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View Full Version : Classes backwards: the concept of earning class levels



Partysan
2011-04-14, 01:37 PM
A concept that I rarely, but sometimes, see and that seems rather nice to me (in fact I'm incorporating it into my own system) is that of instead gaining class levels by experience and them providing skills and abilities, raising skills and abilities by experience and being awarded a class level when qualifying for its prerequisites.
The newest occurence I'm aware of is in Dungeons: The Dragoning. What does the playground think of this way of representing classes and what are its implications and consequences for the game?

Tyndmyr
2011-04-14, 01:53 PM
The inner munchkin in me is screaming that it's a good idea, and that I should really let him out of his cage already. He is especially interested in multiclassing.

Weimann
2011-04-14, 02:06 PM
That seems needlessly complicated to me. Why not just let characters buy stuff with experience and not use classes at all?

Pisha
2011-04-14, 02:29 PM
That seems needlessly complicated to me. Why not just let characters buy stuff with experience and not use classes at all?

Hmm, unless there's something special you get for hitting a new level in a class. Like... if you want to go up a level in Rogue, you need to buy up your Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently (for a terrible off-the-cuff example), but once you hit those prerequisites and level, you get your Sneak Attack and other special abilities...

Tyndmyr
2011-04-14, 02:31 PM
Yeah, but if you have any skill overlap at all, multiclassing becomes...interesting. Let alone prestige classes.

Typewriter
2011-04-14, 02:51 PM
My group uses a 'grow up' session in which we go through challenges and apprenticeships while going from children to adult. Different actions lead to different stat bonuses. Kids who make intelligent decisions get WIS, kids who spend all their time studying get INT, etc. etc.

As long as the players trust the DM this systme works really well and it gets people to play things they've roleplayed into.

The first time I used it one of my players was trying to be a rogue, but his master was continually unimpressed with him as he failed several little 'challenges'*, so he eventually wound up with an arcane apprenticeship. He wound up as a bard and he still says that it was one of his favorite characters (this occured about 4 years ago).

*Challenge
I had a list of things that could happen to kids while they were growing up, and I rolled to see what happened to who. One year this player got sick, so his rogue master came to see him at home. He had been learning about arteries and the like, but the master was trying to move on to more subtle acts.

He stabbed the player in an arterie in the leg, then left him there to deal with it (at the age of 14). I told the player that he could tell he only had about a minute before losing consciousness, and possibly dying from blood loss.

He called for his mom, and when she asked what happened he said he fell. While still laying in his bed. Under the covers.

ericgrau
2011-04-14, 02:51 PM
Each class could have an xp cost for each special ability, equal to XX x level. Once you buy them all you're allowed to start buying the next level's abilities. You'd have to spend time semi-leveling after every fight but it might be interesting.

For example fighter gets 19 BAB, +22 in saves, +11 feats over 19 levels, averaging to 1 BAB, +1.16 saves, +0.58 feats per level
+1 BAB: 500 xp x level (500xlevel avg.)
+1 feat: 430 xp x level (250xlevel avg.)
+1 to a single save: 215 xp x level (250xlevel ag.)

You spend xp buying whatever you're allowed to get next level, and can't buy things from the level after that until you finish with that level. Obviously I picked fighter because it's easiest, but something similar could apply to others. What's more interesting is "x level" can be total level for martial classes and caster level for casters, possibly making it a lower number for them and not so bad to multiclass into casting.

WitchSlayer
2011-04-14, 03:22 PM
The problem with the buying things with XP system is that I've noticed, especially with White Wolf, that you tend to become very starved for experience.

Weimann
2011-04-14, 03:36 PM
That must surely be a function of the price of different traits and the mean amount of xp awarded for doing stuff. You'd have to tweak both those, of course.

Vemynal
2011-04-14, 03:38 PM
this sounds to me like someone's trying to use the elder scrolls style of level advancement for a D&D game.

In this situation "level" is more a title that scales the world around u rather than a reflection over all of the players power

dps
2011-04-14, 04:10 PM
this sounds to me like someone's trying to use the elder scrolls style of level advancement for a D&D game.

In this situation "level" is more a title that scales the world around u rather than a reflection over all of the players power

That's true of Morrowind and Oblivion, but not so much for Daggerfall. But yeah, it does sound like the system from TES. I'd say it's better suited to CRPGs than to pen-and-paper gaming.

Nero24200
2011-04-14, 04:15 PM
To me this doesn't sound too different from the class system in Dungeon Seige, where your class was determined by your melee/ranged/combat magic/nature magic skills (a high melee skill for instance made your class squire or knight with levels, combining with other skills like Nature magic could cahnge your class to priest for instance). The effect was...well...pointless, it was just a minor aestetic.

Ont he other hand, if these classes actively reward the players then another problem arises - Characters start to look the same. For instance, if I provide a bonus to characters that take a set list of defensive abilities (such as ability X, Y and Z) with a special feature, then all that really means is that any character that takes ability X and Y is almost always going to take Z as well, since they not only gain Z but an extra ability on top it. All that will really happen is that characters will fall into archtypes.

Welknair
2011-04-14, 07:50 PM
I'm currently working on my own system which happens to be a 2d10 game. I don't have classes, but instead "Paths" which you can progress down when you meet the prerequisites. I never liked the idea of a character being entirely defined by their class. Just too abstract for me. But on the other hand, a mechanic at least similar to classes is necessary for all the cool specialized stuff that would require similarly specialized training, as with PrCs.

Lord Vampyre
2011-04-14, 08:36 PM
I'm currently working on my own system which happens to be a 2d10 game. I don't have classes, but instead "Paths" which you can progress down when you meet the prerequisites. I never liked the idea of a character being entirely defined by their class. Just too abstract for me. But on the other hand, a mechanic at least similar to classes is necessary for all the cool specialized stuff that would require similarly specialized training, as with PrCs.

This reminds me of WHFRPG with their occupations system, where as you complete one occupation, you are given the option of branching off into a number of other occupations. Except for the Wizard and Priest everything else began to look rather similar. Also, the only way to become a Wizard or Priest of any worth was to stay on the straight and narrow path.

Partysan
2011-04-15, 09:29 AM
I think it's somehow funny that a majority of posters think about this system in the framework of D&D. This kind of system is actually used in skill-based systems, not so much in systems like D&D.