What do i mean by a super-class? Well, if the barbarian, monk, ranger, warlord all got folded into the fighter, then the fighter would be a superclass. Or if the wizard, warlock, druid, sorcerer, psion got folded into magic user.
Why are they bad? Because they restrict and complicate design. The barbarian for instance, needs to change the base fighters armor proficency, hit points, remove manuvers, and add a daily rage. This got silly in 2e with all the kits. Like the blade that substituded so much, it turned a bard into a fighter.
Of course, we also don't want every slightly different concept to be it's own class like 3.5 had. Somewhere in between would be good.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Not only they restrict design, there are other things going on: 1. The final "super classes" may be so brand and generic that it doesn't have an identity. 2. Making classic classes only available through character building options means that you spent your character build options and cannot use to other things, limiting character's concepts of those classes.
There is one advantage in class design that it’s not mentioned very often. The short version is: being a Wizard actually means something. I will try to explain this. A class is formed by several parts: It has the mechanics, which is obvious. But it also has fluff, flavor, description and legacy. Basically there are the stories about characters of that class, the class’s identity and all of such. To better represent my opinion, I shall bring to the discussion another commercial franchise: Final Fantasy. In many FFs there exists the Job system, which is really just a class system. Many times the Final Fantasy’s games uses a system different from that, but usually it’s a system unique to the game, and even so references to the Job system exist, so the Job system wins as most common system used by FF. Thing is, many people recognize FF Jobs, from classical Jobs such as Black Mage, White Mage, Warrior, Ninja, Paladin, Dragoon to less iconic Jobs such as, I don’t know, Jobs that only appeared in one to three games. Thing is, with considered time, these Jobs have all sort of Fluff and Legacy with then. Many characters not only use one Job, but also marked the series. When people talk about the Black Mage, for instance, not only they will remember the concept itself, but they will also remember all the appearances made in Job based games (which, in that specific case, are many) and also many characters like Palom from FFIV or Vivi from FFIX or Lulu from FFX. Things is, these Jobs marked the series and being one of them actually has meaning, because this Jobs have strong identities attached to them. The problem with classless systems is that, they are classless. What is a Wizard in a classless system? This really matter? In a classless system, is there some meaning in being a Wizard? The problem with classless systems is that these identities are kinda of lost, because being a Wizard is not so important, because being a Wizard does not have any mechanical marks and basically in a classless system, there is no Wizard by default, this doesn’t have meaning in a practical way. With class bases D&D, however, that is different. Being a Wizard in D&D has meaning, an when people talk about Wizards in D&D they will not only remember the current version of the Wizard, they will also remember all versions of the Wizard, and all characters and NPCs that are Wizards, and now, they will also remember the mechanical difference and the flavor, identity difference between the Wizard and the other spellcasting classes. This is something really hard to put in words, there is my best shot.
Right now, I would make Vancian the standard magic system for most classes in D&D (including Wizard and Cleric). What people complained is the fact that the Wizard was Vancian-Only. If it was Vancian-Default, that would be different. I've long advocated supporting both the Points of Light setting and settings full of magic items. I had some thought on one spellcasting system. Spoiler:Show
It is basically composed of three parts: 1. The Standard System: The standard system would be classic Vancian. Wizard: classic Vancian, have to learn spells first, and then prepare them. All the 9 spells levels. Cleric: It would be Vancian, but with some differences, The Cleric would carry on the tradition of choosing spells directly from the class’s spell list, but it would have some old school disadvantages to compensate, such as 7 spell-levels for Clerics and Druids (and even less for Paladins and Rangers), and most divine’s spells would be about healing and support (the Druid and the Ranger can have more offensive spells), and, in general, they would have less spells, perhaps even having divine spells (Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger) be worse than arcane spells, as I’ve told that it was like this in pre-3rd Edition. 2. The Flagships The Flagships are classes that represent one alternative magic system in the standard system. They, by default, are not Vancian, they use another system (with the possibility of using Vancian or other systems). Sorcerer: This Sorcerer would be a little different than the other casters. They would have the same spell list as the Wizard (a la 3.X) and they will use, by default, flexible spell-slots spellcasting (the current system. Very like 3.X Sorcerer, but with class benefits that make then different, a la 4th Edition. With regards to other classes, I would make Bards Vancian, but the Warlock is also a good candidate to some different spellcasting mechanics. Possibly the Witch (4e post-Essentials subclass) somewhere? 3. Modular Magic Systems And there would be a module that changes the way that the spellcasting works. This would be a module that has guidelines about altering the default spellcasting mechanics. The guidelines would consist of how the quantity of spells cast can be ported over, and from which spells they prepare, etc... Let’s give a proper example: The Wizard would be classic Vancian. Thing is, for alternative casting systems, the Wizard would have guidelines that would be something on these lines: “They always prepare spells from the list of know spells. In alternative spellcasting modules, he can prepare a number of spells equal to 1+ Wizard’s level, and the number of spells slots or equivalent is equal to the number of spells per level per day.” This is not something that will have problems of text space. All that you need is some short guidelines about which spells they can chose to cast and how much spells they cast. The rest of these mechanics would be stated only once, in the module of alternative magic system. The good points: • Not only every Vancian class would have an option to be non-Vancian, but also the non-Vancian classes would have the options to be Vancian. Why some classes in default would be Vancian while others not? Add some variety for the new players and players of things like RPGA and Encounter. That and many of the editions of D&D had it like that. • It manages to both being classic with classic Vancian and satisfy the non-Vancian fans with flagships and modules. The bad points: • Using alternative magic systems do not raise your raw power but make casters more flexible. The classes that are already flexible (such as Sorcerer) would need some more flexibility to keep up. No idea how to handle martial characters, although.
We should get rid of at-will cantrips. Spoiler:Show
Okay, now that you’ve got the first panic reaction, let me explain it. Yes, many people like at-will cantrips and they are popular. They have everything that it takes to be popular. However, I think we should remove them from the game, at least as an assumption to all caster classes. First: At-will cantrips blur up the distinction between casters and martial characters, and makes being a gish useless. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems there is an advantage in martial characters: the fact that they have abilities that they can always use. But if we give every caster at-will cantrips this blurs up the difference between classes, take out a huge advantage of martial classes. There is also the gish issue. Basically in non at-will cantrips systems, there is a huge advantage of being a gish over being a full caster. The advantage of have some reliable action when out of spells. At-will cantrips weakens that advantage. Just for you to have some idea I was talking previously about the possibility of the Wizard being weaker than the Cleric (some time ago), and when I quoted the fact that the Cleric is a gish, people talked that this is not important, that it doesn’t have such impact because it will use its at-will cantrips. Being a gish should matter. Of course when being a gish actually matters, we can rebalance the classes but it should matter.
Second: At-will cantrips go into the opposite direction of trying to balance casters. Really when we are trying to balance classic or neo Vancian casters, why give to all of them at-will cantrips? Why we cannot use the absence of at-will cantrips to provide a drawback to balance casters? Third: At-will cantrips weaken the challenge of resource management. Really when you always have magic a great part of the challenge goes away. The possibility in being out of magic is not a bug, it is a feature It is part of the system, and this challenge don’t have to go away because it is fun. The challenge of running out of magic is part of the system, and fun. Fourth: At-will cantrips do not fit properly under every system. Really is not that I don’t like at-will magic, but I don’t think we should bake in every spellcasting system. In 4e it worked because it was part of AEDU, but now, they don’t feel part of anything. They seem to be an arbitrary addition to the game. The 3.5 Warlock was special because it was a class with at-will magic in a game where it doesn’t exist, otherwise, at-will magic. We can have at-will cantrips but it should be done it right, and not being a default assumption for every caster class. I’m worried if they are going to launch a mana spell-point based magic system for spellcasters. This system should not have at-will, no mana cost magic as default for every caster class, because running out of mana is part of the mana system. In Final Fantasy they even have no MP cost magic, but they do it right, and when they use no MP cost magic, it is special because it is in a game that is otherwise MP based.
I think the talk of traditions and fighting styles doing more is basically because it layers the class design in a way that's intriguing. I don't actually think that all classes will be rolled into super classes or whatever, but the basic exploration will establish what makes sense for them to do and what doesn't.
I still wish the development team hadn't abandoned the idea of (4th Ed style)Themes as a way to adjust core classes into some of their more complex variants.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!
It could be suggested that the podcast that's sparked all this talk of traditions was placed specifically to get us thinking about how that might work.
It could be suggested that the podcast that's sparked all this talk of traditions was placed specifically to get us thinking about how that might work.
Yeah, but orignailly we were talking about stuff like how adding the Shadow Theme to a fighter might make him a Death Knight, but if you added the same Theme to a Wizard, a Necromancer would pop out. That way you could just keep releasing themes with the variant powers that they grant the core classes and if you get to pick an additional Theme every five levels or so, you could make millions of classes with all of those options.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in an thread with GM_Champion" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against AzureShade when card design is on the line!
3.5 pretty unashamedly divided things up not purely by concept. It was an edition (generally) well aware that characters don't have their class name tattooed onto their forehead, and it wasn't shy about releasing classes for things that with a little work could probably have been alternate class features or kits or archetypes or whatever you want to call them. It's probably a bit of presentation (Class X with Archetype Y applied requires a little more putting-together than just Class Y), a bit of marketing sexiness (Do you want THREE NEW CLASSES! or TWO NEW ROGUE ARCHETYPES AND SOMETHING CALLED "SPELLTHIEF"?) and a bit of it sometimes just genuinely being the right thing to do (Warblades and Fighters encompass much of the same concept, but you can't realistically call Warblade a "type" of fighter in any way that makes sense mechanically. You can either not publish the Warblade, publish it and just sort of accept that it's part of the same concept, or publish it try to project some really bizarre flavor onto it. I think it's clearly correct to take option B in that case - and they did, with like 2% of option C where they tried to project a more specific Typical Personality onto Warblades.)
I'm 100% okay with the idea that the world works such that, say, there are multiple different ways to do magic or access magic and those things affect your resource management without coming out and saying that Superman can fly for five hours a day divided up as he likes because he's an alien and Storm can fly for ten-minute bursts at-will because she's a mutant and Thor can fly as much as he likes, but only if he decided that at the beginning of the day because he's a god. I understand that to a lot of people "This is Magic Type X. Magic Type X works this way. Some people are born with a talent for Magic Type X. Some people study until they're able to perform Magic Type X. Some people make a deal with the devil for the ability to perform Magic Type X" doesn't make as much sense as "This is Magic Type X. It works this way. People who studied until they can do magic do magic as Magic Type X. This is Magic Type Y. It works a different way. If you are born with magic, you do Magic type Y, etc.", but it's all the same in my eyes.
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
Swanmay Syndrome: Despite the percentages given in the Monster Manual, in reality 100% of groups of swans contain a Swanmay, because otherwise the DM would not have put any swans in the game.
Point 1) The OP is correct, to a point. Too many classes folded into a single class is bad.
Point 2) The OP has nothing to worry about. They aren't going to do away with all of the individual classes and only have Fighter or Magic User. The closest they might come is to divide the classes by groups (ala 2E). The Warrior group has the fighter, ranger, and paladin. The Rogue group would have thieves, bards, assassins, and so on.
Point 3) Broader classes are good. Classes that are too broad are not. If the only difference between two classes is fluff, or perhaps weapon choices, or some other minor point, then perhaps they shouldn't be seperate classes. A "Thief" class that can encapsulate assassins, acrobats, footpads, cutpurses, and so on is fine. A "Fighter" class that can properly encapsulate the knight, gladiator, and so on is also fine. Trying to force the Warlord, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, and every other melee class into the Fighter, though, will not work. At all.
"The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind." - H.P. Lovecraft
What do i mean by a super-class? Well, if the barbarian, monk, ranger, warlord all got folded into the fighter, then the fighter would be a superclass. Or if the wizard, warlock, druid, sorcerer, psion got folded into magic user.
You mean Martial, Magical, and Mixed? Sorry, I feel completely the opposite. The only way, IMO, to build flexible and balanced "classes" is to have a stripped down core. That doesn't mean that these meta-classes (I prefer that term over super-classes) need be playable as-is. It means they are the foundational framework in which all other classes are constructed.
For those familiar with object-oriented design, I consider the meta-classes of Martial, Magical, and Mixed to be purely abstract. But they serve a critial function: what is the core theme of the features to the class being constructed. While there are mechanical differences between a fighter and rogue, neither will ever have non-martial features. Wizards are comprised of only magic-related features. Clerics, paladins, rangers, and even monks and possibly barbarians draw on non-mundane sources for some of their features.
Assuming class balance is a primary goal (this is a moot discussion otherwise), then every feature available to any "class" should have some assessed "value". This could be a simple comparative value, or complex depending on the synergy it has with other features. For example, martial characters might all get MDD/WDD, but much like THAC0/BAB, it is a dial that can be set to high/medium/low or even more granulated to emphasize combat vs non-combat. I feel lumping exploration with interaction is appropriate for this discussion, because both are mechanically similar (both primarily use ability/skill checks for mechanical resolutions). Similarly, magical characters need select between partial or full magical. The latter have no martial features, and most contributions will be in the form of magic.
With this design approach, multi-classing becomes unnecessary, since the character gains additional features as you level up according to either a pre-constructed class, or following specific guidelines to maintain balance. The pre-constructed classes are there specifically to provide a reference point, and for those not desiring to "build their own".
The only way to end up with a "boring" character with this approach is if you begin with a "boring" concept.
I am both orderly and instinctive. I value community and group identity, defining myself by the social group I am a part of. At best, I'm selfless and strong-willed; at worst, I'm unoriginal and sheepish.
Point 1) The OP is correct, to a point. Too many classes folded into a single class is bad.
Point 2) The OP has nothing to worry about. They aren't going to do away with all of the individual classes and only have Fighter or Magic User. The closest they might come is to divide the classes by groups (ala 2E). The Warrior group has the fighter, ranger, and paladin. The Rogue group would have thieves, bards, assassins, and so on.
Point 3) Broader classes are good. Classes that are too broad are not. If the only difference between two classes is fluff, or perhaps weapon choices, or some other minor point, then perhaps they shouldn't be seperate classes. A "Thief" class that can encapsulate assassins, acrobats, footpads, cutpurses, and so on is fine. A "Fighter" class that can properly encapsulate the knight, gladiator, and so on is also fine. Trying to force the Warlord, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, and every other melee class into the Fighter, though, will not work. At all.
I'd like to have these classes as templates so that we can have as many classes as we want.
fighter barbarian warlord
rogue assassin ranger
cleric witch warlock paladin monk
wizard bard psion
But if you don't like this organization, you can pick from an assortment of skills that will allow you to create the classes you want.
