Min/Max Boards

I've been following 5e, in fact, I'm a huge fan of 5e, and I've been running it for a group of players for a while now, but... what happened to the D&D internet community since 3e? Yes, I realize a lot has changed from 3e to 5e, casters are no where near what they used to be, and core 5e is WAY better balanced than core 3e, but I'm watching some old 3e stalwarts, well-versed with the system and the theory behind criticizing it, turn nearly 180 and talk about things like DM fiat and mundanes with no versatility like they're great design and the whole point of the system and that anyone who thinks otherwise are just missing the point. Someone literally just said something to the effect of, "yeah, that's D&D, casters have all the power, if you don't want that, play a different game." What happened to the old homebrew mentality, the old fix-it spirit in these guys, where a little rational thought and some creativity could make D&D so much more than its published parts?

This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387921-Martials-vs-Casters-Is-it-really-still-a-problem/page3) is becoming a source of dread for me.  I've stopped posting about it, because what I say just seems to fly over everyone's heads, and the opposition will just repeat the exact same points over and over again. Hell, in a thread discussing a lack of mundane versatility, someone, quite seriously, argued that it's not a problem that the Bard, a full-caster with its own powerful 1st through 9th level spells, has more mundane versatility than any mundane character short of the Rogue (and can be argued to have just as much mundane versatility as the Rogue). There was nothing I could do to convince anyone that the Bard, a powerful wizard, having greater mundane ability than the Barbarian and Fighter was an issue. Nobody wanted to hear it. Nobody believed it.

It's been about a year since I was a player in any D&D game. My group of friends has played 3.5 since the beginning of the system and though we gave 4e a brief (very brief) try, we have stuck with it ever since. I'd love to get them to try D&D Next, but with it being incomplete and so very flawed and simple, I know they would have little to no interest in doing a playtest.

I am left to wonder how many groups out there are actually actively playtesting the new edition of D&D, rather than just sounding off about it. Voters may change their vote as their stance changes (if at all) and can see results of the poll after they vote. Thanks!

Let's say we have a Fighter class with 1 maneuver known per odd class level. So he gets a bonus feat at 1st, a bonus feat at every even level, and a Warblade maneuver known at every odd level. He has a number of readied maneuvers equal to the attacks he's allowed from BAB. So, at 1st, he's got 1 readied maneuver, at 6th he's got 2 readied maneuvers, at 11th he's got 3, and at 16th he's got 4. Initiating Boosts and Strikes costs an attack from his full attack sequence, or a standard action. He's not allowed to use Strikes with a full-round initiation. So, boosts are fairly pointless until 6th level, unless he's got a source of extra attacks. If a Fighter has readied a Counter, for each Counter readied in this way, he gives up one of his attacks granted by BAB (including the one he would normally be able to make as a standard action). A Fighter does not expend his maneuvers after initiating them, he can initiate his readied maneuvers at will. He may ready new maneuvers with 5 minutes of rest. He would also learn Stances like a Warblade.

Or something to that effect. You'd probably also want to use a house rule that made iterative attacks either at full base attack bonus or cap the penalty at -5 from BAB.

Anyway, what do you think of such an idea?

I have been inspired. By the success of Kickstarter, by the not-so-great stuff I'm seeing for D&D Next, and by all of the design mistakes Pathfinder repeated from D&D 3.5. I'm convinced that I can put together a better game than the ones we've got, and I'm of the notion to sell it.

In the past, I've worked with a team of designers and optimizers to attempt a project of this sort. We actually got quite a lot of work done, even without project leads (like Lead Designer or Lead Developer). What we did then was have a section of our forum sequestered for our use only, private (and invisible as far as I know) to the rest of the forum, where we chatted amongst ourselves every day.

What I would like to do for this project is either a version of the same thing, or start a forum of our own (though with the fees that go along with that I may need to start the Kickstarter before that can happen), where we discuss the project.

The thing I want to do differently is to designate teams and leadership. A clear and finite Design Team with a Lead Designer, that works on the creative side of game mechanics. A clear and finite Development Team with a Lead Developer, that works on the functionality and user-friendliness side of game mechanics.

The Lead Designer (ostensibly myself) would be responsible for establishing the design goals and vision, organizing the design process, and, after weighing the opinions of the design team, making the final decisions on what goes over to development for editing/approval.

The Lead Developer (probably not myself unless no one else wants to do it) would be responsible for organizing the editing and rules-approval process, establishing the criteria with which that process operates, and, after receiving documents from the Lead Designer, preparing the game documents for publication.

Design goals:

1) Reproduce the play-style and feel of D&D 3.5 while fixing the problems and at the same time creating a game that is different enough that I don't need any rights to anything. This means making a d20 game and not a D&D rewrite. And that's okay.

2) Keep the "Core" rules simple and functional. The fluff needs to inform the mechanics and the mechanics need to inform the fluff. If the Fighter is supposed to be an elite vanguard, seasoned bodyguard, grizzled veteran, and cunning sergeant all in one, then the mechanics need to support all of that at once (and probably allow specialization to some extent). Everything must be easy to understand and hard to fuck up. Playable out of the box, as much so, if not more so, than Tome of Battle was/is.

3) Maintain a clear vision of what the product aims to be and to do, and include in that vision a picture of the future. While the core product should be simple and functional, plans to offer expansions with more complex, diverse, and interesting sets of mechanics should be accounted for and encouraged.

The Plan:

Here's where you potentially come in. I can't design a whole new game on my own, even if it is a d20 D&D 3.5 heartbreaker. I've tried it before. I don't normally get very far. I want to put together a team of talented designers, writers, and any optimizers who would like to serve as consultants and playtesters to help me build a better game.

I want to write one book that has all of the rules needed to play + a somewhat short section on game mastering which would include encounter guidelines and monster creation guidelines. This one book should be all one absolutely needs to play the game. In this book, I want a few classes that simply do what they say they do, and do it as simply as we can manage.

I want to make sure I have the team together and make sure that there is enough interest in our product, and then, assuming that both remain true, work on expansions to the single, core rulebook. The first of these expansions should likely be a Monster Manual of sorts (though it would be nice to make this book a catch-all encounter guidebook, with social and puzzle encounters drawn up as well, perhaps call it the Grimoire of Challenges). After that we can design sub-systems to our hearts content, creating our own versions of the Complete series, our own Unearthed Arcanas, and our own Tomes of Battle.

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This is being cross-posted at giantitp.com.

So, what I want to know is: Your attention, do I have it? Who would join me on this quest? Who would support me, if not in actually writing the game, with monetary donation (in however small amounts)? In spirit? Let me know if you want to help me out in any way.

First we hear that Monte is leaving the company, and now this. WotC plans to reprint the 3.5 PHB, DMG, and MM.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Now, I checked Amazon for confirmation, but I didn't find the books on Amazon (not these new reprints anyway). For the price, I'm probably going to buy these if the information is legit.

Elf Racial Traits (Based on the Elf rewrite found here)
+2 to any one Mental ability score (Int, Wis, or Cha), -2 to any one Physical ability score (Str, Dex, or Con).
Medium. As medium creatures, elves have no special bonuses or penalties based on size.
Base land speed is 30 feet.
Low-light vision. Elves can see twice as far as normal in cases of poor illumination.
+2 racial bonus on all Spellcraft and Use Magic Device checks. Elves are naturally adept at handling magic, and are educated in it from a young age.
+2 racial bonus on Spot and Listen checks. Elves are quite aware of their surroundings.
Trance: Elves do not sleep. Instead, they enter a sort of trance. It functions as a normal sleep, but the elf is aware of his surroundings as if here were awake, with the following penalties: he takes a -4 penalty on all perception based checks, and taking any actions immediately interrupts his trance.
Magical Acolyte: An Elf has a caster level, both arcane and divine, that is the sum of his class levels, including non-spellcasting classes, even if he does not possess levels in any spellcasting classes. This caster level can be substituted for the caster level of any spellcasting classes he possesses, and it is increased or decreased as normal by all effects that increase or decrease caster level (such as Karma Beads or the Mage Slayer feat). This represents the magical tutoring all elves receive from an incredibly young age (by their standards).
Automatic Languages: Common, Elven. Bonus Languages: Any.
Favored Class: Any spellcaster.

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What do you think? I'm hoping this remains interesting to a variety of character types and is strong enough to support those characters without offering too much power. I'm most worried about Magical Acolyte, but I feel like it's on par with a Kalashtar's (or similar race) gain of 1 PP per character level.

So, I've recently become enamored with the idea of playing a Gnome or Halfling of some variety mounted on a Wolf. I don't like the idea of being an uber-charger or uber-mount character, necessarily, but I'm not ruling out a warrior of some kind either. I really don't have any idea what sort of character I would want to play. Possibly a "wild champion" type, or "fey-champion" which is broad enough to be playable with many different builds.

Something I just considered that might be really fun is Glaivelock.

Any suggestions on builds?

I've never played a mounted character before, so optimization advice is also very welcome.

Say what you will about him/her, Basket Burner is right about a few things regarding optimization, viable strategies, and monsters in D&D 3.5. The monsters are over there. They do have stock statistics, and without a baseline degree of effectiveness, PCs either will or will not be viable when we discuss D&D using in the "common" tongue. Sure, all games are played with some form of houserules. But, since we cannot know what houserules are being used, the only way we can discuss D&D together is by discussing it as written.

What one DM does with his D&D game and how he makes the game fun for his players is irrelevant to this discussion. Arguing that tanking is viable in one DMs game because he does "X, Y, and Z" to make it so, is akin to having an argument with someone in one language but trying to prove your point using only words and terms from a language that the other person doesn't speak. It's pointless and doesn't work.

So, yes, objectively, there is a determinable "height" on the "You Must Be This Tall to Ride the Ride" scale for D&D. Which is to say that, when measured against the capabilities of Team Monster, there are numbers that Team PC must be able to produce with their passive scores and their die rolls in order to survive for any extended period of time.

In this thread, I would like to examine exactly how tall one must be to ride the ride that is D&D 3.5. To do so, I will be using the following tools:

The Hypertext d20 SRD - The actual, factual statistics of stock, D&D monsters can be found there, as can all other relevant combat rules, and other important bits of information. We can literally look at the values we need to meet and/or beat in order to play the game.

D&D (3.5) Monster Finder - Using this, we can filter out sources of monsters, and sort them by CR. This should prove helpful in determining the numbers that PCs must produce in order to play the game at every level of the game.

As far as the criteria that should be used to judge the relative "height" of PCs, well, I could come up with my own, but I think it would be much more useful for everyone if we agreed to a set of criteria as a community.

What this thread should show, eventually, if we can avoid baiting and flaming each other for long enough, is that there is at the very least a baseline of PC competency require to play the game at all. Beyond that, it should show that below this baseline, playing is ostensibly impossible without houserules or other DM intervention. It's possible that this thread can show that for certain values over the baseline, playing becomes unrewarding for being too easy, predictable, and/or boring.

If we're lucky, this thread might even provide insight into something like the fabled "sweet spot" of optimization, which is sure to be subjective between every single D&D player and DM ever, wherein the PCs are able to play the game and be effective enough to not die and yet remain challenged and engaged in the game such that they, gasp, have fun.

The Fighter
Note: this class is nothing special. It's meant to reach mid-high Tier 4 status, so that I can then use lots of my homebrew feats to jack it up to Tier 3 level and then play it in the All-Homebrew pbp found HERE.

HD: d10
Alignment: Any


LV   BASE ATTACK BONUS  FORT  REF  WILL   SPECIAL
1.   +1                  +2   +2   +2     Bonus Feat, Aura (1)
2.   +2                  +3   +3   +3     Bonus Feat
3.   +3                  +3   +3   +3     Command +1
4.   +4                  +4   +4   +4     Bonus Feat
5.   +5                  +4   +4   +4     New Aura (2)
6.   +6/+1               +5   +5   +5     Bonus Feat
7.   +7/+2               +5   +5   +5     Command +2
8.   +8/+3               +6   +6   +6     Bonus Feat
9.   +9/+4               +6   +6   +6     New Aura (3)
10.  +10/+5              +7   +7   +7     Bonus Feat
11.  +11/+6/+1           +7   +7   +7     Command +3
12.  +12/+7/+2           +8   +8   +8     Bonus Feat
13.  +13/+8/+3           +8   +8   +8     New Aura (4)
14.  +14/+9/+4           +9   +9   +9     Bonus Feat
15.  +15/+10/+5          +9   +9   +9     Command +4
16.  +16/+11/+6/+1       +10  +10  +10    Bonus Feat
17.  +17/+12/+7/+2       +10  +10  +10    New Aura (5)
18.  +18/+13/+8/+3       +11  +11  +11    Bonus Feat
19.  +19/+14/+9/+4       +11  +11  +11    Command +5
20.  +20/+15/+10/+5      +12  +12  +12    Bonus Feat


Class Skills (6 + Int): Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Heal, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (Any), Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Ride, Search, Sense Motive, Spot, Swim, Tumble, and Use Magic Device.

Proficiencies
A Fighter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armors and shields.

Bonus Feats
At the indicated levels, a Fighter gains a bonus feat that has been designated as a Fighter Bonus Feat. He must meet the prerequisites of any feat gained in this way.

Auras
A Fighter begins play with the knowledge of a single aura from the Marshal's list of minor auras (Miniature's Handbook pgs 11-13). His aura bonus is determined by his highest mental ability modifier (Int, Wis, or Cha) rather than by his Charisma modifier.

At 5th level and every four levels thereafter, he learns a new aura.

Command (Ex): At 3rd level and at every four levels after 3rd, the bonus of a Fighter's auras, the Fighter's Leadership score (if he has one), and also the level of all of the Fighter's followers (if he has any), increases by +1. A follower's level cannot exceed the Fighter's character level - 2 in this way. This ability has no effect on the level of a Fighter's cohort if he has one.

My goal is to create a fairly well-optimized gish-type character, but one whose spells and powers can be refluffed with relative ease into the Charles Atlas superpowers of a badass mundane warrior. I'm looking for any advice you can give me as well as sample builds to point me in the right direction.

My first thoughts here are DMM Persist Cleric, RKV Cleric/Crusader, and Swiftblade, but how would I build one of those to best meet my goals, and what other ways might there be to achieve my goals?