are intentionally high-balled (with a few well-documented exceptions that are overpowered at mid/high levels).
>>93722938>Things like large ability boosts, large natural armor and spell resistance become relatively more powerful as you gain levels.(you)
>>93713026>They serve much the same niche in design, but fill that space very differently due to Fallout being mainly skill-based while d20 uses level scaling of primary "base" modifiers.Ding ding ding>>93721377No, retard.
>>93709043How can one be so functionally illiterate, post this after all those answers to that post.
>>93668831Don't forget d20 midnight
>>93725358Yes, retard. The XP needed to level is identical. You gain feats and perks at identical levels and several perks and feats have identical effects save for the numbers involved. The only thing you have is accusing someone of lying when there are pieces of evidence that indicate otherwise.
>>93722938>Things like large ability boosts, large natural armor and spell resistance become relatively more powerful as you gain levels.What? No they fucking don't.High levels are marked by great access to stat boosters and new lists of effects/spell that can bypass ac/sr.Templates almost universally lose relevance at higher levels, with small exceptions for niche template-build combos that exloit a loophole of some variety.
>>93712662Set La+[minimum level to acquire] as the minimum ecl of the character.For example: being a vampire requires 5hd minimum and adds 8 LA. A vampire therefor counts as a level 13 character for xp calc.If player is level 5 when they acquire template and gains enough xp to go from 13 to 14, they gain level 6 abilities and their ecl remains 13. When character passes level 13, they level as normal.This discourages players abusing templates at low levels where they break the game(its too much lost xp), but also does penalize high level players for abilities that don't matter much at their level.
>>93671713>it's bad because of highly specific, non-listed situational conditions!So you mean being a 1st level wizard with a D.M who isn't going to swing things so that you survive when the game rules say you shouldn't? That's not as highly specific as you imagine.
>>93714323LA is kindof crap. all the numbers are significantly highballed.>>93712662If you want a no-homebrew; no-houserules way to make Stock LA less shit:1. Pick one with relatively low LA, with a bunch of HD.2. Retrain the Monster HD into class levels (yes you can do that); and keep the monster abilities (which are not attached to Monster HD).
>>93729266>Retrain the Monster HD into class levels (yes you can do that)PHB2 retraining doesn't cover which class you took. It's the quest-required rebuilding that does that, which is limited to 1/5th of your character level per quest.
>>93729317Negative Level Retraining doesn't give a shit about the retraining rules in PHB2. It's also a core rule in the DMG that creatures with 1 racial HD can trade their 1 HD for a level.Grab a wight and a thought bottle, or just put them in your backstory.
>>93730711>Negative Level Retraining doesn't give a shit about the retraining rules in PHB2.It's not referred to anywhere in any rulebook, let alone as retraining, because it's an exploit of the recovery having no specification.>It's also a core rule in the DMG that creatures with 1 racial HD can trade their 1 HD for a level.The Monsters As Races is referential to the original statblock, relentlessly screwing with that by game mechanics is no longer said statblock.>or just put them in your backstory.Starting with a character that is not first-pass legal is not going to fly at MANY tables because there's not any rational basis to let shit like this fly without the game immediately disintegrating to modest considerations for just how large the life's savings of an Elf can get or Emancipated Spawn abuse.
>>93730931>immediately disintegratingYou mean the narative and mechanics could actually work together rather than being separated in a way that causes constant issues? Why the hell would that be a bad thing?As a dm I subscribe to the tippyverse mindset, mechanics should inform worldbuilding.
>>93733950They're not working together in this case. The mechanics are devouring any remotely coherent narrative, because accepting the exploit pileup to the willful exclusion of some of the character building rules and deliberate spite of the official retraining makes for a ruinously unstable power-curve. Meaning that you have to either warp the campaign to SOMEHOW align the players' viability when it's virtually impossible for them to actually land at the same point naturally or the gameplay and resulting narrative degenerates into an optimization rat-race as the players who can behave themselves try to matter in the same party as somebody leveraging the full roster of obnoxious silver bullet mills, including the thoroughly ridiculous pivots you're embracing.The rules are a low-resolution abstraction of the in-world properties, not what governs it. "Non-lethal" damage reflects very different things for Ghedden and Trollblooded, the RAW interaction of immunity to any damage that doesn't shut off Regeneration has no diagetic basis. Reducing them to a bloody pulp with Colossal Goliath Greathammers may not kill them and they may not experience pain from the pulping, but narratively they ought remain pulp until they Regenerate the ludicrously excessive damage, not take zero damage in the first place.
>>93734075>The rules are a low-resolution abstraction of the in-world properties, not what governs it.This argument breaks down entirely when the canon settings acknowledge game mechanics and canon npcs start abusing exploits.Szass tam canonically abuses xp reduction rules, most famously with the undead warrior(a spell that supposed to be oriental adventures exclusive)/spell-stitched to make an army of undead with no HD limit and with no xp cost.Faerune, greyhawk, and eberron all ackowledge hd, levels, and hp as actual things because hp as an abstraction breaks down completely even character when looked at critically.
>>93734075Anon, your agument makes zero sense unless every npc in setting somehow has perfect knowledge of every game mechanic and exploit. If mechanics are the physics of the setting, then the thing that would makes the most sense would be a select number of npcs or societies knowing what exploits they can abuse, and even then only exploits relative to their specialty.
>>93734290>a select number of npcs or societies knowing what exploits they can abuse, and even then only exploits relative to their specialtyOn this note, What would a semi-optimized setting look like?Off the top of my head:>any alchemist/artifice guild worth anything is abusing cost reducers to the point their only production limitations or their number of highly specialized crafters and time, >hyper-intelligent creatures with lots of RHD(dragons, illithids, etc) could probably be assumed to retrain their hd into class levels, >any high intelligence creature with wish as a sp/su(Pit Fiends) definitely has the best magic items ever designed, >there should probably be at least a couple countries with a small team of spellcasters trained to specialize as a kind of re-usable nuke(necrotic locate city bomb)Etc.
>>93735741Dragons would probably be the De Facto rulers of the setting, with a dragon acting in place of the king/emperor of each kingdom/empire(which would in turn be their hoard).
>>93735741I'd say a lot of template stacking abuse happens in the nobles families and/or aristocracies of a semi-op setting.It's pretty hard to say a family isn't divinely ordained to rule when they all have innate magic powers(this also makes trying to pose as one much harder).
>>93735741What material would be valid to pull from for the setting though? D20 midnight, an Arcana Evolved, Iron kingdoms, etc are going to be vastly different than a standard greyhawk or golarion setting at different optimization levels.Mix-and-Match between d20 will get very weird very fast.
>>93735863>Mix-and-Match between d20 will get very weird very fast.I have one thing to say to this:D20 stargate is an official and canon part of the 3rd edition multiverse.
>>93735741You end up having to deal with the issue that some places will figure out re-usable xp farms and start conquering the setting with armies of Level 20s.
