Would E6 D&D3.5/PF be good for a cRPG?

[deuxhero]

One of the noticeable things about 3.5 is how play completely changes after level 5/6, with "big" magic items poping up everywhere, crazy supernatural abilities to everyone, armies no longer threaten a PC and death being a revolving door.

E6 is a variant that makes the maximum level 6, but gives characters an extra feat every 5000 XP and allows them to keep building wealth.

1: Would such a system be suited for a cRPG (compared to straight 3.5/PF)?
2: Would such a system interest you more or less than straight 3.5/PF?


E6 rules for reference
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?352 ... de-D-amp-D

 

[spectre]

You will basically get something akin to Baldur's Gate 1, but without multiclassing.

One good thing about it is that it simplifies the character builds somehow - no more extensive multiclassing, no more convoluted prestige class combinations, you will most likely get simple, classic party builds, which is both a good and a bad thing, depending on your perspective.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, D&D generally sucks at low level, low-magic play, as it was not really designed to play as such.
So, if I were to make a low-level and low magic campaign (or game), I'd rather use a different system.

 

[Excidium]

I think it's a good idea in concept but I agree with what spectre said.

 

[Stasgard]

e6 is an excellent system in a PnP environment, neatly solving the massive power disparity between players in the game. And, I disagree that D&D sucks at low-level low magic play. There are definitely better systems to do it in, however this requires learning and entirely new systems ruleset. And of course the familiarity of so many people to D&D and 3.5 in particular can make it easier to find players that are ready to go and comfortable with the system.

However I am not sure the system is suited to cRPG's as well as standard 3.5 is. cRPG's are already a pale shadow of PnP gaming, and I've found that e6 tends to have less of a pure combat approach and far more of a mechanical problem solving angle, which takes a lot of effort to implement into a cRPG, and even if you do, you simply can't allow every option like arround the table. So, I'm not sure an e6 cRPG would work properly.

As for interest, I like e6 better then standard 3.5 personally. The massive gap between casters and non-casters always seems to cause issues in play. (Yes, I am aware in a cRPG this is irrelevant)

Edit: I've never played Pathfinder. So I can't comment on how it works there.

 

[PorkaMorka]

This seems awesome. Although it is a bit of hack job; I'd prefer additional revisions to slow down progression once you get to level three or so; making level 6 a real accomplishment, instead of a barrier that comes out of nowhere.

I think this would be awesome for a CRPG. I would be much more excited for this than I would for a normal D&D 3.5 CRPG.

To avoid some of obvious issues that present themselves, I would make it more like a gritty survival oriented tactical RPG than a classic CRPG.

I would take a page out of JA2's playbook and have a large cast of characters, large enough that you can let some many of them die.

I would make the party a much more flexible concept than it is in classic CRPGs. In classic CRPGs a party is group of 4-8 utterly loyal people who stay together no matter what and miraculously never die (due to the reload spell).

But a P&P adventuring party is often much more flexible than that. It would likely include henchmen and hirelings who may not stick around forever. It might also include a variety of temporary NPCs. And most importantly, there was often a lot of turnover in terms of player characters. I know that I rarely got a raise dead spell, when I died I had to roll up a new character (lower than the average level of the other PCs).

This kind of party actually seems a lot more interesting to me than a party that just gets stronger and stronger after every fight. Plus it is a good excuse to significantly relax the maximum limits on party size and make the fights more tactically interesting than "use the doorway as a chokepoint and kill melee bugbears one by one."

As long as the combat system was modeled at least as well as in TOEE KOTC, I don't think the core gameplay would be lacking at all, although you'd want to make sure you took every step to maximize the speed of play. I'm thinking 2d tiles, no walking animations, square grid, lots of hotkeys.

So yeah, it's kind of my dream game.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

This sounds very good. Thanks for pointing this out.

 

[CappenVarra]

This sounds very good. Thanks for pointing this out.