Themed Classes

[tedcahill2]

I'm toying around with an idea where each race has a class affinity, instead of a favored class, and members of that race can only choose from classes within that affinity group.

Examples:
Dragonfire Affinity: Dragon Shaman, Dragonfire Adept (will make or seek out a skill based dragonfire class)
Arcane Affinity: Wizard, Duskblade, Spellthief, Bard
Divine Affinity: Favored Soul, Cleric, Paladin
Nature Affinity: Ranger, Druid, Barbarian
Mundane Affinity: Fighter, Rogue, Swashbuckler
Psionic Affinity: Psion, Ardent, Soulknife

The list of affinities above are the ones that I think would cover the broadest list of classes (except dragonfire which has a very narrow focus but I want to keep it)

Can anyone think of other affinities that I should include? Or help me categorize other classes? I want to eventually narrow down each affinity to include one caster type, one warrior type, and one expert type only.

[Graysire]

Perhaps a Deceit Affinity? Having Rogue for expert, Bard for caster, and maybe Swashbuckler works well enough for warrior? Deceit is probably not theb est name either.

[Ruethgar]

Rename Mundane to Martial. Pact affinity with Binder, Warlock and maybe Incarnate or something like that.

For deceit, I would suggest Beguiler over Bard.

You also should have something in there for Monk/Swordsage not sure what to call it though.

[GilesTheCleric]

Why not create some sort of rubrick instead of trying to apply a tiny change individually to thousands of races? Eg. any race with a +dex bump has an affinity for tricky classes (rogue, factotum, etc).

[noce]

Draconic Affinity: Dragon Shaman, Dragonfire Adept, Sorcerer

Arcane Affinity: Wizard, Duskblade, Spellthief

Divine Affinity: Cleric, Paladin, Divine Mind

Nature Affinity: Ranger, Druid, Barbarian

Battlefield Affinity: Fighter, Scout, Warmage

Bushido Affinity: Ninja, Monk, Samurai

Psionic Affinity: Psion, Lurk, Psychic Warrior

Street Affinity: Bard, Rogue, Swashbuckler

Soul Affinity: Favored Soul, Soulborn, Soulknife

Spirit Affinity: Spirit Shaman, Totemist, Swordsage

Shadow Affinity: Beguiler, Hexblade, Shadowcaster, Dread Necromancer

Witchcraft Affinity: Binder, Warlock, Truenamer

Philosophy Affinity: Shugenja, Wu Jen, Ardent

Passion Affinity: Crusader, Incarnate, Wilder

Commitment Affinity: Archivist, Factotum, Warblade

Protection Affinity: Healer, Knight, Marshal


I'm not a native English speaker, so Affinity names could sound different from what I mean.
Red picks are particularly bad picks, either because classes involved are weak or because they're too narrow in scope.
Blue picks are particularly good picks, mostly because classes are good.
Black picks are in-between.

I suggest you to give each race at least two choices, but neither both blue nor both red.
Ideally, give each race three affinities, one for each color.

[tedcahill2]

I'm not a native English speaker, so Affinity names could sound different from what I mean.
Red picks are particularly bad picks, either because classes involved are weak or because they're too narrow in scope.
Blue picks are particularly good picks, mostly because classes are good.
Black picks are in-between.

I suggest you to give each race at least two choices, but neither both blue nor both red.
Ideally, give each race three affinities, one for each color.
Wow dude, thanks for running with this. Lots of good ideas in there.

[Deepbluediver]

I'm toying around with an idea where each race has a class affinity, instead of a favored class, and members of that race can only choose from classes within that affinity group.

Examples:
Dragonfire Affinity: Dragon Shaman, Dragonfire Adept (will make or seek out a skill based dragonfire class)
Arcane Affinity: Wizard, Duskblade, Spellthief, Bard
Divine Affinity: Favored Soul, Cleric, Paladin
Nature Affinity: Ranger, Druid, Barbarian
Mundane Affinity: Fighter, Rogue, Swashbuckler
Psionic Affinity: Psion, Ardent, Soulknife

The list of affinities above are the ones that I think would cover the broadest list of classes (except dragonfire which has a very narrow focus but I want to keep it)

Can anyone think of other affinities that I should include? Or help me categorize other classes? I want to eventually narrow down each affinity to include one caster type, one warrior type, and one expert type only.
I had a similar idea myself once, but at the time no one seemed interested. I'm glad to see your thread getting more traction.

I don't have all my notes with me but they way I started doing it was with classes that meet certain criteria, such as "any class that gets 8 skills points per level" and stuff like that.

A few more of the ones I can remember are:

Access to 9th level spells
Uses a d10 or d12 HD
Any full BAB non-caster
etc.


That way you don't have to name specific classes, and it leaves it open to all splatbooks and homebrew.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I am curious what you hope to accomplish by this. It seems like a lot of work to diminish choices and variety and randomly kill off some classes entirely.

[Deepbluediver]

I am curious what you hope to accomplish by this. It seems like a lot of work to diminish choices and variety and randomly kill off some classes entirely.
Race-as-class has come up quite often; some people like it, some don't. Personally I prefer to not restrict races to a class but simply give them a bonus for picking some classes, but for some campaign settings people actually find it easier to balance and world-build if there are fewer possible combinations for players to come up with.