Mix & Match Paths & Classes

[AugustNights]

I'm still poking through the PHB, and I keep finding myself coming back to the idea that some Paths might be fun to tweak a little and play in other classes.
Has anyone toyed around with this with any success? Failure? Interesting notes?
I don't think the all the paths all occur at the same time, and some are obviously meant to only work with their class... but I can't help wondering how things like Arcane Trickster Fighter, Great Old One Cleric, Way of The Four Elements Sorcerer, Oath of Vengeance Ranger, and similar things might work out.
Thoughts?

[Yorrin]

I've given it a passing thought, but the main problem as I see it lies in the fact that not all subclasses gain the same number of abilities. So even if you mapped it to the appropriate levels in another class in many cases you'd end up with too many or too few features.

[TheOOB]

This wouldn't work. I love the idea of adapting class archetypes to other classes, but archetypes have different power levels.

For example, a Ranger Archtype is very powerful and represents a huge part of the rangers abilitys and impact on a fight, where as a wizards archtype is more of a collection of small but useful abilitys that help theme them and guide their spell selection. A ranger without an archtype would be an incomplete class not worth playing, whereas a wizard with no archtype would be fine power wise with just spells. Thus the idea of a beastmaster wizard would be super overpowered.

[Person_Man]

In my ideal 5E game design, they would have given each class 4 Legend style Tracks or Tome of Battle Disciples, and all abilities fully and automatically scale (so you don't need higher level versions of the same thing, which caused a ton of repetition and annoyance in 4E). Then multi-classing and creating new "archetypes" would be dirt simple and balanced, because you could just swap out Tracks or Disciplines. But sadly, it was not to be. However, I look forward to the 5E clones that will be coming out next year, once someone with a good lawyer retrofits it using the 3.5 OGL.

[Ramshack]

In our campaigns we can switch out similar level abilities from various paths. For example our Paladin wanted the path of Nature, but she really liked one of the channel divinity options from the path of devotion so we swapped it out. Another wanted the frenzy barbarian path but wanted the damage resistance from bear totem instead of the bonus attack action. DM get's final approval but it's been fine so far.

I'd much rather the book have outlined each level as a choice of options and each class feature you can choose one of x,y or z. The next class feature you gain you can either pick from a new batch, or from a previous feature you didn't pick earlier. I really love the idea of a completely customizeable character that way.

[archaeo]

I think other people have already covered why this would be really difficult, at least for an easy swap-it-and-forget-it style of customization. It would be easier to design a subclass that acted as a mini-multiclass, like the EK does for Fighter. Some classes have subclasses that do almost all of the "work" (Ranger comes to mind) while others have very small subclass impact (Monk, perhaps).

Lots of sources have the DMG including rules for customizing subclasses, however.


In my ideal 5E game design, they would have given each class 4 Legend style Tracks or Tome of Battle Disciples, and all abilities fully and automatically scale (so you don't need higher level versions of the same thing, which caused a ton of repetition and annoyance in 4E). Then multi-classing and creating new "archetypes" would be dirt simple and balanced, because you could just swap out Tracks or Disciplines. But sadly, it was not to be. However, I look forward to the 5E clones that will be coming out next year, once someone with a good lawyer retrofits it using the 3.5 OGL.

Why would you bother with saddling yourself with all the baggage that comes with the OGL? At that point, if your goal is to be 2innovative4D&D, why spend any time at all trying to tie yourself down?

[Yorrin]

In my ideal 5E game design, they would have given each class 4 Legend style Tracks or Tome of Battle Disciples, and all abilities fully and automatically scale (so you don't need higher level versions of the same thing, which caused a ton of repetition and annoyance in 4E). Then multi-classing and creating new "archetypes" would be dirt simple and balanced, because you could just swap out Tracks or Disciplines. But sadly, it was not to be.

+1
Yes, taking a page from Legend would have been ideal here. It's what I was hoping would happen until I got my PHB and saw that it was not to be so.

[Person_Man]

Why would you bother with saddling yourself with all the baggage that comes with the OGL? At that point, if your goal is to be 2innovative4D&D, why spend any time at all trying to tie yourself down?

Very fair point.

But my thinking is that if you're keeping, say, 70%ish of the basic structure of 5E D&D, then WotC could sue you for Copyright infringement, because you're basically plagiarizing their work. I'm not sure if they'd win or not. But they'd certainly try to make an example of you, and Hasbro literally has hundreds of lawyers working for it.

However, anything drawn directly from the OGL is fair game for anyone who cites it. And the vast majority of players know exactly what you're talking about when you use phrases like hit points, armor class, saving throws, etc. You don't have to create ersatz versions of everything you want to use (vitality points, armor defense, resistance check, etc)

[archaeo]

Very fair point.

But my thinking is that if you're keeping, say, 70%ish of the basic structure of 5E D&D, then WotC could sue you for Copyright infringement, because you're basically plagiarizing their work. I'm not sure if they'd win or not. But they'd certainly try to make an example of you, and Hasbro literally has hundreds of lawyers working for it.

However, anything drawn directly from the OGL is fair game for anyone who cites it. And the vast majority of players know exactly what you're talking about when you use phrases like hit points, armor class, saving throws, etc. You don't have to create ersatz versions of everything you want to use (vitality points, armor defense, resistance check, etc)

Hm, that definitely makes a lot of sense. Good points, Person Man.

I'm nevertheless interested in hearing what Mearls was talking about between the lines in one of those very late L&L articles about the forthcoming licensing scheme; there was definitely something in there that wasn't the SRD and wasn't the OGL, and it'll be really interesting to see what that is. If it's permissive enough, heck, you could probably just do it as a big third-party module. I mean, if that license is big enough, I would also definitely want to see the third-party module from Lokiare, too! But we'll have to wait and see, as usual.

On the topic of lawyers, it definitely seems like a lot remains to be decided, especially given Wizards of the Coast v. Cryptozoic/Hex Entertainment (http://www.cardboardconnection.com/news/law-cards-cryptozoic-rants-wizards-coast).