Cleric/Rogue Disparity?

[Quertus]

Some time ago, someone told me that every programmer should write their own RPG. I've written lots of my own games, and lots of utilities for RPGs, but nothing quite so complex as a full computerized RPG.

And I'm still not planning on writing something so complex as a full computerized 3e D&D. However, I have been inspired to try to write something based on 3e - and, in particular, on a poor 3e world where a Fighter got ahold of a Wish, and it went very, very wrong.

Basically, the Fighter had Wizard envy, and their wish basically inverted muggles and casters.

Now, with Fighters & Wizards, that's pretty easy.

Wizard

d10 HP / Level.
Can cast at will.
Can cast in armor
Only combat spells (direct damage, SoD, SoL)
Automatically knows all spells, but spells have -4 save DC unless Feat taken in that spell?
Bonus feat at 1st, and every even level.
Fort is only good save.


Fighter

d4 HP / Level.
Can only make a limited number of attacks; starts at 1/day.
Different "attacks" use a different number of attacks; maximum of level/2 attacks spent per "attack".
No iterative attacks / increasing # of attacks (outside "Quicken Attack" feat)
Attacks provoke an AoO (unless an otherwise useless skill check is made).
Must prepare their attacks ahead of time.
Must study "ninja scrolls" to prepare attacks.
Only learns 2 attacks per level?
Cannot wear armor.
Gets "all the utility" (CPR resurrection, sniff out planar weak spots to plane travel, party buffs, etc), all of which costs attacks (and must be prepared ahead of time).
Can spend XP to craft items.
Loses XP if their "spirit guide" or whatever (go ACFs?) is killed/destroyed.
Bonus feat every 5 levels.
Will is only good save.



But I'm struggling to figure out what to do with Rogues & Clerics (especially since I'm giving Fighters most of the Cleric utility spells, too). Here's what I've got so far:

Cleric

d6 HP
Only light armor.
Can cast spells at will. (but only when flanking?)
Can turn undead at will.


Rogue

d8 HP
No armor penalty / can sneak in armor.
Finite... something. "Foo" Starts at 1+1 per day.
Can spontaneously convert that foo to Sneak Attack Precision Damage
The level of the "Foo" matters; a 1st level Foo converts to 1d6 Sneak Attack Precision Damage
All good saves.


I know that I want Rogue to be Tier 1, and Cleric to... not be. But I'm not sure how to best reverse their roles (especially since I'm giving Fighter some of the traditionally Cleric spells like Resurrection and Healing).

I figure the big complaint about Clerics was usually that they "steal the Fighters' role", so maybe give Rogues the ability to be spell thieves / "attack thieves"?

Rogues are... skill monkey / DPS? So leave clerics with... skill boosting spells and damaging spells? Maybe reverse Wizard and Cleric damage spells while I'm at it?

Yeah, I'm struggling to invert these two in any way that I'm happy with.

Anyone have any thoughts on this crazy conundrum?

[Duff]

Maybe swap healer clerics and "harmer" fighters
Then swap "Skill monkey" rogues and "Spell monkey" wizards?

So clerics get their harm spells and can attract undead, fighters get unlimited healing and can ask their god for help with any a few other related tasks (to go with clerics domains and their limited utility spells)

Rogues can use all sorts of special attacks when they have no enemies near them (back line squishy behavior) and can auto -succeed on their skills x times per day at different difficulty levels

Wizards can only cause damaging spells under certain conditions and get a small number of utility spells which they have a % chance of casting

[Quertus]

Maybe swap healer clerics and "harmer" fighters
Then swap "Skill monkey" rogues and "Spell monkey" wizards?

So clerics get their harm spells and can attract undead, fighters get unlimited healing and can ask their god for help with any a few other related tasks (to go with clerics domains and their limited utility spells)

Rogues can use all sorts of special attacks when they have no enemies near them (back line squishy behavior) and can auto -succeed on their skills x times per day at different difficulty levels

Wizards can only cause damaging spells under certain conditions and get a small number of utility spells which they have a % chance of casting

Gotta say, that's a kinda cool inversion, too. :smallcool:

But, in this case, I was very specifically going with the full inversion of the Fighter and the Wizard that I was describing. People always talk about the Fighter's weaknesses compared to the Wizard, without ever acknowledging the Fighter's strengths. So I wanted to make a Fighter who actually played like a Wizard, weaknesses and all.

In talking about Inversion of Roles, you've brought up the inversion of rolls vs "automatic successes", which would seem to be something that my model lacks. Except that it's a red herring. Fighters have to roll to hit. Wizard spells get a save. Now, the Wizard damaging spells are generally either "requires an attack roll" or "save for half", but if I were balancing that, then I really should be giving Wizards "iterative spells", which I think would be fine for direct damage, but a bit too much for SoD/SoL - especially when they are AoE.

Huh. If I were willing to *completely* retool the system, I suppose I could... hmmm... make all Wizard spells single-target, then make a "great cleave" counterpart that allowed all Wizard spells to chain to the next target if the target fails their save by 10 or more... and a "Whirlwind Attack" counterpart that allowed the Wizard's spells to affect an area at the cost of sacrificing their Iterative spells (which they don't have yet).

But, back to the "Automatic Success" bit. Actually, attacks fail on a "1", people make saves on a "20". AFAICT, the only thing where a character can get an automatic success is on a skill check. So, to actually invert that, Clerics would have to get an ability that says, "foes do not automatically succeed on their saves against the cleric's spells on a natural 20". And Rogues would have to get a flaw that says, "whenever a Rogue rolls a 1 on a skill check, they automatically fail, no matter what the DC was".

Or, you know, in your example, that's Wizards not Clerics that get the "foes cannot auto-save on a 20" class feature.

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OK. So the Rogue gets a table of abilities/day, starting at 1+1. They have to burn these to "automatically" make skill checks (at DC based on the level of the ability burned). They also burn (can auto-convert) these abilities to make Sneak Precision Attacks, to steal the Fighter's (Wizard's?) Role of damage dealer.

The Rogue chooses 2 "Domain" counterparts; these (generally) grant a (trivial) bonus to the DC of certain related skill checks, and access to all of the skill tricks of those skills. The Domains might include...

Stealth (Hide, Move Silently)
Trapfinder (Search, Disable Device)
Thief (Open Locks, Sleight of Hand)
Mobility (Climb, Swim, Tumble)
Magic (UMD)
SA (+2 CL SA)
Self-Buffing (+1 CL...)

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Or maybe my problem is that I'm switching the role of the Fighter & Wizard ("deal damage" and "everything"), but trying to have the Rogue and the Cleric largely keep their roles.

So maybe it's the Cleric whose role should be damage and skill-monkey, and the Rogue whose role should be... Tier 1 anything.

I guess the problem with that is, Wizard could take the role, "deal damage win combat" easily enough, with all their damaging / SoD / SoL spells... but how does Cleric take the Rogue's role? If I give the Cleric all the skill spells (Wield Skill, Guidance of the Avatar) and 8 skill points per level, and make their domains like the ones I gave Rogues earlier... but also have those domains make those skills class skills, I'm feeling confident that Skills are more than covered. But damage? Rogues can easily get 100d6 precision damage per round when properly buffed - it's hard to imagine Clerics doing the same. I think that that's part of the problem: I'll need to give Fighters and/or Rogues the ability to buff the poor Wizards and Clerics. Something like...

Fiery Rage
1st level attack; costs 1 attack
With this attack, the muggle manifests their fiery rage, doubling Empowering the damage of all allied Fire damage for 1 round / level.

Then Rogues would get the ability to use Diplomacy and Intimidate against Undead (and unintelligent undead, against which it would be especially effective) with a bonus equal to their level or something, as a counterpart to Clerics being good at dealing with the Undead.

And, although I didn't want it to be samey, I guess Rogues need access to all the XP-spending item creation. Then I guess Rogues will get most of the abilities that inflict or remove conditions, like "Blinding Strike" or "Surgical Recovery".

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And I haven't even gotten into making things like a "Zone of Peace" counterpart to an Antimagic Field yet, or giving things like Golems personal Zones of Peace. :smalltongue: (Maybe that would be Angels & Devils that get personal Zone of Peace auras)

[Duff]

I was thinking the auto success would be more for the utilities than the attacks - hence autosuccess on skills (not attacks). AFAIK all the out of combat spells just succeed, though it's been a while since I played 3E and there could easily e spells I forgot or never knew

[Quertus]

I was thinking the auto success would be more for the utilities than the attacks - hence autosuccess on skills (not attacks). AFAIK all the out of combat spells just succeed, though it's been a while since I played 3E and there could easily e spells I forgot or never knew

Not… really? Teleport, Plane Shift, Planar Binding, even Sending have failure rules. Invisibility works… sort of… but you can still be heard, felt, smelt… you cannot attack or pick anything up… and you collect dust, so it's only a +20 to not be visually noticed. Knock works… on some things… if you don't mind then hearing you casting.

About the only things that *work* (that don't have "without error" stapled on the end) are buffs and some debuffs. And even most buffs your allies *could* choose to save against. :smallamused: