The Gaming Den

An idea I have been playing with: instead of having a definitive class (fighter, barbarian, shadowseer, blade dancer, arcane heirophant, etc.) whne you acquire a certain number of abilities associated with a class you gain that a "class tag" - basically an invisible little achievement that declares for whatever purposes these things count towards, your character counts as one of the above.

Because (as an example) you have a multiplicity of classes and abilities in many games dedicated toward some aspect of spellcasting, with different degrees of ability, supplementary skills and powers, and training and attitude. In such a game it might be helpful in some cases to consider all characters with any spellcasting ability with the "magic user" tag, while those that purchase/earn/develop additional abilities along this line may eventually be given the "sorcerer" or "wizard" tag - possibly as a prerequisite to accessing greater abilities, or improving existing ones to better reflect their character advancement (i.e. powering up "low-level" abilities to remain relevant later in the game).

The main problem I can see is the potential for "tag bloat," and the same sort of issues D&D 3.+ ran into with types and subtypes on monsters and races. Part of this could be cool - a character with the "fire" and "monk," tags might be able to unlock some sort of Iron Fist-like flaming hand technique, for example, and then if they bought some spell-casting abilities the "fire" and "monk" tags might give them bonuses to fire spells and touch-spells, respectively - but the added bookkeeping may also be troublesome for both designers and players.

I can sort of see this working, but I can't see it working in a system that looks much like 3.x D&D.

You probably end up with something more like Frank's vision for Black Forest - where low-tier characters just pick up abilities willy nilly, and when such characters get enough abilities they then cease being low tier and enter a character class, which is only 2-4 levels long, after which they gain some more abilities until they get enough to meet the requirements to enter a paragon path / prestige class, and then maybe you repeat the cycle once more for the overthrowing-your-pantheon-tier, or maybe you don't.

Sure, I think it's a sound concept, but the devil is in the details. Picking up 'powers' like flame attacks which mix with 'techniques' like monk fist punching which produce greater effects would be great, but you'd have to make sure that at least most combinations are viable and none are inherently better than most all the others. And, yeah, gaining a 'class' which then beefs relevant lower-tier abilities is a great way to keep everything relevant, etc. I wish I could give more analysis, but such heavy thinking will have to wait until the semester break.

What does having the "tag" do?