Grimoire of the Balanced Wheel (3.5e Sourcebook)

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Author: Ghostwheel (talk) Date Created: March 24, 2010 Status: In Progress Editing: Clarity edits only please

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Grimoire of the Balanced Wheel

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 has been around for a while now, and has often been hailed as one of the better games created with the gamist goal in mind. However, the game itself has any number of flaws, each one requiring a myriad of house rules in order to make the game function more easily. This sourcebook is one that brings together different rules in order to allow for more streamlined games whose main goal is to make the game faster and easier, specifically around what a DM might expect of PCs and easy tables with which one can make monsters on the fly.

The gamist perspective takes the game's balance and challenge as primary goals in and of themselves. This means that much of the focus of the rules is around tactical combat, and this is where the game often shines. Combats are most exciting when PCs come out bruised, battered, and beaten, but still alive and having won by the skin of their teeth. These are the sorts of encounters and battles that the Grimoire is meant to have; to that end, a number of the more encounter-ending effects have been removed from the game, or changed to be less encounter-ending. Furthermore, a number of other rules have been implemented to bring classes who could do little in combat up to par, and the system itself has been designed to be very modular, allowing DMs to pick and choose which rules fit them the best; the different rules are colored red, purple, or blue depending on their importance to the system. Rules whose title is red are integral for the system, and must be used for it to work well. Rules in purple are less vital, but add important effects that add much to the system. Rules in blue, on the other hand, are completely optional at the choice of the DM, and are there simply because the author finds them helpful or interesting.

Contents

Introduction

Why Do We Even Need This?

But how Powerful is Powerful?

Design Goals

Chapter One: Changes to Character Creation (or Who Are We?)

Races

Point Buy

HP Changes

Bonuses to AC

Attack Bonus

Saves

Healing Surges and Taking Stock

Feats

Size Bonuses

Attackers Roll All Dice

Balanced Skills

Combining Skills

Removing Cross-Class Skills

Intelligence Bonus to Skills

Chapter Two: All About Combat (or Round One... Fight!)

Death and Dying

Wounds

Movement and AoOs

Iterative Attacks

Defending Against Special Attacks

Save-or-Dies

Damaging Ability Damage/Drain and Negative Levels

Death From Massive Damage

Immunity to Sneak Attack

Critical Hits

Scaling Concentration and Tumble Checks

Chapter Three: Equipment (or Where's Da Loot?)

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Magic and Special Abilities (or This Goes Boom-Boom!)

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Building Encounters (or What Do We Kill Next?)

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