Author Topic: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread  (Read 6565 times)

Offline Nytemare3701

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E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« on: August 11, 2012, 01:49:16 PM »
This thread is for discussing the upcoming E6 Handbook. Please preface your posts with one of the following tags as appropriate:

E6 General: Any information that is applicable to E6 in general.
E6 Gestalt: Any information that is applicable to E6 Gestalt, such as character builds that only work with 7-12 levels.
E6 Prestige: Any information for the newly theorized E6 Prestige, where prestige classes can be taken without meeting prerequisites.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2012, 02:45:09 PM by Nytemare3701 »

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2012, 01:49:24 PM »
Changelog Post

Offline midnight_v

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2012, 03:11:36 PM »
subrscribed

Is E-6 Very popular?
"Disentegrate...gust of wind. Can we please get back to saving the world now?"

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2012, 04:10:52 PM »
Among my local groups, no. There has been increased interest in it on this forum in the last few months though, and it's what I play personally.

Offline gorfnab

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2012, 01:34:18 AM »
I really like Gnorman's Versions of E6

E6 General - Build Ideas:
Mystic Ranger (Drg#336) + Sword of the Arcane Order feat (CoR) + Magical Training feat (PGtF) +Simple "Wildshape" Variant Ranger (UA) = BAB 6, 6D8 HP, 3rd level Ranger/Wizard Spells, and Wildshape

Warrior or Expert (UA) 1/ Thief of Life (FoE) 5 - really fun with a lot of Incarnum feats

Beguiler (PHBII) 5/ Mage of the Arcane Order (CA) 1 - more skills and hp than a wizard, decent spell list, and access to any spell you need with spellpool

Paladin 5/ Beastmaster (CAdv) 1 with Devoted Tracker (CAdv) feat and Natural Bond (CAdv) feat - Mini Supermount

Ghaele or Trumpet Archon 6 (SS) - Highly debatable if you can do savage progressions in E6. If you can than these are awesome options.

Artificer 6 - just keep piling on the crafting feats, quite versatile since you can eat magic items to get XP for making useful magic items

Useful E6 links from other boards
E6 Prestige Class Guide
E6 Guide to Magic Items
« Last Edit: August 12, 2012, 01:46:48 AM by gorfnab »

Offline Soft Insanity

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2012, 09:14:09 AM »
Among my local groups, no. There has been increased interest in it on this forum in the last few months though, and it's what I play personally.

I thought you played gestalt e6.  E6 tends to "run aground" faster than if you gestalt the system.

Now, for some actual useful imput:

The Capstone philosophy:
This gives features to certain classes that would normally be attainable only at higher levels.  My favorite is Cunning Surge 1x per round for Factotums.

Cumulative feats:
You've already mentioned the psionic ones, but there are many of these, including:
Factotum FoI, Draconic feats (knowledge, heritage, toughness, etc), Dragon Prophesier Line (artifex, hero, etc), and Dream Scion Line.

An artificer with the prophesy's artifex feat will make you cry as he literally gets quicken for free, for example.  Normally it's merely a good option, but E6 makes it infinitely better.

Acceptable Items in the setting:
This is the one thing that needs to be addressed.  You're practically tying players hands if you limit it to what 3rd level spells can create.  At the same time there are plenty of items with low requirements that don't fit the system at all.  I find that limiting the max value of an item to 10,000gp to 11,000gp to be a decent enough solution.  It allows for +2 weapons and +3 armors as well as +2 max stat boosting items.

For suggested feats to take:
Luck of Heroes:  This is an excellent all around feat because that +1 matters more in lower levels.
Ability Enhancer:  Buffing is essential in E6 and this is the best feat for your better buff spells.
Nymph's Kiss: Still worth more than 1 feat.  It's like open minded on crack.
Knowledge Devotion: It's fairly easy to always get the +5 hit/dmg if you know what you are doing.  It's huge.

Concerning the Artificer:
No other class goes so against the concept of E6 imho.  I'm personally not a fan of the class anyway, but add it to E6 and watch your game become a joke.  It requires a fix due mostly to how easy it is to trivialize the economy with feats.  The other thing that needs a fix:  Access to any list and +2 CL for determining what you can make.  That means up to 7th level spell effects depending on which list you rob.

Concerning Divine Metamagic and other metamagic reducers:

These don't mix with E6 very well, but instead of banning them outright, consider instead limiting the max metamagic'd spell level to 5.  That means you can quicken 1st level spells, but Persist is off the table all together.  Extend, heighten, and other metamagics are still viable however.

For gestalt in general:
My gestalt philosophy: take one active class that defines your character.  Then make your other class your passive class.  This "passive" class should have always on abilities, or abilities with little action economy cost.  Incarnum classes, bards/marshals/shamans, warlocks, etc. all make up good passive classes.

Factotum is unique in the system as it is hands down the best team player.  It can be gestalted with nearly every class to yield good results.  However, I personally prefer to make this my active defining class.

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2012, 12:07:50 PM »
Among my local groups, no. There has been increased interest in it on this forum in the last few months though, and it's what I play personally.

I thought you played gestalt e6.  E6 tends to "run aground" faster than if you gestalt the system.

We are currently playing Vanilla E6 with a few of the UA rules (armor as DR, Wound/Vitality points, and Craft Points) and Our 3-man team of an Artificer, a Mystic Ranger (suboptimal, BAB 5 and only 2nd level spells), and a Hood are running about even with the expected output of a 4-man party. Due to the uncapped and party-friendly nature of the Artificer, I doubt we will slow down any time soon.

If you are speaking of my E6 Gestalt posts I've been dumping on the board constantly, those are in preparation for the game I'm going to be DMing after this one, and most of the characters are either NPCs or bosses.


Re: the rest of your post...
That's all great info, and I'll definitely get to organizing and posting that.

Offline Shadowhunter

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2012, 06:51:36 PM »
E6 General.

Ok, let's do this.

Feats: Due to E6's nature, feats that grows exponentially stronger the more of them there are become more attractive in E6. Psionic feats are probably the most notable, but there are others.

The Luck feats from Complete Scoundrel are one of these, allowing a growing amount of re-rolls for various situations.

Another one is the Shifter feats in Eberron Campaign Setting and Races of Eberron. Since Shifters gain additional shifts per day equal to half the number of Shifter feats they have, the more the merrier.

Speaking of Racial Feats, Goliaths in  Races of Stone have them as well. Choosing the higher of two saving throws, two initative checks, caster level checks, skill checks or two attack rolls are all good things.

Builds:

Wizard.
(click to show/hide)


Fighter
(click to show/hide)

DFA idea:

Dragonfire Adepts are very nice in E6. Here's the Handbook, for quick reference:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870954/The_New_Dragonfire_Adept_Handbook!

They got their battlefield control schtick with the Entangling Exhalation/Slow Breath combo at level 5.
Do EE breath first round, then Slow next, then EE, then Slow. EE has a d4 rounds duration and Slow breath is 2 rounds, 1 on save.
With a bit of luck, you can keep your opponents continually Slowed and Entangled.

Slowed:
(click to show/hide)

ENTANGLING EXHALATION [BREATH]
(click to show/hide)

Entangled:
(click to show/hide)

That's 75% movement reduction, -3 to attack rolls (-5 if it uses DEX for attacking, such as ranged attacks or Weapon Finesse dudes), -3 to Reflex and AC and can take only a move or a standard action. That's not bad at level 5.

Just keep skirting on the edges of your breath weapon and adapt your movement to you opponent and it's going to slowly die without ever reaching you.

Note that you can't do EE and Slow breath on the same turn, since EE requires you to damage the opponent and Slow Breath have no damage.

Play any race that gets a CON bonus. Like Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny pg. 99), Dragonborn (Races of the Dragon pg. 8) if possible.


Also, I love E6, E8 and the Gestalt versions of both so I'll probably be back with more ideas later.

Offline Empirate

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2012, 04:50:43 AM »
An extremely important thing to adress is the "what is out there, what exists, albeit in theory" problem.

For example, artificers aren't really problematic if you cap all spellcaster lists at the spell level they attain at level 6. For example, Sor/Wiz, Druid, and Cleric spell lists cap at 3rd level spells; Bard spell list gets capped at 2nd level spells; Ranger spell lists caps out at 1st level spells etc. This makes sense because no Cleric in the world can cast 4th level spells at all. So why not just say higher-level spells do not even exist? At the very least, they are not available in the spell format - they may come along in the form of SLAs or Su abilities from monsters, or in the form of attainable PC powers for plot reasons, or something. But they're not spells and might as well not be in the rulebook where PCs are concerned.
Sure, alternate spell lists (Adept, Trapsmith, certain Domains...) may still pose problems if you have an Artificer or Archivist in your group, but that's easier to deal with on a case-by-case basis.

A similar concern can be the creatures that populate an E6 multiverse. According to the original E6 thread's suggestions, you could rule that there is no 'kind' or 'species' of Efreet, for example. A single Efreeti may exist somewhere in the multiverse: the lord of infernal fire, ruling an entire realm, powerful enough to burn a city to cinders on his own. But there's no way to bind/ally him without it being a plot point instead of simple rules application.
This is especially important for wildshaping (or otherwise capable of changing shape) characters, and characters capable of summoning/binding/allying monsters.

I haven't really thought this through to the end, but it seems to me that an E6 campaign world MUST contain fewer high-powered 'stuff' (magic, creatures, items...), in the most general sense. Because whatever 'stuff' is out there, players will find a way to turn it into a resource.

Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2012, 11:16:19 AM »
As I noted in what I've written up under E6 PrC+, what I feel is wrong with the E6 Artificer is in making those non-core spell lists feel less special - though, it could be also be taken that it's a problem they exist in the Artificers hands at all, depending on the campaign world the DM is attempting to craft.

One of the biggest sinners is Lesser Planar Binding, Diabolist 3, which in turn gets you access to Raise Dead. That's quite a game changer in E6.

So in E6, the Artificer has reasonable access to it. That's pretty damn special.

In the E6 PrC+ system I've written up, I suggest stripping the Artificer of non-core class spell lists, and thus the Diabolist becomes the only class with access to it. It makes that class special in having LPB, as well as it being one of the strongest summoner specialists under those rules. You can imagine from a campaign world building perspective that now toying with planar beings becomes much more of a taboo/vile type of activity, where only the most desperate of PCs might seek out such a mage.

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2012, 02:22:29 PM »
Sorry this handbook has been so quiet lately, I've been doing that whole "moving" thing, so volunteer stuff has gone on the backburner. I'll spend some time today adding the info that people have brought up, as well as some additional content.

Offline 123456789blaaa

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2012, 05:49:45 PM »
There was a really cool e6 build created by the poster Kazyan on gitp. I haven't asked him but I'm 99% sure he wouldn't mind it being posted here.

Quote
"Looking through everything uncovered a weird trick. I doubt I can it it into any future competition without it being obvious that it's me, so I'll present it here:
 
A Tibbit's cat form doesn't lower Strength directly, but instead applies a -8 penalty. A Chaotic Evil Soulborn ignores all strength penalties from level 2 onward. Also, Thunderstep Boots will apply to the cat's bite and claws, if you get Pounce from somewhere. It's not totally optimized, but the race and class go surprisingly well together. CE Tibbit Soulborn 4/Warshaper 2 with Don't Mind Me, SS (Sphinx Claws), Open Least Chakra (Feet) and Open Least Chakra (Hands) is a perfectly cromulent E6 build, and that's awesome considering Soulborn. For bonus hilarity, your carrying capacity goes up when you turn into a cat."


You may also want to replace the warshaper levels with barbarian levels for pounce and the cobalt rage feat.

Also, Don't Mind Me is from the Fabulous cats! (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fools/20030401c) april fools article on the wizards website.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2012, 05:52:38 PM by 123456789blaaa »
Please, call me Count :).

Offline 123456789blaaa

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #12 on: April 21, 2013, 12:44:41 AM »
A nice race in E6 for a self-buffing gish is the daelkyr half-blood from Magic of Eberron. It's nice because you can grow a symbiote. The symbiotes themselves are nothing to write home about but they do have one really nice ability: Share Spells. It's also better than the familiars ability of the same name. Being able to buff your symbiote with personal spells is great and what's better is that they get their own actions  :drool. The best familiar is probably the crawling gauntlet.

Also Abyssal Heritor and Aberrant feats are two feat types that are like the Shifter and Draconic feat types (they improve as you gain more of them).
« Last Edit: April 21, 2013, 12:49:03 AM by 123456789blaaa »
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Offline Nunkuruji

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Re: E6 Handbook Discussion Thread
« Reply #13 on: May 02, 2013, 02:44:35 PM »
Psionic Body & Talent are both errata'd in the E6 wiki to prevent what you describe under Elans


One thing I've been trying to work out as a DM are Quick Templates for E6
That is, a 5 feat group that adds "+1 CR" to a creature.

Examples given in the wiki are

(click to show/hide)

I'm not particularly happy with those, as most aren't much more effective than simply advancing a HD. Numbers advancement doesn't make the fight more interesting, being Domino Rushed by a Shock Trooper gets far more attention.

So I'm interesting more in a capability groups, like some of the obvious [Tactical] chains.

But, I'm looking more for groups that are not as obvious and are more creative, as I've been lacking inspired ideas myself.