There was a kneejerk response against it, but once players were convinced to give it a try, it worked out amazingly well. The game was balanced, power levels ramped up smoothly, and encounters that were both fun and challenging for all participants (including the GM) became much more common. Tactics and strategy began to play a major role, skills mattered as much as combat ability and player satisfaction began to come from overcoming a challenge at the table rather than in HeroLab...
Put simply:
All full casters and pet classes were reserved for NPC's only.
Wealth by level was ignored.
There were a handful of tweaks beside that, little personal preferences that any GM might insert into his game, but that was the long and the short of it. End result: the best gaming experience for all involved, even those whom initially balked at such a radical change. Can't recommend it enough.
Eh, I can believe it. In my opinion, nearly all of the 6-level spellcasters are some of the most balanced in the game.
Really, you can ignore WBL if you have a group you can trust not to abuse the extra wealth.
Eh, I can believe it. In my opinion, nearly all of the 6-level spellcasters are some of the most balanced in the game.
Really, you can ignore WBL if you have a group you can trust not to abuse the extra wealth.
Initially the intent was to ignore it in such a fashion that players were less dependent on expensive gear rather than moreso... almost all of the magical items, from minor to major, were custom made. The buying and selling of magic was much rarer than the baseball card trading we see in a standard game. Ironically, the end result was that the gear they had was much more powerful and would have been significantly beyond standard wbl if it had been priced out.
Not sure what banning cavaliers, rangers, paladins, hunters, spiritualists et al. really adds to it though.
Actually, you don't need to ban the Paladin or Ranger, just the Animal Companion & Mount option to adhere to Wiggz suggestion. Rangers choosing to bond with their teammates and paladins choosing the bonded weapon route work pretty well.
I run the 1e ToEE campaign using Pathfinder rules. I get the players to roll their characters using 4d6 in order so they build the best character for their rolled attributes, not their pet class. There are enough opportunities for character death that most players get to try a couple of builds (or more if they're careless) over the course of the campaign.
I also make heavy use of organisations to flesh out the game world. as well as making the game world more interesting, getting a raise dead means a the character to be brought back had to have a long relationship with the church before getting killed. I have absolutely no 'ye olde magick shoppes' which means characters treasure the items they find rather than optimise in the expectation of buying the perfect item. This allows WBL to go completely out the window, allowing all that money to be used to buy influence and power with the organisations.
As you mentioned, tactics and strategy have come to the fore. The party work as a team, perform reconnaisance and then choose strike missions. Skill based characters get a chance to shine as there is a lot of activity outside of combat. The players care about the game world and understand their actions have consequences and are less interested in their XP score.
Use max Hp per con at first level instead of max Hp plus con modifier.
Use a 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 stat array
Ignore WBL is a great idea to my mind but we also remove magic mart and roll randomly for the items you are able to buy. (Consumables less than 500 gp are freely available)
Power attack isn't better on two handed weapons.
Sleep hex only exhausts if the enemy is higher HD than you.
We use critical cards that totally change the feel of critical hits, far less mathematical much more fun. Much more options basically than just multiplied damage.
We also let you take short rests like In d&d to regain Hp, and restore all Hp after a long rests.
The advantage to these changes is that healing between encounters becomes less essential because of increased survivability. Cure light wand aren't necessary, in fact you can get away without a full healer entirely. This opens up the player options and means players can choose the class they want rather than someone forced to play a healer. We sometimes had only three players and this neatly solved the problem as well as making lower levels less of a bloodbath.
It also had the effect of extending combat. We also have a general courtesy rule that casters don't save or suck major enemies unless things get bad.
Not sure what banning cavaliers, rangers, paladins, hunters, spiritualists et al. really adds to it though.Actually, you don't need to ban the Paladin or Ranger, just the Animal Companion & Mount option to adhere to Wiggz suggestion. Rangers choosing to bond with their teammates and paladins choosing the bonded weapon route work pretty well.
That's it exactly. Characters are welcome, just cutting down on action economy abuse, 'expendable' characters and the like.
We use critical cards that totally change the feel of critical hits, far less mathematical much more fun. Much more options basically than just multiplied damage.
There were plenty of other minor changes as well, but like I said, many of those were a matter of personal taste.
We use critical cards, but in a different way. Players draw three and hold them til they get a crit, then they can choose to use one of their cards as a result of that critical and, once used its discarded and a new one is drawn, keeping them with a variety of options. Its really gone a long way towards creating a more exciting combat.
We got rid of Teleport and Raise Dead, though Greater Teleport, Breath of Life and Resurrection are still in there (hold-over from previous alterations to the game which worked well).
Lots of other little things too, but the point of this thread was really the major changes listed above.
I run the 1e ToEE campaign using Pathfinder rules. I get the players to roll their characters using 4d6 in order so they build the best character for their rolled attributes, not their pet class. There are enough opportunities for character death that most players get to try a couple of builds (or more if they're careless) over the course of the campaign.
I also make heavy use of organisations to flesh out the game world. as well as making the game world more interesting, getting a raise dead means a the character to be brought back had to have a long relationship with the church before getting killed. I have absolutely no 'ye olde magick shoppes' which means characters treasure the items they find rather than optimise in the expectation of buying the perfect item. This allows WBL to go completely out the window, allowing all that money to be used to buy influence and power with the organisations.
As you mentioned, tactics and strategy have come to the fore. The party work as a team, perform reconnaisance and then choose strike missions. Skill based characters get a chance to shine as there is a lot of activity outside of combat. The players care about the game world and understand their actions have consequences and are less interested in their XP score.
We're on the exact same page. Its gone a long, long way towards 'fixing' Pathfinder and dramatically improving the experience at the table, to my mind.
We're on the exact same page. Its gone a long, long way towards 'fixing' Pathfinder and dramatically improving the experience at the table, to my mind.I run the 1e ToEE campaign using Pathfinder rules. I get the players to roll their characters using 4d6 in order so they build the best character for their rolled attributes, not their pet class. There are enough opportunities for character death that most players get to try a couple of builds (or more if they're careless) over the course of the campaign.
I also make heavy use of organisations to flesh out the game world. as well as making the game world more interesting, getting a raise dead means a the character to be brought back had to have a long relationship with the church before getting killed. I have absolutely no 'ye olde magick shoppes' which means characters treasure the items they find rather than optimise in the expectation of buying the perfect item. This allows WBL to go completely out the window, allowing all that money to be used to buy influence and power with the organisations.
As you mentioned, tactics and strategy have come to the fore. The party work as a team, perform reconnaisance and then choose strike missions. Skill based characters get a chance to shine as there is a lot of activity outside of combat. The players care about the game world and understand their actions have consequences and are less interested in their XP score.
Yeah, I also tend to play from the 1st level upwards, so the full caster classes aren't an issue and the environment becomes a point of interest. By the time any character gets into double figures levelwise they are so immersed in the politics of the game world that they end up sponsoring teams to adventure on their behalf. I.e. the higher level characters don't adventure so much.
I ignore WBL, often giving out much less treasure than normal. And we sped up the chase method by just making it an opposed d20 roll. Simply divide a creature's speed by 5 and that gives you a modifier to add to rolls. It made our chase scenes much more dramatic and cinematic.
Hmm.
Restricting to 5 levels of spells, ala D&D Modern. Wow, did that stop a lot of abuse. Higher levels just got you lots of lower level spells, and a spell pool.
Health/Soak. Health comes from racial hit dice. Soak comes from class levels. Martials recover Soak quickly. Health is recovered by time or healing magic. PC's can get racial levels, just like monsters, and default NPC's use the racial levels, meaning most of the world is level 1-3.
Making most feat chains into scaling feats.
introducing fairly cheap anti-magic defenses, some on vast scales (city-wide, etc).
Making non-caster crafting of magic items fairly standard.
Allowing multiclassing at lower levels then the primary class. Cost the same as getting your next level of your primary class. So, you dipped sideways instead of upwards.
Since spells stopped at 5th, a 'soft cap' of 10th level. Since you could multiclass sideways and keep getting levels and new abilities in side classes, it didn't much matter. Breaking 10th level was 'epic'. You could still Craft magical items at higher levels, meaning magic items were stronger then casters, in the end.
Attacks/rd were by class levels, not BAB.
Staying away from stat-based bonuses to stuff. Centering them on class bonuses and abilities prevents a LOT of numbers abuse.
Handing out vital strike to the martial classes for free. Bonuses for full attacking included options for a bonus to hit, to dmg, to AC or to saves, in exchange for giving up your movement.
==Aelryinth
Put simply:
All full casters and pet classes were reserved for NPC's only.
Wealth by level was ignored.
Put even more simply..
.."make all PCs play the same class and suddenly there's no power level issues between classes."
Initially the intent was to ignore it in such a fashion that players were less dependent on expensive gear rather than moreso... almost all of the magical items, from minor to major, were custom made. The buying and selling of magic was much rarer than the baseball card trading we see in a standard game. Ironically, the end result was that the gear they had was much more powerful and would have been significantly beyond standard wbl if it had been priced out.Eh, I can believe it. In my opinion, nearly all of the 6-level spellcasters are some of the most balanced in the game.
Really, you can ignore WBL if you have a group you can trust not to abuse the extra wealth.
Since you Craft at 50% cost vs normal items, this is exactly what should have happened. Crafting has always been the #1 way for a party to become powerful, because it only gets more effective with levels.
The downside is the time requirement, of course. If you can get past that, you've got it made. Spending 800k+time to get 1,600k in gear is a great tradeoff.
And custom items, even strictly following the rules, are always more cost effective, and thus more powerful, then just standard items are, for the most part. Abuse of crafting rules is why such things aren't allowed in RPG societies.
==Aelryinth
Put simply:
All full casters and pet classes were reserved for NPC's only.
Wealth by level was ignored.
Put even more simply..
.."make all PCs play the same class and suddenly there's no power level issues between classes."
I remember when bloodragers and rogues were the same class.
|
I dunno about 'best campaign ever' but none of my entire set of House Rules have ever made a campaign worse. And I think most have improved them quite a bit.
The stats distribution method in particular (25 point-buy, no stats above 16 or below 8, only one below 10, all before racial mods) has worked out particularly well, as has allowing Charisma on Will Saves instead of Wisdom, if you prefer. And allowing TWF to be used on standard actions has been pretty shiny, too.