Carl
2019-01-25, 04:53 PM
Working on a re-write again. Currently writing up the altered melee mechanics. Magic and skills aren't quite nailed down in my head but i've got a lot of the pieces, (much more so for magic than skills. Skills are more the basic concept only). However i'm starting to consider, (naturally), how all of this is going to interact with class mechanics, (not specifics, just generalities), and i've realised i've got some holes. The Ranger, Cleric, and Druid are the worst, (as you'll see in a moment), but a few others are giving me issues too.
Obviously given i don't have a full set of mechanics hammered out, (and the changes are extensive enough it's verging on original system territory), for you to read i'm not expecting complex writeups on specifics, i mainly needs some sounding boards to bounce concepts off and to bounce idea's off me in turn that i can use or crib concepts off. You'll see in a second when i cover my thoughts on classes to date the kind of detail i'm talking about.
Also for the sake of argument i'm leaving prestige/multi-class out of this obviously, (i've got a clear idea how i want that to work anyway).
There seems to be some confusion about exactly what i meant with some of the below so i'm going to start out each class entry with a quick set of scores that define how i see them laid out in D&D 3.5. Martial is ability to hit things with melee and ranged weapons. Magic is ability to throw spells at monsters, and skills is ability to do out of combat things. The core point is the sum of their scores, (in my reworked system) in all areas should be the same for all classes, even if it isn't in 3.5.
Well Defined Concepts: These are the most clearly defined in my mind and the ones i probably don't want help with, but i'm listing them anyway so you know which bases are covered.
Barbarian:
Martial: 8
Magic: 0
Skill:2
Ironically the Barbarian is probably the most straightforward of the martial classes under the new system as they're the class that innately cares the least about the new way of handling armour having the best ability to just ignore it both for their own offence and their own defence. At the same time they are offensive biased and this is most visible in the amount of bonus damage they have access to. They're not going to beat a rouge in raw damage output, but they're still one of the higher end martial classes in this area. However when it comes to combat they're strengths are also their limits, they're not very flexible.
Fighter:
Martial: 8
Magic: 0
Skill:2
The fighter remains the jack of all trades, he can build in a whole bunch of different directions and whilst he'll never match any other pure martial class in any of them, he doesn't pickup anything like the same degree of weaknesses ethier. He's got more ability to handle situations outside his ideal for build set. He also generally does the heavily armoured thing better than most as the fighter is one o the classes best suited to using such an equipment setup, which given the way armour has changed is a more useful niche than before.
Semi-Defined Concepts: These are naturally the classes that have a partial or strong focus on magic and/or skills. Since those systems aren't completely nailed down yet it creates some uncertainties and general minor issues nailing them down. Again i'm fairly happy with these, (though of course PEACH away if you want to), but they're not as nailed down compared to the fighter and barbarian.
Rouge:
Martial: 6
Magic: 0
Skill:4
Everyone's favorite skill monkey is definitely going to take at least some hit from the changes to the skill system. But part of the redesign goal there is to cut down on classes that are pure beatsticks only good in combat. So both extremes are going to be moved somewhat towards the middle. That doesn't mean the rouge won't maintain a strong skills tendency, it just won't be so extreme. Froma combat perspective the rouge will bring what will probably be the most extreme damage output of any class, but at the cost of being rather a bit weaker against armour, (this isn't to say armour is a cure all for dealing with a rouge, far from it, just that they're going to need to work in support with others to realise their full potential), the same factors are going to make an armour focused rouge difficult to pull off, but they'll probably cope defensively with magic a bit better than you'd expect in return.
Sourcourer:
Martial: 0
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The sorcerer is in many ways to the wizard as the barbarian is to the fighter. The sorcerer throws lots of spells and those spells hit hard, (be that damage or other effects), but the range of spells they can have available to throw around at any one time is much more limited than the wizard, and whilst they don't have to go all in if they don't want to, doing so is going to wear down their overall resources much faster.
Wizard:
Martial: 0
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The wizard has a much more flexible range of spells available to them at any one time than the sorcerer but doesn't hit anywhere near as hard on a per spell basis. However they tend to last better over the long term and are more likely to have the right tool for the job.
Paladin:
Martial: 4
Magic: 4
Skill:2
The Paladin isn't going to change massively, in character, though a greater rnage of viable alignments are going to be covered. They remain a mixed caster/melee type, though their focus biases towards raw brute power on the magical side, and whilst i'm not sure how i'm going to set it up yet i'd ideally like to do the same on the Martial side, absolute ability in either area won't match full classes, (particularly given the Paladin's own class features), but will occupy a solid mid ground. Naturally this will lend itself towards solid armour and a surprisingly decent ability to survive magic, but at a cpst in ability to avoid getting hit in the first place.
The troublemakers: These 5 classes are giving me issues. Though the issues with the Bard and Monk are very different from the Druid, Cleric, and Ranger.
Ranger:
Martial: 6
Magic: 4
Skill:2
The Ranger is the easiest issue to outline. In theory they're broadly similar to a Paladin, being a mixed martial/magic type that doesn't match dedicated types in either area, with somethi8ng of a different focus being less power and armour focused on the martial side, and probably on the magic side too, (in effect picking up certain roguelike vibes en passant, but not to the same magnitude as a rogue to avoid actively stepping on the rouge). The catch in this is the animal companion. To me thats one of the defining class features beyond the innate spell/martial mix. However an animal companion is a seperate entity. It needs a certain minimum level of offensive and defensive capability or it's going to be far too weak to be relevant. But that minimum level of power would thus mean that it's a significant amount of martial addon power which pushes the overall martial power close to a full martial type, which isn't good. Conversely if you lowered the innate ranger martial power to compensate your really turning them into a partial caster with a martial companion as a class feature. You could probably make it work if you trimmed every other class feature, (since full martials still get other class features on top of the basic full martial capabilities), but thats fairly stale from a uniqueness PoV.
Druid:
Martial: 4
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The druid issues are similar to the Ranger for the most part. As a Full Caster they really shouldn't be getting the kind of innate martial capabilities they had in 3.5. But Wild Shape is also a key part of their identity and if you want it to be viable you need to have at least a mid level of martial capability with it active to make it worthwhile. And well everything i said about the ranger having a bit too much of a good thing applies then, (whilst simultaneously stepping all over the ranger to boot). I'm also not sure how they'd differentiate themselves as a full caster from Wizards and Sorcerers.
Cleric:
Martial: 4
Magic: 8
Skill:2
Obviously again medium martial on a full caster doesn't work from a balance perspective and again steps all over the Paladin. That said i don't consider that a necessarily breaking issue to drop in terms of class identity, i'm not sure however how they're going to differentiate themselves from the other full Casters.
Going to hit post now and deal with Monks/Bards tomorrow, get some chewing going on.
Obviously given i don't have a full set of mechanics hammered out, (and the changes are extensive enough it's verging on original system territory), for you to read i'm not expecting complex writeups on specifics, i mainly needs some sounding boards to bounce concepts off and to bounce idea's off me in turn that i can use or crib concepts off. You'll see in a second when i cover my thoughts on classes to date the kind of detail i'm talking about.
Also for the sake of argument i'm leaving prestige/multi-class out of this obviously, (i've got a clear idea how i want that to work anyway).
There seems to be some confusion about exactly what i meant with some of the below so i'm going to start out each class entry with a quick set of scores that define how i see them laid out in D&D 3.5. Martial is ability to hit things with melee and ranged weapons. Magic is ability to throw spells at monsters, and skills is ability to do out of combat things. The core point is the sum of their scores, (in my reworked system) in all areas should be the same for all classes, even if it isn't in 3.5.
Well Defined Concepts: These are the most clearly defined in my mind and the ones i probably don't want help with, but i'm listing them anyway so you know which bases are covered.
Barbarian:
Martial: 8
Magic: 0
Skill:2
Ironically the Barbarian is probably the most straightforward of the martial classes under the new system as they're the class that innately cares the least about the new way of handling armour having the best ability to just ignore it both for their own offence and their own defence. At the same time they are offensive biased and this is most visible in the amount of bonus damage they have access to. They're not going to beat a rouge in raw damage output, but they're still one of the higher end martial classes in this area. However when it comes to combat they're strengths are also their limits, they're not very flexible.
Fighter:
Martial: 8
Magic: 0
Skill:2
The fighter remains the jack of all trades, he can build in a whole bunch of different directions and whilst he'll never match any other pure martial class in any of them, he doesn't pickup anything like the same degree of weaknesses ethier. He's got more ability to handle situations outside his ideal for build set. He also generally does the heavily armoured thing better than most as the fighter is one o the classes best suited to using such an equipment setup, which given the way armour has changed is a more useful niche than before.
Semi-Defined Concepts: These are naturally the classes that have a partial or strong focus on magic and/or skills. Since those systems aren't completely nailed down yet it creates some uncertainties and general minor issues nailing them down. Again i'm fairly happy with these, (though of course PEACH away if you want to), but they're not as nailed down compared to the fighter and barbarian.
Rouge:
Martial: 6
Magic: 0
Skill:4
Everyone's favorite skill monkey is definitely going to take at least some hit from the changes to the skill system. But part of the redesign goal there is to cut down on classes that are pure beatsticks only good in combat. So both extremes are going to be moved somewhat towards the middle. That doesn't mean the rouge won't maintain a strong skills tendency, it just won't be so extreme. Froma combat perspective the rouge will bring what will probably be the most extreme damage output of any class, but at the cost of being rather a bit weaker against armour, (this isn't to say armour is a cure all for dealing with a rouge, far from it, just that they're going to need to work in support with others to realise their full potential), the same factors are going to make an armour focused rouge difficult to pull off, but they'll probably cope defensively with magic a bit better than you'd expect in return.
Sourcourer:
Martial: 0
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The sorcerer is in many ways to the wizard as the barbarian is to the fighter. The sorcerer throws lots of spells and those spells hit hard, (be that damage or other effects), but the range of spells they can have available to throw around at any one time is much more limited than the wizard, and whilst they don't have to go all in if they don't want to, doing so is going to wear down their overall resources much faster.
Wizard:
Martial: 0
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The wizard has a much more flexible range of spells available to them at any one time than the sorcerer but doesn't hit anywhere near as hard on a per spell basis. However they tend to last better over the long term and are more likely to have the right tool for the job.
Paladin:
Martial: 4
Magic: 4
Skill:2
The Paladin isn't going to change massively, in character, though a greater rnage of viable alignments are going to be covered. They remain a mixed caster/melee type, though their focus biases towards raw brute power on the magical side, and whilst i'm not sure how i'm going to set it up yet i'd ideally like to do the same on the Martial side, absolute ability in either area won't match full classes, (particularly given the Paladin's own class features), but will occupy a solid mid ground. Naturally this will lend itself towards solid armour and a surprisingly decent ability to survive magic, but at a cpst in ability to avoid getting hit in the first place.
The troublemakers: These 5 classes are giving me issues. Though the issues with the Bard and Monk are very different from the Druid, Cleric, and Ranger.
Ranger:
Martial: 6
Magic: 4
Skill:2
The Ranger is the easiest issue to outline. In theory they're broadly similar to a Paladin, being a mixed martial/magic type that doesn't match dedicated types in either area, with somethi8ng of a different focus being less power and armour focused on the martial side, and probably on the magic side too, (in effect picking up certain roguelike vibes en passant, but not to the same magnitude as a rogue to avoid actively stepping on the rouge). The catch in this is the animal companion. To me thats one of the defining class features beyond the innate spell/martial mix. However an animal companion is a seperate entity. It needs a certain minimum level of offensive and defensive capability or it's going to be far too weak to be relevant. But that minimum level of power would thus mean that it's a significant amount of martial addon power which pushes the overall martial power close to a full martial type, which isn't good. Conversely if you lowered the innate ranger martial power to compensate your really turning them into a partial caster with a martial companion as a class feature. You could probably make it work if you trimmed every other class feature, (since full martials still get other class features on top of the basic full martial capabilities), but thats fairly stale from a uniqueness PoV.
Druid:
Martial: 4
Magic: 8
Skill:2
The druid issues are similar to the Ranger for the most part. As a Full Caster they really shouldn't be getting the kind of innate martial capabilities they had in 3.5. But Wild Shape is also a key part of their identity and if you want it to be viable you need to have at least a mid level of martial capability with it active to make it worthwhile. And well everything i said about the ranger having a bit too much of a good thing applies then, (whilst simultaneously stepping all over the ranger to boot). I'm also not sure how they'd differentiate themselves as a full caster from Wizards and Sorcerers.
Cleric:
Martial: 4
Magic: 8
Skill:2
Obviously again medium martial on a full caster doesn't work from a balance perspective and again steps all over the Paladin. That said i don't consider that a necessarily breaking issue to drop in terms of class identity, i'm not sure however how they're going to differentiate themselves from the other full Casters.
Going to hit post now and deal with Monks/Bards tomorrow, get some chewing going on.