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Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-19, 03:45 PM
I plan on running a true Classless campaign in the future and have more or less come up with a method of character generation for this campaign.

Any critique is appreciated. Or if there is something that I can borrow from somewhere that would work well for this, please let me know!



All characters start with a base number of points; these points are then used to purchase HD, Saves, BA, Skill Points, and any additional abilities for their character.
A character will be classified based on their highest ability score. So a character with Strength as their highest ability will be a Strength Character. This will determine the number of points each level a character receives to purchase more abilities, and also which stat to use if an ability uses an undefined key ability score that is usually determined through the characters class.

Abilities will be given costs based on their level of power:

Basic abilities with a single level that don’t confer a bonus of more than a low level spell or spell effect (+2 bonus equivalent) are going to be treated as Feats with regards to purchase.
Enhanced abilities with a single level that confer lesser benefits or a moderate level spell or spell effects (+4 bonus equivalent) will be 4 points in value.



Character Creation:
Starting points (Level One): 18 points
Each Additional level: 1d6 + (highest ability modifier)


Weapon Proficiencies: All Simple + Choose any 2
- Each Additional: 2 points per weapon (Any Martial, Exotic, Simple)
Armor Proficiency: Choose any 1
- Each Additional: 4 points per Proficiency (i.e. Light, Medium), 2 points for Shields
Starting Feats: Any 2 (Must meet Prerequisites)
- Each Additional Feat: 2 points, 4 points for building feats (The chosen feat has a separate feat as a pre-requisite)
- Feats that stack upon themselves: (Toughness) only cost 2 points each time
Starting Skill List: Treat all Skills as “Class Skills”
Race: A level adjustment of +1 can be bought off for 10 points


Alternative Character Options:
A player may choose to forgo acquiring armor or weapon proficiencies and instead gain additional points to purchase Skills/Abilities/Stats.

Armorless: If a character chooses to start with no armor proficiencies, refund 4 points.
Weaponless: If a character chooses to start without Simple Weapons, refund 3 points. If a character chooses to start without any weapons, refund 6 points.


Ability Point Costs:

Hit Dice
{table=head]HD|Cost
D4|+2 Points
D6| 0 Points
D8|-2 Points
D10|-4 Points
D12|-6 Points
[/table]



Base Attack
{table=head]Progression|Cost
Half (+10/+5)| 0 Points
Three Quarter (+15/+10+5)|-4 Points
Full (+20/+15/+10/+5)|-8 Points
[/table]


Saves
{table=head]Type|Cost
One Full: (12,6,6) Any order| 0 Points
Two Full: (12,12,6) Any order|-4 Points
Three Full: (12,12,12)|-8 Points
[/table]


Skill points
{table=head]Progression|Cost
(2 + int mod)| 0 Points
(4 + int mod)|-2 Points
(6 + int mod)|-4 Points
(8 + int mod)|-6 Points
[/table]

Magic and Psionics / Spellcasting and Manifesting:
A character does not start with the innate ability to cast spells or manifest psionic powers. This ability must be purchased separately. Once purchased it allows the ability to cast or manifest up to 1st level Spells or Powers, (a character must then purchase their actual spells.)
Starting at level 4 (And increasing by 1 every 2 characters levels after i.e. 6, 8, 10...) the maximum Spell/Power level allowed increases by 1. In order to cast spells at higher levels however, a character must Unlock that Spell/Power level by purchasing it as listed.
Spellcasting has 2 options; Spontaneous or Spellbook.
Power Points: Take the highest Power Points at the characters current Power level on the Psions chart in the EPHB.

Initial Spellcasting/Manifesting Ability: 6 points
Unlocking Spell/Manifest levels: 3 points per spell/power level
Spell Purchasing: 2 Options for Spellcasting

Spontaneous: The character purchases individual spells and casts them the way a Sorcerer would. Spells/day follows the Sorcerer Chart in the PHB.
Spellbook: The character may choose any spell to use that day in their chosen domains, but must declare which spells are being researched each day.
* Domains known = Spell level +1, So a character who can cast up to 1st level spells has 2 Domains. Once chosen, these Domains cannot be changed.



Spell/Manifester Level
{table=head]Level|Req Level|Cost
0th Level Spells| 1| 2 Points/spell
1st Level Spells| 1| 2 Points/spell
2nd Level Spells| 2| 2 Points/spell
3rd Level Spells| 4| 2 Points/spell
4th Level Spells| 6| 2 Points/spell
5th Level Spells| 8| 3 Points/spell
6th Level Spells| 10| 3 Points/spell
7th Level Spells| 12| 3 Points/spell
8th Level Spells| 14| 4 Points/spell
9th Level Spells| 16| 4 Points/spell
[/table]

Special Abilities

Character must meet all pre-requisites for the chosen ability

{table=head]Ability|Cost
Barbarian Rage| 4 Points, and 2 Points for each upgrade
Uncanny Dodge| 4 Points, 2 additional for Improved
Damage Reduction| 4 points, 2 per upgrade*
Bardic Knowledge| 6 Points
Bardic Music| 6 Points
Turn Undead| 6 Points
Animal Companion| 6 Points
Wildshape| 8 Points, 4 per size upgrade, 2 per times/day upgrade**
Flurry of Blows| 6 Points, 4 to upgrade to Greater
Special Mount| 8 Points
Favored Enemy| 2 Points per enemy/upgrade
Sneak Attack| 4 points, 4+(upgrade level) per upgrade***
Trap Sense| 4 points, 2+(upgrade level) per upgrade
Familiar| 4 Points
Scribe Scroll| 6 points
Brew Potion| 6 Points
[/table]

*Type is chosen when purchased, dr/- costs double
**Size mod cannot exceed character HD-2
***+3d6 Sneak Attack would be Initial cost + Upgrade for 2nd HD+ Upgrade for 3rd HD = 4+ (4+2) + (4+3) =17 Points

Dead_Jester
2010-08-19, 05:47 PM
I think you need to clarify what the initial spellcasting thing gives you (0 and 1st level spells or nothing). Assuming it gives you both, you could make a full caster with full bab, d6, 4 skills per level and 2 good saves. Also, getting spells earlier than usual (9th at 14th level, lol) is imbalanced.

The armor proficiency also needs to be clarified, is it only one kind of armor, or one level of armor? Same with the extra weapons, are they any kind or only martial?

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-20, 09:42 AM
Yes, you would get the ability to cast 0-1st level spells, full BAB, 2 good saves, and 4 skill points. But you would still actually have to purchase spells to cast. I'll try to clarify that as much as possible, I also changed some stuff around.

The 20 starting points was just a random number I threw out there to start with. I figure actual play testing will come up with a better idea of what it should be, although I'm thinking I should definitely drop it down to ~15-16.

Getting 9th level spells at level 14 isn't necessarily imbalanced. It is strong, but everything else in the game would also be able to have access to those spells at the same level. I would like to think that it's balanced to itself. I did bump it to level 16 though, more time without those retarded spells is a good idea.

4 points will buy you another armor Proficiency: i.e. light, medium.

As for weapons, you can choose from any. That was one of my goals of this classless system is that theoretically, you could have prior "experience" with any type of weapon.

Aran Banks
2010-08-20, 11:48 AM
I'm not sure how preparation (spellbook) classes work here.

Is it that you have every spell ever listed in your spellbook and you're limited by spells/day? Or do you only have a certain amount of spells in your book (bought via character points) and you read off of those?

I have some suggested changes for point costs, too...
Hit Dice Make d4 give +1 points, d8 give -1, d10 give -2, and d12 give -4. Going up a die size gives an average of +1 HP/level, which really isn't worth that much, but some people will be concerned about their squishiness and spend more on hit dice. The d12 is still the best and is valued the greatest, but it also doesn't cost a whole six points.


BAB
BAB is about 3 times as important as die sizes, and should be measured as such. With Poor (1/2) BAB costing 0 points, 3/4 BAB would cost 3 points, and 1/1 BAB would cost 6 points. So it'd be nice for 3/4 BAB to be worth 1 point less.

Saves
Same thing as BAB. 2 good saves should be worth 3 points.

Skills
IMO, skills aren't as important as saves, BAB, or HP. So keeping the point costs like this is good.

----------------------------------------------

Minmax time:

I'm creating a level 1 caster. I'm not giving him any proficiencies, so I get 10 extra points and improved unarmed strike for free.

Now I take human for a bonus feat (giving 3 feats already) and take Sorcerer casting, spending 8 points to get 4 really good 1st-level spells.

After that, I'll spend 6 points on basic wildshape, 4 points to upgrade myself to huge, and 4 more points to give it to myself 5/day.

8 + 14 = 22. I still have 8 points left, as well as 3 feats. I'll take natural spell as a feat, scribe scroll as a feat (just to show that I don't have to spend 6 points on it), and Improved Initiative for the lulz. With my 8 points I'll give myself DR 3 (since there's no given substance to overcome it, I believe readers will make that 3/-).

My combat consists of wildshaping into a giant squid, giant octopus, or an elephant (CR 8 or 9) and firing off a spell or two to neutralize major threats before charging in and raping everything.

In conclusion: I see a few holes...

Dead_Jester
2010-08-20, 04:10 PM
Getting 9th level spells at level 14 isn't necessarily imbalanced. It is strong, but everything else in the game would also be able to have access to those spells at the same level. I would like to think that it's balanced to itself. I did bump it to level 16 though, more time without those retarded spells is a good idea.

4 points will buy you another armor Proficiency: i.e. light, medium.

As for weapons, you can choose from any. That was one of my goals of this classless system is that theoretically, you could have prior "experience" with any type of weapon.

Actually, getting 9th level spells at 16th level is still a bit imbalanced. The saves are harder (they are a level early), and the monsters aren't scaled to that level, but it isnt really serious. And you should seriously limit some abilities (like wildshape), because as of now, a lvl 1 character can have wildshape up to colossal for only 14 points (and you can drop all your proficiencies, so it's even less). Worse, if you wait a bit, you can have full saves and bab, grabing 9th level spells later with some tasty feats (like draconic and aberrant wildshape or assume supernatural ability). You only need 2 or 3 uses per day, but the more the merrier. Also, the quantity of abilitiy points has to be a fixed value, else it becomes random and way too easy to abuse by optimizing a single ability score.

And what about Prc abilities? Can I take the outsider wildshape of the planar shepard (go outsider casting abuse), or the incantrix's metamagic reduction?

Worse, nothing is stopping you from grabbing more than one source of casting, so our super wildshaper can reliably have 2 or 3 9th level casting (easily more, but when you have arcane, divine and psionic full casting, the others start to look underwhelming when you can also polymorph and/or wildshape into creatures with casting and special abilities and taking those too). There definately needs to be some restrictions on this sort of things.

Hawriel
2010-08-20, 10:41 PM
You want a classles D20 system. Hmmm.... Sounds like mutants and masterminds. It's a point based level system.


http://www.mutantsandmasterminds.com/

Dencero
2010-08-21, 08:12 PM
You know, I was thinking about doing something like this for a post apocalyptic d20. It's about the same thing, except they bought skill points and depending on what they have ranks in and the feats, they got special bonuses. Like Mechanical Engineer, Rock Climber, the like.

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-23, 10:27 AM
I appreciate the help.
The critique and the min/maxing are a huge help in particular. I knew it had holes, but shoring them up is easier when people are actively trying to break it.

@Hawriel, Thanks for the link, I'll comb that for ideas.

Wildshape: I increased starting purchase from 6->8, and size increase price from 2->4 points.
I also put a restriction on the HD modifier. Mainly, your size increase modifier cannot be greater than your character HD-2, minimum of 0.
So, (assuming medium sized), a character can't wildshape into a large creature until level 3.

Scribe Scroll: is listed as a special ability, so the option to purchase it as a regular feat doesn't exist. It's painfully obvious to anyone who has played 3.5, that that particular ability far exceeds a +2 ability.
I also added Brew Potion to the list to prevent that sort of cheese.

Spellbook: Added Domain limitation. Minimum of 2 Domains to choose from. Domains known increases by 1 for each Spell Level increase. Can't change Domains once chosen.

Starting points: Reduced to 18, and may be reduced again. Like I said, the 20 was just a number I pulled out of the air.

Weaponless: I removed the freebie Unarmed Combat feet. You're getting enough Points refunded that buying it would be easy.

PrC Abilities: Unless I want to go through the numerous splatbooks, PrC abilities are mostly going to have to be taken care of through DM discretion and the guidelines set up at the beginning of this guide.

What I hope to achieve with this is remove the Tiers.
Spellcasting/Polymorph/Wildshape cheese is still going to be terribly strong, but when everyone has access to it, I hope it balances out a bit.

EdroGrimshell
2010-08-23, 02:09 PM
Try this (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=47.html) It's a simple system that works, trust me, i've used it.

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-25, 03:16 PM
Try this (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=47.html) It's a simple system that works, trust me, i've used it.

Thanks! I just ordered one.
In the mean time though, I plan on still working on this.

Aran Banks
2010-08-25, 04:21 PM
Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion worth 3x that of a feat?

I disagree. While the feats are pretty good (you can have some fun and be overpowered), they're feats. You don't get many of them over the course of your career, and most people (at least the ones I play with) don't see Scribe Scroll as so good that everybody should take it. I mean, it's not even like Natural Spell (which should DEFINITELY be on that list) where every Druid should take it. Not every wizard even needs Scribe Scroll. It's handy.

Same with Brew Potion, especially because Potions stop being awesome after level 6.

Drolyt
2010-08-25, 04:49 PM
This is complicated. Here's what I would recommend instead:
You purchase ability scores and everything normally. Instead of choosing a class you land in a generic class with d4 hit die, 2 skill points, poor BAB, and all poor saves. You can increase any of those (eg d4 hit die to d6 or poor BAB to medium) with a single feat at first level, and you get 12 feats at first level and one feat every level thereafter. Then you just need to translate class abilities into feats.

Aran Banks
2010-08-25, 04:58 PM
Drolyt, that makes min/maxxing obnoxiously easy. I'd spend all my 12 feats on a high casting stat and lots of casts of some SoS. Then I'd win the game.

Drolyt
2010-08-25, 05:05 PM
Drolyt, that makes min/maxxing obnoxiously easy. I'd spend all my 12 feats on a high casting stat and lots of casts of some SoS. Then I'd win the game.

Sorry, I made some assumptions in my head that I didn't bother to write down. Feats wouldn't be able to buy stats, and prerequisites would prevent you from becoming better than a classed Wizard at spellcasting at any given level regardless of how many feats you have.

Honestly a classless system makes min/maxing obnoxiously easy regardless.

Latronis
2010-08-25, 06:07 PM
If i was going to do a classless system I'd start with a baseline "unclass" of racial hitdice.

So for most standard races it'd be a simple humanoid racial die of d8hp, 2skill points, 1 good save (player choice) and simple weapon prof (no armour)

Then just adjust the starting points as appropiate for better types.

And make everything a little more expensive so getting the most powerful of class abilities requires trading in from your baseline

EdroGrimshell
2010-08-25, 07:53 PM
Thanks! I just ordered one.
In the mean time though, I plan on still working on this.

Its only sold as a PDF. If you didn't get it when you bought it then you won't get it. You have to click a button that returns you to the site. There you download the ZIP file then extract it. I made the same mistake first time i ordered.

Knaight
2010-08-25, 11:07 PM
Sorry, I made some assumptions in my head that I didn't bother to write down. Feats wouldn't be able to buy stats, and prerequisites would prevent you from becoming better than a classed Wizard at spellcasting at any given level regardless of how many feats you have.

Honestly a classless system makes min/maxing obnoxiously easy regardless.

Well, some classless systems anyways. That said, GURPS is significantly better balanced than D&D and just as heavy, and stuff like Risus and Wushu are near perfectly balanced due to simplicity.

Drolyt
2010-08-25, 11:39 PM
Well, some classless systems anyways. That said, GURPS is significantly better balanced than D&D and just as heavy, and stuff like Risus and Wushu are near perfectly balanced due to simplicity.

At a similar complexity class systems are much easier to balance than point systems. D^D isn't a good example of balance, and really the only properly balanced class systems I know of are MMOs, but those games are far more balanced than any tabletop game (though at a cost, obviously).

Knaight
2010-08-26, 01:12 AM
At a similar complexity class systems are much easier to balance than point systems.
Yes, but that wasn't your statement above. That statement was "Honestly, a classless system makes min.maxing obnoxiously easy to begin with", which is fundamentally untrue as there are several instances of fairly well balanced classless systems, and even classless systems with anti-min maxing measures. Take Burning Wheel, you can't really min max attributes as stresses are simulated by attribute reduction across the board and you are screwed as soon as any of them are all the way gone. That isn't to say you can't min max, but that has less to do with it being classless and more to do with the Fields of Related Knowledge system (comparable to skill ranks giving bonuses in other skills in D&D). Min maxing is a sign of either a poorly designed system (usually due to a lack of mathematical analysis) or a system designed on the assumption that character power was largely irrelevant.

Drolyt
2010-08-26, 01:56 AM
Yes, but that wasn't your statement above. That statement was "Honestly, a classless system makes min.maxing obnoxiously easy to begin with", which is fundamentally untrue as there are several instances of fairly well balanced classless systems, and even classless systems with anti-min maxing measures. Take Burning Wheel, you can't really min max attributes as stresses are simulated by attribute reduction across the board and you are screwed as soon as any of them are all the way gone. That isn't to say you can't min max, but that has less to do with it being classless and more to do with the Fields of Related Knowledge system (comparable to skill ranks giving bonuses in other skills in D&D). Min maxing is a sign of either a poorly designed system (usually due to a lack of mathematical analysis) or a system designed on the assumption that character power was largely irrelevant.
I'll give in here. In my experience GURPS is the only balanced point system I have ever seen, so I've always just assumed point system leads to unbalance. I will not argue that point systems cannot be balanced, but I think it is much harder.

awesomessake
2010-08-26, 02:03 AM
Here's This (http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/animesrd.html)
I'm probably going to get anime persecutions, but if you're looking for something free, you might find the Adventurer class in this a good way to start....

Drolyt
2010-08-26, 02:17 AM
Here's This (http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/animesrd.html)
I'm probably going to get anime persecutions, but if you're looking for something free, you might find the Adventurer class in this a good way to start....
Aside from the fact that that system is even more broken than D&D, it is actually pretty fun. The original Tri-Stat is better though, even if it is even more broken.

J.Gellert
2010-08-26, 02:20 AM
Aside from my instinctive "classless is great, but this is heavy work, we're lucky that someone else has already done it for us - Mutants & Masterminds (2nd edition)"... I will add the more useful comment that if you are doing it, don't worry too much about balance. It's not worth the trouble.

If it was for a MMO, where everyone has to be competetive and not broken by default, it'd be important. In a DM'ed pen & paper game, you have... a DM, who will watch out for broken-ness. Especially if he's the one who designed the system in the first place.

So be cool. :smallsmile:

Besides, that's what they are largely doing in Mutants & Masterminds. Just telling you "watch out for broken combos". Can't have perfect balance, ever. The secret is that you don't need to.

Kensen
2010-08-26, 02:22 AM
I've seen at least two similar point-based classless variants of D&D homebrewed here in the Homebrew Design forum. Sorry I'm too lazy to look them up right now. :smalltongue: