FFT-style tiered class/prestige class advancement?

[Username17]

Idea: Tier Minimum Nonconsensual Templates.

The idea is that if you get bitten by a werewolf, you have to take levels in Werewolf. And those are Heroic Tier levels. If you're already Heroic Tier, you swap some levels out and move on with your life as a wolf man champion. If you are not Heroic Tier, you get bumped up to Heroic Tier and become a spawn monster.

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I think this could actually work pretty well in a Black Forest setting where players literally were expected to spend some time playing as actual children.

-Username17

I don't get what you mean in the bolded part. Did you mean if you're already past Heroic tier?

No, I mean in the Heroic Tier. You're a Barbarian or a Chevalier and then you trade those levels out for werewolf levels. If you don't have Heroic Tier levels to trade out you become a spawn monster. A first level Heroic Tier spawn monster.

Yeah, reading this thread I came up with the idea for a game system using this where the PCs start off as war orphans fending for themselves and go from there.

I think a lot can be done with that. And there really isn't a lot available in that vein. Just Grimm and Dogs in the Vineyard.

I'd like to do dark children's fantasy at some point without having everyone American Magee it up all over the place. Seriously, Hansel and Gretel can just be protagonists or allies. They don't have to be the cannibal slaves of a cursed oven or creepy cross dressing incestuous bondage sex junkies. Seriously, why even call those characters Hansel and Gretel?

More Dragon Slayer and Monster Squad, less Bullshit.

-Username17

[TavishArtair]

To what extent would such a described setting resemble or not resemble something like Ravenloft, and what would the tiers be? I could imagine eventually "growing up" into a veteran of battle or a terrible dread monster that has lost all of his childhood years. And to some extent that would actually be a tragedy of the setting, and there might even be times when you wish you were a child for certain things. It would help explain why knights adopt young squires and for some reason the plans of the White Witch involve a bunch of children.

Obsolescence in Review

Any sort of game using a level/tier setup would have to deal with the plan of obsolescence somehow. All affect how the tiers work and to what extent you track from certain tiers.

Keep Everything - Nothing becomes obsolete, in which case you actually have a thing where you have a lot fewer levels and tiers, because you simply can't write as much as you are not allowed to write anything that overshadows previous material. At this point people ask you why you're using this setup, to some extent, and you also make generating high level characters take straight-up more time, and be more unwieldy. That said, the characters are consistent, and this makes a great deal of sense if you're willing to abide by the restricted domain of the game. Also, you need to keep in mind that classes will grow abilities slowly rather than rapidly.

Palette of Skills - In this setup, you are allowed to pick what you keep, but you only are allowed to keep a certain amount. In this case, you have more levels and tiers possible, but you will probably want to have things scale to a limited amount, suggesting less than "a lot" but more than "a few." The exact details can vary... for instance, you might automatically keep certain things (like capstone events), but have to choose amongst only a certain number of "action" abilities, or only one reactive defense, or only one movement ability. In this case, classes can grow abilities rapidly in any area which is highly restricted, since you still only get to pick one. In effect, this creates obsolescence without forcing the issue.

Tier Senescence - As you move up, you delete everything that is too long ago. You might keep one or two things that are just too important to write off, like, again, capstone events, but otherwise you just whip out a new character sheet because the old one has a bunch of stuff on it that doesn't matter anymore. I mean, if you really want to erase all that... regardless, this is the most extreme option. It also enjoys the benefit of potentially going on forever... if you want a true zero to hero to god game, this is probably your best bet. It has the disadvantage of some inconsistency with characters, which may not be desirable for everyone or every setting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'd like to do dark children's fantasy at some point without having everyone American Magee it up all over the place. Seriously, Hansel and Gretel can just be protagonists or allies. They don't have to be the cannibal slaves of a cursed oven or creepy cross dressing incestuous bondage sex junkies. Seriously, why even call those characters Hansel and Gretel?

-Username17

I think we have an idea for a new thread.

But since I just can't resist I have to ask, what do you have in mind for dark children's fantasy? Did you want something like Kingdom Hearts? Something like King's Quest but with child protagonists? Something like Avatar: TLA? Something like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance?

I don't mind this genre in principle, but like you said most of the time when people try to do that they just take old-timey fairy tales and make them so GHRYM and DARKE that it just feels like adult media with little kid protagonists.

I personally think Quest for Glory would make a great setting for this kind of thing, since each game (except for the first) is a mishmash of related yet recognizable mythology that generates a lot of adventures and monsters. Quest for Glory 4 is excellent if you want to do something that's darker than average, I feel. King's Quest is too disjointed and doesn't actually feel like a real world with a unified culture and menagerie.

[zeruslord]

Thinking about it again, I'd go with tier senescence, but keep a bit more. Probably one scaling class ability and everything from the capstone.

[Maxus]

I'd do Keep Everything, but make some scaling involved. Kind of based on Tactics Advance; Your Fighter or your Monk may move onto other classes, but having things like Air Render are always fairly useful because they're tied to your attack power.

[TavishArtair]

I'd do Keep Everything, but make some scaling involved. Kind of based on Tactics Advance; Your Fighter or your Monk may move onto other classes, but having things like Air Render are always fairly useful because they're tied to your attack power.

Perhaps I did not express myself. Scaling is the only way to do Keep Everything, because otherwise you wind up writing Breeze Cutter, Air Render ("as Breeze Cutter but better") and Gale Slasher ("as Breeze Cutter but even better!") and having de facto obsolescence of abilities even if they are not de jure, at which point you might as well go with Tier Senescence or something similar and just write off the earlier tiers because they have been overwritten anyways. With Palette, you might or might not scale some things... depends. With Tier Senescence, you are actually expected to not scale things since you are, in fact, throwing out the earlier tiers entirely, and you do in fact actually have Breeze Cutter, Air Render, and Gale Slasher in the game.

[IGTN]

I'll see if I can write up a Design Flowsheet for War Orphan sometime this weekend to get something thrown together; I'd do it sooner, but I'm busy.

Ideas will be cribbed heavily from this thread when making rules. I was leaning toward Tier Senescence: "Lift Heavy Things" on a 12-year-old doesn't even give you the lifting ability of a baseline adult, so when you age a few years in downtime you lose it and replace it with the basic young adult version of "Lift Things," which is equal or better in every way. Of course, different styles of game will need different takes.

[ckafrica]

It would be nice if this didn't turn into a project that exclusively caters to child protagonists. While I understand why game companies make child oriented games (they want to sell to children) I've always set my brain filter to ignore while playing games like FFT.

I guess as an adult I find it hard to imagine the actions of children being the stuff that legends should be made of. It's not what childhood is about.

As far as skill/power selection, I think it's a bit tricky. You've got some skills which it might be appropriate to keep but not upgrade/ or have various levels.

Lift heavy shit for example. Some characters might never get beyond picking up a big boulder heavy to move it while others might want to get to the swing whole redwoods one handed like a bat. While I don't want the later in a tier one campaign, I don't see why you couldn't have a character in a tier 3 game who can only do the former.

[MartinHarper]

To elaborate on my earlier point, if normal classes are all three levels long, and capstone classes are one level long, then when you go from level 3 to level 4, everyone has a noticeable change. The fighter suddenly raising the dead may not be significant from a mechanical point of view: it's just another new ability and it happens to be from the Necromancer pool instead of the Warrior pool. However, it's a significant change from a story point of view. When the party goes from level 9 to level 10, everyone gets a capstone class, and everything is different. When the party goes from level 11 to level 12, nobody cares.

Instead, I'd suggest classes are 2-5 levels in length. Instead of being assigned to tiers, they have a minimum level they can be entered at. This way, in a five person party, every time the party goes up a level, around one or two players will get a new class, and over the course of ten levels or so, the level-up-spotlight gets shared around.

[violence in the media]

How is the level up spotlight a problem now? Almost every 3.x game I've ever played in had people level up at the same time.

[Roy]

How is the level up spotlight a problem now? Almost every 3.x game I've ever played in had people level up at the same time.

Because the point is to put more focus on each level via lots of meaningful abilities. It's also possible level ups will be staggered, but in any case you don't suddenly gain new abilities... at best you kill things, take their stuff about four times or so, then nap and wake up stronger. So it doesn't have so much 'ding', ya know?

[violence in the media]

Out of curiosity, what system does everyone think we should use for this game?

[Roy]

Out of curiosity, what system does everyone think we should use for this game?

You'd almost certainly have to make your own, as retrofitting is made of Fail.

[violence in the media]

I wasn't thinking of plugging this into d20 or anything, but I was wondering what we should use as a base.

I was thinking of starting with the d6 rolling hits system with a slight modification because of the tiers. Basic idea is that 5+ on the dice is always a hit and nothing ever changes that. However, apprentice and heroic tiers use d6, paragon tier uses d8, and epic/demigod tier uses d12. This gives you a progression of 1/3-->1/2-->2/3 chance of getting a hit on any given die. I was also thinking of having dice caps at each tier. Say 5 dice at heroic, 10 at paragon, and 15 at demigod. I'm not entirely sure how that would play into things yet.

I don't know if this is the best idea, or even a good idea, but it is an idea. Any thoughts?

[TavishArtair]

It would be nice if this didn't turn into a project that exclusively caters to child protagonists. While I understand why game companies make child oriented games (they want to sell to children) I've always set my brain filter to ignore while playing games like FFT.

After kicking this around for a little while longer, and perhaps watching the Black Forest thread, if people want something more explicitly fantastic I could easily see starting a parallel project of, say, Sumeru Tactics (if anyone is interested in that) or just making up another setting whole-cloth as a basis for a model of this system.

[ckafrica]

--Sigh--
Yeah, it looks like that's what I'll have to do. a pity though, this was the first idea that actually got me excited in a while. Hopefully some interesting mechanics will come out of it.

I just really don't understand the attraction of child characters as an adult player. I mean, under no circumstances would I want to revert back to childhood IRL, so playing one in my make believe time seems doubly daft.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I'd just like to say that FFT actually stands for something, and the use of it as a TRL for Final Fantasy: Tactics distracts me every time I see this thread. ¬.¬

[violence in the media]

--Sigh--
Yeah, it looks like that's what I'll have to do. a pity though, this was the first idea that actually got me excited in a while. Hopefully some interesting mechanics will come out of it.

I just really don't understand the attraction of child characters as an adult player. I mean, under no circumstances would I want to revert back to childhood IRL, so playing one in my make believe time seems doubly daft.

I'd be interested in that. The original idea is very exciting. The Black Forest idea is cool too, but I'm not overly keen on a game where the players have to remind themselves every few minutes, "oh yeah, I'm 9." I do like that Black Forest is being created with the idea of people playing children or adults.

[TavishArtair]

Actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure Sumeru would be an appropriate setting for this partially because of the way the Castes work. If your dharma is to do X, you're supposed to do X, not Y, and having a lot of classes flying around on your sheet would probably result in a certain amount of negation of that setting premise. Accordingly, I think "another setting entire" might well be happening. Which I have some ideas for.

[Username17]

Actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure Sumeru would be an appropriate setting for this partially because of the way the Castes work. If your dharma is to do X, you're supposed to do X, not Y, and having a lot of classes flying around on your sheet would probably result in a certain amount of negation of that setting premise. Accordingly, I think "another setting entire" might well be happening. Which I have some ideas for.

Could work for Atayala, since wandering around collecting insight from different cultures is kind of assumed.

-Username17

[violence in the media]

Well, let's hear them.

[kosall]

I've never posted before but I felt like I wanted to chime in so here goes -

Could the players upon gaining a level and changing class change previous abilities out for new ones? And instead of allowing them to change everything they only get to change a couple?

For instance, the character is 3rd level and has access to a new class, if he chooses to take the new class he gets 2 abilities from it and can trade out 2 of his older abilities for 2 from his new class?

Or, if you choose a major ability it counts as 2 minor? I'm rambling now so I'll stop.

[zeruslord]

I think point buy with ability trees is probably a better setup for Atayala than spending three levels as a Skymage and then jumping to Hydrophobe. Also, what the hell would the tier breaks be?

I'd probably like a more-or-less European setting with some of the power site and Points of Darkness ideas from the early TNE threads and the CAN system. I wouldn't object to putting in a different social system, but I like the traditional imagery of knights and kings.

[TavishArtair]

I think what we'd want to emphasize in a game that is more fantastic, at least what I'd want to emphasize, would be the potential to advance to godlike entities. We already have a game for fairly heroic characters in a more folktale-ish setting in Black Forest, as eventually characters mature into warrior princesses there. However, it has a certain assumption that characters are heroic, not so much superheroic. I would expect a game would tend to cap out before "and Hercules holds up the sky for a bit so Atlas can grab some stuff for him" occurs. So we would want that to be where we would be aiming, instead.

Accordingly, it should be more or less assumed that the potential to advance to a godlike entity is within humanity (and whatever other races we want to have). While kings and knights might exist, they should be taken in the same vein of the more fantastic legends of Arthur and Merlin... the king has a steel-cutting sword sheathed in a scabbard of immortality granted to him by a water goddess which he was guided to by a half-demon prophet and people occasionally have structural problems because dragons are wrestling underground. Occasionally you also have problems with immortal beings coming up and taunting the relative manhood of your knights, and the one who meets his challenge is a shining paladin who gains strength from dawn onward until he enters super mode at midday. At one point he uses this to nearly kill the faerie knight trained and armed by the Fair Folk because the ponce was banging his liege lord's wife.

And that's not the really high level play either.

[TavishArtair]

So what do people prefer in terms of races. Do they want to see FFTA style, or D&D style races?

In FFTA, your race would often give you an entirely different class list than the Human guy over there, with very little overlap in actual classes. Functional overlap was common, though, as every race had a combat type, but while for most it was generic swordsman, for the koala-people it was a chibi-knight, and for bunny girls it was a rapier-fighter.

In D&D, your race does not alter your class list in any meaningful sense, although in this setup it would be an additional class. I am of course generally excluding/ignoring the progression towards a more FFTA-style construct of the game introduced by race-restricted prestige classes.

Both lead to different constructions. In general I would assume playing a nonhuman would be an interesting and viable option... people who want human-only fantasy honestly usually have other ways of getting that, like setting up a medieval GURPS game and adding magic rules or something. Atlhough the question of how "human" a magic-user is arises....