| Squirrelloid |
So, some of this material probably belongs in one of the other threads, but I felt it belonged here because I went through and recorded my comments on everything in the pdf. It seems better to keep everything together rather than engage in thread multiplication. Without further ado:
General Notes:
A lot of abilities use class level. If we want characters to be able to do level appropriate things, character level is a far better number to use because it insures that the effect is appropriate to the character's level. The disadvantage of multiclassing should be that you didn't get whatever the next ability(ies) your main class offered, not that you are also worse at everything than a straight class character. Otherwise multiclassing completely fails unless you only take levels with abilities that implicitly scale.
Artwork:
The artwork is often far far better than WotC's 3e and 3.5 artwork style. I absolutely love the cleric drawing, though ones which are similar to the WotC style are less appealing to me.
The art on page 54 also appeared on an earlier page.
The art on page 102 is similarly recycled.
Barbarian:
Rage Powers:
Increased DR: 1-3 DR is useless. It should be 5, 10, and 15, then it might actually matter.
Elemental Rage: +1d6 elemental is really weak. That's like a 3 rage point power. Should convert all the barbarian's damage to elemental damage.
Lowlight/Night sight: These powers make no sense. Why does the barbarian suddenly get to see in the dark because she's raging? Not that it couldn't be explained, but it isn't.
Renewed Vigor: This needs to scale with character level. Remove the d8 and make it Con Mod x level.
Terrifying Howl: Requires 'Hunter's Cry', which doesn't exist.
Rage Powers are an interesting idea. However, rather than being class features, why not make them feats that require Rage, and give the barbarian a bonus Rage Feat at those levels?
Mighty Rage: Typo - text says Greater Rage in the entering/maintenance sentence.
DR: 5/- at 19th level is useless. 20/- should be considered a minimum for this level of play.
Clerics:
Spells:
Not being able to prepare spells aligned with other ethos is a pet peeve of mine - a cleric should be able to prepare such spells, it should just count as an act of that alignment and the DM should take that into consideration with respect to the character's alignment. (Ie, casting an [Evil] spell once probably won't be overly detrimental to a good cleric, casting many is taking the spiral path downwards.) I can expand an explanation of what I think should be going on here if people are interested.
The cleric really needs a limit on the number of spells he has access to. Access to the whole list leads to splatbook dumpster diving writ large.
The more wizard-like spellcasting progression is good for balance, but I don't see Clerics being especially useful at a healing role with such limited spell selection. This will only encourage hyperspecialized clerics who refuse to cast Cure spells - which may be ok with you (it is with me).
Channel Energy:
This paragraph should either describe the effects of channeling energy more fully or provide a reference for where to look for the full rules, probably the latter.
Orisons:
Finally, no more keeping track of 0-level spells!
I'm not convinced Cure Minor needs to be removed though - infinite healing outside of combat should be a default assumption of the game, or healing should be nigh impossible. pseudo-limited healing just means players who understand the game will find ways to get virtually infinite healing outside of combat (1st level wands are cheap), and penalizes newer players.
Spell Ethos:
See comment above - i think accessing powers from opposed ethos should be allowed with alignment implications.
Ex-Clerics:
Shouldn't there be some provision for switching deities in this paragraph? Seeking atonement from your old god shouldn't be the only way to regain your powers - you should be able to switch sides.
Deities:
Rather than random 1-dimensional deities (which is fairly typical of RPG deity lists), why not just use real world mythologies? This gives you a deep mythos to draw on with well developed deity personalities. If people want 'fantasy deities', they can write their own in 15 minutes or grab their sourcebook of choice from whatever company they want.
Druids:
Why is the druid wearing metal armor in the picture?
Spells:
See notes on spell ethos under cleric. Its less important here though.
Bonus Languages:
The 'secret language of the druids' is and always has been one of the most idiotic ideas in D+D druids (and that's saying a lot for a class which completely ignores what real druids actually were). In a world where Comprehend Languages is a 1st level spell, secret languages don't work. Its really that simple. A 7th level wizard can write a teaching guide to Druidic using Tongues and Comprehend in combination. The idea that 'only druids know this secret language' fails utterly, and there's no good way to fix this other than dropping the idea.
Nature Bond:
The animal companion advancement chart does not make early availability companions worth keeping over the long term. While for story reasons I think we'd really like a Druid to grow old with her first companion, she's almost always better upgrading. The chart needs a serious ramp-up of at least Str/Dex adjustment, and possibly ramp up the bonus HD as well. It should also be made clear if the bonus HD provide feats (which they probably should and technically do right now). I consider this a serious design issue with Animal Companions as written.
Wildshape:
(See relevant spells)
Fighter:
Skills:
The fighter gets pitifully few skills for a class which isn't going to have anything class-related to do outside of combat.
Weapon Training:
The bonuses should scale regardless of which order he took them in. Ie, all groups should receive the highest bonus, even if he just learned it. Otherwise organic characters suffer relative to other characters (and there's really no balance drawback to doing this, as balance testing needs to assume the fighter always gets the highest possible bonus)
Double weapons are a funny group - shouldn't each weapon be in a group related to the weapon type?
The warhammer is a type of *axe* which does piercing damage. If any writer of D+D actually bothered to look at a historical warhammer this would be obvious. (It would be nice if this was finally fixed after over 20 years of being wrong).
Armor Mastery:
DR 5/- is utterly forgettable. At 19th level anything less than 20/- is a slap in the face.
Weapon Mastery:
This ability would be almost worthy of being a 15th level ability - iff it applied to all weapons the fighter had training in. Limiting it to one weapon doesn't really help balance and just gimps an already struggling class.
Overall this fighter is better than the 3.5 fighter, but not sufficiently better. High level fighters in fiction are characters like Superman, Thor, and Captain Marvel. Thor calls bolts of lightning from the sky and flies under his own 'power' (his hammer and him are basically inseparable). Captain Marvel is *omniscient*, super strong, and nigh invulnerable. Superman has x-ray vision, heat rays, icy breath, super strength and speed, and has DR infinity/kryptonite. And Superman *maybe* qualifies as a 17th level character - i'm not convinced. There is no 'fantasy' fighter who tops 10th level in any literature anywhere - keeping fighters to non-supernatural feats is made of fail in higher levels.
Paladin:
Spells:
A Paladin's Caster Level should just be equal to her character level. Anything else is punitive. Her reduced casting ability is reflected in her spell list, reducing her caster level basically says paladins can't do level-appropriate things with magic.
Divine Bond:
The Paladin shouldn't have to choose - she should get both.
Calling her mount should have a caster level = character level.
Remove Disease: While flavorful, this is a non-ability.
Aura of Faith: This is a 5th level ability, tops.
Holy Champion: 10/evil is a joke. This needs to be in the ballpark of 30/evil or higher.
Code of Conduct:
Why not generalize the Paladin? Let the Paladin be any corner alignment, and the player and DM need to agree on a suitable code of conduct. (With some minor rewriting of other abilities to allow appropriate alignment like Smite Good). At its root, the Paladin is a fighter with minor clerical abilities who serves an ideal - why restrict it to only one of the possible variations thereof?
Its also not clear the Paladin's code as written accomplishes lawful or good aims. Legitimate authority needs definition, acting with honor is more about not killing nobles than about good or law. And what exactly is an innocent - is a C/E drow baby an innocent?
Multiclassing: Why prevent Paladins from multiclassing freely? This only hurts organic characters, and is a nonsensical restriction. As long as you're rewriting the rules, eliminate senseless legacy rules from 1st edition.
Mount: Any rules which don't allow a Paladin to eventually end up riding a Dragon as a Special Mount are a failure, imho. This is a fantasy world, horses are for 1st-4th level characters.
I am unconvinced of the Paladin's viability, especially as a high level single-class character.
Rogue
Sneak Attack:
Concealed targets should be able to be sneak attacked given a suitably impressive listen check or similar. You can tell where a creatures head, heart, and lungs are by heartbeat and breathing - a sufficiently awesome rogue should be able to do this.
The leg has a great target for sneak attack in humanoid creatures - an achilles heel so to speak. (There's an exposed artery there, and cutting it can easily cause a creature to bleed out in minutes.) Only being able to reach limbs doesn't mean there aren't vital spots that could be hit.
Rogue Talents:
Major Magic: The caster level should equal character level or at least rogue level. Its still probably woefully underpowered, even without considering it has a prereq.
Minor Magic: Useless. Utterly useless.
Rogue Crawl: Fairly useless.
Stand Up: Can be accomplished with tumble without provoking an AoO. Useless.
Advanced Talents:
Defensive Roll: Should be allowed whenever the rogue is hit for damage, not just when it would reduce him to 0 or below.
Dispelling Attack: should have caster level = character level.
Master Strike: DC should be 10 + 1/2 Character Level + Int Mod, so it continues to scale into epic levels.
Sorceror
Bloodlines:
Arcane: eh, not being able to freely use Quicken Spell until 20th level is a serious disadvantage. Admittedly most sorcerors will probably need to solve that problem with a feat.
Celestial: Heavenly Touch should be holy damage if you want it to do anything to demons or devils. This bloodline is substantially worse than the others.
Draconic: Breath Weapon damage should be 10 + 1/2 character level + Con mod.
Elemental: Air and Earth have clearly superior movement modes - the speed should be reduced to compensate.
Fey: fists of thorn DC should use character level, not sorceror level. DR 10/Cold Iron is a joke at 20th level.
Wizard
Arcane Bond:
Item 'familiars' seem to be strictly superior to animal familiars.
Skills
Sleight of Hand is unchanged, meaning a literal reading of sleight of hand still gives you quickdraw with but 1 rank. This should be a high priority to change.
Acrobatics seems incredibly overloaded. Perhaps split it into Acrobatics (Balance/Tumble) and Athletics (jump/climb)?
Perception seems similarly overloaded. Search is probably still justifiable as a separate skill, both because it is a necessary component of trapfinding (and so receives a lot of use) and doesn't just represent noticing something but meticulous care in implementing a search. You can be great at searching and suck at noticing random things.
Feats
Skill-related feats are still woefully underpowered.
Combat expertise has been completely gimped. Requiring two things (one of which is intelligence) to determine your bonus means the feat is useless without heavy investment in it. Its also less useful because its a binary decision rather than choosing within a range - the old combat expertise was better.
Power attack is much less interesting as its a binary choice rather than choosing any number within a range. The old power attack was a better feat. (Deadly aim should work the same regardless).
Arcane Strike is virtually useless in this write-up. At least the old version was interesting. Anyone who can cast arcane spells is going to drop a Greater Magic Weapon on their weapon hours ago. +1 damage is not worth a feat.
Cleave has been substantially nerfed. Its an ok low level feat and becomes virtually useless thereafter.
Improved Vital Strike doesn't make it clear whether you multiply bonuses from other sources, such as magical enhancement bonuses.
Did spring attack really need additional text limiting its utility?
Weapon Swap should make it clear that you are using Two Weapon Fighting rules with one weapon - at least I think that's what you're doing...
Combat Maneuvers
The DC for performing a combat maneuver is prohibitive, especially given the inherant advantage that aggressor should have in some of them (notably Bull Rush, where momentum should be important). As it stands, Conan the Barbarian probably can't bullrush a midget with advanced muscular dystrophy, which is kind of sad.
Spells
Find the Path could also require any number of the following:
(A) The path must be unobstructed or the spell just fails. Ie, the lost city that is totally enclosed in rock has no path to it.
(B) The caster must possess an object from the target destination. Basically, have the spell work under a sympathetic magic theory where the caster uses the object to pull him to the destination.
(C) Have the spell instead provide the caster with visions of critical points along the journey but not actually show him how to get there.
Mindblank should also give you a saving throw against mindeffecting spells which don't allow one, like Irresistible Dance.
Wish states that inherent bonuses are capped at +5 but the Demonic bloodline for sorcerors grants a +6 inherent bonus to strength.
I'm unconvinced making the inherent bonus from wish a trade-off with another statistic is good for the game - it turns wish from 'free power' into 'lets make the game more like rocket launcher tag' at high levels. And as high levels are *already* rocket launcher tag, this strikes me as a bad thing.
Magic Items
The reason 'cool magic items' got passed up for stat increase items is not because they shared the same slot, but because those stat increasing items are *necessary* for a number of characters to continue to compete. Even with stats like Dex having their items moved to belts, characters will seriously pay someone to make them an item that occupies a different slot so they can get all of strength, constitution, and dex items because those items are vital to their survival. The only viable alternative is to just hand out enhancement bonuses every so often as standing magical effects because a character of level N is just that awesome, otherwise characters will find ways of putting stat items in sufficiently many slots they can use all the ones they need. Your 'fix' just makes the problem worse by making these items harder to acquire because the standard forms are insufficiently diverse. Basically, items which don't directly increase a character's survival chances are dross, and no amount of changes are going to fix that unless all magic items which do notably and directly increase survival get removed. (And then PCs can't compete against level-appropriate monsters as written).