Warlock, 3rd Edition (okay, let's make TOME a complete game)

[DrPraetor]

Naturally the scout can be better at some things than the Assassin, but you said "protected roles".

If the Scout is like the Assassin, except that the Scout is better in the wilderness while the Assassin is better in the city, then the two classes are different. If, furthermore, the Assassin is better at killing attacks and the Scout is better at bluffing/coordinating attacks with the other characters, that's two differences.

But that's not enough to provide the scout with a protected role, because the Assassin can flank the enemy, shoot a bunch of arrows from concealment and make a bluff check to seem like eight guys. In fact, you'd tend to expect that the Assassin would be level-proportionally super-good at doing all of those things. The fact that the scout is numerically somewhat better at it is not what I thought you meant by "protected role".

The D&D wiki is a pain to find stuff in - the Soldier class doesn't appear to be in any of the Tomes here (?). Now, I happen to like the mechanics you came up with quite a bit.

So do you think - Assassin, Champion, Hero, Rogue - is a workable division of purely mundane skills or no?

More importantly - can the Assassin, Champion, Hero and Rogue be made competitive with a 3e wizard equivalent? For starters, I'd take the Tome classes and make gestalts out of them:
Assassin = Assassin + Thief Acrobat
Hero = Fighter + Soldier
Champion = Knight + Samurai + ... didn't you have a Warlord somewhere?
Rogue = ???

but even doubling-up on these schticks doesn't give the high level characters enough wuxia type stuff to compete with spellcasters, imo. It's a start, though.

I don't think that a game has to have 13 flavors of warrior classes, only that it could (I guess it could also support a Scout, Samurai, Buccaneer, and Soulborn, so limiting yourself to 13 isn't even necessary). Making classes out of these things isn't even difficult:

So the Soldier is a Knight... who is poor? Who is embittered and cynical?
Ex-Soldier is practically synonymous with "Hero from civilized country" so I don't see how this washes either.

Something like this.

The point is that there really aren't "Cleric Aspects" and "Warrior Aspects" that you mix together to make a Paladin. Your Paladin class stands alone in things it does, and if it doesn't you should either scrap it or rethink it. But I have a great deal of faith in the ability to rethink things until you find a thing for a class to do. This is of course trivial for magic users, since if you divide magic into 2 flavors or 32 flavors it's precisely as arbitrary and even getting some magic from column A and other magic from column B is totally plausible. But for non-casters or secondary casters it still isn't terribly difficult.

Can you imagine things a Scout can be better at than an Assassin? Absolutely. But you fix down your starting class list, which will be between 7 and 50 classes long, and then you divide up shticks.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

the social/schtick role of a member of the socially acceptable religious hierarchy is protectable, and is furthermore a big deal.

wat

The hell? It is no more protectable than ruling a country, or wearing a fluffy hat, or having a mercedes full of cheerleaders. (yes I know there's nothing spoiler-worthy in this paragraph, but I wanted that "wat" to stand on its own)

If "is good at sneaking around in the wilderness" is a protectable role than "rules countries" is definitely a protectable role .

Hell, being a member of officially sanctioned religious authority is one of the three classic protected roles (the other two are "good at farming", and "good at fighting", by the way.)

[OgreBattle]

They don't overlap each other's roles.
Also notice the Fighter is highly competent at the skill he's specialized in.

[Starmaker]

Hell, being a member of officially sanctioned religious authority is one of the three classic protected roles (the other two are "good at farming", and "good at fighting", by the way.)

In a heartbreaker FRPG, none of the PCs farm (they could have, at a point), every PC fights, and becoming a god is also on the table.

Everyone can join or start a cult. "Duping the crowd via magic" or "channeling the essence of ultimate good and evil" are potentially protectable as components of roles, but having a reputation isn't.

[Parthenon]

In terms of protected combat roles, you could decide that

• Rogues Assassins have the protected roles of debuffing, creating opportunities for others to attack enemies, and dealing damage to protected enemies.
• Barbarians have the protected roles of moving characters around, debuffing and dealing damage to unprotected enemies.
• Champions have the protected roles of buffing allies, disabling enemies temporarily and dealing damage to groups.

This means that both Barbarians and Rogues Assassins can debuff, but that none of the Barbarian's abilites open enemies up for attacks like the Rogue Assassin can easily distract the enemy with feints or accurately flick flashbangs in their face. However, none of the Champion's abilities can debuff.

Similarly, the Barbarian's arranging characters is a protected role in that the Rogue Assassin and Champion can't shove allies around, bullrush enemies off ledges or hit them so hard they go flying backwards.

This way there's a reason to have each class and interesting interactions between them. You want a Druid and Barbarian because they can create walls of thorns and shove enemies into them, or two Rogues Assassins because they are good at opening enemies defences up and dealing lots of damage to them.

[Username17]

Having friends in the Church of Pelor can't be a protected role for the same reason that having a cool magic sword can't be a protected role. Social contacts are treasure, and can and will be acquired during play. Similarly being good at "combat" or "adventuring" can't be protected roles, because every character is going to be doing that stuff. And that is something that makes me extremely leery about having a character called "Rogue" - other than a combat style based on overwhelming damage backed by fragility, their supposed schtick is pretty much just "adventuring skills".

Protectable combat shticks are simple to put to paper. Just arrange some combination of holding, taking, nuking, or controlling territory within your game system and run with it. Yes, I know that 5e has no territory control and no apparent difference between melee and ranged, but that is because it is a cluster fuck designed by a fucking moron. Assuming that you have a (real) tactical minigame, simply having a character who interacts with it in a unique way means that they have a unique combat role.

A protectable non-combat shtick is more difficult to arrange. It has to be something that one character could plausibly do for the team that the team could also potentially do without entirely. So various forms of exposition are pretty good for that, because there are other avenues of exposition that feel distinct even if the end result is that the same mystery is solved.

-Username17

[deaddmwalking]

In terms of protected combat roles, you could decide that

• Rogues have the protected roles of debuffing, creating opportunities for others to attack enemies, and dealing damage to protected enemies.
• Barbarians have the protected roles of moving characters around, debuffing and dealing damage to unprotected enemies.
• Champions have the protected roles of buffing allies, disabling enemies temporarily and dealing damage to groups.

This means that both Barbarians and Rogues can debuff, but that none of the Barbarian's abilites open enemies up for attacks like the Rogue can easily distract the enemy with feints or accurately flick flashbangs in their face. However, none of the Champion's abilities can debuff.

Alternatively, you could decide that these types of abilities are determined by feats or some other 'selectable power'. In that case, protection of the role comes from the fact that a single player can't take EVERY role. Ie, a barbarian can't take feats that allow them to move characters around, debuff enemies, dealing damage to unprotected enemies, dealing damage to protected enemies, dealing damage to groups, and disabling enemies temporarily. If that's the case, they can all be 'heroes' or 'warriors' or what have you - their 'selectable abilities' help determine the role they fit.

But either way, I don't even see how this is a Races of War Tome Book.

[DrPraetor]

I wasn't really sold on the rogue either.

So we've got taking, holding, controlling and nuking territory. I'm not sure what nuking territory means, but I'm going to add penetrating, which is moving through territory that someone else controls, and evading whatever control they may exert over it.

The Hero is Conan - he's best at charging in, but good in all other roles as well.
The Champion is Prince Valiant - he holds passes against impossible odds a lot, so is best at holding and controlling, is relatively poor at nuking and penetrating, is okay at taking.
The Assassin is Elric (who is also a MU) - he's not much good for holding (he gives ground a lot), but he's actually pretty good at controlling (suppressing fire.) He's good at taking and poor at nuking (or the reverse depending on what nuking means.) Obviously he's best at penetrating.
We can have a protected combat role for a fourth class, depending on what nuking means and how important it is.

So:
[*] Champion - take: good, hold: best, control: best, nuke: good, penetrate: poor. Very strong social minigame.
[*] Hero - take: best, hold: good, control: good, nuke: good, penetrate: good. Strong social minigame, strong stealth minigame.
[*] Asassin - take: good, hold:
[*] Ranger - take: okay, hold: okay, control: good, nuke: good, penetrate: good. strong stealth minigame, very strong wilderness minigame. Maybe some magic.
[*] Paladin - take: good, hold: okay, control: okay, nuke: best, penetrate: poor. strong social minigame. Some magic.
[*] Monk - take: okay, hold: okay, control: good, nuke: good, penetrate: good. strong stealth minigame. Some magic.

Frank you're being deliberately dense: Has friends in the Church of Pelor != Is an ordained priest of Pelor. There's no real world civilization and hardly any fantasy world in which being a sanctioned member of a significant organization isn't good for something. As deadmanwalking correctly points out, you can make anything under the sun a feat, but since being a Cleric does come with cool vestments and a clearly designated membership roster, it makes more sense to have it be a class than just about anything else.

Remind me later: has contacts isn't a protected role, but always has contacts everywhere you go is a protected role and someone should have it.

Let's spitball some class features for Clerics:
Chant: Clerics exhort the faithful to acts of courage and diligence, especially against enemies of the faith. In order to use any of your Chant benefits, you must be constantly speaking prayers or sacred litanies (thus, you cannot speak spells). Others may benefit from your Chant only as long as they can hear you. Ordinarily, you can only use one Chant at a time.

Anathema: (Chant) Your foes are enemies of the faith, living in despair and spiritual despondency, harming themselves as much as they oppose you. Better that they should die than remain in such a state. Whenever an ally hearing this Chant forces an opponent to give ground, that ally may make an additional attack of opportunity against that opponent.

Steadfast: (Chant) The example of prior martyrs inspires your allies to stand fast in the face of danger, and gird themselves from horror and despair. Your allies may reroll one failed recovery attempt (as in, from being shaken, dazed, etc.) each round while they hear this chant.

Argument from Authority: (Social Action) Used to disengage from a social interaction when you are losing. Only useful against other members of your religion, and not useable against those with spiritual authority (cleric levels, or equivalent sources) greater than or equal to yours. If you succeed in an argument from authority, the other party is not persuaded, but the social interaction ends in a draw as the other party no longer wishes to debate with you.

this protected role probably doesn't give enough material for an entire class, but you glom it onto a second-rate spellcaster and bam, you have a cleric.

[Username17]

There's no real world civilization and hardly any fantasy world in which being a sanctioned member of a significant organization isn't good for something.

Sure. But we're talking about a polytheist fantasy world where the religions look a lot more like Dominions factions than medieval Europe. Yeah, you could make a class around "Priest of Pelor": you shoot light beams at people, you have some sort of position in the order, farmers automatically ask you to intercede on their behalf for better weather and shit. But why the fucking hell would that be the same class as this guy? Or this chick?

The thing is that there isn't a monolithic entity that is "The Church" in generic fantasy land. Every faction has a church, but those churches are totally different in what sexy ladies they have.

Being a member of a church simply doesn't provide useful information about what a character does. It just means that they have some sort of rank in an organization. But that organization could be essentially a hospital that also hunts vampires, or it could be a freaky pain cave that dumps cultists into something called a "maw". Sahuagin also have churches, so the idea of a single Cleric class is just a non-starter.

-Username17

[erik]

Indeed, in Living Greyhawk there were tons of ways to get into religious orders (among many other organizations as well). Some were easier to meet requirements as a cleric, especially to the higher ranks, but many of them admitted non-divine casters quite happily.

Always having friendly contacts wherever you go is absolutely not a protected role. Any class could have that.

Thief's guild. Army buddies. Wizard's guild. Merchants guild. Performer's guild. Secret Society of Secretions. Large dispersed family/clan. Noble heritage. Whatever.

I'm totally cool with getting rid of "clerics". They are so generic, even the name is blaaaaaaaah. No good reason why the head priest of the order cannot be a "Hero" or "Necromancer" or "Assassin" and so forth.

[Endovior]

Totally agree with Frank, here... the priests of Boccob are exclusively Wizards, the priests of Gruumsh are mostly Heroes or Barbarians, and the priests of Obad-Hai are Rangers and Druids.

For legacy reasons, there should probably be a class that's heavy on healing and buffing magic (cleric spells) and one that's heavy on necromancy and debuffs (evil cleric spells); but neither of those classes should be called 'cleric', and any given religion might not want either of them among their priests. I think we're probably going with the obvious and calling the dark 'cleric' a Necromancer; maybe the light 'cleric' could be a Theurge, though if that's too obscure a word, you could just use Mystic instead.

[DrPraetor]

The classic D&D - partially because of the existence of the Cleric class - has always had something of a hybrid of roman polytheism and medieval christianity. The cleric has always been, down to the restriction on wielding sharp weapons, a member of a medieval-european style warrior-monk order. Evil clerics never made any sense, it's true, and neither did clerics of "independent" neutral deities like the god of roads and so forth; but good clerics did make sense because they were all on one team. So the Cleric of Pelor, the Cleric of Saint Cuthbert and the Cleric of Heironeous all have different patrons but they're all members of the same religion.

We don't have to keep that conceit but it's very clearly the way that D&D works - explicitly, a Cleric of Saint Cuthbert and a Cleric of Heironeous are actually much more similar to each other than a Franciscan and a Dominican. Due to laziness and confusion, Satanic Cultists then got to be clerics as well but that was always silly.

We don't have to keep that - but we still need a Cleric, because religion fucking works and there are going to be devoted professionals whose job title, job description and primary skills is to deal with religious issues, and a natural sub-population of these individuals will become adventurers. We can call them Theurgs if you want, but a Theurg is actually a devoted mystic and that is not a role that is guaranteed to exist, socially speaking. Priests and shamans, who have specialized training in placating occult forces for the benefit of the community, are a cultural universal in the real world, where religion is entirely made up; to deny the existence of such specialists - and they don't need spells! - as a necesarry and protected role in a fictional world where occult forces are actually real? Bollocks.

People in Medieval Europe, in Ancient Rome and in Feudal China all had members of a hierarchy in a government-legitimized cult. Priests of that government-legitimized cult had certain functions and training which they shared - recording/presiding over births, deaths and marriages, and providing blessings intended to maintain social cohesion, national identity and protection from malevolent occult forces.

Now, it's true that they are not (and should not be!) the only religious figures. So, yes, a Priest of Boccob should be a wizard and not a cleric; probably, there should be some "divine patronage" featsreligious abilities which anyone can take (as their unrestricted/general ability choices) but which clerics get automatically.

But every village wants to have a cleric of the sanctioned cult so that they can benefit from the sanctioned religious practices to prevent gramma from returning as a shambling undead. People in the real world pay for this service based on entirely imaginary reasons - but people in fantasy land don't do so when it's a real concern? Shamans aren't clerics, because they don't have the class-features of specialized training and endowed authority from a national cult, but they perform the same function.

Clerics of evil deities only exist if there are national evil religions with a similar social contract. Such things did exist historically - even in areas were nasty gods like Prometheus and YHWH were patrons of the nation, the primary job of a Cleric was to avert the wrath of the deity, which was considered sufficient to avert plagues of demons and undead with which the deity was threatening the populace.

Now, you don't have to call this class a Cleric, but I think Cleric is actually the right name and carries roughly the proper connotation - especially once all the deities who shouldn't really be able to sponsor clerics (Kord, Boccob, etc.) are removed from the mix. But we don't need distinct classes for "Sun Priests" who worship Pelor and for "Valor Deacons" who worship Hieroneous and so on and so forth.

[Username17]

You don't need a Cleric class just because there are actual religious organizations. No more than you need a "member of the thief's guild" class. You can have thieves, and they can be members of a guild. No class required.

Yes, you want a "White Mage" class that has healing and abjuration effects and minors in shooting light rays at people. That's a reasonably popular concept. And you can announce that the churches of Pelor and Corelon and whatever employ White Mages as priests. You also want a "Paladin" class that has some healing and defense magics to go with their heavy armor and smiting strategy. And you can note that St. Cuthbert priesthoods go in for Paladins in a big way.

But "Priest" is still just a job. Like "Carpenter" or "Farmer", and it's basically absurd to try to make your character's background job into their actual class or to try to make such a career choice into a protected role.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

But Frank, that system worked so well in FATAL!

[erik]

Could a "Summoner"/Conjurer work as a white mage mayhaps? Caster specializing in conjuring objects/creatures, abjurations and healing?

I'm thinking the classes I want are:

• Conjurer (Summoner Wizard) white
• Enchanter (Charm Wizard) blue
• Gadgeteer (Inventor Wizard) red
• Hero (Mighty Warrior)
• Necromancer (Death Wizard) black
• Paladin (Inspiring Warrior)
• Swashbuckler (Agile Warrior)
• Warden (Nature Wizard) green

(wizards color coded to give notions of which niche they fill)
I think Rogue is not a necessary role. Any class should potentially be able to be able to outsmart traps and sneak around. Swashbucklers could fill the role of assassin/ninja potentially.

I think any of those classes could even have a "divine" power source. So really, no need for "clerics". Just use divinity as a paint to put on for color.

[Username17]

Could a "Summoner"/Conjurer work as a white mage mayhaps?

Well, any class could be a summoner. But in my experience, the overlap between people who want to play White Mage and the people who want to play Pokemasters is not terribly large. People who want to be Pokemasters have a much larger overlap with Black Mages (Necromancer), Green Mages (Forest Friends), and even Blue Mages (literal pokemastering involving charm thralls for the most part). Off the top of my head, only blaster mages seem less inclined to want to combine their shtick with summoning - and even then if you call your blaster mage an "Elementalist", then summoning will be pretty much assumed.

Seems to me that there are actually several distinct summoning shticks that appeal to different people. And they break down roughly into elite pets vs. numerous pets and temporary combat summoned pets vs. permanent pets. So at two extremes you could have a necromancer that made his bullshit zombies in downtime, and you could have a demonologist who basically tagged out during combat to call in a big fire demon. And you could have other things along those axes.

But I'm not sure that really any of the summon shticks have a terribly good fit with the character who wants to spend their combats laying down force fields and healing allies.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

But "Priest" is still just a job. Like "Carpenter" or "Farmer", and it's basically absurd to try to make your character's background job into their actual class or to try to make such a career choice into a protected role.

So "thief" is an absurd class - because anyone after all can steal, it's just a job. Likewise a "knight" is just someone who happens to ride around on a horse with a sword and also be, or pretend to be, a member of the noble class.

A priest -

• Is characterized by specialized religious training (as I said, need not involve any spells or magic). Like the "assassin" this is a job skill which also identifies a role you take explicitly in adventures of the kind that occur in D&D. Being a "member of the priest guild" isn't the qualification here, but being a "trained as a priest" is.
• Exercise of religious leadership/authority is completely different from being legitimized by being a member of a thief's guild. More so than for any other job - people throughout society will do what you say if they think you are a "real priest". So you don't go into a village and try to use forged documents to pass as a member of the thieve's guild (because the villagers don't care.) You go into a village and try to pass yourself off as a Priest. Even more so than a Noble this makes a difference.

That isn't a job-like-farmer, it's an adventuring-skill-set-like-Assassin. So the objections you raise - 1) we can have anyone do anything, and 2) people can join whatever organizations they want - logically mean we have no classes at all, if a Priest can't be a class.

The supreme ruler of the universe has given me a special charge of wearing this awesome hat. It reflects his unique and loving plan for each and every one of us, in that it is a hat which I am supposed to wear. So, no: you cannot try on my hat.

If we're going to have classes, the very first class you would have is Priest. Personally, I think Priests shouldn't be White Mages primarily. Priests should be Bards, so mostly you get to give inspiration bonuses to the rest of the party and occasionally you can do things like prevent granny from rising from the dead or get divine guidance by casting augury. In a world with magic, people with no magic at all aren't going to get any legitimacy as a priestly hierarchy, but religion is still a social activity people do and not a purple energy bolt.

This way, medieval clerics are Priests, and so are Flamen of the imperial cult and warrior-ministers in the celestial bureaucracy. Leaders of savage orc tribes are Shamans - who can be NPC-type deficient priests, or can get their own stuff if we want a Shaman class as well. Priests of evil gods are presumably Demonologists or Necromancers instead, and happen to have some function as a Priest of foo general ability, which lets them do auguries and such.

Finally, priest is a class because they have the special skill, and characteristic adventuring role, of being able to convincingly pass as members of the legitimate religious hierarchy. They don't actually have to be members, but just looking right in the hat is a skill while "looking like a thief" is obviously not.

[Username17]

That isn't a job-like-farmer, it's an adventuring-skill-set-like-Assassin.

To the extent that Priest is an adventuring skillset, the adventuring skillset is "able to do more than other characters". It is entirely possible to make a class that specializes in "being better than you", that's really bad for the game on any conceivable level.

-Username17

[Endovior]

I still tend to agree with Frank, here. You really need to decouple the social and magical benefits of service to a given god.

If the state religion of the area is the worship of Pelor, then White Mages wearing Pelor's symbol receive the benefit. If it's the church of Hextor in control instead, then it's the dark Paladins of Hextor that get it. In a more remote, wilderness-type area, the opinions of the Druids of Obad-Hai might carry far more weight then any other priest types. And in an orcish encampment, the Shaman who speaks for Gruumsh speaks the loudest..

Essentially, although your class powers as a White Mage or a Druid or whatever will still work wherever you go, the social aura of priestiness only extends to your co-religionists. Sure, you might be a Paladin... but if you're a Paladin of Hextor, that won't at all make the Pelorites favour you at all. Same with a White Mage of Pelor trying to impress the Hextorians. Essentially, being an ordained priest of whoever is a reputation, not a class power. It will help in some places and hurt in others, like most reputations; whether it's helpful or harmful on the whole depends mostly on how popular your religion is.

[erik]

the overlap between people who want to play White Mage and the people who want to play Pokemasters is not terribly large. People who want to be Pokemasters have a much larger overlap with Black Mages (Necromancer), Green Mages (Forest Friends), and even Blue Mages (literal pokemastering involving charm thralls for the most part).

Yah, I was torn since it did not seem like summoner-white mage was a good fit. I think I like Blue as Pokemaster. Charm monsters, bind them into rune seals or some such. Controlling your strongest will put you on the sidelines as it takes your full concentration. Dunno why I didn't feel like the charmer/summoner fit together before. Gracias.

Green gets a permanent hefty nature companion, able to summon minor minions for out of combat roles mostly.

And Black gets many permanent undead minions.

Make White into protection, healing, "laser" beams, and construct temporary objects out of their light.

Red can do without pets since I'm aiming more for blaster via elemental hand cannons and spell-infused grenades rather than an elementalist.


[edit: oh, the priest thing is still ongoing. Oy.]

Finally, priest is a class because they have the special skill, and characteristic adventuring role, of being able to convincingly pass as members of the legitimate religious hierarchy. They don't actually have to be members, but just looking right in the hat is a skill while "looking like a thief" is obviously not.

Every single class can convincingly pass for and BE members or even leaders of a legitimate religious hierarchy. That isn't a special role at all.

Surely you can conceive of a character who is a high priest while being one of the following: a mighty badass (kord), paladin (st cuthbert), white mage (pelor), black mage (vecna), green mage (obadhai), blue mage, red mage (joramy), or a swashbuckler (olidammara).

[DrPraetor]

@erik - In the dorky world of D&D, the leaders of the religion of good which jointly worships St. Cuthbert, Pelor and Heironeous, are all clearly white mages, and the Paladins are there enforcers. That's not just the set up of the classes, that's the set up of the game world. Furthermore, they're either the only religious leaders that anyone cares about because they're the ones who get the white mage spells that confer temporal authority because you can protect villages from rampaging undead, sanctify temples and so forth - or we go the stupid D&D route and make all religious leadership white mages even though that makes no sense.
So, let's do away with all that noise and have religion which is less stupid. That gives us a different game world, in which you have a religion that is less stupid and is going to have an imperial or national cult, and that cult is going to have officers whose primary job is to be officers of that cult, and not paladins or black mages or swashbucklers, because they're CLERICS INSTEAD. This isn't going to be true of all religions - Kord and Olidammara can have mystery cults and even temples, but no-one really cares if you call yourself a priest of Kord, that's not a full time job and whoever runs the temple of Kord is going to be a wrestling coach most of the week. But being a pontifex of the imperial cult is a full-time job and the people who do it aren't samurai on the side.

Personally, I think this is all something of a distraction because our real job is to fix fighters. One of the reasons that fighters don't get fixed is because juggling with the magic system is generally viewed as more fun.

But if we're going to rewrite D&D from the ground up at all, we might as well improve the magic system by dividing the spells into classes and orientations, so that's two splats, but you can have a mix of the class splats. This satisfies the major problem with 3rd ed. wizards, which is not that they need a nerf batting, but that they need better differentiation.

So, for example the magic-using classes could be:
Priest - gets some fighting, some combat-inspiration, special advantages in social minigames, and limited magic skills off of the intersection of orientation and spiritual spells. People with other classes can say "screw that noise" and wear a white robe with a sunburst on it anyway, but NPCs will be seriously pissed off if they discover you can't consecrate their castle on behalf of the divinely-ordained King, can't explain to the infidel how it is that Pelor can simultaneously drive the sun through the sky on his war-chariot and also have the sun be his eye, and also Pelor is the best God, and Albion is his best and favorite country and so forth.

Ranger - gets a lot of fighting, some nature and stealth skills, and limited magic skills of of the intersection of orientation and nature.

Monk - gets a lot of fighting, some stealth skills, and limited magic skills at the intersection of orientation and mystic martial arts.

Theurg - is assumed to live as an ascetic in the wilderness, so doesn't get much in the way of nice things other than magic, probably some wilderness survival, but gets significant magic-skills at the intersection of orientation and arcane or spiritual. Theurgs can bless things but don't have the social and political training to convincingly wear hats.

Necromancer - is assumed to hang out in crypts a lot, so doesn't get much in the way of nice things other than magic, but gets significant magic-skills at the intersection of orientation and necromantic or arcane. You can take a general ability which adds some spiritual spells to your list and boom, you are now a priest of any evil God that wants you to have undead following you around. Or you can screw that noise and just wear the purple robe anyway, no-one is stopping you.

Demonologist - is assumed to pretend not to be evil, so has some decent social skills, otherwise gets significant magic from corrupted magic.

Orientations could be things like:
Elder - makes smokeless fire, as well as sleep and dreams. So a Elder Monk would have Kiai punches that burn people or knock them unconscious, and his body hardening would make him immune to poison, and so forth. An Elder Demonologist would summon jinn and be able to send dream demons against his enemies. An Elder Demonologist 4/Monk 3 would be able to do both those things.

Sidereal - makes color spray and stuff, probably walls of force. So a Sidereal Monk has Kiai punches that stun you with a flash of light, and he's furthermore armored in light most of the time. A Sidereal Demonologist unleashes trippy halucinogenic star spawn from their ancient prison.

And so forth.

Those are not the best splats by any means, I'm just spit-balling.

Now this is a lot of work because you have to take all the spells and divide them up into a double grid. But again, if we're not going to put in the effort to make something that's more fun than D&D 3rd edition - then the whole enterprise falls apart on existential grounds.

Anyway it's easy to fit a Cleric into such a list of magic-using classes because the magic-using classes are distinguished primarily by their non-magic abilities and you can then mix-and-match the magic abilities to the different magic-using classes as desired. Which I think is better, as well as easier to balance because then the spellcasters never find themselves with the power to do "stuff".

[Username17]

In the dorky world of D&D, the leaders of the religion of good which jointly worships St. Cuthbert, Pelor and Heironeous, are all clearly white mages, and the Paladins are there enforcers.

No. The priests of St. Cuthbert and Kord are Paladins. They are part of the same generic good religion, but they run around in platemail and hit things with hammers instead of running around in a white cloak shooting lasers at things. The Clerics of Heironeous Look Like This, and are thus obviously Paladins. Clerics of Pelor Look Like This and are obviously White Mages. A "priest" is just a character who is a member of a faction where his class is the favored class who happens to be higher level than most of the people around him. If you happen to be in a Gnoll tribe and you are buff relative to the other people in the tribe and you're a Blighter, you're a "Priest of Yeenoghu". If you happen to be in a Halfling community and you're a badass Ranger, you're a "Priest of Yondalla".

The main D&D gods of goodness mostly actually have favored class: Paladin. If you run around in heavy armor dropping heals and smiting things with a glowing hammer, you are a paladin. There are really only a few gods on the list with favored class: White Mage. Pelor is the obvious one (and the most important D&D god, ironically), and the remaining gods with favored class: White Mage tend to be weird ass ones like Psilofyr.

The thing is that Divine Summoning is basically just Leadership, and is available to members of any class. That is: if you're a Warlord who happens to be a Priest of Gruumsh, you can just have a demon lieutenant when you get to higher level. Summon Planar Ally shouldn't be a spell on the Cleric List, it should be an option available to all classes if they meet the prerequisites of being a member of a church with a favored class of their class and being high level. So if you're a high level Hero you can have Bane give you a devil cohort and if you're a high level Necromancer you can get the same from Wee Jas.

Yah, I was torn since it did not seem like summoner-white mage was a good fit.

You could really honestly have any number of magic types. There is no reason for cure disease to be in the same spell list as flame strike and no reason for minor image to be in the same spell list as dimension door. There is literally no limit to the number of magical types you could throw around.

Personally, I think that when it comes to magic users, more is better. It's not just that it provides more feeling of choice or some shit, it's that the more you divide and subdivide the magical options into multiple classes the less of a "do everything" class the mage types become. That, in turn, makes it easier to have viable warrior characters. If a Hero is competing against a mage that has a bunch of plant spells, that's a much easier balancing act than if he is competing against a Druid who has some plant spells and also has an army of beasts, heals, sets things on fire, controls the weather, telekinetically manipulates soil and waves, summons monsters, dispels and inflicts curses, charms people (and animals), and can personally transform into a bear. I would suggest - at the very least - having a flavor of magician for each and every school of magic in D&D, and frankly I'd split some of the bigger concepts up into multiples that take the concept in different directions (like how the Abjurer becomes the Paladin and the White Mage).

But if we're going to rewrite D&D from the ground up at all, we might as well improve the magic system by dividing the spells into classes and orientations, so that's two splats, but you can have a mix of the class splats. This satisfies the major problem with 3rd ed. wizards, which is not that they need a nerf batting, but that they need better differentiation.

I agree that they need to be split up, but I do not see how "orientations" fixes that issue.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

I would suggest - at the very least - having a flavor of magician for each and every school of magic in D&D, and frankly I'd split some of the bigger concepts up into multiples that take the concept in different directions (like how the Abjurer becomes the Paladin and the White Mage).

The D&D schools always seemed kind of weird and flavourless to me. Abjurer or Transmuter never popped like Elementalist or Blood Mage. What's more they don't even split the spells correctly, as shown by the fact you can drop evocation and still get damaging spells .

For specialist mages Mtg or Dominions are a better model - stronger flavour and a clearer demarcation of spells.

[erik]

Wizards and clerics definitely need broken up much more, but I don't think I would make a wizard for every magic school per se. That doesn't gel with plant wizards for example and some of the schools don't feel like good solos.

I like making Paladins into the Abjuration/Healer. I think the only reason White mage gets flame strike is because otherwise they are somewhat impotent in combat and need a way to smite evil too. Paladin solves that.

I think I would dump Transmutation and Divination. Not because they are not strong enough, but that for the most part they cause more problems than the fun they bring. Then dole out a few of their spells into other specialties. Necromancers getting Speak with Dead and so forth.

Haven't decided who gets the teleportation schtick. Might just make it universal.

[Username17]

I would suggest - at the very least - having a flavor of magician for each and every school of magic in D&D, and frankly I'd split some of the bigger concepts up into multiples that take the concept in different directions (like how the Abjurer becomes the Paladin and the White Mage).

The D&D schools always seemed kind of weird and flavourless to me. Abjurer or Transmuter never popped like Elementalist or Blood Mage.

That is true. But of course, the moment you put healing into Abjuration, the concept immediately gains traction. And if you call the Transmuter an Alchemist or something, he gains traction too. The one I would say probably can't be made into a class people feel good about is the Diviner. Because while divinations are awesome, it's not at all clear what a Diviner does in combat.

Illusionist, Conjurer, Enchanter, and Necromancer are all great names for classes. Evokers are a great concept for a class, but the name is shit. Warmage isn't great either.

For specialist mages Mtg or Dominions are a better model - stronger flavour and a clearer demarcation of spells.

MtG isn't a great model because it doesn't have nearly enough magic flavors. Demon summoning and undead creation are both in Black, which lumps a lot of the good pet shticks together for no real benefit.

An important thing to note is that the original manuscript doesn't need to produce a playable Enchanter, it just needs to drop the name Enchanter. The important part of dividing up the magic is to make a small enough role protection for each magic class that other classes aren't being confronted with CoDzilla problems. So having really long magic type lists doesn't leave you with an unconscionable amount of work. You can (and should) leave some or even most of the magic lists for expansions.

-Username17