Half a year ago, I got interested in dnd by my friends. They had v.3.5, after a couple of weeks, i decided to get a copy of 4.0. We really liked some elements of 3.5 and same goes for 4.0. What we ended up doing was taking certain things from 3.5 and certain ones from 4.0 to create 3.75. Every now and then a problem arises, but after some conversation between DM's everything is solved. I was wondering if anybody else has done this or something similar and what problems/solutions you have come up with.
I've been working on a 3.75 for some 6 months. I've yet to have it play tested, but so far everything looks fairly well balanced.
Path Finder is, purportedly, a 3.75 system.
There are several other groups on the webs working on indepenent 3.75's as well. One imparticular, which I have been working with, is Successor Project. The Wiki is located here successorproject.wikia.com/wiki/Table_of...
Wow. I'm impressed with all of the detail being put into the successor project. And also by your 6 months of work. If what I've done with 3.75 is mediocre (which it is) yours deserves to be called professional! Believe me, all we did was add features from both editions to 3.75. We really just looked at something, for instance, skills, and decided whether 3.5 or 4.0 (or both in our instance) version of the this part of the game suited our needs/wants. Mediocre at best!
Keep up the good work! And i hope your 3.75 suits all of your expectations!
I wrote out a really simply version of "DND" for 9 year olds based loosely off of 3.5 with 4e elements thrown in. (Hp defenses skills races).
This worked well enough that I started roughing out my ideal 3.8, as I call it. (Pathfinder being the recognised 3.75 and a .... well i wont get into it).
My biggest problem comes from me loving the 3.5 core elements. Feats, class based progression, class features, but being totally unable to bear the actual implementation. See actual classes written, feats written, spells written, and races written.
My core element I am balancing it off of is the idea that a feat and a spell are equal. Spell casting classes get a spell every level and never a feat. Martial classes get a feat every level and never a spell. Spells do magic stuff, feats are "Feats of strength, or agility" or somesuch. Both should be roughly equal. A spell could be fireblast, a feat could be dodge. Fireblast lest you shoot an orb of fire at someone, letting you invest multiple spells to improve your fireblast into bigger area or more damage. Dodge is a feat that lets you jump out of the way (upping defense). you can invest in the dodge feat more than one time to give it improved effect.
My core element I am balancing it off of is the idea that a feat and a spell are equal. Spell casting classes get a spell every level and never a feat. Martial classes get a feat every level and never a spell. Spells do magic stuff, feats are "Feats of strength, or agility" or somesuch. Both should be roughly equal. A spell could be fireblast, a feat could be dodge. Fireblast lest you shoot an orb of fire at someone, letting you invest multiple spells to improve your fireblast into bigger area or more damage. Dodge is a feat that lets you jump out of the way (upping defense). you can invest in the dodge feat more than one time to give it improved effect.
Wow, I actually really, really like that idea. In that way, you could probably make a "Gish" type quite easily by simply having half feats and half magic. Of course if there is any level of scaling that might have ot be worked out, but I must say this sounds like a nice idea.
My core element I am balancing it off of is the idea that a feat and a spell are equal. Spell casting classes get a spell every level and never a feat. Martial classes get a feat every level and never a spell. Spells do magic stuff, feats are "Feats of strength, or agility" or somesuch. Both should be roughly equal. A spell could be fireblast, a feat could be dodge. Fireblast lest you shoot an orb of fire at someone, letting you invest multiple spells to improve your fireblast into bigger area or more damage. Dodge is a feat that lets you jump out of the way (upping defense). you can invest in the dodge feat more than one time to give it improved effect.
Wow, I actually really, really like that idea. In that way, you could probably make a "Gish" type quite easily by simply having half feats and half magic. Of course if there is any level of scaling that might have ot be worked out, but I must say this sounds like a nice idea.
I agree. I always thought fighters in 3.5 got too many feats. This would let Rogues and Rangers to do the same to even the whole thing out. But what would you do for Clerics or Paladins? A spell every other level and a feat every other level. Sounds like a really good idea.
Keep up the good ideas!
I am not going to put in half classes like ranger/paladin. My goal is to keep classes relatively few, but then have things like "For a character similar to 4e's swordmage, consider playing some levels as a 'fighter' and as a 'mage'. For a paladin, cross 'priest' and 'fighter', a beguiller try 'rogue' and 'mage'."
like i said still a work in progress, i need class features and to elaborate on some spells/feats for now. The core system itself is complete, mostly because of how similar it is to 4e./3.5.
We have something similar, but my players call it 4.5, since for what they like, they consider our house ruled version superior to 4E...
But to each his own...some will like house ruled conversions; some won't.
Sanjay
You do not know how much I agree with you. To me 4.0 can end up being a really good game, if you keep the basic things the same. But everything else in 4.0 I think is just wacky (and I say that way as not to offend any 4.0-lovers). It's a good game with good potential, but a lot of things are screwed up.
I started working on a 3.75 when most of my group disliked 4th
there's still some problems trying to eliminate the healing surges in favor of traditional healing.
For what it's worth, my DM and I are basically working on what we're considering to be 5E. It may as well be a new game, but it's still based on D&D mechanics at its core. It's interesting to see a lot of similar ideas out there. In our system, there are no classes. Most things that we've come to identify as class abilities are part of skills.
There are 9 major skills:
Nature, Religion, Arcana, Diplomacy, Stealth, Thievery, Acrobatics, Athletics, and Martial Training
These core skills are pre-requisites for the more specific skills that branch out into trees. Spellcraft allows you to learn, cast, shape, and write spells, but it requires Arcana. Combat Expertise is a basic set of strikes, counters, and stances, but it requires Martial Training. Sneak Attack is an array of high damage attacks that take advantage of openings in unaware targets' defenses, but it requires both Stealth and Martial Training.
Feats encompass both powers and traits (the static benefits associated with most feats). Simply put, a feat is a special thing you can do. It's a power. You get one at every level, and can choose freely between power feats and trait feats. Most feats have prerequisite skills, and they interact with your skills and attributes. Burning Hands is a heroic tier feat that requires the Evocation skill. Cleave requires the Combat Expertise skill, and probably the two-handed fighting style. Evasion is a paragon feat requiring Acrobatics, and so on and so forth.
We have HP as 4th edition views it, but we also have LP, or Life Points. You have LP equal to your Constitution score. When you have 0 HP, you are down, or possibly unconscious, and you begin to take damage from your LP. When you have 0 LP you are dead. All physical attacks target your Reflex defense. You either get hit or you don't. If you don't manage to avoid an attack, your armor, shield, and parrying ability soak up whatever damage you're taking. AC is now basically damage reduction, and you add your Constitution modifier to it. It represents your ability to withstand a blow. Fortitude is targeted by attacks that directly affect your vitality, as normal. Will is the same. Perception and Intuition are now defenses as well.
Everything is still a work in progress, but I think we're getting close to something that is playable. We really just wanna make a game that we enjoy playing. All of our rules come from how we think the mechanics should best reflect the development and role-playing of a character. We've decided to do away with the ritual of making your sheet. You now PLAY that process out from the start. You start at level 0, and spend your first quest gaining the skills that you have at level 1. At the end of the session, your character sheet is complete and your future adventuring career is ahead of you.