Some Race/Class Mechanics that need work.
FletcherBrown
Member Posts: 8
As you will soon be able to tell. I like to play stealth/radar type characters. There are 3 things in the base game that affect a huge percentage of these types of characters.
1. Rogues only can find traps above DC 20: I know that this is base 3.0 DND but it is really a bad rule. Either, get rid of it all together, or provide access to advanced trapfinding via feat. There is no reason for a ranger who specializes in search and set traps to have to dip a level of rogue just to be viable as a scout late game.
2. Elven Keen Senses is to strong: If you want to play a scout type character (search, spot, listen), especially one who is also a stealthy, you have to be an elf in muli-player. Activating the "active search mode" cuts speed in half, and then activating "stealth mode" cuts it in half again. A character moving at 1/4 speed has no chance of performing as a scout. My fix, give the same ability to the underwhelming halfelf at least, and probably make it accessible via a feet that requires ranks in search/spot/listen.
3. Bards can't cast in armor: Again, I know that this is cannon 3.0 DND but 3.0 is the only edition of the game that made this mistake. 3.0 bards are weak. Allowing them to cast in armor separates them from the pure arcane casters and gives them a niche. My solution would be to allow them a -10% to arcane spell failure directly and access to even more (perhaps another 10%) via feats. This makes masterwork/mithrial items more valuable and would let someone who built towards it actually play a front line bard.
If all three of these changes were implemented, the number of viable "scout/dex/rogueish" build in the game would skyrocket. None of these rules are really good in the first place.
Please correct me if there is something that I am overlooking.
1. Rogues only can find traps above DC 20: I know that this is base 3.0 DND but it is really a bad rule. Either, get rid of it all together, or provide access to advanced trapfinding via feat. There is no reason for a ranger who specializes in search and set traps to have to dip a level of rogue just to be viable as a scout late game.
2. Elven Keen Senses is to strong: If you want to play a scout type character (search, spot, listen), especially one who is also a stealthy, you have to be an elf in muli-player. Activating the "active search mode" cuts speed in half, and then activating "stealth mode" cuts it in half again. A character moving at 1/4 speed has no chance of performing as a scout. My fix, give the same ability to the underwhelming halfelf at least, and probably make it accessible via a feet that requires ranks in search/spot/listen.
3. Bards can't cast in armor: Again, I know that this is cannon 3.0 DND but 3.0 is the only edition of the game that made this mistake. 3.0 bards are weak. Allowing them to cast in armor separates them from the pure arcane casters and gives them a niche. My solution would be to allow them a -10% to arcane spell failure directly and access to even more (perhaps another 10%) via feats. This makes masterwork/mithrial items more valuable and would let someone who built towards it actually play a front line bard.
If all three of these changes were implemented, the number of viable "scout/dex/rogueish" build in the game would skyrocket. None of these rules are really good in the first place.
Please correct me if there is something that I am overlooking.
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Comments
As for the Bard, I actually disagree since there are feats that reduce Arcane Spell Failure from armor.
And I say this not only as some who has hunted for over thirty years, but is also a burglar.
Granted it isn't part of the base game (and I think it has some problems with custom armor appearance types), it is doable.
It's definitely a feature I like.
Playing modules that don't address this I've taken still spell with my bards who wore armor. There are a couple spells they have that have no somatic component anyway, but it was the way I had to do it.
The random enchantment system in my mod occasionally puts some arcane spell failure reduction on armors, usually enough to make light armor good, but never enough to make heavy armor free of some spell failure. However, some gloves and shields will have enough to cover some of the difference.