Smoothing out the core classes

[foobar1969]

Foobar's Core Class Cleanup

v0.4 - zeros for casters.
v0.3 - tier 1 tables, crazy ideas.
v0.2 - background skills, spells known, paladin cha.
v0.1 - original post

My design goals:
* every class gets something at every level; levels 10-20 should be fairly flat.
* make changes as small as possible (but no smaller); avoid new features or splatbook imports.
* compress towards tier 3.

My main methods:
* make spell progressions less quadratic.
* weak martial levels get bonus feats (fighter, skills, etc, but not magic stuff).

BACKGROUND SKILLS (all classes):
* At character creation, pick any two untrained or knowledge skills as permanent class skills.
(Yeah, this is basically a new feature, but the alternative is adding class skills individually.)

FIGHTER:
4 skill points.
Bonus feats at 3,5,7,...,19 (empty levels).

MONK:
6 skill points.
Full BAB.
Bonus feats at 3,8,14,18 (slow fall et al).

PALADIN:
4 skill points.
Add smites & bonus feats (see table).
Increased casting progression, based on Charisma, caster level = paladin level.
Pa1 : - - - - : Det.Evil, Smite 1
Pa2 : 0 - - - : D.Grace, LayHands
Pa3 : 1 - - - : Courage, D.Health
Pa4 : 2 - - - : TurnUnd, Smite 2
Pa5 : 2 0 - - : Special Mount
Pa6 : 3 0 - - : Remove Disease 1
Pa7 : 3 1 - - : Smite 3
Pa8 : 3 1 0 - : Bonus Feat
Pa9 : 4 1 0 - : Remove Disease 2
P10 : 4 2 0 - : Smite 4
P11 : 4 2 1 - : Bonus Feat
P12 : 5 2 1 0 : Remove Disease 3
P13 : 5 3 1 0 : Smite 5
P14 : 5 3 2 0 : Bonus Feat
P15 : 5 3 2 1 : Remove Disease 4
P16 : 5 4 2 1 : Smite 6
P17 : 5 4 3 1 : Bonus Feat
P18 : 5 4 3 2 : Remove Disease 5
P19 : 5 4 4 2 : Smite 7
P20 : 5 4 4 3 : Bonus Feat

BARBARIAN:
+1 Dex at 9
+1 Con at 15
+1 Str at 18

RANGER:
Caster & companion level = ranger level.
Increased casting progression (see paladin).
Combat style capstone (weapon bonus feat) at 19.

ROGUE:
Weapon finesse at 2.
Bonus feats at 14,20 (empty levels).

BARD:
May retrain one spell every level-up (without the "two levels lower" limit).
Spells known = spells per day +2.
Smoother casting progression, slightly less high end:
B 1 : 2 0
B 2 : 3 1
B 3 : 4 2
B 4 : 4 3 0
B 5 : 5 3 1
B 6 : 5 4 2
B 7 : 5 4 3 0
B 8 : 5 4 3 1
B 9 : 6 4 3 2
B10 : 6 4 4 2 0
B11 : 6 4 4 2 1
B12 : 6 5 4 2 2
B13 : 6 5 4 3 2 0
B14 : 6 5 4 3 2 1
B15 : 6 5 4 3 2 2
B16 : 6 5 4 3 3 2 0
B17 : 6 5 4 3 3 2 1
B18 : 6 5 4 4 4 2 1
B19 : 6 5 5 4 4 3 1
B20 : 6 6 5 4 4 3 2

SORCERER:
Arcane Bonus Feats at 5,10,15,20 (metamagic & similar).
May retrain one spell every level-up (without the "two levels lower" limit).
Spells known = spells per day +1.
Zeros, more low end casting, a lot less high end.
S 1 : 5 3
S 2 : 6 5
S 3 : 7 6 0
S 4 : 8 6 2
S 5 : 8 6 4 0
S 6 : 8 6 5 2
S 7 : 8 6 5 4 0
S 8 : 8 6 6 4 2
S 9 : 8 6 6 4 4 0
S10 : 8 7 6 4 4 2
S11 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 0
S12 : 8 7 6 5 4 4 1
S13 : 8 7 6 5 5 4 2 0
S14 : 8 7 6 5 5 4 3 1
S15 : 8 7 7 5 5 4 3 2 0
S16 : 8 7 7 5 5 4 4 2 1
S17 : 8 7 7 5 5 4 4 2 2 0
S18 : 8 7 7 6 5 4 4 2 2 1
S19 : 8 7 7 6 5 4 4 3 3 1
S20 : 8 7 7 6 5 5 4 3 3 2

CLERIC:
Zeroes, more low end casting, a lot less high end.
C 1 : 5 2
C 2 : 6 3
C 3 : 7 4 d (domain slot & bonus spells)
C 4 : 7 5 2
C 5 : 7 6 3 d
C 6 : 7 6 4 2
C 7 : 7 7 4 3 d
C 8 : 7 7 5 3 2
C 9 : 7 7 5 3 3 d
C10 : 7 7 5 4 3 2
C11 : 7 7 5 5 4 2 d
C12 : 7 7 6 5 4 2 2
C13 : 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 d
C14 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2
C15 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 2 d
C16 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 2 2
C17 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 3 2 d
C18 : 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 3 2 2
C19 : 8 7 6 5 5 4 3 3 2 2
C20 : 8 7 6 6 5 4 4 3 2 2

DRUID & WIZARD:
(What if we gave them d6 hit dice? Sorc too.)
Zeroes, more low end casting, a lot less high end.
W 1 : 4 1
W 2 : 5 2
W 3 : 6 3 0
W 4 : 6 4 1
W 5 : 6 5 2 0
W 6 : 6 5 3 1
W 7 : 6 6 3 2 0
W 8 : 6 6 4 2 1
W 9 : 6 6 4 2 2 0
W10 : 6 6 4 3 2 1
W11 : 6 6 4 4 3 1 0
W12 : 6 6 5 4 3 1 1
W13 : 6 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
W14 : 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1
W15 : 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 0
W16 : 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 1
W17 : 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 2 1 0
W18 : 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 2 1 1
W19 : 7 6 5 4 4 3 2 2 1 1
W20 : 7 6 5 5 4 3 3 2 1 1

[T.G. Oskar]

Could work a bit more, but it's mostly working as expected.

Fighter: No matter how many bonus feats you add it, it doesn't improve its Tier. While adding more feats does make for achieving builds faster and get a slight flexibility in combat (as you can dive into another fighting style), it keeps the same skill list. The Fighter could use a few more skills, such as Listen and Spot: after all, early levels you can expect the Fighter to be the point man AND the first watch, and it's weird that the class lacks those skills. It also justifies having the Fighter gain more skill points and still motivates a degree of points in Intelligence (at least not 8, maybe 10) to nudge a few more skills out of it.

Monk: Still doesn't solve the key problems of the Monk (lack of focus). Full BAB makes it a tad better at combat, but you're still having a very mobile class whose main combat skill relies on you to stand still; that has impressive defenses but still relies on Strength to deal good damage, and that has many excuses not to wear magic items but is highly reliant on them (and on buffs, which are affected by its spell resistance). The bonus fighter feats are...cute, I'd say, but not enough. Smoothing out means you should add something like "grant Weapon Finesse or Insightful Strike at 1st level; replace Strength with either Dexterity or Wisdom to damage rolls with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons" (means you don't have to worry that much about Strength), replace Flurry of Blows with Snap Kick (as a standard action) or perhaps Whirlwind Strike (as a full-round action) so that you have ways of using this skill appropriately, and maybe add more uses of Abundant Step and Quivering Palm. You'll notice that Monk is not an easy class to patch: there's several Monk fixes out there, and while most agree on certain aspects, not all agree on what exactly to fix.

Paladin: This is a quick & dirty patch I can support. It deals with a lot of problems (lack of feats are dealt with bonus feats, good amount of skill points means you can ditch Int, early spell progression and full CL means spells are worthwhile), but I'd remove Remove Disease (redundancy be darned smitten!) since it offers no real purpose (other than, say, be replaced with ACFs). Extra Smites (a la Pathfinder) are also pretty decent, but simplifying how it works would help it a lot more (say, making it apply to any one melee attack during the round as a swift action, thus allowing its use on full attacks). All it needs is to apply Charisma as a spellcasting stat and you have a winner here.

Barbarian: Maybe it's just me, but I feel the Barbarian doesn't really need the Fighter bonus feats. Sure, it could use some aid, but not like that. Sure, the bonus feats are decent, but the Fighter gets a set of feats that imply military training and a degree of combat knowledge that clashes thematically with the Barbarian's wild approach to combat. A tailor-made feat list would work, but that's a lot more work, so I can understand why simplicity and practicality supersedes a better approach, but I'm not really that convinced. The Barbarian doesn't really need a lot of help, since Rage IS a great class feature on its own, and it invites fighting with two-handed weapons, which is the simplest and most efficient way of combat after all.

Ranger: Another pretty decent move. A full-level animal companion means the Ranger doesn't have an eventual liability at high levels, but won't offer the buffs a Druid can provide (on the other hand, it makes both combat styles a lot more attractive, as TWF and your companion means a good flanking beat-up and with Archery, you have a solid meatshield to distract the enemy). The 19th level combat style capstone is as cute as the bonus feats of the Monk: something nice, but not necessary. Boost Favored Enemy and you get a winner (why increase only ONE FE every 5 levels, instead of automatically boosting all chosen FEs instead? It's only a +10 to certain skills and damage, after all; nothing like the contingencies of the Wizard...)

Rogue: Weapon Finesse is a good move, though gained a tad late. The Fighter feats, once again, are decent but not something amazing - you're relying too much on that concept (though it IS part of your design philosophy), but it only helps the Rogue in combat. The main problem of the Rogue is mostly in combat, which the feats help subside...by 8th level, though, you only get 1 specific feat that you're probably aiming to get and one free feat, but by then you don't have an incentive to go full Rogue. Thus: it's a decent move, but it feels like it falls flat somewhere, and it's only because I'm not a native skill-monkey player that I can't help as much.

Bard: I feel that the Bard didn't need the nerf. When dealing with spellcasters, the Bard is one of the few you shouldn't touch, since they're right at the point where they're functional without being broken.

Sorcerer: The Sorcerer is powerful on its own because of its spells, but you're doing nothing to help it; nerfing it isn't the solution. It takes a savvy player to break the Sorcerer (one that knows which spells have the most utility), so reducing its higher level spells won't help in anything. I'd consider adding them...something, at least to make those first 10 levels attractive. They gain nothing. That's bad.

Cleric, Druid, Wizard: Less spells mean nothing. They're still untouched. The Druid having less spells does nothing to reduce its power: it still has Wild Shape at full strength, an animal companion at full strength, and access to all its spells. At most, they're playing with a handicap and STILL are Tier 1. 5e dealt with those classes by handling how spells work (mostly with buffing spells and concentration), which is far more than reducing the amount of spells they can prepare. I'd largely tell you to reconsider what is wrong with them before working with patching them.

[Zireael]

'No empty levels' is a goal I can agree with wholeheartedly.

I also like your spell retraining rule.

However, as fas as I can see, of your patches so far only the Fighter and Paladin accomplish that. As already said, more feats for the Fighter do not make it better. It's missing skills and skill points.

I don't think the barbarian needs any more feats, either.


Weapon Finesse is a good move, though gained a tad late.

How is rogue 2 'a tad late'?

[foobar1969]

Could work a bit more, but it's mostly working as expected.
Thanks for the feedback.

Fighter: Good point; added Background Skills.
Monk: Agree, it's a hard class to fix. The recommendation in my group is "unarmed swordsage".
Paladin: Good idea about Cha casting.

Tier 4: Agree, feats aren't great, they're just the simplest way to improve weak/empty levels. I'll bump everyone up from FBFs to generic feats.

Bard: My progression stays about even with core until level 16, it just flattens the huge power jump at the top levels. But I'll add more spells known to compensate.

Sorcerer: My progression was better than core at low levels (especially 3 & 5), but yeah I'll boost them a bit, and more spells known.

All full casters: I'm just making the gain per level more linear. They can still break the game, but maybe only once a day instead of multiple times.

[Zireael]

More linear spell gain is a good idea.

I love the background skills solution.

[T.G. Oskar]

However, as fas as I can see, of your patches so far only the Fighter and Paladin accomplish that. As already said, more feats for the Fighter do not make it better. It's missing skills and skill points.

Actually, the first version had 4 skill points. No need to have six; four is more than enough. Missing skills like Listen/Spot, though, would allow for some flexibility on a class that's combat-centric to do something outside of combat, and relying on its main talent for survivability.


How is rogue 2 'a tad late'?

If you want to make good use of Dexterity, you need to have low Strength. Level 1 is where a feat like Weapon Finesse is most needed, because the Rogue lacks ANY bonus to attack rolls. That means you need to spend one level, perhaps the deadliest of them all, either fighting from afar OR making lousy rolls in melee to compensate. Getting some Strength to compensate kinda defeats the point of getting Weapon Finesse and not use it anymore afterwards. Therefore, it's a late gain...but not so late as to make it worthless, because you haven't gotten your first Ability Score Increase, which can be geared thus towards another stat.


Bard: My progression stays about even with core until level 16, it just flattens the huge power jump at the top levels. But I'll add more spells known to compensate.

Whether it's similar or not to Core by those levels doesn't mean the Bard deserves to have its spellcasting nixed at the last four. In practical terms, the hit won't be felt, since you need to have at least 17 levels of Bardic spellcasting to notice the difference, but the Bard doesn't necessarily break the game in the same way as Tier 1/2 full casters do to merit that reduction. The Bard is fine as-is, IMO, although the ability to cast spells from 1st level is a wise move (even if it's only the ones based on Charisma).


Sorcerer: My progression was better than core at low levels (especially 3 & 5), but yeah I'll boost them a bit, and more spells known.

More spells known doesn't do much. It helps, of course, but in the same way free feats help: they're a nice gift, but nowhere near as good as an actual class feature. Something like what Pathfinder or D&D 5e did with the sorcerer is good: free feats, but from the list of Draconic OR Heritage (Complete Mage) feats only, representing your lineage (aka, your Bloodline or Sorcerous Origin). That leaves Sorcerers with enough base feats for what they really need, and some of them give them extra spells (at least Draconic Legacy does) to learn. That seems like a quick, dirty and practical fix, but it relies on having the Sorcerer rely on splats. Another good idea is to make it metamagic, Draconic or heritage feats only, making it somewhat similar to what the Wizard gets but with its own flair (no item creation feats, however). The Paladin could, as a way of expansion, get access to Fighter bonus feats or divine feats to key on its strengths.


All full casters: I'm just making the gain per level more linear. They can still break the game, but maybe only once a day instead of multiple times.

Again: doesn't help much. The thing with full spellcasters is that, once they're out of spells to cast, they're worthless, so they ask the party to stop (the "15-minute workday" concept). Even with a caster not attempting to go nova (i.e., casting all its spells in one battle) and spreading its spells through several battles, it motivates going to rest faster, which in term leads to solving nothing as the caster is almost always at full strength. The core of the problem, the spells themselves, haven't been dealt with, therefore it's like solving nothing. As it stands, you can reduce the spellcaster to one spell from 6th to 9th level, and you'd still have Tier 1 casters, because their problem isn't the number of spell slots but the spells themselves. However, this isn't a quick and dirty fix; this is a fix that requires scouring though the ENTIRETY of the spell list to handle, and is akin to a major system rewrite.

As an ending allegory: a sorcerer might have one nuke, but it STILL has a nuke; it just has one kind of core. The Wizard has less rockets to fire, but a much wider variety; you can reduce those rockets, but when you need to nuke things, the Wizard will have the most efficient nuke. Ergo, the Wizard is more powerful than the Sorcerer because of efficiency (that the Wizard KNOWS which one to use, keeping the allegory, is the big question).

[foobar1969]

Thanks again for the detailed feedback. I added more low level spells. Yes, fully solving the caster tier problem is beyond my intentionally modest goals.

* adjusted tier 1 is less powerful at high levels, but still enough spells for a full work day.
* same for adjusted sorcerer (and bard to a lesser extent) but more flexibility.
* adjusted tier 5 is clearly more capable than before (and tier 4 to a lesser extent).


More spells known doesn't do much. It helps, of course, but in the same way free feats help: they're a nice gift, but nowhere near as good as an actual class feature. Something like what Pathfinder or D&D 5e did with the sorcerer is good: free feats, { . . . }

As an ending allegory: a sorcerer might have one nuke, but it STILL has a nuke; it just has one kind of core. The Wizard has less rockets to fire, but a much wider variety; you can reduce those rockets, but when you need to nuke things, the Wizard will have the most efficient nuke.

I would think that increasing spells known is a good way to mitigate this. Having 50% more options means you can set a few aside for niche spells.

But adding feats is also an easy change to make.