and the combo classes (if we even need them) would be:
Ranger - Hero/Druid
Druid - Cleric/Druid
Monk - Magic-user/Druid
Bard - Hero/Magic-user
Paladin - Hero/Cleric
NecromancerSorcerer? - Magic-user/Cleric
As well as playable Demons, Fay and Undead.
That would certainly be workable.
Conan is a Hero. Fafhrd is a Hero, the Grey Mouser is a multiclassed Hero/Magic-user. Elric is some combination of Fay/MU/Hero, but he's ridiculously high level it's hard to say.
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
DrPraetor wrote:
and the combo classes (if we even need them) would be:
Ranger - Hero/Druid
Druid - Cleric/Druid
Monk - Magic-user/Druid
Bard - Hero/Magic-user
Paladin - Hero/Cleric
NecromancerSorcerer? - Magic-user/Cleric
You're using Druid as both a resulting combo class and as one of the pieces for a combo class. Hell, Druid is somehow part Druid and part Cleric, whatever that means.
Perhaps I'm confused on what you mean by "combo class". I was picturing a mix of Hero, Magic-User, Cleric, and maybe Assassin (or whatever your classes are).
Last edited by RobbyPants on Wed May 30, 2012 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Big problems with this. Mostly with the fact that Clerics are basically just the "do everything" class. Magic Users use magic (duh), and Heroes fight with weapons and lead troops, and Clerics do both. Also they heal. Essentially there aren't any defined limits as to what a Cleric can do, since for the most part a "priest" is just one of the higher level characters in any group of humanoids.
When a group of orcs or gnolls or drow or something show up, and one of them is priest, that priest is either the most dangerous or second most dangerous one. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, trying to make a character class around the concept "is higher level than their associates" is fundamentally problematic. This isn't a new issue either, even in Conan books the Cleric is always either the biggest or second biggest bad guy.
The 3-fold class reductionism attempts for 3e have been so far unsuccessful. You have your "Fighter-Caster-Rogue" split, where the caster gets to do interesting magical things, the rogue gets to do interesting non-magical things (generally less powerful, but still), and the Fighter gets to suck. Or you get the "Warrior-Wizard-Cleric" split, where the Warrior gets to do non-magical stuff, the Wizard gets to do magical stuff, and the Cleric gets to do both.
However many classes you have, you're going to need to stake out some genuine role protection for it as well as give it some coherent description. You could have a lot of classes or only a few, but I don't think I've ever seen an example of either for a "Cleric" that wasn't a fantastically bad idea. You can't role protect "healing", because everyone needs to be able to heal. You can't role protect "being more powerful" because it's a cooperative storytelling game.
Here are classes I could imagine role protecting as basic classes:
Assassin
Berserker
Gadgeteer
Hero
Knight
Monk
Ninja
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Soldier
Swashbuckler
Warlord
Plus: absolutely any number of classes with a name that means essentially "Wizard". Enchanter, Witch, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Magus, Conjurer, whatfuckingever.
The point is that you could role protect basically any number of classes, provided that they actually did something interesting. But I can't see making "Lancer" or "Archer" as a class, and I can't see how "Cleric" is ever going to work either. As long as "Cleric" is supposed to be this and also this, it's just not going to gel.
Being a priest needs to just be a title. Priests of Crom are Heroes, priests of Loviatar are Assassins, and priests of Surtr are Sorcerers.
K makes a fair point - mostly, this is Races of War, rather than the other Tomes.
- The Class features of the Hero would be drawn from the text in Races of War, along with the corresponding rules verbiage.
So Hero's can do stunts, they have combat focus, they can do the Problem Solver thing, etc. Heros can probably-also get several of the features (draw fire, defend others) of the Knight.
Finally, Heros will need, especially at high levels, crazy Wuxia stuff which might as well be drawn from the Monk.
- The foo abilities you choose at various points will all provide a progression of growing abilities, like the feats described in Races of War.
- The Dungeonomicon will become the DMG analalog (DMGa), basically. If we add an Assassin, as well, he'll be getting left-over class features from Thief-Acrobats and such. Hell, maybe Assassins have a "deadly focus" ability which is game-mechanically like a barbarian's rage.
- Fiends and Undead (also presumably Fay) will be playable and will get Spheres. So most of the verbiage from those Tomes will be used - although it may not end up in the PHBa.
So all of the Tome material would get used - on top of a Tome of MagicSufficiently Advanced Technology for MUs and a Tome of Imaginary Friends for Clerics - although, really, Clerics can just get Spheres and be Demons, for all I care.
Last edited by DrPraetor on Wed May 30, 2012 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You obviously want a huge departure from the Tomes and from DnD, so do you need either? Why tie yourself down to all the legacy bullshit written by other people when you could just make a new game? The workload is the same and you avoid potential legal liability.
I'm not even sure if the Frankenstein creation that is Tome is really a good starting point if you are going to ditch any substantial portion of 3.X DnD like the spell lists or a chunk of the classes.
I don't even think that stripping flavor text out of the Tomes is worth the effort since most of it is just dickery and justifications.
Yeah, the Tomes' fluff is all in-jokes and references to D&D-land which isn't a very solid setting, and Tomes just pokes fun at that. Create your own setting and then tailor your mechanics to it. The system will be more cohesive and solid for it. If you want it to use d20 that's fine, but the market for those is, as you may be aware, pretty saturated. It's OK to make a really cool Fantasy Heartbreaker without trying to justify it as directly carrying on the legacy of the Tomes.
Fair enough as a baseline criticism. It happens that I LIKE dungeons and dragons. Not all the time, and maybe purely for nostalgia reasons, but sometimes I want to sit down at a table, have people pick up their various swords and their fireballs and so forth, and venture into a dungeon to stab monsters and take their treasure. (Much of the) clunky baggage and all, I enjoy it. For better or worse, many people feel the same. Now, there is some clunky baggage which is really problematic from a gameplay standpoint, and ought to be fixed if we're going to do another variant at all.
Existential Problem #1 - Why bother making a full RPG out of Tomes, when it's just a modest patch on D&D 3rd? D&D 3rd works okay, just use that.
Existential Problem #2 - Why bother making a full RPG out of Tomes, when it's just a modest patch on D&D 3rd? For all that effort, you could write something different/better/original which doesn't depend on D&D 3rd at all.
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
DrPraetor wrote:
Existential Problem #2 - Why bother making a full RPG out of Tomes, when it's just a modest patch on D&D 3rd? For all that effort, you could write something different/better/original which doesn't depend on D&D 3rd at all.
The actual existential question is:
"You've already departed heavily from Tomes and DnD 3.X, perhaps fatally so, so why not finish the work and make your own RPG instead of trying to mash in two additional and conflicting design approaches (Tome and DnD 3.X)?"
I mean, the ideal of "what is DnD?" has been broad enough to encompass four distinct versions that shared very little, so it's not like an original game can't capture the same DnD feel.
That being said, you are never going to get DnD. That shit is owned and dying right now, so this is worse time in history to try your own clone. I mean, you honestly think they want another Pathfinder out there, eating market-share?
They are going to crush any new clones that seem to have a glimmer of success. They can't avoid not doing that any longer.
Last edited by K on Wed May 30, 2012 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
K wrote:They are going to crush any new clones that seem to have a glimmer of success. They can't avoid not doing that any longer.
I'm not seeing that. There've been numerous d20 clones over the years that it's been fairly established that SRD-compatible clones can't be stopped; and I haven't seen the cease-and-desist letter craze in years.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
K wrote:They are going to crush any new clones that seem to have a glimmer of success. They can't avoid not doing that any longer.
I'm not seeing that. There've been numerous d20 clones over the years that it's been fairly established that SRD-compatible clones can't be stopped; and I haven't seen the cease-and-desist letter craze in years.
And what's changed in the last few years?
Well, the flagship edition has tanked, an SRD-clone has become a major competitor, the OGL was dumped when 4th edition came along, and a new edition is going to have an especially weak premiere because of the Edition Wars and can't afford more competition.
Successful IPs don't care about tiny fish nibbling on their edges, but DnD is no longer a successful IP that can afford new competitors. They are going to act like any dying company and try to stomp out even the least threatening competition.
Praetor, if you want to have a dungeon crawling game, make a dungeon crawling fantasy heartbreaker. If I wanted to make a D&D-esque game, I wouldn't automatically say "let's start with Tome," I'd ask "how can I make a system that will emulate the plot of Pool of Radiance and Baldur's Gate without necessarily emulating precise mechanics?" And that means I need a guy who can cast fireball and another guy who's a really tough frontliner and another guy who casts the heals, and it means I need all kinds of orcs and ogres and goblins and what-not. It doesn't mean I need Armor Class and vancian casting and 20 levels of character advancement.
Introducing a competing product when the mainstream product is having problems is good business sense. The rise of 3rd edition was a golden age for the industry, but it literally bankrupted White Wolf. Conversely, the early nineties was a rather dark time for gaming as 2nd edition D&D collapsed (and ultimately drove TSR into bankruptcy), but it was a golden age for not-D&D games - White Wolf went from nothing to the big man on campus during that period.
The fact that 4e failed has created a void in the power structure. Making your own game system is going to become more mainstream. It's like the early 80s or the early 90s - weakness in D&D proper makes striking out on your own and making your own game more reasonable. That being said, right now I don't know that there are any real contenders for the next big game. I honestly think that spending a decade living in the comfort of d20 knockoffs has left people complacent and weak when it comes to making actual complete games from scratch.
You are doing it again. You have three classes. Hero, Magic user, and Different-Magic user. Then, from out of fucking nowhere you have "Druid".
Either start off with Druid in the list of core classes, or stop putting it as half of a combo class.
And seriously, you have "Magic", "Different-Magic", and "Nature-magic". What is the difference? Is there one?
I called him on it earlier. More confusing was that druid was on both sides of the equation, both as a combo class and one of the component classes. Druid was listed as Druid + Cleric. I wonder if that can be applied recursively...
I'm assuming that the people participating in this conversation already know what a druid is - a druid is a combination of Cleric stuff and some unique-Druid stuff. It's a genre conceit with which I expect people to be familiar. I apologize if this is opaque to people, but I'm brainstorming ideas and if anyone ends up excluded from the conversation because they're not immersed in the background/subject matter... well, that's too bad. I can write an explanatory post later if people are still interested, but I'm not going to call time and explain to everyone what it means to be a derivative of D&D.
Furthermore, I don't understand why someone who doesn't just-know what "Druid" means:
[*] You can turn into a bear.
[*] You can make plants get up and entangle people.
[*] You know the ways and secret weaknesses of all the magical forest creatures
would even care about a discussion about whether it's a good idea to write a game who's only purpose would be to service our fondness for these existing tropes. Anyway, if you don't know the tropes that these are code for, then yes, those parts of the conversation are going to be impenetrable to you.
There are a lot of reasons to make a fantasy dungeon crawl heartbreaker that hews very closely to D&D mechanics and genre conceits. Chiefly - learning curve. A lot of people who show up to the table to play such a game already know how to play D&D. This includes people who have played some version of Final Fantasy but never done any table-top at all, because those games tend to be heavily derivative of D&D. So Burning Wheel might very well have a better engine and a better thought out system of role protection (it doesn't, but it could in abstract), but that doesn't make enough of a difference.
Regarding the Cleric - I agree that "Cleric" as a title may have to go. There is a useful and protectable role buried in there, and the villainous leader of a gang of vicious cultists, you're right, is not in this role. He's just #1 or #2 in the cult. But the role is thus:
[*] The cleric knows what is officially sanctioned by religious authority, and can issue fatwas speak from a position of authority on spiritual matters.
[*] The cleric has access to sanctioned methods to combat enemies of his religion. In D&D, those enemies are undead, but that's flavor.
[*] The cleric is a straight-man to the hero's swashbuckling.
That is, although the position of someone who casts what is on the cleric's list is not protectable (although you'd probably want to assign them to jointly occupy some wizard role space) the social/schtick role of a member of the socially acceptable religious hierarchy is protectable, and is furthermore a big deal. Maybe you'd rather fill it with a Paladin, but someone should fill that role.
Regarding frank's list of protected roles:
[*] Assassin
Well, the Assassin definitely does some stuff that Heros are at-least not specifically good at, including some non-combat stuff (like insinuating yourself into the enemy hierarchy).
So you can have a Hero barge down the door to disrupt the evil ceremony with extreme violence, and then the Priest turns to his lieutenant and says "seize the infidel!" but, bang!, his lieutenant was actually the canny assassin in disguise, who stabs the priest from behind (which doesn't kill him, it just forces him to reveal that he was a demon-in-disguise all along.)
[*] Berserker
I really don't see this is a protectable role, and I never have. Fury can be a single Hero ability, which Heros can choose. So the Berserker gets that ability for free, and exchange he... what? Gets a bunch of other bennies while he's berserk, okay. Are these really going to be bennies that the Hero doesn't get? Are they going to matter on the scale of all the cool stuff that Heros get to do?
If the Berserker were a sort of Hero/Druid hybrid, and traded some of the Hero's misc-being-good-at-stuff for can-turn-into-a-bear, then the Berserker would get some advantages that the Hero really doesn't just get.
Even the Barbarian isn't really a protected role, since he's just like the Hero except deficient, in that the Hero already knows the ways of the wilderness and the Hero can also bluff his way into a smoky den of intrigue.
[*] Gadgeteer
People like gadgets as a wizard special effect, but I'll leave this aside.
[*] Hero
Well, either the Hero is a decent protected role or the whole project is pointless and we might as well just keep playing D&D 3rd ed.
[*] Knight
The Knight can be a protected role, I guess - but I fail to see how the Knight isn't simply a deficient hero, or a hero with different equipment.
When the Prince suits up in plate-mail and leads his knights into battle, he's himself a Knight.
If that same Prince disguises himself as a masked commoner with a dashing cape, he's now a Hero.
Does he have different class abilities? Well, the Knight and the Hero are both good at fighting, good at inspiring bravery in other people, and good at heroically taking punishment that team monster would like to dish out to someone else. The Knight, however, isn't good at sneaking into a evil temple, isn't good at bluffing the evil priest into believing that the stick he's holding is the petrified arm of osiris, and instead of sweeping the damsel of her feet and seducing her, the knight probably has a speech impediment and does some kind of chivalrous thing with his cape.
So the Knight is at-best a deficient Hero. Prince Valiant, on the other hand, is a Hero because he's the same as Conan. Lancelot is definitely the same as Conan. Who exactly is the model for the Knight class? Roland? Roland isn't a Hero, it's true, because he is clearly a Paladin.
Actually, okay, Prince Valiant is a KnightWarlord. Lancelot is still a Hero, though. You can use either name but I'd prefer to call this class Champion - you are personally bad-ass and unlike the Hero, you have an independently bad-ass entourage.
[*] Monk
Like the berserker, the Monk can be a protected role if and only if he's a wizard. Heros are clearly good at beating people up unarmed in bar brawls; the Monk might be "better at it" but that's just not enough to hang your hat on, the Monk has to be able to fight the same opposition as the Hero with his bare hands, through magical kung fu.
If he can do that, yes it's a protected role, but it also falls under your "as many wizards as you want" caveat. The Monk is a wizard with a lot of touch spells, whatever his special effect may be.
On the other hand, the Monk could also take up the protected role I set aside for the Cleric, so you don't need a Cleric as well.
[*] Ninja
So the Ninja is an assassin who is magically better at his job? Oh, also, he's chinky-eyed. You might have such a class but that's not a protected role even if wizards in general are protected.
[*] Paladin
Anyone who has magic powers can be a protected role, as I said.
The Paladin could also easily inherit the protected role features I wanted for the Cleric.
[*] Ranger
The Ranger is also a tough sell when you have Heros, unless the Ranger is a wizard, in which case yeah as many wizards as you care to have are protectable.
[*] Rogue
I don't see how you can have a Rogue, a Hero and an Assassin. The PHB rogue is basically an assassin already - he's good at stabbing people from concealment and also good at lying and sneaking.
Is the Rogue a trickster or musician or something? Does he get bardic performance? I just don't see it.
[*] Soldier
So the Soldier is a Knight... who is poor? Who is embittered and cynical?
Ex-Soldier is practically synonymous with "Hero from civilized country" so I don't see how this washes either.
[*] Swashbuckler
I suppose that it's true that Heros don't do much swashbuckling. But rogues and assassins do a lot of it so I don't see how this role can be well protected, or how being a swashbuckler is different from being a rogue when you already have heroes.
So Swashbuckler is a Hero/Assassin hybrid, with the fighting/seduction capacity of a hero and the acrobatic capacity of an assassin? I suppose that works, but I see no good way to protect either end of his role, in combat or in out.
[*] Warlord
Admittedly, although the Hero is clearly good at inspiring people, he doesn't actually get to have followers.
So the Wardlord gets to do that; if you wanted to take this role and make that the defining characteristic of the Knight, that would work.
So the "Knight" is a Hero who isn't good at sneaking around or seducing evil priestesses, but has a big gang of other Knights to back him up. The Prince is a Knight (and no good at sneaking around) if, when he disguises himself as a commoner, a bunch of other knights do the same thing and follow him around. If no other Knights follow him, then he's good at sneaking and he's a Hero instead.
I can see some room for role protection there, but call it a Champion instead. Warlord is a title that Champions get when they wear black spiky stuff on their armor.
So, I'd whittle that list down to:
purely mundane:
[*] Assassin - good at fighting, co-best at tricking and sneaking, bad at leading and protecting.
[*] Champion - co-best at fighting, bad at tricking and sneaking, best at leading and protecting.
[*] Hero - co-best at fighting, good at tricking and sneaking, good at leading and protecting.
[*] Rogue - okay at fighting, co-best at tricking and sneaking, good at leading and protecting.
slightly magical (bad unless otherwise noted):
[*] Monk - good at fighting, good at tricking, has personal-buff combat magic.
[*] Ranger - good at fighting, good at sneaking, okay at nature-themed magic and skills.
[*] Paladin - good at fighting, good at protecting, has sanctioned magic powers
[*] Berserker - good at fighting, good at... leading?, has personal-buff combat magic
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
I'm not bitching about the fact that you have Druids and what they do. I know what Druids are, I know what the Tomes are, I know the tropes of D&D. I'm bitching about the fact that you are basically creating the base classes from scratch again and have:
Three limited groups of abilities,
Combo classes based on two of these,
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a fourth group of abilities.
Number 3 is the bit that is pissing me off. Include it in the groups of abilities, or decide that all classes have a major ability group of Hero or Mage and have a minor ability group of Plants, Summoning, Leadership, etc.
You also have various other stuff that is frustrating and stupid. Everyone needs to be good at fighting. "Fighting" is not a role that can be protected.
I'm paraphrasing another thread from a while back, but "doing damage" is not a reasonable role. You can have:
Dealing damage to vulnerable enemies,
Dealing damage to large groups,
Dealing damage to protected enemies,
etc
But "dealing damage" and "good at fighting" are bullshit.
You are making classes from scratch at the moment. You need to decide on what they can do in combat now. What tactics are they best at- are they good at moving enemies around, or changing the battleground, or getting past defenses, or what?
We're not trying to replicate D&D 4th edition. That kind of division by role has never existed in any other version of D&D, and it was an epic failure in the one version that tried to include it. So your assertion that we "need" do it does not hold a lot of weight with me, personally.
Put another way - Conan. Is Conan good at dealing damage to vulnerable enemies? Large grops? Protected enemies? Yes, Conan is good at fighting. The Gray Mouser is good at fighting but, let's face it, he is considerably less good than Fafhrd, because Fafhrd is a single-class Hero while the Gray Mouser is a Hero/MU/Rogue.
In D&D, fighters are more likely to hold off foes or hold territory while the cloth wearers do the actual damage. Now, fighters should provide a larger share of the killing at higher levels - that's a laudable design goal - but differentiating between target types should be a feature of different weapons, not of different classes, generally speaking. So someone who wields an axe, or ball-and-chain, is good at doing damage to armored or shielded enemies; someone who wields a sword is good at doing damage to enemies who want to fence wth you; and so forth.
As for the other tactics:
[*] moving enemies around doesn't much happen, but let's call that "holding territory" or "obstructing enemy movement". Anyone who is "good at protecting" is specifically good at this.
[*] killing the enemies who are obstructing your movement. This is what "good at fighting" means, basically.
[*] changing the battleground is going to be done with magic if at all.
[*] getting past defenses, meaning getting around those enemies without killing them, is something that the stealthy characters are good at.
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
DrPraetor wrote:The Gray Mouser is good at fighting but, let's face it, he is considerably less good than Fafhrd, because Fafhrd is a single-class Hero while the Gray Mouser is a Hero/MU/Rogue.
No. There is never any indication that either of that pair is meaningfully more effective at fighting than the other. Try again.
moving enemies around doesn't much happen, but let's call that "holding territory" or "obstructing enemy movement". Anyone who is "good at protecting" is specifically good at this.
killing the enemies who are obstructing your movement. This is what "good at fighting" means, basically.
changing the battleground is going to be done with magic if at all.
getting past defenses, meaning getting around those enemies without killing them, is something that the stealthy characters are good at.
Good god, not one of those is helpful. What is this? I don't even
I think using 4th edition terminology is an improvement over this endeavor so far. Oy.
Following for fun only. Not necessarily an indictment of anything.
I don't think that a game has to have 13 flavors of warrior classes, only that it could (I guess it could also support a Scout, Samurai, Buccaneer, and Soulborn, so limiting yourself to 13 isn't even necessary). Making classes out of these things isn't even difficult:
DRP wrote:So the Soldier is a Knight... who is poor? Who is embittered and cynical?
Ex-Soldier is practically synonymous with "Hero from civilized country" so I don't see how this washes either.
The point is that there really aren't "Cleric Aspects" and "Warrior Aspects" that you mix together to make a Paladin. Your Paladin class stands alone in things it does, and if it doesn't you should either scrap it or rethink it. But I have a great deal of faith in the ability to rethink things until you find a thing for a class to do. This is of course trivial for magic users, since if you divide magic into 2 flavors or 32 flavors it's precisely as arbitrary and even getting some magic from column A and other magic from column B is totally plausible. But for non-casters or secondary casters it still isn't terribly difficult.
Can you imagine things a Scout can be better at than an Assassin? Absolutely. But you fix down your starting class list, which will be between 7 and 50 classes long, and then you divide up shticks.
DrPraetor wrote:the social/schtick role of a member of the socially acceptable religious hierarchy is protectable, and is furthermore a big deal.
wat
The hell? It is no more protectable than ruling a country, or wearing a fluffy hat, or having a mercedes full of cheerleaders. (yes I know there's nothing spoiler-worthy in this paragraph, but I wanted that "wat" to stand on its own)
