Why does 4th Edition have classes anyway?

[Manxome]

I don't think your examples mix anything at all. The lady from Angel touches anything and it flies back(no different from a spellcaster), the Matrix guys don't use any magic at all and just jump high, and smite evil is an example from a game that is metagame so it isn't even valid.

You do have part of a point with the Jedi. The newest Jedi game mixes heavily. You put force lightning on your lightsaber (cuz it's not damaging enough....yeh, OK), telekinetically toss lightsabers, and do all kinds of mixed things like pulling enemies toward you so you can stabinate them.

OK, maybe we're just not communicating well. I consider it to be using supernatural and martial abilities in tandem when:

• A Jedi looks a split second into the future to help him parry a blaster bolt or lightsaber.
• You use "magic" to enhance your strength, mobility, or perceptiveness so that you can melee better.
• You make a traditional melee attack (punch, sword, arrow) that has the usual effect of that attack plus a supernatural effect on top of it (like turning them into a lightning rod, rooting them to the ground, or stealing their voice). Heck, maybe even if it only has the supernatural effect, if you used martial skill to deliver it to the target.
• You wield your weapons without physically touching them.
• You use purely magical defenses to negate enemy attacks while you make purely martial counter-attacks, or vice versa.

You will no doubt want to note that most or all of those could be purely martial powers if you rewrote the flavor text. You could also rewrite the flavor text to be purely magical. But the flavor they actually have, as far as I'm concerned, is someone performing martial arts and magic together. And those things do exist in the literature, and I think they're a lot of fun to play.

And I'm sure some people say they want to use magic and martial attacks at the same time purely because they're hoping to get more level-appropriate attacks per round than everyone else, but that's not what I'm arguing for. I would personally rather be a guy that's got super reflexes because he can see a split second into the future than a guy with super reflexes just because he's that darn good, even if they're mechanically identical.

The thing I'm not sure that people get is that any synergy that might break the game from multiclassing is the same synergy you'd get if two characters in the same game have those abilities. I mean, you can cry foul if a melee-focused character has a way to break the ranged game like using a fog cloud, but if the melee character can't and the party mage can, then it is the same synergy.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. You're now using two characters to produce the effect, and the one playing the support role is vulnerable; it's entirely possible that such a combo is balanced for that resource investment but not balanced as a solo trick.

But there's also a kind of pseudo-synergy that I think you're ignoring, which is that characters that do a wider variety of stuff are generally better even if no two of those abilities would ever be used in the same battle. Unless your plan is that every class has a trick for every possible situation--or at least as many different situations as players are ever allowed to have powers--then choosing from more lists means you can cover more bases. That raises your average contribution.

Which isn't to say that you can't balance the game on the assumption that everyone is choosing from two lists, because you totally can. But as soon as some people are choosing from one list and others are choosing from the same list plus another one, you need to significantly alter some common assumption in order to keep them in line with each other.

If you want to allow up to 2 classes, I'm still in favor of just assuming that everyone has two classes, except maybe for a few special cases. I think that's much more workable.

[PhoneLobster]

I don't actually recall you expressing that level of satisfaction before, and that's a very interesting position for you to take, but it doesn't actually answer the challenge. The challenge was not "pick something that you personally consider acceptable and tell us what to do," the challenge was "articulate a reasonable method for choosing an option that results in choosing the option that you actually want." Cause, see, the rest of us have been discussing pros and cons of various trade-offs and you've been saying that we should let the players do anything and that if there are any problems with that approach we should just cope, no matter what they are...and actually adopting your stated thought process results in magical tea party, not TNE. Your reasoning (such as it is) doesn't match your conclusion.

OK Now I'm actually fucking offended. You have ignored every single false assumption in your argument that I have raised repeatedly and now you post a paragraph which is straight out transparent bullshit and lies.

Take a second to READ my posts, THINK for a little bit THEN come back you innumerate thug.

Though your satisfaction with K's idea is very interesting because K's proposal can be simulated with a strict single-class sytem that has more classes.

Now THAT I haven't addressed. Because it if fucking stupid.

The simulation you suggest involves MORE complexity a larger number of different abilities that do the same things.

You claim that higher complexity that more written up abilities summons the Synergy Monster, but only when it suits you.

Right there you want MORE classes, MORE ability lists and MORE abilities. In a simple example of Fighter, Mage and Fighter Mage with ten abilities each you have 30 abilities that need to be written without causing the sudden game failure you fear while with Fighter Mage and cross classing you have only 20.

And by no means do we have ANY objective evidence that more combinations of abilities is a greater risk of failure in ability design than having to design a greater number of individual abilities.

As with EVERYTHING else in your STUPID FUCKING "OH ITS MATHS" argument that is a massive and utterly out of your ass assumption.

You are seriously sitting down repeatedly and saying "I have a gut feeling about this, multiplied by the number of permutations of choices, equals what I want it to mean!"

or that your objection to Frank's single-class proposal actually has nothing to do with the amount of flexibility it permits.

Frank's single class proposal, at least on this thread, A) Does not exist in any detail, and B) Is defined exclusively by an argument against flexibility.

So unless I've completely missed something, I think you just slew your own argument. When you get down to it, K's plan is Frank's plan, but with a new trick that's basically supposed to cut production costs.

Seriously, did you fail reading comprehension in primary school? K says "Some cross class ability selections!" Frank says "NEVER!" That's the argument, there, that is it.

We're debating whether or not it actually does that and what side-effects it would have.

Really because all you seem to be posting about is your feeling that one form of complexity is better than another and that the Synchronicity Monster is less scary than the Synergy Monster.

I actually think it would cut costs, just not as much as K seems to think.

Ah, is this another of your "facts and figures" arguments, I can't tell.

It's too much choice when the quality of the game goes down for a given amount of development time and effort invested.

Sooo... then you suggest we reduce player satisfaction and increase the number of individual classes and abilities we need to write, simultaneously.

Okay... Maybe you should step away from the game design.

Nah, sorry, that's probably just a strawma...

or we could enforce limits on the amount of mixing you can do and instead spend that same development effort, say, writing more new options.

... oh dear.

Quality is complicated to evaluate, of course,

Of course, like all the basis of your facts and figures argument it is not actually an objective fact or a figure. You just you know, feel one thing has more "quality" than another.

and we also have to consider things like: how easy the game is to learn and play, how much internal sense it makes, how good a job it does of meeting various' players expectations and desires, etc., etc. That's what the adults in the thread are discussing.

REALLY. Because I see a shit fight over Frank wanting to implement a draconian role protection system harsher than Pokemon.

I also see a list of "quality" goals all rather obviously served better by a smaller better designed list of abilities with greater freedom of selection rather than a big shit pile of more abilities that need to be designed, learned and never combined.

But the criteria for including any particular feature is not "is the game better or worse without this feature?", it's "is this the best feature we could possibly include for the amount of effort it would take?"

So I suppose that rules out writing up some multiple of the "Base" classes in hybrid classes with unique abilities for each and then having to write up some multiple of them in hybrid hybrids, and hybrid hybrid hybrids and...

At least, that's the question if we're trying to design an actual game, rather than trying to describe the platonic ideal.

That is utter bullshit. Because there is NO FIRM PROPOSITION from the role protection crowd. We don't know how many roles, how distinct they are and how the ability selection will work. We have more actual firm propositions from K.

[K]

I don't think your examples mix anything at all. The lady from Angel touches anything and it flies back(no different from a spellcaster), the Matrix guys don't use any magic at all and just jump high, and smite evil is an example from a game that is metagame so it isn't even valid.

You do have part of a point with the Jedi. The newest Jedi game mixes heavily. You put force lightning on your lightsaber (cuz it's not damaging enough....yeh, OK), telekinetically toss lightsabers, and do all kinds of mixed things like pulling enemies toward you so you can stabinate them.

OK, maybe we're just not communicating well. I consider it to be using supernatural and martial abilities in tandem when:

• A Jedi looks a split second into the future to help him parry a blaster bolt or lightsaber.
• You use "magic" to enhance your strength, mobility, or perceptiveness so that you can melee better.
• You make a traditional melee attack (punch, sword, arrow) that has the usual effect of that attack plus a supernatural effect on top of it (like turning them into a lightning rod, rooting them to the ground, or stealing their voice). Heck, maybe even if it only has the supernatural effect, if you used martial skill to deliver it to the target.
• You wield your weapons without physically touching them.
• You use purely magical defenses to negate enemy attacks while you make purely martial counter-attacks, or vice versa.

You will no doubt want to note that most or all of those could be purely martial powers if you rewrote the flavor text. You could also rewrite the flavor text to be purely magical. But the flavor they actually have, as far as I'm concerned, is someone performing martial arts and magic together. And those things do exist in the literature, and I think they're a lot of fun to play.

Ok, we need to take these a few at a time because they are good examples:

Buffing yourself with anything to make better melee is right out of the system. It seriously has no tactical value other than more damage, and damage needs to be tied to level or else we don't have a level system. If you are worried about that synergy then don't.

Looking into the future and negating attacks with magic. That is something you tie in with other abilities, even if those abilities are purely martial. I mean, seeing a few seconds into the future is meaningless if you don't have the speed and reflexes to take advantage of that. This means that there are no passive abilities. When you use a defense it is an offence(so Jedi deflectings blasters is actually an attack he uses that negates the ranged game and let's him turn enemy fire into an attack).

That being said, I think descriptions can be loose "Some warriors deflect blows with reflexes and speed, while others seem to tap into a mystical sense of things around them...." Since I refuse to key powers to things like "daggers", some people really will deflect with mystic shields and some will deflect with regular swords.

Wielding weapons without touching them is a magic attack. I'm sorry, but there is no reason to allow people to double dip the magic pool and the martial by letting them get magic attacks with martial, especially considering that with TK you'd be able to do things with a sword that no corporeal being can do. So people wanting to Power Attack with a TKed sword is right out on the grounds of double-dipping.

Hitting people with a weapon and having a supernatural effect is basically straight mystical or magic weapon territory. The time when we started to see "cast a spell on my sword, then use sword" happened in 3e when people realized that magic weapons sucked and there was not way to use decent magic weapons, so they attacked the problem from the side.

If we assume that you aren't trying to double dip, then this is exactly the same as "magic swords" of the past, so we might as well have magic swords with real effects. The mechanic I prefer is that people actually use feat-like things to master Objects of Power whose powers are actually on par with class features. I mean, I have no problem with a 10th level character shooting a level 5 spell out of a sword as a physical attack, but it needs to be within the system of a magic attack. Vorpal Swords need to actually animate in the middle of battle to take heads, and not just be an added effect when you use a Power Attack.

The thing I'm not sure that people get is that any synergy that might break the game from multiclassing is the same synergy you'd get if two characters in the same game have those abilities. I mean, you can cry foul if a melee-focused character has a way to break the ranged game like using a fog cloud, but if the melee character can't and the party mage can, then it is the same synergy.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. You're now using two characters to produce the effect, and the one playing the support role is vulnerable; it's entirely possible that such a combo is balanced for that resource investment but not balanced as a solo trick.

But there's also a kind of pseudo-synergy that I think you're ignoring, which is that characters that do a wider variety of stuff are generally better even if no two of those abilities would ever be used in the same battle. Unless your plan is that every class has a trick for every possible situation--or at least as many different situations as players are ever allowed to have powers--then choosing from more lists means you can cover more bases. That raises your average contribution.

There really isn't a resource question here. If you wanted to melee in fog, you need two actions to do that(for the melee and one for the fog). Tactically, removing the "fogger" mage is no different from removing the "fog+melee" fighter. There is no advantage to having those abilities on a single character or double except that on two characters you can do it all in one round at the cost of having someone else not contribute. Only in the case where the mage is in a different room or not with the party do you have any real advantage on a single character, and that's offset by not fighting with a mage.

As for "psuedo-synergy", that is also a non-issue. The point of saying "all your mage powers come off this fixed mage list that won't change" is that you are forcing people to have variety. Sure, you'll have somewhat less character variety if everyone picks the same class and the same powers at their level, but that's a silly point considering that people feel a deep need to make their character different from other characters and the system will be made to allow that easily.









..

[Manxome]

There really isn't a resource question here. If you wanted to melee in fog, you need two actions to do that(for the melee and one for the fog). Tactically, removing the "fogger" mage is no different from removing the "fog+melee" fighter. There is no advantage to having those abilities on a single character or double except that on two characters you can do it all in one round at the cost of having someone else not contribute. Only in the case where the mage is in a different room or not with the party do you have any real advantage on a single character, and that's offset by not fighting with a mage.

What? No, if you've got a "fog+melee" fighter, then he sacrifices one action to create the fog and then goes into melee; if you've got a melee fighter and a fog mage, then the fog mage sacrifices (or at least weakens) all of this actions for as long as the fog exists because the mage doesn't have melee powers. Because if he did, then he would be the "fog+melee" fighter.

You're sacrificing a constant number of actions in one case and half of your actions for as long as the battle lasts in the other case. That's a completely different cost.

Plus:
1) Parties with multiple people are inherently more awesome for reasons other than just having more total actions. They have larger (collective) ability pools, they can be in more than one place at once, etc., etc. The fact that you have two people in your party rather than one by itself means that you're playing at a different tactical level and that more awesome stuff is acceptable.
2) If we decide for some reason that the fog+melee combo is broken, then if fog is available only to non-melee characters, we can fix it by making it a personal effect, rather than by making some larger change.

As for "psuedo-synergy", that is also a non-issue. The point of saying "all your mage powers come off this fixed mage list that won't change" is that you are forcing people to have variety. Sure, you'll have somewhat less character variety if everyone picks the same class and the same powers at their level, but that's a silly point considering that people feel a deep need to make their character different from other characters and the system will be made to allow that easily.

Um...I was under the impression that the point of saying "all your mage powers come off this fixed mage list that won't change" is that you are limiting the amount of variety they can have. You know, role protection and all that.

Unless it is your contention that fighters get area attacks and mind control every bit as good as wizards and that wizards can melee every bit as well as fighters, then a fighter/wizard can get powers that are good in a wider variety of situations than a straight fighter or straight wizard. Under fairly limited assumptions, that makes the fighter/wizard better than the specialists. Exactly what point do we disagree about?

[RandomCasualty2]

I mean, one of DnD's great flaws is things like the fact that when you fail a save to an entangle/i, you are boned. Why? If you are stuck in some vines, you'd think you should be able to cut yourself free, but the magic logic of 3e won't allow that.

Well the problem with stuff like entangle is actually two fold. The first is the magic logic problem.

The second is simply that costing someone to lose an action is huge. In a game like 3E you're likely to only get 3-4 actions at most in any given combat. You may only get 1 turn or 2 turns. Losing one of those turns is huge.

Even in a game like 4E with longer combats, stun effects are simply better than anything else.

[K]

There really isn't a resource question here. If you wanted to melee in fog, you need two actions to do that(for the melee and one for the fog). Tactically, removing the "fogger" mage is no different from removing the "fog+melee" fighter. There is no advantage to having those abilities on a single character or double except that on two characters you can do it all in one round at the cost of having someone else not contribute. Only in the case where the mage is in a different room or not with the party do you have any real advantage on a single character, and that's offset by not fighting with a mage.

What? No, if you've got a "fog+melee" fighter, then he sacrifices one action to create the fog and then goes into melee; if you've got a melee fighter and a fog mage, then the fog mage sacrifices (or at least weakens) all of this actions for as long as the fog exists because the mage doesn't have melee powers. Because if he did, then he would be the "fog+melee" fighter.

You're sacrificing a constant number of actions in one case and half of your actions for as long as the battle lasts in the other case. That's a completely different cost.

As for "psuedo-synergy", that is also a non-issue. The point of saying "all your mage powers come off this fixed mage list that won't change" is that you are forcing people to have variety. Sure, you'll have somewhat less character variety if everyone picks the same class and the same powers at their level, but that's a silly point considering that people feel a deep need to make their character different from other characters and the system will be made to allow that easily.

Um...I was under the impression that the point of saying "all your mage powers come off this fixed mage list that won't change" is that you are limiting the amount of variety they can have. You know, role protection and all that.

Unless it is your contention that fighters get area attacks and mind control every bit as good as wizards and that wizards can melee every bit as well as fighters, then a fighter/wizard can get powers that are good in a wider variety of situations than a straight fighter or straight wizard. Under fairly limited assumptions, that makes the fighter/wizard better than the specialists. Exactly what point do we disagree about?

Two things:

The "fog+melee" is paying a cost that other characters at the battle can't use their ranged attacks. The only advantage is if there is a situation where no one else on his team has ranged (like when he is alone). Overall, that is not a game-breaking advantage.

Which leads to my second point: role protection CANNOT be Tactical Role Protection, it can only be Thematic Role Protection.

This means that even monsters should have ranged attacks, area attacks, and single target attacks. So when the fog fighter drops his fog on his enemies, this still means that the bandits he is fighting can attack him with their melee powers. His tactical advantage might be created from the fact that their best powers were ranged and his best ones were melee, so now the situation is him using his best powers and them using their third best.

So the roles have to be things like "fighters take swords or bows and use them to poke out monster eyes" or "mages use lightning damage that ignores metal armor." It cannot be "barbarians can't use their powers with ranged attacks" or you get a situation where a flying mage with a bow auto-wins vs all barbarians.

[Manxome]

Which leads to my second point: role protection CANNOT be Tactical Role Protection, it can only be Thematic Role Protection.

Can you explain this in more detail, please? Specifically, does this mean that the only real differences between classes are in the flavor text, and if not, what is the distinction between a "tactical" mechanical difference and a "non-tactical" one?

For example, it seems to me that "my melee powers are better than yours, but your ranged powers are better than mine" would be a tactical role. It also seems like "I have melee but not fog, and you have the reverse" would be a tactical division, so I'm confused how "there can be no tactical role protection" can possibly be support for the argument "giving melee and fog only to different roles doesn't help," rather than being its conclusion (looks circular on the face of it).

[Username17]

There's still the issue of an 'organically growing' character. What if the warrior decides that he wants to study magic?

• Do you say, 'Sorry, you didn't start with the gish class'?
• Do you say 'OK, rebuild your entire character as a gish'?
• Do you say, 'Sorry, role protection. There are no gish and the party magus would be pissed if you took her role'?
• Do you say, 'Sorry, role protection. You can't do that even though there's no magus in the party (or the party magus wants to train you)'?
• Do you say, 'Alright, start taking skills off the "magus" list'?
• Something else entirely?

[Edit] Character development can be one of the most rewarding parts of an RPG game, and IMO isn't sad if (1) a character is totally 'locked in' or (2) has nothing to show for what she's been through.
[/Edit]

In any kind of fantasy setting, each class should come with magical and physical "feeling" maneuvers that people can get.

Just as a Vampire character can learn Potence or she can learn Dominate, and a Werewolf character can learn razor claw gifts or twinkle magic gifts - a Totemist should be able to make monster soulmelds that give him a caster routine or ones that give him a fighting style.

To use the Rand Al Thor example that keeps getting thrown around: the male Aes Sedai have sword techniques and they shoot fire at things with the source (in the shape of swords). At the beginning of the books, our hero mostly falls on sword swinging maneuvers, and later in the series he mostly calls on balefire, but in any case he never stops being of that same character type.

Classes should be broad enough to give people that kind of flexibility. Like Vampire vs. Werewolf or Totemist vs. Binder more than Ranger vs. Paladin. Also, there should obviously be universal abilities that anyone can take (if you're in a setting where magic light is easily achieved, everyone should have the option of learning it). But people frankly shouldn't be jumping from one of the classes to another. Vampire/Werewolves were bad for the game, and they ended up having to officially announce that the book they were thrown out in had never actually happened over at Whitewolf.

-Username17

[K]

Which leads to my second point: role protection CANNOT be Tactical Role Protection, it can only be Thematic Role Protection.

Can you explain this in more detail, please? Specifically, does this mean that the only real differences between classes are in the flavor text, and if not, what is the distinction between a "tactical" mechanical difference and a "non-tactical" one?

For example, it seems to me that "my melee powers are better than yours, but your ranged powers are better than mine" would be a tactical role. It also seems like "I have melee but not fog, and you have the reverse" would be a tactical division, so I'm confused how "there can be no tactical role protection" can possibly be support for the argument "giving melee and fog only to different roles doesn't help," rather than being its conclusion (looks circular on the face of it).

I think I've been overusing the word "tactical" when sometimes I mean "strategic."

Ok, it works like this:

You can't protect roles like "ranged attacker" or "area damage" or "control." Everyone needs to be able to do that to a lesser or greater degree.

People can have tactical niches. You can say: "A Black Mage gets an area effect damaging spell with fire mechanics that set people on fire when they fail saves. He is the only character in the game with that."

The key is that he can't be the only character in the game with area damage. Everyone needs it.

So when the fog+melee guy walks into game and drops fog, he hurts everyone including himself and his own ranged powers and that's true if the mage does it too. But, he is more geared toward melee, so relative advantage is created for him.

Tactically, there will be times when that works. If you are attacked by bandits that have good ranged attacks and OK melee and your party has a mixed bag, dropping that fog is great. Your mages will enter melee with their so-so Burning Hands and your melee guys will wade in with their melee power and the archer will pull out a shortsword and start popping off his OK melee powers. It doesn't matter who dropped the power (except for a slight turn advantage created when the fog mage does it so a slighter better meleer gets to attack.).

Role protection needs to be in the form of specific powers or kinds of powers that only some people get. A mage needs to do mage things and a fighter needs to do fighter things, but in the big picture there can't be a character who can't do area attacks, ranged, and melee.

Does that help?

[Username17]

Role protection needs to be in the form of specific powers or kinds of powers that only some people get.

Absolutely.

A mage needs to do mage things and a fighter needs to do fighter things

I don't think that "Mage" and "Fighter" should be classes. I think what classes there are should be gearable towards magery or fighting.

but in the big picture there can't be a character who can't do area attacks, ranged, and melee/

I think in the big picture you could have a character type who was unable to do area attacks. Tactically, characters need to be able to do melee and ranged combat. There's no getting around that. They also need to be able to manipulate objects, move and sneak around, and speak (although they don't necessarily have to do those things super well).

There are a number of other things which I think are sacrificicable if the character does other things well.

• An individual character doesn't have to provide any healing.
• An individual character doesn't have to provide area damage.
• An individual character doesn't have to be able to unravel enemy effects.
• An individual character doesn't have to provide any battlefield control.
• An individual character doesn't have to provide special transport.
• An individual character doesn't have to be able to summon or otherwise produce an army.
• An individual character doesn't have to be able to produce things for the economy during downtime.

Now obviously a character who can't do any of that is boring as snot and probably not very good - but I think the game would suffer slightly if everyone was doing all of that stuff.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

In any kind of fantasy setting, each class should come with magical and physical "feeling" maneuvers that people can get.

Just as a Vampire character can learn Potence or she can learn Dominate, and a Werewolf character can learn razor claw gifts or twinkle magic gifts - a Totemist should be able to make monster soulmelds that give him a caster routine or ones that give him a fighting style.

To use the Rand Al Thor example that keeps getting thrown around: the male Aes Sedai have sword techniques and they shoot fire at things with the source (in the shape of swords). At the beginning of the books, our hero mostly falls on sword swinging maneuvers, and later in the series he mostly calls on balefire, but in any case he never stops being of that same character type.

Classes should be broad enough to give people that kind of flexibility. Like Vampire vs. Werewolf or Totemist vs. Binder more than Ranger vs. Paladin. Also, there should obviously be universal abilities that anyone can take (if you're in a setting where magic light is easily achieved, everyone should have the option of learning it). But people frankly shouldn't be jumping from one of the classes to another. Vampire/Werewolves were bad for the game, and they ended up having to officially announce that the book they were thrown out in had never actually happened over at Whitewolf.

-Username17

In a setting like Sumeru or V:TM, I understand the in-game logic behind classes on rails. In Sumeru, if you change your role you're going completely against your dharma. In V:TM werewolves can't become vampires (maybe...) due to biomagical 'fact', and vampires can't be mages either (which is why there's "thaumaturgy").

Really, though, I think it comes down to two different types of constructs: what you know, and what you're made of. In Sumeru you're incarnated into a role and that's that. In other settings, it makes sense to allow Alice the Archmage to study the (almost) lost art of hook-fencing because she's found an ancient manual and thinks that it's cool. Stuff like that doesn't often happen in novels, but it is not unknown. Furthermore, regardless of literary merit it can be a lot of fun in-game.

That said, the game I'm talking about may be incompatible with TNE. Perhaps such types of character development should be left to something less D&D.

[RandomCasualty2]

The key is that he can't be the only character in the game with area damage. Everyone needs it.

Actually I don't think that's necessary. In fact, it may well be bad for the game, since it leads to characters looking alike.


Giving everyone the same basic types of attacks sucks, because there's really not much differentiation between characters.

It's actually not a bad idea for characters to have varied types of attacks. Using a basic Starcraft analogy, you've got the following types of attack:

Attack types:
Rapid fire (lots of damage, but beaten by armor)
Slow massive attack (lots of damage, beats armor, but beaten by multiple units)
Average attack (moderate damage, reasonably good against everything).

Areas:
Single target attacks
Area Zone damage (beats clustered ranged units, but loses to melee)
Splash damage (beats clustered units, weak against large or spread out units).

Damage Types:
Concussive (good versus small stuff, weak against large)
normal (good versus everything)
Explosive (good against large, weak against small).

Now you can mix and match those. So you can get explosive rapid fire splash attacks, or normal damage slow single target attacks and so on. And there's a lot of things you can customize there with just that model.

The important thing about the Starcraft model is that it creates counters and the like between attack forms, and that's probably what we want. Though unlike Starcraft, in an RPG, every character or creature should have defenses as well as offenses. It's no fun playing a one trick pony, so you need options. But sometimes some of your options shouldn't work. Basically in some fights you should be encouraged to go defensive instead of offensive and vice versa, depending on situation. So the party psion may well be the main attacker against a big dumb brute, while the fighters try to keep them away from him, but against a mind flayer, the psion may be responsible for mind shielding his allies while the fighters try to tear the flayer up with blades.

In fact, a very simple counter idea could be that if something does the same thing you do, but better, then that makes you have the defensive role. So a fighter against a giant would be going defensive, while the mage tries to slap it with magic. This actually goes very well with the SAME concept, though I'd want to extend it beyond just the numbers and actually go to actual character abilities. Plus throw on some added complexity similar to what Starcraft has, so you've got varied types of attacks and attackers. This allows you to fit in different kinds of fighters. The heavy armored guy may be great against goblins and swarms but not so good against giants, for that you may want the lightly armored guy. Of course, the dex guy could be unable to dodge a bunch of smaller attackers and get chewed up.

[JonSetanta]

Role protection needs to be in the form of specific powers or kinds of powers that only some people get.

Sure sure but how will you go about defining who gets what?

I'll recommend the 'half track' once more concerning power acquisition.
• It would be like requiring a spellcaster to learn and ready a Lesser Fire Orb before learning and readying a Fire Orb.
• A Fire Orb would then be needed before Destruction can be learned and used.

Likewise, right along side this specific track a character could start up a new one; this time it's a warrior power similar to Rage with matching Rage-based track after it. They might want want the best Rage powers but they need to grab the Rage 1 and Rage 2 before their pick of Rage 3 is open.

If level allows, they could grab the whole fucking track up to the point where it's beyond learning... all at the same level.

In this way a magelike can't have L. Fire Orb, Fire Orb, and then snag Rage 3 with some other mismatched powers totally unrelated to either.
That's how most spellcasters are set up in D&D and I don't like that.


However, picking powers should not be as restricted as Tome fiends gain their very specific Domain-like SLAs. Those count as a full track IMO.


The problem I see with this track concept is that there are only so many slots to go around.
• By limiting the requirement to an "every other power" stuttered track one could overlap 2 progressions as a character advances.
• For instance, spell levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 would fill slots within the same track.
• The even number slots would then be used for either more of the same track powers, or a new track (or tracks of lower level powers) as mentioned with the Fire and Rage examples.

Less powers in each track means more tracks in a build, farther away from the 5/5 vs. 10 list dilemma.

[Manxome]

OK, I'm all in favor of making sure that everyone has the basic tactical tools to cover some minimal set of situations. Making sure everyone has some form of melee and range and movement and communication all makes sense.

But we don't want every character to do everything, because that's boring, stupid, and cuts huge tactical depth out of the game. We want characters to have different strengths and weaknesses because that means you have to try to maneuver into a position where you can use your strength and avoid having your weakness exploited, and each player can have an opportunity to shine at their own thing.

But if (to borrow K's example) you give the "fighter" class good melee powers and OK ranged powers, and then give the "archer" class good ranged powers and OK melee powers, then the fighter/archer is going to take good melee powers from the fighter side and good ranged powers from the archer side and be good at both, and that makes him objectively better than the specialists. The ability to cherry-pick powers from two lists means you get both of the strengths, unless you have some additional mechanic to counter that (I'm open to ideas).

Similarly, if there's anything special that not every class can do (say, teleport, or summoning, or dispelling), then multiclassing allows you to pick that up on the side while still grabbing the high points of any other class you care to name.

I don't think we can or should avoid this; that's why I've been saying we should just assume that everyone has the maximum number of classes (whatever that ends up being).

Sure sure but how will you go about defining who gets what?

I'll recommend the 'half track' once more concerning power acquisition.
• It would be like requiring a spellcaster to learn and ready a Lesser Fire Orb before learning and readying a Fire Orb.
• A Fire Orb would then be needed before Destruction can be learned and used.

Likewise, right along side this specific track a character could start up a new one; this time it's a warrior power similar to Rage with matching Rage-based track after it. They might want want the best Rage powers but they need to grab the Rage 1 and Rage 2 before their pick of Rage 3 is open.

Isn't that the feat chains from 3e all over again, and didn't Frank and K specifically abrogate that tradition in RoW because it means that high-level characters that start learning a new thing don't get level-appropriate abilities?

I thought we decided that every ability you get was going to be level-appropriate, and you weren't going to be able to choose to do a smaller number of things with more raw power than another character of the same level.

You could still potentially do something similar by ordering the abilities based on how "extreme" they are, even if they're all equal in "power," but I still don't think I like this direction.

[ckafrica]

I don't think that "Mage" and "Fighter" should be classes. I think what classes there are should be gearable towards magery or fighting.

I'm not sure what you consider class-worthy frank. Can you outline a few examples of what your fantasy game would have that makes them distinctly unique?

[Username17]

I don't think that "Mage" and "Fighter" should be classes. I think what classes there are should be gearable towards magery or fighting.

I'm not sure what you consider class-worthy frank. Can you outline a few examples of what your fantasy game would have that makes them distinctly unique?

Sure. The idea is that when you're making a fantasy game, your "magic" is intricately worked into your "physics," indeed into the very world itself. You can't write a "generic" fantasy ruleset, because whatever it is that magic does in your system has a tremendous impact on the world. Indeed it obviates many worlds and campaign styles simply by being.

So it behooves you to split things up in a way that makes it possible to have character interactions on multiple levels, real character distinctions, and genuine RPS utility in order to give the GM a tool to manhandle characters into staring roles now and again. And if you look carefully, a lot of novels already do that.

So for example: in Wheel of Time everyone has to pick a power source right at the start. There are source users, who are further split into Yin and Yang . There are Old Magic users, and there are Dark Power users, and both of those guys are cut off from the Source. So if you're a Mydraal you have dark power. You might be a caster-style Myrdraal, or you might run around chopping fools down with your Bane Blade, but you will never ever cast Balefire Sword because that's a technique that only appears on the Yang Source list. Similarly, if you do the Old Magic stuff you might spend a lot of time sending wolves after dudes or yo might just hit fools with an ax, but in either case you will never ever get Shadow Bind, because that's Dark Power only.

In classic D&D, the power sources that people think exist are:

• Extraplanar (this is where Clerics and Demons get their power).
• Elemental (this is where Wizards and Dragons get their power).
• Natural (this is where Druids and Faries get their power).
• Psychic (this is where Monks and Ilithid get their power).
• Death (this is where Necromancers and Undead get their power).

I mean, it's fairly important I think to remember that no one really believes that Clerics get their powers from the same positive and negative energies that power zombies, just as no one really believes that an Evoker is powered by the same juju that makes a necromancer tick. It's also important to note that the rules don't actually support any real distinctions between these groups but that this is a problem. People really want there to be distinctions of this type that actually matter.

And yeah, an Elemental Warrior should look kind of like a Book of 9 Swords character where he's throwing Stone Stances and Flaming Slashes among his more normal looking thrusts and parries; and a warrior from another class should do something else. An extraplanar warrior might get all Paladinly with glowing bursts coming out of his sword thrusts, or whatever.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Isn't that the feat chains from 3e all over again, and didn't Frank and K specifically abrogate that tradition in RoW because it means that high-level characters that start learning a new thing don't get level-appropriate abilities?

I thought we decided that every ability you get was going to be level-appropriate, and you weren't going to be able to choose to do a smaller number of things with more raw power than another character of the same level.

You could still potentially do something similar by ordering the abilities based on how "extreme" they are, even if they're all equal in "power," but I still don't think I like this direction.

Thats actually an old Frank idea. Make a list of abilities that are all balanced and level appropriate. Order them based on how unique you want them to be in the world. Force everyone to take them in ascending order of uniqueness.

This would provide a reason for pure necromancers to exist, only they can summon shadows. But multiclass versions would still be good since raising zombies is level appropriate.

The key difference from feat chains or Vancian casting is that higher abilities are not more powerful.

[MartinHarper]

I don't know about other people, but when I play a hybridized martial/magical character, I definitely do want his powers to be integrated in some way.

If I'm playing a roguish caster, I want to be able to cast spells on my daggers and then throw them, steal magic from other people, and combine short range teleports with acrobatics to gain Portal-esque movement.

On the other hand, I don't need all my options to be integrated in this way. I'm quite happy if 1/3 of my powers are from a caster list and 1/3 are from a rogue list and the last 1/3 show off the particular combination.

I don't think I like the 4e approach as much, where the two-weapon-ranger has an "attack with two weapons" power and the two-weapon-fighter has an "attack with two weapons" power, and we need to copy-and-paste stuff around all the time.

[baduin]

That is because 4e is simply poorly done.

For one thing, they should use something like Star Wars "talent trees". Eg Fighters and Rangers would get access to Two Sword Fighting power tree. Such a tree would provide a list of powers for different levels, and characters could select those powers as normal.

There should be common abilities which could be done by anyone, without taking it as powers (eg basic combat maneuvers from 3e). They would be mostly at-will attacks, although some could be per-encounter. There should be a Common power tree, with anyone able to take powers out of it, etc.

They didn't even bothered to explain why a Fighter cannot use his encounter exploits multiple times in the same encounter. Why not to make a keyword "Unlimited" with the text:" After you use your Unlimited encounter power, you can use it again in the same encounter as an at will power. Since you are either exhausted or anyone is expecting you to repeat your previous action, you get -3 penalty to hit."

It seems as if there was a lack of adult supervision.

[JonSetanta]

Manxome: it's not like a feat chain. Feats are much more limited resource than spell slots, the latter of which was basis for comparison in a classless system.

[Manxome]

Manxome: it's not like a feat chain. Feats are much more limited resource than spell slots, the latter of which was basis for comparison in a classless system.

Ah. Of course. You have more of them.

In precisely what way does that affect the level-appropriateness issue?

[K]

First of all, I'm not writing feat or ability chains. There is little reason to do it and lots of reasons not to. First among those reasons is that it doesn't give you anything. It cramps a lot of character concepts and I'm not going to punish players by forcing them into taking abilities they don't want and won't use just to get the ones they do want just because it satisfies someone's concept of "I'm a True necromancer, and those other necromancers are just poseurs." If someone want to play a Necromancer that summons shadows and ghosts and never will summon a zombie, then I'm not going to force them to waste an ability slot to get zombie summoning as a prereq of ghost summoning.

And that dovetails into my next point: if you are going to force people to take certain kinds of abilities, you should actually have a real reason to do so.

Frank's list, aside from the economic contribution part, is actually what every character does need. Everyone needs some Area Effect abilities so the DM can tell "battle stories" where hordes of kobolds attack the fortress, and every character needs control abilities so that when the villain holds the princess hostage you can force him to let her go. I could go on and on about the kinds of uses for these abilities, but the point is simple: once you start telling a story where one character can't contribute, you've failed as a RPG. If you want a short list of things characters should be able to do, just run through your favorite fantasy novels.

Now, that doesn't mean that everyone has to do these things the same way. Fighter AoE might be him getting an attack on everyone in Close range of him and he's adding his weapon effect to that, and that is fundamentally different from the Mage fireball that attacks everyone in a larger area with fire damage. Both are nominally "AoE", but the tactical ramifications of using them are very different.

Now, people want 3e and 4e's design philosophy of "idiot savant" characters. I understand that one can be a contributing member of party if you only have one trick that you do super well and the rest of the time you need to be rescued. Hell, Inuyasha, Buffy and Angel are based around the idea that there is only one competent adventurer in the whole show and everyone else just has one ability that happens to come up in almost every episode.

I just don't think that makes for a fun experience. It leads to people zoning out for long periods of the game.

I mean, if the DM wants to boost a less experienced Mage player's screentime, he just can make a few adventures where fireballs are super good and lots of the magely skill checks come up where he deciphers scripts. But, if the Mage player doesn't show up that night, someone like the party rogue should be able to throw smaller fire bombs and send those runes off to a scribe friend to get them translated.

I mean, giving people the power the affect the story by giving them a full suite of abilities actually makes the DM's job easier. He doesn't have to figure out a way to plausibly get a translation into player's hands if all the player's have some way of doing it (some efficiently and most inefficiently).

[Manxome]

Just for a moment, let's put aside the question of whether everyone can do everything.

The only three ways to avoid the "pseudo-synergies" problem I've been discussing for several posts are as follows:

1) No character ever has 2 abilities that overlap*. Not even a little. You are never, ever in any situation where you have more than one applicable ability that is better than the baseline universal actions that every person in the universe has.

Therefore, no matter what other abilities you could have taken, nothing would have given you wider coverage than you already have. There is not even a hint of redundancy to be eliminated. Any build that involves two similar/overlapping abilities is a fool's build.

*Technically, you can get away with "all sets of abilities in the game have an amount of overlap that varies only on the size of the set, and not the individual abilities in that set," but that's fairly impractical to achieve except in this special case.

2) Everyone can do everything equally well in all circumstances. If class A can do X, then class B must be able to do X just as well, in ALL situations. There is no "class B can do X, but not as well." There is not even a "class B's version of X is better or worse depending on the situation." They must be exactly equal in all circumstances.

Therefore, no matter how many lists you can take abilities off of, your potential coverage does not increase, because every list covers exactly the same stuff exactly as well. (Though each individual character doesn't necessarily have to do everything, but you're probably a fool if you don't.)

3) You have some special rule that makes overlapping powers at least as good as powers that cover different situations. The only things that come to mind here are what we've been calling "bad synergies": you'd need to make it so that someone with lots of related abilities can accomplish more per action than someone with only one ability in that set. Otherwise, being good in a wider range of conditions is just going to be better.


Unless you fulfill one of those conditions, then people with two classes can cover their bases better than people with one class. Making sure that everyone has some from of (AoE, control, healing, whatever) is not sufficient; if some classes cover some of those better than others, or even in a tactically different way (even if it's "equal overall"), then you have not met condition #2.

I can write out some examples if you're having trouble conceptualizing this.

Now, regarding the issue of what each character should do:

Frank's list, aside from the economic contribution part, is actually what every character does need. Everyone needs some Area Effect abilities so the DM can tell "battle stories" where hordes of kobolds attack the fortress, and every character needs control abilities so that when the villain holds the princess hostage you can force him to let her go. I could go on and on about the kinds of uses for these abilities, but the point is simple: once you start telling a story where one character can't contribute, you've failed as a RPG. If you want a short list of things characters should be able to do, just run through your favorite fantasy novels.

Let's see, Frank's list, minus economics, plus "melee standby" and "ranged standby," comes out to 8 things. And it doesn't include stealth, detection, traps, social encounters, or pretty much anything that would be covered by "skills" in a game like D&D.

You want characters to have how many different abilities each? And you're planning to ensure that none of them overlook an important category how?

[K]

First, things that are covered by "skills" as you say... well, I don't even care to write a seperare system for most of those things. Aside from the social mini-game that does need to be built robustly, every other thing on your list is something I could do really well when I was five. I am perfectly happy if hiding was just a stat check and mechanic available to everyone.

Seriously. You don't need a separate system where some people notice things better than others when you can just base it off a stat. One of 3e's mistakes was that every monster was either "crazy Spot guy" or "won't notice anything guy". Why even have a system when it goes binary like that?

Second. I don't care about people with more variety. If everyone gets the same general abilities, then any synergies you are getting by double sipping from two class lists is offset by synergies you are losing from getting more abilities from your list that already have built in synergies.

People will get synergies. Accept it\ and in the playtest phase take out the bad synergies. That's the only choice.

[Manxome]

First, things that are covered by "skills" as you say... well, I don't even care to write a seperare system for most of those things. Aside from the social mini-game that does need to be built robustly, every other thing on your list is something I could do really well when I was five. I am perfectly happy if hiding was just a stat check and mechanic available to everyone.

Seriously. You don't need a separate system where some people notice things better than others when you can just base it off a stat. One of 3e's mistakes was that every monster was either "crazy Spot guy" or "won't notice anything guy". Why even have a system when it goes binary like that?

So, there aren't going to be abilities related to any of those areas? No invisibility, no divination, no knock, no charm, etc., etc.?

I was just trying to point out that there are an awful lot of things people might want to have abilities to do, and if you expect everyone to have all (or even most) of them, there's not going to be much left to select afterward. At least, not based on the numbers thrown around thus far.

Second. I don't care about people with more variety. If everyone gets the same general abilities, then any synergies you are getting by double sipping from two class lists is offset by synergies you are losing from getting more abilities from your list that already have built in synergies.

People will get synergies. Accept it\ and in the playtest phase take out the bad synergies. That's the only choice.

Could you give some examples of the kind of synergies that specialists are supposed to be getting to offset the disadvantages of specialization? Perhaps the impression I've gotten from all the talk about "bad synergies" has been exaggerated, but if so, it would be really helpful to clarify what's supposed to be in the game.