Classes as a chasis

[Prak]

I've been turning something over in my mind for a few days now--

What if there were just a handful of classes which dictated your HD, Saves, BAB and Skill Points, and when you got a Feature. Then you have people pick a job package, which says what skills are class skills for you, with maybe a handful of personal selections. Finally, rather than class features being tied to specific classes, you just pick from a list of them, based on what you want to do.

Now, we're assuming that such features are balanced across the board and always relevant and level appropriate.

So basically a character would be something like this:

Joe Bob
Human Brute4* (Class) Woodsman (Job)
d10 HD
High BAB
Good Fort, Poor Ref and Will
4+Int skills

"Class" Skills: Appraise**, Craft, Diplomacy**, Handle Animal, Hide, KnNature, Listen, Move Silently, Ride, Search, Spot, Survival
Personal Selections: Bluff, Intimidate, Kn Local, Perform (Banjo)

Class Features
Fury (Prereq: Str 14+; renamed Rage)
Animal Cohort (Prereq: Wis 13+, Handle Animal 4+ ranks; Animal Companion)
Dirty Fighting (Prereq: Dex 13+, Bluff or Hide 4+ ranks; Sneak Attack)


*I'm thinking a "class feature at every odd level
**a woodsman would need to be able to judge likely prices for furs, meat, anything he might make, etc, and then haggle prices. I'm not sure what covers haggling, but it seems like it should be Dipl.


Class features would of course use a different name, since they're no longer features of specific classes. As for spellcasting, this would likely use something like what the Skills: WTF!? thread is discussing that balances skills and allows for a Skill Based magic system in an overhaul of d20.

[Username17]

You're basically describing True20 classes, and it was shitty then and it's shitty now.

The "class chassis" numbers actually aren't very important. Getting a good Willpower save instead of not is kind of like getting Iron Will as a bonus feat. But you know what? Iron Will is a shitty feat, and no one cares if you have it. Getting a d8 hit die instead of a d6 hit die gives you Toughness every three levels... and no one fucking cares if that happens. For the first four levels of your career, there's basically no difference between fighter BAB and rogue BAB plus weapon focus. And so on.

Despite the amount of space they take up in the chart, the class chassis numbers are all minor bullshit that doesn't really matter. The Wizard has a good argument for being the best class, and she has the worst class chassis it is possible for a PC class to have (worst hit die, worst skill progression, worst BAB, and only one good save). Improving the class chassis is for the most part a flavor issue - the addition of minor bullshit abilities that don't have much impact on anything.

Seriously, you might as well organize your classes by what colored clothing they are allowed to wear or how much starting gold they get at 1st level.

-Username17

[Prak]

Then what about ditching classes, having everything that gains levels just use their creature type HD, and basically picking features that take the place of class features. Skill selection would be either entirely free form, or based on job packages as above.

[radthemad4]

So, advance by racial HD but get more feats (can be used for class features) per level?

Maybe you need more granularity. How about this: Every level, you get 2 features equivalent in power to skill tricks and 2 features equivalent to base D&D feats or class features. Also one Tome style scaling feat every odd level (those things are like mini classes in a way).

[Prak]

...I could call the game "Excessive the overcompensating."

[radthemad4]

Okay, I might have thrown in too many, but you get the general idea. Perhaps two lesser features (skill trick types, the more interesting non broken pathfinder traits) per level, one medium feature per level (e.g. non spell casting class feature, base D&D feat) and one greater feature every three levels (e.g. spellcasting, spheres, scaling feats, etc.)

[Prak]

I was thinking something more like alternating bonus feats and "class feature." Though the "lesser, minor, major" model of yours isn't a bad thought.

Honestly, I'm kind of thinking that these basic levels only need to exist for three to four levels before characters take a more rigid path.

[Username17]

I think you need to take a step back and decide what the fuck you're doing. Because "How about we make a class and level system where neither the classes nor the levels mean anything" is about the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Prak Anima, if you want to do a skill system then just do a skill system.

I understand that it's really tempting to want to do a character creation system which has the guaranteed baselines of competence a class system has but has the openness of a skill system. Unfortunately, d20 (and more specifically the 3E D&D system) is a very poor fit for a project. Spells are completely overwhelming, class features are a distant second, and everything else is an even more distant third. Cleric is generally considered one of the most powerful classes and it hands out everything non-spell related at first level. If you want to look at features v. feats, barbarian rage and sneak attack trump 99% of feats ever published. And they're not even the most powerful class features. As Frank pointed out with the wizard example, character balance -- the only reason to do this shenanigan over a pure skill system -- is doomed from the very start.

If you want to do a d20 system where people do shit like call themselves broad archetypes like Knights or Wise Heroes or whatever where they have measurable similarities to other people with that title, your only choice is to do a classplosion and lock people on rails. Print up four or even twenty 'Knight' classes that have obvious similarities between them like class features and hit die and skill lists and whatever. And then individually populate each of the classes with whatever features or spells that you want. Not only will you have a lot more diversity than declaring that every third level you get a major class features (because you can have different abilities come on at different rates) but you avoid the combinatorial problems of skill systems.

[erik]

Yah. Welcome to 2005. I worked on making a 3 chassis system where you could pick up slightly more class features at the expense of "wizard" chassis. Honestly it was a failure because it is too generic/blah. I would rather have a single class system and just give good guidelines to DMs for making their own class. If you succeed with a free-form class system then you get the exact same output. A custom class that works.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anyway, you want to know the dirty little secret of class systems that have open-ended customization options at certain breakpoints, like feats and skills and themes and whatever? Their dirty little secret is that those systems are only viable if they're unimportant in gestalt compared to what's fixed and unchanging. You want a really precise method for predicting whether a d20 subsystem with a high combination of options will wreck the game or will be a harmless addition? The method is this: is the top 5% of the set you're fiddling with more powerful than the feat Elusive Target? If it is, your system won't work and can't be made to work. See: Prestige Classes, Generic Classes, Class Feature hotswaps like in Complete Champion or PHB2, Magical Items, etc.

[OgreBattle]

I've been turning something over in my mind for a few days now--

What if there were just a handful of classes which dictated your HD, Saves, BAB and Skill Points, and when you got a Feature. Then you have people pick a job package, which says what skills are class skills for you, with maybe a handful of personal selections. Finally, rather than class features being tied to specific classes, you just pick from a list of them, based on what you want to do.

Now, we're assuming that such features are balanced across the board and always relevant and level appropriate.

From what I understand, you basically want every class to be put together like a Wizard, in the sense that one class has a huge amount of customization and specialization routes, right?

Do you want to use different subsystems for each 'Class chassis' too? That would make them more distinct than just hitpoint/save adjustments. Like a rage meter, spell points, and so on.

[Prak]

What I'm looking at is something like d20 Modern classes where the features on the table are just "Bonus Feat" and "Talent," and then there are lists of talents that are actually good. However, rather than "Barbarian Talents" and "Rogue Talents" and so on, I'm envisioning just a list of talents that have prereqs, that anyone who meets the prereq can take. So one player might have Rage and Sneak Attack, and another might take Wildshape and Armoured in Life.

Spellcasting would not be available as a talent.

[Username17]

What I'm looking at is something like d20 Modern classes where the features on the table are just "Bonus Feat" and "Talent," and then there are lists of talents that are actually good.

So... not at all like d20 Modern then.

-Username17

[Prak]

So... taking the model of d20 classes, but leaving the suck.

[Username17]

So... taking the model of d20 classes, but leaving the suck.

But I still don't understand why you think this is a good idea. Look, consider the 3e Monk and the 3e Cleric. The Monk has a lot of class features. Many of those class features are actually pretty good and a character who otherwise didn't suck monkey jizz would be happy to have them. The Cleric on the other hand, has very few class features, and indeed at levels 2-20 has no listed class features at all (technically all the abilities that Clerics get after level 1 are simply the result of automatic scaling of spellcasting and domains to class level).

You can give someone an arbitrary number of class features, but the number or even the "level" of those class features won't tell you shit. What's actually important is whether the combined character package can pull their fucking weight or not. Let's look at your own example to see how fucktarded this plan is:

So one player might have Rage and Sneak Attack, and another might take Wildshape and Armoured in Life.

Now first of all, one of these things is not like the others. Rage is basically +2 to-hit and damage at the cost of giving your opponents +2 to-hit. Sneak Attack, on the other hand, turns you into a level scaling cuisinart of death. Wildshape is broken as shit, and Armored in life is a kludge that allows a character to have a level appropriate AC even though they don't have any Armor bonus.

So basically, you could totally load up a character with abilities like Armored in Life and still not actually be worth anything, because those are just kludge abilities. The Dungeonomicon Monk gets four class features in the level that they pick up Armored in Life, because three of those are just the ability to fight in melee like a warrior with basic equipment even though you're a naked dude with a Wisdom focus. Only one of those class features is actually an improvement over having a chain shirt and a morningstar.

How many class features a class needs depends entirely on what they are trying to do. Picking class features off the master list will never work. It can't work. The very idea is a stupid idea that fails a basic understanding of what a class and levels system is about.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

So... taking the model of d20 classes, but leaving the suck.

But I still don't understand why you think this is a good idea. Look, consider the 3e Monk and the 3e Cleric. The Monk has a lot of class features. Many of those class features are actually pretty good and a character who otherwise didn't suck monkey jizz would be happy to have them. The Cleric on the other hand, has very few class features, and indeed at levels 2-20 has no listed class features at all (technically all the abilities that Clerics get after level 1 are simply the result of automatic scaling of spellcasting and domains to class level).

That's one way to look at it. I don't think that a fair or reasonable way to do it, though. The better way to look at it is that the Cleric gets 37 or more class features at level 1.

And can, and almost certainly should, treat every spell as a separate class feature when comparing casters to martial classes.

Because lets be honest. Starting out with thirty seven class features and only getting more is one of the two reasons that casters kick martial ass. The other, of course, being that magic doesn't have to be realistic.

[codeGlaze]

Pretty sure a few of us have kicked this idea around a bit in different incarnations. Some on the forums, most probably just in our heads.

The take I personally keep going back to is three chassis that you swap power sources in/out of for class design. So you'd have (for example) Brute, Skirmisher and Full Caster. Then plug in a power source (arcane/divine/primal/psionic/blue/red/black/white/whatever).

Brutes get the HP, saves and ex/su abilities making them unstoppable whirlwinds of death keyed off of... what ever power source. Their powers largely focus on them and their target(s) and enhance their prowess and walking deific-ness. Sort of like a Bear-spirit barbarian who chases evil spirits through the dreamlands and carves out 40 feet of combat space with one swing of his lightning axe.

Skirmishers are supposed to be that middle ground of dancey/agile/wise combatants. They're suppose to be more of a balance between enhancing themselves and interacting with the battlefield/enemies and/or helping their party. So... a guy that runs in, pokes a guy in the butt cheek, does a double flip backward and shoots an enchanted arrow/bolt into said other dude's eye-face while entangling other-dude's comrades and slipping into the shadows to get away. Or raining pointy doom on them from above. (I realize this example is less epic than the other two.)

Then you have full casters.



... Lower HP, not many good saves, but they're battlefield controllers, boom mages or themed mages.

Break out shit like teleporting, gating, scrying, etc into rituals, alchemy, magic sigils/runes. Let everyone have some access to that kind of stuff because it doesn't necessarily require innate power or years of study to remember how to say Rumpelstiltskin backward, draw a circle with salt or draw the symbol for Pi.

Character concepts for quick, fast, wise, smRt would fill in the combat strategy/tactics for the class and set which saves are the good ones (where necessary).

Ideally I suppose there'd be a class design point-buyish chart for yourself that would help you keep shit in check.

[tussock]

What I'm looking at is something like d20 Modern classes where the features on the table are just "Bonus Feat" and "Talent," and then there are lists of talents that are actually good. However, rather than "Barbarian Talents" and "Rogue Talents" and so on, I'm envisioning just a list of talents that have prereqs, that anyone who meets the prereq can take.

Prereqs are terrible for tabletop. It's where all those respec rules come in, and the "20-level builds before you play" that preceded them.

But in general, you just write a bunch of fiat characters that just fucking work at most levels, and then divvy up their abilities and bonuses into packages called feats and talents. With level limits on them so they can be better at high level. Like spells are.

Which is to say, you write up some custom casters like the ice mage, only with swords for material components (yes, stunned and confused and blinded in an area, by level, 1d4 rounds, with a sword, because fuck you), and then take what they're doing and make it a talent they can pick at some level. Make sure you have 3 times as many picks as there are talents in any chain so players seem to have choices in the way they rebuild your known-good collections of powers.

And wait 'till someone finds a combo you didn't notice and destroys the game with it. Fun.

[shadzar]

first post sounds like 2.5 AD&D using the CP system for classes and class creation for new "classes" with secondary skills thrown in in place of NWPs.