Basic Class for 3.5 (maximum costumization)

[Eloel]

This idea has been on my mind for quite some time, yet I'm not sure if it would work/be balanced. This class would be the only class for any game, and would replace all classes.
It would have half BAB progression (like the sorcerer), weak Fortitude save progression, weak Reflex save progression, weak Will save progression, have no special abilities, no spells, no proficiencies with any weapons or armor nor shields. It would also have a d4 as a hit dice. It would start with 2+Int skill points/level.

Now, before anyone calls this "massively underpowered", here comes the customizable part. You gain 25 extra feats(points) at first level. You can use that points to improve anything below.

Hit Dice



Points Used - 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
Hit Dice - d4 - d6 - d8 - d10 - d12 -



Skill Points



Points Used - 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
Skill Points - 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10 -



# of class skills



Points Used - 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
Class Skills - 0 - 8 - 16 - 24 - All -



Base Attack Bonus Progression



Points Used - 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
BAB - 0 - 0.25 - 0.5 - 0.75 - 1 -



Save Progression (take different for each)



Points Used - 0 - 1 -
Saves - 0.33 - 0.5 -



Spells per day



Points Used - 0 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 -
Spells/day - 0 - Ranger-Like - Bard-Like - Wizard-Like - Sorcerer-Like -



Spells Known



Points Used - 0 - 2 - 4 -
Spells Known - 0 - Half-Sorc - Sorcerer -



Changed/Added Feats

Martial Weapon Proficiency [General]

Prerequisite

Simple Weapon Proficiency


Benefit

You make attack rolls with Martial Weapons normally.


Normal

When using a weapon with which you are not proficient, you take a -4 penalty on attack rolls.


Exotic Weapon Proficiency [General]

Prerequisite

Martial Weapon Proficiency


Benefit

You make attack rolls with the selected Exotic Weapon normally.


Normal

When using a weapon with which you are not proficient, you take a -4 penalty on attack rolls.

Magic-User [General]

Benefit

You can now take magic-related feats.

Magic Proficiency [General]

Benefit

You can choose one of Arcane/Divine. You are now proficient with those spells.

Normal

You can only cast spells that are castable by both.

Example

Without this feat, you can cast Light, but not Create Water, nor Acid Splash.

Special

You can only take this feat once.


Improved Magic Proficiency [General]

Prerequisite

Magic Proficiency

Benefit

You can choose one of Bard/Ranger/Druid/Paladin. You are now proficient with those spells.

Normal

You can only cast spells that are common to all Arcane or Divine casters.

Special

You can only take this feat once.


Greater Magic Proficiency [General]

Cost

4 feats

Prerequisite

Improved Magic Proficiency

Benefit

You can choose one of Wizard/Cleric. You are now proficient with those spells.

Normal

You can only cast spells that are common to all Arcane or Divine casters.

Special

You can only take this feat once.


Spontaneous Casting [General]

Prerequisite

Spell Preparing

Benefit

You choose between Cure spells, Summon Nature's Ally spells and Inflict spells. You can now lose spells of same level or more to cast spells with the chosen inscriptor in name.


On-Spot Casting [General]

Prerequisite

All 4 Spontaneous Casting feats.

Benefit

You can cast any spell you know without preparing beforehand.


Spell Preparing [General]

Benefit

You can prepare your spells beforehand from your spells-known list, using a spellbook.


Improved Spell Preparing [General]

Cost

Two Feats

Prerequisite

Spell Preparing

Benefit

You can prepare your spells from your spells-known list, without a spellbook.


Greater Spell Preparing [General]

Cost

Three Feats

Prerequisite

Improved Spell Preparing

Benefit

You can prepare your spells from your spellbook.



Class Abilities added as Feats


Fast Movement [General]

Benefit

You gain +10 feet land speed per every 3 HD you have. This feat only works if you are not wearing heavy armor, and are not carrying a heavy load.


Rage [General]

Prerequisite

Non-lawful Alignment


Benefit

You get Rage (as the barbarian ability) once per day for every 4 levels you have, plus 1.


Uncanny Dodge [General]




Benefit

You don't lose your Dexterity bonus to your AC, even if you're caught flat-footed, or are struck by an invisible attacker.


Improved Uncanny Dodge [General]

Prerequisite

Uncanny Dodge


Benefit

You can no longer be flanked by anyone with a lower level than yourLevel+4.


Trap Sense [General]

Benefit

You gain +1 reflex save against traps, and +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps.


Damage Reduction [General]

Benefit

You get 1/- damage reduction for every 4 HDs you have.



Improved Rage [General]

Prerequisite

Rage, BAB +10


Benefit

Whenever you rage, you get an additional +2 Strength, +2 Constitution and +1 to your Will saves.


Greater Rage [General]

Prerequisite

Improved Rage, BAB +15


Benefit

Whenever you rage, you get an additional +2 Strength, +2 Constitution and +1 to your Will saves. This stacks with the bonuses granted by Improved Rage.


Tireless Rage [General]

Prerequisite

Greater Rage, Endurance


Benefit

You are no longer fatigued after your rage.


Tireless Rage [General]

Prerequisite

Greater Rage, Endurance


Benefit

You are no longer fatigued after your rage.


Bardic Knowledge [General]

Benefit

As the Bard ability of the same name.





Bard Effect [General]

Benefit

You get one daily use of Bardic Music.

You can gain Bard Effect multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it adds 1 to the total uses of Bardic Music per day.


Bardic Music [General]

Prerequisite

Bard Effect, Non-Lawful Alignment

Benefit

You choose one type of Bard music, you can now expand one of your daily uses of Bard Effect to that type of music. The prerequisites still apply, except the minimum Bard level needed.

You can gain Bardic Music multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of Music.

You can get Inspire Courage multiple times. Each time you get it, it adds 1 to the bonus (up to 5)


Turn or Rebuke Undead [General]

Benefit

As the Cleric ability of the same name.


Nature Sense[General]

Benefit

You get +2 bonus on Knowledge(nature) and Survival checks.


Animal Companion [General]

Prerequisite

4 ranks in Knowledge(Nature), Wild Empathy

Benefit

As the Druid ability of the same name.


Wild Empathy[General]

Benefit

As the Druid ability of the same name. You add half your Charisma, instead of CHA modifier and Druid level.


Woodland Stride[General]

Benefit

You may move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at your normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. Magically manipulated terrain still gives you the normal penalty.


Trackless Step[General]

Prerequisite

5 ranks in Survival

Benefit

You leave no trail in natural surroundings if you don't want to.


Resist Nature's Lure[General]

Prerequisite

7 ranks in Knowledge(nature)

Benefit

You gain +4 resistance against spell-like abilities of fey.


Immunity to Poison[General]

Prerequisite

12 ranks in Survival, +8 Fort Save

Benefit

You are immune to all poisons.


A Thousand Faces[General]

Prerequisite

12 ranks in Disguise, 12 ranks in Bluff

Benefit

You gain Disguise Self as a spell-like ability you can use once per hour. It lasts 3 minutes per your ranks in Disguise.


Greater Unarmed Strike[General]

Prerequisite

Improved Unarmed Strike

Benefit

Your Unarmed Strike dice improves by one step for every 5 HD you have.


Evasion[General]

Prerequisite

+4 Reflex save

Benefit

If you make a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, you instead take no damage. You don't get this bonus if you're helpless.


Improved Evasion[General]

Prerequisite

+8 Reflex save, Evasion

Benefit

You only take half damage on a failed Reflex save. You don't get this bonus if you're helpless.


Still Mind[General]

Benefit

You gain +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and abilities from School of Enchantment.


Favored Enemy Progression[General]

Benefit

You gain 1 favored enemy per 5 levels, plus 1. Everytime you gain a favored enemy, you improve bonuses against one of the favored enemy's by +2. You get +2 bonus on Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks and damage rolls against your favored enemies.


Swift Track[General]

Prerequisite

Track, 8 ranks in Survival

Benefit

You can move at your normal speed while following tracks without taking the normal -5 penalty. You take only a -10 penalty (instead of the normal -20) when moving at up to twice normal speed while tracking.


Sneak Attack Progression[General]

Benefit

You deal +1d6 damage against enemies you flank, or enemies that are denied their Dex bonus to their AC for every 2 levels you have.


Trapfinding[General]

Benefit

You can use Search skill to find traps, when the task has a DC of over 20.


Summon Familiar[General]

Benefit

As the Sorcerer ability of the same name.




BAB and Class Skills revised.

[RMS Oceanic]

This is intriguing, and reminds me of the Generic Classes variant in Unearthed Arcane. I'll be interested in seeing more.

[Eloel]

It's done now. I'd appreciate if you reported any typos or balance issues.

[Baron Corm]

Could you draw up an example fighter-type and an example wizard-type? It would be easier to see the balance that way. As it is, it look way too easy to get a high BAB (+2 average hit points per level or +10 BAB? BAB please). If I'm reading it right, it is also too easy to get sneak attack/similarly high-powered scaling things you give for 1 feat. I would also take everything out of spoilers because it is too hard to read right now.

You might want to look here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm) for the "official" generic class and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616) for a remake I recently did that I think is pretty good.

[ericgrau]

Hit dice: I used this as the baseline to balance everything else. So by definition it is balanced.

Skill points: Not sure. Just know you should get at least 1 skill point per level per feat. 2 might be fine.

# of class skills: This is open to heavy abuse, since players will only pick as many class skills as they have skill points. So you should put almost all the cost into skill points and make class skills dirt cheap. This will temp people into getting many more class skills than they need, in case they change their mind later, while the cost will still cause some players to limit their class skills to some degree. In the core classes many skills are associtated with eachother. So I'd provide discounts for getting certain groups of skills together, and further discounts for getting groups of groups. Basically make it a "set discount" where you get 1 free class skill for every set you make, and another free class skill for making a set of sets. Not sure exactly how many class skills to give per feat, but I'd consider something more like 10 class skills per feat. Maybe 8 plus the discounts mentioned.

BAB: Given difference between divine and arcane casters, low BAB to mid BAB is worth less than 2 levels, which are worth at least 2 feats. mid BAB to high BAB is worth at most 5 (probably less). +1 for each is too low, and to avoid min maxing low to mid should be worth less than mid to high. Perhaps 2 feats for mid BAB, 6 feats (2+4) for high BAB. Or maybe 1 and 3, or maybe 2 and 5. Any of those 3 are possibilities.

Saves: Like BAB, this is complicated. I can say that each is worth at most 1.5 feats, so 1 feat sounds pretty reasonable.

Spells: I'd seperate out spontaneous and non-spontaneous casting. Spells known per sorc should charge 1 more feat than spells known per a divine caster, and wizard spells known should be 1 more feat than sorc spells known. That leaves bard spells known, cleric spells known, sorc spells known, wiz spells known and spontaneous or not for each. Not sure to handle spells per day; you could make spontaneous automatically give more spells per day and then charge 2 feats for spontaneous. Not sure how many feats to charge for divine casting or bard casting (which the cost of sorc & wiz are based on); I'd see how many feats a non-caster core class takes to make, use that to figure out how much to charge for spontaneous sorc casting, than derive all except bard casting from that. Bard casting should be at most 6 feats cheaper than spontaneous sorc casting (probably less than 6). Also charge a feat for making wis or int the caster stat. Charge nothing if cha is the caster stat. Yes, this means that spontaneous sorc casting is one of the most expensive and spontaneous wiz casting probably requires more feats than you start with, but given how the sorc gets little else in core while the wiz gets int as his caster stat and bonus feats, this would best match core at least.

Class Abilities: Giant can of worms. I'd convert all these into feats with pre-requisites, and just give each class a number of class bonus feats (D&D feats, not your feats) spread across their levels based on how many "feats" (your feats, not D&D feats) they spend on these. Some class features are weaker and should be "half feats", etc.

Likewise there's a problem with the back-loaded Ranger and Paladin casting that causes multiclassing issues. Not sure how to handle that.

[Eloel]

Hit dice: I used this as the baseline to balance everything else. So by definition it is balanced.

Well, ok


Skill points: Not sure. Just know you should get at least 1 skill point per level per feat. 2 might be fine.
1 would be too expensive to buyoff with feats. 2 looks fine, may increase to 3


# of class skills: This is open to heavy abuse, since players will only pick as many class skills as they have skill points. So you should put almost all the cost into skill points and make class skills dirt cheap. This will temp people into getting many more class skills than they need, in case they change their mind later, while the cost will still cause some players to limit their class skills to some degree. In the core classes many skills are associtated with eachother. So I'd provide discounts for getting certain groups of skills together, and further discounts for getting groups of groups. Basically make it a "set discount" where you get 1 free class skill for every set you make, and another free class skill for making a set of sets. Not sure exactly how many class skills to give per feat, but I'd consider something more like 10 class skills per feat. Maybe 8 plus the discounts mentioned.
I'll go back and decrease the cost, thanks.


BAB: Given difference between divine and arcane casters, low BAB to mid BAB is worth less than 2 levels, which are worth at least 2 feats. mid BAB to high BAB is worth at most 5 (probably less). +1 for each is too low, and to avoid min maxing low to mid should be worth less than mid to high. Perhaps 2 feats for mid BAB, 6 feats (2+4) for high BAB. Or maybe 1 and 3, or maybe 2 and 5. Any of those 3 are possibilities.

I'll do what I was initially thinking. 0 points used, No BAB. 1 point used, 0.25 BAB, 2 points, 0.5 BAB, 3 points, 0.75 BAB, 4 points, 1 BAB. It will increase the current prices for BAB, penalizing those who don't use points on BAB


Saves: Like BAB, this is complicated. I can say that each is worth at most 1.5 feats, so 1 feat sounds pretty reasonable.
Ok.


Spells: I'd seperate out spontaneous and non-spontaneous casting. Spells known per sorc should charge 1 more feat than spells known per a divine caster, and wizard spells known should be 1 more feat than sorc spells known. That leaves bard spells known, cleric spells known, sorc spells known, wiz spells known and spontaneous or not for each. Not sure to handle spells per day; you could make spontaneous automatically give more spells per day and then charge 2 feats for spontaneous. Not sure how many feats to charge for divine casting or bard casting (which the cost of sorc & wiz are based on); I'd see how many feats a non-caster core class takes to make, use that to figure out how much to charge for spontaneous sorc casting, than derive all except bard casting from that. Bard casting should be at most 6 feats cheaper than spontaneous sorc casting (probably less than 6). Also charge a feat for making wis or int the caster stat. Charge nothing if cha is the caster stat. Yes, this means that spontaneous sorc casting is one of the most expensive and spontaneous wiz casting probably requires more feats than you start with, but given how the sorc gets little else in core while the wiz gets int as his caster stat and bonus feats, this would best match core at least.

I'll create the normal classes with this, to see how much feat each takes.

Class Abilities: Giant can of worms. I'd convert all these into feats with pre-requisites, and just give each class a number of class bonus feats (D&D feats, not your feats) spread across their levels based on how many "feats" (your feats, not D&D feats) they spend on these. Some class features are weaker and should be "half feats", etc.

Likewise there's a problem with the back-loaded Ranger and Paladin casting that causes multiclassing issues. Not sure how to handle that.

Will look into this a bit later.







Barbarian;

Hit Dice; 4 points
Fort Save; 1 point
Skill Points; 1 point
Class Skills; 1 point
BAB; 4 points
Simple Weapon Prof; 1 point
Martial Weapon; 1 point
Light Armor; 1 point
Medium Armor; 1 point
Shield; 1 point

Fast Movement; 1 point (this is stronger than the Barb ability, although it kicks in later)
Uncanny Dodge; 1 point
Imp. Uncanny Dodge; 1 point
Rage; 1 point
Trap Sense; 1 point
Damage Reduction; 1 point
Improved Rage; 1 point
Greater Rage; 1 point
Tireless Rage; 1 point


25 points

Sorcerer;

BAB; 2 points
Will Save; 1 point
Simple Weapon Prof; 1 point
Class skills; 1 point
Spells/day; 8 points
Spells Known; 4 points
Magic-User; 1 point
Magic Prof(Arcane); 1 point
Improved Magic Prof(Bard); 1 point
Greater Magic Prof(Wiz); 4 points
Spell Preparing; 1 point
Spontaneous Castings; 4 points
On-spot Casting; 1 point

30 points... Balanced?