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View Full Version : Miscellaneous thoughts on setting and game design in the D&D "genre"



Inyssius Tor
2012-03-06, 11:00 AM
Okay, so: 5e doesn't look very promising, so I'm making my own game. No, I don't mean "my own forty-page list of 4e or 3.5 houserules", I mean an actual original game. It's likely to be reminiscent of 4e in some manner, but even so it will be much less like it than it was like 3.5.

But I'll keep mechanical details to myself for now. In this thread, I'll be limiting myself primarily to getting the flavor right; that is, working out the setting assumptions I want to keep in mind while doing the more specific design work. Feel free to comment or question or what-have you. That would be awesome. The pact I made with the Raven Queen may grant me youth and power eternal, but she neglected to make explicit that I would literally die and fade into nothingness if I go more than three consecutive days without receiving feedback.

I was going to start with my thoughts on each specific race, but I lost the text file I was keeping those thoughts in and as such am currently too sad to rewrite them. So I guess I'll be starting with class instead.

Unlike with most other things, I will not be tearing the heart out of the class system and attempting to come up with something new to replace it. And unlike basically every other person ever, I will not be attempting to make the classes any more broad and generic than they already are; in fact, I will be attempting to make them less so. I want the mechanical structure of each class to be as distinctive as possible, and obviously I want to base the characteristics that make it distinctive on the specific archetypes that players want to, well... play. So, of course, I need to make sure my classes can cover the stuff that people want to play.

So... here goes.

Inyssius Tor
2012-03-06, 01:58 PM
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, classes.

Every class has a role, or a combination of roles. Leaders make your allies better at their jobs, defenders screw with your enemies in melee, controllers screw with your enemies at range, and skirmishers dart in and out of the fray to eliminate key targets. If you don't want to be good at combat, you simply don't get a class. This will not make you worse at out-of-combat activities. This is a major design goal, but as previously mentioned I won't be getting into that too much right now.

Another--much more minor--thing I should mention before I start is that your AC is going to be mostly decided by your class. You can go the heavy-armor route if your class allows, but you can also dress like a swashbuckling action hero. Obviously, either way has its own advantages and drawbacks, but the basic point is that you don't need two classes for heavy-armor guy and light-armor guy if they would otherwise behave pretty much alike.

Obviously, everything I say, both above and below this line, is subject to change depending on later thoughts, mechanical whatevers, playtesting, or any feedback you guys give me. That said, here, have some some divine classes:

Paladins are leader/defenders; they can lean in either direction or simply take the middle path. They will be retaining their traditional conceptual space. They will also get quite a lot better at divine magic, for the following reasons: one, it makes them cooler (even Paizo agrees with this!); two, the Paladin will be devouring the front-line cleric and taking his power; and three, I'll be providing enough secondary customization options that players who want to be "mostly-martial crusaders with a fair bit of divine magic on the side" can get a perfectly satisfying array of options by simply taking a martial class and gaining divine abilities from other system elements.

Clerics did not make the cut. If you were a front-line cleric, you're a Paladin; if not, you're probably a Priest, or possibly some non-divine class with some divine abilities gained from other system elements. Clerics in 3.5 were a preposterously broad class, even more so than wizards or druids.

Priests are leader/controllers; like Paladins, they can lean in either direction or simply take the middle path. As I covered before, they can wear the traditional D&D cleric's armor or the lighter clothing worn by every other non-martial religious order ever seen in history or mythology or fiction, with equal (but hopefully not identical) effectiveness either way. These guys can take on most of the cleric archetypes not covered by the Paladin, with the probable exception of heavy-duty angel summoning.

(I suspect I won't be able to pin down a workable summoning framework for some time. Probably quite a lot of "some time", because--even more so than normal D&D casters--it's really hard to keep that particular archetype from turning everyone else into glorified BMX Bandits. OD&D "solved" this problem, like most caster problems, by killing them and making them start over before they could go quadratic. 3e "solved" the problem, like all of its many problems, by declaring it a feature instead of a bug. 4e "solved" the problem, uncharacteristically and disappointingly, by essentially saying "No, you can't play a summoner, they're too broken." In my dreams, I would actually get it right, but if that's beyond my power, at least I can hope to fail in some new and interesting way!)

Inyssius Tor
2012-03-06, 08:49 PM
(Shadar-kai jokes aside, I really am influenced hugely by feedback. Positive attention is wonderful, criticism is fascinating, but even straight-up negativity is still way, way better than a total lack of reactions.)

jindra34
2012-03-06, 08:57 PM
If you don't want to be good at combat, you simply don't get a class. This will not make you worse at out-of-combat activities. This is a major design goal, but as previously mentioned I won't be getting into that too much right now.

This is a major problem from what I understand of how you plan to build the system, namely without a class how do you improve and use experience?

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-06, 09:19 PM
There are myriad ways to do that. For example, you could still get skillpoints with levels, but not HP, BAB or saves.

But I don't think getting bogged down on that is what the OP wants.

To the OP: Before seeing such a detailed breakdown of whys and hows of each class, I'd like to see a complete list of classes, with a brief (as in, single sentence) description of their role.

Example, using your posted classes:

Paladin: leader/defender, divine front-line combatant.
Priest: leader/controller, divine support and non-combatant.

Inyssius Tor
2012-03-06, 10:00 PM
This is a major problem from what I understand of how you plan to build the system, namely without a class how do you improve and use experience?

Simple: you get more than one thing that is like a class. Something like three, in fact: a combat path, a noncombat path, and a theme which grants abilities to both. You advance in all three of these at an equal rate as you gain levels.

(I've been using "class" so far to refer exclusively to your combat path, but clearly that is a pretty dumb plan and I do not intend to continue following it for much longer. Working out easily comprehensible terminology is very high on my to-do list, believe you me.)

If you gain an ability from your combat path that could that could see significant use outside of combat, it will take an equivalent amount of resources away from your theme or noncombat path in exchange. This should serve to make, say, Sneak Attack (which is really only good for stabbing things) balanced against, say, Icy Terrain (which can be incredibly handy outside of combat). The guy who takes Sneak Attack will have one more or one better noncombat ability than the Icy Terrain guy, but Icy Terrain effectively is itself both a pretty sweet noncombat ability and a pretty sweet combat one, so I think it can be made to balance out.

And, obviously, if you get a noncombat ability that could be really useful in a fight, the same mechanic works just as well in the opposite direction.

If you think that this could possibly make low-level characters fairly complex, with multiple choices to make in multiple classes even at level 1, you'd be right! Complexity should not increase linearly by level. (Let alone quadratically--I'm looking at you, 3.5 druid!) There are a lot of people to whom tinkering with their character is a significant part of the fun, and I don't want them to be effectively shut out of that fun just because they're playing at low level. Likewise, there are a lot of people to whom tinkering with their character is little more than a time-consuming migraine headache, and I don't want them to overdose on aspirin just because they're playing at high level.

Instead, you should be able to pick how complex you want each of your individual subclasses to be, and that degree of complexity should remain more or less static at any level. If you want to spend a lot of time tweaking your in-combat performance but aren't even a little interested in customizing your skills to the same extent, simply pick the Complex version of your combat path and the Basic version of your noncombat one.

Later, I'll explain how I want to provide the feeling of advancement without piling on the complexity or just giving you bigger numbers, but I suspect this post is more than long enough already.

Inyssius Tor
2012-03-07, 12:18 AM
To the OP: Before seeing such a detailed breakdown of whys and hows of each class, I'd like to see a complete list of classes, with a brief (as in, single sentence) description of their role.

Example, using your posted classes:

Paladin: leader/defender, divine front-line combatant.
Priest: leader/controller, divine support and non-combatant.

That would be a good idea! ...but I'm kind of working these out as I go along. :smallredface:

Classes I've put a good bit of thought into so far: Paladin: leader/defender, divine, front-line character; melee weapons and divine magic.
Priest: leader/controller, divine, caster; ranged support and battlefield control spells.
Fighter: pure defender, martial, front-line character; the standard array of fightery things.
Slayer: pure skirmisher, martial, somewhat less durable front-line character; aggressive, overt, in-your face violence.
Scout: pure skirmisher, martial, good at both melee and range; subtler, precise, especially-mobile violence.
Shifter: [undecided], primal, melee character; changes forms to gain useful physical traits (claws, wings, grappling tentacles, etc).
Swordmage: skirmisher/defender, arcane, front-line character; very mobile weapon-using caster with heavy focus on flashy arcane magic used in melee.
Shadowdancer: skirmisher/controller, shadow, good at both melee and range; very mobile weapon-using caster with heavy focus on shadows and darkness and so on; think original 4e assassin if you're familiar with it.

Classes I haven't thought out as much, want to include as distinct things in some form, and am not yet sure of specifics: Warlord/Marshal
Bard
Artificer (maybe?)
Warlock
Sorcerer (merge with warlock, or find other niche?)
Druid (ultra problematic, probably split into three entire separate archetypes including shifter)
Wizard (way too damn broad in current form)
Warden (great 4e class, possibly too much overlap with fighter and shifter)
Summoner (this one is going to be tough)

Classes that have been devoured by other classes so far: Cleric (mostly priest and paladin; some themes; noncombat paths; miscellaneous other classes)
Rogue (scout)
Ranger (scout for archery and dexterity-ish melee fighting; slayer for in-your-face, make-all-the-attacks melee fighting; themes and noncombat paths for nature magic)
Barbarian (slayer for the normal murdering; [undecided?] for heavy-duty rage powers)
Necromancer (summoner; wizard; themes; noncombat paths)

Classes whose conceptual space just isn't covered here, probably because I've forgotten they existed: ??????????

Gavinfoxx
2012-03-07, 01:00 AM
So. Just curious... but have you looked at Legend?

NikitaDarkstar
2012-03-07, 01:17 AM
Lets see here, it honestly looks like Shadowdancer and Swordmage could just be one class, they don't seem to be that different from each other. (But I could clearly be wrong. :p)

Just hear me out before you shoot that idea down, it looks like you're having issues with your arcane classes in general. Anyway to limit the arcane classes broadness and power have them only focus on one theme, but give them plenty of options.
First youd have your traditional schools (evocation,necromancy,illusion,conjuration and so on) second you'd have the classic elements (earth,wind,fire,water or acid,lightning,fire,cold to use D&D's terms) Life and Death would be divine magic. Either way a spell caster can either pick one (or possibly two as he gains levels) schools of magic and get access to all elemental spells that falls within that school, or pick one element and get access to all school spells that falls within that school.

This way you can have an evoker that can create fireballs, walls of ice, massive gusts of wind and so on. Or a fire elementalist that can, well burn you up in various creative ways. Both would have their ups and downs however. The school specialist would have a broader spectrum of options available and not likely to bump into something he can't do something against. The elementalist would find himself with more limited options and some enemies that he'd be far less effective against but he'd be very,very good at what he did.


Summoners could be possible if their summoning rituals took quite a bit of time and/or they need to either befriend a creature and gain the permission to summon it that way, force a summon and then convince the creature to join his or her cause, or if the summoner and the creature are of completely opposing views, bind the creature/force it into submission. Also I'd make sure it was the same creature the same time. If they summon one angel, it'll always be that angel, if that angel dies they need to befriend/bind/whatever a new angel. The creature would also have their own opinions and such on whatever you're fighting for.

I'd give them some less powerful, mindless summons too that they can pretty much waste, but anything actually powerful would be more along the lines of a summon ally spell than a simple summon spell.

Druids I'd split into subtypes, a shifter, a preserver (guardian of nature and general healer) and an offensive caster. (Hello lightning storm) All three would still be considered druids, but they'd come with their own weaknesses and would never be able to preform more than one task. Yes the shifter might have some theoretical knowledge of healing, but apart from bandaging your wounds and possibly preparing some herbal concoction he won't be able to help you, he simply followed the path of the warrior and wasn't taught healing.

And I see the bard as the jack of all trades, he might go any one way and be decent in another. Knows a little bit of magic, knows a thing or two about defending himself, can be quite charming when needed, pretty decent with sneaking and picking a pocket and so on, but he'll never be a full master of any. Really, as far as I'm concerned D&D did the bard quite well to begin with.

And I'd be more likely to merge the warlock with the swordmage myself or rename them and give them a celestial take to.

I'd also make sure to give a proper archer and the sword and board (sword+shield) fighters a place. The concepts are there and valid, always have been, but at least as far as DnD is concerned mechanic support has been horrid.

erikun
2012-03-07, 01:26 AM
My biggest concern with the Priest is how it will pan out. It would be too easy to end up with an Archivist - basically a Wizard with a divine theme - or with a White Mage - someone who is good at healing and perhaps buffing, but otherwise useless by themselves.


Other than that, summoning could probably work if you devoted a sub-system to it. As in, the summoner would make a contract with a specific creature, perhaps equipping it properly, and summon it when needed. Something like an Animal Companion, although with an intelligent companion and significant abilities.

Minionmancy could work, but if we are talking about 1st level minions for a 10th level character or so. As in, about what you'd expect a decently charismatic Fighter or Bard to amass on their own.

Casually creating a bunch of level-appropriate NPCs to follow you around and do things for you, regardless of a short-term summoning or long-term creation, just isn't going to work. You simply won't be able to balance a 15th level Fighter with someone who can create a limitless supply of 15th level Fighters on their own.