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View Full Version : Combat class and noncombat class: has this been done before and how?



Jormengand
2015-05-17, 12:49 PM
Long story short: I'm making an RPG and it has "Associations" which are basically classes much like fighter, paladin, and warmage, and "Professions" which are more non-combat related, like rogue, factotum, and to an extent bard. Are there any RPGs which already do something similar and if so, how well does it work? Can anyone think of anything that could go wrong with this? (OTHER than "You're using classes and that's bad!")

Milodiah
2015-05-17, 02:36 PM
...do you mean each character has both a set of combat skills and a set of noncombat skills? That could prove to be a good idea. I mean, short of professional soldiers, most people in any setting have both sets of skills in varying ratios.

However, if you're saying you're just drawing a line between combat and noncombat classes and leaving it at that, I don't see the point. All you're doing is reinforcing the notion that some party members should just go sit over there during the fight, and tag-team with the guys who did the fight when it's time to read the map.

I will say, though, that some games have actually managed to do something like that with some degree of success. Rifts notably has character classes that are clearly biased towards one way or the other without feeling unbalanced - but that's because everything is so unbalanced that it balances out in its own weird way...

Jormengand
2015-05-17, 02:50 PM
...do you mean each character has both a set of combat skills and a set of noncombat skills? That could prove to be a good idea. I mean, short of professional soldiers, most people in any setting have both sets of skills in varying ratios.

Yeah, I'm saying this. You always have an association and a profession, much like a gestalt (only professions only have class features, class skills, and nothing else).

Though you can go mage's association and magical profession, or warrior's association and martial background, but they still give you very different things.

GorinichSerpant
2015-05-17, 05:30 PM
An RPG based on the Onepiece anime/manga called Onepiece D20 did precisely this do to how said anime/manga worked. Here is a link to the site it's on. http://badkarmagames.com/projects/one-piece-d20/

LibraryOgre
2015-05-17, 06:28 PM
To an extent, this is what 4e did. With a couple of exceptions, your skills were more or less divorced from your combat abilities, and so you could be a fighter who was an expert in history, or zoology, or a rogue who was really good at cheesemaking.

Jormengand
2015-05-17, 06:39 PM
An RPG based on the Onepiece anime/manga called Onepiece D20 did precisely this do to how said anime/manga worked. Here is a link to the site it's on. http://badkarmagames.com/projects/one-piece-d20/

Oh, neat. Any word on how well it works?


To an extent, this is what 4e did. With a couple of exceptions, your skills were more or less divorced from your combat abilities, and so you could be a fighter who was an expert in history, or zoology, or a rogue who was really good at cheesemaking.

Hmm, yeah, but it's not like that wasn't a thing in 3.5. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html) I'm talking more about two separate classes, and how that would work, rather than skill ranks.

LibraryOgre
2015-05-17, 07:07 PM
Hmm, yeah, but it's not like that wasn't a thing in 3.5. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html) I'm talking more about two separate classes, and how that would work, rather than skill ranks.

Robotech's Southern Cross did this to an extent; your OCC determined some of your skills, but you also had a separate MOS; so all ATAC pilots had a bunch of common skills, but you'd have mechanic pilots, weapon specialist pilots, eletrician pilots, military intelligence pilots, etc.

Wartex1
2015-05-17, 07:56 PM
5E can do this as well with backgrounds. They don't progress though.

goto124
2015-05-17, 09:15 PM
To an extent, this is what 4e did. With a couple of exceptions, your skills were more or less divorced from your combat abilities, and so you could be a fighter who was an expert in history, or zoology, or a rogue who was really good at cheesemaking.

This could have the advantage of going anti-Stormwind-fallacy: encouraging players to pick up nonessential skills without having to lose combat ability.

GorinichSerpant
2015-05-17, 10:10 PM
Oh, neat. Any word on how well it works?


Sadly no, I'm what you might call a theoretical GM, in theory I've read how various systems work, in practice I haven't been able to fully explain risus to my players.