If you were designing 5E...

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:00 pm

DrPraetor wrote:

Only Rogues, Bards and Rangers make meaningful skill selections. Other skill selections are generally fixed, although feats sometimes come with extra skills. Different skills are not expected to be balanced 1:1 they are class features.

I have a problem with this. The Rogue's roll as trap bitch needs to end, if you have traps in your campaign let any character type learn the skills to deal with them, otherwise you risk forcing someone into being a class they don't want to be so the party can function. Likewise something needs to replace or at least compliment the Cleric's out of combat healing, no one wants to play the BandAid bitch. You can still have Clerics be the best with healing magic, but the party should be able to function without one.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:33 pm

I have a problem with this. The Rogue's roll as trap bitch needs to end, if you have traps in your campaign let any character type learn the skills to deal with them, otherwise you risk forcing someone into being a class they don't want to be so the party can function.

Well, it's not like there's only one way to disable or avoid a trap.
I ran one game where I made the mistake of running the party through Trap Castle (worst idea; I'll never do it again) and about 1/4 of the way through everyone was starting to get aggravated by the need to search every nook and cranny of every room they entered...
The party's solution was to start throwing dead bodies into rooms until they were pretty sure that the room was clear. You can replace dead bodies with sacks of junk or summoned/conjured monsters or lackeys or a fighter holding a table (or a tower shield).
Anyhow, disabling traps isn't necessary, getting past them without taking too much damage is what's necessary... in which case, everyone has that ability if they're careful and don't mind thinking outside the box. The difference between Rogues and everyone else is that they they have a simple mechanic explicitly designed to kill traps... they can also put disabled traps into a bag afterwards.

I agree with you on the idea that the game should be able to support just about any party configuration.

-e-
Added some sentences.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:56 pm

fectin wrote:What would you base it on?
What are the major changes you would make?

Ironically I would base it on 4E, but on the basic principles of 4E not the actual design mechanics. That would be that most of the actual 4E rules would be scrapped from the get go because they do not implement the design principles at all. Seemless integration is also a vital element of the revision. Another key is that the integration needs to cover the many aspects of the game, not only just combat alone, combat, exploration and social interaction need to flow seemlessly into each other and into each other as necessary. That's not as easy as it sounds, but if I were designing a new edition, I certainly would want to do it the right way.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:13 pm

MfA wrote:
fectin wrote:Fighters also get tanking abilities.
So either you give up rules uniformity between PCs and NPCs (and lose the 3e crowd along the way) or you make mind control even more common than usual, with players losing control over their character way more than they like.

Tome Knight is a tank, with rules uniformity. You can easily have AoOs and readied attacks cause movement out of a square to fail, or include a feat which makes that happen and still be uniform. Fighters could count as occupying multiple squares.

I don't know which of these is actually best, but they're all tanking abilities, and none of them are mind control.

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:44 pm

I would base it on rolling a d20 and adding modifiers to beat a target number.

Then I would get out excel and develop a difficult curve for the game.
Sticking to this difficulty curve would be rule number fucking 1.

1) I would keep the level/2 innate bonus to rolls.

2) Instead of a whole plethora of +1s an +2s the game would have +2 if totall of all conditions is benfical, and +5 if there was a situation involving signficant magic/divine intervention/competlely curbstomped

3) Most of the things that provide a +1 or +2 bonus situationally or that stack up to provide large bonuses in previous versions of d20 D&D would now provide a reroll

4) I would continue to use the 4E defenses and 4E saving throws.

4) All "basic" playable humanoid races are defined as
a) A movment Speed
b) +2 to 2 Skills
c) A defense bonus to 1 defense, or a save bonus of +5 vs. effects
originating from a damage type
d) A single racial power that is now the main defining trait of a race.

5) Stats continue to be worth a die value of (score -10)/2. This does create unnessary complexity but having an "18 int" is a part of D&D I don't see going.

6) Races provide NO racial stat modifiers. On the other hand CLASSES now provide a +2 to their primary stat and a +2 to one of a choice of the classes two secondary stats.

7) Powers use a similar schedule to 4E with the following changes.
a) Daily powers are gone, replaced with "one of these per
encounter" powers.
b) Powers are not assigned a level anymore, they are simply
assigned a tier. All powers level to stay relavent within a tier.
c) Powers will be written by staff moved over from the WOTC MTG
group. Powers will be written to link together both within a class
and between classes to create combinations that out perfrom top
down power spamming.
d) At will powers will be redisgned to be "set up" powers instead of "filler" powers.

8) Classes will still have a power source, the power source will provide with it a common connection between classes that use that power source. (All arcane characters get the wizard cantrips, etc). There should also be "generic" power srouce powers available to everybody.

9) Healing surges stay but get called something else. They become the fuel for all activities outside of combat. Ritual magic remains but is powered by healing surge uses. All classes get out of combat focused powers that utilze the new "not-healling surges"

10) Feats remain however no feat should offer a +x to anything. Feats add effects (like push/pull/slide/daze) or rerolls or new action options. They do not add numeric modifiers.

11) skills reduced to fairly broad categories like "spellcraft" or "atheltics". I know lots of people think broad skills don't offer enough granularity, but specific skills means people need oodles of skill points. Make the skills broad, offer a stitic modifier and let the variance be in level/stat.

12) Diplomacy almost completly reworked. Not toally sure how yet, but it would be.

13)Magic equipment would be defined by the new ability it offers you, although I would invision them still offering numeric bonuses because people like the idea that magic equipment actually makes you better not just more versitle. I would have the DMG include tables indicating when to provide additional bonus modifiers for games where magic items don't offer mechanical advantage.

14) nothing goes to print without somebody verifiing that it has nothing in it that breaks the games mechanical difficulty curve.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:12 pm

For "skills as superpowers" my vote would be a middle ground. If I was going to keep a skill and feat system, then skills alone would not ever grant more than Hollywood action movie abilities. However, various feats, racial traits and class abilities would upgrade skills to actual superpowers. Thus: Athletics by itself never grants more than olympic long jump distances even on a maxed out skill and roll. However with the right racial trait, feat, or class feature it upgrades to actual flight for characters of the Winged Folk Race, for swordsmen with the Wire-Fu feat and for wizards who learn Air Walking - but in all cases flight speed and maneuverability would still be determined by the Athletics skill.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:29 pm

Would the Fly spell also be governed by athletics?

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:51 pm

*There is no "class level", just character level. If you multiclass, you get half the benefits of both classes.
*Spellcasters get an even number of slots at each level; multiclassed ones get half that. No bonus spell slots from Int.
*Martial characters past 5th level get explicitly supernatural abilities (e.g. Barbarians call on their ancestors, Rogues steal their souls away from the gods)
*Monster classes are given in the MM.
*Weapon specialization no longer happens. A martial character can pull out a bow whenever he needs to.

*Henchmen, limited by level, are an assumed part of gameplay.
*Zombies/golems/bound solars/familiars/paladin mounts count against your henchmen total.
*XP for gold; XP awards from monsters are scaled back.
*Reduce XP requirements, and monsters give a specific amount, not a sliding scale.
*Skill system: Gone. It's either a class feature or a secondary skill
*Stronghold/Domininion rules

*DR no longer exists; replace with increased AC.
*No critical hits.
*No AoO

*Magic is more Vancian than ever before: you are no longer required to sleep; you can reprepare as often as you like.
*Preparing spells takes a short time; you can reprepare between encounters if necessary.
*Most spells grant at-will cantrips that can be used as long as you have the spell prepared.
*Casters get fewer spell slots overall
*Buff spells last until you reprepare the slot.
*Magic items: Much rarer. Only high level characters can make them, and they can only make a certain total value per century.
*Potion brewing and scroll scribing can still be done at lower levels.

*Clerics do not prepare spells; they prepare 2 domains from the ~5 of their deity.
*Each deity comes with a code (e.g. No Edged Weapons); violation causes casting loss until you atone (or switch service provider).
*Druid is just a Cleric with a nature domain (e.g. Desert, Forest, etc)
*Wildshape I/II/etc is a spell found in nature domains.
*Clerics of a Pantheon: Must always prepare the "Pantheon" domain (e.g. Drow Pantheon), then gets to cherry pick from all of the associated god's domains.
*You cannot cast divine magic without a god. However, a cleric may be of a cause, gaining spells from any supporting god.
*Turn/Rebuke Undead is a spell that a cleric can cast spontaneously.
*To allow for hordes of skeletons without a caster commanding them: Spontaneous undead are the result of divine curse. Clerics & paladins immediately recognize when they are in an area so cursed.
*Paladin is no longer a class; it is a value-neutral template for martial characters that gives divine powers and a harsh code of conduct.
*Atonement quests will be described specifically in the DMG
*LG, CG, LE, and CE Paladins are core. No others.
*Gods do not gain power from prayer. I'm not sure if D&D gods ever worked like this, but I'm hedging my bets.
*Great Wheel planar cosmology.
*No summoning from the Prime Material Plane.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:46 pm

Nothing would stack. I mean nothing. Use the highest bonus and meanest penalty. This way we immediately get out of bonus whoring, and we make designing higher level abilities a whole lot easier.

I would crunch the numbers to determine my ideal difficulty curve, and then everything would stick to that to within a rigidly defined tolerance.

All character classes would go from 1-20. Level 1 would be analogous to 3.5's level 3.

There would be rules for NPC characters - you know, the old Level 0. These would be analogous to 3.5's levels 1 & 2.

All character classes would be evaluated on the same power scale, that being the difficulty curve mentioned earlier.

Power acquisition would be generalized. That is, at level 5 you take a level of Fighter and get an ability/technique off the Fighter list. Then at level 6 you take a level of Wizard and get an ability/spell off the Wizard list. All such abilities would be balanced against each other, the only differences being in flavor and (perhaps) mechanical subsystem.

All powers would be useable at will.

Wealth by level would go the way of the dodo. Instead, items would be categorized by an associated level range indicating when those items would be Overwhelming, Standout, Average, Situational, Negligible. It would then be up to the DM/group to limit item acquisition to what is reasonable for them.

I could come up with other things, but those are the big changes.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:50 pm

NineInchNall wrote:Nothing would stack. I mean nothing. .

I approve this. One thing from AD&D's "every system is different" mess is there was very little stacking. There was Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Girdle and a certain magical hammer....and that was notable and memorable because it was one of the few magic items that interacted with each other notably.

As soon as you make two things stack, then every single player that picks one feels obligated to pick the other.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:26 am

fectin wrote:Would the Fly spell also be governed by athletics?

Yes.

It probably wouldn't look a whole lot like the 3e version of the fly spell, or even the 3e version of "spell" - but if I keep skills, then one of the better ways to make them matter is to have them determine parts of the utility of higher-tier abilities.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:48 am

Hieronymous Rex wrote:*There is no "class level", just character level. If you multiclass, you get half the benefits of both classes.

i still cant reason out what this is saying...

if there is no class level, the what does multiclassing have to do with it?

all i can figure is it was meant to be two things.

1. there would be no class level only character level
2. if you mutliclass, you get half the benefits of both classes

(but that is dual-classing, not multiclassing with only 2.)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:45 pm

There are a lot of things that offend people about various editions.

Alignment. Noone complained when 4e dropped 4 alignments. Everyone was vaguely supportive but wanted them to go farther. Noone likes the alignment system, and everyone would be happier if it was straight up gone and a few monsters had the "irredeemably evil" tag on them.
Christmas Tree Items. This one is more complicated to fix. And there are a lot of ways to go about it. You could make people have no more than 4 magic items at a time like they were Talisman or Final Fantasy characters, you could remove or reduce stacking, you could eliminate the item economy and have people go back to rolling up treasure on tables. There are lots of ways to do it. The thing that the current crop of WotC designers do, where they keep trying to limit peoples' access to slots somehow will never fucking work. But the bottom line is that players shouldn't be balanced with the expectation that they will have ten items and they shouldn't be allowed to use ten items simultaneously either.
Class Imbalance. People argue about this, and even claim to like class imbalance. But the bottom line is that people actually hate unbalanced classes. If they want to play a monk, they don't want to suck. They want to play a monk and be awesome.
Difficult Chargen. The old CharOp boards used to jizz all over complicated builds, but people in real games found them extremely confusing. Getting rid of complicated builds is a multi-step process. Part of this is nixing or cutting back ability synergy. Part of this is removing ability trees and convoluted PrC requirements.
Short class lists. I've been following D&D for some time, and I've noticed that there are no remaining classes from the beginning. There was a little complaining when the Magic User bit the dust, and a bit more when the Thief went away, but by and large classes getting popped into and out of existence only matters to the Shadzars of the world. What pisses people off is the class list shortening. People accept when the Monk or Barbarian or Bard or whatever is added or subtracted from the basic class list, but if their favorite class went the way of the Dodo and the class list shrank, they turn into pulsating death weasels who do not buy your product. There should be at least 15 core classes. Probably more.

If I had my druthers, I'd probably have people buy abilities off master lists and then layer a class "template" over that. People could just have some wizard abilities and still be a Knight.

-Username17

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:53 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:by and large classes getting popped into and out of existence only matters to the Shadzars of the world.

barrel, cocks, suck it....

no, im fine with 4 classes being the old class groups. anything else needed to be done can be done with different things, warrior, thief, MU, priest work enough.

try again AFTER taking the cocks out of your mouth.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:19 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Noone likes the alignment system, and everyone would be happier if it was straight up gone and a few monsters had the "irredeemably evil" tag on them.

Yes, that would oil gameplay, but this is actually one of the things that while maybe hurting individual games helps the overall product. I think that it's actually a good thing that people write 30-pages about alignment and debating where on the axis Darth Vader lies and clumsily trying to stumble over the moral ramifications since it keeps peoples' skin in the game. What needs to be done is a way to prevent alignment from meaning anything as far as mechanics go or being used as a way to screw over PCs.

But that crap where people post some random demotivator on the Internet with Batman and Superman and spout out some hipster nonsense about them being LG and NG? That is really really helpful to the product line. Not so much the game, but what can you do?

FrankTrollman wrote:Christmas Tree Items.

I can say straight up that item slot limits are never going to work as far as balance goes. I mean they're a great tool for pushing books and moving product (because of this next effect), but game designers have always found it totally irresistible to add more item slots or find a way to push more magical items on PCs. 4E D&D had it as a goal and in two years the number of PC item slots has seriously doubled from what they started out as.

People complain all of the damn time about being blinged out with 8 kinds of magical items but even if they don't provide a strong mechanical benefit they still secretly like it anyway.

FrankTrollman wrote:Difficult Chargen.

I'm of two minds about this. Yes, Chargen should be able to be completed in five minutes and also provide reasonably effective characters and provide a fair amount of choice to it so that people who pass by the table in study hall can pick up and play.

On the other hand, long CharGen is again one of those things that hooks people who are already fans further onto the product. If any character can be constructed in about 15 minutes tops, then the optimization/hardcore fan people will get bored with the product more quickly and have less of an emotional investment to seek out a game. Sunk Costs can work out for you as long as people enjoyed the process of racking up the cost.

FrankTrollman wrote:Short class lists.

What counts as a class IYO? Do the 2E D&D Fighter/Mages count as a class? That is, do you think just having fifteen separate pages that have different classes are more important or having fifteen distinct builds? Or rather, in the long run would people have preferred 20 4E classes that play very similarly to each other (so there are only about 4 meaningful builds) or would people have preferred 8 4E classes that feel very different from each other?

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:00 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Some other stuff that I just thought of:

You will have villain iconics in addition to PC iconics. PC iconics feature in the PHB and other 'player focused' material, villain iconics in the rest. Villain iconics have a lot more backstory and personality than the PC iconics.

Heh, I had Hennet the iconic Sorcerer as an iconic villain when I ran my very first 3e DnD adventure. A character with that many belt straps (as in an outfit almost entirely composed of em) must be doing something wrongevilbad.

WTF dude? How do you go to the bathroom? I guess he just soils himself and uses prestidigitation to clean up.

That villain actually successfully ran away to fight another day thanks to a thunder stone, smoke stick, and emergency exit (effectively a dumbwaiter) out of his underground dungeon hideout that was pulled directly from the map that came with the player's handbook.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:26 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I'm of two minds about this. Yes, Chargen should be able to be completed in five minutes and also provide reasonably effective characters and provide a fair amount of choice to it so that people who pass by the table in study hall can pick up and play.

On the other hand, long CharGen is again one of those things that hooks people who are already fans further onto the product. If any character can be constructed in about 15 minutes tops, then the optimization/hardcore fan people will get bored with the product more quickly and have less of an emotional investment to seek out a game. Sunk Costs can work out for you as long as people enjoyed the process of racking up the cost.

Strict base classes, lots of kits and tweaks.

Each class is designed so that you can make complete character of that class really quickly; very little customization here; someone who wants to play a paladin can just drop in, maybe make a few quick rolls, write down the character's race, class, level, and maybe a few other numbers, start playing, and fill in the rest of the numbers as needed. Customization at chargen is done with optional kits (large changes) and tweaks (small changes).

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:40 pm

5e: boost the growth rate of the hobby, particularly by targeting young independent learners. Future self-taught players are your target market.

D&D Game: fully playable independent boxed game (dice, etc) written by teaching-oriented outsiders for ages 7+. About 7 Race-Class options (more l8r). 3d6 rolled-in-order (swap any 2) stats, with bonuses that make sense for the game at that. Standard kit. 1st level gives fuck all information or choice. Go learn to play.
Two, smaller supplemental boxes, expanding the play space from Basic good-town and evil-underworld, through trader-cities and the fey wildlands between, to the infinite expanse of the many-storied multiverse (and the GIANT FROG that lurks).

Advanced D&D Game: Often incompatible game by adult nerds for adult nerds, but you can basically use the same monsters and bling in either game, and even the characters can cross over without being too broken.

Monsters, traps, terrain, environment, and encounter building book.
Player's book of not ruining the game for other players (with character options).
DM's book of not being a dick while giving PCs what they need (with bling, tables of random happy-times, and a social skills for nerds chapter).
Greyhawk book of gods, nations, enemies, plots, adventure seeds, and a trickle of buy-me shit.

Bloat-cap around 10th, bonus-cap around 16th. Epic book for 17+ gives you world-breaking power of the gods, just in time for the new edition. New editions every ten years.

Sell people a proper conversion tome for 4e, and farm out one for 3e/PF, and another for AD&D. Like 3e's unearthed arcana, but turns 5e into something a lot like the "edition you love", in a way you only have to use the bits you happen to like. Playtest it hard. Farm out support for them.

No player splats. Don't do it. Use adventure modules to playtest new spells, classes, races, monsters, items, and so on, in a print magazine format (and dirt-cheap pdf). When you have enough awesome ones, years later, make a couple more books.

So the Necromancer-buildanarmy class is in a module about a nutzoid Necromancer (and his mini-me underlings), as is a bunch of undead-buffing bling, and new undead monsters. So everything they write for expansion must be presented in an adventure and be player-friendly when recovered.

Rules? Hardly matters.

Sensible target numbers where the end-game is only just off the RNG for the beginners (so AC/DCs end at about 30, and bonuses for dedicated specialists top out just a bit before +30, (+10/+20/+30 to hit for 16th Wiz/Clr/Ftr, including all possible buffs and kit).
No irrelevant choices.
No choosing to be less powerful is allowed (and thus no choosing to be more so).
Clear out the inflation in hit points and damage.
Remove stat mods to success rate on repeated tasks like attacks or spellcasting (or +-1 at most) so we can roll our stats again. Hell, give Fighters +4 Strength and -2 Int. Remove most stat penalties from critical tasks like attacks and saves.
Cap all spellcasters around 7th level spells, until the deliberate clusterfuck that is Epic.
No multiclassing, just have a Ftr+Clr Paladin, a Ftr+Wiz Sorcerer, a Ftr+Rog Assassin, and so on. Lots of classes in Advanced.
Split the Cleric in twain and the Wizard to shards. No class does everything.
Allow for a wide range of player comfort in the level of character detail and choice on a per class basis.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:52 pm

Lago wrote:What counts as a class IYO? Do the 2E D&D Fighter/Mages count as a class? That is, do you think just having fifteen separate pages that have different classes are more important or having fifteen distinct builds? Or rather, in the long run would people have preferred 20 4E classes that play very similarly to each other (so there are only about 4 meaningful builds) or would people have preferred 8 4E classes that feel very different from each other?

What counts as a class is the thing you write "class" on. How much actual impact that has on what your character can do and aspire to become is a completely separate question. AD&D had classes that were virtual complete railroads, 2e had classes that gave more options and 3e classes could be mix and matched. But people respond viscerally to the number of actual classes they can write on their character sheet.

4e failed hard when they tried to tell people that each class had two "builds" so that was like 16 classes. People did not go for that - even though that's actually more supported rails to be on than AD&D's 10. People responded viscerally to the fact that the Monk, Druid, Assassin, and Illusionist were all gone, and the inclusion of the Warlord and Warlock did not quiet the fan rage even though every class had two builds (and yeah, I'm aware that Tron Paladins weren't actually supported from level 7 on up - people were raging before that was even known).

The way you get around that is by calling something a "class" that you can have lots of, but not so many that you can't remember them all. Like 15 to 30.

That is why my suggestion would be to have classes be something like a title that you choose one of that requires you to have certain abilities rather than a package that allows you to have access to a list of powers. At the very least, a new edition should have such a class template for every single class that has ever been available in the PHB of any edition (although you're allowed to substitute names like "Wizard" for "Magic User"). That's not even hard, since that's just 14 classes. I'd rename and divide the Fighter. It's been done before, we don't have "Fighting Men" and some of them became Rangers, Barbarians, and Samurai. Warriors, Soldiers, and Knights or something to bring it up to 16, throw in a few more like Shaman and Artificer and you could have there be an even 20. People would like that.

-Username17

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:06 pm

@erik

I don't see Mr. Belt Straps as evil. I mean, an honest worker on the BDSM industry doesn't have to be evil...lol.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:09 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:On the other hand, long CharGen is again one of those things that hooks people who are already fans further onto the product. If any character can be constructed in about 15 minutes tops, then the optimization/hardcore fan people will get bored with the product more quickly and have less of an emotional investment to seek out a game.

With Frank's suggestion of 20 classes in the core book, 15 minutes to optimize one of each still works out to 5 hours of running through possibilities.

That's assuming the classes are strictly on the rails and there is a clear best optimization for each. The minute they get to pick schticks feats or that you can choose whether your Ex-Special Forces dude wizard is guns or Fu blasting or transmutation specialized, or the first supplement comes out that shit gets multiplied. There's seriously enough depth of chargen choices in the Feng Shui main book to keep a typical playgroup discussing optimizations and builds for typical semester-long game. Release exactly one supplement with meaningful PC options each semester (including summer) and it will never get stale.

Saxony · Post by **Saxony** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:21 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Short class lists.

... 15 classes in core.
What counts as a class IYO? Do the 2E D&D Fighter/Mages count as a class? That is, do you think just having fifteen separate pages that have different classes are more important or having fifteen distinct builds? Or rather, in the long run would people have preferred 20 4E classes that play very similarly to each other (so there are only about 4 meaningful builds) or would people have preferred 8 4E classes that feel very different from each other?

15 distinct classes in the PHB seems not only difficult, but consolidates a lot of character options in a single book, which means less books sold. So I don't think that's ever going to happen.

I think there are 4-5 distinguishable roles. Sword combat, mage combat, indirect combat, and support. Everything else is adjusting nuance (multiclassing, prestige classing, feats, magic items) for those roles, or even filling two roles, but those are the only roles. I'd be quite happy if someone could inform me of something else.

...

But, yeah, short class lists do offend people. Long class lists preserve the illusion of variety/choice. Making people feel good is much more important than wanking to streamlining or some other rot.

Of course, I'd love 15 actually distinct classes, but I think the 4 roles with 100 meaningless tertiary options spread out over 50 splat books is what we're destined for.

Saxony · Post by **Saxony** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:43 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: That is why my suggestion would be to have classes be something like a title that you choose one of that requires you to have certain abilities rather than a package that allows you to have access to a list of powers.
-Username17

I don't think that will catch on if it's just a goal and doesn't give you anything.

But people could describe themselves as "Halfway to fighting mastery" or "one level away from archmage" or "I'm an archmage half way to my sneaking mastery". Sort of like college degrees in a way. And that could be genuinely useful for description.

You could also group the abilities based on what title they can give you. "Here are 20 abilities. Get 5 and you can call yourself a Fighter". "These are the sneaky abilities". So the idea could also be useful for giving people pre-selected ability lists representing character types as classes now do in DnD, not just description.

Sounds good.

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 6:21 pm

shadzar wrote:
Hieronymous Rex wrote:*There is no "class level", just character level. If you multiclass, you get half the benefits of both classes.
i still cant reason out what this is saying...

if there is no class level, the what does multiclassing have to do with it?

all i can figure is it was meant to be two things.

1. there would be no class level only character level
2. if you mutliclass, you get half the benefits of both classes

(but that is dual-classing, not multiclassing with only 2.)

I went with "multiclass" over "dual class" because 1e-2e dual classing involves restarting in a new class, and multiclassing lets you advance multiple classes simultaneously. 3e "multiclassing" is somewhere in between; each level you decide which class to advance. My point is the the terminology is confusing; I just picked the term that seems the closest.

The idea I was trying to communicate is that getting more lower level spells is inferior to getting fewer higher level spells.

In 1-3e, a Magic User 3/Cleric 3 is sixth level, but only gets second level spells. In my proposal, the same character would be a 6th level MU/Cleric and get 3rd level MU and cleric spells, just half as many of each. The spell progressions would look like this; a single classes caster on the left and a dual classed one on the right:

2.............1
4.............2
4 2.........2 1
4 4.........2 2
4 4 2.....2 2 1

So, if you dual class between 2 caster classes, you get the Dual Class progression from both classes.

(Also, I'd would make it so that spell levels and character levels match up, i.e. you get a new spell level each character level, as opposed to getting a new one every 2 character levels)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:55 pm

Saxony wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: That is why my suggestion would be to have classes be something like a title that you choose one of that requires you to have certain abilities rather than a package that allows you to have access to a list of powers.
-Username17
I don't think that will catch on if it's just a goal and doesn't give you anything.

The idea would be to have "classes" be like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance classes, where they determine what hat you are wearing. They would also be like 4e classes in that they would give you a weird package of stuff like setting your base Defenses and giving you stuff like Mage Hand.

But your maneuvers (4e shot themselves in the dick calling these "powers") would just be selected off the big list. They'd have tags on them. Unlocking various classes would require certain numbers of maneuvers with specific tags on them. If you had 3 [Martial] maneuvers and 3 [Arcane] maneuvers, you could be a Knight or a Warlock or a Monk. You could even change classes between adventures in the extremely likely circumstance that you qualified for more than one.

So you could say things like "I'm an Illusionist, but I could have gone Assassin" - implying that you took a bunch of stabby burst damage and/or poison to go with your illusioning and that you probably have Invisibility. Or "I'm a Scout, but I could have gone Druid" indicating that in addition to your basic Stealth and Skirmishing abilities, you probably took some kind of Primal magic to supplement.

-Username17

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