Hello, and welcome to the Project Phoenix wiki. Project Phoenix is a revision of the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 rules, designed to fix the broken rules, add new material and incorporate existing content from other OGC sources, like the ELH, Psionics Handbook, and the divine rules, as well as my own custom content, and generally make play more interesting and balanced overall.
Project Phoenix is a self-contained, Open Source ruleset. You can pull everything off this site and have a complete, workable system, or you can cherry-pick rules and use them in your 3.5 or even 3E game with little or no work. Open Source means that not only is it Open Game Content, but the underlying mechanics of the system are exposed so that it can be more easily modified by those who have the inclination to do so. I'm writing a series of Design Diary entries, along with a Discussions section explaining all the work I have been (and am) doing, which covers the justifications and decisions I've made.
I'm open to comments, criticisms, and playtest reports - I want to keep this project evolving and growing, and it can't do so without people using it.
Project Phoenix is intended to combine and streamline all the rules - core and epic - into a coherent whole. 3.5 has a feel of "design by committee", where some rules appear multiple times (sometimes in the same book), and sometimes contradict each other. With one person doing all the rules, it ensures a more unified view of the ruleset. Also, a lot of similar systems have been combined - the social skills use the same rules; animal companions, familiars, and paladin mounts use the same rules; magic items can be made using the Craft skill (and use the Craft system); etc. All of the epic rules have been seamlessly incorporated into the core; there are still be "epic levels" (now called "legendary"), but the transition between pre-20th level and post-20th is be less noticeable - a gradual change instead of, "Oh hey, I'm epic now!".
Why "Project Phoenix"? It was the first thing that popped into my head when I started thinking about names, and I liked it, so it stuck. Besides, having a name makes it more official (or at least makes it seem like I know what I'm doing). Calling it "D&D 3.75" gives people preconceptions - they expect it to look and feel like D&D; calling it by a completely different name allows me to avoid the preconceptions and expectations and make the changes necessary for it to be a workable ruleset.
Is it compatible with 3.5? Of course. The changes are more pervasive and deeper than, say, Pathfinder, but not nearly as much as 4E - it's still recognizably 3.5. All the classes are still there, most of the PrCs are still there, the spells, the monsters (except the PI material), magic items… it's just that the way some things work got changed.
What's changed? You can find a summary of the changes here.
Will it get published? Getting paid for all my work would be nice, but it's a big pain trying to find artists, editors, and a publisher, not to mention getting people to buy three complete books worth of stuff. I much prefer to just write stuff and share it with anyone who wants to use it. Maybe if it takes off I'll see about getting it published, but for right now, I'm content to make it available to anyone who wants it. I'm a big supporter of the Open Game Movement, so all of Project Phoenix is now and will forever be OGC and available for free.
What about that phoenix pic? I found the phoenix on a public domain clipart site.
What are you working on now? See my To-Do List. I'll try to keep it as updated as I can. Everything there is more or less in order of importance.
Declaration of Open Game Content: Unless otherwise noted, all material on this site is Open Game Content.
What's New?
2 Jul: I finally got off my butt and did the paladin bonded mounts; I also added the spreadsheet I used for monster ECL calcs to the zipfile.
28 Jun: I wrapped up the final bits on the legendary spells (along with a discussion section) and grand rituals; all the spells I have are now available. I added the three new monsters (the living lightning, minor death, and skull swarm to the New Monsters page as well for those who want to use them without the legendary spells. And I think that's it. The core rules are now complete. I'll update the To-Do list with miscellaneous stuff I want to do, but the largest part of this thing is done.
27 Jun: I've added the feats a to L and Legendary Commander feats, along with rules for Cohorts and Followers, henchmen, hirelings, and soldiers, and reputation. I also uploaded an article on PrC creation (which I thought I'd done long ago) and an Excel DM Auto-Calc sheet for NPCs and monsters. And finally, I added the Meistersinger PrC (it was listed on the table and was finished, but I forgot to put the actual page up for some reason).
24 Jun: It's done!! I've finished and uploaded the final two monster files. The zipfile is now complete (hallelujah - I am SO sick of monsters).
22 Jun: Since I have most of the monsters' ECLs done, I went over the druid companions and wizard familiars and adjusted the tables a bit. I'll get the paladin bonded mounts done soon, I promise.
21 Jun: I added all the legendary monsters for the previous files, then got crazy and burned through all the S monsters as well. Go me.
20 Jun: Finished and added the O-R monsters. And once again, I realized that I've been forgetting the legendary monsters, because that file was in a different folder. Oops. I'll get all that stuff taken care of as soon as I can. (And yes, I deliberately removed the "Squares" notations under Move; I've been considering it for awhile, and decided to just do it, since PP doesn't rely on a combat map.)
Also, with the help of EjoThims, I've overhauled the fighter's combat styles. Now the fighter is truly a force to be reckoned with.
Finally, I've made a few tweaks to the Jump skill - you only need a head start equal to half the distance you're jumping, instead of a flat 20 feet.
19 Jun: Finished and added the M-N monsters.
18 Jun: Several changes to feats:
- Revised the Improved Finesse feat so it requires Dex 13 and Weapon Finesse instead of Int 13 and Combat Reflexes (it didn't make a lot of sense for an Int-based feat to modify Dex- and Cha-based maneuvers).
- Split off demoralize from the Intimidate skill, added taunt as a maneuver, and make a new feat called Improved Combat Manipulation to cover those and feint (+2 bonus to all three).
- Improved SR is gone, since the new SR system isn't rated by flat numbers anymore (missed that one when I changed the rule).
- Updated Two-Weapon Fighting so that the extra attack you gain from the off hand scales with your BAB (meaning two-weapon fighters only need one feat, not three). That was the original intent; I just forgot to put it in there.
