Classless system

[tricktroller]

Ok folks, so I have played in a classless system before and I am thinking about taking a crack at it. My idea is that the iconic abilities will be broken down to their most basic forms.

and then I assigned points to things and I think players will start out with 10 points with which to spend.

1) Unarmored / No Shields 0 *4
2) Light Armor / Light Shields 1 *4
3) Medium Armor / Heavy Shields 2 *4
4) Heavy Armor / Tower Shields 3 *4
5) Full BAB 3 *3
6) 3/4 BAB 2 *3
7) 1/2 BAB 1 *3
8) All Simple Weapon Prof 0 *2
9) All Martial Weapon Prof 2 *2
10) Rage 2
11) Sneak Attack 2
12) Animal Companion 2
13) Bonus Feats 2
14) Turn Undead 2
15) Fast Movement 2
16) Favored Enemy 2
17) Music 2
18) Unarmed Strike Damage 2
19) Trapfinding 1
20) Smite 1
21) Familiar 1
22) Lore 1
23) Flurry of Blows 1
24) Detect Evil 1
25) Arcane Casting 5 *1
26) Divine Casting 5 *1

*1,*2,*3,*4 select only one form each of these groups

I will probably need to do a little balancing with these abilities etc but basically I want to have it so you can play pretty much any character you want. I think humans will get 2 extra points for picking form this list instead of an extra feat and skill points.

Everyone will have d6+4 HP at each level plus con, everyone will have 6 skills + int per level. Might put one in here on the list at 1 or 2 points for +2 skill points per level.

What do you guys think? Also if this is not the right place to be posting this stuff I apologize.

[Zubrowka74]

Should this rather be in the Homebrew section ?

[Asteron]

Ok folks, so I have played in a classless system before and I am thinking about taking a crack at it. My idea is that the iconic abilities will be broken down to their most basic forms.

and then I assigned points to things and I think players will start out with 10 points with which to spend.

1) Unarmored / No Shields 0 *4
2) Light Armor / Light Shields 1 *4
3) Medium Armor / Heavy Shields 2 *4
4) Heavy Armor / Tower Shields 3 *4
5) Full BAB 3 *3
6) 3/4 BAB 2 *3
7) 1/2 BAB 1 *3
8) All Simple Weapon Prof 0 *2
9) All Martial Weapon Prof 2 *2
10) Rage 2
11) Sneak Attack 2
12) Animal Companion 2
13) Bonus Feats 2
14) Turn Undead 2
15) Fast Movement 2
16) Favored Enemy 2
17) Music 2
18) Unarmed Strike Damage 2
19) Trapfinding 1
20) Smite 1
21) Familiar 1
22) Lore 1
23) Flurry of Blows 1
24) Detect Evil 1
25) Arcane Casting 5 *1
26) Divine Casting 5 *1

*1,*2,*3,*4 select only one form each of these groups

I will probably need to do a little balancing with these abilities etc but basically I want to have it so you can play pretty much any character you want. I think humans will get 2 extra points for picking form this list instead of an extra feat and skill points.

Everyone will have d6+4 HP at each level plus con, everyone will have 6 skills + int per level. Might put one in here on the list at 1 or 2 points for +2 skill points per level.

What do you guys think? Also if this is not the right place to be posting this stuff I apologize.

Communist...

[The Rose Dragon]

I'm not sure what the advantages of this are over a proper classless system, like GURPS, Unisystem or Mutants & Masterminds.

[tricktroller]

Mostly I want to keep it the DnD features and feel but allow people to play things that are different form the norm without having to dip a whole bunch of different levels or take a prestige class and be useless until 11th level and then be awesome. This way you could be a useful gish for your entire career. I think it would also help balance out the "classes" a bit by giving everyone the same options and charging more or less points depending on power in game.

[IronFist]

Play Mutants & Masterminds.

[eggynack]

Casting for only half your points seems somewhat undercosted. Like, you could do arcane, full BAB, and martial weapon proficiency, and that'd be a pretty ridiculous gishy build. I mean, you can't pick up a familiar that way, so it might be underpowered, but still.

[genesaika]

Casting for only half your points seems somewhat undercosted. Like, you could do arcane, full BAB, and martial weapon proficiency, and that'd be a pretty ridiculous gishy build. I mean, you can't pick up a familiar that way, so it might be underpowered, but still.

With no armor proficiency and arcane spell failure, what would be the point of your full BAB and weapon proficiency?

I like the idea honestly, play test it and maybe tweak it and it sounds fun. Maybe make a system for minor abilities too?

[eggynack]

With no armor proficiency and arcane spell failure, what would be the point of your full BAB and weapon proficiency?

Not a bad point, but arcane casting has some non-AC defenses, and ASF is irrelevant if you're not running armor anyways. Besides, the specifics aren't really the point. My point, such as it is, is that this system effectively causes you to devote only half of your character resources to casting, and casting on its own makes you one of the most powerful classes in the game. It seems a bit undercosted. Ultimately, it feels like we're in a system that already rewards power gaming, and a point system just doubles down on that factor to some extent.

[tricktroller]

well that is until you realize the spell lists are reduced and the spells per day are changed.

I'm working on overhauling the wizard/cleric spells to make them a bit less broken while still maintaining their power.

[genesaika]

It would help balance it out if you had to pick what HD you have.

Maybe like this;

D4 0 *5
D6 1 *5
D8 2 *5
D10 3 *5

It would make the casters harder to overpower, a bit.

[zlefin]

there's a quite developed one someone made; link is in my signature.

[Epsilon Rose]

This seems like it would result in very bare-bones and generic classes: mostly fighters+x and mages without features.

[tricktroller]

Wizards already don't have a lot of features... This is just the basis for a larger system. I really like the build a char idea I just don't like some of his execution.

I think what this system would really allow for is a lot of variation as opposed to characters who have to take 90 different classes to try to get the class features they want.

[Epsilon Rose]

Wizards already don't have a lot of features... This is just the basis for a larger system. I really like the build a char idea I just don't like some of his execution.
The vanilla casters are all examples of excruciatingly bad design. Try to avoid replicating them.


I think what this system would really allow for is a lot of variation as opposed to characters who have to take 90 different classes to try to get the class features they want.

At the moment, I don't think that's true. I think it will actually force more reliance on prcs for interesting features, because what you have is so limited and generic.

If you really want to fix this, I'd definitely recommend having multiple menus of abilities and taking a look at the one zlefin linked, just so you have a reference outside of wizards.

[tricktroller]

..... That is the idea. This is just the 1st level abilities I am trying to work out as far as costs and available options. There will be more tables based on levels etc. I am currently reading over the generic class character as I already said.

[Epsilon Rose]

Neither of those things were clear. The way you presented the abilities made it seem like they were the whole (or at least main part) of your system and the way you mentioned build a character I, for some reason, thought you might have been talking about something wizards released.

If you actually are going to have multiple menus, I find it slightly odd that things like sa, familiars, and flurry of blows are on the same lost as full bab and armor selection.

[Daer]

seems pretty interesting though personally would wish invocations and something like eldritch blast and breathing weapons there too. (for warlock and dragonfire adept style plays.)

[tricktroller]

My biggest problem with invocations is that they are static 24 hour buffs. I think they are overwhelmingly underpowered in some cases and exceedingly over powered in others. I could see eldritch blast being added in for 4 points probably.

The stuff I have listed in my original post would be the features you can pick at 1st level, I will probably separate them into groupings later on, mostly I was wondering what people thought and if they had any suggestions for additional abilities etc.

I don;t want to copy all of the abilities of every class per se, but I wouldn't mind finding ways to emulate a lot of the classes by mixing and matching stuff on here.

All of the stuff I posted in that first list were the base abilities of 1st level characters in core.

[Green Leviathan]

I would like to see some sort of 1/2 progresstion on spellcasting at a lower price and increase the price of full spellcasting.

[tricktroller]

Do you all think that 10 points at 1st level (with humans getting 2 more) is acceptable or should the points be changed more and get more/less points at first level?

I am thinking about making a half casting progression that gets 4th level spells as its top level of spells but gets a lot of them per day. Like 3-4 firsts level spells at 1st level but they are slower to get new spells and more spells.

[LibraryOgre]

Ok folks, so I have played in a classless system before and I am thinking about taking a crack at it. My idea is that the iconic abilities will be broken down to their most basic forms.


Well, I worked out a classless version of Saga (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/07/classless-saga-and-other-alterations.html). Not the same, but might be where you want to start.

[Epsilon Rose]

Honestly, I don't think that's a good way to do it. Basing a table on first level abilities seems a bit odd, because a lot of those abilities really address different things and impact gameplay in very different ways. They're also all assumed to scale at similar rates, which could break things very easily. It might be better to have tables based on what your selecting for, so the first table might be the approach table and it could have things like bab type, armor type, casting type (partial vs full) and HD. The next table could be something like damage mainstays and it could have stuff like sa, eldritch blasts, breath weapons, proficiencies, flurry, twf, and something to boost bows. That way each table forces you to look at a single problem (how do you approach combat [i.e. Do you soak lots of damage, do you avoid attacks do you focus on making your hits count and do you rely on magic to augment things] and how do you reliably go about delivering damage [i.e. Are you realy good with weapons, do you favor range or lots of attacks and are your basic attacks more super natural]). If you want to get really tricky, you might have your choice in the second table effect how your magic from the first table is delivered or, since you already seem to be redoing spell lists, you could split magic into its various facets so could get defensive and/or healing magic in the first list and offensive magic in the second.