Some rules to make the level-based system work.

[Alansmithee]

Also, I don't find dead levels that bad if there's a big payoff. And if someone is in a campaign where they can't reach the payoff, that is not the game designer's fault. They don't need to make sure that all combinations are dead-even with each other in power, they need to make sure that nothing is unbalancing. The main problem is with how many classes are designed; there are disproportionate gains by dipping in some classes, or some classes have excessive dead levels with no payoff (which fighter is probably the biggest of these).

[Username17]

Also, I don't find dead levels that bad if there's a big payoff.

Really? What if you stop playing before the big payoff? Aren't you just royally fvcking players for no reason then?

If someone has worked for years studying magic, they shoudn't be able to just spend a month fighting with a sword and be as good as someone who spent years fighting.

I would rather simulate that as giving the person with less levels invested in melee combat having less melee options (and thus often having to rely upon other ttack forms to get through combat). The ability to end up sucking at everything because you were trying to play a "spellsword" is just retarded.

A "warrior priest" is just as specialized and no more so than a "mage blade" - the fact that one of them can be a Cleric Archer or Tiger Druid (and thus be totally hard core in casting and fighting), and the other has to be a Fighter/Wizard or Bard (and thus be nearly useless at casting and fighting) is a bug - not a feature.

Whatever your character does, regardless of how much fighting and spel slinging he does - that's your god damned character concept and you shouldn't be punished for it. If character level is going to mean a god damned thing (and since we aren't doing AD&D style multiclassing it's supposed to), then it has to mean that your combat actions are worthwhile.

And that means your combat actions scale to your character level, not to your class level. Period.

-Username17

[User3]

1096441321[/unixtime]]There's no contradiction there. The manuver has a character-level dependent bonus associated with it. The bonus doesn't come out of your class levels, it comes out of your character levels. The two are not the same unless you are playing AD&D.

You say "No numeric bonuses from class abilities" Then you hand out abilities that grant numeric bonuses. That's not a contradiction?

[RandomCasualty]

The above post is mine it logged me out for some reason.

[User3]

Frank, why should bonuses and abilities come in any sort of order?

Why can't they just be selectable off of a chart, like a rogue's special ability?

Other than power reasons, I can't think of any reason why a 10th level character who wanted to simply talk to dead things would have to slog through that many levels of necromancer. I also can't think of any reason why someone who just wanted to be able to survive long falls would have to slog through that many levels of monk and get a pile of other stuff he may or may not care about.

[Username17]

You say "No numeric bonuses from class abilities" Then you hand out abilities that grant numeric bonuses. That's not a contradiction?

No, every action goes off at a level-dependent bonus. Some attacks are more accurate, some do more damage, some of them are "fire damage", and some of them are ranged. That's not a class level dependent numeric bonus. There is no contradiction, you are being obtuse.

Frank, why should bonuses and abilities come in any sort of order?

1. Flavor considerations.
2. Balance considerations.

Some abilities from a flavor standpoint require other abilties. For example, you might not be allowed to have the "Dragon Lord" ability until you can already breathe fire. Not that the one would be unbalanced without the other, but to have some abilities restricted in that way makes certain abilties "feel" better in game.

Some abilities are only scalable back so far. Physical Damage Resistance, for example, is a little bit nuts until people can be expected to have something in their toolbox to bypass that. Putting those kinds of abilities late in an order can act as a defacto level-minimum and keep them from getting out of hand.

However, the vast majority of abilities could happen in any old order. Quite possibly the levels themselves would have to be pre-selected (otherwise people would cherry-pick the best combinations of combat/non-combat abilities), but there really isn't any reason that some necromancer couldn't get death bolts first, or never.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096481874[/unixtime]]

You say "No numeric bonuses from class abilities" Then you hand out abilities that grant numeric bonuses. That's not a contradiction?

No, every action goes off at a level-dependent bonus. Some attacks are more accurate, some do more damage, some of them are "fire damage", and some of them are ranged. That's not a class level dependent numeric bonus. There is no contradiction, you are being obtuse.

You said earlier...

No numeric bonuses. At all.

Clearly for you not to contradict yourself you can't be handing out numerical bonuses. Yet... later in the thread... we see this.

The deadly charge manuver lets you perform a reckless charging attack that does a crap tonne of damage (and the attack and damage bonuses scale to your level, naturally).

So here you are giving numeric bonuses where you said in your design goal there wouldn't be any.

And you say I'm being obtuse?

[Username17]

The attack and damage bonuses of every fvcking manuver is scaled to your character level. Therefore there are no classlevel dependent bonuses. So I'm not contradicting myself, and you are functionally illiterate.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096484394[/unixtime]]The attack and damage bonuses of every fvcking manuver is scaled to your character level. Therefore there are no classlevel dependent bonuses. So I'm not contradicting myself, and you are functionally illiterate.

No numeric bonuses. At all.

I don't see anything about scaling in here.

Is a numeric bonus that scales by character level still a numeric bonus?

So there's your contratiction.

Your design goal of having "no numeric bonuses. At all." has failed miserably.

Also note that the fact that they scale by character level instead of class level doens't change a damn thing balance wise, in fact it makes things worse. It means you can have rage and then get full bonuses for it by taking one level of barbarian, and it doesn't fix the issue of people stacking a bunch of bonuses together, it only means you're compounding the problem.

Either bonuses exist or they dont'. If they exist, people will find ways to min/max them. Every ability you add that grants numeric bonuses just leads toward people stacking those bonuses and breaking your system.

Inherently your system is flawed. If you could actually have a system wtihout bonuses, then it might work, but clearly you've demonstrated that you can't, because two of your fighter sample abilities, deadly charge and defensive strike both are based around "bonuses."

Even just giving out "fighter BaB" is based around handing out bonuses. The fact that they scale by level only makes things worse. It's the problem with binary abilities. You either have them or you dont', and they just keep getting bigger and bigger if the answer is yes. Thus if you don't have them you keep getting farther and farther behind. It's actually the opposite of diminishing returns in which your abilities grow almost geometrically instead of linearily. Not only do you get more bonuses, but all your bonuses also get bigger.

Your design concept. just. doesn't. work.

[Username17]

I see where you are being a dumbass. The context of the quote was:

"There should not be any numeric bonuses based on class level"
-Me.
"No numeric bonuses at all?"
-Oberoni
"No numeric bonuses. At all."
-Me

So in the context of the quote you keep waving around like it was your first penis, I'm talking about numeric bonuses based on class level, and you're just being an aggressive jackass.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

"No numeric bonuses. At all"

Not really sure how you can misinterpret the meaning of that one. It seems pretty obvious to me.

But if you'd like to go all Bill Clinton on us, then feel free to.

And as I've stated many times before, numeric bonuses, even if based on character level, actually ESPECIALLY if based on character level are super dangerous and break your system more so than if you'd actually not made any bonuses at all.

[Username17]

Not really sure how you can misinterpret the meaning of that one.

I've already explained the context. If you can't understand "context", then fvck off. There's no point if all you want to do is pull text out of context and try to pretend it means something other than what it means.

If things do damage, that's a bonus. That "bonus", the damage that they inflict, is based on character level. The only person who is being in any way slippery about this is you. You keep trying to say that the ability to make a defensive attack or a berserk charge is somehow going to stack together into some kind of crazy town.

And it's not. A manuver has an associated attack characteristic, and it doesn't stack with some other manuver's attack characteristic that you aren't using. Stop being such a fvcking net troll about it, OK?

Your firebolts scale. They don't get bonuses from you taking more levels in any one class over any other. It's just a firebolt, and it scales. That means that it is not getting a class level dependent bonus. The bonus is character level dependent, and it doesn't stack with shit.

Do you understand yet? Do I have to brand it onto your back? Do I have to draw you a fvcking diagram in which I show the difference between "A furious Charge has an attack bonus of 12 at 8th level" and "+2 to-hit when charging"?

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Either way, Frank, your solutions sound an awful lot like dealing with a disruptive student's hyperactivity problem by giving the rest of the class speed.

-Desdan

[Username17]

Either way, Frank, your solutions sound an awful lot like dealing with a disruptive student's hyperactivity problem by giving the rest of the class speed.

And the problem is solved.

If the game is going to support:

A dark knight, who runs around in monolith armor, striking enemies with his doom scythe, striking terror in foes, and raising the dead.

A fire lord, who rides around on his bronze steed with his lance, shooting firebolts at distant foes.

A sacred archer, who wears a blindfold over his eyes while pcking off distant targets with his mighty bow; who counteracts demons, sickness, and misfortune with his sacred chants.

A fey fencer, who dances around with his rapier, masking his movements with illusions, putting enemies to sleep, and distracting the weak of will so that he can strike for the heart.

And all the rest of the perfectly reasonable characters that people want to play, and some jive fool comes in and says:

I don't want to do any of that crap, it sounds too much like roleplaying. I just want to make attack rolls and kill stuff.

Then seriously, fvck him. I'm not even kidding. The game should not bend over backwards to make people who refuse to have character schticks be somehow numerically superior to people who do. All of those other crazy characters do various stuff, and it should all be good. Telling people that their interesting characters are going to have to be numerically inferior in an attempt to balance them with boring characters is a sucker's route.

If someone can't engage with their character enough to keep track of ten levels worth of abilties, they shouldn't be playing at tenth level. They should start at 1st level and work their way up, the way everyone used to do it all the damn time.

-Username17

[Maj]

But if you'd like to go all Bill Clinton on us, then feel free to.

RC, the fact that you keep repeating this phrase of "No numeric bonuses. At all." is silly when you've taken it entirely out of the discussion it was in with someone who wasn't you.

It would be like me quoting you saying "I hate that whole "just leave me alone" attitude some people have," and then getting upset because you hate shy people.

Either way, Frank, your solutions sound an awful lot like dealing with a disruptive student's hyperactivity problem by giving the rest of the class speed.

Actually, in the games Ess and I run, we've changed a lot of abilities to be dependent upon character level rather than class level. As someone who plays epic games a lot, class level bonuses are to be shunned and avoided because no one wants to take levels in the same class much past 10th or 20th level (for prestige and base classes, respectively). Most of the time, the players don't make it past 6th level in a base class, and those that hit 10th level in a PrC only do it because the class was custom-made with all the abilities they wanted and doesn't suck.

While I'm definitively not as good at recognizing and coming up with solutions to class-based bonuses as people like Frank are, I work fairly hard to eliminate them.

[RandomCasualty]

1096503082[/unixtime]]
Then seriously, fvck him. I'm not even kidding. The game should not bend over backwards to make people who refuse to have character schticks be somehow numerically superior to people who do.

Yeah the kinda guy you're fucking in this situation is the guy who wants to play straight warrior instead of the fighter/mage concepts you seem to want to force everyone into.

What if I just want to play Conan? Or Aragorn. Most of my skills aren't mystical in nature, and while I might have a couple of non-combat abiltiies, like healing with herbs, tracking or some ranks in hide or diplomacy, I'm mostly a fighter. And I expect to be a better fighter than some guy who wants to play Gandalf or a warrior/mage.

The thing with your system is that everyone's bonuses are basically the same and so their characters are essentially pretty close together. Aside from doing different types of damage, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between them.

And IMO you're taking the level system too far. You're saying everyone of level X should be exactly equal to other people of level X who do the same thing, and one of your possible "things" encompasses something as large as fighting ability.

[Username17]

Yeah the kinda guy you're fvcking in this situation is the guy who wants to play straight warrior instead of the fighter/mage concepts you seem to want to force everyone into.

No. It's not. The "straight warrior" also gains abilities to deal with problems. The people I'm fvcking are the people who wat to hold on to the archetype that the Wizards should be the main characters and the warriors should go play shuffleboard.

And I don't care that I'm fvcking them, because I hate those people.

---

It's not like I'm saying "you have the option of not getting abilities and you get nothing in return", that would be like the current Fighter. I'm saying "you can't choose to not get new abilties".

There is a profound limit to how much you can let people have in exchange for not having new abilties. If the bonus for not getting new abilties ever makes your old abilties so damn good that the people who did get new abilties might as well not have them - then that's gone too far. So since the level system is supposed to be open ended, you can't let people choose to not get abilties.

This is really simple. We could try to give people something in exchange for not getting new abilities, but we can't keep doing it forever. And if you can't keep doing it forever, the open ended system can't allow it.

So our choices are:

1. Noone gets new abilties.
2. Noone gets no new abilities.

Really. That's it. That's all we can allow. One is fun, and the other is not. I'll let you figure out which is which.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096509824[/unixtime]]
It's not like I'm saying "you have the option of not getting abilities and you get nothing in return", that would be like the current Fighter. I'm saying "you can't choose to not get new abilties".

But a lot of the time people just want to shoot their bow better. They'll look at you and say "that's great I can make flaming arrows, but how bout I just become more accurate or deal more damage?"

The thing with fighters is most of the time they don't want a ton of secret ninja attacks. Sometimes they just want to use the standard hack and slash and just be good at it. They might take stuff that grants them defenses, but ultimately these amount to conditional bonuses in many regards. But with a fighter, it's mostly going to be about dealing damage and resisting damage, and then some minor out of combat stuff that they don't want to pay too heavily for. Fighters like to have this out of combat stuff if they can, but aren't willing to pay much for it at all, so you should basicalyl just give it to them for free.

There is a profound limit to how much you can let people have in exchange for not having new abilties. If the bonus for not getting new abilties ever makes your old abilties so damn good that the people who did get new abilties might as well not have them - then that's gone too far. So since the level system is supposed to be open ended, you can't let people choose to not get abilties.

But having 200 combat abilities isn't that useful, since you can only use one at a time. Spells are differnet because they do lots of combat abilities, but for combat, you really only need a couple basic attack forms and you just want to get better at them. For fighters they only need one basic attack mechanic, the attack/damage roll. Having 500 secret ninja attacks doesn't really help the matter once, and it's near to impossible to keep people interested in a fighter class with your paradigm, since you get your most powerful ability (fighter BaB and big combat bonuses) at first level. It's much like getting wizard casting progression at first level and granting metamagic feats for the remaining levels. It's excessive frontloading IMO.

And you're letting a 20th level wizard get almost as good as a 20th level fighter by taking a single level of fighter. Sure, he doesn't have secret ninja attacks but the fighter can only use one of those per round, so they aren't all that great, and the wizard can likely do lots of other awesome stuff with his wiz levels than the fighter could ever dream of doing.

This is really simple. We could try to give people something in exchange for not getting new abilities, but we can't keep doing it forever. And if you can't keep doing it forever, the open ended system can't allow it.

You can if you use diminishing returns.

The real question is "how much are new abilities worth in comparison to upgrading the old ones?"

Set that value somewhere you like and run with it, and you'll have a nice game.

[Draco_Argentum]

Can't some of the options for abilities be stuff like "Swording People II"?

[Joy_Division]

I really don't think that any system should support a plain hack and slash fighter for more than the very lowest levels. I've never seen people give up cool abilities for "just more damage with my sword". If you flaming sword does more damage or you grow in skill and do more damage it's the same thing. Only one is interesting. The only thing I've seen is people that want to be good at what their characters are supposed to be doing. Let's be honest a fighter BAB isn't the end all be all of the fighter, it's a basic starting point for a character that bothers to melee and you don't leave home without it. Pretending you can build a whole class around it and keep warriors balanced with mages is IMO absurd.

[Username17]

But having 200 combat abilities isn't that useful, since you can only use one at a time. Spells are differnet because they do lots of combat abilities, but for combat, you really only need a couple basic attack forms and you just want to get better at them.

This statement is symptomatic of your basic obtuseness on this thread. No. Magic Spells are not different, they work exactly the same way. It's just a name that we put on an ability, it's not even especially important from a game design standpoint which ones are "magic". If a few basic attack forms were capable of dealing with all enemies, then noone would need new abilties - neither wizards nor fighters. As it stands, however, there are actually lots of different enemies who have all kinds of crazy abilities themselves, and a few basic attacks doesn't begin to cut it. If a Wizard ca't make his way through the whole adventure with just Fire Bolt, Charm Monster, and Slow, there's no reason to believe that a Fighter can get through an adventure with just Slash, Disarm, and Diving Charge.

And for the last time, "diminishing returns" does not help, because ultimately even it has to either stop giving people stuff in exchange for not getting new abilties, or it has to give enough bonuses that the people who got extra abilties have been eclipsed right off the random number generator. Diminishing Returns is not some fvcking magic potion that solves things. It's just a method of number accumulation, and it only works when people are forced to spend their points in specific ways (otherwise the increasingly large breakpoints generated by the system cause increasing problems), and people are relegated to very small and static numbers of abilities.

Can't some of the options for abilities be stuff like "Swording People II"?

Yes. But "Swording People II" isn't a raw improvement on "swording people", it's an alternate template of swording people which is advantageous in different circumstances.

For example, "Swording People: Lots of People" can be a basically inferior swording people attack that nails more potential targets (and is thus overall a better deal when lots of enemies are there to be sworded). But "Swording People: Lots of People" can't simply be an upgrade to "Swording People" or the guy who took lightning bolts and swording people might as well not even have his swording people technique.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096512264[/unixtime]]
This statement is symptomatic of your basic obtuseness on this thread. No. Magic Spells are not different, they work exactly the same way.

Yeah, but you get tons of spells per level and you get a combo of direct damage, save or die, divinations, conjurations, summonings, illusions and tons of other stuff that isnt' direct damage related.

Fighters don't get all that stuff, they just get attack and damage, and that's it, so they've got to be good at it.

You wouldn't play a wizard if all you're getting is magic missile, scorching ray, cone of cold, fireball, meteor swarm, etc at each level. It's pointless. So why would you play a fighter who gets different sword stuff that you can only use one at a time?

If a Wizard ca't make his way through the whole adventure with just Fire Bolt, Charm Monster, and Slow, there's no reason to believe that a Fighter can get through an adventure with just Slash, Disarm, and Diving Charge.

See this is where you're wrong... a fighter can get through the whole adventure with just the attack action. It's a difference between magic and physical stuff.

First, a fighter's main breaching abilities lie usually in his sword. he doesn't need for instance a special ability to beat incorporeals, he just has a ghost touch sword, He doesn't beat adamantine DR with an ability, he just buys an adamantine sword or power attacks past the DR.

Everything is vulnerable to standard attacks, where you've got stuff immune to mind affecting, immune to fire and so on against mages, the attack action is always something you can count on. Magic has always been different in that there are ways to be outright resistant or immune to it. Undead can't be hurt by death attacks, fire elementals resist fire, and your charm spell won't work on a golem, but a sword hacks all three of these equally. Aside from a select few monsters, like swarms, the sword is a rather universal killing tool.

It's a huge difference between fighters and casters. Fighters don't really need lots of ninja moves because monsters tend not to be immune to the old ones, so having a big toolbox is like having 10 different hammers of different sizes. Maybe you can tweak your game sligthly and use a bigger hammer for a smaller nail for slight optimization, but a hammer is usually just a hammer. Unless you plan on having a lot of "physical immune" monsters in the game, you really can't justify handing out fighter BaB, a universal attack method, to everyone. Because it really is better than everything else. Physical attacks are the stuff you can count on, and it is their only real advantage over magical attacks.

The problem isn't necessarily that you're giving out fighter BaB as a feature, it's that you're handing it out at first level, and it is by far the most potent feature of the fighter class.

You can say all you want about "there's more to a fighter than bonuses" and all that crap, but I'm going to say this... a fighter is primarily determined by his attack and damage rolls. You can be the master of all sorts of little gimmicks and shit, but if you can't breach the other guy's AC, then it isn't going to mean much of anything.

Those little tricks are stuff you might use a couple times a session, where as the attack action is your bread and butter, you'll use it every combat. Useful fighter abilities tend to be based around either improving your fighting ability or your defenses. And sooner or later it comes down to bonuses.

When you give me a new technique that helps me fight multiple foes, I'm going to do some math with it, and figure out how much of a bonus I'm getting from it. And if it's useful, I'll have some quantifiable conditional bonus.

Now, I guarantee you that bonus is going to be less than the one I'm getting from my very first level of fighter and Fighter BaB. Basically we are talking about a 10 point shift from wizard to fighter BaB, and only probably a 2-4 poitn shift with these specialty techniques. ANd the specialty techniques as one might have already surmised, are purely specialist stuff that may or may not be helpful in any given encounter.

Where as my proficiency with the attack action is always going to help me.

It's ok to have "Swording People" ability scale with character level, but it's bad design to make "swording people I" so much stronger than "swording people II".

The thing to keep in mind is that a fighter's toolbox doesn't look like a wizard's tool box. He's got one basic mechanic to destroy stuff: physical damage, and everything revolves around that mechanic. Each tool merely inflicts physical damage better or worse and is essentially a numerical problem. this tends not to happen with wizards who choose from a 15d6 cold spell, a 15d6 fire spell or a DC 25 death magic save or die. In this case various monsters will respond better to each on a case by case basis.

As a fighter you only have one broad damage type, so you're really just worried about what your damage output actually is and how often you deal damage, and maybe some other concerns like how well you can defend yourself. But you don't have the complex concerns of a wizard and thus most of your tools in your toolbox are going to be irrelevant.

[Username17]

Yeah, but you get tons of spells per level and you get a combo of direct damage, save or die, divinations, conjurations, summonings, illusions and tons of other stuff that isnt' direct damage related.

Fighters don't get all that stuff, they just get attack and damage, and that's it, so they've got to be good at it.

That is how things work right now. That looks absolutely nothing like my proposal, so it really isn't a meaningful comment. When I say "things should work differently, they should work like this", and you say "But that's not how they work right now! Gotcha!" - I just wonder about your sanity.

I know that Andy Collins didn't write up a system like the one I'm proposing, so the fact that you keep bringing up that tangent is not helpful.

See this is where you're wrong... a fighter can get through the whole adventure with just the attack action. It's a difference between magic and physical stuff.

The sad fact of the matter is that the Fighter who relies only upon the attack action can't get through advenures with his attack action alone. Even if he gets +100 to-hit and damage, he'll still suck. The Wizard gets a real tool box that can potentially deal with any problem (although sometimes it requires going home and preparing new spells to do so, that is also in the tool box in the form of teleport). The Fighter just gets the attack action. As soon as the Fighter meets an enemy that is not actually defeatable via the attack action (like say, a black pudding - or even a big chasm), then it's game over. The Fighter cannot progress any farther in that adventure and may die.

The Wizard, even when confronted with a "magic immune" opponent can still default to conjurations that allow indirect attacks with non-magic. There is literally nothing in the entire game that an 11th level or higher Wizard can't configure himself to fight against. And that's not a sustainable way to balance things.

Once the Fighter already stabs things so hard that he kills anything that is capable of being stabbed in one hit, there's nothing more to give him - but there's still things in the game that you can't prevail upon with the attack action alone. And the Wizard is still better than he is. If you accept this "bonuses vs. options" paradigm, the options win. The bonuses can't allow you to fight all enemies and the options can.

---

Everything is vulnerable to standard attacks, where you've got stuff immune to mind affecting, immune to fire and so on against mages, the attack action is always something you can count on.

You mean like Jovocs and Black Puddings? No. Not everything is vulnerable to physical attacks. Not only are some creatures simply out of reach (incorporeal flying creatures, for example, can still shoot arrows at you in 3.5) - but many creatures simply take no damage from physical damage (black pudding), or do something crazy where you don't want to do them physical damage for some other reason (jovocs and their wacky retributive aura). And many challenges aren't even creatures, and are extremely inherently invulnerable to physical attacks. How is your attack action going to get you out of the fact that there is no bridge? Magic, meanwhile, has an answer for everything, it isn't the same answer to all problems, but it does have one. If it's immune to mind affecting magic, it may not be immune to fire. If it's got infinite spell resistance you can still conjure creatures to slug it out or bury it under an avalanche of mud. Black Pudding can be burned, Jovocs can be charmed, and chasms can be flown over - but none of them are dealt with meaningfully with a sword attack.

And I'm not using that paradigm. That paradigm is retarded, because by definition it sooner or later gets to the point where the spellcasters conjure up some bruiser monsters and the Fighter is completely extraneous. There is no amount of bonuses that can make up for the other guy having an available answer to absolutely all situations.

In the original Dungeons and Dragons, being a "Fighter" was a punishment for not rlling good enough stats to be a real character class. They never got any meaningful abilities because they were intended to die. Like, all the time. Back then, levels were gained in this weird way that encouraged people to catch up really fast from first level, and the party was expected to take losses constantly. And those losses were expected to be Fighters, and when you lost a Fighter you'd make a new character instead of trying to have him raised.

That mentality has stuck with us, unfortunately. And it has to go. Fighters can't be the guys you are stuck with when you don't roll well, because characters now take a long time to advance and generate, and each character is supposed to be you all the way through the whole campaign. We aren't just making new characters until we are allowed to make a Paladin, Monk, or Wizard - we are making any kind of character we want first crack out of the box.

So having characters who don't matter any more at high level isn't a winning proposition. We can't give all the options to the Wizard and none of the options to the Fighter - the Fighter isn't a spear catcher any more. He's supposed to be a contributing memeber of the party. You can't be a contributing member of the party if all you do is make attack rolls.

-Username17

[Alansmithee]

by definition it sooner or later gets to the point where the spellcasters conjure up some bruiser monsters and the Fighter is completely extraneous. There is no amount of bonuses that can make up for the other guy having an available answer to absolutely all situations.

So having characters who don't matter any more at high level isn't a winning proposition. We can't give all the options to the Wizard and none of the options to the Fighter.

But how does taking away a fighters main advantage help these problems? Everyone will have 1 level of fighting-guy. And by giving out gimicks like lead troops or a weaker multiple attack will only make the difference more striking. Cause when you have to kill 1 BBEG in a cave where you can't martshall up an army to lead, the caster will still be able to use his abilities, and be as good at fighting. Unless you want to make all abilities like spells, where they can be continuously memorized.

Another problem is there is no place for straight class characters. Everyone will become some mage/caster combo. In your system, if you don't want to be a mage-warrior it seems you are screwed.

And as for phys-immune monsters, that is why you (hopefully) have a decent party to work together with. Because there might be a time when the party is captured and the wiz cant memorize his spells, so you need someone who can grab a stick and start bashing.

I think the current problem is the casters (mainly cleric/druid) can to easily outdo the fighter at his gimmick. You need to improve fighters, and limit other classes ability to melee, not give up and eliminate pure melee classes.

[Username17]

But how does taking away a fighters main advantage help these problems? Everyone will have 1 level of fighting-guy.

Why? Stabbing people with a sword is one way to dispatch your enemies, but not better than any other. If you can already shoot firebolts out of your hands, why would you care about a level of Archer (saving for the fact that you can kill salamanders with arrows and not with fire bolts)? If you already have the ability to hit people with the Touch of Death, what do you care about learning how to hit people with a hammer?

Think about it in terms of Diablo II. Sometimes you see a Fire/Ice Sorceress, sometimes you see an Ice/Lightning Sorceress, and sometimes you see a Lightning/Fire Sorceress. If you opened things up so that you could be a Fire/Bow Sorceress or a Lightning/Spear Sorceress, you'd see those character types as well.

But that wouldn't stop people from making Ice/Lightning Sorceresses. People would still do that.

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Hitting enemies with a stick is not special. There is no wonderous thing that makes physical damage so maniacally important that everyone needs or wants to be able to inflict it. Whirlwind Sword Attack is just one attack, like Wall of Fire, and not everyone even wants it.

The proposal is that "Arrowing People" takes up exactly the same slots that "Ice Blasting People" does. That means that you will see a lot more people who fight with Sword and Ice Blast (since you haven't been able to make a satisfactory character who did that since "Elf" stopped being a character class), but once people get the new freedom out of their system he Fighter Mages will equilibriate with the Swordsmen and Geomancer characters.

-Username17