Dynastic New Game+

Family Tree

I've long desired to run a dynastic campaign, importing something like Pendragon's "after every session/adventure/tourney/happening, a year passes", where eventually you're expected to retire your character and their heir takes over -- D&D meets Crusader Kings (Crusader Kings having been designed in a lab to be precisely catnip to Malimars).

But that's the only thing I really like about Pendragon, so I want to hack it onto a system I do like. Seems like a half-decent fit for Daggerheart, but I don't yet know the likelihood of persuading my group to try that one.

The Issue

The main problem with hacking it onto D&D would be: presuming not everybody retires at the same time (so, presuming elves and humans in the same party); and presuming I don't want any given character's heir to just automatically straight-up start at the level their parent retired at; how do I make a mixed-level party more or less balanced? How might I let one player do a New Game+ while remaining in a party with a player who just keeps playing their original character?

My second instinct is: abandon allowing mixed-level parties: heirs just start at the level of their parent, and/or every character always retires at the same time. But I low-key hate both of those options? I want players to have the option to play an elf (eg, one player just straight-up hates the dynastic game idea and wants to opt out -- if multiple players hate it, of course I would run something else). I want players to be able to pick when their character is done (perhaps using the aging rules from 3.5e to encourage done-ness, though that does hardly encourage spellcasters to retire). I want players to be able to play an Obi-Wan from the previous generation or a sidekick/apprentice from the next.

My first instinct is: something like beginning with magic items or Epic Boons or bonus feats or something? Like, establish some exchange rate: new characters begin with some amount of Stuff for each level lower your new character is than your old character would have been.

New Game+

Assumption, while we think this out:

Every time the party would level up (so, basically every adventure/delve, ish), some number of years passes. I was thinking 1d6 or 1d8 or 1d10 or 1d12, but randomness does us no favors here; another solid possibility is 5, plus or minus a few depending on DM fiat; another possibility is that it can depend on how successfully and effectively the adventure's task was accomplished, that a party gets a decade or two of peace if they completely smash it out of the park, only a year or two if they straight-up fail.

Perhaps, in the middle of some adventures, there could be an extra level-up point that applies only to characters of below the party's max level. If this were 3.5e and we were playing with experience, the increased XP and decreased XP-to-next-level from being lower level makes it balance; we need to approximate that with an inelegant hack, because we don't want characters who are behind to remain behind forever.

A new-generation character begins with all the physical loot of the previous-generation character they're taking over for.

A new-generation character starts at any level below the level of the previous-generation character they're taking over for (this may get to be a bit of a wibbly muddle if, like, one player's new character takes over for another player's old character, or two PCs get together and make babbies who then take over as new characters, or whatever, but ad hoc DM adjudication is a thing).

For each level so sacrificed, a new PC begins with an additional Thing (eg, 1st-gen PC is lvl7; 2nd-gen PC elects to begin at lvl3; the difference is 4 levels, so they begin with 4 Things).

What shall be the Things?

My first notion: each Thing is a rarity level of magic item. A 1-level difference lets you start with an extra Common item; a 2-level difference lets you start with an extra Uncommon item (or 2 Commons); a 3-level difference lets you start with an extra Rare item (or 3 Commons, or a Common and an Uncommon); a 4-level difference lets you start with an extra Very Rare item (or a Rare and a Common, or two Uncommons, or an Uncommon and two Commons, or four Commons); a 5-level difference lets you start with an extra Legendary item (or a Very Rare and a Common, or a Rare and two Commons, or a Rare and an Uncommon, or an Uncommon and three Commons, or two Uncommons and a Common, or five Commons), etc. You cannot begin with an Artifact (unless the previous-generation PC gained it during play, of course). Raising the question: can a level 5 character with a Legendary item (plus level ten character worth of miscellaneous loot) hold their own with a level 10 character (with only ten levels worth of miscellaneous loot)? Can a level 5 character with three Legendary items hold their own with a level 20 character?

Another notion: each Thing is a free bonus feat (and every so many Things is a free Epic Boon bonus feat? no, I think not, some Epic Boons may be fine for this purpose, but some are very powerful). Can a level 5 character with 5 bonus feats hold their own with a level 10 character (with only the normal number of feats)? And what happens to the bonus feats as the character acceleratedly levels up -- do they evaporate; do they start to occupy real feat slots as such become available to the character; something else?

One big issue is hit points. PCs progress fast in terms of HP, so monsters correspondingly progress fast in terms of how hard they hit. I think some kind of free bonus HPs may be the only thing to do here, though that is an inelegant solution. Maybe 5 bonus HP for each level you are different from the party's level (which you gradually lose as you level up faster than the party does, until you have 0 bonus HP when you reach the party's level)? No, I think I like this better: all characters have Hit Dice, and consequently HP, in accordance with the maximum level of the party, regardless of their character level.

Another issue is hitting power. PCs progress fast in terms of how much damage they do (doubling at level 4, among other things); monsters correspondingly progress fast in terms of HP. A single really good weapon and/or some bonus feats can make up this difference handily.

See Also

Forum thread on the topic

Update

A point was raised on Bluesky: "If you give a lower level character extra hp, and extra items, and extra feats, and let them do damage above their level aren’t they functionally just higher level characters?"

Which: no... but also yes? Reoriented my perspective drastically.

A new character shouldn't have to be exactly balanced with the old characters; there just needs to be some incentive to retire a character (the Aging rules from 3.5e might take care of that, though I might have to bite the bullet and ban elves, perhaps plus being generous with maimery), and maybe a very low-key bonus to ease the sting of starting at a lower level.

Or maybe instead of straight-up banning elves, resurrect the thing in earlier editions where you can level up a lot faster if you're a shorter-lived species? You can, if you do desire, eschew the whole conceit of the campaign by playing an elf, at the cost of your human companions ding lvl 10 -> start over at 1 -> ding 10 again a few times times over the course of the time it takes you to ding 10 once?

My Final 3.5e Houserules

I'm fully shifting over (up?) from 3.5e/PF to 5e, so most of my houserules are now obsolete! Here, for your perusal, is my final houserule setup, complete and moved on from after ten years of tinkering.

 ==Characters and Character Creation==
*Ability scores: point buy 30, starting at 8, as on page 169 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
*All characters begin with 1,000 gold and an adventurer's kit containing a backpack, 5 torches, flint & steel, 50' hempen rope, a waterskin, and clothing of your choice (excluding courtier's outfit, noble's outfit, and royal outfit). (21 lb., not counting gold and clothing.)
**Characters beginning at higher than 1st level start with standard WBL for their ECL or 1,000 gold, whichever is higher.
*Characters begin at minimum XP for the ECL of the lowest-level member of the party they join.
**If your character dies and is not resurrected (or retires, or becomes an NPC, or is otherwise unplayable), you may begin a new character at 75% of the previous character's experience total.
**In either case, new characters are limited to 5 class levels by default, with the remainder of their ECL taken up by racial hit dice and level adjustment.
**However, new characters may, under some circumstances, begin with more than 5 class levels provided they have a backstory that explains their exceptional skill and power relative to the rest of the setting (very few NPCs ever exceed level 6-8), and why history hasn't heard of them before now, in a satisfying way.
*Hit dice are maximized at first level. At each level after first, you gain half your hit die, plus 1 (plus your Constitution modifier), as follows: d12 = 7; d10 = 6; d8 = 5; d6 = 4; d4 = 3
*A character may have up to 2 flaws and up to 1 trait. In addition to the base flaws in Unearthed Arcana, consider the flaws published in Dragon Magazine issues #324-329 and #333.
*Characters take no experience penalties for multiclassing. Instead, they gain a minor bonus based on their racial favored class.
*For the purpose of the epic-level prerequisite for [epic] feats, prestige classes, and other options, a character is considered epic at 10th level instead of 20th level. After 10th level, regular feat slots may be used to acquire [epic] feats. All other prerequisites still apply.
**All [epic] options (feats, prestige classes, and so on) with skill prerequisites have those skill prerequisites reduced by 10, to a minimum of 13 and a maximum of 21. Similarly, [epic] options with base attack bonus prerequisites have those prerequisites reduced by 10, to a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 18.
**There are no epic spells. If you take the Epic Spellcasting feat, you may use your epic spell slots only to prepare or use non-epic spells, with or without metamagic applied.
*You may ignore regional requirements for feats, prestige classes, and other options, except that you may not select two options that have conflicting regional requirements.
*Fractional BAB and fractional saves may be used if you so desire.
*Animal companions, special mounts, familiars, and psicrystals all gain feats and ability score increases by their (effective or actual) HD.
*Caster level equal to half class level (e.g. ranger, paladin, etc.) is no longer a thing. Such classes have a caster level equal to their class level.
*Any class, race, or template that grants a Smite special attack (e.g. Paladin, Soulborn, Fiendish Creature, etc.) with uses per day instead grants the same number of uses per encounter.
*A few classes have been tweaked.
*Any prestige class that advances spellcasting from another class ("+1 level of existing spellcasting class" and the like) advances the full suite of: spells per day, spells known, and caster level; even if the text for the prestige class omits one or more of those aspects.
*If you have the ability to learn a spell from any spell list (e.g. by taking the Extra Spell feat), and the spell you wish to select appears on multiple lists, use the spell level of the first list it appears on of the following: sorcerer/wizard, cleric base list, druid, bard, paladin, ranger, any other base class, any cleric domain, any prestige class.
*Characters gain retroactive skill points when their Intelligence modifier increases.

===Level Adjustment===
*All listed level adjustments are divided by 2 (rounded down, but with a minimum of 1 for LAs that aren't already zero). Sum your character's total LA before dividing.
*Monster class progressions (e.g., from Savage Species) may be used. Most will need to be adjusted to fit the race's new level adjustment (see previous rule). A character is not required to finish their monster class progression before entering another class; however, a character may not have more class levels than monster levels unless their monster class progression is complete. Once you have completed your progression in a monster class, the “empty levels” that do not add hit dice may be reduced like level adjustment, as below.
*A character may have one bloodline (from Unearthed Arcana). A bloodline level counts as a level adjustment and nothing more; it does not count as a class level for any purpose. However, once you have taken all the bloodline levels you are required to take (1 for Minor, 2 for Intermediate, 3 for Major), they may be reduced like level adjustment, as below.
*Level adjustments may be reduced or "paid off" as per the Unearthed Arcana/SRD rules.

==Situational==
*If a PC or a major (e.g., named) NPC confirms a critical hit, they draw from Paizo's critical hit deck. All others simply multiply the damage as usual.
*If any character rolls a total of 0 or lower on an attack roll, it is an automatic critical fumble, and they draw from Paizo's critical fumble deck.
*The experience of dying and returning to life leaves a person drained of vitality even beyond the loss of a level. Upon resurrection, a character is aged a number of years equal to 1d20 minus their Constitution modifier (minimum 0. A negative Constitution modifier can increase the number of years aged). The true resurrection and true reincarnate spells negate this effect. These years are added to the base adult age in the case of the reincarnate spell.
*A character is considered dead if he reaches negative his Constitution score or negative 10 hit points, whichever is further from zero.
*Characters have a mental age and a physical age. If they are subjected to an artificial aging, youthening, or aging-prevention effect, it normally affects only their physical age. Physical age penalties apply (or are removed) when the character's physical age advances (or reverses) an age category; mental age bonuses apply (or are removed) when the character's mental age advances (or reverses) an age category. Death from old age only occurs when physical age reaches a maximum; one cannot die of old mental age.
*The Giant's diplomacy fix is in effect.
*You may split actual movement around a non-moving move action. Example: move 15' to a door, open it, and then go through the doorway that same round using the rest of your movement.
*All Trained Only skills can be used untrained at a -10 penalty.
*Spellcraft may be used in place of Psicraft, and vice versa, at a -10 penalty. Use Magic Device may be used in place of Use Psionic Device, and vice versa, at a -10 penalty.
*If a temporary source with a duration grants a Constitution bonus (e.g. Barbarian Rage, Bear's Endurance, etc., but not Amulet of Health), the extra hit points granted are temporary hit points which expire when the Constitution bonus goes away. They are lost first, and no real hit points are lost when the duration expires.
*When a spell almost can but can't quite achieve a desired effect, or achieves the desired effect with the most generous reading but not a narrower reading (for example, using heal to cure natural insanity, or using protection from evil to ward off a [compulsion] that only grants control over the target in the broadest sense), a caster of spells or SLAs can alter a spell's effect slightly on the fly. This requires a caster level check or spellcraft check at a difficulty of 15 plus twice the level of the spell to modify.
**Manifesters of powers and PLAs can do the same with a manifester level check or psicraft check against DC of 15 plus twice the power level. Initiators of maneuvers can do the same with an initiator level check or a martial lore check against a DC of 15 plus the maneuver level. Users of natural, extraordinary, and supernatural abilities that aren't included in the above can do the same with a HD check against DC20.
*The soft cover and shooting-into-melee rules are amended/clarified in the following way:
**Using a ranged weapon, if you shoot into somebody in melee combat with somebody else, or there's somebody between you and your target, you get -4 to your attack. These penalties do not stack. Precise Shot negates both penalties.
**Using a reach weapon, you get a -4 to your attack if there's somebody between you and your target, but not if your target is merely in melee with other folks who aren't in the way. The new Polearm Precision feat negates this penalty.
**You can use a reach weapon to attack a Large or larger creature even if it is adjacent to you, by targeting a non-adjacent square occupied by the creature. However, this attack takes the -4 penalty for attacking through a creature.
*You may level up immediately when you gain enough experience to do so, no matter where you are. You immediately gain your full new hit points (i.e., your current hit points go up, but your damage remains the same), but you don't immediately gain anything that you would need a rest for (such as new spell slots, new spells prepared, additional power points, etc). You may elect to delay leveling up as long as you wish, but for the purpose of XP awards you are treated as being whatever level you've earned (so if, e.g., an artificer delays leveling up from 2 to 3 to use up their craft reserve, they're still treated as an ECL3 character for the purpose of future XP awards), you must still apply your levels in the correct order, and you must apply each level in its entirety at the same time.

==Complete List of Permitted Sources==
===Explicitly Permitted Sources===
*The d20 System Reference Document
*The High Seas Reference Document
*Arms and Equipment Guide
*Book of Exalted Deeds
*Book of Vile Darkness
*Cityscape
*Complete Adventurer
*Complete Arcane
*Complete Champion
*Complete Divine
*Complete Mage
*Complete Psionic
*Complete Scoundrel
*Complete Warrior
*Deities & Demigods
*Draconomicon
*Dragon Compendium (except Dvati)
*Dragon Magic
*Drow of the Underdark
*Dungeon Master's Guide I
*Dungeon Master's Guide II
*Dungeonscape
*Eberron Campaign Setting
*Epic Level Handbook
*Expanded Psionics Handbook
*Fiend Folio
*Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
*Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
*Frostburn
*The Giant's Articles (excluding the Polymorph rules)
*Heroes of Battle
*Heroes of Horror
*Libris Mortis
*Lords of Madness
*Magic Item Compendium
*Magic of Incarnum
*Manual of the Planes
*Miniatures Handbook
*Monster Manual I
*Monster Manual II
*Monster Manual III
*Monster Manual IV
*Monster Manual V
*Oriental Adventures
*Planar Handbook
*Player's Handbook I
*Player's Handbook II
*Races of Destiny
*Races of Eberron
*Races of Faerun
*Races of Stone
*Races of the Dragon
*Races of the Wild
*Sandstorm
*Savage Species
*Spell Compendium
*Stormwrack
*Tome of Battle - Book of Nine Swords
*Tome of Horrors, Revised Edition
*Tome of Magic

===Sources Sometimes Permitted With DM Review===
*Dragon Magazine
*Ghostwalk
*Unearthed Arcana (some elements used, some elements not used)
*Weapons of Legacy
*3.5e content on http://www.wizards.com
*most other 3.5e Wizards of the Coast-published sources
*most 3.0e Wizards of the Coast-published sources (content that hasn't been updated to 3.5 only)
*some third-party sources
*some Pathfinder material
*some reputable GitP-vetted homebrew

===Explicitly Banned Sources===
*http://www.dandwiki.com (use the hypertext d20 SRD instead to be sure of avoiding homebrew)
*most other homebrew

On Stacking Metabreath Feats

Ok, so, it is generally accepted (and possibly even RAW-correct) that you can stack metabreath feats (Draconomicon) with themselves on a single breath attack. For example, you can use Enlarge Breath twice to turn a 50-foot cone into a 100-foot cone in exchange for increasing the recharge time by +2 instead of +1.

Do you see the problem yet?

Consider that there is nothing preventing you from stacking Enlarge Breath on your breath weapon a billion times, and therefore blowing up most of the world (or all of it, depending on the world shape involved and your location on it -- if all else fails, you can throw on a couple uses of Split Breath and breathe in four directions simultaneously), at the low cost of never being able to use your breath weapon again.

That is, to say the least, a little silly.

The obvious solution is to say no, you can't stack metabreath feats with themselves after all. (This is probably the real intended solution, considering metamagic feats stopped being stackable with themselves in the 3.0-3.5 changeover, so metabreath feats should have, too.)

Or you can say you can, but you can only do it up to 3 times or 5 times or your Constitution modifier times or whatever.

But today I had a better idea: You can take metabreath feats more than once, and you can stack them with themselves as many times as you've taken them.

This is better because soft caps are always better than hard caps.

Loot as Balance Solution

So it's well-known (by me) that 3.5e's biggest flaw is balance between classes. (This flaw is slightly lessened but not really entirely fixed by Pathfinder.) Monks are crap, druids are boss. It is known.

In my opinion, the best way to fix this is to go well beyond standard wealth by level guidelines.

You can just spam extra gold and it'll ameliorate the problem, because a fighter is more improved by doubling his WBL than a druid is.

But there's an even better way, and that's to drop extra loot tailored to the party. Specifically, loot that the underperforming characters can use and characters performing adequately can't.

Is the party's monk underperforming? (Yes of course he is, don't be silly.) Give the next encounter a Monk's Belt and a Necklace of Natural Attacks.

Warlock? Chasuble of Fell Power (Magic Item Compendium). MIC has a lot of these items, tailored to specific classes in this way. Vest that gives the rogue more sneak attack, boots that give the scout more skirmish, etc.

Got a fighter that's getting outperformed by a warblade? Give a Holy/Unholy/Anarchic/Axiomatic weapon opposed to the warblade's alignment. Or the Crown of White Ravens and its brethren from Tome of Battle (this is useful to a warblade, so you'll need to encourage the warblade to give it up to the fighter), which serves as an introduction to ToB and might encourage the fighter to multiclass to an initiator class (which, unlike multiclassing into a spellcaster and being forever behind, is a favorable choice, because your initiator level is half your non-initiator-class levels plus your level in initiator classes, and which maneuvers/stances you can pick depends only on your initiator level, so a fighter 4/warblade 1 has an IL of 3 instead of 1 and can pick 2nd-level maneuvers right off the bat).

Even a wizard or an archivist can underperform through being played by an unsavvy player, so you can drop scrolls of better spells for them to copy into their spellbooks to subtly encourage their use. E.g., archivist wasting all his time healing? Drop him some divine scrolls of entangle and hold person and stuff. Alternately, and this works for pretty much any caster, drop a wand of something useful that's on the underperforming caster's class list.

Ability Score Generation

I like the evenness that a point buy system for ability score generation can bring. You don't wind up with one party member whose highest stat is 14 and another party member whose lowest stat is 15 like you inevitably do when you roll dice. (Especially what with how there's usually one player in every group who can't be trusted to roll dice unsupervised.)

But randomness is fun, is I guess what draws people to the dice-rolling method of generating ability scores. Or maybe people just like it because it's traditional. (Not for nothing do we speak of "rolling up a new character".)

---

A method that I've been mulling for many moons:

Roll 5 times, with whichever rolling scheme you like best: 3d6 or 4d6b3 or 1d20 or whatever thing you want to use (3d6 and 4d6b3 are traditional; 1d20 is for masochists; with this system, it shouldn't matter).

Then you set the sixth value to whatever number would leave you with the desired point buy. (If no such number exists, reroll the fifth one until one does. If rerolling the fifth one can't possibly make it possible to reach the target, roll the fourth and fifth until it's possible.)

Then you assign these six numbers to whichever stats you want.

Example: I just rolled 3d6s and came up with 9, 11, 9, 14, 14. If I'm aiming for 30 point buy (the value used whenever I DM), the last number must be 17, for an array of {9, 11, 9, 14, 14, 17}.

Example: Rolling 4d6b3s: 12, 10, 10, 13, 8. An 18 in the final stat would be a total PB of 29, so we reroll that 8, coming up with... wow, nice, 18. A final value of 9 brings us to 30PB, for {12, 10, 10, 13, 18, 9}.

Just for masochism, let's try 1d20s: 8, 6, 6, 14, 10. 18 would only be PB20, so we must reroll the 10. Except with those numbers it's not possible: if we rolled a 16, 18 would only bring us to PB28; likewise for two 17s; 17 and 18 (or 18 and 17) would overshoot, for PB31. So we must reroll the fourth and fifth numbers (the 14 and the 10), and now we get 15 and 16, which makes it possible to slot 18 in for the last number, for an array of {8, 6, 6, 15, 16, 18}. (Hopefully I don't need to remind you that this is something of an outlier because only crazy people roll 1d20 for ability scores anyway.)

---

This method has all the interesting randomness of rolling, but the party still winds up balanced, stat-wise. You don't need to keep an eye on that one player who always suspiciously rolls really well, because his cheating ways will just net him a 3 in his last ability score or something (assuming you're using one of the expanded methods that permit you to go below the DMG-mandated 8), and all you need to do to keep him honest is double-check his PB math.

One downside: it's probably a little confusing, and probably many players won't be able to wrap their little heads around it. You may need to hold their hands. You may have to tell them to roll five scores by whatever method they desire, and then just do the PB calculation for the final score yourself. (Use a calculator.)

The Balance of Experience

A few months ago, a friend of mine was starting to put together a Pathfinder campaign, the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. At first, we only had the DM, myself, and one other player. (Two additional players joined later, but for awhile it was just the two.)

After the first session, he decided that, in lieu of doing math, he would just level us up whenever the adventure path said we should be a higher level. Which is entirely reasonable: not everybody DMs from a computer (and it's silly to expect a person to do the relevant math without an XP calculator).

But it got me to thinking about how there were only two of us, and how the XP system would interact with that, were it in use. (It would be a different XP system anyway, being as it was Pathfinder, but 3.5e's system is the one I know.) Now, I'm on the record as thinking the 3.5e experience system is "a work of sublime genius", and I stand by that, but I want to test it.

My thinking was this: if the XP system works (and is applied) properly, then, in an adventure path situation (where you have specific numbers of foes of specific CRs, and the number doesn't vary depending on the level of the PCs), parties containing different numbers of characters should eventually wind up having approximately the same ability to defeat foes (but not the same level). Which is to say: you should be able to run an adventure path as written for a party of any size and the challenges will (after the first few levels) wind up being appropriate to the party.

---

So my test was this: pit three hypothetical parties against a hypothetical adventure path.

The first party consists of two level 1 characters. The second party consists of four level 1 characters. The third party consists of 8 level 1 characters.

The adventure path consists of groups of monsters. You're supposed to be able to beat 13 opponents of CR equal to your level before leveling up, and you're supposed to be able to beat 4 even-level encounters in a day (and you're not necessarily supposed to be able to level up without resting). So I rounded 13 down to 12, and set up this hypothetical adventure path with 76 groups of opponents: 4 groups of 3 at each CR. 4 groups of 3 CR1 monsters, 4 groups of 3 CR2 monsters, 4 groups of 3 CR3 monsters, and so on.

And then I ran the numbers. Assuming the PCs always defeat their opponents and always get precisely the correct amount of XP. Assuming the PCs get a chance to rest and level up after each encounter if they have the XP for it.

By the end of the 76 groups of opponents, the 4-person party, being the baseline around which the XP system was designed, should have just about exactly hit level 20. (Or maybe wound up a bit shy, because they faced 20 fewer opponents over the course of their career than they should have if I'd stuck to the 13-opponents-per-level rule of thumb.) But, though that happened just like it should have, that's not the point I'm going to pay attention to.

I'm going to pay attention to the point when the 2-person party dinged level 20: after the first group of CR18 foes.

At the point in the adventure when the 2-person party was dinging 20, the 4-person party was just hitting 18, and the 8-person party was just hitting 16. That's completely out of balance and needs to be fixed, right? WRONG. Absolutely, blitheringly incorrect.

---

Consider this: a party of two level 20 characters has an encounter challenge rating of 22. A party of four level 18 characters has an encounter challenge rating of 22. A party of eight level 16 characters has an encounter challenge rating of 22. The system works!

(Of course, this neglects the fact that level 16 characters are a spell level or two behind level 20 characters, and it neglects the fact that the 8-person party has a massive action economy advantage. I'll assume, for the sake of perfectly spherical cows, that these two factors balance one another out.)

The first point when the encounter level of the three parties equals out is after the last group of CR6 opponents. The 2-person party is at level 8, the 4-person party is at level 6, and the 8-person party is at level 4. The three parties stay roughly on par with one another thereafter. The characters in the 2-person party wind up consistently 2 levels ahead of those in the 4-person party, and those in the 8-person party wind up consistently 2 levels behind.

Trust the XP system. Used properly, it will not lead you astray.

All-Spellcaster Battle

I recently DMed a battle that went better than I could possibly have planned.

In the old-fashioned, relatively linear, non-OGT campaign (which I've been calling "the summer campaign", for reasons of I'm running it now and it is currently summer) I've been running recently, I still sometimes use random encounter tables. Specifically, because it's set in the same world as my OGT, I use the same random encounter tables as I use for my OGT. (Though the summer campaign is set so far in the Omorashi Empire, while OGT is in Gus, so it's more like a set of tables that are in the same Excel document as my OGT tables, but which had not yet been used.)

Anyway, for a small town that has become completely taken over by goblins, I put together some creatures. For variety, there's goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, bakemonos (Oriental Adventures; I took the line that "bakemonos are the 'goblins' of the Shadowlands" a little more literally than OA intended, and declared them a form of goblin native to the Omorashi Empire (to whatever extent "native" can describe a country that's only existed for 20 years)), mites, pesties, and nilbogs (Tome of Horrors, which I recently discovered and love, full of all the monsters from earlier editions that were too horrible or ridiculous to ever get officially ported to 3e (except even ToH lacks the duckbunny)). They're all led by an ogre monk, and I whipped up some goblin spellcasters for support.

I think I may be embarking upon a half-deliberate attempt to screw every character over in combat, one at a time. This time, it's the ranger's turn: the spellcasters have obscuring mist and fog cloud, and the ogre has Deflect Arrows. Next up: solid fog, web, and undead/oozes/elementals, to annoy the scout! Non-Humanoids to annoy the beguiler! Intelligent, mind-control-resistant humanoids to annoy the Vow Of Peace cleric! Lawful Good yet hostile foes to annoy the paladin! Hostile dragons to annoy the dragon shaman! Or something along those various lines.

Anyhow, the relevant feature of this post: spellcasters! I slapped fiendish and 3 levels of shaman (an OA class that's like the cleric but more interesting) on goblin and called it a yaoguai. The relevant features are cure moderate wounds, hold person, fog cloud, obscuring mist, shield of faith, cure light wounds, burning hands, and some orisons. Also, each yaoguai starts with 1d4-1 random minor scrolls, for variety.

So, for one of the wandering monster fights, I roll... 8 yaoguais. Approximately a level 9 encounter. Needless to say, a very tough fight for an ECL1-2 party. (Most of the party wound up gettting enough XP to level.) And it went fantastically.

So the yaoguais cast some Obscuring Mist/Fog Cloud to annoy the ranger. Then the party took out a couple yaoguais. Then the yaoguais started using their Cures to bring their companions back up, their Hold Person to incapacitate the scout (they tried it on the ranger and discovered that he's not a humanoid), and Burning Hands to wreck the party's crap.

One of the yaoguais summons a huge fiendish centipede. The paladin charges and uses Smite Evil on it. The centipede uses Smite Good on the paladin, prompting entertaining incredulity. The centipede's time runs out and it vanishes.

Anyway, the yaoguais swiftly take down the entire party except for one or two. Every yaoguai that's gone down has gotten a heal and popped right back up again. And all looks lost for our heroes!

Except then the yaoguais all run out of all their decent spells, and have to resort to converting their orisons to inflict minor wounds or trying to punch for 1d2-2 damage. (Shaman at least gets Improved Unarmed Strike for free, so at least they weren't provoking with their attacks.) And the party manages to get enough healing potion down the dragon shaman that he can reactivate his vigor aura. And then it's all over and the yaoguais are suddenly easy to take down.

Why do I say this went fantastically? Because coming back against overwhelming odds from the brink of defeat is awesome. Turning a near party-wipe into a victory is awesome. (I don't really know how well the players actually liked it, because it took all night, they were exhausted by the end, and then they immediately barged into the library and discovered the ogre monk, for whom they were woefully unprepared. But I thought it was fantastic.)

And to what do I ascribe this fantasticness? All of the foes were pure spellcasters, with no melee support or capability at all. Going nova by blowing all their good spells in the first few rounds of combat allowed the yaoguais to almost, but not quite, win. Having done that, and no longer having any decent spells left, then allowed the PCs to win handily.

An encounter of nothing but pure spellcasters, with just enough power to almost wipe the party. Don't do it too often, lest it get old, but try it once or twice.

And, as a side note, this is also one of the reasons why wandering monster fights are good. You might wind up accidentally rolling an encounter it would normally never occur to you to throw at the party, and that encounter might turn out to be amazing and might give you completely new ideas to add to your DMing repertoire.

On Qualifying

So I've been thinking about the Southern Magician and Precocious Apprentice feats.

Southern Magician is a regional feat from Races of Faerun. I allow people to ignore the region prerequisites of regional feats, though I might say that I wouldn't allow a character to take multiple regional feats with conflicting region prerequisites, on the assumption that many regional feats are probably balanced around a character being from only one region.

The relevant text of the feat is this: "Once per day per two spellcaster levels, you can cast a divine spell as an arcane spell, or vice versa."

"Psh," you might say, "That's a useless, crappy feat." And yes, yes it is.

Except for the mystic theurge's prerequisite: "Able to cast 2nd-level divine spells and 2nd-level arcane spells."

With Southern Magician, you can drastically reduce the level at which you qualify for Mystic Theurge. It still requires 6 ranks in two knowledge skills, so you'll never be able to reduce it below 4 (without Inspire Courage + Psychic Reformation shenanigans), but that's still better than the level 7 which would otherwise be the minimum.

Consider also Precocious Apprentice, from Complete Arcane. The relevant text: "Choose one 2nd-level spell from a school of magic you have access to. You gain an extra 2nd-level spell slot that must be used initially to cast only the chosen spell."

Precocious Apprentice allows you to cast a 2nd-level spell at 1st level. Southern Magician allows you to cast any divine spell as arcane and any arcane spell as divine. With these two feats, you meet the "Able to cast 2nd-level divine spells and 2nd-level arcane spells" requirement at level 1.

You'd obviously want to take a level in a second spellcasting class so you can actually derive some benefit from Mystic Theurge, and then you could Inspire Courage + Psychic Reformation your way into meeting the skill requirements, and take your first level of Mystic Theurge at 3, losing only 1 caster level in each of your casting classes.

This is all well-known trickery in optimizing circles.

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Here's the important question: how much of this should a DM allow?

Mystic Theurge is one of those classes that a novice will look at and say "holy amazeballs, that's a ludicrously overpowered class!", and a more experienced player will look at and issue a resounding "meh". (Unless you involve Ur-Priest or Sublime Chord, in which case an experienced player will perk right up again.)

The problem is that, if you enter it as intended, even with wizard 3/archivist 3, the most efficient combination that even remotely resembles the intent of the designers, you're still 3 levels behind on both sides. You're breaking the First Rule of Practical Optimization: Thou Shalt Not Lose Caster Levels. Sure, you go to bed with more spells than a one-class caster starts the day with, but you'll be 1-2 spell levels behind for the rest of your career. Most optimizers agree the tradeoff is far from worth it, especially if your DM permits the 15-minute adventuring day (which he shouldn't).

If, on the other hand, you enter Mystic Theurge at level 3 (as a wizard/archivist), then you're only ever 1 caster level behind. Your spell level is on par with a sorcerer's, but you have more spells and the greater day-to-day flexibility of a prepared caster. That really is absurdly powerful.

Entry with Sorcerer 1/Favored Soul 1 is probably still tier 2, albeit extremely high tier 2; they get twice as many spells known and spells/day, but even that wouldn't bring their day-to-day flexibility up to the level of a prepared caster.

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So, given that Sorcerer 1/Favored Soul 1/Mystic Theurge builds are probably at best on par with straight tier 1, it's a little incoherent to ban it without also banning all of tier 1.

But a Wizard 1/Archivist 1/Mystic Theurge build is approximately what you might call god tier, so not banning it would be insanity.

The obvious solution: make Southern Magician and Precocious Apprentice spontaneous-only. And, because casters really don't need nice things, let's make them mutually exclusive, just in case I'm wrong about the tier of Sorcerer 1/Favored Soul 1/Mystic Theurge, and thereby make it at least 4 of one, 1 of the other. Which is still 1 level earlier than prepared casters can enter; maybe this will make prepared casters not quite so much the obvious choice.

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Precocious Apprentice
As in Complete Arcane, except:
Special: You can take this feat only as a 1st-level character.
You cannot take this feat if you have any ability to cast prepared spells. If you gain the ability to cast prepared spells, you lose the benefit of this feat.
You cannot take this feat if you have the Southern Magician feat.

Southern Magician
As in Races of Faerun, except:
Special: You cannot take this feat if you have any ability to cast prepared spells. If you gain the ability to cast prepared spells, you lose the benefit of this feat.
You cannot take this feat if you have the Precocious Apprentice feat.

Re-Rethinking Epic Options

Some time ago, I made a post about [Epic] feats as normal feats. But I have since realized that this doesn't even go far enough: most [Epic] options in general (e.g., epic prestige classes) are terrible compared to regular options. (Major exception: Epic Spellcasting, which is just stupid broken. More on that later.)

So I think I will refine broaden my rules by ditching the specific [epic] feat options and adding the following more general rule, based on the Alexandrian's observation that the most powerful heroes in fiction are at most 5th level:

For the purpose of [epic] feats, prestige classes, and other options, a character is considered epic at 10th level instead of 20th level. After 10th level, regular feat slots may be used to acquire [epic] feats. All other prerequisites still apply.

A substantial majority of [epic] options still require 20+levels worth of ranks in skills, however. Rather than institute an across-the-board subtraction of 10 from all [epic] skill prerequisites (leaving many requiring fewer ranks than pre-[epic] things), or from all skill prerequisites (leaving many pre-[epic] things with no skill prerequisites at all), I will go with my old "add a new option and make it a feat" standby:

Skill Master
Prerequisite: Skill Focus in the skill selected
Benefit: For the purpose of of qualifying for feats, prestige classes, and other options, you are treated as though you have 15 more ranks in the selected skill than you actually have.

Additionally: Epic Spellcasting is completely broken. But I'm going to allow it just as it already is, except that actual epic spells don't exist. You can use epic spell slots only for metamagic'd versions of regular slots.

On the Virtues of "Yes, And"

You may have heard the virtues of "Yes, and" extolled. If not at DMing school, then perhaps at improv comedy school.

The thinking goes like this: Saying "no" to a player discourages them and makes them sad and makes them not be having as much fun. (Saying "no" to an improv comedian not only makes them sad, it also disrupts the pace of the banter and throws everyone off their game and makes the act less funny, so the parallels are only surface-deep.)

Consider the following:

"Yes, and" > "Yes" > "Yes, but" > "No, but" > "No"

Always aspire to be as far left on this list as you possibly can. Whenever you make a decree, ask yourself "is there a good reason I'm here, and not one to the left?" Going one to the left if you can will make it more fun for your player and more fun for you. (A possible exception is players who ask for all sorts of stupid things for no other reason than because they suspect you'll let them get away with it. I'm honestly not sure how to deal with this kind of player. It may be that this is the only situation in which an unadorned "no" can actually be justified.)

Certainly, there are good reasons to find yourself somewhere on the right. Some things are just broken. Leadership, for example. This core principle is why I go with the "yes, but" of nerfing it, rather than the "no" of banning it outright. Similarly, rather than banning Divine Metamagic ("no"), only ban nightstick abuse ("yes, but").
Rather than disallow all flaws, allow them and make an effort to exploit them to the fullest possible extent -- if people take Shaky, throw lots of ranged and flying enemies at them; if they take Murky-Eyed, throw them against lots of enemies with concealment (This works out to either a "yes, but" or a "yes, and", depending on the adventurousness of the player).
You want to buy 50 flasks of lamp oil? Yes, but several sessions later you may find a factotum casting a scorching ray at them.

But it's still always more fun for everyone to go as far to the left as possible. You want your character to be a prince? Yes, and also take this plot I've hung on that hook for you.
You want to buy dragonhide armor? Yes, and what colour is it in case you come across somebody who doesn't take kindly to you wearing a relative? (Is "Yes, if you provide the dragon skin" a "Yes, and", a "Yes, but", or a "No, but"? Probably depends on how plausible the party killing a dragon is at their level.)
See how much more fun that is for you, the player, and the party than just "yes"?

As of this writing, I just told a player "no, but". I'm sadly in the bad habit of saying "no, but" much more often than I ought, though I've mostly broken myself of the habit of outright "no"s. The question was "Can I use this homebrewed flaw?" and my answer was "No, but you may refluff a WotC-published flaw to achieve a similar effect." (Homebrewed flaws tend to be terrible, or as I heard them described once, "pants on head retarded", so I am more prejudiced against them than I am against other homebrew, even if an individual flaw seems non-terrible on the surface. Not that I'm not prejudiced against homebrew in general. But this is prejudice, which is why my wording was "I'd rather you didn't, though I may allow it if it's a deal-breaker" rather than a flat "no". An empty justification, perhaps.)

The other day, I got to say "yes, and", and it made me feel good. A player asked if he could use Central Casting: Heroes of Legend (which seems awesome, by the way). I said (provisionally) sure, and when he rolled up a character, I got to say "Oh, hey, 'human nomads' probably means a nation of sailors who didn't bothered to recolonize the land when the Subsidence came, and 'light cavalry' means riders of sharks or dolphins or porpoises, and 'skiing' means 'water skiing'." Lovely.

What Kind Of Balance Matters?

As I've said before, a properly-implemented open gaming table or similar system can auto-solve the problem of encounter balance. If you provide a variety of encounters, and a choice for the players of which encounters to engage, the problem of encounter balance solves itself. Your players, if they have any capacity for learning, will fight whatever creatures they feel comfortable fighting. If they would prefer to fight ECL-2 foes and accrue experience slowly but risklessly, they can do that. If they would prefer to fight ECL+2 foes and accrue experience quickly but at great risk to themselves, they can do that, too. This is basically the same principle espoused in the Dungeon Master's Guide, except it involves less need for the GM to be good at reading his players. (It's probably inaccurate and offensive to say that D&D players are less likely to be good at social skills like reading people than your average person, so instead I'll just imply it. Though D&D players are certainly more likely to be good at such skills than, say, pure video gamers.)

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So with that problem neatly and tidily solved, what other potential balance issues do we need to think about?

Well, the obvious: intra-party power balance. Consider a party consisting of a wizard played by a skilled player, a druid played by an unskilled player, a fighter played by a skilled player, and a monk played by an unskilled player. It is well accepted that wizards and druids are tier 1 while fighters and monks are tier 5. Which is to say, a well-designed, well-played wizard or druid will always be orders of magnitude more useful in a party than a well-designed, well-played fighter or monk.

Well, it has been my experience that low-optimization parties are better balanced than high-optimization parties. A poorly-designed, poorly-played wizard is probably worse than a poorly-designed, poorly-played fighter. Wizards have so many options that if you make poor spell choices, you can't contribute anything, while fighters can always hit things with sticks. The difference between a good fighter and a bad fighter is smaller than the difference between a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll well and a fighter with a d20 that tends to roll poorly. So that's one option: play only with newbies.

A high-optimization party, similarly, will usually have players who avoid tiers lower than 2 on principle, and will auto-balance. They will also break any encounter you throw at them and ask for more, so you want to avoid this situation unless you're running the aptly-named Tomb of Horrors.

So, returning to the good wizard / bad cleric / good fighter / bad monk example. Here, the cleric, fighter, and monk will all be roughly on par with one another, with the wizard the odd one out. The other three will always feel useless. The wizard may, depending on his player's personality, become tired of constantly being in the spotlight, or constantly needing to carry a disproportionate amount of weight. How do we fix this?

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The tier system provides four suggestions:

#1: Alter point buy. The wizard has fewer ability points to spend than the monk. This helps to balance them a little, because the tier 1 classes tend to be strongly Single Ability Dependent and the tier 5 classes tend to be strongly Multiple Ability Dependent. But what if the monk multiclasses into druid for his second and subsequent levels? A one-level dip into monk is probably worth 16 extra points. You can solve this, but the solution will always be messy.

#2: Gestalt. Tier 1 and 2 can't gestalt, tier 3 and 4 may gestalt with tier 6, tier 5 and 6 may gestalt with other tier 5 and 6. This also gets weird when multiclassing comes into the picture. You get bizarre and undescribable things like (fighter 1 || knight 1) / cleric. It's possible, but messy.

#3: Ban the top few tiers. If you ban tier 1 and 2, great, you just banned 90% of the dedicated spellcasters. Hope you're in a low-magic setting!

The above suggestions also penalize the bad cleric just as much as they penalize the good wizard. We don't want a situation where that happens, the crappy cleric needs as much help as he can get. On the other hand, we also don't want to have a situation where we say "You're an optimizer, so you get penalized; You're incompetent, so you get rewarded", if for no other reason than because that's so subjective.

#4: Go through, find the reasons why the tiers 1 are so good, and nerf them. Find the reasons why the tier 5s are so bad, and improve them. Ban Polymorph. Ban Natural Spell. Give monks full BaB. Give fighters a feat every level. This? This is a butt-ton of work.

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The above methods are all clunky yet potentially workable. But I like two alternate methods, one also clunky, one more subtle:

#A: You need to take a certain number of levels of low-tier classes before you can take a high-tier class. For example: you can start only with a tier 3, 4, or 5 class. You can't multiclass into tier 2 unless you're already at least third level, and you can't multiclass into tier 1 unless you're already at least sixth level.

You can, of course, apply this with more steps. For example: At first level, you must take a tier 5 or 6 character (so no dedicated spellcasters other than Healer). At level 2, you may take a tier 4, 5, or 6 class. At level 3, you may take a tier 3-6 class. At level 4, you may take a class of any tier except 1. At level 5, you may take any class.

Similarly, you could simply give high tiers a level adjustment. For example, assign Tier 1 LA+2 and Tier 2 LA+1. It might occur to one to give Tier 6 classes a negative level adjustment, though that's tantamount to saying, "taking a level in this class is exactly as good as not taking a level in anything at all" - even Warrior has full BaB and a good Fort save, so everybody can have +1 BaB and +2 Fort for free. This option does not, however, work with multiclassing (a Commoner 19/Wizard 1 would have to have much the same LA as a Wizard 19/Commoner 1, barring liberal application of weird math).

This works because, generally, the best way to improve a spellcasting character is to give him more levels in his spellcasting class. Conversely, the best way to nerf a spellcasting build is to include non-spellcaster levels. Effectively, this puts a spellcaster a certain number of levels behind where he might normally be at any given level. Getting Polymorph at level 7 is a complete game-breaker. Getting Polymorph at, say, level 13 (but still casting with a CL of 7, unless you take the Practiced Spellcaster feat) is much more in line with the sorts of things other characters can do at level 13. A certain kind of gish character might be inclined to take those non-spellcasting levels anyway, and is thereby not penalized any more than they're already penalizing themselves with their choice of build, which is probably fine.

#B: Drastically limit the kinds of items players can buy in stores, and distribute magic items with care. Be generous with things like magical weapons and armor, Belts of Ogre Strength, Monk's Belts, Potions of Bull's Strength, and other things the tier 5s can use better than the tier 1s. Be sparing with scrolls for the wizard or artificer to copy, metamagic rods, Headbands of Intellect, and other things the tier 1s can use better than the tier 5s. This depends on which particular classes you have in the party. If you've got a monk but no cleric or druid, go ahead and give them a Periapt of Wisdom. If you've got a swashbuckler or rogue and no wizard or archivist, go ahead with the Headbands of Intellect.

Similarly, tailor encounters to the strengths of your tier 5s. Golems are good for this, though don't go too overboard with them (the goal is to make the tier 5s as useful as the tier 1s, not to make the tier 1s completely useless forever). If there's a cleric, don't use too many undead, especially if there's also a rogue or a fighter with a +1 Keen Rapier.

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There is a more general point here, though: when you make any alterations to or interpretations of any rules, try to make sure you're not making tier 1-2 classes more powerful and you're not making tier 4-5 classes weaker.

I myself have broken this rule of thumb on occasion (engineers make great wizards; the list of scrolls wizards can scribe is longer if you allow them to copy non-Sorcerer/Wizard scrolls; mongrelfolk wizards/sorcerers/druids can get water elementals as familiars/animal companions with two feats). But at least I haven't nerfed monks.