D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[JaronK]

Monk level alone should be fine.  Then if you want to play a super acrobating monk, just put more points into it.

JaronK

[Risada]

Alright....

And now I ask: is the monk lacking anything besides this last stuff? Or we can add this last stuff and call it done?

Also, what book is the wildshape ranger in?

UA. Or here.

[RabidPirateMan]

Wildshape variant is pretty strong, but with full animal companion progress, the ranger is already receiving a big boost in power.  I'd hold off on giving him big stuff until we deal with the problem classes first.

Scouts probably need a boost to bring them up to par, but that's for another thread.

[Midnight_v]

Well ... it doesn't address my suggestion or notation to say "discuss in another thread".

I say that the scout and ranger are one class. The swift hunter feat exists largely because WotC realized that the 2 were one class I think.

  Almost all the ranger builds we've seen since that feat came out have been swift hunters, it has its own handbook, afterall...

[Risada]

Well ... it doesn't address my suggestion or notation to say "discuss in another thread".

I say that the scout and ranger are one class. The swift hunter feat exists largely because WotC realized that the 2 were one class I think.

  Almost all the ranger builds we've seen since that feat came out have been swift hunters, it has its own handbook, afterall...

I agree with you, but you plan on incorporating the Swift Hunter feat and full Skirmish progression at the Ranger (and possibly making it gain 6 + int mod skill points per level)?

[JaronK]

I dunno, Scout and Ranger have some useful differences... one is a spellcasting/skillmonkey/warrior hybrid, while one is a skillmonkey.  I like them as different classes, and as such am loath to just give Rangers Skirmish, as I feel it steps too much on the Scout.

Also, the Wildshape Ranger is already pretty darn balanced.  It's basically just a different weapon style.  Therefor, we should just power up the other two weapon styles a little (TWF and Archery) to match, and we're basically done with that one.  Perhaps simply give a few more feats to each, or throw in a few cool class abilities?  TWF might also gain the Two Weapon Defense line, Two Weapon Rend, and a scaling ability to make extra attacks as a standard action... perhaps at an early level you get the ability to make an attack with both weapons as a standard action, then later you'd start getting iteratives.  It would be very handy to Swift Hunter builds, and also generally useful, and gives something like pounce without actually giving pounce (which I don't want to hand out like candy to everyone).  Meanwhile, the Archery style might give Greater Manyshot and some range increases, along with the ability to deal precision damage at longer range and reduced penalties for sniping.

Just a thought.

JaronK

[AndyJames]

Give TWD and Archery Defence (same thing but for ranged weapons) as additions to the Combat Style thing. That way, only Rangers get them, and wouldn't make some people cry about Rogues.

[Midnight_v]

Well ... it doesn't address my suggestion or notation to say "discuss in another thread".

I say that the scout and ranger are one class. The swift hunter feat exists largely because WotC realized that the 2 were one class I think.

  Almost all the ranger builds we've seen since that feat came out have been swift hunters, it has its own handbook, afterall...

I agree with you, but you plan on incorporating the Swift Hunter feat and full Skirmish progression at the Ranger (and possibly making it gain 6 + int mod skill points per level)?

No but From Dictuum Mortuum. Swift hunter handbook.

Those of you who still wonder what swift hunter is, i'll enlighten you. Swift Hunter is a feat from the supplement complete scoundrel. It has the requirement of +1d6/+1 skirmish and a favored enemy. It stacks ranger and scout levels for the amount of skirmish you get and your favored enemies. You can also apply skirmish damage to your favored enemies, even if they are normally immune to it.

This is a quick chart to determine your abilities from your combined ranger + scout level. As you can see it is not optimal to take levels in ranger + scout that their sum equals to 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16 or 18 levels.
Favored Enemy, Skirmish +1d6/+0
.
Skirmish +1d6/+1
.
Favored Enemy, Skirmish +2d6/+1
.
Skirmish +2d6/+2
.
Skirmish +3d6/+2
Favored Enemy
Skirmish +3d6/+3
.
Skirmish +4d6/+3
.
Favored Enemy, Skirmish +4d6/+4
.
Skirmish +5d6/+4
.
Skirmish +5d6/+5
Favored Enemy
 

As a chasis and we fill in everything else as we see fit.
Here's the link to the actuall handbook.

Swift Hunter's handbook

I dunno, Scout and Ranger have some useful differences... one is a spellcasting/skillmonkey/warrior hybrid, while one is a skillmonkey.  I like them as different classes, and as such am loath to just give Rangers Skirmish, as I feel it steps too much on the Scout

Ahh... I don't intend to step on the scouts feet.

It is my intent to... MELD the two into a single class. Lock them in a with a paring knife and no food as they say... and a single potion of Barhest feast.
Frankly because from what I see on the boards(various) and at home and at MLGS There are no rangers or scouts that arent' swift hunters.
Its a natural evolution.
I suppose maybe its just me. . . I see the possiblity of eliminating one of them since they are already so closely tied. . .

The more I look at it and research on it I think a swift hunter ranger is properly low tier 3.
Giving it a full animal companion advancement will let you play the damned drow elf "out the box" so to speak ...
much to the delight of fan boys everywhere.

[JaronK]

I suppose, and I guess the Wilderness Varient Rogue kind of fits the non magical nature oriented scout idea.  But my thinking was that there are two distinct roles to be filled, the skillmonkey scout type and the nature warrior type, and thus the classes should be more distinct, instead of melded together.

JaronK

[Kuroimaken]

Monk level alone should be fine.  Then if you want to play a super acrobating monk, just put more points into it.

The DCs for wuxia level stuff are in the hundreds. You're not even close with monk levels. 2x monk levels would help you get there faster, though you still won't be doing ludicrous stuff before epic.

[RabidPirateMan]

Level 6, Ranger with the TWF tree can make an attack with each of his weapons as a standard action.  Level 11, Ranger gets a Rend attack if both hit.

And remember, the animal companion is really strong.  If we buff up the ranger to the point that he's strong without his buddy, it'll be broken.

Ranger fits the mechanic of a Fighter/Druid- divine nature casting, animal companion, bonus feats, blah blah blah.  Favored Enemy is his big unique shtick.

Scout is more of a Ranger/Rogue cross.  I don't think WotC thought the two combo feats were so powerful (at least one of them) that it becomes a staple to the class.  If we want to make it so it isn't, then we need to make the Ranger and Scout more desirable beyond simply having Skirmish and FE.  Animal companion does that pretty damn well for the ranger, but as it is, the Scout doesn't have that many great class features beyond Skirmish.  This is the problem- making classes one trick ponies.

[Elennsar]

There's a table in OA with Tumble DCs for various absurd feats of tumbling. If anyone's curious, I can look it up and quote it.

Midnight: The problem is not "Fighter the mook killer." The problem is that a 6th level person is not really a mook. They're a pretty darn capable person, if possibly far less so than you, they're not someone of insignificance.

I don't mind "Warrior classes get nice things" or the like. I want warrior classes to have nice things. I play warriors.

What I don't want is "more power" to be considered "nice things". Some powerful things are awesome. Some are not.

 I'd rather balance them with spellcasters by making spellcasters weakER than by making a Fighter able to take on two and a half million Persians by himself.

Saying "we need to make fighters stronger!!!!!" is overlooking the fact that I-can-do-anything Clerics/Druids/Wizards will still make him feel useless when they still are able to do ALL sorts of awesome if left alone.

More on mooks: As stated, a halfway smart fighter won't -get- leaped on by a hundred mooks at once, this includes Drizzt and Conan and Leonidas (300's or Three Hundred's). Wolverine never ran into a hundred mooks at a time to begin with to the best of my knowledge (which isn't much). One who -is- has a problem.

As for "fitting for the challenge rating"...I don't really think that its fitting for the genre (let alone believable) for a giant to be just as easy to beat (once you're at it's CR +4) as a kobold was. Kobolds are just plain wretched. Giants are nothing to take lightly, even if you're skilled and nuts enough to do what Drizzt did, it's not a fight without a certain risk of getting your butt kicked if things don't go right.

Now, AT that CR...

Giants were slain by "I'm smarter than he is, I'm going to take advantage of that." (Sir Marhalt, one of Arthur's knights, Drizzt) as much as "I'm able to rip his arm out of his socket and beat him to death with it." (Beowulf, presumably Wolverine, maybe Conan...he could go either way.)

So, I wouldn't mind rewarding fighters for doing Marhalt's and Drizzt's thing. Both are cool. Arguing that only beating someone to death with his own arm is cool is unreasonable.

As for rangers:

I'd like to make the animal companion/spellcasting an option. Not a balance thing, I know. But it ought to be possible to find a variant set of class features where you're a woodsman, not an ecoterrorist, and balance it, and the "and make it balanced' is why I mention it here.

[JaronK]

A 6th level person is DEFINITELY a mook if the party is 12th level.  A 12th level person is a mook in an epic game.  It's all relative.  And yeah, any 12th level character ought to be able to smash all but the strongest 6th level characters relatively easily.

So yes, if you're a super high level character, a giant is going to be toast, unless that giant is also super high level.

JaronK

[Elennsar]

That's terribly untrue to the genre.

Sure, Drizzt beats giants, but if they do manage to hit (not impossible), Drizzt is going to be hurting.

Whether or not the D&D hit point system (but not level > lower level) sucks for this is a seperate issue, but in some way or another, "a half dozen giants" is not something even Drizzt thinks is a cakewalk.

Doable, yes. Effortless, no.

As for being relative: Not particularly. Mooks tend to be the faceless minions, yes?

Somehow, the idea that Rome's Finest is just as faceless and irrelevant as Persia's Weakest bothers me.

[RabidPirateMan]

As long as we are on monks, was it ever decided whether to add in scaling weapon damage on top of the scaling unarmed strike damage, or was that thrown out of the window?

Or was it forgotten?

Or is this point better posted on the Equipment thread?

[Elennsar]

I'd discuss it here.

1) Not just monks should hit hard unarmed.

2) Fighting unarmed should not be superior (even, perhaps, superior, no) to armed.

3) Monks should not do more damage than fighters (small f).

It was mentioned but I don't beleive any conclusions on how to handle this were reached.

[RobbyPants]

Also, what book is the wildshape ranger in?

UA. Or here.

Thanks.  I have that, and for some reason, I thought it was in another book.

Level 6, Ranger with the TWF tree can make an attack with each of his weapons as a standard action.  Level 11, Ranger gets a Rend attack if both hit.

I'd suggested TW Rend at 11th level before.  I like the idea of double attack as standard at 6th level.  I think you might be right that with a full Animal Companion progression, this will be enough for him.  I also think I'm fine with not melding ranger to scout.  I like the flexibilty of being able to choose between the two.

Now, as for the wildshape ranger, should we leave the wildshape rules alone?  I'd dropped them from the druid (in favor of the shapechange variant) and I've been reworking Polymorph.  As far as the ranger's concerened, should I leave it be, or is it abusable?

As long as we are on monks, was it ever decided whether to add in scaling weapon damage on top of the scaling unarmed strike damage, or was that thrown out of the window?

I've always liked the idea.  It's a nice way to let them bypass odd DR without sacrificing damage.  Also, they can enchant their attacks better.

[RabidPirateMan]

Here's the table I posted before-  Sorry about the bad jokes, its just how my brain works.

Well, the monk weapon damage goes like this:

Say we have a Monk, who we will call Suk King.  Suk King is in 3.5, and wants to be a shuriken thrower.  Too bad for Suk King, huh?

But wait! Suk King just heard of this awesome thing- he now stacks his bonuses to unarmed strike to his weapons!  Hooray for Suk King!

At level 1, Suk King throws a Shuriken for 1d2 damage.  Pitiful, Suk King.

At level 4, along with his fists, Suk King gets a boost to all his weapons.  In this case, the Shuriken does 1d3 damage now.

At 8, 1d4.  At 12, 1d6.  At 16, 1d8.  At level 20, when Suk King throws a Shuriken, he deals 1d10 damage with it.  Damn, Suk King, you're pimp- you should change your name to Gay Ting Sukt.

However, this may be too much, since there are weapons that already do as much damage as a monk's base unarmed strike at level one.  Perhaps taper it off by monk level -4?  In the end, Shurikens do 1d8 and a quarter staff will do 2d8- fists still do 2d10, making them the best damage weapon, but they also don't get the bonuses to trip, disarm and stuff like his other weapons (which, by the way, need to be treated as medium in the hands of a monk, since it makes no sense to wield them for that purpose as a light weapon- you take a -2 penalty to disarming when using a nunchuck.  Stupid).

This helps with Elennsar's point about US being better than weapons, which I agree with, they should be equal- in terms of raw damage, sure, fists go on top, but a Quarterstaff will allow two enchantments, rather than one.  Every other monk weapon has some bonus to tripping or disarming or such, so the difference lies in there.  This also makes ranged monks viable and boosts small sized monks.

Robby- Hmm... are we tweaking MMs?  If so, leave wildshape as is, and we just have to fix Fleshrakers and Dire Tigers and the like.   Otherwise... well, time to crunch.

[Elennsar]

A good stupid joke or three can be an eloquent way to get a point across, or just one of those mental foibles that are what we can't quite program into AIs (and probably thusly why AI is a contradiction in terms.)

Annnywaaay.

On the actual subject at hand:

I would say no to "monk weapons increase", at least that far. That makes a monk FAR too effective a fighter in terms of damage.

That said:

A quarterstaff is either a big club (and very good at that!) OR very good at defensive stuff (Bonus to AC, for Terra's sake!) but not so good at offense (1d6/1d6 will do).

I would do this.

A monk (or anyone else putting the effort in) can do up to 1d8 unarmed.

Similarly, monk weapons can do that with sufficient effort. (I'd personally rather have them be "monks use them because they don't have the option of something better"...a monk with access to martial weapon proficiency is perfectly fine by me. Nunchucks don't strike me as particularly cool...I'm not against them, but I don't want to feel obligated to like them when I play a monk who uses a weapon.)

Monks get (as class features, anyone else has to spend feats) all sorts of nasty and cruel things to do unarmed, up to and including pinkies of doom (quivering palm by whatever we renamed it not included, I just mean the nastiness that can be done mundanely.), but BASE unarmed damage is capped at 1d8, maybe even 1d6.

A monk's ki strike allows him to bypass DR +1 and DR lawful.  (I dislike "DR/magic weapon". I prefer 3e here. Your mileage may vary.)

If a monk wishes to enhance his unarmed strike, he pays for it as if they were a weapon. (none of this double cost crap)

If a monk wants to bypass DR cold iron, adamantine, silver, or any of that sort of thing, he has to get one of those weapons.

But note this thought!

We may want to figure out what is equivalant to that in terms of enhancement.

For instance, silver OR a +2 weapon, cold iron OR a +3 weapon, adamantine OR a +5 weapon.

That way, special material DR is easier to penetrate with a special material weapon, but a sufficiently powerful weapon can beat it even if it isn't of that material.

After all, it isn't that ONLY silver weapons can injury a werewolf (for instance).

Thoughts?

Suk King won't do as well as in Pirate's version, but he'll still be able to do well enough, I believe.

[JaronK]

Wait, why can't Monks do more damage than fighters?  Some fighter types are tanky controllers... they shouldn't do more damage.  Monks are more fragile in general too... they have to have benefits!  They just shouldn't do better overall in combat than pure melee types.

JaronK