fiddler's page

OK, using Class Hit Die is potentially problematic for multiclassed characters (maybe just use best hit die?).

It also occurs to me that mundane daily healing rates share the same problem as Mikeynerd's complaint. How about this:

Healing Factor = BAB + CON bonus.

Resting for 24 hours heals hp equal to your Healing Factor, doubled for long-term care.

Cure spells heal Spell Level * Healing Factor.

Back in 1st ed, I used a similar houserule, that Cure spells would at minimum heal a set percentage of the recipient's hit points (CLW 10%, CMW 25%, CCW 50%, etc). That seemed to work well, and helped the spell names from becoming bad jokes at high-level play. ("How bad are you hurt?" "Only down about 30, I could use a Cure Critical Wounds, but I'm fine without it.")

Your BAB idea is elegant (I may steal it), but doesn't take the recipient's CON into account. Perhaps SpellLevel * (BestHitDie + CONBonus)? Hmm, a little ugly, that. I think I prefer the percentages.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Stormcrowe

I like that Sneak Attacks affect more creatures now. Some adventures have a logical theme that makes them heavy with undead or constructs, and it gets pretty tough for the Rogue to contribute. Not a big deal for one battle, but an entire adventure's worth of battles is too much to be left out of.

For Two-Weapon Fighting, I can see it both ways. The Two-Weapon fighter does have to make an investment in Feats and fighting style (sticking around for full attacks in melee) to pull this off, so it isn't without tradeoffs. That said, I think limiting Sneak Attacks to once per round (and maybe requiring a Feat to allow Two-Weapon attacks to get Sneak damage?) would be OK too.

As for criticals, I'm toying with a house rule that you can Sneak Attack anything, and the constructs, undead, oozes, etc just turn all weapons into 20/x2 for purposes of critical hits, but that's slipping off-topic.

There's an opportunity here to generalize this "race" to include many human-monster crossbreeds. Let's face it, an awful lot of the "evil" humanoid races are very alike (strong and not too smart, with good night vision).

This could be re-imagined as "Half-Breed", with a monstrous ancestor somewhere in the family tree. Orcs, ogres, hobgoblins, giants...

I love those suggestions for fighter archtypes/options. They can be easily handled by adding to the combat feat instead of the general feats.

In the past i think the slant has been to heavily (less so in 3rd and 3.5 than second edition) on the heavily armored melee combatant as what it means to be a fighter. The horseman, the archer, the swashbuckler and the pit fighter/gladiator are all prie examples of other methods of being a fighter...ones that i feel should be options in the base class not relegated to prestige classes. [SNIP] i have some problems with the proliferation of new base classes found in the "complete" series and the player's handbook II. MOst of them can be subsumed back into base classes by including feat trees or class options to accomodate them.

I too would prefer a fighter class that is inherently fun/attractive, not just a stepping stone to a prestige class, and I agree that the Fighter class should handle archers and swashbucklers as well as it handles tanks.

A fairly radical idea would be to completely remove the starting armor proficiencies, and grant the same number of Combat Feats. A tank could spend these on armor proficiencies, a swash on Weapon Finesse, Dodge, and Mobility, or an archer on Light Armor Prof, Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot. Since 1st-level characters can rarely afford Heavy armor anyway, even many future tanks might opt to take another Feat in place of Heavy Armor Prof at 1st-level, planning to pick it up later.

My $0.02,

--Dustin