Underpowered Mundanes or Overpowered Magic - Which is worse?

[Unbeliever]

...

Not to be a nitpicker, but that's actually not how they do it, they think outside the box all the time. They use tricks that don't rely on spell, like talking Hagrid into telling them all the plot points and stuff like that. And they rarely even fight with spells, because for some reason when fighting they prefer swords and fists. Also all of them are terribly scared of that guy who can't casts spells but can hang out with the wizards anyway.

What I want to encourage is not archaic class roles per se, but more the idea of team-work and thinking outside the box. Wizards have a box so huge, that they can rarely think outside it, if you have every tool at your disposal, why pick the rock to punch in the nail, when you can pick the hammer-o-matic 9000.
...

I think it's weird to view "spells" or even "arcane spells" as a whole as the set of abilities available to any wizard all the time.  Sure, it's possible that for nearly any problem there is probably a spell to counter it, although even then I'm not even sure b/c the mechanics may not support it really well or really efficiently.  But, even accepting that as true, it's not true that every wizard has every spell at their fingertips.  Some, certainly do, I've played those guys -- recently a 16th level one w/ a crazy high Intelligence and Uncanny Forethought. 

If that's the problem, though, I'd suggest making people play Sorcerers or something along those lines, and maybe even resort to stronger theme restrictions, although I think "classic D&D mage" is a well-defined theme.  That works in our games w/ well-optimized melee characters alongside them, and we are constantly thinking outside the box.  Sometimes, that thinking is how to creatively use a spell, but I can't see that as being a bad thing. 

Then again, I'm on record as disagreeing w/ this whole "melee/mundane = autofail" thing, and I only have about 2 games of D&D a week w/ solid optimizers as empirical evidence. 

[Midnight_v]

  Before I start, I wasn't trying to be insulting when I suggested 4th or Wow instead, those are valid options for entertainment for many people, saying that perhaps those things would be to your liking is not an insult. It doesn't make you intellectually inferior if you want the game to be balanced down, or that you prefer games where NO ONE is Drizzt or Ichigo... Its just a different situation from what Many people feel D&D should be like, many people feel like you, as well.
  Suggesting that you play pathfinder acutally was an insult.
I was tired and frustrated at the time, my apologies.

Mind you, casters get even stronger by tome rules. I'll just say they made polymorph even stronger by unlocking all monster abilities. Because geting super physical stats wasn't good enough for a 4th level spell aparently

   Lies, thats just lies. Course you maybe speaking from ignorance I'm not sure.
 The tome doesn't do anything but provide suggestions and options for polymorph, and its obvious that you're focusing on just ONE of them, but yes polymorph is either a spell thats Very strong, or Doesn't work. Now I say "very strong" but there are some (many) versions of polymorph that don't work.  The concept of that shit is insane out the box and Frank and K provided a framework to fix it.

THATS another thing I like about the tome I realized. . . theres' discussion there, they give options and expect you do decide how this works at you gaming table, before the bullshit starts. Such the what does alignment mean. Also you linked to a wiki, which frank had nothing to do with organizing (I talked to him recently). Everyone needs to read the orginal work or the version collected by Bigode (lol all this time I looked as his avatar and though that was surgo!) http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48453
Really thats the best place to start. So you can ask questions and where most of its already discussed.

I'm going to post the polymorph section here so Everyone can see how oslecamo's statment:

Mind you, casters get even stronger by tome rules. I'll just say they made polymorph even stronger by unlocking all monster abilities

Compare to the truth of what has been written... by this I mean what I say it provides options for polymorph to work, but obviously he never bothered to finish reading it, there are 2 versions.

From the Tome of Awesome

Some Spells Don't Work:

Many spells are underwhelming for their level or have mechanics that are hard to explain. But first and foremost of all the spells that are bad for the game is Polymorph. That spell is integral to any fantasy setting, but people haven't made it work in 3rd edition. Mostly, this is because people keepwriting it long instead of short. Remember, if you can't explain an effect in 2 minutes, everyone else is already confused.

Polymorph Version 1: Character Replacement

If you take part of your character – any part of your character – and part of a monster from one of the many monster books in D&D, and you put them together into a single Voltron-like body, you have broken D&D. That should be obvious, but since we are over six years into the ridiculous circus that is polymorph in 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, apparently it isn't. If it is important to you that you be allowed to dumpster dive through the monster books and find an appropriate to transform into, it is important to D&D that absolutely no part of your character be mixed and matched during that period. If you want to truly become a monster, you have to actually become that monster. Not "the monster with all my spell effects running", not "the monster with my formidable mental attributes. No. You need to become the monster exactly as it appears in the monster book or there's no chance of you getting a balanced result. Some people are going to end up as mediocre monsters with carry-over abilities that happen to synergize well and become tremendously powerful while other people are just as unbalanced in the other direction when they find that drawbacks of their character are carried over and overwrite the abilities of a monster that are supposed to make them any good at all.

And this isn't just hyperbole or doomsday predictions, this is established fact. We've all played with some of the multitude of different versions of Polymorph errata and "fixes", and the abject horror caused by every single iteration. The idea doesn't work. If you're going to replace any part of the character, you have to replace it all. So here's a version of polymorph that won't make us cry. This aint rocket science, it just takes a little bit of discipline:

Polymorph Self
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Self
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: No.

"A Turtle am I? Let's see how Turtlike I… CAN… BE! And with that, the mage was a giant turtle.

You vanish and a monster of your choice appears in your place. The creature shares your alignment, personality and goals, and will continue to act as you would within the limits of its intelligence and abilities. The creature must be at least 3 CR less than your character level, may not have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and is unexceptional for its type. If the monster is killed, the spell is ended. When the spell ends, the monster vanishes and you appear where the monster was with an amount of lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage on you equal to the amount the monster had suffered when the spell ended (this means that if the spell ended because the monster was slain and the monster had an equal or greater number of hit points as you, you may well be dead when you appear).

Polymorph Other
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Medium
Target: One Creature
Duration: Permanent (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates
Spell Resistance: Yes.

The witch snarled at the trespasser and pointed her wand vindictively at him. A short incantation later left nothing but a pig in his place.

Your target vanishes and a creature of your choice appears in its place. The creature shares the alignment, personality and goals of the target, and will continue to act as it would within the limits of its intelligence and abilities. The creature must be at least 5 CR less than your character level, may not have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and is unexceptional for its type. If the creature is killed, the spell is ended. When the spell ends, the creature vanishes and the target appears where the creature was with an amount of lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage on it equal to the amount the creature had suffered when the spell ended (this means that if the spell ended because the creature was slain and the creature had an equal or greater number of hit points as the original target, it may well be dead when it appears).

Mass Polymorph
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 7
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Medium
Target: Any number of creatures within a 20' radius
Duration: Permanent (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates
Spell Resistance: Yes.

The crowd looked uncomfortable. They had weapons and were brandishing them in a fashion quite menacing. But the magician was laughing, and that really put a damper on the mood of the entire event. They started to regain their composure and again advance upon him. He snorted and muttered an incantation, and something about swine…

Each target vanishes and creature of your choice appears in its place. The creatures share the alignment, personality and goals of the targets, and will continue to act as they would within the limits of their intelligence and abilities. The creatures must be at least 7 CR less than your character level, need not be the same for all targets, none may have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and all are unexceptional for their type. If a creature is killed, the spell is ended for that target only. When the spell ends, the creatures vanish and the targets appear where the creatures were with an amount of lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage on it equal to the amount the creature had suffered when the spell ended (this means that if the spell ended for a target because the creature was slain and the creature had an equal or greater number of hit points as the original target, it may well be dead when it appears).

Polymorph Version 2: Fixed Forms
The other version is one where transforming leaves you essentially yourself, only with a new hairdo and possibly some bonuses. In this case, you keep everything about yourself and simply get a disguise and some advantages consistent with a buff spell. All of the "Whatever-Form" spells don't stack with multiple castings or even with each other, because they are considered to be "one spell makes another spell irrelevant" for purposes of spell stacking.

Human Form
Transmutation
Level: Brd 1; Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: One Willing Creature
Duration: 10 minutes/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes.

The man looked at the fallen prince and smiled. He whispered some eldritch words, and then there were two princes. One living, and one dead. The living prince smiled.
The target assumes the appearance of a specific individual of medium size or smaller, or of a generic member of a humanoid race. The target is effectively disguised, and gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate the genuine article. The target suffers no penalties to Disguise for assuming the visage of a different race or sex.

Lycanthropy
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: One Willing Creature
Duration: 10 minutes/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes.

The shaman howled in rage and transformed into a wolverine.
The target assumes the appearance of a specific or generic animal or magical beast of small, medium, or large size. The target is effectively disguised, and gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate the genuine article. The target suffers no penalties to Disguise for assuming the visage of a different race or sex. The new form is unable to use normal equipment (all carried or worn items meld into the new form when the spell takes effect), and has whatever natural weapons the caster desires (to a maximum of 1 natural weapon per four levels). These natural weapons inflict an amount of damage appropriate for a magical beast of the new form's size. Any equipment the character had is subsumed into their new form.

Small, Flying: - 90' flight speed (good), +4 Dex, -4 strength

Small, Land – +2 Dex

Small, Swimming – 60' swim speed

Medium, Flying: - 60' flight speed (good), +2 Dex

Medium, Land – 40' land speed, +2 Strength, +2 Natural Armor

Medium, Swimming – 60' swim speed, +2 Strength, +2 Natural Armor

Large, Flying: - 90' flight speed (average), +2 Dex, +4 strength, +1 Natural Armor

Large, Land – +6 Strength, +5 Natural Armor

Large, Swimming – 60' swim speed, +6 Strength, +4 Natural Armor


Monstrous Form
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: One Willing Creature
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes.

With a sweep of your cloak you become a creature of nightmare.

The target assumes a horrific and monstrous countenance of a monster of Medium, Large, or Huge Size. The basic structure can look like pretty much anything, and the descriptions are just guidelines. All of the character's equipment melds into his new form. The character no longer has the ability to use equipment, but has a number of natural weapons appropriate to the new form:




Yeth Hound (Medium) – 50' speed, +4 Str, +4 Dex, Bite, Improved Trip

Displacer Beast (Large) – +8 Str, +2 Dex, +5 Natural Armor, 1 Primary Bite and 2 secondary Tentacle Whips, Concealment.

Monstrous Spider (Large) – 30' Climb Speed, +8 Str, +8 Natural Armor Bonus, 1 natural weapon Bite, Poison (1d6 Con/ 1d6 Con)

Chuul (Large) – 60' Swim Speed, +8 Str, +6 Natural Armor, 2 Primary Pinchers, character gains the [Aquatic] Subtype.

Bulette (Large) – 20' Burrow Speed, +8 Str, +10 Natural Armor

Manticore (Large) – 60' Fly Speed (Average) +8 Str, +6 Natural Armor, 2 natural weapon Claws, 2 natural weapon ranged spikes attacks (1d8 + Str, 19-20 crit, 20' range increment)

Giant Serpent (Huge) – +14 Str, +10 Natural Armor Bonus, 1 natural weapon bite, Poison (1d6 Dex damage/1d6 Dex damage), Improved Grab.



Fiend Form
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: One Willing Creature
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes.

With a foul guttural utterance and a rude gesture, the wizard transforms into a fiend from the lower planes.

The target assumes the appearance of a specific individual of medium size or smaller, or of a generic member of a fiendish race. The target is effectively disguised, and gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate the genuine article. The target suffers no penalties to Disguise for assuming the visage of a different race or sex. While in Fiendish form, the target gains two bonus [Fiend] feats of your choice that it would meet the requirements for if it was actually a member of a fiendish race, and gains access to a sphere of your choice. In order to use a spell-like ability from the sphere, the target must expend one spell-slot or prepared spell of an equal or greater spell-level, but there is no other limit to how many times the spell-like abilities can be used. Rules for [Fiend] feats and spheres may be found in the Tome of Fiends.

Dragon Form
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Touch
Target: One Willing Creature
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)
Saving Throw: Fortitude Negates (Harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes.

The final incantations are completed and you transform into a dragon.

The target character assumes the form of a huge dragon. The character gets a +14 Strength bonus and a -4 Dexterity penalty. The character gains a +18 Natural Armor Bonus. The character gains immunity to one energy type (which must be Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, or Poison), and a breath weapon that inflicts 1d6 per level of the same type of damage. Using the breath weapon is a supernatural ability that requires a standard action and may only be used at most once every 1d4+1 rounds. The character has a flight speed of 120' with poor maneuverability. A character in Dragon Form has three natural attacks: a primary Bite and two secondary claws. Worn equipment is subsumed into the new draconic form.
 

[oslecamo]

In my consideration a class is viable if you can put it with a party of three other viable characters, have them win equal ECL combats with a small expenditure of resources and win +4 ECL encounters 99%+ of the time if they are well rested. That makes it look like every thing the DM uses will be walked over by the PCs, I think most of the small fights should be about winning with the smallest expenditure of resources and big fights should happen after the BBEG has tired the party, lured them into a trap or imposed some other situational penalty.

Well, I don't really know what to say to that. So the players can use tome rules to sky-rocket their power level, but the DM cannot? Do you really enjoy so much beating oponents that hardly pose a threat to you for 90% of the campaign? I would find such campaign boring at best.

  Lies, thats just lies. Course you maybe speaking from ignorance I'm not sure.
 The tome doesn't do anything but provide suggestions and options for polymorph, and its obvious that you're focusing on just ONE of them, but yes polymorph is either a spell thats Very strong, or Doesn't work. Now I say "very strong" but there are some (many) versions of polymorph that don't work.  The concept of that shit is insane out the box and Frank and K provided a framework to fix it.
 THATS another thing I like about the tome I realized. . . theres' discussion there, they give options and expect you do decide how this works at you gaming table, before the bullshit starts.

You know, I could do that without any tome rules at all! Ban all the broken stuff, use the alternative rules from the splatbooks when needed (like shifter druid), and there you go! Even the single-form polymorph spells and bite of the wereX are on Spell Compendium! That's actually what most groups out there do.

So what does tome really adds to the polymorph line? An even more broken version, and another that was basically printed on an official splatbook already. End result: still more broken.

[juton]

In my consideration a class is viable if you can put it with a party of three other viable characters, have them win equal ECL combats with a small expenditure of resources and win +4 ECL encounters 99%+ of the time if they are well rested. That makes it look like every thing the DM uses will be walked over by the PCs, I think most of the small fights should be about winning with the smallest expenditure of resources and big fights should happen after the BBEG has tired the party, lured them into a trap or imposed some other situational penalty.

Well, I don't really know what to say to that. So the players can use tome rules to sky-rocket their power level, but the DM cannot? Do you really enjoy so much beating oponents that hardly pose a threat to you for 90% of the campaign? I would find such campaign boring at best.

Where did I say that? The Tome rules will skyrocket you in power if you are a Fighter or a Monk, but that just means the Druid won't resent splitting gold and XP with you. If players use Tome rules I expect a DM will too, I'm fine with that. I think the Tome classes can hang with the casters at my table, so that's why I don't mind seeing them.

As to encounter difficulty, like sunic says, when setting the difficulty for minions you have to consider iterative probability, if each squad of goblins has even a 1% chance of killing the party then it's a coin flip whether you get past level 5. Actually it's probably a lot less likely than that, because if goblins have a 1% chance of winning then the goblin's boss is going to be a lot more capable, you'd never get to the level where a party's Druid could cast reincarnate.

As to my campaigns being too easy, noooo. My DM plays intelligent enemies intelligently so if I try something like a rope trick to rest for 8 hours the BBEG is scouring the dungeon using minions or divinations to try and find me. If I teleport out of the dungeon there is a chance he'll send monsters after us. Have you ever been on the receiving end of a Scry-and-Die? It's not any fun, if I seem want to play melee edition more it's because I've grown tired of the constant paranoia that you need to adopt past level 7 to survive in caster edition.

[Solo]

Than your king asks you to leave his court and domain.

You are to be royally banished from our lands.

How'd you become king, then? I didn't vote for you.

[Senevri]

Besides that, shifting spell levels would do quite a bit. Any spell that's a must-have or obviously best for it's level is too strong, although a spell that retains its usefulness over the career of a character is just fine. Basically, it's not that Meteor Swarm is underpowered, it's just that gate, time stop and shapechange are overpowered.

Fail.

Meteor Swarm is underpowered. No, scratch that. It is completely fucking worthless. You cast it on a level SEVEN PC, and chances are they survive it. Keep in mind you are at minimum TEN LEVELS HIGHER THAN THEM, and can therefore kill an NI number of level 7s, and will if you use anything other than Meteor Swarm to do it. But since Meteor Swarm is so sad and pathetic it won't kill a single one, despite supposedly being your highest level tricl.

A seventh level character can survive on average 112 no-save damage? I guess, if optimized for HP.

Well, it's possible it'll only deal 32 damage, after all. Not to mention it's fire... :/

[Solo]

Any of the casters can get Protection from Energy, and Evasion is available in ring form.

[juton]

You can get Protection from Energy, but if you're not a Cleric it will only last a little bit over an hour at level 7. Probably not all day protection, I think a meteor swarm at level 7 has a good chance of being a TPK (even Rogues fail reflex saves). According to Optimization by the Numbers 112 damage should one-shot a monster through level 8 (with a whole bunch of caveats), potentially a bunch of monsters in an area, so something like Meteor Swarm would be very powerful for a 4th level spell, maybe even game breaking at that level.

[Kuroimaken]

You can get Protection from Energy, but if you're not a Cleric it will only last a little bit over an hour at level 7. Probably not all day protection, I think a meteor swarm at level 7 has a good chance of being a TPK (even Rogues fail reflex saves). According to Optimization by the Numbers 112 damage should one-shot a monster through level 8 (with a whole bunch of caveats), potentially a bunch of monsters in an area, so something like Meteor Swarm would be very powerful for a 4th level spell, maybe even game breaking at that level.

Sadly, it's 9th.

If only it had a clause similar to Iceberg or something.

[Solo]

It is easier to survive than a few other 9th level spells.

[Sunic_Flames]

Than your king asks you to leave his court and domain.

You are to be royally banished from our lands.

How'd you become king, then? I didn't vote for you.

I declared him the King of Fail. He seemed to think that gives him power over people that actually matter.

Besides that, shifting spell levels would do quite a bit. Any spell that's a must-have or obviously best for it's level is too strong, although a spell that retains its usefulness over the career of a character is just fine. Basically, it's not that Meteor Swarm is underpowered, it's just that gate, time stop and shapechange are overpowered.

Fail.

Meteor Swarm is underpowered. No, scratch that. It is completely fucking worthless. You cast it on a level SEVEN PC, and chances are they survive it. Keep in mind you are at minimum TEN LEVELS HIGHER THAN THEM, and can therefore kill an NI number of level 7s, and will if you use anything other than Meteor Swarm to do it. But since Meteor Swarm is so sad and pathetic it won't kill a single one, despite supposedly being your highest level tricl.

A seventh level character can survive on average 112 no-save damage? I guess, if optimized for HP.

Well, it's possible it'll only deal 32 damage, after all. Not to mention it's fire... :/

Level 7 character casts Resist Energy. Average damage is now 32. Easily survived.

Compare to Time Stop (even the tamest use makes you take around triple the damage, and that damage is less defendable against), Gate (even the tamest use gets you a creature at your CR + 3) or Weird (AoE save or die).

[Senevri]

Time Stop and Gate are overpowered. Comparing a spell to them is like the exact reverse to comparing a class to the Fighter.

I think a meteor swarm at level 7 has a good chance of being a TPK (even Rogues fail reflex saves).

And you can of course make them the primary target; as a reminder, the primary target doesn't get a save. Then again, you need to roll separately for each meteor, so there's always the chance of missing the touch AC.

At the level you get it, typically 17, it does only 2 dice less no-save damage, than a 2d6/cl spell would do. It doesn't scale up that well, though. At 17, it'll remove half of any appropriate-cr'd opponent's HP. Well, presuming they're not fire immune, but there are ways around that, Archmage being the most obvious one.
Unfortunately, it doesn't scale at all, so it's basically underpowered in two level's time.

[Sunic_Flames]

Time Stop and Gate are overpowered. Comparing a spell to them is like the exact reverse to comparing a class to the Fighter.

I think a meteor swarm at level 7 has a good chance of being a TPK (even Rogues fail reflex saves).

And you can of course make them the primary target; as a reminder, the primary target doesn't get a save. Then again, you need to roll separately for each meteor, so there's always the chance of missing the touch AC.

At the level you get it, typically 17, it does only 2 dice less no-save damage, than a 2d6/cl spell would do. It doesn't scale up that well, though. At 17, it'll remove half of any appropriate-cr'd opponent's HP. Well, presuming they're not fire immune, but there are ways around that, Archmage being the most obvious one.
Unfortunately, it doesn't scale at all, so it's basically underpowered in two level's time.

Fine. Compare to TK, from an 8 levels lower caster:

27d6, but not foiled as well by resists, or in this case DR as PCs rarely have any DR.

Now, let's see how many level 9 casters is a level 17 encounter... oh right, it's 16. And any one of them is better than you while using a lower level spell.

Face it - Meteor Swarm is sad, pathetic, and a waste of a spell, and any so called level 17 that lost half its HP from such a gimpy gimped spell of gimpiness is unworthy of the title of that level.

[Midnight_v]

So what does tome really adds to the polymorph line? An even more broken version, and another that was basically printed on an official splatbook already. End result: still more broken.

You showing your ignorance. Wizards pretty much lifted that from the tome. The tome was wrote in like 2003/4. Also I'm not going to argue is it more broken, thats just stupid, as broken is ... relative. In anycase the thing is that spell doesn't work so meh.
Still... The question is What the tome really adds. For me it adds the ability to play melees that resemble the base melee's without having to use the Tome Of batte, or be an uber charger, or be a Fighter2/paladinX/Rogue1/Knight of Black Dimonds6/Cloud Jumber4. Or without having 20 ranks in Craft: optimization.
I also don't want to play in the handwave cheat games where the party lives because the dm intentionally fumbles rolls, or doesn't have knowledge on how said creatures is meant to play at all.
Fuck that shit forever.

You know, I could do that without any tome rules at all!

Despite the mini-rage you seem to convey... really bro, thats cool... I find it to be an excellent work but I admit its not for everybody. Still it behooves me to make said knowledge available to people because I'm in the camp that it does Balance 3.5 very well, it lets the people be superheroes like they're supposed to and as a dm I enjoy it when my players are happy.
 Also it as a system encourages people to really THINK critacally about whats going on in a fantasy game world and what make one tick.
  Finally it subtly encourages, additions to it self, and in many ways wants people to CONTINUE the tome which is totally cool... I asked Frank recently how he felt about me making a Tome Psywar. and I'm gonna reprint what he said here w/out permission so if Frank reads this and is like F-you Midnight_v, Sorry frank. . .

.... At this point, people added stuff to it and reformatted things, and chopped them up and put them on wikis. I don't even know where the Tome material is. Every so often someone will confront me to congratulate/condemn/ask questions bout some "Tome" piece I didn't even write. I don't mean "something K wrote", I mean something I have never even seen that was written by someone else and is apparently supposed to be Tome compatible. And that's fine.

Sometimes I make new classes that are pretty much Tome compatible. I wrote up like a Mechanus Warrior and a mad doctor class not that long ago. But I don't compile big Tome documents any more. I wouldn't even know how to get them into the major body of work people use today.

Which is cool its moved beyond one man and inspires lots of others to continue the work.
The tome isn't even about one class or another but moreso about having a D&D game world that makes sense, and people totally have gotten that.
Here's an excerpt from some Post frank and K tome material that illustrates what I'm talking about.
From THE TOME OF TREES

The Plantinomicon: Stuff That Isn't Supposed to Move, But Does "What happens if I burn the forest down?"
"Trust me, you don't want to find out."

D&D is magical universe full of Magic. And the Nature is always alive. No, not just the animate plants, Gaia will kick you in the nads. Every forest is Lothlorian or Fanghorn to some extent, because it is all modeled off the Black Forest, and we want our forest to be alive.

The same holds true of mountains, deserts, tundra, and anything else.

Biology
Things are creatures, or they are objects. And all plants are creatures. That means all plants, even trees, even roots, have wisdom and charisma scores. But plants and animals are all part of nature. And nature is gaia, and therefore, it's all one big network, sort of.

Creature types are Kinds. Yes we hate creationists too, but D&D is created, and so every plant is descended from the same plant spore that was created totally separately than the animal spore and the humanoid spore. And how do these things work? Lamarkian descent. When a Plant gets lots of sunlight, it becomes more like a tree, and passes that on. When a Plant gets uprooted a lot, it disperses it seed before it dies, and those plants can move.

This same rule applies to all other D&D creatures except constructs, undead, and vermin. So this removes some of the "A Wizard Did It" from D&D, but not all, because a Wizard still did Vermin and undead and constructs. The Owlbear is totally a Bear that needed night vision, and to break tortoise shells or something. The Owl look is conicidental.

Plants
Plants mostly just sit around chilling in their total conscience. They are the origional pot heads, because their heads are sometimes literally made of pot. Most Plants have no Int score and just sit around waiting. This does not mean that they can't do anything, or won't. Undead (Some kinds) follow their nature by destroying life, and Plants follow their nature by chilling and relaxing all cool. When you enter a forest, it doesn't bother you until you bother it. But plants do have this pogram. It's called growing everywhere. If you start chopping or burning, they just grow back over it, and expand a little bit. But if you start limiting growth, they start creating Shambling mounds and Treants until you get the picture.

So the natural state of Plant/Humanoid interactions is not a coexistence. It's a cyclical struggle. The Trees keep encrouging on the city/town/fields, and you keep chopping them down. Eventually, they keep growing back so fast and closer and closer so you have to burn large chunks down, and that's when things get nasty. When you start attacking plants, they become plants that attack back. And then the Adventurerers are called in to put down the mean trees so you can burn the forest back a lot. When you do this, all the remaining trees are assholes. At this point, You have concentrated asshole enviroments, which for some reason everyone thinks is guarding treasure.

And since this is D&D, they are. Asshole Forests are ones reduced to their core, and the Core of every forest is built on magical Gaia energy. And that Energy is totally a welling of awesome that can be harvested. Gaia energy is totally not used as a currency by anyone, mostly because fey will attack you on site for that shit, and it doesn't work outside the material plane. But it can be used as components for crafting items in the Wish economy level.

Nature That Isn't Plants
So what about the Frostfell and the Sandstorm and the Sotrmwrack? Gaia. She's a whore, and she'll do anyone. Tundra and Desert are legitamate vessels for Gaia energy that follow the same pattern. Deserts make everything hotter, and Tundras make everything colder, and both of those try to grow the same as plants. But basically, when you want to fight them, you do it with Fire and Water, and then you have to call the adventurers to come kill the monsters that are created to eat you for bringing fire and water.

Adventuring in the Wilderness
"Why am I so hungry, it's only been like, five minutes?"
 Adventurers eat a lot. But you seriously never have to care about that again past level 7. So let's face it. Spells and immunities and shit make adventuring in the wilderness a lot like adventuring in a city that happens to have really annoying citzens who want to eat you past level 7.

So rules for these sort of things are going to be simple, but awesome.

1) Tempature. Hot enviroments make you hotter. You take fire damage in a desert. Use Sandstorm rules if you have them. They don't suck. Otherwise, use very little fire damage ticking very rarely to make your point. FR 5 should save you from the most horrible natural desert.

Cold stuff does cold damage. Use Frostburn, doesn't suck. Same generalization as above.

2) Thirst, Hunger, and sleep. The average adventurer needs 8 hours of sleep, two meals a day, and water every 4 hours to be at full condition.

If you miss a meal or water period, or get only 4 hours of sleep, you must make a DC 10 Fort save. For every succeeding period you miss after making the save make another save at +2 DC. If you fail the save, it resets.

If you get no sleep, the DC is 15. Each successive missed sleep period is at +2 to DC. The DC does not increase if you sleep four hours, but you must still make a save.

If you fail any of these saves, you immediately become fatigued. If you are fatigued and fail a save, you become exhausted. If you are exhausted and fail a save, you die. Tough shit.

To cure your fatigue or Exhaustion from food or water, you need only eat two full meals in the same day, or drink enough water for a day. For sleep, you need to sleep for 12 hours.

This Fatigue and Exhaustion is cured by spells or items that do so. And the DCs reset when it is done so.

3) Wandering around and getting lost.

PHB/DMG rules are pretty good for this. DC 20 Survival to locate north, find a map.

Poison and Disease
"Stay away from it's claws. And it's Mouth. And really, just yeah..."

Poison is way to expensive and sucks. This is largely fixed by the Book of Gears once the Wish economy sets in. But in the meantime...

Poison: Poison is hard to find and annoying to have, but it's cheap. Cut all Poison prices by a fourth. Poison DCs scale based on amount, Using two doses increases the DC by 2, but takes two actions to apply. This caps at 5 doses, after that extra poison is useless. Poisons still do what they do.

 

I advocate the tomes because of thing like the above. The people working on it are smarter than the people who've worked on D&D for the past 15 years. Further unlike the pathfinder people, they actually KNOW what the design goal is, because they have actual analysis from other smart people.
Some guys ... hate that... they really resent seeing the "bones" of a system and don't like the snarky approach of the authors, that doesn't make the authors less right.

Ban all the broken stuff, use the alternative rules from the splatbooks when needed (like shifter druid), and there you go!

Finally this... broken stuff too often boils down to "stuff I don't like". Nothing that isn't Theoretical Optimization is "obviously Broken" a term many idiots use, because its just NOT obvious its totally relative.
Oh and one thing that I enjoy about the tome mechanically is this...
I'd like to be able to play a fighter 20. I want that to not suck or be punished for the system for trying it. In fact I want it to be AWESOME to do so. Same thing with the monk. . .
No other system seems to let me do that. They ask that I play a warblade or something. . . which ... makes me unhappy in some intagible way.

Time Stop and Gate are overpowered. Comparing a spell to them is like the exact reverse to comparing a class to the Fighter

I disagree
Gate, yeah kinda... seems people only use that shit to break games.
TimeStop?
 Not so much at the final levels of the game... its the kind of stuff that one expects from the final level of the game.
The balor's Blasphemy, the dragons are God Awful face stomp powerful... and so is everything else or so everything else should be at the last level.
Still I don't really play up there very often comparatively so ymmv.
So in someway I feel like saying "Time Stop is overpowerd" leads to a discussion on extra action in general being overpowered. Still since people get extra actions anywhere AT ALL... time stop doesn't bother me so much.

I'm more bothered about having to fight a black pudding as a level 7 melee fighter or a hydra at level 6.
 

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Now, let's see how many level 9 casters is a level 17 encounter... oh right, it's 16. And any one of them is better than you while using a lower level spell.

That's hardly a fair comparison.  Telekinesis is brokengood.

Besides, the CR system breaks down for larger numbers of opponents.

A CR 15 encounter is 107 CR 2 monsters.

A commoner1 ghost2 is CR2.  So are sharks, shocker lizards, and bugbears.  The legion of ghosts could easily create a total party wipe - the others would be a speedbump at best.  Hell, 107 sorcerer1s casting magic missile could do you in.

[lans]

And? They're still faster than you.

Are they twice as fast? Because if their not then they can't attack, and are wasting their action while 3 other characters are trying to kill them.

If one of the characters has a draconic aura the party can heal up to half while taking no actions other than running. Which at lower levels is enough to eat a full attack  and not die. Usually.

[Epimetheus]

Than your king asks you to leave his court and domain.

You are to be royally banished from our lands.

How'd you become king, then? I didn't vote for you.

I declared him the King of Fail. He seemed to think that gives him power over people that actually matter.

Besides that, shifting spell levels would do quite a bit. Any spell that's a must-have or obviously best for it's level is too strong, although a spell that retains its usefulness over the career of a character is just fine. Basically, it's not that Meteor Swarm is underpowered, it's just that gate, time stop and shapechange are overpowered.

Fail.

Meteor Swarm is underpowered. No, scratch that. It is completely fucking worthless. You cast it on a level SEVEN PC, and chances are they survive it. Keep in mind you are at minimum TEN LEVELS HIGHER THAN THEM, and can therefore kill an NI number of level 7s, and will if you use anything other than Meteor Swarm to do it. But since Meteor Swarm is so sad and pathetic it won't kill a single one, despite supposedly being your highest level tricl.

A seventh level character can survive on average 112 no-save damage? I guess, if optimized for HP.

Well, it's possible it'll only deal 32 damage, after all. Not to mention it's fire... :/

Level 7 character casts Resist Energy. Average damage is now 32. Easily survived.

There are so many problems with that argument.

How would you know which kind of resist energy to cast? Why are you casting Resist Energy at all? How do you make sure that you go first? How do you even know they'll cast Meteor Swarm? How do you know it won't be energy subbed? All these uncertainties make it unlikely that a level 7 could prepare against Meteor Swarm.

(Aside: The only way I can think of is a Celerity Wizard with Mass Resist Energy prepared. The downside is that... these are both 4th lvl Wizard spells, and generally they only have 3 slots (1 normal, 1 specialist, 1 bonus). And very few actually would prepare MassResistEnergy as a Wizard when the cleric/druid version is a 3rd lvl spell.)

So Meteor Swarm is NOT easily survived at lvl 7. Chances are that very few level 7's will survive it, yes, even casters. There's no need to contend every point Senevri makes because you'll be wrong, if you take it too far.

The only right thing that's been repeated is that Meteor Swarm is far worse than the other 9th lvl spells.

[Senevri]

Fine. Compare to TK, from an 8 levels lower caster:

27d6, but not foiled as well by resists, or in this case DR as PCs rarely have any DR.

Now, let's see how many level 9 casters is a level 17 encounter... oh right, it's 16. And any one of them is better than you while using a lower level spell.

True, on the other hand, how many level 3 casters is a level 17 encounter? My math is bad, but I think it's 124128. Now, what's the damage on Acid Arrow again?
Besides, I thought using multiple low-level creatures was lame, or something?

*edit* ninja'd by TML, more or less.
*edit2* 8. I meant 8. I'm bad, but not that bad. I blame the headache.

Face it - Meteor Swarm is sad, pathetic, and a waste of a spell, and any so called level 17 that lost half its HP from such a gimpy gimped spell of gimpiness is unworthy of the title of that level.

Well, if we either remove or bump up the broken crap like gate, shapechange and time stop it does better by comparison. Sure, it's direct damage.

And as for l17s, I admit dragons have more, but a Marilith at 216 HP, and a Frost Jarl Giant are right in the correct ballpark.
Let's see... Nightcrawler at CR 18 has 212 HP, a Pit Fiend has 225 and so forth. Presuming a way to circumvent elemental immunity, two meteor swarms kill some, and three kill most opponents. Well, without a critical hit, which are rather unlikely.

But, of course, equal-cr encounters are just to be steamrolled over by full casters, right? None of this fight lasts more than one round crap....

[Kuroimaken]

And? They're still faster than you.

Are they twice as fast? Because if their not then they can't attack, and are wasting their action while 3 other characters are trying to kill them.

If one of the characters has a draconic aura the party can heal up to half while taking no actions other than running. Which at lower levels is enough to eat a full attack  and not die. Usually.

Where is the twice as fast bit coming from? You can use trip on a charge, you know. That means your foe can't even disengage safely anymore.

[lans]

And? They're still faster than you.

Are they twice as fast? Because if their not then they can't attack, and are wasting their action while 3 other characters are trying to kill them.

If one of the characters has a draconic aura the party can heal up to half while taking no actions other than running. Which at lower levels is enough to eat a full attack  and not die. Usually.

Where is the twice as fast bit coming from? You can use trip on a charge, you know. That means your foe can't even disengage safely anymore.

You can run 4x your speed.