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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next 5.5e idea for stacking caster classes, but how to handle different types of casting?



Greywander
2020-05-11, 04:40 AM
So this might require a bit of 'splaining. I've been tossing some ideas for a potential 5.5e-type of mod in my head, but there was one big sort of issue that I was having difficulty figuring out how to handle.

The two aspects at play here are a complete revamp of the class system, as well as the magic system. The specific changes to the magic system might not be important, just that I want there to be more than one magic system (akin to how the warlock's pact magic works differently from other spellcasters). The changes to the class system and the magic system don't individually create this problem, but rather it's doing both together.

First, let me walk you through the ideas I have for reworking the class system.

First of all, I want to rework the tier system from four tiers into a five tier system, where each tier is exactly four levels. Names are important, but for now let's just call these five tiers Novice, Veteran, Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic. (Conveniently, this lines up such that you get a proficiency bonus bump at the start of each new tier. Not really relevant, but interesting.)

Now here's where the magic happens: The class system is completely reworked so that each class only has four levels, exactly filling one tier. Once you finish a tier, you'll have to choose a new class for the next tier. This creates a much more modular class system that makes multiclassing and subclasses unnecessary; now every character gets multiple classes and most subclasses can be reworked into a full class. This approach might sound similar to prestige or paragon classes; I don't know much about those, but I think it's the same basic idea (e.g. switching to a more "advanced" class once you hit a level requirement).

To keep things from getting overwhelming, most classes would be locked behind a tier requirement, with only a small number of novice classes. New players would only have to choose a novice class to start off with, and once they hit veteran tier they should be familiar enough with the game to select from a broader set of classes. There also wouldn't be any class requirements to take a class, anyone can take a class as long as they meet the tier requirement.

Thus, some class progressions you might see could be...

Wizard -> Necromancer -> Lich -> Illusionist -> Archmage
Fighter -> Necromancer -> Warlord -> Death Knight -> Archmage
Wizard -> Assassin -> Death Knight -> Lich -> Champion

With classes only having four levels, I can also see standardizing what sorts of features you get and when. I can think of four types of class features that could each be given at different levels. The three that don't really matter for this discussion are:

Core feature - The defining trait that makes this class different from similar classes. A wizard might get their spellbook ability here. Probably comes at 2nd level.
Ribbon feature - What the Core feature does mechanically, the Ribbon feature does thematically. A fluff ability that adds flavor but not much mechanical power. Probably comes at 3rd level.
Capstone feature - What you get for completing a class. Obviously comes at 4th level. Now, the way I see it, reaching 4th level in a class doesn't mean you're the best at that class, but moreso just that you can now finally say you are, in fact, that class. A wizard at 1st - 3rd level is really just a wizard apprentice, but a 4th level wizard is actually a real wizard.

The ability that is relevant to this discussion is the one that most likely comes at 1st level of a class: the Progressive feature. This is a feature that gets stronger the more times you get it. The most common example, and the one relevant to this discussion, is spellcasting, but you could also make things like Extra Attack, Sneak Attack, or Ki into Progressive abilities. The idea is that you can stack classes with the same Progressive ability to enhance it, so if you stack a bunch of spellcasting classes then it progresses your spellcasting ability. Taking nothing but caster classes is basically how you make yourself a full caster. Each caster class might also have its own spell list that gets added to yours, letting you build your own spell list depending on which classes you take.

The problem, as mentioned, is that I'd like to have a couple of different caster classes that use their spellcasting differently. For example, I'd like wizards to lean more into ritual casting and not get spell slots until they start their second caster tier, whereas the defining feature of sorcerers is that they get spell slots (or equivalent) right from the first tier, but can't use rituals.

The thing is, it makes sense to me that both a wizard and a sorcerer might want to take, say, the necromancer class. I could make two separate necromancer classes, one that progresses wizard spellcasting and one that progresses sorcerer spellcasting, but that seems like an inefficient way of handling it. The best solution I can come up with is for all non-novice classes that deal in the supernatural to just have a generic Supernatural Ability progressive feature. If you already have a supernatural ability from novice tier, it simply progresses that ability. If you don't, you get to choose one. This would also allow for the future introduction of, say, a psion or mutant class, who don't actually use magic but still have supernatural powers.

While this seems like a decent solution, it raises two further problems. First, if casters are universally built around a single progressive feature (Supernatural Ability), then shouldn't martials be also? But I also don't want things to feel same-y, I'd like to have some diversity in the actual things you can get from classes, instead of just having two main abilities (the martial ability and the caster ability). But if martials have different abilities, then they don't stack as nicely without you having to take specific classes with the same progressive ability. The second issue is that not all supernatural powers might run off of spell slots. A mutant who becomes a necromancer might not even use spells.

I don't have a good answer for that first issue yet, but what if spells were replaced with general super powers, and magic was merely one way of expressing those powers? I'm not sure D&D's magic system is up to that task, but since I was planning on overhauling it anyway, I could design it to accommodate it. I've heard that Mutants and Masterminds has a good system for building your own superpowers, so maybe some inspiration could be taken from there.

A more boring option would be to treat all casters as Spells Known casters, basically having one spellcasting progression track that all casters use, but each type of caster (wizard, sorcerer, cleric, etc.) gets an additional quirk that let's them do a bit more with their spellcasting. This isn't too far off from how it currently works, but it's kind of boring and I feel like it would make all casters feel too much the same.

Anyway, apologies for the long read. What are your thoughts on this concept in general, and what do you think is the best solution to the issues presented here?

clash
2020-05-11, 12:51 PM
Love the idea.

As far as choosing how spellcasting works, I think having a unified system would be good, basically every caster becomes spells known caster. It would make it a lot easier to balance classes in a system like this.

That being said if you want to keep them unique, I would make spellcasting feature such that it either
a) It defines the way you cast spells if you cannot already cast spells
b) If you can already cast spells it progresses the feature using the rules of first class that gave it to you

So for example:
Wizard uses rituals and becomes a necromancer, necromancer uses rituals.
Sorcerer uses spells known and becomes a necromancer, necromancer uses spells known.
Fighter doesnt have spells and becomes a necromancer, it spellcasting uses whatever the necromancer default is.

aimlessPolymath
2020-05-11, 01:49 PM
3.5 solved the spellcaster issue with a feature called "+1 level of existing spellcasting class". If you have the necromancer (or other advanced class) mention a default progression, then a fighter will gain that progression for the first time at level 1 when they enter. A sorcerer+necromancer will advance sorceror casting, a wizard/necromancer will advance wizard casting- I'm not sure how wizard/sorceror will work but I suspect you have two different casting progression, and choose one (maybe both, idk) for necromancer to advance as they level.

Then each "caster type" (sorcerer, wizard, warlock, etc.) would have an advancement chart that goes up to 20, but only 4 levels of which are gained through any given class.

Amechra
2020-05-11, 02:40 PM
A simple way to handle this would be to reduce spellcasting down to five levels of spells (you could call name them after the tiers if you want). Then the spellcasting feature bumps you up to the next level of spells.

The real question I have: do classes "belong" to specific tiers? For example, could I play a Fighter/Wizard/Rogue if I really wanted to, or would I have to pick a Veteran spellcasting class and a Heroic scoundrel class?

Greywander
2020-05-11, 03:16 PM
Love the idea.

As far as choosing how spellcasting works, I think having a unified system would be good, basically every caster becomes spells known caster. It would make it a lot easier to balance classes in a system like this.
This is a benefit of using a unified system, but it makes it much more difficult to add new systems to the game. Like if I wanted to add a psion class and make it actually use different mechanics from regular spellcasting. It's quite the conundrum.


3.5 solved the spellcaster issue with a feature called "+1 level of existing spellcasting class". If you have the necromancer (or other advanced class) mention a default progression, then a fighter will gain that progression for the first time at level 1 when they enter. A sorcerer+necromancer will advance sorceror casting, a wizard/necromancer will advance wizard casting- I'm not sure how wizard/sorceror will work but I suspect you have two different casting progression, and choose one (maybe both, idk) for necromancer to advance as they level.

Then each "caster type" (sorcerer, wizard, warlock, etc.) would have an advancement chart that goes up to 20, but only 4 levels of which are gained through any given class.
Yeah, the reason this get so complex is that we have to account for a number of possible cases. Wizard -> Necromancer is simple enough, as is Sorcerer -> Necromancer. Fighter -> Necromancer is a bit more complicated. But then we get to things like Wizard -> Sorcerer, or even Fighter -> Necromancer -> Wizard. I want to be able to handle all of these. For the Wizard -> Sorcerer case, should a character be limited to one spellcasting/supernatural ability? Another benefit of a unified system is that they can gain the side benefits of that particular supernatural ability (e.g. ritual casting, sorcery points) while also advancing the main spellcasting progression. Although we'd want to be careful with this, as you could stack several supernatural abilities and get a lot of extra benefits.

Maybe it makes more sense to have multiple tracks. For example, all casters might advance a basic spellcasting track, but wizard would also advance a ritual casting track, while sorcerer would advance a sorcery point track. An advanced class like necromancer could advance the core spellcasting as well as one additional track. But this is sort of getting back to the unified system idea, and it's getting more complicated since we have multiple tracks to keep track of now. Although now I'm remembering that I've delevoped a wild magic system for 5e that doesn't use spell slots, and it would probably be too strong if you got to use spell slots in addition to wild magic.

Maybe in the end it still makes sense to just make advanced classes progress whatever your novice tier supernatural ability is, or let you choose one if you don't have one.


A simple way to handle this would be to reduce spellcasting down to five levels of spells (you could call name them after the tiers if you want). Then the spellcasting feature bumps you up to the next level of spells.

The real question I have: do classes "belong" to specific tiers? For example, could I play a Fighter/Wizard/Rogue if I really wanted to, or would I have to pick a Veteran spellcasting class and a Heroic scoundrel class?
I didn't mention it, but I was already thinking about compressing caster level down to just five tiers. There might be some aspects that would scale with each level, such as spells known, but things like spell slots could be handed out at the start of a tier and not change until the next tier. This would greatly simplify things. Also on that note, I would probably compress spell levels using a similar tier system. Spell levels are already loosely split into four tiers, so I'd just use that, and 5th tier spells would be equivalent to 10th+ level spells. Ritual casters, like wizards, could eventually get access to 5th tier rituals, but only 4th tier spell slots (4th tier = 9th level spells), while sorcerers could get 5th tier spell slots, but no rituals.

Classes would only belong to a tier such that you need to be at least that tier to take that class. You can't be a lich in novice tier, for example, and maybe not in veteran tier, either. But you could always take a class from an earlier tier. Ideally, each class would be balanced against each other regardless of tier, so that you're not pressured into only taking higher tier classes. And I'd probably have a line stating that you could ignore tier restrictions on class with the DM's permission.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-05-11, 04:20 PM
While this seems like a decent solution, it raises two further problems. First, if casters are universally built around a single progressive feature (Supernatural Ability), then shouldn't martials be also? But I also don't want things to feel same-y, I'd like to have some diversity in the actual things you can get from classes, instead of just having two main abilities (the martial ability and the caster ability). But if martials have different abilities, then they don't stack as nicely without you having to take specific classes with the same progressive ability. The second issue is that not all supernatural powers might run off of spell slots. A mutant who becomes a necromancer might not even use spells.

I think the best way to handle this would be, instead of having classes explicitly advance a particular Progressive Ability, to define progressions from 1 to 20 in terms of a few specific scaling attributes. Say, "effective level" which determines your level-based main progression (spellcasting, maneuvers, whatever) and "resource pool" which determines a level-independent secondary resource (sorcery points, warlock slots, combat superiority dice, etc.). Then, define what "+1 increase to effective level" and "+1 unit to resource pool" mean for all progressions such that they're roughly balanced with one another in terms of benefit gained per increment, so instead of saying "You get +1d6 Sneak Attack dice" which may have very different marginal value for a Rogue vs. a Fighter, you'd say "You add +1 to your effective Skirmisher level" and the Skirmisher progression happens to advance Sneak Attack at a certain rate.

Once you've done that, you can just say that e.g. Death Knight can advance Sorcery, Necromancy, and Combat progressions, and you know that a sorcerer, a necromancer, and a fighter will get +4 effective levels from the Death Knight levels and +1 resource from its Power of the Grave feature, and those all should work out to roughly even benefits regardless of what specific resources and abilities those classes are handing out in what quantity at what levels.

And if you want to add things later, like psionics, you just need to define those two quantities for psionic characters and either (A) go through the list of classes and decide which ones can advancing Manifesting or (B) say it's close enough to Wizardry or Sorcery or Ki or whatever and any class advancing the chosen progression can also advance Psionics. If you want to leave space open for lots of new classes later, you probably want to define some overarching progression categories and use those for determining what classes advance which progressions (e.g. Wizardry, Sorcery, Necromancy, Bardic Music, and Warlockry are all "Arcane" progressions and a class advancing "Arcane" can advance any of them, and Necromancy is Arcane and Dark Magic so classes advancing "any Arcane" or "any Dark Magic" can advance Necromancy), and you can still e.g. make bard-themed classes that advance Bardic Music specifically instead of Arcane.


Yeah, the reason this get so complex is that we have to account for a number of possible cases. Wizard -> Necromancer is simple enough, as is Sorcerer -> Necromancer. Fighter -> Necromancer is a bit more complicated. But then we get to things like Wizard -> Sorcerer, or even Fighter -> Necromancer -> Wizard. I want to be able to handle all of these. For the Wizard -> Sorcerer case, should a character be limited to one spellcasting/supernatural ability? Another benefit of a unified system is that they can gain the side benefits of that particular supernatural ability (e.g. ritual casting, sorcery points) while also advancing the main spellcasting progression. Although we'd want to be careful with this, as you could stack several supernatural abilities and get a lot of extra benefits.

Depends on whether you want to encourage people to stick with one or two progressions or diversify a lot. In the former case, using the above system you can rule that a class can apply its +1 level and +1 resource to any class they can potentially advance. If Death Knight advances Necromancy and Combat, a Necromancer/Fighter/Death Knight can allocate its +4 levels as +4 Necromancy/+0 Combat, +3/+1, +2/+2, +1/+3, or +0/+4 as desired, but a Cleric/Fighter/Death Knight would have to go +0 Divine/+4 Combat because Death Knight doesn't advance Divine. In the latter case, you can have classes advance all valid progressions. A Fighter/Cleric/Necromancer/Death Knight gets +4 Combat and +4 Necromancy from Death Knight, and the extra progression in two classes makes up for the fact that the third isn't advanced.

Which one is preferable is going to depend a lot on what the actual class progressions, class features, and synergies between them look like. If spells/maneuvers/etc. are all fairly situational, class features key off very specific weapons and spells, and capstone features are narrowly focused on that class's abilities, having a bunch of benefits doesn't matter as much because you can't really use them in conjunction; if spells/maneuvers/etc. are broadly applicable, class features enhance "spells" or "melee attacks" or the like, and capstone features just make you all-around more badass, you'll want to strictly limit number of progressions because otherwise the possible highly-synergistic combinations would explode beyond any ability to reasonably balance.