kellandros
2007-03-04, 04:54 PM
I'm not very experienced at designing custom classes, so wanted to get help from the people here.
After looking over the PC's versus army threads, my personal thought is that the fighter class does not fit your standard infantry soldiers very well. Primarily, fighters and their feat chains are primarily about individual enhancement. They do their thing by learning to kill monsters faster.
Fighters and most other PC classes fit in better with the nobility- they can afford the time for training, better equipment and its upkeep. This fits groups like medieval European knights, Japanese samurai. But both of those groups always had footmen and other infantry soldiers arround and supporting them on the battlefield. The footmen have less training, and a lot less armor to protect them. They are more concerned with just staying alive than winning honor and glory.
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What I want to design is a class to represent your basic medium infantry soldier. A single soldier should pretty much always lose to a near-equal level fighter. But three soldiers should be able to defeat a fighter of the same level.
The primary inspiration is Roman legions and Greek phalanxes. Some of my idea is based on History channel and PBS shows, and others come from Harry Turtledove's Videssios novels. The basic combat focus should be on fighting defensively until enough friends join you to gang up on a single target.
Standard equipment should be a large tower shield, some form of stabbing weapon(short sword, spear, etc). Limiting myself for now to just core rules and classes, they should all have Expertise(take a penalty to attack to increase AC). Preffered action in combat should be 4 of them surrounding and flanking a single opponent, all fighting defensively. With flanking bonuses and the multiple attackers, they should start to quickly pick up lucky hits. Add in some AoO and feints, and things go faster.
I've seen some classes on here(city guards) that offer abilities for abilities that improve based on the number of people present with that ability. Probably take a reduced base attack progression for improved save progression?
The first idea that comes to mind is forming a shield wall- get minimum three allies together with large shields forming a physical barrier. They can still attack through the small gaps between shields, probably at some penalty. But the shield mates should be able to work together to block attacks on each other. Classical warfare is to disrupt or break through your opponents formations- if you can knock back or take out the guy in the middle, his neighbors suddenly become much more vulnerable. I'm not sure how to implement this in a balanced way.
Second, some way to represent fighting dirty? Few people are going to be the equal to an experienced soldier at dirty tricks. I can see something like an extension to basic feinting mechanisms- kick a clod of mud at his face. Then probably some sort of advantage to grappling or close range fighting- biting, gouging, strikes to vulnerable areas, things that they don't teach in polite circles.
Optional extra- formation fighting. Maybe treat as a feat? A phalanx is a shield wall with long spears/pikes, that moves together as a group. Anyone who comes within 10 feet gets an AoO from the outer line of spears. People within 5 feet would then get hit by the second row of spears. Those right against the shields may get a third row as well, depending on length of the spears. It would be horribly vulnerable to area effect spells though; maybe offer some sort of improved save based on the physical barrier of the massed shield wall? Would also need some sort of morale check to maintain formation, especially after taking damage/losses.
After looking over the PC's versus army threads, my personal thought is that the fighter class does not fit your standard infantry soldiers very well. Primarily, fighters and their feat chains are primarily about individual enhancement. They do their thing by learning to kill monsters faster.
Fighters and most other PC classes fit in better with the nobility- they can afford the time for training, better equipment and its upkeep. This fits groups like medieval European knights, Japanese samurai. But both of those groups always had footmen and other infantry soldiers arround and supporting them on the battlefield. The footmen have less training, and a lot less armor to protect them. They are more concerned with just staying alive than winning honor and glory.
==================
What I want to design is a class to represent your basic medium infantry soldier. A single soldier should pretty much always lose to a near-equal level fighter. But three soldiers should be able to defeat a fighter of the same level.
The primary inspiration is Roman legions and Greek phalanxes. Some of my idea is based on History channel and PBS shows, and others come from Harry Turtledove's Videssios novels. The basic combat focus should be on fighting defensively until enough friends join you to gang up on a single target.
Standard equipment should be a large tower shield, some form of stabbing weapon(short sword, spear, etc). Limiting myself for now to just core rules and classes, they should all have Expertise(take a penalty to attack to increase AC). Preffered action in combat should be 4 of them surrounding and flanking a single opponent, all fighting defensively. With flanking bonuses and the multiple attackers, they should start to quickly pick up lucky hits. Add in some AoO and feints, and things go faster.
I've seen some classes on here(city guards) that offer abilities for abilities that improve based on the number of people present with that ability. Probably take a reduced base attack progression for improved save progression?
The first idea that comes to mind is forming a shield wall- get minimum three allies together with large shields forming a physical barrier. They can still attack through the small gaps between shields, probably at some penalty. But the shield mates should be able to work together to block attacks on each other. Classical warfare is to disrupt or break through your opponents formations- if you can knock back or take out the guy in the middle, his neighbors suddenly become much more vulnerable. I'm not sure how to implement this in a balanced way.
Second, some way to represent fighting dirty? Few people are going to be the equal to an experienced soldier at dirty tricks. I can see something like an extension to basic feinting mechanisms- kick a clod of mud at his face. Then probably some sort of advantage to grappling or close range fighting- biting, gouging, strikes to vulnerable areas, things that they don't teach in polite circles.
Optional extra- formation fighting. Maybe treat as a feat? A phalanx is a shield wall with long spears/pikes, that moves together as a group. Anyone who comes within 10 feet gets an AoO from the outer line of spears. People within 5 feet would then get hit by the second row of spears. Those right against the shields may get a third row as well, depending on length of the spears. It would be horribly vulnerable to area effect spells though; maybe offer some sort of improved save based on the physical barrier of the massed shield wall? Would also need some sort of morale check to maintain formation, especially after taking damage/losses.