Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Marcotic 04-21-07, 11:55 PM	I wanted to make clerics and Druids less able to fill the main melleists role, or rather I wanted to make mellee classes be the only ones that could fufill that role. To that end, here are some house rules Im' planning on implementing in an upcomming champain. Please tell me if I made the classes unbearable by mistake, point out obvious flaws in my modifications, or suggest new ones. Note also that I am not taking anything outside of core into consideration under the assumtion that anything outside of core will be under my review as a DM. Class- Cleric Weak Fort Save No Heavy Armor Proficiency Divine Power Evocation Level: Clr 4, War 4 Components: V, S, DF Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Personal Target: You Duration: 1 round/2 levels Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength. You gain no HP bonus Righteous Might Transmutation Level: Clr 5, Strength 5 Components: V, S, DF Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Personal Target: You Duration: 1 round/2 level (D) This spell causes you to grow, doubling your height and multiplying your weight by 8. This increase changes your size category to the next larger one, and you gain a +4 size bonus to Strength and a +2 size bonus to Constitution. You gain +1 increase in natural armor. You gain damage reduction 2/evil (if you normally channel positive energy) or damage reduction 2/good (if you normally channel negative energy). At 12th level this damage reduction becomes 4/evil or 4/good, and at 15th level it becomes 6/evil or 6/good (the maximum). Your size modifier for AC and attacks changes as appropriate to your new size category. This spell doesn’t change your speed. Determine space and reach as appropriate to your new size. If insufficient room is available for the desired growth, you attain the maximum possible size and may make a Strength check (using your increased Strength) to burst any enclosures in the process. If you fail, you are constrained without harm by the materials enclosing you— the spell cannot crush you by increasing your size. All equipment you wear or carry is similarly enlarged by the spell. Melee and projectile weapons deal more damage. Other magical properties are not affected by this spell. Any enlarged item that leaves your possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage (projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them). Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack. Class- Druid Weak Fort Save No medium armor proficiency Remove spot from list of skills Wild Shape- No magic items can be used while wild shaping, with the exception of wild armor. You are considered wearing armor in every sense, accepting all bonuses and penalties that would apply regularly, but the armor itself cannot be seen. Every thing else is as per Errata. Animals that are familiar enough to emulate using wild shape: You must succeed a knowledge check of the given animal, and then you must successfully use Wild Empathy to bring the animal into the “friendly” attitude. Finally you must study the animal for at least 10 minutes. The Animal Companion. An Animal companion never increases in size due to gaining HD. An animal companions BAB can never exceed it’s master druid’s. If your animal companion dies or you decide to release it, you lose the ability to cast druid spells until a new animal companion is acquired. You must locate the target animal in the wild, and succeed a wild empathy check to make the animal friendly to initiate the 24-hour process. Natural Spell- Same as before except each spell cast in Wild shape reduces the amount of remaining wild shape time by 2 hours per spell level. You may not use a spell if you do not have sufficient time remaining. Mithral counts as armor of one category lighter for all things EXCEPT armor proficiencies, despite The Sage’s suggestion
Marcotic 04-22-07, 03:55 AM	nothing? You gotta be kidding me
runestar 04-22-07, 07:49 AM	I don't see the significance of weakening their fort saves. Being a fighter does not mean you have to soak up the finger of deaths, since that choice ultimately falls on the enemy spellcaster, not you. The problem with divine power and righteous might was never their duration, since that can be worked around with divine metamagic or extend spell. The loss of temp hp for divine power is negligible, since it is really the full bab it grants which clerics value. As for righteous might, in its current incarnation, you will need to lower its effective lv(no way is that a 5th lv spell). 3rd lv might be more apt. I agree with your wildshape limitation, although I don't see how that is going to stop the druid from putting on magic gear after he has wildshaped(You are hard-pressed to find a logical reason not to disallow that baring "I say so because I am the dm"). Likewise, that does not stop buffs like mage armour, barkskin and bull's strength, which carry over regardless of what form you take. I don't see the significance of your mithral armour nerf, since that seems to hurt fighters more than spellcasters. Druids certainly won't be using them. Do you want clerics to not be able to access them?(seeing as to how they do not get heavy armour prof). I am not sure if I agree with your natural spell nerf, since it is hard to justify from a flavour POV. While I recognize your intentions, I would nonetheless prefer that any changes have a strong in-game rationale behind them, rather than random nerfings. I think it might simply be easier to just make it a metamagic feat with a +1 slot adjustment or something.
Aage 04-22-07, 08:49 AM	Wouldn't just banning divine metamagic and using the aspect of nature wild shape variant from unearthed arcana be a fair solution? That's at least what I'm considering for my upcoming campaign...
Marcotic 04-22-07, 12:33 PM	hmmmm.
Marcotic 04-22-07, 12:41 PM	Wouldn't just banning divine metamagic and using the aspect of nature wild shape variant from unearthed arcana be a fair solution? That's at least what I'm considering for my upcoming campaign... yeah probablly, but I don't wish to use it, I like the idea of druids trying to fufill the dream of walking with the animals, and I think that wildshape is neat, just badly done. How does my mithral nerf hurt fighters? barbarians sure, but not fighters I also wanted to make the classes that I nerfed playable. Finally, if I needed to install some justification for no magic during wildshape, I would simply say that the wildshape process interferes with magical items, and so they do not work. Thanks for the help,
Marcotic 04-22-07, 01:08 PM	I don't see the significance of weakening their fort saves. Being a fighter does not mean you have to soak up the finger of deaths, since that choice ultimately falls on the enemy spellcaster, not you. By weakening the fort, i'm giving (most) melleists somthing no others have, the best fortitude save bar none. The problem with divine power and righteous might was never their duration, since that can be worked around with divine metamagic or extend spell. The loss of temp hp for divine power is negligible, since it is really the full bab it grants which clerics value. As for righteous might, in its current incarnation, you will need to lower its effective lv(no way is that a 5th lv spell). 3rd lv might be more apt. Again, I wanted to nerf it without making the cleric class no fun. By getting rid of the bonus HP, I hoped to make it the melleist's nich of damage soakage, but by leaving the Full BAB, I made it so that you could own up on people as a cleric from time to time. As a dm, I typically shoot down Divine metamagic(for that very reason), and extend spell would be fine, but that obviously means that their using a higher spell slot, which limits their ability to be both melee and caster. About Rightous Might, Really all I changed is 1 point of natural armor, and the DR, but I can see how that wouldn't be a 5th level spell. what if I put the DR and Natural armor back to normal? I am not sure if I agree with your natural spell nerf, since it is hard to justify from a flavour POV. While I recognize your intentions, I would nonetheless prefer that any changes have a strong in-game rationale behind them, rather than random nerfings. I think it might simply be easier to just make it a metamagic feat with a +1 slot adjustment or something. I was origanally simply going to abolish Natural spell all together, but then realised that that took to much from the class. In this way, I make it less appealing, even impossible to simply stay in wild shape form and be at full casting potential. At 6th level when wildshape is typically taken, you can use your highest level spell once per wild shape. When a new spell level is gained, it is impossible to cast it while wild shaping. even at 20th level, you could only use your most powerful spell once per wild shape. With the lenth of wildshape being most of the day at later levels, this encourages the player to either use less potent spells, or use up more wildshapes. What I hoped was to allow druids to have fun owning up on people in wild shape, or cast spells, but not both all of the time, at no cost. To justify this change, I would say that wildshaping takes a huge connection with nature, casting of spells, that is to say using spells fills the magic wielder with magic that weakens that connection with nature. I didn't include a lot of fluff, cause i figured my post was long enough.
EvilVegan 04-22-07, 03:06 PM	My changes were a bit more drastic. I removed clerics, replaced them with priests d6 hit die, poor BAB, no armor, spontaneous casters with only domain spells and no turning. My druid uses a tweaked version of the wildshape variant in the PHB but is otherwise d6, poor BAB, no armor, spontaneous caster with a limited list of buffs and animal spells. I don't have wizards either. And divine power/righteous might are touch spells, so they work better to cast on fighters and rogues than on spell casters. And fighters got a serious bump. (scaling feats, weapon pool, more skills/points, upgrading feats).
Midnight_v 04-22-07, 03:17 PM	Better to just ban the classes altogether than to make it suck to play one. (As concerning the druid), and as concerning the cleric... same but apply that logic to the spell you don't like. No one's idea of a nerf "fixes" a class except in thier own eyes. It just makes people not play what they want.. detracting from the overall fun of the game in many cases. *sigh* The problem was never divine power but lack of "warriors power" across the board. So well thats my nickel. (>_<)
EvilVegan 04-22-07, 03:39 PM	Better to just ban the classes altogether than to make it suck to play one. (As concerning the druid), and as concerning the cleric... same but apply that logic to the spell you don't like. No one's idea of a nerf "fixes" a class except in thier own eyes. It just makes people not play what they want.. detracting from the overall fun of the game in many cases. *sigh* The problem was never divine power but lack of "warriors power" across the board. So well thats my nickel. (>_<) Don't know if that was directed at me specifically, but my tweaked druid can deal more damage than a standard druid, but has a shorter duration and fewer uses per day. His spells aren't as versatile, but outside of combat he's got a lot of "neat" abilities, such as raising forests and helping crops, etc. My priest is a mixture of cleric and bard, with more spells and abilities (at higher levels) than either combined, but they don't out-shine the warriors, they improve them. My healer class is nearly impossible to kill at higher levels, but can't hurt anything but undead. Also the amount of customization I do for players makes it so everyone enjoys their class or it gets changed (mid-session if need be). Same goes for things that are too powerful. I've also tweaked how spells work and adjusted spell levels depending on source (arcane, divine, nature) to affect more than just "D6s of damage", including size modifiers, ability score increases, types of bonuses, etc.
Perseus_Stoned 04-22-07, 03:49 PM	1) Just use the cloistered cleric version in Unearthed Arcana for your default cleric. Remove spot from list of skills ? Animals that are familiar enough to emulate using wild shape: You must succeed a knowledge check of the given animal, and then you must successfully use Wild Empathy to bring the animal into the “friendly” attitude. Finally you must study the animal for at least 10 minutes. Alright, a bit buggy, but since its a houserule that should be fine. The Animal Companion. An Animal companion never increases in size due to gaining HD. Never did, unless you're refering to something other than the bonus HD. An animal companions BAB can never exceed it’s master druid’s. Is this possible (without the use of boost-spells or multiclassing)? Natural Spell- Same as before except each spell cast in Wild shape reduces the amount of remaining wild shape time by 2 hours per spell level. You may not use a spell if you do not have sufficient time remaining. Just forbid Natural Spell; otherwise you're just letting them take a feat that maybe allows one spell a day, hardly fair (to waste a feat on, mind you).